well as St. Paul's is evident by many places of Scripture I shall name two or three 2 Cor. 3.6 The Gospel is called the Ministration of the Spirit in opposition to the Law which was but the Ministration of the Letter which signifies that by the Law of Moses there was no inward Assistance of the Spirit of God for our Assistance in Religion as there is under the Gospel for the Performance of all the Duties it requires of us and that every Christian as well as St. Paul is to know experimentally the Power of our Saviour's Resurrection or is assisted with that Power which raised Christ from the dead He himself tells us in Rom. 8.9 11. where he makes it an essential Character of our Christianity to have the Spirit that raised Jesus Christ from the dead in us And Col. 2.12 he attributes our being buried with him in Baptism and raised again to Newness of Life which contains all that the Gospel requires of us to the Faith of the Operation of God who raised our Saviour from the dead Philosophy tells us that Sublunary Bodies are influenced by the Heavens as Celestial Bodies Is it not as reasonable to believe that our Souls are influenced and enlivened by God Cannot the Father of Spirits as easily and naturally assist our Spirits as the Celestial Bodies these below If so then what Yoke can possibly be uneasy to us or what Burden heavy or troublesome I do not say insupportable when in all our religious Actions we act in Conjunction with our Creator 3. The Greatness of the Reward proposed in the most emphatical but intelligible Expressions of Felicity As Crowns of Glory Inheritances incorruptible and that fade not away Immortality Eternal Life and for these light Afflictions which last but for a Moment a far more exceeding and Eternal weight of Glory 2 Cor. 4.17 And whatever we lose here we are promised for it an hundred fold hereafter If we venture and lose into the bargain our Lives in the dispute for our Saviour and his Religion we lose but crasy heavy painful Bodies for Bodies spiritual healthful and incorruptible Sin and Sickness and Putrifaction for Holiness and Health and Incorruption these Tabernacles of Clay daily declining and dissolving into the Earth of which they were at first made and subject to be broken by many accidental Violences and Knocks they are like to meet with in the hurry of this World for a Building of God a House not made with Hands Eternal in the Heavens 2 Cor. 4.1 Who would not chuse to be thus unclothed to be clothed upon with those everlasting Robes of Light and Glory A full Perswasion of this Reward hath made Fire and Faggot Swords and wild Beasts and all the cruellest Instruments of Death not only eligible Heb. 11.35 but easy to many hundreds of Christians that they might obtain a better Resurrection And we have reason to believe it from common Experience of humane Affairs for we daily see that neither Seas nor Rocks nor Storms nor Tempests will discourage Men from making very desperate Adventures when they have but probable Expectations of a great Reward but here is all the Assurance God that cannot lye can give us And whilest we are here in the consciencious and sincere Practice of our Religion we have that Peace of God which passeth all Understanding and is able to make every Yoke easy and every Burden light our Saviour hath any where in his Religion layed upon us 4. It affords us the most powerful Examples God himself Matth. 5.45 to the end where our Saviour commands us to love our Enemies c. that we may be the Children of our Heavenly Father and in the last verse perfect as our Heavenly Father is perfect Now who would stick at any thing that may advance him not only to the Similitude but Perfection of God himself The Duty is something difficult but the Example is a sufficient Reward to make any labour or pains delightful and easy to us The Son of God took upon him our Nature to be an Example to us and here we have an Example of our own Nature in the Practice of the hardest Duties in the midst of Opposition and the worst of times and of more than he requires of us namely laying down his Life for his Enemies and all for our sakes that we might be encouraged in our Duty Complanatur itur vestigiis Domini said Tertullian To this Example the Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews directs us chap. 12. ver 2 3 4. lest we be weary and faint in our Minds In chap. 11. he proposes the Examples of very great and wise Men Noah Abraham Moses and divers others and both what great things they did and suffered and in chap. 12. ver 1. he doth as it were sum up the Evidence that this so great a Cloud of Witnesses in storms of Persecution assist us with to make it easy to lay aside the Sin that so easily besets us and then reinforceth the whole Argument with the Example of our Saviour in the following verses before mentioned In chap. 6.12 Be not slothful saith the same Apostle but Followers of them who through Faith and Patience inherit the Promises He is certainly strangely degenerated and sunk into the Ground of which he was at first made that finds it an uneasy thing not to be slothful And the Apostle plainly here tells us that any body else will follow those great Examples our Religion affords us and by Faith and Patience inherit the Promises Examples all Men acknowledg and all Experience demonstrates are a most effectual way of perswading and in these Examples we have all the advantage the Reverence of Persons or the Reason of the Thing can assist us with 5. It supplies us with the most pregnant and efficacious Principle of doing or suffering any thing it requires of us This the serious Consideration of our Religion must necessarily beget in us if we really believe the Truth of it for it is nothing else but God's so loving the World that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have Everlasting Life Joh. 3.16 And this his only begotten Son so loving it as to be crucified for it These two Articles contain the substance of the Revelation given us in the Gospel of our Religion Now if Love begets Love can we believe and think of this Religion without being constrain'd to live no longer to our selves but to him that dy'd for us to live to him and die for him when he requires it of us And the Constraints of Love are the Extasies and Triumphs of it which make every thing easy and delightful Thus our Christianity without us impresseth its own Characters within us and becomes the Gospel of Christ written in our Hearts and our Faith removeth Mountains and makes all ways plain and overcometh the World and crucifieth the Flesh with its Affections and Lusts working by the Love
Transubstantiation stantiation by her voluntary misinterpretation of one of the plainest places in the New Testament Mat. 26.27 28. where our Saviour useth the plainest way of speaking namely Metaphorical and the most intelligible Metaphors of Bread and Wine to signify to us by our very Senses the great Benefits of his Passion This must be very uneasy for our Souls feel a Contradiction as our Senses discern their proper Objects else we could never know the Reason of any thing we enquire after But this justifies the Moderation of the Church of England which in her publick Catechism makes the Articles of the Apostles Creed made up of nothing but Scripture only necessary to Salvation Where we do not put our Sense to God's Words and then Curse and Burn and Damn one another for dissenting as Mr. Chillingworth observes But 't is most evident they do in very many Articles of their Faith and then stamp the Character of Necessity upon them which undeniably makes the Yoke of Christ far more uneasy and his Burden much heavier than he hath made it 2. Thus also the same Church of Rome hath made our Saviour's Yoke much straiter and his Burden heavier than he hath made it in imposing innumerable Rites and external Observances in the Practice of Religion and the Worship of God. That the Worship of God under the Gospel is to differ from that under the Law called Heb. 9.10 Carnal Ordinances and there said to be imposed until the time of Reformation that is the Gospel in its Purity and Spirituality is clearly asserted by our Saviour Jo. 4.21 24. and proved from the Spirituality of God's Nature God is a Spirit and they that worship him must worship him in Spirit and in Truth not only in the Sincerity of our Hearts but with a sort of Worship as near as may be in its Nature and Constitution suitable to the Purity and Spirituality of the Nature of God which we apprehend as well as we can in this imperfect State we are in when we abstract from him all the Imperfections of Body or Matter and retain no other Conception of him but of a Being infinitely Perfect and one great End of Divine Worship is to impress and preserve this Notion of God sensibly and distinctly in our Minds by the gracious Influences of his particular Attributes and Perfections his infinite Mercy Righteousness Purity c. in our attendance upon him until we were changed into the same Image 2 Cor. 3.18 as we are capable Now though the publick Conduct of Divine Worship be left to the Governours of the Church yet at their Peril they are obliged not to institute any thing to the Preiudice of this blessed Effect of God's Worship and Service upon the Souls of Men. Corporeal Images and many bodily Rites or Ceremonies are great and manifest Inconveniences in this case for they are so contrary to the Spirituality and Purity of the Divine Nature that like a thick and condensed Cloud they so eclipse the Light of the Sun of Righteousness the Light of the Glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ that to worship God who is a Spirit in Spirit and in Truth by these must be a very uneasy Yoke and a Burden at least to the generality of Men insupportable The Church of Rome is greatly concern'd to take notice of this for such Tricks she plays in the Worship of God both with her Images and innumerable Ceremonies such Pageant Shews she sets off her Publick Devotions with that 't is reasonable to fear the far greatest part of her Communion instead of edifying their Minds with Divine Service with the gracious Influences of the Divine Attributes only divert and entertain their Senses and when they go to Church either worship nothing at all or they know not what or commit the grossest Idolatry in worshipping Pictures and Images Stocks and Stones guilded and printed And though they renounce the Names of Judaism or Heathenism in their Religious Worship yet they would oblige the World to an Equivolent in too strict a Sense to all the Superstitions of the Jews and the Idolatries of the Gentiles and so impose upon Mankind a Yoke far more uneasy and a much heavier Burden than our Saviour doth But we must not rest here For the Spirituality of God's Worship under the Gospel being a necessary Qualification of it some Men may possibly scruple without any Malice or ill Design some Rites or Usages in the Worship of God as being contrary to its Spirituality Nothing but Order and Decency may be design'd by them or some external Ornaments for the Service of God and by a fair and rational Interpretation they may be so used without being any Impediments to the Purity or Spirituality of Divine Worship Yet seeing all Men cannot have the same Sense of these things and seeing what a Man scruples he can never be edified by it we are to consider the Infirmities of our Brethren for Order and Decency here is best when they are in Subserviency to Edification Men are not made for Laws but Laws are made for Men. Our Ecclesiastical History is a Demonstration and many other Histories too that the World must be govern'd as it can and not as we will and it is to be considered the narrower the Fence is the more are excluded to attack it and what is often attack'd in this World we see by constant Experience tumbles down one time or other Unity only doth not create strength there must be a Conjunction of Unity and Number together But then as wise Builders consider what the matter will bear they are to make use of so must also the Builders or Edifiers of the Church and accordingly apply themselves to it or else before we are aware we impose a more uneasy Yoke and a heavier Burden upon one another than our Saviour hath Dr. Hammond out of Rabbi Joshua interprets the heavy Burdens of the Pharisees Superfluities of Worship and troublesome Rites introduced under-hand into the Jewish Religion And Maimonides he observes calls the Addittaments by which they made the Law heavy Plagas Severities Thus they made God's Yoke more uneasy to one another and his Burden heavier than God had made them It is our Duty not to imitate the Scribes and Pharises but our Saviour in the Text whose Yoke is easy and Burden light 3. Let us not make it more uneasy to our selves then our Saviour hath made it 1. In our private Capacities Let us not by evil Company or Customs habituate our selves to Sin and make it natural to us If ever our Religion doth us good it must reform us for Faith and Repentance are nothing less than Regeneration The longer we wear the Yoke of our Sins and carry the Burden of our Lusts about us the more uneasy will it be to put on our Saviour's though in themselves never so much easier or lighter than they Isa 28.7 8 9 10. The Priest and the Prophets erred through Wine they
were swallowed up of it they had swallowed it down so fast What was the Consequence Whom shall he teach Knowledg and make to understand Doctrine them that are weaned from the Milk and drawn from the Breasts for Precept must be upon Precept Precept upon Precept c. The Sense is they had by their Sensuality rendred themselves as uncapable of understanding spiritual things as little Children and must be so instructed as they use to be How unfit then for the beatifick Vision hereafter Flesh and Blood thus qualified to be sure cannot enter into the Kingdom of Heaven Fugite enervatas delicias per quas permadescunt animi Senec. Those feeble Pleasures whereby Mens Minds are weakened and being thus steep'd and soak'd in Sensuality and put down by this Burden of the Flesh thus bound upon them by their Lusts are utterly senseless of higher or more noble Felicities than the Earth affords them 2. In our religious Relation to one another Phil. 2.14 The Apostle commands us to do all things without Murmurings and Disputings Nothing more in its proper place than Unity and Obedience in Religion The Golden Rule our Saviour hath given us of doing as we would be done unto can never be more usefully applyed than in this case we are to use our Governours as we would be used our selves were we in their Circumstances and when they are coming to meet us let us not start back or turn away from them let us concerning them believe all things hope all things that is put the most charitable and candid Interpretation upon their Commands The Church of England is not superstitious in imposing her Ceremonies because she declares the Nature of them and pretends only to humane Authority for their immediate Appointment or Obligation But Superstition may easily get in at the other Door because God is here immediately pretended for nothing can excuse our Disobedience but some Law or Command of God now if there be none and yet the Fear and Authority of God is pretended we are soberly to consider where the Superstition in this case must be applied for Superstition is not so much in the matter a Man is about as in his Mind innocent things may be superstitiously used yea the best and holiest Institutions And there is a negative as well as positive Superstition a Man may be as superstitious in being against the use of some things in Religion as any Man can be in being for them because the Superstition lies in fearing God where no Fear is where God hath been pleased not at all to concern himself And thus we may easily make our Saviour's Yoke more uneasy to our selves and his Burden more heavy than he hath made them 4. Lastly Let us all consider how earnestly St. Paul beseeches us Eph. 4.1 to the 7th by the peculiar Graces of our Religion ver 2. To keep the Vnity of the Spirit in the bond of Peace ver 3. He tells us ver 1. that it is to walk worthy of the Vocation wherewith we are called that is otherwise we are unworthy of the Name of Christians and proves it ver 4. because we are called into one Body and therefore must be acted by one Spirit which he further proves ver 5 6. because there is but one Lord one Faith one Baptism one God and Father of all who is above all and through all and in us all How passionately he beseecheth us to do it Phil. 2.1 to 9. adding to all his other Arguments the Example of our Saviour's voluntary Passion and Death upon the Cross for us Let us all seriously read Gal. 5.20 22. Are the matters we differ about and produce so many of the Fruits of the Flesh amongst us mentioned in ver 20. of such Consequence as that we should hazard the sweet and blessed Fruits of the Spirit mentioned ver 22. Love Joy Peace c. either in the Vindication of them or opposition to them And are not these excellent Fruits of the Spirit too often check'd and in danger to be blasted both by our Zeal for them and against them Let the very Heathen provoke us to Love and good Works towards one another St. Austin tells us that the Philosophers had almost as many Opinions about the chief Good as there were Sects amongst them which from Varro he saith were above 200. Yet Tertullian observes they all agreed about the Necessity of Patience which may be a Reason why they did not persecute one another as we do And certainly the Article about the chief Good is an essential Article in every Religion and that they wanted not Zeal to preserve their Religion the poor Christians felt very often to their cost Let us fear lest whilst the Protestant Princes are confederate and spending their Blood and Treasure for their own and our Preservation we by our bitter Zeal about uncertain and little things should make it impracticable for if we bite and devour one another we shall be consumed one of another And what account can we give of our selves in the other World for certainly as the planting Christianity at first was the best Cause God ever had in this World so the Reformation of it must be the next best and as that was first planted and secured very much by the Love and Unity of its Professors so must also the Reformation of it be Let us remember what we would have done in the day of our Distress 't is not so long since but we may do it for this Unity I am speaking of when we plainly saw for want of it we were but threshing Instruments in the Hands of our Enemies to break in pieces one another and they are as malicious and industrious still as ever they were and also as confident they shall do it Lastly Let us consider that no return for our miraculous Deliverance can be more grateful than this to the Divine Majesty for God is Love and he that dwelleth in Love dwelleth in God and God in him 1 John 4.16 And also that the Love that was in our Saviour's Passion made it an Offering and Sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling Savour The Providence of God hath given us a greater Opportunity than any Age ever saw to heal our Divisions that I know of every Opportunity to do good is an Obligation but a special Providence is the Voice of Heaven calling upon us upon that occasion to do our Duty Thus I have as briefly as I could laid open the Easiness and Difficulty of our Religion and prov'd that though we have made it difficult our Saviour hath made it easy and that to wear our Saviour's Yoke and bear his Burden and imitate him in the Text is the only infallible means of Ease and Happiness here both in our selves and one another and everlasting Happiness in the Enjoyment of God together hereafter to which blessed Temper here and happy State hereafter the God of Peace and Love bring us all And the Peace of God which passeth