own vertue any thing at Gods hand to whom in that sense when we have done all we can we are unprofitable servants But least of all as works of supererogation of which the Romanists account is that they are done as satisfactory not only for their own sins but abounding to the satisfaction of the sins of others Neither do I plead for them as universally necessary but as Christ advised once in a matter of like nature Matth. 19. he that can receive them let him receive them Or as St. Paul declared his sense in a particular case of this kind to be made use of for a general purpose He that doth them not may do well but he that doth them shall do better 1 Cor. 7. But I propound them as highly profitable and advantageous for these great purposes 1. Because such acts of heightned Zeal and eminent Piety will establish the souls of good men with fuller assurances of the love and favour of God and will deliver them from the discomfort of a doubtful medium and suspense between hope and fear which an ordinary performance of Religious duties do too often afflict the Spirits of good men living and dying 2. Because they are such acts as though for which God hath not made express command yet with which he will be well pleased and are secure of his gracious acceptation as the Jews Free-will-offerings were and as Davids design was when he had it in his heart to build him an house for which he gave him no commandment 1 King 8.17 And as Mary Magdalens act of love was when she anointed our Saviours feet with precious ointment for which she had no positive rule or precept And if as once against her chargeable expression of her zeal it shall be objected against some more noble and costly acts of Piety as in building or adorning Gods Houses and the like that they might have been spared and the money given to the Poor I shall only mind them to consider who it was that said so and I am superseded from the trouble of giving any further answer 3. Pious souls should be affectionately desirous to be exercised in such advanced acts of Charity and Piety from the assurance that God will reward them For if a Cup of cold Water shall not lose his reward much more will every act of greater import have its proportioned recompence for Jesus sake This was Placilla's encouragement when she was reproved by the siner Ladies of her Court for her fore-mentioned acts of Charity when she answered them pro regno hoc ago I do them in expectation of a better Crown and Kingdom then my own And indeed such chosen acts of more eminent goodness are the proper ingagements which God rewards if we will observe St. Pauls reasoning 1 Cor. 9. how he expected a greater reward for his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his voluntary costless preaching the Gospel for the noble end of doing more good then for the necessary commanded duty of preaching it at all Fourthly and lastly From the great advantage which Christianity obtains from the amiable prospect of eminent strictness and such heightned degrees of Charity and Piety O what need have the remiss and Under-Professions of this Age to be intended and advanced by presidents of such heightned zeal for God and goodness It is necessary that some men should not only walk in the light of an ordinary Profession but shine as lights to warm and melt the hearts of others who are frozen and fixed against most acts of Charity and almost all of Precy and then be able not only to correct all such erroneous zeal that spends it self in unwarrantable practices of Mistaken Godliness but put a stop to the Worlds bold defiances against all that is good But if Church-men especially would assume it as their more proper care to live and act in those heighths that I have mentioned by which they principally in the purest Ages obtained the name of Spiritual Persons in opposition to Secular that is to men that were not ingaged in such advanced Professions of stricter holiness I say if they were more generally so ingaged though I am assured no Christian Nation in the World can parallel the number of such as are it would sooner confute the spight that is against them wear off the contempt that is upon them and would be found the most successful expedient to bring dissenters to sober opinions and peaceable conformities Thus have I endeavoured to represent to you the measures of Christs great Example in the six several steps we should walk in which if by the grace of God you shall faithfully endeavour to follow as you will be out of all danger of miscarriage in your present services for I think I need give no other directions so will you be best prepared to receive the Crown of Immortal Bliss when Christ shall come to render to every man according to his works at the general Assizes of the World the great and universal Resurrection And that Almighty God may afford you and us all his heavenly assistance so to do let us join in our prayers one for another in the words which the Church hath taught us in the Collect for the second Sunday after Easter ALmighty God who hast given thine only Son to be unto us both a sacrifice for sin and also an ensample of godly life give us grace that we may always most thankfully receive that his inestimable benefit and also dayly endeavour our selves to follow the blessed steps of his most holy life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen THE Second Sermon Preached at BURY St. EDMUND At the Publick Assizes Sept. 13. MDCLXXIII SERM. II. 1 Joh. 4.1 Believe not every spirit but try the spirits whether they be of God THe same reasons that moved me before to decline all intermedling with your present affairs prevail with me still in this my second Adventure I would not seem to reproach these venerable persons My Lords the Judges with the least suspicion that they needed my aid to teach them either Skill or Vertue And as for the inferiour Instruments of Justice in your proceedings that chiefly need Priestly counsel whereby right may be done to them that here dearly seek it I think particular applications to be an expedient too weak and unsufficient to encounter the Ages universal falseness and aversation to all vertue and honesty These sholes are not to be fished for and caught to Goodness by such single hooks of particular directions they must have a Net spred over them of some more general concern in Religion which may powerfully influence them with the knowledge of and obligation to their respective duties The last time therefore I attempted them with one of the largest compass the whole Body of Christianity practically represented in the example of Christ. I shall now endeavour to encompass them with one of a lesser circle and yet as reasonably promising success and that is an ingagement to a more firm
adherence in some and a speedier return in others to the Communion of the Church of England as being a Church accommodated more to the designs of the Gospel as to all morals and the safety of all Societies then any Church or Profession in the World And as because woful experience hath taught us to date the Peoples declination from the blessed practices of Justice Honesty Veneration of an Oath obedience to Authority and all other Christian Vertues which only necessarily suits the happy mannagement of such affairs as these to the late confusions so to endeavour to bring men back to the same Church whence they were fallen must be believed the most reasonable expedient to recover them to the same excellent Vertues they lost by departing from it It is too pregnantly observed that ever since the breaking up the Foundations of this excellent Church we have sunk every day more and more in all the neglects of our duty to God and Man we have looked ever since like a People in ill handling possessed with an Evil Spirit and bewitched as Rebellion well resembles it to our mischief and undoing and to an universal unthriftiness in the enjoyment of Gods greatest mercies both spiritual and temporal O then it is high time to put to our hands for the Churches recovery and to bring back the People as fast as we can to her Communion that they may learn again to be honest and good and recover the excellent Genius of the old English spirit It is high time that we no more smother our defence for fear of offending or to preserve the Mistaken Title of Moderation Nor meal our mouths so long till we be choaked against all purposes of after-help and lest by pretending an over indulgence to men of weak minds we rock the People asleep in their Schism and Folly beyond all possibility of being ever awakened Designing therefore to do something which besides the respect I had to the present affairs I judged might be of the more publick and universal concernment in so general an Assembly I found nothing as the state of the Church now stands could answer my purpose so fully as to endeavour to confirm and fortifie them that yet adhere to the Church of England against all temptations to decline or desert it and to undeceive all those that already have unhappily departed from it And my Text offers a fair opportunity to attempt both in which are two parts to be discoursed 1. An Inhibition Believe not every spirit 2. An Exhortation But trie the spirits whether they be of God First The inhibition where it is fit we explicate the terms The meaning of Believing as to Spirits offers no difficulty though in reference to God and Christ it hath been perplexed with as many idle and extravagant notions and to as many ill purposes as any word in Scripture ever was But the word Spirit will admit some little examination Originally it signifies the Wind Scripturally and by Analogy may other things sometime the Soul of Man in general and then the several faculties in particular oftentimes it is taken for Angels and those good and bad most eminently it is taken for the Deity and then most distinctly for the third Person of the Trinity and particularly for it in its guiding and reaching Office whether immediately by it self or mediately by others and thus it is here taken really or so pretended And then the inhibition imports thus much That Christians should not credulously and without sufficient trial follow and be governed by every Teacher that pretends to the Office by a Plea or Commission from the Spirit of God Now the Text it self offers two Arguments against such a credulity and aptness of belief First because as the comprehensive indefinite 〈◊〉 every purports there be many kinds and varieties of Spirits by which Teachers may be deceived and be able to deceive others and which how many soever they be must be all false but one Thus the Devil when God permits turns a teaching Spirit I will saith he be a lying spirit in the mouth of the Prophets 1 Chron. 18.20 And there is a spirit of perversness Isa. 19.14 vertiginis as St. Hierome 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Lxx that is as they render it a spirit of turning about or errour which God suffers to be dispersed among a People as a punishment upon them St. Paul mentioneth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the spirit of a man that is his own fansie and opinion which is as various as the several humours and imaginations of men 1 Cor. 2.11 He adds 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a spirit of the world which St. Augustine calls the spirit of Pride and Ambition And this spirit sets up many a Teacher and is as various as the different circumstances and humours of Times to which it must be always garbed and accommodated Further No man ought to wonder at the great variety of spirits when he considers what a strange gift of propagation every Evil spirit hath been observed to have and how if it hath had any the least respite from restraint it hath presently branched it self into many several Families and divided apartments of new Spirits And thus early the Mother-spirit of Gnosticism which we find so often reproved in the New Testament did in a short time become the Parent of such a fruitful Progeny that from its loyns descended the spirit of Valentinians Saturninians Macedonians and others as Ireneus and other Ancients testifie And St. Augustine observed of the Evil spirit of Donatism that it procreated so fast that it begat a very great company of new and disagreeing Parties But to go no further then our own experience No sooner was this glorious Church broken to pieces in our late Rebellion no sooner had one common spirit of Opposition known then but by the one name of Puritanism sacrificed the Churches Peace and Unity Government and Worship to its Rage and Lust but it begat Legions spawned an Offspring of such hideous shapes brought forth such Litters of so many deformed stocks of new Spirits as might make Heresie it self blush to bear their names and shamed any sort of men in the World into repentance but one for being the unhappy Parent of such a monstrous and equivocal issue And then to consider how far every one of those new Spirits had prevailed over the minds of men to be deceived by them I think it were alone enough to arm us with a resolution most carefully to observe the inhibition of my Text. But that which makes it yet more reasonable and necessary is because all such spirits how inconsistent soever they be among themselves do always contrive by some pretence or other to make themselves as like the Spirit of God as the case can possibly bear and the Folly and credulity of their Followers admit For since the Devil can transform himself into an Angel of Light as S. Paul argues 1 Cor. 13.14 it will be much easier for
all other Spirits to make an assimilation All which being thus represented as it must needs put the credulous into a great sense of the danger of being deceived so it makes their suspension of not believing every spirit very just and necessary This the first Secondly The second Argument from the Text by the words which do immediately follow it is Believe not every spirit because many false Prophets are gone out into the World that is because as there be varieties of spirits to delude the minds of men so those spirits while there is Folly Pride and Passion in in the World can never want agents in every place to execute their unkind offices and that will be sedulously active by gratifying the base humours and designs of some and by surprizing the weakness and credulity of others to disturb the Church and mislead the People Now there is no man that seriously considers the multitude subtilty and unwearied diligence of such Officers of Evil spirits when they are abroad but must believe himself to run a very great hazard of being deceived without the greatest care and strictest enquiry whom to trust And that the Church was never without such kinds of men to offer temptations to the most stedfast will appear by a very few instances What considerate person might not tremble at the thoughts of his danger of being deceived if he reads but the story of Core and his complices that such persons should ever mask their wicked designs with such a prevailing disguise of Piety as should be able to seduce so many thousands to their destruction Who would not dread his own instability and be engaged in the carefullest suspension of mind whom to trust and follow when he reads of the Jews prodigious defection in the Samaritan Schism or if ever he should meet a parallel temptation to go astray as they had who were obliged to believe one Elias against 450 Prophets of Baal set to deceive him And if such presidents of danger be not sufficient to chastize and awaken mens credulities how should our Saviours Cavear admonish them Beware of false Prophets Mat. 7.15 How should the frequent Apostolick predictions of such Seducers advise them as when it was foretold Acts 20.29 that grievous Wolves should enter in not sparing the Flock Lastly How should the almost incredible multiplication of such Prophets in every Age engage them in the severest care what spirits they should believe and by what Teachers they should be instructed St. Augustine reckons up 88 several sorts of Hereticks to his time and Philastrius 128 and so proportionably they increased in every following Century Of all which whosoever desires to see a perfect and yet compendious prospect to terrifie him from the danger of seducement through his own credulity let him but overlook the Churches Tragoedy lately acted in this Nation and as in a short Scene he may see almost all the heresies that ever were before besides a progeny of new ones upon the Stage together and may behold the subtle Professors of them not only acting over again all the ancient Arts of seduction but practising new tricks frauds and pageantries of Piety to cheat and deceive the World All which put together makes it very reasonable that because many false Prophets are gone out into the World the inhibition in my Text of not believing every Spirit should be as strictly and carefully observed as men would prize and secure their eternal safety This the second Argument And now shall common observation of former dangers make us wary whom we believe or relie upon in our secular affairs and shall we be carelesly credulous in matters of spiritual concern Shall Wordly wisedom teach us to trust no body in temporal things and yet believe every body in matters of eternal moment Shall we be more then wise men in the one and less then fools and babes in the other Can we suspend our faith in things in which sensible demonstration may direct our prudence And shall we easily trust where the Arguments are spiritual and in the dark as to sense and Evidence at distance and the danger of miscarrying the greatest that can be O let us be wary where we trust our souls And since every spirit is not of God and our precious souls lie at stake upon a right choice let us and there never was a time in which it was more needful take all possible care and use all our faculties and skill to try which are truly of God And that leads me to the second part of my Text the Exhortation But try the spirits 2. The duty is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to try where we are first to observe as an incouragement to undertake it that God hath so delivered the things of our Peace in Scripture as we are Creatures of Reason Choice and Judgment and therefore he was pleased that much in Religion should depend upon the exercise of our Reason by trial and examination For so it is as to the matter and general substance of our happiness we are obliged 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Phil. 1.12 to try and search for the things that are excellent but there is no case wherein we are more concerned then in this the trial of spirits the guides of souls upon whose Offices and Gods Ordinances in their hands depends the Peace and Unity of the Church and the great event of every mans particular salvation Now that which makes this duty very reasonable is that as God was pleased there should in natural things be differential marks and incommunicable characters to guide mans understanding in distinguishing one being from another so much more in spirituals where the concern is greater we cannot suspect that God should impose a duty to try and chuse and leave us without sufficient means to discriminate and distinguish Not ought we to doubt it in this instant case in hand that since God hath put it upon our Trial and Choice what Guides we are to follow what spirits to trust too tâ—â—t he hath also allowed us some differencing notes and characters how to understand the spirits that are of God from those that are not For the finding out of which at this needful time in which there appears so many different pretenders to conduct Religion and the souls of men is the business of this hour And that I may be sure not to miscarry in this great trial I shall first lay down the characters which false spirits or Teachers may have in common with those that are of God and then describe those that do really evince the difference 1. The first Character in common and undistinctive is a natural aptitude or a well acquired ability to Teach Though they be improved to a more then ordinary dexterity of the most gratifying and zealous utterance in Praying and Preaching Therefore St. Paul when he commanded the Romans to mark them that make Divisions renders them not distinguishable by their words and manner of speaking for saith he they
shall 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rom. 16.18 by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple And when St. Peter forewarns them of false Prophets he tells them they shall come with the speaking character 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2 Pet. 2.3 with feigned words that is framed and fashioned perhaps to the highest strains of Piety But if those Teachers seem to be over-studious to exceed others in more pleasing and melting modes of speaking and to habituate themselves to extraordinary winning and humouring expressions though what they say be good yet they may justly give occasion to wise observers to collect some reasons to suspect their truth and sincerity Therefore St. Jerome observed in his time affabilis sermo blandum eloquium c. sunt haereticorum laequei quibus pisces capiunt volucres an affable way of discoursing and a flattering delivery were the snaâ—es of Hereticks by which they catched the little People into their affections and opinions But if in stead of the true spirits modest endeavour to found the Peoples souls in the common Articles of the Christian Faith they shall chuse to fly aloft like St. Judes empty Clouds at higher doctrines as they call them As when they turn the Gospel into a Mystery of which they themselves must pretend to be the only men that carry the Keys to open it and if instead of instructing the People in their obligations to obey Christs commandments and soberly directing them in all parts of holy life as Justice Mercie Obedience to Authority and the like which they reach the poor people to undervalue as legal preaching they be venturing at the seals of the Revelation numbring of heads and horns and beasts controuling Governments and disputing Laws or shall be towring up to the lofty Nothings of empty Metaphors extravagant Notions and Phrases or be continually trading with St. Judes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 great swelling words of Priviledges Saintships Liberties Divine Unions and the like or be always at a thousand repetitions of the name of Christ getting him laying hold oâ— him closing with him and the like though they do all this with the greatest earnestness zeal and sweat imaginable they grow beyond suspicion their design is not good The sum is To be able to pray and preach with the best skill and capacity is no distinguishing mark for men may have those faculties and yet nevertheless be spirits Teachers that are not of God 2. Nor secondly can a pretence to a claim for their doctrines from the holy Scriptures be a sufficient mark of distinction for as much as no Ancient or Modern Heretick but did and do cry up an interest in Gods Word to support or at least to seem to palliate their plea and doctrines And this is pregnantly to be taken notice of through the whole stock of Ecclesiastick Records Tertullian very early observed in his famous Book De praescriptionibus Haereticorum that Suadere non possunt de rebus fidei nisi de literis fidei scriptur as obtendunt hac sua audacia quosdam movent it had not been possible to have removed some from the truth had they not been prevailed with by the sacred name of Scripture How much would this hour be too little for such heaps of observations of this kind as might be collected Now all the advantage which all false spirits do make by pretending Scriptures is because God hath so delivered his truths in them many of which are so wrapt up in Metaphors and other Tropes and Figures so immixt with occasional discourses and very often so obscurely delivered or as St. Paul expresseth it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so darkly and as it were in a riddle that they that have designs to deceive others that want humility to hear the sense of the Church and to obey their lawful Guides appointed to instruct them in their right interpretation may find Arguments semblable enough in Scripture to serve the ends of a Deceiver to satisfie a private and prejudicate spirit in any errour in the world wresting them as St. Peter adviseth us to their own destruction Hence it is that Hereticks of the greatest inconsistency among themselves and some of them in perfect contradiction one to another have laid their Plea upon the holy Scriptures So Vincentius observes of the Hereticks before his time and instanceth in Photinus Novatianus Sabellius Donatus and many others And we our selves in our days have seen the same effect To instance How have the Socinians found in Scripture a seeming authority to assert their denial of Christs Divinity and yet the Romanist can think he thence finds proof enough that a Priest in a Wafer may make him the mighty God and worship him accordingly How have the contending Armies of the Remonstrants and Contra Remonstrants whose principles stand at the Poles distance one from another managed their long War with the same weapon of holy Scripture And how from thence have the three great parties among us perswaded themselves that each of them can in Scripture trace the measures of their several Church-governments And which is most to be admired how have the unwarrantable practices of Rebellion Murder and confounding all that 's sacred been so far patronized from Scripture as to engage multitudes to believe them to be the prosecutions of Gods cause and instances of his most acceptable service Hath not experience taught us that such a distant Text as Down with it down with it even to the ground hath prevailed more to destroy the places of Publick Worship then that This House shall be called a House of Prayer could perswade men to keep them up that a binding Kings in chains have tempted men to the most execrable destruction of their natural Princes when they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation could not satisfie their Consciences to preserve them And have we not heard that a Curse ye Meroz could justifie all the Ravages committed upon the Loyal and the Innocent To be short the sum is A bate appeal and claim to Scripture is not an incommunicable mark but that nevertheless the spirit that doth it may not be of God 3. Thirdly and lastly A plausible and fair life and conversation doth not distinguish for as much as the greatest enemies of truth in all Ages have been noted for a greater pretext of framed sanctimony and formed piety outward innocency and humility or so much of these as might serve to advance a reputation to their Plea and Doctrines But this is the sheeps cloathing of false Prophets Mat. 7.14 and the transformation of false Apostles into the likeness of the Apostles of Christ 1 Cor. 11.13 And it is that which St. Paul calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2 Tim. 3.5 the form or appearance of godliness S. Austin relates that the great temperance and devotion of the Manachees betrayed himself and Alipius into the gross heresie of Manachism And S. Basil affirms of the Arians that ob confictam
sanctimoniam omnia concredita habuere they surprized an universal belief of their heresie by their contrived and fashioned Piety Which gave occasion to St. Bernard to affirm and observe that haeresis docta est non tantum lingua sed vita mentiri Heresie was as well skilled to dissemble for its acceptance with the cheat of life as with the deceit of the tongue Now the design of all this artificial zeal and piety is to check the unavoidable imperfections of the true Guides of souls-carthen-vessels and to raise a reputation to themselves from their disgrace which they are always studying to improve before the People But though the false spirits greater seeming piety may allure men of weak minds who understand not the cheat and justifie their errours with such whose pride and interest tempt them to a compliance with them yet the wise and innocent will easily suspect that under the disguises of a more then ordinary scenical Piety most commonly there lies hid some spiritual wickedness some close and undiscovered sin We know that Jehu was a zealous Reformer and John of Leyaen was no inconsiderable Religionist Earl Gowry was no small Professor and the Authors of our late troubles were not to be reckoned among the crowds of the Prophane because most of them were great hearers and had notable gifts of Prayer yet what impieties were lodged under their smooth professions we shall now not willingly recount Again I would have it further considered because this Plea goes a great way with the multitude that it is one thing to live intirely to the precepts of Christ and by the just laws of Government and another thing to live up to the humours and modes of a party that distinguish themselves from others by a manner of speaking peculiar phrases looks and garbs by oppositions and scruples rather then by an observed stricter justice nobler degrees of mercy tenderer loyalty and other such like graces of Christianity which gives the onely true reason of being denominated Godly and without which the appellation is presumptuously assumed and unwarrantably given But let them be as good as their proselytes can fame them nay suppose them to be good if possible without just exception yet is it no incommunicable character of distinction or mark of office but nevertheless they that have it may yet be spirits that are not of God Thus I have endeavoured to describe the qualifications that hold in common with the false spirits and the spirits that are of God and though they are all required in the true spirits and teachers that are of God to make them capable subjects of the distinguishing characters yet are not incommunicable marks of a particular mission of God to the holy Calling We acknowledge and profess that the true Guides of souls should be really qualified in all those three that I have mentioned 1. They should 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Tim. 3.2 be fit and able to teach others competently skilled in the present learned Languages of the Christian World if not in the Original Tongues that by such aids of knowledge their minds may be furnished with a convenient at least stock of Learning and their tongues fitted to express themselves decently and significantly 2. They should be principally skilled in the holy Scriptures that as all truth is either expresly or vertually contained in them so they may be able readily to appeal to them preach and apply them to the good of souls 3. They should be as St. Paul adviseth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Tit. 1.6 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Tim. 3.4 blameless and without just cause of accusation And this was typified in the Aaronical Priesthood when none that had a blemish should come near to offer the offerings of the Lord Levit. 21.21 And therefore the true spirits of God should rather vitia morum quam verborum vitare potior enim est bene vivendi quam bene loquendi facultas avoid ill living then ill speaking for a good life is the powerfullest and most prevalent instruction Now though they should be thus qualified yet over and besides these they must be characteristically separated to their Ministerial Offices by some marks and testimonials that declare a mission from God without which they that shal presume to execute such offices or any part of them are guilty of a great presumption in themselves No man taketh this honour to him unless he be called of God as was Aaron Heb. 5.4 and all their administrations ought to be judged invalid to others for how can they preach much more perform any other Priestly Office with blessing and success unless they be sent Rom. 10.15 Which separation and mission must be made demonstrable by some signal mark and character which may be a proof quoad nos to us that they are so separated and sent of God otherwise how should any man be capable of performing this duty of Trial or be assured at any time of receiving any blessing by any ministerial Offices for their souls good The signal Characters of Christ and his Apostles separation to their Ministerial Offices were Miracles without which it had been a ridiculous Plea to have told the World from any thing in themselves that they were sent of God which Christ acknowledgeth If I bear witness of my self if I make my own testimonial my witness is not true that is it is not competent nor rational But when Gods time was come that Miracles should cease he also shut that door by which his Ministers first entered into the Church and hath been since pleased that there should be no other separation but by a mediate and ordinary calling which must be sub aliquo signo sensibili ut not a sit Ecclesiae under some sensible signs or marks that they may be known to the Church and distinguished by them Now the sensible signal Characters and Testimonials by which the Church knows the spirits that are of God from those that are not are these three in concurrence together The first is with and besides all those former qualifications to have received imposition of Apostolical or Episcopal hands as a visible designation of lawful separation And of this practice the Scripture which makes it of Divine Institution gives an infallible evidence in the times they bear date Thus the Holy Ghost separated Barnabas and Saul Acts 13.2 and after fasting and prayer it was signally declared by laying on of hands v. 3. Such a Character had Timothy and Titus as the Epistles to them shew and the same to communicate to them that should follow in their respective charges Tit. 1.5 And the continuation of that primitive practice of it was so pregnant and universal that Calvin himself could not but say that illa tam accurata observatio praecepti vice nobis esse debet the accurate observation of it could not amount to a less obligation then that of a precept He therefore that should presume to teach admit or conduct Assemblies and that hath
Faith are either expresly declared or evidently deduced from the holy Scriptures and none to be believed as such but those that are so And as to the super-fundamental Articles of Doctrine contrived for the common peace and order of particular Churches such as are our 39 Articles and as the Confessions of other Churches ought to be so accounted if they be not refutable by the Scriptures and the analogy of Faith nor be contrariant to right reason ought also to be reputed the Doctrines of God 2. But then secondly Because God was pleased so to deliver his truths in Scripture for reasons before mentioned to which many more might be added with some obscurity though not so much so by it self as made so by the moral infirmities of mens understandings therefore Christ did provide and immediately send another guide which the Apostles themselves did seem to stand in need of though they were blest with Christs personal instructions and that was the Holy Ghost which he promised should guide them into all truth Joh. 16.13 And lest it should seem to have concerned the Apostles onely in their time it was also promised to abide with them for ever Joh. 14.16 that is for the benefit of their successors and the whole Church to the end of the World Therefore whosoever would afterward understand the doctrines which were of God was obliged not onely to be governed by his own private reading the Scriptures and judgment upon them but also to enquire for and to submit to the conduct of Gods Spirit wheresoever it was to be found Now this is principally to be understood as to cases in controversie and to difficult places but as to the fundamentals of the common Faith and rules of Holy Life as they are plainly set down in Scripture and easily discoverable to every honest mind so every man ought to be encouraged to a constant reading of them for the confirmation of his Faith and government of his Life 3. Therefore thirdly and lastly Our next enquiry is to understand where those promises were or are fulfilled and where the guiding Office of the Holy Ghost was or is executed and performed that men may attend to it and be guided by it in all cases of different perswasions and professions that they may know which are of God The Romanists would engross it to the Churches of their Communion onely and that by as an infallible a conduct as the Apostles enjoyed it But because this pretence hath been so lately examined and sufficiently baffled I shall only enquire how some Popes themselves should be recorded to have been notorious Hereticks as particularly Liberius and Honorius and then how he that relies on that pretence can reasonably think himself secure The Fanaticks on the other side if as to us they may be thought altogether to be of two sides lay claim to it by an especial particular light given to them of God or as the soberer sort of them by a private sufficient assistance from God in the use of the best mears they can for the understanding the Scriptures But there needs no other confuration of this pretence but their certain disappointment that have trusted ' o it made evident by their own unconstancy of opining and the perpetual disagreements of those that have made that claim There is but one more that I know of was ever pretended to and indeed then which I cannot imagine any other that can with any shew of reason be offered in satisfaction to this Enquiry and that is the Holy Ghosts guidance of the universal Church in all Ages and places to be observed in those doctrines and interpretations of Scripture according to the famous rule of Vincentius Lirinensis which claim to Primitive Antiquity universal Profession and Consent Quod ubique quod semper quod ab emnibus hoc vere proprieque catholicum cap. 30. So that the sum of this Enquiry is that those are the doctrines of Christ and his Apostles which have been received as such in the first and purest Ages and that have continued to be acknowledged as such by the most universal Consent and Profession Against the absoluteness and unexceptionable exactness of this rule of Vincentius whatsoever may be alledged or granted it must for ever stand uncontrolled till any other rule can be produced or imagined which I think no man hath pretended to attempt that may in any degree demonstrate the promises of the Holy Spirit guiding into all truth Now this is the Glory of the Church of England and which hath made her the envy of all her dissenting Neighbours round about her that in all her Doctrines Government and Worship she alone can offer her self to this most reasonable and antient Rule to be tried and judged to which no other Church in the World dare pretend to submit Therefore it is that all those doctrines wherein we differ from the Church of Rome cannot be from the conduct of Gods Spirit and so not the doctrines of the Spirits that are of God because they want the first part of Vincentius his rule that is succession from primitive antiquity And therefore the great Archbishop offered this challenge p. 382. That if any Jesuite can prove that by a visible continued succession to this day either Transubstantiation in the Eucharist the Eucharist in one kind or Purgatory or Worship of Images or Prayers in an unknown Tongue with divers other points have been so taught I for my part will yield the cause As to the private opinions of some ancient Fathers as those of Tertul Orig. St. Austin and others though they had antiquity yet they wanted universal consent and so were maintained against that part of the evidence of being the Doctrines of God And then as to the new opinions of these times so strongly contended for by our present dissenters such as concern their new models of Government manner of Worship and several opinions as they stand in opposition to the present established Church of England could not be from Christ and his Apostles and they that teach them not the spirits that are of God because they want all the marks of Gods Spirit as having neither primitive Antiquity nor universal Consent Profession or Practice and we challenge them to shew it if they have any which if they do I shall willingly sacrifice all that I have said against them to shame and Recantation All the Arguments that I know they have to tempt them from their conformity to this excellent Church is either ignorance because they understand it not or perverseness of humour and discontentedness of mind which in some men must for ever be gratified by opposition or else an habitual dislike which they call tender Conscience which we may then believe to be sincerely pretended when we see the same tenderness expressed in the most considerable practices of Christianity and Holy Life as Justice Mercy Obedience to Authority and the like as well as in the declining a poor innocent Ceremony or formation of substantial Worship no where forbidden by God and commanded by the just Laws of men This is the third and last mark and Character of the Spirits that are of God to whose conduct we may entrust our souls and that is such as teach the Doctrines that are of God And now you see by the transient applications that I have made and the clear evidence of the matter it self upon what a sure foundation the present constituted Church of England stands above any Profession of Christianity in the World As to my endeavour of offering all the marks of a true Church and its Ministry I thank God I can testifie to him that I have with-held no evidence that I know of that may discover the truth nor offered any thing in my applications of them to our own which my soul hath not as faithfully dictated as my Tongue expressed Time gives me not leave to offer any further applications onely I desire and pray to God that those that yet truly adhere to this Church may by what I have said find reason to love and honour it and the true Spirits of God within it more and more and that those that are departed from it may timely and seriously consider upon what slender evidence they have done it and may speed their return to it as to a Church that hath all the marks of God and Characters of truth upon it And I hope there be many amongst us that have so much compassion for them as to be willing if God Almighty should grant it as a condition of so great a mercy to be something that may resemble St. Pauls noble Charity when he wished himself accursed that is at least to be deprived of the happiness of an outward Profession of Christianity to bring the Romans to it Rom. 9.3 that such our dissenters were returned in mind and practice to serve God with us with one heart and mouth Which God grant for Jesus sake FINIS