soever impenitent sinners make of it that he hath provided the everlasting torments of Hell for the punishment of it and no lesser means can prevent that punishment then the Sacrifice of the blood of the Son of God applyed to those that truly Repent of it and forsake it and therefore God that calleth all men to Repentance hath commanded us to exhort one another daily while it is called to day least any be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin Heb. 3. 13. and that we do not hate our Brother in our heart but in any wise rebuke our neighbour and not suffer sin upon him Lev. 19. 17. and that if our brother offend us we should tell him his fault between him and us and if he hear not take two or three and if he hear not them tell the Church and if he hear not the Church he must be to us as a heathen or a Publican Mat. 18. 17. and those that sin we must rebuke before all that others may fear 1 Tim. 5. 20. and rebuke with all authority Tit. 1. 15. Yea were it an Apostle of Christ that should openly sin he must be openly reproved as Paul did Peter Gal. 2. 11 14. and if they repent not we must avoid them and with such not so much as eat 2 Thes 3. 6 12 14. 1 Cor. 5. 11 13. According to these commands of the Lord having heard of the scandalous practice of N. N. of this Church or Parish and having received sufficient proof that he hath committed the odious sin of We have seriously dealt with him to bring him to repentance but to the grief of our hearts do perceive no satisfactory success of our endeavours but he seemeth still to remain impenitent or still liveth in the same sin though he verbally profess repentance We do therefore judge it our necessary duty to proceed to the use of that further remedy which Christ hath commanded us to try and hence we desire him in the Name of the Lord without any further delay to lay by his obstinacy against the Lord and to submit to his rebuke and will and to lay to heart the greatness of his sin the wrong he hath done to Christ and to himself and the scandal and grief that he hath caused to others and how unable he is to contend with the Almighty and prevail against the Holy God who to the impenitent is a consuming fire or to save himself from his burning indignation And I do earnestly beseech him for the sake of his own soul that he will but soberly consider What it is that he can gain by his sin or impenitency and whether it will pay for the loss of everlasting life and how he thinks to stand before God in Iudgement or to appear before the Lord Jesus one of these daies when death shall snatch his soul from his body if he be found in this impenitent state when the Lord Jesus himself in whose blood they pretend to trust hath told such with his own mouth that except they repent they shall all perish Luk. 13. 3 5. And I do beseech him for the sake of his own soul and require him as a Messenger of Iesus Christ as he will answer the contrary at the Bar of God that he lay by the stoutness and impenitency of his heart and unfeignedly confess and lament his sin before God and this Congregation And this desire I here publish not out of any ill will to his person as the Lord knoweth but in love to his soul and in obedience to Christ that hath made it my duty desiring that if it be possible that he may be saved from his sin and from the power of Satan and from the everlasting burning wrath of God and may be reconciled to God and to his Church and therefore that he may be humbled by true contrition before he be humbled by remediless condemnation Thus or to this purpose I conceive our publike admonition should proceed And in some cases where the sinner taketh his sin to be small the aggravation of it will be necessary and specially the citing of some texts of Scripture that do aggravate and threaten it And in case he either will not be present that such admonition may be given him or will not be brought to a discovery of Repentance and to desire the prayers of the Congregation for him it will be meet that with such a preface as this afore expressed we desire the prayers of the Congregation for him our selves That the people would consider what a fearful condition the impenitent are in and have pitty on a poor soul that is so blinded and hardened by sin and Satan that he cannot pitty himself and think what it is for a man to appear before the living God in such a case and therefore that they would joyn in earnest prayer to God that he would open his eyes and soften and humble his stubborn heart before he be in hell beyond remedy And accordingly let us be very earnest in prayer for them that the Congregation may be provoked affectionately to joyn with us and who knows but God may hear such prayers and the sinners heart may more relent then our own exhortation could procure it to do However the people will perceive that we make not light of sin and preach not to them in meer custom or formality If Ministers would be conscionable in thus carrying on the work of God entirely and self-denyingly they might make something of it and expect a fuller blessing But when we will shrink from all that is dangerous or ungrateful and shift off all that is costly or troublesom they cannot expect that any great matter should be done by such a carnal partial use of means and though some may be here and there called home to God yet we cannot look that the Gospel should prevail and run and be glorified where it is so lamely and defectively carryed on 4. When a sinner is thus Admonished and Prayed for if it please the Lord to open his eyes and give him remorse before we proceed to any further censure it is our next duty to proceed to his full recovery where these things must be observed 1. That we do not either discourage him by too much severity nor yet by too much facility and levity make nothing of Discipline nor help him to any saving cure but meerly slubber and palliate it over If therefore he have sinned scandalously but once if his Repentance seem deep and serious we may in some cases Restore him at that time that is If the wound that he hath given us to the credit of the Church be not so deep as to require more ado for satisfaction or the sin so hainous as may cause us to delay But if it be so or if he have lived long in the sin it is most meet that he do wait in Penitence a convenient time before he be Restored 2. And when the time comes whether at the first confession
you have been doing Tell me Brethren in the fear of God Do you regard the success of your labours or do you not Do you long to see it upon the souls of your hearers If you do not What do you preach for What do you study for and what do you call your selves the Ministers of Christ for But if you do then sure you cannot find in your heart to mar your work for a thing of nought What do you regard the success of your labours and yet will not part with a little to the poor not put up an injury or a soul word nor stoop to the meanest nor forbear your passionate or â—ordly carriage no not for the winning of souls and attaining the end of all your labours You much regard the success indeed that will fell it at so cheap a rate or will not do so small a matter to attain it It is a palpable errour in those Ministers that make such a disproportion between their preaching and their living that they will study hard to preach exactly and study little or not at all to live exactly All the week long is little enough to study how to speak two hours and yet one hour seems too much to study how to live all the week They are loth to misplace a word in their Sermons or to be guilty of any notable infirmity and I blame them not for the matter is Holy and of weight but they make nothing of misplacing affections words and actions in the course of their lives O how curiously have I heard some men preach and how carelesly have I seen them live They have been so accurate as to the wordy part in their own preparations that seldom preaching seemed a vertue to them that their language might be the more polite and all the Rhetorical jingling writers they could meet with were prest to serve them for the adorning of their stile and gawds were oft their chiefest ornaments They were so nice in hearing others that no man pleased them that spoke as he thought or that drowned not affections or dulled not or distempered not the heart by the predominant strains of a phantastick wit And yet when it came to matter of practice and they were once out of Church how incurious were the men and how little did they regard what they said or did so it were not so palpably gross as to dishonour them They that preached precisely would not live precisely What difference between their pulpit speeches and their familiar discourse They that are most impatient of Barbarisms Solecisms and Paralogisms in a Sermon can easily tolerate them in their conversations Certainly Brethren we have very great cause to take heed what we do as well as what we say If we will be the servants of Christ indeed we must not be tongue-servants only but must serve him with our deeds and be doers of the work that in our deed we may be blessed Iam. 1. 25. As our people must be Doers of the word and not hearers only so we must be Doers and not speakers only least we be deceivers of our selves Iam. 1. 22. A practical Doctrine must be practically preached We must study as hard how to live well as how to preach well We must think and think again how to compose our lives as may most tend to mens salvation as well as our Sermons When you are studying what to say to them I know these are your thoughts or else they are naught and to no purpose How should I get within them and what should I say that is likely most effectually to convince them and convert them and tend to their salvation And should you not as diligently bethink your selves How shall I live and what shall I say and do and how shall I dispose of all that I have as may most probably tend to the saving of mens souls Brethren if saving souls be your end you will certainly intend it as well out of the pulpit as in it If it be your end you will live for it and contribute all your endeavours to attain it And if you do so you will as well ask concerning the money in your purse as the words of your mouth Which way should I lay it out for the greatest good especially to mens souls O that this were your daily study how to use your wealth your friends and all you have for God as well as your tongues and then we should see that fruit of your labours that is never else like to be seen If you intend the end of the Ministery in the pulpit only then it seems you take your selves for Ministers no longer then you are there And then I think you are unworthy to be esteemed such at all SECT IX III. HAving shewed you in four particulars How it is that we must Take heed to our selves and what is comprized in this command I am next to give you the Reasons of it which I intreate you to take as so many Motives to awaken you to your duty and thus Apply them as we go Reas 1. You have a Heaven to win or lose your selves and souls that must be happy or miserable for ever and therefore it concerneth you to begin at home and to take heed to your selves as well as unto others Preaching well may succeed to the salvation of others without the holiness of your own hearts or lives It is possible at least though less usual but it is impossible it should serve to save your selves Many shall say at that day Lord have we not prophesied in thy name Mat. 7. 22. Who shall be answered with an I never knew you depart from me ye that work iniquity v. 23. O Sirs how many men have preached Christ and perished for want of a saving interest in him How many that are now in hell have told their people of the torments of hell and warned them to avoid it How many have preached of the wrath of God against sinners that are now feeling it O what sadder case can there be in the world then for a man that made it his very trade and calling to proclaim salvation and to help others to attain it yet after all to be himself shut out Alas that ever we should have so many books in our libraries that tell us the way to heaven that we should spend so many years in reading those books and studying the Doctrine of eternal life and after all this to miss of it That ever we should study and preach so many Sermons of salvation and yet fall short of it so many Sermons of damnation and yet fall into it And all because we preached so many Sermons of Christ while we neglected him of the Spirit while we resisted it of faith while we did not heartily believe of Repentance and conversion while we continued in the state of flesh and sin and of a Heavenly life while we remained carnal and earthly our selves If we will be Divines only in Tongue and Title and
a vile usurpation of the Pope and his Prelates to assume the management of the temporal sword and immerse themselves in the businesses of the world to exercise the violent coertion of the Magistrate when they should use only the spiritual weapons of Christ Our business is not to dispose of Common-wealths nor to touch mens purses or persons by our penalties but it consisteth only in these two things 1. In revealing to men that Happiness or chief Good which must be their ultimate end 2. In acquainting them with the right means for the attainment of this end and helping them to use them and hindring them from the contrary 1. It is the first and great work of the Ministers of Christ to acquaint men with that God that made them and is their Happiness to open to them the treasures of his Goodness and tell them of the Glory that is in his presence which all his chosen people shall enjoy That so by shewing men the Certainty and the Excellency of the promised felicity and the perfect blessedness in the life to come compared with the vanities of this present life we may turn the stream of their cogitations and affections and bring them to a due contempt of this world and set them on seeking the durable treasure And this is the work that we should lie at with them night and day could we once get them right in regard of the end and set their hearts unfeignedly on God and heaven the chiefest part of the work were done for all the rest would undoubtedly follow And here we must diligently disgrace their seeming sensual felicity and convince them of the baseness of those pleasures which they prefer before the delights of God 2. Having shewed them the right end our next work is to acquaint them with the right means of attaining it Where the wrong way must be disgraced the evil of all sin must be manifested and the danger that it hath brought us into and the hurt it hath already done us must be discovered Then have we the great mysterie of Redemption to disclose the Person Natures Incarnation Perfection Life Miracles Sufferings Death Burial Resurrection Ascension Glorification Dominion Intercession of the blessed Son of God As also the tenor of his promises the conditions imposed on us the duties which he hath Commanded us and the Everlasting Torments which he hath threatned to the final Impenitent neglecters of his grace O what a treasury of his blessings and Graces and the priviledges of his Saints have we to unfold What a blessed life of Holiness and Communion therein have we to recommend to the sons of men And yet how many temptations difficulties and dangers to disclose and assist them against How many precious spiritual duties have we to set them upon and excite them to and direct them in How many objections of flesh and blood and cavils of vain men have we to confute How much of their own corruptions and sinful inclinations to discover and root out We have the depth of Gods bottomless Love and Mercy the depth of the mysteries of his Designs and Works of Creation Redemption Providence Justification Adoption Sanctification Glorification the depth of Satans temptations and the depth of their own hearts to disclose In a word we must teach them as much as we can of the whole Word and Works of God O what two volumns are there for a Minister to Preach upon how great how excellent how wonderful and mysterious All Christians are Disciples or Schollars of Christ the Church is his School we are his Ushers the Bible is his Grammer This is it that we must be daily teaching them The Papists would teach them without book lest they should learn heresies from the Word of truth least they learn falshood from the Book of God they must learn only the books or words of their Priests But Our business is not to teach them without Book but to help them to undrstand this Book of God So much for the subject matter of our work SECT IV. III. THE Object of our Pastoral care is All the Flock That is the Church and every member of it It is considered by us 1. In the whole body or society 2. In the parts or individual members 1. Our first care must be about the whole And therefore the first duties to be done are publike duties which are done to the whole As our people are bound to prefer publike duties before private so are we much more But this is so commonly confessed that I shall say no more of it 2. But that which is less understood or considered is That All the Flock even each individual member of our charge must be taken heed of and watched over by us in our Ministery To which end it is presupposed necessary that unless where absolute necessity forbiddeth it through the scarcity of Pastors and greatness of the Flock We should know every person that belongeth to our charge For how can we take heed to them if we do not know them Or how can we take that heed that belongeth to the special charge that we have undertaken if we know not who be of our charge and who not though we know the persons Our obligation is not to all neighbour Churches or to all straglers as great as it is to those whom we are set over How can we tell whom to exclude till we know who are included Or how can we refel the accusations of the offended that tell us of the ungodly or defiled members of our Churches when we know not who be members and who not Doubtless the bounds of our Parishes will not tell us as long as Papists and some worse do there inhabit Nor will bare hearing us certainly discover it as long as those are used to hear that are members of other Churches or of none at all Nor is meer participation of the Lords Supper a sure note while strangers may be admitted and many a member accidentally be kept off Though much probability may be gathered by these or some of these yet a fuller knowledge of our charge is necessary where it may be had and that must be the fittest expression of Consent because it is Consent that is necessary to the Relation All the Flock being thus known must afterward be Heeded One would think all reasonable men should be satisfied of this and it should need no further proof Doth not a careful Shepherd look after every individual Sheep And a good Schoolmaster look to every individual Scholler both for instruction and correction And a good Physitian look after every particular Patient And good Commanders look after every individual souldier Why then should not the Teachers the Pastors the Physitians the Guides of the Churches of Christ take heed to every individual member of their charge Christ himself the great and good Shepherd and master of the Church that hath the whole to look after doth yet take care of every individual In the 15. of
a thing as satisfactory when true Repentance is absent hath discovered more of the accusers error then of theirs For no doubt it is true Repentance that they exhort men to and it is true Repentance which offendors do profess and whether they truly profess it who can tell but God It is not nothing that sin is brought to so much disgrace and the Church doth so far acquit themselves of it But of this next 2. Next To the duty of Publike Reproof must be joyned an exhortation of the person to Repentance and to the Publike Profession of it for the satisfaction of the Church For as the Church is bound to avoid Communion with impenitent scandalous sinners so when they have had the Evidence of their sin they must see some Evidence of their Repentance for we cannot know them to be penitent without Evidence And what Evidence is the Church capable of but their Profession of Repentance first and their actual reformation afterwards both which must be expected 3. To these may most fitly be adjoyned the publike prayers of the Church and that both for the Reproved before they are Rejected and for the Rejected some of them at least that they may repent and be restored but we are now upon the former Though this is not expresly affixed to Discipline yet we have sufficient discovery of Gods will concerning it in the general precepts We are commanded to pray alway and in all things and for all men and in all places and all things are said to be sanctified by it It is plain therefore that so great a business as this should not be done without it And who can have any just reason to be offended with us if we pray to God for the changing of their hearts and the pardon of their sins It is therefore in my Judgement a very laudable course of those Churches that use for the three next daies together to desire the Congregation to joyn in earnest prayer to God for the opening of the sinners eyes and softning of his heart and saving him from impenitency and eternal death And though we have no express direction in Scripture just how long we shall stay to try whether the sinner be so impenitent as to be necessarily excluded yet we must follow the general directions with such diversity as the case and quality of the person and former proceeding shall require it being left to the discretion of the Church who are in general to stay so long till the person manifest himself obstinate in his sin not but that a temporal exclusion called suspension may oft be inflicted in the mean time but before we proceeded to an exclusion à statu it is very meet ordinarily that three daies prayer for him and patience towards him should antecede And indeed I see no reason but this course should be much more frequent then it is and that not only upon those that are members of our special charge and do consent to Discipline but even to those that deny our Pastoral oversight and Discipline and yet are our ordinary hearers For so far as men have Christian Communion or familiarity with us so far are they capable of being excluded from Communion Though the members of our special charge have fuller and more special Communion and so are more capable of a fuller and more special exclusion yet all those that dwell among us and are our ordinary hearers have some Communion For as they converse with us so they hear the word not as heathens but as Christians and members of the universal Church into which they are baptized And they joyn with us in publike prayers and praises in the celebration of the Lords day From this therefore they are capable of being excluded or from part of this at least Morally if not Locally For the precept of avoiding and withdrawing from and not eating with such is not restrained to the members of a Governed Church but extended to all Christians that are capable of Communion When these ungodly persons are sick we have daily bills from them to request the prayers of the Congregation And if we must pray for them against sickness and temporal death I know no reason but we should much more earnestly pray for them against sin and eternal death That we have not their consent is no disswasive For that is their disease and the very venom and malignity of it and we do not take it to be sober arguing to say I may not pray for such a man against his sickness because he is sick Or if he were not sick I would pray against his sickness No more is it to say If he were not impenitent so as to refuse our prayers I would pray that he might be saved from his impenitency I confess I do not take my self to have so strict a charge over this sort of men that renounce my oversight as I do over the rest that own it and that 's the reason why I have called no more of them to publike Repentance because it requireth most commonly more time to examine the matter of fact or to deal with the person first more privately that his impenitenc may be discerned then I can possibly spare from the duties which I owe to my special charge to whom I am more indebted and therefore may ordinarily expend no more on the rest who are to me but as strangers or men of another Parish and of no governed particular Church then I can spare when I have done my main duty to my own Flock But yet though I cannot use any such discipline on all that sort nor am so much obliged to do it yet some of them that are most notoriously and openly wicked where less proof and shorter debates are requisite I intend to deal thus with hereafter having found some success in that kind already But specially to all those whom we take for Members of that particular Church which we are Pastors of there is no question but this is our duty And therefore where the whole Parish are members Discipline must be exercised on the whole I confess much prudence is to be exercised in such proceedings least we do more hurt then good but it must be such Christian prudence as ordereth duties and suteth them to their ends and not such carnal prudence as shall enervate or exclude them It may be fit therefore for younger Ministers to consult with others for the more cautelous proceeding in such works And in the performance of it we should deal humbly even when we deal most sharply and make it appear that it is not from any contending or Lordly disposition nor an act of revenge for any injury but a necessary duty which we cannot conscionably avoid And therefore it will be meet that we disclaim all such animosities and shew the people the commands of God obliging us to what we do E. G. Neighbours and Brethren sin is so hateful an evil in the eyes of the most holy God how light
Laws of Christ and all diligence for salvation because they observed that those men that were such were so many of them hated and persecuted by the Rulers though on the occasions before mentioned And here was the foundation of our greatest misery laid While some of the Rulers themselves began to turn their hatred against practical godliness which corrupted nature hates in all and the common people took the hint and no longer confined the word Puritan to the Non-conformists but applyed it commonly through all parts of the Land to those that would but speak seriously of heaven and tell men of Death and Judgement and spend the Lords day in preparation thereto and desire others to do the like that did but pray in their families and keep their children and servants on the Lords day to learn the way to salvation in stead of letting them spend it in gaming or revelling they that did but reprove a swearer or a drunkard these were become the Puritans and the Precisians and the hated ones of the time so that they became a by-word in all the Towns and Villages in England that ever I knew or heard of as to these things And thus when the Prelates had engaged the vulgar in their cause and partly by themselves and partly by them had so far changed their cause as that all serious Christians that feared sin and were most diligent for salvation were presently engaged among their adversaries and they were involved with the rest though they did nothing against the Government or Ceremonies and the most ignorant and impious became the friends and agents of the times and everywhere made the most pious and sedulous Christians a common scorn to the dishonour of God and the hardening of the wicked and discouraging of the weak and filling men with prejudice against a godly life and hindring many thousands from the way of salvation then did God himself appear more evidently as interested in the quarrel and rose against them and shamed them that had let in scorn and shame upon his waies And this even this was the very thing that brought them down Besides this there was scarce such a thing as Church-Government or Discipline known in the Land but only this harassing of those that dissented from them In all my life I never lived in the Parish where one person was publikely admonished or brought to publike penitence or excommunicated though there were never so many obstinate drunkards whoremongers or vilest offenders Only I have known now and then one for getting a bastard that went to the Bishops Court and paid their sees and I heard of two or three in all the Countrey in all my life that stood in a white sheet an hour in the Church But the antient Discipline of the Church was unknown And indeed it was made by them impossible when one man that lived at a distance from them and knew not one of many hundreds of the Flock did take upon him the sole Jurisdiction and executed it not by himself but by a lay-Chancellor excluding the Pastors of the several Congregations who were but to joyn with the Church-wardens and the Apparitors in presenting men and bringing them into their Courts And an impossible task must needs be unperformed And so the controversie as to the letter and outside was Who should be the Governors of all the particular Churches but as to the sense and inside of it it was Whether there should be any effectual Church-Government or not Whereupon those that pleaded for Discipline were called by the New name of Disciplinarians as if it had been a kind of Heresie to desire Discipline in the Church At last the heat began to grow greater and new impositions raised new adversaries When conformable Puritans began to bear the great reproach there being few of the Non-conformists left Then must they also be gotten into the Net Altars must be bowed to or towards All must publish a Book for dancing and sports on the Lords day disabling the Masters of Families parents though they had smal time on the week-daies by reason of their poverty or labour to keep in their own children or families from dancing on that day that they might instruct them in the matters of God If a man as he read a Chapter to his family had perswaded them to observe and practice it and with any reasons urged them thereto this was called expounding and was enquired of in their Articles to be presented together with Adultery and such like sins so also was he used that had no preaching at home and would go hear a conformable Preacher abroad So that multitudes have I known exceedingly troubled or undone for such matters as these when not one was much troubled for scandalous crimes Then Lectures were put down and afternoon Sermons and expounding the Catechism or Scripture in the afternoons And the violence grew so great that many thousand families left the Land and many godly able Ministers Conformists as well as others were fain to flie and become Exiles some in one Countrey and some in another and most in the remote American parts of the world Thither went Cotten Hooker Davenport Shephard Allen Cobbet Noyes Parker with many another that deserved a dwelling place in England Yet I must profess I should scarce have mentioned any of this nor taken it for so hainous a crime had it been only cruelty to the persons of these men though they had dealt much hardlyer with them then they did and if it had not been greater cruelty to the Church and if they had but had competent men for their places when they were cast out But alas the Churches were pestered with such wretches as are our shame and trouble to this day Abundance of meer Readers and drunken profane deboist men were the Ministers of the Churches so that we have been this many years endeavouring to cleanse the Church of them and have not fully effected it to this day And many that had more plausible tongues did make it their chief business to bring those that they called Puritans into disgrace and to keep the people from being such So that I must needs say that I knew no place in these times where a man might not more safely have been drunken every week as to their punishment then to have gone to hear a Sermon if he had none at home For the common people readily took the hint and increased their reproach as the Rulers did their persecâ—tion so that a man could not in any place of England that I came in have said to a swearer or a drunkard O do not sin against God and wound or hazard your own soul but he should have been presently â—ooted at as a Puritan He could not have said to an ignorant or careleâ—s neighbour Remember your everlasting state prepare for death and Judgement or have talked of any Scripture matters to them but he was presently jeered as a Puritan or Precisian and Scripture it self was
But as there was no room on their part to a motion for peace or a petition for liberty in the time of their prosperity so when advantages did seem to appear to us of vindicating our liberties we looked upon them as unreconcileable and too inconsiderately rusht on and were wanting in those peaceable endeavours that were our duty We did not in our Assembly invite them to a free consultation that their cause might have the fullest and fairest hearing before it had been condemned Proposals that had any tendency to healing and accommodation had never that entertainment from us that they did deserve What moderate Proposals were made to one party by Bishop Usher which both parties did dislike How many pacificatory motions and excellent Treatises came from that Heavenly peaceable Bishop Hall especially his Peace-maker his Pax terris and his Modest Offer But how little did they effect Certainly some of the men were so venerable for their admirable learning and piety that they deserved to have been heard and consulted with too as wise and most Judicious men And Prelacy was not so young a plant in the Church nor had it in former and latter ages had so few or mean persons to adorn and credit it but that it well deserved the fairest hearing and debate But thus have we all shewed our frailty and this is the heed that we have taken to our selves and to all the Flock The Lord open our eyes at last that we may all fullyer see our own miscarriages for surely they lie as Mountains before us and all the world about us may see them and yet we will hardly see them our selves A man would think now that if the heart of man be cureable we should by this time be all brought to the sense of our miscarriages and be prepared to a closure on any reasonable terms Who would think but after all the smart of our divisions we should long ere this have got together and prayed and consulted our selves into peace But alas there is no such matter done and few do I find that mind the doing of it We continue our quarrels as hot as ever As Salvian saith in another case Miseri jam sumus nec dum nugaces discordes esse cessamus l. 6. p. 20 2. Et pag. 200. Mala incessabiliter malis addimus peccata peccatis cumulamus cum maxima nostri pars iam perierit id agimus ut pereamus omnes Nos non vicinos nostros tantum ardere vidimus sed ipsi iam ex maxima nostrorum corporum parte arsimus Et quid hoc proh nefas mali est arsimus arsimus tamen flammas quibus iam arsimus non timemus Nam quod non ubique agantur quae prius acta sunt miseriae est beneficium non disciplinae Facile hoc probo Da enim prioris temporis statum statim ubique sunt quae fuerunt The minds of many are as much exasperated or estranged as ever Three sorts I meet with that all are too backward to any accommodation 1. The violent men of the Prelates side especially those of the new way who are so far from Reconciliation and healing of our breaches that they labour to perswade the world that the contrary-minded are Schismaticks and that all the Ministers that have not Episcopal ordination are no Ministers nor any of the Churches that have not Prelates are true Churches at least except it can be proved to be through unavoidable necessity And they say To agree with such were to strike a Covenant with Schism it self 2. Some on the other side say Do you not see that except an inconsiderable number the Prelatical party are all empty careless if not scandalous ungodly men Where are almost any of them whose Communion is desirable That set themselves to the winning and saving of souls and are serious men in the matters of salvation in whom you can perceive a heavenly conversation Hath God brought down these enemies of godliness and persecutors and depopulaters of his Church and would you make a league with them again Do you not see that they are as bitter and implacable as ever and have not some of them the faces to justifie all the former impositions and persecutions and draw or continue the guile of it upon their heads and would make the world believe that they are wrongfully eiected when so many accusatians in Parliament before the division so many Centuries of horribly scandalous ones published by Mr. White and so many more Centuries that lie on Record under depositions in the several Countyes of the Nation where the Committees eiected them will be perpetual witnesses of the quality of these men 3. Others there be that are peaceable men on both sides that will not justifie the former miscarriages nor own the present evils of any but think though there be too much truth in these later accusations yet the nature of the Difference and the Quality of some of the persons is such as deserveth our desires and endeavours of Reconciltation But they think the work to be hopeless and impossible and therefore not to be attempted And thus our breach is made but how or when it will be well healed the Lord knoweth But this is not all it behoveth us yet to come neerer home and enquire into the waies of the present approved Godly Ministers of what party soever and doubtless if we are willing to know our selves we may soon find that which will lay us very low before the Lord I shall in all have an eye at my own corrupt heart which I am so far from Justifying in thâ—s common lamentation that I take it as my necessary duty to cast the first stone at my self The great sins that we are guilty of I shall not undertake to enumerate and therefore my passing over any particular is not to be taken as a denyal of it for our Justification But I shall take it to be my duty to give instance of some few that cry loud for humiliation and speedy Reformation Only I must needs first premise this profession That for all the faults that are now among us I do not believe that ever England had so able and faithful a Ministery since it was a Nation as it hath at this day and I fear that few Nations on earth if any have the like Sure I am the change is so great within this 12. years that it is one of the greatest joyes that ever I had in the world to behold it O how many Congregations are now plainly and frequently taught that lived then in great obscurity How many able faithful men are there now in a County in comparison of what were then How graciously hath God prospered the studies of many young men that were little children in the beginning of the late troubles so that now they cloud the most of their seniors How many miles would I have gone twenty years ago and less to have heard one of those
attestante veritate primas salutationes in foro primos recubitus in coenis primas cathedras in conventibus quaerunt qui susceptum curae pastoralis officium ministrare digne tanto magis nequeunt quanto ad hujus humilitatis magisterium ex sola elatione pervenernat ipsa quippe in Magisterio lingua confunditur quando aliud discitur aliud docetur Hactenus Gregorius ipse nimis magnus But I have stood longer upon this sin then is proportionable to the rest of my work I shall be the shorter in the confession of some of the rest SECT III. 2. ANother sin the Ministers of England and much more of many other Churches are sadly guilty of is An undervaluing the Unity and Peace of the whole Church Though I scarce ever met with any that will not speak for Unity and Peace or at least that will expresly speak against it yet is it not common to meet with those that are addicted to promote it but too commonly do we find men averse to it and jealous of it if not themselves the instruments of division The Papists have so long abused the name of the Catholike Church that in opposition to them many do either put it out of their Creeds or only fill up a room with the name while they understand not or consider not the nature of the thing or think it enough to believe that there is such a Body though they behave not themselves as sensible members of it If the Papists will Idolize the Church shall we therefore deny it disregard it or divide it It is a great and common sin through the Christian world to take up Religion in a way of faction and instead of a love and tender care of the Universal Church to confine that love and respect to a party Not but that we must prefer in our estimation and Communion the purer parts before the impure and refuse to participate with any in their sins but the most infirm and diseased part should be compassionated and assisted to our utmost power and communion must be held as far as is lawful and nowhere avoided but upon the urgency of necessity As we must love those of our neighbourhood that have the plague or leprosie and afford them all the relief we can and acknowledge all our just relations to them and communicate to them though we may not have local Communion with them and in other diseases which are not so infectious we may be the more with them for their help by how much the more they need it Of the multitude that say they are of the Catholike Church it is too rare to meet with men of a Catholike Spirit Men have not an Universal consideration of and respect to the whole Church but look upon their own party as if it were the whole If there be some called Lutherans some Calvinists some among these of subordinate divisions and so of other parties among us most of them will pray hard for the prosperity of their party and rejoyce and give thanks accordingly when it goes well with them but if any other party suffer they little regard it as if it were no loss at all to the Church If it be the smallest parcel that possesseth not many Nations no nor Cities on earth they are ready to carry it as if they were the whole Church and as if it went well with the Church when it gots well with them We cry down the Pope as Antichrist for including the Church in the Romish pale and no doubt but it is an abominable schism But alas how many do imitate them too far while we reprove them And as they foist the word Roman into their Creed and turn the Catholike Church into the Roman Catholike Church as if there were no other Catholikes and the Church were of no larger extent so is it with many others as to their several parties Some will have it to be the Lutheran Catholike Church and some the Reformed Catholike Church as if it were all reformed some the Anabaptist Catholike Church and so of some others And if they differ not among themselves they are little troubled at differing from others though it be from almost all the Christian world The Peace of their party they take for the Peace of the Church No wonder therefore if they carry it no further How rare is it to meet with a man that smarteth or bleedeth with the Churches wounds or sensibly taketh them to heart as his own or that ever had solicitous thoughts of a cure No but almost every Party thinks that the happiness of the rest consisteth only in turning to them and because they be not of their mind they cry Down with them and are glad to hear of their fall as thinking that is the way to the Churches rising that is their own How few be there that understand the true state of Controversies between the several parties or that ever well discerned how many of them are but Verbal and how many are Real And if those that understand it do in order to right information and accommodation disclose it to others it s taken as an extenuation of their error and a carnal complyance with them in their sin Few men grow zealous of Peace till they grow old or have much experience of mens spirits and principles and see better the true state of the Church and the several differences then they did before And then they begin to write their Irenicon's and many such are extant at this day Pareus Iunius and many more have done their parts as our Davenant Morton Hall whose excellent Treatise called the Peace-maker and his Pax terris deserve to be transcribed upon all our hearts Hattonus Amyraldus also have done But recipiuntur ad modum recipientis As a young man in his heat of lust and passion was judged to be no fit auditor of Moral Philosophy so we find that those same young men who may be zealous for Peace and Unity when they are grown more experienced are zealous for their factions against these in their youthful heat And therefore such as these before mentioned and Duraeus who hath made it the business of his life do seldom do much greater good then to quiet their own consciences in the discharge of so great a duty and to moderate some few and save them from further guilt and to leave behind them when they are dead a witness against a wilful self-conceited and unpeaceable world Nay commonly it bringeth a man under suspition either of favouring some heresie or abating his zeal if he do but attempt a pacificatory work As if there were no zeal necessary for the great fundamental verities for the Churches Unity and Peace but only for parties and some particular truths And a great advantage the Devil hath got this way by imploying his own Agents the unhappy Socinians in writing so many Treatises for Catholike and Arch-catholike Unity and Peace which they did for their own ends and
contempt of all Religions by our divisions and poor carnal wretches begin to think themselves in the better case of the two because they hold to their old formalities when we hold to nothing Yea and these Pious contenders do more effectually plead the Devils cause against one another then any of the ignorant people can do They can prove one another Deceivers and Blasphemers and what not and this by secret slanders among all that they can handsomly vent them to and perhaps also by publike disputations and Printed slanderous books So that when the obstinate drunkards are at a loss and have nothing to say of their own against a man that would drive them from their sin they are prompted by the raling books or reports of factious zealous malice Then they can say I regard him not nor his Doctrine such a man hath proved him a Deceiver and a Blasphemer Let him answer him if he can And thus the lyes and slanders of some for that is no news and the bitter opprobriou speeches of others have more effectually done the Devils service under the name of Orthodoxness and Zeal for Truth then the malignant scorners of Godliness could have done it So that the matter is come to that pass that there are few men of note of any party but the reproaches of the other parties are so publikly upon them that the ignorant and wicked rabble that should be converted by them have learnt to be Orthodox and to vilifie and scorn them Mistake me not I do not slight Orthodoxness nor jeer at the name but disclose the pretences of Devilish Zeal in Pious or seemingly Pious men If you are offended with me for my harsh language because I can tell you that I learnt it of God I dare be bold therefore to tell you further that you have far more cause to be offended at your Satanical Practices The thing it self is sure odious if the name be so odious as to turn your stomacks How should the presence and guilt of it terrifie you if the name make you start I know that many of these Reverend Calumniators do think that they shew that soundness in the fairh and love to truth which others want But I will resolve the case in the words of the Holy-Ghost Iam. 3. Who is a wise man and endued with knowledge among you Let him shew out of a good conversation his works with meekness of wisdom But if you have bitter envying or zealousness and strife in your hearts glory not and lye not against the Truth This wisdom descendeth not from above but is earthly sensual devilish For where envying or zeal and strife is there is confusion and every evil work But the wisdom that is from above is first pure then peaceable gentle easie to be entreated full of mercy and good fruits without partiality without hypocrisie And the fruit of Righteousness is sown in peace of them that make Peace I pray you read these words again and again and study them O doleful case to think of that a while ago we were afraid of nothing but least Papists and Deboist persons should have swallowed up the Gospel and our liberty and destroyed us together And now when the work hath been put into the hands of those men that were joyned in these fears and are joyned in the strictest profession of Piety and are of one judgement in all the Articles of the faith they cannot or will not unanimously joyn in carrying on the work but they either fall upon one another or live at a distance and cast their work upon a hundred disadvantages by the bitter disagreements that are among themselves O what a Nation might England have been ere now if it had not been for the proud and obstinate contentions of godly Ministers What abundance of good might we have done Nay what might we not have done if our perversness had not marr'd our work Did we but agree among our selves our words would have some Authority with the people But when they see us some of one mind and some of another and snarling and reviling at each other they think they may well enough do so too Why may not we call them Sectaries or Deceivers say they when they call one another so Nay if we were not all of a mind in some smaller matters yet if we did but hold Communion and Correspondency and joyn together in the main and do as much of Gods work as we can in concurrent unanimity the people would far more regard us and we might be in a greater capacity to do them good But when we are single they sleight us and when we disagree and divide they despise us and who can marvel at it when we despise one another What say they when a Minister doth his duty alone Must we he ruled by every singular man Are you wiser then all the Ministers in the Countrey Are not such and such as learned as you But when we go hand in hand it stops their mouths They think either themselves may be wiser then one or two Ministers or at least other Ministers may be wiser then they but common modesty will not suffer them to think that they are wiser then all the Ministers in the Country or in the world I know that matters of faith are not to be received upon our credit alone but yet our credit may do much to remove prejudice and to unblock the entrance into mens minds and procure the truth a more equal hearing and therefore is necessary to our peoples good Nay more then all this I know it I see and hear it that there are some Ministers that are gâ—â—d when they perceive the people despise their Brethren that differ from them in some lesser things 〈…〉 would have it so and they foment it as 〈…〉 can for shame and they secretly rejoyce 〈◊〉 they hear the news of it This is next to Prelatâ—â—â—â—â—lencing them and casting them out of the Church And I confess I cannot but suspect that such men would go neer to silence them if they had their will and way For he that would have a Minister under disgrace would have him useless which is next to silencing him and tendeth to the same end You will say we do not desire that he should be disabled to do good but to do hurt I answer but the question is Whether his error be so great that the holding or propagating it doth more hurt then all his Preaching and the labours of that whole party which you would disgrace is like to do good If so then I think it is a desirable work to disgrace him and silence him in a just measure and by just means and I would concurr therein but if it be otherwise we are bound to keep up that reputation of others which is necessary ordinarily to the success of their labours I may not here without wrong to my conscience pass over the late practises of some of our Brethren of the New Prelatical way
For those of the antient Prelacy are more moderate I know it will be displeasing to them and I have no mind to displease them but yet I will more avoid the treacherous or unfaithful silence which may wrong them then the words of faithful friendship which may displease them And I will say no more to them then if I know my self I should say if I were resolved for Prelacy It is the judgement of these men that I now speak of that a Prelate is essential to a Church and there is no Church without them and that their Ordination is of necessity to the essence of a Presbyter and that those that are ordained without them though some will except a case of necessity are not Ministers of Christ Hereupon they conclude that our Congregations in England are no true Churches except where the Presbyter dependeth on some Prelate and the Ministers ordained by Presbyters only are no true Ministers and they will not allow men to hear them or communicate with them but withdraw from our Congregations like Separatists or Recusants And the same note many of them brand upon all the Reformed Churches abroad that have no Prelates as they do on us So that the Church of Rome is admirably gratified by it and instead of demanding where our Church vvas before Luther they begin to demand of us Where it is now And indeed had it been no more visible in the ages before Luther then a Reformed Prelatical Church is now they would have a fairer pretence then â—ow they have to call upon us for the proof of its visibility Suppose that the Presbyters who rejected Prelacy were guilty of all that schism and other sin as they are ordinarily accused of For I will now go on such suppositions Must the people therefore turn their back on the Assemblies and Ordinances of God Is it better for them to have no preaching and no Sacraments and no publike Communion in Gods worship then to have it in an Assembly that hath not a Prelate over it or from a Minister ordained without his consent I confess I would not for all the world stand guilty before God of the injury that this Doctrine hath already done to mens souls much less of what it evidently tendeth to There are through the great mercy of God abundance of painful and able young Ministers that were in the Universities in the time of the wars and had no hand in it and were ordained since Bishops became to them either invisible or inaccestible and its like they judge not their Ordination to be of necessity They lay out themselves faithfully for the healing of that ignorance and common prophaneness which got so much head under their careless or drunken predecessors They desire nothing more then the saving of souls They preach sound Doctrine They live in Peace And it is the greatest of their grief that many of their hearers remain so ignorant and obstinate still And see what a help these poor impenitent sinners have for their cure They are taught to turn their backs upon their Teachers and whereas before they heard them but with disregard they are now taught not to hear them at all And if we privately speak to them they can tell us that its the Judgement of such and such learned men that we are not to be heard nor our Churches to be communicated with nor we to be at all regarded as Christs Ministers And thus Drunkards and Swearers and worldlings and all sorts of sensualists are got out of gun-shot and beyond the reach of our teaching or reproof And those that do not for shame of the world obey their Doctrine to stay from the Assembly yet do they there hear us with prejudice and contempt and from the Communion of the Church in the Lords Supper they commonly abstain Were it only the case of those few Civil persons that conscientiously go this way and address themselves to these kind of men for Government and Sacraments I would never have mentioned the thing For it is not them that I intend For what care I what Minister they hear or obey so it be one that leadeth them in the waies of truth and holiness Let them follow Christ and forsake their sins and go to heaven and I will never much contend with them for the forsaking of my Conduct But it is the common sort of prophane and sensual men that are everywhere hardened against the Ministery and they have nothing but the reputation of the Prelatical Divines to countenance it with If their Teachers do but differ in a gesture from these men they vilifie them and reject their guidance having nothing but the authority of such men to support them Fain would we reach their consciences to awaken them from their security for it pittyeth us to see them so neer unto perdition But we can do no good upon them for our Ministery is in contempt because of the contrary judgement of these men Not that the poor people care any more for a Prelate as such then for an ordinary Minister For if Prelates would have troubled them as much with their preaching and reproofs and discipline they would have hated them as much as they do the Ministers But because they found by experience that under their Government they might sin quietly and make a scorn of godliness without any danger or trouble and that to this day the men of that way are so much against those precise Ministers that will not let them go quietly to hell therefore are they all for Prelacy and make this the great shelter for their disobedience and unreformed lives So that I confess I think that the hurt that Separatists and Anabaptists do in England at this day is little to the hurt that is done by these men For I count that the greatest hurt which hardeneth the greatest number in the state and way of greatest danger An Anabaptist may yet be a penitent and godly person and be saved But the sensual and impenitent worldlings can never be saved in that condition I see by experience that if separation infect two or three or half a score in a Parish or if Anabaptistry infect as many and perhaps neither of them mortally this obstinate contempt of Ministerial exhortation encouraged by the countenance of the contrary minded doth infect them by the scores or hundreds If we come to them in a case where they have no countenance from the Ministery how mute or tractable comparatively do we find them But if it be a case where they can but say that the Prelatical Divines are of another judgement how unmoveable are they though they have nothing else to say Try when we come to set afoot this work that we are now upon of Catechizing and private instruction whether this will not be one of our greatest impediments though in a work of unquestioned lawfulness and necessity Even because they are taught that we are none of their Pastors and have no authority over
the words of that great enemy of Innovation Vincent Lirinens c. 28. Sed for sitan dicit aliquis Nullusneergo in Ecclesiâ Christi profectus haebâ—bitur Religionis Habeatur plane maximus Nam quis ille est tam invidus hominibus tam exosus Deo qui isiud probibere conetur sed it a tamen ut verè profectâ—â— sit ille fidei non permutatio Siquidem ad perfectum pertinet ut in semet ipsâ unaquaeque res amplificetur ad permutationem vero ut aliquid ex alio in aliud transvertatur Crescat igitur oportet multum vehementerque proficiat tam siâ—gulorum quam omnium tam unius hominis quam totius Ecclesiae aetatum ac seculorum gradibâ—s intelligentia scientia sapientiae sed in quo duntoxat geneâ—e in eodem scilicet dogmate eodem sensu eâ—demque sententia And more plainly and yet more briefly Cap. 30. Ius est etenim ut prisca illa caelestis Philosophiae dogmata processu temporis excurentur limentur poliantur sed nefas est ut commutentur Accipiant licet Evidentiam Luâ—em Distinctionem sed retineant necesse est plenitudinem integritatem proprietatem Let this mean then be observed if we would perform both Truth and Peace 2. About Church Communion the common extreams are on one side the neglect or relaxation of Discipline to the corrupting of the Church the encouragement of wickedness and confounding the Kingdom of Christ and Satan And on the other side the unnecessary separation of Proud men either because the Churches own not their own opinions or because they are not so reformed and strict in Discipline as they would have them or as they should be I have ever observed the humblest men very tender of making separations and the proudest most prone to it Many corruptions may be in a Church and yet it may be a gâ—eat sin to separate from it so that we be not put upon an owning of their corruptions nor upon any actual sin â—here is a strange inclination in proud men to make the Church of Christ much narrower then it is and to reduce it to almost nothing and to be themselves the members of some singular society as if they were loth to have too much company in heaven And by a strange delusion through the workings of a proud fancy they are fuller of joy in their separted societies then they were while they kept in the union of the Church At least such power of Ordinances and presence of the spirit purity and peace is promised to the weak by the Leaders that would seduce them as if the Holy-Ghost were more eminently among them then any where else in the world This hath ever been the boasting of Hereticks As the foresaid Vincentius saith cap. 37. Jam vero illis quae sequuntur permissionibus miro modo incautos homines haeretici decipere consueverunt Audent etenim polliceri docere quod in Ecclesia sua id est in Communionis suae Conventiculo magna specialis ac plane personalis quaedam sit Dei gratia adeo ut sine ullo labore sine ullo studio sine ulla industria etiamsi nec quaerant nec petant nec pulsent quicunque illi ad numerum suum pertinent tamen ita divinitus dispensentur c. But their consolations and high enjoyments being the effect of self-conceitedness and fancies are usually so mutable and of short continuance that either the heat of oppositions or mutation to other sects must maintain their life or else they will grow stale and soon decay Having said thus much of the means I return to the end of this Exhortation beseeching all the Ministers of Christ to compassionate the poor divided Church and to entertain such Catholike principles and charitable dispositions as tend to their own and the common peace Hath any thing in the world done more to lose our authority and disable us for Gods service then our differences and divisions If Ministers could but be all of a mind or at least concurr in the substance of the work so that the people that hear one might as it were hear all and not have any of us to head a party for the discontented to fall into or to object against the rest we might then do wonders for the Church of Christ But if our tongues and hearts be divided what wonder if our work be spoiled and prove liker a Babel then a Temple of God Get together then speedily and consult for peace and cherish not heart-burnings and continue not uncharitable distances and strangeness If dividing hath weakened you closing must recover your authority and strength If you have any dislike of your Brethren or their waies manifest it by a free debate to their faces but do not unnecessarily withdraw from them If you will but keep together you may come to better understanding of each other or at least may chide your selves Friends specially quarrel not upon points of precedency or reputation or any interest of your own No man will have settled peace in his mind nor be peaceable in his place that proudly envyeth the precedency of others and secretly grudgeth at them that seem to cloud their parts and name One or other will ever be an eye-sore to such men There is too much of the Devils image on this sin for an humble servant of Christ to entertain Moreover be not too sensible of injuries and make not a great matter of every offensive word or deed At least do not let it interrupt your Communion and Concord in Gods work For that were to wrong Christ and his Church because another hath wronged you And if you be of this impatient humor you will never be quiet For we are all faulty and cannot live together without wronging one another Ubique causae supersunt nisi deprecator animus accessit saith Seneca And these proud over-tender men are often hurt by their own conceits Like a man that hath a sore that he thinks doth smart more when he conceits that some one hits it They will think a man jeareth them or contemneth them or meaneth them ill when it never came into his thoughts Till this self be taken down we shall every man have a private interest and of his own which will lead us all into several waies and spoil the peace and welfare of the Church while every man is for himself and his own Reputation and all mind their own things no wonder if they mind not the things of Christ And as for those opinions which hinder our union alas the great dividers of this age me thinks if I cannot change their minds I might yet rationally expect of every Party among us that profefs themselves Christians that they should value the whole before a part and therefore not so perversly seek to promote their party as may hinder the common good of the Church or so to propagate their supposed Truths as to hinder the work of the main body of divine Truths And
guilty of this gross mistake as to think when he hath preached he hath done all his work let us shew him to his face by our practice of the rest that there is much more to be done and that taking heed to all the Flock is another business then careless lazy Ministers do consider of If a man have the least apprehension that duty and the chiefest duty is no duty he is like to neglect it and be impenitent in the neglect 9. ANother singular Benefit which we may hope for from the faithful performance of this work is that It will help our people better to understand the nature of their duty towards their Overseers and consequently to discharge it better Which were no matter if it were only for our sakes but their own salvation is very much concerned in it I am confident by sad experience that it is none of the least impediments to their happiness and to a true Reformation of the Church that the people understand not what the work and power of a Minister is and what their own duty towards them is They commonly think that a Minister hath no more to do with them but to preach to them and visit them in sickness and administer Sacraments and that if they hear him and receive the Sacrament from him they owe no further obedience nor can he require any more at their hands Little do they know that the Minister is in the Church as the Schoolmaster in his School to teach and take an account of every one in particular and that all Christians ordinarily must be Disciples or Scholars in some such School They think not that a Minister is in the Church as a Physician in a Town for all people to resort to for personal advice for the curing of all those diseases that are fit to be brought to a Physician and that the Priests lips must preserve knowledge and the people must ask the Law at their mouths because he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts And that every soul in the Congregation is bound for their own safety to have personal recourse to him for the resolving of their doubts and for help against their sins and for direction in duty and for increase of knowledge and all saving grace and that Ministers are purposely settled in Congregations to this end to be still ready to advise and help the Flock If our people did but know their duty they would readily come to us when they are desired to be instructed and to give an account of their knowledge faith and lives and they would come themselves without sending for and knock oftner at our doors and call for advice and help for their souls and ask What shall we do to be saved Whereas now the matter is come to that sad pass that they think a Minister hath nothing to do with them and if he admonish them they will bid him look to himself he shall not answer for them and if he call them to be Catechized or instructed or to be prepared for the Lords Supper or other holy Ordinance or would take an account of their faith and profiting they will ask him By what authority he doth these things and think that he is a busie pragmatical fellow that loves to be medling where he hath nothing to do or a proud fellow that would bear rule over their consciences When they may as well ask him By what authority he preacheth or prayeth for them or giveth them the Sacrament or they may as well ask a School-master By what authority he cals his Scholars to learn or say their lesson Or a Physitian By what authority he enjoyment them to take his Medicine people consider not that all our authority is but for our work even a Power to do our duty and our work is for them so that it is but an authority to do them good And the silly wretches do talk no wiselyer then if they should thus quarrel with a man that would held to quench the fire in their thatch and ask him By what authority he doth it Or that would give his money to relieve the poor and they should ask him By what authority do you require us to take this money Or as if I offered my hand to one that is fallen to help him up or to one that is in the water to save him from drowning and he should ask me By what authority I do it Truly we have no wiser nor thankfuller dealing from these men Nay it is worse in that we are doubly obliged both by Christian Charity and the Ministerial office to do them good I know not of any Simile that doth more aptly express the Ministerial power and duty and the peoples duty then these two conjunct viz. even such as a Physician is in an Hospital that hath taken the charge of it and such as a School-master is in his School especially such as the Philosophers or teachers of any science or art whose Schools have the aged and voluntary members as well as children Christs hath all ages even such is a Minister in the Church and such is their work and their authority to do it and the duty of the people to submit thereto allowing such differences as the subject requireth And what is it that hath brought people to this ignorance of their duty but custom It s long of us Brethren to speak truly and plainly its long of us that have not used them nor our selves to any more then the common publike work We see how much custom doth with the people Where it is the custom they stick not among the Papists at the confessing of all their sins to the Priest And because it is not the custom among us they disdain to be questioned catechized or instructed They wonder at it as a strange thing and say such things were never done before And if we can but prevail to make this duty become as usual as other duties they will much more easily submit to it then now What a happy thing would it be if you might live to see the day that it should be as ordinary for people of all ages to come in course to their Teachers for personal advice and help for their salvation as it is now usual for them to come to Church or as it is for them to send their children thither to be Catechized Our diligence in this work is the way to do this 10. MOreover our practice will give the Governors of the Nation some better information about the nature and burden of the Ministery and so may procure their further assistance It is a lamentable impediment to the Reformation of the Church and the saving of souls that in most populous Congregations there is but one or two men to over-see many thousand souls and so there are not labourers in any measure answerable to the work but it becomes an impossible thing to them to do any considerable measure of that personal duty which should be done
may perceive are of nearest concernment to them As E. G. What do you think becomes of men when they are dead What shall become of us after the end of this world Do you believe that you have any sin Or that you were born with sin And what doth every sin deserve What remedy hath God provided for the saving of sinful miserable souls Hath any one suffered for our sins in our stead or must we suffer for them our selves Who be they that God will pardon and who shall be saved by the blood of Christ What change must be made on all that shall be saved and how is it made Where is our chief Happiness and what is it that our hearts must be most set upon with such like as these 2. Take heed of asking them nice or needless or doubtful and very difficult questions though about those matters that are of greatest weight in themselves Specially be very cautelous how you put them upon definitions or descriptions Some self conceited men will be as busie with such questions which they cannot answer themselves and as censorious of the poor people that cannot answer them as if life and death did certainly depend on them You will ask them perhaps What is God and how defective an answer must you make your selves specially if it be the Quid and not the Qualis that you mean You may tell what he is not sooner then what he is If you ask What is faith Or what is Repentance how sorrily would many very learned Divines answer you Or else they would not be at so great difference among themselves about them not only disagreeing about the Definitions of them but so widely disagreeing If you ask them what is Forgiveness of sin how many Ministers may you ask before you have a right answer Or else they would not be so disagreed in the point Much more may I say so about Justification though perhaps the same thing with Remission so if you ask them what Regeneration is What Sanctification is Why Divines be not agreed what they are themselves But you will say perhaps If men know not what God is what Faith Repentance Conversion Sanctification and Pardon of sin or Justification be how can they be true Christians and be saved I answer It 's one thing to know exactly what they be and another thing to know them in the nature of them in the main though with a more general indistinct and undigested knowledge and it s one thing to know and another thing to tell what this or that is The very Name as Commonly used doth signifie to them and express from them the thing without a Definition and they partly understand what that Name signifieth when they cannot tell it you in other words As they know what it is to Believe to Repent to be forgiven by custom of speech they know what these mean and yet cannot define them but perhaps put you off with the Countrey answer To Repent is to Repent and to be forgiven is to be forgiven or if they can say It is to be pardoned it is fair Yet do I not absolutely disswade you from the use of such questions but do it cautelously in case you suspect some gross Ignorance in the point specially about God him self And which is the next part of this Direction 3. In such a Case so contrive the predicate into your Question that they may perceive what you mean and that it is not a nice Definition but a necessary solution that you expect and look not after words but things and there leave them to a bare Yea or Nay or the meer elocution of one of the two descriptions which your self shall propound As E. G. What is God is he made of flesh and blood as we are or is he an invisible spirit Is he a man or is he not Had he any beginning Can he dye what is faith Is it a Believing all the word of God what is it to Believe in Christ Is it all one as to become a true Christian Or to believe that Christ is the Saviour of the world and to Accept him for your Saviour to pardon teach govern and glorifie you What is Repentance Is it only to be sorry for sin or is it The change of the mind from sin to God or both 4. And as you must do thus when you come to hard points as Definitions or the like so in all points where you perceive that they understand not the meaning and stress of your question there you must first draw out their answer by an Equipollent or expository question or if that will not do thus frame the answer into your question and demand but his Yea or Nay yea if it be never so easie a point that you are upon you must do thus at last in case by the first question you have an unsatisfactory answer E. G. I have oft asked some very ignorant people How do you think of your sins so many and great sins shall be pardoned And they tell me by their Repenting and mending their lives and never mention Jesus Christ I ask them further But do you think that your amendment can make God any amendt or satisfaction for the sin that is past They will answer we hope so or else we know not what will A man would think now that these men had no knowledge of Christ at all in that they make no mention of him And some I find have indeed none and when I tell them over the history of the Gospel and what Christ is did and suffered and why they stand wondering at it as a strange thing that they had never heard before and some say They never heard this much before nor knew it though they came to Church every Lords day But some I perceive do give such answers because they understand not the scope of my question but think that I take Christs death as granted and only ask them what shall make God satisfaction as their part under Christ Though thus also they discover sad ignorance And when I ask them whether their deeds can Merit any thing of God they say No but they hope God will accept them And if I ask further Can you be saved without the death of that they say No And if I ask what hath he done or suffered for you They will say He dyed for us or shed his blood for us and will profess that they place their confidence in that for salvation Many men have that in their minds which is not ripe for utterance and through ill education and disuse they are strangers to the expressions of those things which they have some Conceptions of And by the way you may here see the cause to deal very tenderly with the common people for matter of knowledge and defect of expression if they are are teachable and tractable and willing to use means and to live obediently For many even ancient godly persons cannot speak their minds in any tolerable
you will not do as far as you can your selves When you threaten them for neglecting it you threaten your own souls 12. All our hard censures of the Magistrate for doing no more and all our reproofs of him for permitting Seducers and denying his further assistance to the Ministers doth condemn our selves if we refuse our own duty What must all the Rulers of the world be servants to our sloathfulness or light us the candle to do nothing or only hold the stirrup to our Pride or make our beds for us that we may sleep by day-light Should they do their part in a subordinate office to protect and further us and should not we do ours who stand nearest to the end 13. All the maintenance that we take for our service if we be unfaithful will condemn us For who is it that will pay a servant to take his pleasure or sit still or work for himself If we have the Fleece it is sure that we may look to the â—lock And by taking the wages we oblige our selves to the work 14. All the honour that we expect or receive from the people and all the Ministerial Priviledges before mentioned will condemn the unfaithful For the honour is but the encouragement to the work and obligeth to it 15. All the witness that we have born against the scandalous negligent Ministers of this age and the words we have spoken against them and all the endeavours that we have used for their removal will condemn the unfaithful For God is no respecter of persons If we succed them in their sins we spoke all that against ourselves And as we condemned them God and others will condemn us if we imitate them And though we be not so bad as they it will prove sad to be too like them 16. All the Judgements that God hath executed on them in this age before our eyes will condemn us if we be unfaithful Hath he made the idle Shepherds and sensual drones to stink in the nostrils of the people and will he honour us if we be idle and sensual Hath he sequestred them and cast them our of their habitations and out of the Pulpits and laid them by as dead while they are alive and made them a hissing and a by-word in the Land and yet dare we imitate them Are not their sufferings our warnings and did not all this befall them for our examples If any thing in the world should waken Ministers to self-denyal and diligence one would think we had seen enough to do it If the Judgements of God on one man should do so much what should so many years judgement on so many hundreds of them do Would you have imitated the old world if you had seen the flood that drowned them Would you have taken up the sins of Sodom Pride Fulness of bread Idleness if you had stood by and seen the flames of Sodom This was Gods argument to deter the Israelites from the Nations sins because for all these things they had seen them cast one before them Who would have been a Iudas that had seen him hanged and burst and who would have been a lying sacrilegious hypocrite that had seen â—nanias and Saphira dye And who would not have been afraid to contradict the Gospel that had seen â—lâ—mas smitten blind And shall we prove self-seeking idle Ministers when we have seen God scourging such out of his Temple and sweeping them away as dirt into the Channels God forbid For then how great and how manifold will our condemnation be 17. All the Disputations and eager contests that we have had against unfaithful men and for a faithful Ministry will condemn us if we be unfaithful And so will the Books that we have written to those ends How many score if not hundreds of Catechisms are written in England and yet shall we forbear to use them How many Books have been written for Discipline by English and Scottish Divines and how fully hath it been defended and what reproach hath been cast upon the adversaries of it through the Land And yet shall we lay it by as useless when we have free leave to use O fearful hypocrisie What can we call it less Did we think when we were writing against this sect and the sect that opposed Discipline that we were writing all that against our selves O what Evidence do the Book-sellers shops and their own Libraries contain against the greatest part even of the godly Ministers of the Land The Lord cause them seasonably to lay it to heart 18. All the daies of fasting and prayer that have been of late years kept in England so a Reformation will rise up in Judgement against the unreformed that will not be perswaded to the painful part of the work And I confess it is so heavy an aggravation of our sin that it makes me ready to tremble to think of it Was there ever a Nation on the race of the earth that hath so solemnly and so long followed God with fasting and prayer as we have done Before the Parliament began how frequent and servent were wein secret After that for many years time together we had a monethly Fast commanded by the Parliament besides frequent private and publike Faâ—â—s on the by And what was all this for What ever was sometime the means that we lookt at yet still the end of all our Prayers was Church-Reformation and therein especially these two things A faithful Ministry and Exercise of Discipline in the Church And did it once enter then into the hearts of the people yea or into our own hearts to imagine that when we had all that we would have and the matter was put into our own hands to be as painful as we could and to exercise what Discipline we would that then we would do nothing but publikely preach that we would not be at the pains of Catechizing and Instructing our people personally nor exercise any considerable part of Discipline at all It astonisheth me to think of it What a depth of deceit is it the heart of man What are good mens hearts so deceitful Are all mens hearts so deceitful I confess I told many souldiers and other sensual men then that when they had fought for a Reformation I was confident they would abhorr it and be enemies to it when they saw and felt it thinking that the yoak of Discipline would have pincht their necks and that when they had been catechized and personally dealt with and reproved for their sin in private and publike and brought to publike confestion and repentance or avoided as impenitent they would have scorned and spurned against all this and have taken the yoak of Christ for tyrannie But little did I think that the Ministers would have let all fall and put almost none of this upon them but have let them alone for fear of displeasing them and have let all run on as it did before O the earnest prayers that I have heard in secret daies heretofore for
a Painful Ministry and for Discipline As if they had even wrestled for salvation it self Yea they commonly called Discipline The Kingdom of Christ or the Exercise of his Kingly office in his Church and so preached and prayed for it as if the setting up of Discipline had been the setting up of the Kingdom of Christ And did I then think that they would refuse to set it up when they might What is the Kingdom of Christ now reckoned among the things indifferent If the God of heaven that knew our hearts had in the midst of our Prayers and Cries on one of our Publike monethly Fasts returned us this answer with his dreadful voice in the audience of the Assembly You deceitful hearted sinners what Hypocrisio is this to weary me with your cries for that which you will not have if I would give it you and thus to lift up your voices for that which your souls abhor what is Reformation but the instructing and importunate perswading of sinners to entertain my Christ and Grace as offered them and the Governing my Church according to my word and these which are your work you will not be perswaded to when you come to find it troublesom and ungreatful when I have delivered you it is not me but your selves that you will serve and I must be as earnest to perswade you to reform the Church in doing your own duty as you are earnest with me to grant you liberty for reformation and when all is done you will leave it undone and will be long before you will be perswaded to my work I say if the Lord or any Messenger of his had given us in such an answer would it not have amazed us and have seemed incredible to us that our hearts should have been such as now they prove and would we not have said as Hazael Is thy servant a dog that he should do this thing Or as Peter Though all men forsake or deny thee I will not Well Brethren too sad experience hath shewed us our frailty We have denyed the troublesom and costly part of the Reformation that we prayed for But Christ yet turneth back and looketh with a merciful eye upon us O that we had yet the hearts immediately to go out weep bitterly and to do so as we have done no more lest a worse thing come unto us and now to follow Christ through labour and suffering though it were to the death whom we have so far forsaken 19. All the Judgements upon the Nation the cost the labour the blood and the deliverances and all the endeavours of the Governors for Reformation will rise up against us if we now refuse to be faithful for a Reformation when it is before us and at our will I have said somewhat of this before Hath God been hewing us out a way with his sword and levelling opposers by his terrible Judgements and yet will we sit still or play the sluggards Have England Scotland and Ireland paid so dear for a Reformation and now shall some men treacherously strangle it in the birth and others expose it to contempt and over-run it and others sit still and look on it as a thing not worth the trouble How many thousand persons may come to the condemnation of such men The whole Countries may say Lord we have been plundred and ruined or much impover shed we have paid taxes these many years and it was a Reformation that was pretended and that we were promised in all and now the Ministers that should be the instruments of it do neglect it Many thousands may say Lord we ventured our lives in obedience to a Parliament that promised Reformation and now we cannot have it The souls of many that have dyed in these wars may cry out against us Lord it was the hopes of a Reformation that we fought and suffered for in obedience to those Governors that professed to intend it and now the Pastors reject it by their idleness The Parliament may say How long did we sit and consult about Reformation and now the Ministers will not execute the power that is granted them The Nation may say How oft did we beg it of God and Petition the Parliament for it and now the Ministers deny us the enjoyment of it Yea God himself may say How many prayers have I heard and what dangers have I delivered you from how many and how great and in what a wonderful manner And what do you think it was that I delivered you for Was it not that you should do my work And will you betray it or neglect it after all this Truly Sirs I know not what others think but when I consider the Judgements that we have felt and the wonders of Mercy that my eyes have seen to the frequent astonishment of my soul as I know it is great matters that these things oblige us to so I am afraid lest they should be charged on me as the aggravations of my neglect I hear every exasperated party still flying in the faces of the rest and one saith It was you that killed the King and the other saith It was you that fought against a Parliament and put them to defend themselves and drencht the land in blood But the Lord grant that it be not we if we prove negligent in our Ministry and betray the Reformation that God hath called us to that shall have all this blood and misery charged on us yea though we had never any other hand therein And that the Lord say not of us as of John even when he had destroyed the house of Ahab by his command because he accomplished not the Reformation which that execution tended to Yet a little while and I will avenge the blood of Iezrael on the house of Jehn Hof 1. 4. O Sirs can we find in our hearts to lose all the cost and trouble of the three Nations and all to save us a little trouble in the Issue and so to bring the guilt of all upon our selves Far be it from us if we have the hearts of Christians 20. Lastly if we should yet refuse a Reformation in our Instructing of the Ignorant or our exercise of Christs Discipline how many Vows and Promises of our own may rise up in Judgement against us and condemn usâ— 1. In the National Covenant those that entered into it did vow and Promise most solemnly before the Lord and his people that Having before our eyes the Glory of God and the advancement of the Kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Iesus Christ we would sincerely really and constantly endeavour in our several places and callings the Reformation of Religion â—n Doctrine Worship Discipline and Government and we did profess our true and unfeigned purpose desire and endeavour for our selves and all others under our power and charge both in publike and private in all dutes we ow to God and man to amend our lives and each one to go before another in the Example of a Real