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A60684
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A reply to the Observator together with a sermon preached on the 24th of August last past, on Gal. 6. 2. at St. Giles in the Fields : most unjustly reflected upon by him / by William Smythies ...
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Smythies, William, d. 1715.
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1684
(1684)
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Wing S4370; ESTC R19686
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22,281
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48
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Conventicles however he may have been represented by some whose Loyalty and Conformity to the Laws of God the King and the Church lye far more in their Talk than Practice And now Sir not to pay you in your own Coin I mean in returning reviling for reviling give me leave sedately to ask you a few Questions 1. If Mens calmly treating Protestant Dissenters speaks them Trimmers what doth your wonderful mildness and gentleness towards Popish Dissenters speak your self to be Or rather what does the mighty Kindness you are ever expressing towards them speak you to be whilst in the mean time you profess your self a Son of the Church of England Why should not your so vigorous pleading the Cause of the Papists make You as justly liable to the charge of Trimming And to speak to but one instance of your kindness to them If I had been at a quarter of that pains for the lessening of the Phanatique Plot See Observ Aug. 30. that you have taken to sham and redicule the Popish One I would not complain that you abus'd me in calling me Trimmer or by a worse Name if there be any worse May I not speak to you in your own Dialect and in most of your own Words to me as followeth Why this is right Trimming c. You do as good as say Look ye Gentlemen We are Christians and it is Our Duty to Help one Another and to bear one Anothers Burdens If the King gets the Better on 't Let Me alone to do Your Bus'ness And in case of a Turn to the Church of Rome You shall do as much for Me. What 's All This I say but a Tacit Composition with a Publique Enemy where a Man delivers-up his Honour and Conscience for the Saving of his Skin and Int'rest And the Devil Himself with his Cloven-Foot Attests the Contract Why This Man would have been Safe in the Arms of Sir Edmond Bury-Godfrey had the Papists kill'd him when three days after his Death he thrust himself through with his own Sword 2. I demand of you Whether you did more foolishly or spitefully in asking Whether by the Prince of this World I meant the King of Great Britain or the Prince of the Air Pray who ever call'd the King of Great Britain the Prince of this World 3. I ask you Whether you do like a Son of the Church of England or on the contrary vilely disparage her Cause in supposing as you often do that Men who have once imbibed Phanatique Principles can never become sincere Conformists Is not this to suggest that the Arguments to Conformity to our Church are of but little or no force or that the Clergy are too weak to justify it 4. I ask again Whether he that undertakes to pass publick Censures at the rate that You do upon the Divines of our Church and their Pulpit-Discourses assumes not to himself the Office of a Bishop And whether in so doing you do not plainly charge their Diocesans with not keeping a vigilant Eye upon the behaviour of their Clergy And whether it would not have become you much better to inform their Lordships of those Offences you can make good proof of than thus to blacken them to the World and that for the most part upon no other Evidence than the Tales of Gossipping Busy-bodies or Malitious People not to add that of your own Invention 5. I demand See Observ Numb 120. Whether you did not cast an unmannerly Reflection upon his Majesty himself for making your Tony his Lord Chancellor when you reproached some Doctors of our Church for then dedicating Books to him 6. I ask Who that Trimmer was who being judicially interrogated about somebodie 's receiving the Sacrament and answered Yes and being asked How replied very Decently And being asked again was it Sitting or Standing or How replied again It was Sitting but very Decently If this strikes at me as some think it does it is either a Fiction of your own Brain or a base Calumny brought to you by one of your Factors 7. Since no good Man will think that Rebels or Disturbers of the Government can be lash'd by your Pen too severely were it not more advisable that for the future you should suffer those to live in quiet who are no less Loyal but far more peaceable than your self I will conclude with serious advice to you although 't is too probable that you will burlesque it as you did my Sermon That since you have been so exceedingly obnoxious by reason of certain foul Misdemeanours which you have been publiquely accused of and from some of which you have not yet vindicated your Reputation you would no longer blemish the Church by pretending to be her Advocate by which the Mouths of Phanatiques are opened against her And that since you have lived so long in Contention and gratifying a very exasperated Spirit you would now think it high time to betake your self to the great concern of another State that you may die in Peace and in the favour of Almighty God which is heartily prayed for by him who desires the Eternal Happiness of his worst Enemies and who is Cripplegate Aug. 30 1684. Your Well-wishing Friend and Servant W. S. Gal. 6. Ver. 2. Bear ye one anothers Burdens and so fulfil the Law of Christ THE great Design of the Apostle in this Epistle is to rectify the Errors and Mistakes which were amongst the Galatians and to allay those Unchristian heats which are the certain consequent of them There was such a contest amongst them about Christian Liberty that some were ready to take a Liberty which to be sure is most Unchristian A Liberty to bite and devour one another Chap. 5.15 That Christian Liberty which they contended about was a Liberty from observing any longer the positive Institutions of Moses i. e. Those Institutions which were no part of the Moral Law but only performed in obedience to Divine Authority The Galatians had been told by false Teachers that they must observe the one as well as the other The Apostle determines the Controversie by telling them plainly That if they did any longer observe those legal Institutions they should lose the Benefit of the Gospel-Dispensation I Paul say unto you If ye be Circumcised Christ shall profit you nothing But though the Apostle had done this yet it was no easy matter for him to perswade them to maintain Christian Love and Unity amongst them and therefore in this Chapter he prescribes some Rules which Christians ought to observe in order to it The first is in case of Offences v. 1. If a man be overtaken in a Fault ye that are Spiritual restore such an one in the Spirit of Meekness The second is more general in the words of my Text because it relates to all the grievances and unhappinesses that attend men in this Life Bear ye one anothers Burthens and so fullfil the Law of Christ The Galatians were greatly concern'd about fulfilling the Law of
those that do not feed the Hungry and Cloath the Naked shall go into everlasting Punishment Those that would not bear their Brothers burden in this World shall have one of their own to bear in the World to come II. They are more to blame who are so far from bearing one anothers burden that they are offended at them that do There are such Monsters in the World to whom it is a burden to see other men at ease Nothing is so sweet to them as to see others in bitterness Solomon saith Pro. 17.5 He that mocketh the Poor reproacheth his Maker and he that is glad at Calamities shall not be unpunished where note there are some men who mock at the Misery and are glad at the Calamities of other men They are not so ready to rejoyce with them that rejoyce as they are to rejoyce when they hear what cause others have to weep There were such in old time and will be to the end of the World When Nehemiah was to repair the Breaches and make up the Walls of Jerusalem There were two base men Sanballat and Tobiah who were not able to endure the good he did Neh. 4.10 It grieved them exceedly that there was come a man to seek the wellfare of the Children of Israel The man came not to do them any hurt at all but if he had it may be they would not have been more grieved than they were at the good which was done for others The Psalmist likewise gives us an account of such men of which we have too many in the World who cannot endure to do good themselves or that others should Psal 112. v. 9. He speaks of the Liberal Soul of a Good Man He hath dispersed he hath given to the Poor And at the next verse he tells us how wicked men are affected at it The Wicked shall sce it and be grieved he shall gnash with his Teeth and pine away It kills some men to see others kept alive and nothing angers them more than to see others solicitous for their welfare and Subsistence But III. And Lastly They are most of all to be reproved I wish I could do it sharply enough who are so far from bearing other Mens burdens that they are other Mens Burdens They live in the World as if they came into it for no other purpose but to send others grieved out of it Sometimes men are loaded with the Burden of Calumnies and Reproach to their vast prejudice One of the Blessings which Jobs Friends Promised to him ch 5. v. 21. was that he should be hid from the Scourge of the Tongue which is indeed a fearful Scourge There are a great many in the World who if they can but Slander the Innocent and obtain Concealment it doth exceedingly please that of the Devil which doth mightily prevail in them They have sent their Brother a burden to make his Heart ake and he must not know from whence it comes We know that slanderers have a great advantage in that their reports run like wild-fire There are two Scriptures which if joyned together give an account of it Their Tongues are set on fire of Hell * There are likewise some men whose Pens are set on fire of Hell and they go through the Earth There are others who seek to ruine their Neighbours by contests at Law forcing them thereby to spend their Substance The Childrens bread is taken away and a bone of Contention sent in the room of it only to gratify implacable malice These Cases are very hard but it is not hard to give a Reason of such Actions We must know that there is another Law besides the Law of Christ There is a Prince of this World as well as a Prince of Peace The Scripture tells us that the Devil hath Children as well as God 1 Jo. 3.10 And as Gods Children are like their Father in being Merciful and Kind so the Devils Children are like their Father in being Malitious and Cruel But what will become of these Men The Mans condition who is ruin'd by another is very sad But how dismal is his case who hath ruin'd him Methinks I hear God say to him as he did to Cain What hast thou done the voice of thy Brother and of his whole Family crieth unto me Thou shouldest have been his Comforter and thou hast been his Tormentor Thou should'st have supported him and thou hast ruin'd him Thou should'st have born his burden and thou hast Broke his Back I may say to this Man as 't is said in Job What wilt thou do when God riseth up and when he visiteth what wilt thou answer him I might if time had permitted have proceeded to Exhort and perswade to the practice of this Christian duty to have urg'd many Motives Arguments for it I will mention but one it is for Svms sake and for Jerusalems that I cannot be silent concerning it †I have very exactly copied this Paragraph as I hope the Auditors will be ready to attest which I verily think contains all that provoked the furious man Let us bear the burdens of those that have Dissented from us but are returned to our Congregations I do not mean that we should do any thing to prostitute the Churches cause nor that we should debauch our Consciences by giving the least encouragement to pernitious Errors but that we should pity their Infirmities and endcavour to rectify their Mistakes that they may no more provoke Authority disparage Christianity and occasion thousands to be Prophane and Atheistical whilest an exact compliance with the Churches Orders and an encouragement of the due execution of Her Censures is certainly the fittest way to restrain that ungodliness which hath abounded as our divisions have abounded If when Authority drives by a due execution of Laws we shall draw and encourage by expressions of Brotherly Love and Kindness we shall convince those that have dissented from us that we are not of such Spirits as they suspected nor so unfit for Christian Communion but will acknowledge as some have done that they were greatly mistaken both concerning the Ministers and People of our Church I thought fit to conclude with this not only because it is seasonable at this time when men of Good Principles have done hurt to the Church by an intemperate Zeal but because it was the very occasion of the words The heat that was about Christian liberty had almost consumed Christian Love and therefore the Apostle for the reviving of it and that there might be no disturbance in the Church of Galatia doth here require that the People should Bear one anothers Burdens FINIS