Zach. 8. 16. Execute the judgement of Truth and Peace in your gates By the third our soules health and happinesse are maintained while we see know beleeve and rest upon those excellent and saving truths which God hath in his word revealed to us in the plainenesse and simplicity of the sense not denying or doubting any thing but humbly and willingly embracing every truth revealed as it agrees to the generall rule and Analogy of Faith contained in the holy Scriptures this is Veritas fidei religionis The first truth wee gaine by senses and discourse The second by common notions or inbred principles of reason The third by divine revelation depending upon the veracitie infaâ—libility and authority of God No truth is to be neglected because it is a beame or lineament of God but those are most to bee loved and esteemed which discover God most cleerly to us bring us nearest and make us likest to him This as the most excellent and usefull truth I chiefly here understand which exceeds all others as much as the soule doth the body or eternity a moment And in this mens hearts are most prone to be negligent and coldly affected 2. Peace Peace in any kinde and under any notion is sweet and lovely {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Naz. We can better tell what it is by the fruition than description of it what health is to the body and calmnesse to the sea and serenity to the day such is peace which ariseth from the fit orderly and proportionable disposing of things It is a kinde of sweet divine and heavenly concent harmony or beauty of things subordinate one to another Such it is first peace in nature and the greater World from the wise and apt combination of creatures by symbolicall qualities so contempered that all agree to make up one intire body the World 2. In the lesser worlds of mixt bodies Peace is that {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} or {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} due temper and moderation of humours and parts which keep their true place and proportion Quá quodlibet corpus non minus appetit unitatem suam quam entitatem 3. In the rationall World Peace is that composednesse and tranquillity of the soule whereby all the inferiour faculties and the populacy of affections or passions are regular and subject to the rule and soveraignty of reason 4. In the spirituall world the regenerate soule Peace is the humble and willing subjection and sutablenesse of the conscience in all things to the Will and Spirit of God 5. In the Politicall or civill world the State or Church Peace is the setling and due ordering of things by just Lawes of government and by true grounds or rules of Piety and Religion whereto all submit It consists {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} in the right skill of governing and will to be governed When all agree in one thing all think speak and do by the same thing all conspire in one maine end the glory of God and the publick good which is the supreame Law when all are setled on one ground move by one rule and tend to one end Truth Order and Iustice are the only foundation and pillars of Peace in both Church and Common-wealth 2. The second consideration is the union of the two Truth and Peace In God they are united and so in every good soule well ordered Church or State they may and doe best agree together no firme or durable peace which is not fastned and cemented with truth so false and pernicious a principle is that of some that the lesse men know of truth the more easily they will bee kept in Peace that the way to subdue men to an asinine patience is to cast them into an asinine ignorance Whereas on the contrary no men or minds are more obedientially disposed to an heroick patience as to the burthens pressures and exactions upon their states and liberties c. than they who are best informed how little all these worldly things are to be valued having hopes of farre better And no men are more stubbornely contumacious refractory and prone to flame to rebellion and munity than they who know and expect no better or higher good than those of sense and present life who think you robbe them of their heaven God and all happinesse if you injure them in their estates honours or liberties Those subjects are most shie and prone to start from obedience and fall from peace who live by Moone-light of humane reason and senses onely which amazeth their minds with the shadowes of good in riches pleasures honours and liberties temporall and walke not by the Sunne-shine of divine truth which discovers the onely necessary excellent and satisfactory objects worthy of the soules love and acceptance for nothing is truly lovely which is not spirituall and eternall No such bonds of peace and unity then as the spirit of truth which ties the conscience to obedience and patience The wisdome from above is first pure then peaceable James 3. 17. So that they best may march together but first truth then peace Truth must have the precedence rather truth than peace Truth wee owe to God and our soules immediately peace onely to our bodies and states c. If one must be despensed withall it is peace not truth better truth without publique peace than peace without saving truth Truth alone will bring us peace the best peace Christs peace which the world can neither give nor take away Pax est omni bello tristior quae veritatis justitiae ruinâ constat That peace is farre to deare which costs us the losse of truth I meane great saving necessary and fundamentall truth 2 Where these truths are asserted study to adde peace to them that truth may root spread fasten and fructifie the more Nor is the publique peace to bee violated for every truth such as neither tends to faith nor much to good manners Dissidiis magnis controversis non sunt redimendae minores istae veritates Wee must not by contention of tongues or pens or hands so farre vindicate truths of lesser size and consequence as to break the peace of our affections words and conversations Let truth and peace then goe together in our loves and lives Truth as the root peace as the fruit Truth as the light Peace as heat truth as the foundation peace as the structure And certainely in the Church those tenets and propositions are likeliest to be true which tend to the peace of the Church as it was the true mother which pleaded against the dividing of the child And that peace in the civill state is likeliest to be lasting and sound which is built on the Truth of Reason and Religion both and not upon the fancies opinions dictates traditions examples and tyranny of custome and men Neither peace of Church nor State is to be purchased with the sale of Truth saving and necessary
a Statist or Politician to which I pretend not but as a Divine a Messenger from the God of Truth and Peace seeking to kindle and inflame your hearts to such a love of them as may be most happy to your own souls and most beneficiall to our Church and State in the good of both which you are all highly concerned and in nothing can you promote the prosperity of either or both of them more then in your Love and advancement of Truth and Peace May God the Fountain of Truth Christ the Saviour of Love the holy Ghost the Spirit of Peace assist me in speaking you in hearing all in doing so as we may shew a pure impartiall and unpassionate love of Truth and Peace In the words consider three things First the inference Therefore Secondly the objects propounded Truth and Peace Thirdly the dutie required Love Every word hath a weight beauty and benefit in it so that they well merit and require your attention First the inference Therefore The greater mercies God shewes to us the stricter obligations to love and obedience he hath upon us When our fasting and mourning are happily turned to cheerfull feasts our feares and jealousies cleered up to joy and gladnesse to hopes of better estate and times what doth God require of us but this Therefore to love the Truth and Peace When Gods infinite mercy and patience to us hath beyond expectation as well as desert brought back our Church and State from the brink and precipice of warre ruine and confusion which threatned our Peace From the spreading and prevailings of errours heresies schismes and superstition which strive to oppress or eclipse our Church and Truth That there is a breathing space a lengthning of our tranquillity put into our hands What doth God require of us by way of gratitude to him of loyalty to our Soveraign of fidelitie to our Countrey then to Love the Truth and Peace which are so happily still continued to us and by an active serious and industrious love to study the setling and recovery of them both Secondly the Objects propounded here we will consider First What Truth is Secondly What Peace Thirdly The union of them Truth and Peace Fourthly The lovelinesse in them which best appears in the benefit by them so as to merit our affection 1. Of Truth That question of Pilate to Christ will here be made What is Truth I answer It is a conformity agreeablenesse or answerablenesse of our mindes or things to their Ideas patternes rules or measures As that Copy is true which agrees with the Originall That weight or measure true which fits the Standard That impression true in waxe or paper which exactly fits the types and engravings That notion or perception true in the minde or sense which agrees with the nature of the thing or object whereto they are applyed Truth is the increated light of the intellectaull world shining from God to Angels and Men The first Idea rule measure or Standard of Truth is God his Will which I call Veritas Dei Whereby he is what he is essentially simply immutably by which he wils all things to be what indeed they are and knowes them to be such as they are most certainly This Sunne of Truth is in God never clouded spotted or eclipsed never setting or changing Eternall light day noone a constant serenity From this is the eradiation of Truth or shining forth of the Divine will by his Works and Word Which we call Veritas Rei and this is first Entitatis whereby things are such as God would have them to be and so are true and good Secondly Veritas mentis whereby things are known or believed by us to be such as indeed they are either made or revealed by God to us this is the truth of science or faith Thirdly Hence flows Veritas sermonis of dicti when our words and orall expressions are conformable to our knowledge and belief or things speaking the truth Ephes. 4. 15. Fourthly Veritas facti Vitae whereby our actions are conformable to what we say and seem to know judge or believe of things which is the doing of the Truth 1. Ioh. 1. 6. The Idea or pattern of our actions are our words of our words our minds and conceptions of our minds things themselves of all things the Divine will most wise powerfull and immutably good All Truth as being is originally from God as a Sea and Sun derived and must by a right beam and clear stream be reduced to him again and so it is when we do as we speak when we speak as we think know or believe when we know or believe as things are either made or revealed by God Then doth the ray or veyn of truth flow aright from God to us and reflect back again from us to him When in any of these we fail there comes in hypocrisie and simulation in our actions lying in our words error falsity and unbelief in our mindes when our actions contradict our words our words our mindes our mindes the nature and truth of things made or revealed by God whose will in his works and word is as I said the rule of Truth There are divers manifestations of truth though it be but one yet as light shining through divers pores or one Fountain derived in severall Conduits for the benefit of rationall creatures First There is Truth naturall or physicall in the Works of God which by sense and discourse by art and science we learn Secondly There is Truth morall politicall or civil which is in the enacting interpreting and executing of Laws according to the rules of Justice Thirdly there is a truth Theologicall supernaturall or religious which chiefly concerns our Souls and is immediately taught from God The first is in the Works of God and Nature The second in the laws and edicts of men agreeable to principles of reason The third is in the sacred Scriptures the only foundation and rule of faith and religion The first concerns us as creatures severally The second as sociable creatures joyntly in a state or Common-wealth The third as Christians in a Church and neerer call or relation to God The first requires our love to it as we love our selves in a naturall way the second as wee love our Countrey relations and liberties the third as we love our soules By the first the health and welfare of our bodies and pleasure of our senses fancies and minds are maintained while we know and enjoy the true vertues power and use of creatures able to apply fit meanes to our ends By the second the health of the state or body politick is preserved while Lawes which are the nerves and ligaments of civil societies are grounded upon innate infallible and eternall principles of equity reason and justice to which all men agree and being so constituted are truly interpreted and executed not wrested depraved obscured or violently broken this is veritas justitiae decisionis the truth in judicature
amend them are set beyond all question and disputes These let us chiefely study love and live by 2. If our love be thus rightly set to Gods truth he will take care to settle our peace to which we owe a love too and must shew it in the second place First by praying heartily and constantly for it Psal. 122. 6. Every one should thinke himselfe called upon in those words O pray for the peace of Ierusalem Prayer engages God on our side and calls in an omnipotent arme to settle strengthen and secure our peace Secondly by assisting really to the support and maintaining of it against the perturbers of it 1. By seasonable counsells and faithfull advise grounded on Truth and Iustice 2. By arming counsells with power and Subsidyes of purses and persons to suppresse all unjust and rebellious practises which seeke to violate our peace Peace is not safe except there be power for warre which is the guard of peace as power without counsell is brutish and selfe confounding so counsell without power is feeble and subject to be despised 3. By living orderly in a way of meekenesse humility and subjection in the feare of God and obedience to the wholesome Lawes established which is that we are taught by the truth of God Rom. 13. â— Let every soule be subject c. This I am sure will bring a man peace at the last If not externall yet internall which will be eternall 4. By searching out and exemplary punishing those that are the perturbers of our peace justly troubling those that have troubled Israel as Ioshua to Achan Psal. 34. 14 Thus seeke peace and pursue it by pursuing those that would rob us of it And certainely you will finde none are more enemies to and perturbers of our peace then those that are the perverters and opposers of our Truth either in judicature or Religion for these scatter and blow the coales of discontent in every corner that the whose house must needes be set on fire if they be not timely quenched And now give me leave by way of Conclusion a little to apply to you and my selfe the weight and force of this Text Therefore love the Truth and Peace Had we in this Church and State Right Honourable and the rest beene so happy in the love of truth and peace as we have beene in the long glorious injoying and the miraculous preservation of them among us certainely neither truth had this day beene so clouded and perplexed nor our peace so broken and distracted The God of truth and peace declares his displeasure and high indignation against us for the negligence coldnesse and ingratitude of many for the profanenesse Atheisme and malice of some for the superstition formality and backe-sliding of others How many are there that deny or despise spise or suppresse or oppose or contemne scorne and deride and corrupt and belye the Truth That the Prophets complaint may come neare our times Esay 59. 15. Truth faileth and he that departeth from iniquiry maketh himselfe a prey Nos patimâ—r longae pacis mala saevior armis Luxuria incumbit Long peace like faire weather hath raised up the vapours of sinnes to cloud our Sunne and trouble our Heaven withall which almost of us from highest to the lowest are not guilty of one or more of those forenamed degrees of neglect against truth which shewes wee have either no love at all or a small love a tepid and Laodicean love a shamefaced which is a shamefull love or a false and base love of truth not for it selfe but for our selves as our Diana the mystery by which our gaine or greatnesse are sustained If wee have not loved truth in peace were it not just with God to make us want truth in warre And because men received not the love of the truth he should give them over to strong delusions to beleeve a lye 2 Thes. 2. 10. Certainely God will severely exact of this Church and Nation of Prince and People of Preachers and Hearers an account for our long enjoyed and undervalued truth and peace Have wee so long beene a Vine planted and watered and fenced both to necessitie and omament by an excessive indulgence of God and doe wee bring forth soure grapes that neither please God nor profit men May we not justly feare what wee have deserved to be laid wast and desolute to be made a hissing and astonishment to all Nations that God should remove or extinguish the glorious Lampe of the Gospell in whose light we have not rejoyced because we have not loved it Love is an affection of union and fruition Doe we love the truth if we are weary of it tediously and peevishly affected to it willing to leave it and withdraw from it The loathing and nauseating of this Heavenly Manna as if we have had so much that it is necessary to recover and quicken mens appetites to it by a more scanty allowance of it is this to love the truth The tampering and essayes of someto clip or wash or new coyne or allay and abase with some Romish mixture the gold and puritie of our Doctrine is this to loue the truth That pure and refined Truth which hath passed the fiery triall hath beene baptized in the blood of many Martyrs sowne in a field made fruitfull with their ashes who loved not their lives so much as the Truth To set up lying vanities Pictures and Images and to cry downe Praying and Preaching whereby those toyles may be usefull and necessary to the ignorant because untaught people Is this to love the truth To suffer Idolatry or superstitious formalities in serving God to get ground upon our Opinions and practises Is this to love the truth Quae quo nudior eô venustior which the lesse it hath of painting the more it hath of true lovelinesse and native beauty Are not the lengthen and increase of Ceremonious shadowes a presage and signe of the shortning of our Day and setting of our Sunne or diminishing of our Light To quarrell at those Truths which have bin long ago determined by the Scripture in the publique confession of our Church and in the Writings or Preachings of our gravest learnedst Divines Prelates and others as in the points of Iustification by faith alone of Trasubstantiation of auricular Confession of prayer for the dead of worshipping before Images of fiduciary assurance and the like which some doting and superstitious Spirits dare to question and retractate Is this to love the truth What hath been done by Preaching and Printing by correcting or rather corrupting of Bookes where the correctors themselves deserve to be corrected your piety and wisedome may best finde out Nay such hath beene the shamelesse impudence and effrontery of some ridiculous heads that plaine and honest mindes shall be scorned derided and in judgling fashion cheated out of truth and the power of Religion which is a holy life if you doe not harden your faces and confirme your resolutions against supercilious vanity