God which is a Spirit of Wisdom and Knowledge of Order and Regular Dispensations And this in brief may be sufficient to let you see the folly and mischief of all other Methods and Institutions save those that Minister to a Reasonable Service Which brings me to the third and last Particular The Reasonableness of this present Service concerning which so much has been already said by my Predecessors that I may be allowed to be the shorter 1. Nothing is so Reasonable so Spiritual and acceptable to God as these Eucharistical Oblations As for other Services by way of Petition or Deprecation they are peculiar to this Life only and so of a lower Allay and are in some sort common to Beasts for even they lift up their Eyes to God and the whole Creation groaneth when it is in pain or want Only Intellectual Beings can return Thanks and Converse with God by Reciprocal intercourses It argues a deep sence of favours received and a thorough understanding of their worth and a Soul not only fram'd and moulded by the Holy Spirit to this Noble Work but Crown'd with Joy and Raptures and the unspeakable satisfactions of the Holy Ghost It was God's Command Deut. 16 That the Males should appear Three times a year before him and that not empty but bringing their returns of Gratitude with them Among Christians this is our 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and as at the Primitive Eucharists they us'd to offer Thanks for all the Patriarchs and Confessors the Founders and Benefactors of the Church so we do for all our particular Favours and Blessings And as in the Law every one was to give as he was able so we are to present him with our Souls and Bodies and the several proportions of Goodness Wisdom Wealth Honour we have attain'd to If the Souls of departed Saints have any Sence of what is done here below no doubt but all your glorious friends above will rejoyce and applaud themselves in their work and reap the abundant fruits of their labour in seeing their Pupils their Charge advanc't by the benefit of their Education to a work so like their own For I conceive Love and Learning to be the employment of Angels and glorified Spirits too as well as yours who after they have taken out their Lesson from the face of God the Beatifick Vision betake themselves to Laud and Thansgivings to Feasts such as Angels make and mutual Embracements If not if they be laid up in their secret Repositories till the day of Judgment God shall be a sufficient reward and recompence who will fill your hearts with more grace and your minds with more light and your Families with more Blessings and your Names both Living a Dead with the Perfume of good and faithful Servants 2. It is an act highly Reasonable and infinitely Commendable to declare your Gratitude in this publick Assembly to those worthy Persons the Instructors of your Youth your Guides your Teachers your Angel-Guardians here below when you were little Ones Among the other degeneracies of the Age there is this common one of Ingratitude to Teachers And the first act our Gallants do when they write Man is this piece of Inhumanity of despising and villifying their Education So that this Assembly may in some measure Atone for many others and your Charity cover a multitude of faults It is much that the regular Method and the Indefatigable Industry and the rich Stock of Learning in our Schools and Academies should so soon be out-stript by a Clubb and a Coffee-house but Vice abhors all Learning and Sloth invents Compendiums and a great deal of Conceit and a little of Mr. Hobbs sets up a raw young Man for a Philosopher and a Statesman and a Man of the World I shall not stand to reckon up the Honours that Emperors and Cities in all Nations have given to the Instructors of their Youth Of how great importance it is to Season wisely the growing hopes the Futurus Populus of a Nation it is sufficient that our Blessed Saviour in whom the Fulness of the Godhead dwelt bodily and in Whom all the Treasures of Wisdom were laid up yet in his Minority he went among the Doctors if I may so say to School and he honour'd and Authoris'd their Profession by his Conversing with them I will in your Names therefore return to as many as are living and capable of receiving them your unfeigned and acknowledgments thanks and pray that God would return an 100 fold into their Bosom all that Love and Care they have bestowed upon us 3. This Publick Legal Assembly is a suitable return for the mercy of our Publick Legal Education A Blessing no ways to be pretermitted since it brings so many considerable Advantages with it It is a common Question Which is the readier way to Learning Private or Publick Teaching For the former there is urg'd A constant Care and Attendance upon one or a few Persons a particular and exact observation of their Natural Inclinations Intellectual Abilities and acquired Improvements and so a just apportionating his Task to his Capacity On the other side There is the light of Example and the heat of Emulation and the joy of Society and a vivacity of Spirit thence resulting necessary to all the Parts and Duties of a Scholar and a very probable security of Success and it is better to know how to secure Harvest then how to hasten Fruits But if the Question be Which is the best way to make him an useful honest sound Scholar For a few Criticisms and Speculations or to teach the Greek Grammer a year before others hold no Comparison with Concord and Unity here without doubt the Advantage lyes on the Publick side For here are no unsound Documents no private poisonous Intermixtures no preparatory Doses for Schism and Faction but all things are Administred according to the setled Dispensatory of Laws and Statutes And the Domus Doctrinae joyns to the Synagogue and Men of Fame and Integrity teach in Solomon's Porch in the view and observation of the whole World Experience teaches us the mischief of Foreign Seminaries and unlicens'd Academies at home And as from the remote Corners of Scythia from Dens and Marshes the barbarous Goths and Vandals brake in upon and destroyed fair and Learned Italy so from these private Holes it was that our Locusts overspread the face of our Church and Nation But that which I would recommend to your observation and so I have done is That a private secret Education does not only expose a Youth to the Malignant Influences of evil Men but Secrecy and Solitariness it self does naturally poison the Candour and Ingenuity of his Nature For as soon as they are seated in their places they look upon themselves in a state of Opposition and Hostility with other Schools and so they catch at Paradoxes and Novelties and study Cavils and Quirks and Evasions and hunt after Slanders and Stories to advance their Party and illustrate the obscurity of their Education It is almost necessary they should grow either Proud or Splenatick or Sad and Gloomy or Sullen and Morose or Envious and Wrathful and with these accomplishments they come into the World and are exactly qualified at least to become the Author 's in Characters and your Julians and your Growth of Popery and all that Spawn of Pamphlets that have of late disturb'd and infected the Nation Solitude is a thing so dangerous that our Lord himself speaking of him as a Man would not venture into the Wilderness but under the Guidance and Protection of the Spirit In Sum The several Forms of Angels in gladsom Troops and Lightsom Places celebrate the Divine Praise and study the good of Mankind Only Furies in dark and desolate Caves and Witches in Melancholly midnight Meetings and Traytors at Secret Consults and Cabals Complot their Mischiefs and Destruction I have now done with your Patience And it remains only to pray That God would Inspire us with a due Sence and Acknowledgments of the many Blessings he has bestowed upon us That we may live like the Children of Light and Knowledge and shew our Gratitude by our right use and improvement of them to his Honour and Glory That God would showre down his Blessings upon the Head of our most Gracious Sovereign Lord King Charles the Heir of our Royal Founder's Piety and Patrimony and the Protector of our Fortunes and the Encourager and if I may say it with Reverence in some sort the Companion of our present Meetings and that he would Accumulate upon his Head all the Blessings due to the constant Defender of the Faith and the Munificent Nursing Father of the Church And that the Prayers of all the Poor and the Orphan and all that have received Life and Warmth or any benefit from the Charity of this Royal Foundation may descend upon Himself and his Posterity to all Generations Lastly May Love and Unity and all the good natur'd Vertues dwell amongst your selves and preserve you ever till you meet together again and Feast in the Kingdom of Heaven Now to God the Father Son and Holy Ghost Three Persons and One God be all Honour Power Praise and Glory attributed for these and all his other Mercies now and for ever more Amen FINIS
and Eminent Persons is a bold curiosity to enquire but all the ordinary Confidences which the Spirit of God creates in the Elect are built upon Duty and conditional Agreements Hereby we know we are Translated from Death to Life if we love the Brethren 1 John 3.14 And many the like Scriptures are but Rational Inferences from supposed Premisses And when departing Saints cast the last Eye upon themselves their securest Anchor next to the All-sufficient Merits of Christ is I say ordinarily but the Conclusion of a Syllogism whereof God makes the Major And every Man by the Assistance of his Reason and Examination of his Conscience is to add the Minor Such a joyful Prospect I presume shall ye one day have when after the Toil and Troubles of a busie Life ye shall seek Privacy and be glad to retire into the Simplicity of the years ye this day Commemorate For I reckon we must once more go to School to Con over this dull Lesson of the World again where Experience will be your Master and Repentance your Discipline It shall be a joy then I say upon rational grounds to conclude I have run my Race I have finished my Course henceforth a Crown of Life is laid up for me Lastly and not the least this Education this Ability this Knowledge is best to teach us our own Ignorance and consequently Humility Meekness and Condescention to others He that knows the intricacies of Things the variety of Apprehensions the different sizes of Understandings The Power of Prejudice and Passion must needs have compassionate thoughts for the generality of Men and can with equal affection maintain Reason and pity Ignorance In Sum Among all your Gifts and Graces there is none so Amiable so Honourable so becoming a Schollar as Humility and Modesty and Mercy Insomuch that though you could speak With all Tongues and work Miracles yet without this Charity they were nothing worth So that if we bethink our selves well we shall find this one of the most Reasonable Services of all These are some few of the many advantages of your Education as it qualifies to serve God Reasonably and with Understanding than which next to his Sanctifying Grace he has not bestowed a nobler Talent upon the Sons of Men and which therefore deserves our most serious Consideration and our most sincere acknowledgments To illustrate this a little more and settle it upon your affections it will not be amiss briefly from these Regions of Light to look down and behold the Children of Darkness grovling and wandering in the Mazes of Error whom I reduced to three ranks in our Second Part 1. Such as make no use Formal Customary Christians 2. Such as Enslave it by an implicit Faith 3. Such as renounce and despise it under Pretence of the Spirit 1. Formal The bred and born Christian he that sucks in his Religion with his Country Air and holds his Creed by the courtesie of England that distinguishes Christianity from Mahometanism by Crosses and Half-Moons and the Reformation from Popery by Beads and Bibles In short He that is a Proselyte to Custom and the Laws a Disciple of Leviathan rather than Christ And it is a sad truth How few are able to render a reason of their Faith and yet what a noise and a bustle do they make for the Cause and the True Protestant Religion to whose Support they Contribute no more than the Antick Faces do to the strengthning of a Church 'T is true 't is a mercy to be born within the Pale of the Church to open our Eyes in the Light of the Gospel and so 't is to be born in a Temperate Clime I make no doubt but God accepts the sincerity of the Plough-man as well as the reason of the Philosopher That he will favour his own Gift and receive those to Glory whom he has predestin'd to Grace Altho then These little Ones have their Angels and a Title to the Kingdom of Heaven yet in this blind Felicity they are apt to stumble and when Persecution comes to draw back It is little more then the Homage which Birds and Beasts pay It is seeing by the benefit of Clay and Spittle a Sacrifice without Salt Whereas the Excellency of Religion consists in a free and rational complyance with God's Commands to understand the Excellency of them and this is it that fixed David's heart that preserved Lot amidst a crooked and perverse Generation And made St. Paul so confident That nothing of any Nature should be able to separate them from the Love of Jesus 2. From hence turn your Eye to the Men of implicit Faith and you shall see them creeping before Images adoring of Wafers paying Pensions for Purgatory and Traffiquing for the price of Sins In the midst of all this Pageantry and this Nonsense Their comfort is they believe as the Church believes But God calls upon us to employ our Talent to Exercise our selves in these things to Build up our selves in our most holy Faith and to Stand fast in the Liberty wherewith Christ has made us Free There can be no Articles de Novo impos'd upon the Church because the Church signifies a Number of Men already agreed upon common Terms And to impose New is to alter the Primitive Constitution of the Church But this device serves the ends of both Parties And the Juggle is That what the People part with of their Understanding and the Use of their Reason is made up to them in Allowances and Indulgences for sin in easie Absolutions and cheap Penances 'T is a powerful Temptation to be freed from the trouble of Searching Discussing Examining and it is a strong support of the Papal Tyranny But where has God allowed this shifting and shuffling of Duties from one to another How is it possible for one Man to understand and believe for another But God accepts not the Sacrifice of Fools nor can any Man Redeem his Brothers Life And at the last day whatever aggravations there may be for our Pride and our Sloth in this Case yet there will be no Commutations of Punishments no engagements for one anothers Souls will there be accepted But every Man shall suffer in his own person according as He has done in the Body Lastly Behold the Enthufiast that is above Reason and the Carnality of Discourse and you shall find him to be given over to folly and madness to giddy Doctrines and destructive dangerous Impulses If he commits a murther 't is with the Sword of the Spirit and if he throws down Churches 't is with the Breath of the Spirit In the Transactions with Mankind God declared not only his Attributes but his Nature subsisting in a Trinity of Persons and as such he will be worshipped But is it reasonable that the manifestation of the Spirit should swallow up the work of the Creation and by being Christians we should cease to be Men. If the Scriptures which were given by Inspiration of the Holy Ghost be not perfect all Mankind is at a loss in a Maze still and the Apostles did not as they said Declare the whole Truth of God and it would disparage the Divine Providence and affront the Spirit of
Wickedness Or where is the Reason of fighting for Faith and Rebelling for Religion Our Saviour refused all force and violence tho he could have call'd in more than twelve Legions to his Assistance But the Saints may do more than the Angels and Reform the Government even of Christ himself We hear The noise of the Whip and the ratling of the Wheels and the Prancing of the Horses The Horseman lifteth up his bright Sword and his glittering Spear Nahum 3.2 3. Every part of Christendom almost is a Stage of War and how narrowly did we escape it And their Pretence is written in their Banners For God and Religion But ye see this is all but Masquery and Disguise And when we come to compare these practices with such Notions of God and Religion as are reasonable and becoming them then do we find the Mercy in these times of deceit and distraction that God has endued us with a Spirit of Understanding and rescued us from the common Errors and Delusions of the Age. 4. It teaches us to give a due Value to every thing and to give due Limits to every Action and choose apt Seasons It moderates Zeal with Knowledge It fortifies Innocence with Prudence It Inspires Meekness with a becoming Fortitude and distinguishes Patience from Pusillanimity It guides the hand of Charity and by a wise observation of fitting Circumstances makes the action Beautiful and Decorous Certainly Religion deserves our utmost care and skill to recommend it dext'rously to the Affections of Men St. Paul has Commanded us to adorn the Gospel and to take heed lest our God be evil spoken of and our most Holy Religion Blasphemed through our means And those that strain at a Gnat and swallow a Camel That will rebuke a Servant for Recreating on the Lord's day and entice him from his Calling to take up Arms against the Lords Anointed Those that are Imprudent and Inconsiderate that are rude in their Rebukes and scurrillous in their Language That Reproach Kings to their faces and thereby make Truth odious and offensive do a great disservice to their most Holy Cause by their untutor'd undisciplin'd fierceness But Education makes a Man soft and plyable and like the Learned Apostle to become all things to all Men It makes him watch all Opportunities and wait at all the Avenues of the Soul to gain Entrance to use honest Flatteries and proper Insinuations to do a Man good Were there no other benefit yet this were Considerable that it takes away that brutish Impetus that makes a Man rush like a Horse into the Battle It allays his heat composes his Mind and Countenance modulates his very Tone and Action and gives a Charm to every thing he does besides the Reputation it gives to his Discourses Reputation I say that important bubble which tho it be but noise and vapour yet is the most powerful thing in Nature without which Goodness is but a weak helpless thing Neither is there any fame so considerable as that of a Learned Knowing Man all his Words are Oracles and his Actions Presidents and rul'd Cases Nature affix'd a shame to Ignorance and gives an Authority and Reverence to Learning therefore no impertinent Question Have the Pharisees believ'd in him And St. Paul when he would bespeak the favour and attention of the Athenians he made use of his acquaintance with their own Poets and Philosophers This is another addition to the advantages ye receive by Education 5. It gives a Man courage and boldness in the day of Tryal and at all times a love and hearty concern for his Religion because he understands it You have a late Example of this they were the wise and well disciplin'd Christians that stem'd the Tyde and stopt the Torrent How little does the Scoff of the Atheist or the Cavil of the Heretick or the Sword of Persecution or the Example of the Multitude work upon a mind that is setled and assured in it self I know I am perswaded I am assured I have confidence said the Apostles And in the Virtue of this Strength they could endure all things not only with Patience but Joy not only with Meekness but Magnanimity So little does the two great Vices of the Age the Droll of the Atheist and the Rage of the Religionist signifie to a Soul that is Armed with Syllogism and the Spirit and at all times a concern for it It is true the knowing Soul is naturally calm and quiet and when after a few previous vibrations it is once setled on its Basis there it rests enjoying its self in its own Circle of light and temperate heat While conceited Ignorants are noisy and restless But when once they become sensible of the necessity of their assistance then they afford a hearty generous and lasting Service It is too true That the Affection of many is grown Cold and by shifting off their Duties upon God's and the Magistrates Care for the Church Evil Men had like to have swallowed us up Quick and the noise of Arms would have drown'd the voice of Thanksgiving and Triumphant Fanaticism would have taken away not only the Memorials of our Education but the Places themselves too But among the few that have retain'd their first Love I may well reckon the Sons of Learning the Heirs of Kings Men obliged and instructed by their breeding to undertake this labour of Love None can so well understand the value of our present enjoyments nor foresee the misery of a change nor more timely prevent nor more effectually redress so that ye have a peculiar Call to this Honourable Work of preserving Religion and supporting the Crown and so making as it were some returns to the Piety and Bounty of our Royal Founder 6. Because 't is a Reasonable Service therefore such a Man has a real and solid Satisfaction when he comes to take a Review of his Method Certainly the greatest happiness of this life is a peaceful temperate Alacrity and Tranquility of mind but this is gain'd only by Reason and is the result of Prudence and Conduct Fools that do good by Chance or put on by Example or a fit of good humour are carried into Extravagant Transports their Joys are indecent and freakish Happiness sits not handsomly on them because they laid no Foundation nor went wisely to work It is a delightful thing to stand on the Shore after a long and dangerous Voyage and see others struggling with the contrarieties of the Wind and Waves And it is a noble Applause that the Pilot gives himfelf And it fattens his Soul to consider the success of his skill And in his mind he repeats all the passages what Rocks and what Sands he escap'd where he bore up against the Storm and where he sided and complyed a little And upon the whole to prove and demonstrate his Course by the Rules of his Art Such is the satisfaction of a wise man What the comforts be that God bestows by extraordinary Irradiations upon some Great