not to Gods purposes Rom. 11.29 For the calling and gifts of God are without repentance In this enquiry let all persons beware that they be not mistaken with bare words as many of late have who thought every new fangled doctrine a call from heaven and instability to be a mark of proficiency Christs sheep will not follow strangers but flee from them But many a one the more pity by being apt to follow every voice Jo. 10.5 have gone to the slaughter like the two hundred in Jerusalem who were called by Absalom 2 Sam. 15.11 and went in their simplicity and knew nothing Others labouring to satisfie themselves in this business began at the wrong end troubling themselves with the curious particulars close lockt up in the Cabinet of Praedestination of which God never lent any man a Key nor made him a schedule Consolatory arguments for weak souls are not to be drawn from Gods secret counsel but from the apparent fruits of their election and the promises of his superabundant grace and mercy The men of Bethshemech had been safe 2 Sam. 6.19 had they not been presumptuously curious and they gate nothing by prying into the Ark but the destruction of fifty thousand threescore and ten persons And the rash handling of predestination it may justly be feared hath been the ruine of many thousands Briefly to the point let every man examine his heart for faith his life for obedience The best assurance is hid and it is within a man as the late Arch-Bishop of Canterbury said at his Martyrdom Men know that Jesus Christ is in them 2 Cor. 13.5 except they be reprobates He that hath faith and charity cannot be without hope He that believes in Christs merits endeavours to live after his Commandments hath a zeal for his glory a love to all men and especially to the houshold of faith and a constant sence and sorrow for his own failings such a one makes his calling sure The rejoycing of the Apostle 2 Cor. 1.12 and of his fellows was the testimony of their conscience and so it will be every good mans Whom conscience makes to rejoyce all the world cannot much afflict but whom conscience torments all the world cannot case Heb. last v. 18. And this is a sign of a good conscience when men are willing in all things to live honestly This is the plain mans plain way to come by an assurance of his calling It is too voluminous a task for me at this time and too busie at any other and perhaps more consounding than edifying to the generality to produce sixteen or seventeen proofs and marks of an effectual calling I humbly conceive with all due respect to persons of vast abilities that a man may go a nearer and a more direct way and to this purpose I crave leave to tell a story and that a true one upon my own knowledg There was sometimes in this County a certain Clergy-man and I pray God there be not now too many such in this Nation who loved to follow the Law more than to Preach the Gospel and for his delight in contention might have been sirnamed Norfolk He was exceedingly proud covetous and malicious and the mischief was the curst beast had long hornes for he was very rich And as the greatest Clerks are not alwayes the wisest men so he being one of the wisest men as wise men go now adayes was none of the greatest Clerks This man had to his servant a near Kinsman very poor and very ingenuous whose propinquity of relation made his Uncle the more bold with him to make him a slave according to the mode of wretched worldlings This Uncle Parson with fair words and strong delusions made his Nephew man spider-like even work out his heart and bowels to encrease the muck heap and fill the bag For why should he not believe his Uncle promising him a good part of the fruit of his hands seeing God had denyed his Uncle the fruit of his own body But see the event the Uncle makes his Will disposeth his Estate into many hands and dyeth and the poor drudge this Kinsman was turn'd off with his labour for his pains It chanced after a long time this poor man among others being at a neighbour Gentlemans house one of the company for want of better discourse asked him as usually they speak of the dead how long since God called his Uncle Alas said he you are mistaken God never called my Uncle at all For my Uncle did often vow and protest and call God to witness that whensoever God called him I should be made much the better for him But I was never yet the better for him one penny in this world And therefore I am sure God never called him There is an argument ab effectu or à consequente a plain argument of a plain fellow And now I would have all my brethren and countreymen examine their calling by the correspondence of their actions with their sacred and civil protestations obligations and engagements And then I believe they will find that the poor Kinsman in this point may pass for a sound Logician and a good Divine Conscience Conscience all the world for a Good Conscience have a care of a Tender Conscience And let us have Liberty of Conscience THese be the cries of the present times like those of London up street and down And I pray God there be not as much a cheat in them The large reign of hypocrisie now unmasked by inordinate licentiousness hath made many think that there is not nor ought to be any such thing as conscience But they will one day find because they have not cherished it as a lamb in their bosome it will tear them like a vulture at the heart Conscience the word and the thing is as it is used like Aesops tongues the best and the worst dish at the table Men of merry hearts or according to the Hebrew men good at the heart Prov. 15.15 or as St Hierom reads men of a quiet mind such have a continual feast This 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 conscience is maximum in minimo the greatest thing in a little as Periander said It is a true glass giving the true reflection of all objects and colours without counterfeit or flattery Conscience under God is All in All in the Isle of Man It is a Judge holding an Asuzes within every man and giving sentence without partiality it is a thousand witnesses giving true evidence concerning the matter of fact speech or cogitation it is a Serjeant either to plead or implead according to equity and that freely without money and it is an Executioner to torment and destroy without mercy The dominion of conscience reacheth through all Nations Jews and Gentiles Rom. 12.15 Heathens are subject to it Their conscience also bearing them witness and their thoughts the mean while either accusing or excusing one another And as conscience reigneth farre so there
is no power or jurisdiction above it but that of God himself Conscience is the Jury of life and death and there is small hope that the Judge will save them whom conscience smally casteth off Joh. 3.20 If our heart condemn us God is greater than our heart and knoweth all things If our heart condemn us not then have we confidence towards God doing those things that are pleasing in his sight Now there being nothing in this world better than a good conscience and nothing worse than a bad one it will be a mans great business to know how a good conscience is gotten and how kept Every one by nature and in the state of corruption hath an evill a deadly and a filthy conscience And therefore primarily a good conscience and a pure and lively is obtained by the bloud of Jesus Christ and by faith in his merits The bloud of Jesus Christ who through the eternal Spirit Heb. 9.14 offered himself without spot to God doth purge a mans conscience from dead works to serve the living God And these words To serve the living God as they denote the true end wherefore Christ by his bloud did make our consciences pure and good so they shew us the right means of keeping and preserving a pure and a good conscience namely by serving the living God His service is perfect freedome and his service is taught us in the Moral Law the Ten Commandments which set forth our duty towards God and towards man And beyond this holy Rule or contrary to it there cannot be any such thing as Christian liberty or liberty of conscience Herein did the Apostle exercise himself Act. 24.16 to Have alwayes a conscience void of offence towards God and towards men And he that is so exercised hath a tender conscience And whatsoever is not repugnant unto some part of the Law of God contained in the Ten Commandments though perhaps it may go against mens humours and fancies cannot be said to be against conscience and so neither against Christian liberty because the divine Commandment is a perfect Law of liberty Ja. 1.25 No question it is a great sin to tyrannize over poor souls and to impose upon mens consciences things to make them stumble to weaken their faith Rom. 14.21 1 Cor. 8.9 and to corrupt their judgements and manners And God forbid that any should do so But all persons pretending conscience before they profess publick dissent from the Injunctions Canons and Constitutions of Authority should do well to be of a sure ground that the things they dissent from their brethren in are demonstratively of such a nature otherwise their liberty will appear to be but a cloak of maliciousness and that they preferre their own private conceits and perverse humours before either the peace of the Church or Gods honour And surely as all sinne defiles the conscience so none more than a schismaticall uncharitablenesse I could never yet see nor any other man I believe by what analogy or rationall argumentation the discourse of St Paul to the Romanes perswading to indulge the weak brethren about dayes and meats or that of his to the Corinthians about eating things offered to idols could be made as many would have it a common place against all order and discipline in the Christian Churches For the Apostle in the one dealt about Judaisme and in the other concerning Gentilisme and Paganish Idolatry And either of those bear as little reference or likeness to our Worship of God and Orders in the Church as there is concord between Christ and Belial or as there is coherence in our adversaries discourses There were in those Churches Jews and Gentiles mixed and many of the new converts of the Jews did still retain some of the Mosaicall observations and could not suddenly be weaned from them and some of the Gentile converts also had some smacks and sentiments of their old superstitions And the Apostle advised and enjoyned the more perfect and well grounded Christians to favour the others as much as lawfully they might and not to be bitter against them for their infirmities But the Apostle dealt not so with Hymeneus and Alexander 1 Tim. 1. v. last Tit. 1.11 nor yet doth he advise Titus to deal so gently with the seducers in Crete who subverted whole houses And surely a gentler hand is to be carried toward new converts than to inveterate refractarians and wilfull Apostatas Let conscience in the Name of God have its liberty But then let that liberty have a conscience Men make much talk of tender consciences but it is for the most part but a talk Jacobs voice and Esaus hands Quid verba audio cùm facta video Men shew their conscience as well as their faith by their works I believe Abraham had a tender conscience Gen. 13. because for peace-sake he gave way to his inferiour But I cannot think so of Corah and his party Numb 16. because they opposed their betters Abrahams conscience could not vary from his oath to take from the King of Sodom Gen. 14. so much as a threed or a shoe-latchet But I remember who sware and forced others to swear hand over head by vertue of which oath they scarce left the King or his loyall Subjects the worth of a threed or a shoe-latchet I believe David had a tender conscience 1 Sam. 24.5 because his heart smote him for cutting off Sauls skirt But I dare say Baanah and Rechab had not so because they slew Ishbosheth and cut off his head at his own house 2 Sam. 4.4 I am fully perswaded Josiah had a tender heart and a good conscience 2 Chron. 34. Chap. 35. because be restored the worship of God wept at the reading of the Law and set the Priests and Levites in their places and charges But I am sure Jeroboam had an evil heart and a bad conscience because he corrupted the worship of God and made Priests of the basest of the people 1 King 13.33 The conscience of the Saints in Davids time led them to worship fall down and kneel before the Lord their maker Ps 95. Many tell us now their conscience will not suffer them to do so Then their conscience did prompt them unanimously to go up together into the house of the Lord Ps 122. Now conscience is pleaded against coming thither In St Pauls dayes conscience taught men to be subject to Magistrates Rom. 13.5 Tit. 3.1 1 Pet. 2.13 Heb. 13.17 and to be ready to every good work to submit themselves to every Ordinance of man for the Lords sake and to obey them that had the spiritual rule over them and watched for their souls Now conscience is only named by a great many to shift off all duty and to affront all Authority What an Antidote against Caesar Shall we have conscience against conscience Conscience against God Conscience against Godlinesse Conscience against publick worship Conscience against
Common-prayers Conscience against Baptism and the Lords Supper O tempora O mores And how long shall the world be deluded Is it not apparent that the chief sticklers for licentiousnesse under the name of Liberty of conscience when the power was in their hand did neither use conscience nor grant liberty to them that were truly conscientious By the liberty they then took we may know what liberty they now seek and by the conscience they did then use what indulgence they now deserve In Ecclesiastical as well as in martial Discipline it will hardly be granted to erre twice And surely that God who once delivered us into the hands of our enemies and in great mercy hath set us free will hardly do it the second time in case we wilfully suffer our selves to be again captivated by their feigned words of whom we have had so late and so wofull experience And I pray God guide his sacred Majesty that their serpentine charmes may never so far impose upon his gracious Lenity as that he should believe their consciences tender who strain at Gnat-scruples and swallow Camel-sins who stumble at strawceremonies and leap over block villanies When no conscience was practis'd then no plea was heard for it But now that God hath begun graciously to shine upon the Church and Kingdom now begins the clamour of tender conscience to play the second part There is no surer way to discover every mans diet manners and appetite than to make every man his own Carver And as I remember this course hath been once taken to purpose Alas poor weak brethren and tender consciences It is pity that ever a pair of Lawn-sleeves should hurt them who could well digest the soil of the Revenues of the Antichristian Bishopticks and make no bones of the Churches patrimony Alas that ever a Surplice and a hood should choke those pure Levites that have lately swallowed down Churches and Steeples Parsonages and Vicarages Glebes and Tythes and eat up man woman and child as fast as they did the Tythe-pigs Fie upon it who would be troubled with such a conscience What steal a Goose and scruple a feather Oh the tender conscience of a pack of Committees and a bundle of Sequestrators Oh the mercy and tender pity of a Wolf a Tyger and a Bear From all these kinds of beasts wild and tame Libera nos Domine Good Lord deliver us And let all the people say Amen Suppose I should go to a friends house and carry with me such a companion as Wood the great eater of Kent was and should desire my friend to take special care of him and let him have that which is pure and of light digestion for the man hath but a feeble stomack forsooth a very weak appetite and any thing that is grosse might endanger his life And my weak natur'd Guest shall call for and eat up a fat sheep of sixteen shillings price at a meal or thirty couple of Rabbets and so should do three or four meals and still I should desire my friend to have a great care of him telling him that the man hath a very poor stomack and is but weak and tender whatsoever he thinks on him Would not my friend think you be ready to kick me and my Guest out of doors Would he not tell me that I were either mad or worse And that I either went about to play the fool or the knave And as much may some body say to them who labour to perswade men of their tender consciences who have murder'd the innocent devoured the fatherlesse and widows drank the bloud of Nobles pickled upon the carcasse of a Church and made a merry meal of a Kings head He that loves God the King the Church the Countrey and himself let him never speak a word of these mens tender consciences It pitieth my heart to think into what strange Labyrinths many gangs of people were led by their admired Teachers who tickled their ears with a pleasing sound of conscience and tendernesse and self-denial and getting acquaintance with Christ and a glorious liberty and the like whilest by their omission connivence and palliation they lull'd them into a security and cast them into a deadly slumber of Rebellion and disobedience schism and uncharitablenesse Was not this to clap a plaister upon a festered place and never to search or cleanse the wound Miserable comforters are all such Oh let the righteous smite us friendly and reprove us but let not such precious balms break our heads Such Pastors give a poor soul as much satisfaction as Pope Martin gave the Sicilian Embassadors to whom thrice praying Aguus Dei qui toll is peccata mundi miserere nobis Oh Lamb of God which takest away the sins of the world have mercy on us He thrice answered Ave Rex Judaeorum dabant illi alapas Hail King of the Jews and they smote him on the face Had his Holinesses hand gone with his tongue giving each of them a round box on the ear they should have been as much beholding to him as the men of Gotham were to the Gentleman who restored their lost man supposed to be drown'd by giving them every one a sound blow on the back with a Cudgel There will be but little conscience made of any Laws Civil or Ecclesiastical or respect had to Magistrate or Minister should Authority grant Dispensations to the prejudice of its own honour and to the rebatement of the vigour of injunctions as fast as some men will forge cavils and make pretensions The fellow that was bitten by the legs thought the City madly order'd where stones were tied up and dogs let loose But that Nation should be worse where Doves should be punisht and Crows set free where the peaceable and tractable should be circumscribed and proscribed by penalties and the extravagant and perverse indulged by faculties The Christian Prince who shall be perswaded to let loose his people to their own will-worship may pull down all the Churches in his Dominions and hang up the Priests But God be thanked who hath given our gracious Sovereign another manner of heart and a discerning spirit to know both from the word of God and from sad experience that as in those dayes when there was no King in Israel Jud. last every man did that which was right in his own eyes So in these dayes to let every man do that which is right in his own eyes will soon make again no King in Israel William the Conquerour took the right course to make a sorrest when he ruinated and laid waste the Churches and Chappels but I dare not commend his project because the world hath observed two fatal marks set upon it in the losse of two sons of his slain therein the one at his hunting of a Deer the other by an Arrow shot at a Deer but diverted from its intended scope by a glance on a tree There is no such ready way to turn a Christian Nation into
forget our friends old acquaintance and their good offices I once knew I do not propound him for imitation a Gentleman Pensioner to that glorious Prince of ever blessed memory King Charles the First that good King had too many such servants who having been oft liberally entertained and adored by a simple honest Countrey-man as often professed binding himself with desperate oaths whereof he had alwayes a great stock at command to do him remarkable favours upon all occasions It fortuned that the Countrey man fell into an unhappy Law-suit which beyond his expectation led him to Westminster where casually meeting with his old Courtier who was every mans humble servant and no mans true friend he took the boldnesse to scrape acquaintance on him supposing that he had been the same man he formerly was in the Countrey But this Grand Seignior with an ugly look and a rough greet made his modest Gaius face about and revoke acquaintance and having so shaked him off he said to a person standing by Do you see this rude impertinent fellow This Hob-nail-slave said he is so ill bred that he is not able to disting uish between a Gentlemans words and his meaning God defend us from such nice distinctions unworthy actions narrow hearts and large consciences And in all Courts and places of Judicature conscience would do exceedingly well and might befriend many a man more than a peny in his purse Could we see the poor mans case defended we should be fully perswaded that there were such a thing as a Court of Equity and Conscience But he that sues in formâ pauperis seldome prevails contrà materiam divitis but keeps his old form it faring with him in his case as with man in his birth and death Naked he comes in and naked he goes out Yet we have an Advocate General with God the Father Jesus Christ the Righteous 1 Joh. 2. who ought to be imitated by all Advocates considering no man shall be able to plead his own case without him And he takes delight to help the helplesse and the oppressed and made himself poor to enrich his clyents I shall not descend into all particulars because Inferiours would think it honourable to be conscientious might they see conscience honoured by the practice of their Superiours Oh it is a precious thing to have a good conscience as once said a Member of a Court of high Injustice Indeed he was able to tell how good a thing it was by the want of it and he knew the price of it having parted with it upon terms felling himself to work wickedness Thus have I been too long and yet not enough upon this subject I hope good people will pardon my plainness It is a case of conscience and when I am in I love to speak my conscience Quarite Deum Seek God A Great task and a general Catholick for time place and person which whoso performes not doth nothing for the man that finds not God is lost for ever This duty must be exercised early earnestly constantly and rightly and where one of these circumstances fail the seeker is deficient in his duty 1. Early Early in the life early in the day Oh God Psal 63.1 Matth. 6.33 thou art my God early will I seek thee Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and his righteousnes But the worldlings rule is taken out of the Ethnick Poet O Cives Cives quaerenda pecunia primùm est virtus post nummos Oh Politicians Politicians seek ye money before all things and let virtue follow after pelf 2. Earnestly Thou shalt find him Deut. 4.29 if thou seek him with all thy heart and with all thy soul They who seek him by halfs find him not at all for as God is not divided so will he not be deluded 3. Constantly Seek the Lord and his strength Psal 105.4 seek his face evermore Not that we should be so ever seeking as never finding like those ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth But so ever seeking 2 Tim. 3.7 as ever finding some comfort and contentment and because ever finding therefore ever seeking For no man so well knows the Lord and his goodness but that he may and ought every day more and more grow into his knowledg favour and acquaintance 4. Rightly For God will not be found of them that seek him indirectly They that seek for glory and honour Rom. 2.7 and immortality their way is laid out unto them through patient continuance in well doing And at their journeys end is promised them that eternal life But they that seek a contrary way are there told they shall find a contrary thing Quaeram te Domine invocans te Cons invoeem te credens in te saith St Aug. Oh let me seek thee Lord calling upon thee and let me call upon thee believing in thee Indeed it is in vain for men to honour God with their lips when their hearts are far from him And now we cannot but sadly remember how this Nation hath been abused with a mock-seeking of God upon all evill occasions and wicked enterprizes We cannot forget what fastings prayers and humiliations we had appointed and all to seek God that the poor silly people might be amazed at the sound of inchanting words and made believe that God by the mouth of mercinary false prophets as by an infallible oracle did speak clearly in favour of the most pernicious practices and high impieties that ever were acted amongst a Christian people It was not enough to abuse me but they must needs put tricks upon the Almighty and intitle him to all manner of villany For the erecting of arbitrary power and cutting asunder the sinews of Laws and Government which are the safety of a people for the pillaging of the subject and stripping him of goods and liberty for the murdering of the innocent and loyall for the destruction of King and people for the subversion of the Church for all and every of these designes still the word was given out such a day ye must seek the Lord. I know not unto what to liken this kind of language proceeding out of such mealy mouths and hollow hearts but to the canting of Gypsies and Cutpurses who when they go about to pick mens pockets have a dialect by themselves to abuse the common people and evade justice And as the Dunce that his Father put out to Schoole made Latine for every thing in bombast ending in bus and bas and orum and arum so these men made these two words Seek God serve to signifie every thing that the Devil and themselves projected and acted When Saul sought his fathers asses he found not them but he found a kingdom 1 Sam. 9. beyond his expectation and the asses were found by another hand These men had something of Sauls success for they found a kingdom though they enjoyed it but a little time No more did he But he had a better title for they had neither Gods nor Samuels word for it notwithstanding all their seeking And therefore it is be feared they lost a better kingdom in pursuit of this And this must be confessed other mens folly advanced their craft raised their esteem for wise men and therewith their dignity For had not the Asses been found and brought to their hand they had never gotten the kingdom I hope the whole Land hereafter will beware of such seekers and avoid such seeking And what shall I more say of them they sought Christ Matth. 2. as Herod did with his men of war in hypocrisie and malice and not finding him they murthered and massacred the innocent They sought God as the mad fellow in the Fable sought his Wife that fell into the River and was drowned He sought and sought and raked and groped but he went such a way that he was sure never to find her for he went up the River and so alwayes sought quite against the stream so these men sought God against the stream and current of Scriptures Commandments Laws and Customes Canons Councils and Fathers and against the practice of all Primitive and Modern Christians Oh seek not death in the error of your life Wisd 1.12 nor pull upon your selves destruction by the works of your own hands THe height of impudence the depth of maliciousness the length of wilfullness and the breadth of licentiousness are the four Dimensions of a Fanatick body which hath neither right side nor right end FINIS