men altogether unletter'd men called from mending nets to preach the Gospell If this were so That God according to his good pleasure without any consideration of study or height of parts chose simple unlearned unstudied men to be Prophets and Apostles and Teachers then why should any thinke he hath so confined or entailed his free Spirit or vocation of men upon great parts and studies that he may not if he please call the like unstudied simple men from the Plough or Fisher-boat or Stall or Shop-board to be Ministers of his Gospel and Teachers of his people now My Brethren you see I have not prevaricated or diminished ought of the strength of the Argument which is urged in favour of Lay-mens preaching In answer to which laying aside all partiality to my selfe and prejudice against them I shall with the same spirit of meekness and Candour with which Saint Paul here in this Text bespoke his Corinthians beseech you who heare me this day to observe and weigh and consider well this which I shall say for a Reply First Far far be it from me so to flatter the place of my Education or so to biass my beleef by any false ovevarluing of humane Industry or great parts that I should pinion as it were or put limits to the power of the Almighty Or should be so irreligiously bold as to gain-say that piece of his Gospell which compares his holy Spirit to the Wind which bloweth where it listeth If they who thus pretend to a private Inspiration doe meane that whatever God did in the times heretofore he is able to doe now I shall easily grant it And here in the presence of you all confesse my selfe to be of their opinion Nor shall I make any doubt or scruple at all to say that if we looke upon what God is able to doe by the same power by which he was able to raise up Children to Abraham out of stones or to speake yet more neerly to the Argument in hand by the same power that hee was able to make a Herd-man a Prophet or a Fisher-man an Apostle he is able in our times also if he please to make the meanest Tradesman one of the greatest Luminaries of his Church Since to an Omnipotent Agent whose gifts are meerly Arbitrary and depend wholly upon the pleasure of his owne will the greatest endowments of men and the least are alike easie But though he be able to doe this and in the ancient times of the Scripture have imparted his Gifts without respect of Persons yet whether he now will or whether in our times hee doth still thus extraordinarily raise up Teachers to himselfe is extreamly to be doubted For here with all the Christian gentleness and reason which may possibly conduce to the clearing of this doubt were I to argue this Controversie with one of those men who invade our function and from gathering of Sycamore fruit step up into the Pulpit I would onely aske him this question What Commission he hath thus to usurp upon our Office Or who signed him his patent Since the Apostle tells us in the fifth Chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrewes at the fourth Verse A place well worth your marking my Brethren That no man taketh this honour of a Priest to himselfe But he who is called of God as was Aaron I know his common answer will bee that God hath called him to this Office by the secret Instinct and Motion of his Holy Spirit But then he must not take it ill if I yet farther aske him by what signes or markes or testimonies or tokens he can either maâ—… it reasonably appeare to himselfe or others that God hath dealt with him as he dealt with some of the Prophets or Apostles called him from his Trade by such a motion of his Spirit Elisha we know made Iron swim and knew mens Closet-discourses in a farre Countrey which was a sure and certaine signe that God had called him to be a Prophet The Apostles also we know wrought many of Christs miracles which was a most infallible signe that God had chosen them to be Apostles If any of these men who derive their warrant from the same sacred spring can make Iron swim or like Elisha remaining here in their owne Israel can tell us what the King of Syria saies in his Bed-chamber Or if like Saint Peter they can cure fevers and diseases by their bare shadowes passing over them Or if like the rest of the Apostles having never before knowne Letters they can of a sudden speake all Languages the Controversie is at an end It would bee a very great sinne against the Spirit of God to deny that hee is in them of a Truth But if all the proofe and signe they can give us that they have him be onely a strong perswasion of themselves Nay if by an infallible Illumination they could assure themselves that they have him yet as many as have not the like infallible Illumination to assure them so too will not be guilty of an unpardonable offence if they suspect they have him not For here I must once more repeat my former Question and aske by what effects or signes of the Spirit men shall know them to be called By what will some man say why Doe you not heare them preach expound Scripture unfold Prophecies interpret Parables nay plucke the veile and cloud from the Booke of Mysteries it selfe the very Revelation Can any of you great Schollers with all your study of Philosophers Fathers Councells Schoole-men Historians Oratours Poets either hold your Congregations longer or send them away more edified And will you yet ask Questions Or doubt of the certainty of their vocation I must not dissemble with you if I could meet with an unlearned Handicraft-man who without study can doe this to the same height and measure of Truth as those unjustly-cryed downe learned and well-studied men doe I should begin to alter my opinion And should reckon him as hee deserves in the number of the inspired But alas my Brethren as I am not come hither to disparage the guifts of the Holy Ghost in what person soever I finde them or to perswade that Scripture rightly expounded is not one and the same from the mouth of a Priest or an inspired Lay-man so this I must freely say to you That as many of those strange Teachers as I have heard have expounded Scripture indeed and have ventured upon some of the hardest places of the Prophets But then if all my studies of the Bible assisted with all those holy uncorrupted learned helps which might enable mee to understand it aright have not deceived me their expositions and Sermons how passionately delivered or how long soever are evident proofes to mee that they have not the Spirit If they had they would never certainely expound Scripture so directly contrary to his meaning Or make the writings of the Prophets or Apostles weare only that present shape not which the holy Ghost hath
Seven Angels which blew the Seven Trumpets He said that by one of those Angels was meant Luther by another Queen Elizabeth And when he came to give the meaning of the Locusts which ascended from the Bottomelesse pit with Crowns on their Heads by the Locusts He understood Schollers of the Universitie And by the Crownes on their Heads He understood Square Caps Methinkes these kinde of people deale just so with this place of the Revelation They see strange visions in it which S. Iohn never saw Namely they see Babylon in our Churches and uncleane Birds in our Assemblyes Nay though the Divels being Spirits are too invisible to be seen yet by the benefit of a New-light they can see sights which no other Eyes can see without being present in the place to which foul Spirits do resort as if they had borrowed one of Galilaeo's Glasses they can see Divels take Notes at our Sermons But whether in short-Hand or at length S. Iohn hath not revealed Pardon me I beseech you you who are of the more grave and nobler sort that I am thus pleasant in the pulpit I am compelled to be so when I meet with people who deale with the Scripture as men of melancholly Fancyes use to deale with the Clouds For as I have knowne some Hypocondriack men who have faigned to themselves flying Horses winged Troops and Skips sayling in the Aire Nay as I have knowne some who like the Melancholly man who thought himselfe a urinall have thought they have seene two Armyes in the Skie and have mistaken Clouds and Meteors for Soldiers Trumpets Drums and Cannons So I do not wonder that our Gifted thinking people should so mistake the Revelation as they doe or that they should see Monsters in the Scripture Clouds Where the Scripture is most cleare they hardly understand it How then should they finde out the Key to such darke prophecies as this But here may some man say to me if they mistake this place what 's your Interpretation of it Why my Interpretation is the very same which S. Iohn Himselfe delivers Rev. 14. 8. Where the Angel expresseth himself in the very same words And sayes Babylon is fallen is fallen That great City which made all Nations drinke of the Wine of the Wrath of her Abominations And what was that Great City Why the City built on seven Hills As 't is described in another place of the Revelation That Great City which was the Queen of Nations Namely the City of Rome when 't was the seat of Heathen Emperours Lastly that Great City which gave Laws to all the World to worship her False Gods and to partake of her Idolatryes And this was that Great City which S. Iohn calls Babylon either because speaking of the Fall and Ruine of it He thought it not safe to call it Rome or by its right and proper Name Lest if he had done so he might draw persecution on the Christians Or els Because as Babylon was the Head City of the Persian Monarchy so Rome was then the Head City of the Roman In a word this is that Great City which was then the great Court of Idolatry the Queen of Superstitions And therefore justly called by the Angel which spoke to S. Iohn The Habitation of Divels and Cage of uncleane Birds And from this Babylon this Rome the then City of confusion the Angel of God bid the Christians of those Times to come forth and separate themselves lest they should be partakers of her sins and go sharers in her plagues But to say as they do that the Church of England is that Babylon the great or that cut Parish Congregations from which they do divide themselves are the Habitation of Divels the Hold of foule spirits and Cage of unclean Birds here mentioned in this chap. is such a piece of Ignorance as well as zealous slander that they will never be able to prove it till they can make the Capitol of Rome stand in our London streets or till they can make the River Tiber run where now our Thames doth or till they can change the Countries in our Mapps and make the Mid-lanà Sea flow on our English shore And farther then this I will not trespasse on your patience or inlarge my selfe to prove to you that Separation is a Sin THE END A SERMON CONCERNING Unity Agreement PREACHED AT CARFAX CHURCH in OXFORD August 9. 1646. By IASPER MAINE D. D. and one of the Students of Christ-Church OXON ROM 12. 18. If it be possible as much as lieth in you live peaceably with all men Printed in the Yeere M D C XLVII A SERMON CONCERNING UNITY and AGREEMENT 1 COR. 1. 10. Now I beseech you Brethren by the Name of our Lord Iesus Christ that yee all speake the same thing and that there be no Divisions among you but that ye be perfectly joyned together in the same mind and in the same judgement THough Truth from what mouth soever it bee spoken or in what shape or dresse soever it appeare be but one and the same and where it is rightly understood carries this uniting peacefull quality with it that it makes all its followers of one consent and mind too yet I know not from what mist or impotence lodged in our nature with whom errors and mistakes do for the most part prevaile more then Arguments or Demonstrations and with whom our owne mis-conceipts conveyed into us from such whom we think too holy to deceive us or too learned to deceive themselves do for the most part sticke so deeply and take such root and impression in us that it is not in the power of truth it selfe to remove them This one uniting peacefull Bond of minds this Ray of our Soules according to the severall Teachers of it and according to the severall formes and shapes into which they have cast it hath alwaies been looked on as so many severall Truths And to the discredit and disadvantage of it hath in all Ages been as severally entertained and followed Thus among the Heathen Plilosophers we finde the number of Sects to be much greater then the number of Sciences Every new famous Teacher who professed severity in his looks and austerity in his man ners had the power to draw a cloud of Disciples after him and to erect a new Truth with a new School And thus in the very Church of God it selfe the Gospell no sooner began to be preached to the world but it began to have its Sects and Schismes and sidings too The Apostles taught but one Faith one Baptisme one Christ one plaine open way of salvation to men yet they were mis-understood by some as if they had preached many Or as if the numbers of their severall Doctrines had equalled the number of their severall persons and they had every one where he went scattered a severall Gospell To speake yet more plainely to you and neerer home to the History of this Text The Corinthians to whom this Epistle was written as
from him in affection and will To remove therefore the root and spring of all disagreements as well as the current and stream and to beget a peace and concord and reconciliation without Saint Paul like a skilfull Artist who reserves the hardest part for the last proceeds from mens words and actions to their opinions and thoughts and like those who set Watches and Clocks where the Hand upon the Dyall without cannot move regularly unless the weights and springs which guide it move orderly within the better to make us go all alike and strike the same time he endeavors to setle and compose those inward wheels by which our words and behaviors without are to be ruled and governed The thing then for which he here so earnestly Petitions is Unity and Agreement and Consent of minds Which in plain terms is to exhort us that as we are all men of one and the same reasonable kind formed and created like one another in the shape and figure of our body so that we would approve our selves to be men of one and the same reasonable kinde in the Musique and Harmony of our souls too Which would then come to paâ—…s if every one of us would by the impartiall search and examination of his own mind dislodg those mists and clouds of errour which blind him towards himself and benight him towards others Or if he cannot do this by the strength and diligence of his own naturall Forces that he would have recourse to tâ—…ose who are most able to pluck this beam out of his eye and whose work and business it is so to apply their Cures as by proposing that one constant immutable eternall Divine Truth to his mind in which t is possible for all minds well enlightned to concenter and agree by degrees to reduce him from his bliâ—…dness and errour and to make him not only speak but conceive and think the same things with him that taught him It was wel said of him who compared our minds to Looking-glasses or Mirrours For certainly if we could but keep them open and unclouded they carry this property of Mirrours with them not only to return the images and shapes and truths of things which pass before them as they are but all minds in a clearer or less clear degree have a capacity to receive into them the truth of the same things alike As a thousand Glasses if they be true successively lookt in wil shew us the same faces But then as Glasses if they be false wil cast false resemblances or if they be discoloured wil transform all things which flow into them into their own die So t is with us I know not how it comes to pass or whether I may ascribe the fault to Education or Custome or to our parents or to our Affections too much knit and wedded to the Religion or Doctrin or Opinion or Teacher which most complyes with our Fancies but there are certain ill-cut false-reporting minds which look upon men and things in another size and figure then they are Other minds there are stained and died as it were with certain weak prejudices and corrupt opinions through which as through so many deceiving colours they discern no truths which wear not that hue As he that looks through a green Glass takes all things for green and he that looks through a blew Glass takes all things for azure And this was the very case of these Corinthians here in the Text. They first addicted themselves over-partially to severall Teachers and from their severall Teachers took in severall apprehensions as they pleased to like or affect him above others whose Disciples they called themselves Some though they did not well understand what they held resolved without any examination what they were to be only of Saint Pauls opinions Others resolved to hold only what had been taught them by Apollos Others resolved to hold only what had been preacht by S. Peter All which three taught and preacht one and the same Gospell yet that Gospel was not alike entertained by all hearers Whilst some disliked it in S. Paul because as himself complains he was of an humble presence and of an ungrateful utterance Others dislike it perhaps in the mouth of Apollos because it came Rhetorically from him and he was guilty of that unedifying crime forsooth of being eloquent in the Pulpit Others perhaps entertain'd it coldly from S. Peter because he had not been bred up in the School of Demosthenes nor tasted of the finer Arts and educations of Greece In short one and the same saving Truth for want of a little right judgment in the Hearers to compare it comming from several mouths past into divers opinions first and then these opinions broke forth into divers factions And is not this my Brethereu our very case Do but consider the present distempers of our poor divided Kingdome and pray what hath been the true root and spring of so much variance and hatred and heart-burning among us what hath crumbled us asunder and turn'd one of the purest and most flourishing Churches of the world into a heap of Heresies and confusion Hath it not been the very word of God it self In which all minds I confess should agree and which should be the rule to compose all our strifes and before whose decisions the greatest Scholars Disputes and the meanest mans Doubts should fall down and mutually imbrace and kiss each other How comes it then to pass that Religion which was ordained by God to be the oyl to cure our wounds should prove only the oyl to feed and nourish our combustions Whence is it that the Scripture that Sword of the Spirit should prove to us only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a two-edged sword and that no other use should be made of it by us but only to be the weapon of our Conflicts by committing the edges and making them enter duell and combat with each other Truly my bretheren all the reason that I can give you for this is That some perhaps wel minded people but not of understandings either strong or learned enough to reach the true sense and meaning of some places have stept beyond their measure and have presumed to interpret more then they have well understood Others of a more modest but credulous composition have thought that only to be the right meaning of the Word of God which they have heard from the mouth of the Preacher which they most affect Others of a more dangerous policy finding that the Scripture rightly expounded would extreamly make against the plot of their dark proceedings and that the holy Ghost cannot be bribed to finde Texts to make covetousness sedition or the slaughter of their Brethren or Rebellion against their Prince lawfull have with some formall helps of piety and zeal put to their expositions made the Scripture speak only those plausible untruthes which most complied with their ends and the peoples Fancy Hence the better to arrive to their Estates by the
your running negligence which should help to make your sophisticall criticisme perfect sense Truly Sir if it be so high a fault to picture God I may justly wonder that any picture of a Saint turned into an Idoll should be retained and pleaded for by any man that pretends to be a Protestant and if it be impossible to picture God it is also impossible to picture God-man And I beleeve that you will acknowledge our Mediatour to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 4. That the Sun and Images cannot be put in the scales of a comparison in point of fitness to be preserved is a truth written with a Sun-beame Sir I never durst argue from the abuse of a thing against the use of it if the thing be necessary But the Sun is necessary and Images are not necessary ergo there is no parity of reason betweene the termes of your comparison 5. It appeares to me by your shifting fallacy that you make Copes as necessary as clean Linnen 6. You will never be able to prove that all that the prelates and their Faction have borrowed out of the Missall Ritualls Breviary Pontificall of Rome are to be found in any Lyturgie received by the Primitive Church And I would intreat you to consider whether they who doe profess a seperation from the Church of Rome can in reason receive and imbrace such trash and trumpery And yet though you would willingly be esteemed a Protestant I find you very unwilling to part with any thing which the Prelates have borrowed from the Court rather then Church of Rome 7. Your next Paragraph doth concerne Tradition I shall give you leave to preferre the constant and universall consent of the Church of Christ in all ages before the reason of any single man but Sir you doe very ill to call the testimony of the spirit speaking in the word to the Conscience of private men a private spirit I thinke you are more profane in the stating of this point then Bellarmine himselfe 8. You have not yet proved that any Prelate can challenge the Sole power of Ordination and Iurisdiction Iure divino 9. I should be glad to know for how many yeares you will justifie the purity of the Doctrine Discipline and Government in England I beleeve the Doctrine Discipline and Government of the Prelaticall faction whom you call the Church was not excellent if you reckon from 1630. to 1640. and that is time enough for men of our time for to examine I beleeve that you will acknowledge that the Prelates did lay an Ostracisme upon those who did oppose them who were in the right both in the point of Doctrine and Disciplâ—…ne we shall in due time dispute Though Prelacy it selfe be an usurpation yet there were many other encroachments which may justly be called Prelaticall usurpations and the Parliament hath sufficiently declared its judgement in this point they have clearly proved that Prelacy had taken such a deepe root in England and had such a destructive influence not only into the pernicious evills of the Church but Civill State that the Law of right reason even Salus populi quae suprema lex est did command and compell them to take away both roote and branch you may dispute that point with them Sir you cannot prove that Prelacy is an Order of the Church as ancient as the Christian Church it self and made venerable by the never interrupted reception of it in all Ages of the Church but ours 10. I am no Turkish Prophet I never preacht any piece of the Alchoran for good Doctrine much less did I ever make it a piece of the Gospell all that I say is this that Christians incorporated in a Civill State may make use of Civill and naturall means for their outward safety And that the Parliament hath a Legall power more then sufficient to prevent and restrain Tyranny Finally the Parliament hath power to defend that Civill right which we have to exercise the true Protestant Religion this last point is sure of highest consequence because it concernes Gods immediate honour and the Peoples temporall and eternall good Pray Sir shew me if you can why he who saith the Protestants in Ireland may defend their Civill right for the free exercise of their Religion against the furious assaults of the bloudie Rebells doth by that assertion proclaime himself a Turke and Denison the Alchoran you talke of the Papists Religion Sir their faith is faction their Religion is Rebellion they think they are obliged in conscience to put Heretiques to the sword this Religion is destructive to every Civill State into which true Protestants are incorporated therefore I cannot but wonder at your extravagancy in this point Sir Who was it that would have imposed a Popish Service Book upon Scotland by force of Armes You presume that I conceive the King had an intent to extirpate the Protestant Religion Sir I am sure that they who did seduce or over-awe the King had such a designe I doe not beleeve that the Queene and her Agents the Papists in England who were certainly confederate with the Irish Rebells had any intent to settle the true Protestant Religion you cannot but beleeve that their intent was to extirpate the Protestant Religion by the sword and to plant Popery in its stead I know Christ doth make 〈◊〉 and breake the spirituall power of Antichrist by his word and spirit for Antichrist is cast out of the hearts and consciences of men by the spirit of the Lord Iesus but Christ is King of Nations as well as King of Saints and will breake the temporall power of Antichrist by Civill and naturall meanes If Papists and Delinquents are in readiness to resist or assault the Parliament by Armes how can the Parliament be defended or Delinquents punished but by force of Armes I know men must be converted by a spirituall perswasion but they may be terrified by force of Armes from persecution All that I say is the Parliament may repell force with force and if men were afraid to profess the truth because of the Queenes Army and are now as fearfull to maintaine errours for feare of the Parliament the scales are even and we may by study conference disputation and prayer for a blessing upon all be convinced and converted by the undenyable demonstrations of the Spirit Sir this is my perswasion and therefore I am sure far from that Mahumetan perswasion of which I am unjustly accused 11. I am glad that you speake out and give light to your darke roome I did not accuse you of Conventiâ—…les I beleeve you hate those Christian meetings which Tertullian Minutius Pliny and others speake of we had lights and witnesses good store at our meetings And as for your conceit that I deserve to be in Bedlam because of the predominancy of my pride and passion and the irregularity of my will Sir I confess that I deserve to be in Hell a worse place then Bedlam and if you scoffe at