God hath ordained in his Church to convey unto me this Remission and to perform the Condition on which it is promised My believing the Rising again of my Body should make me watchful against all things that may keep it from being in a fit condition to rise to Glory and to practice all such Vertues as may prepare it for that Heavenly Condition to which I expect it should be raised And my believing the Life Everlasting should make me diligent to employ my short moment of Time here that my Everlasting Life hereafter may be a Life of Joy and not of Misery And thus from all the Articles of the Creed I am to draw Motives to strengthen me in all Christian Practice to which end my learning and believing of them is designed And till I do this I cannot rationally pretend to make good what I promised when I was baptized namely To believe all the Articles of the Christian Faith And without this I think my self unfit to partake of the Lord's Supper I now proceed to Obedience which you have frequently taught me is the second Head of my Christian Profession and that it has the Ten Commandments for its Rule and of these as well as of the Creed I ought to have a convenient Knowledge both as to the Words and Meaning before I come to the Lord's Table Because the keeping of God's Commandments is one part of that Vow which I have broken and come thither to renew And first I have been Catechised That in eaâ—h Commandment there is something required and something forbidden so that I may be guilty of transgressing it either by doing what I ought not to do or by leaving undone what I ought to do As to the things forbidden by the First Commandment I have learned that they are chiefly Atheism or the Denial of God's Being and the multiplying and serving of false Gods as also the not serving the only true God aright And of this last I look upon my self to become egregiously guilty when I suffer any thing to share with God in my Worship of him and when I am guilty of Hypocrisie Irreligion Indevotion Lukewarmness Heresie Schism Apostasie Infidelity Presumption Despair Carnal Security Pride Disobedience Impatience and Murmuring and wilful Ignorance of his Word And I have been taught That by this same Commandment it is required of me to acknowledge but One God and to have him for my God and to love fear obey and trust in him above all others and to serve him truly all the days of my life And as to the things forbidden in the Second Commandment I doubt not but they are The appointing of any kind of Image for Religious Worship the representing of God by a visible likeness of any thing the worshipping of Creatures the neglect of the Worship of the True God or the worshipping him after a false manner And the Duties enjoined in this Commandment are to worship the only True God according to his own Prescription to worship him both in my Body and Spirit to bear a due regard to all the Parts of his Worship as Prayer the Word and Sacraments to come to them with suitable Preparation and to yield a due Veneration to all Places Times Persons and Things rightly set apart for God's Worship And to such as thus worship him he hath promised Mercy and Kindness but has threatned to be a severe Punisher of them that do otherwise In the Third Commandment I am forbidden all irreverent Thoughts of God all Blasphemy or dishonourable mention of his Name all Perjury or Breach of lawful Oaths all occasioning the Name of God and True Religion to be blasphemed And on the other side I am enjoyned to think and speak reverently of God's Name and Attributes to glorifie him in his Holy Word and Ordinances to use his Name with Reverence in taking Religious Oaths to obâ—â—â—â—â— such Oaths with an holy Care and Conscience and to glorifie his Name by a pious Conversation The Fourth Commandment requires me to keep holy or to sanctifie all such days which are separated from a Common to a Religious use After God had in six days finished the Works of the first Creation he sanctified the Seventh Day and commanded his People to sanctifie it But after the Resurrection of Christ instead of the Seventh Day from the beginning of the Creation the First Day of the Week was hallowed and called emphatically the Lords-day And the Observation of it has been the universal practice of the Christian Church And I think my self bound to spend this day in an especial attendance on God's Service such as Prayer Preaching Participation of the Sacrament Relieving the Poor Meditating upon the Works of Creation and Redemption c. And on this day I have been taught that I am forbidden all Worldly Undertakings and Employments vain Sports and Recreations and all actions but those of Piety Mercy Necessity and Decency Now these four first Commandments respect my Duty toward God and the six that follow regard my Neighbour and my self And the first of these six which is the Fift of the Ten Commandments may be called the Commandment of Relations For it teaches me first my Duty to my Natural Parents and that I am to honour them Which implieth that I am to fear reverence succour and obey them It secondly teacheth me my Duty to my Political Parents namely the King and all in lawful Authoritâ— under him Whom also I am to honour and obey It thirdly teaches me my Duty to my Ecclesiastical Parents Spiritual Pastor and Teachers And it likewise binds me to carry my self lowly and reverently to all my betters In short I have been taught that this Commandment doth concern all the mutual Duties among all sorts and degrees of Inferiours and Superiours from the King to the Master of a Cottage And there is an especial Promise annexed to this Precept to encourage all to obey it in performing their respective Duties one to another In the Sixth Commandment which concerns Man's life all those things are forbidden me which any way tend to the injury of the same as Hatred causless and revengeful Anger contrivance of Man's Death occasions of and actual and wilful Murder And at the same time this Commandment requires me as far as I am able to preserve the life of Man and that I sustain it with Food and Raiment that I prudently avoid all Dangers and conscientiously fly from all such Vices whereby Humane Life is hazarded and which are destructive both of the Body and Soul of him that commits them Such as Drunkenness Uncleanness c. In the Seventh Commandment which concerns a chaste Conservation I am forbidden all acts of Adultery and Fornication together with unlawful Marriage And likewise all such Thoughts Looks Attire and Words as prompt and inveigle to Uncleanness I have further been taught that by this Commandment all such things are forbidden as may occasion any of these as Idleness Excess in Eating and Drinking
this purpose as is so generally supposed And give me leave to speak of these two freely and first of Disputation which is a meer empyrick prescription in order to heal our present distempers For though Disputation as it is managed by the Pen may have got a great Vogue in the World yet we can never hope that our Dissenting Judgments should hereby be reconciled if with due seriousness we consider First the manner of their conduct Secondly the matter to be disputed Thirdly the persons thereby to be wrought upon And First If the conduct of disputes fall under a calm unprejudiced and reflexive review as they appear in Print the Pen-men thereof seem to have intended rather the defamation than conviction of each other and to have been of an opinion that men were to be refuted as Mercury of old was worshipt by throwing dirt and stones in their Face But we have been taught by miserable experience that the lashing of a Few hath been subservient to no better end than to exasperate the whole Party And that our keenest Arguments if we may judge by the Event have only served to alarm the Adversary into a better provision for future resistance and to strengthen their opinion in that part wherein the Attack had discovered it to be the weakest But grant as indeed we must that the Dissenters to whom this Paragraph chiefly relates are not able to stand in Argument before their Opponents yet we must also grant that there is a want of Decorum in the Victors carriage while his Argument loseth its efficacie through the looseness luxury or rigour of its expression For it is too apparent to conceal that there are so many unmanly reflections in most of our late Controversies that discreet and sober persons loath the reading of those Pages where they occur Which gives occasion for doubting that such arguings so managed proceed not from that Spirit of meekness wherewith the overtaken Brother should be restored nor were designed to procure Unity and Concord among us seeing that so little of that Charity can therein be discerned which is the bond of Peace and sure ground-work of all true Reconcilement And if the conduct of our Debates were throughly considered we might find this Church complaining like the Eagle in the Greek Epilogue which seeing her Breast wounded with a feather'd Dart cryed out with Tears Alas my own kind hath destroyed me But to proceed It cannot be doubted but that some opinions sooner die by being contemn'd than taken notice of And I am perswaded that this National Church is now troubled with many Opinions which long ere this would have found their own Graves if they had not been kept alive with opposition In so much that it may be said of this particular Church what was of the Catholick That if she had stopt and damn'd up the Originals and Springs of Controversies rather than determining for one part to give them as it were a Pipe and Conduit to convey them to Posterity she had not suffer'd that Inundation of Opinions with which at this day she is over-run A policy still in practice in the Popish Countries where those Books of Controversies are scarce to be met with wherein their Religion is maintained against Reformed Churches By which means they live free from those Dissentions wherewith their Neighbours are afflicted to their scandal and ruin And I hope we may safely imitate their Wisdom whose Errors we abhor But if Controversies were as necessary as by some they are pretended to be yet their conduct ought so far to be reformed as that at least there be a cessation from hostile Expressions which have hitherto been of no better use than to exasperate Men into a petulant and peevish vindication of that Name under which they conceived themselves to be reviled Next that the Disputers would not vent and foam out their personal Piques and Animosities under the pretence and cloke of asserting Religion and the Church Lastly that they would aim at Peace and not Revenge For how seemly soever the present carriage of Disputes may be accounted in persons of another Character yet it is very ill-becoming those who are stiled Embassadors of Reconcilation and who ought to express the Emphasis of that Title in reconciling Mens Wills with their Duties and their Understandings with the Truth in bringing the wicked to repentance and the malicious to Charity and to win all to a holy compliance with the design and Rule of the Blessed Author of Christianity which was to heighten our Conversation to the most elevated pitch of true Vertue Peace and Holiness and that our Righteousness should exceed all theirs that ever went before us CHAP. IX The Just Matter and Subject of Controversie in Religion examined How by Catechising and not Dispute we are therein to be reconciled AND not only the present conduct of Disputes render them unsutable Medicines for our Disease but also the things concerning Religion which can with any Reason be pretended to be the matter thereof Now whatever in Religion can be pretended to be disputable must either respect its Dress and Ornaments or its Body and essential Parts the Exteriour Appendages or the Principles of Religion If the Scruple or the Dispute be about the Dress outward Rites Circumstances and Fashion of Religion than no contrivance seems more rational or method more probable to assoil and remove it than a due Catechising and instructing the scrupulous in the indispensible Duties of the Fifth Commandment and to tender him a plain Scheme of the Obligation that lies upon his Conscience To honour and obey the King and all that are put in Authority under him to submit himself to all his Teachers Spiritual Pastors and Masters How the Supreme Powers have Authority in the Externals of Religion How in Religion things indifferent in themselves may pass into a Law which ought to be obeyed as much as any Laws in indifferent things which relate to the good of the Civil State How things of never so low a stature or indifferent concernment having once received the Image and Superscription of a Law ought to be obey'd both for the sake of God and Conscience How it can no way comply with the design of Government to make good their Institutions by dint of Argument For if Authority were obliged to satisfie every medling and capricious Brain they would have little or no time left to be obeyed c. And when indiscretion of zeal or pride of Wit engage to vindicate every thing that is lawfully commanded it is to have a better opinion of our own than the Magistrates Prudence to think our Arguments will be more prevailing than their Commands or that the former were requisite to support the latter c. That these and the like things are proper for Catechism and thereby the most gently and indiscernably to be infused none I presume will gainsay For they naturally fall in with those Truths which belong to our duty toward man
of which we must be duly informed ere we can therein be exact If the Dissenter yield an obedient ear to this Instruction there will be little fear of his continuing scrupulous to obey what his Superiors have a just power and right to enjoyn If he do not hearken then let him be devoted to the Civil Power and leave the Magistrates to vindicate their own Authority and to make that be done for Wrath which would not for Conscience And I am tempted to think that if at the Happy Restauration this way had been pursued we long ere this had been sensible of its good Effects And I will add this moreover That if the Orthodox Clergy ever since God wonderfully restored them had devoted the greatest share of their pains to plain Expositions and Paraphrases of the Church-Catechism they might long before this have gently gained both upon their Opinions and Affections who by the indiscretion of other Methods seem to be now alienated beyond retrieve Conscience of Obedience will answer all the Scruples of Minds disposed to Peace and for the Turbulent let them be answer'd with Rods and Axes The next thing that can be disputed â—n Religion besides its dress and exterior adherencies are its Body or Principles such I mean as are absolutely necessary to Salvation for we need be solliciâ—ous for no more than what will save us Now these are both few and plain For as for those numerous places of Scripture Notices of Oral Tradition which are daâ—k and difficult they are no further necessary to be understood in their primitive intention and meaning than that we sincerely believe that whatsoever God thereby meant and intended is infallibly true And things thus truly necessary are as few as plain St. Paul has reduced them to Two Articles To believe that God is and that he is a Rewarder of all them that come unto him And to whom only thus much is given it shall not be damnable that they believe no more And if this as it seems to be the lowest degree of Faith God will therewith be pleased if the means be wanting of rising higher Cornelius in Acts 10. who because of his Alms and Prayers was accepted of God had not been safe in that State had he gone no further after God had sent St. Peter to inform him what he was to do more The Charities and Devotions performed in the time of his Jewish Proselytism how far they might have stood him in stead had he been vouchsafed no farther Illumination is not the Question yet if he had staid there when means of going farther was afforded him or if he had refused to believe in Christ after a sufficient Revelation he had then justly incurred the condemnation of loving Darkness more than Light when Light was come unto him These instances are usual in this matter and tell us plainly That as few Articles are of absolute necessity yet that their number is not the same unto all some more some less as God hath given to every man all that is necessary for a Man to believe which for that purpose is sufficiently revealed unto him and which God requires him to believe and practise But there is none can set down how much every man should believe no more than he can set down how much every man should eat But if notwithstanding this paucity and plainness of the Principles of Religion any should therein be still contentious this Evil is not to be removed by Disputation but plain Catechising whereby the Mysteries of Faith and the Duties of Holy Life are to be explained For Catechism is a brief and plain Institution appointed for that end and it takes care that the Principles of Religion be made so easie that the meanest capacity may apprehend them and yet in so concise and short a manner that the weakest Memory may not therefore be surcharged CHAP. X. Disptuation unfit for the capacity of the generality of Dissenters Catechising proper c. Reasons against Disputes IN the last place it will not a little import the clearing of the present subject to enquire into the nature of Disputes and their Capacities who should thereby be wrought upon As to the former it will suffice to observe that Disputation must be guided by Terms and Rules of Art which when managed with the greatest plainness whereof they are capable fall short of that obviousness and familiarity which is natural to Catechism And as to the latter it is very remarkable 1. That the vulgar and common People make incomparably the greater number of Dissenters 2. That the Understandings of such are usually heavy gross and dull as symbolizing with their Callings and Conditions and by consequent are unable to comprehend any profound and learned conclusions And what is yet more considerable the greatest part of Dissenters have no clear understanding of the very Errors which a Logical Disputation would confute The most of them being ignorant of their own Opinions and of the things against which they have imbib'd a secret and spiteful prejudice For it was and is still the policy of those who seduce the Vulgar into Faction and Schism not to acquaint them further with the Opinions they were to abet than to let them see that they were contrary to what they disliked in the Church Insomuch that the poor Vulgar being deluded into Separation retain but a very confused and imperfect Notion of what with great impetuousness they strive both for and against And therefore it must needs be a very Melancholy Enterprise to go to confute their Errors with depth of Argument who are in a great measure ignorant of the very Errors themselves and who do not distinctly know the opinions whereof they are to be convinced The case of such people much resembling theirs whom St. Paul thought to stand in need of Milk and not of strong Meat of a Catechism and not a Controversie and to be taught Christianity from the very beginning And the same Author being to confute those miscreant Hereticks who said the Resurrection was already past and thereupon gave themselves to lewd living he did it not with the heat and briskness of a Disputant but with the gravity and moderation of an Apostle and having barely and calmly named the wild Opinions he positively and plainly laid down those Truths that confronted them 2 Tim. 11.18 19. And he would have the Gnostick Hereticks to be encountred with Ecclesiastick Censures or Discipline and not Disputings whereof cometh envy strife railings evil surmises 1 Tim. 6.4 5. Tit. 3.10 If we were to set down the several Confessions of the Perswasions of all the Christians in the World they will be found to agree in more than is purely and simply necessary to Salvation And it may seem very vain to dispute and quarrel about the rest And therefore the whole business may be resolved into a diligent sincere and plain Instruction how we ought to practise what we all acknowledge to be true and to fall close