pray with him Luk. 18. 11. and yet he went away never the more justified The unwise Virgins were no profligate Livers and yet they were shut out He that will enter must strive against every corrupt appetite and inclination A less leak will sink a Ship as well as a greater if no care be taken of it A Consumption will kill as well as the Plague yea sometimes the less Disease may in the event prove more deadly than the greater for small distempers may be neglected till they become incurable whenas the great ones awaken us to speedy care for a remedy A small hurt in the finger slighted may prove a Gangreen when a great wound in the Head by seasonable applications is cured 'T is unsafe then to content our selves with this that our sins are not foul and great those we account little ones may prove as fatal yea they are sometimes more dangerous For we are apt to think them none at all or Venial infirmities that may consist with a state of Grace and Divine favour we excuse and make Apologies for them and fancy that Hearing and Prayer and Confession are atonements enough for these Upon which accounts I am apt to believe that the less notorious Vices have ruined as many as the greatest Abominations Hell doth not consist only of Drunkards and Swearers and Sabbath-breakers No the demure Pharisee the plausible Hypocrite and formal Professor have their place also in that lake of fire The great impieties do often startle and awaken conscience and beget strong convictions and so sometimes excite resolution and vigorous striving while men hug themselves in their lesser sins and carry them unrepented of to their Graves The sum is we may overcome some sins and turn from the grosser sorts of wickedness and yet if we endeavour not to subdue the rest we are still in the condition of unregeneracy and death and though we thus seek we shall not enter 4. A man may perform many duties of Religion and that with relish and delight and yet miscarry As 1. He may be earnest and swift to hear and follow Sermons constantly from one place to another and be exceedingly pleased and affected with the Word and yet be an evil Man and in a bad state Herod heard John Baptist gladly Mark 6. 20. and he that received the seed into stony places received it joyfully Mat. 13. 20. Zeal for hearing doth not always arise from a conscientious desire to learn in order to practice but sometimes it proceeds from an itch after novelty and notions or an ambition to be famed for Godliness or the importunity of natural conscience that will not be satisfied except we do something or a desire to get matter to feed our opinions or to furnish us with pious discourse I say earnestness to hear ariseth very often from some of these and when it doth so we gain but little by it yea we are dangerously tempted to take this for an infallible token of our Saintship and so to content our selves with this Religion of the Ear and to disturb every body with the abundance of our disputes and talk while we neglect our own Spirits and let our unmortified affections and inclinations rest in quiet under the shadow of these specious services So that when a great affection to hearing seizeth upon an evil man 't is odds but it doth him hurt it puffs him up in the conceit of his Godliness and makes him pragmatical troublesome and censorious He turns his food into poyson Among bad men those are certainly the worst that have an opinion of their being godly and such are those that have itching ears under the power of vitious habits and inclinations Thus an earnest diligent hearer may be one of those who seeks and is shut out And so may 2. He that Fasts much and severely The Jews were exceedingly given to fasting and they were very severe in it They abstained from all things pleasant to them and put on sackcloath and sowr looks and mourned bitterly and hung down the head and sate in ashes so that one might have taken these for very holy penitent mortified people that had a great antipathy against their sins and abhorrence of themselves for them And yet God complains of these strict severe Fasters Zach. 7. 5. That they did not Fast unto him but fasted for strife and debate Isa 58. 4. Their Fasts were not such as he had chosen to loose the bands of wickedness to undo the heavy burden and to let the oppressed free vers 6. But they continued notwithstanding their Fasts and God's admonitions by his Prophets to oppress the Widow and Fatherless and Poor Zach. 7. 10. Thus meer natural and evil men sometimes put on the garb of Mortification and exercise rigors upon their Bodies and external persons in exchange for the indulgences they allow their beloved appetites and while the strict Discipline reacheth no further though we keep days and Fast often yet this will not put us beyond the condition of the Pharisee who fasted twice in the week as himself boasted Luke 18. 12. And 3. An imperfect striver may be very much given to pious and religious discourses He may love to be talking of Divine things especially of the love of Christ to sinners which he may frequently speak of with much earnestness and affection and have that dear name always at his tongues end to begin and close all his sayings and to fill up the void places when he wants what to say next and yet this may be a bad man who never felt those Divine things he talks of and never loved Christ heartily as he ought 'T was observed before that there are some who have a sort of Devoutness and Religion in their particular Complexion and if such are talkative as many times they are they will easily run into such discourses as agree with their temper and take pleasure in them for that reason As also for this because they are apt to gain us reverence and the good opinion of those with whom we converse And such as are by nature disposed for this faculty may easily get it by imitation and remembrance of the devout forms they hear and read so that there may be nothing Divine in all this nothing but what may consist with unmortified lusts and affections And though such talk earnestly of the love of Christ and express a mighty love to his name yet this may be without any real conformity unto him in his Life and Laws The Jews spake much of Moses in him they believed and in him they trusted John 5. 45. His name was a sweet sound to their ears and 't was very pleasant upon their Tongues and yet they hated the Spirit of Moses and had no love to those Laws of his which condemned their wicked actions And we may see how many of those love Christ that speak often and affectionately of him by observing how they keep his Commandments John 14. 15. especially those
love to have others to handle it severely All this bad men may do upon the score of natural fear and self-love and the apprehension of a future judgement And now such convictions will naturally beget some endeavours A convinced understanding will have some influence upon the will and affections The mind in the unregenerate may lust against the Flesh as that doth against it So that 2. such a meer animal man may promise and purpose and endeavour in some considerable measure but then he goes not on with full Resolution but wavers and stops and turns about again and lets the law of the members that of death and sin to prevail over him His endeavour is remiss and consequently ineffectual it makes no conquests and will not signifie He sins on though with some regret and his very unwillingness to sin while he commits it is so far from lessening that it aggravates his fault It argues that he sins against conscience and conviction and that sin is strong and reigns 'T is true indeed St. Paul Rom. 7. makes such a description seemingly of himself as one might think concluded him under this state he saith vers 8. That sin wrought in him all manner of concupiscence vers 9. That sin revived and he died vers 14. That he was carnal and again sold under sin vers 20. That sin dwelt in him and wrought that which he would not vers 23. That the Law of his members led him into captivity to the law of Sin and vers 25. That he obeyed the law of sin If this be so and St. Paul a regenerate man was in this state it will follow that seeking and feeble endeavour that overcometh no difficulty may yet procure an entrance and he that is come hitherto viz. to endeavour is safe enough though he do not conquer This objection presseth not only against this head but against my whole Discourse and the Text it self Therefore to answer it I say That the St. Paul here is not to be understood of himself He describes the state of a convinced but unregenerate man though he speaks in the first person a Figure that was ordinary with this Apostle and frequent enough in common speech Thus we say I am thus and thus and did so and so when we are describing a state or actions in which perhaps we in person are not concerned In this sense the best Expositors understand these expressions and those excellent Divines of our own Bishop Taylor and Dr. Hammond and others have noted to us That this description is directly contrary to all the Characters of a regenerate man given elsewhere by this and the other Apostles As he is said to be dead to sin Rom. 6. 11. Free from sin and the servant of Righteousness Rom. 6. 18. That he walks not after the Flesh but after the Spirit Rom. 8. 1. That the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made him free from the Law of sin and death Rom. 8. 2. That he overcometh the world Joh. 5. 4. He sinneth not 1 Joh. 3. 6. He hath crucified the flesh with its affections and lusts Gal. 5. 24. Which Characters of a truly regenerate person if they be compared with those above-cited out of Rom. 7. it will appear that they are as contrary as 't is possible to speak and by this 't is evident that they describe the two contrary states For can the regenerate be full of all manner of concupiscence and at the same time be crucified to the Flesh and its affections and lusts one in whom sin revives while he dies and yet one that is dead to sin carnal and yet not walking after the flesh but after the Spirit sold under sin and yet free from sin Having sin dwelling in him and a captive to sin and obeying the Law of sin and yet free from the law of sin and death how can these things consist To tell us 'T is so and 't is not so and to twist such contradictions into Orthodox Paradoxes are pretty things to please Fools and Children but wise men care not for riddles that are not sense For my part I think it clear that the Apostle in that mistaken Chapter relates the feeble impotent condition of one that was convinced and strove a little but not to purpose And if we find our selves comprised under that description though we may be never so sensible of the evil and danger of a sinful course and may endeavour some small matter but without success we are yet under that evil and obnoxious to that danger For he that strives in earnest conquers at last and advanceth still though all the work be not done at once So that if we endeavour and gain nothing our endeavour is peccant and wants Faith or Prayer for Divine aids or constancy or vigour and so Though we may seek we shall not be able to enter But 3. an imperfect Striver may overcome sin in some Instances and yet in that do no great matter neither if he lies down and goes no further There are some sins we outgrow by age or are indisposed to them by bodily infirmity or diverted by occasions and it may be by other sins and some are contrary to worldly Interests to our credit or health or profit and when we have in any great degree been hurt by them in these we fall out with those sins and cease from them and so by resolution and disuse we master them at last fully which if we went on and attempted upon all the rest were something But when we stop short in these petty victories our general state is not altered He that conquers some evil appetites is yet a slave to others and though he hath prevailed over some difficulties yet the main ones are yet behind Thus the imperfect Striver masters it may be his beastly appetite to intemperate drinking but is yet under the power of Love and Riches and vain Pleasure He ceaseth from open debauchery but entertains spiritual wickedness in his heart He will not Swear but will backbite and rail He will not be Drunk but will damn a man for not being of his opinion He will not prophane the Sabbath but will defraud his Neighbour Now these half conquests when we rest in them are as good as none at all Then shall I not be ashamed when I have regard to all thy Commandments saith the Kingly Prophet Psal 119. 6. 'T is shameful to give off when our work is but half done what we do cast the greater reproach upon us for what we omit To cease to be prophane is something as a passage but nothing for an end We are not Saints as soon as we are civil 'T is not only gross sins that are to be overcome The wages of sin is death not only of the great and capital but of the smallest if they are indulged The Pharisee applauded himself that he was not like the Extortioners Adulterers and Unjust nor like the Publican that came to
religious meditations and that even to rapturous excesses He may take these for sweet Communion with God and the joys of the Holy Ghost and the earnest of Glory and be lifted up on high by them and enabled to speak in wonderful ravishing strains and yet notwithstanding be an evil man and in the state of such as shall be shut out For this we may observe That those whose complexion inclines them to devotion are commonly much under the power of melancholy and they that are so are mostly very various in their tempers sometimes merry and pleasant to excess and then plung'd as deep into the other extream of sadness and dejection one while the sweet humours enliven the imagination and present it with all things that are pleasant and agreeable And then the black blood succeeds which begets clouds and darkness and fills the fancy with things frightful and uncomfortable And there are very few but feel such varieties in a degree in themselves Now while the sweet Blood and Humours prevail the person whose complexion inclines him to Religion and who hath arrived to the degrees newly discours'd of though a meer natural man is full of inward delight and satisfaction and fancies at this turn that he is much in the favour of God and a sure Heir of the Kingdom of Glory which must needs excite in him many luscious and pleasant thoughts and these further warm his imagination which by new and taking suggestions still raiseth the affections more and so the man is as it were transported beyond himself and speaks like one dropt from the Clouds His tongue flows with Light and Glories and Communion and Revelations and Incomes and then believes that the Holy Ghost is the Author of all this and that God is in him of a Truth in a special way of Manifestation and Vouchsafement But when melancholick vapours prevail again the Imagination is overcast and the Fancy possest by dismal and uncomfortable thoughts and the man whose head was but just before among the Clouds is now grovelling in the Dust He thinks all is lost and his condition miserable He is a cast-away and undone when in the mean while as to Divine favour he is just where he was before or rather in a better state since 't is better to be humbled with reason than to be lifted up without it Such effects as these do meer natural passions and imaginations produce when they are tinctured and heightned by religious melancholy To deny ones self and to overcome ones passions and to live in a course of a sober Vertue is much more Divine than all this 'T is true indeed and I am far from denying it that holy men feel those joys and communications of the Divine Spirit which are no fancies and the Scripture calls them great peace Psal 119. 165. and joy in believing Rom. 15. 13. and the peace of God that passeth all understanding Phil. 4. 7. But then these Divine Vouchsafements are not rapturous or ecstatical They are no sudden flashes that are gone in a moment leaving the Soul in the regions of sorrow and despair but sober lasting comforts that are the rewards and results of vertue the rejoycings of a good Conscience 2 Cor. 1. 12. and the manifestations of God to those rare souls who have overcome the evils of their natures and the difficulties of the way or are vigorously pressing on towards the mark Phil. 3. 14. But for such as have only the forms of Godliness I have mentioned while the evil inclinations and habits are indulged whatever they may pretend all the sweets they talk of are but the imagery of dreams and the pleasant delusions of their fancies THus I have shewn how far the meer animal Religion may go in imperfect striving And now I must expect to hear 1. That this is very severe uncomfortable Doctrine and if one that shall eventually be shut out may do all this what shall become of the generality of Religious men that never do so much And if all this be short what will be available who then shall be saved To which I Answer That we are not to make the measures of Religion and Happiness our selves but to take those that Christ Jesus hath made for us And he hath told us That except our Righteousness exceed the Righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees we shall in no wise enter into the Kingdom of Heaven Mat. 5. 20. Now the Scribes and Pharisees did things in the way of Religion that were equal to all the particulars I have mentioned yea they went beyond many of our glorious Professors who yet think themselves in an high form of Godliness They believed their Religion firmly and Prayed frequently and servently and Fasted severely They were exact and exceeding strict in the observation of their Sabbaths and hated scandalous and gross sins and were very punctual in all the duties of outward Worship and in many things supererogated and went beyond what was commanded Such zealous people were They and They separated from the conversations and customs of other Jews upon the account of their supposed greater Holiness and Purity These were heights to which the Pharisees arrived and a good Christian must exceed all this And he that lives in a sober course of Piety and Vertue of self Government and humble submission to God of obedience to his Superiors and charity to his Neighbours He doth really exceed it and shall enter when the other shall be shut out So that when our Saviour saith that the Pharisaick Righteousness must be exceeded the meaning is not That a greater degree of every thing the Pharisees did is necessary but we must do that which in the nature and kind of it is better and more acceptable to God viz. That whereas they placed their Religion in strict Fastings and nice observations of Festivals in loud and earnest Prayers and zeal to get Proselytes we should place ours in sincere subjection of our wills to the will of God in imitation of the life of Christ and obedience of his Laws in amending the faults of our natures and lives in subduing our Passions and casting out the habits of evil These are much beyond the Religion of the Fanatick Pharisee not in shew and pomp but in real worth and divine esteem So that upon the whole we have no reason to be discouraged because They that do so much are cast out since though we find not those heats and specious things in our selves which we observe in them yet if we are more meek and modest and patient and charitable and humble and just our case is better and we have the Power of Godliness when theirs is but the Form And we whom They accounted Aliens and Enemies shall enter while they the presumed friends and domesticks shall be shut out But 2. I expect it should be again objected against this severity of Discourse That our Saviour saith Mat. 11. 20. That his yoke is easie and his burden is light which
the Formality and Superstition of Separatists that keeps on the Separation They contend for fancies and arbitrary trifles We for order and obedience The people are abused by names and being frighted by the shadows of Superstition and Formality they run into the worst Formality and silliest Superstition in the World The Kingdom of Heaven consists not in meats and drinks Rom. 14. 17. neither in Circumcision nor Uncircumcision 1 Cor. 7. 19. not in zeal for little things nor in zeal against them both the one and the other are equally formal The power of Religion lies in using Divine aids heartily and constantly in order to the overcoming the Difficulties of our way This Godliness is not exercised so much in reforming others as our selves The chief design is to govern within and not to make Laws for the World without us This is that Wisdom that is from above which is pure and peaceable Jam. 3. 17. It makes no noise and bluster abroad but quietly minds its own business at home So that certainly the best men have not always had the greatest fame for Godliness as the wisest have very seldom been the most popular They are the effects of the Animal Religion that make the biggest shew The voice of true Religion is heard in quiet it sounds not in the corners of the street The power of Godliness is seen in Justice Meekness Humility and Charity things that look not so splendidly as the Spiritual Forms And thus of the Inferences and Corollaries that may be drawn from my Discourse which though they cannot all be inferred from any of its minute and separated parts yet they lie in the design and contexture of the whole I Come now to the Advice for Practice The way of Happiness is difficult but the difficulties may be overcome by striving A little will not do many seekers are shut out what remains then but that we perswade our selves to strive and that diligently with constant resolution and endeavour We were made for Happiness and Happiness all the World seeks who will shew us any good Psal 4. 6. is the voice of all the Creatures We have sought it long in emptiness and shadows and that search hath still ended in shame and disappointment Where true substantial Felicity is we know and the Way we know Joh. 14. 4. It is not hid from us in Clouds and thick Darkness or if it were 't were worth our pains to search after it It is not at so great a distance but it may be seen yea it may be brought so near as to be felt Though the way is strait yet 't is certain or if it were otherwise who would not venture his pains upon the possibility of such an issue Many difficulties are in it but our Encouragements and Assistances are infinite The love of God and the gift of his son the blood of Christ and his intercession the aids of the Spirit and the directions of the Gospel the Invitations and Promises the rare Precepts and incomparable Examples of those holy men that have gone before us These are mighty helps and great motives to assist us in striving and to quicken us to it Let us then arise in the strength of Faith and in the encouragement of those aids and attempt with courage upon the Difficulties of our way Let us ingage our deepest Resolutions and most diligent endeavours Here is no need to deliberate the things are necessary the benefits unspeakable and the event will be glorious It is no Question I hope whether God or the Creature is to be first chosen whether Heaven or Hell be better and therefore there is no cause that we should stay and consider we cannot be rash here we cannot hurt our selves by a too sudden ingagement we have delayed too long already and every moment we sit still is one loss to our Duty and our Happiness Let us resolve then and begin with courage and proceed with diligence 't is our End and Felicity for which we are to strive and every thing is active for its End and Perfection All Creatures are diligent in serving the Designs of Providence the Heavens are in restless motion and the Clouds are still carrying about their fruitful Waters the sluggish Earth it self is always putting forth in variety of Trees and Grass and Flowers the Rivers run towards the Sea the Brooks move towards them and the Sea within it self Thus all things even in inanimate Nature may mind us of acting towards our end And if we look a little higher the Beasts of the Field the Fowls and Cattel and creeping things are diligent in striving after the good and perfection of their Natures and Solomon sends the Sluggard to those little Insects the Ant and Bee to teach him activity and diligence Prov. 6. 6. And shall the Beasts act more reasonably than the professed Sons of Reason May it not shame us that we need Instruction from the Creatures that have no understanding With what face can we carry our heads so high and look down with contempt upon inferiour Animals when they live more wisely and more regularly than we The Sum is All things are incessantly moving towards an End and Happiness is ours which therefore should ingage our most careful Thoughts and most active Endeavours We are sollicitous and diligent about things of infinitely less moment and in effect of none viz. uncertain Riches sensual Pleasures and worldly Honours though the way to these is sufficiently difficult and uneasie yet we are not discouraged we attempt all those Difficulties with an obstinate Courage though without promise of any equal assistance or assurance of success We are often defeated in our pursuits and yet we go on We are overmaster'd by cross events and yet we try again We miss our happiness when we have attain'd our end and yet we are as active in courting disappointment another time either we attain not the things we seek or find no true satisfaction in them or they die in our hands presently and yet we strive And doth not this activity about uncertain unsatisfying Trifles shamefully reprove our Negligence in reference to our great End Happiness and Perfection In striving for which we have all the powers of Heaven to aid us and the Word of God and the Blood of his Son and the experience of all that ever try'd to assure us that we shall neither fail of the things we seek nor of the pleasure that we expect from them And why then do we lazily sit down and with the Sluggard say There is a Lion in the way while we despise greater discouragements when vain things are to be sought The Merchant doth not give off because there are Storms and the numerous Dangers of the Deep to be met with in his way to the Indies nor the Souldier lay by his Arms because of the hazards and toils of War And do we act courageously for petty purchases and faint and despond when we are to strive for Crowns and
eternal Glories 'T is true indeed our own natural strength is small in proportion to the Difficulties we are to encounter but the Grace of God is sufficient for us 2 Cor. 12. 9. and we may do all things through Christ that strengthens us Phil. 4. 13. Nature is weak and imperfect but we are not left in the condition of meer nature For we are not under the Law but under Grace Rom. 6. 14. We are under the influences of the holy Spirit which will remove the mountains and plain the way before us if we take care to engage those aids by Faith and sincere endeavour For this we may be sure of that God will never be wanting to us if we are not so unto our selves So that the case as to our natural inability and the assistance of Gods Spirit seems to be thus A man in a Boat is carried from the Harbour he designs by the violence of the Current he is not able only by plying the Oar to overcome the resistance of the Tide but a gentle Gale blows with him which will not of it self carry him up against the Torrent Neither of them will do it single But if he hoist the sail and use the Oar too this united force prevails and he gets happily to the Harbour This methinks resembles our Condition we are carried down the Torrent of evil inclinations and Affections our own unaided powers are too little for that great force but the Holy Spirit is with us It breaths upon us and is ready to assist if we are so to use it and by the superaddition and ingagement of those blessed Aids there is no evil in our natures but may be overcome So that we have no reason to be discouraged at the apprehension of our impotence out of weakness we shall be made strong Heb. 11. 24. If we imploy our Talent though it be but a very small one we shall have more Mat. 25. 29. And if we accept of those divine helps and use them what was before to meer natural consideration uneasie will be pleasant and sweetly relishing One of the greatest Difficulties in the way of Religion is to begin the first steps are roughest to those feet that have been unaccustomed to it The helps and manifold incouragements we shall meet with in the Progress will render it more agreeable and delightsome Those very toils will be grateful there is scarce any great sense of pleasure but where there is some Difficulty and Pain Even our Work it self will be Wages And 't is not only the End of Wisdom that is pleasantness but the very way Prov. 3. 17. So that though we are call'd upon to strive and to run and to fight which words import Labour yet we are not required to Quit our pleasures but to change the objects of them to leave the delights of Swine for those of Angels sensual for spiritual Satisfactions Thus all things encourage and invite us to strive God calls upon us and our own Interests call Christ Jesus came to engage us to this Work and the Holy Spirit waits to assist it If notwithstanding all this we sit still our Negligence will be inexcusable and fatal or if we arise and go a little forward and then lay us down to take our ease and rest our state in the judgement of one that knew will be worse more desperate and excuseless 2 Pet. 2. 21. I Conclude all then in the words of the Blessed Apostle 1 Cor. 15. Therefore my beloved Brethren be ye stedfast unmoveable always abounding in the work of the Lord forasmuch as ye know that your Labour is not in vain in the Lord To him be Glory and Honour henceforth and for ever Amen SERMON II. Catholick Charity Preach'd to the Lord Mayor and Aldermen OF LONDON The Third Edition SERMON II. OF Catholick Charity 1 Pet. I. part of xxii v. See that ye Love one another HOW many and how great have been the Feuds and still are of this tottering and broken Age there is no man here so happy as to be ignorant That such Strifes among Brethren are Unnatural and Diabolical and that 't is a lovely thing to see Christians live together in Charity and Love there is no Christian but will grant but how the fatal Evil is to be cur'd and the lovely thing is to be compast here 's the Knot here 's the Difficulty To endeavour the reconciling Extreams that are so divided looks like a design to perswade a friendship between the Winds and Waves 'T is very strange that Christians should be so at odds whose Religion is Peace and Love and the reasons of whose differences are so small in proportion to the degree of their Animosities Our GOD is One and we have the same common SAVIOUR we profess one GOSPEL and believe the same Creeds we have the same SACRAMENTS and the same fundamental ORDINANCES And since we are agreed in These what is there left that is worth the heat of a Dispute what that can justifie a Division Certainly it is not mens Principles that keep them so at odds there is somewhat more in the matter there is something wanting that would heal our Breaches and compose our Divisions Love would heal us if we would be healed Now in a general Combustion 't is every Christians Duty to bring what Water he can to throw upon the Flames especially it is the office of the Ministers of Peace to endeavour to promote it 'T is a plain subject but such are most necessary and this is most seasonable seasonable at all times but principally in these wherein 't is hard to discern by the practice of Christians that the Duty of Love hath any thing to do with Christianity And yet this is a vital grace of our Religion 'T is the Law and Gospel in a word for Love is the fulfilling of the Law and the Gospel is a Law of Love And 't is very strange and very sad that an Age which hath so much of light and faith in the pretence should have so little of Charity and love in the practice especially since that light which is from above is full of Benignity and Goodness and that Faith which is truly Divine worketh by love This is that which our Apostle recommends in the words and I have chosen it for my present subject In Discoursing it I shall shew you 1. The Necessity of the Duty 2. It s Extent 3. The Excellency of it and 4. propose some Means to assist us towards the attainment of this Generous and Catholick Spirit FOR the 1. The Necessity of the Duty the whole Scripture is so full and so express in enjoyning it that methinks I might be excused from a labour that would seem superfluous to one that knows the Gospel and not the practice of those that profess it But because the Christianity of most Christians is if I may so speak quite another thing from the Christianity of CHRIST it will be necessary to mind them what
HIS was that they may be perswaded to conform theirs unto it and though mens understandings are convinced already that Charity is their Duty yet there is but too much need to represent some of the vast heap of injunctions that make it so to incline their Wills I shall therefore briefly lay together a few of the chief instances of this kind that you may have the distincter sense of the reasons of your Duty and from them the most powerful motives to enforce it In order to this let us consider in short the Injunctions of Christ and the teachings of his Apostles Our Saviour urgeth it as his New Commandment John 13. 34. and inculcates it again under the obliging form of his Command John 15. 12. He makes it a distinguishing note of his Disciples John 13. 35. and enjoyns them to love their Enemies Mat. 5. 24. He mentions it as the great qualification of those on his Right hand that shall be received into his Kingdom Mat. 25. 34 35. and the want of it as the reason of the dreadful Curse pronounced upon those miserable ones on the Left at the solemn Judgement ver 41 42. St. Paul calls Love the fulfilling of the Law Rom. 13. 8 9 10. and sets it in the first place among the fruits of the Spirit Gal. 5. 22. yea reckons it five times over under other Names in the Catalogue viz. those of Peace Long-suffering Gentleness Goodness Meekness ver 22 23. He advanceth it above all Gifts and Graces 1 Cor. 13. above the Tongues of Men and Angels ver 1. and above Prophecie and Mysteries and Knowledge and Faith ver 2. And the beloved Disciple St. John who lay in the Bosom of his Dear Lord and seems to partake most of his Spirit is transported in the commendation of this Grace He tells us that God is love 1 John 4. 7. and repeats it again ver 16. He makes it an Argument of our being born of God and Knowing Him ver 7. and the want of this an evidence of not Knowing God ver 8. He counts it the mark of Discipleship aâ—d the contrary a sign of one that abideth in Death 1 John 3. 14. He calls him a Murtherer that hates another ver 15. and a Lyar if he pretends to Love God and loveth not his Brother 1 John 4. 20. In fine he out-speaks the greatest heights of Praise when he saith God is Love and he that loveth dwelleth in God and God in him 1 John 4. 16. I might represent further that we are commanded to Love without dissimulation Rom. 12. 9. to be kindly affectioned one towards another ver 10. to put on the Breast-plate of Faith and Love 1 Thess 5. 8. to be pitiful and courteous 1 Pet. 3. 8. to provoke one another to love and to good works Heb. 10. 24. to serve one another Gal. 5. 13. to love as Brethren 1 Pet. 3. 8. We are minded of Christ's New Commandment 1 Joh. 3. 23. and of the Message which was from the beginning That we should love one another ver 11. and are urged by the consideration of Gods loving us 1 John 4. 1. Thus the Apostles exhort and teach and they Pray that our Love may abound Phil. 1. 9. and 1 Thess 3. 12. and give solemn Thanks for it when they have found it 2 Thess 1. 3. And now considering the expresness of all these places I cannot see but that any Duty of Religion may be more easily evaded than this and those who can fansie themselves Christians and yet continue in the contrary Spirit and Practice may conceit themselves religious though they live in the constant commission of the greatest sins And if such can quiet their Consciences and shuffle from all these plain Recommendations and Injunctions they have found a way to escape all the Laws of God and may when they please become Christians without Christianity For the evidence I have suggested to prove the necessity of this Duty doth not consist in half Sentences and doubtful Phrases in fancied Analogies and far-fetcht Interpretations but in plain Commands and frequent Inculcations in earnest Intreaties and pressing Importunities in repeated Advices and passionate Commendations And those whom all these will not move are Incapable of being perswaded against their humour or their interest to any Duty of Religion So that though I see never so much eagerness for an Opinion or Heat for an indifferent Circumstance without the conscience of Christian Love I shall never call that forwardness for those little things Zeal or Religion Yea though those warm men should sacrifice their Lives to their beloved Trifles I should not think them Martyrs but fear rather that they went from one Fire to another and a Worse And in this I have the great Apostle to warrant me who saith Though I give my body to be burned and have not Charity it profiteth me nothing 1 Cor. 13. 3. Thus of the First Head the Necessity of the duty I Come to the II. the Extent Our Love ought 1. To be extended to all Mankind The more general it is the more Christian and the more like unto the Love of God who causeth his Sun to shine and his Rain to fall upon the Good and upon the Evil. And though our Arms be very short and the ordinary influence of our kindness and good will can reach but to a very few yet we may pray for all men and desire the good of all the world and in these we may be charitable without bounds But these are not all Love obligeth us to relieve the Needy and help the Distressed to visit the Sick and succour the Fatherless and Widows to strengthen the Weak and to confirm the Staggering and Doubting to encourage the Vertuous and to reprove the Faulty and in short to be ready in all the offices of Kindness that may promote the good of any man Spiritual or Temporal according to the utmost of our power and capacity The good man is Merciful to his Beast and the Christian ought to be Charitable to his Brother and his Neighbour and every man is our Brother and every one that Needs us is our Neighbour And so our Love ought to extend to all men universally without limitation though with this distinction II. That the more especial Objects of our Love ought to be those that agree with us in a common Faith Gal. 6. 10. that is All Christians as Christians and because such Whatever makes our Brother a Member of the Church Catholick that gives him a title to our nearer affections which ought to be as large as that Our Love must not be confin'd by names and petty agreements and the interests of Parties to the corners of a Sect but ought to reach as far as Christianity it self in the largest notion of it To love those that are of our Way Humour and Opinion is not Charity but Self-love 't is not for Christ's sake but our own To Love like Christians is to Love his Image
from whom we are so called And that consists not in demure Looks and affected Phrases in melting Tones and mimick Gestures in Heats and Vehemence in Rapture and Ecstasie in systems of Opinion and scrupulosity about Nothing But in Faith and Patience Innocence and Integrity in Love to God and Charity to all the World in a modest sweetness and humble Deportment in a peaceable Spirit and readiness to obey God and Those He hath set over Us Where-ever These are there is the Image of our Lord and There ought to be our Love though the persons thus affected are Ignorant of many things and err in many though they differ from us in some Opinions we count Orthodox and walk not in the particular ways or Circumstances which We esteem Best And thus briefly of the Extent of the Duty we ought to Love ALL MEN but especially ALL Christians I descend to the Third general viz. III. The Excellency of Christian Love which I represent in the following particulars I. IT is the Image of God and of all the graces renders us most like our Maker For God is love and the Lover of men and his tender Mercies are over all his Works And the most sutable apprehension we can form of his Being is to look on him as an Omnipotent Omniscient Immutable Goodness And is it not a glorious Excellency that makes Men like the fountain of all perfection Our unhappy first Parents lost Paradise by aspiring to be like God in Knowledge and if we endeavour to be like him in Love we shall be in the way of gaining a better Paradise than they lost II. LOVE is the Spirit of Angels Glorified Souls and the best of Men. There is nothing by which the Angelical nature is so much distinguish'd from the Diabolical as Love and Goodness for the Devils have Spiritual and Immortal natures and great degrees of Power and Knowledge and those perhaps not much inferiour to what is to be found in some of the better Spirits so that the great difference is not in the excess of natural perfections which the Angels of Light have above those of Darkness but in this that the former abound in Love Sweetness and Benignity and the latter in Malice Cruelty and Revenge these are the very Image of Satan and Spirit of Hell Whereas all the Celestial Inhabitants live in the joyful exercise of uninterrupted Love and endearments Nor is that Love confined to the blessed and glorified Company but it sheds it self abroad upon the nether world and they are Ministring Spirits for our good Heb. 1. 14. They so far Love us that they can stoop from Heaven to serve us There is Joy there at the Conversion of a Sinner and no doubt there is Love to converted Saints and care and pity for all the rest of Men. For the spirits of the just made perfect are freed from their froward humours and pettish natures their mistaken Zeal and fondness of Opinions which straitned their Affections while they were on Earth and now they are inlarged by the vast improvements of their Knowledge and accomplishment of their Vertue by a fuller sense of Divine Love and of their Duty by the genius of their company and the imployment of the happy Place So that in Heaven all are truly Catholick in their Affections And the better any man is the more he is so upon Earth The good man makes not himself his center nor are his thoughts wholly engrost about his own concernments but he is carefully solicitous for the general benefit and never so much pleased as when he is made an instrument of Divine Goodness to promote the interests of his Christian brethren 'T was an high strain of Love in Moses exprest towards the Transgressing Israelites when he was content to be blotted out of Gods Book rather than that their Sin should not be blotted out Exod. 32. 32. And St. Paul was no less Zealously affectionate towards the Jews when he said he could wish himself accursed from Christ viz. separated from Christian communion as a most vile and abject person for their sakes Rom. 9. 3. These were spirits whom Religion and Divine Love had enlarged and the more any man advanceth in Christianity the nearer he approacheth to this generous heroick temper III. LOVE is an eminent branch of the Divine Life and Nature Love is of God and every one that Loveth is born of God saith the Apostle 1 John 4. 7 8. The Divine Nature in us is the Image of God Pourtray'd and lively drawn upon the regenerated Soul and I noted before that Love is the vital Image of our Maker 't is His spirit infused into us and growing in us and upon that account to be preferred before all Gifts and natural Perfections as St. Paul hath done it in the mentioned 1 Cor. 13. And the common Gifts of the Spirit differ from this special Grace as the Painters Picture doth from his Son His Counterfeit may indeed in a superficial appearance to the Eye resemble him more than his Child but yet it is but an empty shadow destitute and incapable of his Life and Nature So there are a sort of Gifts that have a spiritual appearance and may to those that see things at distance or have not their senses exercised seem more like the divine nature than this modest vertue But those that come near them and are better able to discern perceive that in themselves they are without the Divine Life and Motion and are meer Lifeless Pictures And here I dare say that the happiest faculty to Preach Plausibly and Pray with Fluency and Eloquence to Discourse Devoutly and readily to Interpret Scripture if it be not joyned with a benign and charitable spirit is no participation of the God-like life and nature nor indeed any more Divine than those common gifts and natural parts which those that think highly of themselves upon these accounts despise For very Evil men have been eminent in these accomplishments and Wicked Spirits are without question endowed with them and they are of themselves arguments of nothing but a faculty of Imitation a devotional Complexion and warm Imagination Whereas on the other hand Charity and Christian Love are good Evidence of a Renewed state and nature Our Saviour made it a Character Joh. 13. and the Apostle concludes from it 1 John 3. 14. By this we know that we are passed from death to life because we love the Brethren And if this be a Mark and St. John be not mistaken I doubt that some who are very gracious by many Signs of their own will want one of Christs to prove their comfortable presumption IV. LOVE is the bond and tye of Christian Communion How can two walk together except they are agreed The Church is a Body consisting of many Members which unless they Unite and send their mutual supplies one to another the whole is distempered and in the ready way to Death and Dissolution Now Charity is that vital Cement whereby they
are United and the Soul by which the common body lives that whereby the League between the members is preserved and health with it When this decays sad symptoms and mortal evils follow We see in Nature the great Fabrick of the World is maintained by the mutual Friendship and conspiracy of its parts which should they universally fall out and break the bond of Amity that is between them should they act their Antipathies upon each other yea should they but cease to serve one another for the general good the whole frame would be dissolved and all things shuffled into their old Chaos and Abyss And the greatest evils that have or can happen to the Church have been the effects of the Decay of Charity and those intestine Divisions that have grown up in it From these she hath always suffered more than from external persecutions The flames within have consumed her when those from without have only sindg'd her garments V. LOVE is the most Catholick grace and upon that account the most excellent since that which promotes the good of the whole is better than any private perfection for which reason things in nature will quit their particular interests when the common good so requireth as heavy bodies will ascend and light bodies descend to prevent a chasm and breach in Nature Now of all the divine vertues there is none of so large an influence as Love 't is a grace designed for the good of the community as the principle of self-Love is for the preservation of particular beings This stirs up our endeavours for the good of others and especially for the general good The Church receives no wound but Love feels the smart of it nor is any member of it afflicted but Love is grieved This is the very Spirit of our dear Lord who was touched with a feeling of our Infirmities And to these I add this last VI. LOVE commends Christianity to those without and cleanseth the Profession of it from many Spots it hath contracted within The generality of men are not able to judge of Religions themselves but usually reckon of them as they do of their Professors Whatever is excellent or else unworthy in a Votary of Religion redounds to the credit or disparagement of the Religion he hath adopted So that were the charity and goodness of Christianity transcribed into the lives of Christians it would ravish the eyes of all Beholders and out-shine all other Professions Men would more easily be perswaded to believe that Religion to be from God whose Professors they saw to be so God-like Love and goodness prevail where nothing else will these win and captivate the Soul And such conquests are better and more noble than either those of Arts or Arms which only bring the body under 'T is but small credit to any Religion to cut its way by the Sword or gain upon the world by Power or Policy That which opens it self a passage by its native loveliness and beauty is the most Illustrious and makes the surest and most generous Conquests And were Christendom but Christian in this regard and the Professors of the true Religion truly Religious that is abounding in that charity and goodness which Christianity enjoyns our Religion would spread its wings through the World and all contrary Professions would lie in the dust before it Whereas the Divisions and fatal feuds of Paganized degenerated Christendom are now the great partition-Wall between Us and the Heathen-World yea they are more particularly the great scandal of the Reformation and make us the scorn of Those of Rome And O that They that speak and pray much against the Beast would not prove instrumental to uphold his Throne We expect and hope for glorious times when the Man of Sin is faln and doubtless there shall be such But then the glory of those times consists not in external rule or dominion of the Church but in the Universal Restauration of it to its primitive Simplicity and Purity Then will the Church be Glorious indeed when all Christians shall unite upon the Foundation of an Holy Life and the joynt Profession of the few plain Fundamentals of Faith When they shall make real Goodness the Object of their affections towards each other and all Differences in Opinions and dispensable Practices the Objects of their mutual Forbearance When such times as these shall come then doth the Reign of Christ begin And this is the true and wish't Millennium Now we cannot expect those glorious days which are to Commence upon the Fall of Anti-christ till we see all Christians sincerely set upon Destroying what is Anti-christian in themselves Anti-christ will not be overthrown by our declaiming against Him and spitting the fire of Rage at the Infallible Chair It will be to better purpose for us to examine what of Anti-christianism remains in our selves And while Rancour and Bitterness Rage and Animosities upon the Account of Difference in smaller Opinions are in our Borders Anti-christ hath a Throne among us and there is nothing could be so Effectual a Blow at the Root of Anti-christianism as the exercise of Charity and Catholick Goodness And when we see these take place then may we Triumphantly sing forth BABYLON IS FALN I Come now Fourthly to the Means of attaining this excellent and Catholick Temper And I propose them by way of DIRECTION CONSIDERATION and CAUTION The DIRECTIONS are these I. Acknowledge worth in any man Whatever is good is from God and He is to be lov'd and owned in all things as well in the Paint upon the Butter-flies wing as in the glorious uniform lustre of the Sun as well in the composure of the little Ant as in the vast Bodies of the Whale or Elephant In the least Herb under our feet as well as in the Stupendous Fabrick of the Heavens over us And moral Perfections are to be acknowledg'd as well as these natural ones We are to love Vertue in an Heathen and whatever is Well or Worthy in those whose Apprehensions are most distant from our own And we must take care that we make not our Relish the Measure of Worth and Goodness Say not this is excellent because 't is agreeable to your particular Palates and that on the other hand is Vile and Loathsom because 't is distastful to your Gust and Genius There are various kinds and degrees of Excellency which differently affect the diversity of Tempers and Constitutions And at the best we are Imperfectly good and therefore cannot be the Measure of it Let us then be so Ingenuous as to own the vertue and the goodness that is in all parties and Opinions Let us commend and love it This will be a means to sweeten our Spirits and to remove the Animosities we are apt to conceive against the Persons of Dissenters and 't will ingage them on the other hand to a greater kindness for us and so Lessen our Distance and Disagreements There is a kind of Spirit among some which is so
Charity is to the Infirmities of their Understandings but for the fondness and bitter Zeal the pride and narrowness the malice scorn and separation that useth to go with the opinions of Sects these I confess are very odious and detestable and 't is very hard not to be warmed to Indignation by them These are Vices and Immoralities and a True Catholick that loves God and his Neighbour heartily may and ought to manifest his resentments against them in order to the discountenancing and curing such hateful and deadly evils Thus of my Considerations I Propose the CAUTIONS under the following Heads I. Beware of inordinate Admiration and Love of any Sect When we passionately Admire a Party we are apt to Despise them that differ from it and to confine the Church to those of that particular way Hence it is that fond Opinators invest their beloved Congregation with all the glorious Priviledges and Titles making Angels of their own men whenas for others they lookdown upon them as heretical or carnal as formal people or meerly moral who are strangers to Gods Grace and Covenant and ignorant of the mysteries of Faith and Religion and therefore they will not defile themselves with their Conversation nor come into their Assemblies They look upon the rest of Christians with an eye of pride and scorn and affectedly thank God that they are not like these Publicans these men of the world They hug themselves in the dear opinion of their own Light and conclude all others to be in Darkness They heap up Teachers to themselves 2 Tim. 4. 3. and doat upon their own Apostles I am for Paul or I am for Apollos or I am for Cephas This is a pretious man or that is a Gospel-Preacher such a one is very Powerful and such a one is very Sweet and Spiritual and O how Beautiful are the Feet of those Messengers of good tydings to them while they assure them by the Marks of their Sect that they are Gods Peculiar and Chosen People Which Fondness were not so Mischievous if at the same time all others were not counted Reprobates and Cast-aways But this follows and many other fatal evils endless Enmities are begun and Charity is destroyed and the foundation is laid for Cruelty and Persecution and Gods goodness which is to his whole Church is wronged by being narrowed and Christs Blood is undervalued and the greatest part of his Purchase is by these men given to the Devil and Christianity is undermined and the Peace of Mankind is overthrown All this we have sadly seen and I have said nothing here out of any Animosity or Bitterness nor have I any design to render any good man or number of men Odious or Contemptible but to represent the Vanity and the Mischief of this fond spirit of admiring Parties which hath been very fatal to Charity and to the whole body of Religion And we shall understand more of the evil of it if we consider St. Jude's description of the Sectaries of his time who looked upon themselves as the only illuminated people and despised all other Christians These the Apostle describes 1. by the groundlesness and vanity of their conceits They were Dreamers ver 8. 2. by their insolence against Government They Despised Dominion and spake Evil of Dignities in the same Verse 3. by their ignorant malice ver 10. They spoke evil of things they knew not 4. by their Cruelty and Unmercifulness to their Brethren They have gone in the way of Cain 5. by their Murmuring and Projecting against their Rulers ver 11. And perished in the gain saying of Core 6. By the speciousness of their shews and appearances They were Clouds ver 12. 7. By their emptiness and want of real vertue notwithstanding their pretences They were Clouds without water 8. By their unconstancy and unsetledness They were carried about of winds 9. By their violence and fury ver 13. Raging waves of the Sea 10. By their eminency and pretended Light They were Stars 11. By the irregularity of their motions and their running up and down they were Wandring Stars 12. By their discontentedness They were Murmurers Complainers ver 16. 13. by their Stubbornness in the way of their own wills Walking after their own Lusts 14. By their Proud expressions concerning themselves and their Party by their Canting and Mysteriousness of their Phrases Their Mouth speaketh great swelling Words 15. By their fond Admiration of their own People Having mens Persons in Admiration 16. By their Proud Scorn they are called Mockers ver 18. 17. By their Separation ver 19. These be they who Separate themselves 18. By their real Sensuality and self-pleasing under great Boasts and pretensions to the Spirit sensual having not the Spirit This is the Apostles description of the first Separatists the Gnosticks who admired themselves and withdrew from the Communion of other Christians under pretence of greater Holiness And I could wish they had had no Successors among us and they will have the fewer if we learn to avoid the undue Admiration of any particular Sect. My next Caution is II. That you avoid eager and passionate Disputes in these Charity is always lost and Truth seldom or never found When the Passion is raised the Judgement is gone and there is no seeing to the bottom in disturbed and muddied waters 'T is the calm and quiet considerer that finds Truth while the hot and confident disputer loseth both himself and it when his passion is once kindled he cannot speak any thing pertinently himself nor understand what is spoken to purpose by another and so can neither convince nor be convinced If thou differ with thy brother then do not ruffle with him in vehement disputes but remember the Apologue The Sun and Wind contended for the Travellers Cloak the Wind bluster'd about him and endeavoured to prevail by violence but with this bad success that the man held his Garment the faster for it At length the Sun shines forth with a calm and insinuating beam which warmed him gently and caus'd him at last to throw his Cloak from him If thou art desirous to prevail with thy friend to lay down his Opinion assault him not by the fierceness of disputes For such attempts will but raise his passion and that will make him stick the closer to his Errour but shine upon him with a calm light insinuate thy better principle by modest and gentle suggestions He that hath wedded any falshood hath many prejudices against the contrary Truth and these are not to be torn off all at once but softly and by degrees to be unwound This is the likeliest way to prevail upon Dissenters or if at any time it fails of its success there is however no hurt done Charity and Peace are preserved which are much better than most Opinions for which we contend Whereas by Disputes men are mutually provoked and tempted to pour forth many Idle and many bitter words the quiet and temper of their minds is disturbed and
the Father And 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Kings are from God says the Heathen And a greater than both acknowledgeth Pilate's power to be from above The Scripture intitles God to all the Royal adjuncts and both Christian and Heathen Antiquity agree in this with the sacred Oracles 1. The Kings person is said to be God's Great deliverance giveth He to HIS King 2 Sam. xxii 51. and He shall give strength unto HIS King 1 Sam. ii 10. Yea I have said ye are Gods saith the Text and consonantly Plato calls the King 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a kind of God among men And as the name of God is called upon his person so also is it 2. upon his Throne Then Solomon sate upon the Throne of the Lord as King instead of DAVID his Father 1 Chron. xxix 23. And saith the Queen of Sheba Blessed be the Lord thy God which delighteth in thee to set thee on HIS Throne 2 Chron. ix 8. To a like sense also is that of Nestor to Agamemnon in Homer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Jove lent thee thy Scepter and Jurisdiction 3. The Kings Titles also relate him to God viz. those of Gods Anointed and his Servant The former given even to Saul 1 Sam. xii 3. and Cyrus Isa xlv 1. and the later to Nebuchadnezzar Jer. xxv 9. The same also Athanasius gives to Constantius the great Favourer of the Arrians 4. The Kings power likewise is from God There is no power but of God and the powers that are are ordained of God saith the Apostle And the Pythagorean 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God hath given him Dominion Upon which account also Themistius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God sent Regal Power from Heaven And that a Kingdom is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Divine Good is the assertion of Plato and the confession of Cyrus All the Kingdoms of the Earth hath the Lord of Heaven given me 2 Chron. xxxvi Yea and Tiberius acknowledgeth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 our Kingdom is from God And Daniel minds Nebuchadnezzar The God of Heaven hath given thee a Kingdom Power and Strength and Glory Dan. ii 27. And Athanasius in his Prayer for Constantius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thou hast given this Kingdom to Constantius thy servant These I think are testimonies enough to prove that Kings wear Gods Image and Authority And therefore Menander calls the King 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God's living Image and the Pythagorean 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The King is the Figure of God among Men. But besides all this there is evidence enough in the nature of the thing to prove that Kings have their Power and Authority from God and are no Substitutes of the People which I thus inferr God made the World and consequently the World is his and his alone is the Right to Govern it But he being of such immense perfections that our Frailty cannot bear his immediate converses 't is necessary that he rule us by men like our selves and put the Sword into the hands of Creatures of our own make This he doth and hence it follows that they that Rule are Gods Substitutes and no Creatures of the People For the People have no power to Govern themselves and consequently cannot devolve any upon another Upon the whole I conclude that the same Commands and Authority that oblige us to obey God bind us to revere those that so signally wear his Image and he that disobeys the Vice-Roy affronts the Soveraign He that resists resists the Ordinance of God saith the Apostle and who can lift up himself against the Lords Anointed and be guiltless saith David in the case of Saul And thus I have dispatched the first viz. Resistance affronts the authority of God with which Kings are invested as I think I have made evident from testimony and the nature of the thing Secondly RESISTANCE is opposite to the Spirit of RELIGION Religion is of a calm and pacifick temper like that of its Author whose voice was not heard in the street It subdues our passions and governs our appetites it destroys our pride and sordid selfishness it allays the tempests and speaks down the storms of our natures it sweetens our Humours and polisheth the roughness of our tempers it makes men gentle and peaceable meek and compliant This was the Spirit of the great exemplar of our Religion this was the genius of his Doctrine and his Practice He commands the payment of all Duties to Caesar He acknowledgeth Pilates Power to be from above He commands his Disciples to pray for their Persecutors He permits them to flie not to oppose He rebukes Peters violence to the High Priests servant and the revenge of the Disciples when they called for Fire from Heaven He paid Tribute submitted to the Laws of the Sanhedrim and to that unjust sentence against his life This was his temper and the Apostles who lived among his enemies and theirs and met with severity enough to have sowred their Spirits and exasperated their Pens to contrary resolutions and instructions Yet as true Followers of their dear Lord they faithfully transmit to us what they had learnt from him viz. That we should obey those that have the rule over us submit to every ordinance of man pray for Kings and all in authority submit to Principalities and Powers and to obey Magistrates And those Noble Spirits of the first Ages after who began to be Martyrs as soon as to be Christians who lived in the Fire and went to Heaven wrapt in those Flames that had less ardor than their love These I say amidst the greatest and fiercest Fires that Cruelty and Barbarism had kindled paid the Tribute of a peaceable and quiet subjection to their Murderers and made unforced acknowledgements of the right they had to their obedience Nor do we ever read of any attempts they made to free themselves by resistance though as Tertullian saith they were in powerful numbers mingled in their Villages and in their Cities yea in their Castles and in their Armies Yea there is an illustrious instance of passive obedience in the Thebaean Legion whose tenth man being executed for not offering Sacrifice to Idols they quietly submitted to the cruelty And a second Decimation being commanded by Maximiniam the Author of the first one of their great Commanders an excellent Christian perswades them to suffer it with the same patience because it was not with their Swords they could make their way to the Kingdom of Heaven but by another kind of Warfare And now if after all this and infinitely more that might be said on this subject for men to pretend Religion and plead Scripture for Rebellion is impudent and shameless an affront to Religion and a Lie in the face of Conscience And those that cannot discern those great lines of their Duty which are set upon the High places and shone upon with a full beam and yet can find sin in little harmless circumstances which nothing hath forbidden but
the coyness and perverseness of their own fancies are like him that could see the Stars at noon but could not see the Sun and could spy the shadows made by the Mountains in the Moon but could not discern the greater spots upon its visible surface And for men to strain at the decency of an Habit or the usage of a Ceremony when they can swallow Rebellion and Sacriledge without chewing is to be like him who durst not eat an Egg on Saturday but made nothing to kill a Man Doubtless had the Scripture said by a thousandth part so much for the Jus Divinum of Presbytery as it hath for obedience to Authority had there been one plain word against Conformity as there are many against Rebellion that would have been worn bare upon the tongue and the World would have rung with it But the Injunctions and Commands of Obedience are against our humours and opinions against the darlings of our fancies and the interest of our Party and therefore here we must shuffle and evade cogg and interpret by Analogies of our own making by the Rules of our Sect and the Authority we worship by Necessity and Providence and any thing that will colour Sin and cozen Conscience that will turn Religion into the Current of our appetites and make Scripture speak the language of our humours and our interests Thus Religion and divine Authority shall be reverenced and pleaded when they agree with mens fancies and send light or advantage to the Favourites of their affections But when they cross their Models oppose the people of their imaginations and call them to duties that are displeasant the case is altered the great motives of perswasion have lost their power and influence and Religion can do nothing with them Thus briefly of the two first Heads viz. Resistance 1. affronts the Authority of God and 2. is opposite to the Spirit of Religion From which I come to the third which makes resistance both a great sin and a great punishment viz. 3. It is ruinous to the INTEREST of SOCIETIES This I must more largely prosecute because it will lead us into the sad occasion of our present meeting Man is a Creature made for Society and what is against the interest of Societies is destructive to Humane Nature And if the greatness of a sin and a mischief be to be measured by its reference to the Publick for ought I know Rebellion will be the next sin to that which is unpardonable in the degree of guilt as well as it is near it in the penalty threatned Now there are two great interests of Societies viz. GOVERNMENT and RELIGION to both which Resistance is fatal both in the doctrine and practice of it To begin with Government in order 1. Resistance is destructive to Government For if Subjects may resist the Powers over them no Government in the World can stand longer than till the next opportunity to overthrow it Every man will resist what he doth not like and endeavour to pluck down what comports not with his humour Thus every fit of discontent will stir up the various and inconstant People to seek an alteration And there was never any Government so exactly framed in the World but in the menage and administration of it many things would displease Now the generality of men are led by their present senses and if they feel themselves pained by any thing though the Grief be but in their Imagination they are for present deliverance from that Evil by any means never considering whether the way of Cure draws not greater Evils after it than the distemper and so upon every discontent the people are inflamed and upon every occasion rebel And thus is a Kingdom laid open to inevitable devastation and ruine and by a dear experience we have learnt that 't is better to endure any inconveniences in a setled Government than to endeavour violent alterations When the Sword is drawn no man knows where and when it will be sheathed When the Stone is out of a mans hand he cannot direct it as he pleaseth Men with Swords by their sides will do what likes themselves and not what is enjoyned by those that imploy them Or could we suppose what our own unhappy experience hath confuted that Armies would be obedient yet the Murders and Rapes the Spoils and devastations which are the natural issues of a Civil War are worse than any inconveniencies in any Government possible And though as my Lord Bacon notes Foreign War is like the heat of exercise good and healthful for the Body yet Civil War is like the heat of a Fever ruinous and destructive Besides those that resist either overcome the supream Power or are conquered by it If the former their Instruments in all likelihood conquer them as well as those they served them against and so from the just authority of their lawful Rulers they fall under the insolence of their licentious Vassals Or suppose they get the Government to themselves all the evils will follow which usually do upon Competitions and variety of Claims which will breed everlasting disturbance and eternal fears Such evils will follow if the resisters prevail and if they chance to be supprest and overcome by the Powers they oppose they can expect nothing less than to be crusht and ruined So that those that resist whether they conquer or are overcome draw inevitable ruine upon themselves and probably on the common Body For Laws and Government are the great Charter of our Lives and Libenties our Properties and our All and as the Father 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Murders rapes violence and all kind of mischief invade the World with Anarchy and Disorder And how far all this hath been verified in our Land a little recollection will inform us For WHEN fair Weather and a warm Sun the indulgence of Heaven and a long tranquillity had made us fat and frolick rich and full our prosperity made us wanton and our riches insolent We began to murmur we knew not why and to complain because we had nothing to complain of Discontents grew upon the stock of our ill Nature and the perverseness of our humours and every little occasion was Fuel to the Fire that was kindling in the distempered Body We began to invade the Government with malicious whispers and private Preachments with Libels and Declamations with Insolencies and Tumults And when Sedition had incouraged it self by Noise and Numbers by Popular zeal and loud talk of Reformation it flew into the highest irreverences towards the King and the most violent proceedings against his Ministers that the nearest Trees being removed they might have a full stroke at the Cedar Nor did things stop here The Sparks grew into mighty Flames and those Vapours into Thunder and Tempests The whispers of the Corner past into the noise of a Camp and the murmurs of the Street into the sound of the Trumpet The Cloud like an hand became a Magazine of Storms and our New
simplicity of Life and Faith and 't was most peoples business to chatter like Pyes rather than to live like Christians or like Men. If Religion had been computed by mens talk and dispute about it those later days of the declining World had been its best and this in its growth and ways of highest improvement when all things else were verging to their Set and Period But alas the Tongue was the most if not the only religious Member And many of the Pretenders like the Aegyptian Temples were fair without but Beasts and Serpents and Crocodiles within Or like the Bird of Paradise they had Wings to flye in the Clouds of Imagination but no Feet to walk on the Ground of a vertuous practice Yea some had found the way to swim to Heaven in the Current of their appetites and to reconcile Covetousness Rapine Cruelty and Spiritual Pride with the glorious names of the Elect the People of God the Church of Christ and the good Party Religion with Rebellion and Sacriledge with Saintship Men had learnt to be godly without goodness and Christians without Christianity They were lovers of God and yet haters of their Brother haters of open Prophaneness but not of spiritual wickedness Very godly though cruel and unjust True penitents though they returned to their sins as soon as they had complain'd and wept Their hearts were good though their actions were dishonest and they had the root of the matter in them though that root were a dry stump and had no branches They were regenerated but not reformed converted but not a jot the better Devout Worshippers but bad Neighbours Lovers of God but no haters of Covetousness Had power in Heaven but none over themselves They were Gods Servants though they obeyed their appetites and his children though no better than those that are of their Father the Devil Thus had men got the knack to be religious without religion and were in the way to be saved without salvation These were gross disorders whereby Religion was taken from its foundation of Vertue and Holy living and placed in emotions raptures and swelling words of vanity And when these had kindled the imagination and raised the fansie to the Clouds to flutter there in mystical non-sense and when that was mounted on the Wings of the Wind and got into the Revelations to loosen the seals pour out the vials and phantastically to interpret the fates of Kingdoms when it flew into the Tongue in an extravagant ramble and abused the Name and Word of God mingling it with canting unintelligible babble I say when the diseased and disturbed phansie thus variously displayed it self many made themselves believe that they were acted by the Spirit and that those wild agitations of sick Imaginations were divine motions And when this fire was descended from the fansie to the affections and these being exceedingly moved by those vain and proud conceits caused tremblings and foamings convulsions and ecstasies in the body all which are but natural diseases if not worse and just like those odd ecstatical motions of the Devils Priests when they came foaming from his Altars these I say the wild phantasticks had learnt to ascribe to the blessed and adorable Spirit And when their phansies being full of turgid notions and their bodies in an ecstasie they dream'd of strange sights voices and wonderful discoveries which were nothing but the unquiet agitations of their own disordered brains These also were taken for divine Revelations and the effects of the Spirit of God shewing it self miraculously in them Briefly and in sum Every humour and phantastick unaccountable motion was by some represented as the work of that Spirit to which they are most opposite Thus when warm and brisk sanguine presented a cheerful Scene and filled the imagination with pleasant Dreams these were divine Illapses the Joys and Incomes of the Holy Ghost When heated Melancholy had kindled the busie and active phansie the Enthusiast talks of Illuminations New Lights Revelations and many wonderful fine things which were ascribed to the same Spirit and when Phlegm prevailed and had quencht the phantastick Fire rendring the Mad man more dull and unactive then the Spirit was withdrawn and the man under spiritual darkness and desertion And when again Choler was boyled up into rage and fury against every thing that was not of the Fanatique genius this also was presumed to be an Holy Fervour kindled by that Spirit whose real Fruits are gentleness and love And now after that which I have said on this occasion it may perhaps be necessary to add that I hope none here will be so uncharitable or so unjust as to think that I go about to disparage the Spirit of God and its influence which as I ought I adore and reverence and because I do so I think it fit to represent and shame the blasphemous abuses of it which would expose the most Divine things to scorn and make them ridiculous And that the Holy Spirit hath been thus traduced and injured and is still by great numbers among us 't would be shameful not to acknowledge And I add that my zeal and reverence for the realities make me thus justly sharp against the Counterfeits Nor do I think that folly and phantastry is to be spared because they wear the stollen Livery of things venerable and sacred Therefore to go on such a Religion had the corruption of it bred among us A Religion conceived in the Imagination and begot by Pride and Self-Love which gilded the Professors of it with all the glorious names and priviledges of the Gospel And when they had encircled their Heads with their own phantastick rays and swoln their Imaginations into a Tympany of ridiculous greatness they scornfully contemned all but their Darling-selves under the notion of the Formal the Moral and the Wicked and proudly pitied the poor and carnal World that is all that were not of their conceited pitch and elevation And having thus dignified themselves and debased others they herded together drew the Church into their little Corners and withdrew from the communion of others who had less conceit though more Christianity They bid us stand off lest we should have polluted them by our unhallowed approaches and having made us as the Heathen and the Publican they cried Come out from among them The true Church soundness of Judgement purity of Doctrine and of Worship if men would believe them was confined to their clans just as they wee to the Corners of Africa of old when their Friends the Donatists were there Thus did the Votaries of each Sect swell in their Imaginations till some other sort as well conceited as themselves endeavoured to take their Plumes from them and to appropriate those glorious prerogatives to their own party And this went for the power of Godliness and the spirituality of Religion under pretence of which all reverence to things sacred was destroyed For when this Spirit had got into the Pulpit and set up the Cry of
reverence of the most High which is a direct contempt of his perfections Now scorn is one of the greatest indignities especially it is sore and provoking when one is contemn'd by his inferiours and more when they are his dependants that have their bread from his Bounty such is the case here in all possible degrees of aggravation vilest worms and lowest dust scoff at the highest Majesty and fullest perfection The universal King our Soveraign before whom Angels bow and Devils tremble is derided by the slaves of his Kingdom and Creation The general Father and Benefactor flouted by those that have their Being and all their comforts from his goodness and cannot live or move or breathe without him Acts 17. 28. Instead of lowest reverence gratitude and prostrations they lift up their heads in proud scorn and defiance of him and as the Royal Psalmist speaks of them Psal 73. 18. They set their mouth against the Heavens 2. This is a sin that is a step beyond Atheism it self 'T is greater impiety to say God is a careless or a contemptible Being than to say He is not As the Moralist tells us He would rather it should be affirm'd that there was no such man as Plutarch than that it should be believ'd that there was such a man but that he was a vile and worthless person Now to deride Religion while we allow there is a God is to say by immediate consequence either that he is a careless and idle Greatness that heeds not his Creatures and so worship is an impertinence or that he is so bad or so mean a Being that he deserves not to be worshipp'd that is that we owe him no acknowledgement of his Being or his Bounty and which is more that 't is ridiculous to pay him any To deny the existence of God is gross and unreasonable but to acknowledge that and to scoff at the expressions of love and veneration of him is down-right madness So that if the scoffer be not an Atheist he is the more inexcusable in his scoffing and if possible he is worse 3. The humour of deriding Religion is monstrousness in the soul All sin is deformity but this is Horrid For a man to have his parts and members misplaced His legs suppose on his shoulders his eyes in his neck and his arms growing out of his belly is frightful but there 's a misplacing in the soul that is more ugly Man hath such powers given him as scorn and derision and while they are exercised against sin and folly there is nothing amiss in them But when they are misplaced upon holiness and wisdom upon the greatest and the purest upon the most visible and most universally acknowledg'd perfections they are then an excess of deformity in the soul and such scorners are greater monsters than the man that hath horns and hoofs 4. It is a wickedness beyond the degeneracy of Devils We read that They fought against the Angels the Ministers of God Rev. 12. 7. but never that they derided them for their Ministeries They oppose Gods ends and interests in the world but we find them not scoffing at Him No they believe and tremble Jam. 2. 19. This Fear is not a vertue indeed in those Apostate spirits and yet it proceeds from a sense and apprehension of divine power and vengeance But the impious Scoffers at Religion have out-grown that and are more bold than all the Legions of darkness They have so little dread of the wrath of God that by their scoffs they endeavour to provoke and as it were to dare him to pour his displeasure on them As if they had a mind to challenge the field with Him and to try the reality and force of his power and terrours Thus briefly of the malignity and aggravations of the sin of Scoffing at Religion There will be an occasion of saying more of it in the sequel I therefore descend now III. To an account of some Effects and Consequences of it and shall confine my self here also within the bounds of that which is mention'd as the character of these Scoffers in the Text Walking after their own Lusts We have seen that mens lusts are the ground and occasion of their scoffing and I add that this again is a cause of the greater heights and boldness of their Lusts like Water and Ice they produce one another Mens lusts put them upon scoffing at that which should restrain them and this through the judgement of God and the nature of the thing brings them at last to walk after their lusts in such obsequiousness and intireness that they follow them 1. Without any check or restraint upon their Lusts 2. Without power to forsake or disobey them 3. Without or with very little hope of remedy or deliverance from the dominion and sad consequences of them These are all dreadful things and such as frequently if not mostly follow upon the impious humour of scoffing at Relgion As to the first The Scoffers walk after their own lusts 1. Without restraint or check from the Spirit of God This strives long with sinners but it will not always strive with them that strive against it Gen. 6. 3. When men move with their Lusts as those that are joyn'd to them the holy Spirit will let them alone Hos 4. 17. And this impiety in the very nature of it is of all sins most likely to provoke Him to a dereliction of the sinner Since it is the greatest most direct and most intolerable affront of the most High and if any thing be a fighting against the Holy Spirit a vexing yea a blaspheming of Him This is Moreover such a sinner becomes a subject incapable of His communications Nothing that is sacrâ—d or serious makes any impression upon such whiffling spirits 't were as good attempt writing on the water or painting with a Pencil on the air as to think of fastening any sober sense upon the scoffer And when it is come to this that the sinner hath made himself incapable of any benefit from the influences of the Spirit He withdraws his solicitations from that miserable person He will not plough upon a rock nor sow upon the sands So that the man hath the advantage now of not being disturb'd in his pursuits by the grand Enemy of his lusts but is suffer'd to run upon the wrath of God and everlasting torments without controul from Him 2. The scoffer gets this priviledge also to walk after his own Lusts without check from his Conscience This is an Inward Judge that summons censures and condemns and while there is such a Court and such transactions in the sinners breast he cannot walk after his lusts in quiet But the scoffer takes a course with Conscience 1. He debauches it And 2. He makes it stupid As to the First it may be consider'd That when He enters upon the trade of deriding Religion he doth not believe it to be really so contemptible and ridiculous only he follows a fashion and
thinks 't is witty to Scoff at it But in process of time and practice his understanding through the withcraft of this vice and the secret judgement of God grows into the very nature and temper of the sin And he comes insensibly at last to believe that in earnest which he entred on at first in jest and so Satan and his Lusts have decoy'd him into a down right serious Infidelity If the horrid Articles of impiety and unbelief had been offer'd him at the beginning in a way of serious argument he would have entertain'd them with some intellectual detestation and abhorrence But having a long time droll'd upon Religion and represented it as ridiculous rather than so much wit and sport should be lost he is willing to believe it is so and such a will quickly draws such an understanding to it But especially the consideration of full liberty in his Lusts indears and recommends the opinion to him and the intellect so prepar'd is quickly convinc'd having so great an interest to incline it so that now the foolish mind is darkened Rom. 1. 21. and the Conscience made a party with the lusts It is become reprobate Rom. 1. 28. and given up to strong delusions 2 Thes 2. 11. The Scoffer now believes his Jests as if they were arguments of Reason and pleads for his lusts as if they were actions of vertue And thus his Conscience is debauch'd Or if he have not proceeded so far as this Yet 2. He stupifieth it at least There are two main acts of Conscience to inform us what is our Duty and to judge how far we do it or do it not And this sort of wicked men deal so with Conscience as to stupifie both For Duty they think of none who is Lord over them and for reflection on their actions they are strangers to it They follow on with their eyes and thoughts upon their Lusts but never consider whither the way leads They pursue sense and appetite but reflect and think no more than Beasts Whither am I going and what have I done are no questions with them All the soul and mind they have is employ'd in seeking means to gratifie and please their Lusts and while those are satisfied the men are content and quiet be their actions what they will They feel no inward trouble or disturbance from the greatest villanies They can blaspheme the name of God by horrid Oaths every moment and debauch themselves by drunkenness and vile sensuality every day without the least remorse or sense that any thing is a-miss yea they make sport of their Sin Prov. 14. 9. and glory in their shame Phil. 3. 19. They live undisturbedly in a course of hellish wickedness and die in the same without any thought or apprehension of Sin Death or Judgement They laugh and debauch themselves into a state past feeling Ephes 4. 19. and sear their Consciences as with an hot iron 1 Tim. 4. 2. They are twice dead plucked up by the roots Jude 12. dead by nature to the spiritual Life and now by these vile usages dead to the moral also And when they are come thus far they are freed too 3. From the Restraints of the Ministers of Gods Providence the Holy Angels They are Instruments in the distribution of mercies and judgements by which God restrains sinners from their Lusts Ministring spirits for our good Heb. 1. 14. and are perhaps concern'd about us in more things than we imagine throwing bars a-thwart the way where danger or temptation lies inwardly and secretly exciting good thoughts and desires as Satan doth evil ones and defending us in many instances from the power and subtilty of that enemy But the derider of Religion who is forsaken of God and Conscience is also left by These And that there is such a dereliction of incurable sinners we may see Jer. 51. 9. We would have healed Babylon but she is not healed forsake her and let her go Spoken as some of the learned Ancients suppose by the Presidential Angels like the voice in the Temple a little before the last destruction of it Let us go hence Thus Psal 71. 9. the Septuagint reads They that keep my soul take counsel together saying God hath forsaken him let us persecute and take him for there is none to deliver him The good Spirits depart from the incorrigible sinner and leave him to the evil ones Thus of the first dreadful consequence of Scoffing at Religion the Scoffers are given up to follow their Lusts without restraint Another is 2. That they follow without power to leave or disobey them They follow as Vassals and Slaves yea they follow as a Beast that is led Their wills are but the motions of their Lust their Reasons but the impure Phantasms and Imaginations that are raised by their Lusts and their affections but the various inclinations of their Lusts So that what ever may be said of the liberty of less degenerate men these have none Our power consists in the aids of the Spirit of God in the informations convictions and reproofs of Conscience and in the offices of kindness we receive from the Ministring Spirits When these are gone all our power is gone So that those reprobate men are dead in sin Eph. 2. 1. and Sold unto it Rom. 7. 14. They are led into Captivity by the Law of sin and death Rom. 7. 23. They are slaves and slaves to the worst of Tyrants and the worst of slaves even to him that is held in the chains of darkness to the judgement of the great day Being left of God and good Angels the evil ones take possession of them on which account they are truly Demoniacks and those of the worst sort they are mov'd and acted by the Devil as if they had no other Soul And so 3. They follow their Lusts with none or very little hope of Remedy The condition of the Scoffers of some of them at least is quite or very near desperate This follows from what hath been said already and we may consider further 1. That there is a day of Grace a time in which there is ground for hope when that is done hope is at an end Now this day is the time and possibility of repentance When ever a sinner repents and turns he shall be accepted and live But men may out-live and sin away the power and capacity of repentance And then their Sun is set their day is done Now Repentance begins in Sense and conviction of sin but when a man is arriv'd at a state past feeling he is incapable of that the most powerful word most terrible judgements and most alluring mercies have no effect on such the best Physick in the world will not work on a dead carkass the loudest voice will not rouze a Marble Statue nor the most soveraign Salve close up a cut in the stump of a Tree The summ is When one is past the inward sense of Duty and danger Sin and Misery he is past Repentance
Grace and Hope And this very often is the condition of the Scoffer who hath debauch'd and jested away all feeling of these Interests Yea 2. there is great cause to think that he commits the Sin against the Holy Ghost or a sin that is very near it For that consists in the Disbelief and contempt of the great and last Testimony that was given by the Spirit to the truth of Christianity And that I may not seem to speak this without ground let us look into the place where the first and fullest account of this sin is We have it Matth. 12. Our Saviour had cur'd one that was possest ver 22. The people marvell'd and were inclin'd to believe upon it ver 23. But the Pharisees revil'd saying that he cast out Devils by Belzebub ver 24. Christ shews the absurdity and falshood of their suggestion arguing that then Satan would be divided against himself and his Kingdom so divided could not stand ver 25 26. And having reason'd against that malicious account of his Miracle he infers from the contrary and true way of his performing it ver 28. If I by the Spirit of God cast out Devils then is the Kingdom of God come unto you viz. then I that have done this am the Messias And he concludes by a serious application to them to shew the sad consequence of such bold and impious suggestions 31. Wherefore I say unto you All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men Where by Blasphemy against the Holy Ghost must be understood according to the context That of imputing the operation of the Spirit in Miracles to the Devil which is therefore so hainous because it is an expression of the greatest contempt of it and a bar against the being perswaded by it Now to apply this Though the Scoffer doth not impute the Spirits Testimony in Miracles to the Devil yet that is not because he hath a greater esteem of the operations of the Spirit but because he hath less belief of the existence of Devils Yea he will not allow so much as the Pharisees did That any such things were done but supposeth all to have been Impostures and delusions in the Author or cunningly devised Fables in the Relators which is a contempt put upon the operations of the Holy Spirit equal to that of ascribing them to the Devil and doth as effectually and incurably strike up the Grounds of Faith as that So that in substance the sin of the Scoffers is the same with that described in the Text though differing in circumstance and form Yea 't is the sin with aggravation since they do not barely speak against the Holy Ghost and his operations but deride them an expression of the greatest contempt possible And when men are come thus far to despise the great Testimony of the Spirit and ground of Faith after it hath been sufficiently propounded to them and entertain'd by them in favour of their Lusts we have cause to think their Infidelity is incurable and consequently unpardonable For so the Apostle hath declar'd plainly Heb. 6. 4 5 6. For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly Gift and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost viz. in Baptism and have tasted the good Word of God and the powers of the World to come all which are expressions of the visibly owning Christianity and partaking in the duties and priviledges of it if they shall fall away to renew them again to repentance And they that are arriv'd at the impudent height of deriding all this are faln away with a witness and therefore I think we may conclude safely from the Doctrine of the Apostle that they are incurable and unpardonable and from this and the discourse before that 't is sadly probable they have committed the sin against the Holy Ghost This 't is like may seem very severe Doctrine but I cannot help that if it be true I am not to be blam'd for the severity of it And I 'me sure the Book of Homilies declares more positively in the case than I have done For speaking in the Tenth Homily of the Scorners of Godliness and Religion who are there describ'd the Author saith of them I think I may without danger of Gods judgement pronounce that never any yet were converted unto God by Repentance but continued still in their abominable wickedness heaping up to themselves Damnation against the day of Gods inevitable Judgement I Come now IV. to the APPLICATION which shall be 1. Earnestly to Dehort all that have the least sense of vertue or reason from Scoffing at Religion or at men for making profession of it And then 2. I shall conclude with some very brief Directions and Rules of caution to secure us from the danger of this Sin Concerning the first I consider that the Scoffers with whom I am further to treat are of two sorts 1. The desperate who have debauch'd themselves into down-right Infidelity And 2. the Fashionable ones as I crave leave for distinction to call them who do not Scoff at Religion out of enmity or malice but out of modishness and compliance and it may be out of design to be accounted Wits for so doing I shall deal First with the former sort and in treating with them shall use none of the acknowledgments of Religion but from plain unassisted reason shall shew the extreme vanity and madness of their practice And I would entreat them to think of the following things 2. Be Religion True as we know or false as they vainly imagine their Scoffing at it is exceedingly absurd Every Faculty is to be applyed to its proper object to employ and of them about others that belong not to them is foolish and unnatural Now God hath bestowed upon us Reason and understanding to judge and discourse about things that are serious and the Faculty of laughter and derision to be exercised upon things that are vain to employ the former and discourse gravely about ludicrous trifling matters is ridiculous And 't is equally absurd to be sportive about affairs that are serious Now whether Religion be true or not 't is a serious thing If true the greatest Interests of this world and another are included and concerned in it Or if it be otherwise it must yet be granted that it hath much agreeableness with the Reasons and most serious Faculties of Mankind and our greatest and most important concerns in this Life viz. the main affairs of the Government of the World are bound up with it and have relation to it So that whether true or false it is no matter of sport but subject for our most serious considerations and discourses And from this last hint about Government I mind the Scoffer 2. That his practice tends to the dissolution of humane Society and the turning of mankind into the condition of wild nature And if it should
our present safety ours our Kings our Government our Religion our posterity require from us for if we continue to do wickedly we may expect to be destroyed both we and our King This all the considerations of the next state demand loudly call for all manner of Reasons from both the worlds urge and enforce this Let us not be still stupid and deaf to such calls but hear and fear and do no more so wickedly Let us put a stop to the course of our sins and then we may expect that a stop will be put to our Troubles and the Judgements threatned and feared will be turned from us The Summ of all is to urge us to be as wise in our Generation as those poor Heathens were in theirs who Believed Fasted Prayed Reformed and we may consider further 3. The Universality of these From the greatest of them to the least of them They were all affected they all did something and so much as was accepted This is a wonderful Instance of Conversion somewhat like it is that of St. Peters 3000 in one Sermon The King humbled himself and the people Fasted and put on Sack-cloth The Greatest is not too great to humble himself before the God of Heaven nor the least too little to be consider'd by him all Flesh had corrupted it self all were become abominable in their doings and therefore all were concern'd to be greatly affected and deeply humbled from the greatest to the least From the Greatest There the Humiliation begun The King descended from his Throne and put on Sack-cloth laid by his Majesty and Glory debased himself in the dust and put on vile array significations of Sorrow and Repentance from the great 't is like their enormous sins begun thence they had their examples thence their encouragement The great draw their Trains after them Natural Pride and Ambition make all desirous to imitate them their Example is largely diffusive and infectious and makes sins fashionable their sins quickly over-spread and debauch a Nation and therefore 't was fit that Repentance should begin here where probably many of their sins did that the great should cure by their good example those they had hurt by their bad and theirs being against more Mercy and more Expectation are the greatest and most aggravating and therefore there was Reason and need that they should be most penitent and first so and accordingly here it Commenc'd Reformation is like to be general and effectual when the Great begin it in themselves it doth not stop there but passeth through the middle degrees to the least of men the meanest and least considerable those also add to the common heap of provocations and those have therefore reason to be humbled also and when Gods hand is lifted up and his Judgements are near he requires and expects that all and every one from him that sits on the Throne to him that grinds in the Mill should repent and turn to him the sins of the meanest contribute to the publick guilt and their Repentance helps forward to publick deliverance Let us duly consider this circumstance of the Repentance of the men of Nineveh and O that God in his Mercy to us and them would open the eyes of the Great among us to see this their duty and the things that belong to their Peace before they are hidden from their Eyes as their Guilt is often greatest so the publick consequent Judgements many times fall heaviest upon them Two late dreadful Judgements we have been under Fire and Pestilence These fell chiefly upon the middle and meaner sort The Judgements we have now reason to fear threaten all but chiefly the Great In the Name of God let us all pray that a deep Spirit of Humiliation may be upon them that they may reflect on the greatest of their sins in their Nature and the Mischief they have done by their Influence that they may strive to go before all the rest in Repentance and shew the Inferiour souls the way to Safety and Happiness that they may lay aside all Vanity Luxury and Intemperance Rioting and Drunkenness Chambering and Wantonness the Dalilahs the dearest sins those of Pride and Pleasure the sins by which the Nation hath been made drunk poysoned debauched and depraved that they may mourn for these great crying Iniquities and in the strength of Divine grace resolve to turn from them This would be the happiest sight that ever England saw and the most hopeful Oh that our eyes were blest with it And Let not us of the middle and inferiour sort content our selves to desire their Reformation and amendment but resolve also on our own 'T is generally very grateful to us to hear the faults of the Great ript up of our Governours especially It will concern us more to affect our hearts duly with those we are guilty of our selves And in this we the Ministers of Religion the Guides of the people at least who ought to be so should lead the way our unworthiness also hath been great and our provocations have been many we have not returned unto the Lord according to his Benefits or made a right use of his Mercies we have not been so strict in our Lives or so diligent in our great and most weighty Imployment so much concern'd for the good of the Church or Interests of mens Souls as we ought to have been many have been Loyterers some Rioters scarce any have imploy'd proportionable Zeal and circumspect diligence Our faults are published and aggravated to the height I hope beyond it by our Enemies of all sorts and we may expect still a greater load of Criminations and Reproaches Let us consider that this evil is from the Lord for our sins He said to the Lying Spirits Go and David reflected that he might have bid Shimei curse him Let us look at his hand and humble our selves before him and not spend our Breath in Invectives against the Instruments of our Troubles and Fears but apply the proper Remedy to the Root of our Distemper which we know is to bring forth Fruit meet for Repentance And let not the people spend their all their Heat and Zeal against the sins of their Governours and their Misdeeds in these they are apt to exceed and run beyond bounds and multiply their own sins in so doing But let them lay their hands on their hearts and say We have all sinned and done wickedly we have been all as sheep going astray but we will return to the great Shepherd and Bishop of our souls Let them make themselves deeply sensible not only of the gross carnal Evils but of the Spiritual Iniquities malice bitter zeal contempt of Rulers and betters Schism Separation waywardness and the like and not excuse and extenuate their sins charge others and lessen their own by Pharisaical comparisons but let all sorts and degrees of men charge themselves with their own guilt and deeply abase themselves before the Almighty in the sense of it and when it is thus
that greatest of our Saviours Resurrection from the Dead by which he is declared the Son of God with power all his Doctrines and all his Actions and the whole Scope of his designs do infinitely confirm it unto us And yet we doubt and dispute and cavil when we should Repent This also greatly heightens our sins and will our condemnation if we do not seasonably speedily take another course 5. The Ninevites repented upon the Preaching of a Temporal Judgement forty days and Nineveh shall be destroyed It was the destruction of their City no express mention of the Ruine of their persons and posterities much less of the damnation of their Souls and yet upon this lesser Threatning they Repented But now besides the many Temporal evils our sins threaten us with we have denounc'd against us the loss of our Souls to eternal ages The wicked shall be turned into Hell and all the Nations that forget God Ps 9. 17. And terrible is that Sentence pass'd on the impenitent Mat. 25. 41. Depart from me ye cursed into everlasting Fire prepared for the Devil and his Angels Every word speaks terrour depart and Depart cursed into Fire into everlasting Fire and Fire prepared for the Devil and his Angels in their company and under their condemnation and Torment Such threatnings one would think should effectually restrain men from their sins and bring them to Repentance and woe to us if those or Gods other Methods do not effect it 6. The people of Nineveh Repented upon uncertainty of Success They were not sure that their Repentance would be accepted yea they had great reason to fear it would not for the threatning in the Form seem'd to be absolute But they knew that there was certain Ruine in the way in which they were going and some probability possibility at least that the Divine goodness might interpose for them upon their Repentance and they acted wisely and took the safer course they Repented and Repented upon the faint Encouragement of a peradventure who knows but the Lord may repent and turn v. 9. But now God hath pleased to give us the fullest the greatest assurance of Pardon and Favour upon Repentance for this we have his repeated word and his Oath and the Blood of his Son and the Testimony of his Spirit This is the Covenant he hath made with us and his Son came into the world to give us the assurance and his Spirit hath always confirmed it that by these immutable things by which it is impossible for God to lye we might have strong confidence that our Repentance will be accepted and rewarded And 't will be a very great Instance and aggravation of our hardness if notwithstanding we go on impenitently in our accustomed sins 7. The men of Nineveh Repented and they did it speedily When the Prophet began to enter into the City a days journey it follows immediately So the people of Nineveh believed God They did not stand to consult and deliberate about the business they did not say to Jonah as Foelix did to St. Paul We will hear thee some other time of this matter no They heard and Repented presently But we are apt to procrastinate and delay and put the work off from one day to another from youth to manhood from thence to old age from the time of Health to Sickness from thence to a Death-bed and still cry to morrow and hereafter But if we think to do it at all let us take the next time Delays here are most dangerous and the work will still grow the more difficult We are call'd by present Providences to instant Repentance if we delay yet longer it may be too late immediate Reformation is expected and required from us or immediate Judgements are to befal us And The same Encouragement have we for the work of speedy Repentance as these Ninevites had for this is most certain that if we Repent of the Evil we have done God will also Repent of the Evil he hath said Both which gracious Acts of Penance on our part and Pardon on Gods that they may be done God of his infinite Mercy grant through the Merits and Mediation of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord To whom with the Holy Ghost be ascribed by Angels and men by all things in Heaven and Earth as is most due all possible Praise and Power Might and Majesty Dominion and Adoration to Eternal Ages Amen SERMON X. The Various METHODS OF Satan's Policy DETECTED SERMON X. 2 COR. II. 11. For we are not ignorant of his Devices THe great and known Enemy of Mankind at tempts our ruine by a double method that of confest opposition and flattering insinuation and what he cannot compass by main strength he endeavours by Stratagem and by Artifice In which latter he hath always been most unhappily successful prevailing more by Policies than by Power Satan is most dangerous in the livery of Religion and the appearing Angel of light hath done more execution than the known Prince of Darkness Indeed in the early times of Christianity it 's enemy and ours thought to have over-born and crusht it by open ways of violence and therefore vigorously assaulted this new and naked Religion with all the force that Wit and Interest Power and Malice combined could draw together and with all that rage that Hellish zeal could inspire flew upon the naked Infant that had no captivating arts to recommend no visible aids to assist it But Innocence was too powerful for Arms and Truth and Vertue for assault and the Designer perceiving that this persecuted Christianity did but brighten and grow more conspicuous by the Flames he kindled against it That the injured Innocents prevail'd more on the World by their Patience than their enemies did on them by their Cruelties That this hated this maligned Religion stood like a Rock in the Sea while the spightful Waves and foaming Billows did but dash and break themselves against it I say perceiving how little success he had in his assaults he betakes him to his arts and his devices He pretends to that which he designs against and gets into Religion that he might overthrow it And this design he hath been ever since carrying on in the world viz. to destroy Religion by it self And if ever Christianity be exploded 't is like to be by a Spirit that highly pretends unto it So that the roaring of the Lyon is not so formidable as the wily subtilties of the Serpent And the Deceiver in the close Pharisee is more dangerous than Satan in the Publican and open Sinner Now the way to defeat frauds and wiles is to understand them and the Designer is disappointed assoon as his practices are discovered we therefore owe this care to the interest of our souls to endeavour to be acquainted with the arts of our enemy and we shall be secure from the danger of their influence when We are not ignorant of his Devices Now the chief Devices of the Grand Designer are levell'd against
labours and their works do follow them THe more attentively we consider the Christian Religion in any of its parts we find greater grounds for the confirmation both of its Author and excellency so infinitely does it surpass all those writings of that nature which the great Sages of the World have with so much superciliousness on their part and admiration from their respective followers I may add too all things considered not without meriting due praise from us delivered to their Scholars And this will appear evident and undeniable if we but parallel them in any of the chief heads for instance in the principles upon which our Religion does proceed the precepts it contains and the rewards it appoints which division will comprize the summ of what we profess In all which the great Masters of Heathen wisdom do plainly discover either a great deal of Ignorance or malice in prevaricating that light they had reflected upon them from Jewish tradition so that it may be well doubted whether their Symbolick Divinity were not design'd rather to concel their own Ignorance in what they pretended to than to secure the rites and mysteries thereof from the vulgar's profanation For example 1. Take first the Principles those truths that are the Basis and foundation of our Religion such as are the Being and Nature of God the Creation of the World the Fall of man and his Redemption by a Messias the Immortality of the Soul and the Resurrection 't is plain the whole Philosophick world had none or but a very imperfect knowledge of almost all of them However some of their lavish Charity have endeavour'd to squeeze as much from their writings Nay that they were not without some knowledge of our greatest Mysteries viz. of a Messias under their Daimono-Latria and even of the Trinity in Plato's Triad and the Resurrection of the body under the Indians Palin-genesis But no body that has any veneration either for the Scriptures or but for Truth in general but must see and acknowledge that all this is but tortur'd from them Nor may we deny this further that whatever Notions of this kind they had were but traditional in respect of their Origine and conjectural in reference to their ambiguity and uncertainty 2. The like is to be said of their Rules and Precepts of virtuous living For we may not detract thus much from them that they have recommended many excellent Institutes to their Sects You shall collect among them many very admirable sayings such as these To know our selves to abstain from vice to bear afflictions to do justly and speak truly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 do as we would be done by and many more Indeed for that kind of Divinity which was deducible from the Rules of common prudence and observation and depended not chiefly or solely upon Divine Revelation they have done extraordinary well And if they had not furnish'd us with so many famous examples of Vertue too it would not reflect so much upon the Professors of Christianity which in the spirituality of its precepts has as far exceeded all that they have writ as some of their Lives have most of ours though that be not to be imputed to our Religion unless it were justly chargeable upon the vitiosity or defect of its Principles or Rules Thus miserably however do we compensate the Divine culture and as if Nature abhorring so great a disparity betwixt mankind would thus ballance the Heathen with the Christian World by opposing their Imperfect Knowledge but severer Vertue to our diviner Laws but greater licentiousness in Practice Many of them having by as great proportions exceeded us in their endeavours after goodness as we do them in the knowledge and other means of it 3. Last of all which brings it to our present subject Christianity propounds nothing but upon the fairest and surest encouragement imaginable For the happiness of our Religion is both transcendently superiour to their discoveries and accompts of it and then also we are sufficiently and unquestionably assur'd hereof i.e. 't is not recommended to us upon plausible perswasions and inconclusive arguments but in the genuine sence of St. Paul's expressions 1 Corinth 2. 4. in demonstration of the Spirit and Power So that we see there is a kind of peculiar excellency in the Holy Scriptures above all the Systems of the greatest Moralists the foundation of our Obedience being laid upon clearer and better principles the practice of our obedience being carried higher by the spirituality of its commands and the rewards of our obedience being incomparably greater than what we can conceive much less could they promise or bestow 'T is the last of these that is contain'd in the Text and for which I am to be further accomptable to ye in the prosecution of the words I have read And I heard a voice from Heaven saying unto me Write Blessed c. Wherein we have these following particulars principally to be observed 1. The happiness of good men describ'd by its general nature they are blessed and by its integral parts they rest from their labours and their works do follow them 2. The Security and Evidence upon which this happiness is promis'd and asserted yea saith the Spirit 3. The time of its perfection and accomplishment partly in this life but not fully nor completely till death saying Blessed are the dead that dye in the Lord. 4. And lastly the Influence which the consideration of these premisses ought to have upon us both in Life and Death in reference to Obedience and Patience And I. To begin with the description of that happiness those rewards which are propounded to us for the encouragement of our Obedience and Patience Which are so great that I am utterly ignorant by what measures to describe them to ye The nature of that Celestial bliss as far transcending all our present felicities by which we should judge of it as it does the very capacity of our meriting it Sir Francis Bacon has observ'd We can have but a very imperfect accompt of those things which receed any whit near those extreams of Nothing and Infinity because either by their parvity or immensity they elude or confound our knowledge And especially the latter which choak the understanding and is like the beholding of the Sun whose light and lustre by which we discern other objects marrs and dimms our sight Such is the transcendent excellency of our future bliss at once the delight and amazement of our Intellectuals In the description whereof our highest expressions are so far from being hyperbolical that they amount but to a Litotes so that after our utmost endeavours we must content our selves with St. Pauls account of it in his First and Second Epistles to the Corinthians his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unutterable for that I take to be the meaning and not as we render it unlawful of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and also unconceiveable So inevitably should we diminish
Doctrines both Christ and his Apostles continually appealed Here is the firm reasonable Foundation of the Christian certainty The truths we believed are confirmed by Miracles than which there can be no greater evidence But now the Roman Church destroys this ground of certainty by a multitude of lying wonders which they impudently obtrude upon the belief of the people for proof and confirmation of their false and corrupt Religion the immediate consequence of which is a suspicion thereby brought upon the true Miracles and here is way made for Scepticism and uncertainty in the greatest and most Sacred Christian Doctrines And besides the Church of Rome having introduced among these many doubtful uncertain and many certainly false opinions and imposed them upon the faith of its votaries under the same obligations as it doth the most fundamental Articles what can be the consequence but that those who discover the errour or uncertainty of some of those pretended propositions of Faith should doubt all the rest And indeed since the main assurance is placed in the Infallibility of that Church for which there is so no reason and so much plain evidence to the contrary Since themselves cannot tell where that boasted Infallibility is whether in Pope or Council if we should allow them any such it follows that their Faith is precarious and hath no foundation at all In like manner the Sects among us resolve all their assurance either into a bare belief or the testimony of a private Spirit for their ground of crediting the Scriptures is but this Testimony and consequently whatever they receive from hence bottoms here The Papists believe the Scripture on the Testimony of the Church and these believe them on the Testimony of the Spirit that is in earnest the suggestions and resolutions of their own viz. they believe because they will believe and they find themselves inclin'd unto it And upon the same reason when the imagination and humour alters they may cease to believe or believe the contrary And there is not any thing in the world more various and uncertain than the suggestions and impulses of a private Spirit Besides the Sects also have vastly multiplied Articles of Faith and made all their private opinions sacred calling them Gospel truths precious truths saving truths and the like when they are but uncertainties at the best and usually false and sensless imaginations by which way also they expose the whole body of Christian Principles to suspicion and so weaken the Faith of some and destroy the Faith of others But the Church of England secures the certainty of our Faith by resolving it into the Scriptures the true seats of Infallibility and the belief of that into the Testimony of the Spirit in the true sense viz. that Testimony that God gave by his Spirit to Christ and his Apostles in those miraculous works he enabled them to perform They did not only bear witness of themselves that as our Saviour argues with the Jews Luk. 11. 48. would not have signified much The Father bore witness with them John 15. 8. and the works they performed by his power were the sure testimony Believe me for the works sake saith our Saviour Here is the ground of certainty And the Church of England entertains no Articles of Faith but those principles that have been so confirm'd that is none but what are evidently contain'd in the Holy Scriptures Whereas the Roman Church to mention no other have made the absurd Doctrine of Transubstantiation sacred though it is not only not contained in Scripture but contrary to the reason and even to the sound senses of mankind And if neither reason nor so much as our senses may be believ'd what assurance can we have of any thing A ground is here laid for everlasting Scepticism and uncertainty And the Sects have laid the same in their numerous silly tenents that are contrary to some of the most fundamental principles of Reason Nothing of which can with any shew be objected against this Church 6. The Faith delivered to the Saints was Catholick 'T was deliver'd to all the Saints entertain'd by all and was not only the opinion and belief of a prevailing Faction or of particular men in Corners The Commission given the Disciples was to go and teach all Nations and to preach the Gospel to every creature and accordingly it was widely diffused and all that profest the name of Christ were instructed in his Faith and Religion in all the articles and duties of it that were essential and necessary In these they joyn'd in holy love and communion till Sects came among them that introduced damnable Heresies contrary to the doctrine they had received These divided from the Unity of the pure Catholick Church and separated themselves from it gathering into select companies of their own under pretence of more Truth and Holiness After this manner the Church of Rome which had for some ages been eminent in the Catholick Church did at last corrupt and introduce divers unsound doctrines and usages unknown to the Ancient Catholicks and being great and powerful it assumed the name of the Catholick Church to it self and condemn'd all other Christians as Hereticks when it was it self but a grand Sect against whose depraved doctrines and ways there was a Church in all ages that did protest For the Greek Churches which are of as large extent as theirs never assented to them and divers other Christians in all times bore Testimony against those errours and depravations This Sect was large and numerous indeed but 't is not the number but the principles make the Catholick Principles conformable to those that were deliver'd to the Saints From these they have departed And the lesser Sects among us have done the same by the many vain additions that they have made to the Faith and their unjust Separation from that Church which retains the whole body of Catholick Doctrines and main Practices without the mixture of any thing Heretical or unlawful A Church that doth not damn all the world besides her own members as the Roman Church and divers of the Sects do but extends her Charity to all Christians though many of them are under great mistakes and so is truly Catholick both in her Principles and Affections I mean the Church of England as now established by Law which God preserve in its purity Amen FINIS A SERMON Preached at the FUNERAL OF M r. Jos Glanvil Late Rector of BATH and Chaplain in Ordinary to His Majesty Who dyed at his Rectory of Bath the fourth of November 1680. and was Buried there the Ninth of the same Month. By Jos Pleydell Arch-Deacon of Chichester LONDON Printed for Henry Mortlock at the Sign of the Phoenix in St. Pauls Church-yard and the White Hart in Westminster-Hall 1681. REVEL XIV Ver. 13. And I heard a voice from Heaven saying unto me Write Blessed are the dead which dye in the Lord from henceforth yea saith the Spirit that they may rest from their