is denounced Absolution of sins upon the intimation of their unanimous desires to leave and forsake them Then all the People joyn in the Lords Prayer Confession of Praise and Thanks to the glory of the Trinity into whose Name they were all Baptized Then they proceed to Hymns and Psalms to mutual Exhortations and stirring up each in other holy Affections Then follows vocal Confession of Faith a Litany they all joyn in deprecating all evil praying for all good for themselves and all men Then they proceed to give intimation of their mutual desires and resolutions of a full obedience and respect to all Gods Commandements And as in Service so in Sacraments the People give a clear acknowledgment of their adhering to the true and undefiled Religion to which they have ingaged themselves Of their consideration and estimation of God of their meet and suitable Affections And if the People be silent for a while while the Priest is offering up a sacrifice of Prayer and Praise in Christs Name on the behalf of the Congregation yet that every man may testifie his intention and consideration and particular assent when universally as directed and ordered they speak Amen which is then best done when most heartily exprest that our Amen in our meetings might be like thunder and our Hallelujahs like the noise of many waters For Actions they are not many injoyned to the People As their meeting at convenient time and place Their kneeling and prostration upon acknowledgment of Gods Excellencies and begging Mercy Their standing at any Exultation or rejoycing at a sense of Mercy promised or exhibited Receiving the Sacrament with significant intimations of becoming Considerations and Affections These Canons and Forms prescribed for the Peoples Vniformity which are in our Liturgies are allowed and justified by the practice of the Primitive times by dictates of Human Reason or else by express Rules of the Gospel SECT III. These Canons and Forms in our Liturgies are the best that are visibly now extant to us upon sober Consideration AND how shall we be able to maintain these the Best which some will not grant to be good at all The Herd of Seciaries are all of them nibbling at our Liturgy Their work is to defame and if they can to destroy yet of all things they most virulently aim at the Publick Service of the Church We remember with grief enough what late storm brought these Locusts but yet we may complain no contrary wind hath driven them quite away there are yet too many in our Coasts We hear them still maliciously and unreasonably Object 1. That our Liturgy is taken out of the Romisn Missal the greater part of it is Popish Trumpery the Papists use it c. Malice whose end is alwaies to wound and do mischief never boggles to compass it by the most unlawful means What she can never hope to bring about by publishing truths she is ready to attempt by raising slanders and false suggestions For certainly none that are not wilfully ignorant but must acknowledge that most of our Prayers Confessions and Responses used in our Divine Service are taken either out of the Holy Scriptures or out of the Liturgies of the Primitive and purest Ages before ever the Court of Rome had exalted it self or proudly had usurped the Supremacy and Headship above the Church of Christ But suppose it be granted what we cannot deny That many things are used in our Liturgy by us which are to be found in the Romish Missal or Breviary the question is whether the things be good and lawful of themselves or not Doubtless we are not to forbear things that are good and lawful because bad men make use of them then we must not use either meat or drink or cloth or Sun we must necessarily go quite out of the World I shall thankfully partake of the meat that is wholsome although wicked and unclean men sometimes eat of it I shall willingly embrace any holy Truth though confessed by the Father of Lies I see light and darkness may be in the same Subject health and sickness in the same Body good and evil are in the same Persons I shall pluck a wholsome Herb and make use of it though I find it in a dirty Ditch I 'le throw away a poysonous Weed though in a Garden And if I can discern I shall decline what is bad though I see it in the most Vertuous and follow what is good though in the most Licentious If Evil men give good gifts to their Children If Jews or Papists offer to God a sacrifice of Praise and use such words or actions as may best promote tke right exercise of true Religion I shall think it my duty in all things that are good and lawful to follow them Object 2. In our Liturgy are they say vain Repetitions dead Sacrifices empty Forms void of that life and affection which is necessary for Gods service And now who does not see the weakness and malice of our Opposers in this Accusation charging the fault upon the Forms which is properly laid upon them that inconsiderately make use of them For the vanity is in the Persons that are careless not in the Repetitions if rightly attended For if thou beest well disposed Repetitions will awaken thy Consideration and not becalm or bedead but quicken and heighten Devotion Deadness of Affection is a fault but certainly the Forms or Repetitions are not guilty of it the fault is in thy heedlesness 'T is not just to impute that fault to the Offering that is in thy self that art to tender it Thou who wilfully opposest thy self restrain thy wild wandring Thoughts summon thy Intention banish thy Dulness quicken thy Devotion never doubt it all will succeed well in using these Forms I dare ingage both thou and thy sacrifice will be accepted Object 3. They are offended at the length of the Prayers For using all the Forms as they are prescribed in our Liturgy takes up say they too much Time that the Gifted man hath not his full liberty of exercising himself in preaching with which the godly People are most delighted Common-Prayer would be omitted or shortned that Sermon may not be hindred This they take for granted that Preaching is to be preferred before Praying Answ The Allegation is false and ridiculous in every particular For the Forms prescribed are not too long nor so long as they necessarily hinder Preaching both may very conveniently be done But what if the Gifted man were hindred from offering his strange Fire his wild effusion in Praying or Preaching Certainly if this were in the compass of the length of our Common-prayers to be prevented it would prove not their fault but their commendation What unhappy Consequences have happened from Ministers oftentation of Eloquence Parts and Gifts it s notoriously evident among us While the People having their idolized Teachers Persons in Admiration they have divided into Factions and Parties and have disturbed the peace and Vnity of the
be Publick so must it be 2. Vniversal The Father naturally cares for the welfare of every Child Gods Providence is over all his Creatures for their good And it is the care of his Deputies to provide for the welfare and happiness of all their Subjects Now if Religion be the only thing that can make men happy as it is proved the Governour cannot compass his End which is to procure the happiness of his Subjects but by enjoyning the Exercise of Religion to be Universal CHAP. IV. Our Governours of our Church of England have done well to injoyn every Believing Subject an open Profession of his Faith in his respective Congregation The particulars incident to this Head are Four I. We are to consider and agree what FAITH is II. That of that Faith there ought to be Profession III. That Profession ought to be made by every Believer IV. This is to be done in respective Congregations SECT I. 1. OUr Governours are not only as Gods Deputies under the Law of Nature to injoyn their Subjects the Care of Religion but as Deputies of Christ under a more perfect Law revealed by him in this last dispensation to injoyn their Subjects the right Exercise of true Religion prescribed in the Gospel which he published to fulfil the Law of Nature that man might come to that Happiness for which he was created and designed And this I understand to be the most proper Notion of Faith viz. The true Religion well ordered and rightly modified by Gospel Rules by the right Exercise whereof we worship and serve God acceptably so that whatsoever is not of Faith is sin and without Faith it is impossible to please God For being Baptized into the obedience of the Gospel of which obedience Baptism represents our Profession we ought to have a firm Perswasion of the goodness and reasonableness not only of the Duties in the Gospel prescribed but of our conformity to those Prescriptions for the carrying on that true and undefiled Religion wherewith God is well pleased So that Faith is the Gospel grace that teacheth us to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts and to live holily righteously and soberly in this present world And Believing is a comprehensive Duty and signifies not only a tacit assent to Evangelical Rules as true and warrantable as a barren act of the Understanding but a firm election and perswasion of these Rules as good and comfortable and implies a firm purposing and resolving of a total Gospel Obedience I heartily pity and bewail the differences and distances that are to be seen among Professed Believers in this Nation and upon serious Consideration I fully perswade my self there is nothing contributes more to the being and continuance of our Division than a general rashness and injudiciousness When men run away with some sudden partial Notions and slight Apprehensions of things of great necessity and deserved esteem in the World and do not seriously and discursively make a right Judgment and agree of the full sense and meaning of them as they import To instance in some few particulars which is easie for any to observe The Gospel most say they highly esteem and yet we cannot but observe that most snatch and run away with it as a promise of Mercy but never regard it as a rule of Duty and direction of an holy life The two Sacraments are Seals of the Covenant betwixt God and us and most men are very heedful at Receiving them that God may seal to them Remission of sins and never regard that at the same time they covenant under Seal to yield Obedience to God The Blood of Christ is precious and its shedding to be had in everlasting remembrance but when most men most solemnly remember it this Consideration contents them That Christs Blood was shed for our Redemption for remission of sins to reconcile God to man c. When we should think how this Blood-shedding was That men might be reconciled to God and be redeemed from an unclean conversation and by this sprinkling be sanctified and purged from dead works to serve the living God Heb. 9.13 14. Graces and gifts of the Spirit we justly value and admire but is it not too apparent men are taken up with gifts of Edification and pass by gifts and true grace of Sanctification so that if a man be but ready in a Scripture phrase hath gotten a voluble Tongue a round expression c. he gets the name and repute of a Saint immediately But the exercise of Piety and Charity which are the certain evidences of true Sanctity These things stand by neglected and despised I might instance in several things that we frame the same Consideration of If we give God but a piece of a Duty we think a maimed and imperfect sacrifice will content him and expiate and satisfie him and excuse all our defects and enormities and with gross mistakes we see evidently men delude and deceive themselves in this untoward generation And although in many things our mistakes of these sorts hasten our irreligious miscarriages yet in nothing are they more manifest than in the nature of Faith From all Christians that make any profession of the true Religion we shall hear these pretences That they live by Faith walk by Faith are justified by Faith are saved by Faith c. And yet for all this noise we hear of these things we can see but few that make a true judgment or have a right understanding of the full meaning of the real Faith in Christ or Faith of the Gospel It s undeniably true that without believing that supernatural Truth of Christs Merits for our pardon and remission of sins there can be no peace for men but they must die and consume in the guilt of their Transgressions It is certainly true that Christ our High Priest put away sins by the sacrifice of himself but when Christ our designed Mediatour was King and Prophet as well as Priest It is not barely a fruitless relying or a lazy recumbency on Christs Merits as our Priest only but our believing his Laws and Directions he left his Church as a King the observing his Counsels and Injunctions he gave as a Prophet is necessary to make up that Faith which will bring us to the end of our Hope which is the salvation of our souls It 's undeniably true that in the Gospel are given exceeding great and precious Promises of Mercies and Salvation upon which God hath caused â—he to hope yet when these Promises are not absolute but conditional upon our conformity to those Rules of Duty that are prescribed unless we be carried on to the practice of those things required that pertain to life and godliness we cannot be rationally concluded to have that Faith in the Gospel in us which will certainly bring us to that happiness which we openly design and expect And upon a serious inquiry we cannot conclude any of the Theological Graces to be truly infused into any man unless they discover
wilfully what can be looked for but Judgment and fiery Indignation If he that despised the publick Law and polity of Moses was judged worthy of Death of how much sorer punishment shall he be thought worthy that wilfully despiseth those Rules that are commanded by the Gospel of Christ If any man draw back wilfully from his Profession when the soul of the Apostle took none what pleasure can the soul of Christ take in him And now my dear Country-men that have been too long Dissenters who have stood at distance and separated from us I humbly beseech you in the Name of the Lord Jesus that you would consider That by your Baptisme you have been dedicated to the Obedience of the Faith of which you have made profession And by the Laws of the Gospel you are bound to submit to the Laws of the Land prescribed for the exercise of Piety And that wilful Omission or Recusancy of Conformity to these Laws is an heinous Sin and a dangerous Disobedience A Transgression against the first and greatest Commandement against a comprehensive Law of Piety It is a sin not far off from a dangerous Apostacy We are sure it is an accursed Schisme It 's a sin of direful fruits to them within us of dreadful consequences to them without us It 's probably an introduction and advance to Popery in the midst of us It 's a sin displeasing to the Spirit of Grace and Christ I would have so much charity to perswade my self that many of you have been drawn into this sin ignorantly through Vnbelief It is not my intent to write these things to shame you but as beloved in meekness to warn you Knowing all these Terrours I would perswade you as men soberly to consider the fearful dangers of this Sin and to return to a right mind and practice that which is warrantable and to bend your selves to the peace of the Church and Vnity in the Worship of God Mark them that have caused Divisions and hereafter avoid them Let us follow Peace with all Believers and the practice of Holiness that we may come at last together to the sight of God And for you that have not separated from us but have associated with us in the Faith of the Gospel go on as Just Ones should to live the life of Faith of which you have made profession Be not of those that draw back to perdition but of those that believe to the saving of your souls Be not led away with the Errour of the wicked to fall from your stedfastness Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness but reprove them Come not into their secrets nor nigh their Habitations Do not fawningly flatter or countenance them for thy connivance and lenity will strengthen them Blow not the coals of these Sinners least thou be consumed with the flames of their wild fire Let this be our main design to banish all Factions and Schismes which this day are the shame and to bring back that Vniformity in the Worship of God which was once this Nations glory Let 's mind those things which tend to peace and unity in Divine Service whereby we may best edifie one another Let us as Brethren be stedfast and unmovable abounding in this work of our God forasmuch as we know our labour is not in vain in the Lord. But if any wilfully fall back and obstinately continue in this sin let such take notice That Judgments are justly prepared for Scorners and stripes for the backs of Fools Proposition III. The threatning and determining of Punishments against such wilful Transgressors is according to the dictates of Human Reason and the constant practice of the Church of God THE Transgressor we mean is the Recusant who wilfully omits to conform to those Canons and Forms prescribed and ordered in our Liturgy which are agreeable to the Rules of the Gospel And this wilful Omission in every Baptized Subject how slight of trivial soever it may seem to be I soberly and deliberately affirm and maintain to be a worse sin than Murther Theft Adultery or any other single sin of Commission whereby the prohibitive Rule of Charity is transgressed which is to be detested and avoided by every Believing person who would live comfortably in any Believing Society For it being a Transgression of the first and greatest and most comprehensive Law of Piety it must be a greater sin than that which transgresseth a particular prohibitive Law that concerns Charity that sin being a wilful aversion from that way that directly leads to that full content and happiness which ought to be intended And this we cannot but advisedly conclude when this sin for the most part as we may sensibly perceive is attended with those circumstances which must aggravate the Crime exceedingly For when we observe such Transgressors run into this sin not inconsiderately through surprizal but deliberately and electively not modestly but impudently not uncertainly or contingently but constantly and obstinately when they strive to be guilty of these Abominations contrary to Vows and Resolutions and when we confider the dreadful consequences what can we do less than without rashness conclude That such are heinous Transgressors and dangerously Disobedient And when such Transgressors are very rarely converted or amended by monitions or perswasions it is but reasonable and necessary that Religious Governours if it can be should restrain them by the threatning and predetermination of Punishments For when Governours are to be set over Societies to promote their publick good and happiness it is just and reasonable not only by proposing Rewards they should encourage their People to Religious and Vertuous Duties which will render them happy and comfortable but also by threatning and predetermining of Punishments to restrain and deter them from evil and enormous Actions which will render their lives wretched and miserable They mistake dangerously and wander no little out of the way who make it their work to defame the threatning and determining of Punishments with the odious slander of Malice and Bitterness when these things are evidences of the Rulers Love and Care who are set over a People by God to be a Terrour and affright the People from doing Evil by such manifest Determinations If Persons were so well disposed that they would be perswaded to be good by Counsels or Monitions or vvould be so ingenious as to be drawn to Religious and Vertuous Actions by proposal of Rewards then my mercy is such as I would have threatning and determination of Punishments forborn But when we see Men are led by Sense and Custome more than Reason and are generally vain in their Imaginations disorderly in their Affections wild and precipitantly irregular in their Actions it is needful to limit and circumscribe this their beastly Exorbitancy with an Hedge of Thorns and to bound them with a Fence of Punishments When foolishness is bound up in most mens childish hearts that incline them to extravagancy it is but the fatherly love and care