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A43065 A sermon preach'd before the Honourable House of Commons, at St. Margaret's Westminster, January the 30th, 1695/6 by Gregory Hascard. Hascard, Gregory. 1696 (1696) Wing H1117; ESTC R25418 14,412 31

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discover'd and certainly thinks these things in Religion are very true This Persuasion makes him depending upon and resign to God quiets his Actions expels his Fears supports his Hopes makes him more humble and charitable just and true keeps him in a continual Sense and Reverence of God and in universal Love with all Mankind This is truly a good Man whose Religion is pure and undefil'd and carries a respect only to another World All other Religion without this good Purpose is only Fashion or Faction Hypocrisy and Formality Superstition or Interest whereby he honours and serves only himself but disgraces his God Such Men have made Religion this or that so various that you may as well define the thing that Men call Wit as what Religion means Sometimes 't is Temper changeable by Weather and Company sometimes 't is Discontent arising from Disappointment of one Party and now the Man is resolv'd to strike in with another sometimes 't is Design and Creed Sacraments and Prayers are good Engins and Trains to gain it As tho the Son of God came with all the greatness of his Miracles and suffer'd all those Sorrows and Indignities upon Earth only to set up a new Model of Government to erect some new Schemes of Trade and the great Contention should be whether the Monopoly of it should be at Rome or elsewhere and in the modern Phrase a rich and a thriving Man should be call'd a good Man For Religion without real Goodness is Scene and Pageantry Noise and Humour and any thing but what it pretends to be Without plain Obedience to the Laws of God and Reformation of Manners Religion is but Flattery and Bribes for Divine Justice To seem to be Religious and not to bridle our Tongues to pretend to Faith and shew no good Works to boast of the Spirit of Christ without his Temper the Love of God without Duty and Submission and to be a Christian and yet without Virtue is a Contradiction and in effect is to be called Good without Goodness or Christians without Christianity For if you look to the Laws and Design of Christ his Example and Miracles in Confirmation of it the whole Constitution and Frame of his Religion you will find it only this to make Men better here and to save them hereafter and so essential to Christianity that you may as soon call a Man a Man without Spirit or Soul or the Hypocrites Trumpet a Victory as men Religious without Honesty and Goodness and Prayers and Sacraments Temples and Altars and all the Externals of Religion Minister unto that great Design and the discovery of Christ call'd our Creeds are not to tell us fine Notions and Curiosities about God and that other State but to influence our Lives and give us good Hopes of Heaven Here our Religion Centers and this alone will do us good To hear Men talk loudly and dispute angerly about Religion and yet want Goodness is equal to the folly of quarrelling about the Possessions of the Moon they worship and are warm about they know not what something that will not belong to them to fight for that which they intend never to use that is to say to correct their Follies and Lewdness 't is to expose their Quiet and Lives sor Riddles and the unknown Land And without this great end Men may as well lay aside the Profession of it and give themselves and the World less Trouble and there would be less Censures and Rigors in the World For let us deal impartially with our selves and others Who were the Causes of this Bloody Fact and yet most unjustly charg'd Popery upon our Martyr Whose is the best Religion his who fetcheth a Dispensation for his Vice from Rome Or his who gives himself a License to Sin His who condemns the Half Communion Or he that never receives at all except it be for an Office or a Vote His who believes the Pains of Purgatory Or his who laughs at that Doctrine yet lives as tho there was neither Purgatory nor Hell but painted Fires in both The Consistory is not more Holy than the Conclave if the same Vices be in both there is little difference between him that shall take away one of the commands and him that shall constantly break another The Doctrines of the Church of Rome naturally lead to Vice the worst Religion in the Christian World because they do so and the Constitution of our own directly leads to Virtue one of the best Notes to know the best Church by Yet if our Lives be equally wicked 't is no great matter who is in the purest Church 'T is fit that the best constituted Church in the whole World such is this of the Church of England should have the best Men in it and all its Members may be so if they please and seek for no other but gracing it with works of Goodness and Discipline are themselves an honest and upright Conversation This is the good Man we want so much this is the Israelite indeed in whom is no guile This is a true Disciple of Christ and such that are so minded there will be Peace upon them and the whole Israel of God 2. What grew up and prevail'd in the Prophet's time in the place of true Religion or Goodness 1. Superstition and false Religion which naturally produces trouble and disquiet in all Governments Worthy Conceptions of God and Christ and Obedience to his plain Laws are so far from clashing with Authority that they give it greater strength and value Obedience in such a Religion being a mighty Duty But Superstition which entertains such course Notions of God making him False and Cruel Peevish and Humoursome Sowre and Uncertain makes its Disciples of the same Temper thinking it excellent Religion to imitate such a God which must necessarily disturb Societies and be troublesome to all Mankind What strange Subjects Neigbours and Friends must those be who are always sullen and melancholy fearful and discontented these cannot but weaken and allay the pleasure and safety of Neighbourhoods and Communities Let us draw the black Catalogue of all the Cruelties and Butcheries Confusions and Ruins that have betided the World and you shall find most of them owing their Original to Superstition of false Religion it being the nature of these two to call Humour and Flesh Interest or Fashion Design or Education Cloudy-days and Ambition and the like the working of the Spirit the Church of God Decrees of Heaven Christian Liberty Fundamentals of Religion and Conditions of Salvation And if they fancy these to be oppos'd and totter Violence and Fraud Blood and Disorder must all club together for their Support and Reputation Superstition and blind Zeal like AEneas with his Father and his false gods upon his Back and Sampson with his Eyes put out will pass through Flames and pull the Government about their Ears and make a Common Grave for themselves and Enemies And all the dear Relations of Prince and Subjects Friends and
is apt and fit to gain upon all And therefore Men of Contrivance and Policy if themselves had no real Persuasion of Religion yet ever thought it necessary to infuse the belief of it into those they had to manage supposing that all other Methods to rule the World were only Formalities and Entreaties And t is plain what they acted upon the account of State-craft is really so A Land without Religion is a World without a Sun producing Horror and Confusion and the Prophets Wo. And the belief of a God Without real Goodness is to say there is no God at all 3. What particular Reasons may move us to bewail the want of real Goodness 1. The want of it is the principal Cause of our Distractions about Religion Men of Wisdom and Sobriety cannot but be pleas'd to have the methods of Salvation plain and the Characters easy whereby they may judge whether they shall be saved or no but it sometimes happens that good Men live and walk where different ways are chalk'd out and several Voices are heard to say Lo here and lo there lies the road to Jerusalem their Opinions are numerous their Arguings warm their Censures severe every one pretending Heaven and true Religion is only with them How must the good Man carry himself here when his Birth Privacy Imployment and other Circumstances of Life will not permit him to consider and conclude who hath the greatest truth on his side The only Gound among these Quicksands Waves and Winds variety of Opinions as ill as they to anchor on is real Goodness This being the best evidence that our Faith is true our Spirit Divine Decrers irreversible the great preparative to Heaven to which all other parts in Religion do minister in which most Persuasions tho sometimes they mistake the means to it do agree most suitable to natural Reason the design of Christ's coming and the solemn end of all Religion If this good Man mistakes yet so long as his Error toucheth not upon the great Article of Faith nor Goodness he hath a merciful High-Priest at God's right hand who will accept his Sacrifice and pardon the blemish of it He is safe and secure and is a Israclite indeed tho he hath not the Phylacteries and Fringes of a nicer Rabbi tho he cannot call over all the Points of the Compass and understand all the Sailer's terms yet he is in the Channel to Sion not having made Shipwrack of Faith and a good Conscience And tho this Church of England which our Martyr so heartily defended with his Pen and his Blood be charg'd by some with Heresy and others with Superstition and Secular Interest yet being sure that her Faith is Primitive her Discipline Ceremonies Collects Homilles and whole Constitution are model'd for and directly lead to a good Conversation we may fix in her and not grow giddy by turning round in all Religions Nothing giving more satisfaction to the Mind in a divided Age that we shall not miscarry in our hopes of Heaven that when our purposes in Religion are honest to make us better Men than the common Lump and Mass of Mankind that we are now designing only to be good and to have our Conversation as becomes the Gospel of Christ 2 Real Goodness is the best way to unite us among our selves Religion upon any other account than the hopes of Heaven above and real Goodness below is changeable being only Fashion Interest or Humour which will dwindle into as many Divisions as there are in the World Religion that aims not at Goodness is nice and clamorous worldly and uncertain which naturally produce Factions and Dissentions Religion or Wisdom from above is gentle and easy to be entreated plain and substantial which easily beget Unity and Charity great parts of Christianity and as great Blessings of Mankind Real Goodness purges our Judgment removes our Prejudices then we easily discern what is Notion and Opinion and Speculation and what is solid and practical Truth what is probable and what is plain what may be parred with for peace-sake and what is to be retain'd what is Soul and and Heaven and what is Flesh and Blood The great occasion of Differences that have vext the Christian World and been its Scandal hath sprung from the Ambition and Peevishness idle Disputes Contests of Power and Gain For tho must in their religious Heats pretend Faith and Goodness and entitle other things with those excellent Na●es yet they confute themselves in the Prosecution of them being guily of Cruelty Hypocrisy and falshood things directly contrary to the Christian faith They kill Jesus to save Christ disgrace Religion in so maintaining of it And would Men be in earnest in this pretence the great Contentions would draw to an end For let us but leave things controverted and dark to the Schools for Discipline Order and things of indifferency submit to the Wisdom of our Governors and let not Factories and Changes mix with our Churches and call Interest Christianity and strip our selves of Passion and hopes of Victory there would be only left Faith and a good Life necessary to Salvation such as Christ and his Apostles taught the Primitive Christians practised and were saved by plain and manifest to all And then the only Contention would be Honest and truly Christian who should be the best Men and some mens Zeal would therefore cool the flaming Bigot not always having this good design to receive the Kingdom of God as a little Child in simplicity and goodness to grow thereby It being easy to observe that an Age full of Contention about Religion was not always the best and when the Church as in the first Three hundred years was truly good it had most Unity within its Pale Vice directly stirring up Wars and Feuds and Virtue Peace and Love and to reform mens Lives is the best method to bring them into truth and if our Conversation be in Heaven we shall be exercising and singing Peace of Earth Duty to our King Good will to all men the short and easy Method to bring us to the place where the Sould of our Blessed Martyr dwells that with him and the Spirits of Just Men made perfect we may sing Praises and Hallelujahs to the Lamb and him that sits upon the Throne blessed for evermore Amen FINIS ADVERTISEMENT A Sermon preach'd before the King at His Majesty's Chappel in Windso-Castle November 10. 1695. By Gregory Hascard D. D. Dean of Windsor and Chaplain in Ordinary to His Majesty Published by his Majesty's Speci●l Command Printed for Daniel Brown at the Bible and Swan without Temple-Bar