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
in the time of health that it is saith August quasi Clavis carnit omnes motus superbiae ligno crucis affigens l. 2. de Doct. Christ much more when it comes in as it were at the window and looks men in the face Cyprian saith to those in health Qui se quotidie recordatur moriturum esse contemnit praesentia ad futura festinat much more qui sentit se statim moriturum Nil it a revocat à peccato saith Austin quam frequens mortis meditatio O how resolvedly will the worst of them seem to cast away their sins and promise a reformation and cry out of their folly and of the vanity of this world when they see that death is in good sadness with them and away they must without delay Perhaps you will say that these forced changes are not cordial and therefore we have no great hope of doing them any saving good I confess that it is very common to be frighted into uneffectual purposes but not so common to be at such a season converted to fixed resolutions And as Austin saith Non potest male mori qui bene vixerit vix bene moritur qui male vixit Yet vix and nunquam be not all one It should make both them and us the more diligent in the time of health because it is vix but yet we should bestir us at the last in the use of the last remedies because it is not nunquam And it will not be unuseful to our selves to read such Lectures of our own mortality It is better to go into the house of mourning then into the house of feasting for it tendeth to make the heart better when we see the end of all the living and what it is that the world will do for those that sell their salvation for it When we see that it will be our own case and there is no escape Scilicet omne Sacrum mors importuna prophanat Omnibus obscuras injicit illa manus it will make us talk to our selves in Bernards language Quare O miser non omni hora ad mortem te disponis Cogita te jam mortuum quem scis necessitate moriturum distingue qualiter oculi vertentur in capite venae rumpentur in corpore cor scindetur dolore When we see that as he saith death spareth none inopiae non miseretur non reveretur divitias non sapientiae non moribus non aetati denique parcit nisi quod senibus mors est in januis juvenibus vero in insidiis it will excite us the better to consider the use of faith and holiness that it is not to put by death but to put by hell not that we may not dye as certainly as others but that we may dye better and be certainly happy after death Because I intend no such thing as a Directory for the whole Ministerial work I will not stand to tell you particularly what must be done for men in that last extremity but only choose out these three or four things to remember you of passing by all the rest 1. Stay not till strength and understanding be gone and the time so short that you scarce know what to do but go to them as soon as you hear that they are sick whether they send for you or not 2. When the time is so short that there is no opportunity to endeavour the change of their hearts in that distinct way as is usual with others nor to press truths upon them in such order and stay the working of it by degrees we must therefore be sure to ply the main and dwell upon those truths which must do the great work Shewing them the certainty and glory of the life to come and the way by which it was purchased for us and the great sin and folly of their neglecting it in time of health but yet the possibility that remaineth of obtaining it if they but yet close with it heartily as their happiness and with the Lord Jesus as the way thereto and abhorring themselves for their former evil can now unfeignedly resign up themselves to him to be justified sanctified ruled and saved by him Three things must be chiefly insisted on 1. The End The Certainty and Greatness of the Glory of the Saints in the presence of God that so their hearts may be set upon it 2. The sufficiency and necessity of the Redemption by Jesus Christ and the fulness of the Spirit which we may and must be made partakers of This is the principal way to the end and the neerer end it self 3. The Necessity and Nature of faith repentance and resolutions for New Obedience according as there shall be opportunity This is the subservient way or the means that on our part must be performed 3. Labour upon Conviction and Deliberation to engage them by solemn promise to Christ and new obedience according to their opportunity specially if you see any likelyhood of their recovery 4. If they do recover be sure to mind them of their promises Go to them purposely to set it home and reduce them into performance And when ever after you see them remiss go to them then and mind them what they formerly said And because it is of such use to them that recover and hath been a means of the conversion of many a soul it is very necessary that you go to them whose sickness is not mortal as well as to them that are neerer death that so we may have some advantage to move them to repentance and engage them to newness of life and may afterward have this to plead against their sins As a Bishop of Colen is said by Aeneas Sylvius to have answered the Emperour Sigismund when he askt him What was the way to be saved that he must be what he purposed or promised to be when he was last troubled with the stone and the gout So may we hereafter answer these 8. Another part of our Ministerial Oversight consisteth in the right comforting the consciences of the troubled setling our people in a well grounded peace But this I have spoken of elsewhere and others have done it more at large 9. Another part of this Oversight is in Reproving and admonishing those that live offensively or impenitently and receiving the information of those that have admonished them more privately in vain Before we bring such matters to the Congregation or to a Representative Church it is ordinarily most fit for the Minister to try himself what he can do more privately to bow the sinner to repentance especally if it be not a publike crime A great deal of skill is here required and difference must be made according to the various tempers of offenders but with the most it will be necessary to fall on with the greatest plainness and power to shake their careless hearts and make them see what it is to dally with sin to let them know the evil of it and its sad effects and the unkindness unreasonableness
Gods publike worship and for other mutual assistance in the way to Salvation Exact Definitions we may not now stand on we have more fully made some attempts that way heretofore SECT V. II. LET us next consider What it is to take heed to our selves and wherein it must be done And here I may well for brevity sake adjoyn the Application to the Explication it being about the matter of our Practise that I may be put to go over as little as may be of the same things again Take therefore I beseech you all this Explication as so much Advice and Exhortation to the duty and let your hearts attend it as well as your understandings 1. Take heed to your selves lest you should be void of that saving Grace of God which you offer to others and be strangers to the effectual workings of that Gospel which you preach and lest while you proclaim the necessity of a Saviour to the world your own hearts should neglect him and you should miss of an interest in him and his saving benefits Take heed to your selves lest you perish while you call upon others to take heed of perishing and lest you famish your selves while you prepare their food Though there be a promise of shining as the stars to those that turn many to righteousness Dan. 12. 3. that is but on supposition that they be first turned to it themselves Such promises are meant caeteris paribus suppositis supponendis Their own sincerity in the faith is the condition of their glory simply considered though their great ministerial labours may be a condition of the promise of their greater glory Many a man hath warned others that they come not to that place of Torment which yet they hasted to themselves Many a Preacher is now in hell that hath an hundred times called upon his hearers to use the utmost care and diligence to escape it Can any reasonable man imagine that God should save men for offering salvation to others while they refused it themselves and for telling others those truths which they themselves neglected and abused Many a Taylor goes in raggs that maketh costly cloathes for others And many a Cook scarce licks his fingers when he hath dress't for others the most costly dishes Believe it Brethren God never saved any man for being a Preacher nor because he was an able Preacher but because he was a justified sanctified man and consequently faithful in his masters work Take heed therefore to your selves first that you be that which you perswade your hearers to be and believe that which you perswade them daily to believe and have heartily entertained that Christ and Spirit which you offer unto others He that bid you love your neighbours as your selves did imply that you should love your selves not hate and destroy your selves and them SECT VI. 2. TAke heed to your selves lest you live in those actual sins which you preach against in others and lest you be guilty of that which daily you condemn Will you make it your work to magnifie God and when you have done dishonour him as much as others Will you proclaim Christs Governing Power and yet contemn it and rebel your selves Will you preach his laws and willfully break them If sin be evil why do you live in it If it be not why do you disswade men from it If it be dangerous how dare you venture on it If it be not why do you tell men so If God 's threatnings be true why do you not fear them If they be false why do you trouble men needlesly with them and put them into such frights without a cause Do you know the Iudgement of God that they that commit such things are worthy of death and yet will you do them Rom. 1. 32. Thou that teachest another teachest thou not thy self Thou that saiest a man should not commit adultery or be drunk or covetous art thou such thy self Thou that makest thy boast of the Law through breaking the Law dishonourest thou God Rom. 2. 21 21 23. What shall the same tongue speak evil that speaketh against evil shall it censure and slander and secretly backbite that cryes down these and the like in others Take heed to your selves lest you should cry down sin and not overcome it lest while you seek to bring it down in others you bow to it and become its slaves your selves For of whom a man is overcome of the same is he brought in bondage 2 Pet. 2. 19. To whom you yield your selves servants to obey his servants ye are to whom ye obey whether of sin unto death or of obedience unto righteousness Rom. 6. 16. It is easier to chide at sin then to overcome it SECT VII 3. TAke heed also to your selves that you be not unfit for the great employments that you have undertaken He must not be himself a babe in knowledge that will teach men all those mysterious things that are to be known in order to salvation O What qualifications are necessary for that man that hath such a charge upon him as we have How many difficulties in Divinity to be opened Yea about the very fundamentals that must needs be known How many obscure Texts of Scripture to be expounded How many duties to be done wherein our selves and others may miscarry if in the matter and end and manner and circumstances they be not well informed How many sins to be avoided which without understanding and foresight cannot be done What a number of slye and subtile temptations must we open to our peoples eyes that they may escape them How many weighty and yet intricate cases of conscience have we almost daily to resolve Can so much work and such work as this be done by raw unqualified men O what strong holds have we to batter and how many of them What subtile and diligent and obstinate resistance must we expect at every heart we deal with Prejudice hath blockt up our way we can scarce procure a patient hearing They think ill of what we say while we are speaking it We cannot make a breach in their groundless hopes and carnal peace but they have twenty shifts and seeming reasons to make it up again and twenty enemies that are seeming friends are ready to help them We dispute not with them upon equal terms But we have children to reason with that cannot understand us we have distracted men in spirituals to reason with that will bawl us down with raging non-sense We have wilful unreasonable people to deal with that when they are silenced they are never the more convinc't and when they can give you no reason they will give you their resolution like the man that Salvian had to deal with lib. 4. de Gubernat p. 133. that being resolved to devoure a poor mans means and being intreated by Salvian to forbear told him He could not grant his request for he had made a Vow to take it so that the Preacher audita religiosissimi sceleris
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
reformation of the Church which our meetings should conduce to 3. And I give you this further answer What had the Church of Christ done till the daies of Constantine the great if it had no better Pastors then you that will not Govern it without the joynt compulsion of the Magistrate Discipline and severe Discipline was exercised for three hundred years together where the Prince did not give them so much as a Protection nor Toleration but perfecuted them to the death Then was the Church at the best and Discipline most pure and powerful say not then any more for shame that it is to no purpose without a Magistrate when it hath done so much against their wills O what an aggravation is it of our sin That you cannot be content to be negligent and unfaithful servants but you must also flie in the face of your Lord and Master and obliquely lay the blame on him What do you else when you blame Churchcenâ—ures as uneffectual when you should blame your lazy self seeking hearts that shift off the use of them Hath Christ put a leaden sword into your hands when he bids you smite the obstinate sinner Or are you cowardly and careless and then blame your sword instead of using it as thinking that the easier task Are the Keyes of Christs Kingdom so unmeet and useless that they will not open and shut without the help of the sword or are you unskillful and lazy in the use of them If they have contracted any rust by which they are made less fit for service next to the Prelates we may thank our selves that let them lie so long unused 4. And I must tell you that too much interposition of the sword with our Discipline would do more harm then good It would but corrupt it by the mixture and make it become a humane thing Your Government is all to work upon the conscience and the sword cannot reach that It is not a desirable thing to have Repentance so obscured by meer forced Confessions that you cannot know when men do mean as they speak and so it will be the sword that doth all by forcing men to dissemble and you will not discern the power of the Word and Ordinance of Christ I confess since I fell upon the exercise of some Discipline I find by experience that if the sword did interpose and force all those Publike Confessions of sin and Profession of Repentance which I have perswaded men to by the light of the word of God it would have left me much unsatisfied concerning the validity of such Confessions and Promises whether they might indeed be satisfactory to the Church And I find that the godly people do no further regard it then they perceive it hearty and free and if it were forced by Magistrates they would take him for no Penitent person nor be any whit satisfied but say He doth it because he dare do no otherwise And I must add this word of plainer dealing yet You blame the Magistrate for giving so much liberty and is it not long of your selves that he doth so You will scarce believe that such enemies to Liberty of Conscience are the causes of it I think that you are and that the keenest enemies have been the greatest causes For you would run too far to the other extream and are so confident in every controversie that you are in the right and lay such a stress upon many Opinions of your own as if life or death did lie upon them when perhaps the difference may prove more verbal then real if it were searcht to the quick that this occasioneth Magistrates to run too far the other way and if they look on such as and dare not trust the sword in such hands you may thank your selves Truly Brethren I see by experience that there is among many of the most injudicious of us such a blind confused zeal against all that is called error by their party that without being able to try and make a difference they let flie pell mell at all alike and make a great out-cry against errors when either we know not what they are nor how to confute them nor which he tolerable in the Church and which intolerable nor how far we may hold or break Communion with the owners of them and perhaps are the erroneous persons our selves The observation of this hath made the Magistrates so over-jealous of us that they think if they set in with a party in each contention we shall never be without blood and misery And I confess I see in some Ministers so little of the fire of Divine Love and Christian Charity and compassion nor heavenly mindedness nor humble sense of their own infirmities and so much of the zeal that Iames describeth Iam. 3. 14 15. which is kindled from another fire that makes them full of suspicions and jealousies and keen and eager against their Brethren censuring defaming and unconscionably back-biting them and straining an ill sense out of their well meant words and actions and living towards them in plain envy and malice instead of Christian love and peace I say I see so much of this in many that affect the Reputation of Orthodox while they are indeed factious that I am the less sorry that the Magistrate doth so little interpose For were the sword in such envious angry hands there would be little quiet to the Church For there is no two men on earth but differ in something if they know or believe any thing And these men must square the world to their own judgements which are not alway the wisest in the world They that dare so rail at others as Blasphemers when they know not what they say themselves durst suâ—e smite them as Blasphemers if they had power This may possibly make the Magistrate think meet seeing we are so quarrelsom and impatient to let us fight it out by the bare fists and not to put swords into our hands till we are more sober and know better how to use them For if every passionate man when he hath not wit enough to make good his cause should presently borrow the Magistrates sword to make it good truth would be upon great disadvantage in the world Magistrates are commonly the most tempted and abused men and therefore I know not why we should call so lowd to have them become the Arbitrators in all our quarrels lest error have two victories where truth gets one I could wish the Magistrate did more but if he do but give us Protection and Liberty specially if he will but restrain Deceivers from preaching against the great unquestionable truths of the Gospel and give publike Countenance and Encouragement to those master-truths I shall not fear by the Grace of God but a prudent sober unanimous Ministery will ere long shame the swarm of vanities that we think so threatning But I have been too long on this I shall only conclude it with this earnest request to my Brethren of the Ministery
it and to argue the case with them that neither understand themselves nor you and yet think that no man hath understanding that contradicteth them and that are confident they are in the right when they can shew nothing but that confidence to make them confident their will is the reason of their judgements and lives it satisfies them and it must satisfie you O Brethren what a world of wickedness have we to contend against in some one soul and what a number of those worlds what rooting have their sins what disadvantage must truth come upon How strange are they to the Heavenly message that we bring them and know not what you say when you speak in that only language that they understand And when you think you have done something you leave your seed among the sowls of the air wicked men are at their elbows to rise up and contradict all that you have said They will cavil and carp and slander you that they may disgrace your message and deride and scorn them away from Christ and quickly extinguish the good beginnings that you hoped you had seen They use indeed weaker reasons then yours but such as come with more advantage being neer them and familiarly and importunately urged and such as are fetcht from things that they see and feel and which are befriended by their own flesh You speak but once to a sinner for ten times or twenty times that the Messengers of Satan speak to them moreover how easily do the cares and businesses of the world devour and choak the seed which you have sown And if it had no enemy but what is in themselves how easily will a frozen carnal heart extinguish those sparks which you have been long in kindling and for want of fewel and further help they will go out of themselves What abundance of distemperers and lusts and passions do you cast your gracious words amongst and what entertainment such companions will afford them you may easily conjecture And when you think your work doth happily succeed and have seen men under troubles and complaints confessing their sins and promising reformation and living as new creatures and zealous converts alas after all this they may prove unsound and false at the heart and such as were but superficially changed and took up new Opinions and new company without a new heart How many are after a notable change deceived by the profits and honours of the world and fallen away while they think they stand How many are entangled again in their former sensuality and how many do but change a disgraceful way of flesh-pleasing for a way that is less dishonourable and maketh not so great a noise in their consciences How many grow proud before they reach to a settled knowledge greedily snatch at every error that is presented to them under the name of Truth and in confidence of the strength of their unfurnished intellects despise them that they were wont to learn of and become the greatest grief to their Teachers that before rejoyced in their hopeful beginnings And like Chickens that straggle from the hen they are carried away by that infernal Kite while they proudly despise the Guidance and advice of those that Christ hath set over them for their safety O Brethren what a field of work is there before us not a person that you can see but may find you work In the Saints themselves how soon do their graces languish if you neglect them and how easily are they drawn into scandalous waies to the dishonour of the Gospel and their own loss and sorrow If this be the work of a Minister you may see what a life he hath to lead Up then and let us be doing with all our might Difficulties must quicken and not discourage in a Possible and Necessary work If we cannot do all let us do what we can For if we neglect it woe to us and them Should we pass over all these needful things and by a plausible Sermon only think to prove our selves faithful Ministers and to put off God and man with such a shell and formal vizor our Reward would prove as superficial as our work 2. Consider also that it is by your own voluntary undertaking and engagement that all this work is laid upon you No man forced you to be Overseers of the Church And doth not common honesty bind you to be true to your trust 3. Consider also that you have the Honour to encourage you to the Labour And a great honour indeed it is to be the Embassadors of God and the instruments of mens conversion and salvation to save mens souls from death and cover a multitude of sins Jam. 5 ult Indeed the honour is but the attendant of the work To do therefore as the Prelates of the Church in all ages have done to strive for precedency and fill the world with vile contentions about the dignity and superiority of their seats doth shew that they much forget the nature and work of that office which they strive about I seldom see men strive so seriously who shall go first to a poor mans cottage to teach him and his family the way to heaven or who shall first endeavour the conversion of a sinner or first become the servant of all strange that for all the plain expressions of Christ men will not understand the nature of their office If they did would they strive who should be the Pastor of a whole County and more when there are ten thousand poor sinners in it that cry for help and they are not so eager to engage for their relief Nay when they can patiently live in the houses with riotous profane persons and not follow them seriously and uncessantly for their change And that they would have the Name and Honour of the work of a County who are unable to do all the work of a Parish when the Honour is but the appendix of the work Is it Names and Honour or the Work and End that these desire O if they would faithfully humbly and self-denyingly lay out themselves for Christ and his Church and never think of Titles and Reputation they should then have Honour whether they would or not but by gaping after it they lose it For this is the case of vertues shadow Quod sequitu fugio quod fugit ipse sequor 4. Consider also you have the many other excellent Priviledges of the Ministerial office to encourage you to the work If you will not therefore do the work you have nothing to do with the Priviledges It s something that you are maintained by other mens labours and live on the common-wealths allowance This is for your work that you may not be taken off it but as Paul requireth may Wholly give your selves to these things and not be forced to neglect mens souls whilest you are providing for your own bodies Either do the work then or take not the maintenance But you have far greater Priviledges yet then this Is
birth of them till Christ be formed in them And then you will take such opportunities as your harvest-time and as the un-shine daies in a rainy harvest in which it is unreasonable unexcusable to be idle If you have any spark of Christian compassion in you it wil sure seem worth your utmost labour to save so many souls from death and to recover so great a multitude of sins If you are indeed co-workers with Christ set then to his work and neglect not the souls for whom he dyed O remember when you are talking with the unconverted that now there is an opportunity in your hands to save a soul and to rejoyce the Angels of heaven and to rejoyce Christ himself and that your work is to cast Satan out of a sinner and to increase the family of God And what is your own Hope or Joy or Crown of rejoycing Is it not your saved people in the presence of Christ Jesus at his coming Yea doubtless they are your glory and your joy 1 Thes 2. 19 20. 2. THE second happy Benefit of our work if well managed will be The most orderly building up of those that are converted and the stablishing them in the faith It hazardeth the whole work or at least much hindereth it when we do it not in the order that it must be done How can you build if you first lay not a good foundation or how can you set on the top-stone while the middle parts are neglected Gratia non facit saltum any more than nature The second order of Christian Truths have such dependance upon the first that they can never be well learned till the first are learned This makes so many deluded novices that are pust up with the vain conceits of knowledge while they are grosly ignorant and itch to be preaching before they well know what it is to be Christians because they took not the work before them but learnt some lesser matters which they heard most talk of before they learnt the vital Principles And this makes many labour so much in vain and are still learning but never come to the knowledge of the Truth because they would learn to read before they learn to spell or to know their letters And this makes so many fall away and shaken with every wind of temptation because they were not well settled in the fundamentals It is these Fundamentals that must lead men to further truths It is these they must bottom and build all upon It is these that they must live upon and that must actuate all their graces and animate all their duties It is these that must fortifie them against particular temptations and he that knows these well doth know so much as will make him happy and he that knows not these knows nothing and he that knows these best is the best and most understanding Christian The most godly people therefore in your Congregations will find it worth their labour to learn the very words of a Catechism And if you would safely edifie them and firmly stablish them be diligent in this work 3. A Third Benefit that may be expected by the well-managing of this work is this It will make our publike preaching to be better understood and regarded When you have acquainted them with the Principles they will the better understand all that you say They will perceive what you drive at when they are once acquainted with the main This prepareth their minds and openeth you a way to their hearts when without this you may lose the most of your labour and the more pains you take in accurate preparations the less good you do As you would not therefore lose your publike labour see that you be faithful in this private work 4. AND this is not a contemptible Benefit that by this course you will come to be familiar with your people when you have had the opportunity of familiar conference And the want of this with us that have very numerous Parishes is a great impediment to the success of our labours By distance and unacquaintedness slanderers and deceivers have opportunity to possess them with false conceits of you which prejudice their minds against your doctrine and by this distance and strangeness abundance of mistakes between Ministers and people are fomented Besides that familiarity it self doth tend to beget those affections which may open their ears to further teaching And when we are familiar with them they will be more encouraged to open their doubts and seek resolution and deal freely with us But when a minister knoweth not his people or is as strange to them as if he did not know them it must be a great hindrance to his doing them any good 5. BEsides by the means of these private Instructions we shall come to be the better acquainted with each persons spiritual state and so the better know how to watch over them and carry our selves towards them ever after We may know the better how to preach to them when we know their temper and their chief objections and so what they have most need to hear We shall the better know wherein to be jealous of them with a pious jealousie and what temptations to help them most against We shal the better know how to lament for them and to rejoyce with them and to pray for them to God For as he that will pray rightly for himself will know his own sores and wants and the diseases of his own heart so he that will pray rightly for others should know theirs as far as he may and as is meet If a man have the charge but of sheep or cattle he cannot so well discharge his trust if he know them not and their state and qualities So is it with the Master that will well teach his Schollars and Parents that will rightly educate their children And so with us 6. AND then this tryal of and acquaintance with our peoples state will better satisfie us in the administration of the Sacraments We may the better understand how far they are fit or unfit Though this give them not the state or relation of a Member of that Church whereof we are Over-seers yet because the Members of the Church Universal though they are of no particular Church may in some cases have a right to the Ordinances of Christ in those particular Churches where they come and in some cases they have no right we may by this means be the better informed how to deal with them though they be no members of that particular Church And whereas many will question a Minister that examineth his people in order to the Lords Supper by what authority he doth it the same work will be done this way in a course beyond exception Though I doubt not but a Minister may require his Flock to come to him at any convenient season to give an account of their faith and proficiency and to receive instruction and therefore he may do it in preparation to the Sacrament
that which we need not and should not because we will not fall closely to do that which we need and should And if we could handsomly contrive the more understanding sort of our people to assist us in private helping others though prejudice of others and their own unripeness and unfitness much hinder it would be the most effectual way to prevent their running into preaching distempers or into schisms For this employment would take them up and content the teaching humor that they are inclined to And it might make their parts more useful in a safe and lawful way 17. MOreover The very dilgent practice of this work that we are are upon would do much to set men right about many controversies that now trouble the Church and so to put an end to our differences Especially most of those about the Ministery Churches and Discipline would receive more convincing light by practice then all our idle talking or writing will afford us We have fallen of late into parties and troubled the Church about many controversies concerning excommunication in such and such cases which perhaps never will fall out or if they do they cannot be so well decided by any man that is not engaged in the practice It is like the profession of a Physitian a souldier a Pilot c. who can never be worth a straw at his work by all the precepts in the world without practise and experience This will be the only course to make 1. Sound Divines in the main which bare studying will not do 2. And recover us again to the Primitive simplicity to live upon the substantial necessary things 3. And to direct and resolve us in many of ouâ— quarrels that will no other way be well resolved For example If this work had been set on foot and it had been but visible what it is to have the oversight of souls durst any Prelates have contended for the sole Oversight of 200. or 400. or 1000 Churches and that the Presbyters might be but their curates and informers Durst they have striven with might and main to have drawn upon themselves such impossibilities and have carried such mountains on their backs and to answer God as Over-seers and Pastors of so many thousand people whose faces they were never like to see much less were they ever like to speak one word to them for their everlasting life Would they not have said If I must be a Bishop let me be a Parochial Bishop or have no more to oversee then I am capable of overseeing and let me be such as the Primitive Bishops were that had but one Church and not hundreds to take care of and let me not be engaged to natural impossibilities and that on pain of damnation and to the certain destruction of the business that I undertake sure these would rather have been their strivings I speak not this against any Bishops that acknowledge the Presbyters to be true Pastors to rule and teach the Flock and take themselves only to be the chief or Presidents among the Presbyters yea or the Rulers of Presbyters that are the Rulers of the Flock but of them that null the Presbyters office and the Churches Government and Discipline by undertaking it alone as their sole prerogative Many other Disciplinary controversies I might instance in that will be better resolved by this course of practice by the abundant experience which it will afford then by all the disputations or writings that have attempted it 18. AND then for the extent of the foresaid Benefits which in the two next places shall now be considered The design of this work is the Reforming and saving of all the people in our several Parishes For we shall not leave out any man that will submit to be instructed And though we can scarce hope that every particular person will be reformed and saved by it yet have we reason to hope that as the attempt is universal so the success will be more general or extensive then hitherto we have seen of our other labours Sure I am it is most like to the spirit and precept and offers of the Gospel which requireth us to preach the Gospel to every creature and promiseth life to every man if he will accept it by believing If God would have all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth that is as Rector and Benefactor of the world he hath manifested himself willing to save All men if they will themselves though his Elect he will also make willing then sure it beseems us to offer salvation unto all men and to endeavour to bring them to the knowledge of the truth And if Christ tasted death for every man its meet we should preach his death for every man This work hath a more excellent design then our accidental conferences with now and then a particular person And I observe that in such occasional discourses men satisfie themselves to have spoken some good words but seldom set plainly and closely to the matter to convince men of sin and misery and mercy as in this purposely appointed work we are now more like to do 19. AND further It is like to be a work that shall reach over the whole Land and not stop with us that have now engaged in it For though it be at the present neglected I suppose the cause is the same with our Brethren as it hath all this while been with us who by vain expectations of the Magistrates interposition or by that inconsiderateness and lazyness which we are bewailing here this day have so much omitted it till now as we have done but specially a despair of a common submission of the people hath been the hindrance But when they shall be remembered of so clear and great a duty and excited to the consideration of it and see with us the feisableness of it in a good measure when it is done by common consent no doubt they will universally take it up and gladly concurr with us in so blessed a work For they are the servants of the same God as regardful of their Flocks and as consciencious as we and as sensible of the Interest of Christ and as compassionate to mens souls and as self-denying and ready to do or suffer for such excellent ends seeing therefore they have the same Spirit Rule and Lord I will not be so uncharitable as to doubt whether all that are godly or the generality of them will gladly joyn with us through all the Land And O what a happy thing it will be to see such a general combination for Christ and to see all England so seriously called upon and importuned for Christ and set in so fair a way to heaven Me thinks the consideration of it should make our hearts rejoyce within us to see so many faithful servants of Christ all over the Land to fall in with every particular sinner with such industrious sollicitations for the saving of their souls as men that will hardly
4. And yet harder will you find it to work things upon their hearts and set them so close to the quick as to make that saving change which is our end and without which our labour is almost lost Oh what a block what a rock is a hardened carnal heart How stiffly will it resist the most powerful perswasions and hear of everlasting life or death as a thing of nothing If you have not therefore great seriousness and fervency and working matter and fitness of expression what good can you expect And when all is done the spirit of Grace must do the work But as God and men do use to choose instruments most suitable to the nature of the agent work or end so here the spirit of wisdom life and holiness doth not use to work by foolish dead or carnal instruments but by such perswasions of Light and Life and Purity as are likest to it self and to the work that is to be wrought thereby 5. And when you have made some desirable Impressions on their hearts if you look not after them and have not a special care of them when they are gone their hearts will soon return to their former hardness and their old companions and temptations will work off all again I do but briefly hint these things which you so well know All the difficulties of the work of conversion which you use to acquaint the people with are here before us in our present work which I will forbear to enumerate as supposing it unnecessary SECT III. III. THE third sort of moving Reasons are drawn from the Necessity of the undertaken work For if it were not Necessary the lazy might be discouraged rather then excited by the forementioned difficulties as is aforesaid And if we should here expatiate we might find matter for a volumn by it self But because I have already been longer then I did intend I shall only give you a brief hint of some of the general grounds of this Necessity And 1. it is Necessary by Obligation Ut Officium Necessitate praeceoti and 2. It is necessary ad finem and that 1. For God 2. For our neighbours 3. And for our selves 1. For the first of these 1. We have on us the Obligation of Scripture-precepts 1. General 2. Special And 2. the subservient obligation or the first bound faster on us by Promises and Threatnings 3. And these also seconded by executions even 1. by actual Judgements 2. and mercies And lastly we have the Obligation of our own undertaking upon us These all deserve your Consideration but may not be insisted on by me lest I be over tedious 1. Every Christian is Obliged to do all that he can for the salvation of others but every Minister is doubly obliged because he is separated to the Gospel of Christ and is to give up himself wholly to that work Rom. 1. 1. 1 Tim. 4. 15. It is needless to make any further question of our Obligation when we know that this work is needful to our peoples conversion and salvation and that we are in general commanded to do all that is needful to those ends as far as we are able That they are necessary to those ends hath been shewed before and shall be more anon Even the antient professors have need to be taught the Principles of Gods Oracles if they have neglected it or forgot it saith the Apostle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Heb. 5. 12. Whether the unconverted have need of conversion and the means of it I hope is no doubt among us And whether this be a means and a needful means experience may put us far out of doubt if we had no more Let them that have taken most pains in publike examine their people and try whether many of them be not yet as ignorant and careless almost as if they had never heard the Gospel For my part I study to speak as plainly and movingly as I can and next my study to speak truly these are my chief studies and yet I frequently meet with those that have been my hearers this 8. or 10. years who know not whether Christ be God or man and wonder when I tell them the history of his birth and life and death and sending abroad the Gospel as if they had never heard it before and that know not that Infants have any original sin And of those that know the History of the Gospel how few are they that know the nature of that faith repentance and holiness that it requireth Or at least that know their own hearts But most of them have an ungrounded affiance in Christ trusting that he will pardon justifie and save them while the world hath their hearts and they live to the flesh And this assiance they take for a justifying-faith I have found by experience that an ignorant sot that hath been an unprofitable hearer so long hath got more knowledge and remorse of conscience in half an hours close discourse then they did from ten years publike preaching I know that preaching of the Gospel publikely is the most excellent means because we speak to many at once But otherwise it is usually far more effectual to preach it privately to a particular sinner as to himself For the plainest man that is can scarce speak plain enough in publike for them to understand but in private we may much more In publike we may not use such homely expressions or repetitions as their dulness doth require but in private we may In publike our speeches are long and we quite over-run their understandings and memories and they are confounded and at a loss and not able to follow us and one thing drives out another and so they know not what we said But in private we can take our work graâ—â—tim and take our hearers with us as we go and by questions and their answers we can see how far they go with us and what we have next to do In publike by length and speaking alone we lose their attentions But when they are Interlocutors we can easily cause them to attend Besides that we can as was abovesaid better answer their Objections and engage them by Promises before we leave them which in publike we cannot do I conclude therefore that publike preaching will not be sufficient For though it may be an effectual means to convert many yet not so many as experience and Gods appointment of further means may assure us Long may you study and preach to little purpose if you neglect this duty 2. And for instances of particular special Obligations we might easily shew you many both from Christs own example who used this interlocutory preaching both to his Disciples and to the Jews and from the Apostles examples who did the like But that indeed it would be needless tediousness to recite the passages to those that so well know them it being the most ordinary way of the Apostles preaching to do it thus interlocutorily and by discourse And when they did make a speech
throughly humble the Ministry and cause them to bewail their own neglects and to set apart some daies through the Land to that end that they may not think it enough to lament the sins of others while they over-look their own and that God may not abhor our solemn National humiliations because they are managed by unhumbled Guides and that we may first prevail with him for a pardon for our selves that we may be the fitter to beg for the pardon of others And O that we might cast out the dung of our Pride Contention Self-seeking and Idleness lest God should cast our sacrifices as dung in our faces and should cast us out as the dung of the earth as of late he hath done many others for our warning and that we might presently Resolve in concord to mend our pace before we feel a sharper spur then hitherto we have felt SECT V. 2. AND now Brethren what have we to do for the time to come but to deny our lazy contradicting flesh and rouze up our selves to the business that we are engaged in The harvest is great the labourers are too few the loyterers and contentious hinderers are many the souls of men are precious the misery of sinners is great and the everlasting misery that they are near to is greater the beauty and glory of the Church is desirable the joy that we are helping them to is unconceivable the comfort that followeth a faithful steward-ship is not small the comfort of a full success also will be greater to be co-workers with God and his Spirit is not a little honour to subserve the blood-shed of Christ for mens salvation is not a light thing to lead on the Armies of Christ through the thickest of the enemies and guide them safely through a dangerous wilderness and steer the vessel through such storms and rocks and sands and shelves and bring it safe to the harbour of Rest requireth no small skill and diligence the fields now seem even white unto harvest the preparations that have been made for us are very great the season of working is more warm and calm then most ages before us have ever seen we have carelesly loytered too long already the present time is posting away while we are trifling men are dying how fast are men passing into another world And is there nothing in all this to awaken us to our duty and to resolve us to speedy and unwearied diligence Can we think that a man can be too careful and painful under all these motives and engagements Or could that man be a fit instrument for other mens illumination that were himself so blind or for the quickning of others that were himself so sensless What Sirs are you that are men of wisdom as dull as the common people and do we need to heap up a multitude of words to perswade you to a known and weighty duty One would think it should be enough to set you on work to shew a line in the Book of God to prove it to be his will or to prove to you that the work hath a tendency to mens salvation One would think that the very sight of your miserable neighbours should be motive sufficient to draw out your most compassionate endeavours for their relief If a cripple do but unlap his sores and shew you his disabled limbs it will move you without words and will not the case of souls that are neer to damnation move you O happy Church if the Physicians were but healed themselves and if we had not too much of that Infidelity and stupidity which we daily preach against in others and were soundlyer perswaded of that which we perswade men of and deeplyer affected with the wonderful things wherewith we would affect them Were there but such clear and deep impressions upon our souls of those glorious things that we daily preach O what a change would it make in our Sermons and in our private course O what a miserable thing it is to the Church and to themselves that men must preach of Heaven and Hell before they soundly believe that there are such things Or have felt the weight of the Doctrines which they preach It would amaze a sensible man to think what matters we preach and talk of What it is for the soul to pass out of this flesh and go before a righteous God and enter upon unchangeable Joy or Torment O with what amazing thoughts do dying men apprehend those things How should such matters be preacht and discourst of O the gravity the seriousness the uncessant diligence that these things require I know not what others think of them but for my part I am ashamed of my stupidity and wonder at my self that Ideal not with my own and others souls as one that looks for the great day of the Lord and that I can have room for almost any other thoughts or words and that such astonishing matters do not wholly take me up I marvaâ—l how I can preach of them slightly and coldly and how I can let men alone in their sins and that I do not go to them and beseech them for the Lords sake to Repent how ever they take it and whatever pains or trouble it should cost me I seldom come out of the Pulpit but my Conscience smiteth me that I have been no more serious and servent in such a Case It accuseth me not so much for want of humane ornaments or elegancy nor for letting fall an unhansom word But it asketh me How couldst thou speak of Life and Death with such a Heart How couldst thou Preach of Heaven and Hell in such a careless sleepy manner Dost thou believe what thou saist Art thou in earrest or in jest How canst thou tell people that sin is such a thing and that so much misery is upon them and before them and be no more affected with it shouldst thou not weep over such a people and should not thy tears interrupt thy words shouldst thou not cry aloud and shew them their transgressions and intreat and beseech as for life and death Truly this is the peal that Conscience doth ring in my ears and yet my drouzie soul will not be awakened O what a thing is a senseless hardened heart O Lord save us from the plague of Infidelity and Hard-heartedness our selves or else how shall we be fit Instruments of saving others from it O do that on our own souls which thou wouldst use us to do on the souls of others I am even confounded to think what difference there is between my sickness apprehensions and my Pulpit and discoursing apprehensions of the life to come That ever that can seem so light a matter to me now which seemeth so great and astonishing a matter then and I know will do so again when death looks me in the face when yet I daily know and think of that approaching hour and yet those fore thoughts will not recover such working apprehensions O Brethren sure if