and a bad servant when his filthy interest requireth it and yet thinketh himself a good Christian for all that For all men being faulty it is easie to find a pretence from all men that he doth abuse to cover the injury of his abuse Cain Cham Eli Absalom Judas c. are sad examples of this XLVIII 1. A Christian indeed is the best subject whether his Prince be good or bad Though by infidel and ungodly Rulers he be oft mistaken for the worst He obeyeth not his Rulers only for his own ends but in obedience to God and not only for fear of punishment but for conscience sake He looketh on them in their relations as the Officers of God and armed with his authority and therefore obeyeth God in them He permitteth not dishonourable thoughts of them in his heart much less dare he speak dishonourably of them Exod. 12. Prov. 24.21 1 Pet. 2.13 17. Prov. 8.15 Act. 23.4 5. Eccles. 10 4 20. He knoweth that every soul must be subject to the higher powers and not resist and that there is no power but of God Whosoever therefore resisteth the power resisteth the ordinance of God and he that resisteth shall receive to himself damnation Rom. 13.1 2 3 4 5 6. Therefore in all things lawfull he obeyeth them And though he must not nor will not obey them against God yet will he suffer patiently when he is wronged by them and not only forbear resistance by arms or violence but also all reproachfull words as knowing that the righting of himself is not so necessary to the publick order and good as the honour of his Rulers is Vsurpers may probably charge him to be a Traitor and seditious and rebellious because he dare not approve of their Vsurpations and when several are contending for the Government and in a litigious Title the Lawyers mislead him when the controversie is only among them and belongs to their profession its possible he may mistake as well as the Lawyers and take him to have the better Title that hath the worse But in Divinity he knoweth there is no controversie whether every soul must be subject to the highest power so far as he can know it And that prayers and patience are the Subjects arms and Religion is so far from being a warrant to resist that it plainly forbiddeth disobedience and resistance and none are more obliged to submission and quietness than Christians are The spirit of Christianity is not of this world Their Kingdom and their Hopes are not of this world And therefore they contend not for dignities and rule much less by resisting or rebelling against their lawfull Governours But they are resolved to obey God and secure their everlasting portion and bear all the injuries which they meet with in the way especially from those whom God hath set over them There is no Doctrine that ever was received in the world so far from be friending seditions and rebellion as the Doctrine of Christ nor any people in the world so loyal as Christians while Christianity retained its genuine simplicity till proud domineering worldly men for carnal ends pretended themselves to be Christians and perverted the Doctrine of Christ to make it warp to their ambitious ends suffering seemeth not so great a matter to a holy mortified heavenly mind as to tempt him to hazard his salvation to resist it No man is so likely to be true to Kings as he that believeth that his salvation lieth on it by the ordinance of God Rom. 13.3 And Princes that are wise and just do alwaies discern that the best Christians are their best subjects Though those that are unbelieving and ungodly themselves have ever hated them as the greatest troublers of the Earth And it hath ever been the practice of the Enemies of Christ and Godliness to do all they can to engage the Rulers of the Earth against them and to perswade them that the most godly Christians are persons of disloyal and unquiet minds and by vexing and persecuting them they do their worst to make them such as they falsly called them Even Christ himself was crucified as an enemy to Caesar and Pilate driven to it by the noise of them that cryed out that if he let them go he was not Caesars friend Joh. 19.12 They first tempted him with the question whether it were lawfull to give tribute unto Caesar Matth. 22.17 Luke 20.22 And though they could this way take no hold of him yet this was the first article of his accusation Luke 23.2 we have found this fellow perverting the Nation and forbidding to give tribute to Caesar. And how loyal would those rebellious Jews seem when they thought it the only way to engage the Roman Power against Christ Then they cry out We have no King but Caesar Joh. 19.15 And this was the common accusation against the Christians both by Jews and Gentiles The language of the Jews you may hear from Tertullus Acts 24.5 We have found this man a pestilent fellow and a mover of sedition among all the Jews throughout the world and a ringleader of the sect of the Nazarens And at Thessalonica Acts 17.6 7. the charge against them was that they turned the world upside down and did all contrary to the decrees of Caesar. And thus the best Christians have by such been slandered from age to age because the Devil and his instruments know not how sufficiently to molest them except they engage the Rulers against them But yet all this doth not conquer the patience and loyalty of confirmed Christians They are wiser than that wise man that Solomon faith Oppression maketh mad Eccles. 7.7 If usurpers or malicious lyars shall a thousand times call them rebellious and seditious it shall not drive them from their due subjection They can patiently follow their Lord and the ancient Christians in the enduring of such slanders and suffering as enemies to Caesar so they do but scape the sin and be not such as malice calleth them They had rather die as reputed enemies to Government than to be such indeed They prefer subjection before the reputation of it For they look not for their reward from Princes but from God If they can preserve their innocency they can bear the defamation of their names being satisfied in the hopes of the joyfull day of the Judgement of Christ which will fully justifie them and set all strait Indeed they know that a state of subjection is easier and safer than places of command and that it is easier to obey than govern And so far are they from envying mens greatness and from desiring dominions that they pity the tempted and dangerous and troublesome state of those in power and are thankful to God for their quieter and safer station They heartily pray for Kings and all that are in Authority not that by their favour they may rise to places of wealth and honour but that under them they may live a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and
as Christ did of himself Joh. 10.32 Many good works have I shewed you from my Father for which of these works do ye stone me Many heavenly graces are in the sanctified Believer For which of these do you hate and injure him I know that Goodness is so far in credit with humane nature that you will answer as the Jews did v. 33. For a good work we stone thee not but for blasphemy We hate them not for Godliness but for Hypocrisie and Sin But if it be so indeed 1. Speak not against Godliness it self nor against the strictest performance of our duty 2. Yea plead for Godliness and countenance and promote it while you speak against Hypocrisie and Sin 3. And chuse out the Hypocrite whose Character is here truly set before you and let him be the object of your enmity and distaste Let it fall on those that are worldlings and time-servers and will stretch their consciences to their carnal interest and can do any thing to save their skin and being false to Christ can hardly be true to any of their superiours but only in subordination to themselves As it is said of Constantius that he commanded that all his servants should be turned out of their places that would not renounce Christianity And when he had thereby tryed them he turned out all the Apostates and kept in the sincere and told them They could not be true to him that were not true to their God and Saviour 4. And see that you be not Hypocrites your selves You profess your selves Christians and what is it to be a Christian indeed you may here perceive If any that fall under the character of Hypocrites or worse shall vilifie or hate the sincere Christians as Hypocrites what a horrid aggravation of their Hypocrisie will it be Indeed it is the best and strongest Christians that have most of the hatred both of the Vnbelieving and the Hypocritical world And for my own part I must confess that the very observation of the universal implacable enmity which is undeniably seen throughout the world between the womans and the serpents seed being such as is not found among any other sorts of men on other occasions doth not a little confirm my belief of the holy Scriptures and seemeth to be an argument not well to be answered by any enemy of the Christian cause That it should begin between the two first Brothers that ever were born into the world and stop in nothing lower than shedding the righteous blood of Abel for no other cause but because the works of Cain were evil and his Brothers righteous 1 Joh. 3.12 13. And that it should go down to the Prophets and Christ and the Apostles and Primitive Saints and continue to this day throughout the earth and that the profession of the same Religion doth not alter it but rather enrage the enmity of Hypocrites against all that are serious and sincere in the Religion which they themselves profess These are things that no good account can be given of save only from the predictions and verities of the word of God V. Also you may hence perceive how exceedingly injurious Hypocrites and scandalous Christians are to the Name of Christ and Cause of Christianity and Godliness in the world The blind malicious enemies of Faith and Godliness instead of judging of them by the sacred Rule do look only to the Professors and think of Religion as they think of them If they see the Professors of Christianity to be covetous proud usurpers time-servers self-exalters cruel schismatical rebellious they presently charge all this upon their Religion and Godliness must bear the blame when all comes but for want of Godliness and Religion And all the world hath not done so much against these and all other sins as Christ hath done What if Christs Disciples strive who shall be the greatest Is it long of him who girdeth himself to wash and wipe their feet and telleth them that except they be converted and become as little children they shall not enter into the Kingdom of God Mat. 18.3 and telleth them that though the Kings of the Gentiles do exercise Lordship over them and they that exercise authority upon them are called Benefactors yet ye shall not be so Luk. 22.25 26. Is it long of him that hath said to the Elders Feed the flock of God which is among you taking the oversight thereof not by constraint but willingly not for filthy lucre but of a ready mind neither as being Lords over Gods heritage but being examples to the flock Who hath set the Elders such a lesson as you find in Acts 20. 2 Tim. 4.1 2 3. 1 Tim. 5.17 If any called Christians shall be truly schismatical factious or turbulent is it long of him that hath prayed the Father that they may all be One Joh. 17.21 22 23. and hath so vehemently intreated them that they speak the same thing and that there be no divisions among them and that they be perfectly joyned together in the same mind and in the same judgement 1 Cor. 7.10 and hath charged them to mark them that cause divisions and offences contrary to the Doctrine which they had learned and to avoid them Rom. 16.16 17. If any called Christians shall be seditious or rebellious or as the Papists believe that the Clergy are from under the Jurisdiction of Kings and that the Pope hath power to excommunicate Princes and absolve their subjects from their allegiance and give their dominions to others as it is decreed in the General Council at the Lateran under Innocent the third Can. 3. Is all this long of Christ who hath paid tribute to Caesar and hath commanded that every soul be subject to the higher Powers and not resist and this for conscience sake Rom. 13 1 2 3. and hath bid his Disciples rather to turn the other cheek than to seek revenge Luk. 6.29 and hath told them that they that use the sword of rebellion or revenge or cruelty shall perish by the sword Joh. 18.11 If any Christians will under pretence of Religion set up a cruel Inquisition or kill men to convert them or become self-lovers covetous boasters proud blasphemers disobedient to Parents unthankfull unholy without natural affection truce-breakers false-accusers incontinent fierce despisers of those that are good c. Is this long of him that hath forbid all this 2 Tim. 3.2 3 4 5. If for their own domination lust or covetousness men called Christians will be worse than Heathens and Wolves to one another is this long of him that hath made it his sheep-mark by which we must be known to all men to be his Disciples that we love one another Joh. 13.35 and hath told them that if they bite and devour one another they shall be devoured one of another Gal. 5.15 and hath blessed the merciful as those that shall find mercy Mat. 5.7 and hath told men that what they do to his little ones shall be taken as if it
way and went far and by going further might have attained to Salvation The heart of many a Minister hath been glad to see their Hearers humbled and bewailing sin and changing their minds and lives and becoming forward Professors of Godliness when a few years time hath turned all this joy into sorrow and one of our hopeful seeming Converts doth grow cold and lose his former forwardness another falls to desperate sensuality and turns Drunkard or Fornicator or Gamester another turns worldling and drowneth all his seeming zeal in the love of Riches and the cares of this life and another if not many to one is deluded by some deceiver and infected with some deadly errors and casts off duty and sets himself like a hired instrument of Hell to divide the Church oppose the Gospel and reproach and slander and rail at the Ministers and Professors of it and to weaken the hands of the Builders and strengthen the ungodly and serve the secret enemies of the truth Those that once comforted our hearts in the hopes of their Conversion do break our hearts by their Apostacy and subversion and become greater hinderances to the work of Christ and greater Plagues to the Church of God that those that never professed to be Religious Those that were wont to joyn with us in holy worship and went up with us to the house of God as our companions do afterwards despise both Worshippers and Worship Whereas if these men had been rooted and confirmed you should never have seen them fall into this misery O how many Prayers and Confessions and Duties do these men lose How many years have some of them seemed to be Religious and after all have proved Apostate miscreants and the World and the Flesh and Pride and Error swallow up all See then what need you have to be rooted confirmed and built up in Christ. 4. Consider also How much of the Work of your Salvation is yet to do when you are Converted You have happily begun but you have not finished You have hit of the right way but you have your Journey yet to go you have chosen the best Commander and fellow Souldiers but you have many a Battle yet to fight If you are Christians indeed you know your selves that you have many a corruption to resist and conquer and many a temptation yet to overcome and many a necessary work to do And there is a necessity of these after-works as well as of the first For these are the use and end of your conversion that you may live soberly righteously and godly in this present World denying ungodliness and wordly lusts Tit. 2.11 12. For we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works which God hath ordained that we should walk in them Eph. 2.10 And how can Infants go through all these works Which of you would desire an Infant or Criple to be your servant But though God be in this more merciful than man yet he may well expect that you should not be still Infants What work are you like to make him in this decrepit and weak condition O pittiful blindness that any man that knows that he hath a Soul to save should think an Infant-strength proportionable to those works and difficulties that stand between him and everlasting Life In the matters of this Life you feel the need and worth of strength you will not think an Infant fit to Plow or Sow or Reap or Mow or Travel or play the Souldier and yet will you rest satisfied with an Infant-strength to do those great and matchless works which your Salvation lyeth on 5. Moreover the weak unconfirmed Souls are usually full of trouble and live without that assurance of Gods love and that spiritual peace and comfort which others do possess One would think no other Argument should be necessary to make men weary of their spiritual weaknesses and Diseases than the pain and trouble that alwayes attendeth them It s more pain to a sick man to travel a mile than to a sound man to go ten To the lame or feeble every step hath pain and all that they do is grievous to them when far more would be a recreation to one that is in health O therefore delight not in your own languishings Choose not to live in pain and sorrow But strive after Confirmation and growth in Grace that overgrowing your infirmities you may overcome your sad complaints and groans and may be acquainted with the comfortable life of the Confirmed O how roundly and cheerfully would you go through your work how easy and sweet and profitable would it prove to you if once you were strong confirmed Christians Alas the Souls of those that are not confirmed lye open to every temptation of the malicious enemy of their peace and how small a matter will disquiet and unsettle them every passage in Scripture which they understand not and which seems to make against them will disturb them A Minister cannot Preach so plainly or so cautelously but somewhat which they understand not will be matter of their disquiet Providences will trouble them because they understand them not Afflictions will be bitter to the mind as well as the body and will immoderately perplex them because they understand them not or have not strength to bear them and improve them The sweeter mercies of prosperity will much lose their sweetness for want of holy Wisdom and strength to digest them And what man would choose such a weak and languishing state as this before a confirmed healthful state Will you run up and down for Physick when you are sick and will you no more regard the health and stability and spiritual peace and vigour of your souls 6. Moreover it is the strong confirmed Christian that hath the true use and benefit of all Gods ordinances Meat is digested by the healthful stomack and it s seen upon them and we use to say It is not lost It is sweet to them and doth them good and they are strengthened more by it And so is the confirmed Christian by Gods Ordinances But to the weak unconfirmed Soul how much of the means of Grace is even as lost How little sweetness do they find in means and how little good can they say they get by them I deny not but some good they get and that they must use them still for though the sick have little relish of his meat yet he cannot long live without it and though it breed not strength or health yet it maintaineth that languishing life but this is all or almost all What a sad thing is this to your selves and unto us when Ministers that are as the Nurses of the Church or Stewards of the Houshold to give them all their meat in due season must see that all that ever they can do for you will do no more than keep you alive Yea how often are you quarrelling with your food and you do not like it or you cannot get it down somthing still ails
shall be overcome by his own successes and the just shall conquer by patience when they seem most conquered The name and form and image of Religion the carnal hypocrite doth not only bear but favour and himself accept But the Life and serious practice he abhorreth as inconsistent with his worldly interest and ends For these he can find in his heart with Ahab to hate and imprison Micaiah and preferr his four hundred flattering Prophets 1 King 22.6 8 24 27. If Luther will touch the Popes Crown and the Fryers Bellies they will not scruple to Oppose and ruine both him and all such Preachers in the World if they were able John 11.48.50 Acts 5.28 LVI 1. A Christian indeed is one whose Holiness usually maketh him an eyesore to the ungodly world and his charity and peaceableness and moderation maketh him to be censured as not strict enough by the superstitious and dividing sects of Christians For seeing the Church hath suffered between these two sorts of opposers ever since the suffering of Christ himself it cannot be but the solid Christian offend them both because he hath that which both dislike All the ungodly hate him for his holiness which is cross to their interest and way and all the Dividers will censure him for that universal charity and moderation which is against their factious and destroying zeal described Jam. 3. Even Christ himself was not strict enough in superstitious observances for the ceremonious zealous Pharisees He transgressed with his Disciples the tradition of the Elders in neglecting their observances who transgressed the commandment of God by their tradition Matth. 15.2 3. He was not strict enough in their uncharitable observation of the Sabbath day Matth. 12.2 John that was eminent for falling they said had a Devil The Son of man came eating and drinking and they say Behold a man gluttonous and a wine bibber a friend of Publicans and sinners But wisdom is justified of her Children Mat. 11.18 19. And the weak Christians Rom. 14.1 2 3. did censure those that durst eat those meats and do those things which they conceived to be unlawful They that erre themselves and make God a Service which he never appointed will censure all as lukewarm or temporizers or wide conscienced men that erre not with them and place not their Religion in such superstitious observances as Touch not taste not handle not c. Col. 2.18 21 22 23. And the raw censorious Christians are offended with the Charitable Christian because he damneth not as many and as readily as they and shutteth not enow out of the number of believers and judgeth not rigorously enough of their wayes In a word he is taken by one sort to be too strict and by the other to be too complyant or indifferent in Religion because he placeth not the Kingdom of God in meats and dayes and such like circumstances but in righteousness peace and joy in the Holy Ghost Rom. 14.15 16 17. And as Paul withstood Peter to his face for drawing men to make scruple or conscience of things lawful Gal. 2.11 12 13. so is the sound Christian withstood by the superstitious for not making scruple of lawful things 2. And the weak Christian is in the same case so long as he followeth prudent pious charitable guides But if he be taken in the snares of superstition he pleaseth the superstitious party though he displease the World 3. And whereas the solid Christian will not stir an inch from truth and duty to escape either the hatred of the wicked or the bitterest censures of the Sectary or the weak the Hypocrite must needs have one party on his side For if both condemn him and neither applaud him he loseth his peculiar reward Matth. 6.2 5. 23.5 6 7 8. LVII 1. The confirmed Christian doth understand the necessary of a faithful Ministry for the safety of the weak as well as the conversion of the wicked and for the preservation of the interest of Religion upon earth And therefore no personal unworthiness of Ministers nor any calumnies of enemies can make him think or speak dishonourably of that sacred office But he reverenceth it as instituted by Christ and though he loaths the sottishness and wickedness of those that run before they are sent and are utterly insufficient or ungodly and take it up for a Living or Trade only as they would a common work and are Sons of Belial that know not the Lord and cause the offering of the Lard to be abhorred 1 Sam. 2.2 17. Yet no such temptation shall overthrow his reverence to the office which is the Ordinance of Christ much less will he be unthankful to those that are able and faithful in their office and labour instantly for the good of souls as willing to spend and be spent for their Salvation When the World abuseth and derideth and injureth them he is one that honoureth them both for their work and masters sake and the experience which he hath had of the blessing of God on their labours to himself For he knoweth that the smiting of the Shepheards is but the devils ancient way for the scattering of the flock Though he knoweth that if the salt have lost its savour it is good for nothing neither fit for the land nor yet for the dung-hill but men cast it out and it 's trodden under foot he that hath ears to hear let him hear Luk. 14.34 35. Mat. 5.13 14. Yet he also knoweth that he that receiveth a Prophet in the name of a Prophet shall receive a Prophets reward Matth. 10.41 42. And that he that receiveth them receiveth Christ and he that despiseth them that are sent by him despiseth him Luk. 10.16 He therefore readily obeyeth those commands Heb. 13.17 Obey them that have the rule over you and submit your selves for they watch for your souls as those that must give account 1 Thes. 5.12 13. We beseech you brethren to know them which labour among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you and to esteem them very highly in Love for their work sake and be at peace among your selves 1 Tim. 5.17 Let the Elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honour especially they who labour in the Word and Doctrine 2. But though the weak Christian be of the same mind so far as he is sanctified yet is he much more easily tempted into a wrangling censoriousness against his Teachers though they be never so able and holy men and by seducers may be drawn to oppose them or speak contemptuously of them as the Galathians did of Paul and some of the Corinthians accounting him as their Enemy for telling them the truth when lately they would have pluckt out their eyes to do him good Gal. 4.15 16. 3. But the Hypocrite is most easily engaged against them either when they grate upon the guilt of his bosome sin or open his hypocrisie or plainly cross him in his carnal interest or else when his