it nothing to be bred up to Learning when others are bred at the plough and cart and to be furnished with so much delightful knowledge when the world lieth in ignorance Is it nothing to converse with Learned men and talk of high and glorious things when others must converse with almost none but silly ignorants But especially What an excellent life is it to live in the studies and preaching of Christ to be still searching into his mysteries or feeding on them to be daily in the consideration of the blessed Nature or Works or Waies of God! Others are glad of the leisure of the Lords Day and now and then an hour besides when they can lay hold of it But we may keep a continual Sabboth We may do nothing else almost but study and talk of God and Glory and call upon him and drink in his sacred saving truths Our employment is all high and spiritual Whether we be alone or with others our business is for another world O were but our hearts more suitable to this work what a blessed joyful life should we live How sweet would our study be to us How pleasant would the pulpit be and what a delight would our conference of these things afford To live among such excellent helps as our libraries afford and have so many silent wise companions whenever we please and of such variety All these and more such Priviledges of the Ministery bespeak our unwearied diligence in the work 5. You are related to Christ as well as to the Flock He therefore being also related to you you are not only advanced but secured by the relation if you be but faithful in the work that it requireth You are the Stewards of his mysteries and Rulers of his houshold And he that entrusted you will maintain you in his work But then it is required of a Steward that a man be found faithful 1 Cor. 4. 2. Be true to him and never doubt but he will be true to you Do you feed his Flock and he will sooner feed you as he did Elias then forsake you If you be in prison he will open the doors but then you must relieve imprisoned souls He will give you a tongue and wisdom that no enemy shall resist but then you must use it faithfully for him If you will put forth your hand to relieve the distressed and willingly put it to his plough he will wither the hand that is stretched out against you The Ministers of England I am sure may know this by large experience Many a time hath God rescued them from the jaws of the devourer O the admirable preservations and deliverances that they have had from cruel Papists from tyranical persecutors from malicious Sectaries misguided passionate men Brethren in the fear of God consider Why is it that God hath done all this Is it for your persons or for his Church What are you to him more then other men but for his work and peoples sakes Are you Angels or men Is your flesh of any better mettle then your neighbours Are you not of the same Generation of sinners that need his grace as much as they Up then and work as the Redeemed of the Lord as those that are purposely rescued from ruine for his service O do not prepare a remediless overthrow for the English Ministery by your ingratitude after all these deliverances If you believe that God hath rescued you for himself live to him then as being unreservedly his that hath delivered you SECT II. II. THE first Motive mentioned in the text we have spoken of which is from the Consideration of our office it self The second is from the efficient cause It is God by his spirit that makes us Overseers of his Church therefore it concerneth us to Take heed to our selves and it I did before shew you how the Holy-Ghost is said to make Bishops or Pastors of the Church in three several respects By Qualifying them for the office By directing the Ordainers to discern their Qualifications and know the fittest men and by directing them the people and themselves for the affixing them to a particular charge All these were done then in an extraordinary sort by inspiration at least very oft The same are all done now by the ordinary way of the spirits assistance But it is the same spirit still and men are made Over-seers of the Church when they are rightly called by the Holy-Ghost now as well as then It s a strange conceit therefore of the Papists to think that Ordination by the hands of man is of more absolute necessity to the Ministerial Office then the calling of the Holy-Ghost God hath determined in his word that there shall be such an office and what the Work and Power shall be and what sort of men as to their qualifications shall receive it None of these can be undone by man or made unnecessary God also giveth men the Qualifications which he requireth So that all that the Church hath to do whether Pastors or People Ordainors or Electors is but to discern and determine which are the men that God hath thus Qualified and to Accept of them that are so provided and upon consent to install them solemnly in this office But I purposely cut short the controvertible part What an Obligation then is laid upon us by our call If our Commission be sent from Heaven it s not to be disobeyed When Paul was called by the voice of Christ he was not disobedient to the heavenly Vision When the Apostles were called by Christ from their secular imployments they presently leave friends and house and trade and all and follow him Though our call be not so immediate or extraordinary yet is it from the same spirit It s no safe course to imitate Ionah in turning our back upon the commands of God If we neglect our work he hath a spur to quicken us and if we over-run it he hath Messengers enough to over-take us and fetch us back and make us do it and it is beâ—â—â— to do it at first then at last This is the second Motive SECT III. III. THE third Motive in the Text is from the dignity of the Object It is the Church of God which we must Oversee and Feed It is that Church which the world is much upheld for which is sanctified by the Holy-Ghost which is united to Christ and is his mystical body that Church which Angels are present with and attend upon as Ministring Spirits whose very little ones have their Angels beholding the face of God in heaven O what a charge is it that we have-undertaken And shall we be unfaithful to such a charge Have we the Stewardship of Gods own family and shall we neglect it Have we the conduct of those Saints that must live for ever with God in glory and shall we neglect them God forbid I beseech you Brethren let this thought awaken the negligent You that draw back from painful displeasing suffering duties
Laws of Christ and all diligence for salvation because they observed that those men that were such were so many of them hated and persecuted by the Rulers though on the occasions before mentioned And here was the foundation of our greatest misery laid While some of the Rulers themselves began to turn their hatred against practical godliness which corrupted nature hates in all and the common people took the hint and no longer confined the word Puritan to the Non-conformists but applyed it commonly through all parts of the Land to those that would but speak seriously of heaven and tell men of Death and Judgement and spend the Lords day in preparation thereto and desire others to do the like that did but pray in their families and keep their children and servants on the Lords day to learn the way to salvation in stead of letting them spend it in gaming or revelling they that did but reprove a swearer or a drunkard these were become the Puritans and the Precisians and the hated ones of the time so that they became a by-word in all the Towns and Villages in England that ever I knew or heard of as to these things And thus when the Prelates had engaged the vulgar in their cause and partly by themselves and partly by them had so far changed their cause as that all serious Christians that feared sin and were most diligent for salvation were presently engaged among their adversaries and they were involved with the rest though they did nothing against the Government or Ceremonies and the most ignorant and impious became the friends and agents of the times and everywhere made the most pious and sedulous Christians a common scorn to the dishonour of God and the hardening of the wicked and discouraging of the weak and filling men with prejudice against a godly life and hindring many thousands from the way of salvation then did God himself appear more evidently as interested in the quarrel and rose against them and shamed them that had let in scorn and shame upon his waies And this even this was the very thing that brought them down Besides this there was scarce such a thing as Church-Government or Discipline known in the Land but only this harassing of those that dissented from them In all my life I never lived in the Parish where one person was publikely admonished or brought to publike penitence or excommunicated though there were never so many obstinate drunkards whoremongers or vilest offenders Only I have known now and then one for getting a bastard that went to the Bishops Court and paid their sees and I heard of two or three in all the Countrey in all my life that stood in a white sheet an hour in the Church But the antient Discipline of the Church was unknown And indeed it was made by them impossible when one man that lived at a distance from them and knew not one of many hundreds of the Flock did take upon him the sole Jurisdiction and executed it not by himself but by a lay-Chancellor excluding the Pastors of the several Congregations who were but to joyn with the Church-wardens and the Apparitors in presenting men and bringing them into their Courts And an impossible task must needs be unperformed And so the controversie as to the letter and outside was Who should be the Governors of all the particular Churches but as to the sense and inside of it it was Whether there should be any effectual Church-Government or not Whereupon those that pleaded for Discipline were called by the New name of Disciplinarians as if it had been a kind of Heresie to desire Discipline in the Church At last the heat began to grow greater and new impositions raised new adversaries When conformable Puritans began to bear the great reproach there being few of the Non-conformists left Then must they also be gotten into the Net Altars must be bowed to or towards All must publish a Book for dancing and sports on the Lords day disabling the Masters of Families parents though they had smal time on the week-daies by reason of their poverty or labour to keep in their own children or families from dancing on that day that they might instruct them in the matters of God If a man as he read a Chapter to his family had perswaded them to observe and practice it and with any reasons urged them thereto this was called expounding and was enquired of in their Articles to be presented together with Adultery and such like sins so also was he used that had no preaching at home and would go hear a conformable Preacher abroad So that multitudes have I known exceedingly troubled or undone for such matters as these when not one was much troubled for scandalous crimes Then Lectures were put down and afternoon Sermons and expounding the Catechism or Scripture in the afternoons And the violence grew so great that many thousand families left the Land and many godly able Ministers Conformists as well as others were fain to flie and become Exiles some in one Countrey and some in another and most in the remote American parts of the world Thither went Cotten Hooker Davenport Shephard Allen Cobbet Noyes Parker with many another that deserved a dwelling place in England Yet I must profess I should scarce have mentioned any of this nor taken it for so hainous a crime had it been only cruelty to the persons of these men though they had dealt much hardlyer with them then they did and if it had not been greater cruelty to the Church and if they had but had competent men for their places when they were cast out But alas the Churches were pestered with such wretches as are our shame and trouble to this day Abundance of meer Readers and drunken profane deboist men were the Ministers of the Churches so that we have been this many years endeavouring to cleanse the Church of them and have not fully effected it to this day And many that had more plausible tongues did make it their chief business to bring those that they called Puritans into disgrace and to keep the people from being such So that I must needs say that I knew no place in these times where a man might not more safely have been drunken every week as to their punishment then to have gone to hear a Sermon if he had none at home For the common people readily took the hint and increased their reproach as the Rulers did their persecâ—tion so that a man could not in any place of England that I came in have said to a swearer or a drunkard O do not sin against God and wound or hazard your own soul but he should have been presently â—ooted at as a Puritan He could not have said to an ignorant or careleâ—s neighbour Remember your everlasting state prepare for death and Judgement or have talked of any Scripture matters to them but he was presently jeered as a Puritan or Precisian and Scripture it self was
apparent danger of damnation And every impenitent person that you see and know about you suppose that you hear them cry to you for help as ever you pitied poor wretches pity us lest we should be tormented in the flames of hell if you have the hearts of men pitty us And do that for them that you would do if they followed you with such complaints O how can you walk and talk and be merry with such people when you know their case Me thinks when you look them in the face and think how they must lie in perpetual misery you should break forth into tears as the Prophet did when he looked upon Hazael and then fall on with the most importunate Exhortations when you must visit them in their sickness will it not wound your hearts to see them ready to depart into misery before you have ever dealt seriously with them for their recovery O then for the Lords sake and for the sake of poor souls have pity on them and bestir your selves and spare no pains that may conduce to their salvation 3. ANd I must further tell you that this Ministerial fidelity is Necessary to your own welfare as well as to your peoples For this is your work according to which among others you shall be judged You can no more be saved without Ministerial diligence and fidelity then they or you can be saved without Christian diligence and fidelity If you care not for others at least care for your selves O what is it to answer for the neglect of such a charge and what sins more hainous then the betraying of souls Doth not that threatning make us tremble If thou warn not the wicked their blood will I require at thy hands I am afraid nay I am past doubt that the day is near when unfaithful Ministers will wish that they had never known that charge But that they had rather been Colliars or Tinkers or sweepers of Channels then Pastors of Christs flock when besides all the rest of their sins they shall have the blood of so many souls to answer for O Brethren our death as well as our peoples is at hand and it is as terrible to an unfaithful Pastor as to any When we see that dye we must and there is no remedy no wit or learning no credit or popular applause can put by the stroke or delay the time but willing or unwilling our souls must be gone and that into a world that we never saw where our persons and worldly interest will not be respected O then for a clear Conscience that can say I lived not to my self but to Christ I spared not my pains I hid not my talent I concealed not mens misery nor the way of their recovery O Sirs let us therefore take time while we may have it and work while it is day for the night cometh when none can work This is our day too and by doing good to others we must do good to our selves If you would prepare for a comfortable death and a sure and great Reward the harvest is before you gâ—rd up the loins of your minds and quit your selves like men that you may end your days with that confident triumph I have fought a good fight I have kept the faith I have finished my course henceforth is laid up for me a crown of Righteousness which God the righteous Iudge shall give me And if you would be blessed with those that dye in the Lord Labour now that you may rest from your labours then and do such works as you would wish should follow you and not such as will prove your terror in the review SECT IV. HAving found so great Reason to move us to this work I shall before I come to the Directions 1. Apply them further for our Humiliation and Excitation And 2. answer some Objections that may be raised And 1. what cause have we to bleed before the Lord this day that have neglected so great and good a work so long That we have been Ministers of the Gospel so many years and done so little by personal instructions and conference for the saving of mens souls If we had but set a work this business sooner that we have now agreed upon who knows how many more might have been brought over unto Christ and how much happyer we might have made our Parishes ere now And why might we not have done it sooner as well as now I confess many impediments were in our way and so there are still and will be while there is a Devil to tempt and a corrupt heart in man to resist the light But if the greatest impediment had not been in our selves even in our own darkness and dulness and undisposedness to duty and our dividedness and unaptness to close for the work of God I see not but much might have been done before this We had the same God to command us and the same miserable objects of compassion and the same liberty from Governors of the Common-wealth But we stood looking for changes and we would have had the Magistrate not only to have given us leave to work but have done our work for us or at least to have brought the game to our hands and while we lookt for better daies we made them worse by the lamentable neglect of a chief part of our work And had we as much petitioned Parliaments for the interposition of their Authority to compell men to be catechized and instructed by the Minister as we did for maintenance and other matters its like we might have obtained it long ago when they were forward to gratifie us in such undisputable things But we have sinned and have no just excuse for our sin somewhat that may perhaps excuse à tanto but nothing à toto and the sin is so great because the duty is so great that we should be afraid of pleading excuse too much The Lord of Mercy forgive us and all the Ministry of England and lay not this or any of our Ministerial negligences to our charge O that he would cover all our unfaithfulness and by the blood of the everlasting Covenant would wash away our guilt of the blood of souls that when the chief Shepherd shall appear we may stand before him in peace and may not be condemned for the scattering of his Flock And O that he would put up his controversie which he hath against the Pastors of his Church and not deal the hardlyer with them for our sakes nor suffer underminers or persecutors to scatter them as they have suffered his Sheep to be scattered and that he will not care as little for them as they have done for the souls of men nor think his salvation too good for them as they have thought their labour and sufferings too much for mens salvation and as we have had many daies of Humiliation in England for the sins of the Land and the Judgements that have lain upon us I hope we shall hear that God will more
alwaies approved in the end And the time is at hand when you shall confess that those were your truest friends He that will deal plainly against your sins in uprightness and honesty will deal as plainly for you against the sins of any that would injure you For he speaks not against sin because it is yours but because it is sin It is an observable passage that is reported by many and Printed by one how the late King Charls who by the Bishops instigation had kept Mr. Prin so long in prison and twice cropt his ears for writing against their Masks and Plaies and the high and hard proceedings of the Prelates when he read his notable voluminous speech for an acceptance of the Kings Concessions and an agreement with him thereupon did not long before his death deliver the Book to a friend that stood by him saying Take this Book I give it thee as a Legacy and believe it this Gentleman is the Cato of the Age. The time will come when plain dealing will have a better Construction then it hath while prejudice doth turn the heart against it I shall stand no longer on the Apologetical part I think the foregoing Objections being answered there is no great need of more of this The Title of the Book it self is Apologetical which if I tell you not I may well expect that some of my old ingenuous Interpreter should put another sense upon it I pretend not to the Sapience of Gildas nor to the Sanctity of Salvian as to the degree but by their names I offer you an excuse for plain dealing If it was used in a much greater measure by men so wise and holy as these why should it in a lower measure be dis-allowed in another At least from hence I have this encouragement that the plain dealing of Gildas and Salvian being so much approved by us now they are dead how much soever they might be despised or hated while they were living by them whom they did reprove at the worst I may expect some such success in times to come But my principal business is yet behind I must now take the boldness Brethren to become your Monitor concerning some of the necessary duties of which I have spoken in the ensuing discourse If any of you should charge me with arrogancy or immodesty for this attempt as if hereby I accused you of negligence or judged my self sufficient to admonish you I crave your candid interpretation of my boldness assuring you that I obey not the counsel of my flesh herein but displease my self as much as some of you and had rather have the ease and peace of silence if it would stand with duty and the Churches good But it is the meer necessity of the souls of men and my desire of their salvation and the prosperity of the Church which forceth me to this Arrogancy and Immodesty if so it must be called For who that hath a tongue can be silent when it is for the honour of God the welfare of his Church and the everlasting happiness of so many persons 1. And the first and main matter which I have to propound to you is Whether it be not the unquestionable duty of the generality of Ministers in these three Nations to set themselves presently to the work of Catechizing and Personal Instructing all that are to be taught by them who will be perswaded to submit thereunto I need not here stand to prove it having sufficiently done it in the following discourse Can you think that holy wisdom will gain-say it Will zeal for God will delight in his service or love to the souls of men gain-say it 1. That people must be taught the Principles of Religion and matters of greatest necessity to salvation is past doubt among us 2. And that they must be taught it in the most edifying advantagious way I hope we are agreed 3. And that personal Conference and Examination and Instruction hath many excellent advantages for their good is beyond dispute and afterward manifested 4. As also that personal Instruction is commended to us by Scripture and the practices of the servants of Christ and approved by the godly of all ages so far as I can find without contradiction 5. It is past doubt that we should perform this great duty to all the people or as many as we can For our love and care of their souls must extend to all If there be a 1000. or 500. ignorant people in your Parish it is a poor discharge of your duty now and then occasionally to speak to some few of them and let the rest alone in their ignorance if you are able to afford them help 6. And it is as certain that so great a work as this is should take up a considerable part of our time 7. And as certain is it that all duties should be done in order as far as may be and therefore should have their appointed times And if we are agreed to practise according to these commonly acknowledged truths we need not differ upon any doubtful circumstances Obj. We teach them in publike and how then are we bound to teach them man by man besides Answ You pray for them in Publike Must you not also pray for them in private Paul taught every man and exhorted every man and that both publikely and from house to house night and day with tears The necessity and benefits afterward mentioned prove it to be your duty But what need we add more when experience speaks so loud I am daily forced to admire how lamentably ignorant many of our people are that have seemed diligent hearers of me this ten or twelve years while I spoke as plainly as I was able to speak Some know not that each person in the Trinity is God Nor that Christ is God and man Nor that he took his humane nature into heaven Nor many the like necessary principles of our faith Yea some that come constantly to private meetings are found grosly ignorant Whereas in one hours familiar instruction of them in private they seem to understand more and better entertain it then they did in all their lives before Obj. But what obligation lyeth on us to tye our selves to certain daies for the performance of this work Answ This is like the Libertines plea against family prayer They ask where are we bound to pray morning and evening Doth not the nature and end of the duty plainly tell you that an appointed time conduceth to the orderly successful performance of it How can people tell when to come if the time be not made known You will have a fixed day for a Lecture because people cannot else tell when to come without a particular notice for each day And it is as necessary here because this must be a constant duty as well as that Obj. But we have many other businesses that sometimes may interrupt the course Answ Weightyer business may put by our preaching even on the Lords day but we must
promissionibus p. 309. l. 11. for Is it not r. It is not p. 314. l. 20. for recover recover p. 339. l. 24. for for r. to p. 341. l. 9. for the r. that p. 343. l. 22. r. prosecution p. 351. l. 22. for more r. meer p. 356. l. 11. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 377. l. 25 r. use it and l. 27. r. and that sect p. 378. l. 29. r. is in p. 383. l. 23. for by such r. than by taking such p. 389. l. ult for One r. Me p. 390. l. 27. for profession r. proper place p. 394. l. 10. r. so far as p. 398. l. 21. for sensual Lazarus r. sensual Lazyness and l. 27. r. acknowledged p. 403. l. 29. r. from him p. 401. l. 10. for I say r. They say p. 409. l. 10. r. against all p. 418. l. 12. for prosess r. possess and l. 14. r. If any have p. 422. l. 2. r. to live long p. 430. l. 5. for elocution r. election and l. 29. for of r. that p. 431. l. 20. for of that r. of Christ p. 438. l. 15. for them r. him p. 442. l. 22. r. to the heart p. 444. l. 14. r. beset p. 445. l. 7. for we r. so p. 459. l. 19. for till then r. tell them p. 463. l. penult for they r. that and l. ult for these r. the Church p. 467. l. 2. for loathed r. toothed p. 469. for obtusions r. obtrusions Gildas Salvianus THE REFORMED PASTOR ACTS 20. 28. Take heed therefore to your selves and to all the Flock over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you Overseers to feed the Church of God which he hath purchased with his own blood CHAP. I. SECT I. Reverend and Dearly Beloved Brethren THough some think that Pauls Exhortation to these Elders doth prove him their Ruler we hope who are this day to speak to you from the Lord that we may freely do the like without any jealousies of such a Conclusion Though we teach our people as Officers set over them in the Lord yet may we teach one another as Brethren in Office as well as in Faith If the people of our charge must teach and admonish and exhort each other daily Col. 3. â—6 Heb. 3. 13. no doubt Teachers may do it to one another without any supereminency of power or degree We have the same sins to kill and the same graces to be quickned and corroborated as our people have we have greater works then they to do and greater difficulties to overcome and no less necessity is laid upon us and therefore we have need to be warned and wakened if not to be instructed as well as they So that I confess I think such meetings should be more frequent if we had nothing else to do together but this And as plainly and closely should we deal with one another as the most serious among us do with their Flocks lest if only they have the sharp admonitions and reproofs they only should be sound and lively in the Faith That this was Pauls judgement I need no other proof then this rowsing heart-melting exhortation to the Ephesian Elders A short Sermon but not soon learnt Had the Bishops and Teachers of the Church but throughly learned this short exhortation though with the neglect of many a Volumn which hath taken up their time and helpt them to greater applause in the world how happy had it been for the Church and them Our present straits of time will allow me to touch upon no part of it but my Text which supposing Paul the speaker and the Ephesine Elders his hearers containeth 1. A two-sold duty 2. A four-fold motive to enforce it The first duty is to Take heed to themselves The second is to take heed to all the Flock And the main work for the Flock which is thus heedfully to be done is expressed even to feed them or play the Shepherds for them The motives closely laid together are these 1. From their engagement and Relation They are the Over-seers of the Flock It is their office 2. From the efficient cause even the authority and excellency of him that called them to it which was the Holy Ghost 3. From the dignity of the object which is the matter of their charge It is the Church of God the most excellent and honourable society in the world 4. From the tender regard that Christ hath to this Church and the price it cost him He purchased it with his own blood This Motive is partly subordinate to the former The terms of the Text have no such difficulty as to allow me the spending of much of our little time for their explication 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here is maxima cura diligentia animum adhibere 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Iansenius and others note a little Flock It signifieth not here the whole Church of Christ which elsewhere is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in reference to Christ the great Shepherd but it signifieth that particular Church which these Elders had a special charge of Whether that was one or many we shall enquire anon What is meane by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Bishops or Over-seers here is thus far agreed on that they were Officers appointed to Teach and Guide those Churches in the way to salvation and that it is the same persons that are called Elders of the Church of Ephesus before and Bishops here Of whom more anon The verb 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 seemeth here to import both the Qualification Ordination and particular designation of these Elders or Bishops to their charge for we must not limit and exclude without necessity The Holy Ghost did by all these three waies make them Over-seers of their Flocks 1. By qualifying them with such gifts as made them fit for it 2. By directing the minds of those that Ordained them to the ministery 3. By disposing both their own minds and the Ordainers and the peoples for the affixing them to that particular Church rather then another Dicit eos constitutos à spiritu sancto saith Grotius quia constituti erant ab Apostolis plenis spiritu sancto quanquam approbante plebe But no doubt in those times the Holy Ghost did give special directions as by internal oracle for the disposal of particular teachers as we read in the case of Saul and Barnabas and for the provision for particular Congregations 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is by some translated barely to feed as ours here by others only to Rule but indeed as Gerhard Iansenius and others note it is not to be restrained to either but containeth in it all the Pastoral work In one word it is Pastorem agere to do the work of a Pastor to the Flock Whether it be the Ephesine Congregation before called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is here called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or whether it be the Universal Church which they may be said to feed and Rule by doing their part towards it in their station as a
you have been doing Tell me Brethren in the fear of God Do you regard the success of your labours or do you not Do you long to see it upon the souls of your hearers If you do not What do you preach for What do you study for and what do you call your selves the Ministers of Christ for But if you do then sure you cannot find in your heart to mar your work for a thing of nought What do you regard the success of your labours and yet will not part with a little to the poor not put up an injury or a soul word nor stoop to the meanest nor forbear your passionate or â—ordly carriage no not for the winning of souls and attaining the end of all your labours You much regard the success indeed that will fell it at so cheap a rate or will not do so small a matter to attain it It is a palpable errour in those Ministers that make such a disproportion between their preaching and their living that they will study hard to preach exactly and study little or not at all to live exactly All the week long is little enough to study how to speak two hours and yet one hour seems too much to study how to live all the week They are loth to misplace a word in their Sermons or to be guilty of any notable infirmity and I blame them not for the matter is Holy and of weight but they make nothing of misplacing affections words and actions in the course of their lives O how curiously have I heard some men preach and how carelesly have I seen them live They have been so accurate as to the wordy part in their own preparations that seldom preaching seemed a vertue to them that their language might be the more polite and all the Rhetorical jingling writers they could meet with were prest to serve them for the adorning of their stile and gawds were oft their chiefest ornaments They were so nice in hearing others that no man pleased them that spoke as he thought or that drowned not affections or dulled not or distempered not the heart by the predominant strains of a phantastick wit And yet when it came to matter of practice and they were once out of Church how incurious were the men and how little did they regard what they said or did so it were not so palpably gross as to dishonour them They that preached precisely would not live precisely What difference between their pulpit speeches and their familiar discourse They that are most impatient of Barbarisms Solecisms and Paralogisms in a Sermon can easily tolerate them in their conversations Certainly Brethren we have very great cause to take heed what we do as well as what we say If we will be the servants of Christ indeed we must not be tongue-servants only but must serve him with our deeds and be doers of the work that in our deed we may be blessed Iam. 1. 25. As our people must be Doers of the word and not hearers only so we must be Doers and not speakers only least we be deceivers of our selves Iam. 1. 22. A practical Doctrine must be practically preached We must study as hard how to live well as how to preach well We must think and think again how to compose our lives as may most tend to mens salvation as well as our Sermons When you are studying what to say to them I know these are your thoughts or else they are naught and to no purpose How should I get within them and what should I say that is likely most effectually to convince them and convert them and tend to their salvation And should you not as diligently bethink your selves How shall I live and what shall I say and do and how shall I dispose of all that I have as may most probably tend to the saving of mens souls Brethren if saving souls be your end you will certainly intend it as well out of the pulpit as in it If it be your end you will live for it and contribute all your endeavours to attain it And if you do so you will as well ask concerning the money in your purse as the words of your mouth Which way should I lay it out for the greatest good especially to mens souls O that this were your daily study how to use your wealth your friends and all you have for God as well as your tongues and then we should see that fruit of your labours that is never else like to be seen If you intend the end of the Ministery in the pulpit only then it seems you take your selves for Ministers no longer then you are there And then I think you are unworthy to be esteemed such at all SECT IX III. HAving shewed you in four particulars How it is that we must Take heed to our selves and what is comprized in this command I am next to give you the Reasons of it which I intreate you to take as so many Motives to awaken you to your duty and thus Apply them as we go Reas 1. You have a Heaven to win or lose your selves and souls that must be happy or miserable for ever and therefore it concerneth you to begin at home and to take heed to your selves as well as unto others Preaching well may succeed to the salvation of others without the holiness of your own hearts or lives It is possible at least though less usual but it is impossible it should serve to save your selves Many shall say at that day Lord have we not prophesied in thy name Mat. 7. 22. Who shall be answered with an I never knew you depart from me ye that work iniquity v. 23. O Sirs how many men have preached Christ and perished for want of a saving interest in him How many that are now in hell have told their people of the torments of hell and warned them to avoid it How many have preached of the wrath of God against sinners that are now feeling it O what sadder case can there be in the world then for a man that made it his very trade and calling to proclaim salvation and to help others to attain it yet after all to be himself shut out Alas that ever we should have so many books in our libraries that tell us the way to heaven that we should spend so many years in reading those books and studying the Doctrine of eternal life and after all this to miss of it That ever we should study and preach so many Sermons of salvation and yet fall short of it so many Sermons of damnation and yet fall into it And all because we preached so many Sermons of Christ while we neglected him of the Spirit while we resisted it of faith while we did not heartily believe of Repentance and conversion while we continued in the state of flesh and sin and of a Heavenly life while we remained carnal and earthly our selves If we will be Divines only in Tongue and Title and
people to go to the Priest whose lips must preserve knowledge and at whose mouth they must ask the Law because he is the Messenger of the Lord of hosts And because the people are grown unacquainted with the office of the Ministery and their own necessity and duty herein it belongeth to us to acquaint them herewith and to press them publikely to come to us for advice in such cases of great concernment to their souls We must not only be willing of the trouble but draw it upon our selves by inviting them hereto What abundance of good might we do could we but bring our people to this And doubtless much might be done in it if we did our duties How few have I ever heard that heartily prest their people to their duty in this A sad case that peoples souls should be so injured and hazarded by the total neglect of so great a duty and Ministers scarce ever tell them of it and awaken them to it were they but duly sensible of the need and weight of this you should have them more frequently knocking at your doors and open their cases to you and making their sad complaints and begging your advice I beseech you put them more on this for the future and perform it carefully when they seek your help To this end it s very necessary that we be acquainted with Practical Cases and specially that we be acquainted with the nature of true Grace and able to assist them in trying their states and resolve the main question that concerns their everlasting life or death One word of seasonable prudent advice given by a Minister to persons in necessity hath done that good that many Sermons would not have done 4. We must also have a special eye upon families to see that they be well ordered and the duties of each relation performed The life of Religion and the welfare and glory of Church and State dependeth much on family Government and duty If we suffer the neglect of this we undo all What are we like to do our selves to the Reforming of a Congregation if all the work be cast on us alone and Masters of families will let fall that necessary duty of their own by which they are bound to help us If any good be begun by the Ministery in any soul in a family a careless prayerless worldly family is like to stiffle it or very much hinder it Whereas if you could but get the Rulers of families to do their part and take up the work where you left it and help it on what abundance of good might be done by it as I have elsewhere shewed more at large I beseech you therefore do all that you can to promote this business as ever you desire the true Reformation and welfare of your Parishes To which end let these things following be performed 1. Get certain information how each family is ordered and how God is worshippped in them that you may know how to proceed in your carefulness for their further good 2. Go now and then among them when they are like to be most at leisure and ask the master of the family Whether he pray with them or read the Scripture or what he doth And labour to convince the neglecters of their sin And if you can have opportunity pray with them before you go and give them an example What you would have them do and how And get a promise of them that they will be more conscionable therein for the future 3. If you find any unable to pray in tolerable expressions through ignorance and disuse perswade them to study their own wants and get their hearts affected with them and so go oft to those neighbours who use to pray that they may learn and in the mean time perswade them to use a form of prayer rather then none Only tell them that it is their sin and shame that they have lived so negligently as to be now so unacquainted with their own necessities as not to know how to speak to God in prayer when every beggar can find words to ask an alms and therefore tell them that this form iâ— but for necessity as a crutch to a Cripple while they cannot do as well without it but they must not resolve to take up there but to learn to do better as soon as they can seeing prayer should come from the feeling of the heart and be varied both according to our necessities and observations Yet is it necessary to most unaccustomed ill-bred people that have not been brought up where prayer hath been used that they begin at first with the use of a form because they will else be able to do nothing at all and in sense of their disability will wholly neglect the duty though they desire to perform it For many disused persons can mutter out some honest requests in secret that be not able before others to speak tolerable sense And I will not be one of them that had rather the duty were wholly neglected or else prophaned and made contemptible then encourage them to the use of a sorm either recited by memory or read 4. See that they have some profitable moving book besides the Bible in each family If they have not perswade them to buy some of small price and great use such as Mr. Whateleys New Birth and Dod on the Commandments or some smaller moving Sermons If they be not able to buy them give them some if you can if you cannot get some Gentlemen or other rich persons that are willing to good works to do it And engage them to read on it at nights when they have leisure and especially on the Lords day 5. By all means perswade them to procure all their children to learn to read English 6 Direct them how to spend the Lords day how to dispatch their worldly businesses so as to prevent encombrances and distractions and when they have been at the Assemblie how to spend the time in their families The life of Religion lieth much on this because poor people have no other free considerable time and therefore if they lose this they lose all and will remain ignorant and brutish Specially perswade them to these two things 1. If they cannot repeate the Sermon or otherwise spend the time profitably at home that they take their family with them and go to some godly neighbour that spends iâ— better that by joyning with them they may have the better help 2. That the Master of the family will every Lords day at night cause all his family to repeat the Catechism to him and give him some account of what they have learn't in publike that day 7. If there be any in the family that are known to be unruly give the Ruler a special charge concerning them and make them understand what a sin it is to connive at them and tolerate them Neglect not therefore this necessary part of your work Get masters of families to their duties and they will spare you
soever impenitent sinners make of it that he hath provided the everlasting torments of Hell for the punishment of it and no lesser means can prevent that punishment then the Sacrifice of the blood of the Son of God applyed to those that truly Repent of it and forsake it and therefore God that calleth all men to Repentance hath commanded us to exhort one another daily while it is called to day least any be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin Heb. 3. 13. and that we do not hate our Brother in our heart but in any wise rebuke our neighbour and not suffer sin upon him Lev. 19. 17. and that if our brother offend us we should tell him his fault between him and us and if he hear not take two or three and if he hear not them tell the Church and if he hear not the Church he must be to us as a heathen or a Publican Mat. 18. 17. and those that sin we must rebuke before all that others may fear 1 Tim. 5. 20. and rebuke with all authority Tit. 1. 15. Yea were it an Apostle of Christ that should openly sin he must be openly reproved as Paul did Peter Gal. 2. 11 14. and if they repent not we must avoid them and with such not so much as eat 2 Thes 3. 6 12 14. 1 Cor. 5. 11 13. According to these commands of the Lord having heard of the scandalous practice of N. N. of this Church or Parish and having received sufficient proof that he hath committed the odious sin of We have seriously dealt with him to bring him to repentance but to the grief of our hearts do perceive no satisfactory success of our endeavours but he seemeth still to remain impenitent or still liveth in the same sin though he verbally profess repentance We do therefore judge it our necessary duty to proceed to the use of that further remedy which Christ hath commanded us to try and hence we desire him in the Name of the Lord without any further delay to lay by his obstinacy against the Lord and to submit to his rebuke and will and to lay to heart the greatness of his sin the wrong he hath done to Christ and to himself and the scandal and grief that he hath caused to others and how unable he is to contend with the Almighty and prevail against the Holy God who to the impenitent is a consuming fire or to save himself from his burning indignation And I do earnestly beseech him for the sake of his own soul that he will but soberly consider What it is that he can gain by his sin or impenitency and whether it will pay for the loss of everlasting life and how he thinks to stand before God in Iudgement or to appear before the Lord Jesus one of these daies when death shall snatch his soul from his body if he be found in this impenitent state when the Lord Jesus himself in whose blood they pretend to trust hath told such with his own mouth that except they repent they shall all perish Luk. 13. 3 5. And I do beseech him for the sake of his own soul and require him as a Messenger of Iesus Christ as he will answer the contrary at the Bar of God that he lay by the stoutness and impenitency of his heart and unfeignedly confess and lament his sin before God and this Congregation And this desire I here publish not out of any ill will to his person as the Lord knoweth but in love to his soul and in obedience to Christ that hath made it my duty desiring that if it be possible that he may be saved from his sin and from the power of Satan and from the everlasting burning wrath of God and may be reconciled to God and to his Church and therefore that he may be humbled by true contrition before he be humbled by remediless condemnation Thus or to this purpose I conceive our publike admonition should proceed And in some cases where the sinner taketh his sin to be small the aggravation of it will be necessary and specially the citing of some texts of Scripture that do aggravate and threaten it And in case he either will not be present that such admonition may be given him or will not be brought to a discovery of Repentance and to desire the prayers of the Congregation for him it will be meet that with such a preface as this afore expressed we desire the prayers of the Congregation for him our selves That the people would consider what a fearful condition the impenitent are in and have pitty on a poor soul that is so blinded and hardened by sin and Satan that he cannot pitty himself and think what it is for a man to appear before the living God in such a case and therefore that they would joyn in earnest prayer to God that he would open his eyes and soften and humble his stubborn heart before he be in hell beyond remedy And accordingly let us be very earnest in prayer for them that the Congregation may be provoked affectionately to joyn with us and who knows but God may hear such prayers and the sinners heart may more relent then our own exhortation could procure it to do However the people will perceive that we make not light of sin and preach not to them in meer custom or formality If Ministers would be conscionable in thus carrying on the work of God entirely and self-denyingly they might make something of it and expect a fuller blessing But when we will shrink from all that is dangerous or ungrateful and shift off all that is costly or troublesom they cannot expect that any great matter should be done by such a carnal partial use of means and though some may be here and there called home to God yet we cannot look that the Gospel should prevail and run and be glorified where it is so lamely and defectively carryed on 4. When a sinner is thus Admonished and Prayed for if it please the Lord to open his eyes and give him remorse before we proceed to any further censure it is our next duty to proceed to his full recovery where these things must be observed 1. That we do not either discourage him by too much severity nor yet by too much facility and levity make nothing of Discipline nor help him to any saving cure but meerly slubber and palliate it over If therefore he have sinned scandalously but once if his Repentance seem deep and serious we may in some cases Restore him at that time that is If the wound that he hath given us to the credit of the Church be not so deep as to require more ado for satisfaction or the sin so hainous as may cause us to delay But if it be so or if he have lived long in the sin it is most meet that he do wait in Penitence a convenient time before he be Restored 2. And when the time comes whether at the first confession
Christ had not been in the case as now it is the Nations of Lutherans and Calvinsts abroad and the differing parties here at home would not have been plotting the subversion of one another nor remain at that distance and in that uncharitable bitterness nor strengthen the common enemy and hinder the building and prosperity of the Church as they have done CHAP. IV. SECT I. Use REverend and dear Brethren our business here this day is to humble our souls before the Lord for our former negligence especially of Catechizing and personal instructing those committed to our charge and to desire Gods assistance of us in our undertaken employment for the time to come Indeed we can scarce expect the later without the former If God will help us in our future duty and amendment he will sure humble us first for our former sin He that hath not so much sense of his faults as unfeignedly to lament them will hardly have so much more as may move him to reform them The sorrow of Repentance may go without the change of heart and life because a Passion may be easier wrought then a true conversion but the change cannot go without some good measure of the sorrow Indeed we may justly here begin our Confessions It is too common with us to expect that from our people which we do little or nothing in our selves What pains take we to humble them while our selves are unhumbled How hard do we squeeze them by all our expostulations convictions and aggravations to wring out of them a few penitent tears and all too little when our own eyes are dry and our hearts too strange to true remorse and we give them an example of hard-heartedness while we are endeavouring by our words to mollifie and melt them O if we did but study half as much to affect and amend our own hearts as we do our hearers it would not be with many of us as it is It s a great deal too little that we do for their humiliation but I fear its much less that some of us do for our own Too many do somewhat for other mens souls while they seem to forget that they have any of their own to regard They so carry the matter as if their part of the work lay in calling for Repentance and the hearers in Repenting their 's in speaking tears and sorrow and other-mens-only in weeping and sorrowing theirs in preaching duty and the hearers in performing it their 's in crying down sin and the peoples in forsakeing it But we find that the Guides of the Church in Scripture did confess their own sins as well as the sins of the people and did begin to them in tears for their own and the peoples sins Ezra confesseth the sins of the Priests as well as of the people weeping and casting himself down before the house of God Ezr. 9. 6 7 10. and 10. 1. So did the Levites Neh. 9. 32 33 34. Daniel confessed his own sin as well as the peoples Dan. 9. 20. And God calleth such to it as well as others Joel 2. 15 16 17. When the fast is summoned the people gathered the Congregation sanctified the Elders assembled the Priests the Ministers of the Lord are called to begin to them in weeping and calling upon God for mercy I think if we consider well of the Duties already opened and withal how we have done them of the Rule and of our unanswerableness thereto we need not demurr upon the question nor put it to a question Whether we have cause of humiliation I must needs say though I judge my self in saying it that he that readeth but this one Exhortation of Paul in Acts 20. and compareth his life with it is too stupid and hard-hearted if he do not melt in the sense of his neglects and be not laid in the dust before God and forced to bewail his great omissions and to flye for refuge to the blood of Christ and to his pardoning grace I am confident Brethren that none of you do in judgement approve of the Libertine Doctrine that cryeth down the necessity of Confession Contrition and true humiliation yea and in order to the pardon of sin Is it not pitty then that our Hearts are not more Orthodox as well as our heads But I see our lesson is but half learnt when we know it and can say it When the understanding hath learned it there is more ado to teach it our Wills and Affections our eyes our tongues and hands It is a sad thing that so many of us do use to preach our hearers asleep but it s sadder if we have studyed and preacht our selves asleep and have talkt so long against hardness of heart till our own grow hardned under the noise of our own reproofs Though the head only have eyes and ears and smell and taste the heart should have life and feeling and motion as well as the head And that you may see that it is not a causeless sorrow that God calleth us to I shall take it to be my duty to call to remembrance our mainfold sins or those that are most obvious and set them this day in order before God and our own faces that God may cast them behind his back and to deal plainly and faithfully in a free confession that he who is faithful and just may forgive them and to judge our selves that we be not judged of the Lord. Wherein I suppose I have your free and hearty consent and that you will be so far from being offended with the disgrace of your persons and of others in this office that you will readily subscribe the charge and be humble self-accusers and so far am I from justifying my self by the accusation of others that I do unfeignedly put my name with the first in the bill For how can a wretched sinner of so great transgressions presume to justifie himself with God Or how can he plead Guiltless whose conscience hath so much to say against him If I cast shame upon the Ministery it is not on the office but on our persons by opening that sin which is our shame The glory of our high imployment doth not communicate any glory to our sin nor will afford it the smallest covering for its nakedness For sin is a reproach to any people or persons Prov. 14. 34. And it is my self as well as others on whom I must lay the shame And if this may not be done What do we here to day Our business is to take shame to our selves and to give God the glory and faithfully to open our sins that he may cover them and to make our selves bare by confession as we have done by transgression that we may have the white rayment which cloatheth none but the penitent For be they Pastors or people it is only he that confesseth and forsaketh his sins that shall have mercy when he that hardeneth his heart shall fal into mischief Pro. 28. 13. And I think it will not be
them That those Ordinances of God should be the Occasions of our delusion which are instituted to be the means of our conviction and salvation and that while we hold the Looking glass of the Gospel to others to shew them the true face of the state of their souls we should either look on the back side of it our selves where we can see nothing or turn it aside that it may mis-represent us to our selves If such a wretched man would take my counsel he should make a stand and call his heart and life to an account and fall a preaching a while to himself before he preach any more to others He should consider whether food in the mouth will nourish that goeth not into the stomack whether it be a Christ in the mouth or in the heart that will save men Whether he that nameth him should not depart from iniquity and whether God will hear their prayers if they regard iniquity in their hearts and whether it will serve the turn at the day of reckoning to say Lord we have prophesied in thy name when they shall hear Depart from me I know you not and what comfort it will be to Iudas when he is gone to his own place to remember that he preached with the rest of the Apostles or that he sate with Christ and was called by him Friend and whether a wicked Preacher shall stand in the Iudgement or sinners in the Assembly of the just When such thoughts as these have entred into their souls and kindly workt a while upon their consciences I would advise them next to go to the Congregation and there preach over Origens Sermon on Psal 50. 16 17. But to the wicked saith God What hast thou to do to declare my statutes or that thou shouldst take my Covenant into thy mouth seeing thou hatest instruction and hast cast my words behind thee And when they have read this text to sit down and expound and apply it by their tears And then to make a free Confession of their sin and lament their case before the assembly and desire their earnest prayers to God for pardoning and renewing grace and so to close with Christ in heart who before admitted him no further then into the brain that hereafter they may preach a Christ whom they know and may feel what they speak and may commend the riches of the Gospel by experience Verily it is the common danger and calamity of the Church to have unregenerate and unexperienced Pastors and to have so many men become Preachers before they are Christians to be sanctified by dedication to the Altar as Gods Priests before they are sanctified by hearty dedication to Christ as his Disciples so to worship an unknown God and to preach an unknown Christ an unknown spirit an unknown state of holiness and Communion with God and a glory that is unknown and like to be unknown to them for ever He is like to be but a heartless Preacher that hath not the Christ and grace that he preacheth in his heart O that all our Students in the University would well consider this What a poor business is it to themselves to spend their time in knowing some little of the works of God and some of those names that the divided tongues of the Nations have imposed on them and not to know the Lord himself nor exalt him in their hearts nor to be acquainted with that one renewing work that should make them happy They do but walk in a vain shew and spend their lives like dreaming men while they busie their wits and tongues about abundance of names and notions and are strangers to God and the life of Saints If ever God waken them by saving grace they will have cogitations and imployments so much more serious then their unsanctified studies and disputations were that they will confess they did but dream before A world of business they make themselves about Nothing while they are wilful strangers to the Primitive independent necessary Being who is all in all Nothing can be rightly known if God be not known nor is any study well managed nor to any great purpose where God is not studyed We know little of the creature till we know it as it standeth in its Order and respects to God single letters and syllables uncomposed are non sence He that over-looketh the Alpha and Omega and seeth not the beginning and end and him in all who is the all of all doth see nothing at all All creatures are as such broken syllables they signifie nothing as separated from God Were they separated actually they would cease to be and the separation would be an annihilation And when we separate them in our fancies we make Nothing of them to our selves It s one thing to know the creatures as Aristotle and another thing to know them as a Christian None but a Christian can read one line of his Physicks so as to understand it rightly It is a high and excellent study and of greater use then many do well understand but it s the smallest part of it that Aristotle can teach us When man was made perfect and placed in a perfect world where all things were in perfect order and very good the whole Creation was then mans book in which he was to read the nature and will of his great Creator Every creature had the Name of God so legibly engraven on it that man might run and read it He could not open his eyes but he might see some image of God but no where so fully and lively as in himself And therefore it was his work to study the whole volume of Nature but first and most to study himself And if man had held on in this prescribed work he would have continued and increased in the knowledge of God and himself but when he would needs know and love the creature and himself in a way of separation from God he lost the knowledge of all both of the creature himself and God so far as it could beatifie and was worth the name of knowledge and instead of it he hath got the unhappy knowledge which he affected even the empty notions and phantastick knowledge of the creature and himself as thus separated And thus he that lived to the Creator and upon him doth now live to and as upon the other creatures and himself and thus Every man at his best estate the Learned as well as the illiterate is altogether vanity Surely every man walketh in a Vain Shew surely they are disquieted in vain Psal 39. 5 6. And it must be well observed that as God laid not by the Relation of a Creator by becoming our Redeemer nor the Right of his Propriety and Government of us in that Relation but the work of Redemption standeth in some subordination to that of Creation and the Law of the Redeemer to the Law of the Creator so also the duties that we owed God as Creator are not ceased but the duties
the eyes of the world and do our part to make them believe that to be a Christian is but to be of such an Opinion and to have that faith which James saith the Devils had and to be solifidians and that Christ is no more for Holiness then Satan or that the Christian Religion exacteth Holiness no more then the false Religions of the world For if the Holy and unholy are all permitted to be sherp of the same fold without the use of Christs means to difference them we do our part to defame Christ by it as if he were guilty of it and as if this were the strain of his prescripts 7. We do keep up separation by permitting the worst to be uncensured in our Churches so that many honest Christians think they are necessitated to withdraw I must profess that I have spoke with some members of the separated or gathered Churches that were moderate men and have argued with them against their way and they have assured me That they were of the Presbyterian judgement or bad nothing to say against it but they joyned themselves with other Churches upon meer necessity thinking that Discipline being an Ordinance of Christ must be used by all that can and therefore they durst no longer live without it when they may have it and they could find no Presbyterian Churches that executed Discipline as they wrote for it and they told me that they did thus separate only protempore till the Presbyterians will use Discipline and then they would willingly return to them again I confess I was sorry that such persons had any such occasion to withdraw and the least ground for such a reason of their doings It is not keeping them from the Sacrament that will excuse us from the further exercise of Discipline while they are Members of our Churches 8. We do too much to bring the wrath of God upon our selves and our Congregations and so to blast the fruit of our labours If the Angel of the Church of Thyatira was reproved for suffering Seducers in the Church we may be reproved on the same ground for suffering open scandalous impenitent ones Rev. 2 20. 9. We seem to justifie the Prelates who took the same course in neglecting Discipline though in other things we differ 10. We have abundance of aggravations and witnesses to rise up against us which though I will purposely now over-pass lest I seem to press too hard in this point I shall desire you to apply them hither when you meet with them anon under the next branch of the Exhortation I know that Discipline is not essential to a Church but what of that Is it not therefore a duty and necessary to its well-being Yea more The power of Discipline is essential to a particular Political Church And what is the Power for but for the work and use As there is no Common-wealth that hath not partem imperantem as well as partem subditam so no such Church that hath not partem regentem in one Pastor or more SECT XII 8. THE last particular branch of my Exhortation is that You will now faithfully discharge the great duty which you have undertaken and which is the occasion of our meeting here to day in personal Catechizing and Instructing every one in your Parishes that will submit thereto What our undertaking is you know you have considered it and it is now published to the world But what the performance will be I know not but I have many reasons to hope well of the most though some will alwaies be readyer to say then to do And because this is the chief business of the day I must take leave to insist somewhat the longer on it And 1. I shall give you some further Motives to perswade you to faithfulness in the undertaken work Presupposing the former general Motives which should move us to this as well as to any other part of our duty 2. I shall give to the younger of my Brethren a few words of Advice for the manner of the performance CHAP. VI. SECT I. 1. THE first reasons by which I shall perswade you to this duty are taken from the benefits of it The second sort are taken from the difficulty And the third from the Necessity and the many obligations that are upon us for the performance of it And to these three heads I shall reduce them all 1. And for the first of these when I look before me and consider what through the blessing of God this work well managed is like to produce it makes my heart to leap for joy Truly Brethren you have begun a most blessed work and such as your own consciences may rejoyce in and your Parishes rejoyce in and the Nation rejoyce in and the childe that is yet unborn yea thousands and millions for ought we know may have cause to bless God for when we have finished our course And though it be our business here to humble our selves for the neglect of it so long as we have very great cause to do yet the hopes of a blessed success are so great in me that they are ready to turn it into a day of Rejoycing I bless the Lord that I have lived to see such a day as this and to be present at so solemn an engagement of so many servants of Christ to such a work I bless the Lord that hath honoured you of this County to be the beginners and awakeners of the Nation hereunto Is it not a controverted business where the exasperated minds of divided men might pick quarrels with us or malice it self be able to invent a rational reproach Nor is it a new invention where envy might charge you as innovators or proud boasters of any new discoveries of your own or scorn to follow in it because you have led the way No it is a well known duty It is but the more diligent and effectuall management of the Ministerial work and the teaching of our Principles and the feeding of babes with milk You lead indeed but not in invention of novelty but the restauration of the antient Ministerial work and the self-denying attempt of a duty that few or none can contradict Unless men do envy you your labours and sufferings or unless they envy the saving of mens souls I know not what they can envy you for in this The age is so quarrelâ—om that where there is any matter to fasten on we can scarce explain a truth or perform a duty but one or other if not many will have a stone to cast at us and will speak evil of the things which they do not understand or which their hearts and interests are against But here I think we have silenced malice it self and I hope we may do this part of Gods work quietly as to them If they cannot endure to be told what they know not or contradicted in what they think or disgraced by discoveries of what they have said amiss I hope they will give us leave
yet because Ministers have laid the stress of that examination upon the meer necessity of fitness for that Ordinance and not upon their common duty to see the state and proficiency of each member of their Flock at all fit seasons and upon the peoples duty to submit to the guidance and instruction of the Pastors at all times they have therefore occasioned people ignorantly to quarrel against their examinations and call for the proof Whereas it is an easie thing to prove that any Schollar in Christs School is bound at any time to be accountable to his Teachers and to obey them in all lawful things in order to their own edification and salvation though it may be more difficult to prove a necessity that a Minister must so examine them in order to the Lords Supper any more then in order to a day of Thanksgiving or a Lords day or the Baptizing of their children Now by this course we shall discern their fitness in an unquestionable way 7. ANother Benefit will be this We shall by this means be the better enabled to help our people against their particular temptations and we shall much better prevent their entertainment of any particular errors or heresies or their falling into Schism to the hazard of themselves and the Church For men will freelyer open their thoughts and scruples to us and if they are infected already or inclined to any errour or schism they will be ready to discover it and so may receive satisfaction before they are past cure And familiarity with their Teachers will the more encourage them to open their doubts to them at any other time The common cause of our peoples infections and heresies is the familiarity of Seducers with them and the strangeness of their own Pastors When they hear us only in publike and hear Seducers frequently in private unsaying all that we say and we never know it or help them against it this fettleth them in heresies before we are aware of it Alas our people are most of them so weak that whoever hath 1. Most interest in their estimations and affections and 2. Most opportunity in private frequent conferences to instill his opinions into them of that mans religion will they ordinarily be It is pity then that we should let deceivers take such opportunities to undo them and we should not be as industrious and use our advantages to their good We have much advantage against Seducers in many respects if our negligence and their diligence did not frustrate them 8. ANother and one of the greatest Benefits of our work will be this It will better inform men of the true nature of the Ministerial office or awaken them to better consideration of it then is now usual It is now too common for men to think that the work of the Ministery is nothing but to preach well and to Baptize and administer the Lords Supper and visit the sick and by this means the people will submit to no more and too many Ministers are negligently or wilfully such strangers to their own calling that they will do no more It hath oft grieved my heart to observe some eminent able Preachers how little they do for the saving of souls save only in the Pulpit and to how little purpose much of their labour is by this neglect They have hundreds of people that they never spoke a word to personally for their salvation and if we may judge by their practice they take it not for their duty and the principal thing that hardeneth men in this oversight is the common neglect of the private part of the work by others There are so few that do much in it and the omission is grown so common among pious able men that they have abated the disgrace of it by their parts and a man may now be guilty of it without any common observance or dishonour Never doth sin so reign in a Church or State as when it hath gained reputation or at least is no disgrace to the sinner nor a matter of any offence to beholders But I make no doubt through the mercy of God but the restored practice of personal oversight will convince many Ministers that this is as truly their work as that which they now do and may awaken them to see that the Ministery is another kind of business then too many excellent Preachers do take it to be Brethren do but set your selves closely to this work and follow on diligently and though you do it silently without any words to them that are negligent I am in hope that most of you here may live to see the day that the neglect of private personal Oversight of all the Flock shall be taken for a scandalous and adious omission and shall be as disgraceful to them that are guilty of it as preaching but once a day was heretofore A School master must not only read a common Lecture but take a personal account of his Scholars or else he is like to do little good If Physicians should only read a publike Lecture of Physick their patients would not be much the better for them Nor would a Lawyer secure your estate by reading a Lecture of Law The charge of a Pastor requireth personal dealing as well as any of these Let us shew the world this by our practise for most men are grown regardless of bare words The truth is we have been occasioned exceedingly to wrong the Church in this by the contrary extream of the Papists who bring all their people to Auricular confession For in the overthrowing of this error of theirs we have run into the contrary extream and led our people much further into it then we are gone our selves It troubled me to read in an Orthodox Historian that licentiousness and a desire to be from under the strict enquiries of the Priests in Confession did much further the entertainment of the Reformed Religion in Germany And yet its like enough to be true that they that were against Reformation in other respects yet partly for the change and partly on that licentious account might joyn with better men in crying down the Romish Clergy But by this means lest we should seem to favour the said Auricular Confession we have too commonly neglected all personal instruction except when we occasionally fall into mens company few make it a stated part of their work I am past doubt that the Popish Auricular Confession is a sinful novelty which the antient Church was unacquainted with But perhaps some will think strange that I should say that our common neglect of personal Instruction is much worse if we consider their Confessions in themselves and not as they respect their connexed Doctrines of satisfaction and purgatory Many of the Southern and Eastern Churches do use a Confession of sin to the Priest And how far Mr. Tho. Hocker in his Souls Preparat and other Divines do ordinarily require it as necessary or useful is well known If any among us should be
labours then no doubt if the fear of God be in them and they have any love to his truth and mens souls they will set to their helping hand and not let men perish because there is no man to speak to them to prevent it They will one way or other raise maintenance in such populous places for labourers proportioned to the number of souls and greatness of the work Let them but see us fall to the work and see it prosper in our hands as if it be well managed through Gods blessing there is no doubt but it will do and then it will draw out their hearts to the promoting of it and instead of laying Parishes together to diminish the number of teachers they will either divide them or allow more teachers to a Parish But when they see that many carnal Ministers do make a greater stir to have more maintenance to themselves then to have more help in the work of God they are tempted by such worldlings to wrong the Church that particular Ministers may have ease and fulness 11. ANother benefit that is like to follow our work is this It may exceedingly facilitate the Ministerial service to the next generation that shall succeed us and prevent the Rebellion of people against their Teachers As I said custom is the thing that swaies much with the multitude and they that first break a destructive custom must bear the brunt of their indignation some body must do this If we do it not it will lie upon our successors And how can we look that they should be more hardy and resolute and faithful then we It s we that have seen the heavy Judgements of the Lord and heard him pleading by fire and sword with the Land It s we that have been our selves in the furnace and should be the most refined Mal. 3. 23. It s we that are most deeply obliged by oaths and covenants by wonderful deliverances experiences and mercies of all sorts And if we yet flinch and turn our backs and prove false-hearted why should we expect better from them that have not been driven by such scourges as we nor drawn by such cords But if they do prove better then we and will do it the same odium and opposition must befall them which we avoid and that with some increase because of our neglect For the people will tell them that we their predecessors did no such things But if we would now break through that are set in the front and break the ice for them that follow us their souls will bless us and our names shall be dear to them and they will feel the happy fruits of our labour every week and day of their Ministery When the people shall willingly submit to their private instructions and examinations yea and to discipline too because we have acquainted them with it and removed the prejudice and broke the evil custom that our fore-goers had been the cause of And so we may do much to the saving of many thousand souls in all ages to come as well as in the present age that we are working in 12. ANother Benefit will be this We shall keep our peoples minds and times from much of that vanity that now possesseth them When men are at work in their Shops almost all their talk is vanity the children also learn foolish and ribbald songs and tales and with such filth and rubbish are their memories furnished Many an hour is lost and many a thousand idle thoughts and words are they guilty of Whereas when they once know that Catechisms must be learnt and that they must all give account it will turn much of their thoughts and time that way 13. MOreover It will do much to the better ordering of families and better spending of the Lords day When we have once got the Master of the family to undertake it that he will once every Lords day examine his family and hear them what they can say of the Catechism it will find them the most profitable imployment whereas otherwise many of them would be idle or ill employed And many Masters that know little themselves may yet be brought to do this for others 14. MOreover It will do some good to many Ministers that are apt to be too idle and mispend their time in unnecessary discourses businesses or journeys or recreations and it will let them see that they have no time to spare for such things And so when they are engaged in so much pressing employment of so high a nature it will be the best cure for all that idleness or loss of time And withall it will cut off that scandal which usually followeth thereupon For people use to say such a Minister can sit in an Ale-house or Tavern or spend his time at bowls or other sports or vain discourse and why may not we do so as well as he Let us all set close to this part of our work and then see what time we can find to spare and live idly or in a way of voluptuousness yea or worldliness if we can 15. AND many personal Benefits to our selves are consequential to these It will do much 1. To exercise and increase our own graces And 2. to subdue our own corruptions And 3. besides our safety it will breed much peace to our own consciences and comfort us when our time and actions must be reviewed 1. To be much in provoking others to Repentance and heavenly-mindedness may do much to excite them in our selves 2. To cry down the sin of others and engage them against it and direct them to overcome it will do much to shame us out of our own and conscience will scarce suffer us to live in that which we make so much ado to draw others from And that very constant imployment for God and busying our minds and tongues against sin and for Christ and holiness will do much to habituate us and to overcome our fleshly inclinations both by direct mortification and by diversion leaving our fancies no room nor time for their old imployment I dare say that all the Austerities of Monks and Hermits that addict themselves to unprofitable solitude and are the true imitators of the unprofitable servant Mat. 25. that hid his Talent because his Master was an austere man and that think to save themselves by neglecting to shew compassion on others will not do near so much in the true work of Mortification as this fruitful diligence for Christ will do 16. AND it will be some Benefit that by this means we shall take off our selves and our people from vain controversies and from letting out our care and zeal and talk upon the lesser things in Religion which least tend to their spiritual edification For while we are taken up in teaching and they in learning the Fundamentals we shall divert our minds and tongues and have less room for lower things And so it will cure much wranglings and contentions between Ministers and people For we do
throughly humble the Ministry and cause them to bewail their own neglects and to set apart some daies through the Land to that end that they may not think it enough to lament the sins of others while they over-look their own and that God may not abhor our solemn National humiliations because they are managed by unhumbled Guides and that we may first prevail with him for a pardon for our selves that we may be the fitter to beg for the pardon of others And O that we might cast out the dung of our Pride Contention Self-seeking and Idleness lest God should cast our sacrifices as dung in our faces and should cast us out as the dung of the earth as of late he hath done many others for our warning and that we might presently Resolve in concord to mend our pace before we feel a sharper spur then hitherto we have felt SECT V. 2. AND now Brethren what have we to do for the time to come but to deny our lazy contradicting flesh and rouze up our selves to the business that we are engaged in The harvest is great the labourers are too few the loyterers and contentious hinderers are many the souls of men are precious the misery of sinners is great and the everlasting misery that they are near to is greater the beauty and glory of the Church is desirable the joy that we are helping them to is unconceivable the comfort that followeth a faithful steward-ship is not small the comfort of a full success also will be greater to be co-workers with God and his Spirit is not a little honour to subserve the blood-shed of Christ for mens salvation is not a light thing to lead on the Armies of Christ through the thickest of the enemies and guide them safely through a dangerous wilderness and steer the vessel through such storms and rocks and sands and shelves and bring it safe to the harbour of Rest requireth no small skill and diligence the fields now seem even white unto harvest the preparations that have been made for us are very great the season of working is more warm and calm then most ages before us have ever seen we have carelesly loytered too long already the present time is posting away while we are trifling men are dying how fast are men passing into another world And is there nothing in all this to awaken us to our duty and to resolve us to speedy and unwearied diligence Can we think that a man can be too careful and painful under all these motives and engagements Or could that man be a fit instrument for other mens illumination that were himself so blind or for the quickning of others that were himself so sensless What Sirs are you that are men of wisdom as dull as the common people and do we need to heap up a multitude of words to perswade you to a known and weighty duty One would think it should be enough to set you on work to shew a line in the Book of God to prove it to be his will or to prove to you that the work hath a tendency to mens salvation One would think that the very sight of your miserable neighbours should be motive sufficient to draw out your most compassionate endeavours for their relief If a cripple do but unlap his sores and shew you his disabled limbs it will move you without words and will not the case of souls that are neer to damnation move you O happy Church if the Physicians were but healed themselves and if we had not too much of that Infidelity and stupidity which we daily preach against in others and were soundlyer perswaded of that which we perswade men of and deeplyer affected with the wonderful things wherewith we would affect them Were there but such clear and deep impressions upon our souls of those glorious things that we daily preach O what a change would it make in our Sermons and in our private course O what a miserable thing it is to the Church and to themselves that men must preach of Heaven and Hell before they soundly believe that there are such things Or have felt the weight of the Doctrines which they preach It would amaze a sensible man to think what matters we preach and talk of What it is for the soul to pass out of this flesh and go before a righteous God and enter upon unchangeable Joy or Torment O with what amazing thoughts do dying men apprehend those things How should such matters be preacht and discourst of O the gravity the seriousness the uncessant diligence that these things require I know not what others think of them but for my part I am ashamed of my stupidity and wonder at my self that Ideal not with my own and others souls as one that looks for the great day of the Lord and that I can have room for almost any other thoughts or words and that such astonishing matters do not wholly take me up I marvaâ—l how I can preach of them slightly and coldly and how I can let men alone in their sins and that I do not go to them and beseech them for the Lords sake to Repent how ever they take it and whatever pains or trouble it should cost me I seldom come out of the Pulpit but my Conscience smiteth me that I have been no more serious and servent in such a Case It accuseth me not so much for want of humane ornaments or elegancy nor for letting fall an unhansom word But it asketh me How couldst thou speak of Life and Death with such a Heart How couldst thou Preach of Heaven and Hell in such a careless sleepy manner Dost thou believe what thou saist Art thou in earrest or in jest How canst thou tell people that sin is such a thing and that so much misery is upon them and before them and be no more affected with it shouldst thou not weep over such a people and should not thy tears interrupt thy words shouldst thou not cry aloud and shew them their transgressions and intreat and beseech as for life and death Truly this is the peal that Conscience doth ring in my ears and yet my drouzie soul will not be awakened O what a thing is a senseless hardened heart O Lord save us from the plague of Infidelity and Hard-heartedness our selves or else how shall we be fit Instruments of saving others from it O do that on our own souls which thou wouldst use us to do on the souls of others I am even confounded to think what difference there is between my sickness apprehensions and my Pulpit and discoursing apprehensions of the life to come That ever that can seem so light a matter to me now which seemeth so great and astonishing a matter then and I know will do so again when death looks me in the face when yet I daily know and think of that approaching hour and yet those fore thoughts will not recover such working apprehensions O Brethren sure if
you had all conversed with neighbour-death as oft as I have done and as often received the sentence in your selves you would have an unquiet Conscience if not a reformed life in your Ministerial diligence and fidelity and you would have something within you that would frequently ask you such questions as these Is this all thy Compassion on lost sinners wilt thou do no more to seek and to save them Is there not such and such and such a one O how many round about thee that are yet the visible sons of death What hast thou said to them or done for their recovery shall they dye and be in Hell before thou wilt speak to them one serious word to prevent it shall they there curse thee for ever that didst no more in time to save them such cries of Conscience are daily in mine ears though the Lord knows I have too little obeyed them The God of Mercy pardon me and awake me with the rest of his servants that have been thus sinfully negligent I confess to my shame that I seldom hear the Bell toll for one that is dead but Conscience asketh me What hast thou done for the saving of that soul before it left the body There is one more gone to Iudgement what didst thou to prepare them for Iudgement and yet I have been slothful and backward to help the rest that do survive How can you chuse when you are laying a Corps in the grave but think with your selves Here lieth the body but where is the soul and what have I done for it before it departed It was part of my charge what account can I give of it O Sirs is it a small matter to you to answer such questions as these It may seem so now but the hour is coming when it will not seem so If our hearts condem us God is greater then our hearts and will condemn us much more â—even with another kind of Condemnation then Conscience doth The voice of conscience now is a stil voice and the sentence of Conscience is a gentle sentence in comparison of the voice and the sentence of God Alas Conscience seeth but a very little of our sin and misery in comparison of what God seeth What mountains would these things appear to your souls which now seem mole hils What beams would these be in your eyes that now seem motes if you did but see them with a clearer light I dare not say As God seeth them we can easily make shift to plead the Cause with Conscience and either bribe it or bear its sentence but God is not so easily dealt with nor his sentence so easily born Wherefore we receiving and preaching a Kingdom that cannot be moved let us have grace whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and Godly fear for our God is a Consuming fire Heb. 12. ult But because you shall not say that I affright my self or you with bug bears and tell you of dangers and terrors when there are none I will here add the certainty and sureness of that Condemnation that is like to befal the negligent Pastors and particularly that will befall us that are here this day if we shall hereafter be wilful neglecters of this great work How many will be ready to rise up against us to our Condemnation 1. Our Parents that destinated us to the Ministry may condemn us and say Lord we devoted them to thy service and they made light of it and serv'd themselves 2. Our Masters that taught us our Tutors that instructed us The Schools and Universities that we lived in and all the years that we spent in study may rise up in judgement against us and Condemn us For why was all this but for the work of God 3. Our Learning and Knowledge and Ministerial gifts will condemn us For to what are we made partakers of these but for the work of God 4 Our voluntary undertaking the Charge of souls will condemn us For all men should be true to the trust that they have undertaken 5. All the Care of God for his Church and all that Christ hath done and suffered for them will rise up in judgement against us if we be negligent and unfaithful and condemn us For that we did by our neglect destroy them for whom Christ dyed 6. All the severe Precepts and Charges of holy Scripture with the Promises of Assistance and reward and the threatnings of punishment will rise up against the unfaithful and condemn them For God did not speak all this in vain 7. All the Examples of the Prophets and Apostles and other Preachers recorded in Scripture will rise up against such and condemn them even this pattern that is set them by Paul Acts 20. And all the examples of the diligent servants of Christ in these latter times and in the places about them For these were for their imitation and to provoke them to a holy emulation in fidelity and Ministerial diligence 8. The Holy Bible that is open before us and all the Books in our studies that tell us of our duty directly or indirectly may condemn the lazy and unprofitable servant For we have not all these helps and furniture in vain 9. All the Sermons that we preach to perswade our people to work out their salvation with fear and trembling to lay violent hands upon the Crown and take the Kingdom as by force to strive to enter in at the strait gate and so to run as they that may obtain c. will rise up against the unfaithful and condemn them For if it so nearly concern them to labour for their salvation doth it not concern us who have the charge of them to be also violent laborious and unwearied in striving to help on their salvation Is it worth their labour and patience and is it not also worth ours 10. All the Sermons that we preach to them to set out the danger of a natural state the evil of sin the need of Christ and Grace the Joyes of heaven and the torments of hell yea and the truth of Christian Religion will rise up in Judgement against such and condemn them And a sad review it will be to themselves when they shall be forc't to think Did I tell them of such great dangers and hopes in publike and wâ—â—ld I do no more to help them in private What tell them daily of threatned damnation and yet let them run into it so easily Tell them of such a Glory and scarce speak a word to them personallly to help them to it Were these such great matters with me at Church and so small when I came home All this is dreadful self-condemnation 11. All the Sermons that we have preached to perswade other men to such duties as neighbours to exhort one another daily and plainly to rebuke them and parents and masters to do it to their children and servants will rise up in Judgement against such and condemn them For will you perswade others to that which
could but improve my time according to my convictions of the necessity of improving it He that hath lookt death in the face as oft as I have done I will not thank him to value his time I profess I admire at those Ministers that have time to spare that that can hunt or shoot or bowl or use the like recreations two or three hours yea whole daies almost together That can sit an hour together in vain discourses and spend whole daies in complemental visitations and journeys to such ends Good Lord what do these men think on when so many souls about them cry for their help and death gives no respite and they know not how short a time their people and they may be together When the smallest Parish hath so much work that may imploy all their diligence night and day Brethren I hope you are content to be plainly dealt with If you have no sense of the worth of souls and of the preciousness of that blood that was shed for them and of the glory that they are going to and of the misery that they are in danger of then are you no Christians and therefore very unfit to be Ministers And if you have how can you find time for needless recreations visitations or discourses Dare you like idle Gossips chat and trifle away your time when you have such works as these to do and so many of them O precious time How swiftly doth it pass away How soon will it be gone What are the 40 years of my life that are past Were every day as long as a moneth me thinks it were too short for the work of a day Have we not lost enough already in the daies of our vanity Never do I come to a dying man that is not utterly stupid but he better sees the worth of time O then if they could call time back again how loud would they call If they could but buy it what would they give for it And yet can we afford to trifle it away Yea and to allow our selves in this and willfully cast off the greatest works of God! O what a befooling thing is sin that can thus distract men that seem so wise Is it possible that a man of any true compassion and honesty or any care of his Ministerial duty or any sense of the strictness of his account should have time to spare for idleness and vanity And I must tell you further Brethren that if another might take some time for meer delight which were not necessary yet so cannot you for your undertaking binds you to stricter attendance then other men are bound to May a Physitian in the plague-time take any more relaxation or reereation then is necessary for his life when so many are expecting his help in a case of life and death As his pleasure is not worth mens lives so neither is yours worth mens souls Suppose your Cities were besieged and the enemy on one side watching all advantages to surprize it and on the other seeking to fire it with granadoes which are cast in continually I pray you tell me now if certain men undertake it as their office to watch the ports and others to quench the fire that shall be kindled in the houses what time will you allow these men for their recreation or relaxation When the City is in danger or the fire will burn on and prevail if they intermit their diligence Or would you excuse one of these men if he come off his work and say I am but flesh and blood I must have some pleasure or relaxation At the utmost sure you would allow him none but of necessity Do not grudge at this now and say This is a hard saying who can bear it For it is your mercy and you are well if you know when you are well as I shall shew you in answering this next Objection Object 3. I do not think that it is required of Ministers that they make drudges of themselves If they preach diligently and visit the sick and do other Ministerial duties and occasionally do good to those they converse with I do not think that God doth moreover require that we should thus tie our selves to Instruct every person distinctly and to make our lives a burden and a slavery Answ 1. Of what use and weight the duty is I have shewed before land how plainly it is commanded And do you think God doth not require you to do all the good you can Will you stand by and see sinners gasping under the pangs of death and say God doth not require me to make my self a drudge to save them Is this the voice of Ministerial or Christian Compassion or rather of sensual Lazarus and diabolical cruelty I Doth God set you work to do and will you not believe that he would have you do it Is that the voice of obedience or of rebellion It is all one whether your flesh do prevail with you to deny obedience to acknowledge duty and say plainly I wil obey no further then it pleaseth me Or whether it may make you wilfully reject the evidence that should convince you that it is a duty and say I will not believe it to be my duty unless it please me It s the true Character of an hypocrite to make a Religion to himself of the cheapest part of Gods service which will stand with his fleshly ends and felicity and to reject the rest which is inconsistent therewith And to the words of Hypocrisie this objection superaddeth the words of gross impiety For what a wretched Calumny is this against the most high God to call his service a slavery and drudgery what thoughts have these men of their Master their work and their wages the thoughts of a believer or of an Infidel Are these men like to honour God and promote his service that have such base thoughts of it themseves Do these men delight in Holiness that account it a slavish work Do the believe indeed the Misery of sinners that account it such a slavery to be diligent for to save them Christ saith that he that denieth not himself and forsaketh not all and taketh not up his cross and followeth him cannot be his Disciple And these men count it a slavery to labour hard in his vineyard and deny their ease in a time when they have all accomodations and Encouragements How far is this from forsaking all and how can these men be fit for the Ministry that are such enemies to self-denyal and so to true Christianity Still therefore I am forced to say that all these Objections are so prevalent and all these carnal reasonings hinder the Reformation and in a word hence is the chief misery of the Church that so many are made Ministers before they are Christians If these men had seen the diligence of Christ in doing good when he neglected his meat to talk with one woman Joh. 4. and when they had no time to eat bread Mark 3. 22. would not
they have been of the mind of his carnal friends that went to lay hold on him and said He is besides himself vers 21. They would have told Christ he made a drudge or a slave of himself and God did not require all this ado If they had seen him all night in prayer and all day in preaching and healing it seems he should have had this censure from them for his labour I cannot but advise these men to search their own hearts whether they unfeignedly believe that word that they preach Do you believe indeed that such Glory attends those that dye in the Lord and such Torment attendeth those that dye unconverted If you do how can you think any labour too much for such weighty ends If you do not say so and get you out of the vine ard and go with the Prodigal to keep swine and undertake not the feeding of the Flock of Christ Do you not know that it is your own benefit which you grudge at The more you do the more you receive the more you lay out the more you have coming in If you are strangers to these Christian Paradoxes you should not have taken on you to peach them to others At the present our incomes of spiritual life and peace are commonly in way of duty so that he that is most in duty hath most of God Exercise of Grace increaseth it And is it a slavery to be more with God and to receive more him then other men It is the chief solace of a gracious soul to be doing Good and receiving by doing and to be much exercised about those Divine things which have his heart A good stomack will not say at a feast what a slavery is it to bestow my time and pains so much to feed my self Besides that we prepare for fuller receivings hereafter we set our Talents to usury and by improving them we shall make five become ten and so be made Rulers of ten Cities We shall be judged according to our works Is it a drudgery to send to the utmost parts of the world to exchange our trifles for Gold and Jewels Do not these men seek to Justifie the prophane that make all diligent godliness a drudgery and reproach it as a precise and tedious life I say they will never believe but a man may be saved without all this ado Even so say these in respect to the works of the Ministry They take this diligence for ungrateful tediousness and they will not believe but a man may be a faithful Minister without all this ado It is a hainous sin to be Negligent in so great a business but to approve of that negligence and so to be impenitent and to plead against duty as if it were none and when they should lay out themselves for the saving of souls to say I do not believe that God requireth it this is so great an aggravation of the sin that where the Churches Necessity doth not force us to make use of such for want of better I cannot but think them worthy to be cast out as the rubbish and as sale that hath lost its savour that is neither fit for the land nor yet for the dunghil but men cast it out he that hath ears to hear saith Christ in these words let him hear Luke 14. 34. 35. And if such Ministers become a by-word and reproach let them thank themselves for it is their own sin that maketh them vile 1 Sam. 3. 13. And while they thus debase the service of the Lord they do but debase themselves and prepare for a greater abasement at the last Object 4. BUt if you make such severe Laws for Ministers the Church will be left without For what man will put himself upon such a toilsom life or what Parents will choose such a burden for their children Men will avoid it both for the bodily toil and the danger to their Consciences if they should not well discharge it Ans 1. It is not we but Christ that hath made and imposed these Laws which you call severe And if I should silence them or mis-interpret them or tell you that there is no such things that would not relax them nor disoblige or excuse you He that made them knew why he did it and will expect the performance of them Is infinite Goodness it self to be questioned or suspected by us as making bad or unmerciful Laws Nay it is meer mercy in him that imposeth this great duty upon us If Physitians be required to be as diligent in Hospitals or Pest-houses or with other patients to save their lives were there not more mercy then rigor in this Law what must God let the souls of your Neighbours perish to save you a little Labour and suffering and this in mercy to you O what a miserable world should we have if blind self-conceited man had the ruling of it 2. And for a supply of Pastors Christ will take care He that imposeth duty hath the fulness of the Spirit and can give men hearts to obey his Laws Do you think Christ will suffer all men to be as cruel unmerciful fleshly and self-seeking as you He that hath undertaken himself the work of our Redemption and born our transgressions and been faithful as the chief Shepherd and Teacher of the Church will not lose all his Labour and suffering for want of Instruments to carry on his work nor will he come down again to do all himself because no other will do it but he will provide men to be his Servants and Ushers in his School that shall willingly take the labour on them and rejoyce to be so imployed and account that the happiest life in the world which you account so great a toil and would not change it for all your ease and carnal pleasure but for the saving of souls and the propagating of the Gospel of Christ will be content to bear the burden and heat of the day and to fill up the measure of the sufferings of Christ in their bodies and to do what they do with all their might and to work while it is day and to be the servants of all and not to please themselves but others for their Edification and to become all things to all men that they may save some and to endure all things for the elects sake and to spend and be spent for men though the more they love the less they should be beloved and should be accounted their enemies for telling them the truth such Pastors will Christ provide his people after his own heart that will feed them with knowledge as men that seek not theirs but them What do you think Christ can have no servants if such as you shall with Demas turn to the present world and forsake him If you dislike his service you may seek you a better where you can find it and boast of your gain in the Conclusion but do not threaten him with the loss of your service He hath made such
beholden to him for his bloodshed and how all your hope and life is in him he will make you see the vanity of this world and all that it can afford you and that all your happiness is with God in that everlasting life where with Saints and Angels you may behold his Glory and live in his loves and praises when those that reject him shall be tormented with the devils And because it is only Christ the Redeemer that can bring you to that glory and deliver you from that torment he will make you look to him as your hope and life and cast your burdened soul upon him and give up your selves to be saved and taught and ruled by him and he will possess you with the spirit of holyness that your heart shall set upon God and heaven as your treasure and the care of your mind and the business of your life shall be to obtain it and you shall despise this world and deny your fleshly interests and desires and cast away the sin with abhorrence which you delighted in and count no pains too great nor no suffering too dear for the obtaining of that everlasting life with God Let me tell you that till this work be done upon you you are a miserable man and if you dye before it s done you are lost for ever Now you have hope and help before you but then there will be none Let me therefore intreat these two or three things of you and do not deny them me as you love your soul First That you will not rest in this Condition that you are in Be not quiet in your mind till you find a true conversion to be wrought Think when you rise in the morning O what if this day should be my last and death should find me in an unrenewed state Think when you are about your labour O how much greater a work have I yet to do to get my soul reconciled to God and possessed of his Spirit Think when you are eating or drinking or looking on any thing that you possess in the world what good will all this do me if I live and die an enemy to God and a stranger to Christ and his Spirit and we must perish for ever Let these thoughts be day night upon your mind till your soul be changed The second thing that I would intreat of you is that you would bethink you seriously what a vain thing this world is and how shortly it will leave you to a cold grave and to everlasting misery if you have not a better treasure then this and bethink you what it is to live in the sight of the face of God and to reign with Christ and be like the Angels and that this is the life that Christ hath procured you and is preparing for you and offereth you if you will accept it in and with himself upon his easie reasonable terms bethink your self whether it be not madness to slight such an endless glory and to prefer these fleshly dreams and earthly shadows before it Use your self to such considerations as these when you are alone and let them dwell upon your mind The third thing that I would intreat of you is that you will presently without any more delay Accept of this felicity and this Saviour close with the Lord Jesus that offereth you this eternal life Joyfully and thankfully accept his offer as the only way to make you happy and then you may believe that all your sins shall be done away by him My fourth request to you is that you will resolve presently against your former sins find out what hath defiled your heart and life and cast it up now by the vomit of Repentance as you would do Poyson out of your stomach and abhor the thought of taking it in again My fifth and last request to you is that you will set your selves close to the use of Gods means till this change be wrought and then continue his means till you are confirmed and at last perfected 1. Because you cannot of your selves make this change upon your heart and life betake your self daily to God for it by prayer and beg earnestly as for your life that he will pardon all your former sins and change your heart and shew you the riches of his Grace in Christ and the Glory of his Kingdom and draw up your heart to himself Follow God day and night with these requests 2. That you will fly from temptations and occasions of sin and forsake your former evil company and betake your selves into the company of those that fear God and will help you in the way to heaven 3. That you will specially spend the Lords day in holy exercises both publike and private and lose not one quarter of an hour of any of your time but specially of that most precious time which God hath given you purposely that you may set your mind upon him and be instructed by him and to prepare your self for your latter end What say you will you do this presently at least so much of it as you can do if you will Will you promise me to think of these things that I before mentioned and to pray daily for a changed heart till you have obtained it and to change your Company and Courses and fall upon the use of Gods means in reading or hearing the Scriptures meditating on them specially on the Lords day And here be sure if we can to get their promise and engage them to amendment especially to use means and change their company and forsake actual sinning because these are more in their reach and in this way they may wait for the accomplishing of that change that is not yet wrought And do this solemnly remembring them of the presence of God that heareth their promises and will expect the performance And when you have afterward opportunity you may remember them of that promise Direction 9. At the dismissing of them do these two things 1. Again lenifie their minds by a deprecation of offence in a word E. G. I pray you take it not ill that I have put you to this trouble or dealt thus freely with you It s as little pleasure to me as to you if I did not know these things to be true and necessary I would have spared this labour to my self and you But I know that we shall be here together but a little while we are almost at the world to come already and therefore its time for us all to look about us and see that we be ready when God shall call us 2. Because it is but seldom that we our selves shall have opportunity to speak with the same persons set them in a way for the perfecting of what is begun 1. Engage the Governor of each family to call all his family to account every Lords day before they go to bed what they can rehearse of the Catechism and so to continue till they have all learned it perfectly and when they
have done so yet still to continue to hear them recite it at least once in two or three Lords daies that they may not forget it For even to the most judicious it will be an excellent help to have still in memory a sum of the Christian Doctrine for matter method and words 2. As for the Rulers of families themselves or those that are under such rulers as will not help them if they have learnt some small part of the Catechism only engage them either to come again to you though before their course when they have learnt the rest or else to go to some able experienced neighbour and recite it to them and take their assistance when you cannot have time your self Direction 10. Have all the names of your Parishioners by you in a book and when they come and recite the Catechism note in your Book who come and who do not and who are so grosly ignorant as to be utterly uncapable of the Lords Supper and other holy Communion and who not and as you perceive the necessities of each so deal with them for the future But for those that are utterly obstinate and will not come to you nor be instructed by you remember the last Article of our Agreement to deal with them as the obstinate despisers of Instruction should be deals with in regard of Communion and the application of sealing and confirming Ordinances which is to avoid them and not hold holy or familiar Communion with them in the Lords Supper or other Ordinances and though some Reverend Brethren are for admitting their children to Baptism and offended with me for contradicting it yet so cannot I be nor shall I dare to do it upon any pretences of their Ancestors faith or of a Dogmatical faith of these Rebellious Parents supposing them both to be such as in that Article we have mentioned To these particulars I add this General Dâ—rection 11. Through the whole course of your conference with them see that the manner as well as the matter be suited to the end And concerning the manner observe these particulars 1. That you make a difference according to the difference of the persons that you have to deal with To the dull and obstinate you must be more earnest and sharp To the tender and timerous that are already humbled you must rather insist on direction and confirmation To the youthful you must lay greater shame on sensual voluptuousness and shew them the nature and necessity of mortification To the Aged you must do more to disgrace this present world and make them apprehensive of the nearness of their change and the aggravations of their sin if they shall live and dye in ignorance or impenitency To Inferiors and the Younger you must be more free to Superiors and Elders more reverend To the rich this world must be more disgraced and the nature and necessity of self-denyal opened and the damnableness of preferring the present prosperity to the future with the necessity of improving their talents in well-doing To the poor we must shew the great Riches of Glory which is propounded to them in the Gospel and how well the present things may be spared where the everlasting may be got Also those sins must be most insisted on which each ones age or sex or temperature of body or calling and employment in the world doth most encline tehm to As in females loquacity evil speeches passion malice pride c. In males drunkenness ambition c. Of all which and abundance more differences calling to us for different carriage See Gregor Mag. de Officio Pastor 2. Be as condescending familiar and plain as is possible with those that are of the weaker capacity 3. Give them the Scripture proof the light of full evidence and reason of all as you go that they may see that it is not you only but God by you that speaketh to them 4. Be as serious in all but specially in the Applicatory part as you can I scarce fear any thing more then least some careless Ministers will slubber over the work and do all superficially and without life and destroy this as they do all other duties by turning it into a meer formality putting a few cold questions to them and giving them two or three cold words of advice without any life and feeling in themselves nor likely to produce any feeling in the hearers But sure he that valueth souls and knoweth what an opportunity is before him will do it accordingly 5. To this end I should think it very necessary that we do both before and in the work take special pains with our own hearts especially to excite and strengthen our Belief of the Truth of the Gospel and the Invisible Glory and Misery that is to come I am confident this work will exceedingly try the strength of our belief For he that is but superficially a Christian and not sound in the faith will likely feel his Zeal quite fail him specially when the duty is grown common for want of a Belief of the things which he is to treat of to keep it alive An affected fervency and hypocritical stage-action will not hold up in such kind of duties long A Pulpit shall have more of them then a conference with poor ignorant souls For the Pulpit is the hypocritical Ministers stage There and in the Press and in Publike acts where there is room for oftentation you shall have his best and almost all It is other kind of men that must effectually do the work now in hand 6. It is therefore very meet that we prepare our selves to it by private prayer and if time would permit and there be many together if we did begin and end with a short prayer with our people it were best 7. Carry on all even the most earnest passages in clear demonstrations of love to their souls and make them feel through the whole that you aim at nothing but their own salvation and avoid all harsh discouraging passages throughout 8. If you have not time to deal so fully with each one particularly as is here directed then 1. Omit not the most necessary parts 2. Take several of them together that are friends and will not seek to divulge each others weaknesses and speak to them in common as much as concerneth all and only the Examinations of their Knowledge and state and convictions of misery and special directions must be used to the individuals alone But take heed of slubbering it over uponan unfaithful laziness or being too brief without a real Necessity Direction 12. Lastly if God enable you extend your charity to those of the poorest sort before they part from you Give them somewhat towards their relief and for the time that is thus taken from their labours Especially for encouragement of them that do best and to the rest promise them so much when they have learned the Catechism I know you cannot give what you have not but I speak to them that can And