But I shall instance onely in the intermediall part of this mysterious mercy Why should God cause us to be born of Christian parents and not to be circumcised by the impure hands of a Turkish Priest What distinguished me from another that my Father was severe in his discipline and carefull to bring me up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord and I was not exposed to the carelesnesse of an irreligious guardian and taught to steal and lie and to make sport with my infant vices and beginnings of iniquity Who was it that discerned our persons from the lot of dying Chrysomes whose portion must be among those who never glorified God with a free obedience What had you done of good or towards it that you was not condemned to the stupid ignorance which makes the souls of most men but a little higher then beasts and who understand nothing of religion and noble principles of parables and wise sayings of old men And not onely in our cradles but in our schools and in our colledges in our friendships and in our marriages in our enmities and in all our conversation in our vertues and in our vices where all things in us were equal or else we were the inferiour there is none of us but have felt the mercies of many differencies Or it may be my brother and I were intemperate and drunk and quarelsome and he kill'd a man but God did not suffer me to do so He fell down and died with a little disorder I was a beast and yet was permitted to live and not yet to die in my sins He did a misse once and was surprized in that disadvantage I sin daily and am still invited to repentance he would fain have lived and amended I neglect the grace but am allowed the time And when God sends the Angel of his wrath to execute his anger upon a sinfull people we are encompassed with funerals and yet the Angel hath not smitten us what or who makes the difference We shall then see when in the separations of eternity we sitting in glory shall see some of the partners of our sins carried into despair and the portions of the left hand and roaring in the seats of the reprobate we shall then perceive that it is even that mercy which hath no cause but it self no measure of its emanation but our misery no natural limit but eternity no beginning but God no object but man no reason but an essential and an unalterable goodnesse no variety but our necessity and capacity no change but new instances of its own nature no ending or repentance but our absolute and obstinate refusall to entertain it II. Lastly All the mercies of God are concentred in that which is all the felicity of man and God is so great a lover of souls that he provides securities and fair conditions for them even against all our reason and hopes our expectations and weak discoursings The particulars I shall remark are these 1. Gods mercy prevails over the malice and ignorances the weaknesses and follies of men so that in the convention and assemblies of hereticks as the word is usually understood for erring and mistaken people although their doctrines are such that if men should live according to their proper and naturall consequences they would live impiously yet in every one of these there are persons so innocently and invincibly mistaken and who mean nothing but truth while in the simplicity of their heart they talk nothing but error that in the defiance and contradiction of their own doctrines they live according to its contradictory He that beleeves contrition alone with confession to a Priest is enough to expiate ten thousand sins is furnished with an excuse easie enough to quit himself from the troubles of a holy life and he that hath a great many cheap wayes of buying off his penances for a little money even for the greatest sins is taught a way not to fear the doing of an act for which he must repent since repentance is a duty so soon fo certainly and so easily performed But these are notorious doctrines in the Roman Church and yet God so loves the souls of his creatures that many men who trust to these doctrines in their discourses dare not rely upon them in their lives But while they talk as if they did not need to live strictly many of them live so strictly as if they did not beleeve so foolishly He that tels that antecedently God hath to all humane choice decreed man to heaven or to hell takes away from man all care of the way because they beleeve that he that infallibly decreed that end hath unalterably appointed the means and some men that talk thus wildly live soberly and are over-wrought in their understanding by some secret art of God that man may not perish in his ignorance but be assisted in his choice and saved by the Divine mercies And there is no sect of men but are furnished with antidotes and little excuses to cure the venom of their doctrine and therefore although the adherent and constituent poison is notorious and therefore to be declined yet because it is collaterally cured and over-poured by the torrent and wisdom of Gods mercies the men are to be taken into the Quire that we may all joyn in giving of God praise for the operation of his hands 2. I said formerly that there are many secret and undiscerned mercies by which men live and of which men can give no account till they come to give God thanks at their publication and of this sort is that mercy which God reserves for the souls of many millions of men and women concerning whom we have no hopes if we account concerning them by the usuall proportions of revelation and Christian commandements and yet we are taught to hope some strange good things concerning them by the analogy and generall rules of the Divine mercy For what shall become of ignorant Christians people that live in wildnesses and places more desert then a primitive hermitage people that are baptized and taught to go to Church it may be once a yeer people that can get no more knowledge they know not where to have it nor how to desire it and yet that an eternity of pains shall be consequent to such an ignorance is unlike the mercy of God and yet that they should be in any dispositions towards an eternity of intellectuall joyes is no where set down in the leaves of revelation and when the Jews grew rebellious or a silly woman of the daughters of Abraham was tempted and sinned and punished with death we usually talk as if that death passed on to a worse but yet we may arrest our thoughts upon the Divine mercies and consider that it is reasonable to expect from the Divine goodnesse that no greater forfeiture be taken upon a law then was expressed in its sanction and publication He that makes a law and bindes it with the penalty of stripes we
and misunderstood and reproved and rejected by any of her wilful or ignorant sons and daughters so it is also as hard that they should be bound not to see when the case is plain and evident There may be mischiefs on both sides but the former sort of evils men may avoid if they will for they may be humble and modest and entertain better opinions of their Superiours then of themselves and in doubtful things give them the honour of a just opinion and if they do not do so that evil will be their own private for that it become not publike the King and the Bishop are to take care but for the latter sort of evil it will certainly become universal If I say an authoritative false doctrine be imposed and is to be accepted accordingly for then all men shall be bound to professe against their conscience that is with their mouthes not to confesse unto salvation what with their hearts they believe unto righteousnesse The best way of remedying both the evils is that Governours lay no burden of doctrines or lawes but what are necessary or very profitable and that Inferiours do not contend for things unnecessary nor call any thing necessary that is not till then there will be evils on both sides and although the Governours are to carry the Question in the point of law reputation and publike government yet as to Gods Judicature they will bear the bigger load who in his right do him an injury and by the impresses of his authority destroy his truth But in this case also although separating be a suspicious thing and intolerable unlesse it be when a sin is imposed yet to separate is also accidentall to truth for some men separate with reason some men against reason therefore here all the certainty that is in the thing is when the truth is secured and all the security to the men will be in the humility of their persons and the heartinesse and simplicity of their intention and diligence of inquiry The Church of England had reason to separate from the Confession and practises of Rome in many particulars and yet if her children separate from her they may be unreasonable and impious 5. The wayes of direction which we have from holy Scripture to distinguish false Apostles from true are taken from their doctrine or their lives That of the doctrine is the most sure way if we can hit upon it but that also is the thing signified and needs to have other signes Saint John and Saint Paul took this way for they were able to do it infallibly All that confesse Jesus incarnate are of God said Saint John those men that deny it are hereticks avoid them and Saint Paul bids to observe them that cause divisions and offences against the doctrine delivered Them also avoid that do so And we might do so as easily as they if the world would onely take their depositum that doctrine which they delivered to all men that is the Creed and superinduce nothing else but suffer Christian faith to rest in its own perfect simplicity unmingled with arts and opinions and interests This course is plain and easie and I will not intricate it with more words but leave it directly in its own truth and certainty with this onely direction That when we are to choose our doctrine or our side we take that which is in the plain unexpounded words of Scripture for in that onely our religion can consist Secondly choose that which is most advantageous to a holy life to the proper graces of a Christian to humility to charity to forgivenesse and alms to obedience and complying with governments to the honour of God and the exaltation of his attributes and to the conservation and advantages of the publike societies of men and this last Saint Paul directs Let ours be carefull to maintain goodworks for necessary uses for he that heartily pursues these proportions cannot be an ill man though he were accidentally and in the particular applications deceived 6. But because this is an act of wisdom rather then prudence and supposes science or knowledge rather then experience therefore it concerns the prudence of a Christian to observe the practise and the rules of practise their lives and pretences the designes and colours the arts of conduct and gaining proselytes which their Doctors and Catechists do use in order to their purposes and in their ministery about souls For although many signes are uncertain yet some are infallible and some are highly probable 7. Therefore those teachers that pretend to be guided by a private spirit are certainly false Doctors I remember what Simmias in Plutarch tels concerning Socrates that if he heard any man say he saw a divine vision he presently esteemed him vain and proud but if he pretended onely to have heard a voice or the word of God he listened to that religiously and would enquire of him with curiosity There was some reason in his fancy for God does not communicate himself by the eye to men but by the ear ye saw no figure but ye heard a voice said Moses to the people concerning God and therefore if any man pretends to speak the word of God we will enquire concerning it the man may the better be heard because he may be certainly reproved if he speaks amisse but if he pretends to visions and revelations to a private spirit and a mission extraordinary the man is proud and unlearned vicious and impudent No Scripture is of private interpretation saith S. Peter that is of private emission or declaration Gods words were delivered indeed by single men but such as were publikely designed Prophets remarked with a known character approved of by the high Priest and Sanhedrim indued with a publike spirit and his doctrines were alwayes agreeable to the other Scriptures But if any man pretends now to the spirit either it must be a private or publike if it be private it can but be usefull to himself alone and it may cozen him too if it be not assisted by the spirit of a publike man But if it be a publike spirit it must enter in at the publike door of ministeries and divine ordinances of Gods grace and mans endeavour it must be subject to the Prophets it is discernable and judicable by them and therefore may be rejected and then it must pretend no longer For he that will pretend to an extraordinary spirit and refuses to be tried by the ordinary wayes must either prophecy or work miracles or must have a voice from heaven to give him testimony The Prophets in the old Testament and the Apostles in the New and Christ between both had no other way of extraordinary probation and they that pretend to any thing extraordinary cannot ought not to be beleeved unlesse they have something more then their own word If I bear witnesse of my self my witnesse is not true said Truth it self our Blessed Lord. But secondly they that intend to teach by an
the commandments and by the certain known and established forms of government These are the great indices and so plain apt and easy that he that is deceived is so because he will be so he is betrayed into it by his own lust and a voluntary chosen folly 12 Besides these premises there are other little candles that can help to make the judgement clearer but they are such as do not signifie alone but in conjunction with some of the precedent characters which are drawn by the great lines of scripture Such as are 1. when the teachers of sects stir up unprofitable and uselesse Questions 2. when they causelesly retire from the universal customs of Christendom 3. And cancel all the memorials of the greatest mysteries of our redemption 4. When their confessions and Catechismes and their whole religion consist 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in speculations and ineffective notions in discourses of Angels and spirits in abstractions and raptures in things they understand not and of which they have no revelation 5. Or else if their religion spends it self in ceremonies outward guises and material solemnities and imperfect formes drawing the heart of the vine forth into leaves and irregular fruitless suckers turning the substance into circumstances and the love of God into gestures and the effect of the spirit into the impertinent offices of a burdensom ceremonial For by these two particulars the Apostles reproved the Jews and the Gnostics or those that from the school of Pythagoras pretended conversation with Angels and great knowledge of the secrets of the spirits chosing tutelar Angels and assigning them offices and charges as in the Church of Rome to this day they do to Saints to these adde 6. that we observe whether the guides of souls avoid to suffer for their religion for then the matter is foul or the man not fit to lead that dares not die in cold blood for his religion will the man lay his life and his soul upon the proposition If so then you may consider him upon his proper grounds but if he refuses that refuse his conduct sure enough 7. You may also watch whether they do not chose their proselyts amongst the rich and vitious that they may serve themselves upon his wealth and their disciple upon his vice 8. If their doctrines evidently and greatly serve the interest of wealth or honour and are ineffective to piety 9. If they strive to gain any one to their confession and are negligent to gain them to good life 10. If by pretences they lessen the severity of Christs precepts and are easy in dispensations and licencious glosses 11. If they invent suppletories to excuse an evil man and yet to reconcile his bad life with the hopes of heaven you have reason to suspect the whole and to reject these parts of errour and designe which in themselves are so unhandsom alwayes and somtimes criminal He that shal observe the Church of Rome so implacably fierce for purgatory and the Popes supremacy from clerical immunities and the Superiority of the Ecclesiastical persons to secular for indulgencies and precious and costly pardons and then so full of devises to reconcile an evil life with heaven requiring onely contrition even at the last for the abolition of eternal guilt and having a thousand wayes to commute and take off the temporal will see he hath reason to be jealous that interest is in these bigger then the religion and yet that the danger of the soul is greater then that interest and therefore the man is to do accordingly Here indeed is the great necessity that we should have the prudence and discretion the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of serpents ut cernamus acutum Quam aut aquila aut serpens Epidaurius For so serpents as they are curious to preserve their heads from contrition or a bruise so also to safeguard themselves that they be not charmed with sweet and enticing words of false prophets who charm not wisely but cunningly leading aside unstable souls against these we must stop our ears or lend our attention according to the foregoing measures and significations but here also I am to insert two or three cautions 1. We cannot expect that by these or any other signes we shall be inabled to discover concerning all men whether they teach an errour or no. Neither can a man by these reprove a Lutheran or a Zuinglian a Dominican or a Franciscan a Russian or a Greek a Muscovite or a Georgian because those which are certain signes of false teachers do signifie such men who destroy an article of faith or a commandment God was careful to secure us from death by removing the Lepers from the camp and giving certain notices of distinction and putting a term between the living and the dead but he was not pleased to secure every man from innocent and harmlesse errors from the mistakes of men and the failings of mortality The signes which can distinguish a living man from a dead will not also distinguish a black man from a brown or a pale from a white It is enough that we decline those guides that lead us to hell but not to think that we are inticed to death by the weaknesses of every disagreeing brother 2. In all discerning of sects we must be careful to distinguish the faults of men from the evils of their doctrine for some there are that say very well and do very ill 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Multos Thyrsigeros paucos est cernere Bacchos Many men of holy calling and holy religion that are of unholy lives homines ignavâ oper â Philosophâ sententiâ But these must be separated from the institution and the evil of the men is onely to be noted as that such persons be not taken to our single conduct and personal ministery I will be of the mans religion if it be good though he be not but I will not make him my confessor 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If he be not wise for himself I will not sit down at his feet lest we mingle filthinesse instead of being cleansed and instructed 3. Let us make one separation more then we may consider and act according to the premises If we espie a designe or an evil mark upon one doctrine let us divide it from the other that are not so spotted for indeed the publick communions of men are at this day so ordered that they are as fond of their errours as of their truthes and somtimes moct zealous for what they have least reason to be so and if we can by any arts of prudence separate from an evil proposition and communicate in all the good then we may love colleges of religious persons though we do not worship images and we may obey our Prelates though we do no injury to princes and we may be zealous against a crime though we be not imperious over mens persons and we may be diligent in the conduct of souls
legation and a speciall commission as appears in S. John which power what sense soever it admits of could not expire with the persons of the Apostles unlesse the succeeding ages of the Church had no discipline or government no scandals to be removed no weak persons offended no corrupt members to be cut off no hereticks rejected no sins or no pardon and that were a more heresie then that of the Novatians for they onely denyed this ministery in some cases not in all saying Priestly absolution was not fit to be dispensed to them who in time of persecution had sacrificed to idols 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To these onely pardon is to be dispensed without the ministery of the Priest To these who were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sacrificers and mingled the table of the Lord with the table of devils Against other sinners they were not so severe But however so long as that distinction remaines of sinnes unto death and sinnes not unto death there are a certain sort of sins which are remediable and cognoscible and judicable and a power was dispensed to a distinct sort of persons to remit or retain those sins which therefore must remain with the Apostles for ever that is with their persons first and then with the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with their successors because the Church needs it for ever and there was nothing in the power that by relating to a present and temporary occasion did insinuate its short life and speedy expiration In execution of this power and pursuance of this commission for which the power was given the Apostles went forth and all they upon whom this signature passed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 executed this power in appropriation and distinct ministery it was the sword of their proper ministery and S. Paul does almost exhibite his commission and reades the words when he puts it in execution and does highly verifie the parts and the consequence of this argument God hath reconciled us to himself by Christ Jesus and hath given to us the ministery of reconciliation and it followes now then we are Embassadours for Christ. The ministery of reconciliation is an appropriate ministery It is committed to us we are Embassadours it is appropriate by virtue of Christs mission and legation He hath given to us he hath made and deputed certain Embassadours whom he hath sent upon the message and ministery of reconcilement which is a plain exposition of the words of his commission before recorded John 20. 21. And that this also descended lower we have the testimony of S. James who advises the sick person to send for the Elders of the Church that they may pray over him that they may anoint him that in that society there may be consession of sins by the clinick or sick person and that after these preparatives and in this ministery his sins may be forgiven him Now that this power fell into succession this instance proves for the Elders were such who had not the commission immediately from Christ but were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they were fathers of the people but sons of the Apostles and therefore it is certain the power was not personall and meerly Apostolicall but derived upon others by such a communication as gives evidence the power was to be succeeded in And when went it out when the anointing and miraculous healing ceased There is no reason for that For forgivenesse of sins was not a thing visible and therefore could not be of the nature of miracles to confirme the faith and christianity first and after its work was done return to God that gave it neither could it be onely of present use to the Church but as eternall and lasting as sin is and therefore there could be nothing in the nature of the thing to make it so much as suspicious it was presently to expire To which also I adde this consideration that the Holy Ghost which was to enable the Apostles in the precise office Apostolicall as it was an office extraordinary circumstantionate definite and to expire all that was promised should descend upon them after Christs ascension and was verified in Pentecost for to that purpose to bring all things to their minde all of Christs doctrine and all that was necessary of his life and miracles and a power from above to enable them to speake boldly and learnedly and with tongues all that besides the other parts of ordinary power was given them ten days after the Ascension And therefore the breathing the holy Ghost upon the Apostles in the octaves of the resurrection and this mission with such a power was their ordinary mission a sending them as ordinary Pastors and Curates of souls with a power to govern binding and loosing can mean no lesse and they were the words of the promise with a power to minister reconciliation for so S. Paul expounds remitting and retaining which two were the great hinges of the Gospell the one to invite and collect a Church the other to govern it the one to dispense the greatest blessing in the world the other to keep them in capacities of enjoying it For since the holy Ghost was now actually given to these purposes here expressed and yet in order to all their extraordinaries and temporary needs was promised to descend after this there is no collection from hence more reasonable then to conclude all this to be part of their commission of ordinary Apostleship to which the ministers of religion were in all ages to succeed In attestation of all which who please may see the united testimony of S. Cyrill S. Chrysostome S. Ambrose S. Gregory and the Author of the questions of the old and new Testament who unlesse by their calling shall rather be called persons interest then by reason of their famous piety and integrity shall be accepted as competent are a very credible and fair representment of this truth and that it was a doctrine of Christianity that Christ gave this power to the Apostles for themselves and their successors for ever and that therefore as Christ in the first donation so also some Churches in the tradition of that power used the same forme of words intending the collation of the same power and separating persons for the work of that ministery I end this with the counsell S. Augustine gives to all publick penitents Veniant ad Antistites per quos illis in Ecclesia claves ministrantur a praepositis sacrorum accipiant satisfactionis suae modum let them come to the Presidents of religion by whom the Keys are ministred and from the governours of holy things let them receive those injunctions which shall exercise and signifie their repentance SECT III. THe second power I instance in is preaching the Gospel for which work he not onely at first designed Apostles but others also were appointed for the same work forever to all generations of the Church This Commission was signed
shall escape for being secret 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And all prejudices being laid aside it shall be considered concerning our evill rules and false principles Cum cepero tempus ego justitias judicabo when I shall receive the people I shall judge according unto right so we read When we shall receive time I will judge justices and judgements so the vulgar Latin reads it that is in the day of the Lord when time is put into his hand and time shall be no more he shall judge concerning those judgements when men here make of things below and the fighting man shall perceive the noises of drunkards and fools that cryed him up for daring to kill his Brother to have been evill principles and then it will be declared by strange effects that wealth is not the greatest fortune and ambition was not but an ill counsellor and to lye for a good cause was no piety and to do evill for the glory of God was but an ill worshipping him and that good nature was not well imploy'd when it spent it self in vicious company and evill compliances and that piety was not softnesse and want of courage and that poverty ought not to have been contemptible and that cause that is unsuccessefull is not therefore evill and what is folly here shall be wisdome there then shall men curse their evill guides and their accursed superinduced necessities and the evill guises of the world and then when silence shall be found innocence and eloquence in many instances condemned as criminall when the poor shall reign and Generals and Tyrants shall lye low in horrible regions when he that lost all shall finde a treasure and he that spoil'd him shall be found naked and spoil'd by the destroyer then we shall finde it true that we ought here to have done what our Judge our blessed Lord shall do there that is take our measures of good and evill by the severities of the word of God by the Sermons of Christ and the four Gospels and by the Epistles of S. Paul by Justice and charity by the Lawes of God and the lawes of wise Princes and Republicks by the rules of Nature and the just proportions of Reason by the examples of good men and the proverbs of wise men by severity and the rules of Discipline for then it shall be that truth shall ride in triumph and the holinesse of Christs Sermons shall be manifest to all the world that the Word of God shall be advanced over all the discourses of men and Wisdome shall be justified by all her children Then shall be heard those words of an evill and tardy repentance and the just rewards of folly We fools thought their life madnesse but behold they are justified before the throne of God and we are miserable for ever Here men think it strange if others will not run into the same excesse of riot but there they will wonder how themselves should be so mad and infinitely unsafe by being strangely and inexcusably unreasonable The summe is this The Judge shall appear cloathed with wisdome and power and justice and knowledge and an impartiall Spirit making no separations by the proportions of this world but by the measures of God not giving sentence by the principles of our folly and evill customes but by the severity of his own Laws and measures of the Spirit Non est judicium Dei sicut hominum God does not judge as Man judges 6. Now that the Judge is come thus arrayed thus prepared so instructed let us next consider the circumstances of our appearing and his sentence and first I consider that men at the day of Judgement that belong not to the portion of life shall have three sorts of accusers 1. Christ himself who is their Judge 2. Their own conscience whom they have injured and blotted with characters of death and foul dishonour 3. The Devill their enemy whom they served 1. Christ shall be their accuser not only upon the stock of those direct injuries which I before reckoned of crucifying the Lord of life once and again c. But upon the titles of contempt and unworthinesse of unkindnesse and ingratitude and the accusation will be nothing else but a plain representation of those artifices and assistances those bonds and invitations those constrainings and importunities which our dear Lord used to us to make it almost impossible to lye in sin and necessary to be sav'd For it will it must needs be a fearfull exprobration of our unworthinesse when the Judge himself shall bear witnesse against us that the wisdome of God himself was strangely imployed in bringing us safely to felicity I shall draw a short Scheme which although it must needs be infinitely short of what God hath done for us yet it will be enough to shame us * God did not only give his Son for an example and the Son gave himself for a price for us but both gave the holy Spirit to assist us in mighty graces for the verifications of Faith and the entertainments of Hope and the increase and perseverance of Charity * God gave to us a new nature he put another principle into us a third part of a perfective constitution we have the Spirit put into us to be a part of us as properly to produce actions of a holy life as the soul of man in the body does produce the naturall * God hath exalted humane nature and made it in the person of Jesus Christ to sit above the highest seat of Angels and the Angels are made ministring spirits ever since their Lord became our Brother * Christ hath by a miraculous Sacrament given us his body to eat and his bloud to drink he made waies that we may become all one with him * He hath given us an easie religion and hath established our future felicity upon naturall and pleasant conditions and we are to be happy hereafter if we suffer God to make us happy here and things are so ordered that a man must take more pains to perish then to be happy * God hath found out rare wayes to make our prayers acceptable our weak petitions the desires of our imperfect souls to prevail mightily with God and to lay a holy violence and an undeniable necessity upon himself and God will deny us nothing but when we aske of him to do us ill offices to give us poisons and dangers and evill nourishment and temptations and he that hath given such mighty power to the prayers of his servants yet will not be moved by those potent and mighty prayers to do any good man an evill turn or to grant him one mischief in that only God can deny us * But in all things else God hath made all the excellent things in heaven and earth to joyn towards holy and fortunate effects for he hath appointed an Angell to present the prayers of Saints and Christ makes intercession for us and the holy Spirit
issues for though no man can say that much speaking is a sin yet the Scripture sayes In multiloquio peccatum non deerit Sin goes along with it and is an ingredient in the whole composition For it is impossible but a long and frequent discourse must be served with many passions and they are not alwayes innocent for he that loves to talke much must rem corradere scrape materials together to furnish out the scenes and long orations and some talke themselves into anger and some furnish out their dialogues with the lives of others either they detract or censure or they flatter themselves and tell their owne stories with friendly circumstances and pride creeps up the sides of the discourse and the man entertains his friend with his owne Panegyrick or the discourse lookes one way and rowes another and more mindes the designe then its own truth and most commonly will be so ordered that it shall please the company and that truth or honest plainnesse seldome does or there is a byasse in it which the more of weight and transportation it hath the lesse it hath of ingenuity Non credo Auguribus qui aureis rebus divinant like Sooth-sayers men speak fine words to serve ends and then they are not beleeved or at last are found lyars and such discourses are built up to serve the ministeries or pleasures of the company but nothing else Pride and flattery malice and spite self-love and vanity these usually wait upon much speaking and the reward of it is that the persons grow contemptible and troublesome they engage in quarrels and are troubled to answer exceptions some will mistake them and some will not beleeve them and it will be impossible that the minde should be perpetually present to a perpetuall talker but they will forget truth and themselves and their own relations And upon this account it is that the Doctors of the Primitive Church doe literally expound those minatory words of our blessed Saviour Verily I say unto you of every idle word that men shall speak they shall give account at the day of Judgement And by idle words they understand such as are not usefull to edification and instruction So St. Basil So great is the danger of an idle word that though a word be in its owne kinde good yet unlesse it be directed to the edification of faith he is not free from danger that speaks it To this purpose are the words of St. Gregory while the tongue is not restrained from idle words ad temeritatem stultae increpationis efferatur it is made wilde or may be brought forth to rashnesse and folly And therein lies the secret of the reproofe A periculo liber non est ad temeritatem efferatur the man is not free from danger and he may grow rash and foolish and run into crimes whilest he gives his Tongue the reins and lets it wander and so it may be fit to be reproved though in its nature it were innocent I deny not but sometimes they are more severe St. Gregory calls every word vain or idle quod aut ratione justae necessitatis aut intentione piae utilitatis caret and St. Hierom calls it vain quod sine utilitatis loquentis dicitur audientis which profits neither the speaker nor the hearer The same is affirmed by St. Chrysostom and Gregory Nyssen upon Ecclesiastes and the same seems intimated in the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as it is in some copies every word that is idle or empty of businesse But for the stating the case of Conscience I have these things to say 1. That the words of our blessed Saviour being spoken to the Jews were so certainly intended as they best and most commonly understood and by vain they understood false or lying not uselesse or imprudent and yet so though our blessed Saviour hath not so severely forbidden every empty unsignificant discourse yet he hath forbidden every lie though it be in genere bonorum as St. Basil's expression is that is though it be in the intention charitable or in the matter innocent 2. Of every idle word we shal give account but yet so that sometimes the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the judgment shall fall upon the words not upon the persons they be hay and stubble uselesse and impertinent light and easie the fire shall consume them and himselfe shall escape with that losse he shall then have no honor no fair return for such discourses but they shall with losse and prejudice be rejected and cast away 3. If all unprofitable discourses be reckoned for idle words and put upon the account yet even the capacities of profit are so large and numerous that no man hath cause to complain that his tongue is too much restrained by this severity For in all the wayes in which he can doe himselfe good or his neighbour he hath his liberty he is onely to secure the words from being directly criminal and himselfe from being arrested with a passion and then he may reckon it lawfull even upon the severest account to discourse freely while he can instruct or while he can please his neighbour Aut prodesse solent aut delectare while himselfe gets a fair opinion and a good name apt to serve honest and fair purposes he may discourse himselfe into a friendship or help to preserve it he may serve the works of art or nature of businesse publick or private the needs of his house or the uses of mankinde he may increase learning or confirm his notices cast in his symbol of experience and observation till the particulars may become a proverbiall sentence and a rule he may serve the ends of civility and popular addresses or may instruct his brother or himselfe by something which at that time shall not be reduc'd to a precept by way of meditation but is of it selfe apt at another time to doe it he may speak the praises of the Lord by discoursing of any of the works of creation and himselfe or his brother may afterwards remember it to that purpose he may counsell or teach reprove or admonish call to minde a precept or disgrace a vice reprove it by a parable or a story by way of Idea or witty representment and he that can finde talke beyond all this discourse that cannot become usefull in any one of these purposes may well be called a prating man and expect to give account of his folly in the dayes of recompense 4. Although in this latitude a mans discourses may be free and safe from judgement yet the man is not unlesse himself designe it to good and wise purposes not alwayes actually but by an habituall and generall purpose Concerning which he may by these measures best take his accounts 1. That he be sure to speak nothing that may minister to a vice willingly and by observation 2. If any thing be of a suspicious and dubious nature that he
trifling swearing changes every trifling lye into a horrid perjury and this was noted by St. James But above all things swear not at all 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that ye may not fall into condemnation so we read it following the Arabian Syrian and Latin books and some Greek Copies and it signifies that all such swearing and putting fierce appendages to every word like great iron bars to a straw basket or the curtains of a tent is a direct condemnation of our selves For while we by much talking regard truth too little and yet bind up our trifles with so severe a band we are condemned by our owne words for men are made to expect what you bound upon them by an oath and account your trifle to be serious of which when you faile you have given sentence against your selfe And this is agreeable to those words of our blessed Saviour Of every idle word you shall give account for by thy words thou shalt be condemned and by thy words thou shalt be justified But there is another reading of these words which hath great emphasis and power in this article Swear not at all 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that you may not fall into hypocrisie that is into the disreputation of a lying deceiving cousening person for he that will put his oath to every common word makes no great matter of an oath for in swearing commonly he must needs sometimes swear without consideration and therefore without truth and he that does so in any company tels the world he makes no great matter of being perjured All these things put together may take off our wonder at St. James expression of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 above all things sweare not it is a thing so highly to be regarded and yet is so little considered that it is hard to say whether there be in the world any instance in which men are so carelesse of their danger and damnation as in this The next appendage of vain and trifling speech is contention wrangling and perpetuall talke proceeding from the spirit of contradiction Profert enim mores plerumque oratio animi secreta detegit Nec sine causâ Graeci prodiderunt ut vivat quemque etiam dicere said Quintilian For the most part a mans words betray his manners and unlocks the secrets of the mind And it was not without cause that the Greeks said As a man lives so he speaks for so indeed Menander 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Aristides 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So that it is a signe of a peevish an angry and quarrelling disposition to be disputative and busic in Questions and impertinent oppositions You shall meet with some men such were the Sceptics and such were the Academics of old who will not endure any man shall be of their opinion and will not suffer men to speak truth or to consent to their own propositions but will put every man to fight for his owne possessions disturbing the rest of truth and all the dwellings of unity and consent clamosum altercatorem Quintilian calls such a one This is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an overflowing of the heart and of the gall and it makes men troublesome and intricates all wise discourses and throws a cloud upon the face of truth and while men contend for truth error drest in the same habit slips into her chaire and all the litigants court her for the divine sister of wisdome Nimirùm altercando veritas amittitur There is noyse but no harmony fighting but no victory talking but no learning all are teachers and all are wilfull every man is angry and without reason and without charity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Their mouth is a spear their language is a two-edged sword their throat is a shield as Nonnus his expression is and the clamors and noyses of this folly is that which St. Paul reproves in this chapt Let all bitternesse and clamor be put away People that contend earnestly talke loud Clamor equus est irae cum prostraveris equitem dejeceris saith St. Chrysostom Anger rides upon noyse as upon a horse still the noyse and the rider is in the dirt and indeed so to doe is an act of fine strength and the cleanest spirituall force that can be exercised in this instance and though it be hard in the midst of a violent motion instantly to stop yet by strength and good conduct it may be done But he whose tongue rides upon passion and is spur'd by violence and contention is like a horse or mule without a bridle and without understanding 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 No person that is clamorous can be wise These are the vanities and evill fruits of the easie talker the instances of a trifling impertinent conversation and yet it is observable that although the instances in the beginning be onely vain yet in the issue and effects they are troublesome and full of mischief and that we may perceive that even all effusion and multitude of language and vainer talke cannot be innocent we may observe that there are many good things which are wholly spoyl'd if they doe but touch the tongue they are spoyl'd with speaking such as is the sweetest of all Christian graces humility and the noblest actions of humanity the doing favors and acts of kindnesse If you speak of them you pay your selfe and lose your kindnesse humility is by talking changed into pride and hypocrisie and patience passes into peevishnesse and secret trust into perfidiousnesse and modesty into dissolution and judgement into censure but by silence and a restrained tongue all the first mischiefs are avoyded and all these graces preserved SERMON XXIV Part III. Of Slander and Flattery HE that is twice asked a Question and then answers is to be excused if he answers weakly But he that speaks before he be asked had need take care he speak wisely for if he does not he hath no excuse and if he does yet it loses halfe its beauty and therefore the old man gave good counsell in the Comedie to the Boy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The profits of a restrained modest tongue cannot easily be numbred any more then the evills of an unbridled and dissolute But they were but infant mischiefs which for the most part we have already observed as the issues of vain and idle talking but there are two spirits worse then these 1. The spirit of detraction and 2. The spirit of flattery The first is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from whence the Devill hath his name He is an Accuser of the brethren But the second is worse it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 damnable and deadly it is the nurse of vice and the poyson of the soule These are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sowre and filthy communication the first is rude but the latter is most mischievous and both of them to be avoyded like death or the despairing murmurs of the damned 1. Let no calumny no slandering detracting communication proceed out
while his nets were drying slept upon the rock and dreamt that he was made a King on a sudden starts up and leaping for joy fals down from the rock and in the place of his imaginary felicities loses his little portion of pleasure and innocent folaces he had from the sound sleep and little cares of his humble cottage And what is the prosperity of the wicked to dwel in fine houses or to command armies or to be able to oppresse their brethren or to have much wealth to look on or many servants to feed or much businesse to dispatch and great cares to master these things are of themselves neither good nor bad but consider would any man amongst us looking and considering before hand kill his lawful King to be heire of all that which I have named would any of you choose to have God angry with you upon these terms would any of you be a perjured man for it all A wise man or a good would not choose it would any of you die an Atheist that you might live in plenty and power I believe you tremble to think of it It cannot therefore be a happinesse to thrive upon the stock of a great sin for if any man should contract with an impure spirit to give his soul up at a certain day it may be 20. years hence upon the condition he might for 20. years have his vain desires should we not think that person infinitely miserable every prosperous thriving sinner is in the same condition within these twenty years he shall be thrown into the portion of Devils but shall never come out thence in twenty millions of years His wealth must needs sit uneasie upon him that remembers that within a short space he shall be extreamely miserable and if he does not remember it he does but secure it the more And that God defers the punishment and suffers evil men to thrive in the opportunities of their sin it may and does serve many ends of providence and mercy but serves no end that any evil men can reasonably wish or propound to themselves eligible Bias said well to a vitious person Non metuo ne non sis daturus paenas sed metuo ne id non sim visurus He was sure the man should be punished he was not sure he should live to see it and though the messenians that were betrayed and slain by Aristocrates in the battle of Cyprus were not made alive again yet the justice of God was admired and treason infinitly disgraced when twenty years after the treason was discovered and the the traitor punished with a horrid death Lyciscus gave up the Orchomenians to their enemies having first wished his feet which he then dipt in water might rot off if he were not true to them and yet his feet did not rot till those men were destroyed and of a long time after and yet at last they did slay them not O Lord lest my people forget it saith David if punishment were instantly and totally inflicted it would be but a sudden and single document but a slow and lingring judgement and a wrath breaking out in the next age is like an universal proposion teaching our posterity that God was angry all the while that he had a long indignation in his brest that he would not forget to take veangeance and it is a demonstration that even the prosperous sins of the present age will finde the same period in the Divine revenge when men see a judgement upon the Nephevvs for the sins of their Grand-fathers though in other instances and for sinnes acted in the dayes of their Ancestors We knovv that vvhen in Henry the eighth or Edvvard the sixth dayes some great men pulled dovvn Churches and built palaces and robd religion of its just incouragements and advantages the men that did it were sacrilegious and we finde also that God hath been punishing that great sin ever since and hath displaied to so many generations of men to three or four descents of children that those men could not be esteemed happy in their great fortunes against whom God was so angry that he would show his displeasure for a hundred years together When Herod had killed the babes of Bethlehem it was seven years before God called him to an account But he that looks upon the end of that man would rather choose the fat of the oppressed babes then of the prevailing and triumphing Tyrant It was fourty years before God punished the Jews for the execrable murder committed upon the person of their King the holy Jesus and it was so long that when it did happen many men attributed it to their killing S. James their Bishop and seemed to forget the greater crime but non eventu rerum sed fide verborum stamus we are to stand to the truth of Gods word not to the event of things Because God hath given us a rule but hath left the judgement to himself and we die so quickly and God measures althings by his standard of eternity and 1000 years to God is but as one day that we are not competent persons to measure the times of Gods account and the returnes of judgement We are dead before the arrow comes but the man scapes not unlesse his soul can die or that God cannot punish him Ducunt in bonis dies suos in momento descendunt ad infernum that 's their fate they spend their dayes in plenty and in a moment descend into hell in the meane time they drink and forget their sorrow but they are condemned they have drunk their hemlock but the poison does not work yet the bait is in their mouths and they are sportive but the hook hath strook their nostrils and they shall never escape the ruine And let no man call the man fortunate because his execution is deferd for a few dayes when the very deferring shall increase and ascertain the condemnation But if we should look under the skirt of the prosperous and prevailing Tyrant we should finde even in the dayes of his joyes such allayes and abatements of his pleasure as may serve to represent him presently miserable besides his final infelicities For I have seen a young and healthful person warm and ruddy under a poor and a thin garment when at the same time an old rich person hath been cold and paralytick under a load of sables and the skins of foxes it is the body that makes the clothes warm not the clothes the body and the spirit of a man makes felicity and content not any spoils of a rich fortune wrapt about a sickly and an uneasie soul. Apollodorus was a Traitor and a Tyrant and the world wondered to see a bad man have so good a fortune But knew not that he nourished Scorpions in his brest and that his liver and his heart were eaten up with Spectres and images of death his thoughts were full of interruptions his dreams of illusions his fancie was abused with real troubles and
man that suffers sorrow and persecution ought to be relieved by us but needs not be pitied in the summe of affairs But since the two estates of the world are measured by time and by eternity and divided by joy and sorrow and no man shall have his portions of joyes in both the durations the state of those men is insupportably miserable who are fatted for slaughter and are crowned like beasts for sacrifice who are feared and fear who cannot enjoy their purchases but by communications with others and themselves have the least share but themselves are alone in the misery and the saddest dangers and they possesse the whole portions of sorrows to whom their prosperity gives but occasions to evil counsels and strength to do mischief or to nourish a serpent or oppresse a neighbour or to nurse a lust to increase folly and treasure up calamity And did ever any man see or story tell that any tyrant Prince kissed his rods and axes his sword of justice and his Imperiall ensignes of power They shine like a taper to all things but it self but we read of many Martyrs who kissed their chains and hugged their stakes and saluted their hangman with great endearments and yet abating the incursions of their seldom sins these are their greatest evils and such they are with which a wise and a good man may be in love And till the sinners and ungodly men can be so with their deep groans and broken sleeps with the wrath of God and their portions of eternity till they can rejoyce in death and long for a resurrection and with delight and a greedy hope can think of the day of judgement we must conclude that their glasse gems and finest pageantry their splendid outsides and great powers of evil cannot make amends for that estate of misery which is their portion with a certainty as great as is the truth of God and all the Articles of the Christian Creed Miserable men are they who cannot be blessed unlesse there be no day of judgement who must perish unlesse the word of God should fail If that be all their hopes then we may with a sad spirit and a soul of pity inquire into the Question of the Text Where shall the ungodly and sinner appear Even there where Gods face shall never shine where there shall be fire and no light where there shall be no Angels but what are many thousands yeers ago turned into Devils where no good man shall ever dwell and from whence the evil and the accursed shall never be dismissed O my God let my soul never come into their counsels nor lie down in their sorrows Sermon XII THE MERCY OF THE DIVINE IVDGMENTS OR Gods Method in curing Sinners 2. Romanes 4. Despisest thou the riches of his goodnesse and forbearance and long-suffering not knowing that the goodnesse of God leadeth thee to repentance FRom the beginning of Time till now all effluxes which have come from God have been nothing but emanations of his goodnesse clothed in variety of circumstances He made man with no other designe then that man should be happy and by receiving derivations from his fountain of mercy might reflect glory to him And therefore God making man for his own glory made also a paradise for mans use and did him good to invite him to do himself a greater for God gave forth demonstrations of his power by instances of mercy and he who might have made ten thousand worlds of wonder and prodigy and created man with faculties able onely to stare upon and admire those miracles of mightinesse did choose to instance his power in the effusions of mercy that at the same instant he might represent himself desireable and adorable in all the capacities of amability that is as excellent in himself and profitable to us For as the Sun sends forth a benigne and gentle influence on the seed of Plants that it may invite forth the active and plastick power from its recesse and secresie that by rising into the tallnesse and dimensions of a tree it may still receive a greater and more refreshing influence from its foster-father the prince of all the bodies of light and in all these emanations the Sun its self receives no advantage but the honour of doing benefits so doth the Almighty Father of all the creatures He at first sends forth his blessings upon us that we by using them aright should make our selves capable of greater while the giving glory to God and doing homage to him are nothing for his advantage but onely for ours our duties towards him being like vapours ascending from the earth not at all to refresh the region of the clouds but to return back in a fruitfull and refreshing shower And God created us not that we can increase his felicity but that he might have a subject receptive of felicity from him thus he causes us to be born that we may be capable of his blessings he causes us to be baptized that we may have a title to the glorious promises Evangelicall he gives us his Son that we may be rescued from hell and when we constraine him to use harsh courses towards us it is also in mercy he smites us to cure a disease he sends us sicknesse to procure our health and as if God were all mercy he his mercifull in his first designe in all his instruments in the way and in the end of the journey and does not onely shew the riches of his goodnesse to them that do well but to all men that they may do well he is good to make us good he does us benefits to make us happy and if we by despising such gracious rayes of light and heat stop their progresse and interrupt their designe the losse is not Gods but ours we shall be the miserable and accursed people This is the sense and paraphrase of my Text. Despisest thou the riches of his goodnesse c. Thou dost not know that is thou considerest not that it is for further benefit that God does thee this the goodnesse of God is not a designe to serve his own ends upon thee but thine upon him The goodnesse of God leadeth thee to repentance Here then is Gods method of curing man-kind 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 First goodnesse or inviting us to him by sugred words by the placid arguments of temporall favour and the propositions of excellent promises Secondly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 at the same time although God is provoked every day yet he does 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he tolerates our stubbornnesse he forbears to punish and when he does begin to strike takes his hand off and gives us truce and respite For so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies laxamentum and inducias too Thirdly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 still a long putting off and deferring his finall destroying anger by using all meanes to force us to repentance and this especially by the way of judgements these being the last reserves of the Divine mercy and
in their obedience and frequenting of the ordinance to the Priest in his ministery and publick and privat offices To which also I adde this consideration that as the Holy Sacraments are hugely effective to spiritual purposes not onely because they convey a blessing to the worthy suscipients but because men cannot be worthy suscipients unlesse they do many excellent acts of vertue in order to a previous disposition so that in the whole conjunction and transaction of affaires there is good done by way of proper efficacy and divine blessing so it is in following the conduct of a spiritual man and consulting with him in the matter of our souls we cannot do it unless we consider our souls and make religion our businesse and examine our present state and consider concerning our danger and watch and designe for our advantages which things of themselves wil set a man much forwarder in the way of Godlinesse besides thath naturally every man will lesse dare to act a sin for which he knows he shall feel a present shame in his discoveries made to the spiritual Guide the man that is made the witnesse of his conversation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Holy men ought to know all things from God and that relate to God in order to the conduct of souls and there is nothing to be said against this if we do not suffer the devil in this affaire to abuse us as he does many people in their opinions teaching men to suspect there is a designe and a snake under the plantain But so may they suspect Kings when they command obedience or the Levites when they read the law of tithes or Parents when they teach their children temperance or Tutors when they watch their charge However it is better to venture the worst of the designe then to lose the best of the assistance and he that guides himself hath much work and much danger but he that is under the conduct of another his work is easy little and secure it is nothing but diligence and obedience and though it be a hard thing to rule well yet nothing is easier then to follow and to be obedient Sermon XXII Of Christian Prudence Part III. 7. AS it is a part of Christian prudence to take into the conduct of our soules a spiritual man for a guide so it is also of great concernment that we be prudent in the choice of him whom we are to trust in so great an interest Concerning which it will be impossible to give characters and significations particular enough to enable a choice without the interval assistances of prayer experience and the Grace of God He that describes a man can tell you the colour of his hair his stature and proportions and describe some general lines enough to distingush him from a Cyclops or a Saracen but when you chance to see the man you will discover figures or little features of which the description had produced in you no Phantasme or expectation And in the exteriour significations of a sect there are more semblances then in mens faces and greater uncertainty in the signes what is faulty strives so craftily to act the true and proper images of things and the more they are defective in circumstances the more curious they are in forms and they also use such arts of gaining Proselytes which are of most advantage towards an effect and therefore such which the true Christian ought to pursue and the Apostles actually did and they strive to follow their patterns in arts of perswasion not onely because they would seem like them but because they can have none so good so effective to their purposes that it follows that it is not more a duty to take care that we be not corrupted with false teachers then that we be not abused with false signes for we as well finde a good man teaching a false proposition as a good cause managed by ill men and a holy cause is not alwayes dressed with healthful symptomes nor is there a crosse alwayes set upon the doores of those congregations who are infected with the plague of heresy When Saint John was to separate false teachers from true he took no other course but to remark the doctrine which was of God and that should be the mark of cognisance to distinguish right shepheards from robbers and invaders every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God He that denieth it is not of God By this he bids his schollers to avoid the present sects of Ebion Cerinthus Simon Magus and such other persons that denied that Christ was at all before he came or that he came really in the flesh and a proper humanity This is a clear note and they that conversed with Saint John or believed his doctrine were sufficiently instructed in the present Questions But this note will signify nothing to us for all sects of Christians confesse Jesus Christ come in the flesh and the following sects did avoid that rock over which a great Apostle had hung out so plain a lantern In the following ages of the Church men have been so curious to signifie misbelievers that they have invented and observed some signes which indeed in some cases were true real appendages of false believers but yet such which were also or might be common to them with good men and members of the Catholick Church some few I shall remark and give a short account of them that by removing the uncertain we may fix our inquiries and direct them by certain significations lest this art of prudence turn into folly and faction errour and secular designe 1. Some men distinguish errour from truth by calling their adversaries doctrine new and of yesterday and certainly this is a good signe if it be rightly applyed for since all Christian doctrine is that which Christ taught his Church and the spirit enlarged or expounded and the Apostles delivered we are to begin the Christian aera for our faith and parts of religion by the period of their preaching our account begins then and whatsoever is contrary to what they taught is new and false and whatsoever is besides what they taught is no part of our religion and then no man can be prejudiced for believing it or not and if it be adopted into the confessions of the Church the proposition is alwayes so uncertain that it s not to be admitted into the faith and therefore if it be old in respect of our dayes it is not therefore necessary to be believed if it be new it may be received into opinion according to its probabilitie and no sects or interest are to be divided upon such accounts This onely I desire to be observed that when a truth returns from banishment by a postliminium if it was from the first though the Holy fire hath been buried or the river ran under ground yet that we do not call that new since newnesse is not to be accounted of by a proportion
extraordinary spirit if they pretend to teach according to Scripture must be examined by the measures of Scripture and then their extraordinary must be judged by the ordinary spirit and stands or falls by the rules of every good mans religion and publike government and then we are well enough But if they speak any thing against Scripture it is the spirit of Antichrist and the spirit of the Devil For if an Angel from heaven he certainly is a spirit preach any other doctrine let him be accursed But this pretence of a single and extraordinary spirit is nothing else but the spirit of pride errour and delusion a snare to catch easie and credulous souls which are willing to die for a gay word and a distorted face it is the parent of folly and giddy doctrine impossible to be proved and therefore uselesse to all purposes of religion reason or sober counsels it is like an invisible colour or musick without a sound it is and indeed is so intended to be a direct overthrow of order and government and publike ministeries It is bold to say any thing and resolved to prove nothing it imposes upon willing people after the same manner that Oracles and the lying Daemons did of old time abusing men not by proper efficacy of its own but because the men love to be abused it is a great disparagement to the sufficiency of Scripture and asperses the Divine providence for giving to so many ages of the Church an imperfect religion expressely against the truth of their words who said they had declared the whole truth of God and told all the will of God and it is an affront to the Spirit of God the Spirit of wisdom and knowledge of order and publike ministeries But the will furnishes out malice and the understanding sends out levity and they marry and produce a phantastick dream and the daughter sucking winde instead of the milk of the word growes up to madnesse and the spirit of reprobation Besides all this an extraordinary spirit is extremely unnecessary and God does not give immissions and miracles from heaven to no purpose and to no necessities of his Church for the supplying of which he hath given Apostles and Evangelists Prophets and Pastors Bishops and Priests the spirit of Ordination and the spirit of instruction Catechists and Teachers Arts and Sciences Scriptures and a constant succession of Expositors the testimony of Churches and a constant line of tradition or delivery of Apostolical Doctrine in all things necessary to salvation And after all this to have a fungus arise from the belly of mud and darknesse and nourish a gloworm that shall challenge to out-shine the lantern of Gods word and all the candles which God set upon a hill and all that the Spirit hath set upon the candlesticks and all the starres in Christs right hand is to annull all the excellent established orderly and certain effects of the Spirit of God and to worship the false fires of the night He therefore that will follow a Guide that leads him by an extraordinary spirit shall go an extraordinary way and have a strange fortune and a singular religion and a portion by himself a great way off from the common inheritance of the Saints who are all led by the Spirit of God and have one heart and one minde one faith and one hope the same baptisme and the helps of the Ministery leading them to the common countrey which is the portion of all that are the sons of adoption consigned by the Spirit of God the earnest of their inheritance Concerning the pretence of a private spirit for interpretation of the confessed doctrine of God the holy Scriptures it will not so easily come into this Question of choosing our spirituall Guides Because every person that can be Candidate in this office that can be chosen to guide others must be a publike man that is of a holy calling sanctified or separate publikely to the office and then to interpret is part of his calling and imployment and to do so is the work of a publike spirit he is ordained and designed he is commanded and inabled to do it and in this there is no other caution to be interposed but that the more publike the man is of the more authority his interpretation is and he comes neerest to a law of order and in the matter of government is to be observed but the more holy and the more learnd the man is his interpretation in matter of Question is more likely to be true and though lesse to be pressed as to the publick confession yet it may be more effective to a private perswasion provided it be done without scandal or lessening the authority or disparagement to the more publick person 8. Those are to be suspected for evil guides who to get authority among the people pretend a great zeal and use a bold liberty in reproving Princes and Governours nobility and Prelates for such homilies cannot be the effects of a holy religion which lay a snare for authority and undermine power and discontent the people and make them bold against Kings and immodest in their own stations and trouble the government Such men may speak a truth or teach a true doctrine for every such designe does not unhallow the truth of God but they take some truthes and force them to minister to an evil end but therefore mingle not in the communities of such men for they will make it a part of your religion to prosecute that end openly which they by arts of the Tempter have insinuated privately But if ever you enter into the seats of those Doctors that speak reproachfully of their Superiours or detract from government or love to curse the King in their heart or slander him with their mouths or disgrace their persons blesse your self and retire quickly for there dwells the plague but the spirit of God is not president of the assembly and therefore you shall observe in all the characters which the B. Apostles of our Lord made for describing and avoiding societies of hereticks false guides and bringers in of strange doctrines still they reckon treason and rebellion so S. Paul In the last dayes perillous times shall come the men shall have the form of Godlinesse and denie the power of it they shall be Traitors heady high minded that 's their characteristic note So Saint Peter the Lord knoweth how to deliver the Godly out of temptations and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgement to be punished But chiefly them that walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleannesse and despise government presumptuous are they self willed they are not afraid to speak evil of dignities The same also is recorded and observed by Saint Jude likewise also these filthy dreamers defile the flesh despise dominion and speak evil of dignities These three testimonies are but the declaration of one great contingency they are the same prophesy declared by three Apostolical men that
harmlesse and without an evil sting 3. Christian simplicity relates to promises and acts of grace and favour and its caution is that all promises be simple ingenuous agreeable to the intention of the promiser truly and effectually expressed and never going lesse in the performance then in the promise and words of the expression concerning which the cases are several 1. First all promises in which a third or a second person hath no interest that is the promises of kindnesse and civilities are tied to passe into performance secundum aequum bonum and though they may oblige to some small inconvenience yet never to a great one and I will visit you to morrow morning because I promised you and therefore I will come etiamsi non concoxero although I have not slept my full sleep but Si febricitavero if I be in a feaver or have reason to fear one I am disobliged For the nature of such promises bears upon them no bigger burthen then can be expounded by reasonable civilities and the common expectation of kinde and the ordinary performances of just men who do excuse and are excused respectively by all rules of reason proportionably to such small entercourses and therefore although such conditions be not expressed in making promises yet to perform or rescind them by such laws is not against Christian simplicity 2. Promises in matters of justice or in matters of grace as from a superiour to an inferiour must be so singly and ingenuously expressed intended and performed accordingly that no condition is to be reserved or supposed in them to warrant their non-performance but impossibility or that which is next to it an intolerable inconvenience in which cases we have a natural liberty to commute our promises but so that we pay to the interested person a good at least equal to that which we first promised And to this purpose it may be added that it is not against Christian simplicity to expresse our promises in such words which we know the interested man will understand to other purposes then I intend so it be not lesse that I mean then that he hopes for When our Blessed Saviour told his disciples that they should sit upon twelve thrones they presently thought they had his bond for a kingdom and dreamt of wealth and honour power and a splendid court and Christ knew they did but did not disintangle his promise from the enfolded and intricate sence of which his words were naturally capable but he performed his promise to better purposes then they hoped for they were presidents in the conduct of souls Princes of Gods people the chief in sufferings stood neerest to the crosse had an elder brothers portion in the Kingdom of grace were the founders of Churches and dispensers of the mysteries of the kingdom and ministers of the spirit of God and chanels of mighty blessings under mediators in the Priesthood of their Lord and their names were written in heaven and this was infinitely better then to groan and wake under a head pressed with a golden crown and pungent cares and to eat alone and to walk in a croud and to be vexed with all the publick and many of the private evils of the people which is the sum Total of an earthly Kingdom When God promised to the obedient that they should live long in the land which he would give them he meant it of the land of Canaan but yet reserved to himself the liberty of taking them quickly from that land and carrying them to a better He that promises to lend me a staffe to walk withal and instead of that gives me a horse to carry me hath not broken his promise nor dealt deceitfully And this is Gods dealing with mankinde he promises more then we could hope for and when he hath done that he gives us more then he hath promised God hath promised to give to them that fear him all that they need food and raiment but he addes out of the treasures of his mercy variety of food and changes of raiment some to get strength and some to refresh something for them that are in health and some for the sick And though that skins of buls and stagges and foxes and bears could have drawn a vail thick enough to hide the apertures of sin and natural shame and to defend us from heat and cold yet when he addeth the fleeces of sheep and beavers and the spoiles of silk worms he hath proclaimed that although his promises are the bounds of our certain expectation yet they are not the limits of his loving kindnesse and if he does more then he hath promised no man can complain that he did otherwise and did greater things then he said thus God does but therefore so also must we imitating that example and transcribing that copy of divine truth alwayes remembring that his promises are yea and Amen And although God often goes more yet he never goes lesse and therefore we must never go from our promises unlesse we be thrust from thence by disability or let go by leave or called up higher by a greater intendment and increase of kindnesse And therefore when Solyman had sworn to Ibrahim-Bassa that he would never kill him so long as he were alive he quitted himself but ill when he sent an Eunuch to cut his throat when he slept because the Priest told him that sleep was death His act was false and deceitful as his great prophet But in this part of simplicity we Christians have a most especiall obligation for our religion being ennobled by the most and the greatest promises and our faith made confident by the veracity of our Lord and his word made certain by miracles and prophecies and voices from heaven and all the testimony of God himself and that truth it self is bound upon us by the efficacy of great endearments and so many precepts if we shall suffer the faith of a Christian to be an instrument to deceive our brother and that he must either be incredulous or deceived uncharitable or deluded like a fool we dishonour the sacrednesse of the institution and become strangers to the spirit of truth and to the eternall word of God Our Blessed Lord would not have his disciples to swear at all no not in publick Judicature if the necessities of the world would permit him to be obeyed If Christians will live according to the religion the word of a Christian were sufficient instrument to give testimony and to make promises to secure a faith and upon that supposition oathes were uselesse and therefore forbidden because there could be no necessity to invoke Gods name in promises or affirmations if men were indeed Christians and therefore in that case would be a taking it in vain but because many are not and they that are in name oftentimes are so in nothing else it became necessary that man should swear in judgment and in publick courts but consider who it was that invented and made the necessitie of
oaths of bonds of securities of statutes extents judgements and all the artifices of humane diffidence and dishonesty These things were indeed found out by men but the necessity of these was from him that is the father of lies from him that hath made many faire promises but never kept any or if he did it was to do a bigger mischief to cozen the more for so does the Devil He promises rich harvests and blasts the corn in the spring he tells his servants they shall be rich and fills them with beggerly qualities makes them base and indigent greedy and penurious and they that serve him intirely as witches and such miserable persons never can be rich if he promises health then men grow confident and intemperate and do such things whereby they shall die the sooner and die longer they shall die eternally He deceives men in their trust and frustrates their hopes and eludes their expectations and his promises have a period set beyond which they cannot be true For wicked men shall enjoy a faire fortune but till their appointed time and then it ends imperfect and most accomplished misery and therefore even in this performance he deceives them most of all promising and performing coloured stones and glasse-gems that he may cozen them of their glorious inheritance All fraudulent breakers of promises dresse themselves by his glasse whose best imagery is deformity and lies Sermon XXIV Of Christian Simplicity Part II. 4. CHristian simplicity teaches opennesse and ingenuity in Contracts and matters of buying and selling covenants associations and all such entercourses which suppose an equality of persons as to the matter of right and justice in the stipulation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was the old Attick law and nothing is more contrary to Christian religion then that the entercourses of justice be direct snares and that we should deal with men as men deal with foxes and wolves and vermin do all violence and when that cannot be use all craft and every thing whereby they can be made miserable 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 There are men in the world who love to smile but that smile is more dangerous then the furrows of a contracted brow or a storm in Adria for their purpose is onely to deceive they easily speak what they never mean they heap up many arguments to perswade that to others which themselves beleeve not they praise that vehemently which they deride in their hearts they declaim against a thing which themselves covet they beg passionately for that which they value not and run from an object which they would fain have to follow and overtake them they excuse a person dexterously where the man is beloved and watch to surprize him where he is unguarded they praise that they may sell and disgrace that they may keep And these hypocrisies are so interwoven and imbroidered with their whole designe that some nations refuse to contract till their arts are taken off by the society of banquets and the good natured kidnesses of festivall chalices for so Tacitus observes concerning the old Germans De asciscendis principibus de pace bello in conviviis consultant tanquam nullo magis tempore ad simplices cogitationes pateat animus aut ad magnas incalescat as if then they were more simple when they were most valiant and were least deceitfull when they were least themselves But it is an evil condition that a mans honesty shall be owing to his wine and vertue must live at the charge and will of a vice The proper band of societies and contracts is justice and necessities religion and the laws the measures of it are equitie and our selves and our own desires in the dayes of our need natural or forced But the instruments of the exchange and conveyance of the whole entercourse is words and actions as they are expounded by custome consent or the understanding of the interested person in which if simplicitie be not severely preserved it is impossible that humane society can subsist but men shall be forced to snatch at what they have bought and take securities that men swear truly and exact an oath that such is the meaning of the word and no man shall think himself secure but shall fear he is robbed if he has not possession first and it shall be disputed who shall trust the other and neither of them shall have cause to be confident upon bands or oaths or witnesses or promises or all the honour of men or all the ingagements of religion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 said Cyrus in Xenophon A man though he desires it yet cannot be confident of the man that pretends truth yet tells a lye and is deprehended to have made use of the sacred name of friendship or religion honesty or reputation to deceive his brother But because a man may be deceived by deeds and open actions as well as words therefore it concerns their duty that no man by an action on purpose done to make his brother believe a lie abuse his persuasion and his interest When Pythius the Sicilian had a minde to sell his garden to Cannius he invited him thither and caused fishermen as if by custom to fish in the chanell by which the gardens stood and they threw a great store of fish into their arbours and made Cannius believe it was so every day and the man grew greedy of that place of pleasure and gave Pythius a double price and the next day perceived himself abused Actions of pretence and simulation are like snares laid into which the beasts fall though you pursue them not but walk in the inquiry for their necessary provisions and if a man fall into a snare that you have laid it is no excuse to say you did not tempt him thither to lay a snare is against the ingenuity of a good man and a Christian and from thence he ought to be drawn and therefore it is not fit we should place a danger which our selves are therefore bound to hinder because from thence we are obliged to rescue him Vir bonus est qui prodest quibus potest nocet nemini when we do all the good we can and do an evil to no man then onely we are accounted good men But this pretence of an action signifying otherwise then it looks for is onely forbidden in matter of contract and the material interest of a second person But when actions are of a double signification or when a man is not abused or defeated of his right by an uncertain signe it is lawfull to do a thing to other purposes then is commonly understood Flight is a signe of fear but it is lawfull to fly when a man fears not Circumoision was the seal of the Jewish religion and yet Saint Paul circumcised Timothy though he intended he should live like the Centile Christians and not as do the Jews Put because that rite did signifie more things beside that one he onely did it to represent that he was no enemy
a distinct and a new message Prophets must not offer any doctrine to the people or pretend a doctrine for which they had not a commission from God But which way soever they be expounded they will conclude right in this particular For if they signifie an ordinary mission then there is an ordinary mission of preachers which no man must usurpe unlesse he can prove his title certainly and clearly derivative from God which when any man of the Laity can doe we must give him the right hand of fellowship and wish him good speed But if these words signifie an extraordinary case and that no message must be pretended by Prophets but what they have commission for then must not ordinary persons pretend an extraordinary mission to an ordinary purpose for besides that God does never doe things unreasonably nor will endure that order be interrupted to no purpose he will never give an extraordinary Commission unlesse it be to a proportionable end whosoever pretends to a license of preaching by reason of an extraordinary calling must look that he be furnished with an extraordinary message lest his Commission be ridiculous and when he comes he must be sure to shew his authority by an argument proportionable that is by such a probation without which no wise man can reasonably beleeve him which cannot be lesse then miraculous and divine In all other cases he comes under the curse of the non missi those whom God sent not they goe on their own errand and must pay themselves their wages But besides that the Apostles were therefore to have an immediate mission because they were to receive new instructions these instructions were such as were by an ordinary and yet by a distinct ministery to be conveyed for ever after and therefore did design an ordinary successive and lasting power and authority Nay our blessed Lord went one step further in this provision even to remark the very first successors and partakers of this power to be taken into the lot of this ministery and they were the seventy two whom Christ had sent as probationers of their future preaching upon a short errand into the Cities of Judah But by this assignation of more persons then those to whom he gave immediate commission he did declare that the office of preaching was to be dispensed by a separate and peculiar sort of men distinct from the people and yet by others then those who had the commission extraordinary that is by such who were to be called to it by an ordinary vocation As Christ constituted the office and named the persons both extraordinary and ordinary present and successive so he provided gifts for them too that the whole dispensation might be his and might be apparent And therefore Christ when he ascended up on high gave gifts to men to this very purpose and these gifts comming from the same Spirit made separation of distinct ministeries under the same Lord. So S. Paul testifies expresly Now there are diversities of gifts but the same spirit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there are different administrations differencies of ministeries it is the proper word for Church offices the ministery is distinguished by the gift It is not a gift for the ministery but the ministery it selfe is the gift and distinguished accordingly An extraordinary ministery needs an extraordinary and a miraculous gift that is a miraculous calling and vocation and designation by the holy Ghost but an ordinary gift cannot sublime an ordinary person to a supernaturall imployment and from this discourse of the differing gifts of the Spirit S. Paul without any further artifice concludes that the Spirit intended a distinction of Church officers for the work of the ministery for the conclusion of the discourse is that God hath set some in the Church first Apostles secondarily Prophets thirdly Teachers and lest all Gods people should usurpe these offices which God by his Spirit hath made separate and distinguished he addes Are all Apostles are all Prophets are all Teachers If so then were all the body one member quite contrary to nature and to Gods Oeconomy And that this designation of distinct Church officers is for ever S. Paul also affirmes as expresly as this question shall need He gave some Apostles some Prophets and some Evangelists and some Pastors and Teachers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for the work of the ministery till we all arrive at the unity of faith which as soon as it shall happen then commeth the end Till the end be the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the work of the Ministery must goe forwards and is incumbent upon the Pastors and Teachers this is their work and they are the ministers whom the holy Ghost designed 1. For I consider that either to preach requires but an ordinary or an extraordinary ability if it requires an extraordinary they who are illiterate and unlearned persons are the unfittest men in the world for it if an ordinary sufficiency will discharge it why cannot they suppose the clergy of a competency and strength sufficient to doe that which an ordinary understanding and faculties can performe what need they entermeddle with that to which no extraordinary assistance is required or else why do they set their shoulder to such a work with which no strength but extraordinary is commensurate in the first case it is needlesse in the second it is uselesse in both vain and impertinent For either no man needs their help or if they did they are very unable to help I am sure they are if they be unlearned persons and if they be learned they well enough know that to teach the people is not a power of speaking but is also an act of jurisdiction and authority and in which order is at least concerned in an eminent degree Learned men are not so forward and those are most confident who have least reason 2. Although as Homilies to the people are now used according to the smallest rate many men more preach then should yet besides that to preach prudently gravely piously and with truth requires more abilities then are discernible by the people such as make even a plain work reasonable to wise men and usefull to their hearers and acceptable to God besides this I say the office of teaching is of larger extent then making homilies or speaking prettily enough to please the common and undiscerning auditors They that are appointed to teach the people must respondere de jure give account of their faith in defiance of the numerous armies of Hereticks they must watch for their flock and use excellent arts to arme them against all their weaknesses from within and hostilities from without they must streng then the weak confirme the strong compose the scrupulous satisfie the doubtfull and be ready to answer cases of conscience and I beleeve there are not so little as 5000 cases already started up among the Casuists and for ought I know there may be 5000 times 5000. And