which had such a load as the sins of Mankind and God's wrath due to those sins hanging upon it These were the Arrows of the Almighty that went through his Soul This The poyson thereof that drank up his Spirit These The Terrors of God that did set themselves in Array against Him to use Job's expression The spirit of a Man may well bear his infirmities but a wounded spirit a spirit so wounded as his was by the hand and stroke of an omnipotent God who could bear but He that was God's equal and yet even He complains who yet did bear it How easily could He have vanquished the malice of Hell who stoops at the power and anger of God If any thing could add to this affliction to this piercing of his Soul on Man's part it must have been those bitter taunts those cutting reproaches he suffered from the ungratefull Jews or rather those despights He foresaw Sinners should doe Him who should make a mock of Him and of those Sins which pierced Him or at least so slender a reckoning of all his piercings as to have no sense at all of them and as if they were a matter not worth looking on should never bestow so much as one Thought upon them nay by their constant sinning and that without any remorse should crucifie afresh the Son of God and put him to an open shame treading him under foot and counting the bloud of the Covenant whereby they were sanctified an unholy thing All this and more than our faint apprehensions can reach to our Lord had in his prospect and which pierced his very Heart by that foresight He had of it and so brings us Christians within the compass of those that pierced Him Indeed the Text literally points to the Jews and their Assistants the Roman Souldiers as the Authors of Christ's crucifixion and the immediate Executioners thereof And it cannot be denied but that All of them had a hand or head in this Act. They brought him to they stretcht Him on his Cross They pierced his hands and his feet they stood staring and looking upon Him says the Psalmist Psal. 22. 17. All of them in their several degrees were guilty of the Fact some as procuring his Death as the whole Nation of the Jews some as commanding the Execution as Pilate others as doing it as the Gentile Souldiers And we are ready and not without good cause too to condemn their cruelty But this is only to mind the Evil they did not what Evil Christ suffered This is to be angry with them but not to justifie our selves who pierced him as well as they and some of us more deeply than many of them did Let us not mistake our selves It was their Sin that did practise but it was ours that procured our Lord's Death We would fain shift our Sin on the Jews and Heathens who were but the Instrumental causes here whereas we are the Principals 'T is not the Executioner that properly kills the Man nor yet the Judge Solum peccatum homicida est Sin only is the Murtherer and every Sinner the Executioner of a Saviour All Men are the Meritorious causes for whose Transgressions He was pierced The Lord hath laid on Him the Iniquity of us All says the Prophet Esay 53. 6. It was the Hypocrisie of our Hearts that mocked Him It was the Bribery of our Hands that buffeted Him The Oaths of our Mouths that spat in his Face We betrayed Him with our wanton kisses We whipt Him with the cords of our Oppression We gave Him Gall and Vinegar to drink by our luxurious Intemperance Our Pride in vain Apparel and Ornaments platted a Crown of Thorns upon his head and stript him of his garments In a word our mighty Sins were the Nails which pierced his hands and his feet and the Spear that was thrust into his side The glory of the Lord was brought to shame for our shamefull lives The Lord of life was put to death for our deadly sins and the word became speechless for our crying Ones So that I may justly bring this home to every Man in this Congregation with the Prophet Nathan's Tu es homo Thou art the Man that piercedst Christ and every one of us were that question put to us seriously which was once to him scoffingly Matth. 26. 8. Prophecy who smote thee may without the gift of Prophesying return the answer It is We that smote Him We have now found out the Piercers here And who but They ought to be the Spectators of that Tragedy which themselves have occasioned Indeed all Mankind are the They in the Text that have pierced and therefore must look upon him But what is it to look upon him Is it only to gaze upon a Crucifix with the superstitious Papist and have our Minds look one way while our Eyes look another Is it to look upon Him with dry Eyes and unrelenting Hearts Or only to look and no more To afford him a passing glance of our Eye and then fix it perhaps on some vain and sinfull Object Surely the looking here implies more than so it requires the Exercise of all our Senses and Faculties in the judgment of the Hebrew Doctors as Grotius on this place observes out of Exod. 20. 18. and Jer. 2. 31. It requires our Memory to recall our Understanding often to reflect and ruminate on Christ's Passion and engages all our Affections about it It exacts our most serious Attention and our often-repeated Meditations We must so look upon as to look into Christ pierced for us so look on as never to look off Him That by frequent viewing the dimensions of his Cross we may be able to comprehend what is the breadth and length and depth and height thereof and to know the love of Christ there dying for us which passeth knowledge St. Peter speaking of the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow 1 Pet. 1. 12. tells us ver 13. that the Angels desire to look or as the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there imports curiously to pry into them and the more we doe so the greater benefit shall we reap by it For at every our looking here some new sight will offer it self to us to raise our admiration and exercise our affections It will make us love Him who was pierced for us and it will pierce us through with sorrow for having pierced Him It will move our Pity raise our Faith and exalt our Hopes to their highest pitch That we may then look upon Christ pierced to our benefit and comfort let us doe it these five ways With an eye of Pity and Compassion of Sorrow and Regret of Love Faith and Joy 1. With an eye of Pity and Compassion And this is no more than what we commonly doe to all afflicted persons The misery of Sufferers be they who they will naturally attracts our Eyes and turns our Bowels towards them At least we are apt to pity if not so
Theater of the World not content with the Conscience of them unless as the Pharisees dealt their Alms and said their Prayers they may do them so as to be seen of men And hence it is that many belye themselves in Sin usurp Vice and steal the glorious Reputation of exceeding Sinfulness as if the Impiety were meritorious and the shame of doing ill the only thing to be ashamed of St. Augustine in his Confessions complains of himself that in his younger Days he did so that in compliance with some of this shameless humour he did often boast of imaginary Vices and attributed Sins to himself he never had committed being more afraid of displeasing his vile Companions than his God And doubtless many to avoid the Imputation of Temperance and the Scandal of a singular and affected Sobriety labour all they can to be thought more wicked than sometimes they are Nor is it enough for such to wear out all the Impressions of the Law written in their own Hearts and wholly to subdue their own Consciences unless they may shame and baffle all Goodness out of those of other men by setting off Vice with all Lustre and Advantage that possibly may recommend it to their esteem while on the other side they labour as much to put Vertue out of countenance and render it unfashionable and ridiculous by the antick Dress they give it cloathing it as the Jews did our Lord in a Fool 's Coat to move Laughter and Contempt the Business of every drolling Buffoon who thinks he cannot better disparage Vertue than by representing it as a melancholy and pedantick thing an Enemy to good Manners and civil Conversation a Contradiction to Nature and a restraint on that Liberty and those Appetites it gives us Now if this be not to cast off all discriminating Notions of Good and Evil if this be not to expose Nature Travesty and by a perverse kind of Heraldry to set Evil before Good 't is hard to say what it is Doubtless of all other men these best deserve the Prophet's Character here and fall directly within the Compass of his Curse The last thing to be considered The Law of Nature of which Morality is the most considerable part is so unchangeable that some how warrantably I know not do affirm 't is not in the Power of God himself to alter it 'T is hard to say that he that has Power to make a Law cannot alter it since in some Instances we find he has done so but they are indeed more rare than his miraculous Dispensings with the ordinary Course of Nature And as God is pleas'd sometimes to vary that to show himself Lord of Nature so has he sometimes changed this to let us know He is that one Lawgiver St. James speaks of who can prescribe to the Conscience To endeavour then to alter the property of moral Good and Evil is to entrench upon the Almighty's Prerogative and to call Evil Good to stamp our Impression on his Bullion is the worst sort of Coinage and no less than flat Rebellion against the Supreme Majesty of Heaven Job expresly calls it a rebelling against the light the Light of Nature ch 24. ver 13. A Sin in some measure against the Holy Ghost too all natural as well as revealed Light being from Him especially when it is done out of that reprobate or injudicious mind Heathens were given up to who held the truth in unrighteousness i. e. did by their wicked lives and conversations so imprison those common notices of God and Morality which naturally shined in their Understandings that they could no more appear or come forth than men that are shut up close Prisoners in a dark Dungeon This was the great Crime of the Heathen World and for this Cause God gave them up to vile Affections to be directed by such a crooked Rule as they had framed to themselves and be led by the Wisp of their false Imaginations over Boggs and Precipices into ruine 'T is usual with God as to make one Sin the punishment of another so to suit Punishments to Crimes Thus when Heathens abused natural Light he suffered them so far to be besotted as not only to worship Stocks and Stones but Vices and Sins Thus while some Jews abused revealed Light he threatens them with putting out their Light in obscure Darkness as he does Christians who go against the Light of the Gospel to remove their Candlestick and send them strong Delusions to believe a Lye take Darkness for Light and Light for Darkness And if the Light that is in Man be Darkness how great must that Darkness be Surely by so much the greater by how much their Light was so And therefore Christians who besides the Natural and Mosaical have the glorious Light of the Gospel to direct them as to the Measure of Good and Evil must needs be much more inexcusable if they shall err in their choice and in what they know naturally as brute Beasts in those very things corrupt themselves and so have nothing left to distinguish them from Heathens but a better Name and worse Practices For how many Heathens were there who if they should now appear on the Stage of the World would shame most Christians of it What Justice Temperance Frugality Conscience of Oaths and Promises Severity and Strictness of Life among them and what Injustice Intemperance Prodigality Falseness and Universal Depravation of Manners among these Certainly if our Righteousness exceed not theirs We shall in no wise enter into the Kingdom of Heaven But if our Unrighteousness shall exceed theirs what Hell will be deep or dark enough for us Shall not Uncircumcision which is by Nature if it fulfill the Law judge thee who by the Letter and Circumcision dost transgress the Law said St. Paul to the Jews Let every Christian make particular Application to himself and see whether with the Advantage of a far clearer Revelation he does not come short of Jews nay whether he makes any Conscience of doing those things which the bare Light of natural Reason taught Heathens to abhor and yet while he damns them for their moral Vertues he can absolve himself though guilty of their foulest ones It were to be wisht that many Christians were but as good as some Heathens were that they would at least follow Nature the Dictates of natural Reason their Errours would be fewer and their Accompt less and were they faithful in this smaller Talent God would then entrust them with a greater The common Notices of Good and Evil are the natural Man's Book as Papists say Images are Lay-mens and he that well studies this Book and is learned in it may not despair of taking a higher Degree of perfection in the School of Christ Christianity being nothing else but Nature refined and exalted and all the Laws of Christ concerning moral Actions the very Law of Nature but in a clearer Character and more correct Impression Indeed the
therefore this truth for granted I shall only speak to his Office described here by the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies two things 1. A Comforter 2. An Advocate 1. A Comforter and such He was to be 1. To the Apostles themselves 2. To the whole Church 3. To each faithfull Believer 1. To the Apostles themselves It was indeed a seasonable time to talk to them of a Comforter when sorrow and distress were coming upon them and they were to be as sheep without a shepherd They had left all for Christ but while he was with them they found all in Him who was dearer to them than all their possessions While He lived with them their joy and satisfaction was full and compleat but a joy that was to last no longer than his Corporal presence which the Holy Spirit was to supply and that abundantly For although they could no longer have recourse to their Lord for Resolution of Doubts or Protection from Dangers yet should they not want an Oracle to clear the one nor a Sanctuary to secure them from the other The Holy Ghost should both enlighten their Understandings and dispell their Fears Being endewed with power from on high Afflictions themselves should prove Consolations unto them and they should find more satisfaction in their very Sufferings than worldly Men in their highest Enjoyments as we find they did Act. 5. 41. when departing from the presence of the Counsel they rejoyced and that with joy unspeakable that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for Christ's Name But then 2. The Holy Ghost was to be a Comforter not only to the Apostles but to the whole Church of God The Father under the ancient legal Dispensation was a severe Law-giver rewarding Obedience and strictly punishing Rebellion He appeared terrible on Mount Sinai Nothing was to be seen there but Fire and Smoak and thick Darkness Nothing to be heard but Thunder and the Trump of an Angel insomuch that Moses himself trembled and quaked Such an Appearance suiting well with the Promulgation of the Law as denouncing nothing but Woes and Curses to Offenders But under the Gospel-Oeconomy there was another face of things The Son of God while in the Flesh had no such marks of terror and severity attending him more proper to a Creator than a Redeemer He came not with a Rod but in the Spirit of Meekness His condition was a condition of Humility agreeable to one whose Kingdom was not of this World and suitable to his appearance in the Flesh was that of the Holy Ghost whose descent was indeed in Fire but to warm and cherish not to consume In a mighty rushing Wind to represent his divine Power and Efficacy not his Impetuosity 'T was not such a Wind as God came to Elijah in which rent the Mountains and brake the Rocks in pieces The motions of the Holy Spirit are not violent He does not affright those He lights on nor create Fear but Love in that Heart he fills 'T is He that makes us cry Abba Father That begets in us a holy generous Confidence and speaks peace to his People The cords he brings with Him are those of a Man such as chain and captivate Hearts The Oeconomy of the Divine Spirit was to be an Oeconomy of Sweetness and Consolation to the Church becoming the Gospel of Peace and the God of all Consolation 3. The Holy Ghost was to be a Comforter to all true Believers not only as begetting Faith in their Hearts and dispelling that Darkness which naturally possesseth their Understandings but as giving them Peace of Conscience and that unspeakable joy which the World is unacquainted with and cannot take from them Hence He is said to seal them unto the day of their Redemption Ephes. 4. 30. To be the Earnest of their heavenly Inheritance and to make them fore-tast the joys of Heaven here on Earth What comfort what ravishing joys does he still raise in the Souls of all the Faithfull by the apprehension and sense he gives them of the Love of God and that certain hope they have by him of enjoying Him in Heaven Grace is the Paradise of the Soul Holiness its Crown and the assurance it has of God's Love to it the choicest flower of that Crown Nor is he thus only a Comforter to each true Believer but he is so too as his Teacher and another-guess Teacher than Men are to one another For let their Methods of Teaching be never so perspicuous and their care and pains to inform us never so great yet when all is done they cannot communicate unto us either clearness of Apprehension faithfulness of Memory or soundness of Judgment and where they find us dull or stupid all their pains and skill are but thrown away upon us But the Holy Ghost does so teach as withall to change the natural temper and disposition of men's Minds working so upon their Understandings by the clearness and evidence of those Reasons he proposeth that they are not able to resist or stand out against the force of his Demonstrations drawing them to Him in so sweet and yet effectual a manner that although sensible of the effect yet the way of his Attraction is as imperceptible to them as the power thereof is uncontroulable The Manner of the Holy Spirit 's operation on Believers now is very different from that on the Prophets of old which was so forcible that Elisha could not Prophecy without the help of Musick to compose and tune his Spirit But under the Gospel-Dispensation the Holy Ghost deals otherwise with his Servants No such Enthusiasms or Transports here Their Understandings are enlightned without any disturbance to their Bodies They receive the Holy Ghost's Inspirations without the least astonishment or discomposure while he gently glides and descends into them like rain into a fleece of wool in the Prophet David's expression Psal. 72. 6. And thus the Holy Ghost is a Comforter But then 2dly He is withall an Advocate The word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 properly signifies so much one that maintains the Cause of a Criminal or at least of an Accused Person Now the Spirit does so by justifying our Persons and pleading our Causes against the Accusations of our Spiritual Enemies 1. Against the Severity of God's Law and that most righteous undeniable Charge of Sin laid thereby upon us 2dly Against the Devil who we know is styled the Accuser of the Brethren and doth not only load our Sins upon our Consciences but farther endeavoureth to exclude us from the benefit of Christ by charging us with Impenitency and Unbelief Here the Spirit enableth us to clear our selves against this Father of lyes to secure our Title to Heaven against the Sophistical Exceptions of this our subtle Adversary and when by Temptations our Eye is dimmed or by the mixture of Corruptions our Evidences defaced he by his Skill helpeth our infirmities and bringeth those things which are blotted out and forgotten into our
Church when they cannot make them of their Religion I doe not think that those Christianos nuevos those new Christians as they call them in Spain That is such as the Inquisition has made Christians of Mahumetans doe much love the Religion they turn to and much less those who turn them to it by employing Fire and Faggor These indeed are undeniable Evidences of cruelty in them that use them but slender Motives of credibility to beget belief in them that suffer by them And this way will not fail to multiply enemies instead of procuring friends to any Cause though never so good For as Persecution to the true Church is but as the Pruning to the Vine which gains in its bulk and fruit what it loseth in a few luxuriant branches lopt off so even Heresies themselves thrive by being prun'd too the cropping of these Weeds does but serve to thicken them the bloud of the Devil's Martyrs proves as much the Seed of his Synagogue as that of Gods Saints does of his Church and the destroying of the Persons of Hereticks supposing them such does but add life to their Cause And indeed what encouragement have Men to receive a Religion from their Oppressors or how can they think that they who torture and kill their Bodies are really concern'd to save their Souls And while the felicities of another World are recommended to them only by such as doe deprive them of all in this we cannot wonder at their little appetite to embrace them or to find the oppress'd Indians protest against that Heaven where the Spaniards are to be their Cohabitants Add we to all this That such Motives as these can never demonstrate Truth For how successfull soever their force proves yet it cannot prove the Doctrines true For by that argument it proves the Religion it goes about to settle true It proves that that which it destroys was true before while it prevailed and had the power And then such a testimony is given to the truth of Christianity which Heathenism had before and Turcism hath since And thus you see how all violent ways to propagate the Faith cannot be acceptable to God the Father as being directly contrary to his Nature and Will nor yet to his Son since they cross the very end and design of his coming into the World his Doctrine and Practice Fly in the very face of Religion it self and can never serve their turn who make use of it From all which it follows That they who pursue such ways neither know God the Father nor his Son Jesus Christ. I know what is commonly said by some who practice this way of compulsion in excuse and defence of it That many who serve God at first by compulsion may come after to serve him freely That these sorts of Conversions doe not augment the number of Saints but they diminish that of Hereticks That although some among them may prove bad Converts themselves yet they have Families to be saved that their Children may make good Christians and though the stock be naught yet the branches may be sanctified But the answer hereunto is easie That neither good Intents nor casual Events can justifie unreasonable Violence which instead of rendering Men orthodox Christians makes them rather Atheists Hypocrites and Formalists For being constrained to practice against Conscience they soon come at last to lose all Conscience Nor are Men to owe the Salvation of Souls to any unwarrantable proceedings because they must not doe any present evil in prospect of any future good This was another gross error of these persons in the Text as I am now to show you in the next place 2. The Jews here thought their Zeal to the Temple and their Ritual Observances so invincibly meritorious that no crime could defeat it And we see how apt many Christians are to ascribe so much to the force of a good meaning as if it were able to bear the stress and load of any sins that can be laid upon it A good purpose shall hallow all they doe and make them boldly rush into the most unchristian practices in prosecution of what some call The good old Cause others The Catholick Faith For how doe Men swallow down the deadliest Poyson Perjury Sacriledge Murther Regicide and the like in confidence of this their preservative and say grace over the foulest sins How many have made themselves Saints upon that account that would never have been such upon any other And how much Religion groans under the Reproach of all those Evils which zeal and good meanings have consecrated is notorious to all the World Men call the over-flowing of their gall Religion and value their Opinions so high and their eagerness in abetting them that they think the propagating of them so important a service to God as will justifie all they doe in order to this end Now not to speak of their Error in the choice of their Opinions That of many opposite one only can be the Right my present business shall be to shew you 1. The Impiety and 2. The Danger of this strong delusion in respect of that Malignant influence it has on Practice For the clearing of which two things we are to observe That to the making an Action good and warrantable these three things are requisite 1. A good Intention in the Doer 2. That the Matter of the Action be in it self good and 3. That it be rightly circumstantiated For a failure in either of these three things quite vitiates the whole Action 1. The first thing necessary to a good Action is a good Intention in the Doer This we learn from Matth. 6. 22. If thine Eye that is thy Intention for so Interpreters generally understand it be single thy whole Body shall be full of light Be the matter of an Action never so good yet if a Man's aim and intention in the doing of it be not so all is stark naught For Actus moralis specificatur ex fine And Finis dat speciem in moralibus And as the End is the first thing that sets an Agent a working so is it the last that perfects its work Nay so valuable in the sight of God is a good Intention where-ever it be found That as He sometimes prevents an evil Act in him in whom He discovers a good Intention as in Abimilech so does He sometimes reward a good Purpose tho' it proceeds not to act as in David T is true that a good End alone does not justifie any action but it is as true that there can be nothing good or tolerable without it And although a good meaning doth not wholly excuse yet an evil one wholly condemns it But then 2dly Besides a good Intention two things more are requisite to the making an Action good 1. That the Matter of it be such 2. That it be rightly circumstantiated 1. That the Matter thereof be good For our Intention as our zeal must be always in a good thing And a thing is then
good when it is conformable to that Rule which is the measure of its goodness namely God's Will revealed unto us in his Word which if it condemn an Action no Intention how good soever can warrant it 2. That it be duly Circumstantiated That is that all necessary circumstances be found in it For bonum ex integra causa malum ex quolibet defectu A thing may be evil upon one circumstance but it cannot be good but upon All and every partial defect in the Object End Manner or other such-like circumstances is sufficient to render the whole action bad but to make it good there must be an universal concurrence of all requisite conditions in every of these respects These principles being taken for granted as I think no good Christian will question the truth of them the Conclusion is clear and evident That no Intention how good soever in it self can make any Action good where either the Matter thereof is bad that is Repugnant to the revealed Will of God or it fails of those necessary circumstances that must concur to its goodness And the main Reason hereof is Because no good purpose can alter the nature of Good and Evil It can neither alter the nature nor change the degree of Sin so as to make it less in one Man than in another because the nature of Good and Evil depends not on Man but on the Will of God And the differences between Good and Evil and the several degrees of both doe spring from such Conditions as are intrinsecal to the things themselves which no outward Respects much less men's Opinions can vary nor sanctifie the use of them What is evil in some circumstances may be good in other but if the thing be wholly bad in it self it can never be made good till there come a cause as great to change the Nature as to make it Nor is sin de numero eligibilium It can neither be chosen for its own sake nor in reference to any farther end E malis minimum may hold true in Evils of pain but in Evils of fault or sin E malis nullum is the Rule For as there is neither form nor beauty in sin that we should desire it so neither any good use we can put it to For that Actio peccati non est Ordinabilis ad bonum finem is the common Resolution of the Schools 'T is true indeed that God can and many times doth order the very sins of Men to a good end but that is beyond our skill nor must we commit any though accidentally and in the event it may possibly turn to his glory We are not to tell a lye although through it the truth of God may more abound to his glory as St. Paul speaks Rom. 3. 7. And the reason is because God Himself whose Will ought to be our Rule hath expresly forbid us so to doe Will ye speak wickedly for God or talk deceitfully for Him says Job ch 13. 7. Will He borrow Patronage to his Cause from falsehood Or will he be glorified by those Sins which he forbids and abhorrs I find indeed a sort of people in Esay 66. 5. who when they hated their Brethren and cast them out for God's name sake either out of their company as not fit to be convers'd with by their lesser Excommunication or out of their Synagogue as deserving to be cut off from the Congregation of the Faithfull by their greater one could wipe off all their crime by saying The Lord be glorified But what says God Himself of them They have desired their own ways and their Soul delighteth in their Abominations They did evil before mine eye and chose that in which I delighted not ver 3 4. That is they did their own Will not mine and pretended to advance my Glory in such a way as themselves fancied but I never allow'd of God will as soon part with his Glory as have it thus promoted With Him it is much the same thing to be made the End as the Author of Sin and whether we doe good to a bad end as the Pharisees did or evil to a good one with these in the Text we are equally guilty in the sight of God who will be sure to punish us even for our good but unwarrantable Intentions As He did King Saul for reserving the best of the flocks of Ameleck which he had devoted to utter destruction though it were for a Sacrifice And King Uzzah for putting forth his hand to support the tottering Ark out of a very good intention as he thought because that was no part of his but of the Levites office Does St. Paul justifie himself for having persecuted the Church of God though with a very good intention So far was he from that that he calls himself the chiefest of sinners for the Commissions of that time wherein he says he served God with a pure conscience and did what he thought in his heart he was obliged to doe His good conscience could not then in his account sanctifie his actings nor make his bloudy hands undefiled 'T was blasphemy and persecution for all 't was Conscience I was before says he a blasphemer and a persecuter and injurious v. 13. So that a conscientious or which is here the same thing a well-meaning Man may for all that be the chiefest of sinners nor will it avail any one to shroud his soul actions under handsome intentions What more abominable than Idolatry or what more acceptable service to God than to destroy it And yet those Christians who in a preposterous Zeal and as they thought a good Intention brake down Heathen Images and deservedly suffered for it were never thought fit to be received by the Church into its Martyrology The persons here had as good a pretence as could be it was to doe God service What better Intention And yet they excommunicated and killed Christ's Disciples What Action could be worse Are they thankt for their pains Nay are they not therefore charged by our Lord with gross Ignorance with not knowing the Father nor Himself This may suffice to shew the Impiety of this opinion That a present Evil may be done in prospect of a future Good Give me leave now in a word to shew you also the Mischief of it the bad Influence it has on practice It is impossible for me to tell you what destruction it hath brought and daily brings upon the Earth How many Churches it hath devoured how many Countries depopulated how it hath filled the World with bloud and rapine and must of necessity still confound it by begetting and for ever perpetuating religious feuds and quarrels among Christians For while each Party thinks he has God on his side and that he has as good a right to his Opinion as he that opposeth it hath to his which is a strong persuasion that he is in the right till he be convinc'd that he is in the wrong There can be no end of