is no power or jurisdiction above it but that of God himself Conscience is the Jury of life and death and there is small hope that the Judge will save them whom conscience smally casteth off Joh. 3.20 If our heart condemn us God is greater than our heart and knoweth all things If our heart condemn us not then have we confidence towards God doing those things that are pleasing in his sight Now there being nothing in this world better than a good conscience and nothing worse than a bad one it will be a mans great business to know how a good conscience is gotten and how kept Every one by nature and in the state of corruption hath an evill a deadly and a filthy conscience And therefore primarily a good conscience and a pure and lively is obtained by the bloud of Jesus Christ and by faith in his merits The bloud of Jesus Christ who through the eternal Spirit Heb. 9.14 offered himself without spot to God doth purge a mans conscience from dead works to serve the living God And these words To serve the living God as they denote the true end wherefore Christ by his bloud did make our consciences pure and good so they shew us the right means of keeping and preserving a pure and a good conscience namely by serving the living God His service is perfect freedome and his service is taught us in the Moral Law the Ten Commandments which set forth our duty towards God and towards man And beyond this holy Rule or contrary to it there cannot be any such thing as Christian liberty or liberty of conscience Herein did the Apostle exercise himself Act. 24.16 to Have alwayes a conscience void of offence towards God and towards men And he that is so exercised hath a tender conscience And whatsoever is not repugnant unto some part of the Law of God contained in the Ten Commandments though perhaps it may go against mens humours and fancies cannot be said to be against conscience and so neither against Christian liberty because the divine Commandment is a perfect Law of liberty Ja. 1.25 No question it is a great sin to tyrannize over poor souls and to impose upon mens consciences things to make them stumble to weaken their faith Rom. 14.21 1 Cor. 8.9 and to corrupt their judgements and manners And God forbid that any should do so But all persons pretending conscience before they profess publick dissent from the Injunctions Canons and Constitutions of Authority should do well to be of a sure ground that the things they dissent from their brethren in are demonstratively of such a nature otherwise their liberty will appear to be but a cloak of maliciousness and that they preferre their own private conceits and perverse humours before either the peace of the Church or Gods honour And surely as all sinne defiles the conscience so none more than a schismaticall uncharitablenesse I could never yet see nor any other man I believe by what analogy or rationall argumentation the discourse of St Paul to the Romanes perswading to indulge the weak brethren about dayes and meats or that of his to the Corinthians about eating things offered to idols could be made as many would have it a common place against all order and discipline in the Christian Churches For the Apostle in the one dealt about Judaisme and in the other concerning Gentilisme and Paganish Idolatry And either of those bear as little reference or likeness to our Worship of God and Orders in the Church as there is concord between Christ and Belial or as there is coherence in our adversaries discourses There were in those Churches Jews and Gentiles mixed and many of the new converts of the Jews did still retain some of the Mosaicall observations and could not suddenly be weaned from them and some of the Gentile converts also had some smacks and sentiments of their old superstitions And the Apostle advised and enjoyned the more perfect and well grounded Christians to favour the others as much as lawfully they might and not to be bitter against them for their infirmities But the Apostle dealt not so with Hymeneus and Alexander 1 Tim. 1. v. last Tit. 1.11 nor yet doth he advise Titus to deal so gently with the seducers in Crete who subverted whole houses And surely a gentler hand is to be carried toward new converts than to inveterate refractarians and wilfull Apostatas Let conscience in the Name of God have its liberty But then let that liberty have a conscience Men make much talk of tender consciences but it is for the most part but a talk Jacobs voice and Esaus hands Quid verba audio cùm facta video Men shew their conscience as well as their faith by their works I believe Abraham had a tender conscience Gen. 13. because for peace-sake he gave way to his inferiour But I cannot think so of Corah and his party Numb 16. because they opposed their betters Abrahams conscience could not vary from his oath to take from the King of Sodom Gen. 14. so much as a threed or a shoe-latchet But I remember who sware and forced others to swear hand over head by vertue of which oath they scarce left the King or his loyall Subjects the worth of a threed or a shoe-latchet I believe David had a tender conscience 1 Sam. 24.5 because his heart smote him for cutting off Sauls skirt But I dare say Baanah and Rechab had not so because they slew Ishbosheth and cut off his head at his own house 2 Sam. 4.4 I am fully perswaded Josiah had a tender heart and a good conscience 2 Chron. 34. Chap. 35. because be restored the worship of God wept at the reading of the Law and set the Priests and Levites in their places and charges But I am sure Jeroboam had an evil heart and a bad conscience because he corrupted the worship of God and made Priests of the basest of the people 1 King 13.33 The conscience of the Saints in Davids time led them to worship fall down and kneel before the Lord their maker Ps 95. Many tell us now their conscience will not suffer them to do so Then their conscience did prompt them unanimously to go up together into the house of the Lord Ps 122. Now conscience is pleaded against coming thither In St Pauls dayes conscience taught men to be subject to Magistrates Rom. 13.5 Tit. 3.1 1 Pet. 2.13 Heb. 13.17 and to be ready to every good work to submit themselves to every Ordinance of man for the Lords sake and to obey them that had the spiritual rule over them and watched for their souls Now conscience is only named by a great many to shift off all duty and to affront all Authority What an Antidote against Caesar Shall we have conscience against conscience Conscience against God Conscience against Godlinesse Conscience against publick worship Conscience against
water told him that he should find him at the Sacrifice in the high-place whether the Prophet and the people were to go up to eat 1 Sam. 9.13 For the people will not eat said they untill he come because he doth blesse the Sacrifice and afterwards they eat that be bidden Israel had their Sacrifices to God and they had their Love-feasts among themselves And Samuel as he was the proper person in his time to consecrate the first so where his presence was the people thought him meetest to bless the latter And so well disciplin'd were that people that even the poor servants that carried water were able to give an accompt of it And behold a greater than Samuel even Christ who as he was carefull to feed so to teach the multitude lest the multitude should be better fed than taught He being Lord of all became his own and the peoples Chaplain For being about to feed at one time five thousand persons and upward and at another time four thousand he looked up to heaven and blessed before he gave a morsell of bread to any Accumbent Matth. 14. chap. 15. By this he gave them nòn tà m caenam quà m disciplinam not so much corporal food as spiritual furtherance that people may know whence they have every piece of bread and whether to render thanks for it And it were a shame for the servant to omit this humble duty seeing his Lord and Master did perform it Besides seeing it is the will of God in Christ Jesus that we should in every thing give thanks 1 Thess 5.18 then must we not neglect this duty at the perception and reception of our daily necessaries And seeing civil customes tye men to remember their friends and benefactors at their meales much more doth sacred duty obliege them then to remember their God In whom they live move Deut. 6.12 and have their being especially considering that the most dangerous time for men to forget God is when they have eaten and are full Even the heathens eating and drinking did praise their gods Ceres and Bacchus and they are worse than heathens who give thanks to none and they are accursed who give glory to any but to the only true God The Apostles rule is 1 Cor. 10.31 Whether ye eat or drink or whatsoever ye do else do all to the glory of God And though he indulgeth the weak bretheren as to meats yet not as to giving of thanks And if this be a good argument of his Rom. 16.4 He that eateth eateth to the Lord for he giveth God thanks then it will follow He that eateth and giveth not God thanks eateth not to the Lord. And they have but an untoward nursery that feed the Devil But now come in our Mutes with a mentall reservation and tell us that though they say nothing when they go to meat yet they tickle it with thinking Oh they give thanks in their hearts And is that enough why then do they not eat onely in their hearts why do they not chew the cud why do they not live only by ruminating on dishes in their thoughts As they would be loth God should so serve them so I advise them that they would not so serve God And as they would not willingly have the world feed them with such empty dishes so let not them feed the world with such frothy fancies Are their mouths made only for meat and drink If mens lips will do more to serve their belly than to honour their heavenly Lord is it not clear that their belly is their God He that giveth man a heart wherewith to believe unto righteousness Rom. 10.10 giveth him also a tongue wherewith to make confession unto salvation And where the Lord opens a mans lips Psal 50.15 that mans mouth will shew forth his praise Quisque suam vocationem Every man look to his Calling AMbiguous terms need Explication and evill times Application We live in an age that hath made a great noise and no little stir about mens Calling Calling is either Civil or Sacred A civil Calling is a setled course of life wherein a man is profita ble to himself and the publick and helps to bear up after a due proportion the fabrick of the land of his nativity And this is best done when every man keeps his station as a firm stud or pillar Ar. Pol. l. 1. For according to Aristotle it is not meet for the same man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be a Musick master and a Shooe-maker and he determines that he must be a Rogue by consequence who liveth sine tribu sine lege sine lare without tribe without Law and without a fixed residence And Christian polity herein agrees with humane according to the Apostles rule Let every man abide in the same calling 1 Cor. 7.20 wherein he was called that is in the same calling or trade of life wherein he was called to be a Christian Had this advice been followed our Church and Kingdome had uninterruptedly unto this day flourished But here was the misery and the beginning of forrows the people thought the Lord was not amongst them except all the Lords people were Prophets and many imagined they could not be Christians except they left their Shops to get into the Priests Desk and leaped from the Loome into the Pulpit But God hath now let the world see that they who could well mend Shooes did but marre the Text and were utterly unfit to be Scripture-translators And doth any man ask why those men who had never any calling from God and the Church which two must not be separated did notwithstanding presume to be Teachers and publick Preachers The reason is evident therefore they presumed to teach because they had never rightly learned and therefore made they themselves Preachers because they scorned to be Christs Disciples For he hath called us to peace 1 Cor. 7.15 chap. 14.33 And God is not the author of confusion but of peace as in all the Churches of the Saints Sacred or heavenly calling is Generall or Speciall The generall call to faith and holiness is made to the world by the preaching of the Gospel and administration of the Sacraments The speciall calling is made by grace wrought in the hearts of men and that by the operation of the holy Ghost upon the Preaching of the Word and administration of the Sacraments Thus as St Aug. saith Ex peccato evocat omnes communitèr sed suos excitat singularitèr God calls all men generally but he stirs up his own singularly But now the great business whereabout many have been troubled is to know the certainty of their true calling unto bliss And indeed this is a weighty Quaere and requires mature deliberation and contemplation It is not for nothing that we are called upon To give diligence to make our calling and election sure Which making sure bears reference to our consciences 2 Pet. 1.10
Common-prayers Conscience against Baptism and the Lords Supper O tempora O mores And how long shall the world be deluded Is it not apparent that the chief sticklers for licentiousnesse under the name of Liberty of conscience when the power was in their hand did neither use conscience nor grant liberty to them that were truly conscientious By the liberty they then took we may know what liberty they now seek and by the conscience they did then use what indulgence they now deserve In Ecclesiastical as well as in martial Discipline it will hardly be granted to erre twice And surely that God who once delivered us into the hands of our enemies and in great mercy hath set us free will hardly do it the second time in case we wilfully suffer our selves to be again captivated by their feigned words of whom we have had so late and so wofull experience And I pray God guide his sacred Majesty that their serpentine charmes may never so far impose upon his gracious Lenity as that he should believe their consciences tender who strain at Gnat-scruples and swallow Camel-sins who stumble at strawceremonies and leap over block villanies When no conscience was practis'd then no plea was heard for it But now that God hath begun graciously to shine upon the Church and Kingdom now begins the clamour of tender conscience to play the second part There is no surer way to discover every mans diet manners and appetite than to make every man his own Carver And as I remember this course hath been once taken to purpose Alas poor weak brethren and tender consciences It is pity that ever a pair of Lawn-sleeves should hurt them who could well digest the soil of the Revenues of the Antichristian Bishopticks and make no bones of the Churches patrimony Alas that ever a Surplice and a hood should choke those pure Levites that have lately swallowed down Churches and Steeples Parsonages and Vicarages Glebes and Tythes and eat up man woman and child as fast as they did the Tythe-pigs Fie upon it who would be troubled with such a conscience What steal a Goose and scruple a feather Oh the tender conscience of a pack of Committees and a bundle of Sequestrators Oh the mercy and tender pity of a Wolf a Tyger and a Bear From all these kinds of beasts wild and tame Libera nos Domine Good Lord deliver us And let all the people say Amen Suppose I should go to a friends house and carry with me such a companion as Wood the great eater of Kent was and should desire my friend to take special care of him and let him have that which is pure and of light digestion for the man hath but a feeble stomack forsooth a very weak appetite and any thing that is grosse might endanger his life And my weak natur'd Guest shall call for and eat up a fat sheep of sixteen shillings price at a meal or thirty couple of Rabbets and so should do three or four meals and still I should desire my friend to have a great care of him telling him that the man hath a very poor stomack and is but weak and tender whatsoever he thinks on him Would not my friend think you be ready to kick me and my Guest out of doors Would he not tell me that I were either mad or worse And that I either went about to play the fool or the knave And as much may some body say to them who labour to perswade men of their tender consciences who have murder'd the innocent devoured the fatherlesse and widows drank the bloud of Nobles pickled upon the carcasse of a Church and made a merry meal of a Kings head He that loves God the King the Church the Countrey and himself let him never speak a word of these mens tender consciences It pitieth my heart to think into what strange Labyrinths many gangs of people were led by their admired Teachers who tickled their ears with a pleasing sound of conscience and tendernesse and self-denial and getting acquaintance with Christ and a glorious liberty and the like whilest by their omission connivence and palliation they lull'd them into a security and cast them into a deadly slumber of Rebellion and disobedience schism and uncharitablenesse Was not this to clap a plaister upon a festered place and never to search or cleanse the wound Miserable comforters are all such Oh let the righteous smite us friendly and reprove us but let not such precious balms break our heads Such Pastors give a poor soul as much satisfaction as Pope Martin gave the Sicilian Embassadors to whom thrice praying Aguus Dei qui toll is peccata mundi miserere nobis Oh Lamb of God which takest away the sins of the world have mercy on us He thrice answered Ave Rex Judaeorum dabant illi alapas Hail King of the Jews and they smote him on the face Had his Holinesses hand gone with his tongue giving each of them a round box on the ear they should have been as much beholding to him as the men of Gotham were to the Gentleman who restored their lost man supposed to be drown'd by giving them every one a sound blow on the back with a Cudgel There will be but little conscience made of any Laws Civil or Ecclesiastical or respect had to Magistrate or Minister should Authority grant Dispensations to the prejudice of its own honour and to the rebatement of the vigour of injunctions as fast as some men will forge cavils and make pretensions The fellow that was bitten by the legs thought the City madly order'd where stones were tied up and dogs let loose But that Nation should be worse where Doves should be punisht and Crows set free where the peaceable and tractable should be circumscribed and proscribed by penalties and the extravagant and perverse indulged by faculties The Christian Prince who shall be perswaded to let loose his people to their own will-worship may pull down all the Churches in his Dominions and hang up the Priests But God be thanked who hath given our gracious Sovereign another manner of heart and a discerning spirit to know both from the word of God and from sad experience that as in those dayes when there was no King in Israel Jud. last every man did that which was right in his own eyes So in these dayes to let every man do that which is right in his own eyes will soon make again no King in Israel William the Conquerour took the right course to make a sorrest when he ruinated and laid waste the Churches and Chappels but I dare not commend his project because the world hath observed two fatal marks set upon it in the losse of two sons of his slain therein the one at his hunting of a Deer the other by an Arrow shot at a Deer but diverted from its intended scope by a glance on a tree There is no such ready way to turn a Christian Nation into
forget our friends old acquaintance and their good offices I once knew I do not propound him for imitation a Gentleman Pensioner to that glorious Prince of ever blessed memory King Charles the First that good King had too many such servants who having been oft liberally entertained and adored by a simple honest Countrey-man as often professed binding himself with desperate oaths whereof he had alwayes a great stock at command to do him remarkable favours upon all occasions It fortuned that the Countrey man fell into an unhappy Law-suit which beyond his expectation led him to Westminster where casually meeting with his old Courtier who was every mans humble servant and no mans true friend he took the boldnesse to scrape acquaintance on him supposing that he had been the same man he formerly was in the Countrey But this Grand Seignior with an ugly look and a rough greet made his modest Gaius face about and revoke acquaintance and having so shaked him off he said to a person standing by Do you see this rude impertinent fellow This Hob-nail-slave said he is so ill bred that he is not able to disting uish between a Gentlemans words and his meaning God defend us from such nice distinctions unworthy actions narrow hearts and large consciences And in all Courts and places of Judicature conscience would do exceedingly well and might befriend many a man more than a peny in his purse Could we see the poor mans case defended we should be fully perswaded that there were such a thing as a Court of Equity and Conscience But he that sues in formâ pauperis seldome prevails contrà materiam divitis but keeps his old form it faring with him in his case as with man in his birth and death Naked he comes in and naked he goes out Yet we have an Advocate General with God the Father Jesus Christ the Righteous 1 Joh. 2. who ought to be imitated by all Advocates considering no man shall be able to plead his own case without him And he takes delight to help the helplesse and the oppressed and made himself poor to enrich his clyents I shall not descend into all particulars because Inferiours would think it honourable to be conscientious might they see conscience honoured by the practice of their Superiours Oh it is a precious thing to have a good conscience as once said a Member of a Court of high Injustice Indeed he was able to tell how good a thing it was by the want of it and he knew the price of it having parted with it upon terms felling himself to work wickedness Thus have I been too long and yet not enough upon this subject I hope good people will pardon my plainness It is a case of conscience and when I am in I love to speak my conscience Quarite Deum Seek God A Great task and a general Catholick for time place and person which whoso performes not doth nothing for the man that finds not God is lost for ever This duty must be exercised early earnestly constantly and rightly and where one of these circumstances fail the seeker is deficient in his duty 1. Early Early in the life early in the day Oh God Psal 63.1 Matth. 6.33 thou art my God early will I seek thee Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and his righteousnes But the worldlings rule is taken out of the Ethnick Poet O Cives Cives quaerenda pecunia primùm est virtus post nummos Oh Politicians Politicians seek ye money before all things and let virtue follow after pelf 2. Earnestly Thou shalt find him Deut. 4.29 if thou seek him with all thy heart and with all thy soul They who seek him by halfs find him not at all for as God is not divided so will he not be deluded 3. Constantly Seek the Lord and his strength Psal 105.4 seek his face evermore Not that we should be so ever seeking as never finding like those ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth But so ever seeking 2 Tim. 3.7 as ever finding some comfort and contentment and because ever finding therefore ever seeking For no man so well knows the Lord and his goodness but that he may and ought every day more and more grow into his knowledg favour and acquaintance 4. Rightly For God will not be found of them that seek him indirectly They that seek for glory and honour Rom. 2.7 and immortality their way is laid out unto them through patient continuance in well doing And at their journeys end is promised them that eternal life But they that seek a contrary way are there told they shall find a contrary thing Quaeram te Domine invocans te Cons invoeem te credens in te saith St Aug. Oh let me seek thee Lord calling upon thee and let me call upon thee believing in thee Indeed it is in vain for men to honour God with their lips when their hearts are far from him And now we cannot but sadly remember how this Nation hath been abused with a mock-seeking of God upon all evill occasions and wicked enterprizes We cannot forget what fastings prayers and humiliations we had appointed and all to seek God that the poor silly people might be amazed at the sound of inchanting words and made believe that God by the mouth of mercinary false prophets as by an infallible oracle did speak clearly in favour of the most pernicious practices and high impieties that ever were acted amongst a Christian people It was not enough to abuse me but they must needs put tricks upon the Almighty and intitle him to all manner of villany For the erecting of arbitrary power and cutting asunder the sinews of Laws and Government which are the safety of a people for the pillaging of the subject and stripping him of goods and liberty for the murdering of the innocent and loyall for the destruction of King and people for the subversion of the Church for all and every of these designes still the word was given out such a day ye must seek the Lord. I know not unto what to liken this kind of language proceeding out of such mealy mouths and hollow hearts but to the canting of Gypsies and Cutpurses who when they go about to pick mens pockets have a dialect by themselves to abuse the common people and evade justice And as the Dunce that his Father put out to Schoole made Latine for every thing in bombast ending in bus and bas and orum and arum so these men made these two words Seek God serve to signifie every thing that the Devil and themselves projected and acted When Saul sought his fathers asses he found not them but he found a kingdom 1 Sam. 9. beyond his expectation and the asses were found by another hand These men had something of Sauls success for they found a kingdom though they enjoyed it but a little time No more did he But he had a better title for they had neither Gods nor Samuels word for it notwithstanding all their seeking And therefore it is be feared they lost a better kingdom in pursuit of this And this must be confessed other mens folly advanced their craft raised their esteem for wise men and therewith their dignity For had not the Asses been found and brought to their hand they had never gotten the kingdom I hope the whole Land hereafter will beware of such seekers and avoid such seeking And what shall I more say of them they sought Christ Matth. 2. as Herod did with his men of war in hypocrisie and malice and not finding him they murthered and massacred the innocent They sought God as the mad fellow in the Fable sought his Wife that fell into the River and was drowned He sought and sought and raked and groped but he went such a way that he was sure never to find her for he went up the River and so alwayes sought quite against the stream so these men sought God against the stream and current of Scriptures Commandments Laws and Customes Canons Councils and Fathers and against the practice of all Primitive and Modern Christians Oh seek not death in the error of your life Wisd 1.12 nor pull upon your selves destruction by the works of your own hands THe height of impudence the depth of maliciousness the length of wilfullness and the breadth of licentiousness are the four Dimensions of a Fanatick body which hath neither right side nor right end FINIS