fly to several stale trite pitifull Objections and Cavils some against Religion in general and some against Christianity in particular and some against the very first Principles of Morality to give them some poor Credit and Countenance in the pursuit of their bruitish Courses Few practical Errors in the world are embraced upon the Stock of Conviction but Inclination For though indeed the judgment may err upon the account of Weakness yet where there is one Error that enters in at this door ten are lett into it through the Will That for the most part being set upon those things which Truth is a direct obstacle to the Enjoyment of and where both cannot be had a man will be sure to buy his Enjoyment though he pays down Truth for the purchase For in this case the further from Truth the further from Trouble Since Truth shows such an one what he is unwilling to see and tells him what he hates to hear They are the same beams that shine and enlighten and are apt to scorch too and it is impossible for a man engaged in any wicked way to have a clear understanding of it and a quiet mind in it together But these Sons of Epicurus both for Voluptuousness and Irreligion also as it is hard to support the former without the latter these I say rest not here but if you will take them at their word they must also pass for the only Wits of the Age though greater Arguments I am sure may be produced against this than any they can alledge against the most improbable Article of Christianity But heretofore the Rate and Standard of Wit was very different from what it is now-a-days No man was then accounted a Wit for speaking such things as deserved to have the Tongue cut out that spake them Nor did any man pass for a Philosopher or a man of depth for talking atheistically or a man of Parts for imploying them against that God that gave them For then the World was generally better enclined Vertue was in so much Reputation as to be pretended to at least And Vertue whether in a Christian or in an Infidel can have no Interest to be served either by Atheism or Infidelity For which Cause could we but prevail with the greatest Debauchees amongst us to change their Lives we should find it no very hard matter to change their Judgments For notwithstanding all their talk of Reason and Philosophy which God knows they are deplorably strangers to and those unanswerable Doubts and Difficulties which over their Cups or their Coffee they pretend to have against Christianity persuade but the Covetous man not to deifie his money the Proud man not to adore himself the Lascivious man to throw off his lewd amours the Intemperate man to abandon his revels and so for any other vice that is apt to abuse and pervert the mind of man and I dare undertake that all their Giant-like objections against Christian Religion shall presently vanish and quit the field For he that is a good man is three quarters of his way towards the being a good Christian wheresoever he lives or whatsoever he is called Secondly In the next place we learn from hence the most effectual way and means of proficiency and growth in the Knowledge of the great and profound Truths of Religion and how to make us all not only good Christians but also expert Divines It is a knowledge that men are not so much to study as to live themselves into A knowledge that passes into the Head through the Heart I have heard of some that in their latter years through the feebleness of their Limbs have been forced to study upon their knees and I think it might well become the youngest and the strongest to doe so too Let them daily and incessantly pray to God for his Grace and if God gives grace they may be sure that knowledge will not stay long behind Since it is the same Spirit and Principle that purifies the Heart and clarifies the Understanding Let all their Enquiries into the deep and mysterious points of Theology be begun and carried on with fervent Petitions to God that he would dispose their minds to direct all their Skill and Knowledge to the Promotion of a good life both in themselves and others that he would use all their Noblest Speculations and most Refined Notions only as Instruments to move and set a Work the great Principles of Actions the Will and the Affections that he would convince them of the Infinite Vanity and uselessness of all that Learning that makes not the Possessor of it a Better man that He would keep them from those Sins that may grieve and provoke his holy Spirit the fountain of all true light and knowledge to withdraw from them and so seal them up under Darkness Blindness and Stupidity of mind For where the Heart is bent upon and held under the power of any vicious Course though Christ himself should take the contrary Vertue for his Doctrine and doe a miracle before such an ones Eyes for its Application yet he would not Practically gain his Assent but the Result of all would end in a non persuadebis etiamsi persuaseris Few Consider what a Degree of Sottishness and Confirmed Ignorance men may sin themselves into This was the case of the Pharisees And no doubt but this very Consideration also gives us the true Reason and full Explication of that notable and strange passage of Scripture in Luke 16. and the last verse That if men will not hear Moses and the Prophets neither will they be persuaded though one rose from the Dead That is where a strong inveterate Love of Sin has made any Doctrine or Proposition wholly unsutable to the Heart no Argument or Demonstration no nor miracle whatsoever shall be able to bring the Heart cordially to close with and receive it Whereas on the Contrary if the Heart be piously disposed the Natural goodness of any Doctrine is enough to vouch for the Truth of it for the Sutableness of it will endear it to the Will and by endearing it to the Will will naturally slide it into the Assent also For in Morals as well as in Metaphysicks there is nothing really good but has a Truth Commensurate to its Goodness The Truths of Christ crucified are the Christians Philosophy and a good life is the Christians Logick that great Instrumental introductive Art that must guide the mind into the former And where a long Course of Piety and close Communion with God has purged the Heart and rectified the Will and made all things ready for the Reception of God's Spirit Knowledge will break in upon such a Soul like the Sun shining in his full might with such a Victorious light that nothing shall be able to resist it If now at length some should object here that from what has been delivered it will follow That the most Pious men are still the most Knowing which yet seems contrary to common
value their practice in one of which places the Minister has been seen for mere want to mend shoes on the Saturday and been heard to preach on the Sunday In the other place stating the several orders of the Citizens they place their Ministers after their Apothecaries that is the Physician of the Soul after the Drugster of the Body a fit practice for those who if they were to rank Things as well as Persons would place their Religion after their Trade And thus much concerning the first way of Debasing the Ministers and Ministery 2. The second way is by admitting Ignorant Sordid Illiterate persons to this Function This is to give the Royal stamp to a piece of Lead I confess God has no need of any man's Parts or Learning but certainly then he has much less need of his Ignorance and ill Behaviour It is a sad thing when all other Employments shall empty themselves into the Ministery When men shall repair to it not for Preferment but Refuge like Malefactors flying to the Altar only to save their lives or like those of Eli's Race 1 Sam. 2.36 that should come crouching and seek to be put into the Priests Office that they might eat a piece of Bread Heretofore there was required splendour of Parentage to recommend any one to the Priesthood as Iosephus witnesses in a Treatise which he wrote of his own Life where he says To have right to deal in things Sacred was amongst them accounted an argument of a Noble and Illustrious Descent God would not accept the Offals of other Professions Doubtless many rejected Christ upon this thought That he was the Carpenter's Son who would have embraced him had they known him to have been the Son of David The preferring undeserving persons to this great service was eminently Ieroboam's Sin and how Ieroboam's practice and offence has been continued amongst us in another guise is not unknown For has not Learning unqualified men for approbation to the Ministery Have not Parts and Abilities been reputed Enemies to Grace and qualities no ways Ministerial While Friends Faction Well-meaning and little understanding have been Accomplishments beyond Study and the University and to falsifie a story of Conversion beyond pertinent Answers and clear Resolutions to the hardest and most concerning Questions So that matters have been brought to this pass That if a man amongst his Sons had any blind or disfigured he laid him aside for the Ministery and such an one was presently approved as having a mortified Countenance In short it was a fiery Furnace which often approved Dross and rejected Gold But thanks be to God those Spiritual Wickednesses are now discharged from their high places Hence it was that many rushed into the Ministery as being the only Calling that they could profess without serving an Apprenticeship Hence also we had those that could preach Sermons but not Defend them The reason of which is clear because the Works and Writings of Learned men might be borrowed but not the Abilities Had indeed the Old Levitical Hierarchy still continued in which it was part of the Ministerial Office to slay the Sacrifices to cleanse the Vessels to scour the Flesh-forks to sweep the Temple and carry the filth and rubbish to the Brook Kidron no persons living had been fitter for the Ministery and to serve in this nature at the Altar But since it is made a labour of the mind as to inform mens Judgments and move their Affections to resolve difficult places of Scripture to decide and clear off Controversies I cannot see how to be a Butcher Scavinger or any other such Trade does at all qualifie or prepare men for this work But as unfit as they were yet to clear a way for such into the Ministery we have had almost all Sermons full of gibes and scoffs at Humane Learning Away with vain Philosophy with the disputer of this world and the enticing words of man's wisdom and set up the foolishness of Preaching the simplicity of the Gospel Thus Divinity has been brought in upon the ruines of Humanity by forcing the Words of the Scripture from the sence and then haling them to the worst of drudgeries to set a Ius Divinum upon ignorance and imperfection and recommend Natural Weakness for Supernatural Grace Hereupon the Ignorant have took heart to venture upon this great Calling and instead of cutting their way to it according to the usual course through the knowledge of the tongues the Study of Philosophy School-divinity the Fathers and Councils they have taken another and a shorter Cut and having read perhaps a Treatise or two upon the heart the bruised Reed the Crumbs of Comfort Wollebius in English and some other little Authors the usual Furniture of Old Womens Closets they have set forth as accomplished Divines and forthwith they present themselves to the Service and there have not been wanting Ieroboam's as willing to consecrate and receive them as they to offer themselves And this has been one of the most fatal and almost irrecoverable blows that has been given to the Ministery And this may suffice concerning the second way of Embasing God's Ministers namely by entrusting the Ministery with raw unlearned ill-bred Persons so that what Solomon speaks of a Proverb in the mouth of a Fool the same may be said of the Ministery vested in them that it is like a Pearl in a swine's snout I proceed now to the second thing proposed in the Discussion of this Doctrine which is to shew how the Embasing of the Ministers tends to the destruction of Religion This it does two ways 1. Because it brings them under exceeding scorn and contempt and then let none think Religion it self secure For the Vulgar have not such Logical heads as to be able to Abstract such subtil conceptions as to separate the Man from the Minister or to consider the same person under a double capacity and so honour him as a Divine while they despise him as poor But suppose they could yet Actions cannot distinguish as Conceptions do and therefore every Act of Contempt strikes at both and unavoidably wounds the Ministery through the sides of the Minister And we must know that the least degree of Contempt weakens Religion because it is absolutely contrary to the nature of it Religion properly consisting in a reverential esteem of things Sacred Now that which in any measure weakens Religion will at length destroy it For the weakening of a thing is only a partial destruction of it Poverty and meanness of condition expose the Wisest to scorn it being natural for men to place their esteem rather upon things Great than Good and the Poet observes that this Infelix Paupertas has nothing in it more intolerable than this That it renders men Ridiculous And then how easie and natural it is for Contempt to pass from the Person to the Office from him that speaks to the thing that he speaks of Experience proves Counsel being seldom valued so much for the Truth
Experience and observation I answer That as to all things directly conducing and necessary to Salvation there is no doubt but they are so as the meanest common Souldier that has fought often in an Army has a truer and better knowledge of War than He that has read and writ whole Volumes of it but never was in any Battel Practical Sciences are not to be learnt but in the way of Action It is Experience that must give Knowledge in the Christian Profession as well as in all others And the Knowledge drawn from Experience is quite of another Kind from that which flows from Speculation or Discourse It is not the Opinion but the Path of the Iust that the wisest of men tells us Shines more and more unto a perfect Day The Obedient and the men of Practice are those Sons of Light that shall outgrow all their doubts and ignorances that shall ride upon these Clouds and triumph over their present Imperfections till Persuasion pass into Knowledge and Knowledge advance into Assurance and all come at length to be Compleated in the Beatifick Vision and a Full Fruition of those Joys which God has in Reserve for them whom by his Grace he shall prepare for Glory To which God Infinitely Wise Holy and Iust he rendred and ascribed as is most due all Praise Might Majesty and Dominion both now and for evermore Amen FINIS SIX SERMONS PREACHED By Robert South D. D. Never before Printed LONDON Printed by I. H. for Thomas Bennet at the Half Moon in St. Paul's Church-yard 1692. SIX SERMONS Preached upon Several Occasions A SERMON Preached at the Consecration of a Chapel 1667. PREFACE AFter the happy expiration of those Times which had Reformed so many Churches to the ground and in which men used to express their Honour to God and their Allegiance to their Prince the same way demolishing the Palaces of the One and the Temples of the Other it is now our glory and felicity that God has changed Mens Tempers with the Times and made a Spirit of Building succeed a Spirit of Pulling down by a miraculous Revolution reducing many from the Head of a triumphant Rebellion to their old condition of Masons Smiths and Carpenters that in this capacity they might repair what as Colonels and Captains they had ruined and defaced But still it is strange to see any Ecclesiastical Pile not by Ecclesiastical cost and influence rising above ground especially in an Age in which Mens Mouths are open against the Church but their hands shut towards it an Age in which respecting the generality of Men we might as soon expect Stones to be made Bread as to be made Churches But the more Epidemical and prevailing this Evil is the more Honourable are those who stand and shine as Exceptions from the Common Practice and may such places built for the Divine Worship derive an Honour and a Blessing upon the Head of the Builders as great and lasting as the Curse and Infamy that never fails to rest upon the Sacrilegious Violaters of them and a greater I am sure I need not I cannot wish Now the Foundation of what I shall Discourse upon the present Subject and Occasion shall be laid in that place in PSALM LXXXVII 2 God hath loved the Gates of Sion more than all the Dwellings of Iacob THE Comparison here exhibited between the Love God bore to Sion the great place of his Solemn Worship and that which he bore to the other dwellings of Israel imports as all other Comparisons do in the superiour part of them Two things Difference and Preheminence And accordingly I cannot more commodiously and naturally contrive the prosecution of these words than by casting the Sence of them into these two Propositions I. That God bears a different respect to places set apart and consecrated to his Worship from what he bears to all other places design'd to the uses of common life II. That God preferrs the Worship paid him in such places above that which is offered him in any other places whatsoever As to the former of these This Difference of Respect born by God to such places from what he bears to others may be evinced these three several ways 1. By those eminent interposals of Providence both for the erecting and preserving of such places 2. By those Notable Judgments shewn by God upon the Violaters of them 3. Lastly by declaring the ground and reason why God shews such a different respect to those places from what he manifests to others Of all which in their order 1. First of all then Those eminent interposals of the Divine Providence for the Erecting and Preserving such places will be One pregnant and strong Argument to prove the Difference of God's respect to them and to others of Common Use. That Providence that universally casts its eye over all the parts of the Creation is yet pleased more particularly to fasten it upon some God made all the world that he might be worshipp'd in some parts of the world and therefore in the first and most early times of the Church what care did he manifest to have such places erected to his honour Iacob he admonished by a Vision as by a Messenger from Heaven to build him an Altar and then what awe did Iacob express to it How dreadfull says he is this place for surely it is no other than the House of God What particular inspirations were there upon Aholiab to fit him to work about the Sanctuary The Spirit of God was the Surveyer Directer and Manager of the whole business But above all how exact and as we may say with reverence how nice was God about the building of the Temple David though a man of most intimate converse and acquaintance with God and one who bore a Kingly preheminence over others no less in point of Piety than of Majesty after he had made such rich such vast and almost incredible Provision of Materials for the building of the Temple yet because he had dipt his hands in blood though but the blood of God's enemies had the Glory of that work took out of them and was not permitted to lay a stone in that Sacred Pile but the whole work was entirely reserved for Solomon a Prince adorned with those parts of Mind and exalted by such a concurrence of all prosperous events to make him Glorious and Magnificent as if God had made it his business to build a Solomon that Solomon might build him an House To which had not God bore a very different respect from what he bore to all other places why might not David have been permitted to build God a Temple as well as to rear himself a Palace why might not he who was so pious as to design be also so prosperous as to finish it God must needs have set a more than ordinary esteem upon that which David the Man after his own heart the Darling of Heaven and the most flaming example of a vigorous love to God that ever