know of are capable of Gods grace and mercy and redemption by Jesus Christ but only Rational Creatures not the brute Beasts that are below our way of understanding nor Angels that are above it And therefore certainly that which does in some sense put mankind only into a possibility of being saved cannot be wholly excluded in the great work of salvation certainly it is not the natural weakness of little children but their native candor not their want of knowledge but their docility that is here proposed to our imitation Nor secondly does this receiving the Kingdom of God as a child suppose any implicit obedience or blind resignation of our understandings to all the Commands and Impositions of any one present Church or pretended Head of it as the only infallible Judg of all matters of Faith Obedience is indeed a virtue most acceptable to God most beneficial to men Unity is one of his greatest blessings Communion is the most beautiful ornament of the Christian Church And thanks be to God there may be as much Union and Communion amongst Christians as is necessary for the being and convenient for the well-being of Christianity without any such tyranny in the Governours of the Church or servitude in its Members without inslaving of private Conscience which is Antichristian and only by a moderate governing and restraining of private Conscience which is most Christian as well as most essential to the preservation of human society The Church has a sacred and venerable Authority as long as it teaches such Doctrines and requires such Duties as are agreable to our Saviours Whilst it does so much reverence is due to it much to the persons more to the Doctrines to the persons for their Doctrines sake to the Doctrines for our Saviours sake But if the name and title of the Holy Church of Christ shall be so abus'd as to impose on our practice superstitious Precepts as is the Worship of Saints and some others or on our understandings incredible impossible Doctrines as is Transubstantiation and the like in such cases you are free by the Laws of God and Man Your spiritual obligations do not bind you to believe such Doctrines and your natural liberty as well as your Christian sets you free from obeying such Precepts Our blessed Saviour here expects that we should receive his Laws as children but not as slaves Those Laws may be sometimes severe nay they are imperial and absolute as they come from God for he is our Lord but even in respect to him they are paternal too for he is also our Father They are deliver'd to us with a Royal Power and sweetned by a fatherly tenderness and they should be received by us with the duty of subjects with the affection of children As children we should behave our selves to him as children also to his Ministers because they are to us in his stead but still as children not as mean vassals The true Church of God is the Vice-gerent of Gods spiritual paternal Authority which the Sectaries unjustly deny it but it is not the Vice-gerent of Gods uncontroulable omnipotent temporal Power which the Church of Rome as unjustly usurps This being premised we may now the better go on to examine wherein the true sincere Christian simplicity consists as to that part of it which concerns the receiving of heavenly Truth If we consider the original example which we are here commanded to imitate it seems that this blessed Temper is chiefly compos'd of three excellent virtues of all which there is some weak resemblance in little children As the minds of children are generally clear spotless white untainted unprejudiced as they are usually tender gentle pliable capable of the best impressions as children commonly receive their food not with nicety or with intent to quarrel at it but willingly and earnestly for their increase and growth so in conformity to that innocent pattern all the true followers of Christ should endeavour to obtain First a plainess and purity of understanding such as is free from artifices free from prejudices Secondly a submissive and guidable spirit a disposition easie to all especially tractable to those that have either a civil or spiritual Authority over them Thirdly an exact care so to learn the truths of Religion that they may be employed for their true end and best advantage which is practice and growth in the duties of a pious and devout life First towards our right instruction in the Doctrines of the Gospel we should all labour to bring our minds clear unprejudiced clean uncorrupt For the being void of errors is the first great step to the greatest knowledge and that understanding in which though little is written yet nothing is blotted that which is not disfigured by ill impressions is a subject most capable of the best There nothing is required but plain teaching whereas the mind that is either perverted by false knowledge or made crooked by deceitful prejudices must not only be taught but first untaught that ill it had learn'd and to unteach is a much more difficult work than to teach Such a pure simple undefil'd disposition of mind by nature we cannot pretend to bycause of the original corruption of our nature but by the Grace of God in the Gospel we may attain it and it is the chief design of the Gospel to direct us in the way to it That teaches us to cleanse and repair by repentance and amendment our natural decays and pollutions to be constantly watchful in keeping our souls free from carnal moral nay spiritual prejudices against Religion to endeavour sincerely that our minds be not often overthrown by violent passions nor too much disordered by worldly affections not seduced by secular ends that secretly undermine the soul not corrupted by bodily lusts that openly war against the soul especially that they be not infected by false Enthusiastical conceptions concerning God and Religion which are wont most dangerously to insinuate themselves into the soul as seeming to come from Heaven and coming under the shadow of Religion it self The second part of this child-like simplicity is to be teachable and that in a right method to be desirous of learning precepts as well as truths of truths to learn the plainest and most useful before the deepest and most subtle of precepts to apply our selves to those that concern our selves more than others This teachable humility is not only consistent with the greatest spiritual knowledg but inseparable from it 'T is the property of all true knowledg especially spiritual to enlarge the soul by filling it to enlarge it without swelling it to make it more capable and more earnest to know the more it knows Even in natural things whoever pretends to have learn'd so much that he has no need nor will to learn more he has never learn'd any thing aright And if this be so in natural things in which the instruments and helps of our knowledg are weak and the objects of it finite
how much more is it so in Divine things in which the instruments the helps the objects the benefits of our knowledg are infinite In Divine things to be always teachable to be always learning is not only the most certain way to Divine Wisdom but even a good degree of Divine Wisdom it self The third part of such a true simplicity of understanding is a sincere desire and unwearied endeavour to use and improve our divine knowledg in a right manner and to a right end And what is the great substantial saving use and end of all spiritual knowledg Is it not to use it as children do their meat to desire the sincere milk of the word as new born babes that we may grow thereby That we may grow thereby And they who receive their spiritual food in such a manner what they may want in a delicate appetite they have in a wholesom if they come short of others in the curiosity of their tast they as much exceed them in the strength of their digestion which in a spiritual life as well as a natural is a greater sign of a healthful constitution whilst all other knowledg in Religion only serves to make a shew and flashes away in discourse this endures and is solidly beneficial for sanctification here for salvation hereafter Such is that simplicity of understanding which is necessary for the right reception increasing and improving of our knowledg in the truths of the Gospel I am next to consider that simplicity of manners which should always accompany the sincere entertainment and practice of the precepts of the Gospel This indeed has a very near connexion with the former The head truly enlightned will presently have a wonderful influence in purifying the heart and the heart really affected with goodness will much conduce to the directing of the head The beginning of this blessed work is most commonly in the head the perfection in the heart but neither of them can be perfected without the other And what now is meant by the true unfeigned Christian simplicity of life and manners and conversation we ought to be exceeding cautious on what kind of men we fix this character for we live in an age wherein of all others hypocrisie has put on the best counterfeited vizors the most holy disguises First then as I did before in the simplicity of understanding so I must now do in this simplicity of heart I must try to vindicate and separate it from the mistakes and extremes of it And therefore I affirm that it does not consist in any sullen separation or affected purity or demure contempt and omission of the common customs and usages and fashions of this world For most certainly with such common things a Christian may comply without danger with true innocence and piety and he may abstain from them out of the greatest spiritual pride Is not a morosity and singularity in such things often made a veil and cover of licentiousness in greater things have we not known it frequently us'd as an opportunity of the greatest moral dishonesty Must a Christian by the obligations of his holy profession differ from and abhor all the customary forms of civil life how then could St. Paul become all things to all men would he have conform'd universally to all sorts of men if all manner of civil or spiritually conformity had utterly been unlawful Must I with unmannerly freedom affront Authority despise the public Formalities of Government live in a different way put on another face and garb than the rest of my Country-men and alledg the Christian simplicity to justifie this my rudeness what then will become of the Christian liberty which in other cases these men so much magnifie If this be Christian simplicity was not the Mosaical severity a much lighter yoke Did not our Blessed Saviour himself abolish all such Judaical reservedness and separation at the very first founding of the Catholic Church which it is probable had never been Catholic so soon if he had distinguished his Disciples from all the rest of mankind as the Jews were in every little circumstance or custom of humane life For whilst the true Religion it self was straitned by the Jewish severe spirit the Church of God was narrow in compass confin'd almost to one Country despis'd by all the world besides It was the honest freedom and universal charity of the Christian spirit that first rent the veil and enlarg'd its bounds and spread its authority to the utmost ends of the earth so that next to the Almighty Power of God one of the chief occasions of the prodigious swiftness of the Churches first progress was that the Primitive Christians asserted the just liberties of humane nature and set men free from the Jewish unreasonable sowerness and harsh impositions 'T is true we are commanded not to be conform'd to this world But in the very next words we have the true interpretation of that command For it follows Be ye transform'd by the renewing of your mind It is a new mind and the transforming of the heart not new looks or habits or gestures that Christianity requires To the indifferent things of this world we may be to the decent things of it we should be conformable only to the wickedness and corruptions of it we should not No Christian is forbidden the honest skill and practice and prudence of this world rather some are commanded it all are allow'd it only none must be perverted by it all must use it for higher and more spiritual ends So far is the true Religion from obliging all its professors either to withdraw wholly out of the world or in conscience to avoid all the usual observances and manners or even the innocent delights of it whilst they are in the world that perhaps none are more capable as of bringing more benefit to mankind so of doing more service to God or exercising more Evangelical Graces than those men that are of the most practical lives and engag'd in most secular business Greater will be their victory over the world if they shall converse in it without being defiled by it If they shall labour to perform well all their natural moral political and Religious Duties in it most instructive will be the example of that Piety most diffusive that Charity which is set on a hill so eminent and plac'd in so good a light Were a Christian to be the Disciple of Iohn the Baptist he might then indeed think himself bound to follow the solitary rigid life of his Master in the Wilderness But seeing he is to be a Christian he may be a Citizen of this world as well as of the New Ierusalem He ought certainly to imitate a greater example than of Iohn the Baptist that of our blessed Saviour himself who though he too had his time of retirement in the Wilderness yet liv'd not there but was frequently in the Temple convers'd generally in the City with all sorts of people went about every
where doing good Give alms says our Saviour of such things as you have and behold all things are clean to you Let but a Christian perform the great substantial duties of Christianity and all other ordinary things are clean and lawful to him All things of which some things were denied to the Jews all things that are not unclean in their own nature those indeed can be lawful to none The righteousness and holiness of the Gospel consists not in doubting much but in living well not in a zeal against little things but for great things in being zealous for good Works Undoubtedly there may be as much superstition in some cases on a Religious account to forbear doing what we lawfully may do as it is to do what we should not Superstition transgresses on both extremes and may offend as much in a too scrupulous forbearing as in over-doing The true Christian Purity and simplicity of life that is here recommended is therefore such as is not bound to avoid all manner of compliance with the external fashions and comely ceremonies of human life and conversation 'T is enough if it uses ceremonies as ceremonies if it prefers the substance far before them if it chiefly regards the inward reality 'T is such as is not at all oppos'd to decence or civility or good manners or good breeding but to craft unjust artifice guile and dissimulation 'T is such as according to our Saviours own precept must have the harmlesness of the Dove and yet may have the wisdom of the Serpent That wisdom which single in the Serpent is hurtful and poisonous when it is temper'd with the innocence of the Dove is most commendable most useful In a word 't is such a simplicity as St. Paul the Christian put on when he ceas'd to be Saul the Pharisee such as St. Paul himself describes when he thus exhorts the Corinthians Brethren says he Be not children in understanding in malice be ye children in understanding be ye men You see to all true Christians a manly understanding is as much commanded as a child-like purity so that in the most Euangelical simplicity the prudence and discretion of a wise man may be should be joyn'd with the native innocence and inoffensive meekness of a little child You now behold the sum of those duties to which by the words of our Saviour in my Text we are all oblig'd They represent to us the necessity of a simplicity of mind in receiving the Laws of Christ and of an honest plainess of heart in living accordingly which indeed are the two principal things that in all true Religion are to be studied and practis'd by all good men Some proportion and degree of both these virtues I say is necessary to all Christians I do not say the highest and most complete degree of them to any that is inconsistent with the frailties of our mortal condition which God himself is pleased to consider in the gentleness of his Precepts His Laws are perfect as he is perfect holy as he is holy But seeing we cannot be equally so by reason of human infirmity God is pleas'd to accept of integrity instead of perfection to prefer simplicity before hypocrisie confess'd ignorance before presumption What we really and humbly endeavour out of his abundant Grace he will help us to perform or accept of our endeavours As we must strive to be children in innocence so in his infinite goodness he looks on us to be but as children in weakness I am not ignorant that this Doctrine of Christian simplicity may sound strange in the ears of those men who consult only the low and mean interests of this life and therefore fancy themselves in the proud imaginations of their own hearts to be the only wise and subtle men of this world With such men simplicity generally passes in the worst sense for pusillanimity weakness folly for a poor-spirited Christian Grace that amongst the antient Philosophers they think would scarce have escap'd the being reckon'd for a vice But let none be too hasty in condemning the true genuine simplicity for I must tell them it has always had an extraordinary preeminence and dignity not only in Religion though chiefly there not only in the sight of God though that certainly were sufficient but in all other things in the judgment of all truly-wise men in all the works of nature and art in all the best practice of civil life If we observe the order of the whole Creation and the ranks of all things visible and invisible are not the highest and most perfect Beings still most pure most simple and most of one nature Thus it is from the noblest bodies to the souls of men from the souls of men to Angels from Angels to God himself the higher any of these rise in their excellence they are still the more simple in their essence If we examine all the productions of mens hands or minds is not the greatest perfection of all Art a most exact imitation of true nature There is some kind of easie solid plainess that far excels all the comeliness of artificial ornaments There is some kind of simplicity that is attended with inexpressible majesty That says St. Chrysostom on those words of St. Matthew like to these in my Text that is the great design of all Philosophy that is the very life of Angels to have the highest understanding accompanied with unfeigned simplicity If we reflect on the most polite customs and manners of human life nothing is truly graceful that is over-mix'd or unnaturally forc'd no word we speak no phrase we use no gesture no tone of voice that is over-artificial but it presently offends nothing in beauty in habit in action in motion can please that is affectedly labor'd and over-adorn'd nothng has so much reverence in human conversation as true ingenuity manly plainess gentle easiness undissembled sincerity nothing sooner or more or longer affects men with delight and love and admiration nothing is more honorable nothing more amiable nothing indeed more easie and safe It is very probable that more deep dark reserv'd crafty men have at last fail'd of their designs even in this world than the plain upright houest men The crafty man has many parts to play many minds to put on many faces to shift so that it is almost impossible for him so to act all as not to be discover'd in some and then he will be suspected in all whereas the honest man has but one part to perform which is his own and that far more easie for him to do bycause he always acts according to plain nature Thus even in all worldly things as nothing is perfect without decence so nothing can be decent without simplicity But above all things this is true in Religion especially in the Christian Religion The Gospel in the great Duties and Truths of it is a plain and simple thing it is simple in its end which is one and always