and just That if the Pope would not know his business that Princes should know theirs This is my First Instance of the Troubles that by this means brake into the whole Church We need not go far from home for another We were in a sad case not long since in this Kingdom by a Civil War I meddle not with the fault let that sleep under the Act of Oblivion We may I trust without offence enquire into the cause of it What were they doing that gave us that disquiet Look upon the Standard set up for the War I mean the most Execrable COVENANT Quomodo legis how read you there was it not medling with business was none of their own They Covenanted first to extirpate the Government of the Church established by Law That Law with hands lifted up to Heaven they swore they would abolish The Legislative Power we know in whom it is to make or mend Laws it was none of their business In this they were certainly too bold with the Kings Scepter At the next turn they take hold of his Sword too and engage themselves to a mutual Defence against all Opposition This also was none of their business For though a Self-defence may be allow'd as natural to all it is against private not publick Opposition and then too as Divines generally resolve Cum moderamine inculpatae Tutelae never to the hurt of others that is Every man may defend himself clypeo but not every one gladio The Sword is the Kings and He that takes it from any hand but His where God hath plac'd it shall perish with the Sword In this the Covenanters as ill as they like Bishops would be in the Apostles phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Pet. 4.15 the worst sort of Bishops that is medlers in business was none of their own The Worshippers of the Covenant have therefore been well dealt with as the worshippers of the Golden Calf were by Moses Exod. 32.20 As he made them drink that so have they been made to eat this though some of them be found of so foolishly distempered stomacks that they choose rather to part with that which is their own than renounce a Business was none of their own But the Covenant is past and let it go I wish for quiet sake we may never hear of the like again This was transient But there still remains a permanent and habitual Disturbance of our Peace in the multitude and swarms of SECTS and Factions in Religion to which it is naturally and inseparably inherent An incurable mischief like the Leprosie on the walls that could not be cleansed but by pulling down the House From these we have felt already but too much and have cause yet to fear more But can we charge them with doing a business is none of their own Can any thing be more properly our own business than the care of our souls and to serve God in the best manner that our understandings and Consciences shall direct us They are mistaken that think the Charge lies upon this issue what every man may do for himself and his own salvation He may without question do very much for he may keep all Gods Commandments if he can and when he cannot he may be truly contrite and penitent for breaking them and then he may assuredly believe his sins shall be forgiven him by the merits and passion of our Lord Jesus Christ And again He may serve and worship God with as much fervency and devotion as he can and will he may abound in Charity Meekness Humility Patience and Temperance and all other Christian vertues And so long as ye thus follow that which is good saith S. Peter who will harm you And I may say too 1 Pet. 3.13 who can hinder you in all this but if he makes himself a party in a Sect if there be assembling together in companies gather Congregations incorporate in a Body module Churches give Laws of Doctrine and Worship set up Teachers and Leaders of their own to all this they have as little Right as they have need A man may go far ye see in Religion without troubling any and if then they fall into some Error or Misbelief in Religion they ought not to be severely handled but when they betake themselves to a Sect that alters the case it will then be compassion mistaken A Locust alone is no such perilous beast to be fear'd or regarded by any but when they come in shoals and swarms and cover the face of the earth they are a plague to the Countrey where they light So to look upon a Sectary single who out of simplicity and good meaning follows his Conscience our hearts should be every whit as tender for them as their Consciences are But if we look upon them in Company they are as ill and dangerous as the company they are found in and the danger of all popular Meetings and Associations to a State makes it the proper business of a King and his Ministers to look to it and to provide against it wherein the care hath been taken deserves a just commendation And yet when I assert and refer this business to the KING I look to be call'd to an account for that For they take the boldness by way of recrimination to turn the Text upon the King himself That His Power is Civil and Matters of the Church and Religion are Ecclesiastical and so none of his business This is I confess too weighty a matter to be here thrust into the corner of a Sermon yet it will be necessary to say so much as may somewhat lay that loud clamour against it For the Papists and Presbyterians both how ill soever they may agree in other matters hunt in couples against the Kings Power and SUPREMACY But as we denie not all to others in their places so we claim not all for the King If I shall but only now set out His Part in matters of the Church it will appear sufficiently that he is Rectus in Curia stands right in the Text and takes not upon him business which is not his own We acknowledge the Civil and Ecclesiastical to be two distinct Powers and though they may be both in one Person and were originally so yet by the Divine positive Laws both of Jews and Christians they were so distinguished that though one person were capable of both yet not without a lawful Title and Investiture to either I cannot therefore think That the King is an Ecclesiastical Person who was never Ordained or Consecrated to be so Therefore when some Learned in our Laws affirm That the KING is Supreme Ordinary and mixta persona it must be understood in some other sense and for some other purpose for we do not find that he attempts the doing any thing that is the proper act of an Ecclesiastical Person Yes they say he claims by his Title of Supremacy To govern all persons in all causes as well Ecclesiastical as Civil We
from the ambition or discontent of a few yet because the people who are the necessary instruments of that mischief be not apt to serve the ambition of others if it comes bare-faced to them the mask of Religion is always put on wherein all people are concerned which makes it a common and popular interest And therefore you shall scarce hear of a Rebellion of late times in which Religion did not carry the Colours at least if not command in chief But I shall nevertheless at this time forbear to make that any part of the Schismaticks charge but treat them upon their own terms that they are as great enemies to War as any that object it to them Yet I must charge them all to be guilty of the breach of peace and quiet in the Church and that not accidentally which may sometimes bear excuse but necessarily it is connatural and incident to the very nature of Schism which is a rent or division so the word signifies It is the worst disturbance that can be to any body to be torn in pieces It dissolves the bonds by which the parts are joyned together especially that which unites them to the Head for schism in the Churches notion is properly a separation from the Head and authority and is the same in the Church that Rebellion or Treason is in the State Now as every disobedience to the King and the Law is not Treason though against the King but the disclaiming the right and power the King hath to govern and the practice of such things by which his Regalia and rights are usurpt by others as to make War to make Laws to thrust Officers upon him to order the Coin these and of the like kind are only Treason So every error or disobedience in Religion makes not a schism but the disclaiming the right and power the Church hath to govern them and a usurpation of a right to themselves to order and frame points of Belief and Forms how to serve and worship God apart from the Church for so went the style of the ancient Church for Schism altare contra altare which in our modern dialect is a Conventicle against the Church For though Schism be formally a separation from the Head yet consequently it works upon the members for that which was at first but difference of opinion soon begets a disaffection and from that grows to hatred and contempt and so falls into the practice of such things as destroy the very being and power of Religion which consists in the mutual offices of Charity and though this mischief breaks not out into an actual War yet is always accompanied with most unnatural and unchristian practices as S. James long since observed Jam. 3.16 Where envy and strife is there is confusion and every evil work Now to avoid all this it will highly concern us to study to be quiet Having cleared the first Point the Object of our study Quiet and wherein the formalis ratio of it consists and how it comes to be disturbed by Schism The next Point is to enquire into the Principles whereon we are to ground our study for if there should be an errour or mistake in them all our labour and study is lost or worse for an inveterate grounded studied errour is so much the harder to be reclaimed It was no unreasonable demand therefore of the Philosopher who asked a double reward for those Scholars that had been already entred into the study of Philosophy because his pains would be double with them to undo first and cast out those false prejudices which they had already learned Now if it should happen that they which are otherwise studious and desirous of peace should not do the things that make for peace Rom. 14.10 as the Apostle requires our study will grow upon us first to unlearn those false deceitful principles of peace before we enquire into the true Of some of the chief of these therefore I shall give you an account in the first place It will conduce much to the peace of the Church they say First 1. If Religion were free and all compulsory means forborne 2. If meer Errours in Judgment howsoever were not punished as crimes which is not in the power of any to help 3. Or if that yet Thirdly That omission of Forms and Ceremonies were not more severely and frequently punished than notorious and scandalous crimes 4. If fewer Articles and Points of Religion were defined it would make more room in the Church for those that dissent 5. Another is If men of moderate Opinions were only imployed in the Church 6. The last and most importunate pretender to peace is Liberty of Conscience But that none of all these are things that make for peace I shall shew with as much brevity as the matter is capable of as first 1. Not the forbearance of all compulsory means by punishments which they say is repugnant to that freeness with which Religion should be entertained and only forces men to an hypocritical obedience to that which in in their judgments they detest Religion I grant should be free it is no Religion which is not so But it is as true that every other act of vertue and obedience to the Laws should be free likewise but therefore not to punish them that transgress were to proclaim a perpetual Jubile and set open all prison doors God would never have enjoyned the Magistrate to punish temporally nor himself threatned to punish eternally if the fear of that did corrupt our obedience For our Saviour in the Parable when the guests came not to the banquet at his invitation Luk. 14.23 commanded his servants to compel them to come in And where they say the fruit of that is but hypocrisie Hypocrites they are like enough to be but from a worse cause not from the punishment but their own frailties because they prefer their temporal safety before the eternal blessing which Christ hath promised to all that suffer for his sake and the truth Secondly It is true that punishments reach not directly the inward man nor do they teach or inform the Judgment that is they do not perfect the work but are nevertheless a good beginning to it For Fear is the beginning of Wisdom which Love must perfect Though the Needle stays not in the Garment yet it must lead the Thred that makes it up The Rod indeed doth not teach the child yet scares him to his book where he may learn So though punishments do not perfect and accomplish our duty yet they set us to our studies to consider that we do not rashly cast our selves upon danger which otherwise possibly we would never think off but run on whither our wild vain fancies and groundless perswasions led us For Spes impunitatis est illecebra peccandi Punishments therefore are both justified for the good they do and are absolved from the evil they are pretended to do and therefore wholly to forbear them in matters of Religion
acknowledg this to be his just Title but deny that he doth any thing by it which is not properly his own business and in Right of his Crown That he is the Fountain also of all Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction though it be not expresly in his Title we acknowledge to be in his Power But here I must crave leave to say something of the nature and notion of JURISDICTION though it shall tast somewhat of the race and harshness of the School yet much of the Case depends upon it and no little mistakes there are about it It is agreed generally That there is in the Church a Power of Orders and a Power of Jurisdiction distinct that is for the Power though not distinct in the object and matter of that power for that is the same in both As preaching Gods Word administring the Sacraments or the Censures of the Church are of the power of Orders And the putting all or any of these in execution is by a power of Jurisdiction The former as Divines distinguish is a power in habitu the other in actu So that Jurisdiction is nothing else but a power to do actually what was potentially or habitually receiv'd in Orders I do not here take Jurisdiction in the strict vulgar sense to be a power jus dicendi inter partes litigantes only as the word imports but more largely as it reacheth to any act of Order without which it cannot lawfully be put in execution Now the Question here will be How a King can be the Fountain of the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction us'd in his Dominions who neither givs Orders himself not executes any that is hath neither power of Orders nor Power of Jurisdiction My Answer to this Question is That the Kings Power lies without both these and is that which gives Commission and Faculty to persons ordained to execute their Orders within his Dominions And the Reason Ground and Necessity of that is Because the Ecclesiastical Function cannot be put in execution but by such ways and means as are absolutely and originally in the King and in Right of his Crown As first There must be some Subjects upon whom they may execute their Ecclesiastical Orders now all the Subjects within his Dominions are the Kings who must of necessity lose so much of the Right he had in them as any other assumes without Him From hence grows his Right to order and constitute Diocesses and Parishes and to set them their bounds and limits that is upon which of his Subjects and how far he will allow them respectively to execute their Orders for without those bounds it is not nor is us'd to be taken for any part of their business To the publick exercise of Religion the people must meet together And all assemblings of people together are absolutely in the Power of Princes all States in all times have ever been jealous of them and provided severe Laws against them for it is impossible be the pretences of meeting never so fair to govern people and keep them quiet long if they may have liberty to flock together at their pleasures When they are met together there must be some to teach and instruct them How dangerous a thing it is promiscuously to suffer Harangues and Orations to be made to the people by such who possibly may be Trumpets of Sedition who by slandering the Government and speaking evil of Dignities may inflame people to Rebellion We have known such things done It is therefore necessary that none be allow'd that liberty to speak to Multitudes assembled together but such with whom a King may safely trust his people And this gives him a Right and Capacity of Patronage and Nomination to Ecclesiastical Charges Lest the Doctrine which they teach the people should be such as would amuse them with Novelties or occasion Alterations and foment Divisions or any way disturb the Peace of the Kingdom it is just and reasonable that the King should confine them within the compass of certain Articles and Doctrines of Religion which gives Him a Right to that which in other respects no doubt belongs to the care of the Church But besides the Articles of Peace we find that the King in His Laws declares what is Heresie That if any thing seems to be the proper work of the Ecclesiastical Power yet even in that he is not out at his own Civil business For seeing meer Ecclesiastical Censures are found not to be of sufficient force to suppress dangerous and Heretical Opinions without the use of the temporal Sword Out of the care the King hath of the Lives and Estates of His Subjects he will not let His Sword loose to the will of others who by declaring what they please to be Heresie may bring them in peril He therefore confines them to such cases only wherein He is content His Sword should be made use of This is all and is that which must be allowed to be the proper business of the King to assign how far and in what cases His Temporal Power and Sword shall be employ'd and can be no invading the Ecclesiastical But lastly Is not this the same wrong and illusion we charge the Pope with who in order to his Spiritual End Usurps the Temporal Power so the King in order to his Temporal Government invades the Ecclesiastical No the case is far different If the Pope did order temporals by spiritual means only i. e. Ecclesiastice we had the less to say against him he is not out of the way of a Bishops power though he should abuse it But he for his spiritual end usurps temporal means and takes upon him to dispose of temporal Estates that is none of his business But the King in ordering Ecclesiastical things to His temporal end uses no Ecclesiastical means but temporal only which are his proper business He doth not excommunicate the Pope out of the Church as the Pope would do him out of his temporal Dominions But the King if he see cause may banish him and his Emissaries out of his Kingdom That cannot be deny'd to be the proper business of a King to secure and free his Kingdom from any thing that is destructive to it Now if in all this the King moves not out of his own civil Sphere to return to our Sectaries who put us upon this digression they still remain as we left them guilty of doing much that is none of their own business What then is to be done with them According to a late Statute a Mittimus I think might be made to send them to prison but the Apostle here deals more kindly with them and sends them only to School to study better which is my Fourth and last Point THat ye study to do your own business I will take no more out of the word Study then what any one understands to be in it A serious weighing and considering of the matter and there is need of it The first thing the Student is to do before he takes in hand
call his own 2. The Obligation of Duty and Religion to confine himself to that which is his own 3. The Operation it hath had in the World upon our Quiet or Disquiet 4. From these is inferr'd a Necessity to Study it That ye study to do your own business First That there is a Propriety in Business This must be laid for a ground all the rest else will fall to nothing It will be no Religion to keep it no Sin to break it no need to Study it That which S Paul spake of the Doctrine of the Gospel in general at Ephesus A great door and effectual was opened to him 1 Cor. 16.9 and there were many Adversaries is true also of this particular Doctrine of Propriety It is a door open to all wise and sober men yet it hath many Adversaries There is a busie humour in the world to lay all common and it is grown to be a Sect of Religion yea more than one as many as there are kinds of Propriety so many Sects endeavour to fling down the Inclosures As first There is a Propriety in Goods and Possessions and against this there rises a Sect of Levellers who tell us from the Psalmist The Heavens are the Lords but the Earth hath he given to the Children of men Psal 115.16 That to which every man hath a Right by the Gift of God the Pride and Covetousness of a few have engross'd and made their own There is a Right and Propriety of Respect and Honour due to some above others Against this arises another Sect of Levellers they call Quakers who refuse to give Honour to whom Honour belongs Though this looks like a Religion against good manners only or were but some Quarrel with the Grammarians against proper Names the Mischief of it lies deeper and is of the spirit of Anabaptism who oppose the very Powers and Dignities themselves which they despise in their Titles for they cannot be so foolish though simple enough as to make a Religion of Names only These are dangerous Sects of Levellers both but they lie not in our way The Text toucheth only Levellers of Business who think they are not to be barr'd the liberty of doing any thing that is good bonum quo communius eo melius and ought not to be impropriate to any But that there is a Title and Propriety in some to business wherein it is not permitted to every one to interpose a necessity in Nature requires The World is replenished with infinite variety of things and a great deal of work is to be done to make them useful and serviceable to us Now it is not possible for every one to do all and hardly all in any one thing to gain the full use and benefit of it But when the works are distributed severally to some the benefit may redound to all All the business of the world resers either to a Spiritual End the good of the soul or to a Temporal and Civil our well-being while we live here upon earth And to both these Ends God hath appointed and assigned particular persons he did not leave them in common In the Temporal there is private business and publick For private use as in Families there is the business of the Husband and Wife the Parent and Children the Master and Servants And out of Families for private use likewise there is the business of Physicians and Advocates Husbandmen Merchants and Mariners Mechanicks and Labourers and all these are of private nature though of common benefit Then is there the publick business by whith all these are ordered and governed 1 Pet. 2.13 and they are by S. Peter distinguished to our hands as that of the King as Supreme and of Governors sent by him and they are Magistrates and Judges for Peace Captains and Commanders for War And besides these there is the business of Ministers and Assistants to the Supreme Power Counsellors Lawyers Officers and Servants and all these are for that temporal end And for the Spiritual whose business refers to the soul there is likewise a Propriety as in Bishops to Ordain Institute and Order the rest of the Clergy specially and of the whole Diocess occasionally as the necessity of it shall require Then is there the business of the Presbyters in the several parts of the Diocess in a more particular and immediate Cure and Charge to be directed by and accountable to the Bishop There be others Diaconal and Ministerial to both And all together Temporal and Spiritual as several Members make one Body and every Member saith the Apostle hath not the same office Rom. 12.4 God divided his Gifts to every one severally as He will 1 Cor. 12.11 he did not scatter them in common but divide them and all hold in severalty And as that Severance and Propriety stands upon good Authority so Authority was no doubt induc't upon reason of Profit and Interest It conduceth more to the common good than Community it self could First It brings Order into the common business of the world and that takes away confusion which never did any thing well To avoid fornication 1 Cor. 7.2 let every man have his own wife Upon the same Equity to avoid the promiscuous lust and curiosity men have to mingle with any business Let every man likewise have his own In reason all business will be best done too by those to whom they are peculiar and proper Artifici in sua arte credendum Men are most trusted in their own Trades We trust the Lawyer with our Estates the Physician with our Bodies I say nothing of our Souls we are so wise at that work as to trust none but our selves Yet thirdly The nature and condition of the business it self may require it Some are so difficult that every one cannot do though he would and some are so mean that every one would not do though he could and all are such as through the mercy of God we need not do if we will unless it be our own business We are now faln upon the Second Part that as every one hath some business that is his own so Duty and Religion obligeth him to take upon him no business but his own THis Lesson will not be so easily learned as the former all confinement of it self seems uneasie He that hath no mind to go abroad would not be tied to stay at home And he that cares for no business will take it ill to be barr'd any But this consinement besides nips the growth and encrease of good whereof they think more would be done if every one have free liberty to do it and therefore it is just and reasonable to allow any one a concurrent jurisdiction with others in any thing that is otherwise good though that be to govern with the King to pray and preach or what they please with the Priest And they have as much of propriety as any can have to business yet even to these they think any man may make
in want and contempt but to improve our industry to the best advantage both to our selves and others and may by that attain to some luster and splendor of riches honour and command to which no oppression or extortion or any lucky sin hath advanced us and that is though we have brought no corruption into the flesh yet we shall reap corruption from it This is a Doctrine which our daily experience abundantly confirms by the frequent turnings changes and vicissitude of things But that our desires should be so unchangeably fixed upon things so mutable must be some great delusion or in the Apostles phrase in a like manifest case a bewitching not to trust our own eyes in what we see every day But because though the World be full of Deceivers we are still the greatest deceivers of our selves let us take it upon the credit of others and those the wisest Kings Solomon and his Father David who may be the better trusted in this for that neither of them were any great enemies to the flesh Solomon when he had run through all the glories pleasures and delights of the world never any King drank deeper in that cup yet he at last wearied sate down to write a Book to teach others that all was Vanity and that is but another word to signifie Corruption And David as well of observation as experience I my self have seen the ungodly in great power flourishing like a green Bay tree I went by and lo he was gone I sought him and his place could no where be found Psal 37.36 And least we should think this the portion onely of the ungodly Psal 49.9 Wise men also die and perish together as well as the ignorant and foolish and leave their riches for others and it may be not that neither For riches saith the Wise man Prov. 23. make themselves wings and fly away from the owner And at another time the Owner too makes himself wings and flies away from them All things in the World are upon the Wing And it is a strange deceit the Prophet observes vers 11. And yet they think that their houses shall continue for ever And to give themselves a kind of Immortality they call them after their own names But they are oft times deceived in that too so far doth Corruption eat into all our designs The lewd people will be the Gossips and name the Child in despite of the Father and that little to his liking or honour We are not sure to enjoy that poor vanity to leave a name behind us upon that which cost us so much care and expense Lastly How well soever he speeds here and that the Glory of his house be increased yet this will be certain vers 17. He shall carry nothing away with him when he dieth neither shall his pomp follow him I do not think by this or any thing that can be said more to make you our of love with the flesh it is neither possible nor needful I shall only for a conclusion of this first part beg in the Apostles name that ye would not be deceived as all are who give more for a thing then it is worth To spend all our time and cost upon that which will be worth nothing or as ill no better then rottenness and corruption I make the more haste through this Field of the Flesh that we may stay the longer in that of the Spirit where our labour and tillage will be to better purpose for ye see the best that can be hoped for from the other is but to flourish as a Flower of that Field and that Psal 103.19 as soon as the wind goeth over it is gone Nullus flos nisi novus Corruption bloweth upon the most florid condition in it But the growth and increase from the field of the Spirit is incorruptible that fadeth not away reserved in heaven for us 1 Pet. 1.4 for he that soweth c. When we see so great a Harvest and yet so few Labourers in the Field some strange delusion there must be wheresoever it lies we must confess the Apostles caution here was no more then needs Be not deceived God is not mocked For is it possible where so good wages are so few should set themselves at work unless they either mistrusted their pay Eternal Life and so mocked God that promised it or mistook the sowing and so deceived themselves Both these would deserve to be well considered but because they who have some diffidence of a life hereafter to come have not the confidence to say so I have not so much spare time as to spend in proving that which they will be ready to say they do not deny I shall therefore now endeavor only to undeceive them if it may be in the vain pretences they make to it in the sowing And here first it will be necessary that whatever else deceives them to see that a misunderstanding of the words give no occasion to it to know what this sowing to the Spirit is and how it comes to make a Title to Everlasting Life for there are no mean Competitors in the same Claim For 1. Christ is the Author of this life For as in Adam all die so in Christ shall all be made alive 1 Cor. 15.4 And 2 Tim. 1.10 Our Lord Jesus Christ hath abolished death and brought life and immortality to light 2. Another Competitor with the Spirit is the Gospel that is the immortal seed of this life Being born again by the Word of God which liveth and abideth for ever 1 Pet. 1.23 It is the Power of God to Salvation 3. Faith puts in to the same Claim The Just shall live by Faith Rom. 1.17 And 1 Tim. 1.16 St. Paul professeth that Jesus Christ had set forth him as a Pattern to all them who should hereafter believe on him to everlasting life Is there yet another way to Everlasting life by sowing to the Spirit It is happy for us that there is any way to it but yet we may be at a loss and confounded where there are so many To remove that fear we must know that all these are but several name of the same thing though in divers appearances and Phases as the Astronomers word is Christ the Gospel Faith and the Spirit do all relate to life everlasting Christ as the Author of it provided all things necessary to it The Gospel as the Register of all that is to be known or done to attain it Faith is our submission and obedience to the Gospel The Spirit is the publisher and preacher of it Ephes 3.5 The mysteries of Christ which in other ages was not made known to the sons of men as it is now revealed unto the Apostles and Prophets by the Spirit And for this reason the Apostle expresly calls the Gospel the Spirit Gal. 3.3 For whereas they having already embraced the Gospel fell back to Circumcision and other rites of the Law severely charges them with folly Are ye so foolish having