only the Picture of a Saint or Angel or at worst of our Saviour when the contrary was visible to us all and to others also as I have intimated already It was the old Popish Picture of the Trinity God the Father represented by an Old man with a very long Grey Beard and a huge beam of Light about his head God the Son by a Crucifix between his knees And God the Holy Ghost by a Dove with spread wings under his Beard which was patcht with a piece or two as I remember of plain glass I have the Copy of the Picture by me as it stood in the Window drawn by one who lives in that City that had as he told me viewed it at times for twenty years together Thirdly They represent it as done in complyance with the Scotch Rebels who they say were then in Arms. But as this is most false these wretches being routed before this time and the news of it come to Gloucester in the Publick intelligence so every body must needs see the woful silliness and Ridiculousness as well as Malice of this suggestion There are some I confess who are of better Tempers than the Furious people who have made such a loud clamour that express their dislike of Breaking this Picture which they call a great indecency But I would fain know of them why must it be done so decently Is it because it was a gross abuse of the Holy Trinity But if it was not an indecency to break in pieces the Brazen Serpent when it came to be abused though of God's own institution much less can it be so to break that the making of which God hath forbidden in so strict a manner But I have said already that it had been done after these mens decent fashion that is taken down by a Glasier might I have had my will and had there not been a great probability if not certainty of our making our Order to no purpose if it were not done this way as my Worthy Brethren will bear me witness who are all living and can testifie the truth of my Narrative of this so Scandalous a thing viz. The Destroying of an Idol that even Moderate Papists have condemned and some of the better sort of Heathens also that is a Corporeal Representation of the Great God and which one would wonder should have any Patrons besides the monstrous Sect of Anthropomorphites I perswaded my self with great difficulty to publish this Account to the world and could not resolve upon it till I considered how well it becomes me to disabuse abundance of people who have been imposed upon by false stories as well as to vindicate my own Reputation And besides this I have now done will not make the thing much more publick than it was before no nor at all more publick than the late Doings at the Gloucester Assizes will perhaps make it I have only taken a course to make the truth about this matter as publick as some men have made gross falsehoods And indeed I am now sensible I should have done this long ago and that I have been much too patient I am prepared to say much more of the Vnworthy Treatment I have had from some upon this account and of what Methods were used to raise clamour but I have done enough at present my Design being only to suppress lying Reports and to disabuse as I said those who have received them not the exposing of particular persons which I am not like to do till any of themselves shall make it necessary I will Conclude with this Address to my Adversaries in allusion to our Blessed Saviours reply to the Wretch that smote him viz. If I have spoken or done evil and transgrest the Law bear witness of the evil the Law is open But if well why smite you after so unchristian a manner him with your Tongues for want of sharper weapons who never had any quarrel or controversie with any of you and who is resolved to requite your malice with never ceasing to Pray for you ERRATVM PAge 24 Line 12 for his Generation read this Generation A SERMON Preached in the CATHEDRAL of GLOUCESTER On Sunday Aug. 7. 1681. 1 TIM 1.19 Holding Faith and a good Conscience which some having put away concerning Faith have made Shipwrack NOtwithstanding that the whole intendment of the Christian Faith be the promoting of Righteousness True Holiness and Universal Goodness in the Hearts first and then in the Lives of Men and that it is most admirably fitted for that End yet there arose even in the earliest and purest days of Christianity a Generation of People who laboured to reconcile Light and Darkness the Christian Religion and a Wicked Life And although they pretended to adhere to the Faith of the Gospel denyed the necessity of Good Works and let open the Floud-gates to all Ungodliness They made the Holy Jesus who was manifested that he might destroy the works of the Devil the great Patron of sin and turned the grace of God into Lasciviousness did not only receive this Grace in vain and rendred it as much as lay in them ineffectual to the bettering mens lives and natures but also made it the greatest Promoter and Encourager of that for the utter destruction and extirpation of which it was designed This they did by corrupting the Christian Doctrine and bringing into it a company of wicked and Licentious Principles and by endeavouring to make that pass for the Doctrine of Christ which was no better than the Doctrine of Devils Of these Wretched People S. Paul saith that They professed that they knew God but in Works they denyed him being abominable and disobedient and to every good work reprobate Tit. 1.16 And in diverse other places he discourseth of these men calling them false Apostles deceitful workers and the like and warns the Christians he wrote to to beware of them As do other of the Apostles also particularly S. Peter S. Iohn and S. Iude. Now would we know how it should come to pass that the Christian Religion should be so strangely perverted and made use of for the building of that which it was designed to destroy We are assured that it proceeds not from the Obscurity of the Writings of the New Testament for they as plainly as 't is possible for words to do it do every where condemn all Unrighteousness and Sin But it was caused by Wresting the Scriptures and putting them upon the rack to force them to speak quite contrary to their intention Thus S. Peter tells us the Epistles of his Brother Paul were abused that those that were unlearned and unstable wrested them to their own destruction But how came it to pass that any should dare to make thus bold with the Scriptures My Text Answers this question The Apostle in these words tells us that their making shipwrack of the Faith was occasioned by their having first put away a good Conscience He here exhorts his Son Timothy to take care of holding both Faith and a good Conscience and
the Motive he useth to quicken his care is that those who are not careful to hold both will be in danger of losing both So much is implyed in his saying that some having put away a good Conscience have made shipwrack concerning Faith Holding Faith or the Faith and a good Conscience which some having put away concerning Faith or the Faith have made shipwrack First We will explain the terms or endeavour to shew what it is to hold the Faith and what to make shipwrack of it as also what it is to hold a good Conscience and what to put it away Secondly That holding the Faith will nothing avail us except we also hold a good Conscience Thirdly That mens making shipwrack concerning the Faith is occasioned by their having first put away a good Conscience First For Explication of the terms we will enquire 1. What it is to hold the Faith and what to make shipwrack of it To hold the Faith is to adhere to the belief and profession of the Doctrine of the Gospel Holding or keeping the Faith sometimes implyeth also a life answerable to the Christian doctrine as where S. Paul saith I have kept the Faith And where the Author to the Hebrews exhorts the Christians to hold fast the profession of their Faith without wavering But here it can signifie no more than the belief and profession of that Doctrine because it is distinguished from holding a good Conscience Again to make shipwrack of the Faith is to do either of these two things Either First expresly to Renounce the Articles of the Christian Belief the main fundamental Articles all or any of those on which the whole Frame of Christianity is erected and which are the Essential materials of it As that Iesus is the Son of God that he dyed for our sins and rose again for our justification that he ascended into Heaven and will come again at the end of the world to judge the quick and the dead that men shall be rewarded or punished according to their works that Faith Repentance and New Obedience are of absolute necessity to our obtaining the Divine Favour and everlasting life These and the like Articles which either are declared necessary to Salvation by our Saviour or his Apostles or which from their own nature appear so to be as containing necessary motives encouragements or helps to a holy life these are such as the renouncing any of which is making shipwrack concerning the Faith But the misunderstanding such Doctrines as have no such weight and stress laid upon them or which considered in themselves appear to be of such a nature as that the misunderstanding of them is consistent with true Goodness cannot be called a making Shipwrack of the Faith For if so it will be impossible to know who holds the Faith and who makes shipwrack of it There being many points so disputably expressed in the Scriptures and which there is such a diversity of Opinions about even among Good as well as Learned men that it may be an argument of too great confidence and presumption in any to conclude peremptorily that theirs is the true notion of them Or Secondly The introducing such Principles and Practices into the Christian Religion as do manifestly strike at any of its Fundamentals and particularly such as directly or in their evident consequences enervate the Promises Threatnings or Precepts of the Gospel and contradict the great design of Christianity viz. that of making men Sober Righteous and Godly this may also very properly be called making shipwrack of the Faith It is truly so notwithstanding it may be joyned with a profession of all the Articles of our Religion For who seeth not that those who corrupt it with such Doctrines or Practices are as injurious to the Faith as the down-right opposers of its main Principles or rather the more injurious of the two there being much more danger of a false Friend than of a professed and open enemy 2. Would we know what it is to hold a good Conscience this is in short sincerely to endeavour to walk in all the Commandments of the Lord blameless To endeavour impartially to acquaint our selves with the Divine Will and when we understand it to comply therewith although it be never so cross to our own wills and natural inclinations And therefore on the contrary to put away a good Conscience is to be bent upon the pleasing our own wills and gratifying our sensual Appetites to give up our selves to be acted and governed by fleshly and impure Lusts To be devoted to the Service of corrupt carnal and worldly affections and interests Where the lust of the flesh the lust of the eye or the pride of life the love of Pleasures Riches or Honours are predominant in the Soul there a good Conscience is put away Secondly We next come to shew that holding the Faith will nothing avail us if withal it be not our care to hold a good Conscience This is apparent in that the Renewing of mens natures and Bettering their Lives is the only end both of Natural and Revealed Religion and were not this the end thereof Religion would be the vainest and most insignificant thing in the world The Heathens themselves were well aware of this and therefore the professed intendment of their Philosophy was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The purgation and perfection of the humane life They well knew that no body is the better for the best Principles where they are only believed and not lived And as for the Principles of the Christian Religion which the Ancients used to call the Christian Philosophy I shall not need to prove that our belief of these is required wholly upon the account of the great efficacy they have for the transforming of us into the Divine likeness the subjecting our Wills to the Will of God and the making us holy in all manner of Conversation And therefore we find our Blessed Saviour and his Apostles making the whole of a Christian to consist in keeping his sayings in doing the things he commands them in Faith that worketh by love and in the new Creature And therefore we see the greatest contempt cast upon Knowledge and Profession and Faith unaccompanied with an answerable life and practice Therefore we read that Faith without works is dead that Faith is dead being alone as being utterly unable to stand us in the least stead and as being so unable to save us as greatly to aggravate our Condemnation The Papists lay mighty weight upon their Orthodoxy their believing as the Church believes and flatter themselves with a fond conceit that the goodness of their Faith will make great amends for the badness of their lives But suppose it true that they are the Orthodox believers and all the Christian World Hereticks besides themselves as they would have us believe yet the Devils are as Orthodox as they can be for their hearts but their Orthodoxy makes
them but the more miserable if they did not believe so truly they would not tremble as they do The Devils also believe and tremble Iames 2.19 In short we are not more assured from the Holy Scriptures that God made the Heavens and the Earth than we are of the truth of this Proposition that the most sound belief will not do us the least service while it is accompanied with a naughty life That the most Orthodox Sentiments will nothing avail us while joyned with an Heretical Conversation Thirdly We proceed to shew that mens making shipwrack concerning the Faith is occasioned by their having first put away a good Conscience Which good Conscience some having put away concerning Faith have made shipwrack The Apostle speaking of some that resisted the truth calls them men of corrupt minds reprobate concerning the Faith 2 Tim. 3.8 Thereby intimating that their being reprobate concerning the Faith proceeded from the corruption of their minds or naughtiness of their hearts and the prevalence of evil and corrupt Affections And the same Apostle speaking of certain Hereticks attributes their erring from the Faith to their gratifying particularly that last of Covetousness 1 Tim. 6.10 The love of money is the root of all evil which while some coveted after they have erred from the Faith And S. Peter speaking of wicked Seducers saith that they had eyes full of Adultery and hearts exercised with covetous practices And intimateth that this is the cause of their forsaking the right way and their beguiling unstable Souls 2 Ep. 2.14 15. Now would we be satisfied how this putting away a good Conscience occasioneth mens making shipwrack of the Faith It is evident that it doth thus these three ways First As mens addicting themselves to the satisfying of some lust or other puts them upon devising shifts and tricks to still the disquieting clamours of their Consciences The wrath of God being revealed from Heaven against all unrighteousness and ungodliness of men 't is no easie thing for any one willingly to transgress the Rules of Righteousness without being frequently tormented with fearful expectations and the Horrors of an Accusing and condemning Conscience Now the most effectual way to be rid of these next to sincere Repentance and Reformation is either for a wicked man to perswade himself if he be able that there is no God or nothing after this Life and consequently that the Bible is a cheat and all its threatnings mere scare-crows Or if this he cannot do in regard of the abundant evidence of the Being of a God and the Authority of the Holy Scriptures the course must be so to wrest and pervert the Scriptures as to make them give liberty to certain evil practices or to promise forgiveness of sin to certain performances that are short of forsaking it Thus those Hereticks in the Primitive times wrestâ—d the places wherein the Gospel is called the Law of Liberty and wherein we are said to be delivered from the Law so as to take off the Obligation of the Moral as well as the Ceremonial Law and to give liberty to sin and to oppose Faith to Obedience in the business of Justification and acceptance with God Many other instances may be given both of Ancient and Modern Hereticks perverting of passages of Scripture so as to make them great encouragements to sin and discouragements to a Holy life perfectly contrary to the whole strain and tenor of the Gospel But I must not enlarge farther upon this Argument because the main thing I intended in the choice of this Subject is yet behind Secondly The putting away of a good Conscience occasions making shipwrack of the Faith through the just judgment of God The former particular gave us an account of wicked mens being strongly enclined to make shiwrack of the Faith and of their endeavouring it this of their putting their inclinations into practice and succeeding in their endeavours Men that are wedded to any lust are very forward for their own ease to endeavour either the embraceing of Atheistical Principles or so to abuse the Scriptures as to take encouragement from them to live in sin but they could hardly so extinguish the light of their own minds as to succeed in their endeavours were it not for the judgment of God upon them in giving them up into the Deceivers hands To this purpose observe what the Apostle saith 2 Thess. 2.10 11. Because they received not the love of the truth that they might be saved or they did not so receive it as to suffer it to have any good effect upon their hearts and lives for this cause God shall send them strong delusions or give them up to be deluded by the tricks of the Devil the signs and lying wonders before mentioned that they should believe a lye that they all might be damned who believed not the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness Thirdly The putting away of a good Conscience occasions making shipwrack of the Faith as wicked Professors of Christianity do find it a most successful course to promote their corrupt and naughty designs by foisting into the Christian Religion such Doctrines and Practices as favour and encourage such designs I have shewed that those who corrupt the Christian Religion with such Doctrines or Practices as contradict the Design of it do truly make shipwrack of the Faith and whereas there may be given too many instances of such Hypocrites as have so done I shall make it the whole business of what remains of the Doctrinal part of this Discourse to shew that the Church of Rome as she is now Constituted is most shamefully guilty in this particular It is to be acknowledged that she retains the Profession of all the Fundamental and Essential Articles of the Christian Faith a summary of which is that Creed which we call the Apostles and she professeth a Reverence for the whole New Testament If she in express terms rejected any Doctrine that is of the Essence and a vital part of Christianity her members may not be called Christians in any sense and we then do very ill to say the Church of Rome We do not stick at calling them a Church though a most corrupt and degenerate Church as to use the similitude of Bishop Hall a thief is truly a man though not a true man A woman may retain the name of a wife till she 's formally divorced though she be an adulteress The Church of Rome may as truly be called a Church as the Iewish Nation the People of God after their foul Revolt from him and Lapse into Idolatry and other wicked and impious practices But this hath been abundantly made good against this Church that though she holds the Foundation yet she builds Wood Hay and Stubble upon the Foundation that is she mixeth many impure Doctrines of her own with the most holy and undefiled Doctrines of the Gospel Of which I will present you with some instances but must be very brief upon most of them What say
stranger to Christianity that he hath totally cast off all Humanity Whosoever is a thorough Papist hath no Conscience in his own keeping his Conscience is perfectly at the dispose of his Holy Father and his Confessor Nor is there any villany be it never so great but he is prepared for it whensoever a Priest or Jesuit by commission from the Pope shall oblige him to it That Protestant doth but slightly understand Popery who dares trust his throat with a thorough Papist although he be seemingly a man of never so good a nature or of never so good Morals and the more conscientious he is in his way by so much the more dangerous a person is he That 's a rare Religion in the mean time the more true to which any man is the greater Villain he must necessarily be And those are a precious sort of Christians of which one cannot adventure to give a true and impartial Character and to paint them in their own colours but he must be in danger to be Censured as a scurrilous person as a man of a foul mouth and a down-right Railer Let us all therefore take up those words of Iacob in reference to his Generation which he uttered concerning his two wicked sons Simeon and Levi O my soul come not thou into their secret unto their assembly mine honour be not thou united To make some Application of what hath been discoursed First Is the putting away a good Conscience the true cause to which making shipwrack of the Faith is to be imputed Is this the account into which it is to be resolved Then as we would be out of danger of falling into Heresie and particularly of turning Papists and of making shipwrack of the Faith as they have done let us have a great care to hold fast a good Conscience To exercise our selves in keeping Consciences void of offence both towards God and towards men To lead lives answerable to the holy Doctrine which we profess to believe If any man will do the will of God or be sincerely willing to do it he shall know of the Doctrine whether it be of God saith our Blessed Saviour Iohn 7.17 He shall be able to discern between truth and falshood and shall be guided into and kept in the truth The truth hath no fast hold of any but those who receive it in the love of it and make it the measure and rule of their lives and actions It is not at all strange that Learned and Knowing men should make shipwrack of the Faith for Learning and Knowledge is no security while separated from Honesty and a Good Conscience There is no error so absurd or dangerous but we ought to expect an insincere person will embrace it when once it becomes serviceable to that Interest he is most concerned for the promoting of Even those of us who do now shew the most forward zeal against Popery if we be wedded to any corrupt Affection and have only the Form but are void of the Power of Godliness will be in never the less danger notwithstanding our present zeal of Apostatizing if ever it should become our temporal interest which God forbid to turn Papists Secondly Is it so apparent that the Church of Rome hath made so woful a shipwrack of the Faith Then what an infinite obligation lyeth upon us to the greatest Thankfulness to our good God for rescuing these Nations from under her yoke and for those Miracles of mercy which he hath wrought for us in blasting so many of their deep laid designs their late great Conspiracy and late Sham-plots for the reducing of us to our old Captivity If it had not been the Lord who was on our side now may England say if it had not been the Lord who was on our side when these men rose up against us then they had swallowed us up quick when their wrath was kindled against us then the waters had overwhelmed us and the streams had gone over our soul. Let us therefore Bless the Lord who hath not given us as a prey unto their teeth Lastly As we would still be secured from Popish Conspiracies from the unwearied attempts of our old Adversaries against us take we great heed of provoking the Almighty to withdraw at length his Protection and abandon us to their Malice by walking unworthy of that glorious Light and Liberty we now enjoy in the Church of England And while we have the light let us walk in the light lest God in his just judgment suffer us to be again involved in Egyptian darkness Oh happy Children of the Church of England if we could be perswaded to prize our present Vast Priviledges before our having lost them doth force us to set a high value on them And Oh that we were capable of so much Wisdom as no longer to strengthen the hands of our common enemy by our as unreasonable as Unchristian Animosities against one another That we had once as great a zeal against the Anti-christs within our own breasts Pride Anger Malice and Bitterness as we seem to have against the Anti-Christ in the Roman Chair Those Anti-christs being the greatest friends this Anti-christ hath and more our enemies than he is capable of being Oh that at length we could be convinced of this great truth that the Christian Religion consisteth not in meats or drinks mere external things but in righteousness peace and joy in the Holy Ghost In Humility Meekness Self-denial Obedience to Authority in all lawful things love to God and love to men c. Oh that we had a vigorous powerful sense of this that neither the most admired Gifts nor appearances of Grace which are not joyned with a Benign and Charitable temper can at all recommend us to the Divine favour That he hath no Participation of the God-like Life and Nature who is of a Quarrelsome Contentious Uncharitable Spirit be he in a many other respects never so Saint-like And that Christian love is a thousand times better argument of a renewed state than most of those marks and characters which are ordinarily given of a godly man If we were once brought to this happy pass to have a lively sense of these things to make great Conscience of preserving the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace and to abandon all Separating Dividing Sowre and ill-natur'd Principles and Practices we shall not then need to fear the malice of the Papists were their power greater than God be thanked it is but till then all our other endeavours to secure our selves may fail of success But alas I fear that never had a People sadder Omens of miserable days than we now have And nothing bodes worse than this that we are so far from Uniting among our selves notwithstanding we seem so sensible of extraordinary danger from our common Enemy that our breaches daily grow wider and wider We seem no less infatuated no less madly bent upon our own destruction than were the miserable Iews in the Siege