THE Vnjust Mans DOOM AS EXAMINED By the several KINDS of Christian Justice AND THEIR OBLIGATION WITH A Particular Representation OF THE INJUSTICE DANGER OF Partial Conformity By William Smyth D. D. LONDON Printed by W. Godbid for Walter Kettilby at the Bishops Head in Duck-Lane 1670. A PREFACE TO THE READER I Would willingly meet so much Charity and Ingenuity from thee to be believed while I profess that I propound to my self these two Designs in Publishing these Papers First That by the former part of my Discourse I might contribute something towards the restoring the lost Principles and Practices of Christian Righteousness free the Notion of it from such Prejudices and Misprisions which some mens Doctrines and manner of Preaching the Gospel have brought upon it And that the Scandalous Distinction which the world have had too just a temptation to make by the observation of some Professors Actions between Godliness and Civil Honesty Piety and Obedience might for ever be removed and forgotten and that all persons designing to be Religious and that do not fully understand their indispensable obligation to the performance of every part of that Justice in order to their Salvation might be delivered from the Ignorance of so considerable a part of Christianity and their Duty to God For it is too notorious that many earnest Pretenders to Religion by being so especially and continually called upon by their Teachers to be righteous by the Person and not the Religion of Christ by the effects of his Merits and not as necessarily by obedience to his Precepts even while they presumed to engross the Vulgars belief of being the only men that are Godly and honest have in contradiction to the very design of Christianity to the shame of it been grosly Vnrighteous before God and man by being so to their Superiors both civil and Ecclesiastick as to Distributive Justice nor so careful to free themselves from the imputation of being unjust in their dealings transactions as to Commutative And though I have cast my Discourse of Christian Justice into the Mould of a Sermon occasionally preach'd to represent the Danger of Vnjust persons yet if any man being convinced of the necessity of doing Righteousness that he may be Righteous 1 John 2. 7. shall resolve to engage himself in that excellent part of his Obedience to God I hope I have so carefully drawn the several Lines of Evangelical Justice that he may be sufficiently instructed in that part of Christianity which may be accounted the Vniversal Religion of the World that is as extensive as Gods Love to Mankind or Christ's Death for it and by which men of every Nation even among them that are invincibly ignâ—â—â—â—â— of Christianity and so not criminally Vnbelievers if Charity may be allowed to speak her Sense may be accepted for Christ's sake that is such as fear God and do righteousness or Justice for they are of the same signification Acts 10. 35. according to the light God hath given them of their Obligation to it The next Design in the latter Part of my Discourse is to represent the Danger and Injustice of Partial and Shuffling Conformity and to measure the Dimensions of those many wrongs that have been done to the Church of England by it in all her concerns and that in order to the finding out the best Expedients how to redress them And this I have done without the least uncharitable reflection upon any Man or Parties of men unless to reprove their miscarriages which do so neerly intrench upon the very Design of Christianity and the Churches Peace may be so interpreted And I find upon the most serious examination of the Affairs of the Church since the Reformation and the most unpassionate observation of things which have been seen done in our time to which a great part of this present Age can give testimony That Ministers Puritanizing in their Congregations in compliance with some Forreign Churches of different Models Perswasions and Practices against all their Obligations to do the contrary with consideration had to our many sins for which God hath laid those heavy Punishments upon us to be the Original cause of the great Evils that befel the Church of England in the days of her Late calamity of the many present Discomforts that are now upon it and the threatning dangers that are before it For these men so managed their business in their Churches that the common People many of which had honest minds and upright designs of being good are insensibly betrayed into such a dislike of the Government Service and universal Constitutions of the Church that they were prepared upon the least check of Authority to require Conformity from them to make it the Cause of God and an eminent Act of Zeal for him to deny all Obedience to it if not to endeavour the universal overthrow of all its Peace and Order So that I am not so uncharitable as to think that all the People that were Enemies to the Church of England hated it because it was good and innocent but because through these mens either design'd project of keeping them in Ignorance or through their own Inability to instruct them better they understood it not and being once prejudic'd with an ill Opinion and presumed not to be Masters of so much Reason as to be able to extricate themselves from their Mistakes and not likely to entertain an instruction from them whom they were taught to suspect and oppose it s no wonder if they became such zealous implacable Enemies to a Church of the most Catholick and Primitive Constitution in the World Now the grand Argument which they put into the Peoples Heads to perpetuate their enmity against the Church of England is That the present Constitution is a Disposition to Popery and that the encrease of it is to be imputed thereunto when themselves are only guilty of it For though the Designs of the Factious the Romanists are as distant as the two Poles yet in this they Centre that they aid one another in the boldness of their Separations and allow a plausible temptation to such who consult nothing but the Interest of an unsecure and palliated Peace or rather to prevent some little trouble of preserving the Church in its Integrity to endeavour an universal Toleration of all Perswasions to the established Churches infallible fall and ruine But concerning this and all other wrongs done by them to the Church the Reader is refer-red to the Discourse it self Now if by Gods blessing I may in any measure attain both my Designs If by the first I may fully instruct Souls to live 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Justly one part of Evangelical Obedience in St. Paul's Division Tit. 2. 12. And if by the second I can contribute any thing towards the cure of the Church of England's present Distempers I shall not much consult what Entertainment they shall have among such as are resolv'd enemies to both and perhaps
by ingaging him in intemperate courses or deprive him of the second by any act of private hostility as Duelling or the like or defraud him of the third by uncivil usage or vexatibus Suits and Controversies so far as in any of them or in any other way a man is disadvantaged in the comfort of his Life or means of Livelihood there is a wrong done he that hath done it is an unjust an unrighteous person and as such stands upon the necessity of restitution or in the danger of his exclusion from the blessed Inheritance Thus having gone over the Breaches that are made upon the several Branches both of Distributive and Commutative Justice there remains two more to be considered apart because they have a mixture of both Of the first of these I would give a is the Devil 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 v. 3. The Devil hath filled their hearts with the Design 5. Gods certain vengeance upon that wrong by the fatal fall both of the one and of the other I shall not controversially apply this evidence but must for shortness sake leave it to your serious reflections for the ends I mentioned it Now that portion which hath been set apart for God and the maintenance of 16000 Servants of his Worship among us are either Lands or Tithes As for the wrongs done to the first they are commonly acted per Sorices Palatii as Bish. Andrews calls them by the unhappy men about the Courts of Princes who as they thirst after them so would not stick to suck the milk of Orphans drink the tears of Widows as well as devour the Demeans of Gods Servants because as defenceless as either as Sacrifices to their pride and luxury But it is alledged by the Favourites of this Design that the supreme Judicature may when they please take them away I answer they may impunè without controul and their Authority ought not must not be resisted but whether justè righteously or whether every one that hath a vote in their alienation doth not thereby rob God and man and may justly fear Gods vengeance for doing so I leave it to the former Evidence to determine As for the wrongs done to the Church in point of Tithes Decimam meam as St. Austin supposeth God to speak there depraedations happen upon lower contrivements as when either the powerful mans heavy hand first presseth out the Vintage for himself and then leaves some few drops enough rather to upbraid I intended should reflect upon the occasion of this Assembly where the proper business is judicially to administer right to them that cannot otherwise obtain it Let every one then that hath to do this day with the tender Rights of men whether they be the Ministers of the Law of every sort Witnesses or Juries have a care what they do their Souls are at stake the Oath of God is upon them the Curse of God over them the Cries of the oppressed about them the Evidence of my Text and the Law of Christ against them if therefore any unjust Cause goes away triumphant if any mans right be impeached through any defect in the discharge of their trust they are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unrighteous persons and wheresoever it lies must either make a timely satisfaction or one day appear at the great Assizes of the world to receive for the wrong that he hath done in this and where there shall be no respect of persons Col. 3. ult Thus I have finished the whole Scheme of Christian Justice to the universal performance of which the Gospel doth so strictly oblige us And now who would think it possible that a Christian Nation possessed with so many advantages of Religion should in contradiction to the clearest Evidence of Gods Will so generally degenerate from the practice of it in every part and that not among them only that have thrown off all Concern for Religion that were no wonder but amidst the very Professors of it even among them that pretend to a greater Zeal than others in appearance for it I cannot but think that there hath been some psal 73. 6. they were exhorted to the getting the Robe of Christ's Righteousness about and imputed to them and all was well By these and the like unhappy Modes of teaching the Gospel men have been driven from their Reason and Religion and set their Consciences loose to all unrighteousness And hence it is that they are grown every where so cross and intractable to all Authority Laws and Order and the State is full of Rebels the Church of Schismaticks our Houses of undutiful Children and untrusty Servants and men are made universally false and unfaithful one to another But let them pretend what Religion they will they shall not so escape all unjust persons such as I have described are upon the Rock the severe Sentence of my Text They shall not inherit the Kingdom of God PART II. So at last I am arriv'd at the Second Part of my Text The Unjust mans Doom or Punishment They shall not inherit c. In which are two things to be observed I. The Nature of the Punishment it is a disinherison â— The Quality of the State The Kingdom of God In the first here 's a case in Law a Title supposed and a Disinherison expressed A Title these unjust persons had and heirs at Law they were and so were all that are or shall be deprived of that eternal Blessing or they could in no sence be said to be disinherited 'T is true that Adam once forfeited the Estate but it was purchased again or redeemed by Christ not with Silver and Gold but with the dear price of his precious blood 1 Pet. 1. 18. And that Redemption was made as large as the Forfeiture as St. Paul discourseth Rom. 5. 18. So that the Reason why any man is now disinherited must be upon another account not because Adam sinned or that the Covenant of Grace was renewed with any number less than all men 1 Tim. 2. 4. or that Christ died for fewer than 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for every man Heb. 2. 9. but because that universal Covenant and Redemption was made conditional and required terms to be performed on our part which whosoever should refuse to keep should forfeit his Title to that new purchased Inheritance Now the Conditions of this new Covenant made in Christ are Faith and Obedience To which Repentance is to be added as Tabula post Nausragium of which more anon The sum then is That the unjust man as such in all the particular cases I have mentioned shall not inherit the Kingdom of God because he failed in both the Condiâ—ions 1. Every unjust person hath failed in the first he is not a true Believer in the sense of the Gospel For the clearing of which we are to consider that Evangelical Faith when mans Salvation or Justification is wholly attributed to it as when 't is said that He that believeth shall be saved John 3. 16. and
are baffled and despised the Government suspected and defamed the Priesthood in general reproach'd as false and careless and the whole profession of our establisht Religion is made a scorn at present and ready to be made a prey in future to our enemies on every side My Brethren let us have a care therefore in time we do not too much and too long for the narrow Concerns of our present quiet or profit or to conciliate vulgar Love or Fame not only wickedly and unjustly but weakly and imprudently comply with the humors of any party whatsoever in the neglects of our Duties or partial performance of our Offices For it is certain that no man can do it upon what pious Motives soever he pretends to be induced to it as favouring infirmities or tender Consciences and the like but besides his real offence against the Laws of Christ strictly obliging Obedience to his Superiors just Commands he doth thereby promote and cherish a Faction in his own bosom which being once warm'd into a sufficient strength shall upon the next advantageous opportunity not only destroy the Church in its Legal Constitution but in the same pitch and posture of abasement to which the condescension was made And of this let our late experience be an impartial Judge For when some Bishops and other eminent persons of the Church who out of a pious tenderness to some mens dissatisfactions and designing the upholding their own and the Churches Respect Credit among them for which they were distinguished from their Brethren by the name of Puritans did either not urge or not practise strict Conformity found at length their own grand mistake in the frustration of all those ends which they propounded to themselves as the reasons of their compliance For neither themselves nor the Church for their sakes found any mercy at all from them in the days of their Power and Fury when nothing less would satisfie them than the confusion of both Little did those Reverend Persons think when they strain'd their Candor to that Party beyond the bounds of their due Obedience to Law that such a petty shew of tender Piety and Consciences so demurely nice that could not digest so much as a Ring on the Brides Finger the Infants wearing the shadow of a Cross three minutes at its Baptism upon its Forehead or but the colour of the Priest's Vestment for they pretended then but such little offences should cover such black Designs of the most unwarrantable practices that ever were acted in the world It behoveth us therefore to suspect when we meet with Conscience-scruplings about such or the like indifferent Rites and Circumstances that there lodgeth underneath an unsatisfiable dislike and dissatisfaction to the whole establishment so that if our Ingenuity should be tempted to debauch our Obedience by a partial conformity to indulge them in those lesser things it were prudence to believe that we should be so far from giving them full satisfaction that it would but the more advance and strengthen an unruly appetite which nothing could determine but the destruction of all Of this their unsatiable humour our late experience can convincingly inform us when their first modest desires of a Moderated Episcopacy ended in nothing less than its extirpation and of regulating some offensive parts of the Liturgy in its utter abolition And when as among many of them after the Cross followed Baptism it self after removing the Rails and Genuflexion went away the Sacrament And when they had been at first a little gratified with the taking away the Habits they were never quiet till they had renounced the very Order Calling of Priesthood it self Such effects and no better than these we must expect from the greatest condescention that can be made to men of this temper and complection In stead therefore of any sinful â—â—â—pliance with any Faction whatâ—â—â—ver by remitting our Duties 〈◊〉 please them as Friends which 〈◊〉 will be no longer than they â—â—â—â—ot be otherwise let us gird our selves in all our spiritual Armature against them as the Churches ours and their own destructive Enemies that is let us fast and pray and weep against their Ignorance and Perverseness in private Let us preach down their Follies in publik But especially let us guard the establish'd Church against their designs of unsetling the peoples â—â—herence to it with an intire conâ—â—mity to its legal Constitutions 〈◊〉 every Circumstance and then let us conquer their prejudice with â—â—nocency of Life and simplicity of â—anners till by these holy Methods and Gods blessing we have â—â—tained or at least endeavoured to administer the most reasonable means to obtain their recovery 〈◊〉 Sense and Obedience And though if after all this we cannot prevail yet it will be 〈◊〉 honourable and safe before Gâ—â— and Man for us who are the Physitians of Souls that they may be said to perish under than without the application of the most sufficient remedy And if truth must 〈◊〉 to the ground yet let it not 〈◊〉 without a competent witness giâ—â—â— to it whatsoever we suffer for it But by no means let nor futurity lay it to our charge that we have help'd to betray the best constituted Church in the world to ruine by neglecting our Duty to huâ—â—â— and indulge a perverse generation of men whom no kindness could reconcile no remissions or condescentions satisfie For he that thinks that the lessening or laying aside his Conforâ—â—ty or the concealing some necessary Truths because distastful 〈◊〉 their vitiated Palates or the â—â—pping on to some degrees of comâ—â—ance with their popular Modes 〈◊〉 Praying and Preaching will seâ—â—re the Church from the danger 〈◊〉 those Factions shall find his â—â—pedient as unsuccesseful as that â—â—ysitian's who leaving the Cause 〈◊〉 the Distemper behind thinks 〈◊〉 obtain health for his Patient by â—â—ring the Symptom for the Disâ—â—se or as absurd as his expectation who would hope for a regular â—â—â—fect from the most equivocal â—â—ause For it is observed and we are ready to make the Observation good by several Instances that 〈◊〉 Congregations have contributed greater numbers to the Herds of the different Factions than those that have been under the conduct of such who would have the pieced and partial Conformity and popular Compliances escaâ—â— under the specious yet mistaâ—â—â— Title of Moderation I must confess amongst the Enemies of the Church of England think that sort of amphibious Clergy not the least nor less dangerous than any who forfeit the Fidelity to their solemn Subscriptions and Declarations and treacherously decline the work they have assumed and act their Offices in the Church in such a manner that the People may believe that there is something that is very evil in them and that they repented themselves of what they had undertaken These are they that set up Altar against Altar in the same Church that join the Liturgy and Directory together at the same Assembly but as much as possible to the Disadvantage of the former
which they shuffle over with such an undecent and undevout Mode of Delivery and then manage their Voluntier Effusions in Prayer and their Hints and Corollaries in Preaching with such Zeal and Fervor as if they design'd to tell the People that they never were in earnest till then or that those Offices in the Pulpit might be interpreted to serve no better end than to undermine the credit of what they had done or undone in the Desk Such unconformable Conformists as these began the Church of Englands danger at first Reformation and the miserable Series of almost all its Troubles since hath been propagated by them and if a â—imely care in Governors and the Resurrection of a good Conscience in themselves do not prevent it they will yet contribute as much if not more as any enemy we have to make the present Distempers in the Church to become an uncurable Disease an unsuperable Evil. These mens Congregations are the Fountains from whence the crooked Rivers and Rivulets the Mother and Daughters of Factions have deriv'd their streams to that swelling greatness as they now run among us and almost over us They were the Seraglio's where the late Warriors against the King and the Church were trained up and disciplin'd And what the Seminaries beyond Seas are to the propagation of Popery these are the same to the keeping up of all Factions among us So that all attempts for the recovery of the Churches Peace and Unity by suppressing Conventicles in which are many serious though abused Souls who would the rather be â—itied so far as can possibly conist with the Churches safety because they received their first prejudice by them whom we have too much or too little reason to call our selves will be found uneffectual for that end so long as the Nurseries of Faction within the Church are permitted to perpetuate a Succession of such who upon the least check or discontent have prepared Principles and Affections to depart from us and to supply their places And this will easily be believed when it is considered that the difference between some Ministers practices in Churches and those of unlawful Meetings is so small that oft-times the separation may be rather accounted a Change of Places than Professions But that these Clergy-men may be more regularly convinced of their sin and folly and find Arguments both from Conscience and Prudence to change their destructive practices of popular compliances into a Design of preserving the Church of England's general safety by a faithful conformity to its Institutions I shall here offer to their considerations besides those which I have already intimated in general a particular Series of Evils certainly consequent to their Disorders 1. From these mens Miscarriages and the teaching their People to adhere to them where they are it comes to pass that the Enemies of the Church have contrived an Argument by crying up the numbers of Dissenters which by their means are more numerous in Churches than without as great and formidable to tempt and terrifie the Civil Power from protecting the Church under its present danger and oppression Whereas as I believe the allegation to be false especially if a lesser number of men in power and of learning and honour may be allowed to compensate a greater of the mean and ignorant so if this one Expedient were tryed that all Clergy men might be compelled to serve God in publick in one uniform submission to Law without any liberty to extravagate from that Rule and so no more Beacons on fire in any neighbouring Churches to alarm the Vulgar to run up and down to gratifie their natural love of Opposition and Novelty and a diligent care taken that no Factions without the Church might be headed by men of Orders or Parts though the common people were less prosecuted with afflictive penalties I am perswaded in a few years the numbers of Dissenters would be so far from being formidable that they would not be considerable for any thing but our pity and Charity And I have this ground to assure me of the possible successefulness of this Expedient because it is certain that where the strictest Conformity hath a long time been constantly used there are fewest that do trouble themselves or their Governors about the Design of Relaxation from it and that there are none that hate conformity so much as they who live in places where it is discountenanced and neglected And this appears by the disloyal and undutiful temper of those that dwell in Cities and greater Towns where because there was no provision in Law for them that would obey it the people were resolved to bestow their Contributions on none but such by whom they might be instructed and indulged in an assured opposition to the Church To which one cause most of our former and present miseries refer 〈◊〉 effects as when from those places were elected Burgesses of Parliament of the same Principles to create troubles above whose heavy â—and our late Gracious Princes of Happy Memory felt sufficiently even to the loss of the life of one of the best Kings that ever was and 〈◊〉 when the People of the Neighbour-Villages flockt to their Market Lectures and were there trained up in dislike and enmity to the establish'd Church and prepared to contemn their own Shepherds at home unless they became such as themselves which very oft they did when younger Divines who for want of Parts or Government had little encouragement to continue in the Universities made it a piece of their Education to go thither to scribble Notes for their own Pulpits and to learn the Tones Gestures and Phrases which might give their own People contentment at home Whereas if our present Parliament as it was the Design of many had upon the Kings Restauration found out a way to have setled a competent legal maintenance and men of the greatest Integrity and Learning whose abilities are commonly either lodg'd up in Colledges and Cathedrals or obscur'd in little Villages planted in those greater places and where they are popularly elective if they had been brought under the Patronage of the Crown whose safety is especially concern'd in it and a way found out to embetter Trade in the stead of Factious Lectures there could not have been a Stone laid which would have added more to the defence and security of the Church and Throne But to recover my self from this Digression I am confident that this Expedient that I have mentioned whatsoever is pretended to the contrary by them that have a design to ruine us will give far less trouble to the Civil Power to preserve the Church than a Toleration of all Religions by the making and maintaining so many Rules to limit it and so many Provisions to prevent the dangers that will ensue upon it half of which cannot be be foreseen will cost to destroy it Besides the Dishonour of discountenancing that Party which are the only assured Friends to undoubted Loyalty all other Parties lying under
and confused difficulties made so through these mens disorders the Ecclesiastick Jurisdiction hath to deal with to preserve the Church in any degree from a present sinking into a total ruine and as things stand how impossible it is were its power executed to the greatest perfection to attain its end of universal Peace and Order But if all Ministers of Congregations were compelled to do their Duties exactly according to Law and not one permitted to perform any thing in the publick Worship of God by his own choice or fancy whereby one Church should be distinguish'd from another and so none be presum'd to come to Church nor meddle with any Offices or Business about it but such as come thither there being no temptation from any thing else in a willing submission to conformity which 't is supposed none would do but such as would also be worthy and civil to the Government of the Church And that all professed Dissenters were look'd upon as excommunicate persons all which are really so either by the Sentence of the Church or by their own wilful Separation and so no further to belong to the Churches Jurisdiction while they resolve obstinately to continue so than an Heathen or an Alien And that then the secular power would look upon them as only their proper Province to regulate them by such Laws as they are or shall be impowered withal made on the most Charitative Design to restore them to the Church its Discipline would do its own work with honour and all that live under its excellent conduct enjoy it with comfort and safety to their Souls Whereas while so many Churches remain in their irregular and mixt conformities and for that cause as dangerous enemies as any the Church of England is oppressed with continue a kind of Communion with it in her publick places no wonder when such persons are either made Officers or any otherwise dealt withal by the Churches Jurisdiction that they appear either to affront it or to render it as trifling and ridiculous as they can and when the Secular Power by due execution of Laws shall bring any man to some publick Churches it 's a question whether he be restored to the Church of England or only removed from a lesser Conventicle to a greater and so the Law be made use of rather to confirm the Dissenters in their opposition than to restore them to the peace and order of the Church 3. By these mens humouring the poor people with their Directorian Conformity it is that the True Sons of the Church who in Conscience of their duty to God shall entirely conform themselves to the Laws established are made the scorn and hate of the people who are taught to reproach them for want of an accusation that hath truth or sense in it by the names of Popish Superstitious whereas their own Teachers might with less Injustice and upon a nearer agreement than we have with either the Pope or the Worship of Daemons as I can shew them if they desire it be called Jews or Turks did not a good Cause solemnly abhor such Unchristian Defences though a bad one and it is a convincing sign it is so hath no other to protect it And then upon the temptation of those reproachful Names that signifie and prove no determinate thing had they said Conformity had been against any Law of Christ and shewn us a Precept general or particular to prove it so they had done like men and Christians the people think themselves acquitted towards God if they persecute their conformable Pastors with all imaginable acts of Cruelty to make their lives bitter and vexatious to them To which evils they add this also with him in the Psalm imagining God to be such an one as themselves that if any sad Accident in common contingencies shall befall them it shall be recorded as a Prodigy from heaven to argue Gods disowning them And whatsoever Faults be they true or false their watchful eye of envy can find in their lives they shall with all possible disadvantage to their Reputation be rumour'd abroad as Scandals to their Profession and as Arguments against the Church Not considering that the Juggling of their own admir'd Guides with Christian Obedience in some things and their gross Disobedience to Authority in others to the universal wrong both of their Civil and Ecclesiastick Superiors are sins so much more scandalous against the Gospel than any their Malice pretends to lay to the Conformists Charge if the miscarriage of some were allowed to be a just Accusation of all as the Hypocrisie of a Pharisee is worse than the open Offences of a Publican and as a sin that passeth under a pretence of Godliness is much more dangerous than those sins whose shame is written on the Offenders Foreheads and for which there is no approbation or allowance from those of their own perswasion and so oft as their Spiritual Governors can have it signified to them for which some have been obliged to submit to the Penances of publick Recantations as hath been done in this particular Diocess But a wise man may easily discover though the People cannot the difference between the Solid Piety and Innocency of a true Son of the Church by which as he hath no design so to which he hath no temptation but to please and honour God and is not much concern'd if any but his All-seeing Eye shall know it and the Sheeps-cloathing of Wolves the Angelical Light which the Devil puts on when he turns Fanatick and the Form of Godliness of a Deceiver that is so much outward Sanctimony and framed Piety as will by a subtle observation of the Peoples humour gain an acceptance and reputation from them of being Godly without any regard to the common Peace of the Church And if any of them shall chance to fall into any apparent acts of sin which they dislike and of which they so bitterly accuse others and the Church for them so long as they comply with them in their disobedient humour to the Church all the condemnation they shall have shall amount to no more than It 〈◊〉 pity for the man and God in his 〈◊〉 time will shew him his Errour and call him home but he shall not lose the opinion of an honest man But wo to the poor Conformist if he falls into the same 4. From the example of these mens Disorders it comes to pass that the ignorant and easie Dissenters are encreased confirmed and hardned in their Separations beyond all possible recal when they understand that what they depart from in the whole is but that which those men who by mistake enough and by incompetent Judges are accounted the only Godly Ministers do in their Churches reject in portions And when as to that little they observe the matter is so ordered that they may be believed to do it but in their own defence unwillingly and by constraint and as resolved to continue the doing it no longer than