have found the way of applause and prosperity as well as they and that no man takes that for his misery which he chooseth If this kind of preaching or writing offend could not I have avoided it I am not in love with sufferings from men nor will I escape them at the rates of Gods displeasure I never think my self in the highest form of christians till I am more conform to the sufferings of Christ and have endured more then yet I have It is the Christians old Apology in Tertullian Quasi non totum quod in nos potestis nostrum si Arbitrium Certe si velim Christianus sum tunc ergo me damnabis si damnari velim Quum vero quod in me potes nisi velim non potes jam meae voluntatis est quod potes non tuae potestatis Proinde vulgus vane de nostra vexatione gaudet Proinde nostrum est gaudium quod sibi vendicant qui malumus damnari quam a Deo excidere Contra illi qui nos oderunt dolere non gaudere debebant consecutis nobis quod eligimus Tert. Apologet. cap. 39. That is As if all that you can do against us were not our own choice or will Certainly it is because I will that I am a Christian therefore if I will be condemned then thou wilt condemn me And when that which thou canst do against me thou canst not do unless I will it is not now from thy power that thou canst do it but from my will And therefore the vulgar do in vain rejoyce at our vexation And therefore it is our joy which they challenge to themselves while we had rather be condemned then fall from God On the contrary they that hate us should grieve and not rejoyce while we attain but what we choose For my part if the world will needs be mad I think both the laughing and the weeping Philosopher are more excusable then he that would be over-angry at them or over-busie in disputing with them saith Seneca Quare fers aegri rabiem phrenetici verba nempe quia videntur nescere quid faciunt Quid interest quo quisque vitio fiat imprudens Sen. de Ira. l. 3. c. 26. Anger and phrensie are but several wayes of a mans losing his wit and therefore he that can bear with one should somewhat bear with the other Though indeed voluntariness or involuntariness maketh a great difference It is not worth a man's time and labour and cost to be over solicitous in his own vindication let the world say of him what they please Multum temporis ultio absumit Multis se injuriis objicit dum unam dolet Diutius irascimur omnes quam laedimur Sen. de Ira. l. 3. c. 27. Revenge takes up a deal of time He that complaineth of one injury objects himself to many We are all angry longer thâ—n we aâ—e hurt I have truly given you now the Reasons why I rather choose to speak these common necessary things against the Devils party the ungodly the enemies or neglecters of serious Holiness agreeable to the subject of his Majesties Christian and excellent Declaration against Debauchery at his entrance upon his Royal Goverment then to meddle with any of the contending parties of these times who are so angry because in obedience to authority I once endeavoured to reconcile them or to be unseasonable in pleading any cause that is my own And now referring the Reader to this short Discourse I must first desire that he misunderstand me not in one or two passages 1. That my citation of the passage in the Homiles be not taken as if I spoke a word against it though I say I dare not my self subscribe it For though I think my self that seeing a persecutor like Saul may repent and be pardoned a mocker at Godliness may Repent and be forgiven also Yet I am resolved still to suspect my own understanding rather then to speak against the doctrine of the Church 2. Think it not strange that I reprehend even Ministers that are secret or open opposers of a holy diligence For our foresaid Homily telleth us as followeth Hom. for Inform c part 2. p. 150 251. Examples of such scorners we read in 2 Chron. When the good King Hezekiah in the beginning of his Reign had destroyed Idolatry purged the Temple and Reformed Religion in his Realm he sent Messengers into every City to gather the people to Jerusalem to solemnize the feast of Easter in such sort as God hath appointed The Posts went from City to City And what did the people think ye Did they laud and praise the name of the Lord that had given them so so good a King so zealous a Prince to abolish Idolatry and to restore again Gods true Religion No no the Scripture saith the people laughed them to scorn and mocked the Kings messengers And in the last Chap. of the same Book it is written that Almighty God having compassion on his people sent his Messengers the Prophets to them to call them from their abominable Idolatry and wicked kind of living But they mocked his Messengers they despised his words and misused his Prophets until the wrath of the Lord arose against his people and till there was no remedy The wicked people that were in the dayes of Noah made but a mock at the Word of God when Noah told them that God would take vengeance on them for their sins Lot preached to the Sodomites that except they repented both they and their City should be destroyed They thought his sayings impossible to be true they scorned and mocked his admonitions and reputed him as an old doting fool But God burnt up those scorners and mockers of his holy Word And what estimation had Christs doctrine among the Scribes and Pharisees What reward had he among them The Pharisees which were covetous did scorn him in his Doctrine O then you see that worldly rich men do scorn the doctrine of their salvation the worldly wise men scorn the Doctrine of Christ as foolishness to their understandings These scorners have ever been and ever shall be to the worlds end For St Peter prophesied that such scorners should be in the end before the latter day Take heed therefore my brethren take heed be ye not scorners of Gods most Holy Word provoke him not to pour out his wrath upon you as he did upon those Gibers and Mockers Be not wilful murderers of your own souls Thus far the Homily And no marvel if Priests may be guilty as well as people if it be true that is said by the Church in Hom. 3. against peril of idolatry p. 56 57. But a true Preacher to stay this mischief is in very many places scarcely heard once in the whole year and somewhere not once in seven year as is evident to be proved Further it appeareth not by any story of credit that true and sincere preaching hath endured in any one place above an hundred years But it is
NOW OR NEVER The Holy Serious Diligent Believer Justified Encouraged Excited and Directed And the Opposers and Neglecters Convinced by the Light of Scripture and Reason By Richard Baxter To be Communicated by such as want ability or opportunity themselves to plead the Cause of Serious Holiness for mens Conviction Luk. 7. 35. But wisdom is justified of all her children Nihil est ad defendendum Puritate tutius nihil ad dicendum Veritate facilius Ambros LONDON Printed in the Year 1662. The Contents IN the Preface the Question resolved Whether a Man may be saved in any Religion that is serious in practising it No Religion will save a man that is not true to it serious diligent in practising it Why the Author rather publisheth such common necessary things than confutation of the many calumnies publisht against himself His expectations from men And answer with Tertullian about sufferings An Advertisement about a passage cited out of the Homilies His Justification for opposing scorners enemies of Holiness out of the Church Homilies A Passage about Philip Nerius the Father of the Oratorians The Text opened Doct. 1. The work of this life cannot be done when this life is ended Doct. 2. Therefore while we have time we must do the work of this present life with vigour and diligenee 1. Time cannot be recalled 2. Life shall never be here restored 3. There is no doing this work in the life to come What it is to do it with our Might some cautions Instances of the work to be done with our might Obj. What Might have we Answered How to rouse up our selves to seriousness What to think of them that oppose a holy serious diligence in the service of God The greatness of the sin Especially if they are Preachers What it is in Religion that Hypocrites hate Seneca's testimony for seriousness A terrible passage in our Homilies against Scorners at godliness The greatness of their sin Obj It is not Godliness but humour faction disobedience hypocrisie c. Answered Advice to the flocks Obj. Be not righteous overmuch Answered Exhortation to serious diligence Obj. 1. I have lost my Time Answered Obj. 2. I have opposition and hinderances Obj. 3. I am dull and cold Directions and Cautions Reasons for pleading this cause with Ministers The Exhortation re-inforced The Devils designe to make use of Differences in smaller matters against Christianity and Godliness it self Such differences sects divisions shall be no excuse to the ungodly but aggravate their sin as being against that which all Sects and Parties were agreed in What that Religion is that we call men to be serious and diligent in 1. To live according to the Principles of Faith that among Christians are past controversie Ten named 2. To do that Materially that all are agreed of Ten duties named 3. To do that in the very Manner of Gods service that all are agreed in Ten particulars mentioned Obj. I will never believe that God delights in long and earnest prayers or is moved by the words of man Answered Obj. Is not your strict observation of the Lords Day a Controversie Answered The Conclusion exhortatory The Preface IT is a question more boldly than accurately debated by many Whether a man may not be saved in any Religion that is faithful to the principles of it by serious diligent practice The true Solution is this Religion is that which men hold and do to serve and please God 1. If men make themselves a Religion of serving Idols or Devils instead of God 2. Or if they place their service to God himself in things that are evil as what evil is there that some men have not brought into their Religion and fathered upon God the more diligent such men are in their Religion the more they sin 3. Or if they make themselves a Religion of irrational ludicrous ceremonies their greatest diligence in this will not save them 4. Or if they hold all the Essentials of the true Religion except some one it cannot save them while one thing is wanting which is Essential to that Religion and so necessary to salvation which is the case of real Hereticks For they are not indeed of that Religion if they want that which is Essential to it 5. Or if they hold all that is Essential to the true Religion only Notionally and hold any thing with it practically which is contradictory and inconsistent with it the soundness of their Notional belief will not save them from the mortal poison of their practical Heresie or Error But 1. Whosoever holdeth all that is necessary to salvation and is serious and diligent in living according thereunto shall be saved whatever error he holdeth with it For if he be serious and diligent in the Practice of all things necessary to salvation he hath all that is necessary to salvation viz. in Belief and Practice And it must needs follow that his Errors are either not concontradictory to the things necessary which he holdeth and practiseth or that he holdeth not those Errors practically but notionally as an opinion or uneffectual cogitation in a dream which provokes not to action and in such a case the error keeps no man from salvation What is necessary to be believed by them that never hear the Gospel it so little concerneth us to know that God hath not thought meet to make it so plain to us as things that more concern our selves But as it is certain that without the Atonements Satisfaction and Reconciliation made by Christ and without new terms of Grace to be judged by and without his Grace for the performance of their part no man can be saved that hath the use of reason so there is so much knowledge necessary to salvation as is necessary to engage the heart to love God above all and sincerely to obey his revealed will and to prefer the life to come before the transitory pleasures of this life Now if any man can prove to me that those that never heard the Gospel can thus love God and the life to come and obey sincerely without the knowledge of the person life death resurrection of Jesus Christ and the Declaration of the attractive Love and Goodness of God in him and in the work of our Redemption then I should believe that such Negative Infidels may be saved For God cannot damn a sanctified soul that sincerely loveth him But if the discovery of the Love of God in our Redemption be so necessary a moral means to ingage the heart now corrupted by sin and creature-love to the true Love of God that this cannot be wrought without it or if Christ give not his Spirit to produce the love of God in any but those that hear the Gospel and believe in him then no such persons can be saved by their Religion For Christ is the way to the Father and no man cometh to the Father but by him and and the Love of God is absolutely and of its self necessary to salvation
your Gain The time of market for your souls and of laying up a treasure in Heaven and setting your money to the most gainful Usury and of making you friends of the mammon of unrighteousness furthering your salvation by that which hindereth other mens occasioneth their perdition As you have opportunity do good to all men but especially to them of the houshold of faith Gal. 6. 6 7 8 9 12. Cast thy bread upon the waters for thou shalt find it after many dayes Give a portion to seven and to eight for thou knowest not what evil may be upon the earth Eccles 11. 1 2. In the morning sow thy seed and in the evening withhold not thy hand for thou knowest not whether shall prosper this or that or whether they both shall be alike good v. 6. Withhold not good from them to whom it is due when it is in the power of thy hand to do it say not to thy neighbour Go and come again and to morrow I will give when thou hast it by thee Prov. 3. 27 28. Lay up a foundation for the time to come do good before thy heart be hardened thy riches blasted consumed thy opportunities taken away part with it before it part with thee Remember it must be Now or Never There is no working in the Grave 5. Hath God intrusted you with Power or Interest by which you may promote his honour in the world relieve the oppressed restrain the rage of impious malice Hath he made you Governours and put the sword of Justice into your hands up then and be doing with your might Defend the innocent protect the servants of the Lord cherish them that do well be a terror to the wicked encourage the strictest obedience to the universal Governor discountenance the breakers of his Laws Look not to be reverenced or obeyed before him or more carefully then he openly maintain his Truth and worship without fear or shame Deal gently and tenderly with his lambs and little ones Search after vice that you may succesfully suppress it Hate those temptations that would draw you to man-pleasing temporizing remisness or countenancing sin but especially those that would ensnare you in a controversie with Heaven in quarrels against the ways of Holiness or in that selfconfounding sin of abusing and opposing the people that are most careful to please the Lord. Your trust is great so is your advantage to do good And how great will be your account how dreadful if you be unfaithful As you signifie more then hundreds or thousands of the meaner sort and your actions do most good or hurt so you must expect to be accordingly dealt with when you come to the impartial final judgement Befriend the Gospel as the Charter of your everlasting priviledges Own those that Christ hath told you he will own Use them as men that are ready to hear Inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these my Brethren you did it unto me Mat. 25. Know not a wicked person but let your eyes be on the faithful of the land that they may dwel therein and lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty Psal 101. 1. Tim. 2. 2. Let those that work the work of the Lord be with you without fear 1 Cor. 16. 10. Remember that it is the Character of a Pharisee and Hypocrite to see the mote of the non-observance of a Ceremony or tradition or smaller matter of difference in Religion in their Brothers eye and not to see the beam of hypocrisie injustice and malicious cruel opposition of Christ and his Disciples in their own eyes And that its the brand of them that please not God that are filling up their sins on whom Gods wrath is coming to the utmost to persecute the servants of the Lord forbidding them to Preach to the people that they might be saved 1 Thess 2. 15 16. Learn well the second and the hundred and first Psalm And write these sentences on your walls and doors as an Antidote against that self-undoing sin Mat. 18. 6. Whosoever shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me it were better for him that a milstone were hanged about his neck and that he were drowned in the depth of the Sea Zach. 2. 8. He that toucheth you toucheth the apple of his eye Rom. 14. 1 2. and 15. 1. Him that is weak in the faith receive you but not to doubtful disputations For God hath received him Mat. 10. 40 41 42. He that receiveth you receiveth me and he that receiveth me receiveth him that sent me He that receiveth a righteous man in the name of a righteous man shall receive a righteous mans reward And whoso shall give to drink to one of these little ones a cup of cold water only in the name of a Disciple Verily I say unto you he shall in no wise lose his reward If you love not the Godly love your selves so far as to such self-love is possible wound not your own hearts to make their fingers bleed Damn not your souls and that by the surest nearest way that you may hurt their bodies Provoke not God to thrust you from his presence and deny your suits by your dealing so with them stop not your own mouths when your misery will bespeak your lowdest cryes for mercy by your stopping the mouths of the servants of the Lord and refusing to hear their requests for justice If you have the Serpents enmity against the womans seed you must expect the Serpents doom Your heads will be bruised when you have bruised their heels Gen. 3. 15. Kick not against the pricks Acts 9. Let not bryars and thorns set themselves in battel against the Lord lest he go therefore through them burn them together Isa 27. 4. I speak not any of this by way of accusation or dishonorable reflexion on the Magistrate Blessed be God that hath given us the comfort of your defence But knowing what the Tempter aimeth at and where it is that your danger lieth by what means the rulers of the earth have been undone faithfulness commandeth me to tell you of the snare and to set before you good evil as ever I would escape the guilt of betraying you by flattery or cruel and cowardly silence And especially when your Magistracy is but annual or for a short time it concerneth you to be doing with your might It is but this year or short space of time that you have to do this special service in Lose this and lose all By what men on earth should God be eminently served honoured if not by Magistrates whom he hath eminently advanced impowred and intrusted With considerate foresight seriously ask your selves the question Are you willing to hear at the day of your accounts that you had but one year or a few to do God special service in and that you knew this and yet would not do it Can your hearts bear
for Heaven all tenderness of Conscience and fear of sinning all heavenly discourse and serious preaching reading or praying are also made odious for their sakes For hearing so ill of the persons and seeing that these are the things wherein they differ from others they reduce their judgement of their practices to their foresetled judgement of the persons When their diligence in their Families in prayer and instructions in reading and fruitful improvement of the Lords day or any other actions of strictness and holy industry are mentioned these ungodly Ministers are ready to blot them with some open calumnies or secret reproaches or words of suspicion to vindicate their own unholy lives make people believe that serious piety is faction hypocrise The black tincture of their minds and the design and drift of their preaching may be perceived in the jeers and girds and slanderous intimations against the most diligent servants of the Lord. The controverted truths that such maintain they represent as errours Their unavoidable errours they represent as heresie Their duties they represent as faults and their humane frailties as enormous crimes They feign them to be guilty of the things that never entred into their thoughts And if some that have professed godliness be guilty of greater crimes they would make men believe that the rest are such and that the family of Christ is to be judged of by a Judas and the scope is to intimate that either their Profession is culpable or needless and less commendable Regeneration they would make to be but the entrance into the Church by Baptism and any further conversion then the leaving off some gross sins and taking up some heartless forms of duty to be but a fancy or unnecessary thing And they would draw poor people to believe that if they be born again Sacramentally of water they may be saved though they be not born again by the renewing of the Holy Spirit Being strangers themselves to the mystery of Regeneration and to the life of Faith and a heavenly Conversation and to the loving and serving God with all their Soul and Might They first endeavour to quiet themselves with a belief that these are but fancies or unnecessary and then to deceive the people with that by which they have first deceived them elves And it is worthy your observation what it is in Religion that these formal Hypocrites are against There are scarce any words so sound or holy but they can bear them if they be but deprived of their Life Nor scarce any duty if it be but mortified but they can endure But it is the Spirit and Life of all Religion which they cannot bear As a Body differeth from a Carkass not by the parts but by the life so there is a certain life in preaching and prayer and all other acts of worship which is perceived by several sorts of hearers The Godly perceive it to their edification and delight For here it is that they are quickned and encouraged Life begetteth life as fire kindleth fire The ungodly often perceive it to their vexation if not to their conviction and conversion This life in preaching praying discipline reproof and conference is it which biteth and galleth and disquieteth their consciences And this they kick and rail against This is the thing that will not let them sleep quietly in their sin and misery but is calling and jogging them to awake and will not let them sin in peace but will either convert them or torment them before the time It is the Life of Religion that the hypocrite wants and the life that he is most against A painted fire burneth not A dead Lion biteth not The Carkass of an Enemy is not formidable Let the words of that Sermon that most offendeth them be separated from the life and put into a Homily and said or read in a formal drowsie or a School-boys tone and they can bear it and commend it Let the same words of prayer which now they like not be said over as a lifeless customary form and they can like it well I speak not against the use of forms but the abuse of them Not against the Body but the Carkass Let forms themselves be used by a spiritual serious man in a spiritual serious manner with the inter position of any quickening exhortations or occasional passages that tend to keep them waken and attentive and make them feel what you mean and are about and you shall see they love not such animated forms It is the living Christian and lively worship and serious spiritual Religion which they hate kill it and they can bear it Let the picture of my enemy be nearer and comelier then his person was and I can endure it in my bed-chamber better then himself in the meanest dress It is the living Christians that in all parts of the world are chiefly persecuted Let them be once dead and dead-hearted hypocrites themselves will honour them especially at a sufficient distance They will destroy the living Saints and keep Holy dayes for the dead ones Wo to you Scribes and Pharisees hypocrites because ye build the Tombs of the Prophets and garnish the Sepulchers of the Righteous and say if we had been in the days of our Fathers we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the Prophets Wherefore be ye witnesses unto your selves that ye are the children of them which killed the Prophets Fill ye up the measure of your Fathers ye serpents ye generation of vipers how can ye escape the damnation of Hell Matth. 23. 29 30 31 32 33. The dog that will not meddle with the dead creature will pursue the living and when he sees it stir no more will leave it Christianity without seriousness is not Christianity and therefore not lyable to the hatred of its enemies as such Say any thing and do any thing how strict so ever if you will but act it as a player on the stage or do it coldly slightly as if you were but in jeast you may have their approbation But it is this life and seriousness and worshipping God in Spirit and Truth that convinceth them that they themselves are lifeless and therefore troubleth their deceitful peace and therefore must not have their friendship If it were the meer bulk of duty that they are weary of how comes it to pass that a Papist at his Psalter Beads and Mass-books can spend more hours without much weariness or opposition then we can do in serious worship Turn all but into words and beads and canonical hours and dayes and shews and ceremony and you may be as religious as you will and be Righteous overmuch and few will hate or reproach or persecute you among them as too precise or strict But living Christians and worship come among them like fire that burneth them and makes them smart with a word that is quick powerful sharper then any two edged sword piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit
and power to build men up in holiness and obedience and when thou hast done this wilt thou disgrace and hinder it Dost thou take on thee to go on the message of Christ and then speak against him We do not find that Judas dealt thus with him when he sent him as he did other Preachers we read not that he preacht against him O let not my soul be numbered with such men in the day of the Lord It will be easier for Sodom and Gomorah then for the refusers of the Word and Grace of Christ What then will be the doom of the opposers And above all of those treacherous opposers that pretend themselves to propagate and promote them If the wit and malice of Satans instruments were sharpened against the wayes and servants of the Lord it belongs to you to plead Christs cause and shame these absur'd unreasonable gainsayers and stop the mouth of impious contradiction And will you joyne with the gainsayers and secretly or openly say as they Who should confound the dâ—â—ders of a holy life but you Who should lay open the excellencies of Christ the Glory of Heaven the terrours of the Lord and all other obligations to the most serious Religiousness but you that have undertaken it as your calling and employment If any man in the Parish were so Atheistical and brutish as to think God unworthy of our dearest Love our most exact obedience and most laborious service who should display this Atheists folly but you that are doubly as Christians and as Ministers obliged to defend the honour of your Lordâ— If any of the people should fall into such a dream or dotage as to question the necessity of our utmost diligence in our preparations for eternal life who should awake them by lifting up their voices as a trumpet and help to recover their understandings but you that are the watchmen and know their blood will be required at your hands if you give them not loud and timely warning if any subtile malicious servant of the Devil should plead against the Necessity of Holyness and disswade the people from serving God with all their might who should be ready to confirm the weak and strenghten and encourage them that are thus assaulted and help to keep up their zeal and forwardness but you that are leaders in the Army of the Lord is it not a Holy God that you are engaged to serve And a Holy Church in which you have your station And a Communion of Saints in which you have undertaken to administer the Holy things of God Have you not read what was done to Nadab and Abihu when Moses told Aaron This is it that the Lord spake saying I will be sanctified in them that come nigh me and before the people I will be glorified Lev. 10. 3. Is it not a Holy Law and Gospel which you publish You have undertaken to warn the sloathful the sensual the worldly and the prophane that they strive to enter in at the straight gate and seek first the Kingdom of God and his Righteousness Luke 13. 24. Matth. 6. 33. and to give diligence to make sure their calling and election 2 Pet. 1. 10. and to give all diligence in adding vertue to their faith c. 2 Pet. 1. 5. and with all diligence to keep their hearts Prov. 4. 23. And are you the men that would quench their zeal and destroy the holy diligence which you should Preach The Lord touch your hearts and recover you in time or how woful will it be with such hardened Hypocrites that in the Light and in his Family and Livery and under his Standard and Colours dare prove Traitors and Enemies to the Lord 4. And what an addition is it to your guilt that you speak against God in his own Name By Office you are to deliver his Message and speak to the people in his Name and in his stead 2 Cor. 5. 19 20. And dare you before the Sun and under the Heavens of God and in his Hearing perswade men that the most Holy God is against Holiness and the King of Saints is an adversary to sanctity and that he that made his holy Law is against the most exact obeying of it Dare you prefix a Thus saith the Lord to so impious a speech as It is in vain to serve the Lord what needs there so much ado for your salvation dare you go to men as from the Lord say You are too careful diligent in his service Less ado may serve the turn What needs this fervour and redeeming time This is but Puritanism or Preciseness It s better do as the most and venture your souls without so much ado Who could at last hold up his face or stand before the dreadful Tribunal that should be found in the guilt of such a Crime What to put God into the similitude of Satan and describe the most Holy as the enemy of Holiness and make him plead against himself and disgrace his own Image and disswade men from that which he himself hath made of necessity to their Salvation What viler Blasphemy can be uttered 5. And it aggravateth your sin that your Relation obligeth you to the most tender affections to your people And yet that you should seduce them to damnation For the Nurse to poison them for the parents to cut the childrens throats is worse then for an enemy to do it If the Devil our professed enemy should himself appear to us and say Prepare not so seriously for death Be not so strict and diligent and holy it were not in many respects so bad as for you to do it that should help to save us from his snares You that profess your selves their Fathers that should travail in birth till Christ be formed in your peoples hearts that should love your people as your own bowels and tender the weak and pitty the wicked and stick at no labour suffering or cost that might advance their holiness and further their Salvation For you to tempt men into a careless life and turn them out of the holy way is an aggravated cruelty It s worse for the Shepherd to destroy us then the Wolf Read Ezek. 34. 33. 6. Are you not ashamed thus to contradict your selves What can you find to Preach from the Word of God that tendeth not to this holy diligence which you are against How can you make shift to Preach an hour and not acquaint men with the Duty and Necessity of seeking God with all their Might Do you not tell them that except they be converted and new born they shall not enter into the Kingdom of God John 3. 3 5. Mat. 18. 3. And that without holiness none shall see the Lord Heb. 12. 14. And that if they live after the flesh they shall die Rom. 8. 13. And that except their righteousness exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees they shall in no case enter into the Kingdom of Heaven Mat. 5. 20. And will you in
and then condemn us for not believing them To make Laws for the Church unnecessary in their own opinion and sinful in other mens and command things which they know that others think the Lord forbids and then load them with the sufferings and reproaches of the disobedient turbulent heretical schismatical or seditious To call men factious if they will not be of their faction and Sectaries if they will not unreasonably subject their Souls to them and joyn with an imperious Sect against the Catholick Vnity and Simplicity All which the Romanists practice upon the Church of Christ How easie but how unreasonable and yet how unresistible is all this How easie is it to call a meeting of sober Christians for prayer and mutual edification such as that was Acts 12. 12. by the name of a Factious Schismatical Conventicle and a meeting of Drunkards or Gamesters by a more gentle less disgraceful name To say a man becomes a Preacher when he modestly reproveth another for his sinnes or charitable exhorteth him in order to his Salvation or giveth any necessary plain instruction to his Family for whom he must give account Believe it it will be a poor excuse to any man that becomes an enemy to the diligence of a Saint that he could thus cloak his malice and cloath a Saint with the vizer of an Hypocrite and the rags of any odious Sect. If the Pharisees were to be believed it was not they but Christ that was the Hypocrite nor was it the Son of God but an Enemy to Caesar and a Blasphemer that they put to death But will not Christ know his sheep though he find them torn in a wolks skin You say it is turbulent Preâ—isians that you strike but what if Christ find but one of the least of his Brethren bleeding by it It is but Hypocrites or Schismaticks that you reproach but if Christ find an humble serious Christian suffering by your abuse and you to answer it I would not be in your coats for all the greatness and honour that you shall have before your everlasting shame If Tertullus accuse a pestilent fellow and a mover of Sedition and Christ find an holy laborious Apostle in Bonds and suffering by it it is not his names that will excuse him and make an Apostle or Persecution to be another thing TO return to the endangered Flocks Look upward sirs and think whether Heaven be worth your labour Look downwards and think whether Earth be more worthy of it Lay up your treasures where you must dwell for ever If that be here then scrape and flatter and get all that you can But if it be not here but in another life then hearken to your Lord and lay up for your selves a treasure in Heaven and there let your very hearts be set Matth. 6. 20 21. And upon the peril of everlasting misery hearken not to any man that wil tempt you from a diligent holy life It is a serious businesse deal seriously in it and be not laught or mockt out of Heaven by the flouts of a distracted sensual Atheist If any of them will pretend to sobriety and wisdom and undertake to prove that God should not be loved and served and your Salvation sought with all your might and with greater care and diligence then any earthly thing procure me a sober conference with that man and try whether I shall not prove him to be a befoold servant of the Devil and a mischievous enemy of your Salvation and his own O that we might have but sober debates instead of jeers and scorns and railings with this sort of men how quickly should we shew you that they must renounce the Scripture and renounce Christianity and if that be nothing with them that they must renounce God and renounce right Reason and unman themselves if they will renounce a holy Heavenly life and blame them that make it their principal business in the world to prepare for the world to come But if they will not be entreated to such a sober conference will you that hear them if you care what becomes of you but come to us and hear what we can say for a Holy life before you hearken to them and let your souls have fair play and shew that you have so much love to your selves as not to cast away Salvation at the derision of a fool before you have heard the other side If I make not good the strictest Laws of God Almighty against the most subtil cavils of any of the instruments of Satan then tell me that Infidels or Epicures are in the right Compare their words with the words of God Consider well but that one Text 2 Pet. 3. 11. and tell me whether it suit with their Opinions Seeing all these things must be dissolved what manner of persons ought we to be in all manner of holy Conversation and Godliness looking for and hasting to the coming of the Day of God! Did these words but sink into your hearts the next time you heard any man reproach a Holy Heavenly life it would perhaps make you think of the words of Paul to such another Acts 13 10. O full of all subtilty and all mischief thou child of the Devil thou enemy of all Righteousness wilt thou not cease to pervert the right wayes of the Lord And if holiness be evil spoken of by them that never tried it what wonder Christ hath foretold us that it must be so Matth. 5. 11 12. Blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute you and say all manner of evil against you falsly for my sake Rejoyce and be exceeding glad for great is your reward in Heaven for so persecuted they the Prophets which were before you John 15. 19 20. If ye were of the world the world would love his own but because ye are not of the world but I have chosen you out of the world therefore the world hateth you c. 1 Pet. 4. 4 5 14. They think it strange that they run not with them to the same excess of riot speaking evil of you who shall give account to him that is ready to judge the quick and dead If ye be reproached for the Name of Christ happy are ye for the Spirit of Glory and of God resteth upon you On their part he is evil spoken of but on your part he is glorified Seneca himself oft telleth us that among the Heathen Vertue was a derision so far is the nature of man degenerated The question is not what you are called or taken to be but what you are Intus teipsum considera inquit Sen. non qualis sis aliis credas Plerunque boni inepti inertes vocantur Mihi contingat iste derisus Aequo animo audienda sunt imperitorum convitia ad honesta vadendi contemnendus est iste contemptus that is Inwardly consider of thy self and judge not what thou art by the words of others For the most part good men are called fools and