to do him service Ask him again why he doth not repent of the mischief done by it for that they seldom do and the Conscience will serve that turn too It is Gods cause and the Conscience will not suffer them to repent of that Thus we see the Conscience as it is used doth not only open a door to sin but shuts the very door to mercy that is Repentance If S. John said true as no doubt he did That there were many Antichrists then possibly the Conscience thus improved may be one of them For it sets it self in the Church above all that is called God yea and God himself too in a sense for his Laws are not to be obeyed unless the Conscience first allows them to be his and thus all is resolved into the Conscience as the dernier resort and last appeal While the King and the Pope are contending for Supremacy the Conscience without scruple puts in for it against both and takes it for her right to be supreme in all causes as well Ecclesiastical as Civil There is great complaint in the world of domineering over the Conscience but have we not rather cause to complain of the domineering of the Conscience And if any list to see the Conscience acting all this we need go no further then our late times when the Conscience was loose for a while one would think Hell had broke loose so fill'd was on a sudden the Church with sects and the Common-wealth with confusion There is reason enough therefore to restrain the Conscience that acts all this if we knew how The next thing I undertook to shew is That there is no reason why it should have liberty and particularly not that which gives the fairest colour to it Neither the duty we owe to Truth which seems to have some right to liberty nor that we owe to the Will of God that nothing be done against the Conscience For the first Truth is that I confess which no consideration of peace may warrant us to desert for I could never be of that opinion That Truth in smaller matters may for Peace sake be either denied or prejudiced Magna est veritas etiam in minimis in Gods name let it prevail over all But then it must be Veritas in rebus not Veritas in intellectu For though Truth be defined to be a conformity of the understanding to the thing as it is indeed yet takes the name from both from the thing where Truth is originally and from the understanding where it is only represented Truth in that first reference to the thing admits no qualification things must be taken as they are be they never so small but as the things come to be represented to and entertained by the Understanding by reason of the mistakes and errours that may happen in that though Truth it self or Truth in the thing cannot yet my apprehension of it may both yield to better and may sometimes be waved for peace sake To argue from Truth in the thing to Truth in the apprehension only is a fallacy against the Rules of Reasoning we call it Petitio principii or a begging of the question If a Sectary should beg an alms I wish he may have it but he shall beg long ere it be granted him that he hath the Truth How then can he presume upon that truth to which he hath no other title but his own perswasion which can be no better then any mans else who is as strongly perswaded to the contrary And this is all the service that Truth can do the Conscience for liberty 2. The second thing whereupon the Conscience especially bears it self so high is the Will of God that nothing be done against the Conscience That no doubt is a great offence and made so by the greatest Authority Yet the same God that requires our obedience to the Conscience commands us likewise to obey our Parents our Princes and Governours and all these stand upon as good authority as the Conscience If we cannot reconcile our obedience to that with our obedience to these we may sin against God when we do not sin against the Conscience For though God hath erected a Tribunal in every mans breast and there set the Conscience to be a Judg of all our actions there be other Tribunals of Justice besides of Gods erection too and to which he hath subjected the very Conscience Ye must needs be subject Rom. 13. not only for wrath but also for conscience And after both these there is another Tribunal in Heaven to which all Judges Conscience and all must give an account one day For the Conscience is no Court of Record the Decrees and Acts passed there will be no good evidence at that Bar there all must be re-examined and tried over gain Though I know nothing by my self saith S. Paul yet am I not thereby justified Though he could not charge his Conscience with any offence he knew a further trial must pass upon him before he could be absolved My Conscience indeed may be pleaded there in evidence against me as a Witness to condemn me but not as a Judg to absolve me It is a great mistake in the power and operation of the Conscience That it will condemn us if we do any thing against it the Text is clear for that but that it will absolve us for that we do according to it there is no Text I am sure for that We must then be tried by the Law and not by the Conscience For how the proceedings will be at that Bar we have a record Matth. 5.31 When the Son of Man shall come in his glory and all the holy Angels with him Then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory and before him shall be gathered all nations When the Court was set the Charge was given to those on the left hand I was an hungred and ye gave me no meat I was athirst and ye gave me no drink I was a stranger and ye took me not in naked and ye cloathed me not sick and in prison and ye visited me not To this Charge the Conscience no doubt confidently enough pleaded Not guilty Lord when saw wee thee an hungred or athirst or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison and did not minister unto thee Their Conscience could accuse them of none of these things for all that the Sentence went against them upon a point of Law and Equity In that ye did it not to these saith the Judg ye did it not to me And for this they were condemned to eternal punishment If they that stand so much upon their consciences did seriously consider this they would find as little cause to desire that liberty as there is to grant it seeing it stands them in so little stead when they have most need of it for when they think their conscience shall answer for them they must then answer for their conscience and upon trial the conscience may prove the great offender
the house of Jason and sought to bring them out to the people mad enough of themselves but the more to ferment and enrage them they charge the Apostles with the fault that they themselves were acting These are they that turn the world upside-down S. Paul having escaped this fury by going to Athens and there considering in what a case he left his new Converts both them and their Doctrine them in a furious tumult and their Doctrine under the reproach of troubling the world out of a zeal no doubt and desire to remove that scandal from the Faith of all things begs and beseecheth them to study to be quiet But how will this concern us I wish we never had and had not still the same occasion It is not so long since that we should forget how our late troubles first brake in upon our quiet We had unbelieving Jews then amongst us too and some as was thought in the literal sense who moved with envy of the times took unto them likewise a company of lewd fellows of the baser sort set the City in an uproar and we may remember whose houses they beset as the Jews did Jasons none of the meanest and cried out for that justice which themselves deserved And there were Religions in the world then too many to the scandal of the true who led on and blew up those tumults And even now though God be thanked they dare not be so bold to assault us in the streets and beset our houses as they did then yet still keep their quarters and leaguers within doors with more secresie but no less danger It will not therefore be unseasonable for us now who have the same cause the Thessalonians had with the same affection the Apostle did to beseech you to study to be quiet We have all need of quiet and quiet it seems hath need of study and study hath need of Gods blessing and therefore before we proceed further Let us pray c. THe parts of the Text are two VVhat we are to study And That we are to study First What That ye study to be quiet Quiet is here commended under the notion and quality of an Art or Science for we are injoyned to study it And in them we are to look first to the object the nature and quality of it and then to the Principles and Theorems whereon the Art is grounded 1. For the nature and kind of this Quiet first For there be many things lay claim to this word which are either unfit for our study or improper to this place As first there is a quiet from all motion or action that is good or useful to do nothing but eat and drink and sleep or worse Away with that quiet it neither deserves our study nor needs it This is Negotiosa quies we are commanded in the words following to be busie as well as quiet we are both to study to be quiet and to do our own business 2. There is a Quiet not simply from all but publick business when men retire themselves for private study or devotion This may be allowed and commended too when the necessities of their Countries requires them not But because publick imployments are seldome forced upon any nor need to be for no mans parts or abilities are so great which may not truly and certainly will be thought such as can very well be spared They therefore who affect that privacy may be secure from that necessity they who have a will to be quiet for devotion or study need not study to be quiet the access to that is easie enough 3. There is another Quiet more commendable in its self and needs our study too To compose our unruly and disordered passions and affections which raise tumults and commotions within us that will not suffer us to be at rest or quiet day or night In the midst therefore of all the temptations of good or storms of ill fortune to rest securely and contentedly whatsoever happens to our private is certainly an admirable temper and well worthy our best care and study and was that which S. Paul himself it seems studied for he said he learned it Phil. 4.11 I have learned in what estate soever I am therewith to be content But the quiet we are here to study is not properly within us but without us it is not simply a quiet from motion but commotion a troubling of others 4. And that I may contract my argument and bring it into as narrow a compass as may be I shall not take in every of the disturbances of the quiet of others No not that which is the greatest of all and most contrary to peace and quiet Civil Wars and broils The mischiefs of that we have learned so lately to our cost and so perfectly that I hope we need not be set to study that now when every good man was put to his study how to live and when vile and contemptible wretches ranted in plenty and power The horrid fruits and consequences of that great disturber of quiet War have induc'd some learned men as well as others to think all wars unlawful I should have been much inclined to that opinion upon the strictest rules of Christianity if War were not sometimes necessary to Peace A foreign War for that reason may be lawful but a civil and domestick never And the reason of this difference is because for the composing of all quarrels that may arise between subjects God hath by his Ordinance provided a remedy in Princes and Magistrates from whom alone we are to seek for revenge or defence But for such differences as arise between free Princes and States because there is no Judg on earth to whom they may have recourse for their relief being destitute of the common remedy they may without question make use of that sword which God hath put into their hands to defend their subjects from the injuries as well of strangers as their own Nor are they in this Judges in their own cause which hath some appearance of injustice for a foreign War for defect of a competent Judg on Earth is but an appeal to the supreme Judg of Heaven and Earth And when they go into the Field it is but to plead their cause before God with whom are the issues of War Only they had need be careful that the cause they bring before him be good For shall not the Judg of all the world do right But we must leave this to Princes and their Ministers who are the only proper students of that quiet which is disturbed by War and come to that which may and must be the study of us all That is a quiet from troubles that arise from different judgments and perswasions in matters of Religion which cause sects and divisions in it though they break not out into an open War Not that War be quite left out of the Sectaries reckoning For though Civil Wars and Rebellions have their beginning for the most part
is no good principle whereon to ground the Churches peace The next is That howsoever it be in other matters of Religion it would make much for the quiet of the Church if Errors in Judgment were not punished as crimes because no man can be abler and wiser than God hath made him It is true that an Error so long as it stays in the Understanding and goes no further is not properly a sin for the Understanding is not agens liberum but passive In that the eye of the mind is as the eye of the body if that be naturally short-sighted it is no fault that it sees not so far as another But if the weakness of the Understanding participate with the Will which is agens liberum and so the Error comes within our power then it may be properly a sin This is the case of all that dissent in Sects for though in speculation the Understanding is distinct from the Will yet in practise they are seldom severed For it is morally impossible that after a man hath conceived an opinion he should not be well pleased with it and have a will as occasion is to defend and propagate it too And when it is Voluntarium no doubt but it is Peccatum and when error grows to be a sin I know no reason why it may not be punished for interest reipublicae peccata puniri But for all that it is they say a great disturbance of quiet to be tied to assent to that we cannot know nor comprehend That 's a great mistake I know there is much exception taken to the too punctual desinitions of some mysteries of the faith and particularly in the Creed commonly called by Athanasius where there are many particulars which they cannot know nor comprehend Whereas in truth it is not required of them they are not bound to know them but to believe them for it is the mercy of God that the defect of our knowledg may be supplyed by the knowledg of others for to believe is to see with other mens eyes as knowledg is with our own But may we safely trust others in that which so neerly concerns as a Creed Yes sure and it is as well the mercy as the command of God that we should trust those that watch over our souls yet still that must be to supply the defect of our knowledg not otherwise for the Church is not Lord of our Faith but helper of our Ignorance It supplies the defect of our sight it doth not put it out for if a man knows the contrary he is not bound to believe others for if he can see with his own eyes why shall he be tied to see with other mens But then we must distinguish betwixt not knowing the negative and a positive knowing the contrary for if we refuse to believe meerly because we do not know or understand we leave no place for Faith at all which is the benefit to see by others And for that positive knowledg which discharges us of believing others that we be not mistaken it is not every conjectural or probable perswasion will do it but certain knowledg and when that is we may safely learn from the Schools Ubi non est for mido contrarii after diligent search and enquiry when there remains no scruple doubt or fear of the contrary when the understanding is fixed we are said to be certain If this knowledge will serve to discharge us of believing others every one that dissents will say he knows the contrary yea and if need be will swear to it too for that 's an expedient lately found out to obtain that liberty That they may be admitted to swear they know the contrary to that which is commanded Truly if they will say it and think so too whether they swear it or no I think we may safely absolve them from the guilt of disobedience but that must be in foro Conscientiae only and let them make the best use they can of that yet in foro externo we cannot for there the Judge must give sentence according to his knowledge and not according to the knowledge of the party if he will do justice And that course can be no good friend to Peace which is an enemy to Justice Though Errors may be punished yet it troubles the quiet of many that the omission of Forms and Ceremonies is more severely punished then some foul and scandalous crimes To this I answer First That they who object this are not to be trusted with the ballance of sins for we know how the Market went for them when they held the Scale Obedience to the King and the Laws and serving God according to them were the great scandalous crimes 2. Allowing it to be true as they say That omission of Forms and Ceremonies is by the Church more frequently and severely punished then greater faults But how greater It may be in their proper and natural guilt and obliquity according to which sentence shall be given at the day of Judgment and to death eternal But our earthly Tribunals are not erected to anticipate the day of Judgment to bring all sinners to trial for whatsoever they have committed in the flesh and according to the proper measure of their guilt but for a particular end and use that people while they live here in the world and in society may be kept in good order and quiet from doing or receiving injuries And to this end is the degree of their punishments commensurate Treason and Rebellion are more severely punished in the State then many other hainous crimes because they destroy the very foundation of government and Society And for the same reason a schismatical disobedience though but in matters of Form and Ceremony is pursued with more care and strictness because it destroys the very end for which the power is given the Church to punish which is the preservation of peace and unity For though the Pastors of the Church may and must by way of Instruction the better to prepare us for our account at the great and general Judgment give every sin the proper weight and measure of guilt that is by way of Instruction But by way of Correction the Church is bound up to certain causes and if they keep not their bounds they shall be sure to hear of a prohibition and those causes are especially such for which the power is only given That the peaceable orderly Worship and service of God be not disturbed For though they are ever telling us it is for trifles ceremonies or indifferent things it is but the same quarrel the Atheists have against God himself for being so much offended for an Apple a trifle which scarce any man that hath an Orchard would have been troubled with and one Answer will serve both in effect In that forbidden fruit Gods authority in commanding and Adams duty in obeying were symbolically engaged for him and his and there was venome enough in that to infect both The Rites and
private ignorant Instructer whose person they have in admiration without any great cause God knows whereas their private judgments because they are parties ought always to be suspected if we be wise and because against their Governors to be contemn'd if we be obedient All these well studied may make for peace when possibly Arguments and Disputes and Punishments too will not do it And yet if still none of these will make our Student quiet Let him in the last place make trial of a common remedy that prevails in all cases of difficulty Let him but study his own security the sasest course and he shall find that better provided for in the Churches judgment then in his own for if he should erre in following the Church or his Governors for that is possible the greatest part of that guilt some say all I say only the greatest part must lie at their door that command that which is unlawful But if they should erre in following their own judgment or a Judge of their own choosing for that makes it their own too and that is more then possible all the blame and guilt then must of necessity and inexcusably fall upon themselves Upon these principles setting aside all those that may convince our judgments in particulars from these alone I say we see how safe how prudent how religious a thing it is to submit our private judgments to the publick for the peace of the Church It remains only now that we imploy our best endeavour and study for it which is the second part of the Text and the last thing to be considered That ye study STudy is an earnest intention of the mind by diligent search and enquiry Wishing well to Quiet or speaking well of it will not serve the greatest disturbers of Peace will do that many times give it a good word when they will not part with the phansie for it And yet Quiet is a thing that requires care and pains somewhat more then ordinary For when S. Peter likewise speaks of peace it is in the words of the same import Seck peace 1 Pet. 3.11 and ensue it If it be hidden seek it out if it flies from you pursue after it It is a busie thing to be quiet The word here translated Study is in the Original 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Be ambitious of it that is pursue and study it as you would do Honour and Preferment And that I think is as much as can be desired and yet no more then Quiet both deserves and needs First It deserves it For though quiet be rather Status vita then Virtus it is no Vertue it self yet the best soil to plant Vertue in The fruits of righteousness are sown in peace Jam. 3.18 So are all the fruits of Industry Learning Arts Sciences Traffick Commerce flourish most in the calm temperate clime but in troubles and dissentions every good thing goes backward only mischief thrives It fares with troubled times as in troubled waters all the filth dirt and mire in the bottom gets them up to the top We saw as much when our waters were lately troubled what a deal of filth dirt and mire what fordid stuff was then got up to the top and highest place of rule and command So much are we the more oblig'd to study that peace and quiet which hath sunk them to their proper place again the bottom And there let them lie if you would be quiet 2. As it deserves therefore our study so it needs it too for it is a difficult thing to be quiet the way to it lies through so many parts and duties of Religion and not the easiest of them neither To deny our selves by humility and lowliness of mind to acknowledge our own weakness and frailty to submit our judgments to others as better and wiser then our selves to subdue our passions and lusts from whence the Apostle observes Wars and Contentions to come from our Lusts and to all these the Flesh hath naturally a reluctance Our Student therefore hath need to contend with himself to be at peace with others S. Paul was at Athens when he wrote this Epistle a famous University for the study of all liberal Arts and Sciences I cannot say he had these in his thought when he commended this study to the Thessalonians as an Art of more use then any he found at Athens Yet when I see him so passionately earnest for it to beseech them to study we have reason to value it as an Art well worthy of Schools and Professors and Students And they would make a Royal Society whereof the King himself is Master who is our Peace-maker by office and by a care equal to that hath by Law provided 1 Tim. 2.2 that under Him we may live a peaceable and quiet life in all godliness and honesty He hath little sense of Honour that will not enter himself a Student under that conduct The very word for Study 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 carries Honour with it And yet I can tell them of a higher School for it then this and wherein Kings themselves are content to be Students Our Lord Christ the great Mediator of our eternal peace with Heaven would not be brought into the world without a Song of Peace on Earth by Angels S. Joh. 14.27 And when he left the World bequeathed it as a Legacy after him My peace I leave with you And when he comes again to judge the world we have reason to look that he will call us to a reckoning how we use his Legacy And so he will too for he is That Lord Matth. 24. that when he came and found some smiting their fellow-servants commanding them to be cut asunder and have their portion with hypocrites A punishment well sitted to the offence there was a schism in the fault and there shall be another schism in the punishment they who sundred and divided from their Brethren should themselvs be cut asunder and have their portion with hypocrites But for the Peace-makers when he comes he will provide better company Matt. 5.9 for they shall be called the Children of God Blessed are they then whom the Lord when he comes shall find at their studies of that Quiet which gives them so fair a Title to Eternal Rest and Peace in Heaven with Christ and all the Children of God A SERMON Preached before His Majesty at Whitehall March 18. 1665 6. 1 THESS 4.11 And to do your own business THE whole Verse whereof these words are a part is an Exhortation to the study of Two Lessons One for Quiet the other for Business That ye study to be quiet and to do your own business Of the former the last time I had the honor to be called to this Service we treated particularly and it was a point well worthy our care and study But the Lesson we are now to learn seems not much to deserve or need it I have not I confess sought far for a Text but took