Scripture written by the Prophets and Apostles be preserved free from Apocryphal additions Fabulous traditions Humane inventions and Phanatick inspirations That the Ministers of it by Bishops Presbyters and Deacons as to its Authority Order and supports be maintained agreeable to the primitive pattern instituted by Christ in the Twelve Apostles and the Seventy Disciples with their attendants in holy offices this is the cause of God as that of Embassadors and their followers in the cause of those Princes that send them so Commissionated and instructed they that receive them receive Christ and they that reject them reject him and they that defraud or rob divide and destroy the Church and Ministry of Christ are Robbers of God Sacrilegious Felons from the blessed Son of God who is Heir of all and to whom we owe all we have as redeemer of is and all blessings we enjoy The great Seals of the Church also the two Sacraments are the Cause of God not to be prophaned or neglected For which cause God sharply punished the Corinthians with sickness and death Much less may they be changed or diminished or added to in point of duty and necessity beyond the stamp and inscription of Divine institution and that Catholick practice or use of them which was ever owned by the Church whose veracity or fidelity is not to be questioned in things of universal observance such as were those of the Lords day for the Christian Sabbath of the books of Canonical Scriptures of the Baptizing of Christians Infants whose cause is the cause of God and of his Covenant with the faithful and their seed so of the giving of the cup as well as the consecrated bread to all Communicants as well Lay as Clergy and lastly as to the constant Order and Government of the Church in its several distributions by many Presbyters subordinate and assistant to some one paternal yet authoratative Bishop as sons to a presidential Father This Government by Episcopacy is Gods Cause as the God of order and the Apostles cause as settled and sealed by their wisdome and the Churches consent's as a primitive Catholick custom the veracity and antiquity of which is asserted by the Churches testimony both as to all Histories and in its practice not to be doubted desparaged denied or abolished without great in solency and peevishness either to gratifie Presbytery or Independency both which are novel ties of yesterday and so cannot be Gods Cause which is verissiâ—â—a antiquissima as old as it is true and good § The Cause of Gods Church as to its Honour Order Fidelity supportâ— rule and government is so far Gods Cause as he hath made his Church the Pillar and ground of truth and as himself is the God of Order and Polity yeaâ— and the Churches cause is Gods as to that prudential liberty and variety which his wisdome hath granted and indulged to it in the several parts or distributions of it under the Gospel as to the circumstantial or ceremonial rites of Religion incident or annexed to the outward decency of worship and profession in several ages and places so as may most conduce to the planting propagating preserving and reforming of true Religion among all Nations Lastly the unity of the Church belongs to Gods cause who is but one and his Son one and his Spouse one Such as cause Schism and divisions in the true Church by giving or taking unnecessary and so unjust scandals and thereby raising uncharitable separations these are injurious to the God of peace and the Prince of peace Nostrum laceratur in arbore corpus Christians tear God rend the body of Christ in their Schisms which divide them from the love of Christ and for his sake of one another which is the great Character of Christs Disciples Joh. 13. 35. § Therefore all the Methods of Ecclesiastical Polity which were used in primitive times by which to keep the Catholick Church in an holy unity and brotherly correspondency by Bishops Arch-Bishops Primates Metropolitans and Patriarchs yea and in latter ages when Christians were multiplied by Arch-Deacons Suffragans or Chorepiscopacy i. e. rural Deans and the like were so far from being Antichristian projects and evil policies that they were the Counsels and results of Christs spirit as helps in Government for the Order and Unity Polity and Authority meet to be observed in his Church § Nor is it of any weight which some urge odiously and enviously against these subordinations and degrees fitted for the unity of the Church which capacitated them to meet and correspond as by general and lesser Councils in several places so by Letters communicatory in all the world that hence the Papal arragancy and Pride did get footing and his prescripts became decrees For if all things of piety or prudence must be abolished with the policy or superstition if man lists to abuse them we shall leave very little to true Religion So far Popes and Bishops and Presbyters and People too have shewed themselves in many things to be but men subject to prejudices and passions yet are they no way capable to destroy or deprave the true principles or practices of Christian wisdom much less of Divine and Apostolick institution either binding and perpetual or prudential and occasional which lawfully may be used and are not rashly to be abolished 4. Next the Churches cause which is eminently contained in Gods comes that of all mankind as God is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the lover and preserver of men in the way of civil societies the Hings or Axis and popular points of which are Justice commutative and distributive private and publique the just God is concerned that justice be done to all and by all according to their place and station The rule and measure of all civil and Politique Justice for matter and manner for what is to be done and by whom for the equity of retribution and authority of dispensation is that custome and law which is prevalent by publique consent in every Nation not contrary to the Law of God what ever is done contrary to this is in Deiinjuriam and makes the actors reolaesae Majestatis divinae as well as humanae guilty of doing injury to the justice and Majesty not onely of men but of God whose are the laws and Polities the Princes Kings and lawful Magistrates of every state Kingdom and Common-wealth which are Gods Ordinances not to be resisted by tumult or armed force by sedition or Treason without an high sin which subjects men to damnation as Rebels to God as enemies to the good of their Country to the duty they owâ— to parents and indeed to the good of all mankind who would soon be as miserable as beasts and Devils if they were not restrained from private extravagancie preserved in their honest enjoyments by the publique laws and that Soveraigne power which is
an high hand and out-stretched arm confuting Pharaohs Pride and obstinacy with the Egyptian Gods in the red Sea when no other miracles in lesser drops would soften their hard hearts he soaked them in such great waters as quite drowned them After this how oft was the little flock of Gods Church as a speckled Bird in the Wilderness surrounded with Enemies as a Lilly among Thorns there was Gebal and Ammon and Ameleck the Philistines and they of Tyre the Assyrian Arabian Egyptian all were against them from not onely reason of State but of Religion where different principles make the most deadly antipathies and desperate fâ—wds Thus the wild Bore sometimes with power other while the subtil Foxes of Mungril Jews and half Idolaters with fly insinuations sought to pull down and waste the peace honour plenty safety and Religion of the Jews Thus the Heathens raged and their Princes set themselves against the Lord and his cause fulfilled that first prophecy of an irreconcileable enmity between the Serpent and the seed of the Woman All the gods and Demons all the Oracles and Priests all the Poets and Prophets all the Orators Historians all the great Princes and valiant Soldiers and subtil Polititians all the Wise men and Philosophers set themselves to despise to reproach to oppress and extirpate the name and Nation and Religion of the Jews which was that of the true God from under Heaven as a most pestilent people and of a most detestable superstition Afterwards when the blossoms of Judaick ceremonies fell off and in the fulness of time the ripe fruit of Messias came into the world in spirit and in truth that all Nations might worship the true God aright in every place without confinement I need not tell you who are not ignorant of Scriptural and Ecclesiastical Histories how from Herods malice and subtilty seeking to destroy Christ in his cradle and satiating his defeated malice like a worrying Wolf or raging Bear with the massacring of so many innocent children who were ever esteemed by the antient Church as Infant-Martyrs suffering in Christs stead and upon the first occasion of his cause pleaded in the world by the baptism of their own blood until Constantine the Great 's days of refreshing and rest for a season the true Church and cause of God was never out of the furnace of tribulation martyrdoms fears afflictions and dayly deaths true the bellows did not always blow up the fire and fury of men to the same flames but there wanted not those as Decius and others who envied Christians their numerous cheerful and speedy Martyrdoms of which they were so ambitious § Nothing was more wonted in the mouths of the people than what they clamored against Polycarp a primitive Bishop of Smyrna in S. Johns days Tolle Atheos away with these Atheists and Christiani ad Leones Christians were thought such beasts that they were onely fit to fight with and to feed Beast or to be baited in Beasts skins Yea nomen crimen as Tertullian observes men were so mad against them and gnashed on them as the Jews against S. Stephen that they would not examine their cause or crime thinking it accusation enough that they owned themselves Christians § Dioclesian makes such havock as Decumanus fluctus after others that he not onely cut up the harvest but raked the gleaning of Christians in all the Roman Empire even so far as here in England where S. Albanus and others were Martyred that he gloried and triumphed and set up Trophies for the extirpation of the Christian superstition At this dead lift was the Church of Christ and cause of God when the Bishops of the Churches were banished or Butchered the Presbyters starved destroyed and scattered The Oratories and Temples or Churches all demolished or put to prophane uses the Christian people condemned to the Mettals Islands Prisons Limekills Racks Gibbets and Fires Thus did the cause of God as to the Christian Church stand or rather fal for the first three hundred years under Heatheninsh Persecutors and the oppositions of Philosophy or science falsely so called which yet afterward came to naught as all power and polity will at last do which set themselves to oppose the cause the truth the Church and servants of the living God Thirdly After the Church had some rest in Constantines time by the suppression of Heathenish fury and Idolatrous folly yet was the cause of God not without its following conflicts by reason of Hypocrites Hereticks Schismaticks false Apostles Hucksters of religion deceitful workers Wolves in sheeps cloathing who delighted to divide and destroy to shake foundations and shipwrack consciences to lead Disciples after them by factions partialities and respect of persons either darkening the verity or dividing the unity or defacing the uniformity or destroying the authority or confounding that order and subordination which Christ and his Apostles left in the Church of Christ men full of lusts and pride daily spawned innovations in the doctrine or in the faith or in the customs and in the forms of Religion § Such were all those pristine Hereticks and Schismaticks whose names and deeds deserve to be buried with their damnable doctrines and uncharitable factions in eternal forgetfulness they are too many and too odious to repeat I would to God they were not digged up out of their graves in our days by some carrionly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who searching the graves and raking the kennels of old errors seek to fill the English world with such odious noysom and unsavory spectacles both of opinions and practices § Who that is learned can be ignorant of the prevalent numbers and powers of the Novatians Arrians and Donatists what petulancy and cruelty they used against the Orthodox Cause challenging the Cause and Church of God wholly and only to themselves what despite they had against St. Cyprian Athanasius St. Cyril St. Hilary St. Augustine Optatus and others that opposed routed and confounded their contumacious impudence Thus was the Cause of Christ one whole age or century like Noahs Ark floating in a deluge of Arrian perfidy and persecution to its own grief and astonishment till God took the matter into his own hand and pleading the Cause of Jesus Christ and his eternal Godhead against both people and Bishops and Emperors that were infected with that pestilence for the inundation of the Goths and Vandals the Huns and Heruls the Gauls and Daci seemed no other but the fountains of the great deep broke up to wash away with humane blood the blasphemies with which the Christian world was then polluted against the glory and honor of the Son and Spirit of the blessed God when times were such that men would not endure sound doctrine but heaped up teachers and clucked together Councils and conventicles according to their own lusts and interests without any regard to the primitive Faith and practice of the Church of Christ
which was so zealously tender for the Cause of Christ that they loved not their lives unto death but rather chose mille mortes a thousand deaths then once to crucifie again or deny the Lord that bought them Fourthly The Cause of God may need his special pleading by reason of the great corruption of manners which like weeds grow in the garden of God or as tares in the field of the Church which was first sown with good seed Thus as Eusebius Salvian Suspitius-Severus and othes observe Christian Religion suffered more by the evil lives of Christians then by the malice of persecutors or Hereticks men that had sound heads as to doctrine and Faith yet had foul hearts their brains good but their breath lungs and liver were naught This contagion sometimes seised Pastors and Flocks by idleness pride luxury vain pomps and superfluous ceremonies by secular policies uncharitable actions and scandalous practices so far as made the Cause of God and the name Christ to be blasphemed and abhorred by many while they could not reconcile the holiness of Christians faith and doctrine with the solecisms of their sordid actions and shameful lives Hence came over the Western Churches that thick Egyptian darkness for many hundred of years in which religion was made up for the most part with Images and Pictures with beads and latin prayers with repeated Pater nosters and Ave Maries which people understood not nor the Priests many times with Purgatory Masses and Indulgencies with infinite superstitious ceremonies and empty formalities besides idle fables and vain janglings which like heaps of chaff had buried the good wheat of Gods floor and the glory of divine institutions to make way for Monastick superstitions Idolatrous adorations and Papal usurpations which were built on the flatteries of some and the fedities of others who easily dispenced with the honor of marriage when they had so cheap pardons for those extravagancies and impurities in which many lived under the vail of celibacy but far enough from pure unspotted and unviolated virginity § To this Augean stable was the Church of Christ and Cause of God brought by the depravedness of Christian manners by the rust and moss of superstition before the Reformation began to dawn in this western World An hundred grievances were at once complained of many confessed some for very shame reformed by even those of the Roman party who with infinite blood-shed in former ages fought under the Notion of holy Wars not only against Turks Jews and Sarazens but against good at least tolerable Christians who might have their errors and fayling in some things but it is sure they kept nearer to the primitive piety purity and patience both in faith administrations and manners than did their proud and merciless destroyers who eat up those poor Christians as bread and turned their cruel Croisadoes to crucifie their brethren breaking their fast sometimes with 20000. of the poor Albigenses Lugdunenses Waldenses Berengarians VVicklesites Hussites Bohemians and others proportionably were their dinners and suppers when the Popes flatterers and vassals had a mind to fall upon them 5. Yea and at this day even among the reformed Churches the purity simplicity honesty charity modesty and equanimity of Reformers is so abated and wasted by the pride animosity bitterness sacriledge rapines cruelties ambitions and covetousness among Protestants besides their endless factions under pretentions of reformation immoderations novellizings and confusions That thiâ— Cause of God as to the true reforming of religion and just protesting against Romish errors and enormities is brought very low as in other places and Churches so in England which was the greatest beauty honour stability refuge and safety of the reformed Religion and that cause of Christ which hath been so learned and valiantly pleaded by the Clergy and Layty the Princes and Parliaments the Martyrs and professors reverend Bishops and learned Presbyters against the Roman Usurpation Superstition Sacriledg and Idolatry which are without doubt so far Antichristian as they are clearly against the Doctrine example and institution of Christ besides the judgment and practice of his primitive Churches § Even this cause I say is now â—ick and ashamed of it self so decayed disparaged and divided that it is next degree to being destroyed and despised by all unless God arise by some extraordinary way of his providence to plead and assert this his own cause of a just and due reformation against the factious policies and Fanatick fallacies of unreasonable men whose 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 immoderations and transports have marred all by their King killing rapine and sacriledg unless God arise to judge the earth § Nor is this the first time that God hath helped this Church and the Reformed Religion at a dead lift for so it was in Queen Maries days when the reformed party made conscience not to rebel against their persecuting Soveraigne Princess when her persecution was according to her perswasion and conscience yea they pleaded and asserted her civil rights committing the cause of their Religion and Reformation to God with their loyal souls and consciences in well doing and patience There did God arise in his due time and do his own works in his own way to the great honour of the reformed Religion which had first the crowns of so many Martyrdoms on its head without the least spot of civil Tumults Wars Seditions or Rebellions on the hearts or hands of the reforming Clergy and reformed people § By which preposterous methods of latter years mightily cryed up and carryed on by some men in order to reformation of Religion not onely Religion is become retrograde many degrees if we look to the Dial of Gods word and the primitive Christians practice as it pretends to be reformed but even as it is Christian too that is the Doctrine and imitation of a crucified not a crucifying Saviour The lines which some men have drawn as the measures of their Doctrine and deeds are very excentrick and wide as to the wonted centre of Gods glory the circumference of Scripture truth and that strait rule of charity by which those two were wont to meet in the conscience and conversation of good Christians § Nor will either Christian Religion or just Reformation appear in their true beauty and honor while these are so far at distance and separated from each other that either verity and charity patience and subjection truth and peace are wanting in the ways of Christians In the close of this second general Question it is fit to answer that other branch of it also Why God so wise so potent so good s gracious so compassionate and so vigilant for his own Cause that is his Glory and great Name which is so much bound up in his Churches welfare yet suffers it many times so far to run to lapse seeming ruine and despair in the eyes of the world in the triumphs of his enemies and in the despondencies of his servants that
ariseth terribly to judge the world and to ease him of his adversaries and to plead the cause of his oppressed Church are most worthy of the divine majesty For 1. They are most just in themselves 2. They are most pregnant and convictive in mens consciences as the pleas of God 3. They are unavoidable and irrisistible and potent 4. They carry the cause at last against all opposition the highest cedars are feld by it the greatest mountains levelled Gods Cause like Moses his serpent devours all those Enchanters and Magicians 5. They are impartial without respect of persons great or strong rich or noble wise or foolish few or many God sometimes so pleads it as to pour contempt even upon Princes to pull down the mighty from their seats to confound their counsels to break the arm of their strength to lop off all their branches yea to stub up their roots as to their posterity and renown which was done against Nebuchadnezzar Haman Balshazzar and Judas Sometimes God pleads his cause even by miraculous appearings in signs and wonders full of terror and destruction so against Pharoah and the Egyptians so against Senacherib and his hoast sending a destroying Angel to confute in one night his blâ—sphemous insolency by slaying the greatest part and flower of his Army sending him away with shame which was followed with the parricide of his two sons who slew him So in privater cases God pleads against Miriams murmuring by leprosie so against Nadab and Abihu by fire So against Korah and his mutinous complices God wrought a new way of burying them alive Numb 16. 33. So against the pride of Herod whose popular diety was confuted by worms Act. 12. 23. Sometimes God fills his enemies with Pannick terrors and makes them sheath their swords in their own bowels to become executioners of his vengeance yea and we read Achitophels or acular wisdom ended in a halter even so let all perfidious and impenitent Polititians perish O Lord that are enemies to thy Cause in true Religion and just Government Sometimes God stirs up unexpected and despicable enemies against them who kindle such fires of intestine or foraign wars as consume his proudest adversaries as in the Kings of Israel and Judah when they forsook and rebelled against God When God ariseth to plead his own Cause he fears the face of none he spares none not Families or Cities or Nations or a whole world as in Noahs days or the whole race and nature of mankind as in Adam and Eve who fell under the curse with their posterity when they beleived and obeyed the serpent more then God Against some he pleads vvith fire famine pestilence evil beasts War Deluges Nay he spared not the rebellious Angels but cast them out of heaven into hell fire from the light of his blessed presence to chains of eternal darkness Nay God spares not his ovvn servants People and Church he pleaded sorely against Davids sin vvhich argued his despising of God vvhen he preferred his lust and caused the enemies of God to blaspheme all religion and grace by the scandal of his extravagancy God shevvs us that as Saints may sin so he sees sin in them and vvill not let it go unpunished § So he pleads against Eli and his sons even to their untimely death and the extirpation of that family from the honor of Priesthood So against King Uzziah for his sacrilegious intruding on the Preists office So against King Saul for his rebellion which was us witchcraft So against King Solomon vvhen his wisdom left him or he left it and fell to so gross a folly and effeminacy as to countenance and tolerate Idolatry in an uxorious vanity and inconstancy So against King Hezekiah vvhen his pride made him forgetful of so great a mercy as his miraculous recovery and delivery Nay God pleaded oft against the vvhole Church of the Jews in their Apostasies the Cause of his Lavv Worship Service and Servants the Prophets whom they slew by cutting them short by pulling dovvn and abasing the crown of their glory by giving their adversaries dominion over them to destroy them to burn their Cities and Temple to desolate their Land to lead them into captivity and so to give the Land its rest and Sabboth which they had prophaned Thus did he oft plead the controversies he had with that Church and people that City and Sanctuary which was called by his own name with whom at last he reckoned for all the blood of the Prophets and that of the Messias too which filled up the cup of Gods wrath against them to an utter desolation which hath held now for near sixteen hundred years In like sort did the Spirit of God plead his Cause against the famous seven Churches in Asia and their Angels or Bishops of which we read in the second and third chapters of the Revelations reproving and threatning them sorely both Fathers and children Bishops and Presbyters Pastors and people except they did repent So against all the Greek and Eastern Christian Churches whose heresies luxuries schisms ambitions and hypocrisies have at this day put them under the Mahometan bondage and tyranny that they have scarce now a name to live as Christians or Churches § Nor was God wanting to plead his Cause by many terrible judgements against the depraved state of these Western Churches when overgrown with Image-Saints and Angels-worship with Tyranny and superstition with covetousness and ambition with sottery and debauchery even from the Popes or cheif Bishops chair to the Princes and Peers and Clergie and Gentry and people of all sorts how were they tossed too and fro in the sactions of Gnelphs and Gibelins wasted in the holy Wars as they called them terrified with excommunication and bans that there was no peace to him that came in or to him that went out Lastly God sometimes pleads his Cause and gives evident token it is his by an unexpected way even by suffering it to fall into fiery trials and many temptations not as offended with his Church but as giving the world experience of the mighty power of his grace and the eminent faith courage patience and constancy of his servants who love not their lives to the death but can set all the loss and dung of this world at stake for Christs sake So the primitive Martyrs and Confessors Apostles and others glorified God So many Bishops Presbyters Virgins young and old filled the world with admiration of that cause for which they were so resolved and undaunted that their pious perseverance as Justin Martyr and others tell us with their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 pertinacy as Mar. Aurelius calls it was a most powerful way to commend the glorious Gospel of Christ to the world Thus the blessed company and holy Hoste after Christs example did assert the cause of God and his Christ not by armed forces
such a people as we are whose iniquities have forfeited former blessings the sins of peace made way for war and war for domestick confusion and these for foraign invasions and this for Romish superstitions and Papal usurpations for there want not factors at home and abroad who are earnest sticklers for a Cause which they call the Catholick Cause what it means as to our civil and religious concern as to the honor of this Nation and the prosperity or peace or liberty of the Reformed Religion you cannot be such strangers in the Christian world as not to consider How long as Eliah said to the Israelites will you halt between two opinions between two Causes nay now they are multiplied to twenty if the Reformed Church and Religion which God so blessed with temporal and spiritual blessings with excellent gifts and graces to your forefathers in the last century of Englands honor and happiness if it be Gods Cause grounded on his word sealed by his Spirit and conform to the best of primitive Churches let us plead and assert this against all other for it will be our wisdom and our strength our honor our peace and our safety as it was to our forefathers for the greatest part of an hundred years while they joyned Loyalty to Religion and thought nothing further from Reformation then Rebellion against lawful Magistrates and their lawful power The Second Question you may make to me is What is this Cause of God which we are now to plead in England or what is there left for us to do I Answer as Joseph to his brethren this do and live First retain righteous principles as to civil Justice and true Religion in your own judgements and in the Court of your consciences that you be not warped in them so as by any events or successes to call evil good and good evil darkness light and light darkness Though you have not opportunity or power or courage at present to plead according to your principles yet turn not from them comply not with such as are false unjust irreligious though it be so evil a time that prudence adviseth and piety indulgeth you silence yet time may come when you may plead for Gods Cause according to your principles Mean time as by your speaking you do not strengthen the hands of an evill cause and evill doers so by your silence and reserve you do cast a just reproach and discountenance upon them there is yet hope of a good Cause if the Court and Judge be not corrupted Notwithstanding that some evil pleaders cry it down Secondly As you have power and opportunity given you dare to own and plead for Gods Cause 1. In your own brests and consciences every grace and vertue every good thought and motion is Gods plead them against thy own lusts and the Devils temptations 2. In thy Family and relations plead Gods Cause against lying swearing idleness prophaness c. Thirdly In civil affairs plead the cause of Justice against any injury and oppression the poorest mans cause if just is Gods yea and the cause of a wicked mans so far as it is just is Gods Specially in causes of publick Justice there thou must not be wanting to speak out by pleading when called to it by petitioning and praying for Justice yea and acting for it according to what is just and lawful but a just Cause must not be set as the Ark on the cart of injustice we must not so plead Gods cause as to injure Cesars nor Cesars as to injure Gods Fourthly Plead the cause of true Religion of our reformed Religion of the Church of England and its excellent constitutions against the Pseudo Catholick Church of Rome the cause of Christs merits and intercession against all mixtures humane or Angelick the cause of the Scriptures against all Apocryphal traditions and fanatick illuminations which are false illusions and not divine inspirations The cause of the Lords Supper in its compleatness against the subductions and seductions of the Mass which loseth the bread to all and steals away the wine from the Laity the cause of the worship of God in a known tongue to edification against Latin service which few understand so as to say Amen to what is prayed So the cause of chast and honorable mariage against scorched and affected coelebacy Further Plead as for the verity so for the unity of the Reformed Religion and this Church against those lice and locusts those noxious and noysom vermine of factions which have so gnawed and defaceâ— this Church the reformed religion and which seek to deprive your children of one and your selves of both the holy Sacraments Plead for the Churches patrimony for the support and honor of an able learned authoritative and worthy Ministry in due order and government of it against those sacrilegious spirits who with Judas grudge all as wast that is by a grateful charity and devout superfluity poured on Christ for the honor of his name and the encouragement of his Ministers according to the general tenor of Gods word not only permiting but commanding us by personal or national donations to honor God with our substance Plead for our due ordination subordination as Ministers that we may not by novel projects of levelling confusion plebeian Anarchy in the Church be driven from conformity with the ancient Fathers and the order and universal government of all Christian Churches as wel as our own from our first being Christian If you think us able or worthy to take care of your souls eternal welfare and to administer to you spiritual things Do not think us worthy to be condemned to live to dye and to be buried even yet alive with the meanest of the people since by what I have now discoursed to you it may appear that we are neither ignorant of nor enemies to the true cause of God Jesus Christ as our blind and bitter enemies do maliciously pretend Of which cause I have in all my discourse not spoken my own private sense only but the sense of my Fathers Brethren of all true Bishops and Presbyters and of the whole Church of England Lastly Since I hope you are as willing as able to plead Gods cause and since I know you pray that God would plead your and your posterities cause in Church and State that he would make yours his own cause Keep I beseech you always in your souls this holy resolution not to be wanting in your place to your power to assert Gods cause corde et ore consilio exemplo prece praxi atramento sanguine In which behalf you cannot form your thoughts to a better tune and words then Luther did when he undertook that great Cause of religious reformation Aut propugnemus causam Dei aut succumbamus cum causa Dei Either let us stand by the cause of God or let us fall with
neglect the second in equity and charity So to contend against superstition in Gods worship as to overthrow the order and decency which ought to be solemnly observed in it or that duty and obedience we owe to those which are in Church or State called Fathers and to whom we stand obliged by the first Commandment with promise We must not so plead or urge our duty to God as to skip over our duty to our neighbour nor so plead against Idolatry as to indulge Sacri ledge or against Adultery as to acquit Murther or so cry up Religion or Reformation as to encourage Rebellion and Sedition Noâ— may we so inculcate and insist on one duty as to omit and slight others to be meer Euchites for prayer or Acoits for hearing or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Pragmaticks impertinently and irregularly busie in Church and State as to neglect the Sacraments or to be so eager in dispute for Truth even the minores veritates as to forget the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 great things of God in which the Kingdoms of the Gospel consists so magnifying faith that we omit good works and crying down ceremonies to the overthrow of all orderly and uniform Devotion to cast out Commandments Lords Prayer Creed and all settled Liturgy out of the Church 4. The Cause of God must be pleaded by us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 holily justly and lawfully according to our place and duty after a righteous manner also peaceably and orderly Nor 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 violently rudely and injuriously This is the first thing God requires of us to do justice and then to shew mercy and walk humbly with him Extravagant motions mar the cause of God and rather prejudice it then any way plead it We must not commit Robbery to do Sacrifice nor lye or oppress upon Gods account We must not be so far partial to Gods Cause as to do evil that good may come thereby this is to turn the staff of Moses into a Serpent The great care of the Apostles was to have Mysteries of Religion made good by Moralities Cardinal Poole well expressed that those would best understand the eleven first Chapters of the Epistle to the Romans which are full of high mysteries and disputes who did most practice the five last which exhort to holy life teaching such as believed well to do all things well that the Cause and Name of God might not be evil spoken of We must not violate the good laws of civil Societies under pretence to exalt the Law of God nor run Church and State into confusion to set up Reformation of either in seditious ways Gods Cause needs not the Devils engines either plead it as becomes it or let it alone It will support it self without the rash hand of Uzzah to stay it If thou canst not plead it actively thou mayest do it passively and much more to purpose as primitive Christians did then by any inordinate activity No man saith the Apostle that striveth is crowned unless he strive lawfully Secundum leges Athleticas such as the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Institutor and Umpire had appointed 5. Gods Cause must be pleaded 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with moderation discretion and calmness so as not to suffer any transports of passion and precipitancy to over sway us to an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 excess or indecency We must not so plead against superstition as to reproach or weaken true Religion or against humane corruptions as to vacate and voyd Divine institutions or against the abuse of things as to abolish the good use of them to have no Our Father because we would have no Ave Marys in our Prayers § Reformation must not run to the ruine of Church or the riot of State as if a Physitian should destroy the body with the disease purging away the spirits with ill humors such as their former methods seem to be who will have no Bishops according to the primitive and Catholique order of the Church because some Bishops in after times had their fauls and frailties or no Ministers because some of them have been too blame or no Sacraments because some may be unworthy receivers These as immoderations and madnesses become not those that undertake to plead Gods Cause It is like theirs who would starve themselves because some have been gluttons or destroy all Vines because of some mens drunkenness or have no singing because some may sing out of tune it is an ordinary error in men to suffer their pleas to pass from the cause to the persons and so from the persons to the cause which transports of envy and anger arise from the overboyling of mens passions which wasts their judgments and make them instead of snuffing dim candles to put them quite out an error that I fear hath been too prevalent in some mens spirits and practises among us whose meaning and intentions possibly might be good or at least not so bad as the event Sixthly Valiantly and couragiously 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 according to the generosity and magnanimity of a true Christian spirit which is rather good then great or therefore great because good not by a military robusâ—ness and boysterous forwardness or childish pertinacy that resolves to maintain any cause they once ingage for but such a cool and sober valour as first hath made a just conquest of our selves as to all irregular passions inordinate lusts oblique designes that being listed in Christs spiritual Militia and having given our names to him we may put on that spiritual armour which becomes a Christian in truth faith love zeal patience justice sobriety sanctity and constancy for these are the solid grounds and sure guides of a Christians courage in Gods cause whose sacrifice might not be offered with strange fire or strange incense nor may his cause be pleaded by brutish valour or by turbulent passions For that were like baking the shewbread of the sanctuary with mans dung which the Prophet Ezekiel so much abhorred and deprecated Seventhly Gods cause must be pleaded by us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 becoming Christ and Christians who are persons under the severest restraints of any men with modesty gravity humility and due respects to our betters and superiors beâ—itting their place authority and dignity So the ancient Martyrs and other confessors in their Apologies petitions and Remonstrances as Iustin Martyr Tertullian and others presented to the Emperors or Senates owned them with due honour and payed that reverence to them which their dignity required and Gods word either commanded or permitted They never used rayling accusations against them nor spake evil of dignities to set a gloss and soyl on their good cause no not in their greatest agonies in their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 when they were dying and suffering as well as disputing preaching or writing they blessed those that cursed them
were so diametrally contrary to the Word of God to the laws of this Land and to the example of Iesus Christ and all â—rue Saints and so no more capable to set up or promote Gods righteous cause except that of his punitive Iustice for our sins to which the Devils themselves may serve as Executioners then the sparks of hell can add to the light of heaven or the falling Stars and Meteors contribute to the lustre of the Sun or the crooked winding of the Dragons â—ail could give protection to the Woman and her childe against whom his mouth vomited those black floods and Stygian eructations which by Heretical or â—châ—â—matical or Heathenish or Atheistical persecutions seek to overwhelm them The great and blessed God hath taken the matter into his own hand what you then faithfully heard and devoutly prayed for with me as to Gods pleading of his own Cause you have lived to see fulfilled as it was then by me discoursed and foretold while the poor people of England were halting between manâ— opinions all eagerly pretending to be for Gods Cause one for Aristocracy the other for Democracy one for Presbyterâ—â— the other for Independency one for their Antiepiscopal Covenant another for their Anti-regal Engagement one for abâ—uration of Kings the other for extirpation of Bishops a third for setting up the Kingdom of Iesus Christ in which they might rule instead of both King and Bishops and all this forsooth in order to advance the Cause of God though in ways quite contrary to the eternal rules of charity justice and religion the Laws of God and this Nation amidst this confusion the Lord from heaven hath on the sudden convicted confuted and confounded all those specious but spurious pretenders to Gods Cause which is not to be begun or carried on as I after declare by any means but such as are pure peaceable just and â—oly either by an orderly doing good in our places or by a patient and humble suffering of evil inflicted on us though it be for well doing It is most evident that as in natural so in civil and Ecclesiastical motions all things magnetically move as they are moved by their chief cause or grand concern which by a circular kind of influence studies to unite the finall to the efficient cause that the power of the one may enjoy the good of the other This Cause is the first and last mover of every knowing agent it is the weight and spring of all rational activity it is a pulse ever importuning the spirit and beating upon the heart the one thing necessary to which men seek to make all other things subservient or at least subordinate the centre from which and to which all lines are drawn The better to compass their respective designs every Agitator for Faction did cunningly entitle God to their Cause as some that are cautious of the crackt titles of their estates resign the Fee to the Crown and take from them a Lease of a thousand years â—o did the counterfeit and contrariant Causes larely so scuâ—â—sing in England for place and power set themselves up under the name of Gods Cause while they were indeed the causeless corrupters of our Laws the Nations heavie curse the Churches moth and corrosive and confounders of all yet each of their pretended causes were impudently pleaded by â—ome men in Churches and Courts of Iustice as Gods Cause yâ—â— by â—ome suppositiâ—ious Parâ—â—aments they were voted for till they had run themselves and all of us like S. Pauls ship in the storm upon such rocks of Anarchy and confusion as were past humane hopes of recovery if God himself had not arose by a providence scarce ever paralleld in any age or instance of the world to plead by a still voyce after all our foregoing earthquakes fires tempests the Cause of his own great Name and the honor of our blessed Saviour with the sanctity of our Reformed Religion and the Loyalty of our English Nation the rights also of the Crown with the double honor of our Church and in sum the just restablishment of all our long shaken and overthrown foundations the cause of all which was pleaded more effectually in a few calm Months when the voyce of Law and Reason of Loyalty and true Religion came to be heard in our streets then they had been or ever could have been in many years by plunderings and sequestrings by killing and slaying by illegal covenanting and perjurious engaging by devouring and destroying both Church and Kingdom I am piously ambitious though my station be now removed from you made without my seeking much uneasier though somewhat higher then it was before to deposite thiâ— work with you O worthy and honourable Gentlemen among whom it had its first productions of whose love and favor as you know I never made any mercenary gain or pecuniary advantagâ— as that wretched Libeller 〈◊〉 Creticus Borborites enviously suggests my charge of attending your service being beyond any benefit I ever received so I musâ— own this as the greatest rewarâ— and only satisfaction which I ever had or expected for my pains among you that I had thereby an happy opportunity in so noble an Assembly and in so desperate paroxysms of our distempered times to set forth with my wonted freedom the great concern of all good men which is the true Cause of God which must be pleaded against our own and others lusts and to discover those potent epidemical cheats which under that name had so long abused these British Nations and Churches I well remember that some of my more touchy and guilty hearers men of name at that time were at once scared and scandalized to hear me preach so freely and smartly of that subject they feared their practice and craft would soon fail if once the true Cause of God were rightly stated and pleaded yea some men of the long robe and of large consciences protested after the hearing of the first Sermon they durst not hear me preach again on that subject least their silence should make them guilty of High-treason by their noâ— complaining of me to the Traytorâ— then tyrannizing over us Indeed they were justly jealouâ— that the true Cause of God like Moses Serpent would eat up alâ— those of the Magicians That the Cause of Christ of the truâ— heavenly Jerusalem would either batter down or undermine those bloody Babels of their Commonâ— wealths which were indeed the common woe though it made for some mens private wealth by the prices of blood and wages of iniquity which they greedily received I thank God I never feared the frowns nor affected the smiles of such servile Sycophants who durst plead any Cause but what was truly Gods the Kings and the Churches I had then sufficient encouragement from the love and approbation of the most and best of their Society without which yet I ought and should have done my duty upon the account of conscience and inward comfort Hence is this
fighting but by sober preaching and patient suffering This Spirit of glory was a riddle indeed and a new way to advance the Evangelical cause against the powerful oppositions found on all hands yet it was Gods way and prevailed by the power of his Word and the testimony of his Spirit of patience and glory which rested on them § As the first foundation stone of the Gospel or Church of Christ was laid in John Baptists and Christs blood so it was after builded up by St. Stephens St. James and their followers Then Christians like Parthians fought flying and prevailed by not resisting and were more then conquerors when they were most conquered the blood of Martyrs being the seed of the Church and their ashes as the compost ormendment of the world Fourthly It remains that I shew how God pleads his and his Churches Cause not always by miraculous and immediate instances but by the mediate instruments of his ordinary providence whom he stirs up to protect to favour to speak comfortably to his Sion that his warfare is finished that the days of refreshing are come such were some good or tollerable Kings among the Jews Asa Uzziah Hezekiah and Iosiah such was Constantine the Great and some other following Emperors that were Christian and orthodox too So since the Reformation God hath given specally in these British Churches Kings and Queens to be Nursing Fathers and mothers to true Religion Defenders of the true Faith and the Professors of it who had long ere this been martyred and burned butchered or massacred blown up and extirpated as Hereticks if the Romish Sea had not had bounds of national Laws and soveraign power set to it which said Hitherto and no further thou shalt go here thy proud and threatning waves shall be stopped I pray God we have not sinned away our defence and glory making breaches upon the banks of our Laws Government and Religion so wide as will let in at last that over-flowing scourge again upon us under the names of Liberty Toleration and Super-reformation Again God pleads his own cause as to true Religion by furnishing his Church First of the Jews with extraordinary Prophets such as was Moses Samuel Eliah Micah Isaiah Ieremiah Ezekiel Daniel and others till the Messiah came After the Apostles who were Master-builders God gave to his Christian Church such Heroes of learning zeal and courage as in all ages undertook all those Goliahs and sons of Anak who deâ—ied the host of God such of old were Irenaeus Origen Tertullian Cyprian Clemens the Cyrils the Basils Chrysostom Epiphanius the Gregories the great Athanasius St. Augustine St. Jerom St. Hilary Optatus Prosper and others during the heat of heathenish and heretical or schismatical persecution And this not singly onely but socially junctis viribus in Councils or Synods which were Ecclesiastical Parliaments either greater or lesser in several Diocesses or Provinces or National or Oecumenical of all the Christian world by their Pastors and Representatives these did mightily plead the cause of Christ against heretical novelties and schismatical partialities these kept the faith and peace of the true Church intire these guided gathered and healed the erring scattered and worried of the flock these by many hands made walls against the seas and mighty floods which the devil cast out of his mouth against the Woman cloathed with the sun the Church professing Christ Thus the famous Council of Nice so pleaded the cause of Christs Divinity that they crushed the Arrian Serpent in the egg and gave that cockatrice its deadly wound which it never recovered though it made a foul strugling a long time So the Council of Constantinople pleaded the cause of the Holy Ghost against the cavils of Macedonius So the Council of Ephesus pleaded the unity of Christs Person God and Man against Nestorius And the Council of Chalcedon the distinction of his Natures against Eutyches his confoundiug of them so in other cases as the cause of God and his Church required Councils were soveraign Physitians and applied excellent cordials till they came to be servile to the private causes lusts power and interests of men and less intent to the Word and Spirit of Christ as the first Council of Jerusalem was which ought to be the pattern of all after Synods And afterwards in the eclipse decline superstition and darkness of times in the Western Churches yet there were not wanting some that did still plead the cause of God as his witnesses against the Apostacies extravagancies and luxuries of the Romish tyranny and pride So was St. Bernard Nicolaus Clemangis Alvarus-Pelaegius Wickliff John Hus and Jerom of Prague our Lincolniensis Baleus and others Yea when God arose mightily to shake this Western world and to rack us off from our Monastick and Roman lees who can sufficiently muster up the armies of Worthies both abroad and at home of reverend Bishops and other learned Divines who have either stood in the gap with their arms or at the bar with their strong arguments pleading Gods cause by Scripture and antiquity by learned writings and holy lives against all oppositions I will name none because I will not seem partially silent to the merit of any This only I may without envy say none have exceeded the worthy Bishops and others of the Reformed Church of England who were and ever will be in impartial judgements esteemed among the first therein and the headmost ranks of Martyrs Confessors Reformers Preachers Disputers Writers and Livers while we were happy to enjoy such Fathers and such Sons of this Church as were worthy to enjoy those favours and Honors which this Nation heretofore grudged not to confer upon them and abhorred to take from them and their Episcopal Order which was excellently martialled and imployed by worthy Bishops as Jewel Usher Andrews Davenant Morton Prideaux Hall White Bilson Babington and others Also by Hooker Willet Sutliff Rogers and others of the Presbyterian subordination § T is true they were all men and so might have their infirmities more or less but they were such men of might and weight and of valour and renown that with all the grains of allowance they far out-weighed all that popular stuff or pomp of either learning or vertue gifts or graces Scholarship or Saintship which hath swelled their adversaries rather then filled them with any real truth or ingenuom worth comparable to them And however now indeed the Reformed Church and Religion of England doth look like an Army that hath been so harrased and routed as it hath lost most of its gallant commanders which gave life and courage and skill to the whole Protestant party and the cause of the Reformed Religion yet we must not despair but that God will return in mercy to us if once our lives and manners be but as reformed as our doctrine was this needeth not though the other do reforming § And because there will be failers and infirmities on the best
mens part in pleading Gods cause in this world therefore to make amends there is a third Court wherin God will unavoidably plead his cause against every evil doer and all nakedness in the world this will be in foro poli or coeli at the last day when the books of Omniscience conscience and Scripture shall be opened and mens sins with their wilful immoral and impenitent errors shall be set in order before them Then the great Accuser within and without shall be heard and sentence given secundum allegata probata according to the merit and evidence of mens works This is the last appeal of the oppressed righteous cause where it shall be heard and have right done it For then as St. Bernard tells Judges and Juries and Lawyers Omnia judicata rejudicabuntur All judgements and causes shall be reviewed and rejudged § But the consideration of such Instruments as God is pleased to 〈◊〉 up to plead his cause in this world Leads me to the last particular which is to shew the manner and method legitimi litigandi of mans pleading as becomes him this holy cause of God when he is called to it in an ordinary which all are or extraordinary way as some may be § It is not only the work of God to plead his own cause as Joash said of Baal If he be a God he can and will plead for himself But it is the duty of every good Christian that loves God to be a worker and pleader together with him in Gods cause and way we must be all willing to be retained on Gods side to be his Advocates and Attorneys when he calls us to this work to contest for God against an evil perverse and adulterous generation either by living or dying by doing or suffering by preaching or disputing by discoursing or writing It will be demanded why I add not by fighting which is now much cryed up and used by some as a most speedy and effectual way to plead Gods Cause and set up Christ◠Kingdom I answer The cause of God is sometimes to be pleaded by the way of fighting 1. In defence of any Church and State against unjust and foreign invasion or intestine rebellion and sedition 2. By way of a Princes relieving his oppressed Subjects and Confederates in other States and Dominions 3. By way of asserting the proceedings of Justice as to Law according to that power which is established in any Kingdom or Polity 4. As to the Cause of Religion it is no further to be asserted by the Sword then as it is established by the Law and under the protection of the Soveraign Power there to plead its cause by such a Sword as is the sword of God and of Gideon is lawful when it is done by lawful command and Supreme which is in England Regal Authority Otherwise no Cause of God as to Religion is to be either planted and propagated or reformed or vindicated by the sword of Subjects against any Princes or chief Magistrates will and power in whose hand the sword is True God by a special Prophet and a commission from Heaven confirmed by many miracles did once put a sword into the Jews hand to make their way against those Nations which were declared by Divine Justice worthy to be destroyed But the Evangelical spirit is not of that temper the Commission of the Gospel and Christs Spiritual Militia by which he conquers the World is not to fight and kill and slay but to preach to pray and to suffer They grosly mistake Christs Kingdom and Gods Cause now that fancy it is to be pleaded by the Arm of Flesh by popular furies and forces by tumults and violences by subverting and opposing Magistratick power and breaking over the boundaries of good Laws and Customs Civil and Ecclesiastical § Christ commanded Peters gladiatorum forwardness in his defence to put up his sword into his sheath Christ had two other swords of the Word and Spirit which were enough to do his work not by Souldiers but Ministers not by Colonels and Captains but hy Bishops and Presbyters There are other ways to exercise a Christians love zeal and courage for Gods cause which as it is most worthy of our pleading so we must take care to plead it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as becomes our Lord and Saviour It is a caution which Quintilian a great Orator gave to all Pleaders Cavendum ne bonam causam male litigando perdamus Many men are untowardly forward to plead Christs cause like hot mettal'd and heady horses neither well mouthed nor well wayed and managed They endanger more by their rashness then they advance by their capring activity The Cause then of God must in times places and points be pleaded so as becomes the Majestie Truth and Honor of the great God 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Wisely with understanding by the clear and potent demonstrations of it grounded on the Word of God not by humane fancies wilde notions and extravagant presumptions and fanatick fetches The Word of God is able to make us perfect pleaders of his Cause We must not adde to nor detract from that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 compleat armour offensive and defensive If any plead not according to that rule of Law and Gospel of Faith and Loyalty of patience and obedience it is because there is no light of truth or grace of humility in them Gods Cause needs no cavilings nor sophisms no wisdom or eloquence of mans invention which is to joyn humane fraud and force meer froth and folly to divine sufficiency As if one would muster up Frogs and Mice with their bulrushes to joyn with Angels in Gods battels to help the Lord against the mighty 2. Gods cause is to be pleaded by man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sincerely for Gods sake not for self-ends and interests for our glory gain or advantage as to our persons or parties our secular and civil interests of power and preferment which are many times the dead Flie cast into this precious Oyntment as Jehu did whose ambition was the belows and blazoner of his zeal So they that preached the Gospel out of Envy and ill will or for filthy lucres sake to serve their bellies and not the Lord Jesus to please men and not God seeking not the salvation of souls or the good of the Church and State but their own emoluments and preferments These are in all ages the greatest deformers of Christian Religion exposing it first to popular fury and after to the shame and contempt of all 3. Gods cause must be pleaded 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Integre 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 solidly and entirely not picking and chusing what parts or points or duties of it most suit with our fancies opinions parties designs desires and private interests We must not so plead for the first table in piety as to
Christians are figs and grapes and olives that are not to be gathered from the bryars and thorns of the present world in which whoever will live godly must expect and patiently suffer but not deserve persecution A good Cause must not think it strange to finde bad entertainment on earth where it is a pilgrim and stranger Times are seldom so good as really to favour Gods Cause however the policies and lusts of men their pride licentiousness covetousness and ambition may seem to flatter it so far as suits with their present interests which are most what 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 self-seeking partial and inordinate ut in vitis sic in causis homines spes improbas alunt as in other things so in religion men have their impipious ambitions and perverse hopes § Whereas the Cause of God is a self denying cause as to all ungodliness and worldly lusts teaching us to live contentedly righteously soberly and godly in all things § So that these large flags and streamers which some men of the Roman or other factions of later editions hang out to the vulgar as to the potency and prosperity of their Cause argue no more Gods cause to be with them or they with it then the fine feathers in fools caps argue them to have wit or wisdom in their heads coppar may be thus stamped and guilded which will not endure the fiery trial as true gold will and such is the Cause of God ever pure and precious just and holy though it be oppressed and persecuted as a jewel it loseth not its native lustre and worth though it be ill set or cast into the dirt To conclude this general description of Gods Cause this may be its Emblem It is as the tree of life in the Pardise of God the root of it is the Truth of God in his word the sap is holiness or true sanctity the leaf is charity without dissimulation the rinde or bark is order and good discipline in the Church also Equity and civil Justice in the State the lesser and lower fruit is every grace and good work growing in us or from us the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 prime and topmost cluster is Gods glory and the salvation of sinful souls through his free grace in Jesus Christ Having shewed the general tokens or marks of Gods Cause I now proceed by way of Induction and instance to set forth the particulars in which it consists 1. The grand Cause of God is his own glory this is the first mover great conservator and last consummator of all things which the divine Wisdom contrives or his Patience permits or his Power performs or his Justice Goodness and Mercy moderates or his Word commands For this cause he hath made and manageth all things in heaven and earth that the glory of his being may appear to men and Angels who are with all humility gratitude adoration service and admiration to return the just recognition and praises due to the divine Majesty for all his essential excellencies and his gracious emanations every Attribute and Perfection of God is by them to be owned with due respect of Faith Fear Love Duty Adoration and Admiration thus his Power Wisdom Justice Mercy Immensity Eternity Veracity Immutability c. are to be considered by men and Angels with suitable affections reflecting from them to God And among Christians the unity of the Divine Nature together with the Trinity of the sacred Persons or relations distinguished by the names of Father Son and Holy Spirit must be ever owned celebrated and adored according to the wonted Doxology or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 used in the Orthodox Churches This Cause God hath in all ages pleaded as his own royal concern against Atheists Polytheists Idolaters Antitrinitarians Anthropomorphites against prophane and proud livers who live as if there were no God above them also against vain and false swearers who blaspheme the name of God and bring a curse on their souls families and countries against presumptuous wicked doers who are their own gods and worshippers both self-Idols and self-Idolaters This is the first most immediate cause or concern of the Divine Nature and Glory that God be owned and none beside him or comparable to him This will be made good against wicked men and Devils by the pleas and principles of right Reason by the sensible beauty order harmony proportion usefulness and constancy of Gods Works in the world by his signal providences in judgement or mercy by his preservation of the Scriptures and the Church with true Religion by the predictions fulfilled and lastly by the terrors convictions and presages of mens consciences which are that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the little God in our own brests as Mar. Aurelius calls it 2. The next great concern or Cause of God is that of the Lord Jesus Christ the eternal Word and coessential Son of God the blessed Messiah the brightness of the divine glory and express image of the Father It is not enough now to beleive in God as Creator and Preserver of men but we must also beleive in the Lord Jesus Christ as Redeemer of beleiving penitent and obedient sinners by the mercy love and free grace of God This is the beloved Son of God whom we must hear the onely name under heaven by which we may be saved he that doth not obediently beleive the testimony of Prophets and Apostles of Miracles and Angels of Martyrs and Confessors of the Church Catholick and an enlightned conscience in this great Cause of the Messias even the crucified Jesus is under peremptory condemnation while such § Of this great and mysterious Cause God gave the world an account of old under types figures sacrifices and many ceremonies as shadows and resemblances under the Law but now the Substance and Son of Righteousness is come and hath fully taught his Church the will of God and the work such sinners have to do which is to repent and beleive in him whom the Father hath sent who so beleiveth not makes God a lyar and is already condemned to which must be added to compleat the cause of the sacred Trinity the belief and adoration of the Holy Ghost as God one with the Father and the Son in the Divine essence and glory though a distinct person as to the emanation from and relation to both ◠The Cause of God extends to the true Church of God as an holy corporation or society of such as do truely believe inwardly or outwardly and profess with Order and Charity the word worship and service of the true God with our Lord Jesus and the blessed Spirit according to the rule of the Scripture ◠God owns himself in Jesus Christ as the Father friend head and Husband of the Church such as fight against that fight against God and afflict the apple of his eye God is concerned that the foundation of his Church which is