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 ☞
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
the Body which united compose separated destroy it I am not of the papists Opinion who would make the Spiritual above the Civil State in power as well as dignity but rather subject it to the Civil yet thus much I dare affirm That the Civil which is superiour is upheld and kept in being by the Ecclesiastical and Inferiour as it is in a Building where the upper part is supported by the lower the Church resembling the foundation which indeed is the lowest part but the most considerable The Magistracy cannot so much protect the Ministery but the Ministers may doe more in serving the Magistrate A tast of which truth you may take from the Holy Warr to which how fast and eagerly did men go when the Priest perswaded them that whosoever dyed in that Expedition was a Martyr Those that will not be convinced what a help this is to the Magistracy would find how considerable it is if they should chance to clash this would certainly eat out the other For the Magistrate cannot urge obedience upon such potent grounds as the Minister if so disposed can urge disobedience As for instance if my Governor should command me to do a thing or I must die or forfeit my Estate and the Minister steps in and tells me that I offend God and ruin my soul if I obey that command it 's easie to see a greater force in this persuasion from the advantage of its ground And if Divines once begin to curse Meros we shall see that Levi can use the Sword as well as Simeon and although Ministers do not handle yet they can employ it This shews the imprudence as well as the danger of the Civil Magistrate's exasperating those that can fire mens consciences against him and arm his Enemies with Religion For I have read heretofore of some that having conceived an irreconcilable hatred of the Civil Magistrate prevailed with men so far that they went to resist him even out of conscience and a full persuasion and dread upon their spirits that not to do it were to desert God and consequently to incurr damnation Now when mens rage is both heightned and sanctified by Conscience the War will be fierce for what is done out of Conscience is done with the utmost Activity And then Campanella's Speech to the King of Spain will be found true Religio semper vicit praesertim Armata Which sentence deserves seriously to be considered by all Governours and timely to be understood lest it comes to be felt 2. If the safety of Government is founded upon the truth of Religion then this shews the danger of any thing that may make even the true Religion suspected to be false To be false and to be thought false is all one in respect of men who act not according to Truth but Apprehension As on the contrary a false Religion while apprehended true has the force and efficacy of truth Now there is nothing more apt to induce men to a suspicion of any Religion than frequent innovation and change For since the object of Religion God the subject of it the soul of man and the business of it Truth is always one and the same Variety and Novelty is a just presumption of Falsity It argues sickness and distemper in the mind as well as in the body when a man is continually turning and tossing from one side to the other The wise Romans ever dreaded the least Innovation in Religion Hence we find the advice of Mecoenas to Augustus Caesar in Dion Cassius in the 52 Book where he counsels him to detest and persecute all Innovators of Divine Worship not only as contemners of the Gods but as the most pernicious disturbers of the State For when men venture to make changes in things sacred it argues great boldness with God and this naturally imports little belief of him which if the people once perceive they will take their Creed also not from the Magistrates Laws but his example Hence in England where Religion has been still Purifying and hereupon almost always in the Fire and the Furnace Atheists and Irreligious persons have took no small advantage from our changes For in King Edward the sixth's time the Divine Worship was twice altered in two new Liturgies In the first of Queen Mary the Protestant Religion was persecuted with Fire and Faggot by Law and publick counsell of the same persons who had so lately established it Upon the coming in of Queen Elizabeth Religion was changed again and within a few daies the publick Council of the Nation made it death for a Priest to convert any man to that Religion which before with so much eagerness of Zeal had been restored So that it is observed by an Author that in the space of twelve years there were four changes about Religion made in England and that by the publick Council and Authority of the Realm which were more than were made by any Christian state throughout the world so soon one after another in the space of fifteen hundred years before Hence it is that the Enemies of God take occasion to blaspheme and call our Religion Statism and now adding to the former those many changes that have hapned since I am afraid we shall not so easily claw off that name Nor though we may satisfie our own consciences in what we profess be able to repell and clear off the objections of the rational world about us which not being interested in our changes as we are will not judge of them as we judge but debate them by impartial Reason by the Nature of the thing the general Practice of the Church against which New Lights suddain Impulses of the Spirit Extraordinary Calls will be but weak arguments to prove any thing but the madness of those that use them and that the Church must needs wither being blasted with such Inspirations We see therefore how fatal and ridiculous Innovations in the Church are And indeed when changes are so frequent it is not properly Religion but Fashion This I think we may build upon as a sure ground That where there is continual Change there is great shew of Uncertainty and Uncertainty in Religion is a shrewd motive if not to deny yet to doubt of its Truth Thus much for the first Doctrine I proceed now to the second viz. That the next and most effectual way to destroy Religion is to Embase the Teachers and Dispensers of it in the handling of this I shall shew 1. How the Dispensers of Religion the Ministers of the word are embased or rendred vile 2. How the Embasing or Vilifying them is a means to destroy Religion 1. For the first of these the Ministers and Dispensers of the Word are rendred base or vile two ways 1. By divesting them of all Temporal Privileges and Advantages as inconsistent with their Calling It is strange since the Priests Office heretofore was always Splendid and almost Regal that it is now looked upon as a piece of Religion to make it