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A67684
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Divine rules for Christian unity opened and urged a sermon / preach'd in the Cathedral Church of Norwich, October 16, 1692 by Erasmus Warren, rector of Worlington in Suffolk.
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Warren, Erasmus.
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1692
(1692)
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Wing W964; ESTC R28908
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20,645
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38
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The GOD to whom Vengeance belongeth Not that He has made the Work peculiar to Himself for any extraordinary Pleasure He takes in it but because He only is able to execute it aright in fitting Instances that is and just Proportions For He only knows the Malice of Mens Hearts and the Peevishness of their Spirits and the secret Malignity of their Intentions as well as the true Obliquity and Baseness of their Actions Which we being utterly Ignorant of upon that account also must forbear Revenge else we undertake what we are unable justly to perform another piece of unwarrantable Rashness and Presumption Leaving Vengeance to GOD therefore who alone can take it in equitable Measures and with unerring Exactness let us give up our selves to the opposite Duties as the Gospel requires and be very Diligent and Exemplary in them As we are instructed in the last Verse of this Chapter Let us be kind one to another tender-hearted forgiving one another even as GOD for CHRIST's sake hath forgiven us And as we are taught elsewhere If our Enemies hunger let us feed them if they thirst let us give them drink Let us do good against evil and overcome evil with good and never requite the worst Unkindnesses but with Prayers and Civilities So we shall conform to the Primitive Christians and signalize our selves by a noble Imitation of their Glorious Patterns of whom we find it thus recorded Being reviled we bless being persecuted we suffer it being defamed we intreat 1 Cor. 4.12 13. But if the Spirit of Revenge be so strong in any that they cannot bridle or restrain it I will shew them how they may best vent it Let them seriously think how many Wrongs and withall how grievous ones they have done to GOD their Neighbours and their own Souls and let their vindictive Humour run out against their Sins and be spent upon themselves So they shall break no Unity Which if we would not do we must Forbear one another at least in the several Instances mentioned For Despising Mens Failings Censuring their Actions Aggravating their Faults Reproaching their Persons and Revenging their Ill turns are almost direct and natural Provocations to Wrath and Strife and Hatred and Malice And where-ever these Evils rise and rule there is there can be no room for Unity There are and must be Heart-burnings and Animosities and they have always Jars and Discord in their Train Unless therefore we exercise mutual Forbearance in the aforesaid Cases and that with all good Care and Conscience we plainly shew we are no Friends to Unity Perhaps I might say we are perfect cruel Enemies to it and instead of healing the fearful Gashes made in it do stab it to the Heart and add to its bleeding gaping Wounds As to forbearing Ecclesiastical Impositions I have said nothing that 's the Concern of those in Authority and it is not the part of a Popular Discourse to prescribe to Governors Though I cannot but think it would be matter of Joy to good Christians to see the Terms of Communion with any pure Church made as few as they may be and those few made as easie as they can be by being stretch'd out to the utmost Extent of a wise and safe and most enlarged Charity And happy it is where in framing and receiving of Church-Constitutions favourable Indulgence and Condescention in the Rulers meet with Flexibility and obediential Compliance in the People For where the Tempers of both are so laudable in themselves and Congruous to each other they will be sure Foundations of a solid Unity Of such a Unity as by being Pleasing and Satisfactory in its Conditions will be either indissoluble or of lasting Duration And here I beg leave to make one Remark upon what occurs in the Fifteenth of the Acts In that Chapter we find the Apostles and Elders together holding a Council And after serious and mature Debates relating to certain Gentile Converts they came to this prudent and moderate Determination It seemed good to the HOLY GHOST and to us to lay no greater Burthen upon you than these NECESSARY Things Now that Council being the most Apostolical that ever met this must be the most Authentick that was ever made and so the purest President if not perfectest Standard for Sacred Impositions that the Catholick Church can shew or go by upon Earth And this Council and this Canon laying no other things upon Christians but what were Necessary Hence it will follow that if Particular Churches would draw the first and best Example into Practice they must take the same Measures and impose only such things as are absolutely Necessary in their own Nature or else upon great and high Accounts And when we find in the Case alledged that an indifferent thing Abstinence from things Strangled was required as Necessary to further the Association of Judaizing Christians with Believing Gentiles From hence it may be argued with Parity of Reason that 't is necessary Indifferent things should not be imposed where that Imposition may hinder the Coalescence of dissenting Christians with the imposing Church Yet this on the other side must be added That no indifferent things imposed nor any thing less than downright Sin in the Terms of Communion with any Church can justifie our Separation from that Church And the Reason is evident because Separation where it is not absolutely needful to avoid Sin becomes a Sin in it self by being an unlawful Breach of that Unity of the SPIRIT which GOD hath so positively and peremptorily injoyned And where Separation is thus sinful as it always is where we are not forc'd upon it to shun Sin we must chuse to submit to any Inconveniencies rather than be guilty of it For it is much better that we should be uneasie than that GOD should be offended Much better for us to be incommoded in our Circumstances than to be defiled in our Consciences Nor may we leave a Church for more Purity's sake in whose Communion we may continue without Sin For besides that upon this Account we may for ever separate and sub-divide and run out Criminous Schisms into an endless Process or Multiplication We must be grievously Preposterous in our Procedure What sensible Man would attempt to wash his Hands white with Ink Or go about to take a Spot from off his Face by plunging himself over Head and Ears into Mire And are not they as little rational in their Enterprize and not only more Absurd but Faulty too that seek to advance Purity by sinning and that commit a Crime to cure an Imperfection And this is truly the case of those who withdraw from one Church in whose Communion they are innocent and safe to set up another purer than that Instead of bettering themselves they become really worse and well they may and needs they must because they do evil that good may come Rom. 3.8 To check Inclinations of separating upon such an account it may properly be considered that no Church upon Earth
impartial Eye but yet on many things we must look with connivence and not only wink at but extenuate them We are not to put Mens Actions upon the Tenters and to stretch them to the worst sense they are capable of if we do we violate the Law of our Heavenly Religion which lays an Obligation upon us to the contrary Judge not Nor are we bound from it in point of Religion only but of Policy too upon account of Interest as well as of Duty Judge not that ye be not judged Plainly intimating that if we be severe the Rigor we use we must expect and that from GOD as well as from Men. Let us therefore weigh others with Grains of Allowance that so the same may be done to us But if we carp Censoriously and fling at them should GOD not be angry Men will retaliate and we need not question but we shall meet with those that will pay us sufficiently in our own Coin Though were nothing of this to ensue we ought to be wonderful Cautious in Censuring for fear of Mistake which we may easily run into For there may be great difference betwixt what seems to be and what really is Judging 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 according to appearance made our SAVIOUR once pass for a Sabbath breaker and St. Paul for a Setter-forth of Strange GODS And through the same false Glass do they look who in our necessary Rejection of dangerous Errors and Separation from them can descry Heresie and damnable Apostasie and in our lawful useful Ceremonies can see Antichristianism and gross Idolatry But that 's the common Fault of rash Censuring to clap a most ugly Vizard of Guilt upon the Face of Innocence and to besmear Integrity with misimputed Wickedness In dread and Detestation of so foul an Enormity let us Censure none but upon surest Grounds And truly where Actions deserve to be censured the Agents may sometimes be very well spared For where there is Darkness in the Mind there may be Sincerity in the Soul and invincible Ignorance will excuse many Errors It is one thing not to discern the Truth and another to deny it desert it detain it in Unrighteousness We are not presently to count them desperately Wicked all whose Practices we cannot justifie Heaven it self looks not upon all as Factious and Idolatrous in their Hearts who are so in their Ways in their Worship Let not us accuse where there is any good hope that GOD will approve nor be forward to condemn whom his Mercy may acquit As many are much worse than their Profession can permit so some are much better than their Principles do allow Put the favourablest Construction therefore upon all Persons and their Actions and think as fairly of them as possibly you can taking in all appendent Circumstances and judging by the Rules of ingenuous Candor For I do not mean that any of us should call Black White at any rate Where things are Evident and Notorious we must see them in their own Colours and not stick to call them by their proper Names They who call Evil Good and put Darkness for Light are marked out by GOD Himself in the fifth of Isaiah and we there find what Stamp they are of To pronounce that naught which really is so is no culpable Censure but a commendable Judgment And they who cannot or dare not pass it upon just occasion proclaim to the World that they have little Understanding or no great Uprightness Thirdly Forbear Aggravating Epictetus says every thing has two Handles And if so Ingenuity to mention nothing higher should teach us never to take hold of the worst Where there are no Faults be sure to make none Where there are but little ones make them not great Where there are great ones make them not bigger than they are Too many go the contrary way and are violent in it They love to raise Mountains out of Mole-hills and to blow up harmless Shadows into hideous Monsters What is spoken in height of Fansie they draw down to a common Sense And what passes in heat of Passion or Dispute they interpret to be Mens settled Judgments What they find amiss in the Speeches Writings and Carriages of some they impute to all of the same Rank in which they stand it may be to the whole Church of which they are But they who take such a lawless Liberty as this may make any thing out of any thing and transform the beautifullest pieces of Religion into black and bloughty Prophaneness Thus the Eternal Son of GOD for asserting his Divinity was arraign'd of Blasphemy Matt. 26.65 And for working Miracles by the Power of the HOLY GHOST was decry'd for a Conjurer the Jews averring openly to his Face that He cast out Devils by Beelzebub the Prince of Devils And what a Multitude of wretched Aggravators are there in this Age Such as busily imploy their Tongues and Pens not only in making bad things worse which is an ill work and speaks them very Corrupt that do it but also in perverting things that are good so as to make them seem Odious and Impious as if they took a Pride in letting the World know they have Pestilential Ink or a Breath so Virulent as to be able in a manner to blast Holiness it self Fourthly Forbear Reproaching Use no opprobrious or disgraceful Language for as that proceeds from want of Temper and aloud proclaims us to be sharp and bitter so it tends but to the Increase of Gaul and Acrimony Rather obey the Apostle therefore who in the close of this Chapter charges Christians to put away all Bitterness Clamour and evil Speaking Let no abusive or exasperating Reflections be made by us either upon those in Communion with us or upon any amongst us or about us Devilish Papists Damn'd Fanaticks Mad Dissenters or the like are words that sound ill and signifie worse for they that so let fly against their Fellow-Christians intending basely to brand them do most shamefully stigmatize themselves If they were reputed Carnal and recorded for such who said I am of Paul and I of Apollo 1 Cor. 3.4 what Character must they come under who in spite and disparagement to their Brethren call them by names of a worse Distinction Certainly they forget how the Son of GOD when His perfidious Disciple came to betray Him gave him no worse Title than that of Friend And how the Prince of the Angels contesting with the Devil in the midst of Altercation durst not bring 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Charge of Reproach against him Fifthly Forbear Revenging Dearly Beloved avenge not your selves says the SPIRIT Rom. 12.19 To do that would be daring and dangerous For besides that 't is a Breach of the Gospel-Precept of not rendring Evil for Evil It is moreover an Incroachment upon GOD's Right and a bold Usurpation of His Prerogative who has appropriated Revenge unto Himself Vengeance is mine I will repay saith the LORD And more than once the Psalmist calls Him