Communion Which have so far degenerated from the primitive Christianity such is the mischief of not reflecting perpetually upon what was first delivered and received that their Religion looks more like the old Paganism revived in a new shape than that good old way of worshipping God which our Saviour taught when He came to destroy the works of the Devil And they were still plunging themselves further into such gross Superstitions as endangered the very Being of Christianity by magnifying the Blessed Virgin and St. Francis to such a degree that they were regarded more than Christ himself that a Reformation became absolutely necessary and was generally desired as it were easie to shew by men of the greatest note in these parts of Christendome for choise learning and piety Nay in that very Council which they themselves packt to hinder the Reformation that of Trent I mean Ten several Kingdomes and States desired both by their Ambassadors and Prelates That the Cup in the holy Communion might be restored to the people from whom it had been sacrilegiously taken to the manifest violation of the Christian Religion which had instituted it in both kinds And many pressed for Divine Service in a known tongue the want of which was another palpable corruption and shameless abuse in the Roman Church Which many desired might be reformed in other Particulars but nothing could be obtained from them who were resolved to baffle all these pious endeavours In order to which they took such a course that there were more Italian Bishops in that Council who would vote as they were directed sometime more by twenty sometime by an hundred than there was of all the World beside So that in effect all these Parts of Christendom would have reformed had not Italy opposed it and craftily combined by all manner of artifices to hinder these honest intentions Which blessed be God prevailed notwithstanding in this Church and were so zealously and yet so prudently prosecuted that we were happily purged by the singular Grace of God to us from all those corruptions which had infected the Body of Religion without the loss of any part of that Truth which was anciently and at first received For when we reformed we did not set up a new Religion as they falsely and foolishly accuse us but only cast out their novel errours and reduced all things to the ancient Standard or Rule of Faith and Worship which was once delivered to the Saints that is to the Church of Christ As will appear by applying all this to our selves and remembring you as briefly as I can what it is that we received and have often since heard to be the true Doctrine of Christianity as it stands reformed from the corruptions and abuses of the Roman Church 1. Which is no other than that which the Church of Sardis and all the rest at first received The fundamental Principle of our Religion being this That all things necessary to be believed and done for the obtaining salvation are contained and plainly enough expressed in the holy Scriptures A Compendium of which as to matters of Faith is drawn up in the Apostles Creed as it is explained by the famous Council of Nice which comprehends all things that are necessary to be believed in order to eternal life 2. Yet we acknowledge that it is not sufficient as you have often heard to believe but though our sincere profession of Faith according to what is revealed in the holy Scriptures and comprehended in the Creed do enter us into the state of Justification yet the fruits of Faith in a godly life are absolutely necessary to continue us in it For that very Faith which justifies us doth imply and include in it a purpose and is accompanied with a promise of holy obedience Which if it be not performed we cannot be accepted with God nor claim the promise of eternal life This is another Principle which we have received 3. And among the rest of the duties which are required of us by our Faith the holy Scriptures teach us this as plainly as any whatsoever That Christian People ought to have a great regard to their Pastors the Guides and Conductors of their Souls in the way to Heaven whose spiritual authority over them is to be reverenced though not as infallible yet as most valuable not to be followed blindfold but fit to be consulted on all occasions and most to be relied on in dubious cases There is no principle of the Reformation more undoubted than this That a Pilot is not more necessary in a Ship or a Shepherd to watch over the Flock than such spiritual Shepherds and Guides are to teach direct and govern Christ's Church and that among other means and helps which Christian people should use to understand the Scriptures the direction of their Guides is the chief To whom it belongs as to receive men into the Church by Baptism so after they are thus born again to breed them up in their Religion as their spiritual Parents to expound and interpret to them the holy Writings and out of them to instruct the ignorant convince Gainsayers correct the peoples mistakes reprove their sins stir them up to all the Duties of a holy life satisfie the scrupulous censure the contumacious absolve the penitent and administer comfort to dejected Spirits The people indeed ought to examine whether the things they deliver out of the Scripture be so or no as the Beroeans did and are commended for it xvii Acts and conscientiously to discern between truth and falshood between the right faith and rule of life propounded to them by their Pastors and the poysoned Doctrine of Hereticks and Deceivers But they must not judge alone without their direction and guidance nor hastily conclude their Teachers to be in the wrong nor rashly dissent from them and refuse to follow their direction but rather suspect themselves and enquire further when they think they ought not to assent to them and in the issue if the things they deliver be not plainly against the holy Scriptures to suspect their own judgments rather than contradict those whom God without all doubt hath appointed to be their Instructors and Guides By which principle we have quite shut out the Roman tyranny on one hand who would lead the people blindfold whereas we endeavour to make them see and require them to open their eyes and show them that we do not mislead them and avoided also on the other hand the wild frantick liberty of those who will not be led at all but go alone and guide themselves by their own private judgment As by the other principle also of sticking to the Scriptures in all things necessary to salvation we have cut off all the fond Traditions of the Roman Church which they have equalled with the Scriptures and yet have retained many things of ancient observation which were not absolutely necessary but not sinful for peace and decency sake Because we would not seem to have undertaken
the work of Reformation out of any desire of novelty but merely to discharge our duty to God in avoiding all things contrary to his Word and doing all according to it Which made our Reformers for the preservation as much as was possible of peace and unity which the holy Scriptures so much commend and enjoyn to take great care not to depart any further from any practice of the Church than it had departed from Christ the Founder of it and from the holy Scriptures whereby it ought to have governed it self Thus I have in as few words as I could told you what it is that we have received From whence we may learn both how happy we should have been had we always stuck to it and never deviated from it so happy that we should neither have had the Divisions that are among us nor any thing else which we come this day to bewail And also how foully the Roman Church hath prevaricated and departed from the simplicity of the Christian Religion First By adding many other Articles of Faith to those which were at first received and Secondly By forbidding the people to look into the holy Scriptures which contain the foundation and rule of Christian belief Let me touch a little upon these two leaving the consideration of our own condition till afterward First I say It is apparent they have highly offended God and abused his people by making a new Creed and that contrary to a known Decree of the third General Council that at Ephesus which they pretend to reverence For It ordained that it should not be lawful for any person to bring forth write or compose any other Faith than that which was defined by the holy Fathers gathered together in the Holy Ghost at the City of Nice and that whosoever should dare to compose or offer another Faith or propound it to such as were desirous to be converted to the knowledge of the Truth either from among the Gentiles or the Jews or from any Hereticks they should if they were Bishops or Clergy-men be deposed from their Office if Lay-men be anathematiz'd And yet they of Rome have not feared to violate this Decree by making a new Faith not in words merely but in sense about the adoration of Images of Saints of the Eucharist and concerning the Authority of the Pope the Doctrine of Purgatory and the rest of the Articles of the new Creed presumptuously made by the Council of Trent Some of which are of such dangerous practice that learned men among themselves Gerson Espencaeus and others have confessed it among the vulgar to be no less than Idololatrical and others doubt not to adde that it is no better among the learned And others again are so far from being Articles of Faith that for ought we can find in the Scriptures or true Antiquity they are not so much as probable opinions For instance the Authority of the Pope and the Monarchy as now they fear not to call it which he pretends to over the whole Church is founded merely in pride and ambition and as it was acquired so it hath been supported and enlarged and is still maintained by rebellion treason murthering of Princes wars dispensing with perjuries and incestuous marriages spoils and robberies of Churches and Kingdoms worldly craft and policy force and falshood forgery lying dissimulation and gross hypocrisie as may easily be made good in every particular to the satisfaction of all those who have not their eyes blinded by the God of this World Who by such villainies hath mightily disgraced Christianity which for many Ages was wholly unacquainted with any such Faith And there are also common opinions that pass among them uncontradicted as strongly believed as any Article of Faith which notwithstanding their seeming zeal for good works utterly overthrow any necessity of them For it is the avowed Doctrine of the greatest Teachers in that Church That though a man live and dye without the practice of any Christian Vertue and with the habit of many damnable sins unmortified yet if he have sorrow for sin and joyn Confession with it and receive absolution in the last moment of his life he shall certainly be saved And accordingly we see that if the lewdest persons among us will but be reconciled to the Roman Church on their death-bed they abuse them with the hope of salvation telling them there is no salvation in our Church though they were never so good but in theirs there is though they are never so bad Which is a clear demonstration That all their discourse about good Works is a mere show and that Faith alone among them is thought sufficient to do the business and that it is their Priests not Ours who teach men to rely upon a naked Faith and presume to be saved by it The cause of all which is their neglect of the rule of Faith the holy Scriptures which are so much against them that they dare not trust the people with them Secondly That 's the second thing I noted as a manifest declaration of the corruption of the Roman Church that they will by no means consent the people should look into those Books which contain the Doctrine at first received but upon the severest penalties forbid without a special Licence obtained their perusal of them as if these were the most suspected or dangerous of all other Books or as if it were reason the people should believe the Church without knowing what the Church ought to believe There is not a more evident token of their guilt than this For that it is done on purpose to keep the people in ignorance not to preserve them within the bounds of sobriety which may be done by other means is apparent from hence that even those select portions of Scripture which they have chosen to be read in the Church publickly they will not let the people hear in a language which they understand For which no reason can be alledged but that now mentioned they are loth the people should be acquainted with any thing that may enlighten their eyes to see the errours of that Church For Latine Prayers indeed wherein they speak to God they have this excuse That God understands all languages but for Latine Chapters of the Bible wherein God speaks to men there is nothing to be said the end of speaking to others being that we may be understood Why then should God be as a Barbarian to his people speaking to them in an unknown tongue And why should those things which in other cases would be held ridiculous and contrary to common sense be esteemed good and convenient in Religion Without all doubt such things as these are the sport of the Devil who hereby hath exposed Christianity to scorn and both kept the people from being instructed by God their Saviour and delivered them up to be most grosly abused by evil men For this mischief is not single but hath bred and brought forth another they having set up the
device of entertaining the people with Images which they call the Books of the Ignorant and are the means of keeping them in ignorance instead of the holy Scriptures which are able to make men wise to salvation For all which the holy and reverend Name of the Church and its infallibility is used for a colour By which they mean only the Roman Church which being but a particular Church not the universal is become Judg in her own Cause and maintains she does well nay cannot erre because she says she cannot do otherwise There is no man who will take the liberty to consider that can think this the way of salvation No it is the manifest method of perishing without remedy for any thing that the people of that Church can know For they being taught simply to believe in the Church of Rome and to depend wholly upon its authority without any other enquiry can never be satisfied whether this Church wherein they believe teaches the true and pure Doctrine of Christ Jesus the Lord and Spouse of the Church For they are deprived of all means to find this out being forbidden to look into the holy Scriptures where Christ hath delivered his mind unto us All the Faith therefore of the poor people of the Roman Church is no other than a humane Faith being grounded wholly on the authority of men and of all humane Testimony they rely upon the most uncertain viz. that which they give of themselves For they believe their Church to be good merely because She says so that is make her judge in her own case which is like to produce the most partial Judgment of all other But it is time to leave the consideration of their faults in this thing and as the duty of this Day requires to reflect seriously and impartially upon our own Which we shall the better do when I have a little opened the second general part of my Text wherein we shall see how happy we of this Church might have been if we had held fast that which we have received II. For that follows you see in the Charge given to the Church of Sardis Remember what thou hast received and heard and HOLD FAST or keep to it observe it and take care to do accordingly For that 's the end of calling things to mind that we may not depart from them if they be of consequence to our happiness Such was the Doctrine at first delivered by Christ and his Apostles and to apply it wholly to our selves such is that which we have received being the very same as you have heard with that at first delivered Which we ought therefore to keep most sacredly and to stick to it stedfastly never in the least warping from it nor turning aside either to the right hand or to the left from the principles and rules of a Religion which is so well grounded that it stands upon the undoubted word of God our Saviour For as I have shewn you the Religion which we have received and heard is no other than what the holy Scriptures which all acknowledg to be the word of Truth teach us to believe and practise And is a Religion so sincere that it teaches the people to read the holy Scriptures because it is not afraid they should therein read its condemnation And for that end propounds the Scriptures to them in their own Language because it is not in the least ashamed of any thing it bids them believe nor unwilling to be laid to that rule of righteousness and examined by it A Religion also which in reading the holy Scriptures bids the people content themselves with that which they find there clearly and evidently delivered for that it assures them is sufficient for their salvation leaving things obscure for the exercise of the learned and things not drawn from thence but from uncertain Traditions or private Inspiration to superstitious and fantastical Persons A Religion which doth not make Faith consist in ignorance but in knowledge and yet to keep this knowledge within the bounds of sobriety directs and enjoyns all private persons to take heed to the publick Ministry of the Church and all publick Ministers to study the Scriptures diligently and to teach nothing to be religiously held and believed as one of our ancient Canons is * 1571. Tit. Concionatores but what is agreeable to the Doctrine of the Old and New Testament and which the Catholick-Fathers and the ancient Bishops have collected out of that very Doctrine It is a Religion also which doth not teach us to rely upon Faith alone but presses the necessity of good works far more than the Roman Church doth whatsoever they falsely pretend only it teaches that God rewards all the good we do out of his own free mercy without any desert And therefore instead of framing and fashioning Wood and Stone into the Images of men and setting them up for the people to worship it exhorts men by all means possible to study to frame themselves after the Image of God in righteousness and true holiness and to conform themselves to those excellent patterns of Vertue which the Saints have left us for imitation Instead also of worshipping the Sacrament it teaches us to worship the Lord Jesus Christ in the holy and reverend use of the Sacrament not using it to make Jesus Christ but to honour Him not to make His Body descend from Heaven to us but to lift up our hearts to Him in Heaven not to turn the Bread and Wine into the natural Body and Blood of Christ but into the spiritual nourishment of our Souls For it doth not think that Christ and the Devil both entred into Judas together or that our Saviour did eat Himself or hath ordered matters so that He may be carried away by a Mouse and eaten by his greatest enemies It teaches none of these or any such like absurd and incredible things nor doth it intrench upon any man's civil Rights But though it bid men reverence and obey their spiritual Pastors yet doth not place any of them above Kings nor exempt them from their jurisdiction much less ascribe a power to them of deposing them from their Thrones giving away their Kingdoms and exposing them to be murthered which the proud Bishop of Rome challenges but humbly and meekly declares as St Paul doth That every Soul even the greatest Apostle as St. Chrysostome interprets him must be subject to the higher Powers What shall I say more It is a Religion which acknowledges no other supreme Head of the Church but Jesus Christ no other rule of Faith but his Word no propitiatory Sacrifice but his Death no Purgatory but his Blood nor any merits but his obedience to God in all things A Religion therefore which hath little of outward pomp and show but much of inward substance life and power which ordaineth few Ceremonies but ministers abundant instructions and consolations which attributeth little to distinction of meats but prescribes fasting and
abstinence from all meats whatsoever and that for an exercise of humility and other Christian Vertues without any opinion of merit or satifaction And it may be added That it is a Religion to which the very Papists themselves are indebted several ways for their ease from many burthens For it is our Religion which hath quite spoiled the Trade that was driven by Indulgences which was so shamelesly exercised before the Reformation that Sellers of Pardons went like Pedlars from house to house and for half a Crown offered to let any man have a remission of all his sins and the delivery of a Soul out of Purgatory Which was the thing that first stirred up the just indignation of Luther to whose honest zeal they are beholden for deliverance from that imposture They are not abused neither as formerly with new lying Miracles and Apparitions which are seldom pretended now thanks be to our Religion for it in comparison with the many illusions of this kind in former times They are free also from being perpetually pillaged by divers grievous exactions which their Forefathers in this Kingdom I could shew you complained of as insupportable Nor do their people run with Offerings from one Image to another so fast as they did before our Religion let them see their follies To say nothing of their Crusado's and other things which it is not easie for the Pope himself now to gull them withal Which is to be put intirely upon the account of our Religion which hath opened many of their eyes to see more errours among them than they are willing to confess Have we not reason then to hold fast such a Religion as this so as neither to part with it nor to depart from it If truth had the same power over the will that it hath over the understanding we could never suffer our selves to be guilty of either Nay the Papists themselves would condemn their own madness for endeavouring to disturb this Religion and to bring back that authority hither which made such Fools of them But alas it is too notorious how little hold our Religion hath taken on our hearts There being so many who have revolted if not openly yet in their hearts and affections we have too much reason to fear unto the Romish delusion And others I am afraid the most who have retained what they received only in part but let go a great deal of it to the open disgrace manifest damage and almost undoing of our Religion Which is the thing I must now admonish you of in the last part of my Discourse upon these words wherein our Saviour calls upon the Church of Sardis to REPENT of their not holding fast that is what they had received And so must I now call upon you with all earnestness it being the particular business of this Day and the only thing that can save us from perishing in the Pit which is digged for us by our Romish Adversaries who have been long plotting and now have almost effected our destruction Yet I shall not expatiate through the whole Doctrin of repentance but confine my self only to such things as relate to what hath been already spoken III. You are not now to learn what it is to repent but only what it is you should repent of that is be heartily sorry for and amend And this also is soon known if in obedience to this admonition you will but reflect upon what you have received and heard and then consider what conformity your practice holds therewith And here let me deal as plainly with you as becomes my Office and the solemn business of this Day and the present distress of this Church and Kingdom which should awaken all men of sense to examine themselves upon these three Heads First What esteem is remaining among us of the holy Scriptures in which are contained as you have heard all our Religion Secondly What fruits our Faith hath brought forth which the holy Scriptures tell us God expects from us and are so necessary that we cannot be saved without them Thirdly more particularly What the behaviour of the people of this Church hath been and is towards the Pastors and Guides of their souls with whom God hath principally intrusted his holy Oracles If all the Members of this Church would thoroughly examine themselves upon these Heads they would find I fear too much matter for Repentance I. For the first of these I shall omit the disrespect to use no harder word of one whole Sect of men to the holy Scriptures which they have in a manner laid aside and only accommodated the Phrases of it to that which they call the light within them and touch upon such things only as are common to all Parties among us In which 1. We cannot but fear and with grief of heart it ought to be spoken and considered there are great numbers who have no value for the holy Scriptures at all but have quite forsaken even Christianity it self which is therein delivered some the very belief of it and others the profession This is one of the fearful sins of this Age which cries for vengeance against us and hath encouraged this Plot to bring in Popery that is Idolatry and Tyranny among us Which durst never have shown their heads here again if they had not been emboldned by our Irreligion And though now we seem to be stirred up to oppose them yet no Religion will be found an unequal match for some Religion which though a very bad one is better than none at all 2. And secondly It cannot be denied that abundance of those who still blessed be God believe the holy Scriptures yet have lost that high esteem and affection which our pious Ancestors had for them Or if they have any it doth not appear by their diligent reading of them which many have laid aside Time was when they were read and studied with great care and fervent desire in the beginning of the Reformation when every Body that could read had them in their hands and some had a great deal of them by heart as the Jew now generally have the principal things in the Old Testament But alas this ardour soon remitted and now is in a manner extinct Musculus I remember complains heavily of it in his Preface to the Book of Genesis many years ago and we are not grown better but much worse I fear since his days And what other cause saith he can we give for it but this That the greatest part of those who seemed to have given up themselves to the Truth of God busied themselves in the Scriptures not that they might be better by framing their lives according to that rule but that they might be able to dispute and to carp at the old errours and superstitions And so some ran into all manner of wickedness others lickt up their old vomit others leaving the manifest Truth turned to new Sects which sprang up and others became neutral and fell into perfect indifference
whereby they were disposed to receive any Religion which the great men of this World should be pleased to set up by their Authority Which sad Complaint with much more that there follows I wish we had no cause to renew in this Church and had not lost our first love to our Saviour and to his holy Word Which being disgraced by the means forementioned better people have been infected with such a negligence that few read the holy Scriptures as they were wont heretofore to do but live as if they believed the Papists say true That the reading of the Scriptures is the cause of all the mischiefs that are befallen us Nay the publick reading of them in the Church is not so reverently regarded as formerly it was and as it ought to be For there are those that never mind what is read but look upon that as a vacant time to gaze about them or to whisper and discourse what they please one with another In times past good people were wont to bring their Bibles along with them hither but that now is worn out of use or so little practised that it looks as if they were as much ashamed of it as to appear in an old fashion which is held ridiculous Let such things therefore be amended I beseech you if you mean to save your Religion from being destroyed by our Romish Adversaries whom we have highly gratified by these things and invited to plot our ruine Let all men among us become serious Believers and shew that they are by reverencing and reading the holy Scriptures by frequenting the holy Assemblies and there duly attending to them by growing truly more knowing in the ground and foundation of our Religion and taking such care to be acquainted with the Scriptures that this may not be our condemnation that they lay open before us and were put into our hands in a language we could understand and yet we despised them or would not mind them II. The mischief of which is apparent For if we proceed to examine our selves upon the second Head we shall find a most lamentable account either of our ignorance or negligence or wilful disobedience For who doth not see that the Fruits of Faith are so much wanting that we are in danger to perish merely because there is so little integrity so little common honesty remaining among us but so much falseness lewdness filthiness and sottish debauchery as have made men so beyond measure dull and stupid that it hath given our Adversaries hope they were disposed to receive any Religion Nay they who are better enclined have been too careless in the Divine Service too frozen in their Devotion and not solicitous enough in the mortifying their unruly affections and passions in bridling their tongues and adding to their Faith all those Graces about which St. Peter requires us to give all diligence 2 Pet. i. 5 c. And yet the Grace of the Gospel teaches us so plainly how to walk and to please God that it is a wonder every Body does not look upon a holy life as the most necessary part of Christianity For nothing is there so earnestly pressed as this which is most lacking among us who live as it follows there in St. Peter ver 9. like blind men or which is all one that cannot see afar off nothing at a distance but merely that which is held before their eyes having forgotten that they were purged from their old sins do not reflect that is upon what was done at their Baptism but as if they were not able to look so far back wallow in their filthiness which then they solemnly renounced But this is too large a Subject for a particular Discourse and therefore I must leave it to your own private examination and search whether you have not relied too much contrary to what you have received and heard and professed upon a naked Faith and the merits of our Saviour without that care which He requires to make your Faith work by love to God and to your Neighbours And here there are as many sins to be repented of as there are Christian Duties to be practised if we have been negligent in any of them And if we will not amend but still continue to be barren and unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ with what reason do we expect that He should be pleased with an idle Faith which doth us no good and not rather look for that doom which was pronounced upon the empty Fig-Tree Cut it down why cumbreth it the ground III. For the preventing of which dreadful Sentence I must call you to repentance for one most dangerous sin contrary to our Faith and Christian Profession which I fear too many will find themselves guilty of if they will but be at the pains to examine the state of their souls upon the third Head viz. The demeanour of the people towards their spiritual Pastors and Guides in the way to salvation Towards whom there are a great many pious persons it must be thankfully acknowledged who still preserve in their hearts and behaviour that due regard which Religion and reason require But it must on the other hand be bewailed that there are vast numbers among all sorts of men who do not only sleight them but have shaken off the yoke of obedience to them Which is the thing above all others that hath made the Papists so audacious and will certainly if it be not amended bring in Popery at last among us Be not offended I beseech you if in a time when plain dealing is so necessary and in a matter of such great consequence as I apprehend it I be so bold as to tell you that there are those who oppose themselves so senselesly as well as arrogantly to all spiritual Authority that this Doctrine of obedience to it they call Popery Which is a foul reproach to the Reformation an Apostasie from its Principles and a casting off the direction of the holy Scriptures which require such obedience as we preach For we do not bid men follow any Guides but such as take God for their Guide that is guide themselves and the people by the Word of God If we did go about to hide that from the peoples eyes and hinder them from reading it it would be an evident sign that we knew our selves to be reproved by the Scriptures and that instead of submitting to that Rule we would make our own authority to be the supreme Rule which is the crime of the Roman Church But there is no colour for any such charge to be laid against us who exhort who press the people to be diligent in reading the holy Scriptures only we desire them as the Scriptures themselves do that they would take along with them the assistance and direction of those whom Christ hath appointed to guide their judgment Without which direction men may easily see if they please to read them what a high crime it is to despise and
much more to revile and rail at their Authority And yet some have proceeded thus far in their opposition to them nay deny they have any Authority at all The woful effects of which we see as in other things so in the Divisions that are among us which have opened a Gap for Popery and we all fear will bring it in But we will not see as we ought to do that all those Divisions have sprung from this other Cause and still are maintained and widened by the general contempt of those whose Guidance ought to be religiously observed which if we will not regard as God commands us we shall inevitably run our selves out of our Religion For our Divisions which this Day we come to lament we all confess will do the business if they be not cured And of all the ways of Cure which are now thought of we seem resolved to wave the principal if not the only way of Gods own prescribing The method of which I shall faithfully and plainly lay before you that thereby you may judge what is like to become of us if it be neglected We all grant I believe that the right means to avoid or to remedy Contentions and Divisions in the Church are as clearly set down in the holy Scriptures as any Rule of life whatsoever For otherwise they would be extreamly defective in that thing which is most necessary for the preservation of the Religion which they teach 1. Now if you search the holy Scriptures with never so little diligence you cannot but observe there is a Duty frequently inculcated of reverence and obedience to Christs Ministers which if the people will not pay according to the evident meaning of such places as I shall mention anon it is impossible that the Society of the Church should be kept in unity but must necessarily break in pieces and be dissolved 2. We must add indeed That the Ministers of Christ ought also to take special care to be such wise and faithful Stewards in Christs houshold that the people may be inclined with the greater forwardness to obey their directions For which end their Duty is no less plainly and amply set down in the holy Scriptures and such extraordinary caution is given by Saint Paul about the admission of persons into holy Orders that were his directions sincerely followed and did the people as He enjoins adhere unto them in hearty love and esteem of them for their works sake there would be a marvellous encrease of Christian knowledg and goodness without that strife and contention which now blasts them both 3. But if Princes do not make such good choice as they ought of spiritual Governours or if those spiritual Governours by their negligence ordain worse inferiour Ministers yet the Authority of ordering or reforming things doth not by devolution come to the people nor will this justifie their disobedience to them But their Christian Duty is as manifest in this Case as in any other which lyes in these two things First They ought to fall the more earnestly to their Prayers both for their King and for all in authority under him especially their spiritual Pastors The Scripture enjoyns both and the gross neglect of both is one cause things are no better among us What other meaning is there of those words of the Apostle 1 Tim. ii 1 2. I will that supplications c. be made for all men for Kings and for all in Authority that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty And why doth the same Apostle frequently desire the Church would be helping by Prayers for him who needed them less than we do but to teach all Christians how earnestly they should recommend those to Gods guidance who are to guide them Read 2 Cor. i. 11. vi Ephes 19. and other places And if they find that their prayers are ineffectual there being no amendment in those that should take care of them their Duty Secondly is to examine seriously and lay to heart the cause why they cannot prevail and a little consideration will teach them that in all likelihood it proceeds from their own sins who deserve no better Governours and Pastors For as the Prophet speaks in the next Chapter to the second Lesson for Evening Prayer lix Isai 1 2. The Lord's hand is not shortened that He cannot save neither his ear heavy that He cannot hear but your iniquities have separated between you and your God and your sins have hid his face from you that He will not hear And for what sins do you think it is more probable that God is angry with us in this Nation and will not hear the prayers of this people than their disesteem of Christs Ministers even of the best of them their contempt of their Office their proneness to disobedience nay their scurrility and scoffing at all spiritual Authority and such like sins expresly forbidden in Gods holy Word With which this Church alas abounds a great deal more than with supplications and prayers to God for them All are more forward to find fault if not to rail and revile than to beseech God of his infinite mercy to give them Pastors after his own heart or to examine their own Consciences how they have provoked God by their unprofitableness at least under the best means of Grace that He hath bestowed upon them 4. But let us suppose further That the Governours and Pastors of the Church are not only negligent but exceed the bounds of their Authority as it seems to the people by enjoyning things which they take to be unlawful yet this will not warrant their contempt of their Authority and their casting off all obedience to them But two things are to be considered Whether they be certain the Commands of their Governours are unlawful or they only fear they are In the first Case indeed they ought not to be obeyed in such things but by the peoples care to obey in all others which they judge to be lawful they ought to demonstrate that it is only respect to God which makes them not comply in things which seem to them to be apparently unlawful And so unity in most things being preserved they will be the easier brought to see their errours on one side or other But in the other case when they are not certain the things commanded are unlawful which is the common cause of all our Divisions but only suspect them to be so it seems to be reason that the people should not disobey a certain Command of God which requires them to submit to their Governours when they are not certain there is a cause for their refusal The most that can be allowed them is humbly to desire those Laws may be altered or if the Rulers of the Church who are the proper Judges of such matters cannot think it safe to make such alterations as are desired then barely to suspend their obedience in what they fear is unlawful till they can be better