that Spirit to which they are most opposite Thus when warm and brisk Sanguine presents a chearful Scene and fills the imagination with pleasant dreams these are taken for divine illapses for the joys and incomes of the Holy Ghost When heated Melancholly hath kindled the busie and active fancy the Enthusiast then talks of Illuminations New Lights Revelations and many wonderful fine things which are ascribed to the same Spirit But when Flegm predominates and quencheth the Fantastick Fire rendering the mad man more dull lumpish and unactive then the Spirit is withdrawn and the man under spiritual darkness and desertion And when again choler is boiled up into rage and fury against every thing that is not of the Fantastick cut and measure this also is presumed to be an holy fervour kindled by that Spirit whose real fruits are Gentleness and Love Thus then doth the Devil devise to disgrace the Spirit of God and its influence by those numerous vile and vain pretensions which he thinks a likely means to extirpate the belief of the agency of the Spirit and to render it ridiculous But again 4. Satan deviseth against Gods own glory by designing against his worship Which he doth by endeavouring to destroy its reverence under pretence of Spirituality God requires to be glorified in body and in soul which are his and Satan sets the worship of one against the other that he may destroy both Thus when under the Law Religion required the Pomp and Solemnity of external Rites and Usages the subtle designer drives it on in that method so far that at last the Spirit of Religion was lost in the ceremony and the life and substance in the circumstance But when Christianity came into the world to abolish that ceremonial oeconomy in order to the establishing a more spiritual frame of Worship then doth Satan turn with the Tyde and puts on the semblance of a Zealot for Spirituality which he prosecutes so far till at last in the Gnosticks and other aiery Hereticks he had run Religion out into meer empty Fantastick Notionality In like manner where in these latter ages the world hath been disabused and hath detected the vanity of the formal outside Religion of Rome There doth the designer fall in with the Current sets up for a Reformer and mightily contends for the Spirituality of Worship He gets into the Pulpit and there with hot and sweating zeal he crys up the purity the purity of Religion and never leaves canting on the subject till he hath fired mens tongues against every matter of decency and order as formal and Antichristian And when he is shut out of those high places he creeps into corners and inflames the Spirits of the zealous and the ignorant against all harmless circumstances of Reverence and Decorum And so far hath he prevailed in this device as to drive those of warm affections and weak heads from all due external Reverence to God and things Sacred For these well-meaning people being frighted by the terrible noise of Popery Antichristianism Superstition things they have learnt to hate but not to understand boggle and fly off from every thing their furious Guides have marked with this abhorred Character And thus a rude and slovenly kind of Religion hath made its way into the world and such a sordid carlesness in matters of divine worship that should a stranger come into the assemblies that are acted by this Spirit He could not by their carriage imagine what they were a doing and that they were about holy Offices would perhaps be one of the last things he could conjecture Thus bold and sawcy talk hath crept into mens prayers under the pretence of holy familiarity with God nauseous impertinent bawling under the cover of praying by the Spirit and all kind of irreverences in external demeanour under the shelter of a pretended Spiritual worship And thus the design of Satan is successfully carried on in the world which is to subtilize Religion till he hath destroyed it To make it invisible that he may make it nothing And this is another way whereby be betrays those who are Ignorant of his Devices And thus I have dispatcht the first General viz. Satans Devices against Gods glory From which I descend to the second viz. Satans devices against the Peace of the Church which while it stands in its main and united body is like a mighty mountain unconcern'd in the tumults in the air while the blustering winds and tempests assault but cannot prejudice or disorder it And therefore the Designer endeavours to divide what he cannot deal with in its knit and combined strength He strives to crumble it into Sects and Atoms that this mountain may become an heap of Sands which he may blow up and down and scatter with his winds and so at last become a plain before him For which Design he hath two main instruments and Devices viz. 1. Pharisaical Pride under the cover of Religious strictness And 2. Intemperate Heat under the notion of Holy and Divine Zeal These are the chief Engines for the dividing purposes 1. Then he hatches and fosters a Spirit of Pride and Sectarian Insolence a sure and fatal Divider under the specious pretence of Religious strictness For where he perceives he cannot succeed in his designs of debauching the world and propagating open prophaneness and Impiety He shifts his shape puts on the cloathing of light and wraps himself in a Cloak spun of strict and severe pretensions and in this habit puts himself among the proud and conceited Professors These he and their own vanity gild and adorn with all the glorious names and priviledges of the Gospel and when they have incircled their heads with their own Fantastick Rays and are swoln in their imaginations with a tympany of ridiculous greatness They then proudly contemn all but their darling selves under the notion of the formal the moral and the wicked and scornfully pity the poor and carnal world that is all that are not arrived to their conceited pitch and elevation and now having thus dignified themselves and debased others they herd together draw the Church into their little corners and proudly withdraw from the Communion of others who have less conceit though more Christianity They bid us stand off lest we pollute them with our unhallowed approaches and having made us as the Heathen and Publican they cry Come out from among them The true Church Soundness of Judgement Purity of Doctrine and of worship if we will believe them is confined to their Gange just as it was to the corners of Africa of old when their friends the Gnosticks were there Thus they swell and swagger in their fantastick imaginations till some other Sect as well conceited as themselves endeavour to take their Plumes from them and to appropriate these glorious Prerogatives unto their own party and then they bustle and contend Here 's the Church crys one nay but 't is here crys another till a third gives the lye to them
purest times those of the first three hundred nay six hundred years which assertions I have in this place particularly and largely made good and divers of our Learned Divines have in their writings fully proved it Nor is there any one thing which we condemn in the Roman belief or practice but what hath arose by the corruption of times long since the beginning and indeed in the the Church of Rome there is an eternal fountain of Innovations in the authority they assume of declaring that is in good earnest in making new Articles of Faith So that their people can never know when they have all new things may still be obtruded as necessary and essential without end On the other side the Character of Antiquity condemns the Sects also Among them there are some old Heresies received but their principles and practices as opposite to those of our Church of England were not in the first best times Presbytery Independency Anabaptism Quakerism may have been here and there of old in the brains of some particular conceited men but never were in any general practice any where the eldest not two hundred years ago and some have arose in our own time Their ways they pretend to be contain'd in the holy Scriptures and if so we would presently acknowledge them to be Primitive But they are in the Scriptures only as those are interpreted by their private Spirits that is not there but in the fancies of the Innovators and these being their guide in interpreting Lo here also is a fountain of perpetual novellizing And as long as the imaginations of men can frame novelties we shall never be at the end of new Sects We have seen the rise of some in our late times of confusions and if ever we should be so unhappy as to see such again which God forbid in all likelihood from the same Source other new yet unheard of Sects and Heresies would arise to the further dividing of the Chncurh ad scandal of Religion There is nothing so pregnant with Novelties as imagination and the Sectarian private Spirit is no better nor worse than Fancy I deny not but these all sorts of them do retain some of the Primitive Doctrines as the Roman Church also doth but their opinions and ways that are opposite to the Church of England are not such This our Church without fondness or overweening I may say doth profess and teach the Ancient Apostolical Primitive Christianity and hath admitted no new things that are contrary to it It was reformed according to the Scriptures the Scriptures as they are interpreted by the first General Councils and Fathers those next the Apostles who we ought to believe understood best what were their doctrines and ways This Church in its constitutions is therefore truly ancient so in every main every considerable thing and truly Protestant protesting both against Roman and Sectarian Innovations 2. Another Character of the Faith delivered to the ancient Saints is that it was pure 'T was delivered to the Saints and it made them such The wisdom that is from above is first pure It teacheth and produceth Purity Holiness and real Goodness in Heart and Life The business of it is to conform us unto God and to make us like him And the Lord our God is holy And by this Character also is Popery condemn'd For this teacheth some direct impieties and immoralities and by the consequence of some other of its Doctrines the necessity of Reformation of life is quite taken away the Reins are laid on mens necks and Gods Laws are made void by their traditions Of the first sort are their Idolatries and Invocation of Saints and Angels which God both in the Old Testament and the New hath so earnestly declared against as the highest dishonour to his Majesty and affront to his Glory and which he stigmatizeth as the greatest impurities and frequently calls Fornication and Whoredome they are spiritually so Likewise their doctrines and practices of deposing and murdering of Princes and absolving the people from their Allegiance their dispensing with Perjuries Rebellions and other sorts of wickedness are highest immoralities and most Antichristian that is most contrary to the Spirit Genius and designs of the holy Jesus which were to redeem unto himself a peculiar people zealous of good works Besides which direct and point blank oppositions to the Christian principles and Rules they strike at the root and main design of Christianity by those their doctrines that render repentance and change of life unnecessary For according to them the favour of God and eternal Salvation may be had upon easier terms Crossings Pilgrimages Ave Maries Whippings Fastings with Confession and Absolution will do the business There is no need of cutting off right hands of plucking out of right eyes and mortifying the body in our Saviours spiritual sence that is of subduing and rescinding all inordinate appetites and affections which are the great difficulties of Religion the bodily exercises will suffice we may be safe and Sainted without obedience to those hard sayings Or if the other things should be omitted 't is but going to Purgatory at last and if you have money to leave for Masses and Dirge's you are secure of being pray'd out thence So that here the greatest design of the Gospel which is real inward holiness and purity is destroyed And without holiness 't is here made possible to see God And this is the worst thing that any thing that pretends to Religion can be guilty of On the other hand the Sects whatever purity and spirituality they pretend do many most of them teach doctrines and walk in ways that are contrary to the purity of heart and life that becomes a Christian The Gnosticks who were some of the first Fanaticks in the Christian Church pretended that they were the spiritual the pure people and that all things to them were pure on which account they gave themselves up to all Immorality and filthiness Sensual saith the Apostle having not the Spirit They denyed there was any moral good and evils in the nature of things and estimate of God And this Heresie is received among some of our Sects God they think and say sees no sin in them his elect people He loves not for the sake of holiness and vertue but freely that is for no reason but meer unaccountable will and if so 't is in vain to amend our lives to live soberly righteously and godly in order to our acceptance with him Though we are the quite contrary in all manner of evil conversation we may yet be his beloved his chosen This hath the malignity of the worst of Popery or Heathenism And such a Principle is among some of the Sects I accuse not all others that do not affirm so much as this do in a manner make good works unnecessary Faith their airy Faith that prescinds from moral goodness is all All is believing receiving trusting relying which are great duties parts of Faith but this as
powerful and as it makes a kind of Nature so many times it masters and subdues it Wild Creatures are hereby made gentle and familiar and those that naturally are tame enough are made to degenerate into wildness by it And now besides the original depravities of our Natures we have contracted many vitious habits by corrupt and evil usages which we were drawn into at first by pleasure and vanity in our young and inconsiderate years while we were led by the directions of sense These by frequent acts grow at last into habits which though in their beginning they were tender as a Plant and easie to have been crusht or blasted yet time and use hardens them into the firmness of an Oak that braves the Weather and can endure the stroak of the Ax and a strong Arm. Now to destroy and root up these obstinate customary evils is another part of our Work And Religion teacheth us to put off concerning the Old Conversation the Old Man Eph. 4. 22. and to receive new Impressions and Inclinations to be renewed in the spirit of our Minds 5. 23. and to put on the New Man 5. 24. To make us new Hearts Ezek. 18. 31. and to walk in newness of Life Rom. 6. 4. This we are to do and this we may well suppose to be hard work the Scripture compares it to the changing the Skin of the Aethiopian and the Spots of the Leopard Jer. 13. 23. and elsewhere How can they do good that are accustomed to do evil Jer. 13. 23. 'T is hard no doubt and this is another difficulty in Religion V. The Power that Example hath over us makes the way of Religion difficult Example is more prevalent than Precept for Man is a Creature given much to Imitation and we are very apt to follow what we see others do rather than what we ought to do our selves And now the Apostle hath told us That the whole World lies in Wickedness 1 Joh. 5. 19. and we sadly find it we cannot look out of doors but we see Vanity and Folly Sensuality and Forgetfulness of God Pride and Covetousness Injustice and Intemperance and all other kinds of Evils These we meet with every where in Publick Companies and Private Conversations in the High Ways and in the Corners of the Streets The Sum is Example is very powerful and Examples of Vice are always in our Eyes we are apt to be reconciled to that which every one doth and to do like it we love the trodden Path and care not to walk in the Way which is gone in but by a few This is our Condition and our work in Religion is to overcome the strong Biass of corrupt Example to strive against the Stream to learn to be good though few are so and not to follow a Multitude to do Evil Exod. 23. 2. This is our Business and this is very Difficult VI. The last Difficulty I shall mention ariseth from Worldly Interests and Engagements We have many Necessities to serve both in our Persons and our Families Nature excluded us naked into the World without Cloathing for Warmth or Armature for Defence and Food is not provided to our Hands as it is for the Beasts nor do our Houses grow for our Habitation and comfortable abode Nothing is prepared for our use without our Industry and Endeavours So that by the Necessity of this State we are engaged in Worldly Affairs These Nature requires us to mind and Religion permits it and nothing can be done without our Care and Care would be very troublesome if there were not some Love to the Objects we exercise our Cares upon Hence it is that some Cares about the things of this world and Love to them is allowed us and we are commanded to continue in the Calling wherein God hath set us 1 Cor. 7. 20. and are warned that we be not slothful in Business Rom. 12. 11. We may take some delight also in the Creatures that God gives us and love them in their degree For the animal Life may have its moderate Gratifications God made all things that they might enjoy their Being And now notwithstanding all this Religion commands us to set our Affections upon things above Col. 3. 2. not to love the World 1 Joh. 2. 15. to be careful for nothing Phil. 4. 6. to take no thought for to morrow Mat. 6. 34. The meaning of which Expressions is That we should love God and Heavenly things in the chief and first place and avoid the immoderate Desires of Worldly Love and Cares This is our Duty and 't is very difficult For by reason of the hurry of Business and those Passions that Earthly Engagements excite we consider not things as we should and so many times perceive not the Bounds of our Permissions and the Beginnings of our Restraints where the allowed Measure ends and the forbidden Degree commenceth what is the difference between that Care that is a Duty and that which is a Sin Providence and Carking and between that Love of the World which is Necessary and Lawful and that which is Extravagant and Inordinate I say by reason of the hurry we are in amidst Business and worldly Delights we many times perceive not our Bounds and so slide easily into Earthly-mindedness and anxiety And it is hard for us who are engaged so much in the World and who need it so much who converse so much with it and about it and whose time and endeavours are so unavoidably taken up by it I say 't is hard for us in such Circumstances to be crucified to the World Gal. 6. 14. and to all inordinate Affections to it to live above it and to settle our chief Delights and Cares on things at great distance from us which are unsutable to our corrupt Appetites and contrary to the most relishing Injoyments of Flesh which Sense never saw nor felt and which the Imagination it self could never grasp This no doubt is hard Exercise and this must be done in the way of Religion and on this Account also it is very difficult Thus of the First Proposition That there are great Difficulties in Religion I come now to the Second II. THat those Difficulties may be overcome by striving which imports both the Encouragement and the Means That they may be vanquisht and how 1. That the Difficulties may be subdued is clearly enough implyed in the Precept we should not have been commanded to strive if it had been impossible to overcome God doth not put his Creatures upon fruitless Undertakings He never requires us to do any thing in order to that which is not to be attained Therefore when he was resolved not to be intreated for that stubborn and rebellious Nation He would not have the Prophet pray for them Jer. 7. 16. Pray not for this People for I will not hear thee He would not be petitioned for that which he was determined not to grant He puts not his Creatures upon any vain Expectations and Endeavours nor would
he have them deceive themselves by fond Dependences When one made this Profession to our Saviour Lord I will follow thee whither soever thou goest Christ tells him that he must expect from him no worldly Honours or Preferments no Power or sensual Pleasure no not so much as the ordinary Accommodations of Life The Foxes have Holes and the Birds of the Air have Nests but the Son of Man hath not where to lay his Head Luk. 9. 5 8. He would not have the man that likely might look for these upon the opinion of his being the Messias in the Jewish sense one that should at last whatever the meanness of his Condition was at present appear as a Mighty and Triumphant temporal Monarch I say our Saviour would not have the Man follow him for that which he had not to bestow upon him Since then that he who would not put us upon fruitless labours hath commanded us to strive to enter 't is evident that an entrance may be procured into the Gate by striving and that the Difficulties may be overcome The next thing in my Method is to shew How the manner is implyed in the Text and exprest in the Proposition viz. By striving and by this is meant a resolute use of those means that are the Instruments of Happiness They are three Faith Prayer and active Endeavour I. Faith is a chief Instrument for the overcoming the Difficulties of our way And Faith in the general is the belief of a Testimony Divine Faith the belief of a Divine Testimony and the chief things to be believed as encouragements and means for a Victory over the Difficulties in Religion are these That God is reconciled to us by his Son That he will assist our weak endeavours by the Aids of his Spirit That he will reward us if we strive as we ought with immortal Happiness in a World of endless Glory By our belief of God's being reconciled we are secured from those fears that might discourage our approaches and endeavours upon the account of his Purity and Justice By the Faith of his Assistance all the objections against our striving that arise from the greatness of the Difficulties and the disproportionate smallness of our Strength are answered And from our believing eternal rewards in another World we have a mighty motive to engage our utmost diligence to contest with all difficulties that would keep us from it What satisfaction is there saith the believer in the gratification of my corrupt Inclinations and Senses in comparison with that which ariseth from the favour of God and an Interest in his Son What difficulties in my Duty too great for Divine Aids What pains are we to undergo in the narrow and difficult way that the Glory which is at the end of it will not compensate What is it to deny a base Inclination that will undo me in obedience to him that made and redeemed me and to despise the little things of present sense for the hope of everlasting enjoyments Trifling pleasure for Hallelujahs What were it for me to set vigorously upon those Passions that degrade my noble Nature and make me a slave and a beast and will make me more vile and more miserable when the Spirit of the most High is at my right hand to assist me Why should my noble Faculties that were designed for glorious ends be led into infamous practices by base Usages and dishonourable Customs What is the example of a wicked sensual wretched World to that of the Holy Jesus and all the Army of Prophets Apostles and Martyrs What is there in the World that it should be loved more than God and what is the Flesh that it should have more of our time and care than the great interests of our Souls Such are the Considerations of a mind that Faith hath awakened and by them it is prepared for vigorous striving So that Faith is the Spring of all and necessary to the other two Instruments of our Happiness Besides which it is acceptable to God in it self and so disposeth us for his gracious helps by which we are enabled to overcome the Difficulties of our way While a man considers the Difficulties only and weighs them against his own strength let him suppose the Liberty of his Will to be what he pleaseth yet while 't is under such disadvantages that will signifie very little and he that sees no further sits down in discouragement But when the mind is fortified with the firm belief of Divine help he attempts then with a noble vigour which cannot miscarry if it do not cool and faint For he that endures to the end shall be saved Mat. 24. 13. Thus Faith sets the other Instruments of Happiness on work and therefore 't is deservedly reckoned as the first and 't is that which must always accompany the exercises of Religion and give them life and motion II. Prayer is another means we must use in order to our overcoming the Difficulties of the way Our own meer natural Strength is weakness and without supernatural helps those Difficulties are not to be surmounted Those Aids are necessary and God is ready to bestow them on us For He would have all men to be saved and to come to the Knowledge of the Truth 1 Tim. 2. 4. But for these things he will be sought unto And 't is very just and fit that we should address our selves to him by Prayer to acknowledge our own insufficiency and dependence on him for the mercies we expect and thereby to own Him for the giver of every good and perfect gift and to instruct our selves how his favours are to be received and used viz. with Reverence and Thanksgiving This 't is highly fit we should do and the doing it prepares us for his blessings and he fails not to bestow them on those that are prepared by Faith and Prayer For he giveth liberally and upbraids not And our Prayers are required not as if they could move his will which is always graciously inclined to our Happiness But as it 's that tribute which we owe our Maker and Benefactor and that without which 't is not so fit he should bestow his particular favours on us For it by no means becomes the Divine Majesty to vouchsafe the specialties of his Grace and Goodness to those that are not sensible they want them and are not humbled to a due apprehension of their weakness and dependence But for such as are so and express their humble desires in the Ardours of Holy Prayer God never denies them the assistances of his Spirit For if ye being evil saith our Saviour know how to give good gifts unto your Children how much more shall your Father which is in Heaven give good things to those that ask Him Mat. 7. 11. And These Divine Helps obtain'd by Faith and Prayer and join'd with our active constant endeavour will not fail to enable us to overcome the Difficulties and to procure us an entrance at the strait Gate
pray with him Luk. 18. 11. and yet he went away never the more justified The unwise Virgins were no profligate Livers and yet they were shut out He that will enter must strive against every corrupt appetite and inclination A less leak will sink a Ship as well as a greater if no care be taken of it A Consumption will kill as well as the Plague yea sometimes the less Disease may in the event prove more deadly than the greater for small distempers may be neglected till they become incurable whenas the great ones awaken us to speedy care for a remedy A small hurt in the finger slighted may prove a Gangreen when a great wound in the Head by seasonable applications is cured 'T is unsafe then to content our selves with this that our sins are not foul and great those we account little ones may prove as fatal yea they are sometimes more dangerous For we are apt to think them none at all or Venial infirmities that may consist with a state of Grace and Divine favour we excuse and make Apologies for them and fancy that Hearing and Prayer and Confession are atonements enough for these Upon which accounts I am apt to believe that the less notorious Vices have ruined as many as the greatest Abominations Hell doth not consist only of Drunkards and Swearers and Sabbath-breakers No the demure Pharisee the plausible Hypocrite and formal Professor have their place also in that lake of fire The great impieties do often startle and awaken conscience and beget strong convictions and so sometimes excite resolution and vigorous striving while men hug themselves in their lesser sins and carry them unrepented of to their Graves The sum is we may overcome some sins and turn from the grosser sorts of wickedness and yet if we endeavour not to subdue the rest we are still in the condition of unregeneracy and death and though we thus seek we shall not enter 4. A man may perform many duties of Religion and that with relish and delight and yet miscarry As 1. He may be earnest and swift to hear and follow Sermons constantly from one place to another and be exceedingly pleased and affected with the Word and yet be an evil Man and in a bad state Herod heard John Baptist gladly Mark 6. 20. and he that received the seed into stony places received it joyfully Mat. 13. 20. Zeal for hearing doth not always arise from a conscientious desire to learn in order to practice but sometimes it proceeds from an itch after novelty and notions or an ambition to be famed for Godliness or the importunity of natural conscience that will not be satisfied except we do something or a desire to get matter to feed our opinions or to furnish us with pious discourse I say earnestness to hear ariseth very often from some of these and when it doth so we gain but little by it yea we are dangerously tempted to take this for an infallible token of our Saintship and so to content our selves with this Religion of the Ear and to disturb every body with the abundance of our disputes and talk while we neglect our own Spirits and let our unmortified affections and inclinations rest in quiet under the shadow of these specious services So that when a great affection to hearing seizeth upon an evil man 't is odds but it doth him hurt it puffs him up in the conceit of his Godliness and makes him pragmatical troublesome and censorious He turns his food into poyson Among bad men those are certainly the worst that have an opinion of their being godly and such are those that have itching ears under the power of vitious habits and inclinations Thus an earnest diligent hearer may be one of those who seeks and is shut out And so may 2. He that Fasts much and severely The Jews were exceedingly given to fasting and they were very severe in it They abstained from all things pleasant to them and put on sackcloath and sowr looks and mourned bitterly and hung down the head and sate in ashes so that one might have taken these for very holy penitent mortified people that had a great antipathy against their sins and abhorrence of themselves for them And yet God complains of these strict severe Fasters Zach. 7. 5. That they did not Fast unto him but fasted for strife and debate Isa 58. 4. Their Fasts were not such as he had chosen to loose the bands of wickedness to undo the heavy burden and to let the oppressed free vers 6. But they continued notwithstanding their Fasts and God's admonitions by his Prophets to oppress the Widow and Fatherless and Poor Zach. 7. 10. Thus meer natural and evil men sometimes put on the garb of Mortification and exercise rigors upon their Bodies and external persons in exchange for the indulgences they allow their beloved appetites and while the strict Discipline reacheth no further though we keep days and Fast often yet this will not put us beyond the condition of the Pharisee who fasted twice in the week as himself boasted Luke 18. 12. And 3. An imperfect striver may be very much given to pious and religious discourses He may love to be talking of Divine things especially of the love of Christ to sinners which he may frequently speak of with much earnestness and affection and have that dear name always at his tongues end to begin and close all his sayings and to fill up the void places when he wants what to say next and yet this may be a bad man who never felt those Divine things he talks of and never loved Christ heartily as he ought 'T was observed before that there are some who have a sort of Devoutness and Religion in their particular Complexion and if such are talkative as many times they are they will easily run into such discourses as agree with their temper and take pleasure in them for that reason As also for this because they are apt to gain us reverence and the good opinion of those with whom we converse And such as are by nature disposed for this faculty may easily get it by imitation and remembrance of the devout forms they hear and read so that there may be nothing Divine in all this nothing but what may consist with unmortified lusts and affections And though such talk earnestly of the love of Christ and express a mighty love to his name yet this may be without any real conformity unto him in his Life and Laws The Jews spake much of Moses in him they believed and in him they trusted John 5. 45. His name was a sweet sound to their ears and 't was very pleasant upon their Tongues and yet they hated the Spirit of Moses and had no love to those Laws of his which condemned their wicked actions And we may see how many of those love Christ that speak often and affectionately of him by observing how they keep his Commandments John 14. 15. especially those
HIS was that they may be perswaded to conform theirs unto it and though mens understandings are convinced already that Charity is their Duty yet there is but too much need to represent some of the vast heap of injunctions that make it so to incline their Wills I shall therefore briefly lay together a few of the chief instances of this kind that you may have the distincter sense of the reasons of your Duty and from them the most powerful motives to enforce it In order to this let us consider in short the Injunctions of Christ and the teachings of his Apostles Our Saviour urgeth it as his New Commandment John 13. 34. and inculcates it again under the obliging form of his Command John 15. 12. He makes it a distinguishing note of his Disciples John 13. 35. and enjoyns them to love their Enemies Mat. 5. 24. He mentions it as the great qualification of those on his Right hand that shall be received into his Kingdom Mat. 25. 34 35. and the want of it as the reason of the dreadful Curse pronounced upon those miserable ones on the Left at the solemn Judgement ver 41 42. St. Paul calls Love the fulfilling of the Law Rom. 13. 8 9 10. and sets it in the first place among the fruits of the Spirit Gal. 5. 22. yea reckons it five times over under other Names in the Catalogue viz. those of Peace Long-suffering Gentleness Goodness Meekness ver 22 23. He advanceth it above all Gifts and Graces 1 Cor. 13. above the Tongues of Men and Angels ver 1. and above Prophecie and Mysteries and Knowledge and Faith ver 2. And the beloved Disciple St. John who lay in the Bosom of his Dear Lord and seems to partake most of his Spirit is transported in the commendation of this Grace He tells us that God is love 1 John 4. 7. and repeats it again ver 16. He makes it an Argument of our being born of God and Knowing Him ver 7. and the want of this an evidence of not Knowing God ver 8. He counts it the mark of Discipleship aâ—d the contrary a sign of one that abideth in Death 1 John 3. 14. He calls him a Murtherer that hates another ver 15. and a Lyar if he pretends to Love God and loveth not his Brother 1 John 4. 20. In fine he out-speaks the greatest heights of Praise when he saith God is Love and he that loveth dwelleth in God and God in him 1 John 4. 16. I might represent further that we are commanded to Love without dissimulation Rom. 12. 9. to be kindly affectioned one towards another ver 10. to put on the Breast-plate of Faith and Love 1 Thess 5. 8. to be pitiful and courteous 1 Pet. 3. 8. to provoke one another to love and to good works Heb. 10. 24. to serve one another Gal. 5. 13. to love as Brethren 1 Pet. 3. 8. We are minded of Christ's New Commandment 1 Joh. 3. 23. and of the Message which was from the beginning That we should love one another ver 11. and are urged by the consideration of Gods loving us 1 John 4. 1. Thus the Apostles exhort and teach and they Pray that our Love may abound Phil. 1. 9. and 1 Thess 3. 12. and give solemn Thanks for it when they have found it 2 Thess 1. 3. And now considering the expresness of all these places I cannot see but that any Duty of Religion may be more easily evaded than this and those who can fansie themselves Christians and yet continue in the contrary Spirit and Practice may conceit themselves religious though they live in the constant commission of the greatest sins And if such can quiet their Consciences and shuffle from all these plain Recommendations and Injunctions they have found a way to escape all the Laws of God and may when they please become Christians without Christianity For the evidence I have suggested to prove the necessity of this Duty doth not consist in half Sentences and doubtful Phrases in fancied Analogies and far-fetcht Interpretations but in plain Commands and frequent Inculcations in earnest Intreaties and pressing Importunities in repeated Advices and passionate Commendations And those whom all these will not move are Incapable of being perswaded against their humour or their interest to any Duty of Religion So that though I see never so much eagerness for an Opinion or Heat for an indifferent Circumstance without the conscience of Christian Love I shall never call that forwardness for those little things Zeal or Religion Yea though those warm men should sacrifice their Lives to their beloved Trifles I should not think them Martyrs but fear rather that they went from one Fire to another and a Worse And in this I have the great Apostle to warrant me who saith Though I give my body to be burned and have not Charity it profiteth me nothing 1 Cor. 13. 3. Thus of the First Head the Necessity of the duty I Come to the II. the Extent Our Love ought 1. To be extended to all Mankind The more general it is the more Christian and the more like unto the Love of God who causeth his Sun to shine and his Rain to fall upon the Good and upon the Evil. And though our Arms be very short and the ordinary influence of our kindness and good will can reach but to a very few yet we may pray for all men and desire the good of all the world and in these we may be charitable without bounds But these are not all Love obligeth us to relieve the Needy and help the Distressed to visit the Sick and succour the Fatherless and Widows to strengthen the Weak and to confirm the Staggering and Doubting to encourage the Vertuous and to reprove the Faulty and in short to be ready in all the offices of Kindness that may promote the good of any man Spiritual or Temporal according to the utmost of our power and capacity The good man is Merciful to his Beast and the Christian ought to be Charitable to his Brother and his Neighbour and every man is our Brother and every one that Needs us is our Neighbour And so our Love ought to extend to all men universally without limitation though with this distinction II. That the more especial Objects of our Love ought to be those that agree with us in a common Faith Gal. 6. 10. that is All Christians as Christians and because such Whatever makes our Brother a Member of the Church Catholick that gives him a title to our nearer affections which ought to be as large as that Our Love must not be confin'd by names and petty agreements and the interests of Parties to the corners of a Sect but ought to reach as far as Christianity it self in the largest notion of it To love those that are of our Way Humour and Opinion is not Charity but Self-love 't is not for Christ's sake but our own To Love like Christians is to Love his Image
the coyness and perverseness of their own fancies are like him that could see the Stars at noon but could not see the Sun and could spy the shadows made by the Mountains in the Moon but could not discern the greater spots upon its visible surface And for men to strain at the decency of an Habit or the usage of a Ceremony when they can swallow Rebellion and Sacriledge without chewing is to be like him who durst not eat an Egg on Saturday but made nothing to kill a Man Doubtless had the Scripture said by a thousandth part so much for the Jus Divinum of Presbytery as it hath for obedience to Authority had there been one plain word against Conformity as there are many against Rebellion that would have been worn bare upon the tongue and the World would have rung with it But the Injunctions and Commands of Obedience are against our humours and opinions against the darlings of our fancies and the interest of our Party and therefore here we must shuffle and evade cogg and interpret by Analogies of our own making by the Rules of our Sect and the Authority we worship by Necessity and Providence and any thing that will colour Sin and cozen Conscience that will turn Religion into the Current of our appetites and make Scripture speak the language of our humours and our interests Thus Religion and divine Authority shall be reverenced and pleaded when they agree with mens fancies and send light or advantage to the Favourites of their affections But when they cross their Models oppose the people of their imaginations and call them to duties that are displeasant the case is altered the great motives of perswasion have lost their power and influence and Religion can do nothing with them Thus briefly of the two first Heads viz. Resistance 1. affronts the Authority of God and 2. is opposite to the Spirit of Religion From which I come to the third which makes resistance both a great sin and a great punishment viz. 3. It is ruinous to the INTEREST of SOCIETIES This I must more largely prosecute because it will lead us into the sad occasion of our present meeting Man is a Creature made for Society and what is against the interest of Societies is destructive to Humane Nature And if the greatness of a sin and a mischief be to be measured by its reference to the Publick for ought I know Rebellion will be the next sin to that which is unpardonable in the degree of guilt as well as it is near it in the penalty threatned Now there are two great interests of Societies viz. GOVERNMENT and RELIGION to both which Resistance is fatal both in the doctrine and practice of it To begin with Government in order 1. Resistance is destructive to Government For if Subjects may resist the Powers over them no Government in the World can stand longer than till the next opportunity to overthrow it Every man will resist what he doth not like and endeavour to pluck down what comports not with his humour Thus every fit of discontent will stir up the various and inconstant People to seek an alteration And there was never any Government so exactly framed in the World but in the menage and administration of it many things would displease Now the generality of men are led by their present senses and if they feel themselves pained by any thing though the Grief be but in their Imagination they are for present deliverance from that Evil by any means never considering whether the way of Cure draws not greater Evils after it than the distemper and so upon every discontent the people are inflamed and upon every occasion rebel And thus is a Kingdom laid open to inevitable devastation and ruine and by a dear experience we have learnt that 't is better to endure any inconveniences in a setled Government than to endeavour violent alterations When the Sword is drawn no man knows where and when it will be sheathed When the Stone is out of a mans hand he cannot direct it as he pleaseth Men with Swords by their sides will do what likes themselves and not what is enjoyned by those that imploy them Or could we suppose what our own unhappy experience hath confuted that Armies would be obedient yet the Murders and Rapes the Spoils and devastations which are the natural issues of a Civil War are worse than any inconveniencies in any Government possible And though as my Lord Bacon notes Foreign War is like the heat of exercise good and healthful for the Body yet Civil War is like the heat of a Fever ruinous and destructive Besides those that resist either overcome the supream Power or are conquered by it If the former their Instruments in all likelihood conquer them as well as those they served them against and so from the just authority of their lawful Rulers they fall under the insolence of their licentious Vassals Or suppose they get the Government to themselves all the evils will follow which usually do upon Competitions and variety of Claims which will breed everlasting disturbance and eternal fears Such evils will follow if the resisters prevail and if they chance to be supprest and overcome by the Powers they oppose they can expect nothing less than to be crusht and ruined So that those that resist whether they conquer or are overcome draw inevitable ruine upon themselves and probably on the common Body For Laws and Government are the great Charter of our Lives and Libenties our Properties and our All and as the Father 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Murders rapes violence and all kind of mischief invade the World with Anarchy and Disorder And how far all this hath been verified in our Land a little recollection will inform us For WHEN fair Weather and a warm Sun the indulgence of Heaven and a long tranquillity had made us fat and frolick rich and full our prosperity made us wanton and our riches insolent We began to murmur we knew not why and to complain because we had nothing to complain of Discontents grew upon the stock of our ill Nature and the perverseness of our humours and every little occasion was Fuel to the Fire that was kindling in the distempered Body We began to invade the Government with malicious whispers and private Preachments with Libels and Declamations with Insolencies and Tumults And when Sedition had incouraged it self by Noise and Numbers by Popular zeal and loud talk of Reformation it flew into the highest irreverences towards the King and the most violent proceedings against his Ministers that the nearest Trees being removed they might have a full stroke at the Cedar Nor did things stop here The Sparks grew into mighty Flames and those Vapours into Thunder and Tempests The whispers of the Corner past into the noise of a Camp and the murmurs of the Street into the sound of the Trumpet The Cloud like an hand became a Magazine of Storms and our New
our hopes Were not all miscarriages of Government well mended when Government was thrown up by the roots and was not the disease well cured when the Body was destroyed Were we not well freed from evil Counsellors when we made Kings of the worst we had And was not Tyranny well extirpated when we were under an Army of Tyrants But the glorious things are to come and we must be cast into New Models And when the Birds of Prey have divided the Spoil and satisfied the cravings of their appetites and ambition the Nation shall be made happy with New-nothings and golden Mountains with Chimaera's of Common-wealths and fine names for Slavery In the mean while Loyalty must be scourged with the Scorpions that are due to Rebellion And those that feared the damnation of the Apostle shall be sure to incur the damnation of the Reformers and they that would not hazard their Souls must compound for their Estates But when the JUNCTO had run to the length of their Line that is as far as their MASTER would permit them when they were as odious as they deserved and his designs as ripe as he could wish then up steps the single TYRANT kicks them out of their Seats and BEELZEBUB dispossesseth the LEGION He engrosseth the prey to himself and assumes the sole priviledge of compleating our miseries He made himself after the Image of a King and invested his Sword with the authority of Law He ruled us with the Rod of Iron we deserved and made us feel a difference between the silken Reins of a lawful Authority and the heavy yoke of an insolent Usurpation And when Providence had freed us from this Plague and called him to account for his Villanies we fell back into our old disorders we reeled to and fro and staggered like a Drunken man and were at our wits end We knew not this week who would be our Lords the next nor did our Lords themselves know to day by what Laws they would Rule to morrow Confusion was in their Councils as well as Tyranny in their Actions and there was but one thing they seemed to be agreed upon which was to inslave the Nation And if we would not believe that this was Liberty we must be knockt on the head with our chains if the Sheep would not take the Wolves for their Guardians 't was fault enough and good reason why they should be devoured And were not things come at length to a good pass when men in Buff durst proclaim themselves the only Legal Authority of the Nation when our Armed Masters murdered men in the Streets and threatned the ancient Metropolis of the Nation with Gunpowder and Granadoes Fire and Sword must be our portion if we would not be in love with infamous Usurpers and a worse Powder-plot than Faux's was acting in the face of the Sun The strength the riches the beauty yea the almost All of the Nation was designed a Sacrifice to the rage and revenge of our Oppressors and Plunder and Massacres were almost the least evils we feared Thus were we tost up and down from one wave to another and made the sport of the proud and insulting billows till Almighty Goodness setled us again upon our old basis and by a Miracle of Providence restored us our PRINCE and our Government which our sins had deprived us of to re-establish us upon the sure Foundations of Righteousness and Peace These are some sprinklings of that deluge of Woe that we brought upon our selves by resistance which I have briefly described to this purpose that the remembrance of these miseries may beget a sense of our sins and the truth of the particular Proposition I have been discoursing under this Head viz. That Resistance is fatal to Government And though Government may be fixt again upon its Foundations and Laws turned into their ancient Channel after the violence they have suffered yet they lose much of their reverence and strength by such dissettlements And the People that have rebelled once and successfully will be ready to do so often As water that hath been boyled will boyl again the sooner And thus we see how ruinous resistance is to Government and how destructive to that first great Interest of Societies as it is also 2. TO RELIGION which is the other That Rebellion is contrary to the Spirit of Religion we have seen and consequently that 't is destructive of its Being will not need much proof since contraries destroy one another Rebellion lays the Reins on mens necks and takes off the restraints of their appetites it opens the flood-gates of Impiety and le ts loose the brats of extravagant Imagination It destroys the reverence of all things sacred and drives Vertue to Corners It gathers mens lusts into a common storm and fills all things with Chaos and confusion Religion cannot be heard in the noise of a battel but is trampled under-foot in the hurry and tumult Faith and love humility and meekness purity and patience are overcast and silenced by Atheism and Cruelty pride and barbarism lust and revenge Thus Rebellion by breaking up the foundations of the Earth le ts in an Hell upon us and brings a kind of present damnation upon the World And that this is another fatal mischief of Resistance we have felt also by an experience that will keep it in our memories And what execution it hath done upon Religion must be considered next But this is a tender thing and I am willing to keep my self within bounds that are charitable and sober and therefore must premise to what I have to say about it that I charge not the whole Body of the People of the late Times with the guilt of all the Follies and corruptions I describe Nor do I believe or say that the whole Mass of their Religion was so monstrously vitiated and depraved I profess Universal Charity and have perhaps more for the worst of them than they generally will own for any that are not of their own party or opinion And therefore at present I shall say no more than what the sober and intelligent among themselves will acknowledge to be justly chargeable upon some or other of the Sects bred by our late Disorders and this will be enough for my purpose which is only to prove by near and deplorable instances that resistance brings mischiefs upon Religion and not to expose to hatred or contempt the persons of any that are serious in the way of their profession though I judge it never so obnoxious and mistaken And having said this out of a tender charity that none may be wronged by misinterpretation nor any offended that are not concerned I come with freedom to describe some of the injuries our unhappy resistance hath done Religion not withstanding that both Arms and Tongues so highly pretended its defence And indeed men fought for Religion till they had destroyed it and disputed about it till they had lost it Midtiplicity of Opinion had quite confounded the
simplicity of Life and Faith and 't was most peoples business to chatter like Pyes rather than to live like Christians or like Men. If Religion had been computed by mens talk and dispute about it those later days of the declining World had been its best and this in its growth and ways of highest improvement when all things else were verging to their Set and Period But alas the Tongue was the most if not the only religious Member And many of the Pretenders like the Aegyptian Temples were fair without but Beasts and Serpents and Crocodiles within Or like the Bird of Paradise they had Wings to flye in the Clouds of Imagination but no Feet to walk on the Ground of a vertuous practice Yea some had found the way to swim to Heaven in the Current of their appetites and to reconcile Covetousness Rapine Cruelty and Spiritual Pride with the glorious names of the Elect the People of God the Church of Christ and the good Party Religion with Rebellion and Sacriledge with Saintship Men had learnt to be godly without goodness and Christians without Christianity They were lovers of God and yet haters of their Brother haters of open Prophaneness but not of spiritual wickedness Very godly though cruel and unjust True penitents though they returned to their sins as soon as they had complain'd and wept Their hearts were good though their actions were dishonest and they had the root of the matter in them though that root were a dry stump and had no branches They were regenerated but not reformed converted but not a jot the better Devout Worshippers but bad Neighbours Lovers of God but no haters of Covetousness Had power in Heaven but none over themselves They were Gods Servants though they obeyed their appetites and his children though no better than those that are of their Father the Devil Thus had men got the knack to be religious without religion and were in the way to be saved without salvation These were gross disorders whereby Religion was taken from its foundation of Vertue and Holy living and placed in emotions raptures and swelling words of vanity And when these had kindled the imagination and raised the fansie to the Clouds to flutter there in mystical non-sense and when that was mounted on the Wings of the Wind and got into the Revelations to loosen the seals pour out the vials and phantastically to interpret the fates of Kingdoms when it flew into the Tongue in an extravagant ramble and abused the Name and Word of God mingling it with canting unintelligible babble I say when the diseased and disturbed phansie thus variously displayed it self many made themselves believe that they were acted by the Spirit and that those wild agitations of sick Imaginations were divine motions And when this fire was descended from the fansie to the affections and these being exceedingly moved by those vain and proud conceits caused tremblings and foamings convulsions and ecstasies in the body all which are but natural diseases if not worse and just like those odd ecstatical motions of the Devils Priests when they came foaming from his Altars these I say the wild phantasticks had learnt to ascribe to the blessed and adorable Spirit And when their phansies being full of turgid notions and their bodies in an ecstasie they dream'd of strange sights voices and wonderful discoveries which were nothing but the unquiet agitations of their own disordered brains These also were taken for divine Revelations and the effects of the Spirit of God shewing it self miraculously in them Briefly and in sum Every humour and phantastick unaccountable motion was by some represented as the work of that Spirit to which they are most opposite Thus when warm and brisk sanguine presented a cheerful Scene and filled the imagination with pleasant Dreams these were divine Illapses the Joys and Incomes of the Holy Ghost When heated Melancholy had kindled the busie and active phansie the Enthusiast talks of Illuminations New Lights Revelations and many wonderful fine things which were ascribed to the same Spirit and when Phlegm prevailed and had quencht the phantastick Fire rendring the Mad man more dull and unactive then the Spirit was withdrawn and the man under spiritual darkness and desertion And when again Choler was boyled up into rage and fury against every thing that was not of the Fanatique genius this also was presumed to be an Holy Fervour kindled by that Spirit whose real Fruits are gentleness and love And now after that which I have said on this occasion it may perhaps be necessary to add that I hope none here will be so uncharitable or so unjust as to think that I go about to disparage the Spirit of God and its influence which as I ought I adore and reverence and because I do so I think it fit to represent and shame the blasphemous abuses of it which would expose the most Divine things to scorn and make them ridiculous And that the Holy Spirit hath been thus traduced and injured and is still by great numbers among us 't would be shameful not to acknowledge And I add that my zeal and reverence for the realities make me thus justly sharp against the Counterfeits Nor do I think that folly and phantastry is to be spared because they wear the stollen Livery of things venerable and sacred Therefore to go on such a Religion had the corruption of it bred among us A Religion conceived in the Imagination and begot by Pride and Self-Love which gilded the Professors of it with all the glorious names and priviledges of the Gospel And when they had encircled their Heads with their own phantastick rays and swoln their Imaginations into a Tympany of ridiculous greatness they scornfully contemned all but their Darling-selves under the notion of the Formal the Moral and the Wicked and proudly pitied the poor and carnal World that is all that were not of their conceited pitch and elevation And having thus dignified themselves and debased others they herded together drew the Church into their little Corners and withdrew from the communion of others who had less conceit though more Christianity They bid us stand off lest we should have polluted them by our unhallowed approaches and having made us as the Heathen and the Publican they cried Come out from among them The true Church soundness of Judgement purity of Doctrine and of Worship if men would believe them was confined to their clans just as they wee to the Corners of Africa of old when their Friends the Donatists were there Thus did the Votaries of each Sect swell in their Imaginations till some other sort as well conceited as themselves endeavoured to take their Plumes from them and to appropriate those glorious prerogatives to their own party And this went for the power of Godliness and the spirituality of Religion under pretence of which all reverence to things sacred was destroyed For when this Spirit had got into the Pulpit and set up the Cry of
the Purity and Spirituality of Worship it never left canting on the Subject till mens Tongues and Minds were fired against every matter of decency and order as formal and Antichristian And so far had it prevailed as to drive those of warm affections and weak heads from all external Reverence to God and Holy things And the well meaning people being frighted with the terrible noise of Popery Superstition and Antichristianism words they had learnt to hate though not to understand boggled and flew off from every thing their furious Guides had marked with these abhorred Characters though it were never so innocent and becoming And thus a rude and slovenly Religion had made its way into the World and such a sordid carelessness in matters of divine Worship that should a Stranger have come into the Assemblies that were acted by this Spirit he would not have imagined what they had been doing and that they were about Holy Offices would perhaps have been one of the last things in his Conjecture Thus bold and sawcy talk had crept into mens Prayers under pretence of Holy Familiarity with God nauseous impertinent Gibberish under the notion of Praying by the Spirit and all kind of irreverences in external demeanour under the shelter of a pretended spiritual Worship Men had subtilized Religion till they had destroyed it made it first invisible and then Nothing AND now it being thus multiplied corrupted and debaucht being made the Game of the Tongue and the Frolick of Imagination phantastick in its principles sordid in its practices separated from the foundation of a vertuous life and made to serve the ends of Pride and Avarice what was like to follow according to the nature and order of things but Atheism and contempt of all Religion And when one says here 's Religion and another says there 's Religion a third will scornfully ask where 's Religion and what 's Religion When the Heathen Deities were so multiplied that every thing was made a God Protagoras Diagoras and others first began to question and next to affirm that there was NONE Religions have been multiplied in our days as much as Gods in theirs and we have seen much of the same fatal event and issue They made their Gods contemptible and vile by deifying things that were so and we had no less detracted from the credit of Religion by bringing it down to things of the lowest and vilest rank and nature Our Idolized Opinions were no better than their Garlick and Onyons The diseases of the Mind Phrensie and Enthusiasm which our days have worshipped were no better than those of the Body which they adored And they never raised Altars to worse Vices than REBELLION FRAUD and VIOLENCE which our Age hath hallowed and made sacred So that notwithstanding all the glorious pretensions of those Times Religion was among many taken off all its Foundations and the World prepared for Atheism The Follies and Divisions of one Age make way for Atheism in the next Thus also briefly of the Condition of our RELIGION AND thus I have shewn how much RESISTANCE of the Authority that is over us is against our DUTY and our INTEREST The former God hath plainly told us and the latter we have sadly felt It remains that we humble our selves under the sense of the publick guilt as well as complain of the consequent miseries That we may not draw down new judgements by repeating old provocations and adding our particular sins to the common score And I think we shall do well to consider what we who abhor Rebellion have contributed to the fatal evils that followed it We can perhaps be well enough content that the visible actors of those mischiefs should be lasht and exposed and it may be are well pleased and tickled with our reprehensions in which we think our selves not concerned But if we will be just if we will have this Fast to signifie we must turn our reproofs upon our selves also and with grief and shame acknowledge that our sins and Debauches our contempt of God and scorn of Religion have helpt towards the plucking down that sad judgement upon the Nation which we lament this Day And it must be confest that there were those that fought against the KING who yet spent their blood in his service and many by their vices endeavoured to engage Heaven against that Cause which themselves strove in another way to less purpose to promote And therefore we ought not to think that this Fast is appointed to inveigh against the faults of others and to make them and their actions odious but to humble our selves under the apprehension of our own and to teach us to shew our love to the King and readiness to obey him by subjecting our selves first unto God whose Vice-gerent HE is And we may be assured that they that are not Loyal to the UNIVERSAL LORD of all the World can scarce possibly be so to their particular SOVEREIGN And 't will need a great deal of Charity to help us to believe that those who make no scruple to blaspheme the Name of God and to break the plainest most earnest and most express of his Laws will be withheld by considerations of Duty or Conscience from rebelling against their King or affronting His when there is any powerful interest to oblige them to it If therefore we would give any evidence of a serious humiliation at present or any security of a future loyalty let us do so by confessing our particular sins and forsaking them and then there will be hope that the Authority of God may oblige us quietly and peaceably to submit to his MINISTER and in doing so we shall be blest with his influence and deserve his protection And thus demeaning our selves like Professors of the Gospel of Peace and Subjects of the Prince of Peace the Peace He left with his Disciples will be with us here and everlasting Peace will encircle our heads with rays of glory in the Kingdom of Peace And so the Peace of God which passeth all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus To whom with God the Father and God the Holy Ghost be ascribed all Glory Honour and adoration henceforth and for ever Amen and Amen SERMON IV. THE SIN and DANGER OF SCOFFING AT RELIGION The Second Edition SERMON IV. AGAINST SCOFFING AT RELIGION 2 PET. III. 3. There shall come in the last days Scoffers walking after their own Lusts IT is a question that hath much exercised the wits of the Curious whether there be any decay in nature or whether all things are not still as they were from the beginning in all their kinds and in all the degrees of their vigour and perfection I shall not undertake to determine ought in this Theory Be the matter how it will as to the natural world we have cause to believe that there are degeneracies in the moral This our Saviour supposeth in the Question Luke 18. 8. When the Son of man cometh shall he find
that greatest of our Saviours Resurrection from the Dead by which he is declared the Son of God with power all his Doctrines and all his Actions and the whole Scope of his designs do infinitely confirm it unto us And yet we doubt and dispute and cavil when we should Repent This also greatly heightens our sins and will our condemnation if we do not seasonably speedily take another course 5. The Ninevites repented upon the Preaching of a Temporal Judgement forty days and Nineveh shall be destroyed It was the destruction of their City no express mention of the Ruine of their persons and posterities much less of the damnation of their Souls and yet upon this lesser Threatning they Repented But now besides the many Temporal evils our sins threaten us with we have denounc'd against us the loss of our Souls to eternal ages The wicked shall be turned into Hell and all the Nations that forget God Ps 9. 17. And terrible is that Sentence pass'd on the impenitent Mat. 25. 41. Depart from me ye cursed into everlasting Fire prepared for the Devil and his Angels Every word speaks terrour depart and Depart cursed into Fire into everlasting Fire and Fire prepared for the Devil and his Angels in their company and under their condemnation and Torment Such threatnings one would think should effectually restrain men from their sins and bring them to Repentance and woe to us if those or Gods other Methods do not effect it 6. The people of Nineveh Repented upon uncertainty of Success They were not sure that their Repentance would be accepted yea they had great reason to fear it would not for the threatning in the Form seem'd to be absolute But they knew that there was certain Ruine in the way in which they were going and some probability possibility at least that the Divine goodness might interpose for them upon their Repentance and they acted wisely and took the safer course they Repented and Repented upon the faint Encouragement of a peradventure who knows but the Lord may repent and turn v. 9. But now God hath pleased to give us the fullest the greatest assurance of Pardon and Favour upon Repentance for this we have his repeated word and his Oath and the Blood of his Son and the Testimony of his Spirit This is the Covenant he hath made with us and his Son came into the world to give us the assurance and his Spirit hath always confirmed it that by these immutable things by which it is impossible for God to lye we might have strong confidence that our Repentance will be accepted and rewarded And 't will be a very great Instance and aggravation of our hardness if notwithstanding we go on impenitently in our accustomed sins 7. The men of Nineveh Repented and they did it speedily When the Prophet began to enter into the City a days journey it follows immediately So the people of Nineveh believed God They did not stand to consult and deliberate about the business they did not say to Jonah as Foelix did to St. Paul We will hear thee some other time of this matter no They heard and Repented presently But we are apt to procrastinate and delay and put the work off from one day to another from youth to manhood from thence to old age from the time of Health to Sickness from thence to a Death-bed and still cry to morrow and hereafter But if we think to do it at all let us take the next time Delays here are most dangerous and the work will still grow the more difficult We are call'd by present Providences to instant Repentance if we delay yet longer it may be too late immediate Reformation is expected and required from us or immediate Judgements are to befal us And The same Encouragement have we for the work of speedy Repentance as these Ninevites had for this is most certain that if we Repent of the Evil we have done God will also Repent of the Evil he hath said Both which gracious Acts of Penance on our part and Pardon on Gods that they may be done God of his infinite Mercy grant through the Merits and Mediation of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord To whom with the Holy Ghost be ascribed by Angels and men by all things in Heaven and Earth as is most due all possible Praise and Power Might and Majesty Dominion and Adoration to Eternal Ages Amen SERMON X. The Various METHODS OF Satan's Policy DETECTED SERMON X. 2 COR. II. 11. For we are not ignorant of his Devices THe great and known Enemy of Mankind at tempts our ruine by a double method that of confest opposition and flattering insinuation and what he cannot compass by main strength he endeavours by Stratagem and by Artifice In which latter he hath always been most unhappily successful prevailing more by Policies than by Power Satan is most dangerous in the livery of Religion and the appearing Angel of light hath done more execution than the known Prince of Darkness Indeed in the early times of Christianity it 's enemy and ours thought to have over-born and crusht it by open ways of violence and therefore vigorously assaulted this new and naked Religion with all the force that Wit and Interest Power and Malice combined could draw together and with all that rage that Hellish zeal could inspire flew upon the naked Infant that had no captivating arts to recommend no visible aids to assist it But Innocence was too powerful for Arms and Truth and Vertue for assault and the Designer perceiving that this persecuted Christianity did but brighten and grow more conspicuous by the Flames he kindled against it That the injured Innocents prevail'd more on the World by their Patience than their enemies did on them by their Cruelties That this hated this maligned Religion stood like a Rock in the Sea while the spightful Waves and foaming Billows did but dash and break themselves against it I say perceiving how little success he had in his assaults he betakes him to his arts and his devices He pretends to that which he designs against and gets into Religion that he might overthrow it And this design he hath been ever since carrying on in the world viz. to destroy Religion by it self And if ever Christianity be exploded 't is like to be by a Spirit that highly pretends unto it So that the roaring of the Lyon is not so formidable as the wily subtilties of the Serpent And the Deceiver in the close Pharisee is more dangerous than Satan in the Publican and open Sinner Now the way to defeat frauds and wiles is to understand them and the Designer is disappointed assoon as his practices are discovered we therefore owe this care to the interest of our souls to endeavour to be acquainted with the arts of our enemy and we shall be secure from the danger of their influence when We are not ignorant of his Devices Now the chief Devices of the Grand Designer are levell'd against
ways they must not be parted with or silenc't no all Laws and Constitutions of Government must be thwarted overthrown rather Love and Peace and all must be sacrificed to the Idols which being so what quietness can there be from hence what peace or temper among such principles These perpetually annoy and disturb the Church and to know what they do in the State let us consider Germany Scotland and 't is to be hoped though we have frail memories on this side we shall not forget how peaceable the Sectaries have been in England or not observe how quiet they are at this day Remember I hope we shall for Caution I urge no other remembrance I wish they themselves did not remember them so well as we find they do by many of the same actions and discourses That Kings hold from the people are only Trustees for them and may be resisted and deposed when they fail in that trust are Politicks that do not much tend to civil peace and we know whose Principles those were and we have no great reason to think they have quitted them I can give but brief hints of things that would afford matter enough to fill Volumes as both Popish and Sectarian disloyalty Rebellions and disturbances would do But into these mens secrets let not our Souls come The Church that we some of us at least profess our selves to be members of teacheth no unpeaceable doctrines is guilty of no such practices It imposeth no Articles on our belief as necessary to our Salvation but the Ancient Creeds no terms of Communion but such reasonable orders and decencies as are free from all appearance of Idolatry and Superstition or any thing else that is unlawful as will appear to any rational man that shall take the pains to consider and will judge impartially nothing that is more burthensome or grievous than the Rites and usages of the Primitive Christian Church were which assertions I have in this place lately proved and divers of our Divines in their books have fully done it to the shame of Fanatical Gainsayers As to the concerns of civil peace our Church with Christ and his Apostles teacheth active chearful conscientious obedience to the King and subordinate Rulers in all lawful things and quiet submission to the penalties of not obeying when the things required are unlawful plainly certainly so And that we are not in this nor in any case to resist Suitable to this have been the practices of the people of this peaceable Church Among whom there hath not yet been found a Rebel We never heard of a Church of England-man in the late wars against the King nor of a Sectary for him But 4. The Faith deliver'd to the Saints was a reasonable Faith the understanding of man is the Candle of the Lord Prov. 20. 27. The light of Reason is his light with this The true light hath enlightned every one that cometh into the world Joh. 1. 9. and one light is not contrary to another there is difference in degree but no opposition of Nature Faith and Reason accord Yea Faith is an act of Reason 't is the highest reason to believe in God and the belief of our reason is an act of Faith viz. Faith in the truth and goodness of God that would not give us faculties to delude and deceive us when we rightly exercise and employ them By Faith Reason is further enlightned and by the use of Reason Faith is applyed Religion and Reason sweetly agree and nothing can be Religious that is unreasonable Religion is a reasonable service And by this Character Popery is disproved also For that imposeth on the practice and minds of men things that are extreamly unreasonable and absurd as Articles of Religion Such are the worship of invisible beings by Images of Wood or Stone and especially the Doctrine of Transubstantiation which is full of Contradictions as that the same body can be in a thousand places at once that at the same time it may be bigger and less than it self that it may move towards and from it self That it may be divided not into parts but wholes These and numerous other absurdities and contradictions to the reason of mankind are contain'd in the sensless mystery of Popish Transubstantiation To defend which the Doctors of that Church are put upon this miserable shift of denying all reason in Religion even the greatest and most fundamental Article of it That the same thing can be and not be which some of them say is the only method to confute Hereticks And while Reason and our Faculties are acknowledg'd we cannot entertain their non-sence nor be answer'd in our just oppositions of their gross absurdities On the other side the Character of a reasonable Faith condemns the Sects the greatest part of whose Divinity is made up of sensless absurd notions set forth in unintelligible Fantastical Phrases and these they account the heights of spirituality and mystery upon which they value and boast themselves as the only knowing the only spiritual people When there is nothing in all their pretended heights and spiritualities but vain imagination and dreaming and in v. 8. of this Epistle they are described by this Character 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Dreamers And as the light of Sense and Reason dispels the vain Images of Dreams so these admitted would cure Fanatical impostures and delusions For which cause there is nothing they so vehemently declaim against as Reason under the notion of carnal and as an enemy to the Spirit and the things of it There is indeed a carnal Reason that is enmity to truth and goodness but that is not the reason of our minds but the reason of our appetite passion and corrupt interest which is not reason truly so called no more than an Ape is a man But for want of thus distinguishing the things that so differ Enthusiasts rail violently against all Reason as the grand adversary of the truths and mysteries of the Gospel Their Tenents that she calls so will not bear that light But the Church of England teacheth no opinions no mysteries that need such a desperate course to defend them Its Articles of Faith are all contain'd in the Ancient Christian Creeds which are no way opposite to Reason in any Article yea Reason either proves or defends them all So that we never give out at this weapon but are ready to use it upon all occasions against Atheists and Infidels of all sorts The Church of England owns no Religion but what is reasonable 5. The Faith deliver'd to the Saints was certain it was deliver'd to them by those that had it from the holy Spirit of God in the way of immediate inspiration Those holy men spake as they were inspired And that they were really so was no fond imagination or bold presumption but a truth assured by those mighty miracles they were enabled to perform Those are Gods Seal and the grand confirmation of a commission from him and to this proof of their