the injury was like to go both against me and many others of my Brethren Therefore finding since among the relicts of my scattered Papers this imperfect piece which I had before written on that Text I was desirous to publish it as for the benefit of weak Christians so to right my self and to cashier that Farewel Sermon If the Reader will but peruse these Directions impartially and read them as he doth the Prescripts of his Physicians which are not written meerly to be read but must be daily practised whatever it cost him as he loveth his life then I make no doubt notwithstanding the weakness of the composure but it may further the cure of his spiritual weaknesses and distempers and of the consequent troubles and losses of others and himself I hope I shall not meet with many besides malignant hypocrites who will be so impenitent and peevish as to fly in the face of the Reprover and Directer and say that I open the nakedness of many servants of Christ to the reproach and dishonour of Religion I have told you from the Word of God that it is Gods way and must be ours to lay the just dishonour upon the sinner that it may not fall upon Religion and on God And that the defending or excusing odious sins in tenderness of the persons who committed them is the surest and worse way to bring dishonour first or last both upon Religion and on them A Noah a Lot a David a Solomon a Peter c. shall be dishonoured by God in holy Record to all ages that God may not be more dishonoured by them And the truly penitent are willing that it should be so and account their honour a very cheap Sacrifice to offer up to the honour of Religion which they have wronged And till you come to this you come short of true Repentance He that defendeth his open sin unless he could deny the fact doth as bad as say God liketh it Christ bid me do it the Scripture is for it or not against it Religion taught it me or doth not forbid it me The godly allow it and will do the like And what can be said more Blasphemously against God or more injuriously against Religion the Scriptures and the Saints But he that confesseth his sin doth as good as say Lay all the blame on me who do deserve it and not on God on Christ on Scripture on Religion or on the Servants of God For I learned it not from any of them nor was encouraged to it by them None are greater enemies to it than they If I had hearkened to them I had done otherwise It is one of the chief reasons why Repentance is so necessary because it justifieth God and godliness And alas it is too late to talk of concealing those weaknesses and crimes of Christians which are so visible before all the World which have had such publick effects upon Churches Kingdoms and States which have kept almost all the Christian Churches in a torn and bleeding woful state for so many hundred years to this present day Which have separated the Churches of the East and West and defiled both And have drawn so much blood in Christian Countreyes And keep us yet like distracted persons gazing strangely at our nearest friends and running away by peevish separation from our Brethren with whom we must live in Heaven and mistakingly using those as enemies with whom if we are Christians as we profess we are united in the same Head and by the same Spirit which is a Spirit of Love In a word when our faults are so conspicuous as to harden the Infidels Heathens and ungodly and to hinder the Conversion of the World and when they sound so loud in the mouths of our common reproaching enemies and when they have contracted so much malignity as to refuse a cure by such Wars Divisions Church-desolations Plagues and Flames as we have seen It is then too late to say to the Preachers of Repentance Be silent lest you open the nakedness of Christians and disgrace Religion and the Church We must not be silent lest we disgrace Religion and the Church to save the credit of the sinners Whoever readeth the holy Scriptures and ever understood the Christian Faith must needs know that nothing in all the World is so much against every one of our errors and mis-doings It is only for want of more Religion that any Professors of Religion do miscarry Nothing but the Doctrine of Christianity and Godliness did at first destroy the reign of their sin and nothing else can subdue the rest and finish the Cure It is no disgrace to Life that so many mens lives are burdensome with sickness which the dead are not troubled with Nor is it any disgrace to Learning that Scholars for want of more Learning have troubled the World with their contentious Disputes Nor is it any disgrace to reason that mens different Reasons for want of more Reason doth set the World together by the ears We can never magnifie you enough as you are Christians and Godly unless we should ascribe more to you than your bounteous Lord hath given you who hath made you little lower than Angels and crowned you with glory and honour Psal. 8.5 6. But your sins are so much the more odious as they are brought so near the holy presence and as they are aggravated by greater mercies and professions And God is so far from being reconciled or reconcileable to any one of them that though he see not such iniquity in Jacob as is in Heathens and the ungodly because it is not in them to be seen yet he seeth more aggravated iniquity in such sins as you do commit in many respects than in the Heathens And that which is our common trouble is that you hurt not your selves alone by your iniquities Families are hurt by them Neighbours are hurt by them Churches are distracted by them Kingdoms are afflicted by them and thousands of blind sinners are hardened and everlastingly undone by them The ignorant Husband faith I will never follow Sermons nor Scriptures nor be so Religious while I see my Wife that maketh so much ado with Religion to be as peevish and discontented and foul-tongued and unkind and contemptuous and disobedient as those that have no Religion The Master that is prophane saith I like not your Religion when that servant which most Professeth Religion in my house is as lazy and negligent and as surly and sawcy and as ready to dishonour me and answer again and as proud of his little knowledg as those that have no Religion at all The like I might say of all other Relations All the dishonour that this casteth upon Grace is that you have too little of it and it is so weak in you that its Victory over your flesh and passions is lamentably imperfect A servant hearing a high commendation of a Gentleman that he was of extraordinary wisdom and godliness and bounty and patience and
mind and in the same judgement Phil. 2 1 2 3 4. If there be any consolation in Christ if any comfort of love if any fellowship of the Spirit if any bowels and mercies fulfill ye my joy that ye be like minded having the same Love being of one accord of one mind Let nothing be done through strife or vain glory but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves Look not every man on his own things but every man also on the things of others Ephes. 1.2 3 4 5 6 7. I therefore the prisoner of the Lord beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called with all lowliness and meekness with long suffering forbearing one another in love endeavouring to keep the Vnity of the Spirit in the bond of peace There is one body and one spirit even as ye are called in one hope of your calling one Lord one Faith one Baptism one God and Father of all who is above all and through all and in you all But unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ. Read also Ephes. 4.12 13 14 15 16. 1 Cor. 12. throughout He looketh at uncharitableness and divisions with more abhorrence than weak Christians do at drunkenness or whoredom or such other hainous sin He feareth such dreadfull warnings as Acts 20.29 30. For I know this that after my departing shall grievous Wolves enter in among you not sparing the flock Also of your own selves shall men arise speaking perverse things to draw away Disciples after them And he cannot slight such a vehement exhortation as Rom. 16.17 18. Now I beseech you Brethren mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the Doctrine which ye have learned and avoid them For they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ but their own belly and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple Therefore he is so far from being a divider himself that when he seeth any one making divisions among Christians he looketh on him as on one that is flashing and mangling the body of his dearest friend or as on one that is setting fire on his house and therefore doth all that he can to quench it As knowing the confusion and calamity to which it tendeth He is of a Christian and therefore of a truly Catholick spirit that is He maketh not himself a member of a divided Party or a Sect He regardeth the interest and welfare of the body the universal Church above the interest or prosperity of any party whatsoever And he will do nothing for a party which is injurious to the whole or to the Christian cause The very names of Sects and Parties are displeasing to him And he could wish that there were no name but that of Christians among us save only the necessary names of the criminal such as that of the Nicolaitans Rev. 2.6.15 By which those that are to be avoided by Christians must be known Christianity is confined to so narrow a compass in the world that he is unwilling to contract it yet into a narrower The greatest party of divided Christians whether it be the Greeks or Papists is too small a body for him to take for the Catholick or Universal Church He admireth at the blindness and cruelty of faction that can make men damn all the rest of the Church for the interest of their proper sect and take all those as no Christians that are better Christians than themselves Especially the Papists who unchurch all the Church of Christ except their Sect and make it as necessary to salvation to be a subject of the Pope as to be a Christian and when by their great corruption and abuses of Christianity they have more need of charitable censures themselves than almost any sort of Christians yet are they the boldest condemners of all others The confirmed Christian can difference between the strong and weak the sound and unsound members of the Church without dismembring any and without unwarrantable separations from any He will worship God in the purest manner he can and locally joyn with those Assemblies where all things considered he may most honour God and receive most edification and will not sin for communion with any He will sufficiently difference between a holy orderly Assembly and a corrupt disordered one and between an able faithfull Pastor and an ignorant or worldly hireling And he desireth that the Pastors of the Church may make that due separation by the holy Discipline of Christ which may prevent the peoples disorderly separation But for all this he will not deny his presence upon just occasion to any Christian Congregation that worshipeth God in truth though with many modal imperfections so be it they impose no sin upon him as necessary to his communion with them Nor will he deny the spiritual communion of faith and Love to those that he holdeth not local communion with He knoweth that all our worship of God is sinfully imperfect and that it is a dividing principle to hold that we may joyn with none that worship God in a faulty manner for then we must joyn with none on earth He knoweth that his presence in the worship of God is no sign of his approbation of all the failings of Pastors or people in their personal or modal imperfections as long as he joyneth not in a worship so corrupt as to be it self unacceptable to God While men who are all imperfect and corrupt are the worshippers the manner of their worship will be such as they in some degree imperfect and corrupt The solid Christian hath his eye upon all the Churches in the world in the determining of such questions He considereth what worship is offered to God in the Churches of the several parties of Christians the Greeks Armenians Abassines Lutherans c. as well as what is done in the Country where he liveth and he considereth whether God disown and reject the worship of almost all the Churches in the world or not For he dare no further reject them than God rejecteth them nor will he voluntarily separate from those Assemblies where the presence of Christ in his Spirit and acceptance yet remaineth And his fuller acquaintance with the gracious nature office and tenderness of Christ together with greater Love to his Brethren doth cause him in this to judge more gently than young censorious Christians do And his humble acquaintance with his own infirmities maketh him the more compassionate to others If he should think that God would reject all that order not and word not their prayers aright he would be afraid of being rejected himself who is still conscious of greater faultiness in his own prayers than a meer defect in words and order even of a great defectiveness in that faith and desire and love and zeal and reverence which should be manifested in prayer Though he be more apprehensive than others of the
things present do carry away his heart and have the greatest power and interest with him and are most regarded and sought after in this life For he is purblind not seeing a farr off as it is said 2 Pet. 1.9 He wanteth that faith which is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things unseen Heb. 11.1 Things promised in another world seem to him too uncertain or too farr off to be preferred before all the happiness of this world he is resolved to make his best of that which he hath in hand and to prefer possession before such hopes Little doth his heart perceive what a change is neer and how the face of all things will be altered How sin will look and how the minds of sinners will be changed and what all the riches and pleasures and honours of the world will appear at the latter end He foreseeth not the day when the slothful and the worldly and the fleshly and the proud and the enemies of godliness shall all wish in vain O that we had laid up our treasure in heaven and laboured for the food that perisheth not and had set less by all the vanities of the world and had imitated the holiest and most mortified believers Though the hypocrite can himself foretell all this and talk of it to others yet his belief of it is so dead and his sensuality so strong that he liveth by sense and not by that belief and present things are practically preferred by him and bear the sway so that he needeth those warnings of God as well as the profane Deut. 32. O that they were wise that they understood this and that they would consider their latter end And he is one of the foolish ones Mat. 25.8 11. who are seeking oyl for their lamps when it is too late and are crying out Lord Lord open to us when the door is shut and will not know the time of their visitation nor know effectually in this their day the things which belong to their everlasting peace XX. 1. The Christian indeed is one that liveth upon God alone His faith is Divine his love and obedience and confidence are Divine his chiefest converse is Divine his hopes and comforts are Divine As it is God that he dependeth on and trusteth to and studieth to please above all the world so it is Gods approbation that he taketh up with for his justification and reward He took him for his absolute Governour and judge and full felicity in the day when he took him for his God He can live in peace without mans approbation If men are never acquainted with his sincerity or vertues or good deeds it doth not discourage him nor hinder him from his holy course he is therefore the same in secret as in publick because no place is secret from God If men turn his greatest vertues or duties to his reproach and slander him and make him odious to men and represent him as they did Paul a pestilent fellow a mover of sedition and the ringleader of a sect and make him as the filth of the world and the off-scouring of all things this changeth him not for it changeth not his felicity nor doth he miss of his reward 1 Cor. 4.9 10 11 12 13 14. Read the words in the text Though he hath so much suspition of his own understanding and reverence for wiser mens that he will be glad to learn and will hear reason from any one yet praise and dispraise are matters of very small regard with him and as to himself he accounteth it but a small thing to be judged of men whether they justifie or condemn him because they are fallible and have not the power of determining any thing to his great commodity or detriment nor is it their judgement to which he stands or falls 1 Cor. 4.3.4 He hath a more dreadful or comfortable judgement to prepare for man is of small account with him in comparison of God Rom. 8.33 34 35 36. 2. And though with the weakest true Christian it is so also as to the predominancie of Gods esteem and interest in him yet is his weakness daily visible in the culpable effects Though God have the chiefest place in his esteem yet man hath much more than his due The thoughts and words of men seem to such of far greater importance than they should Praise and dispraise favours and injuries are things which affect their hearts too much they bear not the contempts and wrongs of men with so quiet and satisfied a mind as beseemeth those that live upon God They have so small experience of the comforts of God in Christ that they are tasting the deeper of other delights and spare them not so easily as they ought to do God without friends or house or land or maintenance or esteem in the world doth not fully quiet them but there is a deal of pievish impatience left in their minds though it doth not drive them away from God 3. But the seeming Christian can better take up with the world alone than with God alone God is not so much missed by him as the world He alwayes breaks with Christ when it cometh to forsaking all He is godly notionally and professedly and therefore may easily say that God is his portion and enough for those that put their trust in him But his heart never consented truly to reduce these words to practise When it comes to the trial the praise or dispraise of man and the prosperity or matters of the world do signifie more with him than the favour or displeasure of God and can do more with him Christ and riches and esteem he could be content with but he cannot away with a naked Christ alone Therefore he is indeed a practical Atheist even when he seemeth most religious For if he had ever taken God for his God indeed he had certainly taken him as his portion felicity and all and therefore as enough for him without the creature Luk. 18.23 XXI 1. For all this it followeth that A Christian indeed hath with himself devoted all that he hath to God and so all that he hath is sanctified he is only in doubt oft times in particular cases what God would have him do with himself and his estate but never in doubt whether they are to be wholly employed for God in obedience to his will so far as he can know it and therefore doth estimate every creature and condition purely as it relateth unto God and life eternal HOLINES TO THE LORD is written upon all that he hath and doth he taketh it as sent from God and useth it as his Masters goods and talents not chiefly for himself but for his Masters ends and will God appeareth to him in the creature and is the life and sweetness and glory of the creature to him his first question in every business he undertaketh or every place or condition that he chooseth is how it conduceth to the Pleasing of God and
devoted in Covenant to God our Creator Redeemer and Regenerater and without which we cannot Love God as reconciled to us in Christ above all and our neighbours as our selves So that in a word he that can tell what the Baptismal Vow or Covenant is can tell what is necessary to that Catholick Church-communion which belongeth to Christians as Christians at how great a distance soever they dwell from one another And then for Particular Church-communion which is local and personal it is moreover necessary 1. That each member acknowledge and submit to the same Pastors 2. That they be guided by them in the convenient circumstances and adjuncts of Worship For if some persons will not consent or submit to the same Pastors that the body of the Church consenteth and submiteth to they cannot have communion particularly and locally with that Church nor are they members of it no more than they can be members of the same Kingdom that have not the same King And there being no solemn worship performed but by the Ministry of those Pastors they cannot joyn in the worship that joyn not with the Minister And if some members will not consent and submit to the necessary determination of the adjuncts or external modes of worship they cannot joyn in local particular Church-communion where that Worship is performed As if the Pastor and the body of the Church will meet in such a place at such a day and hour and some members will not meet with them at that place and day and hour they cannot possibly then have their local personal communion Or if the Pastor will use such a Translation of the Scriptures or such a Version of the Psalms or such a Method in Preaching and Prayer or such Notes or books and other like helps if any members will not submit nor hold Communion with the rest unless that Translation or Version or Method of Preaching or Praying or Notes or Books be laid aside he cannot have Communion while he refuseth it If the Pastor and all the rest will not yield to him he must joyn with some other Church that he can agree with And as long as the Catholick Church communion is maintained which consisteth in Vnity of the Christian-covenant or of Christianity or of Faith Love and Obedience the difference of modes and circumstances between particular Churches must be allowed without any breach of Charity or without disowning one another And he that cannot be a member of one particular Church may quietly joyn himself to another without condemning that which he dissenteth from so far as to hinder his Catholick Communion with it even as among the Papists men may be of which Order of Religious persons they best like as long as they submit to their General Government And here the strong judicious Christian for his part will never be guilty of Church-divisions For 1. He will make nothing necessary to Church-communion which any sober pious peaceable minds shall have any just reason to except against or which may not well be manifested to be for the Edification of the Church 2. And he will bear with the weak dissenters so far as will stand with the peace and welfare of the Church 3. And he will particularly give leave to such weak ones as cannot yet hold communion with him being peaceable and not promoting heresie ungodliness or sedition to joyn to another Church where they can hold communion with peace to their own Consciences as long as they continue their foresaid Catholick-communion For the strong know that they must not only bear with but bear the infirmities of the weak and not to please themselves but every one of them to please his neighbour for good to edification For even Christ pleased not himself And so they will receive one another as Christ also received us to the glory of God not despising the weak nor rejecting them that God receiveth Rom. 15.1 2 3 7. 14.1 2 3 4 17 18. And thus you may see how easie a matter it were to unite and reconcile all the Christian World if the principles of the judicious confirmed Christian might be received and prevail and that it is not he that is the cause of the abundance of sin and calamity which divisions have caused and continued in the Church But that which now seemeth an impossible thing may quickly and easily be accomplished if all were such as he And that the difficulty of reconciling and uniting Christians lyeth not first in finding out the terms but in making men fit to receive and practice the terms from the beginning received by the Churches This is Lirinensis his Quod semper ubique ab omnibus receptum est supposing still that the Magistrate be submitted to by every soul even as he is the keeper of both talles Rom. 13.1 2 3. 2. But the weak Christian is too easily tempted to be the divider of the Church by expecting that it be united upon his impossible or unrighteous terms Sometime he will be Orthodox overmuch or rather wise in his own conceit Rom. 12.16 and then none are judged fit for his communion that be not of his opinion in controverted Doctrinals e.g. predestination the manner of the work of grace freewill perseverance and abundance such sometime he will be righteous overmuch or to speak more properly superstitious And then none are fit for his communion that Worship not God in that method and manner for circumstantials which he esteemeth best And his charity is so weak that it freeth him not from thinking evil 1 Cor. 13. and so narrow that it covereth not either many or great infirmities The more need he hath of the forbearance and charity of others the less can he bear or forbear others himself The strong Christian must bear the infirmities of the weak but the weak Christian can scarce bear with the weak or strong Nay he is oft too impatient with some of their virtues and duties as well as with their infirmities He is of too private a spirit and too insensible of the publick interest of the Church of Christ. And therefore he must have all the World come over to him and be conformed to his opinion and party and unite upon his mistaken narrow terms if they will have Communion with him I mean it is thus with him when the temptation on that side prevaileth And sometime he is overcome with the temptation of Domination to make his judgement the Rule to others and then he quite overvalueth his own understanding and will needs be judge of all the controversies in the Church and taketh it as unsufferable if wiser and better men do not take him as infallible and in every thing observe his will And when his brethren give him the reason of their dissent as his judgement is not clear enough to understand them so his passion and partiality are too strong to suffer his judgement to do its part And thus oft-times he is a greater hinderance to the Churches