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A40089
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A sermon preached before the judges, &c. in the time of the assizes in the Cathedral church at Gloucester on Sunday Aug. 7, 1681 published to put a stop to false and injurious representations / by Edward Fowler.
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Fowler, Edward, 1632-1714.
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1681
(1681)
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Wing F1716; ESTC R10669
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23,348
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42
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stranger to Christianity that he hath totally cast off all Humanity Whosoever is a thorough Papist hath no Conscience in his own keeping his Conscience is perfectly at the dispose of his Holy Father and his Confessor Nor is there any villany be it never so great but he is prepared for it whensoever a Priest or Jesuit by commission from the Pope shall oblige him to it That Protestant doth but slightly understand Popery who dares trust his throat with a thorough Papist although he be seemingly a man of never so good a nature or of never so good Morals and the more conscientious he is in his way by so much the more dangerous a person is he That 's a rare Religion in the mean time the more true to which any man is the greater Villain he must necessarily be And those are a precious sort of Christians of which one cannot adventure to give a true and impartial Character and to paint them in their own colours but he must be in danger to be Censured as a scurrilous person as a man of a foul mouth and a down-right Railer Let us all therefore take up those words of Iacob in reference to his Generation which he uttered concerning his two wicked sons Simeon and Levi O my soul come not thou into their secret unto their assembly mine honour be not thou united To make some Application of what hath been discoursed First Is the putting away a good Conscience the true cause to which making shipwrack of the Faith is to be imputed Is this the account into which it is to be resolved Then as we would be out of danger of falling into Heresie and particularly of turning Papists and of making shipwrack of the Faith as they have done let us have a great care to hold fast a good Conscience To exercise our selves in keeping Consciences void of offence both towards God and towards men To lead lives answerable to the holy Doctrine which we profess to believe If any man will do the will of God or be sincerely willing to do it he shall know of the Doctrine whether it be of God saith our Blessed Saviour Iohn 7.17 He shall be able to discern between truth and falshood and shall be guided into and kept in the truth The truth hath no fast hold of any but those who receive it in the love of it and make it the measure and rule of their lives and actions It is not at all strange that Learned and Knowing men should make shipwrack of the Faith for Learning and Knowledge is no security while separated from Honesty and a Good Conscience There is no error so absurd or dangerous but we ought to expect an insincere person will embrace it when once it becomes serviceable to that Interest he is most concerned for the promoting of Even those of us who do now shew the most forward zeal against Popery if we be wedded to any corrupt Affection and have only the Form but are void of the Power of Godliness will be in never the less danger notwithstanding our present zeal of Apostatizing if ever it should become our temporal interest which God forbid to turn Papists Secondly Is it so apparent that the Church of Rome hath made so woful a shipwrack of the Faith Then what an infinite obligation lyeth upon us to the greatest Thankfulness to our good God for rescuing these Nations from under her yoke and for those Miracles of mercy which he hath wrought for us in blasting so many of their deep laid designs their late great Conspiracy and late Sham-plots for the reducing of us to our old Captivity If it had not been the Lord who was on our side now may England say if it had not been the Lord who was on our side when these men rose up against us then they had swallowed us up quick when their wrath was kindled against us then the waters had overwhelmed us and the streams had gone over our soul. Let us therefore Bless the Lord who hath not given us as a prey unto their teeth Lastly As we would still be secured from Popish Conspiracies from the unwearied attempts of our old Adversaries against us take we great heed of provoking the Almighty to withdraw at length his Protection and abandon us to their Malice by walking unworthy of that glorious Light and Liberty we now enjoy in the Church of England And while we have the light let us walk in the light lest God in his just judgment suffer us to be again involved in Egyptian darkness Oh happy Children of the Church of England if we could be perswaded to prize our present Vast Priviledges before our having lost them doth force us to set a high value on them And Oh that we were capable of so much Wisdom as no longer to strengthen the hands of our common enemy by our as unreasonable as Unchristian Animosities against one another That we had once as great a zeal against the Anti-christs within our own breasts Pride Anger Malice and Bitterness as we seem to have against the Anti-Christ in the Roman Chair Those Anti-christs being the greatest friends this Anti-christ hath and more our enemies than he is capable of being Oh that at length we could be convinced of this great truth that the Christian Religion consisteth not in meats or drinks mere external things but in righteousness peace and joy in the Holy Ghost In Humility Meekness Self-denial Obedience to Authority in all lawful things love to God and love to men c. Oh that we had a vigorous powerful sense of this that neither the most admired Gifts nor appearances of Grace which are not joyned with a Benign and Charitable temper can at all recommend us to the Divine favour That he hath no Participation of the God-like Life and Nature who is of a Quarrelsome Contentious Uncharitable Spirit be he in a many other respects never so Saint-like And that Christian love is a thousand times better argument of a renewed state than most of those marks and characters which are ordinarily given of a godly man If we were once brought to this happy pass to have a lively sense of these things to make great Conscience of preserving the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace and to abandon all Separating Dividing Sowre and ill-natur'd Principles and Practices we shall not then need to fear the malice of the Papists were their power greater than God be thanked it is but till then all our other endeavours to secure our selves may fail of success But alas I fear that never had a People sadder Omens of miserable days than we now have And nothing bodes worse than this that we are so far from Uniting among our selves notwithstanding we seem so sensible of extraordinary danger from our common Enemy that our breaches daily grow wider and wider We seem no less infatuated no less madly bent upon our own destruction than were the miserable Iews in the Siege
of Ierusalem among whom there were never such desperate Feuds as when they were all surrounded with the Roman Armies Those who by their causeless forsaking of our Communion have greatly strengthned the hands of our Enemies are so far from being yet made sensible of the mischief of Separation and the most pernicious consequences of Dividing that many of them are now grown fiercer than ever as appears by their late Books and Pamphlets c. against that Church which Rome hath always found to her cost the most impregnable Bulwark in all Christendom against Popery And on the other hand for I will not be taxed with Partiality there are too too many among our selves that do little consult our Churches interest nor consequently the interest of the Protestant Religion but greatly disserve both by their intemperate heats and branding all with the names of Fanaticks and Presbyterians who are not come up to their pitch and in all things just of their complexion although they be as obedient to both their Civil and Ecclesiastical Superiors as themselves are no less truly Regular and Conformable We ought by Love and Sweetness to encourage men all we can this is to act like the Disciples of the mild and most lovely temper'd Jesus and not by Sowreness and Censoriousness tempt those to depart from us who would gladly still hold Communion with us And where we find an inclination towards returning in any that have departed from us we should be glad to meet them half-way in order to the bringing them over to us And it becomes us likewise to make a difference between Peaceable and Modest Dissenters from us and those who are Turbulent Seditious and Factious and not wind up all together in the same bottom I may add also that there are God knows too too many Debauchees in the Nation who would be thought great Champions for the King and the Church but do infinite prejudice to both by the mad and frantick expressions of their zeal Who do mighty honour to Fanaticism by charging all with it that run not with them to the same excess of Riot One would suspect that these whatsoever they pretend do really design nothing more than to make both the King and the Church as friendless as they are able Heaven help them both should they ever be so unfortunate which God forbid as to stand in need of this sort of people If indeed Huffing and Healthing Cursing and Damning and giving vile names would do the business then let them alone to protect and defend the King and Church but former experience hath assured us that those are the best weapons that most of them can boast of their being good at A Neighbouring King and the Church of Rome may wish God's blessing on the hearts of these Gentlemen but our own King whom God preserve and the Church of England have little reason to Con them thanks for any service they are like to do them King Charles the First of Glorious Memory was very sensible of the Consequence of such mens assistance which proved fatal to him The goodness of whose Cause did sink under the burden of their sins according to the sad Presage of our excellent Chillingworth in a Sermon Preached to the Court at Oxford And if ever his Majesty and the Church should be again set upon by Scribes Pharisees God grant us better assistance than that of Publicans Sinners But I wonder in my heart what should make any Debauched and Prophane people pretend the least zeal for the Church of England there being no Church in the world that more condemns all unrighteousness and sin or which would be more severe against wicked livers were she in circumstances to put in execution her own Discipline Which she is not like to be so long as the Civil Magistrate is so remiss in executing according to their Oaths those excellent Laws that are Enacted against Drunkenness Swearing Uncleanness Profanation of the Lord's day and other wicked Practices And I add that Popery and Fanaticism will both undoubtedly still grow upon us be we never so zealous against both whilst that Debauchery and Prophaneness which have so miserably overspread the Nation do still escape scot-free and go unpunish'd I cannot but observe one thing more that 't is an uncouth and ridiculous Spectacle to behold wild Fanaticks and prophane people that call themselves Church of England men who are far from deserving that Title whether they be Clergy or Laity contesting together and falling foul upon one another One would be tempted upon this occasion to take up the Grand Vizier Kuperlées blunt reply to the French Ambassador upon his Accosting him with the news of the Spanish Armies being routed by the French viz. What matter is it to me whether the hog worries the dog or the dog the hog so my Masters head be but safe To Conclude 'TILL I see on the one hand a far greater sense of the hatefulness of Schism and of breaking the Peace and Unity of the Church of which all good people did heretofore express the greatest Abhorrence and Detestation And till I see on all hands more sincere endeavours to put away Anger Wrath Malice and Bitterness Till I see that the several divided Parties among us are more inclinable to unite heartily with us of the Church of England and We again with them so far forth as unanimously to oppose Popery that designs the destruction of us all Which all but hot-spurs that never allow themselves leisure to think a wise or sedate thought must needs know to be absolutely necessary to our mutual preservation at this time And it would be well would we herein learn of the Papists who notwithstanding the great differences that are among them also can joyn together against Protestants Till I see again that our Zeal against Popery is generally so well tempered as not to endanger our running headlong into the other extreme that of Confusion which will no question end in Popery Till I see that we hate Popery for its Disloyalty as well as for its Idolatrous and Cruel Principles and Practices Till I see also that our opposition to Poper y ariseth more generally from a sense of the infinite scandal it brings upon the Holy Religion of our Blessed Saviour and it s wofully depraving the Souls of men as well as from our concern for our Temporal interest Till I moreover see that Zeal in any sort of people whatsoever is not accounted sufficient to give them the Reputation of Good Protestants or Good Church-men so long as they are bad Christians and their Conversations declare them no hearty Friends to any Religion And in a word till I see that our Excellent Reformed Religion that the pure and undefiled Religion of the Church of England hath a more powerful influence upon the Lives and Spirits of those who profess themselves Anti-papists and Anti-sectarians I say till I see these things I shall for my part be far from concluding with Agag that the bitterness of death is past that the worst is not still behind which God in his infinite mercy give us wisdom to prevent by our timely Reformation in the forementioned instances for Christ Jesus his sake To whom with the Father and the Holy Ghost be rendred by us and by all the world all Honour Glory and Praise Amen FINIS * See Prov. 26.24 25 26. See Prov. 25.18 * Deut. 4.15 c. See Dr. More ' s Mystery of iniquity Book 2. Chap. 5. Most plainly to be learned from the Council of Constance Sess. 19. P. Perionius The excellent Mr. Joseph Mede declares it as his Opinion that the Papal Persecution doth equalize if not exceed the destruction of men made upon the Church by the Ten famous Persecutions under the Pagan Emperors And this he wrote before the horrible slaughters in Piedmont and Ireland * That is upon supposition that the Evidence be fully known to them * We think it high time to shew our dislike of those against whom we have been ever enough offended though we could not in this manner declare it who under pretence of Affection to Vs and Our Service assume to themselves the liberty of Reviling Threatning and Reproaching others and as much as in them lies endeavour to stifle and divert their good inclinations to Our Service and so to prevent that Reconciliation and Vnion of Hearts and Affections which can only with Gods Blessing make Vs rejoyce in each other and keep our Enemies from rejoycing King Charles II. in His Proclamation against Vicious and Debauched people T is evident I meant nothing by this passage but that we ought to imitate the Fathers behaviour in the Parable towards his Prodigal Son There are likewise another sort of men of whom we have heard much and are sufficiently ashamed who spend their time in Taverns Tipling-houses and Debauches giving no other Evidence of their Affection to us but in Drinking our Health and inveiging against all others who are not of their own dissolute temper and who in truth have more discredited our cause by the licence of their manners and lives than they could ever advance it by their Affection or Courage c. In the same Proclamation * This Paragraph is a little enlarged Ricaut