most Certain and Necessary things and be more seldom and sparing upon the rest If we can but teach Christ to our people we teach them all Get them well to heaven and they will have knowledge enough The great and commonly acknowledged Truths are they that men must live upon and which are the great instruments of raising the heart to God and destroying mens sins And therefore we must still have our peoples necessities in our eyes It will take us off gawdes and needless Ornaments and unprofitable Controversies to remember that One thing is Necessary Other things are desirable to be known but these must be known or else our people are undone for ever I confess I think Necessity should be a great disposer of a Ministers course of study and labours If we were sufficient for every thing we might fall upon every thing and take in order the whole Encuclopaedia But life is short and we are dull and eternal things are necessary and the souls that depend on our teaching are precious I confess Necessity hath been the Conductor of my studies and life It chooseth what book I shall read and tells when and how long it chooseth my Text and makes my Sermon for matter and manner so far as I can keep out my own corruption Though I know the constant expectation of death hath been a great cause of this yet I know no reason why the most healthful man should not make sure of the Necessaries first considering the uncertainty and shortness of all mens lives Xenophon thought there was no better Teacher then Necessity which teacheth all things most diligently Curtius saith Efficacior est omni arte Necessitas Who can in study preaching or life aliud agere be doing other matters if he do but know that This must be done Who can trifle or delay that feeleth the spurs of hasty Necessity As the souldier saith Non diu disputandum sed celeriter fortiter dimicandum ubi urget Necessitas So much more must we as our business is more important And doubtless this is the best way to redeem time and see that we lose not an hour when we spend it only on Necessary things And I think it is the way to be most profitable to others though not alwaies to be most pleasing and applauded because through mens frailty its true that Seneca complains of that Nova potius miramur quam magna Hence it is that a Preacher must be oft upon the same things because the matters of Necessity are few We must not either feign Necessaries or fall much upon unnecessaries to satisfie them that look after Novelties Though we must cloth the same necessaries with a grateful variety in the manner of our delivery The great volumns and tedious controversies that so much trouble us and waste our time are usually made up more of Opinion then necessary verities For as Marsil Ficinus saith Necessitas brevibus clauditur terminis opinto nullis And as Greg. Nazianz. and Seneca often say Necessaries are common and obvious it is superfluities that we waste our time for and labour for and complain that we attain them not Ministers therefore must be observant of the case of their Flocks that they may know what is most necessary for them both for matter and for manner And usually matter is first to be regarded as being of more concernment then the manner If you are to chose what Authors to read your selves will you not rather take those that tell you what you know not and speak the needful truth most evidently though it were with barbarous or unhandsom language then those that will most learnedly and elegantly and in grateful language tell you that which is false or vain and magno conatu nihil dicere I purpose to follow Austins counsel li. de catech praeponendo verbis sententiam ut animus praeponitur corpori ex quo fit ut ita mallem Veriores quam Discretiores invenire sermones sicut mallem prudentiores quam formosiores habere amicos And surely as I do in my studies for my own edification I should do in my teaching for other mens It is commonly empty ignorant men that want the matter and substance of true learning that are over curious and sollicitous about words and ornaments when the antient experienced most learned men abound in substantial verities usually delivered in the plainest dress As Aristotle makes it the reason why women are more addicted to pride in apparel then men because being conscious of little inward worth and ornament they seek to make it up with borrowed ornaments without So is it with empty worthless Preachers who affect to be esteemed that which they are not and have no other way to procure that esteem 5. All our teaching must be as Plain and Evident as we can make it For this doth most suite to a Teachers ends He that would be understood must speak to the capacity of his hearers and make it his business to make himself understood Truth loves the Light and is most beautiful when most naked It s a sign of an envious enemy to hide the truth and a sign of an Hypocrite to do this under pretence of revealing it and therefore painted obscure Sermons like the painted glass in the windows that keeps out the light are too oft the markes of painted Hypocrites If you would not Teach men what do you in the Pulpit If you would why do you not speak so as to be understood I know the height of the matter may make a man not understood when he hath studied to make it as plain as he can but that a man should purposely cloud the matter in strange words and hide his mind from the people whom he pretendeth to instruct is the way to make fools admire his profound learning and wise men his folly pride and hypocrisie And usually its a suspicious sign of some deceitful project and false Doctrine that needeth such a cloak and must walk thus masked in the open day light Thus did the followers of Basilides and Valentinus and others among the old Hereticks and thus do the Behmenists and other Paracelsians now who when they have spoken that few may understand them lest they expose their errours to the open view they pretend a necessity of it because of mens prejudice and the unpreparedness of common understandings for the truth But truth overcomes prejudice by meer light of Evidence and there is no better way to make a good cause prevail then to make it as plain and commonly and throughly known as we can and it is this Light that will dispose an unprepared mind And at best it s a sign that he hath not well digested the matter himself that is not able to deliver it plainly to another I mean as plain as the nature of the matter will bear in regard of capacities prepared for it by prerequisite truths For I know that some men cannot at present under stand some truths if you speak
Christ had not been in the case as now it is the Nations of Lutherans and Calvinsts abroad and the differing parties here at home would not have been plotting the subversion of one another nor remain at that distance and in that uncharitable bitterness nor strengthen the common enemy and hinder the building and prosperity of the Church as they have done CHAP. IV. SECT I. Use REverend and dear Brethren our business here this day is to humble our souls before the Lord for our former negligence especially of Catechizing and personal instructing those committed to our charge and to desire Gods assistance of us in our undertaken employment for the time to come Indeed we can scarce expect the later without the former If God will help us in our future duty and amendment he will sure humble us first for our former sin He that hath not so much sense of his faults as unfeignedly to lament them will hardly have so much more as may move him to reform them The sorrow of Repentance may go without the change of heart and life because a Passion may be easier wrought then a true conversion but the change cannot go without some good measure of the sorrow Indeed we may justly here begin our Confessions It is too common with us to expect that from our people which we do little or nothing in our selves What pains take we to humble them while our selves are unhumbled How hard do we squeeze them by all our expostulations convictions and aggravations to wring out of them a few penitent tears and all too little when our own eyes are dry and our hearts too strange to true remorse and we give them an example of hard-heartedness while we are endeavouring by our words to mollifie and melt them O if we did but study half as much to affect and amend our own hearts as we do our hearers it would not be with many of us as it is It s a great deal too little that we do for their humiliation but I fear its much less that some of us do for our own Too many do somewhat for other mens souls while they seem to forget that they have any of their own to regard They so carry the matter as if their part of the work lay in calling for Repentance and the hearers in Repenting their 's in speaking tears and sorrow and other-mens-only in weeping and sorrowing theirs in preaching duty and the hearers in performing it their 's in crying down sin and the peoples in forsakeing it But we find that the Guides of the Church in Scripture did confess their own sins as well as the sins of the people and did begin to them in tears for their own and the peoples sins Ezra confesseth the sins of the Priests as well as of the people weeping and casting himself down before the house of God Ezr. 9. 6 7 10. and 10. 1. So did the Levites Neh. 9. 32 33 34. Daniel confessed his own sin as well as the peoples Dan. 9. 20. And God calleth such to it as well as others Joel 2. 15 16 17. When the fast is summoned the people gathered the Congregation sanctified the Elders assembled the Priests the Ministers of the Lord are called to begin to them in weeping and calling upon God for mercy I think if we consider well of the Duties already opened and withal how we have done them of the Rule and of our unanswerableness thereto we need not demurr upon the question nor put it to a question Whether we have cause of humiliation I must needs say though I judge my self in saying it that he that readeth but this one Exhortation of Paul in Acts 20. and compareth his life with it is too stupid and hard-hearted if he do not melt in the sense of his neglects and be not laid in the dust before God and forced to bewail his great omissions and to flye for refuge to the blood of Christ and to his pardoning grace I am confident Brethren that none of you do in judgement approve of the Libertine Doctrine that cryeth down the necessity of Confession Contrition and true humiliation yea and in order to the pardon of sin Is it not pitty then that our Hearts are not more Orthodox as well as our heads But I see our lesson is but half learnt when we know it and can say it When the understanding hath learned it there is more ado to teach it our Wills and Affections our eyes our tongues and hands It is a sad thing that so many of us do use to preach our hearers asleep but it s sadder if we have studyed and preacht our selves asleep and have talkt so long against hardness of heart till our own grow hardned under the noise of our own reproofs Though the head only have eyes and ears and smell and taste the heart should have life and feeling and motion as well as the head And that you may see that it is not a causeless sorrow that God calleth us to I shall take it to be my duty to call to remembrance our mainfold sins or those that are most obvious and set them this day in order before God and our own faces that God may cast them behind his back and to deal plainly and faithfully in a free confession that he who is faithful and just may forgive them and to judge our selves that we be not judged of the Lord. Wherein I suppose I have your free and hearty consent and that you will be so far from being offended with the disgrace of your persons and of others in this office that you will readily subscribe the charge and be humble self-accusers and so far am I from justifying my self by the accusation of others that I do unfeignedly put my name with the first in the bill For how can a wretched sinner of so great transgressions presume to justifie himself with God Or how can he plead Guiltless whose conscience hath so much to say against him If I cast shame upon the Ministery it is not on the office but on our persons by opening that sin which is our shame The glory of our high imployment doth not communicate any glory to our sin nor will afford it the smallest covering for its nakedness For sin is a reproach to any people or persons Prov. 14. 34. And it is my self as well as others on whom I must lay the shame And if this may not be done What do we here to day Our business is to take shame to our selves and to give God the glory and faithfully to open our sins that he may cover them and to make our selves bare by confession as we have done by transgression that we may have the white rayment which cloatheth none but the penitent For be they Pastors or people it is only he that confesseth and forsaketh his sins that shall have mercy when he that hardeneth his heart shall fal into mischief Pro. 28. 13. And I think it will not be
have his Peace but not the worlds for he hath foretold us that they will hate us Might not Mr. Bradford or Hooper or any that were burnt in Queen Maries daies have alledged more then this against duty They might have said It will make us hated if we own the Reformation and it will expose our lives to the flames How is he concluded by Christ to be no Christian who hateth not all that he hath and his own life for him and yet we can take the hazard of our life as a reason against his work What is it but hypocrisie to shrink from sufferings and take up none but safe and easie works and make our selves believe that the rest are no duties Indeed this is the common way of escaping suffering to neglect the duty that would expose us thereunto If we did our duty faithfully Ministers should find the same lot among professed Christians as their predecessors have done among the Infidels But if you could not suffer for Christ why did you put your hand to his plough and did not first set down and count your costs This makes the Ministerial work so unfaithfully done because it is so carnally undertaken and men enter upon it as a life of ease and honour and respect from men and therefore resolve to attain their ends and have what they expected by right or wrong They looked not for hatred and suffering and they will avoid it though by the avoiding of their work 2. And as for the making your selves uncapable to do them good I answer That reason is as valid against plain preaching reproof or any other duty which wicked men will hate us for God will bless his own Ordinances to do good or else he would not have appointed them If you admonish and publikely rebuke the scandalous and call men to repentance and cast out the obstinate you may do good to many that you reprove and possibly to the excommunicate I am sure it is Gods means And it is his last means when Reproofs will do no good It is therefore perverse to neglect the last means lest we frustrate the foregoing means when as the last is not to be used but upon supposition that the former were all frustrate before However those within and those without may receive good by it if the offendor do receive none and God will have the honour when his Church is manifestly differenced from the world and the heirs of heaven and hell are not totally confounded nor the world made to think that Christ and Satan do but contend for superiority and that they have the like inclination to holiness or to sin 3. And I would know whether on the grounds of this objection before mentioned all Discipline should not be cast out of the Church atleast ordinarily And so is not this against the Thing it self rather then against the present season of it For this reason is not drawn from any thing proper to our times but common to all times and places Wicked men will alwaies storm against the means of their publike shame and the use of Church censures is purposely to shame them that sin may be shamed and disowned by the Church What age can you name since the daies of the Apostles wherein you would have executed the Discipline that you now refuse if you go on these grounds supposing that it had not been by Magisterial compulsion If therefore it be Discipline it self that hath such intolerable inconveniences why have you so prayed for it and perhaps fought for it and disputed for it as you have done What must all dissenters bear your frowns and censures and all for a work which your selves judge intolerable and dare not touch with one of your fingers When do you look to see all these difficulties over that you may set upon that which you now avoid Will it be in your daies Or will you wait till you are dead and leave it as a part of your Epitaph to posterity that you so deeply engaged and contended for that which you so abhord to the death that you would never be brought to the practice of it And doth not this Objection of yours plainly give up your cause to the Separatists and even tell them that your contending is not for your way of Discipline but that there may be none because it will do more harm then good Certainly if this be true it would have been better to speak it out at first before all our wars and tears and prayers and contentions then now in the conclusion to tell the world that we did all this but for a name or word and that the thing is so far from being worth our cost that it is not tolerable much less desirable 4. But yet let me tell you that there is not such a Lyon in the way as you do imagine nor is Discipline such a useless thing I bless God upon the small and too late tryal that I have made my self of it I can speak by experience it is not vain nor are the hazards of it such as may excuse our neglect But I know that pinching reason is behind They say that When we pleaded for Discipline we meant a Discipline that should be established and imposed by the secular power and without them what good can we do when every man hath leave to despise our censures and set us at nought and therefore we will not meddle with it say they without authority To which I answer 1. I thought it once a scornful indignity that some fellows attempted to put upon the Ministery that denyed them to be the Ministers of Christ and would have had them called the Ministers of the State and dealt with accordingly But it seems they did not much cross the judgements of some of the Ministery themselves who are ready to put the same scorn upon their own calling We are sent as Christs Embassadors to speak in his name and not in the Princes and by his Authority we do our work as from him we have our Commission And shall any of his Messengers question the Authority of his commands The same Power that you have to preach without or against the Magistrates command the same have you to exercise Pastoral Guidance and Discipline without it And should all Ministers refuse preaching if the Magistrate bid them not yea or if he forbid them 2. What mean you when you say you will not do it without Authority Do you mean the Leave or the Countenance and approbation or the Command upon your selves or do you mean a Force or Penalty on the People to obey you The Magistrates Leave we have who hindereth or forbiddeth you to set up Discipline and exercise it faithfully Doth the secular Power forbid you to do it or threaten or trouble you for not doing it No they do not To the shame of the far greatest part of the Ministers of England it must be spoken for we have so opened our own shame that it cannot be
reformation of the Church which our meetings should conduce to 3. And I give you this further answer What had the Church of Christ done till the daies of Constantine the great if it had no better Pastors then you that will not Govern it without the joynt compulsion of the Magistrate Discipline and severe Discipline was exercised for three hundred years together where the Prince did not give them so much as a Protection nor Toleration but perfecuted them to the death Then was the Church at the best and Discipline most pure and powerful say not then any more for shame that it is to no purpose without a Magistrate when it hath done so much against their wills O what an aggravation is it of our sin That you cannot be content to be negligent and unfaithful servants but you must also flie in the face of your Lord and Master and obliquely lay the blame on him What do you else when you blame Churchcenâ—ures as uneffectual when you should blame your lazy self seeking hearts that shift off the use of them Hath Christ put a leaden sword into your hands when he bids you smite the obstinate sinner Or are you cowardly and careless and then blame your sword instead of using it as thinking that the easier task Are the Keyes of Christs Kingdom so unmeet and useless that they will not open and shut without the help of the sword or are you unskillful and lazy in the use of them If they have contracted any rust by which they are made less fit for service next to the Prelates we may thank our selves that let them lie so long unused 4. And I must tell you that too much interposition of the sword with our Discipline would do more harm then good It would but corrupt it by the mixture and make it become a humane thing Your Government is all to work upon the conscience and the sword cannot reach that It is not a desirable thing to have Repentance so obscured by meer forced Confessions that you cannot know when men do mean as they speak and so it will be the sword that doth all by forcing men to dissemble and you will not discern the power of the Word and Ordinance of Christ I confess since I fell upon the exercise of some Discipline I find by experience that if the sword did interpose and force all those Publike Confessions of sin and Profession of Repentance which I have perswaded men to by the light of the word of God it would have left me much unsatisfied concerning the validity of such Confessions and Promises whether they might indeed be satisfactory to the Church And I find that the godly people do no further regard it then they perceive it hearty and free and if it were forced by Magistrates they would take him for no Penitent person nor be any whit satisfied but say He doth it because he dare do no otherwise And I must add this word of plainer dealing yet You blame the Magistrate for giving so much liberty and is it not long of your selves that he doth so You will scarce believe that such enemies to Liberty of Conscience are the causes of it I think that you are and that the keenest enemies have been the greatest causes For you would run too far to the other extream and are so confident in every controversie that you are in the right and lay such a stress upon many Opinions of your own as if life or death did lie upon them when perhaps the difference may prove more verbal then real if it were searcht to the quick that this occasioneth Magistrates to run too far the other way and if they look on such as and dare not trust the sword in such hands you may thank your selves Truly Brethren I see by experience that there is among many of the most injudicious of us such a blind confused zeal against all that is called error by their party that without being able to try and make a difference they let flie pell mell at all alike and make a great out-cry against errors when either we know not what they are nor how to confute them nor which he tolerable in the Church and which intolerable nor how far we may hold or break Communion with the owners of them and perhaps are the erroneous persons our selves The observation of this hath made the Magistrates so over-jealous of us that they think if they set in with a party in each contention we shall never be without blood and misery And I confess I see in some Ministers so little of the fire of Divine Love and Christian Charity and compassion nor heavenly mindedness nor humble sense of their own infirmities and so much of the zeal that Iames describeth Iam. 3. 14 15. which is kindled from another fire that makes them full of suspicions and jealousies and keen and eager against their Brethren censuring defaming and unconscionably back-biting them and straining an ill sense out of their well meant words and actions and living towards them in plain envy and malice instead of Christian love and peace I say I see so much of this in many that affect the Reputation of Orthodox while they are indeed factious that I am the less sorry that the Magistrate doth so little interpose For were the sword in such envious angry hands there would be little quiet to the Church For there is no two men on earth but differ in something if they know or believe any thing And these men must square the world to their own judgements which are not alway the wisest in the world They that dare so rail at others as Blasphemers when they know not what they say themselves durst suâ—e smite them as Blasphemers if they had power This may possibly make the Magistrate think meet seeing we are so quarrelsom and impatient to let us fight it out by the bare fists and not to put swords into our hands till we are more sober and know better how to use them For if every passionate man when he hath not wit enough to make good his cause should presently borrow the Magistrates sword to make it good truth would be upon great disadvantage in the world Magistrates are commonly the most tempted and abused men and therefore I know not why we should call so lowd to have them become the Arbitrators in all our quarrels lest error have two victories where truth gets one I could wish the Magistrate did more but if he do but give us Protection and Liberty specially if he will but restrain Deceivers from preaching against the great unquestionable truths of the Gospel and give publike Countenance and Encouragement to those master-truths I shall not fear by the Grace of God but a prudent sober unanimous Ministery will ere long shame the swarm of vanities that we think so threatning But I have been too long on this I shall only conclude it with this earnest request to my Brethren of the Ministery
students where meer Arguments would not take And the same tractable distemper doth so often follow them into the Ministery that it occasioneth the enemies to say that Reputation and preferment is our Religion and our Reward 2. And for the second How common is it with Ministers to drown themselves in worldly business Too many are such as the Sectaries would have them be who tell us that we should go to plough and cart and labour for our living and preach without so much study And this is a lesson easily learnt Men take no care to cast off and prevent care that their souls and the Church may have their care And especially how commonly are those duties neglected that are like if performed to diminish our estates For example Is there not many that dare not that will not set up the exercise of any Discipline in their Churches not only on the forementioned accounts but especially because it may hinder the people from paying them their dues They will not offend sinners with Discipline least they offend them in their estates yea though the Law secure their maintenance I find money is too strong an Argument for some men to answer that can proclaim the love of it to be the root of all evil and can make large orations of the danger of covetousness I will say no more now to these but this If it was so deadly a sin in Simon Magus to offer to buy the Gift of God with money what is it to sell his gifts his cause and the souls of men for money and what reason have such to fear least their money perish with them 3. But the most that I have to say is to the third discovery If worldly and fleshly interest did not much prevail against the interest of Christ and the Church surely most Ministers would be more fruitful in good works and would more lay out that they have to their masters use Experience hath fully proved it that works of Charity do most potently remove prejudice and open the ears to words of piety If men see that you are addicted to do good they will the easilyer belive that you are good and the easilyer then believe that it is good which you perswade them too When they see that you Love them and seek their good they will the easilyer trust you And when they see that you seek not the things of the world they will the less suspect your intentions and the easilyer be drawn by you to seek that which you seek O how much good might Ministers do if they did set themselves wholly to do good and would dedicate all their faculties and substance to that endl Say not that it is a small matter to do good to mens bodies and that this will but win them to us and not to God nor convert the soul For it is prejudice that is a great hindrance of mens conversion and this will remove it We might do men more good if they were but willing to learn of us and this will make them willing and then our further diligence may profit them Brethren I pray you do not think that it is ordinary charity that is expected from you any more then ordinary piety You must in proportion to your talents go much beyond others It is not to give now and them two pence to a poor man others do that as well as you But what singular thing do you with your estates for your Masters use I know you cannot give away that which you have not But me thinks all that you have should be for God I know the great objection is We have wife and children to provide for a little will not serve them at present and we are not bound to leave them beggars To which I answer 1. There are few texts of Scripture more abused then that of the Apostle He that provideth not for his own and specially those of his family hath denyed the faith and is worse then an Infidel This is made a pretence for gathering up portions and providing a full estate for posterity when the Apostle speaketh only against them that did cast their poor kindred and family on the Church to be maintained out of the common stock when they were able to do it themselves As if one that hath a widdow in his house that is his mother or daughter and would have her to be kept on the Parish when he hath enough himself His following words shew that it is present provision and not future portions that the Apostle speaketh of when he bids them that have widdows administer to them or give them what is sufficient 2. You may so educate your children as other mean persons do that they may be able to get their own livings in some honest trade or imployment without other great provisions I know that your charity and care must begin at home but it must not end there You are bound to do the best you can to educate your children so as they may be capable of being most serviceable to God but not to leave them rich or a full estate Nor to forbear other necessary works of Charity meerly for a larger provision for them There must be some proportion kept between our provision for our families and for the Church and poor A truly charitable self-denying heart that hath devoted it self and all that he hath to God would be the best judge of the due proportions and would see which way of expence is likely to do God the greatest service and that way he would take 3. I confess I would not have men lie too long under endangering strong temptations to incontinency lest they wound themselves and their profession by their falls But yet methinks its hard that men can do no more to mortifie the concupiscence of the flesh that they may live in a single freer condition and have none of these temptations from wife and children to hinder them from furthering their Ministerial ends by charitable works If he that marryeth not doth better then he that doth sure Ministers should labour to do that which is best And if he that can receive this saying must receive it we should endeavour after it This is one of the highest points of the Romish policy which they pretend to be a duty of common necessity that all their Bishops Priests and other Religious orders must not marry by which means they have no posterity to drain the Churches revenues nor to take up their care but they make their publike cause to be their interest and they lay out themselves for it while they live and leave all that they have to it when they die So that their Churches wealth doth daily increase as every Bishop Abbot Jesuite or other person doth gather more in their life time and usually add it to their common stock It s pitty that for a better cause we can no more imitate them in wisdom and self-denyal where it might be done 4. But they that must
them but I think too many of us have cause to fear lest we do but publikely proclaim our own shame in the guilt of our negligence or imprudent weaknesses and lest in Condemning them and Testifying against them we Testifie against and Condemn our selves 13. If you be not well able to deal with them do as I before advised Give them the best book on that subject to peruse 14. If all this will not do get the fittest neighbour Minister that you know to come over and help you Not in Publike nor as a set Disputation without necessity but let him come as occasionally and ex improviso come upon them in one of their private meetings as desirous to see and hear them and so take the opportunity to deal with them And if after that there be any Disputations appointed be sure to observe the old rule fight with them on their own ground and keep up the war in their quarters and let it come as little as you can into your own and therefore go to their Assemblies but let them not come into yours For with them you can lose little and may gain much but at home you can gain little but it s two to one will lose some let the error be never so gross The Sectaries commonly observe this course themselves and therefore you will have much ado to get their consent to bring your disputations into their own Assemblies 15. Let not the authors of the Schism out-do you or go beyond you in any thing that is good For as truth should be more effectual for sanctification then errour so if you give them this advantage you give them the day and all your disputation will do but little good For the weaker people judge all by the outward appearance and by the effects and be not so able to judge of the Doctrine in it self They think that he hath the best cause whom they take to be the best man I extend this rule both to Doctrine and Life E. G. If a Libertine preach for Free-grace do you preach it up more effectually then he be much upon it and make it more glorious on right grounds then he can do on his wrong If on the like pretences he magnifie the Grace of Love and in order to cry down fear and humiliation be all for living in pure Love to God do not contradict him in the assertive but only in the negative and destructive part but out-go him and preach up the Love of God with its motives and effects more fully and effectually then he can do on the corrupt grounds on which he doth proceed Or else you will make all the silly people believe that this is the difference between you that he is for Free-Grace and the Love of God and you are against it For if you dwell not upon it in your preaching as well as he they will not take notice of a short concession of profession So if an Enthusiast do talk all of the Holy-Ghost and the light and witness and Law within us Fall you upon that subject too do that well which they did ill and preach up the office of the Holy-Ghost his indwelling and operations and the light and testimony and Law within us better then they This is the most effectual way of setling your people against their seductions So if you be assaulted by Pelagians if they make a long story to prove that God is not the Author of sin do you fall upon the proof of it too If they plead for Free-will do you plead for that Free-will which we have the natural liberty which none deny consisting in a self-determining power and supposing actual indetermination and deny only that Liberty which the will hath not that is 1. Either a freedom from Gods Government 2. Or from the necessary guidance of the Intellect and Moral force of the object 3. Or that true Spiritual Ethical freedom from vicious inclinations which consisteth in the Right Disposition of the will though the sanctified indeed have this in part and that predominantly So if any Pelagian or Semi-Pelagian will go about industriously to prove mans power or rather impotency to will or do evil do it as effectually as he For this is indeed but to prove a man a sinner under pretence of proving him free or at least to prove him defectible if it be not the ill inclination but the possibility of sinning that they defend in which case we can say more then they So if they go about laboriously to prove that Christ dyed for all I would endeavour to do it as effectually as they that it might appear to the people that the difference between us is not in this that they would magnifie the riches of grace above me or that I would leave sinners hopeless and remediless and without an object for faith any more then they nor that I abuse or reject express Scriptures when they own them in their proper sense But I would let them know that the Controversie lyeth elsewhere viz. Whether Christ in offering himself a sacrifice for sin had not a special Intention or Resolution in complyance with his Fathers predestinating will infallibly and effectually to save his chosen even such and such by name in making his blood applyed effectual to the pardon of all their sins and to give them his spirit to seal them unto glory having no such Will Intention Resolution in dying no more then his Father had in predestinateing as to the rest of the world So if one that is for private mens preaching come and inveigh against Ministers for inhibiting them to use the gifts of God for the edification of the Church I would not presently set to thwart him but I would rather fall a perswading private men to use their gifts in all the waies that I even now mentioned and sharply chide them for using them no more and then among my Cautions or reprehensions meet with his desired abuse in the end And what I have said by way of instance in these few points I mean in all others Preaching truth is the most successful way of confuting error and I would have no Seducer to have the glory of out-going us in any good and so not in befriending or defending any truth Once more E. G. If a Socinian should fall a pleading for the Churches Peace and for Unity upon the antient simplicity of faith I would labour to out-go him in it and then would shew that the antient simple faith condemned him If he would plead Reason for Scripture or the Christian Religion I would endeavour to out-go him in it and he should not have opportunity to glory that he only had Reason for what he held and I had none But I would shew that as I have Reason to believe the Scripture so that Scripture condemneth his errors If a Separatist will plead for the Necessity of Church-order and Discipline so would I as well as he and shew him that it is only