A SERMON Preach'd before the Lord Mayor and Aldermen At GUILDHALL-Chappel on Palm-Sunday 1679. And now published as it was then delivered By SAMUEL JOHNSON a Minister of the Church of England as it is now by Law established LONDON Printed for the Author and are to be sold by Richard Baldwin in the Old-Baily 1684. THE Epistle Dedicatory TO THE Clergy Men Brethren and Fathers I Presume with all Humility to offer this small Discourse rather to You than to any other Patrons because being levell'd against the Church of Rome the implacable and mortal Enemy of the Protestant Religion it is a Service to You in the first place and therefore has an immediate right to Your Acceptance and Encouragement The Protestant Cause against Popery is a very Good One in it self but besides You have so many and so strong Engagements to it that whenever a Defence of it is recommended to Your Patronage it comes to its Own and therefore I hope will be received by You. It is a great part of the Doctrine of the Church of England to say that we are not Papists and very many of the thirty nine Articles are wholly spent in condemning and renouncing the Arrogant and Impious Doctrines The fond and vain and unwarrantable Inventions The blasphemous Fables and dangerous Deceits of that False Religion I have endeavoured to justify that Doctrine of our Church by giving some further Reasons why we are not Papists and by shewing that we can never be made Papists but by putting out the Eyes of the Nation My Design both in the preaching this Sermon heretofore and in publishing it now was partly to prevent as far as in me lay the Ruine and Destruction of those many millions of Souls which are now your Charge and will certainly perish if ever they come under the Conduct of the blind Romish Guides And partly to free my self from the Blood of our miserable Posterity which will undoubtedly be required of this Generation if Popery return again in our Days after it has been so long cast out Popery is the worst Religion or pretended Religion in the whole World for she puts out the Understandings of those of her own Communion and tears out the Hearts of all others whom she cannot deceive she will destroy Upon which account she is the Common Enemy of Mankind and of us in particular whom she has threatned with utter Extirpation and has given it us under the Hand of her Secretary Coleman Now I can as soon believe Transubstantiation to be true as believe that we are bound to encourage and assist her intended Cruelty against us by meeting it half-way and by vowing our selves Sacrifices to it On the other hand Unless we use our best Endeavours both against Popery and all those treacherous Inlets which make a way for it we do but mock God when we pray against it and particularly when we say that excellent Prayer against the Popes of Rome which our own Church has put into our Mouths The Lord of heaven and Earth defend us from their Tyranny and pride that they never enter into his Wineyard again to the disturbance of his silly poor Flock but that they may be utterly confounded and put to flight in all Parts of the World and he of his great Mercy so work in all Mens hearts by the mighty Power of the holy Ghost that the comfortable Gospel of his Son CHRIST may be truly preached truly receibed and truly followed in all places to the beating down of Sin Death the Pope the Devil and all the Kingdom of Antichrist that like scattered and dispersed Sheep being at length gathered into one fold we may in the end rest altogether in the Bosom of Abraham Isaac and Jacob there to be partakers of Eternal and Eherlasting Life through the Derits and Death of Jesus Christ our Saviour Amen S. Mat. 15. latter part of the 14th Verse And if the Blind lead the Blind they shall both of them fall into the Ditch THese words are spoken of the Scribes and Pharisees as appears plainly by the Context who though they were perversly and stupidly ignorant yet undertook to be the only Guides and Instructors of the People And they again were so simple and besotted as to put themselves under their Conduct and Direction And now what good can come of such sensless Doings Our Saviour here tells us what the Effect of it will be They shall both of them fall into the Ditch and ingulf themselves together in Perdition And this is so certain that in another place the 6th of St. Luke vers 39. He appeals to the common sense of Mankind whether this be not likely to prove the last issue of such a course He would fain know how it can be otherwise Can the Blind lead the Blind shall they not both fall into the Ditch In handling these words I shall consider I. Why our Saviour calls these Scribes and Pharisees blind Guides II. Why he calls the People their Followers blind III. The Danger of both Parties engaged in this sensless Course 1. Why our Saviour calls the Scribes and Pharisees blind Guides And the Reasons of it may be referr'd to these two Heads 1. Because their Doctrines were contrary to Reason and common Sense And therefore he often calls them Fools and Blind 2. Because they were contrary to the Holy Scriptures They made void the Commandments of God through their Traditions 1. Because their Doctrines were contrary to Reason and common Sense What wise Heathen would not have scorn'd that idle Conceit that washen Hands could contribute to a Man's inward Sanctity And yet this was the standing Tradition of the Elders that none must eat with unwashen Hands that so the Hands might not defile the Meat nor the Meat the Man And they were so careful to have this Practice duly observ'd that they came on purpose to our Saviour to complain of his Disciples for their scandalous neglect in this Point and to challenge him for suffering them in it As you have a full account of it in the beginning of this Chapter together with our Saviour's sense of this out-side and superficial Religion which is so far from the Heart And upon this occasion it is he here calls them blind Another Instance of this was their sensless distinctions about the Obligation of Oaths St. Matth. 23. 16 17. Wo unto you ye blind Guides which say Whosoever shall swear by the Temple it is nothing but whosoever shall swear by the Gold of the Temple he is a Debtor i. e. bound to take care of his Oath and make it good Ye Fools and blind for whether is greater the Gold or the Temple which sanctifies the Gold These were profound Casuists indeed to determine so awkardly and absurdly and quite the wrong way in Subtilties of their own making 2. Because their Doctrines were contrary to the Holy Scriptures they made void the Commandments of God through their Traditions Our Saviour shews
us how they transgress'd the Fifth Commandment and made it of none effect through their Tradition in the 4th Verse of this Chapter And so he shews in other places how they had evaded and eluded the other Commandments by their false Glosses and Interpretations They taught Men how to supplant Justice and Honesty by pretences of Piety and to break the Tables of the Law one against another They were very punctual in little Observances about paying Tythe of Mint Anise and Cummin which it is very disputable whether God did command or no but in the mean time made no Conscience of the more weighty and substantial things of the Law Judgment Mercy and Faithfulness Which makes our Saviour call them again blind Guides which strain at a Gnat and swallow a Camel St. Matth. 23. vers 24. II. And yet in the second place these blind Guides were taken for no less than Infallible by their blind and ignorant Followers For they had swallowed down all their false and absurd Doctrines without any scruple or examination Insomuch that it was a great part of our Saviour's Business both in his Sermon upon the Mount and elsewhere to undeceive them in these Matters The People had captivated their Understandings and Belief to the Dictates of these Men to such a degree that it was laid down as a Rule amongst them That if a Scribe said their right Hand was their Left they were bound to believe him The Scribes and Pharisees it seems had gain'd such an absolute Empire and Dominion over the Minds of the People that they thought it their Duty rather to distrust their own Sense and Reason than what their Teachers delivered though it were never so apparently false What has been said concerning these Jews with whom we are less concerned is enough to put you in mind of certain Priests and People in the World who exactly agree with this Character and seem to inherit the very Spirit and Temper of these Men. And to be plain it is in the Romish Religion where this odd Scene has been acted over again and the Blind have led the Blind for several Ages together The blind Guides of that Church have affronted the Reason of Mankind and voided the Holy Scriptures more effectually than ever the Scribes and Pharisees did and all their Dictates have been followed with as blind an Obedience by the People First Their Doctrines and Traditions as the Pharisees were are contrary to Reason and the common Sense of Mankind Prayer in an unknown Tongue is certainly a most unreasonable and contradictious thing It is making their Requests known unto God for that is the English of Prayer when they do not know them themselves It is the performance of a reasonable Act without the help of the Understanding In a word It is the truest Sacrifice of Fools Now this is imposed upon the generality of Christians as C. Perronne tell us for Uniformity sake that the Mass may be said alike in all places That Latin may be kept up in the World to prevent the ill sounding of old and obsolete words in vulgar Tongues and for such-like Reasons which are as vain and ridiculous as the practice which they are brought to justify The Doctrine of Merit and Supererrogation is a false and insolent Doctrine at the first sight whereby they teach that our great Creator may be put into Debt and owe vast Arrears to one of his own Creatures That some particular Men may have goodness enough and to spare and may help out others with that overplus And upon the Stock of these Merits is raised the Fund of Roman Indulgences whereby the Pope does make large Abatements of the Number of Men's Sins and whereas they owe for Hundreds or Thousands can with the unjust Steward bid them sit down and write Fourscore It would be endless to rip up the Absurdities of a Purgatory Fire which is to refine Men's Souls Souls I say for it is plain that their Bodies are then lying in the Grave Of Auricular Confession where a Man unlades himself of all his Sins by whispering them into the Priest's Ear. Of praying to Dead Men which cannot hear us and for Dead Men which are past help Of worshipping Images and expecting great good from them concerning which what David says is the Verdict of meer natural Reason They that make them are like unto them and so are all they that put their trust in them As very Stocks and Stones as what they worship Of Transubstantiation where Men must renounce all their five Senses at once and where Absurdities Repugnancies and utter Impossibilities lie upon heaps A Doctrine that lies so cross to a Man's Understanding as if it were framed in spight to our reasonable Faculties But so much the better for now we are able to demonstrate the falshood and impossibility of it and if it had not been so very absurd it had been the harder to confute But now that it is so point-blank contrary to the most evident and certain Truths we have either in the Mathematicks or in Philosophy we are able to bring this Controversy to a short and speedy issue For if Transubstantiation be true it has the good luck to be the only Truth in the World and there is never another beside And after all The Doctrine of the Pope's Infallibility keeps a very good decorum with the rest For though he has by his Authority spread these false and absurd Doctrines over a great part of the World and though they seem to be very unreasonable yet they are really true because he that delivers them is out of a possibility of erring He alone cannot err and all others without some of his assistance cannot but err But it is very hard to believe that one single Man in the World is more than a Man and that all the rest are less than Men. That if he place himself in his Chair he cannot err if he would and that others lie under as fatal a necessity of erring if they be left to themselves without his guidance and direction And it is still the harder to believe it because these Oracles have been found contradicting each other So that besides their Infallibility they must have another privilege beyond all other mortal Men and that is to contradict one another and yet be both in the right Secondly Their Traditions and Doctrines are contrary to the Holy Scriptures Their Prayers in an unknown Tongue are directly contrary to the 14th Chapter of the first Epistle to the Corinthians Their Worship of Images is so plain a breach of the Second Commandment that themselves seeing how irreconcileable they are and that they cannot both stand together have wisely let slip that Commandment out of their Catechisms And so it were as easy to shew you concerning the rest The Sacramental Elements are called Bread and Wine in Scripture even after Consecration But instead of particular Instances the Infallibility and sole Prerogative of interpreting
Scripture is that which undermines the whole Gospel all at once For it makes the Scripture but a Stale and gives the Pope's Interpretations all the Authority which of right belongs to the Scripture So that as Bellarmine says If the Pope call Vertue Vice or Vice Vertue he is to be believed and obeyed And this indeed is a short and compendious way of making all the Commandments of God of none effect for Men must observe them no longer than the Bishop of Rome thinks sit And thus much for the first thing which was to shew how contrary the Doctrines of the Romish Priests are both to Scripture and Reason and consequently that they have as much right to that Title of blind Guides or more than ever the Scribes and Pharisees had The second Thing is to shew you That they are attended by as blind and ignorant Followers And this is notorious to the World for Ignorance is industriously cherish'd among the common People to make them the better Catholicks according to that Proverb which has been a long time currant among them that Ignorance is the Mother of Devotion There is a kind of Contract of Error made betwixt them The Clergy are loth to have the People examine Things and the People on the other side are as ready to take Things upon trust that they may not be at the pains of examining And so they have right the Nuncio's Blessing Si Populus vult decipi decipiatur If the People are willing to be deceived let them Nay they have enslaved themselves to such Principles as will for ever keep them low and ignorant and which cut off all enquiry after Truth For they are made to believe that it is a mortal Sin to doubt of any part of their Religion And then it is another mortal Sin not to confess this to the Priest who questionless will take care to keep them from staggering and effectually prevent their Apostacy from the Church The Holy Scripture which is the best means of instructing them better is either lock'd up from them in an unknown Tongue or at least the free use of it is denied to them And yet they take this Injury so patiently that most of them are really and heartily perswaded that it is for their good and that they are thereby the farther removed from all danger of falling into Heresy They content themselves with that short Creed To believe as the Church believes with an implicit Faith that is with a Belief in another's keeping Or as Cardinal Perrone explains the thing It is to believe with the Faith of the Church or adhere to the Church which believes such things By the Faith of which Church says he they live as long as they continue in its Communion as Children live by the Nourishment of the Mother all the while they are in her Womb. Which is the fittest resemblance in Nature that can be found out for them By virtue of this Faith all the Embrioes of that Religion do believe that all these absurd Doctrines are contained in Scripture Nay that Transubstantiation it self is in the Apostles Creed For the Trent Catechism says expresly That it is not lawful for any of the Faithful to doubt but it is comprehended in these two Articles J believe in God the Father Almighty and I believe in the Holy Catholick Church The father Almighty is able to effect and bring it to pass and the Holy Catholick Church tells us he does effect and being it to pass and there it is Now if this be not blind Belief I would fain know what is III. The third thing I propounded was to shew you the Danger of both Parties engaged in this sensless course If the Blind lead the Blind they shall both fall into the Ditch And I shall chuse this way to do it First By laying open before you what a great Fault it is in the Priests Secondly In the People And then your selves may easily judg of the Danger First What a great Fault it is in the Priests And that 1. in advancing Doctrines contrary to Reason and common Sense whereby they go about as much as in them lies to extinguish that great Light which God has set up to enlighten every Man that comes into the World Reason is the only thing we have to trust to in the last issue and result of things And our very belief of Divine Revelations must finally be resolved into it Or else we shall very ill comply with St. Peter's Advice to be ready to render a Reason of the hope that is in us It is that which lays in us the Foundation of all Religion I mean a true Notion of God It teaches us due apprehensions of him and to conceive rightly concerning him It instructs us that we received our Being and all our Faculties from him that we cannot be deceived by them in those things which we evidently and distinctly perceive and that to think otherwise would be to reflect upon God Nay it teaches us that Omnipotence it self cannot make a clear Conception to be false It can indeed make something out of nothing but it cannot make something to be nothing These and such like Principles of Reason are the Rock upon which all Religion stands and if any Man will go wisely and orderly to Work he must be satisfied in these things before he can think of Revelation As for our Reasonable Faculties we know whence we had them and are assured that God has spoken to us by them But as for any Revelation we know not whence it is till we have tried and examined it Till we see how it agrees with our natural Notices of God till we find that it is worthy of God and becoming his Holiness Wisdom Goodness and Truth for then it bears God's Mark and Superscription upon it and carries along with it one great Evidence that it came forth from God When a revealed Religion and the Reason of Mankind do perfectly correspond and bear Witness to one another it is a sign they both proceed from one Author and were both given us by the same Hand If a Doctrine which pretends to come from God does teach us over again the first Principles of our Creation and the Eternal Laws of Heaven and Earth and nothing at all contrary to them who can reasonably doubt but this is the very Mind and Will of him who made the World However this is an undeniable Consequence on the other hand if any pretended Revelation contain in it things contrary to Reason such as we are able to prove false it cannot come from God it is immediatly convicted of Fraud and Imposture For whatsoever is false in Philosophy can never be true in Divinity If natural and supernatural Truths could be supposed to cross one another we should be bound to Contradictions and Impossibilities we should be engaged at once to believe and disbelieve the same things and in the self-same instance to act both as reasonable and
unreasonable Creatures Therefore when Men first teach what is contrary to Reason and then vilify and disparage it as that which savours not the things which be of God as that which is pur-blind and sees little or nothing in Matters of Religion as that which is stark blind and sees nothing at all What do they but undermine the Foundations of all Religion and eclipse that common Light which discovers God to the World and that bright Star which leads all Wise Men to Christ and in a word take the ready way not to leave a Christian or a reasonable Man in the World 2. It is likewise a great Fault to teach Doctrines contrary to the Holy Scripture For it is to unteach the People what God has taught them It is to set them free from those Obligations which God has laid upon them and to make them the Servants of Men It is the presumptuous entitling of God to their own Errors and Falshoods and saying the Lord hath spoken it when he never said it neither did it ever come into his mind It is an unspeakable Injury to our Blessed Saviour to misrepresent his Holy Gospel and to make him be thought the Author of an absurd and sensless and loose and cruel Religion It is enough to alienate the minds of those who only know Popery and the dark side of our Religion from Christianity it self and to make them take up the Resolution of Averroes Quandoquidem Christiani adorant quod comedunt sit anima mea cum Philosophis As long as the Christians worship what they eat let my Soul be with the Philosophers It deceives Men in Matters of the greatest Consequence in the weighty Concerns of their Soul and of Eternity wherein of all other things it is the most horrid and barbarous to impose upon them In a word It is the shrewdest ill turn under pretence of the greatest Charity it is destroying Men in the way of making them happy it is poisoning the Sacrament and it is the Blood of Souls And the badness of this practice will further appear by considering the Motives which draw Men to it And in some Points of Popery it is visible that it is Covetousness making merchandise of Souls for filthy Lucre sake And indeed no Gain can be so foul and dishonest as that for which Men sell Truth and the everlasting Interests of Men. In other Points the Motive is Reputation which is so plain in the Doctrine of Transubstantiation that one of their own Writers cannot forbear enlarging upon the great Honour which it derives upon the Clergy by giving them such a Privilege as if all the learned Clerks that ever lived since the beginning of the World should have studied to raise advance and magnify some one State of Men to the highest pitch of Reverence and Eminency they could never without special Light from Heaven have thought of any thing comparable to this That is they can make their Maker Sacerdos est Creator sui Creatoris The Sweets of Government and the extream and accursed Pleasure of having a Spiritual Dominion and reigning over the Minds and Belief of Men seems to be the Original of other Points as namely Infallibility and Confession It is much to be feared that Ambition Secular Profit and Advantages that the God of this World has blinded their Eyes in these and many other Particulars I know they plead Councils and Fathers and uninterrupted Tradition in behalf of their Doctrines but with so little probability that it may put us in mind of what Polybius says concerning the declaring of War That one Reason is given out but generally that which is concealed is the true Reason However we are sure that if such worldly Considerations do not blind their Eyes and byass their Understandings Yet want of considering and examining things freely and impartially is a Fault of which they will never be able to acquit themselves And that 's Crime enough for a Man to bury his Reason alive and hide his Talent in a Napkin because he will not be at the pains of improving it It is an unpardonable slighting of Heaven and of the right way thither as if they were not worthy of their enquiry after them and is sufficient to destroy both themselves and them that hear them Who are likewise Secondly In great Danger if we consider what a great Fault it is in them to follow their blind Guides with a blind Belief and Obedience 1. In Doctrines which are contrary to Reason and common Sense This must be the worse because a Man cannot do it without some reluctancy and without offering violence to his own mind We are apt to have very uncomfortable thoughts of the Heathen World as sitting in Darkness and in the shadow of Death but Men that yield up their Belief to the Dictates of others betray themselves into a worse condition they expose themselves to greater Errors than ever the Heathens were guilty of of which the single Doctrine of Transubstantiation will serve for a thousand Instances And not only so but they put it out of their power ever to correct their Errors and lie wholly at the mercy of another Mahomet requires no more than this tractable Principle to keep Men Turks and good Mussel-men for this will for ever reconcile them to all the absurd and bloody Doctrines of the Alcoran In the 32 Azoara of which Book he cautions his Followers not to enter into Debate about their Religion nor to argue for it but if any one offer to dispute with them to say That God shall discuss all Controversies in the Day of Judgment which it is as easy for him to do as if it lay written before him in a Book seeing all things are his And in another place he says That no Body understands the Alcoran but God alone but they that have the depth of Wisdom say of it We believe it for all of it comes from our good God And if they be true to these Principles it is utterly impossible to bring Men over from that sensless and barbarous Religion or ever to put them out of conceit with it And besides this temper not only exposes Men to the belief of the greatest Cheats and Impostures in Religion but likewise is a folly which admits of no manner of defence or excuse Why did God give every Man a Conscience of his own if he were to be guided and directed by another Man's Conscience and not his own It is the Birth-right of Mankind to be govern'd by their own Reason in their sense of Religion and as to their inward belief but these Men part with it upon cheaper tearms than prophane Esau sold his and fairly renounce it at a Priest's bidding Where should Men use their Reason and Understanding most but in Matters of the greatest Moment and such without controversy Religion is Did God endow us with these Divine Faculties only to measure Lines and Angles or to learn Trades or to drive