his glory It is the guise and property of too many of you that think you are assured you are the Lords to question whether others be so that dissent from you Yea to pass sentence against some of them as out of God for no other reason but because they are not of your mind and way and to say of them that its love of the World or fear of trouble or some other by-respect and base end that keeps them from embraceing these Gospel-truths which you hold and whereof they have had sufficient conviction or if indeed they see them not to be such that it is because the God of this World hath blinded their Eyes Nor least of all can you bring your hearts to look upon or love as Brethren these who have been of the same mind and way with you and are apostatized from their principles and practices Turn-Coat-Rogues Have patience and ponder with your selves what rashness you discover in censuring any Man to be Godless because he sees not those truths which you think you do and they may clearly see to be revealed and commanded by God Barnabas was a good Man and full of the Holy Ghost and Faith and yet he could not see that that Paul saw Viz. That it was lawfull and fit for them to converse with the Gentiles even in the presence of the Jewes God bestowes his gifts on his Servants in different measures and degrees None that sees the truth in all things but in some points he is ignorant and erreth Setting aside the Prophets and Apostles who were infallibly guided in penning the Scripture Who almost of all the ancient Fathers but held some gross Errour Justin Martyr besides that he was a millinary held that it was the Angels that begat those Gyants Athenagoras that the Souls of those Gyants were Devils Ireneus that man was not created perfect Clemens Alexandrinus that none were saved by Christ before his Incarnation Tertullian that God was corporeal that Montanus was the Paraclete that a Christian falling twice after Baptism was damned Origen understood much of the Scripture allegorically Hierom that Angels were many Ages before the World that there is no sin in Infants or not deserving punishment Ambrose that the Gospel was preached to Devils Chrysostom that the Fathers were in Hell before Christ that we are justified by works Augustine's Book of retractations witnesseth his manifold Errours for a long time Luther the great Reformer held consubstantiation Not only particular persons but whole Counsels and Churches have erred The reasons of this proneness in Men to erre are 1. Truth is but one Errour manifold there is but one right many by-paths 2. The Seeds of all Errours are naturally in all Mens hearts 3. Errour hath usually on it the Vizard of truth 4. The understandings of the strongest Christians are so weak that it is easie for them to mistake 5. Satan and his Instruments are full of subtilty and cunning craftiness 6. God suffers Errours to spring up in his Church to punish the wicked and for tryal of his own and for cleering of truth Contraries opposed mutually argue each other This consideration should teach you not to be insolent in censuring and not to be stiff in your own Opinions or perswasions Others may be in the right and you in the wrong And if you be in the truth Love them not ye less that erre from it in infirmity but pitty them more and pray for them and though you know it to be passion or prejudice that hath blinded their judgments a greater infirmity than simple ignorance yet believe they may be godly Men for all that and if they be so you are bound to love and reverence them how much soever they differ in Judgement from you And if Men that are as practically godly as your selves hold those to be truths which you hold to be errours seek not to draw them over to you but let them quietly enjoy themselves take the blessed Apostles advice I press toward the mark Let us therefore as many as be thus perfect be thus minded and if any thing be otherwise minded God shall reveal this unto you Nevertheless whereto we have already attained Let us walk by the same Rule Let us mind the same thing So far as you freely can joyn with your dissenting brethren in Duties of Divine Worship And let not them that are without have occasion to say you are of several Religions or to call you by several Names any longer But rather to wonder at your mutual love and peaceable and quiet spirits free from any appearance of raising contention either in Church or State They that do so having the Brand of graceless Men set upon them by the Holy Ghost Now I beseech you Brethren mark them that cause Divisions and Offences contrary to the Doctrine which ye have learned and avoid them for they that are such serve not the Lord Jesus Christ but their own Belly and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple Every Man that dwells in God is of a peaceable disposition quiet in the Land As for them that you call Apostates consider that their Apostacy is not from any fundamental point in Religion or substantial worship of God And that love of their callings and the works thereof and of their Peoples Souls and Conscience of obeying the Magistrate in all things not expresly forbidden in the Scripture might move them to do what they have done and charity binds you to make the best construction Finally In reference to those that are of your own mind and way Let brotherly love continue And abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment rejoycing and weeping together and laying out your selves in a special manner in a faithful employment of God's gifts for the good one of another in things temporal Gal. 6. 10. Heb. 13. 16. 2 Cor. 8. 9. Psal 112. 5. and in spirituals by example Rom. 15. 1 2. 1 Cor. 10. 33. by admonition 1 Thes 5. 14. Heb. 3. 13. Prov. 10. 21. by consolation 2 Cor. 1. 4. Esay 54. Prov. 25. 25. Rom. 1. 12. and by prayer Eph. 6. 16. Jam. 5. 15 16. John 16. 24. By thus doing you shall improve that branch of the Communion of Saints which you have among your selves and be the fitter to improve that which you have together with Christ by the Spirit in respect both of substance and Offices and Virtues THE SEVENTH SERMON THere remaineth yet very much of Duty to be performed by and to be pressed upon you whose habitation the Lord is and who know him to be so And first upon the account of the properties of this House wherein you dwell The first whereof is height And the first duty upon this account is to lift up your hearts and voices as high as may be in praises and prayers 1. In praises acknowledge your selves bound to acknowledge 1. As all other
People together are warranted If all such means of worship must be ordered by special Institution or they shall be unlawful God must upon the matter have no Worship at all from us in the meanes which he himself hath ordained because it is impossible to use these meanes and not to do many things which he hath not instituted To return to Prayer that a true Prayer may be made to God in a Set form cannot be denyed because things agreeable to God's will may be disposed therein as in the Lord's Prayer and it 's possible for the heart and affections to go along with it and faith and other graces to be exercised in it But you question whether Ministers may read in the Congregation prescribed Formes of Prayer imposed Admit it were unlawful for them to do it yet it is warrantable for you to be present at such Prayers because all Prayers wherein you joyn are stinted to you and you are tyed to the forme of words uttered by him that prayes nor is a holy good prayer made evil to him that hears it for the possibility aforesaid Obj. But the Prayers in the English Liturgy are Formes neither holy nor good for the Book it self is an Idolatrous Book the Mass in English Answ This is as true that light is darkness and white black Consider what is the matter of the Popish Mass prayers in an unknown Tongue to Saints departed and to feigned Saints receiving the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper in one kind an unbloody sacrifice offered up for quick and dead the real Presence satisfaction for Venial sins temporal penance for mortal sins blotting out the Second Commandment or confounding it with the First c. Blackness and Darkness and what is the matter of our English Liturgy reading the Holy Scriptures in a known Tongue the calling upon God in the mediation of Christ and not upon Angels and Saints for the living and not for the dead the administration of the Holy Supper in both kinds singing of David's Psalms c. all White and Light Obj. But sundry of the Prayers are found word for word in the Mass-Book Ans So may a true Man's goods be found in a Thieves Den and the goods of the Church may be in the possession of Antichrist an Usurper which goods she may lawfully require and take back again not as borrowed from him but as due to her self being the rich Legacies which Christ bequeathed to his Church which Anti-christ had seized upon the Good therefore in the Mass Book belonged not to Anti-christ but the foul gross Errours which are purged out of ours Obj. But there are foul errours and gross corruptions in our Liturgy which are not purged out Ans Admit there be or were yet there are no Fundamental Errours nor any that bordereth thereupon objected The corruptions objected are misapplications of Scriptures frequent repetition of the same things disordered Prayers and Responsories breaking Petitions asunder c. No errours that concern the main grounds or chief heads of Christianity but faults that may be tolerated and for which a Christian hath no cause to separate Suppose a Teacher misalledge a Text of Scripture or that something be amiss in his Prayer when he exerciseth his own gifts is this a ground sufficient to separate from the Ordinance of God or reject the good for that which is amiss Nor is there any doctrinal passage in any of the Prayers that may not bear a good construction and so Amen may be said to it Charity binds us to take every thing in the best sense nor can you think it pleasing to God for some evil that may be fastned upon some passages to with-draw communion especially when communion may be had without approving of any of the errours or corruptions though we do not for their sakes with draw from the communion of the Churches while they are exercised Obj. But most of the Ministers that officiate in these Congregations are either blind or superstitious or prophane or idle or Drunkards or Whore-masters and they that are not of this last Tribe are most of them Apostates from their Principles and therefore we cannot bring our hearts to hear any of them pray read or preach Answ You may finde as bad as any of these in the Church of Israel and as many for the space of Ground before our Saviour's time and in his Dayes and in the Apostolical Churches and yet you do not finde any of the People to have forsaken the publick Ordinances of God How far the charge is true or false I shall not now meddle In some Countreys I am sure that there are many sober godly Orthodox able Preachers yet in possession of the publick places And if you know any Countrey where it is worse consider if Christ himself did not joyn with worse O that I could perswade with you to lay sadly to heart the greatness of the sin of Divisions and the grievousness of the punishment threatned against it and that hath been executed for it and that the Leaders and Encouragers of private Christians to make this sinful separation would read oft and meditate much upon St. Judes Epistle to v. 20. And that the multitudes that are willing to be led by them would follow the prescription of the meanes here to preserve or recover themselves from this seduction v. 20 21. And that both would leave off their reviling the Government Ecclesiastical and the Ministers that conform and peaceably and submissively behave themselves by the example of Michael who though an Arch-Angel and contending in a just cause and disputing in an Argument wherein he was very knowing did not durst not bring a railing accusation though his adversary was the Devil But committed the cause to God saying The Lord rebuke Thee Though Quakers who pretend to follow no other Rule save the Light within them use ordinarily such railing and reviling Language yet let no such word ever be heard to Proceed out of your Mouths who profess to follow and walk exactly according to the written Word of God The last sort of Persons are those of your own House Fellow-members of the same Family and your Fellow-commoners your duty in reference to these is manifold I shall earnestly commend this one namely to live in Unity with them to move you effectually hereunto behold how good and how pleasant it is for Brethren to dwell in unity together It is like the precious Oyntment upon the Head that ran down upon the Beard even Aaron's Beard that went down to the Skirts of his Garments as the Dew of Hermon and as the Dew that descended upon the Mountain of Zion For the Lord commanded the blessing for evermore Psal 133. a Song of Degrees purposely pend for the knitting together the Hearts of God's People in the blessed band of Unity Emphatically propounding both the profit and pleasure redounding there-from Behold a matter worth the marking how good in regard of profit and how pleasant in regard of delight
Word of God and all other meanes of grace and in the Saints of God and a more fervent zeal against sin in our selves and others and for advancement of God's glory For zeal is nothing else but a flame issuing from the Fire of Love And because there is a zeal which is not according to knowledge the five requisites in the exerting of our zeal ought to be examined namely whether we have a good cause and calling and a good Conscience and use only good meanes and aim at a good end Where there is true love to Men it will be extensive to all and manifest it self by unfeigned desire of their salvation and an earnest desire to procure them all the goods their necessities require according to our ability and even to our greatest Enemies compassionate affection towards them pitying and grieving for any evil that befalls them with a gentle usage of them in speech and action Thus are we commanded to deal with our Enemies Oxe or Ass Moreover we are bound to pray for the pardon of their sins and conversion of their minds and manners and readily to relieve them But especially we prove our dwelling in God by Love to the Brethren Christs whole spiritual Kindred that are knit to him by the bond of faith and among themselves by that of love Those on whom we discern the new Man put on which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness though different from us in judgment in points of faith that are not fundamental Our love to these must not only be unfeigned So it must be to all others and with a pure heart free from Lust and evil surmising but with extraordinary heat of affection Having thus proved the Doctrine and resolved the Question we proceed to Application And there are three sorts of Persons to be dealt with 1. Such as are or may be sure they have not yet made God their Habitation 2. Such whose Habitation the Lord is sure enough but they have no comfortable assurance that he is so 3. Such as have this assurance The first of these are the greatest part of the Visible Church as for the rest of the World which are 28. or 31. by computation they are without doubt without God in the World wherein there are no less than one and thirty sorts of Hypocrites of whom eleven come not up so high as the profession of the true Religion The other 20. Persons the true Religion without being truly Religious Affecting the Name Religion but dis-affecting the thing The description of each of these are legible in Crook's Characters Now an Hypocrite shall not come before God cannot subsist in his presence much less have his abode in him Many of them have confidence in Gods mercies But the Hypocrites hopes shall perish whose hope shall be cut off and whose trust shall be a Spiders Web their hopes shall be as the giving up of the Ghost For what is the hope of the Hypocrite though he hath gained when God taketh away his Soul Will God hear his cryes when trouble cometh upon him There is no hope of mercy for them no though the fittest objects of mercy The Lord shall have no joy in their young Men. Neither shall have mercy on their Fatherless and Widdows for every one is an Hypocrite Nothing but woe is their Portion as appeares by those 8. woes pronounced against them by our Saviour in one Chapter And he makes them as it were the Free-holders of Hell All others but as Inmates holding under them And he hath given 14. Notes together whereby they may be known any one of which raigning in any Man proves him to have nothing to do in God that God is not his Habitation but that he is a Simon Magus was in the gall of bitterness It is too manifest alas that most among us are out of God by what hath been spoken in answer to the Question 1. There are none in comparison that will be perswaded to make choice of God Not only the whole World out of the Church lyeth in wickedness as in a deep puddle have chosen to live under the power and command of the wicked one and with the Swine to wallow in the mire and filth of Sin but also the whole Multitude that is within the Body and Kingdome of Christ Yea they have chosen their own ways and their Soul delighteth in their Abominations When I called none did answer when I spake none did hear but they did evil before mine Eyes and chose that wherein I delighted not They hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord they would have none of my counsel My People would not hearken unto my Voice and Israel would have none of me No for I have loved strangers and after them will I go Strange Nations and Gods their Idolatries Superstitions and Customes They choose new Gods that came newly up whom their Fathers feared not From the least of them even to the greatest every one is given to Covetousness from the Prophet even to the Priest every one dealeth deceitfully They have chosen the Tongue of the Crafty Such a choice most of the sacred stock and Members of the Church of old made The Sons of God saw that the Daughters of Men were fair and they took them Wives of all which they chose Without making any distinction for spiritual matters or Religion did intimate was to be done and such a perverse choice the Jews long after made who were the only Visible Church For Salvation is of the Jews They cryed all not this Man but Barabbas They denyed the holy One and the just and desired a Murderer to be granted unto them And no other choice do the generality of the World among us at this day make The World hath three Daughters The lust of the Flesh the lust of the Eye and the Pride of Life One of which every one chooseth before God the Voluptuous the first the Covetous the second the Ambitious the third And who or where is he or she that is not one of these Many walk of whom I have told you often and now tell you even weeping that they are Enemies of the Cross of Christ Whose God is their Belly whose Glory is their shame who mind Earthly things 2. There are as few that lay hold on God joyn themselves to him close with him There is none that calleth upon thy Name that stirreth up himself to take hold of thee Where are there any that do as those Children returning to Judea did the Children of Israel and the Children of Judah together of whom it is said They shall go and seek the Lord their God they shall ask the way to Zion with their Faces thither-ward Saying come let us joyn our selves unto the Lord in a perpetual Covenant that shall not be
your Ejection if it be so Why am I thus That you may be sure your cause is good and your heart sincere in that which you suffer for 3. If you had a doubting Conscience indeed against which it is unlawful and damnable to act and not a meer scruple against which Men may act yet you may finde cause enough why God should cast you out of his House and out of your own For you honour'd God in neither as you might have done And therefore ought to acknowledge with David Righteous art thou O God and just in thy Judgments I know O Lord that thy Judgments are right and that thou in faithfulness hast afflicted me 4. When you have humbled your Souls and made your peace with God by repenting of your neglect to husband time and talent while a price was in your hand Resolve to bear with humility and patience the Indignation of the Lord because you have sinned against him until he plead your cause and execute Judgment for you and believe that he will bring you forth again to the Light and you shall behold his righteousness i. e. his deliverance the effect of his faithfulness and love towards you and of his just severity against your and his enemies who intended not to execute his judgments for your sins whatever their pretence was and bless God that you are still permitted to live in the Land of your Nativity And that there are any who are willing to receive you into their Houses as Laban did Jacob when he was compelled to leave his Fathers House and Jethro Moses and the Shulamite Elisha and Lydia Paul And that none can drive you out of your divine habitation nor shall be ever able to separate you from his love in Jesus Christ wherein you lodge 3. To you that have convenient Houses and a competency of means to live upon Be perswaded to think your condition better than if you had fairer buildings and more abundant income and revenues Agar thought a mean estate best as appeares by his Prayer against riches as well as poverty Give me neither poverty nor riches feed me with food convenient for me As much as I shall need from Day to Day So we are taught to pray by our Saviour Give us this Day our Daily Bread The word signifies such a kind or quality as is fitting for our sustenance or beeing So much as is needful to be added thereto and no more Such a measure of goods of body and fortune so Men use to speak as is necessary comprehended by the Apostle under Food and Rayment This was all that Jacob desired of God If God will give me Bread to eat and Rayment to put on If the Query be What may be counted needful Answ 1. That which Nature requireth enough only to hold Life and Soul together from Hand to Mouth as they say 2. That which is meet for the state wherein God hath set us 3. That which is requisite for the charge committed to us 4. That which is apparently needful for the time to come If any provide not for his own especially those of his own House he hath denyed the faith and is worse than an Infidel No Mans desire must go beyond this Labour not to be rich Superfluity coveted is very dangerous They that will be Rich fall into Temptation and a Snare and into many foolish and hurtful Lusts which drown Men in destruction and perdition A moderate estate hath little danger and trouble much ease and comfort a plentiful one little or nothing of these much of those and therefore thank God that it is with you as it is nor do you or can you want plenty abiding in God for in him there is all fulness and enjoying him you possess all things yea you would do so if you had nothing as was said 4. To you who dwell in earthly Houses and have all earthly good things in abundance I have this word of exhortation Let your hearts be lift up with thankful acknowledgment of God's goodness in giving besides himself these outward blessings richly to enjoy When others nothing inferiour to you in grace and goodness are glad to dwell in poor Cottages and to feed on scraps yea to beg their Bread Who am I O Lord God and what is my House that thou hast brought me hitherto Thou preparest a Table before me thou anointest my Head with Oyle my Cup runneth over I am not worthy of all the Mercies and of all the truth which thou hast shewed unto thy Servant for with my Staff I passed over this Jordan and now I am become two Bands But let not your hearts be lifted up with pride because of your abundance Charge them that are rich in this World that they be not high-minded Beware that thou forget not the Lord thy God Lest when thou hast eaten and art full and hast built goodly Houses and dwelt therein and when thy Herds and thy Flocks multiply and thy Silver and thy Gold is multiplyed and all that thou hast is multiplyed then thy Heart be lifted up See God in your fair edifices and sumptuous Furniture and large Revenues esteeming them as a beam of the bright Sun-shine of his favour you being enabled by his Grace to make them instrumental for his glory in the refreshing the bowels of his Saints and so to enjoy the good of them as to avoid the snare To use them not as hindrances but helps to a better life Consider withall how easie and quickly all you have may be brought to nothing Job this Morning the greatest Man for wealth of all the Men of the East and by Night was brought to poverty to a Proverb and therefore look upon all as transitory keeping your affections loose and all off from them And if they make themselves Wings and flie away as an Eagle towards Heaven let it trouble you as little as the sight of a Flock of Foul out of your Ground flying thitherward would do and rejoyce that with Mary You have chosen that good part that shall not be taken from you 5. To you who having dwelt in fair and goodly Houses which the Fire consumed are in your thought and purpose if not actually building as or more fair and goodly to dwell in in the same places where the former stood or else-where be exhorted 1. To bless the Lord your everlasting Habitation which preserved yours and all the Persons of your Families and so much of the movable Goods in your Houses and Shops from that raging Element That you have still wherewith to subsist comfortably and are in a condition of Rebuilding Acknowledge it to be of the Lord's Mercies that your selves and all yours Persons and things were not consumed That so many lives and so much substance is given to you for a Prey 2. To take heed to your selves that none of these evils no degree of them which are