Blood-shed among Christians Brother Fighting against Brother and Murthering each other Can there be any thing more irrational than to endeavour to promote the truth of the Gospel contrary to the Laws of the Gospel to break an evident Commandment to establish a doubtful Truth I say doubtful to him on whom it is imposed though seeming clear to him that imposes it If it were fully express'd in Scripture-words there would need no new Expression no new Article if it be not fully exprest in Scripture but deduc'd from Scripture-Expressions then what one Man thinks clearly deduc'd another may think not so I mean not another ignorant and weak but as learned and as able VVhat more common than in Divinity and Philosophy Schools One crys this is a clear Demonstration another crys no such matter but flatly denies it Mens understandings are as various as their Speech or their Countenance otherwise it were impossible there should be so many understanding and moderate yea and conscientious Men also Papists Lutherans Calvinists all in such Opposition one against another all believing Scripture yet so differing in the deductions from Scripture Truly I think him very defective in Charity however he abound in Faith who thinks all Papists or Lutherans or Calvinists malitiously or wilfully blind As for my part I think nothing can be more clearly deduc'd from Scripture nothing more fully express'd in Scripture nothing more sutable to Natural Reason than that no Man should be forc'd to believe for no Man can be forc'd to believe you may force a Man to say this or that but not to believe it First as to Reason If you bring a Man an evident Demonstration and he hath a Brain to understand your Demonstration he can't but assent to it If you hold a clear Printed Book with a clear Candle to a Man of clear Eyes and able to read he will certainly read but if the Print be not clear or the Candle or his Sight not clear or he not Learned to read can your force make him read And just so it is with our understanding which is the eye of our Soul and a demonstration being as a candle to give light if then your demonstration or deduction or his understanding be not clear or he not learned you may with a club dash out his brains but never cleer them He then that believes the Scripture can't but believe what you cleerly demonstrate from Scripture if he hath cleer brains if he hath not your force may puzle and pudle his brains more by the passion of anger and hatred make him abhor you and your arguments but never lovingly embrace you or them and thus you may hazard his Soul by hatred and your own Soul also by provoking him to it but never save his Soul by a true belief But perchance you will conclude he doth not believe the Scripture because he doth not believe your arguments from Scripture a strange conclusion but what then would you can you force him to believe the Scripture can you drive saith like a nail into his head or heart with a hammer nay 't is not in a mans own power to make himself believe any thing farther then his reason shews him much less divine things this is the peculiar work of Grace and if Faith be the gift of God your Argument cannot give it nor your Hammer force it Arguments may be good Inducements and if right will prevail with those to believe whom God hath ordained to Eternal Life but no other Preaching the Word is the means God himself hath appointed but as for force I can't find in the Gospel either commandment or countenance given for it If the Scripture command to speak the truth in love to instruct our Brother in the spirit of meekness if we are to pray and beseech him to receive the grace of God can any thing be more contrary to Scripture Rule then force and violence to what purpose then is force since it cannot make him believe the Gospel and if he doth believe the Gospel he will I am sure he cannot chuse but believe what you cleerly shew him is contained there supposing his brain to be clear and I am also sure if he believe what is cleerly contained he need not believe any thing else The Scripture is our Rule of Faith compleat and full the Scripture it self tells us so Iohn 20. 31. These things are written that you might believe and believing ye might have life and our Saviour tells us That in them we have Eternal Life Iohn 5. 39. and the 2d Tim. 3. 15. St. Paul tells us The Scriptures are able to make us wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Iesus all Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine for reproof for correction for instruction in righteousness that the man of God may be perfect throughly furnished unto all good works And I beseech all men further to consider what is said Deut. 12. 32. Thou shalt not add thereto nor diminish from it and likewise how they will avoid the Curse in the last of the Revelation if they add to the words there written and surely 't is the same Crime to add to any other Book of Scripture If it be answered They do not require us to believe it to be Scripture I reply They require men to believe it as Scripture with Divine Faith which is as bad they make their own words equal with Gods word or if they say they require not Divine Faith then I am sure it is no matter of Salvation whether I believe it or no humane Faith cannot save Thus you see how impertinent how irrational how impious it is to require a man to believe any thing more than is cleerly contained in Scripture and if it be cleerly contained there he that believes Scripture and sees it cleerly contained there can't but believe it if he do not see it cleerly contained there you can't force either his sight or his Faith Your force may make him blinder but never see cleerer may make him an Hypocrite no true Convert Again I desire all men soberly to consider Are not the prime and most necessary Principles of Faith the Trinity three Persons and one God the Incarnation of Jesus Christ the same person to be God and Man the Resurrection of the Dead that we shall rise with the same Body when one body may be eaten and converted into several bodies and such like Are they not things far above the highest reason and sharpest understanding that ever had Man yet we believe them because God who cannot lye hath declared them is it not then a strange thing for any man to take upon him to declare one tittle more of them then God hath declared seeing we understand not what is declared I mean we have no comprehensive knowledge of the matter declared but only a believing knowledge our Faith not our Reason reaches it the Apostles by the Scriptures teach us this not
both Learned and Religious who would lay down their lives for the truth they profess and yet are divided in opinion meerly by education having in their youth so imprinted their own opinions in their mind as you may sooner separate their body than their opinion from their Soul Nay I have heard that among the Turks there are many wise and moderate persons that are as zealous to maintain their ridiculous Alcaron as we our Bible which cannot proceed from any thing but the strong bias of education which so wheels about and intoxicates their brain And to say somewhat more particular of our own Nation here Those that have been educated in that way as to sit at the Communion and baptize their Children without the Cross had rather omit these Sacraments than use kneeling or the Cross and those that have been educated in kneeling and crossing though they acknowledg they are meer Ceremonies indifferent yet had rather omit the Sacraments than omit the Ceremonies just as if a man had rather starve than eat bread baked in a Pan because he hath used bread baked in an Oven So that Religion in many is really hut their humor fancy passeth for reason and custome is more prevalent than any argument This is the thing which makes me fear I shall meet with very few that will calmly and indifferently consider what I write but will presently startle at it as new and cross to their Genius or to their interest or their reputation which they value above all I mean the esteem and kindness of their best friends and acquaintance whose taunts and reproach they cannot bear but I humbly beseech them to pause a while and lay it by till the passion be over 'till they have mastered all these difficulties I beseech them to set before their eyes the beauty the honour the stedfastness of Truth the comfort the delight the everlasting felicity of a clear and rectified Conscience then resume it and consider again But they cry Pish 't is not worth it 't is a ridiculous toy and savours something of the Sectarian I grant there are some things among the Sectarians I approve of I will not reject and condemn any truth uttered or any good action performed though said and done by the Devil I consider the things and if good embrace them whoever utters them though I detest his errors in other things You will say the same then I heseech you do the same consider what I say simply in it self whether the Papists or Anabaptists say the same it matters not I hope you will not reject Christ because they both profefs him But if after all your serious patient unbiast consideration you find it an erroneous contemptible Pamphlet yet contemn not the person that wrote it in the sincerity of his heart lest you receive the same measure again from Christ who hath assured us that shalt be his rule to meet unto us the like Christ died for the salvation of my poor soul as well as yours contemn it not therefore but endeavour to rectifie it if God hath given you more knowledg and wisdome than me be not high-minded but fear and let him that stands take heed lest he fall Thus I pray for you do you the like for me and however we differ in Opinion let us accord in Charity and in Christ Iesus the Redeemer of us all Amen Concerning Articles of Faith THat which we commonly call the Apostles Creed if it were not Composed by them yet certainly by Primitive and Apostolick Men and proposed as the Summe of Christian Faith the Summe total necessary to Salvation It can't be supposed they lest out any thing which they thought necessary to Salvation they might as well have omitted half or all as one Commandment broken is the same in effect with all so one necessary Principle of Faith denyed Cancels all and shuts outfrom Heaven When I speak of believing the Apostles Creed I do not mean that we believe all there contained with a Divine Faith because it is there contained for we have no assurance that the Apostles Composed that Creed but we are sure all that is in that Creed is evident in Scripture to any common understanding therefore we believe all with a Divine Faith But I mention this Creed onely to shew that the Primitive Church received this as the sum total of Faith necessary to Salvation why not now Is the state of Salvation altered If it be compleat what needs any other Article You would have men improve in Faith so would I but rather intensivè than extensivè to confirm it rather than enlarge it One sound grain of Mustard-seed is better than a bushel of unsound chaffie stuff 'T is good to know all Gospel-Truths and to believe them no doubt of that but the Question is not what is good but what is necessary I pray remember the Treasurer to Candace Queen of Ethiopia whom Philip Instructed in the Faith his time of Catechising was very short and soon proceeded to Baptism But Philip first required a Confession of his Faith and the Eunuch made it and I beseech you Observe it I believe that Iesus Christ is the Son of God and straitway he was Baptized How no more than this No more this little grain of Faith being sound believed with all his heart purchased the Kingdom of Heaven Had he believed the whole Gospel with half his heart it had been of less value in the sight of God 't is not the Quantity but the Quality of our Faith God requireth But sure the Eunuch was more fully Instructed it may be you are sure of it but I could never yet meet with any assurance of it nor any great probability of it I am sure he saw Philip no more and I am sure Philip required no more but baptized him on this and had the Eunuch departed this Life in the same instant that Philip parted from him I believe I have better assurance that this faith would have saved the Eunuch than any Man hath that he ever was taught more See 1 Iohn 4. 2. Every spirit that confesseth that Iesus Christ is come in the Flesh is of God but the more the better still I grant though no more necessary Hast thou more Faith have it to thy self before God happy is he who condemneth not himself in the thing which he alloweth happy is he who is thankful to God for having received much and despiseth not him that hath received little God dispenseth his gifts and graces according to his free Will and Pleasure nor doth he require more of any Man than according to the proportion he hath given no more should we Nothing hath caused more mischief in the Church than the establishing new and many Articles of Faith and requiring all to assent unto them I am willing to believe that zealous men endeavoured this with pious intentions to promote that which they conceived Truth but by imposing it on the diffenters caused furious Warrs and lamentable
scripture so plainly declares that nothing so covers the multitude of our sins as an act of charity nothing so acceptable unto God so joyful to his holy Angels as conversion of a sinner Yet these men will most passionately and pardon me if I say most uncharitably and irreligiously cry A way with these Idiot Sectaries and mad Phanaticks let them wander and perish in their own wild imaginations we will not leave one Ceremony nor any one line of our Common Prayer Book to gain thousands of them No if you alter that wee will rather leave the Church and go to the Papists Mass. If these be not as simple Sectaries and mad Phanaticks as any whatsoever let God and his holy Angels judge But as for you my Reverend Fathers of the Church I hope you will consult with Scripture in this weighty Affair and model all according to the rules of meekness charity and compassionate tenderness to weak ones there set down and endeavour with prudent admonitions to rectifie the errors of these too zealous Ceremonists with fatherly bowels of condescention to win the hearts of blind and wilful Separatists Certainly the more understanding and powerful Leaders of them will not cannot have the face to stand off after your charitable condescention their populous pretences will be so confuted their mouths so stopped their faces so confounded as for meer shame if not for reason and religion they must come into our Church and their Pastors coming in the Sheep will follow though some stand a while and gaze but at length having no men of ability to lead them on in their perverse wayes the Shop-prating Weavers and Coblers will soon be deserted and made heartless seeing their own naked folly And then shall we all joyn and joyfully sing Te Deum in our Churches and the holy Angels in the Heavens And then I shall most gladly sing with good old Simeon Lord now let thy servant depart in peace for mine eyes have seen thy salvation Concerning Preaching IT remains that I now handle this great business of Preaching wherein I fear I shall displease many there being but few who use it according to the original Institution and yet I had rather they should Preach as they do then quite omit it for certainly 't is a necessary work for a Minister of the Gospel to Preach the Gospel St. Paul tells us That some Preach the Gospel out of envy yet he was pleased that Christ should be so preached rather then not preached and so I say of Preaching Christ out of vanity as 't is evident many do preaching themselves and their own abilities at least as they think ablilities though often great weaknesses and conceited impertinences I beseech you tell me did not Christ and the Apostles Preach the best way and are not we to follow their example Who dare say otherwise yet many do otherwise they take ere or there a sentence of Scripture the shorter and more abstruse the better to shew their skill and invention this they divided and subdivided into generals and particulars the quid the quale the quantum and such like quack salving forms then they study how to hook in this or that quaint sentence of Philosopher or Father this or that nice speculation endeavouring to couch all this in most elegant language in short their main end is to shew their Wit their Reading and whatever they think is excellent in them No doubt rarely agreeing with that of St. Paul I determined not to know any thing among you save Iesus Christ and him crucified And my speech and my preaching was not with inticing words of man's wisdom but in demonstration of the Spirit and of Power 1 Cor. 2. And I verily believe this is the reason why Preaching hath so little effect in these days because they labour to speak the wisdom of this world which is foolishness with God nor do they Preach in demonstration of the Spirit but in demonstration of their Learning I know full well this unapostolick way of Preaching was used by some of the Antient Fathers especially the Greeks always fond of nicities and curiosities and being now become Christians as I said before transplanted their beloved Rhetorical flowers of humane learning into Christian Gardens which proved rather Weeds to over-run the seed of sound and plain Apostolick Doctrine humane nature being a soyl apter to give nourishment and vigor to humane principles then divine But when did ever any Learned Witty Rhetorical harang or cunning Syllogistical discourse convert the tythe of St. Peter's or St. Paul s foolish Preaching as he tearms it but the wisdom of God to those that are perfect and sound in the faith Who is ignorant of that famous passage at the Council of Nice whither resorted with divers others one Eminent Heathen Philosopher offering himself as the manner of those vain-glorious Sophisters was to dispute with the Christian Doctors some Bishops of greater Repute for Learning undertook him and as they thought cleerly Confuted but no way Converted him at last rises up a grave antient Bishop of small Learning but of great Faith and Piety and with great dissatisfaction of his Brethren fearing some gross baffle should befal this good man comes up to the Philosopher and with great Magisterial Authority recites unto him the Apostolick Creed I believe in God the Father Almighty and in the close calls to him O Philosopher believest thou all this The Philosopher answered I believe not being able to resist the demonstration of spirit and power wherewith he uttered those Divine Mysteries as he confess 't before them all You will say this was a Miracle of great rarity I grant it but many such Miracles should we see had we the Faith and powerful Spirit of this Holy Bishop and would indeavour to imitate Apostoliâ—al Preaching not Philosophical Arguing nor Rhetorical declaiming We see plainly the Apostolical Preaching was either Catechistical Instructions or Pious Admonitions not tying themselves to any form but past from one matter to another as the Auditors condition required not as the Preachers fancy and reading prompt just as the Roman Emperour Caligula who when Delinquents came before him to be judged condemned or acquitted them as agreed best with the current of his Oration So these men shape their discourse more to the applause then edification of the hearers And so much time is spent in composing these Oratory Sermons as the Minister hath not leisure to perform a quarter of his Parochial Duty of visiting the Sick of admonishing the scandalous of reconciling the janglers of private examining and instructing the poor ignorant souls thousands in every Country as ignorant as Heathens who understand no more of most Sermons then if in Greek so that the Sermon is rather a Banquet for the Wantons that are full then instruction to those who are even starved for want of spiritual food the plain and saving Word of Christ not the nice conceited word of Man which may nourish
religion or reason is it not apparently wilfulness and faction I beseech you my Brethren take heed of thus dissembling with God and the world or take heed of giving your selves up to these delusions of a mistaken spirit Humility and Obedience are evident marks of the Spirit Learn of me saith Christ Math. 11. 29. for I am meek and lowly in Heart God resisteth the proud and giveth grace to the humble Wherefore I I beseech you first put on the Lord Jesus with all humility that he may give you the grace of his holy Spirit to discern clear Truths from conceited fanciful errors Secondly I beseech you consider whether of the two it be not safer to erre in the way of Humility then to erre in the way of Pride which makes it doubly damnable void of all excuse I say this because you think or pretend to think our way erronious not that I have any such thought or doubt whereas the Humble Soul hath great excuse to plead and if Charity cover a multitude of Sins sure Humility will cover some a Soul clothed with Humility can't easily be displeasing to our humble Saviour but clothed with pride can scarce be acceptable but rather hateful like the proud Pharisee with all his enumerated Virtues and my Brethren 't is most evident your spirit savours somewhat of the Pharisee magnifying your own holiness and despising all others as Publicans and Sinners and refusing all communion with them whereas the Holy of Holies our Lord Jesus chose chiefly to converse with such really I can't but think your case very dangerous on this account only were there no more to accuse you of Thirdly I beseech you to consider the great mischief you bring upon this Church and Nation by your separation from the Church You pretend to be the great Zelots against Popery and yet give me leave to say Your indiscreet disobedient Zeal mainly brings it in your separation and many following divisions have caused many to abhor our Church and turn to Popery and doubtless you are to give an account to God for the ruine of those Souls for I can never yield that you have any reasonable and true conscientious cause of separation but meerly mistaken-reason and conscience which I much pity but no way approve and therefore I must lay the advance of Popery to your charge to your separation for I am sure 't is the main snare wherewith they catch unstable Souls perswading them our Church is not guided by the Spirit of Truth seeing it is confounded by the spirit of division it cannot be of God who is both Verity and Unity Now though it be well known to the Learned that their Church hath neither Verity nor Unity yet this is not discernable to weak Souls especially here in this Country where their Church is under a cloud and therefore their foul spots nothing so visible as abroad where it walks barefaced but are here by their Priests either with great confidence deny'd or with great cunning disguised Wherefore again I most earnestly and most humbly beseech you for Jesus sake put on our Lord Jesus in all humility and obedience submitting your selves to the Ordinances of those Superiours and Powers which God hath set over you and if out of meer humility and obedience you conform though you were guilty of some error therein I am confident there is none yet were it so my Soul for yours that guilt shall never be laid to your charge by our most Gracious Saviour and most mereiful Judge Christ Jesus our Lord to whom be all honour and glory for ever Amen FINIS