the Just the Wise and Good God neither does nor can require of Man any thing that is Impossible or Naturally beyond his Power to Doe And therefore in the Second place the Measure of this Rule by which the just extent and bounds of it are to be determined must be that Power or Ability that Man Naturally has to doe or perform the Things Willed by him So that wheresoever such a Power is found there this Rule of God's Accepting the Will has no place and wheresoever such a Power is not found there this Rule presently becomes in force And accordingly in the Third and Last place The Abuse or Misapplication of this Rule will consist in these Two Things 1. That Men do very often take that to be an Act of the Will that really and truly is not so 2. That they reckon many things impossible that indeed are not impossible And first to begin with Men's mistakes about the Will and the Acts of it I shall Note these Three by which Men are extremely apt to impose upon themselves 1. As first the bare Approbation of the Worth and Goodness of a Thing is not properly the Willing of that Thing and yet Men do very commonly account it so But this is properly an Act of the Understanding or Judgment a faculty wholly distinct from the Will and which makes a Principal part of that which in Divinity we call Natural Conscience and in the Strength of which a Man may approve of things good and excellent without ever willing or intending the Practice of them And accordingly the Apostle Rom. 2.18 gives us an account of some who Approved of things excellent and yet Practised and consequently Willed things clean contrary Since no Man can commit a Sin but he must Will it first Whosoever observes and looks into the workings of his own heart will find that noted Sentence Video meliora proboque Deteriora sequor too frequently and fatally verify'd upon himself The 7th of the Romans which has been made the Unhappy Scene of so much Controversie about these Matters has several passages to this purpose In a word to Judge what ought to be done is one Thing and to Will the doing of it is quite another No doubt Vertue is a beautifull and a glorious thing in the Eyes of the most Vicious person breathing and all that he does or can hate in it is the Difficulty of its Practice For it is Practice alone that Divides the World into Vertuous and Vitious but otherwise as to the Theory and Speculation of Vertue and Vice Honest and Dishonest the Generality of Mankind are much the same For Men do not approve of Vertue by Choice and free Election but it is an Homage which Nature commands all Understandings to pay to it by necessary Determination and yet after all it is but a faint unactive thing for in Defiance of the Judgment the Will may still remain as perverse and as much a stranger to Vertue as it was before In fine there is as much Difference between the Approbation of the Iudgment and the Actual Volitions of the Will with relation to the same Object as there is between a Man's viewing a Desirable thing with his Eye and his reaching after it with his Hand 2 dly The Wishing of a Thing is not properly the Willing of it though too often mistaken by Men for such But it is that which is called by the Schools an Imperfect Velleity and imports no more than an idle Un-operative complacency in and desire of the End without any Consideration of nay for the most part with a Direct Abhorrence of the Means of which Nature I account that Wish of Balaam in Numb 23.10 Let me die the Death of the Righteous and let my last End be like his The thing it self appeared Desirable to him and accordingly he could not but like and desire it but then it was after a very irrational absurd way and contrary to all the Methods and Principles of a Rational Agent which never Wills a Thing really and properly but it applies to the Means by which it is to be acquired But at that very time that Balaam desired to Die the Death of the Righteous he was actually following the Wages of Unrighteousness and so thereby engaged in a Course quite contrary to what he desired and consequently such as could not possible bring him to such an End Much like the Sot that cried Utinam hoc esset Laborare while he lay Lazing and Lolling upon his Couch But every true Act of Volition imports a respect to the End by and through the Means and Wills a Thing only in that way in which it is to be compassed or effected which is the foundation of that most true Aphorism That He who Wills the End Wills also the Means The truth of which is founded in such a Necessary Connexion of the terms that I look upon the Proposition not only as True but as Convertible and that as a Man cannot truly and properly Will the End but he must also Will the Means so neither can he Will the Means but he must Vertually and by Interpretation at least Will the End Which is so true that in the account of the Divine Law a man is reckoned to Will even those things that Naturally are not the Object of Desire such as Death it self Ezek. 18.31 only because he Wills those Ways and Courses that naturally tend to and end in it And even our own Common Law looks upon a Man's raising Arms against or Imprisoning his Prince as an Imagining or Compassing of his Death Forasmuch as these Actions are the Means directly leading to it and for the most part actually concluding in it and consequently that the Willing of the One is the Willing of the Other also To Will a thing therefore is certainly much another thing from what the Generality of Men especially in their Spiritual concerns take it to be I say in their Spiritual concerns for in their Temporal it is manifest that they Think and Judge much otherwise and in the Things of this World no man is allowed or believed to Will any thing heartily which he does not endeavour after proportionably A Wish is properly a man of Desire sitting or lying still but an Act of the Will is a Man of Business vigorously going about his Work And certainly there is a great deal of Difference between a Man's stretching out his Arms to work and his stretching them out only to yawn 3 dly and Lastly A mere Inclination to a thing is not properly a Willing of that thing and yet in matters of Duty no doubt men frequently reckon it for such For otherwise why should they so often plead and rest in the goodness of their Hearts and the honest and well-inclin'd disposition of their Minds when they are justly charged with an Actual non-performance of what the Law requires of them But that an Inclination to a thing is not a Willing of that thing
him they neither melt nor endear him but leave him as hard as rugged and as unconcerned as ever All Kindnesses descend upon such a Temper as Showers of Rain or Rivers of fresh Water falling into the main Sea The Sea swallows them all but is not at all changed or sweetned by them I may truly say of the Mind of an Ungratefull person that it is Kindness-proof It is impenetrable unconquerable Unconquerable by that which conquers all things else even by Love it self Flints may be melted we see it daily but an Ungratefull heart cannot no not by the strongest and noblest Flame After all your Attempts all your Experiments for any thing that Man can doe He that is Ungratefull will be Ungratefull still And the reason is manifest for you may remember that I told you that Ingratitude sprang from a Principle of Ill-nature Which being a thing founded in such a certain Constitution of Blood and Spirits as being born with a Man into the World and upon that account called Nature shall prevent all Remedies that can be applied by Education and leaves such a Byass upon the Mind as is before-hand with all Instruction So that you shall seldom or never meet with an Ungratefull person but if you look backward and trace him up to his Original you will find that he was born so and if you could look forward enough it is a Thousand to One but you will find that he also dies so for you shall never light upon an ill-natur'd Man who was not also an ill-natur'd Child and gave several Testimonies of his being so to discerning Persons long before the Use of his Reason The thread that Nature spins is seldom broken off by any thing but Death I do not by this limit the Operation of God's Grace for that may do Wonders But humanly speaking and according to the method of the World and the little Correctives supplied by Art and Discipline it seldom fails but an ill Principle has its Course and Nature makes good its Blow And therefore where Ingratitude begins remarkably to shew it self he surely judges most wisely who takes the Alarm betimes and arguing the Fountain from the Stream concludes that there is Ill-nature at the bottom and so reducing his Judgment into Practice timely withdraws his frustraneous baffled Kindnesses and sees the folly of Endeavouring to stroke a Tyger into a Lamb or to court an AEthiopian out of his Colour 3 dly In the Third and Last place Wheresoever you see a Man notoriously Ungratefull rest assured that there is no true Sense of Religion in that Person You know the Apostle's argument in 1 Iohn 4.20 He who loveth not his Brother whom he hath seen how can he love God whom he hath not seen So by an exact parity of Reason we may argue If a man has no Sense of those Kindnesses that pass upon him from One like himself whom he sees and knows and converses with sensibly how much less shall his Heart be affected with the gratefull Sense of his Favours whom he converses with only by imperfect Speculations by the Discourses of Reason or the Discoveries of Faith neither of which equal the quick and lively Impressions of Sense If the Apostles reasoning was Good and Concluding I am sure this must be Unavoidable But the thing is too evident to need any proof For shall that man pass for a Proficient in Christ's School who would have been Exploded in the School of Zeno or Epictetus Or shall he pretend to Religious Attainments who is defective and short in Moral Which yet are but the Rudiments the Beginnings and first Draught of Religion as Religion is the Perfection the Refinement and the Sublimation of Morality so that it still pre-supposes it it builds upon it and Grace never adds the Superstructure where Vertue has not laid the Foundation There may be Vertue indeed and yet no Grace but Grace is never without Vertue And therefore though Gratitude does not inferr Grace it is certain that Ingratitude does exclude it Think not to put God off by frequenting Prayers and Sermons and Sacraments while thy Brother has an Action against thee in the Court of Heaven an Action of Debt of that Clamorous and Great Debt of Gratitude Rather as our Saviour Commands Leave thy Gift upon the Altar and first go and clear accompts with thy Brother God scorns a Gift from him who has not paid his Debts Every Ungratefull person in the sight of God and Man is a Thief and let him not make the Altar his Receiver Where there is no Charity it is certain there can be no Religion and can that man be Charitable who is not so much as Just In every Benefaction between Man and Man Man is only the Dispencer but God the Benfactour and therefore let all Ungratefull Ones know that where Gratitude is the Debt God himself is the chief Creditor Who though he causes his Sun to shine and his Rain to fall upon the Evil and Unthankfull in this World has another kind of Reward for their Unthankfulness in the next To which God the great Searcher and Iudge of Hearts and Rewarder of Men according to their Deeds be rendred and ascribed as is most due all Praise Might Majesty and Dominion both now and for evermore Amen A SERMON Preached at CHRIST-CHURCH Oxon. Before the University Octob. 14. 1688. PROV XII 22 Lying Lips are abomination to the Lord. I Am very sensible that by discoursing of Lyes and Falshood which I have pitched upon for my present Subject I must needs fall into a very large Common Place though yet not by half so large and Common as the Practice Nothing in Nature being so Universally decryed and withall so Universally practised as Falshood So that most of those things that have the mightiest and most controlling Influence upon the Affairs and Course of the World are neither better nor worse than down-right Lyes For what is common Fame which sounds from all Quarters of the World and re-sounds back to them again but generally a Loud Ratling Impudent Overbearing Lye What are most of the Histories of the World but Lyes Lyes immortalized and consigned over as a perpetual Abuse and Flam upon Posterity What are most of the Promises of the World but Lyes Of which we need no other Proof but our own Experience And what are most of the Oaths in the World but Lyes And such as need rather a Pardon for being took than a Dispensation from being kept And lastly what are all the Religions of the World except Judaism and Christianity but Lyes And even in Christianity it self are there not those who teach warrant and defend Lying And scarce use the Bible for any other Purpose but to swear upon it and to lye against it Thus a mighty governing Lye goes round the World and has almost banish'd Truth out of it and so reigning Triumphantly in its stead is the True Source of most of those Confusions and dire Calamities that
in present ready money and so have no other way to improve them so that it may be suspected that the change of their Salary would be the strongest argument to change their opinion The truth is Interest is the grand wheel and spring that moves the whole Universe Let Christ and Truth say what they will if Interest will have it Gain must be Godliness if Enthusiasm is in request learning must be inconsistent with Grace If pay grows short the University Maintenance must be too great Rather than Pilate will be counted Caesar's enemy he will pronounce Christ innocent one hour and condemn him the next How Christ is made to truckle under the world and how his truths are denied and shuffled with for profit and pelf the clearest proof would be by Induction and Example But as it is the most clear so here it would be the most unpleasing Wherefore I shall pass this over since the world is now so peccant upon this account that I am afraid Instances would be mistaken for Invectives 3. The third Cause inducing Men to deny Christ in his truths is their apparent danger To confess Christ is the ready way to be cast out of the Synagogue The Church is a place of Graves as well as of Worship and Profession To be resolute in a good cause is to bring upon our selves the punishments due to a Bad. Truth indeed is a Possession of the highest value and therefore it must needs expose the owner to much danger Christ is sometimes pleased to make the profession of himself costly and a man cannot buy the truth but he must pay down his life and his dearest blood for it Christianity marks a man out for destruction and Christ sometimes chalks out such a way to Salvation as shall verify his own saying He that will save his life shall lose it The first Ages of the Church had a more abundant experience of this What Paul and the rest planted by their Preaching they watered with their Blood We know their usage was such as Christ foretold he sent them to Wolves and the common course then was Christianos ad Leones For a man to give his name to Christianity in those days was to list himself a Martyr and to bid farewell not only to the pleasures but also to the hopes of this life Neither was it a single death only that then attended this profession but the terrour and sharpness of it was redoubled in the manner and circumstance They had Persecutors whose Invention was as great as their cruelty Wit and Malice conspired to find out such tortures such deaths and those of such incredible anguish that only the manner of dying was the punishment Death it self the deliverance To be a Martyr signifies only to witness the truth of Christ but the witnessing of the truth was then so generally attended with this Event that Martyrdom now signifies not only to witness but to witness by death The word besides its own signification importing their practice And since Christians have been freed from Heathens Christians themselves have turned persecutors Since Rome from Heathen was turned Christian it has improved its persecution into an Inquisition Now when Christ and truth are upon these terms that men cannot confess him but upon pain of death the reason of their Apostacy and Denial is clear men will be wise and leave Truth and Misery to such as love it they are resolved to be Cunning let others run the hazard of being Sincere If they must be good at so high a rate they know they may be safe at a cheaper Si negare sufficiat quis erit Nocens If to deny Christ will save them the truth shall never make them guilty Let Christ and his flock lie open and exposed to all weather of persecution Foxes will be sure to have holes And if it comes to this that they must either renounce their Religion deny and Blaspheme Christ or forfeit their lives to the fire or the sword it is but inverting Iob's wife's advice Curse God and live 3. We proceed now to the Third thing which is to shew how farr a man may consult his safety c. This he may do two ways 1. By withdrawing his Person Martyrdom is an Heroick act of Faith An Atchievement beyond an Ordinary pitch of it to you says the Spirit it is given to suffer Phil. 1.29 It is a peculiar additional gift it is a distinguishing excellency of degree not an essential consequent of its Nature Be ye harmless as Doves says Christ and it is as Natural to them to take flight upon danger as to be Innocent Let every man throughly consult the temper of his faith and weigh his courage with his fears his weakness and his Resolutions together and take the measure of both and see which preponderates and if his spirit faints if his heart misgives and melts at the very thoughts of the fire let him flie and secure his own soul and Christ's honour Non negat Christum fugiendo qui ideò fugit né neget He does not deny Christ by flying who therefore flies that he may not deny him Nay he does not so much decline as rather change his Martyrdom He flies from the flame but repairs to a Desert to poverty and hunger in a wilderness Whereas if he would dispense with his conscience and deny his Lord or swallow down two or three Contradictory oaths he should neither fear the one nor be forced to the other 2. By concealing his judgment A man sometimes is no more bound to speak than to destroy himself and as Nature abhorrs this so Religion does not command that In the times of the Primitive Church when the Christians dwelt amongst Heathens it is reported of a certain Maid how she came from her Fathers house to one of the Tribunals of the Gentiles and declared herself a Christian spit in the Judges face and so provoked him to cause her to be executed But will any say that this was to confess Christ or die a Martyr He that uncalled for uncompelled comes and proclaims a Persecuted Truth for which he is sure to die only dies a Confessour of his own folly and a Sacrifice to his own rashness Martyrdom is stampt such only by God's command and he that ventures upon it without a call must endure it without a Reward Christ will say who required this at your hands His Gospel does not dictate imprudence No Evangelical Precept justles out that of a lawful self-preservation He therefore that thus throws himself upon the Sword runs to Heaven before he is sent for where though perhaps Christ may in mercy receive the man yet he will be sure to disown the Martyr And thus much concerning those lawful ways of securing our selves in time of Persecution not as if these were always lawfull For sometimes a man is bound to confess Christ openly though he dies for it and to conceal a Truth is to deny it But now to shew when it
it so 2. The reason of the assertion why and whence it is so 1. For the truth of it It is abundantly evinced from all Records both of Divine and Prophane History in which he that runs may read the ruine of the State in the destruction of the Church and that not only portended by it as its Sign but also inferred from it as its Cause 2. For the Reason of the point it may be drawn 1. From the Judicial proceeding of God the great King of Kings and supreme Ruler of the Universe who for his commands is indeed carefull but for his Worship Jealous And therefore in States notoriously irreligious by a secret and irresistible power countermands their deepest projects splits their Counsels and smites their most refined Policies with frustration and a curse being resolved that the Kingdoms of the world shall fall down before him either in his Adoration or their own confusion 2. The reason of the doctrine may be drawn from the necessary dependence of the very Principles of government upon Religion And this I shall pursue more fully The great business of government is to procure obedience and keep off disobedience the great springs upon which those two move are Rewards and Punishments answering the two ruling affections of man's mind Hope and Fear For since there is a natural opposition between the Judgment and the Appetite the former respecting what is honest the latter what is pleasing which two qualifications seldom concurr in the same thing and withall man's design in every Action is delight therefore to render things honest also practicable they must be first represented desirable which cannot be but by Proposing honesty cloathed with pleasure and since it presents no pleasure to the sense it must be fetcht from the apprehension of a future Reward For questionless duty moves not so much upon command as promise Now therefore that which proposes the greatest and most sutable rewards to obedience and the greatest terrors and punishments to disobedience doubtless is the most likely to enforce one and prevent the other But it is Religion that does this which to happiness and misery joyns Eternity And these supposing the Immortality of the soul which Philosophy indeed conjectures but only Religion proves or which is as good perswades I say these two things eternal happiness and eternal misery meeting with a perswasion that the Soul is immortal are without controversie of all others the first the most desirable and the latter the most horrible to humane apprehension Were it not for these Civil government were not able to stand before the prevailing swing of corrupt nature which would know no Honesty but Advantage no duty but in Pleasure nor any Law but its own Will Were not these frequently thundred into the understandings of men the Magistrate might enact order and proclaim Proclamations might be hung upon Walls and Posts and there they might hang seen and despised more like Malefactors than Laws But when Religion binds them upon the Conscience Conscience will either perswade or terrifie men into their practice For put the case a man knew and that upon sure grounds that he might do an advantageous murder or Robbery and not be discovered what humane laws could hinder him which he knows cannot inflict any penalty where they can make no discovery But Religion assures him that no sin though concealed from humane eyes can either escape God's sight in this world or his vengeance in the other Put the case also that men looked upon Death without fear in which sence it is nothing or at most very little ceasing while it is endured and pobably without Pain for it seizes upon the Vitals and benumbs the senses and where there is no sense there can be no pain I say if while a man is acting his will towards sin he should also thus act his reason to despise death where would be the terror of the magistrate who can neither threaten or inflict any more Hence an old Malefactor in his Execution at the Gallows made no other confession but this That he had very jocundly passed over his life in such courses and he that would not for fifty years pleasure endure half an hours pain deserved to die a worse death than himself questionless this man was not ignorant before that there were such things as Laws Assizes and Gallows but had he considered and believed the Terrors of another world he might probably have found a fairer passage out of this If there was not a Minister in every Parish you would quickly find cause to encrease the number of Constables And if the Churches were not imployed to be places to hear God's law there would be need of them to be prisons for the breakers of the laws of men Hence 't is observable that the Tribe of Levi had not one place or portion together like the rest of the Tribes but because it was their office to dispence Religion they were diffused over all the Tribes that they might be continually preaching to the rest their duty to God which is the most effectual way to dispose them to Obedience to man for he that truly fears God cannot despise the Magistrate Yea so near is the connexion between the Civil state and Religious that heretofore if you look upon well regulated civilized heathen Nations you will find the Government and the Priesthood united in the same person Anius Rex idem hominum Phaebique Sacerdos Virg. 3. AEn If under the true worship of God Melchisedech king of Salem and Priest of the most high God Heb. 7.1 And afterwards Moses whom as we acknowledge a pious so Atheists themselves will confess to have been a Wise Prince he when he took the Kingly government upon himself by his own choice seconded by Divine institution vested the Priesthood in his brother Aaron both whose concernments were so coupled that if Nature had not yet their Religious nay their civil Interests would have made them brothers And it was once the design of the Emperour of Germany Maximilian the first to have joyned the Popedom and the Empire together and to have got himself chosen Pope and by that means derived the Papacy to his succeeding Emperors Had he effected it doubtless there would not have been such scuffles between them and the Bishop of Rome the civil interest of the State would not have been undermined by an Adverse Interest mannaged by the specious and potent pretences of Religion And to see even amongst us how these two are united how the former is upheld by the latter The Magistrate sometimes cannot do his own office dexterously but by acting the Minister hence it is that Judges of Assizes find it necessary in their Charges to use pathetical discourses of Conscience and if it were not for the sway of this they would often lose the best Evidence in the world against Malefactors which is Confession for no man would confess and be Hanged here but to avoid being Damned hereafter Thus
I have in general shewn the utter inability of the Magistrate to attain the Ends of Government without the Aid of Religion But it may be here replied that many are not at all moved with arguments drawn from hence or with the happy or miserable state of the Soul after death and therefore this avails little to procure obedience and consequently to advance Government I answer by confession that this is true of Epicures Atheists and some pretended Philosophers who have stifled the Notions of a Deity and the Souls immortality but the Unprepossessed on the one hand and the well-disposed on the other who both together make much the major part of the world are very apt to be affected with a due fear of these things And Religion accommodating it self to the Generality though not to every particular temper sufficiently secures Government in as much as that stands or falls according to the Behaviour of the multitude And whatsoever Conscience makes the Generality obey to that Prudence will make the rest conform Wherefore having proved the dependence of Government upon Religion I shall now demonstrate That the safety of Government depends upon the Truth of Religion False Religion is in its nature the greatest bane and destruction to Government in the World The reason is because whatsoever is False is also Weak Ens and Verum in Philosophy are the same and so much as any Religion has of Falsity it loses of Strength and Existence Falsity gains Authority only from Ignorance and therefore is in danger to be known for from Being false the next immediate step is to be Known to be such And what prejudice this would be to the Civil Government is apparent if men should be awed into Obedience and affrighted from sin by Rewards and Punishments proposed to them in such a Religion which afterwards should be detected and found a mere falsitie and cheat for if one part be but found to be false it will make the whole suspicious And men will then not only cast off Obedience to the Civil Magistrate but they will do it with disdain and rage that they have been deceived so long and brought to do that out of Conscience which was imposed upon them out of design For though men are often willingly deceived yet still it must be under an Opinion of being instructed though they love the Deception yet they morrally hate it under that appearance Therefore it is no ways safe for a Magistrate who is to build his Dominion upon the Fears of men to build those fears upon a false Religion 'T is not to be doubted but the absurdity of Ieroboam's Calves made many Israelites turn subjects to Rehoboam's Government that they might be Proselytes to his Religion Herein the Weakness of the Turkish Religion appears That it urges Obedience upon the promise of such absurd Rewards as that after death they should have Palaces Gardens Beautifull Women with all the Luxury that could be as if those things that were the occasions and incentives of sin in this world could be the rewards of Holiness in the other Besides many other inventions false and absurd that are like so many chinks and holes to discover the rottenness of the whole Fabrick when God shall be pleased to give light to discover and open their reasons to discern them But you will say What Government more sure and absolute than the Turkish and yet what Religion more false Therefore certainly Government may stand sure and strong be the Religion professed never so absurd I answer that it may do so indeed by accident through the strange peculiar temper and gross ignorance of a people as we see it happens in the Turks the best part of whose Policy supposing the absurdity of their Religion is this That they prohibit Schools of Learning for this hinders Knowledge and Disputes which such a Religion would not bear But suppose we that the Learning of these Western Nations were as great there as here and the Alcoran as common to them as the Bible to us that they might have free recourse to search and examine the flaws and follies of it and withall that they were of as inquisitive a temper as we And who knows but as there are vicissitudes in the Government so there may happen the same also in the temper of a Nation If this should come to pass where would be their Religion And then let every one judge whether the Arcana imperii and Religionis would not fall together They have begun to totter already for Mahomet having promised to come and visit his Followers and translate them to Paradise after a thousand years this being expired many of the Persians began to doubt and smell the cheat till the Mufti or Chief Priest told them that it was a mistake in the figure and assured them that upon more diligent survey of the Records he found it Two thousand instead of One. When this is expired perhaps they will not be able to renew the Fallacy I say therefore that though this Government continues firm in the exercise of a false Religion yet this is by accident through the present genius of the people which may change but this does not prove but that the Nature of such a Religion of which we only now speak tends to subvert and betray the Civil Power Hence Machiavel himself in his Animadversions upon Livy makes it appear That the Weakness of Italy which was once so strong was caused by the corrupt practices of the Papacy in depraving and misusieng Religion to that purpose which he though himself a Papist says could not have hapned had the Christian Religion been kept in its first and native simplicity Thus much may suffice for the clearing of the first Proposition The Inferences from hence are two 1. If Government depends upon Religion then this shews the pestilential design of those that attempt to disjoyn the Civil and Ecclesiastical Interests setting the latter wholly out of the Tuition of the former But 't is clear that the Fanaticks know no other step to the Magistracy but through the ruine of the Ministery There is a great Analogy between the body Natural and Politick in which the Ecclesiastical or Spiritual part justly supplies the part of the soul and the violent separation of this from the other does as certainly inferr death and dissolution as the disjunction of the body and the soul in the Natural for when this once departs it leaves the body of the Common-wealth as carcase noysom and exposed to be devoured by Birds of prey The Ministery will be one day found according to Christ's word the salt of the earth the onely thing that keeps Societies of men from stench and corruption These two Interests are of that nature that 't is to be feared they cannot be divided but they will also prove opposite and not resting in a bare diversity quickly rise into a Contrariety These two are to the State what the Elements of Fire and Water to
cause of all these mischiefs and thereupon to redeem his Father's Sacrilege gave more and richer things to Temples than his Father had Stollen from them Though by the way it may seem to be a strange method of repairing an injury done to the true God by adorning the Temples of the false See the same sad effect of Sacrilege in the great Nebuchadnezzar He plunders the Temple of God and we find the fatal doom that afterwards befell him he lost his Kingdom and by a new unheard-of Judgment was driven from the Society and converse of Men to table with the Beasts and to graze with Oxen the impiety and inhumanity of his sin making him a fitter companion for them than for those to whom Religion is more Natural than Reason it self And since it was his unhappiness to transmit his sin together with his Kingdom to his Son while Belshazzar was quaffing in the sacred Vessels of the Temple which in his pride he sent for to abuse with his impious Sensuality he sees his fatal Sentence writ by the finger of God in the very midst of his profane mirth And he stays not long for the Execution of it that very Night losing his Kingdom and his Life too And that which makes the Story direct for our purpose is that all this comes upon him for his profaning those sacred Vessels God himself tells us so much by the mouth of his Prophet in Dan. 5.23 where this only sin is charged upon him and particularly made the cause of his sudden and utter ruine These were Violaters of the First Temple and those that prophaned and abused the Second sped no better And for this take for instance that first born of sin and Sacrilege Antiochus the story of whose profaning God's House you may read in the 1. book of Maccab. 1 ch and you may read also at large what success he found after it in the 6th ch where the Author tells us that he never prospered aftewards in any thing but all his designs were frustrated his Captains slain his Armies defeated and lastly himself falls sick and dies a miserable death And which is most considerable as to the present business when all these Evils befell him his own conscience tells him that it was even for this that he had most Sacrilegiously pillaged and invaded God's House 1 Maccab 6. vers 12 13. Now I remember says he the Evils I did at Ierusalem how I took the Vessels of Gold and Silver I perceive therefore that for this cause these Evils are come upon me and behold I perish for grief in a strange land The Sinner's Conscience is for the most part the best Expositor of the mind of God under any Judgment or Affliction Take another notable instance in Nicanor who purposed and threatned to burn the Temple 1 Maccab. 7.35 and a curse lights upon him presently after His great Army is utterly ruined he himself slain in it and his head and right hand cut off and hung up before Ierusalem Where two things are remarkable in the Text. 1. That he himself was first slain a thing that does not usually befall a General of an Army 2. That the Iews prayed against him to God and desired God to destroy Nicanor for the injury done to his Sanctuary only naming no sin else And God ratify'd their Prayers by the judgment they brought down upon the head of him whom they prayed against God stopt his blasphemous Mouth and cut off his sacrilegious Hand and made them teach the world what it was for the most potent sinner under Heaven to threaten the Almighty God especially in his own House for so was the Temple But now lest some should puff at these instances as being such as were under a different Oeconomy of Religion in which God was more tender of the shell and ceremonious part of his Worship and consequently not directly pertinent to ours therefore to shew that all prophanation and invasion of things Sacred is an offence against the eternal Law of nature and not against any positive Institution after a time to Expire we need not go many Nations off nor many Ages back to see the Vengeance of God upon some Families raised upon the Ruines of Churches and enriched with the spoils of Sacrilege gilded with the name of Reformation And for the most part so unhappy have been the purchasers of Church-lands that the world is not now to seek for an argument from a long experience to convince it that though in such purchases Men have usually the cheapest Penny-worths yet they have not always the best bargains For the Holy thing has stuck fast to their sides like a fatal shaft and the Stone has cryed out of the Consecrated Walls they have lived within for a Judgment upon the head of the Sacrilegious intruder and Heaven has heard the cry and made good the curse So that when the Heir of a blasted family has rose up and promised fair and perhaps flourished for some time upon the stock of excellent parts and great favour yet at length a Cross event has certainly met and stopt him in the Career of his fortunes so that he has ever after withered and declined and in the end come to nothing or to that which is worse So certainly does that which some call blind Superstition take aim when it shoots a Curse at the Sacrilegious person But I shall not engage in the odious task of recounting the families which this sin has blasted with a Curse Only I shall give one Eminent instance in some persons who had Sacrilegiously procured the Demolishing of some places consecrated to Holy Uses And for this to shew the world that Papists can commit Sacrilege as freely as they can object it to Protestants it shall be in that great Cardinal and Minister of State Woolsey who obtained leave of Pope Clement the 7th to Demolish 40 Religious houses which he did by the service of Five men to whose conduct he committed the effecting of that business every one of which came to a sad and fatal end For the Pope himself was ever after an unfortunate Prince Rome being twice taken and sacked in his reign himself taken Prisoner and at length dying a miserable Death Woolsey as is known incurr'd a Praemunire forfeited his Honour Estate and Life which he ended some say by Poyson but certainly in great Calamity And for the Five Men employed by him two of them quarrelled one of which was slain and the other hang'd for it the third drown'd himself in a Well the fourth though Rich came at length to beg his Bread and the fifth was miserably Stabbed to death at Dublin in Ireland This was the Tragical end of a Knot of Sacrilegious persons from highest to lowest The consideration of which and the like passages one would think should make men keep their Fingers off from the Churches Patrimony though not out of Love to the Church which few men have yet at least out of Love to
was a means to bring him up in The AEgyptian Court then the School of all Arts and Policy and so to fit him for that great and arduous Imployment that God designed him to For see upon what little Hinges that great Affair turned For had either the Child been cast out or Pharaoh's Daughter come down to the River but an hour sooner or later or had that little Vessel not been cast by the Parents or carryed by the Water into that very place where it was in all likelyhood the Child must have undergone the common Lot of the other Hebrew Children and been either starved or drowned or however not advanced to such a peculiar height and happiness of Condition That Octavius Caesar should shift his Tent which he had never used to doe before just that very night that it hapned to be took by the Enemy was a mere Casualty yet such an one as preserved a Person who lived to establish a total Alteration of Government in the Imperial City of the World But we need not go far for a Prince preserved by as Strange a Series of little Contingencies as ever were managed by the Art of Providence to so great a purpose There was but an hair's breadth between him and certain Destruction for the space of many days For had the Rebel Forces gone one way rather than another or come but a little sooner to his hiding place or but mistrusted something which they passed over all which things might very easily have happened we had not seen this face of things at this day but Rebellion had been still Enthroned Perjury and Cruelty had Reigned Majesty had been proscribed Religion extinguish'd and both Church and State throughly Reformed and Ruined with Confusions Massacres and a Total Desolation On the contrary when Providence designs Judgment or Destruction to a Prince no body knows by what little unusual unregarded means the fatal blow shall reach him If Ahab be designed for Death though a Souldier in the Enemies Army draws a Bow at a venture yet the sure unerring directions of Providence shall carry it in a direct course to his heart and there lodge the Revenge of Heaven An old Woman shall cast down a Stone from a Wall and God shall send it to the Head of Abimelech and so Sacrifice a King in the very head of his Army How many warnings had Iulius Caesar of the fatal Ides of March whereupon sometimes he resolved not to go to the Senate and sometimes again he would go and when at length he did go in his very passage thither one put into his hand a Note of the whole Conspiracy against him together with all the Names of the Conspirators desiring him to read it forthwith and to remember the Giver of it as long as he lived But continual Salutes and Addresses entertaining him all the way kept him from saving so great a Life but with one glance of his Eye upon the Paper till he came to the fatal place where he was stabb'd and dyed with the very Means of preventing Death in his hand Henry the Second of France by a Splinter unhappily thrust into his Eye at a solemn Justing was dispatch'd and sent out of the world by a sad but very Accidental Death In a word God has many ways to reap down the Grandees of the Earth an Arrow a Bullet a Tile or Stone from an House is enough to do it And besides all these ways sometimes when he intends to bereave the world of a Prince or an Illustrious Person he may cast him upon a bold self-opinion'd Physician worse than his Distemper who shall Dose and Bleed and Kill him secundum artem and make a shift to cure him into his Grave In the last place we will consider this Directing influence of God with reference to private Persons and that as touching things of nearest concernment to them As 1. Their Lives 2. Their Health 3. Their Reputation 4. Their Friendships And 5. And lastly their Employments or Preferments And first for mens Lives Though these are things for which Nature knows no Price or Ransom yet I appeal to universal Experience whether they have not in many men hung oftentimes upon a very slender Thread and the distance between them and Death been very nice and the escape wonderfull There have been some who upon a slight and perhaps groundless occasion have gone out of a Ship or House and the Ship has sunk and the House has fell immediately after their departure He that in a great Wind suspecting the strength of his House betook himself to his Orchard and walking there was knockt on the Head by a Tree falling through the fury of a suddain gust wanted but the advance of one or two steps to have put him out of the way of that mortal Blow He that being subject to an Apoplex used still to carry his remedy about him but upon a time shifting his Cloaths and not taking that with him chanced upon that very day to be surprized with a Fit and to die in it certainly owed his Death to a mere Accident to a little inadvertency and failure of Memory But not to recount too many particulars May not every Souldier that comes alive out of the Battle pass for a living Monument of a benign Chance and an happy Providence For was he not in the nearest Neighbourhood to Death And might not the Bullet that perhaps rased his Cheek have as easily gone into his Head And the Sword that glanced upon his Arm with a little diversion have found the way to his Heart But the workings of Providence are marvellous and the methods secret and untraceable by which it disposes of the Lives of Men. In like manner for Mens Health it is no less wonderfull to consider to what strange Casualties many Sick Persons often-times owe their Recovery Perhaps an unusual Draught or Morsel or some Accidental violence of Motion has removed that Malady that for many years has baffled the Skill of all Physicians So that in effect he is the best Physician that has the best luck he prescribes but it is chance that Cures That Person that being provoked by excessive Pain thrust his Dagger into his Body and thereby instead of reaching his Vitals opened an Imposthume the unknown cause of all his pain and so Stabbed himself into perfect Health and Ease surely had great reason to acknowledge Chance for his Chirurgeon and Providence for the Guider of his Hand And then also for mens Reputation and that either in point of Wisdom or of Wit There is hardly any thing which for the most part falls under a greater Chance If a man succeeds in any attempt though undertook with never so much folly and rashness his success shall vouch him a Politician and good Luck shall pass for deep contrivance For give any one Fortune and he shall be thought a wise man in spite of his Heart nay and of his Head too On the contrary be a design never
which it was directed which accordingly as they proved either Helpfull or Hurtfull Innocent or Offensive so the Lye was reputed either Lawfull or Unlawfull And therefore since a Man was helped by an Officious Lye and not Hurt by a Iocose both of thefe came to be esteemed Lawfull and in some Cases Laudable But the Schoolmen and Casuists having too much Philosophy to go about to clear a Lye from that intrinsick Inordination and Deviation from right Reason inherent in the Nature of it and yet withall unwilling to rob the World and themselves especially of so sweet a Morsel of Liberty held that a Lye was indeed absolutely and universally Sinfull but then they held also that only the Pernicious Lye was a Mortal Sin and the other Two were only Venial It can be no part of my Business here to overthrow this Distinction and to shew the Nullity of it Which has been solidly and sufficiently done by most of our Polemick Writers of the Protestant Church But at present I shall only take this their Concession That every Lye is sinfull and consequently unlawfull and if it be a Sin I shall suppose it already prov'd to my hands to be what all Sin essentially is and must be Mortal So that thus far have we gone and this Point have we gained That it is absolutely and universally unlawfull to lye or to falsify Let us now in the next Place enquire from whence this Unlawfulness springs and upon what it is grounded To which I answer That upon the Principles of Natural Reason the Unlawfulness of Lying is grounded upon this That a Lye is properly a Sort or Species of Injustice and a Violation of the Right of that Person to whom the false Speech is directed For all speaking or signification of Ones Mind implies in the Nature of it an Act or Address of one Man to another It being evident that no Man though he does speak false can be said to lye to himself Now to shew what this Right is We must know that in the beginnings and first Establishments of Speech there was an implicit Compact amongst Men founded upon common Use and Consent that such and such Words or Voices Actions or Gestures should be Means or Signs whereby they would Express or Convey their Thoughts one to another and That Men should be obliged to use them for that Purpose for as much as without such an Obligation those Signs could not be Effectual for such an End From which Compact there arising an Obligation upon every One so to conveigh his Meaning there accrews also a Right to every One by the same Signs to judge of the Sence or Meaning of the Person so obliged to express himself And consequently if these Signs are applied and used by him so as not to signifie his Meaning the Right of the Person to whom he was obliged so to have done is hereby violated and the Man by being deceived and kept ignorant of his Neighbour's Meaning where he ought to have known it is so far deprived of the Benefit of any Intercourse or Converse with him From hence therefore we see that the Original Reason of the Unlawfulness of Lying or Deceiving is That it carries with it an Act of Injustice and a Violation of the Right of him to whom we were obliged to signifie or impart our Minds But then we must observe also which I noted at first That as it is in Man's Power to institute not only Words but also Things Actions or Gestures to be the Means whereby he would signifie and express his Mind so on the otherside those Voices Actions or Gestures which Men have not by any Compact agreed to make the Instruments of conveying their Thoughts one to another are not the proper Instruments of Deceiving so as to denominate the Person using them a Lyar or Deceiver though the Person to whom they are addressed takes occasion from thence to form in his Mind a false Apprehension or Belief of the Thoughts of those who use such Voices Actions or Gestures towards him I say in this Case the Person using these Things cannot be said to Deceive since all Deception is a Misapplying of those Signs which by Compact or Institution were made the Means of Men's signifying or conveying their Thoughts But here a Man only does those Things from which another takes occasion to deceive himself Which one Consideration will solve most of those Difficulties that are usually started on this Subject But yet this I do and must grant that though it be not against strict Iustice or Truth for a man to do those things which he might otherwise Lawfully do albeit his Neighbour does take Occasion from thence to conceive in his mind a false Belief and so to deceive himself yet Christian Charity will in many Cases restrain a Man here too and prohibit him to use his own Right and Liberty where it may turn considerably to his Neighbour's Prejudice For herein is the Excellency of Charity seen that the Charitable man not onely does no Evil himself but that to the utmost of his Power he also hinders any Evil from being done even by Another And as we have shewn and proved that Lying and Deceiving stand condemned upon the Principles of Natural Justice and the Eternal Law of Right Reason so are the same much more condemned and that with the Sanction of the highest Penalties by the Law of Christianity which is eminently and transcendently called the Truth and the Word of Truth and in nothing more surpasses all the Doctrines and Religions in the World than in this That it enjoyns the Clearest the Openest and the Sincerest Dealing both in Words and Actions and is the rigidest Exacter of Truth in all our Behaviour of any other Doctrine or Institution whatsoever And thus much for the First general Thing proposed which was to enquire into the Nature of a Lye and the proper essential Malignity of all Falshood I proceed now to the Second Which is to shew the Pernicious Effects of it Some of the Chief and the most remarkable of which are these that follow As First of all It was this that introduced Sin into the World For how came our first Parents to sin and to lose their Primitive Innocence Why they were deceived and by the Subtilty of the Devil brought to believe a Lye And indeed Deceit is of the very Essence and Nature of Sin there being no sinfull Action but there is a Lye wrapt up in the Bowels of it For Sin prevails upon the Soul by representing that as sutable and desirable that really is not so And no man is ever induced to Sin but by a Perswasion that he shall find some Good and Happiness in it which he had not before The wages that Sin bargains with the Sinner to serve it for are Life Pleasure and Profit but the Wages it pays him with are Death Torment and Destruction He that would understand the Falshood and Deceit of Sin throughly must compare
from God who is Truth it self and with whom no shadow of Falshood can dwell He that telleth Lyes says David in Psalm 101.7 shall not tarry in my Sight and if not in the Sight of a poor Mortal man who could sometimes lye himself how much less in the Presence of the Infinite and All-knowing God A Wise and Good Prince or Governour will not vouchsafe a Lyar the Countenance of his Eye and much less the Privilege of his Ear. The Spirit of God seems to write this upon the very Gates of Heaven and to state the Condition of Men's Entrance into Glory chiefly upon their Veracity In Psalm 15.1 Who shall ascend into thy Holy Hill says the Psalmist To which it is answered in vers 2. He that worketh Righteousness and that speaketh the Truth from his Heart And on the other side how Emphatically is Hell described in the Two last Chapters of the Revelation by being the great Receptacle and Mansion-house of Lyars whom we shall find there ranged with the vilest and most detestable of all Sinners appointed to have their Portion in that Horrid place Revel 21.8 The Unbelieving and the Abominable and Murderers and Whoremongers and Sorcerers and Idolaters and all Lyars shall have their part in the Lake which burns with Fire and Brimstone And in Revel 22.15 Without are Dogs and Sorcerers c. and whosoever loveth and maketh a Lye Now let those consider this whose Tongue and Heart hold no Correspondence Who look upon it as a Piece of Art and Wisdom and the Master-piece of Conversation to over-reach and deceive and make a Prey of a credulous and well-meaning Honesty What do such Persons think Are Dogs Whoremongers and Sorcerers such desirable Company to take up with for ever Will the Burning Lake be found so tolerable Or will there be any one to drop Refreshment upon the false Tongue when it shall be tormented in those Flames Or do they think that God is a Lyar like themselves and that no such Things shall ever come to pass but that all these fiery Threatnings shall vanish into Smoak and this dreadfull Sentence blow off without Execution Few certainly can lye to their own Hearts so far as to imagine this But Hell is and must be granted to be the Deceiver's Portion not only by the Judgment of God but of his own Conscience too And comparing the Malignity of his Sin with the Nature of the Punishment allotted for him all that can be said of a Lyar lodged in the very Nethermost Hell is this That if the Vengeance of God could prepare any Place or Condition worse than Hell for Sinners Hell it self would be too good for him And now to summ up all in short I have shewn what a Lye is and wherein the Nature of Falshood does consist that it is a Thing absolutely and intrinsecally Evil that it is an Act of Injustice and a Violation of our Neighbour's Right And that the Vileness of its Nature is equalled by the Malignity of its Effects It being this That first brought Sin into the World and is since the Cause of all those Miseries and Calamities that disturb it and further that it tends utterly to dissolve and overthrow Society which is the greatest Temporal Blessing and Support of Mankind and which is yet worst of all that it has a strange and particular Efficacy above all other Sins to indispose the Heart to Religion And lastly That it is as dreadfull in its Punishments as it has been pernicious in its Effects For as much as it deprives a Man of all Credit and Belief and consequently of all Capacity of being usefull in any Station or Condition of Life whatsoever and next that it draws upon him the Just and Universal Hatred and Abhorrence of all Men here and finally subjects him to the Wrath of God and Eternal Damnation hereafter And now if none of all these Considerations can recommend and endear Truth to the Words and Practices of Men and work upon their Double Hearts so far as to convince and make them sensible of the Baseness of the Sin and Greatness of the Guilt that Fraud and Falshood leaves upon the Soul Let them Lye and Cheat on till they receive a fuller and more effectual Conviction of all these Things in that Place of Torment and Confusion prepared for the Devil and his Angels and all his Lying Retinue by the Decree and Sentence of that God who in his Threatnings as well as in his Promises will be True to his Word and cannot Lye To whom be rendred and ascribed as is most due all Praise Might Majesty and Dominion both now and for evermore Amen FINIS BOOKS Newly printed for Tho. Bennet at the Half-Moon in St. Paul's Church-Yard AThenae Oxonienses or an Exact History of all the Writers and Bishops who have had their Education in the Ancient and Famous University of Oxford from 1500 to the End of the Year 1690 Representing the Birth Fortune Preferments and Death of all those Authors and Prelates the great Accidents of their Lives the Fate and Character of their Writings The Work being so compleat that no Writer of Note of this Nation for near Two hundred years past is omitted fol. 2 Vol. Dr. Pocock on Ioel. With the rest of his Commentaries A Critical History of the Text and Versions of the New Testament wherein is firmly Establish'd the Truth of those Acts on which the Foundation of Christian Religion is laid By Father Simon of the Oratory Together with a Refutation of such Passages as seem contrary to the Doctrine and Practice of the Church of England Memoirs of the Court of France by the late famous French Lady The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus the Roman Emperor Translated out of Greek into English with Notes by Dr. Casaubon To this Edition is added the Life of the said Emperor with an Account of Stoick Philosophy As also Remarks on the Meditations All newly written by the famous Monsieur and Madam Dacier The Works of the Learned or an Historical Account and Impartial Judgment of the Books newly Printed both Foreign and Domestick together with the State of Learning in the World Published Monthly by I. de la Crose a late Author of the Universal Bibliotheque This first Volume beginning in August last is compleated this present April with Indexes to the whole The Bishop of Chester's Charge to his Clergy at his Primary Visitation May 5. 1691. Five Sermons before the King and Queen by Dr. Meggot Dean of Winchestor Mr. Atterbury's Sermon before the Queen May 29. 1692. * In the Parliament 1653 it being put to the Vote whether they should support and encourage A godly and learned Ministery the latter word was rejected and the vote passed for a Godly and Faithful Ministery * A noted Independant Divine when Ol. Cromwel was sick of which sickness he dyed declared that God had Revealed to him that he should recover and live 30 years longer for that God had raised him up for a work which could not be done in less time But Oliver's Death being published two days after the said Divine publickly in Prayer expostulated with God the Defeat of his Prophecy in these words Lord thou hast lyed unto us yea thou hast lyed unto us * Very credibly reported to have been done in an Independant Congregation at Oxon. * Whensoever any Petition was put up to the Parliament in the year 1653. for the Taking away of Tythes the thanks of the House were still returned to them and that by the Name and Elogy of the well-affected Petitioners * U. C. A Colonel of the Army the perfidious cause of Penruddock 's Death and sometime after High-Sheriff of Oxfordshire openly and frequently affirmed the uselessness of the Vniversities and that three Colledges were sufficient to answer the occasions of the Nation for the breeding of men up to Learning so farr as it was either necessary or usefull * Cromwel a lively Copy of Jeroboam did so * Gaspar Streso Cromwell ☜ * Of which last see an Instance in the 13 Session of this Council In which it Decrees with a non obstante to Christ's express Institution of the Blessed Eucharist in both Kinds That the contrary Custom and Practice of receiving it only in one Kind ought to be accounted and observed as a Law and that if the Priest should Administer it otherwise he was to be Excommunicated * Colonel Axtell * He particularly mention'd those of Brooks and Calamy ☞