Errand they came not to be Converted but to be hardened they had a mind not to believe and seek only a colour for their unbelief they ask him therefore for that which they verily thought he would not grant them that they might have some pretence for their Infidelity Now therefore our Saviour having discovered their Design and detected their Hypocrisie in the 2 3 and 4 Verses in my Text turns himself towards his Disciples and gives them this serious caution against them and all such kinds of Men Take heed and Beware c. For the full opening of which I will briefly inquire into these Four things First What is the Importance of this Metaphorical expression Leaven and what our Saviour means by the Leaven of Pharisees and Sadducees Secondly More particularly we will inquire what was the peculiar Leaven of these two Sects so often mentioned in the New-Testament Thirdly We will consider what was the danger of that Leaven and its contrariety to the Doctrine and Design of our Saviour Fourthly and Lastly We will inquire what this Caution of our Saviour implies and what he would have his Disciples to do when he bids them Take heed and beware c. And by that time I have given Account of these Four things I shall not only have opened the full scope of the Text but I hope every attentive Auditor will be satisfied of the seasonableness of this subject for the present Time. I begin with the First viz. What our Saviour means by Leaven In the Words following my Text Verse 7. We find that the Disciples took our Saviour Literally and reflecting on themselves for their Omission to provide Bread and necessaries for the Voyage which they were now entring upon though he had obliquely reproved their carelesness in that particular and that he had thence took occasion to interdict them all Trade and Civil commerce with those two Sects of Men. But by the 12. Verse they understand their Master's mind better and knew at Length That he spake not of the Leaven of Bread but of the Doctrine of the Pharisees and Sadducees Indeed it is usual with our Saviour by that Metaphor to represent Doctrine whether good or bad for Matth. chap. 13. 33. He compares his own Institution to it saying the Kingdom of Heaven is like Leaven which a Woman took and hid in two Measures of Meal till the whole was Leavened c. And the resemblance is very fit and Natural for as it is the nature of Leaven that it works insensibly quickly insinuates it self and Universally diffuses its Efficacy over the whole Mass into which it is put so in like manner Doctrine works upon the minds of Men and gives a Tincture of its own Nature and Temper to them Insomuch as that such as a Mans persuasions and Principles are such ordinarily at least will his Life and Practice be It is true indeed that sometimes Mens Lives are better than their Principles and sometimes also worse For it may fall out that Men of very unhappy and mischievous Opinions may yet live virtuously when the Probity of their Temper is such as that it Antidotes them against the Malignity and Venome of their persuasions And on the other side it is no infrequent tho' an unhappy spectacle to behold others of very Noble and Generous principles as to Doctrine yet to live very Lewd and Profligate Lives such Men with-holding the Truth in unrighteousness as the Apostles Phrase is or out-facing the Light and Debauching their Consciences in compliance with their Lusts and carnal or secular Interests But as I said ordinarily it is otherwise for such a state of contradiction to Principles must needs be violent and unnatural and the lives and actions of Men do as reasonably bear proportion to the Principles of their Minds and Consciences as it is Natural for the stream to rise as high as its Source and Fountain and no higher Hence it is that our Saviour Matth. 12. 33. saith Either make the Tree good and his Fruit good or the Tree Corrupt and the Fruit Corrupt And again Matth. 6. 23. He pronounces If the Light that is in Thee be Darkness that Darkness must be great and intolerable To the truth of which Observation the general experience of all the World bares ample Testimony amongst several instances of which I cannot but remark a very pertinent passage of an Heathen Historian in the Life of that wicked Emperour Tiberius his Words concerning him are these Erat circa Deos negligentior quippe Mathematicae addictus persuasionisque plenus omnia sato agi Which I render thus q. d. Tiberius was a profane Prince careless of Religion and without any Devotion towards God and no wonder for he was an admirer of Astrology and full of the Opinion that the Starrs or Fate governed the World and not God. And in short this is the true Reason of all Education and of all the Care and Diligence that evil and good Men use in Propounding and Propagating good Doctrine and preventing the contrary not that they think God is pleased with dry opinions and speculations but because they are aware that Principles draw on Practices and that evil opinions Corrupt good Manners But somuch for that I proceed In the second place to inquire what was the peculiar Leaven of these Pharisees and Sadducees which our Saviour thus cuations against And for this the Learned Jewish Historian Josephus in his 13th Book of Antiquities and in his 2d Book of the Jewish Warrs hath given us a very exact Account of all the Sects of Religion amongst that People and from him I shall present this Auditory with the substance of what he delivers touching the Pharisees and Sadducees wherein we are at present concerned And first it is notorious that the Sect of the Sadducees utterly denied the being of Angels and Spirits or of all Spiritual substances and acknowledged nothing but Matter or Body in the whole Universe and consequently hereof they must also renounce the Immortality of the Soul the Resurrection of the Body and Eternal Life in the World to come Whereas on the contrary the Pharisees acknowledged all the aforesaid great Articles as we Learn Acts 23. 8. Only this is to be added withal That these latter entertained so many Legendary Stories about these great Points and had such very crasie notions of them that they thereby rendred the very Doctrines ridiculous and incredible Again the Sadducees were gross Idolaters of the Letter and as they received only the Law of Moses excluding the Prophets and all other sacred Writings so they understood the Books of the Law in the most crass and litteral sense and admitted not of any interpretation or consequence from it though never so clearly and naturally deduced On the other side the Pharisees not only received the whole Scripture of the Old Testament but besides were great Patrones of Oral Tradition and allowed as great or greater authority to it than the written Word and
Tythes of all I Possess c. And therefore challenges Heaven as due to his Merit Not unlike Servants are the new invented Orders of Modern Pharisees who upon the Account of their Observation of certain Rules of their own Invention and of the Vows of Fantastick Poverty uncommanded abstinence from Flesh or Marriage blind Obedience to their Superiors call themselves the Religious and all the World of good Christians besides the Seculars or the Men of this World. Of such a flatulent Nature is Superstition And thus fastuose and supercilious doth it render all the Proselytes to it and therefore our Saviour whose intention was to bring Humility and Modesty into Fashion cautions earnestly against this Leaven Fifthly and lastly our Saviour by his Institution designed to bring in Gentleness and Kindness Love and good will amongst Men. But such an external and ritual Religion as that of the Pharisees naturally tends to make Men quarrelsome and contentious Carnal and Sanguinary For in the first place the materials or instances of Superstition are many and numerous and so liable to be mistaken for in many things we offend all or where our Obligation is very large our Duty is very Nice and difficult Again such things being neither manifestly required by clear Reason nor by evident Revelation must needs be always uncertain and so become matter of endless dispute and contention especially if all things be alike necessary and that Eternal Life depends upon every Punctilio No wonder if Men be fierce and eager for he that is mortally vulnerable in every part must needs be very jealous and curious To all which add that the Man who hath his Religion at his Fingers ends or in ritibus ad solos digitos pertinentibus as Lactantius expresses it this Man must need be very peremtory and dogmatical very decretory and decisive so that there can be no dissenting from such a Man without Anathema's and his Superstition by all these considerations will raise him to such a Heat and Confidence that he will think he doth God good service to kill those that differ from him Of this St. Paul himself was an Example he was bred at the Feet of Gamaliel a Learned Traditionary Doctor and after the strictest Sect of the Jewish Religion a Pharisee and all this served to inflame him against Christ and his Religion and Disciples to such a degree that he confesses he was mad against them and thought he ought to do whatsoever he did or could do against that Name and Institution The same thing Tertullian 1400 Years ago observed of the Jews in general his words are Synagogae Judaeorum fontes persecutionum The Jewish Zelots were constantly the great inflamers of Persecution against Christianity and they when they could not do it themselves exasperated the Pagans and put them upon it A Jewish Spirit is everlastingly a persecuting Spirit and of all mankind a Pharisee whatever he may pretend can never be in earnest for Toleration I would to God the Experience of all Ages had not born too undeniable a Testimony to the truth of this Observation and that modern Pharisaism had in this respect amended the matter But Leaven is Leaven and will ever have the same Operation The Man that considers his Religion and weighs the reasons of it before he imbraces it will be Gentle and Charitable towards those that differ from him or are not of his Attainment he considers the shortness of humane Understanding that he may be deceived himself and therefore pities those that are so he makes allowance for different Constitutions several ways of Education and the prejudices incident to Men in this World but the blind Zelot that believes with his Will not his Understanding that sees with other Mens Eyes and inslaves his mind to other Mens dictates in a word the Traditionary Pharisee is bold and violent cruel and unmerciful And the Man that is heartily and sincerely virtuous he is pitiful and compassionate to the infirmities of mankind he considers humane frailty and the Temptations we are beset withal how many times we do that which we cannot allow or justifie and judges of other Men as he would be judged himself But the supercilious Pharisee makes no reflection upon himself and therefore hath no Mercy nor Compassion towards others St. Austin in answer to the Manichees and particularly to that Epistle of theirs called Fundamentum hath this Noble and Christian passage Illi in vos saeviant qui nesciunt quanto cum labore veritas inveniatur quam difficulter errores caveantur with many other excellent Words to that purpose Let those saith he Persecute you who neither knew the difficulty of discovering Truth and of avoiding Error but so will not I who have Erred as you do and hardly recovered the firm ground of Truth that work is only fit for them that have their Religion by Rote and their Devotion by instinct that never studied for Knowledge nor laboured for Vertue that are Infallible by an implicit Faith and devout without Piety that is those that are of the right Leaven of Pharisaism These in short are some of the Causes why our Saviour gave such a strict and Solemn charge against the Leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees And now it is time to come to the Fourth and last Branch of my Text namely to shew what our Saviour means by this expression Take heed and beware and what is the Duty of his Disciples in this particular and that I will now indeavour briefly to explain and then conclude In order to which in the first place it is to be observed that the Emphasis lies in the word Leaven for it is not so much the Men of the Sect of the Pharisees and Sadducees that are to be avoided as the Leaven of those Sects and that is so much the more to be taken care of because there may be the Leaven of those Sects though the Name be forgotten and the Men so called be gone off the Stage And it is much to be doubted or rather it is past doubt that there is a Leaven of Pharisaism and Sadducism amongst Christians as well as there was amongst the Jews and perhaps amongst Protestants as well as Papists and therefore it will be our Duty to observe and distinguish it As for Instance Wherever we find a sort of Pretenders to the Atomical or Epicurean Philosophy that assert there is nothing but Matter or Body in the Universe these Men let them be otherwise never so Ingenious or let them cover and disguise the business as well as they can must necessarily upon their Principles take away the being of Angels and Spirits and all the concern of another World and therefore are of the Leaven of Sadducism Or if there be in this Age those that would persuade themselves and others that it is a piece of Superstition to be strait-laced in Conscience or a kind of Fanaticism to be curious what Religion a Man is
consequently thought themselves obliged under as great a necessity to the observance of those things that came down to them by the Tradition of their Fathers as to those they found written in the Law and the Prophets from whence it came to pass as it must needs do that their Creed became Vast and Voluminous and their Devotion was Clogged with innumerable Rites and Ceremonies The result of all which is this that the Pharisees had too much Faith such as it was and the Sadducees properly speaking none at all The Sadducees could upon their Principles have no ground for any Religion or Piety and the Pharisees by their Prodigious additions to Gods Institution had quite corrupted and lost the true Idea of Religion In short whatever cold pretences a Sadducee could make to Civility or Morality it is evident he could have no Devotion On the contrary the very Character of a Pharisee was a confident Devotionist without Morality Now from what hath been delivered in this short Account of these two Sects it will be easie to discern the reason why our Saviour gives such caution against their Leaven and what the mischief and danger to his Doctrine and Design was from each of them singly or both together Which is the 3. Third Inquiry but because herein lies especially the Emphasis of the Text I will give a more particular Account of this matter as followeth And first as touching the Sadducees it is manifest by what hath been said that their Leaven was the same with that of the Epicurean Philosophers and could by no means be a Principle of Conscience or Religion but a Doctrine Calculated for this present Life for believing neither Angel nor Spirit nor any thing to be in the World but meer Matter it was impossible they should have any concern for another World and consequently they could have no Religion only as the Law of Moses was lex Terrae the Law of the Land so far it stood them in hand to observe it or at least to pretend an external Conformity to it for the sake of their secular Interests and Advantages To be sure such Principles could lay no obligation upon their Consciences and therefore they were the truest Race of Latitudinarians and could comply with whatsoever was uppermost and upon that score could not withstand the Temptation of being of the Religion of the Prince whatever it was Accordingly it is observable in a Parallel place to this of my Text namely Mark 8. 15. For the Leaven of the Pharisees we have the Leaven of Herod as signifying the same thing for these Men it seems consistently enough with their Principles could flatter that vile Prince so far as to cry him up for the Messias It was I say a Sect or Leaven fit for Men of Covetous and Ambitious designs and was successful to those purposes for Acts 5. 17. We find the great Council or Sanhedrin of the Jews chiefly consisted of those of this Leaven These Men were of the Spawn of the Leviathan and derived the sanction of Religion from humane Legislation and the commands of God obliged no further than they were inacted by the Civil Magistrate Besides all this they had the right knack of Triming between all Religions for whatsoever was the inward opinion of their mind they could conceal or deny or mince the matter so that their Persuasion should never expose them to any damage nor their Conscience interfere with their Interests Now the Christian Religion which our Saviour came to introduce and to plant in the World being not only a very strict and Holy but a most solemn and serious institution Nothing could be more contrary to it than such loose Principles as these His was a Religion fitted to please God not to flatter and humour Men It was a Religion designed for the saving of Mens Souls in another World and to fit them for Eternal Life and not to serve a turn or to save a Stake in this World. Upon all which there can be no wonder that he earnestly Cautions against the Leaven of the Sadducees which undermined the Principles of all Religion And then in the next place for the Religion of the Pharisees that by what was said in the description of their Leaven consisting of so many incredible Articles of Faith grounded only upon Tradition and Legendary Stories and of such innumerable trifling and Arbitrary Rites and Ceremonies and yet made essentially necessary to Salvation was utterly contrary to the whole tenor and design of the Gospel as might be made appear in innumerable instances of which I will here specifie only these five particulars following In the first place a principal Design of our Saviour in the Doctrine of the Gospel was to instruct Men with right notions of God which is not only the first and most immediate honour to the Divine Majesty but the only solid Foundation of all Vertue and Piety The right apprehension of Gods Perfections and Attributes being the great obligation upon our minds to reverence and observe him in general and being of great use also to direct us in the particular instances of our Duty towards him Now the Pharisees Superstition was contrariwise very apt to breed in Men very mean and unworthy notions of the Divine Majesty and so tended naturally both to confound the Measures and to subvert the very ground and Reason of Piety and Vertue Partly as it mightily abated of his Grandure and Majesty whilst it represented him as insisting upon so many little things as carried neither weight nor worth nor intrinsick Reason in them We always count it an Argument of a little mind to be wrought upon by meer Complements to be pleased with Trifles and to be offended with such Ceremonious Omissions And we cannot naturally esteem him to be a Wise and great Man whom we observe to be of that temper much less can we imagine that he should be an infinitely wise God a full perfect and self-sufficient being that will indure to be flattered with Ceremonies be forced with Gifts be propitiated with formal Oblations be complemented with external Addresses imposed upon by shows and shadows or be offended for the want of any such things Now the Pharisees Leaven consisting wholly of these without regard to true Piety and generous Obedience and conformity of Heart and Life to him quite clouded and obscured the glory of his Divinity and rendred him more like a Man than a God and indeed more like a little necessitous narrow minded Man than a wise and a great one Partly as it rendred him an unbenign and captious Deity such an one as insisted upon very Punctilio's and was prone to take advantage of his Creatures upon the smallest omissions the effects of which must needs be that Men might be possibly Tempted to fear and to stand under the slavish dread of such a God but it was plainly impossible they should love him without which there can be no Life nor Soul in Religion Above all this