most fundamental thing to all the rest requires men's resigning and subjecting themselves unto him or putting themselves by Solemn Covenant into his Hands or under his Conduct to be by him brought to God and made finally happy in him Whatsoever therefore is of absolute necessity to this end is essential to Christianity Christians then are a sort of Men tending to God and Blessedness under the Conduct of Christ to whom they have by Covenant devoted themselves and to God in him Visible Christians are such as are in this visible Tendency with their Children yet in Minority and not capable of making an Understanding Profession themselves Such as have arrived to that Capacity are no longer to be considered in their Parents but a part by themselves They that have been sufficiently instructed in the Principles of the Christian Religion that have devoted themselves to God in Christ and live in their general course conformably to his Holy Rules are visible personal Covenanters 'T is plainly the mind of Christ that those be receiv'd into that plenary Communion which belongs to the Christian state and particularly unto that Sacred Rite which is the Communion of his Body and Blood and wherein the New Testament or Covenant hath it's Solemn Obligation and wherein as Foederati or Persons in Covenant they have more express Communion with him and one another They that are yet unacquainted with the most necessary things of Christian Religion are to he held as Cateohumens under Instruction if they be willing They that live licentiously in the state of Penitents till they give that Proof of their serious Repentance as that their Profession thereof appear not to be slight and ludicrous They that refuse to learn or be reform'd that live in open Hostility against the known Laws of Christ are not Visible Christians are not visibly in the way of Salvation Visible Subjection and visible Rebellion are Inconsistencies If therefore any Society of Men professedly Christian do make other Limits of their Communion admitting those that Christ's Rule excludes excluding them whom it would admit especially if the Alteration be not only by the making those things necessary which he hath not revealed or enjoyned as necessary but which he hath not revealed or enjoyned at all and so is not only to add to Christian Religion taken at large but even to it's Essentials This is substantially to change the Evangelical Covenant to make it another thing to break Christ's Constitution and set up another If they be little things only that we add we must know there is nihil minimum in Religion What if as little as they are many think them sinful and are thereby thrown off from our Communion The less they are the greater the Sin to make them necessary to hang so great things upon them Break the Churches Peace and Vnity by them and of them to make a new Gospel new Terms of Life and Death a new way to Heaven And is as much as in us lies to make things of highest Necessity depend not only upon things of no Necessity but that are in our Religion perfect Nullities not having any place there at all And thereupon is in effect to say If you will not take Christianity with these Additions of ours you shall not be Christians you shall have no Christian Ordinances no Christian Worship we will as far as in us is exclude you Heaven it self and all means of Salvation And upon the same ground upon which they may be excluded one Communion by such arbitrary devised measures they may be excluded another also and be received no where And if their measures differ they all exclude one another and hence so many Churches so many Christendoms If this be sinful it is Sin of the deepest Die. Whereas the Holy Scriptures speak with such Severity as we know they do of the altering of Man's Landmarks what may me think of altering God's And the Sin is still the greater if the things of highest necessity are overlook'd in the mean time as Trisles tything of Mint is stood upon but Judgment Faith Mercy and the Love of God pass'd over as Matth. 23. 23. Luke 11. 42. Infidels pour'd in upon the Church Wolves and Bears under the name of Sheep and the Lambs of Christ which he requires to be fed thrown out into the Wilderness 3. But if we suppose it a Sin and so hainous a one how far doth the guilt of it spread How few among the several sorts and Parties of Christians are innocent if the measures of their several Communions were brought under just and severe Examination How sew that lay their Communions open to visible Christians as such excluding none of whatsoever Denomination nor receiving any that by Christian rational Estimate cannot be judged such 4. How few that consider this as the provoking Cause of Christ's being so much a Stranger to the Christian Church And how little is it to be hoped we shall ever see good days till this wasting Evil be redress'd Or that our glorious-Redeemer who is Head of all things to the Church should ever own it by visible Favours should protect cherish enlarge it or make it spread in the World and how little it is naturally in any probability of doing so or that he should treat it as his while it is so little it ' self and so little one In the present most deplorable state of things private that is carnal Interest is the thing every where designed by one Party and another And by wishing the Prosperity of the Church or endeavouring it is only meant seeking the Prosperity of our own Party So that there can be no United Prayers nor joynt Endeavours for any truly Common good but what seems desirable to some is dreaded and deprecated by all the rest Thus for thirteen or fourteen hundred Years hath the Church been gradually growing a Multiform mangled shatter'd and most deformed thing broken and parcell'd into no body knows how many several sorts of Communions The Measures whereof how strangely alien have they been from those which were genuine and primitive i. e. from substantial Christianity and the things that must concurr to make up that Instead of sound Knowledge of the few clear and great things of Religion a great many doubtful Opinions the taking one side in a disputed Point the determination of a Logical question understanding or saying one understands whether we do or no a Metaphysical Nicety and sometimes professing to believe somewhat that Scripture never said or shews it self never to have meant and that is most manifestly contrary to all reason and common sense Instead of reverent decent grave Worship affected scenial ludicrous Formalities uncouth gesticulations disguised Countenances with I know not what empty shews of a forced and feigned Devotion which things also were to serve instead of orderly unreprovable Conversation of serving God and of doing good to other Men and to expiate the Crimes of a very bad one to make amends and
and was hereby become wanton lost in carnality not content with it self and its own Native Comeliness but affected to shine in a borrowed Lustre and Ornature when as Harlots are wont it began to paint to be fond of gay Attire and devise things for Deckings to it self most alien from its Original State and Constitution and which afterwards became the matter of bloody Contentions and Cruelties when it grew ambitious of secular pomp splendor grandeur and power then was it so far forsaken of God and his Spirit that within a very few Years after Boniface the third had obtained of the Emperor Phocas the Title of Universal Bishop whereby Popish Tyranny and Superstition became more fully regnant in the Church i. e. within less than twenty Years began the senseless Delusion of Mahometanism to spring up without the Church and assisted by the incredible accession of Force and Arms came at length to prevail against it now gradually sinking more and more into Vice and Ignorance unto that degree that in process of time what Christianity had gained from Paganism it lost in a great Measure unto Mahometanism so that in several parts of Christendom where were reckon'd thirty Christians for one Pagan there came to be thirty Mahometans for one Christian. And how next to Unchristian the Christian World is in the nearer Countries very generally Protestant as well as Popish is too well known and in the remoter divers Writers inform us Let it now therefore be considered for how many sad Centuries of Years Christianity hath been at an amazing stand got no ground upon the whole but rather lost much Is this the Religion which so early by its own Native Light and Power conquered so many Nations and which we expect to be the Religion of the World Who that understands this would not with deepest Concern and anxiety of Spirit enquire into the Cause And what Cause can be so obvious to our enquiry as a luxurious and a contentious Carnality which both go together and which have enfeebled dispirited and lost its self-diffusing life and strength What we cannot remedy let us at least see and lament And let us supplicate more earnestly for the effusions of that Holy Spirit which alone can give Remedy to our Distempers and overcome the Lusts of the Flesh of whatsoever kind and restore Christian Religion to it self and make the Christian Name great in the World For can it Content us that Christianity should appear and be counted a mean a weak and even a ludicrous thing that the Son of God should have descended and come down into our World have put on Man have dy'd upon a Cross have ascended that he might fill all things diffuse spirit light and life thorough the World have appointed Prophets Apostles Pastors and Teachers for the Publishing his Everlasting Gospel and at length leave Men even where the Christian Name and Profession doth obtain no better Men generally than he found them distinguisht only from the rest of the World by certain peculiar Notions and by some different Rites of Worship otherwise as flagitious as sensual as impious towards God as full of wrath hatred malice and mischievous design towards one another as any Pagans or Infidels ever were and yet that they should expect to be saved only because they are callest Christian What a representation of Christian Religion is this And thus it will be reckon'd of 'till it come to be understood more generally and more openly avow'd that Christianity is not only a System of Doctrines and those reducible within a little compass but of Precepts also not concerning the Modes of Worship only but Men's ordinary Practice and that not only respect their external Actions but which are designed to regulate and reform their Minds and Spirits and do lay their first Obligation there must subdue their inordinate Appetites and Passions render them Holy and harmless the Sons of God shining as lights holding forth the Word of Life c. The whole frame of the Christian Institution being animated by the Divine Spirit into whose Name we are baptiz'd as well as into that of the Father and the Son and which will be given where he is sought for and not affronted Let this be taken for Christianity and avow'd to be so and seriously endeavoured to be propagated as such and it will not always be put to vye but as upon equal Terms with Mahometanism Judaism Paganism meer Deism or whatsoever else shall exalt it self into a competition with it And let whatsoever comes not within this compass or is not truly and primitively Christian be resected and cut off from it and so it will appear an entire self-agreeable thing and the Christian Church be but One. While it is not so it will be the business and design of the most only to promote the Interest of this or that Party And if their sense were put into plain words this it would be I am for my Church or the Church whereof I am whatever becomes of the Church of Christ. And so will a zealous endeavour for so narrow an Interest as that of a divided Party engage and engross all the Intention of their minds and their Religion be summ'd up in Contention and such only as hath its root in that Division which on the one side at least and in great part too probably on both sides chiefly proceeds from meer Carnality And what is it but Religious Contention for the most part that hath fill'd the Christian World with Blood and Ruines for many by past Ages Carnal Contention under this most specious Pretence as being conversant about Spiritual or Religious Concernments is the thing Animadverted on tho' in gentler instances as later occasions did require in the following Sermons It was little imagin'd when they were delivered from the Pulpit they should ever have been made more publick I have in this Publication of them partly yielded to the Opinion of divers who judg'd they might possibly be useful to more than those who heard them and to them farther upon review But have more comply'd with a sort of Necessity laid upon me by being told if they were not published by me the thing would be done as it could from broken mistaken Notes without me My own Memorials and Preparations were indeed imperfect enough as it cannot but be in the Case of one so often in the Week engag'd in such Work I have as I could by my own Recollection and by such help as I have otherwise had endeavoured a full Account of what was spoken and am very confident nothing material is omitted Some Ingeminations or varied Expressions of the same thing that are pardonable if not useful to an hearer but not so grateful and less needful to a Reader I reckon not such But divers Passages tho' not distinct Heads that were intended but through want of Time omitted I have inserted in the places to which they did belong Wherein none can think
Morality And if he have happened upon such Notions as are really true and revealed by God himself by how much the more certainly Divine they be so much the greater is the Wickedness so basely to prostitute Sacred things Truths that are the very Off-spring of Heaven unto so vile purposes It were Fault enough to make them serve different or other purposes than they are capable of i. e. to supply the room of Religion and real goodness What an Indignity is that to Religion to suppose an empty spiritless Opinion can fill up it's place A thing that does a man no good for which his Mind and Spirit is nothing the better Much more that shelters what is so very bad Can this serve for Religion That Religion that consists with being proud with being deceitful with being malicious with being revengeful learn learn to despise such a Religion Much more that is taken up to vail over these and exclude all real goodness Again 8. When in the maintaining any Doctrine of the Gospel in opposition to others we industriously set our selves to pervert their meaning and impute things to them that they never say Or again If we charge their Opinions whom we oppose with Consequences which they disclaim professing it may be rather to disclaim their former Opinion and change their Judgment than admit such Consequences if they could discern any Connexion between the one and the other This surely argues a mighty Disposition to contend when we will quarrel with one that is really of our own Mind for herein he appears to be virtually already of the same mind in a greater matter at least than he differs with us about because no man charges another's Opinion with a Consequence designing thereby to oblige him to change his Opinion but as supposing it to be an agreed thing between them both that the Consequence is worse than the Opinion When therefore the Consequence I charge is disclaimed by him whom I oppose either it is justly charged or it is not If it be not his Opinion may be true notwithstanding what I herein say to the contrary and I am certainly so far in an Error But if it be justly charged being yet disclaimed we are formally agreed concerning the Consequence and are vertually agreed concerning the disputed Point too because he professedly disavows it upon supposition such a Consequence would follow which yet perhaps he sees not and so the Agreement must be much greater than the Difference And yet commonly this signifies nothing in order to Peace That is it is not enough that I see the same things that you do unless I also see it too with your Eyes 9. When sucb Disputes do arise at length to Wrath to angry Strife yea and even to fixed Enmity What dreadful Carnality is here Most deservedly so called if you only consider Flesh or Carnality as an unreasonable a brutal thing For what can be more unreasonable or unaccountable than to fall out with another man because he thinks not as I do or receives not my Sentiments as I also do not receive his Is it not to be considered that he no further differs from me than I do from him If there be cause of Anger upon this account on one side there is the same cause on the other too and then whether shall this grow And how little can this avail upon a rational Estimate Can any good come of it Doth it tend to the clearning of Truth Shall we see the better thorough the Clouds and Dust we raised Is a good Cause served by it Or do we think it possible the Wrath of Man should ever-work the Righteousness of God And when such Carnalities as these do exert themselves and the hot Steams and Fumes arise which the Apostle here calls the Lusts of the Flesh the Flesh lusting to Envy lusting to Wrath What is the Product or even the productive Cause but that sort of Fire which is without Light And you know what Fire that resembles And if a Man once find any Fervour of this kind stir or kindle in his Breast if he aright consider he would no more cherish it than one would do a Brand thrown into his Bosom from the Infernal Fire One would think in this case What have I stirring within me Something a kin to Hell Can this conduce to the Service of Divine and Heavenly Truth And let it be sadly considered our being upon such accounts angry with one another is a dismal token of God's being angry with us all and a provoking Cause of it too Methinks that should be a qualmy Thought and strike our Souls with a strange Damp Shall I indulge that in my self that is a mark upon me of Divine Displeasure and upon all in whom it is found To have his Holy Spirit retire that blessed Spirit of Love and of a sound mind and to leave us under the Power of rebellious lusting Flesh Can this be grateful or not be a dismaying frightful thing And whereas a right Scheme of Gospel-Doctrine is the thing pretended to be striven for I beseech you consider The more entirely and the more deeply the true Scheme of Gospel-Doctrine is inlaid in a man's Soul the more certainly it must form it into all Meekness Humility Gentleness Love Kindness and Benignity towards Fellow-Christian of whatsoever Denomination not confined not limited as that of the Pharisees unto their own Party but diffusing and spreading it self to all that bear the Charaster and Cognisance of Christ. The Spirit of our Lord Jesus Christ is a Spirit of greater amplitude extends and diffuses it self through the whole Body of Christ. Nor can any Man more effectually disgrace his own Cause or make sure to worst himself in it than by defending it wrathfully For admit that he erre whom I oppose a thousand to one but that my Wrath is worse than his Error probably thousand times worse I go about therefore to take away a Moat from his Eye having a Beam in my own or am more concerned for a misplaced Hair upon his Head than I am for a Fiery Vlcer in my own Breast We are not 't is true to be so Stoical to condemn the Natural Passion of Anger as such for sinful But if it exceeds it's Cause and sets not with the Sun it becomes strange unhallowed Fire But again in the 10th place There is still a further appearance of great Carnality in such cases when any do adventure to judge of the Consciences and States of them whom they oppose or from whom they differ When they ascend the Tribunal usurp the Throne pass Sentence upon them as Men of no Conscience or of no Sincerity or Vprightness of Heart with God As if theirs were to be the Vniversal Conscience the measure of all Consciences and he that cannot be govern'd by their Conscience must have none at all Or he be stark blind towards Truth towards God and towards himself that sees not every thing they see or fancy