IMPRIMATUR Haec Concio in 1 Pet. 2. 15. Guil. Sill R. P. D. Henr. Episc. Lond. Ã Sacris Dom. Ian. 28. 1677 8. Pag. 1. the last line but one for earnestly read earnest A SERMON PREACHED Before the Right Honourable Sir FRANCIS CHAPLIN Lord Mayor OF LONDON AT GVILD-HALL Chapell November the 18th 1677. By WILLIAM BATTIE Chaplain in Ordinary to His Majesty LONDON Printed by E. Flesher for R. Royston Bookseller to His most Sacred MAJESTY at the Angel in Amen-Corner 1678. TO THE Right Reverend Father in God ANTHONY By Divine Providence LORD BISHOP Of the Diocese of NORWICH My LORD THis Sermon had never been more publick then the Preaching of it made it had it not been complained of and represented by some of the Governours of the City of London for a Sermon that deserved to be Censured as reflecting upon the Government of the City Your Lordship being my Diocesan I have here presented your Lordship with the whole of what was preached humbly submitting my self and my Sermon to your Lordship's Censure It may be suspected that I have suppressed in the printing something that was preached which I have not done something may be added but nothing is diminished so that if there be no Reflexions upon the Government of the City in my Sermon now there were none then My Discourse as my Text did direct me was wholly to the Governed Directions to Governours as Governours from me would have been presumptuous and therefore I used none There is one Expression indeed in my Sermon to this purpose That were Laws duly executed men durst not despise and affront the Government so as they doe which Expression if it reflect any thing it is Praise and Applause to the Government and the Laws we are governed by and onely wisheth that the Mean whereby Government attains its End were sometimes looked a little better after Reflexions either upon the Government or Governours I ever thought improper for the Pulpit Nay I have ever hated them from the time that Pulpits were turned by such doings into Drums to beat up for Sedition and Rebellion remembring what the dismal Consequences of them have been to this Church and State I am so unwilling to reflect upon any that I am not pleased that the Vindication I have made of my self by the printing of my Sermon will reflect as it will upon the Misrepresenters of it accusing them except my pressing Subjection to Governours be reflecting upon the Government of the breach of the Ninth Commandment But the Slander I had not at all weighed but that it reflects upon the Government my sly Accusers seem so tender of For the Government will be suspected to be in evil Circumstances if it shall be found inconvenient to press due Subjection unto Governours and men will be made to fear that we are in such Times again as we were in about the time of the Scotch Invasion when they who appeared for the Government by adhering to their lawfull Governours were accounted the Delinquents whilst others were accounted the best Subjects as it is observed by him that hath lately writ the Life of Archbishop Bramhall when their Swords were drawn against him who could onely grant them Commissions and their Scabbards thrown away My Lord my appealing to your Lordship is in a right line and my presenting your Lordship thus publickly with my Sermon for as much as I doe it in my own Defence it will I hope in part excuse the Defects of it of which I am so Conscious that the Requests I had of Friends had not prevailed with me to publish it if I had not had this Provocation For the thing that I believe gave Offence my declaring that the Execution of the Laws is the best Expedient to preserve them from Contempt my Opinion herein I shall never retract and your Lordship's Government from the time of your Lordship's Translation to the Diocese of Norwich hath very much confirmed me and others in it And the Experience the Clergy have that it is not Preaching and Writing will so preserve the Peace as the Governours interposing himself to see the Laws observed doth oblige the whole Body of the Clergy to desire heartily the long continuance of your Lordship's Government over us and particularly Your most obedient Servant William Battie A SERMON Preached before the Lord MAYOR Novemb. 18. 1677. 1 S. PETER II. 15. For so is the Will of God that with Well-doing ye may put to silence the Ignorance of Foolish men WE do not in any of the Apostles Epistles meet with any particular Addresses to the Magistrates of the Age they lived in yet the Duty of Subjection unto Magistrates is frequently enjoyned all Christians whatsoever Husbands and Wives Parents and Children Masters and Servants have all the special Duties of their several Callings taught them in the Apostles Writings but for Magistrates though their Office is no-where so vindicated as by the Apostles yet the Persons under Subjection are the persons onely who are taught their Duty which is Subjection A Duty our Apostle as also the Apostle S. Paul is very earnest in the pressing upon the Christians of that Age and the more earnestly as is thought for these two Reasons 1. To prevent the Danger the new-converted Gentiles might be in of being leavened with the old Leaven of the Iews viz. a perverse and froward Disposition unto Magistracy A Leaven that had so soured that Nation that in the vogue of the world they were accounted for no better then Pests of Nations and Enemies of Mankind because they were stubborn and stiff-necked to Authority as Moses long before had found them 2. Again the Apostles are thought to be the more earnest in the pressing of this Duty writing in the Reign of the Emperour Nero whose many monstrous Wickednesses and particular Malice against Christians were likely to endanger the ensnaring of them into Temptations to despise and oppose his Authority and that to the great Scandal of their Religion the Devil needing nothing more to nip the Christian Religion in the bud then to get it voiced in the world for a Licencer of Sedition and Rebellion in case the Supreme Governour be vicious For this allowed who is so short-sighted as not to foresee that in succeeding Ages the Heads of Factions have nothing more to doe to promote their Treasonous Designs but to get the Supreme Governour represented to the People for an Idolater or a Tyrant And if then by Arms or Money they can get him in their power if they cut him off it is but writing over his Statue Exit Tyrannus and all is salved Well the Apostles to let the World know the Gospel allows no Disobedience upon any such account do the more earnestly press Subjection to Authority at the time the Roman Empire had as wicked a Governour as ever before or since And in the Verses before my Text he calls for this Subjection to Authority of whatsoever Rank or Degree whether
or a Mind full if of any thing of mischievous sly intents And indeed even all the Mischief of evil Reports happens from such persons the Clamours of foolish persons generally doing no hurt till persons in repute for Wisedom and Worth begin to listen to them The Receiver here is as bad if not worse then the Thief When one officiously told Simonides how evil things men spoke of him he made him this Answer Et quando tu tandem desines me auribus calumniari And when wilt thou leave slandering me with thy Ears Most excellent and highly worthy our imitation was the way of Constantine the Great in this point who burnt the mutual Accusations of his Clergy telling the Complainants he wished his Cloak large enough to cover all their Faults Were all men of his humour the Devil's work of raising and spreading Slanders would go but slowly on in the world were there no Receivers there would be fewer Thieves Let such then as would go for understanding men and sober Christians put on the angry Countenance at the hearing of all slanderous Reports which as the North-wind drives away Rain repells the Calumnies of a Backbiting tongue Secondly We learn here what little Cause they have to be troubled who make Conscience to discharge the Duties of their several Callings conformably to the Laws of the Church and Kingdom they belong unto whether Subordinate Governours in the Church and State or such as be in Subjection onely if now and then they meet with some harsh Censures for so doing considering what it is they are to be imputed to the Ignorance of Foolish men Nemo patitur Praejudicium ab iis quibus non est Iudicium Can we suffer by their Opinion who have no Judgment Let no man's heart fail him then nor encline him to a poor pusillanimous Compliance with the Humours to avoid the Clamours of Foolish men Falsus honor juvat mendax infamia terret Quem nisi mendosum mendacem That of S. Ambrose is Encouragement enough against all their scornfull Censures Si fuerit Praejudicium in seculo non erit in judicio Dei The Prejudices of the World prejudice us nothing before God No Wind shakes the Earth but the Wind within it If we keep our Consciences calm and clear concerning our due Subjection to God's Law and Man's we need not fear the shaking by any Wind without us and what shaking happens a good Conscience will so recreate us therein that we shall not need at all to value it III. Now for the Third thing the Duty of those who are evil spoken of towards them who speak evil of them which is to silence them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 os occludere to shut the Mouths of evil speakers In 1 Cor. 9. 9. it is rendered muzzle Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the Ox that treadeth out the Corn. But now may some say Who is sufficient for this thing Is it not a kind of impossibility that is here put upon us Were foolish Men as tractable as Oxen the matter might be thought feasible But Solomon represents them for persons wholly untractable Though thou bray a Fool in a Mortar among Wheat with a Pestill yet will not his Foolishness depart from him In Answer Here we are to distinguish of Fools according to the Distinction we have of Ignorance There is Ignorantia purae privationis and Ignorantia pravae dispositionis an Ignorance of Weakness and an Ignorance of Wilfulness So there is the weak Fool and the wilfull Fool. Now the weak Fool is the reputed Fool but the wilfull Fool is the Fool the Fool that Solomon found would take no impressions None so blind as they that will not see Some are blind through Ignorance some through Interest in whom the God of this World to use the Apostle's words hath blinded their Eyes being preingaged by their Interests they will not judge sincerely of Things and Persons Malunt nescire as Tertullian in his Apology hath it quia jam oderunt Now to stop the mouths of such from speaking evil of us is a very hard task To stop the mouths of such from speaking evil of us who stop the mouths of their own Consciences whilst they speak evil of us is a work that never was nor will be done nor is it expected from us All that is required of us here as at all practicable by us is that with the Apostle we so demean our selves that we commend our selves to every man's Conscience in the sight of God and this is practicable to order our selves so that whereas wilfully Ignorant men speak evil of us as of evil-doers they may be ashamed and confounded at least in their Consciences when they accuse our good Conversation To put the case in their Compliance who are Magistrates or Ministers with the Commands of their Superiours Can we imagine that any in their Consciences do blame them for it especially when they shall consider that the Oath of God is upon them whereby they have solemnly bound themselves to the Obedience of those Commands No they doe it not and onely in a consciencious observing such Commands shall they stop the mouths of mens Consciences And if by not observing of them out of a poor pitifull cringing to be popular they study to stop mens mouths from hard words they shall therein open the mouths of their own Consciences and the Consciences of others justly to accuse them and they are onely weak Fools who will not account them for very Hypocrites and Dissemblers with God and the World But now for such whose Ignorance hath not this tang of Malice in it and who indeed know nothing of Things and Persons but as they have seen them at a distance and through the Prospective of other mens Prejudices and the Misrepresentations of their partial Guides it is possible by degrees to stop the mouths of such as the same Tertullian in his Apology Simul ac desinunt ignorare desinunt odisse The Cause being meer Ignorance as the Cause is taken away the Effect ceaseth and the silencing of them then is feasible And where it is but possible we are to endeavour it as the Apostle counsells In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves if peradventure God will give them Repentance But now here the Question will be How must we doe it Suppose they accuse us for our good Conversation towards our Superiours our peaceable Subjection to their lawfull Commands what Expedient is there in this Case The Text tells us it is Well-doing We are never while we live to expect it in that way that some would have men to believe to be the Meekness and the Moderation the Apostle requires viz. by forbearing our selves the doing our several Duties conformably to the Commands of our Superiours and by the allowing the coaxing and applauding those who oppose themselves in their Prejudices and Misapprehensions For why this doth not remove the Cause of their
for Constitutions agreeable to their own Minds in the same Matters and consequently as Mr. Ienkins expresseth it in a Sermon before one of the Vsurper's Parliaments That the reason why men cry out against Government is not because they would have no Government but because they would have it in themselves or they desire to burn the Rod that they may play the Wantons the more freely Now if the Magistrate hath power to command in these things it is our Duty to observe their Commands and the common Objections many make to excuse themselves can have no weight in them And here it may not be amiss to take notice of two Objections against this Obedience 1. It is objected That Obedience in these things hath ever given Offence and therefore we are at liberty and freed by the Example of S. Paul to obey or not to obey who in 1 Cor. 8. 13. tells us If meat make my Brother to offend I will eat no flesh while the world standeth lest I make my Brother to offend This is much insisted on but very weakly if the Magistrate have power to command and if it be our Duty to obey For thus there is a great deal of difference between the Apostle's eating Meats sacrificed to Idols and our obeying our Superiours in these things The Apostle by eating might offend some of the weaker sort but by not eating he could offend none Now this holds not in our observing the Commands of our Superiours By observing of them we may indeed offend some weaker ones who could never yet tell us what would please them but it cannot be said that by the not observing of them we shall offend none for our Obedience being thus grounded we thereby give just Offence to the greater sort of men and the more considerable to the King and his Council by whom these Injunctions have been established and so in being pleasers of some men we shall be found the Enemies of Christ in whose name we are commanded this Submission and in the conclusion we shall really offend our Brother by not obeying our Governours so as the Apostle was resolved he never would For thus we become a Stumbling-block to him the thing the Apostle cautions against by his own Example Verse 9. of that Chapter we shall endanger the emboldening of him by our Example as the Apostle's words are we shall encrease his Dislike of his Duty and confirm him in his Disobedience And this is Vrsin's Opinion To adde Confirmation to erroneous Opinions in the Minds of the weak about indifferent things is giving Offence 2. Again it is objected We must not doe the things we doubt of so that we are discharged and excused while we doubt of the Lawfulness of our Obedience Now here two things would be considered First whether the Doubting that in these days is alledged is not pretended onely Secondly whether Doubting here is any Discharge or no. 1. It would be considered whether the Doubting that is now alledged is not onely pretended and the rather because Beza himself suspected it when he writ to Bishop Grindall then Bishop of London in the Year 1566. Having a little before told the Bishop that it was very much his Judgment that the Rites necessary for the sake of Order and Decency ought to be retained he farther tells him that Infirmity at that time must needs be pretended onely when the Gospel had then for so many years been preached and received and confirmed by the Bloud of so many excellent Martyrs But to lay down some Rules whereby we may give some Judgment in the thing whether the Doubting men alledge to excuse themselves be sincere or no. First The words of Beza offer one Rule to us and question the sincerity of those Doubtings where men have had sufficient opportunity of being fully instructed in the things they doubt about He thought Eleven years a fair time and what may we think of Ten times as many more years that have passed since those illustrious Martyrs as he duly styles them confirmed what they preached and the Orders they legally obtained in these things with their Bloud At the time the Gospel was first divulged by the Apostles untill such time as the Iews might be satisfied concerning the Liberty of Christians from the Rites of the Law of Moses with consideration to their Weakness the Apostles did not presently use their Liberty but S. Paul circumciseth Timothy and by the advice of the Apostles Acts 21. 23 24. he went into the Temple to purifie himself according to the Law of Moses But when sufficient Means and Opportunity was once enjoyed they doe no such thing but Saint Paul withstood Saint Peter to the face for doing it Gal. 2. 11. And we do not reade that Saint Peter did justifie to Saint Paul's face his fear of the Use of his Liberty Secondly Men may if they will examine themselves in the Sincerity of their Doubtings by the care and pains they have used according to the time they have had for it to get their Doubtings resolved which thing if their Doubtings be sincere they will force them to and if they do not there is not one dram of Sincerity and real Tenderness belonging to them For Doubting and forbearing Obedience here is a kind of Murmuring against our Superiours as if they commanded us that whereby we might sin in obeying them And will any sincere honest man think so evil of his Governours and their Predecessours without enquiring what cause he hath for it especially when he shall consider that the greatest gain his Governours can have by his Obedience is the Peace of the whole Society in whose common Welfare the Loyal Subject shall have his equal Share with the Magistrate who commands Thirdly Whereas they pretend they are full of Doubting in yielding Obedience to these Commands to assure themselves they are sincere they may examine themselves by this Rule which is truly taken from the nature of Doubting By considering what the thought and care and fear is they have had about refusing Obedience For Doubting onely on the one side is no real Doubting For in such Doubting the Mind is in bivio uncertain and in suspence and questions the one side as well as the other not knowing which to take but fears sinning by Obeying and fears sinning by not Obeying So that if men onely doubt Obedience to their Superiours Commands in these things and never doubt on the other side their Doubting is onely Pretence they are determined fixed and set say what they will their Doubtings are onely Prejudices taken up on trust from their partial Guides who for gainfull Ends may cherish them in their Doubtings their Craft by which they live being in danger to be set at nought should their Proselytes once be cured of their Doubtings And were they not blinded by their Prejudices in stead of Doubting where they pretend they do they would have a suspicious Eye on the other side rather where
private Interest is the Directour But 2. It would be considered whether if men do really doubt their Doubting is an Excuse for their Disobedience Now as to this We may conclude from the nature of Doubting that it doeth no such thing For of Doubting here it must be granted that the summe of it is this I may probably sin in this Submission probably I say for Certainty it cannot be and Doubting too Now Submission being stated and agreed as I have shewn you to be the Magistrate's Due and our Duty bare Doubting cannot discharge us from it a Probability of sinning cannot discharge a man from obeying a plain Precept A thing indeed meerly arbitrary and in my power as to recreate my self with any lawfull Game if I doubt about it or offend others with it I must forbear there is onely the crossing of my own Fancy and Will therein of which no evil can come But in things commanded and so taken out of my power by the intervening Command of Man and by the Command of God that backs that requiring our Obedience for his sake my Doubting or the Offence others may take is no Excuse here for thus we should oppose Liberty to Necessity Charity to Duty the bare fear of offending the weak to the certain offence of the higher Powers nay we should doe more for Man's sake then for the Lord 's Now to come to a Conclusion A Duty thus grounded and against which so little is to be objected ought chearfully to be observed by us And being proposed as it is for a thing whereby we shall credit our Religion those words of the Apostle Philip. 4. 8. Whatsoever things are of good Report if there be any Vertue if there be any Praise suffice to persuade us to it Let who will expect by their Scruples about this Duty and their Shiness of it to gain the name of men of stricter Sanctity and men of Conscience let us seek the Honour that cometh of God onely and doe the Honour we can to our Religion onely in the way that God in his Word directs us It is descending to lower Motives to mention the Honour we ought to have to the Memories of the Religious Governours of our Church who were the worthy Instruments in our Reformation But I am unwilling to pass it by because they who at this day are the greatest Sticklers against the Subjection I have been speaking of do all pretend to have a great Veneration for them Now how was it our Saviour advised the Iews to shew the Honour they had for Abraham and Moses but in the approving of their Works and Sayings Well the things our Submission is required in are their Works and such as we may confidently affirm this of them that they were not devised nor enacted rashly but upon good Deliberation and out of pure Design to settle us in Unity Nor were they ushered in by Rebellion as were the Covenant and the Directory and they had the Approbation of all the Reformed Churches then in being Calvin did pass upon them his Valde probo And if we may expound one Epistle of his by another what he calls tolerabiles Ineptias in his Epistle to the dissenting Exiles at Frankford without mentioning what they were are the things that in his larger Epistle to the Duke of Somerset he finds fault with particularly and they are Prayers for the Dead Exorcisms the use of Chrism in Baptism and Extream Unction which since the beginning of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth have been left out of all our Common-Prayer-Books I say the Injunctions of our first Reformers were not mutinous nor the Product of hasty inconsiderate Zeal but enacted as soberly and as regularly as could be imagined and with good Design to settle us in Unity and Peace which then was and at this day can be our onely Countermine under Heaven against all the Plots and Policies of them who ever since the time our Princes have rightfully enfranchised themselves from the Usurpations of the Court and See of Rome have sought our Ruine by all Arts and Methods but chiefly by Dividing of us Again we ought not to forget what the Apostle minds us of in the following Verses the Honour we are owing our present Governours and wherein do we so shew it as in submitting in this manner to their Ordinances And here it would be considered that as at first these Injunctions were wisely established and with good Design for the securing of the Peace of the Church and State so they have not been re-inforced since His MAJESTIE's happy Return but upon the experience of an Inundation of Misery and Confusion wherewith we were overflowed through the pulling down of the Wall these Laws were to us In the pulling down whereof they who had the next hand in it to the Iesuits the Presbyterians were soon made sensible of the Oversight they had committed I am apt to believe they never repented them of it For Mr. Love upon the Scaffold justified what he had done that way And Mr. Ienkins some years after in the Sermon before mentioned praised God for it in these words Praised be that God who hath delivered us from the Imposition of Prelatical Innovations Altar-Genu-flexions and Cringings with Crossings and all that Popish Trash and Trumpery And truly I speak no more then I have often thought and said The removal of those insupportable Burthens countervails for the Bloud and Treasure shed and spent in these late Distractions And the King's Bloud and the King 's and Churche's Revenue were part Nor did I as ever yet hear of any Godly men that desired it were it possible to purchase their Friends or Money again at so dear a rate as with the return of these to have those Soul-burthening Antichristian Yokes re-imposed upon us and if any such there be I am sure that desire is no part of their Godliness and I profess my self in that to be none of the number And Mr. Faircloth in one of his Sermons before the Parliament upon the seventh Chapter of Iudges and the twenty fifth Verse intercedes with the Parliament for the laying of the Wall down even with the ground in these words Extirpate all Achans with Babylonish garments Orders Ceremonies Gestures let them be rooted out from among us We even all the godly Ministers of the Country will be with you But though they repented them not of the pulling down of the old Wall they were extreamly troubled they had not secured their own Inclosures from succeeding Tides and great was their fear of farther Breaches through Toleration as their many solicitous Applications to the Powers then in being to prevent them do declare Which because they carry in them an Acknowledgment of the Confusion they had brought these Kingdoms into by laying wast the ancient Government in Church and State I am fully assured that it was not their opinion then that Toleration would be the means to deliver us out of those Confusions