save them He says indeed else-where that he was not come to send Peace but a Sword which we are not to understand of the natural tendency of his Religion but of the accidental event and effect of it through the malice and perversness of Men But here he speaks of the proper intention and design of his coming He came not to kill and destroy but for the healing of the Nations for the salvation and redemption of Mankind not only from the wrath to come but from a great part of the evils and miseries of this life He came to discountenance all fierceness and rage and cruelty in men one towards another to restrain and subdue that furious and unpeaceable Spirit which is so troublesome to the world and the cause of so many mischiefs and disorders in it And to introduce a Religion which consults not only the eternal Salvation of mens souls but their temporal peace and security their comfort and happiness in this world The words thus explain'd contain this Observation That a revengeful and cruel and destructive Spirit is directly contrary to the design and temper of the Gospel and not to be excused upon any pretence of zeal for God and Religion In the prosecution of this Argument I shall confine my Discourse to these Three heads First To shew the opposition of this spirit to the true Spirit and design of the Christian Religion Secondly The unjustifiableness of it upon any pretence of zeal for God and Religion Thirdly To apply this Discourse to the occasion of this Day First I shall shew the opposition of this spirit to the true Spirit and design of the Christian Religion That it is directly opposite to the main and fundamental Precepts of the Gospel and to the great Paterns and examples of our Religion our blessed Saviour and the Primitive Christians 1. This spirit which our Saviour here reproves in his Disciples is directly opposite to the main and fundamental Precepts of the Gospel which command us to love one another and to love all men even our very enemies and are so far from permitting us to persecute those who hate us that they forbid us to hate those who persecute us They require us to be merciful as our Father which is in Heaven is merciful to be kind and tender-hearted forbearing one another and forgiving one another if any man have a quarrel against any even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven us And to put on as the elect of God bowels of mercy meekness and long-suffering and to follow peace with all men and to shew all meekness to all men And particularly the Pastors and Governors of the Church are especially charged to be of this temper The servant of the Lord must not strive but be gentle unto all men apt to teach in meekness instructing those that oppose themselves if peradventure God will give them repentance to the acknowledgment of the truth To all which Precepts and many more that I might reckon up nothing can be more plainly opposite than inhumane Cruelties and Persections treacherous Conspiracies and bloody Massacres a barbarous Inquisition and a holy League to extirpate all that differ from us And in stead of instructing in meekness those that oppose themselves to convert men with fire and faggot and to teach them as Gideon did the men of Succoth with briars and thorns and instead of waiting for their repentance and endeavouring to recover them out of the snare of the Devil to put them quick into his hands and to dispatch them to hell as fast as is possible If the precepts of Christianity can be contradicted surely it cannot be done more grosly and palpably than by such practises 2. This Spirit is likewise directly opposite to the great paterns and examples of our Religion our blessed Saviour and the Primitive Christians It was prophesied of our Saviour that he should be the Prince of peace and should make it one of his great businesses upon earth to make peace in heaven and earth to reconcile men to God and to one another to take up all those feuds and to extinguish all those animosities that were in the world to bring to agreement and a peaceable demeanour one towards another those that were most distant in their tempers and interests to make the lamb and the wolf lie down together that there might be no more destroying nor devouring in all God's holy mountain that is that that cruel and destructive spirit which prevailed before in the world should then be banished out of all Christian societies And in conformity to these predictions when our Saviour was born into the world the Angels sang that heavenly Anthem Glory to God in the highest peace on earth and good will among men And when he appeared in the world his whole life and carriage was gentle and peaceable full of meekness and charity His great business was to be beneficial to others to seek and to save that which was lost he went about doing good to the bodies and to the souls of men his miracles were not destructive to mankind but healing and charitable He could if he had pleased by his miraculous power have confounded his enemies and have thundred out death and destruction against the Infidel world as his pretended Vicar hath since done against Hereticks But intending that his Religion should be propagated in human ways and that Men should be drawn to the profession of it by the bands of love and the cords of a man by the gentle and peaceable methods of Reason and persuasion he gave no example of a furious zeal and religious rage against those who despised his Doctrine It was propounded to men for their great advantage and they rejected it at their utmost peril It seemed good to the Author of this Institution to compell no man to it by temporal punishments When he went about making proselytes he offered violence to no man only said If any man will be my disciple If any man will come after me And when his disciples were leaving him he does not set up an Inquisition to torture and punish them for their defection from the faith only says Will ye also go away And in imitation of this blessed Patern the Christian Church continued to speak and act for several Ages And this was the language of the holy Fathers Lex nova non se vindicat ultore gladio the Christian Law doth not avenge it self by the sword This was then the style of Councils Nemini ad credendum vim inferre to offer violence to no man to compel him to the faith I proceed in the Second place to shew the Unjustifiableness of this spirit upon any pretence whatsoever of zeal for God and Religion No case can be put with Circumstances of greater advantage and more likely to justify this spirit and temper than the case here in the Text. Those against whom the disciples would have called for fire from Heaven were Hereticks and Schismaticks from
the true Church they had affronted our Saviour himself in his own person the honour of God and of that Religion which he had set up in the world and of Jerusalem which he had appointed for the place of his worship were all concerned in this case so that if ever it were warrantable to put on this fierce and furious zeal here was a case that seemed to require it But even in these circumstances our Saviour thinks fit to rebuke and discountenance this spirit Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of And he gives such a Reason as ought in all differences of Religion how wide soever they be to deter men from this temper For the Son of man is not come to desroy mens lives but to save them that is this Spirit is utterly inconsistent with the great design of Christian Religion and the end of our Saviour's coming into the world And now what hath the Church of Rome to plead for her cruelty to men for the cause of Religion which the Disciples might not much better have pleaded for themselves in their case what hath she to say against those who are the objects of her cruelty and persecution which would not have held against the Samaritans Does she practice these severities out of a zeal for truth and for the honour of God and Christ and the true Religion Why upon these very accounts it was that the Disciples would have called for fire from Heaven to have destroyed the Samaritans Is the Church of Rome perswaded that those whom she persecutes are Hereticks and Schismaticks and that no punishment can be too great for such offenders So the Disciples were persuaded of the Samaritans and upon much better grounds Only the Disciples had some excuse in their case which the Church of Rome hath not and that was Ignorance And this apology our Saviour makes for them ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of They had been bred up in the Jewish Religion which gave some indulgence to this kind of temper and they were able to cite a great Example for themselves besides they were then but learners and not throughly instructed in the Christian doctrine But in the Church of Rome whatever the case of particular persons may be as to the whole Church and the Governing part of it this ignorance is wilful and affected and therefore inexcusable For the Christian Religion which they profess to embrace do's as plainly teach the contratrary as it do's any other matter whatsoever and it is not more evident in the New Testament that Christ died for sinners than that Christians should not kill one another for the misbelief of any Article of revealed Religion much less for the disbelief of such Articles as are invented by men and imposed as the Doctrines of Christ You have heard what kind of Spirit it is which our Saviour here reproves in his Disciples It was a furious and destructive Spirit contrary to Christian charity and goodness But yet this may be said in mitigation of their fault that they themselves offered no violence to their Enemies They left it to God and no doubt would have been very glad that he would have manifested his severity upon them by sending down fire from Heaven to have consumed them But there is a much worse Spirit than this in the world which is not only contrary to Christianity but to the common Principles of Natural Religion and even to Humanity it self Which by falshood and perfidiousnesfs by secret plots and conspiracies or by open sedition and rebellion by an Inquisition or a Massacre by deposing and killing Kings by fire and sword by the ruine of their Country and betraying it into the hands of Foreigners and in a word by dissolving all the bonds of humane Society and subverting the peace and order of the World that is by all the wicked wayes imaginable doth incite men to promote and advance their Religion As if all the world were made for them and there were not only no other Christians but no other Men besides themselves as Babylon of old proudly vaunted I am and there is none besides me And as if the God whom the Christians worship were not the God of order but of Confusion as if he whom we call the Father of mercies were delighted with cruelty and could not have a more pleasing sacrifice offered to him than a Massacre nor put a greater honour upon his Priests then to make them Judges of an Inquisition that is the inventers and decreers of torments for men more righteous and innocent then themselves Thus to misrepresent God and Religion is to devest them of all their Majesty and glory For if that of Seneca be true that sine bonitate nulla majestas without Goodness there can be no such thing as Majesty then to separate goodness and mercy from God compassion and charity from Religion is to make the two best things in the world God and Religion good for nothing How much righter apprehensions had the Heathen of the Divine Nature which they looked upon as so benign and beneficial to mankind that as Tully admirably says Dii immortales ad usum hominum fabrefacti penè videantur the nature of the immortal Gods may almost seem to be exactly framed for the benefit and advantage of men And as for Religion they always speak of it as the great band of humane Society and the foundation of truth and fidelity and justice among men But when Religion once comes to supplant moral Righteousness and to teach men the absurdest things in the world to lye for the truth and to kill men for God's sake when it serves to no other purpose but to be a bond of conspiracy to inflame the tempers of men to a greater fierceness and to set a keener edge upon their spirits and to make them ten times more the children of wrath and cruelty than they were by nature then surely it loses its nature and ceases to be Religion For let any man say worse of Atheism and Infidelity if he can And for God's sake what is Religion good for but to reform the manners and dispositions of men to restrain humane nature from violence and cruelty from falsehood and treachery from Sedition and Rebellion Better it were there were no revealed Religion and that humane nature were left to the conduct of its own principles and inclinations which are much more mild merciful much more for the peace and happiness of humane Society then to be acted by a Religion that inspires men with so wild a fury and prompts them to commit such out-rages and is continually supplanting Government and undermining the welfare of mankind in short such a Religion as teaches men to propagate and advance it self by means so evidently contrary to the very nature and end of all Religion And this if it be well considered will appear to be a very convincing way of reasoning by shewing the last result and consequence of
such Principles and of such a Train of Propsitions to be a most gross and palpable absurdity For example We will at present admit Popery to be the true Religion and their Doctrines of extirpating Hereticks of the lawfulness of deposing Kings and subverting Government by all the cruel and wicked ways that can be thought of to be as in truth they are the Doctrines of this Religion In this Case I would not trouble my self to debate particulars but if in the gross and upon the whole matter it be evident that such a Religion as this is as bad or worse than Infidelity and no-no-Religion this is conviction enough to a wise man and as good as a Demonstration that this is not the true Religion and that it cannot be from God How much better Teachers of Religion were the old Heathen Philosophers In all whose Books and Writings there is not one Principle to be found of Treachery or Rebellion nothing that gives the least countenance to an Assassination or a Massacre to the betraying of ones Native Country or the cutting of his Neighbours throat for difference in opinion I speak it with grief and shame because the credit of our common Christianity is somewhat concerned in it that Panaetius and Antipater and Diogenes the Stoick Tully and Plutarch and Seneca were much honester and more Christian Casuists than the Jesuits are or the generality of the Casuists of any other Order that I know of in the Church of Rome I come now in the Third and last place to make some Application of this Discourse 1. Let not Religion suffer for those faults and miscarriages which really proceed from the ignorance of Religion and from the want of it That under colour and pretence of Religion very bad things are done is no argument that Religion it self is not good Because the best things are liable to be perverted and abused to very ill purposes nay the corruption of them is commonly the worst as they say the richest and noblest Wines make the sharpest Vinegar If the light that is in you says our Saviour be darkness how great is that darkness 2. Let us beware of that Church which countenanceth this unchristian spirit here condemned by our Saviour and which teaches such Doctrines and warrants such Practices as are consonant thereto You all know without my saying so that I mean the Church of Rome in which are taught such Doctrines as these That Hereticks that is all who differ from them in matters of Faith are to be extirpated by fire and sword which was decreed in the third and fourth Lateran Councils where all Christians are strictly charged to endeavour this to the uttermost of their power Sicut reputari cupiunt haberi fideles as they desire to be esteemed and accounted Christians Next their Doctrines of deposing Kings and of absolving their subjects from obedience to them which were not only universally believed but practised by the Popes and Roman Church for several Ages Indeed this Doctrine hath not been at all times alike frankly and openly avowed but it is undoubtedly theirs and hath frequently been put in execution though they have not thought it so convenient at all turns to make profession of it It is a certain kind of Engine which is to be scru'd up or let down as occasion serves and is commonly kept like Goliah's Sword in the Sanctuary but yet so that the High-Priest can lend it out upon an extraordinary occasion And for Practices consonant to these Doctrines I shall go no further than the horrid and bloody Design of this Day Such a Mystery of Iniquity as had been hid from ages and generations Such a Master-piece of Villany as eye had not seen nor ear heard nor ever before entred into the heart of man So prodigiously Barbarous both in the substance and circumstances of it as is not to be parallell'd in all the voluminous Records of Time from the foundation of the World Of late years our Adversaries for so they have made themselves without any provocation of ours have almost had the impudence to deny so plain a matter of fact but I wish they have not taken an effectual course by fresh Conspiracies of equal or greater horrour to confirm the belief of it with a witness But I shall not anticipate what will be more proper for another Day but confine my self to the present Occasion I will not trouble you with the particular Narrative of this dark Conspiracy nor the obscure manner of its discovery which Bellarmine himself acknowledges not to have been without a Miracle Let us thank God that it was so happily discovered and disappointed as I hope their present design will be by the same wonderful and merciful providence of God towards a most unworthy People And may the lameness and halting of Ignatius Loyola the Founder of the Jesuits never depart from that Order but be a Fate continually attending all their villanous Plots and Contrivances I shall only observe to you that after the discovery of this Plot the Authors of it were not convinced of the evil but sorry for the miscarriage of it Sir Everard Digby whose very original Papers and Letters are now in my hands after he was in Prison and knew he must suffer calls it the best Cause and was extremely troubled to hear it censured by Catholicks and Priests contrary to his expectation for a great sin Let me tell you says he what a grief it is to hear THAT so much condemned which I did believe would have been otherwise thought of by Catholicks And yet he concludes that Letter with these words In how full joy should I dye if I could do any thing for the Cause which I love more than my life And in another Letter he says he could have said something to have mitigated the odium of this business as to that Point of involving those of his own Religion in the common ruine I dare not says he take that course that I could to make it appear less odious for divers were to have been brought out of danger who now would rather hurt them than otherwise I do not think there would have been three worth the saving that should have been lost And as to the rest that were to have been swallow'd up in that destruction he seems not to have the least relenting in his mind about them All doubts he seems to have look'd upon as temptations and intreats his Friends to pray for the pardoning of his not sufficient striving against temptations since this busieness was undertook Good God! that any thing that is called Religion should so perfectly strip men of all humanity and transform the mild and gentle race of mankind into such Wolves and Tigers that ever a pretended zeal for Thy glory should instigate men to dishonour Thee at such a rate It is believed by many and not without cause that the Pope and his Faction are the Antichrist I will say no more than I know in
this matter I am not sure that it is he that is particularly designed in Scripture by that Name but however that be I challenge Antichrist himfelf whoever he be and whenever he comes to do worse and wickeder things than these But I must remember my Text and take heed of imitating that Spirit which is there condemned whilst I am inveighing against it And in truth it almost looks uncharitably to speak the truth in these matters and barely to relate what these men have not blush'd to do I need not nay I cannot aggravate these things they are too horrible in themselves even when they are express'd in the sofrest and gentlest words I would not be understood to charge every particular person who is or hath been in the Roman Communion with the guilt of these or the like practises But I must charge their Doctrines and Principles with them I must charge the Heads of their Church and the prevalent teaching and governing part of it who are usually the contrivers and abetters the executioners and applauders of these cursed Designs I do willingly acknowledg the great Piety and Charity of several persons who have lived and dyed in that Communion as Erasmus Father Paul Thuanus and many others who had in truth more goodness than the Principles of that Religion do either incline men to or allow of And yet he that considers how universally almost the Papists in Ireland were engaged in that Massacre which is still fresh in our memories will find it very hard to determine how many degrees of innocency and good nature or of coldness and indifferency in Religion are necessary to overballance the fury of a blind zeal and a misguided Conscience I doubt not but Papists are made like other men Nature hath not generally given them such savage and cruel dispositions but their Religion hath made them so Whereas true Christianity is not only the best but the best-natur'd Institution in the world and so far as any Church is departed from good nature and become cruel and barbarous so far is it degenerated from Christianity I am loth to say it and yet I am consident 't is very true That many Papists would have been excellent persons and very good men if their Religion had not hindered them if the Doctrines and Principles of their Church had not perverted and spoiled their natural dispositions I speak not this to exasperate You worthy Patriots and the great Bulwark of our Religion to any unreasonable or unnecessary much less unchristian Severities against them No let us not do like them let us never do any thing for Religion that is contrary to it But I speak it to awaken your care thus far That if their Priests will always be putting these pernicious Principles into the minds of the People effectual Provision may be made that it may never be in their power again to put them in practise We have found by experience that ever since the Reformation they have been continually pecking at the foundations of our Peace and Religion When God knows we have been so far from thirsting after their blood that we did not so much as desire their disquiet but in order to our own necessary safety and indeed to theirs And God be praised for those matchless Instances which we are able to give of the generous humanity and Christian temper of the English Protestants After Q. Maryes death when the Protestant Religion was restored Bishop Bonner notwithstanding all his Cruelties and Butcheries was permitted quietly to live and dye amongst us And after the Treason of this Day nay at this very time since the discovery of so barbarous a Design and the highest provocation in the world by the treacherous murder of one of His Majesties Justices of the Peace a very good Man and a most excellent Magistrate who had been active in the discovery of this Plot I say after all this and notwithstanding the continued and insupportable insolence of their carriage and behaviour even upon this occasion no violence nay not so much as any incivility that I ever heard of hath been offer'd to any of them I would to God they would but seriously consider this one difference between our Religion and theirs and which of them comes nearest to the Wisdom which is from above which is peaceable and gentle and full of mercy And I do heartily pray and have good hopes that upon this occasion God will open their eyes so far as to convince a great many among them that that cannot be the true Religion which inspires men with such barbarous minds I have now done and if I have been transported upon this Argument somewhat beyond my usual temper the Occasion of this Day and our present circumstances will I hope bear me out I have expressed my self all along with a just sense and with no unjust severity concerning these horrid Principles and Practises but yet with great pity and tenderness towards those miserably seduced Souls who have been deluded by them and ensnared in them And I can truly say as the Roman Orator did of himself upon another occasion Me natura misericordem patria severum crudelem nec patria nec natura esse voluit My nature enclines me to be tender and compassionate a hearty zeal for our Religion and concernment for the publique welfare of my Countrey may perhaps have made me a little severe but neither my natural disposition nor the temper of the English Nation nor the Genius of the Protestant that is the true Christian Religion will allow me to be cruel For the future Let us encourage our selves in the Lord our God and commit our Cause and the keeping of our Souls to Him in well doing And under God let us leave it to the wisdom and care of His Majesty and His two Houses of Parliament to make a lasting Provision for the security of our Peace and Religion against all the secret contrivances and open attempts of these sons of violence And let us remember those words of David Psal 37.12 13 14 15 The wicked plotteth against the just and gnasheth upon him with his teeth The Lord shall laugh at him for he seeth that his day is coming The wicked have drawn out the sword and bent their bow to cast down the poor and needy and to slay such as be of upright conversation Their sword shall enter into their own heart and their bowes shall be broken And I hope considering what God hath heretofore done and hath now begun to do for us we may take encouragement to our selves against all the Enemies of our Religion which are confederated against us in the words of the Prophet Isa 8.9 10 Associate your selves O ye People and ye shall be broken in pieces and give ear all ye of far Countreys Gird your selves and ye shall be broken in pieces Gird your selves and ye shall be broken in pieces Take counsel together and it shall come to naught Speak the word and it shall not stand FOR GOD IS WITH VS And now what remains But to make our most devout and thankful acknowledgments to Almighty God for the invaluable blessing of our Reformed Religion and for the miraculous Deliverance of this Day and for the wonderful Discovery of the late horrid and barbarous Conspiracy against our Prince our Peace and our Religion To Him therefore our most gracious and merciful God our Shield and our Rock and our mighty Deliverer Who hath brought us out of the land of Egypt and out of the House of bondage and hath set us free from Popish Tyranny and Superstition a yoke which neither we nor our Fathers were able to bear Who hath from time to time delivered us from the bloody and merciless designs of wicked and unreasonable men and hath render'd all the plots and contrivances the mischievous counsels and devices of these worse-than-Heathens of none effect Who did as upon this Day rescue our King and our Princes our Nobles and the Heads of our Tribes the Governours of our Church and the Judges of the Land from that fearful Destruction which was ready to have swallowed them up Who still brings to light the hidden things of darkness and hath hitherto preserved our Religion and Civil interests to us in despite of all the malicious and restless attempts of our Adversaries Vnto that great God who hath done so great things for us and hath saved us by a mighty Salvation Who hath delivered us and doth deliver us and we trust will still deliver us he glory and honour thanksgiving and praise from generation to generation And let all the People say Amen FINIS