for Grace to subdue our Follies and to fortifie our resolutions for Holiness Her Discipline is to lash the sturdy into Sobriety and Goodness And her Homilies are plainly and smartly to declare against the gross Acts of Impiety and to perswade a true Christian Deportment in Word and Deed and her whole Constitution aims at the Design of the Gospel to teach Men to live Soberly Righteously and Godly She flatters and lulls no Man asleep in Vice but tells all secure sinners plainly that they do not pray nor receive aright that they are not absolv'd that their persons are not justified nor can have any true hopes of Heaven except they purifie themselves and be really just and good She neither useth nor allows any nice distinctions in plain Duties to baffle our Obedience nor suffers a cunning head to serve the designs of a wicked heart and teach Men learnedly to sin but urgeth plain Virtues laid down distinctly in holy Writ and taught by Natural Reason and Conscience without calling them mean Duties or ordinary Morality to be the great Ornament of our Religion and the Soul of our Faith She sets no abstruse and phantastick Characters nor any Marks whose truth must be fetcht in by long deductions and consequences for Men to judge by whether they shall be sav'd or no but Faith and good Works which the Philosopher and meanest Christian can easily judge of the civil interest of a Nation is Edifi'd by such a Church pressing the necessity of good Works not only thereby enforcing Peace and Justice Pity and Tenderness Humility and Kindness one towards another but she makes Kings safer and Subjects more secure condemning both Tyranny and Disobedience Parents more obey'd and Subjects more lov'd commanding equally Bowels and Affections and Duty and Honour Masters and Servants Husbands and Wives and all Relations are kept in their just Bounds and Priviledges With other Churches we make good Works necessary to Salvation but think our selves more modest and secure in taking away Arrogance and Merit and advancing the Grace of Christ With other Men we cry up Faith but not an hungry and a starved one but what is fruitful of good Works and so have all that others contend for with greater modesty and security 3. How fitly this Church is constituted to excite true Devotion When we make our Addresses unto God we ought to have worthy and reverend Conceptions of his Nature a true sense and plain knowledge of the Duty and of the Wants and Necessities for which we pray to be suppli'd All which our Church to help our Devotion plainly sets down describing God by all his Attributes of just wise and laying forth the Vices and Infirmities of Humane Nature and that none else but God can cure our needs When her Sons are to pray the matter of her Petitions are not nice and controverted trivial or words of a Party but plain and substantial wherein all agree Her Words in Prayer are neither rustick nor gay the whole Composure neither too tedious nor too short decently order'd to help our Memories and wandring Thoughts Responsals and short Collects in Publick Devotion are so far from being her fault that they are her beauty and prudence There are few Cases and Conditions of Humane Life whether of a Civil or Spiritual nature which have not their proper Prayers and particular Petitions for them at least as is proper for publick Devotions When we return our Thanks we have proper Offices to enflame our Passions to quicken our Resentment to excite our Love and to confirm our future Obedience the best instance of gratitude When we Commemorate the Passion of Christ we have a Service fit to move our Affections to assist our Faith to enlarge our Charity to shew forth and exhibit Christ and all his bloody Sufferings every way to qualifie us to discharge that great Duty She hath indeed nothing to kindle an Enthusiastick heat nor any thing that savours of Raptures and Extasies which commonly flow from temper or fraud but that which makes us manly devout our judgment still guiding our affections When we enter first into Religion and go out of the World we have two proper Offices Baptism and Burial full of Devotion to attend those purposes so that if any doth not pray and give thanks communicate and live like a Christian 't is not because the Services to promote these are too plain and hungry beggarly and mean but their own mind is not fitly qualifi'd before they used them bring but an honest mind to these parts of Devotion a true sense of God sober and good purposes and affections well dispos'd that which is plain will prove Seraphical improve our Judgment heighten our Passions and make the Church a Quire of Angels Without which good disposition our Devotion is but constitution or melancholy peevishness fullenness or Devotion to a Party a Sacrifice that God will not accept 4. Her Order and Discipline Such are the Capacities and Manners of Men not to be taught only by naked Virtue a natural Judgment or an immediate Teaching of God but by Ministry and Discipline decent Ceremonies and Constitutions and other external Methods these are the outward Pales and Guards the Supplies and Helps for the Weakness of Humane Nature Our Church hath fitted and ordered these so well as neither to want or to abound not to make Religion too gay nor leave her slovingly neither rude nor phantastick but is cloth'd in dresses proper to a manly Religion not to please or gratifie our senses so as to fix there but to serve the reason and judgment of our Mind There are none of our Ceremonies which good Men and wise Men have not judged decent and serviceable to the great ends of Religion and none of them but derive themselves from a very ancient Family being us'd in most Ages and most of the Churches of God and have decency antiquity and usefulness to plead for them to help our Memories to excite our Affections to render our Services orderly and comely Were we indeed all Soul and such seraphical Saints and grown Men as we make our selves we might then plead against such external helps but when we have Natures of weakness and passion these outward helps may be call'd very convenient if not generally necessary and as our Nature is mixt of Soul and Body so must always our Devotion be here and such God expects and is pleas'd with Our Church is neither defective in Power and Discipline had she her just dues and others would do well to joyn with her in her wishes that they might be restor'd which would turn all into confusion not yet tyrannical want of authority breeding as many if not more Miseries than Tyranny or too much Power both of them severe Curses of a Nation But her Government like her Clime is so well temper'd together that the Members of this Christian Society may not be dissolute or rude with her nor her Rulers insolent being constituted in the
may be heating of fancy stirring up of humours this or that and Men may as well define the thing they call Wit as what Edification means And therefore to desert the plain and great Duty of our Church Communion for disputable doubtful or truly mistaken Edification is to be guilty of the sin of Schism In most cases to judge what is better or best is very hard and requires a sincere and considering head and so it is in the business of better Edification which is so easily mistaken especially by the generality of the People who are usually ignorant of such nice things and prejudic'd by their Parties and Affections and are mutable and various according to their fancies For better Edification purer Administrations and Churches and things that are more excellent absolute Prefection and a less defective Way of Worship are hard to understand perplex mens minds and fill them with innumerable doubts and scruples and put them upon refining and purging so long till they weaken and destroy the Spirit of Religion And so they run themselves into a known sin for dark and disputable advantages which indeed are only mistakes and principally are these three that follow 1. In taking nice and speculative Notions for great and Edifying Truths When Doctrins have been rais'd only to please the temper of the curious and inquisitive yet have made many think their hearts were warm'd when their heads and fancies were gratifi'd And dark and obscure Discourses about Angels the state of separated Souls Colos 2. 18. and things of the like nature have made some call the Preacher high and mysterious while others teaching the way of Salvation plainly by Faith and a good Conversation have been lessen'd with the character of dull honest and moral Men fit only for Catechists and Christians of the lowest Form Tickle but their imaginations with conjectural Discourses about the situation of Paradise of old or Hell now and you are a sounder Divine than he that only draws wholsom Conclusions from Adam's prevarication to caution you against sin of the like nature or how to avoid those dismal flames where ever they are And others have been silly and phantastick in admiring those who have pratled about the length of the Sword that guarded Paradise or how the Spirits above pass Eternity away and scorn'd him who in plain methods chalkt them out the way that will lead them to Heaven 1 Tim. 1.4 The ancient Gnosticks because they made a mixture of the Jewish Fables and Genealogies of their Lilith and Behemoth and fetcht in the stories of the Gods out of Orpheus and Philistion two great Divines in the Pagan Religion into plain Christianity thought themselves the most knowing Men of the Secrets of God and Heaven and wondred how only Faith upon Jesus and keeping of the Commands could be knowing of God or Wisdom from above The wranglings of the Schools with their fine distinctions and barbarous terms sitter for Magick than Christianity by their Disciples have been priz'd for great and precious Truths And Enthusiastick Raptures and flights making once the Brain to swim have snatcht the hearers beyond themselves and then thought them the Dictates of the Spirit and the Teachings of God and the more dark and obscure the Doctrine hath been the greater illumination it was esteem'd and call'd a noon-day Thought which was a mid-night Dream Such things as these pass with too many for saving Truths a great part of Mankind being ignorant in their Heads and corrupt in their Practice espous'd to Parties and Interests having Constitutions and Passions fit for these they readily swallow them down The Apostle confirms the truth of this 2 Tim. 4. â— telling us the time will come when they will not endure sound Doctrine but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves Teachers having itching ears caus'd by some disease of Vice within which is not to be cured by good Physick but only scratched and gratifi'd and and if the Food though wholsom and good be not to their Pallate and Fancy they complain of hunger and starving These and many more are the Instances of a weak and sickly nature craving only nice and curious things for Spiritual Meat and kecking at the sincere Milk of the Word plain and substantial Truths that it may grow thereby To give therefore a liberty to every Man to run from an establish'd Church upon the account of better Edification which is so often and easily mistaken is to direct Men into temptation and a snare and is dangerous and sinful and when once the gap is open where will especially the Vulgar stop May we not add that this pretence of better Edification is very sit to disguise and colour other Vices When Controversies have unhappily risen from an unjust denial of the Ministers Rights and Dues or the accidents of civil conversation they make The Ministry that was spiritual and good before to be call'd dull and mean and better must be sought elsewhere while only Revenge or Covetousness is at the bottom Wandring Reports or their own lavish Tongue and censorious Temper have call'd some Pastours Covetous or Intemperate or branded them with other Vices and then cry out they cannot Edifie in such a Church and so make one fault help out another and Defamation must excuse their Schism 2. In taking the Opinions of Parties for undoubted Truths essential to salvation When men have once wedded a Party and the Opinions peculiar to it they magnifie and propagate them grow surious for their defence and call them the best part of Religion and if these be not abetted and cry'd up by the Pastours of our Church or they differ from them in explications and distinctions of them the way of salvation is not taught they do not improve their Spiritual condition and therefore is a just cause of their separation Because the Notion or Explication of Faith and Spirit Church and Grace Justification Regeneration Conversion Adoption and other things of the like nature are generally different in our Church from those of the separation they therefore cry we destroy the saving Truths of the Gospel and instead of being Edifi'd they find themselves weakened in their Christian Faith Though 't is plain to all impartial judgments that their sense and interpretation of them by natural consequences lessen the Grace of the Gospel and give security to lazy sinners a strange sort of Edification For though our Charity is not so narrow as to think every man a vicious person who is thus mistaken in his conclusions yet however this alters not the nature of these Opinions and their consequences and who knows how far men of ill Principles do improve them Such is the perverse and angry temper of many about their own Opinions no way necessary to salvation wherein wise men and good men may differ which are not stated by Authority and may not be determin'd till Elias come yet if these be not insisted on and press'd with vehemency
Church with their different Names and Titles not for lustre and greatness and Secular purposes but for suppression of Vice the maintaining of Faith Peace Order and all Virtues the true Edification of Mens Souls And if those Vices are not reprov'd and chastiz'd which fall under her cognizance 't is not the fault of her Power but because by other ways ill restrain'd unnecessary Divisions from her hindring der Discipline upon Offenders and so they hinder that Edification which they contend for This Government is not Modern Particular or purely Humane but Apostolical Primitive and Universal to time as well as place till some private Persons for Number Learning or Piety not to be equall'd to the good Men of old who defended it and obey'd it and suffer'd for it out of some mistakes of humane frailty and passion or born down with the iniquities of the times began to change it and declaim against it though so very fit and proper to promote Christanity in the World This is a general account of that Edification that is to be had in that Church in which we live a more particular one would be too long for this Discourse but thus much must be said that examin all her particular Parts and Offices you will find none of them light or superstitious novel or too numerous ill dispos'd or uncouth improper or burthensome no just cause for any to revolt from her Communion but considering the present circumstances of Christianity and Men the best constituted Church in the World Heb. 6.1.2 Pet. 3.18 Rom. 15.2.1 Cor. 14.3 If therefore Edification be going on to Perfection or growing in Grace if it is doing good to the Souls of Men if it be to make plain the great things in Religion to the understandings of Men or whatever the import of it is in relation to Faith or Virtue which is the condition of our Salvation it is to be found in this Church whose Constitution is apt and fit to do all this And St. Jude seems to tell us that true Edification was a stranger to those who separated from the common building Vers 19. but those who kept to the Communion of the Church built up themselves in their most holy Faith and pray'd in the Holy Ghost And the honest Christian with greater assurance may expect the Grace and Blessings of Christ and the Divine Spirit whose Promises are made to them who continue in the Communion of the Church and not to them who divide from the Body and have greater hopes of Edification from their Teacher than the Grace of God from Apollos that waters than from Christ the chief Husbandman who gives the encrease 2. This Constitution is us'd and manag'd in the best way by the Pastours of our Church to Edifie the Souls of Men. This will appear if we consider these two things 1. That there are strict Commands under great Panalties laid upon the Pastours of our Church to do this who are not left to their own freedom and private judgment or the sorce only of common Christianity upon them thus to improve Mens Souls committed to their charge but have Temporal Mulcts and Ecclesiastical Censures held over them to keep them to their Duty That when they do inform or direct their Flocks about their Blief they should keep to the Analogy of Faith or Form of sound Words Or when they perswade to Practice their Rules and Propositions must be according to Godliness That whenever they Exhort or Rebuke Preach or Pray whenever they Direct or Answer the Scruples of Mens Minds in the whole Execrise and Compass of their Ministry they are to have an eye to the Creed to regard Mercy and Justice the Standard of good Manners in short to preserve Faith and a good Conscience with substantial Devotion which will to the purpose Edifie Mens Souls and effectually save them 2. That these Commands are obey'd by the Pastours of our Church and they do all things in it to Edification For the truth of this we appeal to good Men and wise Men in the Communion of our Church who have Honesty and Judgment to confess this truth and with gratitude acknowledge that the Pastours of the Church of England have led them into the ways of Truth and Righteousness cured their Ignorance and reform'd their Lives and upon good grounds given them an assurance of Heaven To say such as these are prejudic'd and want sincerity and knowledge to pass a judgment is only to prove what we justly suspect that they want true Edification among themselves and should be better taught the Doctrine of Charity Our Protestant Neighbours impartial Judges will give their Testimony to this Truth who have own'd and commended the Government of this Church condemn'd the Separation magnifi'd the Prudence Piety and Works of her Governours and Pastours and wish'd that they and their Charge were under such a Discipline and translated many of their Pious and Learned Works to Edifie and Save their People The Unreason-ableness of Separation p. 117 Our dissenting Brethren themselves at least in the good Mood and out of the heat of Dispute give their consent to this that the Instructions and Discourses of our Pastours from their Pulpits are Solid Learned Affectionate and Pious and their only Crime was that sometimes they were too well studied and too good If in the great number of the English Clergy some few may be lazy one particular person may clothe his Doctrine in too gay a dress another talks Scholastically above the capacity of his hearers a third too dully a fourth too nicely and opinionatively and here and there a Pastour answers not the true design of Preaching to inform Mens Minds to guide their Consciences and move their Affections what is this to the general Charge that no Edification so good is to be had as in the separate Meetings the pretended Cause of their Separation for 't is no more a true Cause than want of Accommodation or Room in Churches for some to separate where good Edification and Conveniency too may be easily had And since they compel our Pastours to speak well of themselves by their detraction and speaking ill of them they must gladly suffer them as fools â— Cor. 11.19 boldly to say That since the Reformation and many hundred years before there hath not been a Clergy so learned and pious so prudent and painful and every way industrious to Edifie and save the Souls of Men as now is in the English Church The Second Argument to confirm the Answer is That those that usually make this pretence for Separation do commonly mistake better Edification We have prov'd already that good and sufficient Edification to save the Souls of Men is to be had in the English Church For if teaching plainly the Articles of Faith and laying down clearly Rules of Manners using well composed Prayers and proper Administration of Sacraments be not good and sufficient Edification I know not what Edification means it