fly to several stale trite pitifull Objections and Cavils some against Religion in general and some against Christianity in particular and some against the very first Principles of Morality to give them some poor Credit and Countenance in the pursuit of their bruitish Courses Few practical Errors in the world are embraced upon the Stock of Conviction but Inclination For though indeed the judgment may err upon the account of Weakness yet where there is one Error that enters in at this door ten are lett into it through the Will That for the most part being set upon those things which Truth is a direct obstacle to the Enjoyment of and where both cannot be had a man will be sure to buy his Enjoyment though he pays down Truth for the purchase For in this case the further from Truth the further from Trouble Since Truth shows such an one what he is unwilling to see and tells him what he hates to hear They are the same beams that shine and enlighten and are apt to scorch too and it is impossible for a man engaged in any wicked way to have a clear understanding of it and a quiet mind in it together But these Sons of Epicurus both for Voluptuousness and Irreligion also as it is hard to support the former without the latter these I say rest not here but if you will take them at their word they must also pass for the only Wits of the Age though greater Arguments I am sure may be produced against this than any they can alledge against the most improbable Article of Christianity But heretofore the Rate and Standard of Wit was very different from what it is now-a-days No man was then accounted a Wit for speaking such things as deserved to have the Tongue cut out that spake them Nor did any man pass for a Philosopher or a man of depth for talking atheistically or a man of Parts for imploying them against that God that gave them For then the World was generally better enclined Vertue was in so much Reputation as to be pretended to at least And Vertue whether in a Christian or in an Infidel can have no Interest to be served either by Atheism or Infidelity For which Cause could we but prevail with the greatest Debauchees amongst us to change their Lives we should find it no very hard matter to change their Judgments For notwithstanding all their talk of Reason and Philosophy which God knows they are deplorably strangers to and those unanswerable Doubts and Difficulties which over their Cups or their Coffee they pretend to have against Christianity persuade but the Covetous man not to deifie his money the Proud man not to adore himself the Lascivious man to throw off his lewd amours the Intemperate man to abandon his revels and so for any other vice that is apt to abuse and pervert the mind of man and I dare undertake that all their Giant-like objections against Christian Religion shall presently vanish and quit the field For he that is a good man is three quarters of his way towards the being a good Christian wheresoever he lives or whatsoever he is called Secondly In the next place we learn from hence the most effectual way and means of proficiency and growth in the Knowledge of the great and profound Truths of Religion and how to make us all not only good Christians but also expert Divines It is a knowledge that men are not so much to study as to live themselves into A knowledge that passes into the Head through the Heart I have heard of some that in their latter years through the feebleness of their Limbs have been forced to study upon their knees and I think it might well become the youngest and the strongest to doe so too Let them daily and incessantly pray to God for his Grace and if God gives grace they may be sure that knowledge will not stay long behind Since it is the same Spirit and Principle that purifies the Heart and clarifies the Understanding Let all their Enquiries into the deep and mysterious points of Theology be begun and carried on with fervent Petitions to God that he would dispose their minds to direct all their Skill and Knowledge to the Promotion of a good life both in themselves and others that he would use all their Noblest Speculations and most Refined Notions only as Instruments to move and set a Work the great Principles of Actions the Will and the Affections that he would convince them of the Infinite Vanity and uselessness of all that Learning that makes not the Possessor of it a Better man that He would keep them from those Sins that may grieve and provoke his holy Spirit the fountain of all true light and knowledge to withdraw from them and so seal them up under Darkness Blindness and Stupidity of mind For where the Heart is bent upon and held under the power of any vicious Course though Christ himself should take the contrary Vertue for his Doctrine and doe a miracle before such an ones Eyes for its Application yet he would not Practically gain his Assent but the Result of all would end in a non persuadebis etiamsi persuaseris Few Consider what a Degree of Sottishness and Confirmed Ignorance men may sin themselves into This was the case of the Pharisees And no doubt but this very Consideration also gives us the true Reason and full Explication of that notable and strange passage of Scripture in Luke 16. and the last verse That if men will not hear Moses and the Prophets neither will they be persuaded though one rose from the Dead That is where a strong inveterate Love of Sin has made any Doctrine or Proposition wholly unsutable to the Heart no Argument or Demonstration no nor miracle whatsoever shall be able to bring the Heart cordially to close with and receive it Whereas on the Contrary if the Heart be piously disposed the Natural goodness of any Doctrine is enough to vouch for the Truth of it for the Sutableness of it will endear it to the Will and by endearing it to the Will will naturally slide it into the Assent also For in Morals as well as in Metaphysicks there is nothing really good but has a Truth Commensurate to its Goodness The Truths of Christ crucified are the Christians Philosophy and a good life is the Christians Logick that great Instrumental introductive Art that must guide the mind into the former And where a long Course of Piety and close Communion with God has purged the Heart and rectified the Will and made all things ready for the Reception of God's Spirit Knowledge will break in upon such a Soul like the Sun shining in his full might with such a Victorious light that nothing shall be able to resist it If now at length some should object here that from what has been delivered it will follow That the most Pious men are still the most Knowing which yet seems contrary to common
value their practice in one of which places the Minister has been seen for mere want to mend shoes on the Saturday and been heard to preach on the Sunday In the other place stating the several orders of the Citizens they place their Ministers after their Apothecaries that is the Physician of the Soul after the Drugster of the Body a fit practice for those who if they were to rank Things as well as Persons would place their Religion after their Trade And thus much concerning the first way of Debasing the Ministers and Ministery 2. The second way is by admitting Ignorant Sordid Illiterate persons to this Function This is to give the Royal stamp to a piece of Lead I confess God has no need of any man's Parts or Learning but certainly then he has much less need of his Ignorance and ill Behaviour It is a sad thing when all other Employments shall empty themselves into the Ministery When men shall repair to it not for Preferment but Refuge like Malefactors flying to the Altar only to save their lives or like those of Eli's Race 1 Sam. 2.36 that should come crouching and seek to be put into the Priests Office that they might eat a piece of Bread Heretofore there was required splendour of Parentage to recommend any one to the Priesthood as Iosephus witnesses in a Treatise which he wrote of his own Life where he says To have right to deal in things Sacred was amongst them accounted an argument of a Noble and Illustrious Descent God would not accept the Offals of other Professions Doubtless many rejected Christ upon this thought That he was the Carpenter's Son who would have embraced him had they known him to have been the Son of David The preferring undeserving persons to this great service was eminently Ieroboam's Sin and how Ieroboam's practice and offence has been continued amongst us in another guise is not unknown For has not Learning unqualified men for approbation to the Ministery Have not Parts and Abilities been reputed Enemies to Grace and qualities no ways Ministerial While Friends Faction Well-meaning and little understanding have been Accomplishments beyond Study and the University and to falsifie a story of Conversion beyond pertinent Answers and clear Resolutions to the hardest and most concerning Questions So that matters have been brought to this pass That if a man amongst his Sons had any blind or disfigured he laid him aside for the Ministery and such an one was presently approved as having a mortified Countenance In short it was a fiery Furnace which often approved Dross and rejected Gold But thanks be to God those Spiritual Wickednesses are now discharged from their high places Hence it was that many rushed into the Ministery as being the only Calling that they could profess without serving an Apprenticeship Hence also we had those that could preach Sermons but not Defend them The reason of which is clear because the Works and Writings of Learned men might be borrowed but not the Abilities Had indeed the Old Levitical Hierarchy still continued in which it was part of the Ministerial Office to slay the Sacrifices to cleanse the Vessels to scour the Flesh-forks to sweep the Temple and carry the filth and rubbish to the Brook Kidron no persons living had been fitter for the Ministery and to serve in this nature at the Altar But since it is made a labour of the mind as to inform mens Judgments and move their Affections to resolve difficult places of Scripture to decide and clear off Controversies I cannot see how to be a Butcher Scavinger or any other such Trade does at all qualifie or prepare men for this work But as unfit as they were yet to clear a way for such into the Ministery we have had almost all Sermons full of gibes and scoffs at Humane Learning Away with vain Philosophy with the disputer of this world and the enticing words of man's wisdom and set up the foolishness of Preaching the simplicity of the Gospel Thus Divinity has been brought in upon the ruines of Humanity by forcing the Words of the Scripture from the sence and then haling them to the worst of drudgeries to set a Ius Divinum upon ignorance and imperfection and recommend Natural Weakness for Supernatural Grace Hereupon the Ignorant have took heart to venture upon this great Calling and instead of cutting their way to it according to the usual course through the knowledge of the tongues the Study of Philosophy School-divinity the Fathers and Councils they have taken another and a shorter Cut and having read perhaps a Treatise or two upon the heart the bruised Reed the Crumbs of Comfort Wollebius in English and some other little Authors the usual Furniture of Old Womens Closets they have set forth as accomplished Divines and forthwith they present themselves to the Service and there have not been wanting Ieroboam's as willing to consecrate and receive them as they to offer themselves And this has been one of the most fatal and almost irrecoverable blows that has been given to the Ministery And this may suffice concerning the second way of Embasing God's Ministers namely by entrusting the Ministery with raw unlearned ill-bred Persons so that what Solomon speaks of a Proverb in the mouth of a Fool the same may be said of the Ministery vested in them that it is like a Pearl in a swine's snout I proceed now to the second thing proposed in the Discussion of this Doctrine which is to shew how the Embasing of the Ministers tends to the destruction of Religion This it does two ways 1. Because it brings them under exceeding scorn and contempt and then let none think Religion it self secure For the Vulgar have not such Logical heads as to be able to Abstract such subtil conceptions as to separate the Man from the Minister or to consider the same person under a double capacity and so honour him as a Divine while they despise him as poor But suppose they could yet Actions cannot distinguish as Conceptions do and therefore every Act of Contempt strikes at both and unavoidably wounds the Ministery through the sides of the Minister And we must know that the least degree of Contempt weakens Religion because it is absolutely contrary to the nature of it Religion properly consisting in a reverential esteem of things Sacred Now that which in any measure weakens Religion will at length destroy it For the weakening of a thing is only a partial destruction of it Poverty and meanness of condition expose the Wisest to scorn it being natural for men to place their esteem rather upon things Great than Good and the Poet observes that this Infelix Paupertas has nothing in it more intolerable than this That it renders men Ridiculous And then how easie and natural it is for Contempt to pass from the Person to the Office from him that speaks to the thing that he speaks of Experience proves Counsel being seldom valued so much for the Truth
TWELVE SERMONS Preached upon Several Occasions By ROBERT SOUTH D. D. Six of them never before Printed LONDON Printed by I. H. for Thomas Bennet at the Half Moon in St. Paul's Church-yard 1692. To the Right Honourable EDWARD Earl of CLARENDON Lord High Chancellor of England and Chancellor of the University of Oxon and one of His Majesties most Honourable Privy Council My Lord THough to prefix so great a Name to so mean a Piece seems like enlarging the Entrance of an House that affords no Reception yet since there is nothing can warrant the Publication of it but what can also command it the Work must think of no other Patronage than the same that adorns and protects its Author Some indeed vouch great Names because they think they deserve but I because I need such and had I not more occasion than many others to see and converse with your Lordship's Candor and Proneness to pardon there is none had greater cause to dread your Iudgment and thereby in some part I venture to commend my own For all know who know your Lordship that in a Nobler respect than either that of Government or Patronage you represent and head the best of Universities and have travelled over too many Nations and Authors to encourage any one that understands himself to appear an Author in your Hands who seldom read any Books to inform your self but only to countenance and credit them But my Lord what is here published pretends no Instruction but only Homage while it teaches many of the World it only describes your Lordship who have made the ways of Labour and Vertue of doing and doing Good your Business and your Recreation your Meat and your Drink and I may add also your Sleep My Lord the Subject here treated of is of that Nature that it would seem but a Chimera and a bold Paradox did it not in the very Front carry an Instance to exemplifie it and so by the Dedication convince the World that the Discourse it self was not impracticable For such ever was and is and will be the Temper of the generality of mankind that while I send men for Pleasure to Religion I cannot but expect that they will look upon me as only having a mind to be pleasant with them my self nor are Men to be Worded into new Tempers or Constitutions and he that thinks that any one can persuade but He that made the World will find that he does not well understand it My Lord I have obeyed your Command for such must I account your Desire and thereby Design not so much the Publication of my Sermon as of my Obedience for next to the Supreme Pleasure described in the ensuing Discourse I enjoy none greater than in having any opportunity to declare my self Your Lordship 's very humble Servant and obliged Chaplain ROBERT SOUTH The Contents of the Sermons SERMON I. PRoverbs III. 17 Her ways are ways of Pleasantness Page 1 SERMON II. Gen. I. 27 So God created man in his own Image in the Image of God created he him p. 53 SERMON III. Matth. X. 33 But whosoever shall deny me before men him will I deny before my Father which is in Heaven p. 101 SERMON IV. I Kings XIII 33 34. After this thing Jeroboam returned not from his evil way but made again of the lowest of the people Priests of the High places whosoever would he consecrated him and he became one of the Priests of the High places And this thing became sin unto the house of Jeroboam even to cut it off and to destroy it from off the face of the Earth p. 155 SERMON V. Titus II. ult These things speak and exhort and rebuke with all Authority Let no man despise thee p. 223 SERMON VI. John VII 17 If any man will do his Will he shall know of the Doctrine whether it be of God or whether I speak of my self p. 269 SERMON VII Psalm LXXXVII 2 God hath loved the Gates of Sion more than all the Dwellings of Iacob p. 323 SERMON VIII Prov. XVI 33 The lot is cast into the lap but the whole disposing of it is of the Lord. p. 373 SERMON IX 1 Cor. III. 19 For the Wisdom of this World is Foolishness with God p. 425 SERMON X. 2 Cor. VIII 12 For if there be first a willing Mind it is accepted according to that a Man hath and not according to that he hath not p. 477 SERMON XI Judges VIII 34 35. And the Children of Israel remembred not the Lord their God who had delivered them out of the hands of all their Enemies on every side Neither shewed they kindness to the House of Ierubbaal namely Gideon according to all the goodness which he had shewed unto Israel p. 535 SERMON XII Prov. XII 22 Lying Lips are abomination to the Lord. p. 587 A SERMON Preached at COURT c. PROV 3.17 Her Ways are Ways of Pleasantness THE Text relating to something going before must carry our Eye back to the 13th verse where we shall find that the thing of which these words are affirmed is Wisdome A Name by which the Spirit of God was here pleased to express to us Religion and thereby to tell the world what before it was not aware of and perhaps will not yet believe that those two great things that so engross the desires and designs of both the Nobler and Ignobler sort of mankind are to be found in Religion namely Wisdom and Pleasure and that the former is the direct way to the latter as Religion is to both That Pleasure is Man's chiefest good because indeed it is the perception of Good that is properly pleasure is an assertion most certainly true though under the common acceptance of it not only false but odious for according to this pleasure and sensuality pass for terms equivalent and therefore he that takes it in this sence alters the Subject of the discourse Sensuality is indeed a part or rather one kind of pleasure such an one as it is For Pleasure in general is the consequent apprehension of a sutable Object sutably applied to a rightly disposed faculty and so must be conversant both about the faculties of the Body and of the Soul respectively as being the result of the fruitions belonging to both Now amongst those many Arguments used to press upon men the exercise of Religion I know none that are like to be so succesful as those that answer and remove the prejudices that generally possess and barr up the Hearts of men against it amongst which there is none so prevalent in Truth though so little owned in Pretence as that it is an Enemy to mens pleasures that it bereaves them of all the sweets of Converse dooms them to an absurd and perpetual Melancholy designing to make the world nothing else but a great Monastery With which notion of Religion Nature and Reason seems to have great cause to be dissatisfied For since God never Created any faculty either in Soul or Body
but withal prepared for it a sutable object and that in order to its gratification can we think that Religion was designed only for a Contradiction to Nature and with the greatest and most irrational Tyranny in the World to tantalize and tie men up from enjoyment in the midst of all the opportunities of enjoyment to place men with the furious affections of hunger and thirst in the very bosome of Plenty and then to tell them that the envy of Providence has sealed up every thing that is sutable under the Character of unlawful For certainly first to frame appetites fit to receive pleasure and then to interdict them with a Touch not tast not can be nothing else than only to give them occasion to devour and prey upon themselves and so to keep men under the perpetual Torment of an unsatisfied Desire a thing hugely contrary to the natural felicity of the Creature and consequently to the wisdom and goodness of the great Creator He therefore that would persuade men to Religion both with Art and efficacy must found the persuasion of it upon this that it interferes not with any rational pleasure that it bids no body quit the enjoyment of any one thing that his Reason can prove to him ought to be enjoyed 'T is confessed when through the cross circumstances of a man's temper or condition the Enjoyment of a pleasure would certainly expose him to a greater inconvenience then Religion bids him quit it that is it bids him prefer the endurance of a lesser evil before a greater and Nature it self does no less Religion therefore entrenches upon none of our Priviledges invades none of our Pleasures it may indeed sometimes command us to change but never totally to abjure them But it is easily foreseen that this Discourse will in the very beginning of it be encountred by an Argument from Experience and therefore not more obvious than strong namely that it cannot but be the greatest trouble in the world for a man thus as it were even to shake off himself and to defie his Nature by a perpetual thwarting of his innate Appetites and Desires which yet is absolutely necessary to a severe and impartial prosecution of a course of Piety nay and we have this asserted also by the Verdict of Christ himself who still makes the Disciplines of self-denial and the Cross those terrible blows to Flesh and Blood the indispensable requisits to the Being of his Disciples All which being so would not he that should be so hardy as to attempt to persuade men to Piety from the pleasures of it be liable to that invective taunt from all Mankind that the Israelites gave to Moses Wilt thou put out the Eyes of this People Wilt thou persuade us out of our first Notions Wilt thou demonstrate that there is any delight in a Cross any Comfort in violent abridgements and which is the greatest Paradox of all that the highest Pleasure is to abstain from it For answer to which it must be confest that all Arguments whatsoever against Experience are fallacious and therefore in order to the Clearing of the Assertion lay'd down I shall premise these two Considerations 1. That Pleasure is in the Nature of it a Relative thing and so imports a peculiar Relation and Correspondence to the state and condition of the Person to whom it is a Pleasure For as those who Discourse of Atoms affirm that there are Atoms of all forms some round some triangular some square and the like all which are continually in motion and never settle till they fall into a fit circumscription or place of the same figure So there are the like great diversities of Minds and Objects whence it is that this Object striking upon a mind thus or thus disposed flies off and rebounds without making any impression but the same luckily hapning upon another of a Disposition as it were framed for it is presently catcht at and greedily clasped into the nearest Unions and Embraces 2. The other thing to be considered is this That the Estate of all men by Nature is more or less different from that estate into which the same persons do or may pass by the exercise of that which the Philosophers called Virtue and into which men are much more effectually and sublimely translated by that which we call Grace that is by the supernatural overpowring operation of God's Spirit The difference of which two estates consists in this that in the former the sensitive appetites rule and domineer in the latter the Supream faculty of the Soul called Reason sways the Scepter and acts the whole man above the irregular demands of Appetite and Affection That the distinction between these two is not a meer figment framed only to serve an Hypothesis in Divinity and that there is no man but is really under one before he is under the other I shall prove by shewing a Reason why it is so or rather indeed why it cannot but be so And it is this Because every man in the beginning of his life for several years is capable only of exercising his sensitive faculties and desires the use of Reason not shewing it self till about the Seventh Year of his Age and then at length but as it were dawning in very imperfect Essays and Discoveries Now it being most undeniably evident that every Faculty and Power grows stronger and stronger by exercise is it any wonder at all when a man for the space of his first six years and those the years of ductility and impression has been wholly ruled by the propensions of sense at that age very eager and impetuous that then after all his Reason beginning to exert and put forth it self finds the man prepossess'd and under another power so that it has much adoe by many little steps and gradual conquests to recover its prerogative from the usurpations of appetite and so to subject the whole man to its Dictates the difficulty of which is not conquered by some men all their Days And this is one true ground of the Difference between a state of Nature and a state of Grace which some are pleased to scoff at in Divinity who think that they confute all that they laugh at not knowing that it may be solidly evinced by meer Reason and Philosophy These two considerations being premised namely That Pleasure implies a proportion and agreement to the respective States and Conditions of men and that the state of men by Nature is vastly different from the estate into which Grace or Vertue transplants them all that Objection levelled against the foregoing Assertion is very easily resolvable For there is no doubt but a man while he resigns himself up to the Brutish guidance of sense and appetite has no relish at all for the Spiritual refined delights of a Soul clarified by Grace and Vertue The pleasures of an Angel can never be the pleasures of a Hog But this is the thing that we contend for that a man having once advanced
of Truth put off with Similitudes Let him that says it is a trouble to refrain from a Debauch convince us that it is not a greater to undergoe one and that the Confessor did not impose a shrewd Penance upon the Drunken man by bidding him go and be drunk again and that lisping raging redness of Eyes and what is not fit to be named in such an Audience is not more toilsome than to be clean and quiet and discreet and respected for being so All the trouble that is in it is the trouble of being sound being cured and being recovered But if there be great arguments for Health then certainly there are the same for the obtaining of it and so keeping a due proportion between Spirituals and Temporals we neither have nor pretend to greater Arguments for Repentance Having thus now cleared off all that by way of Objection can lie against the Truth asserted by showing the proper Qualification of the Subject to whom only the ways of Wisdom can be ways of Pleasantness for the further prosecution of the matter in hand I shall show what are those properties that so peculiarly set off and enhance the Excellency of this Pleasure 1. The first is That it is the proper pleasure of that part of man which is the largest and most comprehensive of Pleasure and that is his mind a substance of a boundless comprehension The mind of man is an Image not only of God's Spirituality but of his Infinity It is not like any of the Sences limited to this or that kind of object as the sight intermedles not with that which affects the smell but with an universal superintendence it arbitrates upon and takes them in all It is as I may so say an Ocean into which all the little Rivulets of Sensation both External and Internal discharge themselves It is framed by God to receive all and more than Nature can afford it and so to be its own motive to seek for something above Nature Now this is that part of man to which the Pleasures of Religion properly belong and that in a double respect 1. In reference to Speculation as it sustains the name of Understanding 2. In reference to Practice as it sustains the name of Conscience 1. And first for Speculation the pleasures of which have been sometimes so great so intense so ingrossing of all the Powers of the Soul that there has been no room left for any other Pleasure It has so called together all the Spirits to that one Work that there has been no supply to carry on the Inferior operations of Nature Contemplation feels no Hunger nor is sensible of any Thirst but of that after knowledge How frequent and exalted a Pleasure did David find from his Meditation in the Divine Law all the day long it was the Theam of his Thoughts The affairs of State the government of his Kingdom might indeed employ but it was this only that refresh'd his mind How short of this are the delights of the Epicure how vastly disproportionate are the Pleasures of the Eating and of the Thinking man indeed as different as the silence of an Archimedes in the study of a Problem and the stilness of a Sow at her wash Nothing is comparable to the pleasure of an Active and a prevailing thought a thought prevailing over the difficulty and obscurity of the Object and refreshing the Soul with new discoveries and images of things and thereby extending the Bounds of Apprehension and as it were enlarging the Territories of Reason Now this pleasure of the Speculation of Divine things is advanced upon a double Account 1. The Greatness 2. The newness of the Object 1. And first for the greatnss of it It is no less than the great God himself and that both in his Nature and his Works For the Eye of Reason like that of the Eagle directs it self chiefly to the Sun to a glory that neither admits of a Superior nor an Equal Religion carries the Soul to the study of every Divine Attribute It poses it with the amazing thoughts of Omnipotence of a Power able to fetch up such a Glorious Fabrick as this of the world out of the Abyss of Vanity and Nothing and able to throw it back into the same Original Nothing again It drowns us in the speculation of the Divine Omniscience that can maintain a steady infallible comprehension of all Events in themselves Contingent and Accidental and certainly know that which does not certainly exist It confounds the greatest subtilties of Speculation with the Riddles of God's Omnipresence that can spread a single Individual substance through all spaces and yet without any commensuration of parts to any or circumscription within any though totally in every one And then for his Eternity which non-plusses the Strongest and Clearest Conception to comprehend how one single Act of Duration should measure all Periods and Portions of time without any of the distinguishing parts of Succession Likewise for his Justice which shall prey upon the sinner for ever satisfying it self by a perpetual Miracle rendring the Creature immortal in the midst of the flames always consuming but never consumed With the like wonders we may entertain our Speculations from his Mercy his Beloved his Triumphant Attribute an Atribute if it were possible something more than Infinite for even his Justice is so and his Mercy transcends that Lastly we may contemplate upon his supernatural astonishing works particularly in the Resurrection and reparation of the same numerical Body by a reunion of all the scattered Parts to be at length disposed of into an estate of Eternal Woe or Bliss as also the greatness and strangeness of the Beatifick Vision how a created Eye should be so fortified as to bear all those Glories that stream from the fountain of uncreated Light the meanest expression of which Light is that it is unexpressible Now what great and high Objects are these for a Rational Contemplation to busy it self upon Heights that scorn the reach of our Prospect and Depths in which the tallest Reason will never touch the Bottom yet surely the pleasure arising from thence is Great and Noble for as much as they afford perpetual matter and imployment to the inquisitiveness of Humane Reason and so are large enough for it to take its full scope and range in Which when it has suck'd and dreined the utmost of an Object naturally lays it aside and neglects it as a dry and an Empty thing 2. As the things belonging to Religion entertain our Speculation with great Objects so they entertain it also with new And novelty we know is the great parent of pleasure upon which account it is that men are so much pleased with Variety and Variety is nothing else but a continued Novelty The Athenians who were the profess'd and most diligent Improvers of their Reason made it their whole business to hear or to tell some new thing for the truth is Newness especially in great matters was a
worthy entertainment for a searching mind it was as I may so say an High Tast fit for the relish of an Athenian Reason And thereupon the meer unheard of strangeness of Iesus and the Resurrection made them desirous to hear it discoursed of to them again Acts 17.23 But how would it have imployed their searching Faculties had the Mystery of the Trinity and the Incarnation of the Son of God and the whole Oeconomy of man's Redemption been explained to them For how could it ever enter into the thoughts of Reason that a satisfaction could be paid to an Infinite Justice Or that two Natures so unconceivably different as the Humane and Divine could unite into one Person The knowledge of these things could derive from nothing else but pure Revelation and consequently must be purely New to the highest discourses of meer Nature Now that the Newness of an Object so exceedingly pleases and strikes the mind appears from this one consideration that every thing pleases more in expectation than fruition and expectation supposes a thing as yet new the hoped for discovery of which is the Pleasure that entertains the expecting and enquiring mind Whereas Actual discovery as it were rifles and deflowers the Newness and Freshness of the Object and so for the most part makes it Cheap Familiar and Contemptible It is clear therefore that if there be any pleasure to the mind from speculation and if this pleasure of speculation be advanced by the greatness and newness of the things contemplated upon all this is to be found in the ways of Religion 2. In the next place Religion is a pleasure to the mind as it respects Practice and so sustains the Name of Conscience And Conscience undoubtedly is the great Repository and Magazine of all those pleasures that can afford any solid refreshment to the Soul For when this is calm and serene and absolving then properly a man enjoys all things and what is more Himself for that he must do before he can enjoy any thing else But it is only a Pious life lead exactly by the rules of a severe Religion that can authorize a man's Conscience to speak comfortably to him It is this that must word the sentence before the Conscience can pronounce it and then it will do it with Majesty and Authority it will not whisper but proclaim a Jubilee to the mind It will not drop but pour in Oil upon the wounded Heart And is there any pleasure comparable to that which springs from hence The Pleasure of Conscience is not only greater than all other Pleasures but may also serve instead of them for they only please and affect the mind in Transitu in the pitiful narrow compass of actual fruition whereas that of Conscience entertains and feeds it a long time after with durable lasting reflections And thus much for the first ennobling property of the Pleasure belonging to Religion namely That it is the pleasure of the mind and that both as it relates to Speculation and is call'd the Understanding and as it relates to Practice and is called the Conscience 2. The second ennobling property of it is That it is such a pleasure as never satiates or wearies for it properly affects the Spirit and a Spirit feels no weariness as being priviledged from the causes of it But can the Epicure say so of any of the pleasures that he so much dotes upon Do they not expire while they satisfie and after a few minutes refreshment determine in loathing and unquietness How short is the Interval between a pleasure and a Burden How undiscernable the Transition from one to the other Pleasure dwells no longer upon the Appetite then the necessities of Nature which are quickly and easily provided for and then all that follows is a load and an oppression Every morsel to a satisfied Hunger is only a new Labour to a tired Digestion Every draught to him that has quencht his Thirst is but a further quenching of Nature a provision for Rheum and Diseases a drowning of the quickness and activity of the Spirits He that prolongs his meals and sacrifices his Time as well as his other Conveniences to his Luxury how quickly does he out-sit his pleasure and then how is all the following time bestowed upon Ceremony and Surfeit till at length after a long fatigue of Eating and Drinking and Babling he concludes the great work of Dining Gentilely and so makes a shift to rise from Table that he may lie down upon his Bed Where after he has slept himself into some use of Himself by much adoe he staggers to his Table again and there acts over the same Brutish Scene so that he passes his whole life in a dozed Condition between sleeping and waking with a kind of drowsiness and confusion upon his Senses which what pleasure it can be is hard to conceive all that is of it dwells upon the tipp of his Tongue and within the compass of his Palace a worthy prize for a man to purchase with the loss of his Time his Reason and Himself Nor is that man less deceived that thinks to maintain a constant tenure of Pleasure by a continual pursuit of Sports and Recreations For it is most certainly True of all these things that as they refresh a man when he is weary so they weary him when he is refresh'd Which is an evident Demonstration that God never designed the use of them to be continual by putting such an emptiness in them as should so quickly fail and lurch the expectation The most Voluptuous and loose Person breathing were he but tyed to follow his Hawks and his Hounds his Dice and his Courtships every day would find it the greatest Torment and Calamity that could befall him he would flie to the Mines and the Galleys for his Recreation and to the Spade and the Mattock for a Diversion from the misery of a Continual un-intermitted Pleasure But on the contrary the Providence of God has so ordered the Course of things that there is no Action the usefulness of which has made it the matter of Duty and of a Profession but a man may bear the continual pursuit of it without loathing or Satiety The same Shop and Trade that employs a man in his Youth employs him also in his Age. Every morning he rises fresh to his Hammer and his Anvil he passes the day singing Custom has naturalized his Labour to him His Shop is his Element and he cannot with any enjoyment of himself live out of it Whereas no Custom can make the painfulness of a Debauch easie or pleasing to a man since nothing can be pleasant that is Unnatural But now if God has interwoven such a pleasure with the works of our ordinary Calling how much superior and more refined must that be that arises from the survey of a Pious and well-governed Life Surely as much as Christianity is nobler than a Trade And then for the Constant freshness of it it is such a pleasure as
unlimited range of my Thoughs and my Desires Nor is this kind of Pleasure only out of the reach of any outward Violence but even those things also that make a much closer impression upon us which are the irresistible Decays of Nature have yet no influence at all upon this For when Age it self which of all things in the world will not be baffled or defyed shall begin to arrest seize and remind us of our Mortality by Pains Aches Deadness of Limbs and Dulness of Senses yet then the pleasure of the mind shall be in its full Youth Vigour and Freshness A Palsie may as well shake an Oak or a Fever dry up a Fountain as either of them shake dry up or impair the delight of Conscience For it lies within it centers in the heart it grows into the very substance of the Soul so that it accompanies a man to his Grave he never out-lives it and that for this cause only because he cannot out-live himself And thus I have endeavour'd to describe the Excellency of that Pleasure that is to be found in the ways of a Religious Wisdom by those excellent properties that do attend it which whether they reach the Description that has been given them or no every man may convince himself by the best of Demonstrations which is his own tryal Now from all this Discourse this I am sure is a most natural and direct consequence That if the ways of Religion are ways of Pleasantness then such as are not ways of Pleasantness are not truly and properly ways of Religion Upon which ground it is easie to see what judgment is to be passed upon all those affected uncommanded absurd Austerities so much prized and exercised by some of the Romish Profession Pilgrimages going barefoot Hair-Shirts and Whips with other such Gospel-Artillery are their only helps to Devotion Things never enjoyned either by the Prophets under the Jewish or by the Apostles under the Christian Oeconomy who yet surely understood the proper and the most efficacious Instruments of Piety as well as any Confessor or Friar of all the Order of St. Francis or any Casuist whatsoever It seems that with them a man sometimes cannot be a Penitent unless he also turns Vagabond and foots it to Ierusalem or wanders over this or that part of the world to visit the Shrine of such or such a pretended Saint though perhaps in his Life ten times more ridiculous than themselves Thus that which was Cain's Curse is become their Religion He that thinks to expiate a Sin by going barefoot does the Penance of a Goose and only makes one Folly the Atonement of another Paul indeed was Scourged and Beaten by the Jews but we never read that he Beat or Scourged himself and if they think that his keeping under of his Body imports so much they must first prove that the Body cannot be kept under by a Vertuous mind and that the mind cannot be made Vertuous but by a Scourge and consequently that Thongs and Whipcord are means of Grace and things necessary to Salvation The Truth is if mens Religion lies no deeper than their Skin it is possible that they may Scourge themselves into very great Improvements But they will find that Bodily exercise touches not the Soul and that neither Pride nor Lust nor Covetousness nor any other Vice was ever Mortified by Corporal Disciplines 't is not the Back but the Heart that must Bleed for Sin and consequently that in this whole course they are like men out of their way let them Lash on never so fast they are not at all the nearer to their Journeys end and howsoever they deceive themselves and others they may as well expect to bring a Cart as a Soul to Heaven by such means What arguments they have to beguile poor Simple unstable Souls with I know not but surely the Practical Casuistical that is the Principal Vital part of their Religion savours very little of Spirituality And now upon the result of all I suppose that to exhort men to be Religious is only in other words to exhort them to take their Pleasure A pleasure High Rational and Angelical a pleasure embased with no appendant sting no consequent Loathing no Remorses or bitter farewells But such an one as being Honey in the Mouth never turns to Gall or Gravel in the Belly A pleasure made for the Soul and the Soul for that suitable to its Spirituality and equal to all its Capacities Such an one as grows fresher upon Enjoyment and though continually Fed upon yet is never Devoured A pleasure that a Man may call as properly his own as his Soul and his Conscience neither lyable to Accident nor exposed to Injury It is the fore-taste of Heaven and the Earnest of Eternity In a word it is such an one as being begun in Grace passes into Glory Blessedness and Immortality and those pleasures that neither Eye has seen nor Ear heard nor has it entred into the Heart of Man to Conceive To which God of his Mercy vouchsafe to bring us all to whom be rendred and ascribed as is most due all Praise Might Majesty and Dominion both now and for evermore Amen A SERMON Preached at the Cathedral Church of S. PAUL Novemb. 9 th 1662. To the Right Honourable The Lord Mayor and Aldermen Of the City of LONDON Right Honourable WHen I consider how impossible it is for a person of my condition to produce and consequently how imprudent to attempt any thing in proportion either to the Ampleness of the Body you represent or of the Places you bear I should be kept from venturing so poor a piece designed to live but an hour in so lasting a Publication did not what your Civility calls a Request your Greatness render a Command The truth is in things not unlawful great Persons cannot be properly said to request because all things considered they must not be denyed To me it was Honour enough to have your Audience enjoyment enough to behold your happy Change and to see the same City the Metropolis of Loyalty and of the Kingdom to behold the Glory of English Churches reformed that is delivered from the Reformers and to find at least the service of the Church repaired though not the buildings to see St. Paul's delivered from Beasts here as well as St. Paul at Ephesus and to view the Church thronged onely with Troops of Auditors not of Horse This I could fully have acquiesced in and received a large personal reward in my Particular share of the publick Ioy but since you are further pleased I will not say by your Iudgment to approve but by your Acceptance to encourage the raw Endeavours of a young Divine I shall take it for an Opportunity not as others in their sage Prudence use to do to quote three or four Texts of Scripture and to tell you how you are to Rule the City out of a Concordance no I bring not Instructions but what much better befits both
exercise and exert themselves in A fit Tabernacle for an immortal Soul not only to dwell in but to contemplate upon where it might see the World without travel it being a lesser Scheme of the Creation nature contracted a little Cosmography or Map of the Universe Neither was the Body then subject to distempers to die by piece-meal and languish under Coughs Catarrhs or Consumptions Adam knew no disease so long as temperance from the forbidden fruit secured him Nature was his Physician and Innocence and Abstinence would have kept him healthfull to immortality Now the Use of this point might be various but at present it shall be only this To remind us of the irreparable loss that we sustained in our first Parents to shew us of how fair a portion Adam disinherited his whole posterity by one single prevarication Take the picture of a man in the greenness and vivacity of his youth and in the latter date and declensions of his drooping years and you will scarce know it to belong to the same person there would be more art to discern than at first to draw it The same and greater is the difference between Man innocent and faln He is as it were a new kind or species the plague of sin has even altered his nature and eaten into his very essentials The Image of God is wiped out the creatures have shook off his yoke renounced his Soverignty and revolted from his dominion Distempers and Diseases have shattered the excellent frame of his body and by a new dispensation Immortality is swallowed up of Mortality The same disaster and decay also has invaded his spirituals the passions rebel every faculty would usurp and rule and there are so many governours that there can be no government The light within us is become darkness and the Understanding that should be eyes to the blind faculty of the Will is blind it self and so brings all the inconveniences that attend a blind follower under the conduct of a blind guide He that would have a clear ocular demonstration of this let him reflect upon that numerous litter of strange sensless absurd Opinions that crawl about the world to the disgrace of Reason and the unanswerable reproach of a broken Intellect The two great perfections that both adorn and exercise man's understanding are Philosophy and Religion For the first of these take it even amongst the Professors of it where it most flourished and we shall find the very first notions of common sense debauched by them For there have been such as have asserted That there is no such thing in the world as Motion That Contradictions may be true There has not been wanting one that has denied Snow to be white Such a stupidity or wantonness had seized upon the most raised wits that it might be doubted whether the Philosophers or the Owls of Athens were the quicker sighted But then for Religion What prodigious monstrous mishapen births has the Reason of faln man produced It is now almost six thousand years that far the greatest part of the World has had no other Religion but Idolatry And Idolatry certainly is the first-born of Folly the great and leading paradox nay the very abridgment and sum total of all absurdities For is it not strange that a rational man should worship an Oxe nay the Image of an Oxe that he should fawn upon his Dog bow himself before a Cat adore Leeks and Garlick and shed penitential tears at the smell of a deified Onion Yet so did the AEgyptians once the famed masters of all arts and learning And to go a little further we have yet a stranger instance in Isa. 44.14 A man hews him down a tree in the wood and part of it he burns in the 16. ver and in the 17. ver with the residue thereof he maketh a God With one part he furnishes his Chimney with the other his Chappel A strange thing that the fire must first consume this part and then burn Incense to that As if there was more Divinity in one end of the stick than in the other or as if it could be graved and painted omnipotent or the nails and the hammer could give it an Apotheosis Briefly so great is the Change so deplorable the degradation of our nature that whereas before we bore the Image of God we now retain onely the Image of Men. In the last place we learn from hence the excellency of Christian Religion in that it is the great and onely means that God has sanctified and designed to repair the breaches of Humanity to set faln man upon his legs again to clarifie his Reason to rectifie his Will and to compose and regulate his affections The whole business of our Redemption is in short only to rub over the defaced copy of the Creation to re-print God's Image upon the Soul and as it were to set forth Nature in a second and a fairer edition The recovery of which lost Image as it is God's pleasure to command and our duty to endeavour so it is in his power only to effect To whom be rendred and ascribed as is most due all praise might majesty and dominion both now and for evermore Amen INTEREST DEPOSED AND TRUTH RESTORED OR A Word in Season delivered in Two SERMONS The first at St. MARY'S in OXFORD on the 24 th of Iuly 1659. being the time of the Assizes as also of the Fears and Groans of the Nation in the threatned and expected Ruine of the Laws Ministery and Vniversities The other Preached before the Honourable Society of LINCOLN'S-INN TO THE RIGHT WORSHIPFULL EDWARD ATKINS Serjeant at Law and formerly one of the Justices of the COMMON-PLEAS Honoured Sir THough at first it was free and in my choice whether or no I should publish these Discourses yet the Publication being once Resolved the Dedication was not so indifferent the Nature of the Subject no less than the Obligations of the Author styling them in a peculiar manner Yours For since their drift is to carry the most Endangered and Endangering Truth above the Safest when sinfull Interest as a Practice upon grounds of Reason the most Generous and of Christianity the most Religious to whom rather should this Assertion repair as to a Patron than to Him whom it has for an instance Who in a case of eminent competition chose Duty before Interest and when the Iudge grew inconsistent with the Iustice preferred rather to be Constant to sure Principles than to an Un-constant Government And to retreat to an Innocent and Honorable privacy than to sit and Act iniquity by a Law and make your Age and Conscience the one Venerable the other Sacred Drudges to the tyranny of Fanatick Perjured Usurpers The next attempt of this Discourse is a Defence of the Ministery and that at such a time when none owned them upon the Bench for then you had quitted it but when on the contrary we lived to hear one in the very face of the University as it
it so 2. The reason of the assertion why and whence it is so 1. For the truth of it It is abundantly evinced from all Records both of Divine and Prophane History in which he that runs may read the ruine of the State in the destruction of the Church and that not only portended by it as its Sign but also inferred from it as its Cause 2. For the Reason of the point it may be drawn 1. From the Judicial proceeding of God the great King of Kings and supreme Ruler of the Universe who for his commands is indeed carefull but for his Worship Jealous And therefore in States notoriously irreligious by a secret and irresistible power countermands their deepest projects splits their Counsels and smites their most refined Policies with frustration and a curse being resolved that the Kingdoms of the world shall fall down before him either in his Adoration or their own confusion 2. The reason of the doctrine may be drawn from the necessary dependence of the very Principles of government upon Religion And this I shall pursue more fully The great business of government is to procure obedience and keep off disobedience the great springs upon which those two move are Rewards and Punishments answering the two ruling affections of man's mind Hope and Fear For since there is a natural opposition between the Judgment and the Appetite the former respecting what is honest the latter what is pleasing which two qualifications seldom concurr in the same thing and withall man's design in every Action is delight therefore to render things honest also practicable they must be first represented desirable which cannot be but by Proposing honesty cloathed with pleasure and since it presents no pleasure to the sense it must be fetcht from the apprehension of a future Reward For questionless duty moves not so much upon command as promise Now therefore that which proposes the greatest and most sutable rewards to obedience and the greatest terrors and punishments to disobedience doubtless is the most likely to enforce one and prevent the other But it is Religion that does this which to happiness and misery joyns Eternity And these supposing the Immortality of the soul which Philosophy indeed conjectures but only Religion proves or which is as good perswades I say these two things eternal happiness and eternal misery meeting with a perswasion that the Soul is immortal are without controversie of all others the first the most desirable and the latter the most horrible to humane apprehension Were it not for these Civil government were not able to stand before the prevailing swing of corrupt nature which would know no Honesty but Advantage no duty but in Pleasure nor any Law but its own Will Were not these frequently thundred into the understandings of men the Magistrate might enact order and proclaim Proclamations might be hung upon Walls and Posts and there they might hang seen and despised more like Malefactors than Laws But when Religion binds them upon the Conscience Conscience will either perswade or terrifie men into their practice For put the case a man knew and that upon sure grounds that he might do an advantageous murder or Robbery and not be discovered what humane laws could hinder him which he knows cannot inflict any penalty where they can make no discovery But Religion assures him that no sin though concealed from humane eyes can either escape God's sight in this world or his vengeance in the other Put the case also that men looked upon Death without fear in which sence it is nothing or at most very little ceasing while it is endured and pobably without Pain for it seizes upon the Vitals and benumbs the senses and where there is no sense there can be no pain I say if while a man is acting his will towards sin he should also thus act his reason to despise death where would be the terror of the magistrate who can neither threaten or inflict any more Hence an old Malefactor in his Execution at the Gallows made no other confession but this That he had very jocundly passed over his life in such courses and he that would not for fifty years pleasure endure half an hours pain deserved to die a worse death than himself questionless this man was not ignorant before that there were such things as Laws Assizes and Gallows but had he considered and believed the Terrors of another world he might probably have found a fairer passage out of this If there was not a Minister in every Parish you would quickly find cause to encrease the number of Constables And if the Churches were not imployed to be places to hear God's law there would be need of them to be prisons for the breakers of the laws of men Hence 't is observable that the Tribe of Levi had not one place or portion together like the rest of the Tribes but because it was their office to dispence Religion they were diffused over all the Tribes that they might be continually preaching to the rest their duty to God which is the most effectual way to dispose them to Obedience to man for he that truly fears God cannot despise the Magistrate Yea so near is the connexion between the Civil state and Religious that heretofore if you look upon well regulated civilized heathen Nations you will find the Government and the Priesthood united in the same person Anius Rex idem hominum Phaebique Sacerdos Virg. 3. AEn If under the true worship of God Melchisedech king of Salem and Priest of the most high God Heb. 7.1 And afterwards Moses whom as we acknowledge a pious so Atheists themselves will confess to have been a Wise Prince he when he took the Kingly government upon himself by his own choice seconded by Divine institution vested the Priesthood in his brother Aaron both whose concernments were so coupled that if Nature had not yet their Religious nay their civil Interests would have made them brothers And it was once the design of the Emperour of Germany Maximilian the first to have joyned the Popedom and the Empire together and to have got himself chosen Pope and by that means derived the Papacy to his succeeding Emperors Had he effected it doubtless there would not have been such scuffles between them and the Bishop of Rome the civil interest of the State would not have been undermined by an Adverse Interest mannaged by the specious and potent pretences of Religion And to see even amongst us how these two are united how the former is upheld by the latter The Magistrate sometimes cannot do his own office dexterously but by acting the Minister hence it is that Judges of Assizes find it necessary in their Charges to use pathetical discourses of Conscience and if it were not for the sway of this they would often lose the best Evidence in the world against Malefactors which is Confession for no man would confess and be Hanged here but to avoid being Damned hereafter Thus
I have in general shewn the utter inability of the Magistrate to attain the Ends of Government without the Aid of Religion But it may be here replied that many are not at all moved with arguments drawn from hence or with the happy or miserable state of the Soul after death and therefore this avails little to procure obedience and consequently to advance Government I answer by confession that this is true of Epicures Atheists and some pretended Philosophers who have stifled the Notions of a Deity and the Souls immortality but the Unprepossessed on the one hand and the well-disposed on the other who both together make much the major part of the world are very apt to be affected with a due fear of these things And Religion accommodating it self to the Generality though not to every particular temper sufficiently secures Government in as much as that stands or falls according to the Behaviour of the multitude And whatsoever Conscience makes the Generality obey to that Prudence will make the rest conform Wherefore having proved the dependence of Government upon Religion I shall now demonstrate That the safety of Government depends upon the Truth of Religion False Religion is in its nature the greatest bane and destruction to Government in the World The reason is because whatsoever is False is also Weak Ens and Verum in Philosophy are the same and so much as any Religion has of Falsity it loses of Strength and Existence Falsity gains Authority only from Ignorance and therefore is in danger to be known for from Being false the next immediate step is to be Known to be such And what prejudice this would be to the Civil Government is apparent if men should be awed into Obedience and affrighted from sin by Rewards and Punishments proposed to them in such a Religion which afterwards should be detected and found a mere falsitie and cheat for if one part be but found to be false it will make the whole suspicious And men will then not only cast off Obedience to the Civil Magistrate but they will do it with disdain and rage that they have been deceived so long and brought to do that out of Conscience which was imposed upon them out of design For though men are often willingly deceived yet still it must be under an Opinion of being instructed though they love the Deception yet they morrally hate it under that appearance Therefore it is no ways safe for a Magistrate who is to build his Dominion upon the Fears of men to build those fears upon a false Religion 'T is not to be doubted but the absurdity of Ieroboam's Calves made many Israelites turn subjects to Rehoboam's Government that they might be Proselytes to his Religion Herein the Weakness of the Turkish Religion appears That it urges Obedience upon the promise of such absurd Rewards as that after death they should have Palaces Gardens Beautifull Women with all the Luxury that could be as if those things that were the occasions and incentives of sin in this world could be the rewards of Holiness in the other Besides many other inventions false and absurd that are like so many chinks and holes to discover the rottenness of the whole Fabrick when God shall be pleased to give light to discover and open their reasons to discern them But you will say What Government more sure and absolute than the Turkish and yet what Religion more false Therefore certainly Government may stand sure and strong be the Religion professed never so absurd I answer that it may do so indeed by accident through the strange peculiar temper and gross ignorance of a people as we see it happens in the Turks the best part of whose Policy supposing the absurdity of their Religion is this That they prohibit Schools of Learning for this hinders Knowledge and Disputes which such a Religion would not bear But suppose we that the Learning of these Western Nations were as great there as here and the Alcoran as common to them as the Bible to us that they might have free recourse to search and examine the flaws and follies of it and withall that they were of as inquisitive a temper as we And who knows but as there are vicissitudes in the Government so there may happen the same also in the temper of a Nation If this should come to pass where would be their Religion And then let every one judge whether the Arcana imperii and Religionis would not fall together They have begun to totter already for Mahomet having promised to come and visit his Followers and translate them to Paradise after a thousand years this being expired many of the Persians began to doubt and smell the cheat till the Mufti or Chief Priest told them that it was a mistake in the figure and assured them that upon more diligent survey of the Records he found it Two thousand instead of One. When this is expired perhaps they will not be able to renew the Fallacy I say therefore that though this Government continues firm in the exercise of a false Religion yet this is by accident through the present genius of the people which may change but this does not prove but that the Nature of such a Religion of which we only now speak tends to subvert and betray the Civil Power Hence Machiavel himself in his Animadversions upon Livy makes it appear That the Weakness of Italy which was once so strong was caused by the corrupt practices of the Papacy in depraving and misusieng Religion to that purpose which he though himself a Papist says could not have hapned had the Christian Religion been kept in its first and native simplicity Thus much may suffice for the clearing of the first Proposition The Inferences from hence are two 1. If Government depends upon Religion then this shews the pestilential design of those that attempt to disjoyn the Civil and Ecclesiastical Interests setting the latter wholly out of the Tuition of the former But 't is clear that the Fanaticks know no other step to the Magistracy but through the ruine of the Ministery There is a great Analogy between the body Natural and Politick in which the Ecclesiastical or Spiritual part justly supplies the part of the soul and the violent separation of this from the other does as certainly inferr death and dissolution as the disjunction of the body and the soul in the Natural for when this once departs it leaves the body of the Common-wealth as carcase noysom and exposed to be devoured by Birds of prey The Ministery will be one day found according to Christ's word the salt of the earth the onely thing that keeps Societies of men from stench and corruption These two Interests are of that nature that 't is to be feared they cannot be divided but they will also prove opposite and not resting in a bare diversity quickly rise into a Contrariety These two are to the State what the Elements of Fire and Water to
the Body which united compose separated destroy it I am not of the papists Opinion who would make the Spiritual above the Civil State in power as well as dignity but rather subject it to the Civil yet thus much I dare affirm That the Civil which is superiour is upheld and kept in being by the Ecclesiastical and Inferiour as it is in a Building where the upper part is supported by the lower the Church resembling the foundation which indeed is the lowest part but the most considerable The Magistracy cannot so much protect the Ministery but the Ministers may doe more in serving the Magistrate A tast of which truth you may take from the Holy Warr to which how fast and eagerly did men go when the Priest perswaded them that whosoever dyed in that Expedition was a Martyr Those that will not be convinced what a help this is to the Magistracy would find how considerable it is if they should chance to clash this would certainly eat out the other For the Magistrate cannot urge obedience upon such potent grounds as the Minister if so disposed can urge disobedience As for instance if my Governor should command me to do a thing or I must die or forfeit my Estate and the Minister steps in and tells me that I offend God and ruin my soul if I obey that command it 's easie to see a greater force in this persuasion from the advantage of its ground And if Divines once begin to curse Meros we shall see that Levi can use the Sword as well as Simeon and although Ministers do not handle yet they can employ it This shews the imprudence as well as the danger of the Civil Magistrate's exasperating those that can fire mens consciences against him and arm his Enemies with Religion For I have read heretofore of some that having conceived an irreconcilable hatred of the Civil Magistrate prevailed with men so far that they went to resist him even out of conscience and a full persuasion and dread upon their spirits that not to do it were to desert God and consequently to incurr damnation Now when mens rage is both heightned and sanctified by Conscience the War will be fierce for what is done out of Conscience is done with the utmost Activity And then Campanella's Speech to the King of Spain will be found true Religio semper vicit praesertim Armata Which sentence deserves seriously to be considered by all Governours and timely to be understood lest it comes to be felt 2. If the safety of Government is founded upon the truth of Religion then this shews the danger of any thing that may make even the true Religion suspected to be false To be false and to be thought false is all one in respect of men who act not according to Truth but Apprehension As on the contrary a false Religion while apprehended true has the force and efficacy of truth Now there is nothing more apt to induce men to a suspicion of any Religion than frequent innovation and change For since the object of Religion God the subject of it the soul of man and the business of it Truth is always one and the same Variety and Novelty is a just presumption of Falsity It argues sickness and distemper in the mind as well as in the body when a man is continually turning and tossing from one side to the other The wise Romans ever dreaded the least Innovation in Religion Hence we find the advice of Mecoenas to Augustus Caesar in Dion Cassius in the 52 Book where he counsels him to detest and persecute all Innovators of Divine Worship not only as contemners of the Gods but as the most pernicious disturbers of the State For when men venture to make changes in things sacred it argues great boldness with God and this naturally imports little belief of him which if the people once perceive they will take their Creed also not from the Magistrates Laws but his example Hence in England where Religion has been still Purifying and hereupon almost always in the Fire and the Furnace Atheists and Irreligious persons have took no small advantage from our changes For in King Edward the sixth's time the Divine Worship was twice altered in two new Liturgies In the first of Queen Mary the Protestant Religion was persecuted with Fire and Faggot by Law and publick counsell of the same persons who had so lately established it Upon the coming in of Queen Elizabeth Religion was changed again and within a few daies the publick Council of the Nation made it death for a Priest to convert any man to that Religion which before with so much eagerness of Zeal had been restored So that it is observed by an Author that in the space of twelve years there were four changes about Religion made in England and that by the publick Council and Authority of the Realm which were more than were made by any Christian state throughout the world so soon one after another in the space of fifteen hundred years before Hence it is that the Enemies of God take occasion to blaspheme and call our Religion Statism and now adding to the former those many changes that have hapned since I am afraid we shall not so easily claw off that name Nor though we may satisfie our own consciences in what we profess be able to repell and clear off the objections of the rational world about us which not being interested in our changes as we are will not judge of them as we judge but debate them by impartial Reason by the Nature of the thing the general Practice of the Church against which New Lights suddain Impulses of the Spirit Extraordinary Calls will be but weak arguments to prove any thing but the madness of those that use them and that the Church must needs wither being blasted with such Inspirations We see therefore how fatal and ridiculous Innovations in the Church are And indeed when changes are so frequent it is not properly Religion but Fashion This I think we may build upon as a sure ground That where there is continual Change there is great shew of Uncertainty and Uncertainty in Religion is a shrewd motive if not to deny yet to doubt of its Truth Thus much for the first Doctrine I proceed now to the second viz. That the next and most effectual way to destroy Religion is to Embase the Teachers and Dispensers of it in the handling of this I shall shew 1. How the Dispensers of Religion the Ministers of the word are embased or rendred vile 2. How the Embasing or Vilifying them is a means to destroy Religion 1. For the first of these the Ministers and Dispensers of the Word are rendred base or vile two ways 1. By divesting them of all Temporal Privileges and Advantages as inconsistent with their Calling It is strange since the Priests Office heretofore was always Splendid and almost Regal that it is now looked upon as a piece of Religion to make it
of the thing as the Credit of him that gives it Observe an excellent passage to this purpose in Eccl. 9.14 15. We have an account of a little City with few men in it besieged by a great and potent King and in the 15. v. we read that there was found in it a poor Wise man and he by his wisdom delivered the City A worthy service indeed and certainly we may expect that some honourable Recompence should follow it a Deliverer of his Country and that in such distress could not but be advanced but we find a contrary event in the next words of the same verse Yet none remembred that same poor man why what should be the reason Was he not a man of parts and Wisdom and is not Wisdom honourable Yes but he was poor But was he not also successfull as well as wise true but still he was poor And once grant this and you cannot keep off that unavoidable sequel in the next verse The poor man's wisdom is despised and his words are not heard We may believe it upon Solomon's word who was Rich as well as Wise and therefore knew the force of both and probably had it not been for his Riches the Queen of Sheba would never have come so far only to have heard his Wisdom Observe her behaviour when she came Though upon the hearing of Solomon's Wisdom and the resolution of her hard Questions she expressed a just admiration yet when Solomon afterward shew'd her his Palace his Treasures and the Temple which he had built 1 Kings 10.5 it is said there was no more spirit in her What was the cause of this certainly the magnificence the pomp and splendour of such a Structure it struck her into an Ecstasie beyond his wise Answers She estemed this as much above his Wisdom as Astonishment is beyond bare Admiration She admired his Wisdom but she adored his Magnificence So apt is the mind even of wise persons to be surprized with the superficies or circumstance of things and value or undervalue Spirituals according to the manner of their External Appearance When Circumstances fail the substance seldom long survives cloaths are no part of the Body yet take away cloaths and the Body will die Livy observes of Romulus that being to give Laws to his new Romans he found no better way to procure an esteem and reverence to them than by first procuring it to himself by splendour of Habit and Retinue and other signs of Royalty And the wise Numa his Successor took the same course to enforce his Religious Laws namely by giving the same Pomp to the Priest who was to dispense them Sacerdotem creavit insignique eum veste curuli Regiâ sellâ adornavit That is he adorned him with a rich Robe and a royal chair of State And in our Judicatures take away the Trumpet the Scarlet the Attendance and the Lordship which would be to make Justice Naked as well as Blind and the Law would lose much of its Terror and consequently of its Authority Let the Minister be abject and low his interest inconsiderable the Word will suffer for his sake The Message will still find reception according to the Dignity of the Messenger Imagine an Ambassadour presenting himself in a poor freize Jerkin and tattered cloaths certainly he would have but small Audience his Embassy would speed rather according to the weakness of him that brought than the Majesty of him that sent it It will fare alike with the Ambassadors of Christ the People will give them Audience according to their Presence A notable example of which we have in the Behaviour of some to Paul himself 1 Cor. c. 10. v. 10. Hence in the Jewish Church it was cautiously provided in the Law that none that was blind or lame or had any remarkable defect in his body was capable of the Priestly Office because these things naturally make a person contemned and this presently reflects upon the Function This therefore is the first way by which the low despised condition of the Ministers tends to the destruction of the Ministery and Religion namely because it subjects their Persons to scorn and consequently their Calling and it is not imaginable that men will be brought to Obey what they cannot Esteem 2. The Second way by which it tends to the ruine of the Ministery is because it discourages men of fit Parts and Abilities from undertaking it And certain it is that as the calling dignifies the man so the man much more advances his calling As a Garment though it warms the Body has a return with an advantage being much more warmed by it And how often a good cause may miscarry without a wise manager and the Faith for want of a Defender is or at least may be known 'T is not the Truth of an Assertion but the skill of the Disputant that keeps off a baffle not the Justness of a Cause but the Valour of the Souldiers that must win the Field When a Learned Paul was converted and undertook the Ministery it stopp'd the mouths of those that said None but poor weak Fisher-men Preached Christianity and so his Learning silenced the scandal as well as strengthned the Church Religion placed in a soul of exquisite knowledge and abilities as in a Castle finds not only habitation but defence And what a learned Foreign Divine said of the English Preaching may be said of all Plus est in Artifice quà m in Arte. So much of moment is there in the Professors of any thing to depress or raise the Profession What is it that kept the Church of Rome strong athletick and flourishing for so many Centuries but the happy succession of the choicest wits engaged to her service by sutable preferments And what strength do we think would that give to the True Religion that is able thus to establish a False Religion in a great measure stands or falls according to the abilities of those that assert it And if as some observe mens desires are usually as large as their Abilities what course have we took to allure the former that we might engage the latter to our assistance But we have took all Ways to affright and discourage Scholars from looking towards this sacred calling For will men lay out their Wit and Iudgment upon that employment for the undertaking of which both will be questioned would men not long since have spent toylsome days and watchfull nights in the laborious quest of knowledge preparative to this work at length to come and dance attendance for approbation upon a Iuncto of petty Tyrants acted by Party and Prejudice who denyed Fitness from Learning and Grace from Morality will a man exhaust his livelihood upon Books and his Health the best part of his life upon Study to be at length thrust into a poor Village where he shall have his due precariously and entreat for his own and when he has it live poorly and contemptibly upon it while the same or less
upon what is below it The Sun is said to rule the day and the Moon to rule the night but do they not Rule them only by enlightning them Doctrine is that that must prepare men for Discipline and men never go on so chearfully as when they see where they go Nor is the dullness of the Scholar to extinguish but rather to inflame the charity of the Teacher for since it is not in men as in vessels that the smallest capacity is the soonest filled where the labour is doubled the value of the work is enhaunced for it is a sowing where a man never expects to reap any thing but the Comfort and Conscience of having done vertuously And yet we know moreover that God sometimes converts even the dull and the slow turning very Stones into Sons of Abraham where besides that the difficulty of the Conquest advances the Trophee of the Conquerer it often falls out that the backward Learner makes amends another way recompencing Sure for Sudden expiating his want of Docility with a deeper and a more rooted Retention Which alone were argument sufficient to enforce the Apostle's injunction of being instant in season and out of season even upon the highest and most exalted Ruler in the Church He that sits in Moses chair sits there to Instruct as well as to Rule and a General 's office engages him to Lead as well as to Command his Army In the first of Ecclesiastes Solomon represents himself both as Preacher and King of Israel and every soul that a Bishop gains is a new accession to the extent of his Power he preaches his Jurisdiction wider and enlarges his spiritual Diocess as he enlarges mens apprehensions The Teaching part indeed of a Romish Bishop is easie enough whose Grand business is onely to teach men to be Ignorant to instruct them how to know Nothing or which is all one to know upon Trust to believe implicitly and in a word to see with other mens eyes till they come to be lost in their own souls But our Religion is a Religion that dares to be understood that offers it self to the search of the Inquisitive to the inspection of the severest and the most awakened Reason for being secure of her substantial Truth and Purity she knows that for her to be seen and lookt into is to be embraced and admired as there needs no greater argument for men to love the light than to see it It needs no Legends no Service in an unknown tongue no inquisition against Scripture no purging out the heart and sence of Authors no altering or bribing the voice of Antiquity to speak for it it needs none of all these laborious Artifices of ignorance none of all these cloaks and coverings The Romish Faith indeed must be covered or it cannot be kept warm and their Clergy deal with their Religion as with a great Crime if it is discovered they are undone But there is no Bishop of the Church of England but accounts it his Interest as well as his Duty to comply with this Precept of the Apostle Paul to Titus These things teach and exhort Now this Teaching may be effected two ways 1. Immediately by himself 2. Mediately by others And first immediately by himself Where God gives a Talent the Episcopal Robe can be no Napkin to hide it in Change of Condition changes not the abilities of Nature but makes them more illustrious in their exercise and the Episcopal dignity added to a good Preaching faculty is like the erecting of a stately Fountain upon a Spring which still for all that remains as much a Spring as it was before and flows as plentifully onely it flows with the circumstance of greater State and Magnificence Height of place is intended only to stamp the endowments of a private condition with Lustre and Authority And thanks be to God neither the Church's profess'd enemies nor her pretended friends have any cause to asperse her in this respect as having over her such Bishops as are able to silence the Factious no less by their Preaching than by their Authority But then on the other hand let me add also That this is not so absolutely necessary as to be of the vital Constitution of this Function He may teach his Diocess who ceases to be able to preach to it for he may do it by appointing Teachers and by a vigilant exacting from them the care and the instruction of their respective Flocks He is the Spiritual Father of his Diocess and a Father may see his Children taught though he himself does not turn Schoolmaster It is not the gift of every Person nor of every Age to harangue the multitude to Voice it high and loud Dominari in Concionibus And since Experience fits for Government and Age usually brings Experience perhaps the most Governing years are the least Preaching years In the 2. Second place therefore there is a teaching Mediately by the Subordinate ministration of others in which since the Action of the Instrumental agent is upon all grounds of Reason to be ascribed to the Principal He who ordains and furnishes all his Churches with able Preachers is an Universal Teacher he instructs where he cannot be Present he speaks in every mouth of his Diocess and every Congregation of it every Sunday feels his Influence though it hears not his Voice That Master deprives not his Family of their food who orders a faithfull Steward to dispense it Teaching is not a Flow of Words nor the draining of an Hour-glass but an effectual procuring that a man comes to know something which he knew not before or to know it better And therefore Eloquence and Ability of Speech is to a Church-Governour as Tully said it was to a Philosopher Si afferatur non repudianda si absit non magnopere desideranda and to find fault with such an one for not being a Popular Speaker is to blame a Painter for not being a good Musician To Teach indeed must be confess'd his Duty but then there is a Teaching by Example by Authority by restraining Seducers and so removing the Hindrances of knowledge And a Bishop does his Church his Prince and Countrey more Service by ruling other mens Tongues than he can by imploying his own And thus much for the first Branch of the great Work belonging to a Pastor of the Church which was to Teach and to Exhort 2. The second is to Rule Expressed in these words Rebuke with all Authority By which I doubt not but the Apostle principally intends Church-Censures and so the Words are a Metonymy of the Part for the Whole giving an instance in Ecclesiastical Censures instead of all other Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction A Jurisdiction which in the Essentials of it is as old as Christianity and even in those Circumstantial Additions of secular encouragement with which the Piety and Wisdom of Christian Princes always thought necessary to support it against the Encroachments of the injurious World much Older and more Venerable than
Christianity But the Jewish was yet in possession and therefore that this might so enter as not to intrude it was to bring its Warrant from the same hand of Omnipotence And for this cause Christ that he might not make either a suspected or precarious address to mens understandings out-does Moses before he displaces him shews an Ascendent Spirit above him raises the Dead and cures more Plagues than he brought upon AEgypt casts out Devils and heals the Deaf speaking such Words as even gave ears to hear them cures the Blind and the Lame and makes the very Dumb to speak for the Truth of his Doctrine But what was the result of all this Why some look upon him as an Impostor and a Conjurer as an Agent for Beelzebub and therefore reject his Gospel hold fast their Law and will not let Moses give place to the Magician Now the Cause that Christ's Doctrine was rejected must of necessity be one of these two 1. An insufficiency in the Arguments brought by Christ to inforce it Or 2. An indisposition in the Persons to whom this Doctrine was addressed to receive it And for this Christ who had not onely an infinite Power to work miracles but also an equal Wisdom both to know the just force and measure of every argument or motive to persuade or cause Assent and withall to look through and through all the Dark Corners of the Soul of man all the Windings and Turnings and various Workings of his Faculties and to discern how and by what means they are to be wrought upon and what prevails upon them and what does not He I say states the whole matter upon this Issue That the Arguments by which his Doctrine addressed it self to the minds of men were proper adequate and sufficient to compass their respective ends in persuading or convincing the Persons to whom they were proposed and moreover that there was no such defect in the Natural light of man's understanding or Knowing faculty but that considered in it self it would be apt enough to close with and yield its assent to the Evidence of those Arguments duly offered to and laid before it And yet that after all this the Event proved otherwise and that notwithstanding both the Weight and fitness of the Arguments to persuade and the light of man's Intellect to meet this persuasive evidence with a sutable assent no Assent followed nor were men thereby actually persuaded he Charges it wholly upon the Corruption the Perverseness and Vitiosity of man's will as the onely Cause that rendred all the Arguments his Doctrine came cloathed with unsuccessfull And consequently he affirms here in the Text That men must love the Truth before they throughly believe it and that the Gospel has then onely a free admission into the Assent of the Understanding when it brings a Passport from a rightly disposed will as being the great faculty of Dominion that commands all that shuts out and lets in what Objects it pleases and in a Word keeps the Keys of the whole Soul This is the Design and purport of the Words which I shall draw forth and handle in the Prosecution of these four following Heads 1. I shall shew What the Doctrine of Christ was that the World so much stuck at and was so averse from Believing 2. I shall shew That mens unbelief of it was from no Defect or Insufficiency in the Arguments brought by Christ to inforce it 3. I shall shew What was the True and proper cause into which this unbelief was resolved 4. And lastly I shall shew That a Pious and well disposed mind attended with a readiness to obey the Known will of God is the surest and best means to enlighten the Understanding to a belief of Christianity Of these in their order and First for the Doctrine of Christ. We must take it in the Known and Common Division of it into matters of Belief and matters of Practice The matters of Belief related chiefly to his Person and Offices As that he was the Messias that should come into the World The Eternal Son of God begotten of him before all Worlds That in time he was made man and born of a pure Virgin That he should die and satisfie for the Sins of the World and that he should rise again from the Dead and ascend into Heaven and there sitting at the right hand of God hold the Government of the whole World till the great and last day in which he should judge both the Quick and the Dead raised to life again with the very same Bodies and then deliver up all Rule and Government into the hands of his Father These were the great Articles and Credenda of Christianity that so much startled the World and seemed to be such as not only brought in a New Religion amongst men but also required a New Reason to embrace it The other part of his Doctrine lay in matters of Practice Which we find contained in his several Sermons but Principally in that glorious full and admirable discourse upon the Mount recorded in the 5 6 and 7. Chapters of St. Matthew All which particulars if we would reduce to one general Comprehensive Head they are all wrapt up in the Doctrine of Self-denial prescribing to the World the most inward purity of Heart and a Constant Conflict with all our sensual Appetites and worldly Interests even to the quitting of all that is dear to us and the Sacrificing of Life it self rather than knowingly to omit the least Duty or commit the least Sin And this was that which grated harder upon and raised greater tumults and boilings in the Hearts of men than the strangeness and seeming unreasonableness of all the former Articles that took up Chiefly in Speculation and Belief And that this was so will appear from a Consideration of the state and condition the World was in as to religion when Christ promulged his Doctrine Nothing further than the outward Action was then lookt after and when that failed there was an Expiation ready in the Opus operatum of a Sacrifice So that all their Vertue and Religion lay in their Folds and their Stalls and what was wanting in the Innocence the Blood of Lambs was to supply The Scribes and Pharisees who were the great Doctors of the Jewish Church expounded the Law no further They accounted no man a murtherer but he that struck a Knife into his Brother's heart No man an Adulterer but He that actually defiled his neighbour's Bed They thought it no injustice nor irreligion to prosecute the Severest Retaliation or Revenge so that at the same time their outward man might be a Saint and their inward man a Devil No care at all was had to curb the Unruliness of Anger or the Exorbitance of Desire Amongst all their Sacrifices they never sacrificed so much as one Lust. Bulls and Goats bled apace but neither the Violence of the one nor the Wantonness of the other ever dyed a Victim at any of their Altars
Sense as I have noted is the clearest that naturally the Mind of Man can receive and is indeed the foundation both of all the Evidence and Certainty too that Tradition is capable of which pretends to no other Credibility from the Testimony and Word of some Men but because their word is at length traced up to and originally terminates in the Sence and Experience of some others which could not be known beyond that compass of Time in which it was exercised but by being told and reported to such as not living at that Time saw it not and by them to others and so down from One Age to another For we therefore believe the Report of some Men concerning a thing because it implies that there were some others who actually saw that thing It is clear therefore that Want of Evidence could not be the Cause that the Jews rejected and disbelieved the Gospel Since they embraced and believed the Law upon the Credit of those Miracles that were less Evident For those of Christ they knew by sight and sense those of Moses only by Tradition which though equally certain yet were by no means equally Evident with the Other Secondly they believed and assented to things that were neither Evident nor Certain but onely Probable For they conversed they traded they merchandized and by so doing frequently ventured their whole Estates and Fortunes upon a probable Belief or persuasion of the Honesty and Truth of those whom they dealt and corresponded with And Interest especially in Worldly matters and yet more especially with a Jew never proceeds but upon supposal at least of a firm and sufficient Bottom From whence it is manifest that since they could believe and Practically rely upon and that even in their Dearest Concerns bare Probabilities they could not with any Colour of Reason pretend want of Evidence for their Disbelief of Christ's Doctrine which came enforced with Arguments far surpassing all such Probabilities Thirdly They believed and assented to things neither evident nor certain nor yet so much as Probable but actually false and fallacious Such as were the absurd Doctrines Stories of their Rabbins Which though since Christ's time they have grown much more numerous and fabulous than before yet even then did so much pester the Church and so grosly abuse and delude the minds of that People that Contradictions themselves asserted by Rabbies were Equally received and revered by them as the Sacred and Infallible Word of God And whereas they rejected Christ and his Doctrine though every Tittle of it came enforced with miracle and the best Arguments that Heaven and Earth could back it with yet Christ then foretold and after Times confirmed that Prediction of his in the 5. Iohn 43. that they should receive many Cheats and Deceivers coming to them in their own name Fellows that set up for Messias's only upon their own Heads without pretending to any thing singular or miraculous but Impudence and Imposture From all which it follows that the Jews could not alledge so much as a Pretence of the Want of Evidence in the Arguments brought by Christ to prove the Divinity and Authority of his Doctrine as a Reason of their Rejection and disbelief of it since they embraced and believed many things for some of which they had no Evidence and for others of which they had no Certainty and for most of which they had not so much as Probability Which being so from whence then could such an obstinate Infidelity in matters of so great Clearness and Credibility take its rise Why this will be made out to us in the Third thing proposed Which was to shew What was the True and proper Cause into which this Unbelief of the Pharisees was resolved And that was in a Word The Captivity of their wills and affections to Lusts directly opposite to the Design and Spirit of Christianity They were extremely ambitious and insatiably Covetous and therefore no Impression from Argument or Miracle could reach them but they stood proof against all Conviction Now to shew how the Pravity of the Will could influence the understanding to a disbelief of Christianity I shall premise these two Considerations First That the Understanding in its assent to any Religion is very differently wrought upon in persons bred up in it and in persons at length converted to it For in the first it finds the mind Naked and unprepossessed with any former Notions and so easily and insensibly gains upon the Assent grows up with it and incorporates into it But in persons adult and already possessed with other Notions of Religion the understanding cannot be brought to quit these and to change them for new but by great Consideration and examination of the Truth and firmness of the one and comparing them with the flaws and weakness of the other Which cannot be done without some Labour and Intention of the mind and the thoughts dwelling a considerable time upon the Survey and Discussion of each Particular Secondly the other thing to be considered is That in this great Work the Understanding is chiefly at the disposal of the will For though it is not in the Power of the Will directly either to cause or hinder the Assent of the Understanding to a thing proposed and duly set before it yet it is antecedently in the power of the Will to apply the understanding faculty to or to take it off from the consideration of those Objects to which without such a Previous consideration it cannot yeild its Assent For all assent presupposes a simple apprehension or knowledge of the Terms of the Proposition to be assented to But unless the Understanding imploy and exercise its cognitive or Apprehensive Power about these Terms there can be no actual Apprehension of them And the Understanding as to the Exercise of this Power is subject to the command of the Will though as to the Specifick nature of its Acts it is determined by the Object As for instance My Understanding cannot assent to this Proposition That Iesus Christ is the Son of God but it must first consider and so apprehend what the Terms and Parts of it are and what they signifie And this cannot be done if my will be so Slothfully Worldly or Voluptuously disposed as never to suffer me at all to think of them but perpetually to carry away and apply my mind to other things Thus far is the Understanding at the Disposal of the will Now these two considerations being premised namely That Persons grown up in the Belief of any Religion cannot change that for another without applying their Understanding duly to consider and compare both and then That it is in the power of the Will whether it will suffer the Understanding thus to dwell upon such Objects or no. From these two I say we have the true Philosophy and Reason of the Pharisees Unbelief For they could not relinquish their Judaism and embrace Christianity without considering weighing and collating both Religions
and this their Understanding could not apply to if it were diverted and took off by their Will and their Will would be sure to divert and take it off being wholly possessed and governed by their Covetousness and Ambition which perfectly abhorr'd the Precepts of such a Doctrine And this is the very Account that our Saviour himself gives of this matter in Iohn 5.44 How can ye believe says he who receive honour One of Another He lookt upon it as a thing morally impossible for Persons infinitely Proud and Ambitious to frame their minds to an Impartial unbyassed Consideration of a Religion that taught nothing but Self-denial and the Cross That Humility was honour and that the Higher men Climb'd the further they were from Heaven They could not with patience so much as think of it and therefore you may be sure would never assent to it And again when Christ discoursed to them of Alms and a pious distribution of the goods and riches of this World in Luke 16. it is said in the 14. v. That the Pharisees who were Covetous heard all those things and derided him Charity and Liberality is a Paradox to the Covetous The Doctrine that teaches Alms and the Persons that need them are by such equally sent packing Tell a Miser of Bounty to a friend or Mercy to the Poor and point him out his Duty with an Evidence as bright and piercing as the Light yet he will not understand it but shuts his Eyes as close as he does his hands and resolves not to be Convinced In both these Cases there is an Incurable Blindness caused by a Resolution not to see And to all intents and purposes he who will not open his eyes is for the present as Blind as he that cannot And thus I have done with the third thing proposed and shown what was the true Cause of the Pharisees disbelief of Christ's Doctrine It was the Predominance of those two great Vices over their Will their Covetousness and Ambition Pass we now to the Fourth and Last Which is to shew That a Pious and well disposed Mind attended with a readiness to obey the known will of God is the surest and best Means to enlighten the Understanding to a belief of Christianity That it is so will appear upon a double Account First upon the Account of God's goodness and the method of its dealing with the Souls of men which is to reward every degree of sincere obedience to his will with a further discovery of it I understand more than the Ancients says David Psalm 119.100 verse But how did he attain to such an Excellency of understanding was it by longer Study or a greater quickness and felicity of Parts than was in those before him No he gives the Reason in the next Words It was because I keep thy Statutes He got the start of them in point of Obedience and thereby out stript them at length in point of Knowledge And who in old time were the men of Extraordinary Revelations but those who were also men of Extraordinary Piety who were made Privy to the Secrets of Heaven and the Hidden will of the Almighty but such as performed his Revealed will at an higher rate of Strictness than the rest of the World They were the Enochs the Abrahams the Elijahs and the Daniels such as the Scripture remarkably testifies of that they walked with God And surely he that walks with Another is in a likelier way to know and understand his mind than He that follows him at a distance Upon which account the Learned Jews still made this one of the Ingredients that went to Constitute a Prophet that he should be perfectus in moralibus A Person of exact Morals and unblameable in his Life The gift of Prophecy being a Ray of such a light as never darts it self upon a Dunghill And what I here observe occasionally of extraordinary Revelation and Prophecy will by Analogy and due Proportion extend even to those Communications of God's Will that are requisite to mens Salvation An honest hearty simplicity and proneness to do all that a man knows of God's Will is the ready certain and infallible way to know more of it For I am sure it may be said of the practical knowledge of Religion that to him that hath shall be given and he shall have more abundantly I dare not I confess joyn in that bold Assertion of some that Facienti quod in se est Deus nec debet nec potest denegare Gratiam Which indeed is no less than a direct contradiction in the very Terms for if Deus debet then id quod debetur non est gratia there being a perfect inconsistency between that which is of Debt and that which is of free Gift And therefore leaving the non debet and the non potest to those that can bind and loose the Almighty at their pleasure so much I think we may pronounce safely in this matter That the goodness and mercy of God is such that he never deserts a sincere Person nor suffers any one that shall live even according to these measures of sincerity up to what he knows to perish for want of any Knowledge necessary and what is more sufficient to save him If any one should here say Were there then none living up to these measures of sincerity amongst the Heathen and if there were did the goodness of God afford such persons Knowledge enough to save them My answer is according to that of St. Paul I judge not those that are without the Church they stand or fall to their own Master I have nothing to say of them Secret things belong to God it becomes us to be thankfull to God and charitable to Men. Secondly A pious and well-disposed Will is the readiest means to enlighten the Understanding to a Knowledge of the Truth of Christianity upon the account of a Natural Efficiency for as much as a Will so disposed will be sure to engage the mind in a severe Search into the great and concerning Truths of Religion nor will it only engage the mind in such a Search but it will also accompany that Search with two Dispositions directly tending to and principally productive of the Discoveries of Truth namely Diligence and Impartiality And 1. for the Diligence of the Search Diligence is the great Harbinger of Truth which rarely takes up in any mind till that has gone before and made room for it It is a steady constant and pertinacious Study that naturally leads the Soul into the Knowledge of that which at first seemed lockt up from it For this keeps the Understanding long in Converse with an object and long Converse brings Acquaintance Frequent Consideration of a Thing wears off the strangeness of it and shews it in its several lights and various ways of Appearance to the View of the Mind Truth is a great Strong-hold barr'd and fortified by God and Nature and Diligence is properly the Understanding's laying siege to it So
that as in a Kind of Warfare it must be perpetually upon the Watch observing all the Avenues and Passes to it and accordingly making its Approaches Sometimes it thinks it gains a point and presently again it finds it self baffled and beaten off yet still it renews the on-set attacks the Difficulty a fresh plants this reasoning and that Argument this consequence and that distinction like so many intellectual Batteries till at length it forces a Way and Passage into the obstinate enclosed Truth that so long withstood and defied all its Assaults The Jesuits have a Saying common amongst them touching the Institution of Youth in which their chief Strength and Talent lies that Vexatio dat intellectum As when the mind casts and turns it self restlesly from one thing to another strains this Power of the Soul to apprehend that to judge another to divide a fourth to remember thus tracing out the nice and scarce observable Difference of some things and the real Agreement of others till at length it brings all the Ends of a long and various Hypothesis together sees how one part coheres with and depends upon another and so clears off all the appearing Contrarieties and Contradictions that seemed to lie cross and uncouth and to make the whole unintelligible This is the Laborious and Vexatious Inquest that the Soul must make after Science For Truth like a stately Dame will not be seen nor shew her self at the first Visit nor match with the Understanding upon an ordinary Courtship or Address Long and tedious Attendances must be given and the hardest Fatigues endured and digested nor did ever the most pregnant Wit in the World bring forth any thing great lasting and considerable without some Pain and Travail some Pangs and Throwes before the Delivery Now all this that I have said is to shew the force of Diligence in the investigation of Truth and particularly of the Noblest of all Truths which is that of Religion But then as Diligence is the great Discoverer of Truth so is the Will the great Spring of Diligence For no man can heartily search after that which he is not very desirous to find Diligence is to the Understanding as the Whetstone to the Razor but the Will is the Hand that must apply one to the other What makes many men so strangely immerse themselves some in Chymical and some in Mathematical Enquiries but because they strangely love the things they labour in Their intent Study gives them Skill and Proficiency and their particular affection to these Kinds of Knowledge puts them upon such Study Accordingly let there be but the same Propensity and Bent of Will to Religion and there will be the same sedulity and indefatigable Industry in mens Enquiry into it And then in the Natural course of things the consequent of a sedulous Seeking is finding and the fruit of Enquiry is Information Secondly A pious and well disposed Will gives not only Diligence but also Impartiality to the Understanding in its Search into Religion which is as absolutely Necessary to give success to our Enquiries into Truth as the former It being scarce possible for that man to hit the Mark whose Eye is still glancing upon something beside it Partiality is properly the Understanding's judging according to the Inclination of the Will and Affections and not according to the Exact Truth of things or the Merits of the Cause before it Affection is still a Briber of the Judgment and it is hard for a man to admit a Reason against the Thing he loves or to confess the force of an Argument against an Interest In this case he prevaricates with his own Understanding and cannot seriously and sincerely set his mind to consider the Strength to poise the Weight and to discern the Evidence of the clearest and best Argumentations where they would conclude against the Darling of his Desires For still that beloved thing possesses and even engrosses him and like a Colour'd Glass before his Eyes casts its own Colour and Tincture upon all the Images and Idea's of things that pass from the Fancy to the Understanding and so absolutely does it sway that that if a strange irresistible Evidence of some unacceptable Truth should chance to surprise and force Reason to assent to the Premises Affection would yet step in at last and make it quit the Conclusion Upon which Account Socinus and his followers state the Reason of a man's believing or embracing Christianity upon the Natural goodness or Vertuous disposition of his mind which they sometimes call Naturalis Probitas and sometimes Animus in Virtutem Pronus For say they the whole Doctrine of Christianity teaches nothing but what is perfectly sutable to and coincident with the Ruling Principles that a vertuous and well inclined man is Acted by and with the main Interest that he proposes to himself So that as soon as ever it is declared to such an one he presently closes in accepts and complies with it As a prepared Soil eagerly takes in and firmly retains such seed or plants as particularly agree with it With ordinary minds such as much the greatest part of the World are 't is the Sutableness not the Evidence of a Truth that makes it to be assented to And it is seldom that any thing practically convinces a Man that does not please him first If you would be sure of him you must inform and gratifie him too But now Impartiality strips the mind of prejudice and passion keeps it tight and even from the Byass of Interest and Desire and so presents it like a Rasa Tabula equally disposed to the Reception of all Truth So that the Soul lies prepared and open to entertain it and prepossessed with Nothing that can oppose or thrust it out For where Diligence opens the Door of the Understanding and Impartiality keeps it Truth is sure to find both an Entrance and a Welcome too And thus I have done with the fourth and last General thing proposed and Proved by Argument that a Pious and well-disposed Mind attended with a Readiness to obey the known Will of God is the surest and best Means to enlighten the Understanding to a Belief of Christianity Now from the foregoing particulars by way of Use we may collect these two things First The true Cause of that Atheism that Scepticism and Cavilling at Religion that we see and have cause to lament in too many in these days It is not from any thing weak or wanting in our Religion to support and enable it to look the strongest Arguments and the severest and most Controlling Reason in the face But men are Atheistical because they are first Vitious and question the Truth of Christianity because they hate the Practice And therefore that they may seem to have some Pretence and Colour to sin on freely and to surrender up themselves wholly to their Sensuality without any Imputation upon their judgment and to quit their morals without any discredit to their Intellectuals they
themselves which I suppose few want Nor is that instance in one of another Religion to be passed over so near it is to the former passage of Nicanor of a Commander in the Parliament's Rebel-Army who coming to Rifle and Deface the Cathedral at Litchfield solemnly at the head of his Troops begged of God to shew some remarkable Token of his approbation or dislike of the work they were going about Immediately after which looking out at a Window he was Shot in the Forehead by a Deaf and Dumb man And this was on St. Chadd's day the name of which Saint that Church bore being dedicated to God in memory of the same Where we see that as he asked of God a sign so God gave him one Signing him in the Forehead and that with such a mark as he is like to be known by to all Posterity There is nothing that the United Voice of all History proclaims so loud as the certain unfailing Curse that has pursued and overtook Sacrilege Make a Catalogue of all the prosperous Sacrilegious persons that have been from the beginning of the world to this day and I believe they will come within a very narrow compass and be repeated much sooner than the Alphabet Religion claims a great interest in the world even as great as its Object God and the Souls of Men. And since God has resolved not to alter the course of Nature and upon Principles of Nature Religion will scarce be supported without the encouragement of the Ministers of it Providence where it loves a Nation concerns it self to own and assert the interest of Religion by blasting the spoilers of Religious Persons and Places Many have gaped at the Church Revenues but before they could swallow them have had their mouths stopt in the Church-yard And thus much for the Second Argument to prove the different respect that God bears to things Consecrated to Holy Uses namely His Signal Judgments upon the Sacrilegious Violaters of them 3. I descend now to the Third and Last thing proposed for the proof of the first Proposition which is To assign the ground and reason why God shews such a concern for these things Touching which we are to observe 1. Negatively that it is no Worth or Sanctity naturally inherent in the things themselves that either does or can procure them this esteem from God for by Nature all things have an equally common use Nature freely and indifferently opens the bosom of the Universe to all Mankind and the very Sanctum Sanctorum had originally no more Sacredness in it than the Valley of the Son of Hinnom or any other place in Iudaea Positively therefore the sole ground and reason of this different esteem vouchsafed by God to consecrated things and places is this That he has the sole property of them It is a known Maxim that in Deo sunt Iura omnia and consequently that he is the Proprietor of all things by that grand and transcendent Right founded upon Creation Yet notwithstanding he may be said to have a greater because a sole property in some things for that he permits not the use of them to Men to whom yet he has granted the free use of all other things Now this Property may be founded upon a double ground 1. God's own fixing upon and institution of a Place or Thing to his peculiar use When he shall say to the Sons of Men as he spoke to Adam concerning the Forbidden Fruit Of all things and places that I have enrich'd the Universe with you may freely make use for your own occasions But as for this spot of Ground this Person this Thing I have selected and appropriated I have enclosed it to my self and my own use and I will endure no Sharer no Rival or Companion in it He that invades them usurps and shall bear the guilt of his Usurpation Now upon this account the Gates of Sion and the Tribe of Levi became God's property He laid his hand upon them and said These are mine 2. The other ground of God's sole property in any thing or place is the Gift or rather the return of it made by Man to God by which Act he relinquishes and delivers back to God all his Right to the Use of that thing which before had been freely granted him by God After which Donation there is an absolute change and alienation made of the property of the thing Given and that as to the Use of it too Which being so alienated a man has no more to do with it than with a thing bought with another's Money or got with the sweat of another's Brow And this is the ground of God's sole property in Things Persons and Places now under the Gospel Men by free Gift consign over a Place to the Divine Worship and thereby have no more right to apply it to another use than they have to make use of another man's goods He that has Devoted himself to the Service of God in the Christian Priesthood has given himself to God and so can no more dispose of himself to another Employment than he can dispose of a thing that he has sold or freely given away Now in passing a thing away to another by Deed of Gift Two things are required 1. A Surrender on the Giver's part of all the property and right he has in the thing given and to the making of a a thing or place Sacred this Surrender of it by its right Owner is so Necessary that all the Rites of Consecration used upon a place against the Owner's Will and without his giving up his property make not that place Sacred forasmuch as the property of it is not hereby altered and therefore says the Canonist Qui sine voluntate Domini consecrat reverà desecrat the like judgment passed that learned Bishop Synesius upon a place so consecrated 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I account it not says he for any holy thing For we must know that Consecration makes not a place Sacred any more than Coronation makes a King but only Solemnly declares it so It is the Gift of the Owner of it to God which makes it to be solely God's and consequently Sacred After which every Violation of it is as really Sacrilege as to Conspire against the King is Treason before the Solemnity of his Coronation And moreover as Consecration makes not a thing Sacred without the Owner's gift so the Owner's gift of it self alone makes a thing Sacred without the Ceremonies of Consecration for we know that Tithes and Lands given to God are never and Plate Vestments and other Sacred Utensils are seldom Consecrated Yet certain it is that after the Donation of them to the Church it is as really Sacrilege to steal or alienate them from those Sacred Uses to which they were dedicated by the Donors as it is to pull down a Church or turn it into a Stable 2. As in order to the passing away a thing by Gift there is required a Surrender of all
Right to it on his part that gives so there is required also an Acceptation of it on his part to whom it is given For Giving being a Relative Action and so requiring a Correlative to answer it Giving on one part transferrs no Property unless there be an Accepting on the other for as Volenti non fit Injuria so in this case Nolenti non fit Beneficium And if it be now asked how God can be said to Accept what we give since we are not able to transact with him in Person To this I answer 1. That we may and do converse with God in Person really and to all the purposes of Giving and Receiving though not visibly For Natural Reason will evince that God will receive Testimonies of Honour from his Creatures amongst which the Homage of Offerings and the parting with a Right is a very great one And where a Gift is sutable to the Person to whom it is offered and no refusal of it testified silence in that case even amongst those who transact visibly and corporally with one another is by the General voice of Reason reputed an Acceptance And therefore much more ought we to conclude that God accepts of a thing sutable for him to receive and for us to give where he does not declare his Refusal and disallowance of it But 2dly I add further That we may transact with God in the Person of his and Christ's Substitute the Bishop to whom the Deed of Gift ought and uses to be delivered by the owner of the thing given in a formal Instrument Signed Sealed and Legally attested by Witnesses wherein he resigns up all his Right and Property in the Thing to be Consecrated And the Bishop is as really Vicarius Christi to receive this from us in Christ's behalf as the Levitical Priest was Vicarius Dei to the Iews to manage all transactions between God and them These two things therefore concurring the Gift of the owner and God's Acceptance of it either immediately by himself which we rationally presume or mediately by the hands of the Bishop which is visibly done before us is that which vests the sole property of a Thing or Place in God If it be now asked of what use then is Consecration if a thing were Sacred before it I answer Of very much even as much as Coronation to a King which conferrs no Royal Authority upon him but by so solemn a Declaration of it imprints a deeper Awe and Reverence of it in the Peoples Minds a thing surely of no small moment And 2dly The Bishop's solemn Benediction and Prayers to God for a Blessing upon those who shall seek him in such Sacred places cannot but be supposed a direct and most effectual means to procure a blessing from God upon those Persons who shall address themselves to him there as they ought to do And surely this also Vouches the great reason of the Episcopal Consecration Add to this in the 3d. place that all who ever had any awefull Sense of Religion and Religious matters whether Jews or Christans or even Heathens themselves have ever used Solemn Dedications and Consecrations of things set apart and designed for Divine Worship which surely could never have been so Universally practised had not right Reason dictated the high Expediency and great use of such Practices Eusebius the Earliest Church-Historian in the 10th Book of his Ecclesiastical History as also in the Life of Constantine speaks of these Consecrations of Churches as of things generally in use and withall sets down those Actions particularly of which they consisted styling them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Laws or Customs of the Church becoming God What the Greek and Latin Churches used to do may be seen in their Pontificals containing the set Forms for these Consecrations though indeed for these 6 or 7 last Centuries full of many tedious superfluous and ridiculous fopperies setting aside all which if also our Liturgy had a set Form for the Consecration of Places as it has of Persons perhaps it would be never the less Perfect Now from what has been above discoursed of the ground of God's sole Property in things set apart for his Service we come at length to see how all things given to the Church Whether Houses or Lands or Tithes belong to Church-men They are but usufructuarii and have only the use of these things the Property and Fee remaining wholly in God and consequently the Alienating of them is a robbing of God Mal. 3.89 Ye are Cursed with a Curse for ye have robbed me even this whole Nation in Tythes and Offerings If it was God that was robbed it was God also that was the owner of what was took away in the Robbery Even our own common Law speaks as much For so says our Magna Charta in the 1. ch Concessimus Deo quòd Ecclesia Anglicana libera erit c. Upon which words that great Lawyer in his Institutes Comments thus When any thing is granted for God it is deemed in Law to be granted to God and whatsoever is granted to the Church for his Honour and the maintenance of his Service is granted for and to God The same also appears from those Forms of Expression in which the Donation of Sacred things usually ran As Deo Omnipotenti hâc praesente Chartâ donavimus with the like But most undeniably is this proved by this one Argument That in case a Bishop should commit Treason and Felony and thereby forfeit his Estate with his Life yet the Lands of his Bishoprick become not forfeit but remain still in the Church and pass intire to his Successour which sufficiently shews that they were none of his It being therefore thus proved That God is the sole Proprietor of all Sacred things or places I suppose his peculiar Property in them is an abundantly pregnant Reason of that Different Respect that he bears to them For is not the Meum and the Separate Property of a thing the great cause of its endearment amongst all Mankind Does any one respect a common as much as he does his Garden or the Gold that lies in the Bowels of a Mine as much as that which he has in his purse I have now finish'd the first Proposition drawn from the Words Namely That God bears a different respect to places set apart and consecrated to his Worship from what he bears to all other places designed to the uses of common Life And also shewn the reason why he does so I proceed now to the other Proposition which is That God preferrs the Worship paid him in such Places above that which is offered him in any other places whatsoever And that for these Reasons 1. Because such places are naturally apt to excite a greater Reverence and Devotion in the discharge of Divine Service than places of common Use. The place properly reminds a man of the Business of the place and strikes a kind of awe into the thoughts when they reflect upon that great
resolves not to be And consequently it emploies all the Art and Industry imaginable to make good the Disguise and by false Appearances to render its Designs the less visible that so they may prove the more effectual And this is the Dissimulation here meant which is the very Ground-work of all worldly Policy The Superstructure of which being Folly it is but Reason that the Foundation of it should be Falsity In the Language of the Scripture it is Damnable Hypocrisie but of those who neither believe Scripture nor Damnation it is voted Wisdom nay the very Primum Mobile or great Wheel upon which all the various Arts of Policy move and turn The Soul or Spirit which as it were animates and runs through all the particular Designs and Contrivances by which the great Masters of this Mysterious Wisdom turn about the World So that he who hates his Neighbour mortally and wisely too must profess all the Dearness and Friendship all the Readiness to serve him as the Phrase now is that Words and Superficial Actions can express When he purposes one thing he must swear and lye and damn himself with ten thousand Protestations that he designs the clean contrary If he really intends to ruine and murther his Prince as Cromwell an Experienced Artist in that Perfidious and bloody Faculty once did he must weep and call upon God use all the Oaths and Imprecations all the Sanctifi'd Perjuries to perswade him that he resolves Nothing but his Safety Honour and Establishment as the same grand Exemplar of Hypocrisie did before If such Persons project the Ruine of Church and State they must appeal to God the Searcher of all Hearts that they are ready to sacrifice their dearest Blood for the Peace of the one and the Purity of the other And now if Men will be prevailed upon so far as to renounce the sure and impartial Judgment of Sense and Experience and to believe that Black is White provided there be somebody to swear that it is so they shall not want Arguments of this Sort good Store to convince them There being Knights of the Post and Holy Cheats enough in the World to swear the Truth of the broadest Contradictions and the highest Impossibilities where Interest and Pious Frauds shall give them an Extraordinary Call to it It is look'd upon as a great piece of Weakness and Unfitness for Business forsooth for a Man to be so clear and open as really to think not only what he says but what he swears And when he makes any Promise to have the least intent of performing it but when his Interest serves instead of Veracity and engages him rather to be true to another than false to himself He only now-a-days speaks like an Oracle who speaks Tricks and Ambiguities Nothing is thought beautifull that is not painted So that what between French Fashions and Italian Dissimulations the Old Generous English Spirit which heretofore made this Nation so great in the Eyes of all the World round about it seems utterly lost and extinct and we are degenerated into a mean sharking fallacious undermining Way of Converse there being a Snare and a Trapan almost in every Word we hear and every Action we see Men speak with Designs of Mischief and therefore they speak in the Dark In short this seems to be the true inward Judgment of all our Politick Sages That Speech was given to the Ordinary Sort of Men whereby to Communicate their Mind but to wise Men whereby to conceal it 2. The second Rule or Principle upon which this Policy or Wisdom of the World does proceed is That Conscience and Religion ought to lay no Restraint upon Men at all when it lies opposite to the Prosecution of their Interest The great Patron and Coryphaeus of this Tribe Nicholas Machiavel laid down this for a Master-rule in his political Scheme That the Shew of Religion was helpfull to the Politician but the Reality of it hurtfull and pernicious Accordingly having shewn how the former part of his Maxim has been followed by these Men in that first and fundamental Principle of Dissimulation already spoken to by us we come now to shew further that they cannot with more Art dissemble the Appearance of Religion than they can with Ease lay aside the Substance The Politician whose very Essence lies in this that he be a Person ready to doe any thing that he apprehends for his Advantage must first of all be sure to put himself into a State of Liberty as free and large as his Principles And so to provide Elbow-room enough for his Conscience to lay about and have its full play in And for that purpose he must resolve to shake off all inward Awe of Religion and by no means to suffer the Liberty of his Conscience to be enslaved and brought under the Bondage of observing Oaths or the Narrowness of Men's Opinions about Turpe Honestum which ought to vanish when they stand in Competition with any solid real Good that is in their Judgment such as concerns Eating or Drinking or Taking Money Upon which account these Children of Darkness seem excellently well to imitate the Wisdom of those Children of Light the great Illuminati of the late times who professedly laid down this as the Basis of all their Proceedings That whatsoever they said or did for the present under such a Measure of Light should oblige them no longer when a greater Measure of Light should give them other Discoveries And this Principle they professed was of great use to them as how could it be otherwise if it fell into skilfull hands For since this Light was to rest within them and the Judgment of it to remain wholly in themselves they might safely and uncontroulably pretend it greater or less as their Occasions should enlighten them If a Man has a prospect of a fair Estate and sees a way open to it but it must be through Fraud Violence and Oppression If he see large Preferments tendered him but conditionally upon his doing base and wicked Offices If he sees he may crush his Enemy but that it must be by slandering belying and giving him a Secret Blow and Conscience shall here according to its Office interpose and protest the Illegality and Injustice of such Actions and the Damnation that is expresly threatned to them by the Word of God The thorough pac'd Politician must presently laugh at the Squeamishness of his Conscience and read it another Lecture and tell it that Iust and Unjust are but Names grounded only upon Opinion and authorized by Custom by which the Wise and the Knowing part of the World serve themselves upon the Ignorant and Easie and that whatsoever fond Priests may talk There is no Devil like an Enemy in power no Damnation like being poor and no Hell like an empty Purse and therefore that those Courses by which a Man comes to rid himself of these Plagues are ipso facto prudent and consequently pious The former being with such
wise Men the only measure of the latter And the truth is the late Times of Confusion in which the Heights and Refinements of Religion were professed in Conjunction with the Practice of the most Execrable Villainies that were ever acted upon the Earth And the Weakness of our Church-Discipline since its Restauration whereby it has been scarce able to get any hold on Men's Consciences and much less able to keep it and the great prevalence of that Atheistical Doctrine of the Leviathan and the unhappy Propagation of Erastianism these things I say with some others have been the sad and fatal Causes that have loosed the Bands of Conscience and eaten out the very Heart and Sense of Christianity amongst us to that degree that there is now scarce any religious Tye or Restraint upon persons but merely from those faint Remainders of Natural Conscience which God will be sure to keep alive upon the Hearts of Men as long as they are Men for the great Ends of his own Providence whether they will or no. So that were it not for this sole Obstacle Religion is not now so much in danger of being divided and torn piece-meal by Sects and Factions as of being at once devour'd by Atheism Which being so let none wonder that Irreligion is accounted Policy when it is grown even to a fashion and passes for Wit with some as well as for Wisdom with others For certain it is that Advantage now sits in the Room of Conscience and steers all And no Man is esteemed any ways considerable for Policy who wears Religion otherwise than as a Cloak that is as such a Garment as may both cover and keep him warm and yet hang loose upon him too The third Rule or Principle upon which this Policy or Wisdom of the World proceeds is That a Man ought to make himself and not the Publick the Chief if not the sole End of all his Actions He is to be his own Centre and Circumference too That is to draw all things to himself and to extend nothing beyond himself He is to make the greater World serve the less and not only not to love his Neighbour as himself but indeed to account none for his Neighbour but himself And therefore to die or suffer for his Country is not only exploded by him as a great Paradox in Politicks and fitter for Poets to sing of than for wise Men to practise But also to make himself so much as one Penny the poorer or to forbear one base gain to serve his Prince to secure a whole Nation or to credit a Church is judged by him a great want of Experience and a piece of Romantick Melancholy unbecoming a Politician who is still to look upon himself as his Prince his Country his Church nay and his God too The general Interest of the Nation is nothing to him but only that Portion of it that he either does or would possess 'T is not the Rain that waters the whole Earth but that which falls into his own Cistern that must relieve him Not the Common but the Enclosure that must make him rich Let the Publick sink or swim so long as he can hold up his Head above Water Let the Ship be cast away if he may but have the Benefit of the Wreck Let the Government be ruin'd by his Avarice if by the same Avarice he can scrape together so much as to make his peace and maintain him as well under another Let Foreigners invade and spoil the Land so long as he has a good Estate in Bank else-where Peradventure for all this Men may curse him as a Covetous Wretch a Traitour and a Villain But such words are to be look'd upon only as the splendid Declaimings of Novices and Men of Heat who while they rail at his Person perhaps envy his Fortune or possibly of Losers and Male-contents whose Portion and Inheritance is a Freedom to speak But a Politician must be above words Wealth he knows answers all and if it brings a Storm upon him will provide him also a Coat to weather it out That such Thoughts and Principles as these lie at the Bottom of most Men's Actions at the Bottom do I say Nay sit at the Top and visibly hold the Helm in the Management of the weightiest Affairs of most Nations we need not much History nor Curiosity of Observation to convince us For though there have not been wanting such heretofore as have practised these unworthy Arts for as much as there have been Villains in all Places and all Ages yet now-a-days they are owned above-board and whereas Men formerly had them in design amongst us they are openly vouched argued and asserted in common Discourse But this I confess being a new unexemplified kind of Policy scarce comes up to that which the Apostle here condemns for the Wisdom of the World but must pass rather for the Wisdom of this particular Age which as in most other things it stands alone scorning the Examples of all former Ages so it has a Way of Policy and Wisdom also peculiar to it self 4. The fourth and last Principle that I shall mention upon which this Wisdom of the World proceeds is this That in shewing Kindness or doing Favours no Respect at all is to be had to Friendship Gratitude or Sense of Honour but that such Favours are to be done only to the Rich or Potent from whom a Man may receive a further Advantage or to his Enemies from whom he may otherwise fear a Mischief I have here mentioned Gratitude and Sense of Honour being as I may so speak a Man's Civil Conscience prompting him to many things upon the Accounts of common Decency which Religion would otherwise bind him to upon the Score of Duty And it is sometimes found that some who have little or no Reverence for Religion have yet those innate Seeds and Sparks of Generosity as make them scorn to doe such things as would render them mean in the Opinion of sober and worthy Men and with such Persons Shame is instead of Piety to restrain them from many base and degenerous practices But now our Politician having baffled his Greater Conscience must not be non-plus'd with Inferiour Obligations and having leapt over such Mountains at length poorly lie down before a Mole-hill But he must add Perfection to Perfection and being past Grace endeavour if need be to be past Shame too And accordingly he looks upon Friendship Gratitude and Sense of Honour as terms of Art to amuse and impose upon weak undesigning Minds For an Enemy's Money he thinks may be made as good a Friend as any and Gratitude looks backward but Policy forward and for Sense of Honour if it impoverisheth a man it is in his Esteem neither Honour nor Sense Whence it is that now-a-days only Rich men or Enemies are accounted the Rational Objects of Benefaction For to be kind to the former is Traffick and in these Times Men present just as they Soyl their