was wrong'd trod upon stript of all Father I will that there be now a distinction made between such as have owned and confessed me with the loss of the world and those that have denyed persecuted and insulted over me It will be in vain then to come and creep for mercy and say Lord when did we insult over thee when did we see thee in our Courts and despised or oppressed thee Christ's reply will be then quick and sharp Verily in as much as you did it to one of these little poor despised ones ye did it unto Me. 2. Use is of information to shew us the danger as well as the baseness of a dastardly Spirit in asserting the interest and truth of Christ. Since Christ has made a Christian course a Warfare of all men living a Coward is the most unfit to make a Christian whose infamy is not so great but it is sometimes less than his peril A Coward does not alwaies scape with disgrace but sometimes also he loses his life wherefore let all such know as can enlarge their consciences like Hell and call any sinfull compliance submission and style a Cowardly silence in Christ's cause discretion and prudence I say let them know that Christ will one day scorn them and spit them with their policy and prudence into Hell and then let them consult how politick they were for a temporal Emolument to throw away Eternity The things which generally cause men to deny Christ are either the Enjoyments or the miseries of this life but alas at the day of Judgment all these will expire and as One well Observes what are we the better for pleasure or the worse for sorrow when it is past But then Sin and Guilt will be still fresh and Heaven and Hell will be then yet to begin If ever it was seasonable to preach Courage in the despised abused cause of Christ it is now when his truths are Reformed into nothing when the hands and hearts of his faithfull Ministers are weakned and even broke and his worship extirpated in a mockery that his honour may be advanced Well to establish our hearts in duty let us before-hand propose to our selves the worst that can happen Should God in his judgment suffer England to be transformed into a Munster Should the faithfull be every where Massacred Should the places of learning be demolished and our Colledges reduced not only as One in his Zeal would have it to Three but to none Yet assuredly Hell is worse than all this and is the portion of such as deny Christ wherefore let our discouragements be what they will loss of Places loss of Estates loss of Life and Relations yet still this sentence stands ratified in the Decrees of Heaven Cursed be that man that for any of these shall desert the truth and deny his Lord. ECCLESIASTICAL POLICY THE BEST POLICY OR RELIGION The best Reason of State In a Sermon preached before the Honourable Society of LINCOLNS-INN 1 KING XIII 33 34. After this thing Jeroboam returned not from his evil way but made again of the lowest of the people Priests of the High places whosoever would he consecrated him and he became one of the Priests of the High places And this thing became sin unto the house of Jeroboam even to cut it off and to destroy it from off the face of the Earth JEroboam from the name of a person become the character of impiety is reported to Posterity eminent or rather Infamous for two things Usurpation of Government and Innovation of Religion 'T is confessed the former is expresly said to have been from God but since God may order and dispose what he does not approve and use the wickedness of men while he forbids it the design of the first cause does not excuse the malignity of the second And therefore the advancement and Sceptre of Ieroboam was in that sence only the work of God in which it is said Amos 3.6 That there is no evil in the City which the Lord has not done But from his attempts upon the Civil Power he proceeds to innovate God's Worship and from the subjection of mens Bodies and Estates to enslave their Consciences as knowing that true Religion is no friend to an unjust Title Such was afterwards the way of Mahomet to the Tyrant to joyn the Impostor and what he had got by the Sword to confirm by the Alcoran raising his Empire upon two Pillars Conquest and Inspiration Ieroboam being thus advanced and thinking Policy the best Piety though indeed in nothing ever more befooled the nature of sin being not only to defile but to infatuate In the 11. chap. and the 27. v. he thus argues If this people go up to do Sacrifice in the house of the Lord at Ierusalem then shall the heart of this people turn again unto their Lord even unto Rehoboam King of Iudah and they shall kill me and go again unto Rehoboam King of Iudah As if he should have said The true Worship of God and the converse of those that use it dispose men to a considerate lawfull Subjection And therefore I must take another course my Practice must not be better than my Title what was won by Force must be continued by Delusion Thus sin is usually seconded with sin and a man seldom commits one sin to please but he commits another to defend himself As 't is frequent for the Adulterer to commit murder to conceal the shame of his Adultery But let us see Ieroboam's politick procedure in the next ver Whereupon the King took counsel and made two Calves of Gold and said unto them It is too much for you to go up to Ierusalem behold thy Gods O Israel As if he had made such an Edict I Ieroboam by the advice of my council considering the great distance of the Temple and the great charges that poor people are put to in going thither as also the intolerable burden of paying the first-fruits and tythes to the Priest have considered of a way that may be more easie and less burthensome to the people as also more comfortable to the Priests themselves and therefore strictly enjoyn that none henceforth presume to repair to the Temple at Jerusalem especially since God is not tyed to any place or form of Worship as also because the Devotion of men is apt to be clogged by such Ceremonies therefore both for the ease of the people as well as for the advancement of Religion we require and command that all henceforth forbear going up to Jerusalem Questionless these and such other Reasons the Impostor used to insinuate his devout Idolatry And thus the Calves were set up to which Oxen must be sacrificed the God and the Sacrifice out of the same Herd And because Israel was not to return to Egypt Egypt was brought back to them that is the Egyptian way of Worship the Apis or Serapis which was nothing but the Image of a Calf or Oxe as is clear from
TWELVE SERMONS Preached upon Several Occasions By ROBERT SOUTH D. D. Six of them never before Printed LONDON Printed by I. H. for Thomas Bennet at the Half Moon in St. Paul's Church-yard 1692. To the Right Honourable EDWARD Earl of CLARENDON Lord High Chancellor of England and Chancellor of the University of Oxon and one of His Majesties most Honourable Privy Council My Lord THough to prefix so great a Name to so mean a Piece seems like enlarging the Entrance of an House that affords no Reception yet since there is nothing can warrant the Publication of it but what can also command it the Work must think of no other Patronage than the same that adorns and protects its Author Some indeed vouch great Names because they think they deserve but I because I need such and had I not more occasion than many others to see and converse with your Lordship's Candor and Proneness to pardon there is none had greater cause to dread your Iudgment and thereby in some part I venture to commend my own For all know who know your Lordship that in a Nobler respect than either that of Government or Patronage you represent and head the best of Universities and have travelled over too many Nations and Authors to encourage any one that understands himself to appear an Author in your Hands who seldom read any Books to inform your self but only to countenance and credit them But my Lord what is here published pretends no Instruction but only Homage while it teaches many of the World it only describes your Lordship who have made the ways of Labour and Vertue of doing and doing Good your Business and your Recreation your Meat and your Drink and I may add also your Sleep My Lord the Subject here treated of is of that Nature that it would seem but a Chimera and a bold Paradox did it not in the very Front carry an Instance to exemplifie it and so by the Dedication convince the World that the Discourse it self was not impracticable For such ever was and is and will be the Temper of the generality of mankind that while I send men for Pleasure to Religion I cannot but expect that they will look upon me as only having a mind to be pleasant with them my self nor are Men to be Worded into new Tempers or Constitutions and he that thinks that any one can persuade but He that made the World will find that he does not well understand it My Lord I have obeyed your Command for such must I account your Desire and thereby Design not so much the Publication of my Sermon as of my Obedience for next to the Supreme Pleasure described in the ensuing Discourse I enjoy none greater than in having any opportunity to declare my self Your Lordship 's very humble Servant and obliged Chaplain ROBERT SOUTH The Contents of the Sermons SERMON I. PRoverbs III. 17 Her ways are ways of Pleasantness Page 1 SERMON II. Gen. I. 27 So God created man in his own Image in the Image of God created he him p. 53 SERMON III. Matth. X. 33 But whosoever shall deny me before men him will I deny before my Father which is in Heaven p. 101 SERMON IV. I Kings XIII 33 34. After this thing Jeroboam returned not from his evil way but made again of the lowest of the people Priests of the High places whosoever would he consecrated him and he became one of the Priests of the High places And this thing became sin unto the house of Jeroboam even to cut it off and to destroy it from off the face of the Earth p. 155 SERMON V. Titus II. ult These things speak and exhort and rebuke with all Authority Let no man despise thee p. 223 SERMON VI. John VII 17 If any man will do his Will he shall know of the Doctrine whether it be of God or whether I speak of my self p. 269 SERMON VII Psalm LXXXVII 2 God hath loved the Gates of Sion more than all the Dwellings of Iacob p. 323 SERMON VIII Prov. XVI 33 The lot is cast into the lap but the whole disposing of it is of the Lord. p. 373 SERMON IX 1 Cor. III. 19 For the Wisdom of this World is Foolishness with God p. 425 SERMON X. 2 Cor. VIII 12 For if there be first a willing Mind it is accepted according to that a Man hath and not according to that he hath not p. 477 SERMON XI Judges VIII 34 35. And the Children of Israel remembred not the Lord their God who had delivered them out of the hands of all their Enemies on every side Neither shewed they kindness to the House of Ierubbaal namely Gideon according to all the goodness which he had shewed unto Israel p. 535 SERMON XII Prov. XII 22 Lying Lips are abomination to the Lord. p. 587 A SERMON Preached at COURT c. PROV 3.17 Her Ways are Ways of Pleasantness THE Text relating to something going before must carry our Eye back to the 13th verse where we shall find that the thing of which these words are affirmed is Wisdome A Name by which the Spirit of God was here pleased to express to us Religion and thereby to tell the world what before it was not aware of and perhaps will not yet believe that those two great things that so engross the desires and designs of both the Nobler and Ignobler sort of mankind are to be found in Religion namely Wisdom and Pleasure and that the former is the direct way to the latter as Religion is to both That Pleasure is Man's chiefest good because indeed it is the perception of Good that is properly pleasure is an assertion most certainly true though under the common acceptance of it not only false but odious for according to this pleasure and sensuality pass for terms equivalent and therefore he that takes it in this sence alters the Subject of the discourse Sensuality is indeed a part or rather one kind of pleasure such an one as it is For Pleasure in general is the consequent apprehension of a sutable Object sutably applied to a rightly disposed faculty and so must be conversant both about the faculties of the Body and of the Soul respectively as being the result of the fruitions belonging to both Now amongst those many Arguments used to press upon men the exercise of Religion I know none that are like to be so succesful as those that answer and remove the prejudices that generally possess and barr up the Hearts of men against it amongst which there is none so prevalent in Truth though so little owned in Pretence as that it is an Enemy to mens pleasures that it bereaves them of all the sweets of Converse dooms them to an absurd and perpetual Melancholy designing to make the world nothing else but a great Monastery With which notion of Religion Nature and Reason seems to have great cause to be dissatisfied For since God never Created any faculty either in Soul or Body
the fore-mentioned discouragements he casts into the Balance the promise of a Reward to such as should Execute and of Punishment to such as should Neglect their Commission The Reward in the former verse Whosoever shall confess me before men c. the punishment in this But whosoever shall deny c. As if by way of preoccupation he should have said Well here you see your Commission this is your Duty these are your Discouragements never seek for shifts and evasions from worldly afflictions this is your reward if you perform it this is your Doom if you decline it As for the Explication of the words they are clear and easie and their Originals in the Greek are of single signification without any ambiguity and therefore I shall not trouble you by proposing how they run in this or that Edition or straining for an interpretation where there is no difficulty or distinction where there is no difference The onely Exposition that I shall give of them will be to compare them to other Parallel Scriptures and peculiarly to that in the 8. Mark 38. Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation of him also shall the Son of man be ashamed when he cometh in the glory of the Father with the holy Angels These words are a Comment upon my Text. 1. What is here in the Text called a denying of Christ is there termed a being ashamed of him that is in those words the Cause is expressed and here the Effect for therefore we deny a thing because we are ashamed of it First Peter is ashamed of Christ then he denies him 2. What is here termed a denying of Christ is there called a being ashamed of Christ and his words Christ's truths are his second Self And he that offers a contempt to a King's letters or edicts virtually affronts the King it strikes his words but it rebounds upon his Person 3. What is here said before men is there phrased in this adulterous and sinful generation These words import the hindrance of the duty enjoyned which therefore is here purposely enforced with a non obstante to all opposition The Term Adulterous I conceive may chiefly relate to the Jews who being nationally espoused to God by Covenant every sin of theirs was in a peculiar manner spiritual Adultery 4. What is here said I will deny him before my Father is there expressed I will be ashamed of him before my Father and his holy Angels that is when he shall come to Judgment when revenging Justice shall come in pomp attended with the glorious retinue of all the Host of Heaven In short the sentence pronounced declares the Judgment the solemnity of it the Terrour From the words we may deduce these Observations 1. We shall find strong motives and temptations from men to draw us to a denial of Christ. 2. No Terrors or Solicitations from men though never so great can Warrant or Excuse such a denial 3. To deny Christ's words is to deny Christ. But since these Observations are rather implyed than expressed in the words I shall wave them and in stead of deducing a doctrine distinct from the words prosecute the words themselves under this Doctrinal Paraphrase Whosoever shall deny disown or be ashamed of either the Person or truths of Iesus Christ for any fear or favour of man shall with shame be disowned and Eternally rejected by him at the dreadful judgment of the great day The discussion of this shall lie in these things 1. To shew how many ways Christ and his truths may be denyed and what is the denial here chiefly intended 2. To shew what are the causes that induce men to a denial of Christ and his truths 3. To shew how farr a man may consult his safety in time of persecution without denying Christ. 4. To shew what is imported in Christ's denying us before his Father in Heaven 5. To apply all to the present Occasion But before I enter upon these I must briefly premise this that though the Text and the Doctrine run peremptory and absolute Whosoever denies Christ shall assuredly be denied by him yet still there is a tacit condition in the words supposed unless repentance intervene For this and many other Scriptures though as to their formal terms they are Absolute yet as to their sence they are Conditional God in mercy has so framed and temper'd his word that we have for the most part a Reserve of mercy wrapp'd up in a Curse And the very first judgment that was pronounced upon fallen man was with the allay of a promise Wheresoever we find a Curse to the Guilty expressed in the same words Mercy to the Penitent is still understood This premised I come now to discuss the first thing viz. How many ways Christ and his truths may be denied c. Here first in general I assert that we may deny him in all those acts that are capable of being morally good or evil those are the proper Scene in which we act our confessions or denials of him Accordingly therefore all ways of denying Christ I shall comprise under these three 1. We may deny him and his truths by an Erroneous Heretical judgment I know it is doubted whether a bare error in judgment can condemn but since truths absolutely necessary to salvation are so clearly revealed that we cannot erre in them unless we be notoriously wanting to our selves herein the fault of the judgment is resolved into a precedent default in the will and so the case is put out of doubt But here it may be replied Are not truths of absolute and fundamental necessity very disputable as the Deity of Christ the Trinity of Persons if they are not in themselves disputable why are they so much disputed Indeed I believe if we trace these disputes to their original cause we shall find that they never sprung from a reluctancy in Reason to embrace them For this Reason it self dictates as most rational to assent to any thing though seemingly contrary to Reason if it is revealed by God and we are certain of the Revelation These two supposed these disputes must needs arise only from curiosity and singularity and these are faults of a diseased Will But some will further demand in behalf of these men whether such as assent to every word in Scripture for so will those that deny the natural Deity of Christ and the Spirit can be yet said in Doctrinals to deny Christ to this I answer since words abstracted from their proper sence and signification lose the nature of words and are only equivocally so called inasmuch as the persons we speak of take them thus and derive the letter from Christ but the signification from themselves they cannot be said properly to assent so much as to the words of the Scripture And so their case also is clear But yet more fully to state the matter how far a denial of Christ in belief and judgment is
upon what is below it The Sun is said to rule the day and the Moon to rule the night but do they not Rule them only by enlightning them Doctrine is that that must prepare men for Discipline and men never go on so chearfully as when they see where they go Nor is the dullness of the Scholar to extinguish but rather to inflame the charity of the Teacher for since it is not in men as in vessels that the smallest capacity is the soonest filled where the labour is doubled the value of the work is enhaunced for it is a sowing where a man never expects to reap any thing but the Comfort and Conscience of having done vertuously And yet we know moreover that God sometimes converts even the dull and the slow turning very Stones into Sons of Abraham where besides that the difficulty of the Conquest advances the Trophee of the Conquerer it often falls out that the backward Learner makes amends another way recompencing Sure for Sudden expiating his want of Docility with a deeper and a more rooted Retention Which alone were argument sufficient to enforce the Apostle's injunction of being instant in season and out of season even upon the highest and most exalted Ruler in the Church He that sits in Moses chair sits there to Instruct as well as to Rule and a General 's office engages him to Lead as well as to Command his Army In the first of Ecclesiastes Solomon represents himself both as Preacher and King of Israel and every soul that a Bishop gains is a new accession to the extent of his Power he preaches his Jurisdiction wider and enlarges his spiritual Diocess as he enlarges mens apprehensions The Teaching part indeed of a Romish Bishop is easie enough whose Grand business is onely to teach men to be Ignorant to instruct them how to know Nothing or which is all one to know upon Trust to believe implicitly and in a word to see with other mens eyes till they come to be lost in their own souls But our Religion is a Religion that dares to be understood that offers it self to the search of the Inquisitive to the inspection of the severest and the most awakened Reason for being secure of her substantial Truth and Purity she knows that for her to be seen and lookt into is to be embraced and admired as there needs no greater argument for men to love the light than to see it It needs no Legends no Service in an unknown tongue no inquisition against Scripture no purging out the heart and sence of Authors no altering or bribing the voice of Antiquity to speak for it it needs none of all these laborious Artifices of ignorance none of all these cloaks and coverings The Romish Faith indeed must be covered or it cannot be kept warm and their Clergy deal with their Religion as with a great Crime if it is discovered they are undone But there is no Bishop of the Church of England but accounts it his Interest as well as his Duty to comply with this Precept of the Apostle Paul to Titus These things teach and exhort Now this Teaching may be effected two ways 1. Immediately by himself 2. Mediately by others And first immediately by himself Where God gives a Talent the Episcopal Robe can be no Napkin to hide it in Change of Condition changes not the abilities of Nature but makes them more illustrious in their exercise and the Episcopal dignity added to a good Preaching faculty is like the erecting of a stately Fountain upon a Spring which still for all that remains as much a Spring as it was before and flows as plentifully onely it flows with the circumstance of greater State and Magnificence Height of place is intended only to stamp the endowments of a private condition with Lustre and Authority And thanks be to God neither the Church's profess'd enemies nor her pretended friends have any cause to asperse her in this respect as having over her such Bishops as are able to silence the Factious no less by their Preaching than by their Authority But then on the other hand let me add also That this is not so absolutely necessary as to be of the vital Constitution of this Function He may teach his Diocess who ceases to be able to preach to it for he may do it by appointing Teachers and by a vigilant exacting from them the care and the instruction of their respective Flocks He is the Spiritual Father of his Diocess and a Father may see his Children taught though he himself does not turn Schoolmaster It is not the gift of every Person nor of every Age to harangue the multitude to Voice it high and loud Dominari in Concionibus And since Experience fits for Government and Age usually brings Experience perhaps the most Governing years are the least Preaching years In the 2. Second place therefore there is a teaching Mediately by the Subordinate ministration of others in which since the Action of the Instrumental agent is upon all grounds of Reason to be ascribed to the Principal He who ordains and furnishes all his Churches with able Preachers is an Universal Teacher he instructs where he cannot be Present he speaks in every mouth of his Diocess and every Congregation of it every Sunday feels his Influence though it hears not his Voice That Master deprives not his Family of their food who orders a faithfull Steward to dispense it Teaching is not a Flow of Words nor the draining of an Hour-glass but an effectual procuring that a man comes to know something which he knew not before or to know it better And therefore Eloquence and Ability of Speech is to a Church-Governour as Tully said it was to a Philosopher Si afferatur non repudianda si absit non magnopere desideranda and to find fault with such an one for not being a Popular Speaker is to blame a Painter for not being a good Musician To Teach indeed must be confess'd his Duty but then there is a Teaching by Example by Authority by restraining Seducers and so removing the Hindrances of knowledge And a Bishop does his Church his Prince and Countrey more Service by ruling other mens Tongues than he can by imploying his own And thus much for the first Branch of the great Work belonging to a Pastor of the Church which was to Teach and to Exhort 2. The second is to Rule Expressed in these words Rebuke with all Authority By which I doubt not but the Apostle principally intends Church-Censures and so the Words are a Metonymy of the Part for the Whole giving an instance in Ecclesiastical Censures instead of all other Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction A Jurisdiction which in the Essentials of it is as old as Christianity and even in those Circumstantial Additions of secular encouragement with which the Piety and Wisdom of Christian Princes always thought necessary to support it against the Encroachments of the injurious World much Older and more Venerable than
Sense as I have noted is the clearest that naturally the Mind of Man can receive and is indeed the foundation both of all the Evidence and Certainty too that Tradition is capable of which pretends to no other Credibility from the Testimony and Word of some Men but because their word is at length traced up to and originally terminates in the Sence and Experience of some others which could not be known beyond that compass of Time in which it was exercised but by being told and reported to such as not living at that Time saw it not and by them to others and so down from One Age to another For we therefore believe the Report of some Men concerning a thing because it implies that there were some others who actually saw that thing It is clear therefore that Want of Evidence could not be the Cause that the Jews rejected and disbelieved the Gospel Since they embraced and believed the Law upon the Credit of those Miracles that were less Evident For those of Christ they knew by sight and sense those of Moses only by Tradition which though equally certain yet were by no means equally Evident with the Other Secondly they believed and assented to things that were neither Evident nor Certain but onely Probable For they conversed they traded they merchandized and by so doing frequently ventured their whole Estates and Fortunes upon a probable Belief or persuasion of the Honesty and Truth of those whom they dealt and corresponded with And Interest especially in Worldly matters and yet more especially with a Jew never proceeds but upon supposal at least of a firm and sufficient Bottom From whence it is manifest that since they could believe and Practically rely upon and that even in their Dearest Concerns bare Probabilities they could not with any Colour of Reason pretend want of Evidence for their Disbelief of Christ's Doctrine which came enforced with Arguments far surpassing all such Probabilities Thirdly They believed and assented to things neither evident nor certain nor yet so much as Probable but actually false and fallacious Such as were the absurd Doctrines Stories of their Rabbins Which though since Christ's time they have grown much more numerous and fabulous than before yet even then did so much pester the Church and so grosly abuse and delude the minds of that People that Contradictions themselves asserted by Rabbies were Equally received and revered by them as the Sacred and Infallible Word of God And whereas they rejected Christ and his Doctrine though every Tittle of it came enforced with miracle and the best Arguments that Heaven and Earth could back it with yet Christ then foretold and after Times confirmed that Prediction of his in the 5. Iohn 43. that they should receive many Cheats and Deceivers coming to them in their own name Fellows that set up for Messias's only upon their own Heads without pretending to any thing singular or miraculous but Impudence and Imposture From all which it follows that the Jews could not alledge so much as a Pretence of the Want of Evidence in the Arguments brought by Christ to prove the Divinity and Authority of his Doctrine as a Reason of their Rejection and disbelief of it since they embraced and believed many things for some of which they had no Evidence and for others of which they had no Certainty and for most of which they had not so much as Probability Which being so from whence then could such an obstinate Infidelity in matters of so great Clearness and Credibility take its rise Why this will be made out to us in the Third thing proposed Which was to shew What was the True and proper Cause into which this Unbelief of the Pharisees was resolved And that was in a Word The Captivity of their wills and affections to Lusts directly opposite to the Design and Spirit of Christianity They were extremely ambitious and insatiably Covetous and therefore no Impression from Argument or Miracle could reach them but they stood proof against all Conviction Now to shew how the Pravity of the Will could influence the understanding to a disbelief of Christianity I shall premise these two Considerations First That the Understanding in its assent to any Religion is very differently wrought upon in persons bred up in it and in persons at length converted to it For in the first it finds the mind Naked and unprepossessed with any former Notions and so easily and insensibly gains upon the Assent grows up with it and incorporates into it But in persons adult and already possessed with other Notions of Religion the understanding cannot be brought to quit these and to change them for new but by great Consideration and examination of the Truth and firmness of the one and comparing them with the flaws and weakness of the other Which cannot be done without some Labour and Intention of the mind and the thoughts dwelling a considerable time upon the Survey and Discussion of each Particular Secondly the other thing to be considered is That in this great Work the Understanding is chiefly at the disposal of the will For though it is not in the Power of the Will directly either to cause or hinder the Assent of the Understanding to a thing proposed and duly set before it yet it is antecedently in the power of the Will to apply the understanding faculty to or to take it off from the consideration of those Objects to which without such a Previous consideration it cannot yeild its Assent For all assent presupposes a simple apprehension or knowledge of the Terms of the Proposition to be assented to But unless the Understanding imploy and exercise its cognitive or Apprehensive Power about these Terms there can be no actual Apprehension of them And the Understanding as to the Exercise of this Power is subject to the command of the Will though as to the Specifick nature of its Acts it is determined by the Object As for instance My Understanding cannot assent to this Proposition That Iesus Christ is the Son of God but it must first consider and so apprehend what the Terms and Parts of it are and what they signifie And this cannot be done if my will be so Slothfully Worldly or Voluptuously disposed as never to suffer me at all to think of them but perpetually to carry away and apply my mind to other things Thus far is the Understanding at the Disposal of the will Now these two considerations being premised namely That Persons grown up in the Belief of any Religion cannot change that for another without applying their Understanding duly to consider and compare both and then That it is in the power of the Will whether it will suffer the Understanding thus to dwell upon such Objects or no. From these two I say we have the true Philosophy and Reason of the Pharisees Unbelief For they could not relinquish their Judaism and embrace Christianity without considering weighing and collating both Religions
was was not thought fit to have an hand in And to proceed when after a long tract of time the sins of Israel had even unconsecrated and profaned that Sacred Edifice and thereby robb'd it of its onely defence the Palladium of God's presence so that the Assyrians laid it even with the ground yet after that a long Captivity and Affliction had made the Iews fit again for so great a privilege as a publick place to worship God in how did God put it into the heart even of an Heathen Prince to promote the building of a Second Temple How was the work undertook and carried on amidst all the unlikelihoods and discouraging circumstances imaginable the Builders holding the Sword in one hand to defend the Trowel working with the other yet finish'd and completed it was under the conduct and protection of a peculiar Providence that made the Instruments of that great design prevalent and victorious and all those Mountains of Opposition to become Plains before Zorobabel And lastly when Herod the Great whose Magnificence served him instead of Piety to prompt him to an Action if not in him Religious yet Heroick at least thought fit to pull down that Temple and to build one much more Glorious and fit for the Saviour of the World to appear and to preach in Iosephus in his 15th Book of the Jewish Antiquities and the 14th Chapter says That during all the time of its building there fell not so much as a Shower to interrupt the work but the Rain still fell by night that it might not retard the business of the day If this were so I am not of the number of those who can ascribe such great and strange passages to Chance or satisfy my Reason in assigning any other cause of this but the kindness of God himself to the place of his Worship making the common influences of Heaven to stop their course and pay a kind of Homage to the Rearing of so sacred a Structure Though I must confess that David's being prohibited and Herod permitted to build God a Temple might seem strange did not the Absoluteness of God's good pleasure satisfy all sober minds of the Reasonableness of God's proceedings though never so strange and unaccountable Add to all this that the extraordinary manifestations of God's Presence were still in the Sanctuary The Cloud the Urim and Thummim and the Oracular Answers of God were graces and prerogatives proper and peculiar to the Sacredness of this place These were the Dignities that made it as it were the Presence-Chamber of the Almighty the room of Audience where He declared that He would receive and answer Petitions from all places under Heaven and where He displayed his Royalty and Glory There was no Parlour or Dining-room in all the Dwellings of Iacob that he vouchsafed the like privileges to And moreover How full are God's expressions to this purpose Here have I placed my Name and here will I dwell for I have a delight therein But to evidence how different a respect God bears to things consecrated to his own Worship from what he bears to all other things let that one Eminent passage of Corah Dathan and Abiram be proof beyond all exception In which the Censers of those wretches who I am sure could derive no Sanctity to them from their own persons yet upon this account that they had been Consecrated by the offering Incense in them were by God's special command sequestred from all common use and appointed to be beaten into broad plates and fastned as a Covering upon the Altar Numb 16.28 The Censers of these sinners against their own souls let them make broad Plates for a Covering of the Altar for they offered them before the Lord therefore they are hallowed It seems this one single Use left such an indelible sacredness upon them that neither the Villainy of the persons nor the impiety of the Design could be a sufficient reason to unhallow and degrade them to the same common use that other Vessels may be applyed to And the argument holds equally good for the Consecration of places The Apostle would have no revelling or junketting upon the Altar which had been used and by that use consecrated to the Celebration of a more Spiritual and Divine Repast Have ye not Houses to Eat and to Drink in or despise ye the Church of God says St. Paul 1 Cor. 11.22 It would have been no answer to have told the Apostle What is not the Church Stone and Wood as well as other Buildings and is there any such peculiar sanctity in this parcel of Brick and Mortar and must God who has declared himself No respecter of persons be now made a respecter of places No this is the language of a more spiritualized and refined Piety than the Apostles and Primitive Christians were acquainted with And thus much for the first Argument brought to prove the different respect that God bears to things and places consecrated and set apart to his own Worship from what he bears to others The Second argument for the proof of the same assertion shall be taken from those remarkable Judgments shewn by God upon the Violaters of things consecrated and set apart to Holy Uses A Coal we know snatcht from the Altar once fired the Nest of the Eagle the Royal and commanding Bird and so has Sacrilege consumed the Families of Princes broke Scepters and destroyed Kingdoms We read how the Victorious Philistines were worsted by the Captivated Ark which forraged their Country more than a conquering Army they were not able to cohabit with that Holy Thing it was like a Plague in their Bowels and a Curse in the midst of them So that they were forced to restore their Prey and to turn their Triumphs into Supplications Poor Uzzah for but touching the Ark though out of Care and Zeal for its preservation was struck dead with a blow from Heaven He had no right to touch it and therefore his very Zeal was a Sin and his Care an Usurpation nor could the Purpose of his heart excuse the Errour of his hand Nay in the promulgation of the Mosaick Law if so much as a Brute Beast touch'd the mountain the Bow of Vengeance was ready and it was to be struck through with a dart and to die a Sacrifice for a fault it could not understand But to give some higher and clearer instances of the Divine judgments upon Sacrilegious persons In 1 K. 14.26 We find Shishak King of AEgypt spoiling and robbing Solomon's Temple and that we may know what became of him we must take notice that Iosephus calls him Susae and tells us that Herodotus calls him Sesostris and withal reports that immediately after his return from this very expedition such disastrous Calamities befell his Family that he burnt two of his Children himself that his Brother conspir'd against him and lastly that his Son who succeeded him was struck blind yet not so blind in his Understanding at least but that he saw the
Right to it on his part that gives so there is required also an Acceptation of it on his part to whom it is given For Giving being a Relative Action and so requiring a Correlative to answer it Giving on one part transferrs no Property unless there be an Accepting on the other for as Volenti non fit Injuria so in this case Nolenti non fit Beneficium And if it be now asked how God can be said to Accept what we give since we are not able to transact with him in Person To this I answer 1. That we may and do converse with God in Person really and to all the purposes of Giving and Receiving though not visibly For Natural Reason will evince that God will receive Testimonies of Honour from his Creatures amongst which the Homage of Offerings and the parting with a Right is a very great one And where a Gift is sutable to the Person to whom it is offered and no refusal of it testified silence in that case even amongst those who transact visibly and corporally with one another is by the General voice of Reason reputed an Acceptance And therefore much more ought we to conclude that God accepts of a thing sutable for him to receive and for us to give where he does not declare his Refusal and disallowance of it But 2dly I add further That we may transact with God in the Person of his and Christ's Substitute the Bishop to whom the Deed of Gift ought and uses to be delivered by the owner of the thing given in a formal Instrument Signed Sealed and Legally attested by Witnesses wherein he resigns up all his Right and Property in the Thing to be Consecrated And the Bishop is as really Vicarius Christi to receive this from us in Christ's behalf as the Levitical Priest was Vicarius Dei to the Iews to manage all transactions between God and them These two things therefore concurring the Gift of the owner and God's Acceptance of it either immediately by himself which we rationally presume or mediately by the hands of the Bishop which is visibly done before us is that which vests the sole property of a Thing or Place in God If it be now asked of what use then is Consecration if a thing were Sacred before it I answer Of very much even as much as Coronation to a King which conferrs no Royal Authority upon him but by so solemn a Declaration of it imprints a deeper Awe and Reverence of it in the Peoples Minds a thing surely of no small moment And 2dly The Bishop's solemn Benediction and Prayers to God for a Blessing upon those who shall seek him in such Sacred places cannot but be supposed a direct and most effectual means to procure a blessing from God upon those Persons who shall address themselves to him there as they ought to do And surely this also Vouches the great reason of the Episcopal Consecration Add to this in the 3d. place that all who ever had any awefull Sense of Religion and Religious matters whether Jews or Christans or even Heathens themselves have ever used Solemn Dedications and Consecrations of things set apart and designed for Divine Worship which surely could never have been so Universally practised had not right Reason dictated the high Expediency and great use of such Practices Eusebius the Earliest Church-Historian in the 10th Book of his Ecclesiastical History as also in the Life of Constantine speaks of these Consecrations of Churches as of things generally in use and withall sets down those Actions particularly of which they consisted styling them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Laws or Customs of the Church becoming God What the Greek and Latin Churches used to do may be seen in their Pontificals containing the set Forms for these Consecrations though indeed for these 6 or 7 last Centuries full of many tedious superfluous and ridiculous fopperies setting aside all which if also our Liturgy had a set Form for the Consecration of Places as it has of Persons perhaps it would be never the less Perfect Now from what has been above discoursed of the ground of God's sole Property in things set apart for his Service we come at length to see how all things given to the Church Whether Houses or Lands or Tithes belong to Church-men They are but usufructuarii and have only the use of these things the Property and Fee remaining wholly in God and consequently the Alienating of them is a robbing of God Mal. 3.89 Ye are Cursed with a Curse for ye have robbed me even this whole Nation in Tythes and Offerings If it was God that was robbed it was God also that was the owner of what was took away in the Robbery Even our own common Law speaks as much For so says our Magna Charta in the 1. ch Concessimus Deo quòd Ecclesia Anglicana libera erit c. Upon which words that great Lawyer in his Institutes Comments thus When any thing is granted for God it is deemed in Law to be granted to God and whatsoever is granted to the Church for his Honour and the maintenance of his Service is granted for and to God The same also appears from those Forms of Expression in which the Donation of Sacred things usually ran As Deo Omnipotenti hâc praesente Chartâ donavimus with the like But most undeniably is this proved by this one Argument That in case a Bishop should commit Treason and Felony and thereby forfeit his Estate with his Life yet the Lands of his Bishoprick become not forfeit but remain still in the Church and pass intire to his Successour which sufficiently shews that they were none of his It being therefore thus proved That God is the sole Proprietor of all Sacred things or places I suppose his peculiar Property in them is an abundantly pregnant Reason of that Different Respect that he bears to them For is not the Meum and the Separate Property of a thing the great cause of its endearment amongst all Mankind Does any one respect a common as much as he does his Garden or the Gold that lies in the Bowels of a Mine as much as that which he has in his purse I have now finish'd the first Proposition drawn from the Words Namely That God bears a different respect to places set apart and consecrated to his Worship from what he bears to all other places designed to the uses of common Life And also shewn the reason why he does so I proceed now to the other Proposition which is That God preferrs the Worship paid him in such Places above that which is offered him in any other places whatsoever And that for these Reasons 1. Because such places are naturally apt to excite a greater Reverence and Devotion in the discharge of Divine Service than places of common Use. The place properly reminds a man of the Business of the place and strikes a kind of awe into the thoughts when they reflect upon that great
wise Men the only measure of the latter And the truth is the late Times of Confusion in which the Heights and Refinements of Religion were professed in Conjunction with the Practice of the most Execrable Villainies that were ever acted upon the Earth And the Weakness of our Church-Discipline since its Restauration whereby it has been scarce able to get any hold on Men's Consciences and much less able to keep it and the great prevalence of that Atheistical Doctrine of the Leviathan and the unhappy Propagation of Erastianism these things I say with some others have been the sad and fatal Causes that have loosed the Bands of Conscience and eaten out the very Heart and Sense of Christianity amongst us to that degree that there is now scarce any religious Tye or Restraint upon persons but merely from those faint Remainders of Natural Conscience which God will be sure to keep alive upon the Hearts of Men as long as they are Men for the great Ends of his own Providence whether they will or no. So that were it not for this sole Obstacle Religion is not now so much in danger of being divided and torn piece-meal by Sects and Factions as of being at once devour'd by Atheism Which being so let none wonder that Irreligion is accounted Policy when it is grown even to a fashion and passes for Wit with some as well as for Wisdom with others For certain it is that Advantage now sits in the Room of Conscience and steers all And no Man is esteemed any ways considerable for Policy who wears Religion otherwise than as a Cloak that is as such a Garment as may both cover and keep him warm and yet hang loose upon him too The third Rule or Principle upon which this Policy or Wisdom of the World proceeds is That a Man ought to make himself and not the Publick the Chief if not the sole End of all his Actions He is to be his own Centre and Circumference too That is to draw all things to himself and to extend nothing beyond himself He is to make the greater World serve the less and not only not to love his Neighbour as himself but indeed to account none for his Neighbour but himself And therefore to die or suffer for his Country is not only exploded by him as a great Paradox in Politicks and fitter for Poets to sing of than for wise Men to practise But also to make himself so much as one Penny the poorer or to forbear one base gain to serve his Prince to secure a whole Nation or to credit a Church is judged by him a great want of Experience and a piece of Romantick Melancholy unbecoming a Politician who is still to look upon himself as his Prince his Country his Church nay and his God too The general Interest of the Nation is nothing to him but only that Portion of it that he either does or would possess 'T is not the Rain that waters the whole Earth but that which falls into his own Cistern that must relieve him Not the Common but the Enclosure that must make him rich Let the Publick sink or swim so long as he can hold up his Head above Water Let the Ship be cast away if he may but have the Benefit of the Wreck Let the Government be ruin'd by his Avarice if by the same Avarice he can scrape together so much as to make his peace and maintain him as well under another Let Foreigners invade and spoil the Land so long as he has a good Estate in Bank else-where Peradventure for all this Men may curse him as a Covetous Wretch a Traitour and a Villain But such words are to be look'd upon only as the splendid Declaimings of Novices and Men of Heat who while they rail at his Person perhaps envy his Fortune or possibly of Losers and Male-contents whose Portion and Inheritance is a Freedom to speak But a Politician must be above words Wealth he knows answers all and if it brings a Storm upon him will provide him also a Coat to weather it out That such Thoughts and Principles as these lie at the Bottom of most Men's Actions at the Bottom do I say Nay sit at the Top and visibly hold the Helm in the Management of the weightiest Affairs of most Nations we need not much History nor Curiosity of Observation to convince us For though there have not been wanting such heretofore as have practised these unworthy Arts for as much as there have been Villains in all Places and all Ages yet now-a-days they are owned above-board and whereas Men formerly had them in design amongst us they are openly vouched argued and asserted in common Discourse But this I confess being a new unexemplified kind of Policy scarce comes up to that which the Apostle here condemns for the Wisdom of the World but must pass rather for the Wisdom of this particular Age which as in most other things it stands alone scorning the Examples of all former Ages so it has a Way of Policy and Wisdom also peculiar to it self 4. The fourth and last Principle that I shall mention upon which this Wisdom of the World proceeds is this That in shewing Kindness or doing Favours no Respect at all is to be had to Friendship Gratitude or Sense of Honour but that such Favours are to be done only to the Rich or Potent from whom a Man may receive a further Advantage or to his Enemies from whom he may otherwise fear a Mischief I have here mentioned Gratitude and Sense of Honour being as I may so speak a Man's Civil Conscience prompting him to many things upon the Accounts of common Decency which Religion would otherwise bind him to upon the Score of Duty And it is sometimes found that some who have little or no Reverence for Religion have yet those innate Seeds and Sparks of Generosity as make them scorn to doe such things as would render them mean in the Opinion of sober and worthy Men and with such Persons Shame is instead of Piety to restrain them from many base and degenerous practices But now our Politician having baffled his Greater Conscience must not be non-plus'd with Inferiour Obligations and having leapt over such Mountains at length poorly lie down before a Mole-hill But he must add Perfection to Perfection and being past Grace endeavour if need be to be past Shame too And accordingly he looks upon Friendship Gratitude and Sense of Honour as terms of Art to amuse and impose upon weak undesigning Minds For an Enemy's Money he thinks may be made as good a Friend as any and Gratitude looks backward but Policy forward and for Sense of Honour if it impoverisheth a man it is in his Esteem neither Honour nor Sense Whence it is that now-a-days only Rich men or Enemies are accounted the Rational Objects of Benefaction For to be kind to the former is Traffick and in these Times Men present just as they Soyl their