FOUR TRACTS I. A Discourse against Revenge shewing the Exorbitant Passions in Man from Mat. V. 21 22. II. Questions and Answers concerning the Two Religions Viz. That of the Church of England and the other of the Church of Rome Intended for the Use and Benefit of the Younger Sort of People III. An Account of an Evening-Conference with a Jesuite in the Savoy Jan. 22. IV. A Disswasive from Popery being a Letter to a Lady to preserve her from Apostacy from the Communion of the Church of England By A. HORNECK D. D. late Prebendary of Westminster and Preacher at the Savoy With a Preface by Mr. EDWARDS London Printed for S. Lownds at the Savoy W. Hinchman at Westminster-hall S. Keble in Fleet-street and D. Browne without Temple Bar. 1697. THE PREFACE HAD I attempted my self to have published any thing of this nature which I now would only recommend I should then have had too great reason to have made an Excuse and indeed too just fears not to have obtain'd it but since the Goodness Authority and Piety of the deceased Author are so very deservedly valued by the World I shall only concern my self to let the Reader know that the following Tracts were his own writing as I was desired by the Bookseller to do and which piece of Service I could not well deny him having compared the Sheets with some Manuscripts that are in my hands and with some occasional Notes of his upon the Bible and Common Prayer-Book which were lately sold with his other Books and indeed after their resolution to publish them under his name it was but reason that the Reader should be satisfied they were such as they were represented And besides the Authority that they may have the Usefulness of the first to restrain the Provocations and Revenges which this Age as moral as it pretends to be is so very full of and of the other to dispel the Carelessness and Indifferency of the World towards any Worship at all as full of Religion or rather pieces of it as at present it is may now add to its recommending For first the Sinfulness of Revenge is so very great and the pretended occasions for it so very many that the fatal forerunners of it Anger and Malice can't be too many ways nor indeed by any too severely exploded For though it 's certain that the Courage of the present Age does not any more than the Piety come up to the Excellency of the Antient and Primitive time yet that which is call'd Courage no better it may be than an ill tim'd and ill manag'd Resentment will fly oftner in their Faces than their Conscience still and raise the Concern for an affected Reputation much above the care for their truly real and eternal Safety For a mistaken Resentment quickly forgets all Obligations of Nature Country Religion and the same Flesh and Blood too sometimes in the heighth of an encourag'd Passion and unthinking fury and the frequent repeating it serves only to harden the most recommending Tenderness of our Natures to another Person and at length it may and does too sometimes make a Man forget that self preserving Care that is so unquestionably due to his own Whereas the excusing a Provocation may include the having a Power to revenge it and besides this here is the Credit of the most difficult and recommending Mastery gain'd that of a Mans self and thus a Man is most likely to secure that Dominion which he would be assuming even over his Neighbour whose Pride and Resentment when too provokingly urg'd may prove as great as his If Men would therefore comply with this agreeable restraint upon such ungovernable Passions of their Nature Revenge would be left to God who was always pleas'd to reserve it to himself who can best right our injur'd Innocence with an hand whose Correction he can withdraw at his Pleasure which command of our selves we to be sure can't pretend to so shall we be freed from the indecencies of Revenge that can never be amended if the sinfulness of it should be repented of unless a Man once provok'd were as willing to forget as the Almighty though never so incensed is to forgive upon the Submission of a repenting Offender Thus much may serve to prepare the Reader to attend to the following Discourse with a true Intention not to resist such influence as by the Blessing of God it may have upon him as that good Man doubtless pray'd it might when he writ it and as I heartily desire it may to all that read it In Relation to the other Tracts they may without doubt be very serviceable not only to the Younger in years but to those too whose neglect of their time may in this respect have shamefully levell'd them with those whose smaller Time and Judgment have not yet impower'd them to attend it for I 'm afraid it is too great a Truth that many of our own Church apprehend as little of the Articles of that Faith they pretend to be of and the Object of our Worship as the generality of the other Church do of the Language of their's and we are not only willing but concern'd too that they should understand them both So that if the first Tract should any ways contribute to restrain the troublesome and uneasie disorders of Anger and Malice and the dismal procedure of double returning Revenge and the other should furnish any unapprehending Person with a reason of the hope he has of his Salvation whenever it should be demanded or any attempt made to remove him from it which the distance of it don't seem to secure more than the Dissatisfactions Controversies and Carelessnesses may threaten And if the Account that is here given of the Absurdities Impieties and Vanities that are in that Worship should convince any Person that he ought to decline it and retain his own the Church would be serv'd No Person that I know of injured and the Reader I hope as well as my self very well pleas'd in it London May 27th 1697. W. EDWARDS A DISCOURSE against Revenge c. Mat. V. 21 22. Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time Thou shalt not kill and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment But I say unto you that whosoever is angry with his Brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment and whosoever shall say to his Brother Raca shall be in danger of the Council but whosoever shall say thou Fool shall be in danger of Hell fire FAlse Teachers without doubt are very dangerous Men. The Murtherer kills the Body these the Soul and by the false Doctrines they sow in Mens Heads and Minds they not only obstruct their Salvation but lead them into Perdition Indeed if the Errors be light and trivial the hurt that 's done is not great and while the erroneous Doctrine reaches no farther than Speculation it can deserve no very severe Censure but when it spoiles and sullies
by them of old time and so far as God hath said it it is a Law unalterable Murder is a truly crying Sin for the Voice of thy Brother's Blood crys unto me from the ground saith God Gen. IV. 10. This is a Crime which Nature it self trembles at and yet we see there are Wretches and Monsters who can steel and harden their Consciences against the Horror of it But God thunders against it from Heaven and because the Crime is so great he hath made a Law and given it to all Mankind That whoso sheds Mans Blood by Man i. e. by the Magistrates shall his Blood be shed Gen. IX 6. Nay if a wild Beast tears a Man who is going about his lawful Occasions in pieces though an irrational Creature God will strike that Beast dead because it kill'd Sanctius his Animal a nobler and more sacred Fabrick So tender is God of the Life of Man nor would he suffer his Tabernacle or Sanctuary to be a refuge for such a barbarous Wretch The Horns of the Altar could not save the Offender and from the very Temple he was to be dragg'd to the Gallows or place of execution The whole Country comes to be defiled by the horrid Crime where it goes unpunish'd and that Magistrate makes his Soul black with guilt that connives at the inhumane Action or out of respect to Greatness or Rank or Quality pardons the intollerable Extravagance Where this remains unpunish'd when known a Nation falls under the Curse of God and whatever Judgments befal them an ounce of the unpunish'd Murder as the Jews say of the Sin of the Golden Calf may be said to be an Ingredient of their Calamity We have a Distinction in our Law betwixt Mans Slaughter and Murder A Distinction which I wish did not too often cover that Bloody Crime which ought to be avenged by publick Justice The Word of God knows no such Distinction and tho' it provides for Chance-medly and gives pardon to the Man that unawares and without any intent to kill proves the occasion of another's Death yet this is nothing to that Act which Wrath and Anger whether sudden or premeditate doth produce to the Horror of the Creation Neither doth the Law of the Gospel nor the Law of Moses in this case before us reverse the Law of Nature and God is so resolute that the Magistrate shall punish such Offenders with Death that where they do not himself sometimes takes the Sword in hand and executes the presumptuous Destroyer of his Image Nay many times makes the Wretch that did the Fact and escapes the Magistrates Sword his own Executioner Alphonsus Diazius a Spaniard and a Roman Catholick having kill'd his own Natural Brother for turning Protestant for which he receiv'd the Praises and Applauses of considerable Men in the Church of Rome haunted and hunted at last by the Furies of his own Conscience desperately hang'd himself at Trent de callo Mulae suae saith the Historian upon the Neck of his own Mule It 's true there are those who guilty of such Crimes do yet escape the revenging Arm of God and Man here but the more terrible will be their Cup of trembling hereafter and God lets some like stall'd Oxen grow fat on this side the Grave that with greater Terrour they may fall a Sacrifice when they die to hellish Furies Nor can Duels and single Combats upon an Affront receiv'd and Challenging one another to fight be excused from sharing in the Heinousness of this Guilt for whatever fine Names and plausible Descriptions the Law of Honour may have made of such Actions he that kills another in a Duel though he gets a Pardon of his Prince will be Arraign'd in the last day among the Murtherers who shall have their Portion in the Lake which burns with Fire and Brimstone I do not deny but that in the dark times of Popery such Combats have been allow'd of and publick Prayers have been said for Success in such Duels but what Credit can a Cause receive from Ages in which to understand Greek was a Crime and Hebrew next to Heresie We need not wonder that Babylon the Mother of Harlots should permit such things whose Garments have been died Red with the Blood of the Saints of God and which hath Tricks and Ways to Canonize Assassins to consecrate Murther and to Christen Massacres Services of Religon To call upon you to take heed of having a hand in Blood were to discourage you from drowning or poisoning your selves or running a Sword into your own Bowels for indeed this is no better and whatever varnish may be put upon it it is precipitating your selves headlong into the Gulf of Perdition There is in this Sin all that can aggravate a Deed it is to raise a Hell in your Bosom and the thing it self speaks so much abomination that to name the Sin is to give you a thousand Arguments against it But then that ye may not be under any temptation to this Sin let bitterness and wrath and anger be put away from you with all Malice which leads me to the third Proposition III. That Wrath and Anger without a just cause have their Degrees and according to them the Punishment in the next Life will be proportionable For whosoever shall be angry with his Brother without a cause shall be in danger of the Judgment and whosoever shall say to his Brother Raca shall be in danger of the Councel but whosoever shall say thou Fool shall be in danger of Hell-fire That some Anger is lawful is evident from hence because Christ himself was angry and very angry sometimes and so were the Apostles and we are permitted to be so but with this Caution be angry and sin not i. e. so as not to Sin Eph. IV. 26. So that all anger is not a mark of Damnation But then when the Author and Captain of our Salvation Christ Jesus and his Holy Apostles were angry it was only against Sin and out of a Zeal to Vertue and when Men were obstinate and would not be perswaded to do their Duty and a Sense of God's Glory kindled the fire of their Passion in which Case to be angry is a Perfection and to be passionate a Christian accomplishment provided still that the bounds of that Anger be observed and it's heat do not turn into Wild-fire that it be not attended with unseemly Expressions nor accompanied with furious Gestures and Actions I do not deny but a Man may be angry with his Servant a Father with his Children and a Master with his Schollars and proceed even to Correction but then it must be because they neglect their Duty or will not hearken to wholsome Admonitions and when gentler Addresses will do no good and the Anger must be more upon the account of their Sin than out of any Desire to revenge and it must be an Anger mingled with Pitty and Compassion and which ends in Prayer for the Offenders and it must be free from
the Worship of God or proves an impediment to the faithful discharge of our Duty to God and Man Poison is not so prejudicial to the outward as such Opinions are to the inward Man and the better part And such were the erroneous Doctrines of the Scribes and Pharisees Blending the Traditions of their Fathers with the Law of God and entertaining both with an equal Faith and Veneration they made an odd kind of Divinity and quite perverted the design of Religion which was to make Men universally good This was particularly visible in the notion they had of the sixth Commandment which they interpreted to the carnal advantage and worldly Interest of their People teaching them that if they did but use that Care and Circumspection as not to kill a Man they did not only answer the design of the Lawgiver but would prevent the Penalty annex'd and their being taken notice of by the Magistrate and punished accordingly but as for Wrath and Malice and reproachful Language whereby Murder and such bloody Practices are too often occasion'd and promoted these they told them were things not forbid in the primary Intention of the Law of God and consequently they need fear no Punishment To which preposterous Exposition our Saviour opposes his Divine Authority proves the gloss of their Elders upon the sixth Commandment to be false and shews That what they thought did not deserve so much as a temporal Judgment God would punish with eternal Vengeance if not forsaken or repented of betimes Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time Thou shalt not kill and whosoever shall kill shall be c. This is a Text upon which Criticks and Learned Men have bestow'd many excellent Observations because the words relate to some antient Customes of the Jews in their Judicial Proceedings against Malefactors and others But as I do not think it proper to entertain you with Curiosities so if there be need of making use of any of those Observations I shall do it no farther than they serve to elucidate some of the obscurer Passages of the Text and make way for the practical Points I shall insist upon for your Edification As to the Sense of the Words it 's briefly this 1. Whether we render the Expression in the Original 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It hath been said by them of old time or to them of old time as some Translations read it the difference is not very material for as by those of old time are meant either the antient Masters of Tradition who lived some hundred years before that time or the Ancestors of the Jews to whom those Masters of Tradition pretended to deliver an oral Exposition of the Law of Moses so if we read by them of old time the meaning is You have heard that it hath been deliver'd and said by the antient Masters of Tradition And if we render it to them of old time the sense is You have heard it delivered to your Ancestors and Forefathers by those antient Masters of Tradition I restrain you see this Passage to Tradition for though the Sense of it is to be sound in the Law of Moses yet the Maxim as it is related by our Saviour here is not expressed there neither with that Connection And therefore I conceive the antient Expositors of the Law contracted what Moses had said into this Motto Whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment 2. What is said here of Killing is meant of killing a Man and hath respect to the sixth Commandment Thou shalt do no Murder By which Law as the killing of Beasts for Man's use could not be intended nor destroying venemous and noxious Animals nor executing of Malefactors by order of the Magistrate nor depriving Men of their Lives in a just and lawful War but an unjust depriving a Man of his Life so there was a Punishment suitable annex'd to the breach of that Law which Punishment was to be ordered and inflicted by the Magistrate and so far as the Law of God given by Moses went all was right and just and reasonable but here the Masters of Tradition had made a Distinction that if a Man had hired another to kill his Neighbour or had let loose a wild Beast upon him whereby he died the Magistrate was not to inflict the Punishment of Death upon him but he was to be left to the extraordinary Judgment of God but if he killed him in person either by a Sword or by a Stone or by some other Weapon then the Magistrate was to execute the Penalty appointed by the Law of Moses upon him but this was not all for they taught moreover that though a Person who killed another was liable to capital Punishments yet the Wrath the Anger and the Malice that prompted him to it was a thing that deserved no Punishment and therefore this was not a thing to be feared and here came in Tradition which misinterpreted the Law of Moses though it stands to reason that he who forbids a Sin at the same time doth forbid the occasion of it and all such things as do naturally lead to the Commission of it 3. Our Saviour to shew that Wrath and Anger and Malice and reproachful Language were liable to Punishment as well as Murder and that God would certainly lash them as well as the greater Enormities takes notice of several degrees of unjust Wrath and Anger The first is a sudden Effervescence or Boyling up of the Blood or some violent Agitation and Commotion of the Passions upon a frivolous occasion and therefore adds 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without sufficient cause which though it be not in some Copies yet must necessarily be understood here not denying but that Anger in some cases may be lawful but shewing withal that if the occasion of the Anger be slight and trivial and the Anger even in a lawful cause be excessive and going beyond its just bounds it provokes God's heavy Displeasure But then if this secret Anger within or the first boyling over of the Blood proceeds farther to contemptuous words and that a Man in Wrath and Malice gives his Neighbour reproachful Language despising and undervaluing him by using Expressions and Names which wound his Reputation intimated by the word Rakah i. e. vile and worthless Wretch though I am apt to believe that an angry and threatning noise and posture is chiefly meant by that word in this case the Sin rises higher and becomes greater and consequently deserves a severer Judgment but then if this Anger mounts higher yet and from an angry threatning Posture and Noise which betrays Wrath and Indignation it proceeds to the calling our Neighbour Fool i. e. wicked and reprobate Wretch deserving the eternal Anger both of God and all good Men which is the meaning of the word Fool in the Proverbs of Solomon as the Sin becomes more heinous by this Aggravation so the Punishment of it in the other World will be greater yet 4. What