conscious to my self to have said any thing in the Papers now or at any time heretofore with my allowance published that may give just offence to or merit the hard censure of any sober dispassionate man and that if yet I must fall under some mis-censures it is not my case alone but of many others also wrapt with me in the same common guilt I shall therefore reduce my discourse herein ab hypothesi ad thesin and propose the Objections with my Answers thereunto though with some reflection upon my self in most of the particulars yet as laid against the generality of those mens Sermons Writings and other Discourses who according to the new style of late years taken among us go under the name of the Prelatical Party or Episcopal Divines § IV. The Objections are 1. That in their ordinary Sermons they take any small occasion but when they Preach at the Visitations where most of the Clergy of the Voisinage are convened set themselves purposely in their whole Discourse to let fly at their Godly Brethren who out of tenderness of Conscience dare not submit to some things endeavoured to be imposed upon them by the Prelates The Poor Puritan is sure to be paid home he must be brought under the lash and exposed to contempt and scorn at every publick meeting the Papists professed Enemies of our Church and Religion escaping in the mean while Scot-free seldom or never medled withal in any of their Sermons 2. Or if sometimes some little matter be done that way by some of them it is so little that it is to as little purpose rather for fashions sake ad faciendum Populum and to avoid suspicion than for any ill will they bear them Perhaps give them a light touch by the way a gentle rub as they pass along that shall do them no harm but their Brethren that profess the same Protestant Religion with them they handle with a rougher hand With Elder-guns and Paper-pellits they shoot at those but against these they play with Cannon-bullet 3. And all this anger but for Ceremonies Trifles even in their own esteem who plead hardest for them If they be indeed such Indifferent things as they confess them to be and would have the World believe they make no other account of them Why do they dote on them so extreamly themselves Why do they press them upon others with so much importunity Why do they quarrel with their brethren eternally about them 4. The truth is both We and They judge otherwise of them than as Indifferent things They think them necessary whatever they pretend or else they would not lay so much weight upon them And we hold them Popish Antichristian and superstitious or else we would not so stiffly refuse them 5. It is not therefore without cause that we suspect the Authors of such Sermons and Treatises as have come abroad in the defence of such trash to be Popishly-affected or at least to have been set on by some Popish Bishops or Chancellors though perhaps without any such intention in themselves on purpose to promote the Papal Interest here and to bring back the people of this Nation by degrees if not into the heart and within the Walls of Babylon yet at leastwise into the confines and within the view of it 6. Which as it appeareth otherwise to wit by their great willingness to allow such qualifications to sundry Doctrines taught in the Church of Rome and such interpretations to sundry taught in our Church as may bring them to the nearest agreement and their great endeavours to find out such Expedients as might best bring on a perfect reconciliation between the two Churches 7. So particularly in pressing with so much vehemency the observance of these Popish and Superstitious Ceremonies for which we cannot find nor do they offer to produce any either Command or Example in holy Scripture to warrant to our Consciences the use thereof 8. Which what is it else in effect than to deny the sufficiency of the Scripture to be a perfect Rule of Faith and Manners Which being one of the main Bulwarks of the Protestant Religion as it is differenced from the Roman is by these men and by this means undermined and betrayed ' § V. This is the sum and substance of the usual Censures and Objections of our Anti-Ceremonian Brethren so far as I have observed from their own speeches and writings which I have therefore set down as near as in so few words I could to their sence and for the most part in their own expressions Much of which having as I conceive received its answer before-hand in some passage or other of the ensuing Sermons might supercede me the labour of adding any more now Yet for so much as these answers lye dispersedly and not in one view I held it convenient as I have produced the Objections all together so to offer to the Reader an Answer to them all together and that in the same order as I have given them in Begging at his hands but this one very reasonable favour that he would do both himself and me so much right as not to pass his censure too haâ—tily and too severely upon any part of what is now presented to his view whether he like it or dislike it till he hath had the patience to read over the whole and allowed himself the freedom rightly and without prejudice to consider of it § VI. That which is said in the first place of their Godliness and Tenderness of Conscience is not much to the purpose as to the main business For first besides that all Parties pretend to Godliness ' Papists Anabaptists and who not even the late-sprung-up generation of Levellers whose Principles are so destructive of all that Order and Iustice by which publick societies are supported do yet style themselves as by a kind of peculiarity The Godly And that secondly it is the easiest thing in the world and nothing more common than for men to pretend Conscience when they are not minded to obey I do not believe thirdly though I am well perswaded of the godliness of many of them otherwise that the refusal of indifferent Ceremonies enjoyned by Lawful Authority is any part of their Godliness or any good fruit evidence or sign thereof But certain it is fourthly that the godliest men are men and know but in part and by the power of godliness in their hearts are no more secured from the possibility of falling into Error through Ignorance than from the possibility of falling into Sin through Infirmity And as for Tenderness of Conscience fifthly a most gracious blessed fruit of the holy Spirit of God where it is really and not in pretence only nor mistaken for sure it is no very tender Conscience though sometimes called so that straineth at a Gnat and swalloweth a Camel it is with it as with other tender things very subject to receive harm and soon put
confession of their own learned Writers depend upon unwritten Traditions more than upon the Scriptures True it is that for most of these they pretend to Scripture also but with so little colour at the best and with so little confidence at the last that when they are hard put to it they are forced to fly from that hold and to shelter themselves under their great Diana Tradition Take away that it is confessed that many of the chief Articles of their Faith nature vacillare videbuntur will seem even to totter and reel and have much ado to keep up For what else could we imagine should make them strive so much to debase the Scripture all they can denying it to be a Rule of Faith and charging it with imperfection obscurity uncertainty and many other defects and on the other side to magnifie Traditions as every way more absolute but meerly their consciousness that sundry of their Doctrines if they should be examined to the bottom would appear to have no sound foundation in the Written Word And then must we needs conclude from what hath been already delivered that they ought to be received or rather not to be received but rejected as the Doctrines and Commandments of men 14. Nor will their flying to Tradition help them in this Case or free them from Pharisaism but rather make the more against them For to omit that it hath been the usual course of false teachers when their Doctrines were found not to be Scripture-proof to fly to Tradition do but enquire a little into the Original and growth of Pharisaical Traditions and you shall find that one Egg is not more like another than the Papists and the Pharisees are alike in this matter When Sadoc or whosoever else was the first Author of the Sect of the Sadduces and his followers began to vent their pestilent and Atheistical Doctrines against the immortality of the Soul the resurrection of the Body and other like the best learned among the Iews the Pharisees especially opposed against them by arguments and collections drawn from the Scriptures The Sadduces finding themselves unable to hold argument with them as having two shrewd disadvantages but a little Learning and a bad cause had no other means to avoid the force of all their arguments than to hold them precisely to the letter of the Text without admitting any Exposition thereof or Collection therefrom Unless they could bring clear Text that should affirm totidem verbis what they denied they would not yield The Pharisees on the contrary refused as they had good cause to be tied to such unreasonable conditions but stood upon the meaning of the Scriptures as the Sadduces did upon the letter confirming the truth of their interpretations partly from Reason and partly from Tradition Not meaning by Tradition as yet any Doctrine other than what was already sufficiently contained in the Scriptures but meerly the Doctrine which had been in all ages constantly taught and received with an Universal consent among the People of God as consonant to the holy Scriptures and grounded thereon By this means though they could not satisfie the Sadduces as Hereticks and Sectaries commonly are obstinate yet so far they satisfied the generality of the People that they grew into very great esteem with them and within a while carried all before them the detestation of the Sadduces and of their loose Errors also conducing not a little thereunto And who now but the Pharisees and what now but Tradition In every Mans eye and mouth Things being at this pass any Wise Man may Judge how easie a matter it was for Men so reverenced as the Pharisees were to abuse the Credulity of the People and the interest they had in their good Opinion to their own advantage to make themselves Lords of the Peoples Faith and by little and little to bring into the Worship whatsoever Doctrines and observances they pleased and all under the acceptable name of the Traditions of the Elders And so they did winning continually upon the People by their cunning and shews of Religion and proceeding still more and more till the Iewish Worship by their means was grown to that height of superstition and formality as we see it was in our Saviours days Such was the beginning and such the rise of these Pharisaical Traditions 15. Popish Traditions also both came in and grew up just after the same manner The Orthodox Bishops and Doctors in the ancient Church being to maintain the Trinity of Persons in the Godhead the Consubstantiality of the Son with the Father the Hypostatical union of the two Natures in the Person of Christ the Divinity of the Holy Ghost and other like Articles of the Catholick Religion against the Arrians Eunomians Macedonians and other Hereticks for that the words Trinity Homoiision Hypostasis Procession c. which for the better expressing of the Catholick sence they were forced to use were not expresly to be found in the holy Scriptures had recourse therefore very often in their writings against the Hereticks of their times to the Tradition of the Church Whereby they meant not as the Papists would now wrest their words any unwritten Doctrine not contained in the Scriptures but the very Doctrine of the Scriptures themselves as they had been constantly understood and believed by all faithful Christians in the Catholick Church down from the Apostles times till the several present Ages wherein they lived This course of theirs of so serviceable and necessary use in those times gave the first occasion and after-rise to that heap of Errors and Superstitions which in process of time by the Power and Policy of the Bishop of Rome especially were introduced into the Christian Church under the specious name and colour of Catholick Traditions Thus have they trodden in the steps of their Forefathers the Pharisees and stand guilty even as they of the Superstition here condemned by our Saviour in teaching for Doctrines mens Precepts 16. But if the Church of Rome be cast how shall the Church of England be quit That symbolizeth so much with her in many of her Ceremonies and otherwise What are all our crossings and kneelings and duckings What Surplice and Ring and all those other Rites and Accoutrements that are used in or about the Publick Worship but so many Commandments of men For it cannot be made appear nor truly do I think was it ever endeavoured that God hath any where commanded them Indeed these things have been objected heretofore with clamour enough and the cry is of late revived again with more noise and malice than ever in a world of base and unworthy Pamphlets that like the Frogs of Aegypt croak in every corner of the Land And I pray God the suffering of them to multiply into such heaps do not cause the whole Land so to stink in his Nostrils that he grow weary of it and forsake us But I undertook to justifle the Church of
and power over the Creatures First if any shall oppose the legal Prohibitions of the Old Testament whereby some Creatures were forbidden the Iews pronounced by God himself unclean and decreed unlawful it should not trouble us For whatever the principal reasons were for which those prohibitions were then made unto them as there be divers reasons given thereof by Divines both ancient and modern certain it is they now concern not us The Church during her non-age and pupillage though she were Heir of all and had right to all yet was to be held under Tutors and Governours and to be trained up under the Law of Ceremonies as under a School master during the appointed time But When the fulness of the time appointed was come her wardship expired and livery sued out as it were by the coming and suffering of Christ in the flesh the Church was then to enter upon her full Royalties and no more to be burdened with those beggarly rudiments of legal observances The hand-writing of Ordinances was then blotted out and the muddy partition wall broken down and the legal impurity of the Creatures scowred off by the blood of Christ. They have little to do then but withal much to answer who by seeking to bring in Iudaism again into the Christian Church either in whole or in part do thereby as much as lieth in them though perhaps unawares to themselves yet indeed and in truth evacuate the Cross of Christ. In that large sheet of the Creatures which reacheth from Heaven to the Earth whatsoever we find we may freely kill and eat and use every other way to our comforts without scruple God having cleansed all we are not to call or esteem any thing common or unclean God having created all good we are to refuse nothing If any shall oppose secondly the seeming morality of some of these prohibitions as being given before the law of Ceremonies pressed from Moral Reasons and confirmed by Apostolical Constitution since upon which ground some would impose upon the Christian Church this as a perpetual yoke to abstain from blood Or thirdly the Prophanation which some Creatures have contracted by being used in the exercise of idolatrous Worship whereby they become Anathema and are to be held as execrable things as Achan's wedge was and the Brazen Serpent which Hezekiah stamped to powder upon which ground also some others have inferred an utter unlawfulness to use any thing in the Church which was abused in Popery by calling them Rags and Reliques of Idolatry neither this nor that ought to trouble us For although neither my aim which lieth another way nor the time will permit me now to give a just and full satisfying answer to the several Instances and their grounds yet the very words and weight of my Text do give us a clear resolution in the general and sufficient to rest our Consciences and our Iudgments and Practice upon that notwithstanding all pretensions of reason to the contrary yet these things for so much as they are still good ought not to be refused For the Apostle hath here laid a sure foundation and impregnable in that he groundeth the use upon the power and from the Goodness of the Creature inferreth the lawfulness of it Every Creature of God is good and nothing to be refused He concludeth it is therefore not to be refused because it is good So that look whatsoever Goodness there is in any Creature that is whatsoever natural power it hath which either immediately and of it self is or may by the improvement of human Art and Industry be taught to be of any use unto man for necessity nourishment service lawful delight or otherwise the Creature wherein such goodness or power is to be found may not be refused as upon tie of Conscience but that power and goodness it hath may lawfully be employed to those uses for which it is meet in regard thereof Ever provided we be careful to observe all those requisite conditions which must guide our Consciences and regulate our Practice in the use of all lawful and indifferent things They that teach otherwise lay burdens upon their own Consciences which they need not and upon the Consciences of their Brethren which they should not and are injurious to that liberty which the blessed Son of God hath purchased for his Church and which the blessed Spirit of God hath asserted in my Text. Injurious in the second place to this branch of our Christian liberty is the Church of Rome whom St. Paul in this passage hath branded with an indelible note of infamy inasmuch as those very Doctrines wherein he giveth instance as in Doctrines of Devils are the received Tenets and Conclusions of that Church Not to insist on other prejudices done to Christian liberty by the intolerable usurpation of the man of sin who exerciseth a spiritual Tyranny over mens Consciences as opposite to Evangelical liberty as Antichrist is to Christ let us but a little see how she hath fulfilled St. Paul's Prediction in teaching lying and devilish Doctrines and that with seared Consciences and in Hypocrisie in the two specialties mentioned in the next former Verse viz. forbidding to marry and commanding to abstain from Meats Marriage the holy Ordinance of God instituted in the place and estate of Innocency honoured by Christ's presence at Cana in Galilee the Seed-plot of the Church and the sole allowed remedy against Incontinency and burning lusts by the Apostle commended as honourable in all men and commanded in case of ustion to all men is yet by this purple strumpet forbidden and that sub mortali to Bishops Priests Deacons Sub deacons Monks Friars Nuns in a word to the whole Clergy as they extend that title both Secular and Regular Wherein besides the Devilishness of the Doctrine in contrarying the Ordinance of God and in denying men subject to sinful lusts the lawful remedy and so casting them upon a necessity of sinning see if they do not teach this lye with seared Consciences For with what Conscience can they make the same thing a Sacrament in the Lay and Sacrilege in the Clergy With what Conscience permit Stews and forbid Marriage With what Conscience alledge Scriptures for the single life of Priests and yet confess it to be an Ordinance only of Ecclesiastical and not of Divine right With what Conscience confess Fornication to be against the Law of God and Priests Marriage only against the Law of holy Church and yet make Marriage in a Priest a far fouler sin than Fornication or Incest With what Conscience exact a vow of Continency from Clerks by those Canons which defend their open Incontinency With what Conscience forbid lawful Marriages to some and yet by dispensation allow unlawful Marriages to others And is not the like also done in the other particular concerning Meats The Laws of that
perfection from Peace And then but not before shall Ierusalem be built as a City that is at unity in it self when they that build Ierusalem are at unity first among themselves 31. Consider fourthly what heartning is given and what advantage to the Enemy abroad whilst there are fractions and distractions at home Per discordias civiles externi tollunt animos said the Historian once of old Rome And it was the complaint of our Countrey-man Gildas uttered long since with much grief concerning the state of this Island then embroiled in Civil Wars Fortis ad civilia bella infirma ad retundenda hostium tela That by how much more her valour and strength was spent upon her self in the managing of intestine and domestick broils the more she laid her self open to the incursions and out-rages of forreign Enemies The common Enemies to the truth of Religion are chiefly Atheism and Superstition Atheism opposing it in the fore-front and Superstition on both hands If either of which at any time get ground of us as whilst we wrangle God knoweth what they may do we may thank our own contentions for it most We may cherish causless jealousies and frame chimera's of other matters and causes out of our fancies or fears But the very truth is there is no such scandal to enemies of all sorts as are our home differences and chiefly those which make it the sadder business that are about indifferent things Alas whereto serveth all this ado about gestures and vestures and other outward rites and formalities that for such things as these are things in their own nature indifferent and never intended to be otherwise imposed than as matters of circumstance and order men should clamour against the times desert their ministerial functions and charges fly out of their own Country as out of Babylon stand at open defiance against lawful authority and sharpen their wits and tongues and pens with so much petulancy that I say not virulency as some have done to maintain their stiffness and obstinacy therein I say whereto sérveth all this but to give scandal to the Enemies of our Church and Religion 32. Scandal first to the Atheist Who till all men be of one Religion and agreed in every point thereof too which I doubt will never be whilst the world lasteth thinketh it the best wisdom to be of none and maketh it his best pastime to jeer at all Great scandal also secondly to the Romanist Who is not a little confirmed in his opinion of the Catholickness of the Roman Faith when he heareth so many of the things which have been and still are retained in the Church of England in common with the Church of Rome as they were transmitted both to them and us in a continued line of Succession from our godly and Orthodox forefathers who lived in the Ages next after Christ and his Apostles to be now inveighed against and decryed as Popish and Superstitious And when he seeth men pretending to piety purity and reformation more than others not contenting themselves with those just exceptions that had been formerly taken by the Church of England and her regular children against some erroneous Doctrines and forms of worship taught and practised in the Church of Rome and endeavoured to be unduly and by her sole Authority imposed upon other Churches to be so far transported with a spirit of Contradiction as that they care not so as they may but run far enough from Rome whither or how far they run although they should run themselves as too oft they do quite beyond the bounds of Truth Allegiance common reason and even common humanity too 33. But especially and thirdly great scandal to those of the separation Who must needs think very jollily of themselves and their own singular way when they shall find those very grounds whereon they have raised their Schism to be so stoutly pleaded for by some who are yet content to hold a kind of communion with us Truly I could wish it were sufficiently considered by those whom it so nearly concerneth for my own part I must confess I could never be able to comprehend it with what satisfaction to the conscience any man can hold those principles without the maintenance whereof there can be nothing colourably pretended for inconformity in point of Ceremony and Church-government and yet not admit of such conclusions naturally issuing thence as will necessarily enforce an utter separation Vae mundo saith our Saviour Woe unto the world because of offences It is one of the great trials wherewith it is the good pleasure of God to exercise the faith and patience of his servants whilst they live on the earth that there will be divisions and offences and they must abide it But vae homini though without repentance wo to the man by whom the occasion cometh Much have they to answer for the while that cannot keep themselves quiet when they ought and might but by restless provocations trouble both themselves and others to the great prejudice and grief of their brethren but advantage and rejoycing of the common Enemy 34. Thus much for the Thing it self Like-mindedness The conditions or Qualifications follow The former whereof concerneth the Persons 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one toward another It noteth such an agreement as is both Universal and Mutual Universal first I doubt not but in the then Roman Church at the time when this Epistle was written the strong agreed well enough among themselves and were all alike-minded and so the weak among themselves all alike-minded too They all minded to despise these these all minded to judg them But that agreement was with those only of their own party and so a partial agreement which tended rather to the holding up of a Faction than to the making up of an Union It was an Universal agreement the Apostle desired and prayed for that the strong would be more compassionate to the Weak and the weak more charitable toward the Strong both Weak and Strong more patient and moderate and more respective either of other in all brotherly mutual condescensions 35. It is our fault too most an end We are partial to those on that side we take to beyond all reason ready to justifie those enterprises of theirs that look very suspiciously and to excuse or at least to extenuate their most palpable excesses and as ready on the other side to misconstrue the most justifiable actions of the adverse part but to aggravate to the utmost their smallest and most pardonable aberrations Thus do we sometimes both at once either of which alone is an abomination to the Lord justifie the guilty and condemn the innocent Whilst partial affections corrupt our judgments and will not suffer us to look upon the actions of our brethren with an equal and indifferent eye But let us beware of it by all means for so long as we give our selves to be carried away with partialities and prejudices we shall
to be the next employment of my Readers patience And in London all the Bishops Houses were turn'd to be Prisons and they fill'd with Divines that would not take the Covenant or forbear reading Common-Prayer or that were accus'd for some faults like these For it may be noted That about this time the Parliament sent out a Proclamation to incourage all Lay-men that had occasion to complain of their Ministers for being troublesome or scandalous or that conformed not to Orders of Parliament to make their complaint to a select Committee for that purpose and the Minister though one hundred miles from London was to appear there and give satisfaction or be sequestred and you may be sure no Parish could want a covetous or malicious or cross-grain'd complainant by which means all Prisons in London and in many other places became the sad habitations of Conforming Divines And about this time the Bishop of Canterbury having been by an unknown Law condemned to die and the execution suspended for some days many Citizens fearing time and cool thoughts might procure his Pardon became so maliciously impudent as to shut up their shops professing not to open them till Iustice was executed This malice and madness is scarce credible but I saw it The Bishops had been about this time voted out of the House of Parliament and some upon that occasion sent to the Tower which made many Covenanters rejoyce and most of them to believe Mr. Brightman who probably was a well meaning man to be inspir'd when he writ his Comment on the Apocalyps a short Abridgment of which was now printed cryed up and down the Streets and call'd Mr. Brightman's Revelation of the Revelation and both bought up and believ'd by all the Covenanters And though he was grosly mistaken in other things yet because he had there made the Churches of Geneva and Scotland which had no Bishops to be Philadelphia in the Apocalyps that Angel that God loved and the power of Prelacy to be Antichrist the evil Angel which the House of Commons had now so spued up as never to recover their dignity Therefore did those Covenanters rejoyce approve and applaud Mr. Brightman for discovering and foretelling the Bishops downfal so that they both rail'd at them and at the same time rejoyc'd to buy good penny-worths of all their Land which their Friends of the House of Commons did afford both to themselves and them as a reward for their zeal and diligent assistance to pull them down And the Bishops power being now vacated the common people were made so happy as that every Parish might choose their own Minister and tell him when he did and when he did not preach true Doctrine and by this and the like means several Churches had several Teachers that pray'd and preach'd for and against one another and ingag'd their hearers to contend furiously for truths which they understood not some of which I shall mention in what will follow I have heard of two men that in their discourse undertook to give a character of a third person and one concluded he was a very honest man for he was beholden to him and the other that he was not for he was not beholden to him And something like this was in the designs both of the Covenanters and Independants the last of which were now grown both as numerous and as powerful as the former for though they differ'd much in many Principles and preach'd against each other one making it a sign of being in the state of grace if we were but zealous for the Covenant and the other not for we ought to buy and sell by a Measure and to allow the same liberty of Conscience to others which we by Scripture claim to our selves and therefore not to force any to swear the Covenant contrary to their Consciences and probably lose both their Livings and Liberties too But though these differed thus in their conclusions yet they both agreed in their practice to preach down Common Prayer and get into the best sequestred Livings and whatever became of the true Owners their Wives and Children yet to continue in them without the least scruple of Conscience They also made other strange Observations of Election Reprobation and Free-will and the other Points Dependant upon these such as the wisest of the common People were not fit to judge of I am sure I am not though I must mention some of them historically in a more proper place when I have brought my Reader with me to Dr. Sanderson at Boothly Pannel And in the way thither I must tell him That a very Covenanter and a Scot too that came into England with this unhappy Covenant was got into a good sequestred Living by the help of a Presbyterian Parish which had got the true Owner out And this Scotch Presbyterian being well setled in this good Living began to reform the Church-yard by cutting down a large Ewe Tree and some other Trees that were an ornanament to the place and very often a shelter to the Parishioners and they excepting against him for so doing were by him answered That the Trees were his and 't was lawful for every man to use his one as he and not as others thought fit I have heard but do not affirm it That no action lies against him that is so wicked as to steal the winding-sheet from off a dead body after 't is buried and have heard the reason to be because none were supposed to be so void of humanity and that such a Law would vilifie that Nation that would but suppose so vile a man to be born in it I speak this because I would not suppose any man to do what this Covenanter did And whether there were any Law against him I know not but pity the Parish the less for turning out their legal Minister We have now overtaken Dr. Sanderson at Boothy Pannel where he hop'd to have enjoy'd himself though in a poor yet in a quiet and desir'd privacy but it prov'd otherwise For all Corners of the Nation were fill'd with Covenanters Confusion Committee-men and Soldiers defacing Monuments breaking painted Glass Windows and serving each other to their several ends of Revenge or Power or Profit and these Committee-men and Soldiers were most of them so possest with this Covenant that they became like those that were infected with that dreadful Plague of Athens the Plague of which Plague was that they by it became maliciously restless to get into company and to joy so the Historian saith when they had infected others even those of their most beloved or nearest Friends or Relations and so though there might be some of these Covenanters that were beguil'd and meant well yet such were the generality of them and temper of the times that you may be sure Dr. Sanderson who though quiet and harmless yet was an eminent Dissenter from them could therefore not live peaceably nor did he For the Soldiers would appear and visibly oppose
to leave them a competence and in the hands of a God that would provide for all that kept innocence and trusted in his providence and protection which he had always found enough to make and keep him happy There was in his Diocess a Minister of almost his Age that had been of Lincoln Colledge when he left it who visited him often and always welcom because he was a Man of Innocence and open-heartedness This Minister asked the Bishop what Books he studied most when he laid the foundation of his great and clear Learning To which his Answer was That he declin'd reading many Books but what he did read were well chosen and read so often that he became very familiar with them and told him they were chiefly three Aristotle's Rhetorick Acquinas's Secunda Secundae and Tully but chiefly his Offices which he had not read over less than 20 times and could at this Age repeat without Book And told him also the learned Civilian Doctor Zouch who died lately had writ Elementa jurisprudentiâ—e which was a Book that he thought he could also say without Book and that no wise man could read it too often or love or commend it too much and he told him the study of these had been his toyl But for himself he always had a natural love to Genealogies and Heraldry and that when his thoughts were harassed with any perplext Studies he left off and turned to them as a recreation and that his very recreation had made him so perfect in them that he could in a very short time give an account of the Descent Arms and Antiquity of any Family of the Nobility or Gentry of this Nation Before I give an account of his last sickness I desire to tell the Reader that he was of a healthful constitution chearful and mild of an even temper very moderate in his diet and had had little sickness till some few years before his death but was then every Winter punish'd with a Diarrhed which left him not till warm weather return'd and remov'd it And this Distemper did as he grew elder seize him oftner and continue longer with him But though it weakned him yet it made him rather indispos'd than sick and did no way disable him from studying indeed too much In this decay of his strength but not of his memory or reason for this Distemper works not upon the understanding he made his last Will of which I shall give some account for confirmation of what hath been said and what I think convenient to be known before I declare his death and burial He did in his last Will give an account of his Faith and Perswasion in Point of Religion and Church-Government in these very words I Robert Sanderson Dr. of Divinity an unworthy Minister of Iesus Christ and by the providence of God Bishop of Lincoln being by the long continuance of an habitual distemper brought to a great bodily weakness and faintness of spirits but by the great mercy of God without any bodily pain otherwise or decay of understanding do make this my Will and Testament written all with my own hand revoking all former Wills by me heretofore made if any such shall be found First I commend my Soul into the hands of Almighty God as of a faithful Creator which I humbly beseech him mercifully to accept looking upon it not as it is in it self infinitely polluted with sin but as it is redeemed and purged with the precious blood of his only beloved Son and my most sweet Saviour Iesus Christ in confidence of whose merits and mediation alone it is that I cast my self upon the mercy of God for the pardon of my sins and the hopes of eternal life And here I do profess that as I have lived so I desire and by the grace of God resolve to dye in the Communion of the Catholick Church of Christ and a true Son of the Church of England which as it stands by Law established to be both in Doctrine and Worship agreable to the Word of God and in the most and most material Points of both conformable to the Faith and practice of the godly Churches of Christ in the primitïve and purer times I do firmly believe led so to not so much from the force of custom and education to which the greatest part of mankind owe their particular different perswasions in point of Religion as upon the clear evidence of truth and reason after a serious and unpartial examination of the grounds as well of Popery as Puritanism according to that measure of understanding and those opportunities which God hath afforded me and herein I am abundantly satisfied that the Schiâ—m which the Papists on the one hand and the Superstition which the Puritan on the other hand lay to our charge are very justly chargeable upon themselves respectively Wherefore I humbly beseech Almighty God the Father of Mercies to preserve the Church by his power and providence in peace truth and Godliness evermore to the worlds end which doubtless he will do if the wickedness and security of a sinful people and particularly those sins that are so rife and seem daily to increase among us of Unthankfulness Riot and Sacriledge do not tempt his patience to the contrary And I also farther humbly beseech him that it would please him to give unto our gracious Sovereign the Reverend Bishops and the Parliament timely to consider the great danger that visibly threatens this Church in point of Religion by the late great increase of Popery and in point of Revenue by sacrilegious enclosures and to provide such wholsom and effectual remedies as may prevent the same before it be too late And for a further manifestation of his humble thoughts and desires they may appear to the Reader by another part of his Will which follows As for my corruptible Body I bequeath it to the Earth whence it was taken to be decently buried in the Parish Church of Bugden towards the upper end of the Chancel upon the second or at the farthest the third day after my decease and that with as little Noise Pomp and Charge as may be without the invitation of any person how near soever related unto me other than the Inhabitants of Bugden without the unnecessary expence of Escutcheons Gloves Ribonds c. and without any Blacks to be hung any where in or about the House or Church other than a Pulpit-Cloth a Hearse-Cloth and a Mourning Gown for the Preacher whereof the former after my Body shall be interred to be given to the Preacher of the Funeral Sermon and the latter to the Curat of the Parish for the time being And my Will further is That the Funeral Sermon be preached by my own Houshold Chaplain containing some wholesome Discourse concerning Mortality the Resurrection of the Dead and the last Iudgment and that he shall have for his pains 5 l. upon condition that he speak nothing at all concerning my person either good or ill other
Books writ ex professo against the being of any original sin and that Adam by his fall transmitted some calamity only but no Crime to his Posterity the good old man was exceedingly troubled and bewailed the misery of those licentious times and seem'd to wonder save that the times were such that any should write or be permitted to publish any Error so contradictory to truth and the Doctrine of the Church of England established as he truly said by clear evidence of Scripture and the just and supreme power of this Nation both Sacred and Civil I name not the Books nor their Authors which are not unknown to learned men and I wish they had never been known because both the Doctrine and the unadvis'd Abettors of it are anâ— shall be to me Apocryphâ—l Another little story I must not pass in silence being an Argument of Dr. Sanderson's Piety great Ability and Judgment as a Casuist Discoursing with an honourable Person whose Piety I value more than his Nobility and Learning though both be great about a case of Conscience concerning Oaths and Vows their Nature and Obligation in which for some particular Reasons he then desired more fully to be inform'd I commended to him Dr. Sanderson's Book De Iuramento which having read with great satisfaction he ask'd me If I thought the Doctor could be induced to write Cases of Conscience if he might have an honorary Pension allow'd him to furnish him with Books for that purpose I told him I believe he would and in a Letter to the Doctor told him what great satisfaction that Honourable Person and many more had reaped by reading his Book De Iuramento and ask'd him whether he would be pleas'd for the benefit of the Church to write some Tract of Cases of Conscience He reply'd That he was glad that any had received any benefit by his Books and added further That if any future Tract of his could bring such benefit to any as we seem'd to say his former had done he would willingly though without any Pension set about that work Having received this answer that honourable Person before mention'd did by my hands return 50 l. to the good Doctor whose condition then as most good mens at that time were was but low and he presently revised finished and published that excellent Book De Conscientiâ A Book little in bulk but not so if we consider the benefit an intelligent Reader may receive by it For there are so many general Propositions concerning Conscience the Nature and Obligation of it explained and proved with such firm consequence and evidence of Reason that he who reads remembers and can with prudence pertinently apply them Hic nunc to particular Cases may by their light and help rationally resolve a thousand particular doubts and scruples of Conscience Here you may see the Charity of that honourable Person in promoting and the Piety and Industry of the good Doctor in performing that excellent work And here I shall add the Judgment of that learned and pious Prelate concerning a passage very pertinent to our present purpose When he was in Oxon and read his publick Lectures in the Schools as Regius Professor of Divinity and by the truth of his Positions and evidences of his Proofs gave great content and satisfaction to all his hearers especially in his clear Resolutions of all difficult Cases which occur'd in the Explication of the subject matter of his Lectures a Person of Quality yet alive privately ask'd him What course a young Divine should take in his Studies to enable him to be a good Casuist His answer was That a convenient understanding of the Learned Languages at least of Hebrew Greek Latin and a sufficient knowledge of Arts and Sciences presuppos'd There were two things in humane Literature a comprehension of which would be of very great use to enable a man to be a rational and able Casuist which otherwise was very difficult if not impossible 1. A convenient knowledge of Moral Philosophy especially that part of it which treats of the Nature of Humane Actions To know quid sit actus humanus spontaneus invitus mixtus unde habent bonitatem malitiam moralem an ex genere objecto vel ex circumstantiis How the variety of circumstances varies the goodness or evil of humane Actions How far knowledge and ignorance may aggravate or excuse increase or diminish the goodness or evil of our Actions For every Case of Conscience being only this Is this Action good or bad May I do it or may I not He who in these knows not how and whence humane Actions become morally good and evil never can in Hypothesi rationally and certainly determine whether this or that particular Action be so 2. The second thing which he said would be a great help and advantage to a Casuist was a convenient knowledge of the Nature and Obligation of Laws in general To know what a Law is what a natural and a Positive Law what 's required to the Latio dispensatio derogatio vel abrogatio legis what promulgation is antecedently required to the Obligation of any Positive Law what ignorance takes off the Obligation of a Law or does excuse diminish or aggravate the transgression For every Case of Conscience being only this Is this lawful for me or is it not and the Law the only Rule and Measure by which I must judg of the lawfulness or unlawfulness of any Action It evidently follows that he who in these knows not the Nature and Obligation of Laws never can be a good Casuist or rationally assure himself or others of the lawfulness or unlawfulness of Actions in particular This was the Judgment and good counsel of that learned and pious Prelate and having by long experience found the truth and benefit of it I conceive I could not without ingratitude to him and want of charity to others conceal it Pray pardon this rude and I fear impertinent Scrible which if nothing else may signifie thus much that I am willing to obey your Desires and am indeed London May 10. 1678. Your affectionate Friend Thomas Lincoln THE PREFACE TO THE READER HOW these Sermons will be looked upon if at all looked upon by the men of the Times is no very â—ard matter to conjecture I confess they are not A-la mode nor fitted to the Palate of those men who are resolved before-hand without tasting or trial to nauseate as unsavoury and unwholesome whatsoever shall be tendered unto them from the hand of an Episcopal Divine And therefore the republishing of them in this state of Church-affairs now the things so much contended for in some of them are worn out of date and thrown aside will be deemed at least a very unseasonable Undertaking to as much purpose perhaps it will be said as if a man would this year re-print an Almanack for the Last For the latter part of the Objection at the peril be it of those that had the hardiness
necessity of yielding obedience thereunto wholly ceaseth and determineth and the things thereby commanded or prohibited return to their primitive and natural indifferency even in their Use also and in respect of us This is clearly our Opinion and men may easily so understand us if they will § XIV But their Opinion is that the things enjoyned are Popish and Superstitious and consequently unlawful to be used And this they render as the reason of their Non-conformity And the Reason were certainly good if the Opinion were true For the Popishness first unless we should sue out a Writ de finibus regendis it will be hard to find out a way how to bring this Controversie to an issue much less to an end the term hath been so strangely extended and the limits thereof if yet it have any so uncertain If they would be entreated to set bounds to what they mean by Popish and Popery by giving us a certain definition of it we should the sooner either come to some agreement or at least understand our selves and one another the better wherein and how far we disagreed In the mean time it is to me a wonder that if reason would not heretofore yet the sad experience of the ill consequents so visible of late time should not have taught them all this while to consider what infinite advantage they give to the Romish party to work upon weak and wavering souls by damning so many things under the name of Popery which may to their understandings be sufficiently evidenced Some to have been used by the ancient Christians long before Popery was hatched or but in the Egg and All to have nothing of Superstition or Popery in them unless every thing that is used in the Church of Rome become thereby Popish and Superstitious Nor what great advantage they give to our newer Sectaries to extend the name yet farther Who by the help of their New-Lights can discern Popery not only in the Ceremonies formerly under debate but even in the Churches and Pulpits wherein they used to Preach against Popery and the Bells wherewith they used to call the people together to hear them These are by some of them cry'd down as Popish with other things very many which their Presbyterian Brethren do yet both allow and practise though how long they will so do is uncertain if they go on with the Work of Reformation they have begun with as quick dispatch and at the rate they have done these last two seven years The having of God-fathers at Baptism Churching of Women Prayers at the burial of the dead Children asking their Parents blessing c. which whilome were held innocent are now by very many thrown aside as rags of Popery Nay are not some gone so far already as to cast into the same heap not only the ancient hymn Gloria Patri for the repeating whereof alone some have been deprived of all their livelihoods and the Apostles Creed but even the use of the Lords Prayer it self And what will ye do in the end thereof And what would you have us do in the mean time when you call hard upon us to leave our Popery and yet would never do us the favour to let us know what it is It were good therefore both for your own sakes that you may not rove in infinitum and in compassion to us that you would give us a perfect boundary of what is Popery now with some Prognostication or Ephemerides annexed if you please whereby to calculate what will be Popery seven years hence § XV. But to be serious and not to indulge my self too much merriment in so sad a business I believe all those men will be found much mistaken who either measure the Protestant Religion by an opposition to Popery or account all Popery that is taught or practised in the Church of Rome Our godly Fore-fathers to whom under God we owe the purity of our Religion and some of which laid down their lives for the defence of the same were sure of another mind if we may from what they did judge what they thought They had no purpose nor had they any warrant to sâ—t up a new Religion but to reform the Old by purging it from those Innovations which in tract of time some sooner some later had mingled with it and corrupted it both in the Doctrine and Worship According to this purpose they produced without constraint or precipitancy freely and advisedly as in peaceable times and brought their intentions to a happy end as by the result thereof contained in the Articles and Liturgy of our Church and the Prefaces thereunto doth fully appear From hence chiefly as I conceive we are to take our best scantling whereby to judge what is and what is not to be esteemed Popery All those Doctrines then held by the modern Church of Rome which are either contrary to the written Word of God or but super-added thereunto as necessary Points of Faith to be of all Christians believed under pain of damnation and all those Superstitions used in the worship of God which either are unlawful as being contrary to the Word or being not contrary and therefore arbitrary and indifferent are made Essentials and imposed as necessary parts of Worship these are as I take it the things whereunto the name of Popery doth properly and peculiarly belong But as for the Ceremonies used in the Church of Rome which the Church of England at the Reformation thought fit to retain not as Essential or necessary parts of Gods Service but only as accidental and mutable circumstances attending the same for order comliness and edification sake how these should deserve the name of Popish I so little understand that I profess I do not yet see any reason why if the Church had then thought fit to have retained some other of those which were then laid aside she might not have lawfully so done or why the things so retained should have been accounted Popish The plain truth is this The Church of England meant to make use of her liberty and the lawful power she had as all the Churches of Christ have or ought to have of ordering Ecclesiastical Affairs here yet to do it with so much prudence and moderation that the World might see by what was laid aside that she acknowledged no subjection to the See of Rome and by what was retained that she did not recede from the Church of Rome out of any spirit of contradiction but as necessitated thereunto for the maintenance of her just liberty The number of Ceremonies was also then very great and they thereby burdensome and so the number thought fit to be lessened But for the Choice which should be kept and which not that was wholly in her power and at her discretion Whereof though she were not bound so to do yet hath she given a clear and satisfactory account in one of the Prefaces usually prefixed before the Book of Common-Prayer § XVI Besides this of Popish they
is such a Restraint 33 34 2. That it is from God 35 3. That it is from the mercy of God and therefore called Grace 36 Inferences from the Consideration of God's Restraint 37 I. As it lyeth upon others 1. toobless God for our Preservation 38 2. not to trust wicked men too far 39 3. nor to fear them too much 40 4. to endeavour to restrain others from Sinning 41 II. As it lyeth upon our selves 1. To be humble under it 42 2. to entertain the means of such Restraint with Thankfulness 43 3. to pray that God would restrain our Corruptions 44 4. but especially to pray and labour for sanctifying Grace Sermon VII Ad Populum on 1 Pet. 2. 16. Sect. 1 2 THE Occasion Scope of the TEXT 3 5 Coherence and of the TEXT 6 Division of the TEXT 7 8 OBSERVATION I Christian Liberty to be maintained 9 12 with the Explication 13 17 and Five Reasons thereof 18 20 Inferences I. Not to usurp upon the Liberty of others 21 24 II. Nor to betray our own 25 Observation II. Christian Liberty not to be abused 26 28 The words explained and thence 29 31 Three Reasons of the Point 32 34 Four abuses of Christian Liberty viz. I. by casting off the Obligation of the moral Law 35 36 II. by exceeding the bounds of Sobriety 37 III. by giving Scandal to others 38 IV. by disobeying lawful Superiours 39-40 The Grounds and Objections of the Anti-Ceremonians 41-46 propounded and particularly answered 47-50 How mens Laws bind the Conscience 51-52 OBSERVATION III. We being the Servants of God Which is of all other 53-54 1. the most Just Service 55 2. the most Necessary Service 56-57 3. the most Easie Service 58 4. the most Honourable Service 59 5. and the most Profitable Service 60 Ought to carry our selves as his Servants with all 61-63 I. Reverence to his Person in 3 branches 64-66 II. Obedience to his Will both in Doing and Suffering 67-70 III. Faithfulness in his Business in 3 branches 69 The Conclusion AD CLERUM The first Sermon ROM 〈◊〉 _ Meats accounting them Clean or Unclean and of Days accounting them Holy or Servile according as they stood under the Levitical Law These latter St. Paul calleth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Weak in the Faith those former then must by the Law of Opposition be strong in the Faith It would have become both the one sort and the other notwithstanding they differed in their private Iudgments yet to have preserved the common Peace of the Church and laboured the edification not the ruine one of another the strong by affording faithful instruction to the Consciences of the weak and the weak by allowing favourable construction to the actions of the strong But whilst either measured other by themselves neither one nor other did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as our Apostle elsewhere speaketh Walk uprightly according to the truth of the Gospel Faults and offences there were on all hands The Strong faulty in contemning the Weak the Weak faulty in condemning the Strong The Strong proudly scorned the weak as silly and superstitious for making scruple at some such things as themselves firmly believed were Lawful The weak rashly censured the Strong as Prophane and Irreligious for adventuring on some such things as themselves deeply suspected were unlawful The blessed Apostle desirous all things should be done in the Church in love and unto edification aequâ lance and eódem Charitatis moderamine as Interpreters speak taketh upon him to arbitrate and to mediate in the business and like a just Umpire layeth his hand upon both parties unpartially sheweth them their several oversights and beginneth to draw them to a fair and honourable composition as thus The strong shall remit somewhat of his superciliousness in disesteeming and despising the Weak and the Weak he shall abate something of his edge and acrimony in judging and condemning the Strong If the Parties will stand to this Order it will prove a blessed agreement for so shall brotherly Love be maintained Scandals shall be removed the Christian Church shall be edified and God's Name shall be glorified This is the scope of my Text and of the whole Chapter In the three first Verses whereof there is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 First there is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the first Verse the Proposal of a general Doctrine as touching the usage of weak ones with whom the Church is so to deal as that it neither give offence to nor take offence at the weakness of any Him that is weak in the Faith receive you but not to doubtful Disputations Next there is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the second Verse a Declaration of the former general Proposal by instancing in a particular case touching the difference of Meats There is one man strong in the Faith he is infallibly resolved there is no meat unclean of it self or if received with thankfulness and sobriety unlawful and because he knoweth he standeth upon a sure ground 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he is confident he may eat any thing and he useth his Liberty accordingly eating indifferently of all that is set before him making no question for Conscience sake One man believeth he may eat all things There is another man weak in the Faith he standeth yet unresolved and doubtful whether some kinds of Meats as namely those forbidden in the Law be clean or he is rather carried with a strong suspicion that they are unclean out of which timorousness of Judgment he chuseth to forbear those Meats and contenteth himself with the fruits of the Earth Another who is weak eateth Herbs This is Species facti this is the case Now the question is In this case what is to be done for the avoidance of scandal and the maintainance of Christian Charity And this question my Text resolveth in this third Verse wherein is contained 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 St. Paul's judgment or his counsel rather and advice upon the Case Let not him that eateth despise c. The remainder of the Verse and of the Chapter being spent in giving reasons of the judgment in this and another like case concerning the difference and observation of days I have made choice to intreat at this time of St. Paul's advice as useful for this Place and Auditory and the present Assembly Which advice as the Parties and the faults are is also two-fold The Parties two He that eateth that is the Strong and he that eateth not that is the Weak The Faults likewise two The strong mans fault that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 despising of his brothers Infirmity and the weak mans fault that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 judging of his Brothers liberty Proportionably the parts of the advice accommodated to the Parties and their Faults are two The one for the Strong that he despise not Let not him that eateth despise him that
obedience to these ceremonial Constitutions she hath no other purpose than to reduce all her Children to an orderly uniformity in the outward worship of God so far is she from seeking to draw any opinion either of divine necessity upon the Constitution or of effectual holiness upon the Ceremony And as for the prejudice which seemeth hereby to be given to Christian Liberty it is so slender a conceit that it seemeth to bewray in the Objectors desire not so much of satisfaction as cavil For first the liberty of a Christian to all indifferent things is in the Mind and Conscience and is then infringed when the conscience is bound and straitned by imposing upon it an opinion of doctrinal necessity But it is no wrong to the Liberty of a Christian mans conscience to bind him to outward observance for Orders sake and to impose upon him a necessity of Obedience Which one distinction of Doctrinal and Obediential Necessity well weighed and rightly applied is of it self sufficient to clear all doubts in this point For to make all restraint of the outward man in matters indifferent an impeachment of Christian Liberty what were it else but even to bring flat Anabaptism and Anarchy into the Church and to overthrow all bond of subjection and obedience to lawful Authority I beseech you consider wherein can the immediate power and Authority of Fathers Masters and other Rulers over their Inferiors consist or the due obedience of Inferiors be shewn towards them if not in these Indifferent and Arbitrary things For things absolutely necessary as commanded by God we are bound to do whether humane Authority require them or no and things absolutely unlawful as prohibited by God we are bound not to do whether humane Authority forbid them or no. There are none other things left then wherein to express properly the Obedience due to superior Authority than these Indifferent things And if a Father or Master have power to prescribe to his Child or Servant in indifferent things and such restraint be no way prejudicial to Christian liberty in them why should any man either deny the like power to Church-Governours to make Ecclesiastical Constitutions concerning indifferent things or interpret that power to the prejudice of Christian Liberty And again Secondly Men must understand that it is an error to think Ceremonies and Constitutions to be things merely indifferent I mean in the general For howsoever every particular Ceremony be indifferent and every particular Constitution arbitrary and alterable yet that there should be some Ceremonies it is necessary Necessitate absolutâ in as much as no outward work can be performed without Ceremonial Circumstances some or other and that there should be some Constitutions concerning them it is also necessary though not simply and absolutely as the former yet Ex hypothese and necessitate convenientiae Otherwise since some Ceremonies must needs be used every Parish nay every Man would have his own fashion by himself as his humour led him wherefore what other could be the issue but infinite distraction and unorderly confusion in the Church And again thirdly To return their weapon upon themselves if every restraint in indifferent things be injurious to Christian Liberty then themselves are injurious no less by their negative restraint from some Ceremonies Wear not Cross not Kneel not c. than they would have the World believe our Church is by her positive restraint unto the Ceremonies of wearing and crossing and kneeling c. Let indifferent men judge nay let themselves that are parties judge Whether is more injurious to Christian Liberty publick Authority by mature advice commanding what might be forborn or private spirits through humorous dislikes forbidding what may be used the whole Church imposing the use or a few Brethren requiring the forbearance of such things as are otherwise and in themselves equally indifferent for use or for forbearance But they say Our Church maketh greater matters of Ceremonies than thus and preferreth them even before the most necessary duties of Preaching and administring the Sacraments in as much as they are imposed upon Ministers under pain of Suspension and Deprivation from their Ministerial Functions and Charges First for actual Deprivation I take it unconforming Ministers have no great cause to complain Our Church it is well known hath not always used that rigor she might have done Where she hath been forced to proceed as far as Deprivation she hath ordinarily by her fair and slow and compassionate proceedings therein sufficiently manifested her unwillingness thereto and declared her self a Mother every way indulgent enough to such ill-nurtured Children as will not be ruled by her Secondly Those that are suspended or deprived suffer it but justly for their obstinacy and contempt For howsoever they would bear the World in hand that they are the only persecuted ones and that they suffered for their Consciences yet in truth they do but abuse the credulity of the simple therein and herein as in many other things jump with the Papists whom they would seem above all others most abhorrent from For as Seminary Priests and Iesuits give it out they are martyr'd for their Religion when the very truth is they are justly executed for their prodigious Treasons and felonious or treacherous Practices against lawful Princes and Estates So the Brethren pretend they are persecuted for their Consciences when indeed they are but justly censured for their obstinate and pertinacious contempt of lawful Authority For it is not the refusal of these Ceremonies they are deprived for otherwise than as the matter wherein they shew their contempt it is the Contempt it self which formerly and properly subjecteth them to just Ecclesiastical censure of Suspension or Deprivation And contempt of Authority though in the smallest matter deserveth no small punishment all Authority having been ever solicitous as it hath good reason above all things to vindicate and preserve it self from contempt by inflicting sharp punishments upon contemptuous persons in the smallest matters above all other sorts of offenders in any degree whatsoever Thus have we shewed and cleared the first and main difference betwixt the case of my Text and the case of our Church in regard of the matter the things whereabout they differed being every way indifferent ours not so And as the Matter so there is secondly much odds in the condition of the Persons The refusers in the Case of my Text being truly weak in the Faith as being but lately converted to the Christian Faith and not sufficiently instructed by the Church in the Doctrine and Use of Christian Liberty in things indifferent whereas with our refusers it is much otherwise First They are not new Proselytes but Men born and bred and brought up in the bosom of the Church yea many and the chiefest of them such as have taken upon them the calling of the Ministry and the charge of Souls
of God's Will and Power with subordinate Agents in every and therefore even in sinful actions God's free Election of those whom he purposeth to save of his own grace without any motives in or from themselves the immutability of God's Love and Grace towards the Saints Elect and their certain perseverance therein unto Salvation the Iustification of sinners by the imputed righteousness of Christ apprehended and applyed unto them by a lively faith without the works of the Law These are sound and true and if rightly understood comfortable and right profitable Doctrines And yet they of the Church of Rome have the forehead I will not say to slander my Text alloweth more to blaspheme God and his Truth and the Ministers thereof for teaching them Bellarmine Gretser Maldonat and the Jesuits but none more than our own English Fugitives Bristow Stapleton Parsons Kellison and all the Rabble of that Crew freely spend their mouths in barking against us as if we made God the author of sin as if we would have men sin and be damned by a Stoical fatal necessity sin whether they will or no and be damned whether they deserve it or no as if we opened a gap to all licentiousness and profaneness let them believe it is no matter how they live Heaven is their own cock-sure as if we cryed down good works and condemned charity Slanders loud and false yet easily blown away with one single word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 These imputations upon us and our Doctrine are unjust but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 let them that thus mis-report us know that without repentance their damnation will be just It would be time not ill spent to discover the grounds of this observation and to press the uses of it something fully But because my aim lyeth another way I can but point at them and pass If seldom Truth scape unslandered marvel not the reasons are evident On God's part on Man's part on the Devil's part God suffereth Man raiseth and the Devil furthereth these slanders against the Truth To begin ordine retrogrado and to take them backwards First on the Devil's part a kind of Contrariety and Antipathy betwixt him and it He being the Father of Lyes and Prince of darkness cannot away with the Truth and with the Light and therefore casteth up slanders as Fogs and Mists against the Truth to bely it and against the Light to darken it Secondly on Mans part And that partly in the understanding when the judgment either of it self weak or else weakned through precipitancy prejudice or otherwise is deceived with fallacies instead of substance and mistaketh seeming inferences for necessary and natural deductions Partly in the Will when men of corrupt minds set themselves purposely against the known truth and out of malicious wilfulness against the strong testimony of their own hearts slander it that so they may disgrace it and them that profess it Partly in the Affections when men overcome by carnal affections are content to cheat their own souls by giving such constructions to God's Truth as will for requital give largest allowance to their practices and so rather choose to crooken the Rule to their own bent than to level themselves and their affections and lives according to the Rule Thirdly on God's part who suffereth his own truth to be slandered and mistaken Partly in his Iustice as a fearful judgment upon wicked ones whereby their hard hearts become yet more hardened and their most just condemnation yet more just Partly in his goodness as a powerful fiery trial of true Doctors whose constancy and sincerity is the more approved with him and the more eminent with men if they flee not when the Wolf cometh but keep their standing and stoutly maintain God's Truth when it is deepliest slandered and hotly opposed And partly in his Wisdom as a rich occasion for those whom he hath gifted for it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to awaken their zeal to quicken up their industry to muster up their abilities to scour up their spiritual armour which else through dis-use might gather rust for the defence and for the rescue of that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that precious truth whereof they are depositaries and wherewith he hath entrusted them These are the Grounds The Uses for instruction briefly are to teach and admonish every one of us that we be not either first so wickedly malicious as without apparent cause to raise any slander or secondly so foolishly credulous as without severe examination to believe any slander or thirdly so basely timorous as to flinch from any part of God's truth for any slander But I must not insist This from the slander Observe fourthly how peremptory the Apostle is in his censure against the slanderers or abusers of holy truths Whose damnation is just Some understand it with reference to the slanderers As we be slander ously reported and as some affirm that we say whose damnation is just that is their damnation is just who thus unjustly slander us Others understand it with reference to that ungodly resolution Let us do evil that good may come whose damnation is just that is their damnation is just for the evil they do who adventure to do any evil under whatsoever pretence of good to come of it Both expositions are good and I rather embrace both than prefer either I ever held it a kind of honest spiritual thirst where there are two sences given of one place both agreeable to the Analogy of Faith and Manners both so indifferently appliable to the words and scope of the place as that it is hard to say which was rather intended though there was but one intended yet to make use of both And so will we Take it the first way and the slanderer may read his doom in it Here is his wages and his portion and the meed and reward of his slander Damnation And it is a just reward He condemneth God's truth unjustly God condemneth him justly for it whose damnation is just If we be countable and we are countable at the day of Judgment for every idle word we speak though neither in it self false nor yet hurtful and prejudicial unto others what less than damnation can they expect that with much falsehood for the thing it self and infinite prejudice in respect of others blaspheme God and his holy Truth But if it be done on purpose and in malice to despight the Truth and the professors thereof I scarce know whether there be a greater sin or no. Maliciously to oppose the known Truth is by most Divines accounted a principal branch of that great unpardonable sin the sin against the holy Ghost by some the very sin it self I dare not say it is so nor yet that it is unpardonable or hath final impenitency necessarily attending it I would be loth to interclude the hope of
consciences direct our lives mortifie our corruptions encrease our graces strengthen our comforts save our souls Hoc opus hoc studium there is no study to this none so well worth the labour as this none that can bring so much profit to others nor therefore so much glory to God nor therefore so much comfort to our own hearts as this This is a faithful saying and these things I will that thou affirm constantly saith S. Paul to Titus that they which have believed in God might be careful to maintain good works these things are good and profitable unto men You cannot do more good unto the Church of God you cannot more profit the people of God by your gifts than by pressing effectually these two great points Faith and good Works These are good and profitable unto men I might here add other Inferences from this point as namely since the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every one of us chiefly for this end that we may profit the people with it that therefore fourthly in our preaching we should rather seek to profit our hearers though perhaps with sharp and unwelcome reproofs than to please them by flattering them in evil and that Fifthly we should more desire to bring profit unto them than to gain applause unto our selves and sundry other more besides these But I will neither add any more nor prosecute these any farther at this time but give place to other business God the Father of Lights and of Spirits endow every one of us in our Places and Callings with a competent measure of such Graces as in his wisdom and goodness he shall see needful and expedient for us and so direct our hearts and tongues and endeavours in the exercise and manifestation thereof that by his good blessing upon our labours we may be enabled to advance his Glory propagate his Truth benefit his Church discharge a good Conscience in the mean time and at the last make our account with comfort at the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ. To whom c. AD CLERUM The Fourth Sermon At a Metropolitical Visitation at Grantham Lincoln August 22 d. 1634. ROM XIV 23. For whatsoever is not of Faith is sin ONE remarkable difference among many other between Good and Evil is this That there must be a concurrence of all requisite conditions to make a thing good whereas to make a thing evil a single defect in any one condition alone will suffice Bonum ex causa integra Malum ex partiali If we propose not to our selves a right end or if we pitch not upon proper and convenient means for the attaining of that end or if we pursue not these means in a due manner or if we observe not exactly every material circumstance in the whole pursuit if we fail but in any one point the action though it should be in every other respect such as it ought to be by that one defect becometh wholly sinful Nay more not only a true and real but even a supposed and imaginary defect the bare opinion of unlawfulness is able to vitiate the most justifiable act and to turn it into sin I know there is nothing unclean of it self but to him that esteemeth any thing to be unclean to him it is unclean at the 14. verse of this Chapter Nay yet more not only a setled opinion that the thing we do is unlawful but the very suspension of our judgment and the doubtfulness of our minds whether we may lawfully do it or no maketh it sometimes unlawful to be done of us and if we do it sinful He that but doubteth is damned if he eat Because he eateth not of faith in the former part of this verse The ground whereof the Apostle delivereth in a short and full Aphorism and concludeth the whole Chapter with it in the words of the Text For whatsoever is not of Faith is sin Many excellent Instructions there are scattered throughout the whole Chapter most of them concerning the right use of that Liberty we have unto things of indifferent nature well worthy our Christian Consideration if we had time and leisure for them But this last Rule alone will find us work enough and therefore omitting the rest we will by Gods assistance with your patience presently fall in hand with this and intend it wholly in the Explication first and then in the Application of it For by how much it is of more profitable and universal use for the regulating of the common offices of life by so much is the mischief greater if it be and accordingly our care ought to be so much the greater that it be not either misunderstood or misapplyed Quod non ex fide peccatum that is the rule Whatsoever is not of faith is sin In the Explication of which words there would be little difficulty had not the ambiguity of the word Faith occasioned difference of interpretations and so left a way open to some misapprehensions Faith is verbum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as most other words are There be that have reckoned up more than twenty several significations of it in the Scriptures But I find three especially looked at by those who either purposely or occasionally have had to do with this Text each of which we shall examine in their Order First and most usually especially in the Apostolical writings the word Faith is used to signifie that Theological vertue or gracious habit whereby we embrace with our minds and affections the Lord Iesus Christ as the only begotten Son of God and alone Saviour of the World casting our selves wholly upon the mercy of God through his merits for remission and everlasting Salvation It is that which is commonly called a lively or justifying Faith whereunto are ascribed in holy Writ those many gracious effects of purifying the heart adoption justification life joy peace salvation c. Not as to their proper and primary cause but as to the instrument whereby we apprehend and apply Christ whose merits and spirit are the true causes of all those blessed effects And in this notion many of our later Divines seem to understand it in our present Text whilst they alledge it for the confirmation of this Position that All the works even the best works of Unbelievers are sins A position condemned indeed by the Trent Council and that under a curse taking it as I suppose in a wrong construction but not worthy of so heavy a censure if it be rightly understood according to the doctrine of our Church in the thirteenth Article of her Confession and according to the tenour of those Scriptures whereon that doctrine is grounded viz. Matth. 12. 33. Rom. 8. 8. Tit. 1. 15. Heb. 11. 6 c. Howbeit I take it with subjection of judgment that that Conclusion what truth soever it may have in it self hath yet no direct foundation in this Text. The Verb 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
utterly unlawful which yet indeed is indifferent and so lawful is guilty of superstition as well as he that enjoineth a thing as absolutely necessary which yet indeed is but indifferent and so arbitrary They of the Church of Rome and some in our Church as they go upon quite contrary grounds yet both false so they run into quite contrary errors and both superstitious They decline too much on the left hand denying to the holy Scripture that perfection which of right it ought to have of containing all things appertaining to that supernatural doctrine of faith and holiness which God hath revealed to his Church for the attainment of everlasting salvation whereupon they would impose upon Christian people and that with an opinion of necessity many things which the Scriptures require not and that is a Superstition These wry too much on the right hand ascribing to the holy Scripture such a kind of perfection as it cannot have of being the sole director of all humane actions whatsoever whereupon they forbid unto Christian people and that under the name of sin sundry things which the holy Scripture condemneth not and that is a superstition too From which Superstition proceedeth in the second place uncharitable censuring as evermore they that are the most superstitious are the most supercilious No such severe censures of our blessed Saviours person and actions as the Superstitious Scribes and Pharisees were In this Chapter the special fault which the Apostle blameth in the weak ones who were somewhat superstitiously affected was their rash and uncharitable judging of their brethren And common and daily experience among our selves sheweth how freely some men spend their censures upon so many of their brethren as without scruple do any of those things which they upon false grounds have superstitiously condemned as utterly unlawful And then thirdly as unjust censurers are commonly entertained with scorn and contumely they that so liberally condemn their brethren of prophaneness are by them again as freely flouted for their preciseness and so whiles both parties please themselves in their own ways they cease not mutually to provoke and scandalize and exasperate the one the other pursuing their private spleens so far till they break out into open contentions and oppositions Thus it stood in the Roman Church when this Epistle was written They judged one another and despised one another to the great disturbance of the Churches Peace which gave occasion to our Apostle's whole discourse in this Chapter And how far the like censurings and despisings have imbittered the spirits and whetted both the tongues and pens of learned men one against another in our own Church the stirs that have been long since raised and are still upheld by the factious Opposers against our Ecclesiastical Constitutions Government and Ceremonies will not suffer us to be ignorant Most of which stirs I verily perswade my self had been long ere this either wholly buried in silence or at leastwise prettily well quieted if the weakness and danger of the error whereof we now speak had been more timely discovered and more fully and frequently made known to the world than it hath been Fourthly let that doctrine be once admitted and all humane authority will soon be despised The command of Parents Masters and Princes which many times require both secrecy and expedition shall be taken into slow deliberation and the Equity of them sifted by those that are bound to obey though they know no cause why so long as they know no cause to the contrary Delicata est obedientia quae transit in causae genus deliberativum It is a nice obedience in S. Bernard's judgment yea rather troublesome and odious that is over-curious in discussing the commands of superiours boggling at every thing that is enjoyned requiring a why for every wherefore and unwilling to stir until the unlawfulness and expediency of the thing commanded shall be demonstrated by some manifest reason or undoubted authority from the Scriptures Lastly the admitting of this doctrine would cast such a snare upon men of weak judgments but tender consciences as they should never be able to unwind themselves thereout again Mens daily occasions for themselves or friends and the necessities of common life require the doing of a thousand things within the compass of a few days for which it would puzzle the best Textman that liveth readily to bethink himself of a sentence in the Bible clear enough to satisfie a scrupulous conscience of the lawfulness and expediency of what he is about to do for which by hearkening to the rules of reason and discretion he might receive easie and speedy resolution In which cases if he should be bound to suspend his resolution and delay to do that which his own reason would tell him were presently needful to be done until he could haply call to mind some Precept or Example of Scripture for his warrant what stops would it make in the course of his whole life what languishings in the duties of his calling how would it fill him with doubts and irresolutions lead him into a maze of uncertainties entangle him in a world of woful perplexities and without the great mercy of God and better instruction plunge him irrecoverably into the gulph of despair Since the chief end of the publication of the Gospel is to comfort the hearts and to revive and refresh the spirits of God's people with the glad tidings of liberty from the spirit of bondage and fear and of gracious acceptance with their God to anoint them with the oyl of gladness giving them beauty for ashes and instead of sackcloth girding them with joy we may well suspect that doctrine not to be Evangelical which thus setteth the consciences of men upon the rack tortureth them with continual fears and perplexities and prepareth them thereby unto hellish despair These are the grievous effects and pernicious consequents that will follow upon their Opinion who hold That we must have warrant from the Scripture for every thing whatsoever we do not only in spiritual things wherein alone it is absolutely true nor yet only in other matters of weight though they be not spiritual for which perhaps there might be some colour but also in the common affairs of life even in the most sleight and trivial things Yet for that the Patrons of this Opinion build themselves as much upon the authority of this present Text as upon any other passage of Scripture whatsoever which is the reason why we have stood thus long upon the examination of it we are therefore in the next place to clear the Text from that their mis-interpretation The force of their collection standeth thus as you heard already that faith is ever grounded upon the word of God and that therefore whatsoever action is not grounded upon the word being it is not of faith by the Apostles rules here must needs be a sin Which collection
and scope of our Saviour in this place Doctrinals as well as Morals that is to say as well those that prescribe unto our Iudgments what we are bound to believe or not to believe in matter of Opinion as those that prescribe unto our Consciences what we are bound to do or not to do in matter of Practice Although the special occasion whereupon our Saviour fell into this discourse against the Pharisees and the special instance whereby he convinceth them do withal shew that the Morals do more principally properly and directly fall under his particular intention and scope therein In the full extent of the word then all those prescriptions are to be taken for the Commandments of men wherein any thing is by humane Authority either enjoyned or forbidden to be believed or done especially to be done which God in his Holy Word hath not so enjoyned or forbidden Ionadab's command to the Rechabites that they should not drink Wine they nor their Sons for ever and the Pharisees tradition here that none should eat with unwashen hands were both the commandments of men 5. This is clear enough yea and good enough hitherto if there were no more in it but so For you must observe or else you quite mistake the Text and the whole drift of it that it is no part of our Saviours meaning absolutely and wholly to condemn all the Commandments of men For that were to cut the sinews of all Government and Order and to overturn Churches Kingdoms Corporations Families and all other both greater and lesser Societies of men none of all which can be upheld without some positive Laws and Sanctions of mans devising We do not therefore find that either Ionadab was blamed for commanding the Rechabites not to drink Wine or that they were blamed for observing his commandments therein But rather on the contrary that God well approved both of him and them yea and rewarded them for their obedience unto that command though it were a command but of mans devising and had no more than a bare humane Authority to warrant it And therefore those Men are very wide that vouch this Text against the Ecclesiastical Constitutions or Ceremonies with such confidence as if they were able with this one Engine to take them all off at a blow not considering that it is not barely the Commandments of men either materially or formally taken that is to say neither the things commanded by men nor yet mens commanding of them but it is the teaching of such Commandments for Doctrines that our Saviour here condemneth the Pharisees for What that is therefore we are next to enquire 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 teaching for Doctrines the commandments of men 6. In the 29. of Isa. the substantives have a Conjunction Copulative between them in the Septuagint and they are read in the very same manner and order 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by St. Paul alluding thereunto in Col. 2. But in the Greek Text in all Copies extant both here and in Mark 7. where the same History is related they are put without the Conjunction by Apposition as the Grammarians call it The meaning is the same in both readings only this latter way it appeareth better and it is in effect this Whosoever shall endeavor to impose upon the judgments of Men in credendis or in point of faith any thing to be believed as a part of Gods holy truth or shall endeavour to impose upon the Consciences of men in agendis or in point of manners any thing to be observed as a part of Gods holy will which cannot be sufficiently evidenced so or so to be either by express Testimony of the written Word of God rightly understood and applyed or by clear natural and necessary deduction therefrom according to the Laws of true Logical discourse is guilty more or less of that Superstition our Saviour here condemneth in the Pharisees of teaching for doctrines the commandments of men 7. And a fault it is of a large comprehension It taketh in all additions whatsoever that are made to that absolute and all-sufficient Rule of Faith and manners which God hath left unto his Church in his written Word In what kind soever they are whether in Opinion Worship Ordinance Injunction Prohibition Promise or otherwise From what cause soever they proceed whether from Credulity Ignorance Education Partiality Hypocrisie Mis-govern'd Zeal Time-serving or any other For what end soever they may be done whether those ends be in truth intended or but in shew pretended say it be the glory of God the reformation of abuses the preventing of mischiefs or inconveniences the avoiding of scandals the maintenance of Christian liberty the furtherance of Piety or whatever else can be imagined If they have not a sufficient foundation in the sacred Text and yet shall be offered to be pressed upon our Iudgments or Consciences in the name of God and as his Word they are to be held as chaff fitter to be scattered before the Wind or cast out to the dunghil than to be hoarded up in the garners among the Wheat alas what is the chaff to the wheat or as Hay Wood or Stubble meeter to become fewel for the Oven or Hearth than to be coffered up in the Treasures among Gold and Silver and precious Stones And he that bringeth any such Doctrine with him let his Piety or parts be otherwise what they can be should he in either of both or even in both match not only the Holy Apostles of Christ but the ever blessed Angels in Heaven yet should we rather defie him as a Traytor for setting Gods stamp upon his own Bullion than receive him as his faithful Embassadour and salute him with an Anathema sooner than bid him God speed Especially if the Doctrine be apparently either false or ungrounded and yet positively and peremptorily delivered as if it were the undoubted word and will of God 8. I may not now descend to particulars But thus much it will concern us all to know in the General that whosoever teacheth any thing either to be absolutely unlawful which God hath not forbidden in his Word or to be absolutely necessary which God hath not required in his Word he teacheth for doctrines the commandments of men and so far forth playeth the Pharisees part in burthening the Consciences of Gods people with the superstitious fancies of his own brain But otherwise the enjoyning of something for a time which God hath not forbidden or the forbidding of something for a time which God hath not required by those that are endued with lawful Authority in any Ecclesiastical Political or Domestical Society so as the same be not done for Conscience sake towards God or with any Opinion of worship merit or operative holiness but meerly out of prudential considerations and for the reasons of order decency expedience or other like respects of conveniency and accomodation is a thing no ways justly chargeable with Pharisaism superstition or
to be cried down and condemned under the name of Will-worship nor doth it come within the compass of our Saviours reproof in this place If Ionadab had laid an obligation upon the Consciences of the Rechabites not to drink wine by telling them that for Conscience sake towards God they ought to abstain therefrom or if the Iewish Elders and Governors leaving the Consciences of the People free had only made a Law under some penalty for decency and cleanliness sake that no Man should sit down to Meat in publick with unwashen hands to my seeming had he then been guilty of this Pharisaical superstition and they free In brief then to conclude this Enquiry To lay an obligation either upon the judgements or consciences of Men in point of opinion or practice which God hath not laid that and nothing but that is to teach for doctrines the commandments of men 9. We have yet a third thing to be enquired of for the Explication of the words namely how and in what respect they that teach such Doctrines may be said to worship God in vain The Ambiguity of our English word Worship hath occasioned many Errors among Divines and mis-understandings of one anothers words and writings whereby the disputes and controversies about Worship are become of all other the most intricate and perplexed The Hebrews and the Greeks too have sundry words and those of distinct notions and significations which we in English for want of fitter expressions are fain to translate promiscuously by this one word Worship The Greek words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is the word here used are all indifferently rendred worshipping Here according to the notion of the Greek word it properly signifieth the performance of some Religious or devout act with an intention to honour God thereby Whereby it appeareth that these Pharisees placed a great part of their Religion in the observation of these Traditions of mens divising and flattered themselves with this conceit That they did God a great deal of honour in so doing and that therefore he could not choose but be marvellous well pleased with them for so doing By long accustoming themselves to which like outward observances they had almost lost the vigor and soul of true Religion which consisteth in the inward Reverence and Devotion of the heart and had little other left than the bare carcase or empty outside thereof and that also patcht and pieced up for the most part with the devices and inventions of men 10. And this our Saviour now telleth them is Worship in vain He saith so indeed but hath he any Text for it The place he citeth is in Isa. 29. 13. where the words according to the Original run but thus Their fear towards me is taught by the precept of men but that it is vain the Prophet doth not there say He doth not say it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in those very words according to the Hebrew but the scope of the place importeth all that and more For God there threatneth to punish the People for such worship which he would not have done if he had been either pleased with it or honoured by it But the very word and all is so found even as our Saviour citeth it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Septuagint there which being the most common and received Translation in those days was therefore for the most part followed by Christ and his Apostles in their quotations especially where it swerved not very much in sence from the Original Now a thing is said to be done in vain when it hath not that wished effect which the doer intended and expected Those Pharisees then intending by those superstitious Will-worships to honour God and hopeing to please him therewithal when their expectations should be so far frustrated that God should all on the contrary profess himself dishonoured and displeased thereby it must needs be acknowledged that this their Will-worship was all in vain Certainly God will reject what himself hath forbidden and he hath forbidden and that both frequently and with the severest interminations all manner of Will-worship of this kind and properly so called and all additions of Men unto his holy Word 11. In the several parts of the Text thus opened we may see the full meaning of the whole God will not approve of nor accept any Wit-worship or Will-worship forged or devised by Man with an Opinion as if it were a necessary part of Gods service nor allow of any Doctrine that tendeth to bind the Iudgments or Consciences of his people further than he hath thought fit himself to bind them by the expresses of his Word He will when time serveth root out every plant which is not of his own planting And when the day is come which shall declare by a fiery Trial every mans work of what sort it is the Gold and Silver and precious Stones shall abide the fire and the Workman that built with such good stuff shall receive a blessed reward But he that buildeth Wood or Hay or Stubble though by the great mercy of God he himself may pass through the fire and be saved with some difficulty so long as he holdeth fast the foundation which is Christ and his merits yet he shall suffer loss in his work however That shall be sure to burn and perish whatsoever becometh of him All that fear of God is but superstitious and vain that is taught by the Precepts and Commandments of men 12. From the Explication of the Text hitherto I come now to the Application of it Wherein I doubt not by Gods help but to make clear to the judgment of any Man that is not either uncapable through ignorance or fore-possessed with prejudice these three things First that the Papists are guilty of the Pharisaical Superstition and Will-worship here condemned Secondly that the Church of England and her regular and Obedient Children are not guilty of the same Thirdly that those Divines and others in the Church of England that so undutifully charge her therewithal are in truth themselves inexcusably guilty of that very Crime whereof they unjustly accuse her 13. First for the Papists That they are the right children and successors of the Pharisees no Man that rightly understandeth the Tenets of the Romish Church but will easily grant if he shall duly consider what a mass of humane Traditions both in point of belief and worship are imposed upon the judgments and consciences of all that may be suffered to live in the visible Communion of that Church and that with opinion of necessity and under pain of Damnation The Popes Supremacy Worshipping of Images Invocation of Saints and Angels the Propitiatory Sacrifice of the Mass Purgatory the seven Sacraments Transubstantiation Adoration of the Host Communion under one kind Private Masses forbidding Priests Marriage Monastical Vows Prayer in an unknown Tongue Auricular Confession All these and I know not how many more are such as even by the
England and her regular and obedient Children in this behalf and it will be expected I should do it If any of the Children of this Church in their too much hast have over-run their Mother that is have busied themselves and troubled others with putting forward new Rites and Ceremonies with scandal and without Law or by using her name without her leave for the serving of their own purposes have causlessly brought an evil suspicion upon her as some are blamed let them answer it as well as they can it is not my business now to plead for them but to vindicate the Church of England against another sort of men who have accused her of Superstition unjustly 17. Set both these aside and her defence is made in a word if we do but remember what hath been already delivered in the Explication of the Text to wit that it is not the commandments of men either Materially or Formally taken but the Opinion that we have of them and the teaching of them for Doctrines wherein Superstition properly consisteth Materially first There is no Superstition either in wearing or in not wearing a Surplice in kneeling or in not kneeling at the Communion in crossing or in not crossing an Infant newly Baptized even as there is no Superstition in washing or in not washing the hands before Meat So long as neither the one is done with an Opinion of necessity nor the other forborn out of the Opinion of unlawfulness For so long the Conscience standeth free The Apostle hath so resolved in the very like case that neither he that eateth is the worse for it nor he that eateth not the better for it A Man may eat and do it with a good Conscience too As in the present case at this time it is certain Christs Disciples did eat and washed not it cannot be doubted but at some time or other they washed before they eat Not for Conscience sake towards God either but even as they saw it fit and as the present occasion required and they might do both without supersition But if any man shall wear or kneel or cross with an Opinion of necessity and for Conscience sake towards God as if those parts of Gods Service wherein those Ceremonies are used in our Church could not be rightly performed without them yea althought the Church had not appointed them doubtless the use of those Ceremonies by reason of such his Opinion should be Superstition to him Because a man cannot be of that Opinion but he must believe it to be true Doctrine that such and such Ceremonies are of themselves necessary parts of Gods worship As on the contrary if any body should refuse to wear or kneel or cross out of an Opinion of their unlawfulness as if those Ceremonies did vitiate the whole act of that Worship whereunto they are applied I cannot see but upon the same ground and by reason of such his Opinion the refusal of those Ceremonies should be to him also Superstition Because a man cannot be of that Opinion but he must believe this to be true Doctrine that such and such Ceremonies are of themselves unlawful to be used in the Worship of God But the obedient Children of the Church of England having no such Opinion either of the necessity or unlawfulness of the said Ceremonies but holding them to be as indeed they are things in their own nature indifferent are even therefore free from Superstition in both the kinds aforesaid So then in the things commanded taken materially that is to say considered in themselves without respect to the Churches command there is no Superstition because there is nothing concerning them Doctrinally taught either the one way or the other 18. Now if we can as well clear these things taken also formally that is to say considered not in themselves but as they stand commanded by publick authority of the Church the whole business is done as to this point Nor is there in truth any great difficulty in it if we will but apprehend things aright For although the very commanding them do seem to bring with it a kind of necessity and to lay a tie upon the Conscience as that of St. Paul implieth both you must needs be subject and that for Conscience sake yet is not that any tie brought upon the Conscience de novo by such command of the Church only that tie that lay upon the Conscience before by virtue of that general Commandment of God of obeying the higher Powers in all their lawful commands is by that Commandment of the Church applied to that particular matter Even as it is in all Civil Constitutions and humane positive Laws whatsoever And the necessity also is but an obediential not a doctrinal necessity But the Text requireth a doctrinal necessity to make the thing done a vain and superstitious Worship Teaching for doctrines the commandments of men Which the Church of England in prescribing the aforesaid Ceremonies hath not done nor by her own grounds could do For look as the case standeth with private men for doing or refusing even so standeth the case with publick Governours for commanding or forbidding As therefore with private men it is not the bare doing or refusing of a thing as in discretion they shall see cause but the doing of it with an Opinion of necessity or the refusing of it with the Opinion of unlawfulness that maketh the action superstitious as hath been already shewed so with publick Governours it is not the commanding or forbidding of a mutable Ceremony as for the present they shall deem it fit for order decency or uniformities sake or such other like respects but the commanding of it with an opinion as if it were of perpetual necessity or the forbidding it with the like opinion as if it were simply unlawful that maketh the Constitution superstitious 19. Now I appeal to any man that hath not run on madly with the cry for company but endeavoured with the Spirit of Charity and Sobriety to satisfie his understanding herein if the Church of England both in the Preface before the Book of Common-Prayer and in the Articles of her Confession and in sundry passages in the Homilies occasionally and these Books are acknowledged her most Authentick Writings the two former especially and the just standard whereby to measure her whole Doctrine if I say she have not in them all and that in as plain and express terms as can be desired disclaimed all humane Traditions that are imposed upon the Consciences of Gods People either in point of Faith or Manners and declared to the world that she challenged no power to her self to order any thing by her own Authority but only in things indifferent and such as are not repugnant to the word of God and that her Constitutions are but for order comeliness and uniformity sake and not for Conscience sake towards God and that therefore any of those her Orders and Constitutions may be retained
abolished or altered from time to time and at all times as the Governours for the time being shall judge to serve best unto Edification What should I say more If men list to be contentious and will not be satisfied who can help it yet thus much I dare say more Let any Papist or Precisian in the world give instance but in any one single thing doctrinally maintained by the Church of England which he can with any colour of truth except against as a Commandment of men if we do not either shew good warrant for it from the written word of God which we doubt not but to be able to do and is most ad rem or else which is enough ad hominem for every single instance they shall bring return them ten of their own teaching every whit as liable to the same exception as that we will yield the Bucklers and confess her guilty 20. But now what will you say if after all this clamouring against English Popish Ceremonies as of late they have blazoned them they that keep all this ado prove in the end the guilty persons themselves I am much deceived if it do not clearly prove so if we either compare her Doctrine and theirs together or take a view of some of theirs by themselves First compare them a little which will also add some confirmation to the former point for the farther justifying of the Church of England in this behalf And for example and perspicuity sake let the instance be kneeling at the Communion there being the like reason of all the rest I pray you consider well the evidence weigh the grounds and observe the course held on both sides and then give sentence accordingly If as God hath given those our Church Governours power to determine of indifferent mutable circumstances and they using the liberty of the power given them have appointed kneeling rather than sitting or standing as judging it a gesture of greater reverence and well becoming our unworthiness but without any Opinion either of the necessity of that gesture or of the unlawfulness of the other two so God had given the like Power to these our Brethren and they using the liberty of that power had appointed sitting or standing rather than kneeling as judging either of them a more proper Table gesture than it yet without any Opinion of their necessity or of the unlawfulness of kneeling the case had then been alike of both These had been as free as they neither of them had been guilty of Superstition in teaching for Doctrines the Commandments of men because there was no doctrinal necessity whereby to bind the Consciences of Gods People on either side Again if as these say to their Proselytes peremptorily in effect thus you are bound in Conscience not to kneel it is an unlawful gesture a superstitious relique of Popery and carrieth with it a shrewd appearance of their idolatrous Bread-worship and therefore we charge you upon your Consciences not to kneel so our Church-Governours should say to the People peremptorily in effect thus you are bound in Conscience to kneel or else you prophane the holy Sacrament not discerning the Lords Body and therefore we charge you upon your Consciences to kneel the case of both had here also been alike Both alike guilty of Superstition in teaching for doctrines the commandments of men because by that doctrinal necessity as well the one sort as the other had laid a perpetual obligation upon the Consciences of men in a matter which God having not any where either commanded or forbidden hath therefore left free and indifferent But now taking the case as de facto it is without Ifs and And 's set the one against the other and make the comparison right and here it is Our Brethren having no publick authority given them to order what shall be done or not done in matters of external government do yet bind the Consciences of Gods people by teaching that which they thus forbid to be simply and in it self unlawful Our Governors on the contrary though having publick authority to prescribe in such matters do yet leave the Consciences of men at liberty without teaching that which they appoint to be of absolute necessity in it self This being species facti as the Civilians speak the even true state of the case say now I beseech you in good sooth and be not partial Quid Iuris at whose door lieth the Superstition The one side teaching no such doctrine but having authority do by virtue of that authority appoint the People to kneel The other side having no such authority but teaching a doctrine do by virtue of that doctrine charge the people not to kneel Whether of both sides may rightlier be said to teach for doctrines the Commandments of men Tu quum sis quod ego fortassis nequior 21. Their guilt herein will yet farther appear if leaving comparisons we take a view of some of their doctrines by themselves I say but some of them for how many hours would serve to reckon them all or who indeed even of themselves knoweth them all There are so many Covies of new doctrines sprung up ever and anon especially in these late times of connivance and licentiousness which by that they are well hatcht presently fly abroad the Country and are entertained by some or other for as good Divinity as if they were the undoubted Oracles of the Holy Ghost I dare not affirm it because I will not put my self to the trouble to prove it and because I heartily desire and wish I be deceived in it yet I cannot dissemble my fear that it is but too true by the proportion of what we almost dayly hear or see that within little more than this one twelvemonth last past there have been more false and superstitious doctrines vented in the Pulpits and Presses in England than have been in so open and daring a manner in the whole space of almost fourscore years before I mean since the first of Queen Elizabeth of blessed memory And to make good the former charge omitting sundry other their unwarrantable positions partly concerning Church-Government Orders and Ceremonies established by Law partly concerning sundry received customs in matters wholly or in part Ecclesiastical partly concerning the use of sundry pastimes and recreations partly concerning sundry usages and customs in vita communi in things meerly Civil and not sacred or Ecclefiastical the particulars whereof would amount to many scores if not hundreds I shall present unto your view a dozen only which I have selected from the rest of those that I have observed to have been most urged of late in Sermons and Pamphlets by which you may in part judge of the rest And they are these 22. 1. That the appointing of a set form of Prayer or Liturgy to be used in the Service of God is unlawful or Antichristian or that it is a straitning or limiting of the Holy Spirit of God 2. That it is not in
the power of the Church to ordain any Rites or Ceremonies in the Service of God which the People are bound to observe other than such as God hath commanded in his Word 3. That Rites and Usages devised or abused either by Heathens or Idolaters may not be lawfully used by Christians in the Service of God 4. That it is unlawful or superstitious to kneel at the Holy Communion in the act of receiving the Sacrament 5. That Instrumental Musick may not be used in the Service of God as well as Vocal 6. That Episcopacy is Antichristian or repugnant to the word of God 7. That the Presbyterian Discipline is the very Scepter of Christs Kingdom or the order appointed by Christ himself for the perpetual Government of his Church which ought of all particular Congregations to be inviolably observed unto the worlds end 8. That it is simply unlawful for a Minister to be possessed of two Benefices 9. That Ecclesiastical persons may not meddle in secular affairs nor can with a good Conscience exercise any Civil office or Iurisdiction although by humane Authority Law or custom allowed them 10. That it is not lawful in preaching Gods word to recite sentences out of the Fathers much less from the writings of Heathen Writers 11. That the Election or consent of the people is of necessity required either to the ordaining of the Ministers or to the appointing of them to their particular charges 12. Lastly which though I find not positively delivered in terminis nor is the danger thereof so generally observed as of sundry of the former yet for that I find it often touched upon in these late Treatises and conceive it to be an error of no less dangerous consequence than many of the former I thought meet not to omit it That the examples of Christ and of his Apostles ought to be observed of all Christians as a perpetual Rule binding them to Conformity even as their Precepts do unto obedience 23. Concerning which Positions I do here in the face of this Congregation take God to witness who shall judge us all at the last day that I do verily believe and in my conscience am perswaded That all and every of them are the vain and superstitious inventions of men wholly destitute of all sound warrant from the written word of God rightly understood and applied and till they shall be better proved ought to be so esteemed of every man that desireth to make Gods Holy Word the rule of his opinions and actions Many and great are the mischiefs otherwise that come to the Church and People of God by the teaching of these and other like groundless Positions As amongst others these three following First great scandal is hereby given to Atheists Papists Separatists and other the enemies of our Religion especially to the Papists who will not only take occasion thence to speak evil of us and of the way of truth and holiness which we profess but will be themselves also the more confirmed in their own wicked errors by objecting to us that since we left them we cannot tell where to stay Secondly many sober and godly men both Ministers and other who chearfully submit to the established Laws and Government as they take themselves by the Law of God bound to do in things which they believe not to be repugnant to his word are by this means unworthily exposed to contempt and mis-censure as if they were time-servers or inclined to Popery or Superstition at the least But if they shall farther endeavour in their Sermons or otherwise to shew their just dislike and to hinder the growth of these unlawful impositions and to hold the people in their good belief by instructing them better they shall be sure to be forthwith branded as opposers of the Gospel As if there were such a spirit of infallibility annexed to some mens Pulpits as some have said there is to the Pope's Chair that whatsoever they shall deliver thence must needs be Gospel Thirdly hereby many an honest-hearted and well meaning Christian is wonderfully abused by being mis-led into Error Superstition and disobedience by having his Conscience brought into bondage in those things whereunto it was the good pleasure of God to leave him free and by being disposed to much uncharitableness in judging evil of his Brother that hath given him no just cause so to do 24. Besides these and sundry other mischiefs of dangerous consequence too long now to repeat the thing that I am presently to affirm concerning all and every of the positions aforesaid and other like them pertinently to the Text and business in hand is this That whosoever shall doctrinally and positively teach any of the same doth ipso facto become guilty of the Superstition here condemned by our Saviour and so far forth symbolizeth with the Pharisees in teaching for doctrines the commandments of men And I doubt not but there are in the Church of England sundry learned judicious and Orthodox Divines no way suspected of favouring Popery or Popish Innovations that by Gods help and the advantage of Truth will be ready to maintain what I now affirm in a fair Christian and Scholar-like trial against whosoever are otherwise minded whensoever by Authority they shall be thereunto required 25. I have now finished what I had to say from this Scripture by way of Application From the whole premisses would arise sundry Inferences as Corollaries and by way of Use. In the prosecution whereof had we time for it I should have occasion to fall upon some things that might be of right good use for the setling of mens Iudgments and Consciences in a way of Truth and Peace And truly my aim lay chiefly here when my thoughts fixt upon this Text. But having enlarged my self so far beyond my first purpose already I shall only give you a short touch of each of them and it may be hereafter as I shall see cause and as God shall dispose I may take some other occasion here or elsewhere to enlarge them further 26. The first should be an earnest request to such of my Brethren as through inconsideratian zeal against Popery or profaneness or any other cause have been a little too forward and faulty this way That they would in the fear of God review their own dictates and all partiality and self-seeking laid aside bestow a little pains to examine throughly the soundness of those principles from which they draw their Conclusions whether they be the very true word of God indeed or but the fancies and devices of the wit of man I know how lothly men are induced to suspect themselves to be in an Error and that it is with our Brethren herein as with other men may sufficiently appear in this that few of them will so much as bestow the reading of those Books that might give them satisfaction But beloved better try your own work your selves and if it prove but Hay or Stubble burn it your selves by acknowledging your
Church forbidding some Orders of men some kinds of Meats perpetually and all men some Meats upon certain days and that not for civil Respects but with opinion of satisfaction yea merit yea and Supererogation too In which also besides the Devilishness of the Doctrine in corrupting the profitable and religious exercise of fasting and turning it into a superstitious observation of Days and Meats judge if they do not teach this Lye also as the former with seared Consciences For with what Conscience can they allow an ordinary Confessor to absolve for Murder Adultery Perjury and such petty crimes but reserve the great sin of eating flesh upon a Friday or Ember-day to the censure of a Penitentiary as being a matter beyond the power of an ordinary Priest to grant absolution for With what Conscience make the tasting of the coarsest flesh a breach of the Lent-fast and surfeiting upon the delicatest Fishes and Confections none With what Conscience forbid they such and such meats for the taming of the flesh when they allow those that are far more nutritive of the flesh and incentive of fleshly Lusts With what Conscience enjoyn such abstinence for a penance and then presently release it again for a Peny Indeed the Gloss upon the Canon that doth so hath a right worthy and a right wholesom note Note saith the Gloss That he who giveth a Peny to redeem his Fast though he give money for a speritual thing yet he doth not commit Simony because the Contract is made with God If these men had not seared up their Consciences would they not think you feel some check at the broaching of such ridiculous and inconsistent stuff as floweth from these two heads of Devilish Doctrines of forbidding to marry and commanding to abstain from Meats I deny not but the Bawds of that strumpet the Doctors of that Church have their colourable pretences wherewith to blanch over these errors else the Lyes would be palpable and they should not otherwise fill up the measure of their Apostasie according to the Apostles Prophecy in teaching these Lyes in Hypocrisie But the colours though never so artificially tempered and never so handsomly laid on are yet so thin that a steddy eye not bleared with prejudice may discern the Lye through them for all the Hypocrisie as might easily be shewn if my intended course led me that way and did not rather direct me to matter of more profitable and universal use Having therefore done with them it were good for us in the third place that we might know our own free-hold with better certainty and keep our selves within our due bounds to enquire a little what is the just extent of our Christian liberty unto the Creatures and what restraints it may admit A point very needful to be known for the resolution of many doubts in Conscience and for the cutting off of many questions and disputes in the Church which are of very noysom consequence for want of right information herein I have other matter also to entreat of and therefore since I may not allow this Enquiry so large a Discourse as it well deserveth I shall desire you to take into your Christian Consideration these Positions following The first Our Christian liberty extendeth to all the Creatures of God This ariseth clearly from what hath been already delivered and the testimonies of Scripture for it are express All things are pure All things are lawful All are yours elsewhere and here nothing to be refused The second Position Our Christian Liberty equally respecteth the using and the not using of any of God's Creatures There is no Creature but a Christian man by virtue of his Liberty as he may use it upon just occasion so he may also upon just cause refuse it All things are lawful for me saith St. Paul but I will not be brought under the power of any thing Where he established this Liberty in both the parts of it Liberty to use the Creatures or else they had not all been lawful for him and yet Liberty not to use them or else he had been under the power of some of them Whence it followeth that all the Creatures of God stand in the nature of things indifferent that is such as may indifferently be either used or not used according as the rules of godly discretion circumstances duly considered shall direct The third Position Our Christian Liberty for the using or not using of the Creature may without prejudice admit of some restraint in the outward practice of it Ab illicitis semper quandoque à licitis I think it is St. Gregory's A Christian must never do unlawful nor yet always lawful things St. Paul had liberty to eat flesh and he used that liberty and ate flesh yet he knew there might be some cases wherein to abridge himself of the use of that liberty so far as not to eat flesh whilst the world standeth But what those Restraints are and how far they may be admitted without prejudice done to that liberty that we may the better understand let us go on to The fourth Position Sobriety may and ought to restrain us in the outward practice of our Christian liberty For our Diet all Fish and Flesh and Fowl and Fruits and Spices are lawful for us as well as Bread and Herbs but may we therefore with thriftless prodigality and exquisite riot fare deliciously and sumptuously every day under pretence of Christian liberty Likewise for our Apparel all stuffs and colours the richest Silks and Furs and Dyes are as lawful for us as Cloth and Leather and Sheeps-russet Christian liberty extendeth as well to one as another But do we think that liberty will excuse our pride and vanity and excess if we tuffle it out in Silks and Scarlets or otherwise in stuff colour or fashion unsuitably to our Years Sex Calling Estate or Condition In all other things of like nature in our Buildings in our Furniture in our Retinues in our Disports in our Recreations in our Society in our Marriages in other things we ought as well to consider what in Christian Sobriety is meet for us to do as what in Christian liberty may be done Scarce is there any one thing wherein the Devil putteth slurs upon us more frequently yea and more dangerously too because unsuspected than in this very thing in making us take the uttermost of our freedom in the use of indifferent things It therefore concerneth us so much the more to keep a sober watch over our selves and souls in the use of God's good Creatures lest otherwise under the fair title and habit of Christian Liberty we yield our selves over to a carnal Licentiousness The fifth Position As Sobriety so Charity also may and ought to restrain us in the outward exercise of our Christian Liberty Charity I say both to our selves and others First to our selves for regular Charity beginneth there If we are to
the Church is Besides these that do it thus by open Assault I would there were not others also that did by secret underminings go about to deprive us of that liberty which we have in Christ Jesus even then when they most pretend the maintenance of it They inveigh against the Church Governors as if they lorded it over Gods Heritage and against the Church Orders and Constitutions as if they were contrary to Christian liberty Wherein besides that they do manifest wrong to the Church in both particulars they consider not that those very accusations which they thus irreverently dart at the face of their Mother to whom they owe better respect but miss it do recoil pat upon themselves and cannot be avoided For whereas these Constitutions of the Church are made for Order Decency and Uniformity sake and to serve unto Edification and not with any intention at all to lay a tye upon the consciences of men or to work their judgments to an opinion as if there were some necessity or inherent holiness in the things required thereby neither do our Governours neither ought they to press them any further which is sufficient to acquit both the Governours from that Lording and the Constitutions from that trenching upon Christian liberty wherewith they are charged Alas that our brethren who thus accuse them should suffer themselves to be so far blinded with prejudices and partial affections as not to see that themselves in the mean time do really exercise a spiritual Lordship over their disciples who depend in a manner wholly upon their judgments by imposing upon their consciences sundry Magisterial conclusions for which they have no sound warrant from the written Word of God Whereby besides the great injury done to their brethren in the impeachment of their Christian liberty and leading them into error they do withal exasperate against them the minds of those that being in authority look to be obeyed and engage them in such sufferings as they can have no just cause of rejoyceing in For beloved this we must know that as it is injustice to condemn the innocent as well as it is injustice to clear the guilty and both these are equally abominable to the Lord so it is superstition to forbid that as sinful which is in truth indifferent and therefore lawful as well as it is superstition to enjoyn that as necessary which is in truth indifferent and therefore arbitrary Doth that heavy woe in Isa. 5. appertain think ye to them only that out of prophaneness call evil good and nothing at all concern them that out of preciseness call good evil Doth not he decline out of the way that turneth aside on the right hand as well as he that turneth on the left They that positively make that to be sin which the Law of God never made so to be how can they be excused from symbolizing with the Pharisees and the Papists in making the narrow ways of God yet narrower than they are teaching for Doctrines mens Precepts and so casting a snare upon the consciences of their brethren If our Church should press things as far and upon such grounds the one way as some forward spirits do the other way if as they say it is a sin to kneel at the Communion and therefore we charge you upon your consciences not to do it so the Church should say it is a sin not to kneel and therefore we require you upon your consciences to do it and so in all other lawful yet arbitrary Ceremonies possibly then the Church could no more be able to acquit her self from encroaching upon Christian Liberty than they are that accuse her for it Which since they have done and she hath not she is therefore free and themselves only guilty It is our duty for the better securing of our selves as well against those open impugners as against these secret underminers to look heedfully to our trenches and fortifications and to stand fast in that liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free lest by some device or other we be lifted out of it To those that seek to enthral us we should give place by subjection no not for an hour lest we be ensnared by our own default ere we be aware For indeed we cannot be ensnared in this kind but merely by our own default and therefore St. Paul often admonisheth us to take heed that none deceive spoil or beguile us as if it were in our power if we would but use requisite care thereunto to prevent it and as if it were our fault most if we did not prevent it And so in truth it is For we oftentimes betray away our own liberty when we might maintain it and so become servants unto men when we both might and ought to keep our selves free Which fault we shall be the better able to avoid when we shall know the true causes whence it springeth which are evermore one of these two an unsound head or an unsound heart Sometimes we esteem too highly of others so far as either to envassal our judgments to their opinions or to enthral our consciences to their precepts and that is our weakness there the fault is in the head Sometimes we apply our selves to the wills of others with an eye to our own benefit or satisfaction in some other carnal or worldly respect and that is our fleshliness there the fault is in the heart This latter is the worst and therefore in the first place to be avoided The most and worser sort unconscionable men do often transgress this way when for fear of a frown or worse displeasure or to curry favour with those they may have use of or in hope either of raising themselves to some advancement or of raising to themselves some advantage or for some other like respects they become officious instruments to others for the accomplishing of their lusts in such services as are evidently even to their own apprehensions sinful and wicked So Doeg did King Saul service in shedding the blood of fourscore and five innocent Priests and Absalom's Servants murdered their Masters brother upon his bare command and Pilate partly to gratifie the Iews but especially for fear of Caesar's displeasure gave sentence of death upon Iesus who in his own conscience he thought had not deserved it In such cases as these are when we are commanded by our superiors or required by our friends or any other way sollicited to do that which we know we cannot do without sin we are to maintain our liberty if we cannot otherwise fairly decline the service by a flat and peremptory denyal though it be to the greatest power upon earth As the three young men did to the great Nebuchadnezzar Be it known unto thee O King that we will not serve thy Gods nor worship the golden Image which thou hast set up And the ancient Christians to the heathen Emperours Daveniam Imperator tu
carcerem ille gehennam And the Apostles to the whole Council of the Jews whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken to you more than unto God judge ye Acts 4. He that will displease God to please men he is the servant of men and cannot be the servant of God But honest and conscionable men who do not easily and often fail this way 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the word is Rom. 16. men that are not evil are yet apt sometimes to be so far carried away with an high estimation of some men as to subject themselves wholly to their judgments or wills without ever questioning the truth of any thing they teach or the lawfulness of any thing they enjoyn It is a dangerous thing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as St. Iude speaketh to have mens persons in admiration though they be of never so great learning wisdom or piety because the best and wisest men that are are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 subject to the like infirmities as we are both of sin and error and such as may both deceive others and be themselves deceived That honour which Pythagoras his Scholars gave to their Master in resting upon his bare Authority 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as a sufficient proof yea as a divine Oracle many judicious even among the heathen altogether misliked as too servile and prejudicial to that libertas Philosophica that freedom of judgment which was behoveful for the study of Philosophy How much more then must it needs be prejudicial in the judgment of Christians to that libertas Evangelica that freedom we have in Christ to give such honour to any other man but the man Christ Iesus only or to any other Writings than to those which are in truth the Oracles of God the holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament There is I confess much reverence to be given to the Writings of the godly ancient Fathers more to the Canons and Decrees of general and provincial Councils and not a little to the judgment of learned sober and godly Divines of later and present times both in our own and other reformed Churches But we may not jurare in verba build our faith upon them as upon a sure foundation nor pin our belief upon their sleeves so as to receive for an undoubted truth whatsoever they hold and to reject as a gross error whatsoever they disallow without farther examination St. Iohn biddeth us try the Spirits before we believe them 1 Iohn 4 And the Beraeans are remembred with praise fol so doing Act. 17. We blame it in the Schoolmen that some adhere pertinaciously to the opinions of Thomas and others as pertinaciously to the opinions of Scotus in every point wherein they differ insomuch as it were grande piaculum a heinous thing and not to be suffered if a Dominican should dissent from Thomas or a Franciscan from Scotus though but in one single controversed conclusion And we blame it justly for St. Paul blamed the like sidings and partakings in the Church of Corinth whilst one professed himself to be of Paul another of Apollo another of Cephas as a fruit of carnality unbeseeming Christians And is it not also blame-worthy in us and a fruit of the same carnality if any of us shall affect to be accounted rigid Lutherans or perfect Calvinists or give up our judgment to be wholly guided by the Writings of Luther or Calvin or of any other mortal man whatsoever Worthy instruments they were both of them of Gods glory and such as did excellent service to the Church in their times whereof we yet find the benefit and we are unthankful if we do not bless God for it and therefore it is an unsavory thing for any man to gird at their names whose memories ought to be precious But yet were they not men Had they received the spirit in the fulness of it and not by measure Knew they oâ—herwise than in part or prophesied otherwise than in part Might they not in many things did they not in some things mistake and err Howsoever the Apostles Interrogatories are unanswerable what saith he was Paul crucified for you or were ye baptized in the name of Paul Even so was either Luther or Calvin crucified for you Or were ye baptized into the name either of Luther or Calvin or any other man That any one of you should say I am of Luther or any other I am of Calvin and I of him and I of him What is Calvin or Luther nay what is Paul or Apollo but Ministers by whom ye believed That is to say Instruments but not Lords of your belief To sum up and to conclude this first point then To do God and our selves right it is necessary we should with our utmost strength maintain the doctrine and power of that liberty wherewith Christ hath endowed his Church without either usurping the mastery over others or subjecting our selves to their servitude so as to surrender either our judgments or consciences to be wholly disposed according to the opinions or wills of men though of never so excellent piety or parts But yet lest while we shun one extreme we fall into another as the Lord be merciful unto us we are very apt to do lest while we seek to preserve our liberty that we do not lose it we stretch it too far and so abuse it the Apostle therefore in the next clause of the Text putteth in a caveat for that also not using your liberty for a cloak of maliciousness whence ariseth our second observation We must so maintain our liberty that we abuse it not as we shall if under the pretence of Christian liberty we either adventure the doing of some unlawful thing or omit the performance of any requisite duty As free and not using your liberty for a cloak of maliciousness The Apostles intention in the whole clause will the better appear when we know what is meant by Cloak and what by Maliciousness The Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is no where else found in the whole New Testament but in this verse only signifieth properly any Covering as the covering of Badgerâ— skins that was spread over the Tabernacle is in the Septuagints Translation called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 An it is very fitly translated a cloak though it do not properly so signifie in respect of that notion wherein the word in our English Tongue is commonly and proverbially used to note some fair and colourable pretence wherewith we disguise and conceal from the conusance of others the dishonestly and faultiness of our intentions in some things practised by us Our Saviour Christ saith of the obstinate Iews that had heard his Doctrine and seen his Miracles that they had no cloak for their sin Ioh. 15. he meaneth they had no colour of plea nothing to pretend by way of excuse And St. Paul professeth in
nothing against Conscience 37 38 2. Get the mastery of thine own Will 39 43 3. Beware of Engagements to Sin 44 45 4. Resolve not to yield to any Temptation 46 The Conclusion Sermon X. Ad Aulam I. Ser. on PHIL. iv 11. Sect. 1 4. THe occasion Scope 5 Paraphrase and 6 Division of the Text. 7 12 Four Observations from the Apostles Protestation 13 14 The Nature of Contentment gathered from the Text in three Particulars viz. 15 16 I. That a man be content with his own Estate without coveting that which is anothers 17 19 Illustrated by Examples both ways 20 21 and proved from Grounds both of Justice 22 and Charity 23 Not all desire of that which is anothers forbidden 24 but the Inordinate only Whether in respect 25 26 1. Of the Object of the Desire 27 29 2. The Act or of the Desire 30 31 3. The Effects of the Desire 32 The Inference thence 33 II. That a man be content with his present Estate 34 Because 1. That only is properly his own 35 2. All looking beyond that disquieteth the mind 36 3. The present is ever best 37 38 The Duty pressed 39 40 and the misunderstanding of it prevented 41 III. That a man be content with any Estate 42 44 with the Reasons thereof 45 c. and Inferences thence Sermon VI. Ad Aulam II. Serm. on PHIL. iv 11. Sect. 1-3 THe Art of Contentment 4 1. Not from Nature 4 2. Institution 6 3. or Outward Things 7 But from God who teacheth it us 8 1. by his Spirit 9 2. by his Promises 10 c. 3. by the Rod of Discipline 12 Inferences I. Where this learning is to be had 13 II. Sundry motives thereunto 14 III. The Trial of our proficiency therein by Six Marks 15 1. The despising of unjust gain 16 2. The moderating of worldly Desires and Care 17 3. The careful using and of what we have 18 4. the charitable dispensing of what we have 19 5. The bearing both of wants with patience 20 c. 6. and losses with patience 22 Seven Helps to further us in this Learning 23 24 1. A right perswasion of the Goodness and Truth of God 25 2. A through sense of our own unworthiness 26 3. Thankfulness for what we have 27 4. A prudent comparing of our Estates with other mens 28 5. To consider the vanity of all outward things 29 30 6. Sobriety in a frugal and temperate use of the Creature 31 7. To remember that we are but Pilgrims here Sermon VII Ad Aulam on ISA. lii 3. Sect. 1. THe Sum and Division of the Text. 2 4 Part I. Mans Sale 5 Inferences thence To take knowledge 1. of our Misery therein 2 2. and Presumption therein 7 The Materials of the Contract viz. 8 10 I. The Commodity and therein our Baseness 11 15 II. The Price and therein our Folly 15 18 An Objection by way of Excuse removed 19 24 III. The Consent and therein our Inexcusableness 25 PART II. Mans Redemption wrought 26 I. EFFECTUALLY Wherein are considered 27 1. The Power of the Redeemer 28 2. The Love of the Redeemer 29 3. The Right of the Redeemer 30 And thence Inferred a threefold Duty viz. 1. of Affiance relatively to his Power 31 2. of Thankfulness relatively to his Love 32 3. of Service relatively to his Right 33 II. FREELY As to us who payed nothing towards it 34 37 But yet a valuable price payed by our Redeemer 38 Inferences thence To exclude Merit 39 But not Endeavours 40 The Conclusion Sermon VIII Ad Aulam on ROM xv 5. Sect. 1 2 THe Scope and Division of the Text. 3 5 THE FORMALITY of the Prayer Observations thence viz. I. Prayer to be joyned with Instruction 6 9 II. God the only Author of Peace 10 III. Concerning the Style FIVE ENQUIRIES viz. 11 13 1. Why the God of Patience 14 16 2. Why of Consolation 17 19 3. Of the Choice of these two Attributes 20 4. Their Conjunction 21 5. and Order 22 In the matter of the Prayer three Particulars 23 I. THE THING prayed for viz. Like mindedness 24 26 Opened 27 and Pressed upon these Considerations 28 1. That we are members of the same Body 29 2. and of the same Family 30 3. That it forwardeth the building up of Gods Church 31 33 4. but the want of it giveth Scandal to the Enemies thereof 34 35 II. The FORMER QUALIFICATION importing an agreement 1. Universal 36 38 2. Mutual 39 40 III. The Later QUALIFICATION importing an agreement 1. according unto Truth and Godliness 41 42 2. after The Example of Christ. 43 The Conclusion Sermon IX Ad Aulam on 1 TIM iii. 16. Sect. 1 4. THe Occasion Scope and Division of THE TEXT 5 6 Of the word Mystery 7 I. POINT The Gospel A GREAT MYSTERY Because 8 9 1. it could not have been known 10 13 2. had it not been revealed and 14 15 3. being revealed cannot be perfectly comprehended 16 17 INFERENCES thence I. Reason not to be the measure of Faith 18 19 II. Disquisition of Truth to be within the bounds of Sobriety 20 21 III. Offence not to be taken at the difference of Opinions among Christians 22 23 II. POINT Christianity a Mystery of Godliness In regard 24 26 1. both of the general Scope thereof 27 2. and of the special Parts thereof 28 3. and the means of conserving it 29 31 INFERENCES thence I. for the trial of Doctrines 32 33 with application to the present Church of England 34 II. For the ordering of our Lives 35 The Conclusion Sermon X. Ad Aulam on PSAL. cxix 75. Sect. 1. THe Division of THE TEXT 2 6 What is meant by the Judgments of God 7 POINT I. The righteousness of Gods Judgments 1. as proceeding from him 8 9 2. as deserved by us 10 INFERENCES thence 1. Not to murmur against the ways of Gods providence 11 2. but to submit our wills to his 12 14 Davids many troubles 15 17 and God the causer thereof 18 POINT II. That God causeth his servants to be troubled it is out of his faithfulness whether we respect 19 1. his Promises 20 22 2. or their Relations 23 The Inference thence To bear troubles chearfully 24 25 POINT III. The faithfulness of God in sending troubles evidenced from 26 30 1. The End he aimeth at therein 31 34 2. The Proportion he holdeth therein 35 36 3. The Issues he giveth thereout Sermon XI Ad Aulam I. Ser. on 1 COR. x. 23. Sect. 1 2. THe Scope and Division of the Text. 3 4 All things meant of Indifferent things only 5 What things are Indifferent 6 8 POINT I. The Liberty we have to indifferent things 9 10 The Error of those that over-much restrain this Liberty 11 14 blamed as 1. unrighteous in it self 15 22 2. Dangerous in the Consequents 23 With some APPLICATION to this Church 24 The chief Causes of that Error discovered 25 27 viz. 1. Ignorance 28 30 2. and Partiality 31
were so replete with all filthy and impious abominations that if they should have been made known to the world it must needs have exposed their whole religion to the contempt of the vulgar and to the detestation of the wiser sort 6. Such and no better were those mysteria sacra among the Heathens whence the word Mystery had its birth and rise Both the Name and Thing being so vilely abused by them it yet pleased the holy Spirit of God to make choice of that Word whereby usually in the New Testament to express that holy Doctrine of Truth and Salvation which is revealed to us in the Gospel of grace By the warrant of whose example the ancient Church both Greek and Latin took the Liberty as what hindereth but they might to make use of sundry words and phrases fetcht from the very dregs of Paganism for the better explication of sundry points of the Christian Faith and to signifie their notions of sundry things of Ecclesiastical usage to the people The Greek Church hath constantly used this word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Heathenish superstitious word and the Latin Church in like manner the word Sacramentum a Heathen military word to signifie thereby the holy Sacraments of the Christian Church I note it the rather and I have therefore stood upon it a little longer than was otherwise needful to let you know that the godly and learned Christians of those Primitive times were not so fondly shy and scrupulous as some of ours are as to boggle at much less so rashly supercilious I might say and superstitious too as to cry down and condemn for evil and even eo nomine utterly unlawful the use of all such whether names or things as were invented or have been abused by Heathens or Idolaters 7. But this by the way I return to the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Which being rarely found in the Greek version of the Old Testament indeed not at all so far as my search serveth me save only some few times in Daniel is frequently used in the New and that for the most part to signifie for now I come to the Quid Rei either the whole Doctrine of the Gospel or some special branches thereof or the dispensations of Gods providence for the time or manner of revealing it To you it is given to know the mysteries of the Kingdom of God Mat. 13. We speak the wisdom of God in a mystery 1 Cor. 2. So the Gospel is called the mystery of Christ Col. 4. mystery of Faith in this Chapter at the ninth verse and here in the Text The mystery of Godliness 8. But why a Mystery That I shall now shew you First when we see something good or bad done plainly before our eyes yet cannot imagine to what end or purpose it should tend nor can guess what should be the design or intention of the doer that we use to call a Mystery The Counsels of Princes and affairs of State Regione di stato as the Italians call it when they are purposely carried in a cloud of secrecy that the reasons and ends of their actions may be hidden from the eyes of men are therefore called the Mystery of state and upon the same ground sundry manual crafts are called Mysteries for that there belong to the exercise of them some secrets which they that have not been trained up therein cannot so well understand and they that have been trained up therein could like well that none but themselves should understand In a worser sence also it is not seldom used If some crafty Companion with whom we have had little dealings formerly should begin of a sudden to apply himself to us in a more than ordinary manner with great shews and proffers of kindness and we know no particular reason why he should so do we presently conclude in our thoughts that sure there is some mystery or other in it that is that he hath some secret ends some design upon us which we understand not Iosephâ—s writing of Antipater the Son of Herod who was a most wicked mischievous person but withal a notable dissembler very cunning and close and one that could carry matters marvellous smoothly and fairly to the outward appearance so that the most intelligent and cautious men could not escape but he would sometimes reach beyond them to their destruction he saith of him and his whole course of life that it was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nothing but a very mystery of wickedness 9. In this notion in the better sence of it may the great work of our Redemption by Jesus Christ which is the very pith and marrow of the Gospel be called a Mystery Who that should have seen a child of a span long to be born in an Inn of a mean parentage coursely swadled up and cradled in a manger and then afterwards to be brought up under a Carpenter and to live in a poor and low condition scarce worth a room where to rest his head and after all that to be bought and sold buffeâ—ed spit on reviled tortured condemned and executed as a Malefactor with as much ignominy and despightfulness as the malice of Men and Devils could devise Who that should have seen all these things and the whole carriage thereof could have imagined that upon such weak hinges should have moved the greatest act of Power Wisdom and Goodness that ever was or ever shall be done in the world that such Contemptible means should serve to bring about the eternal good will and purpose of God towards mankind yet so it was whiles Iudas was plotting his treason and the Iews contriving Christs death he to satisfie his Covetousness and they their Malice and all those other that had any hand in the business were looking every man but at his own private ends all this while was this Mystery working Unawares indeed to them and therefore no thanks to them for it nor benefit to them from it but yet by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God who most wisely and powerfully ordered all those various and vitious motions of the creature for the effectuating of his own most glorious and gracious purposes That is one Reason 10. Secondly We use to call all such things Mysteries as cannot possibly come to our knowledge unless they be some way or other revealed unto us whether they have or have not otherwise any great difficulty in them Nebuchadnezzar's dream is so called a Mystery Dan. 2. And St. Paul in one place speaking of the conversion of the Iews calleth it a Mystery I would not Brethren that you should be ignorant of this Mystery Rom. 11. and in another place speaking of the change of those that should be found alive at Christs second coming calleth that a Mystery too Behold I shew you a Mystery we shall not all dye c. 1 Cor. 15. In this notion also is the Gospel a Mystery it being utterly impossible that any wit of
Mystery that driveth at all this must needs be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the highest degree the great mystery of Godliness That for the scope 27. Look now secondly at the parts and parcels the several pieces as it were whereof this mystery is made up those mentioned in this verse and the rest and you shall find that from each of them severally but how much more then from them altogether joyntly may be deduced sundry strong motives and perswasives unto Godliness Take the material parts of this Mystery the Incarnation Nativity Circumcision Baptism Temptation Preaching Life Death Burial Resurrection Ascension Intercession and Second coming of Christ. Or take if I may so call them the formal parts thereof our eternal Election before the World was our Vocation by the Preaching of the Gospel our Iustification by Faith in the merits of Christ our Sanctification by the Spirit of grace the stedfast Promises we have and hopes of future Glory and the rest It would be too long to vouch Texts for each particular but this I say of them all in general There is not one link in either of those two golden chains which doth not straitly tye up our hands tongues and hearts from doing evil draw us up effectually unto God and Christ and strongly oblige us to shew forth the power of his Grace upon our souls by expressing the power of Godliness in our lives and conversations That for the parts 28. Thirdly Christian Religion may be called the Mystery of Godliness in regard of its Conversation because Godliness is the best preserver of Christianity Roots and Fruits and Herbs which let alone and left to themselves would soon corrupt and putriâ—ie may being well condited with Sugar by a skilful Confectioner be preserved to continue for many years and be serviceable all the while So the best and surest means to preserve Christianity in its proper integrity and power from corrupting into Atheism or Heresie is to season it well with Grace as we do fresh meats with salt to keep them sweet and to be sure to keep the Conscience upright Holding the mysteries of faith in a pure Conscience saith our Apostle a little after at verse 9. of this Chapter and in the first Chapter of this Epistle vers 19. Holding faith and a good Conscience which latter some having put away concerning faith have made shipwrack Apostasie from the faith springeth most an end from Apostasie in manners And he that hath but a very little care how he liveth can have no very fast hold of what he believeth For when men grow once regardless of their Consciences good affections will soon languish and then will noysom lusts gather strength and cast up mud into the soul that the judgement cannot run clear Seldom is the head right where the heart is amiss A rotten heart will be ever and anon sending up evil thoughts into the mind as marish and fenny grounds do foggy mists into the air that both darken and corrupt it As a mans taste when some malignant humour affecteth the organ savoureth nothing aright but deemeth sweet things bitter and sowre things pleasant So where Avarice Ambition Malice Voluptuousness Vain-glory Sedition or any other domineering lust hath made it self master of the heart it will so blind and corrupt the judgment that it shall not be able to discern at any certainty good from evil or truth from falshood Wholsome therefore is St. Peters advice to add unto faith Vertue Vertue will not only keep it in life but at such a height of vigour also that it shall not easily either degenerate into Heresie or languish into Atheism 29. We see now three Reasons for which the Doctrine of Christianity may be called The mystery of Godliness because it first exacteth Godliness and secondly exciteth unto Godliness and is thirdly best preserved by Godliness From these Premisses I shall desire for our nearer instruction to infer but two things only the one for the trial of Doctrines the other for the bettering of our lives For the first St. Iohn would not have us over-forward to believe every spirit Every spirit doth he say Truly it is impossible we should unless we should believe flat contradictions Whilst one Spirit saith It is another Spirit saith It is not can a man believe the one and not disbelieve the other if he hear both Believe not every spirit then is as much in St. Iohn's meaning as if he had said Be not too hasty to Believe any Spirit especially where there appeareth some just cause of Suspicion but try it first whether it be a true spirit or a false Even as St. Paul biddeth us prove all things that having so done we may hold fast what upon trial proveth good and let the rest go 30. Now holy Scripture is certainly that Lapis Lydius that Test whereby this trial is to be made Ad legem ad testimonium when we have wrangled as long as we can hitherto we must come at last But sith all Sectaries pretend to Scripture Papists Anabaptists Disciplinarians All yea the Devil himself can vouch Texts to drive on a Temptation It were good therefore we knew how to make right applications of Scripture for the Trial of Doctrines that we do not mistake a false one for a true one Many profitable Rules for this purpose our Apostle affordeth us in sundry places One very good one we may gather from the words immediately before the Text wherein the Church of God is said to be the pillar and ground of truth The Collection thence is obvious that it would very much conduce to the guiding of our judgments aright in the examining of mens doctrines concerning either Faith or Manners wherein the Letter of Scripture is obscure or the meaning doubtful to inform our selves as well as we can in credendis what the received sence and in agendis what the constant usage and practice of the Church especially in the ancient times hath been concerning those matters and that to consider what conformity the Doctrines under trial hold with the principles upon which that their sence or practice in the Premisses was grounded The Iudgment and Practice of the Church ought to sway very much with every sober and wise man either of which whosoever neglecteth or but slighteth as too many do upon a very poor pretence that the mystery of iniquity began to work betimes runneth a great hazard of falling into many errors and Absurdities If he do not he may thank his good fortune more than his forecast and if he do he may thank none but himself for neglecting so good a guide 31. But this now mentioned Rule although it be of excellent use if it be rightly understood and prudently applied and therefore growing so near the Text I could not wholly baulk it without some notice taken of it it being not within the Text I press it no farther but come to another that springeth out of the very Text it self And
it is this a very good one too viz. That when we are to try the Doctrines we should duly examine them whether they be according unto Godliness yea or no. Our Saviours direction for the discovery of false Prophets Mat. 7. is to this very purpose Ex fructibus Ye shall know them by their fruits Meaneth he it trow you of the fruits of their lives in their outward Conversation Verily no not only no nor principally neither perhaps not at all For Falshood is commonly set off by Hypocrisie 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the next following verse here Shews of Sanctity and Purity pretensions of Religion and Reformation is the wool that the woolf wrappeth about him when he meaneth to do most mischief with least suspicion The Old Serpent sure is never so silly as to think his Ministers the Ministers of darkness should be able to draw in a considerable party into their communion should they appear in their dismal colours therefore he putteth them into a new dress before he sendeth them abroad disguising and transforming them as if they were the Ministers of righteousness and of the light Our Saviour therefore cannot mean the fruits of their lives so much if at all as the fruits of their Doctrines that is to say the necessary consequents of their Doctrines such Conclusions as naturally and by good and evident discourse do issue from their Doctrines And so understood it is a very useful Rule even in the Affirmative taking in other requisite conditions withal but in the Negative taken even alone and by it self it holdeth infallibly If what is spoken seem to be according to Godliness it is the better to like onward and the more likely to be true yet may it possibly be false for all that and therefore it will be needful to try it farther and to make use of other Criterions withal But if what is spoken upon examination appear to have any repugnancy with Godliness in any one branch or duty thereunto belonging we may be sure the words cannot be wholsom words It can be no heavenly Doctrine that teacheth men to be Earthly Sensual or Devilish or that tendeth to make men unjust in their dealings uncharitable in their censures undutiful to their superiors or any other way superstitious licentious or prophane 32. I note it not without much rejoycing and gratulating to us of this Church There are God knoweth a-foot in the Christian World Controversies more than a good many Decads Centuries Chiliads of novel Tenents brought in in this last Age which were never believed many of them scarce ever heard of in the Ancient Church by Sectaries of all sorts Now it is our great comfort blessed be God for it that the Doctrine established in the Church of England I mean the publick Doctrine for that is it we are to hold us to passing by private Opinions I say the publick Doctrine of our Church is such as is not justly chargeable with any Impiety contrarious to any part of that Duty we owe either to God or Man Oh that our Conversations were as free from exception as our Religion is Oh that we were sufficiently careful to preserve the honour and lustre of the Truth we profess by the correspondency of our lives and actions thereunto 33. And upon this point we dare boldly joyn issue with our clamourous adversaries on either hand Papists I mean and Disciplinarians Who do both so loudly but unjustly accuse us and our Religion they as carnal and licentious these as Popish and superstitious As Elijah once said to the Baalites that God that answereth by fire let him be God so may we say to either of both and when we have said it not fear to put it to a fair trial That Church whose Dostrine Confession and Worship is most according to Godliness let that be the Church As for our Accusers if there were no more to be instanced in but that one cursed position alone wherein notwithstanding their disagreements otherwise they both consent That lawful Soveraigns may be by their Subjects resisted and Arms taken up against them for the cause of Religion it were enough to make good the Challenge against them both Which is such a notorious piece of Ungodliness as no man that either feareth God or King as he ought to do can speak of or think of without detestation and is certainly if either St. Peter or St. Paul those two great Apostles understood themselves a branch rather of that other great mystery 2 Thes. 2. the mystery of Iniquity than of the great mystery here in the Text the mystery of Godliness There is not that point in Popery besides to my understanding that maketh it savour so strongly of Antichrist as this one dangerous and desperate point of Iesuitism doth Wherein yet those men that are ever bawling against our Ceremonies and Service as Antichristian do so deeply and wretchedly symbolize with them The Lord be judge between them and us whether our Service or their Doctrine be the more Antichristian 34. I have done with the former Inference for the trial of Doctrines there is another yet behind for the bettering of our lives For sith Christianity is a mystery of Godliness it concerneth every Christian man so to take the mystery along with him that he leave not Godliness behind That is whatsoever becometh of doubtful Controversies to look well to his life and to make conscience of practising that which without all Controversie is his Duty I know Controversies must be looked into and it were well if it were done by them and by them only whose Gifts and Callings serve for it For Truths must be maintained Errors must be refuted and the Mouths of gain-sayers must be stopped All this must be done it is true but it is as true when all this is done still the shortest cut to heaven is Faith and Godliness 35. I know not how better to draw my Sermon towards a conclusion than by observing how the great Preacher concludeth his Eccles. last After he had taken a large and exact survey of all the travels that are done under the Sun and found nothing in them but Vanity and Vexation of Spirit he telleth us at length that in multitude of Books and much reading we may sooner meet with weariness than satisfaction But saith he if you will hear the end of all here it is this is the Conclusion of the whole matter Fear God and keep his Commandments for this is the whole business of man upon which all his care and employment in this world should be spent So I say we may puzzle our selves in the pursuit of knowledg dive into the mysteries of all Arts and Sciences especially ingulph our selves deep in the studies of those three highest Professions of Physick Law and Divinity For Physick search into the Writings of Hippocrates Galen and the Methodists of Avicen and the Empyricks of Paracelsus and the Chymists for Law wrestle through the large bodies