Charge Holding the truth of God in unrighteousness or as in the next verse to the Text 't is phras'd not believing in the truth but having pleasure in unrighteousness as if that pleasure were flat without the resistance of Truth to keen the appetite as if the wayes to death were not plain enough without the light of the Gospel to direct them thither and 't were a glorious conquest through all the forces of Light and Love Mercy and Vengeance to do violence to the Kingdom of Darkness and storm Hell and Damnation This is the Charge and how it fits men for this doom and prepares them for the grossest errors I am next to shew The clearest Principles of Faith and Reason are not so convincing as the Doctrines of a holy life which as the light bring their own evidence with them and approve themselves at first sight to be holy just and good And the grossest errors cannot be press't with such palpable absurdities as any great and wilful wickedness which the conscience confutes not by formal argument but with pain and shame and confusion of face and leaves it no evasion or defence but that which amounts to a denial extenuation He therefore that is grown so hardy as to resist the strongest convictions of his own conscience and to baffle the painful conflicts of his own spirit who can hear and feel and despise his own condemnation how easie a conquest will he make over the weaker perswasions of his mind The strongest sense we have implanted by Nature or renew'd by Grace in our Souls is That of Good and Evil which because 't is the Guardian of our Innocence and Safety therefore hath God made it so quick and apprehensive The sense of True and False is much more weak and languid like the last faint returns of a dying eccho If that therefore be grown stupid how can this continue in its vigour When once a man is grown so sensless as to lay by all reverence and pitty of himself and to endure his own torments and reproaches he may easily despise the weaker chastisements of the sharpest demonstrations Besides there is no great sin but is attended with some proper mischiefs which touch the evil man in those parts wherein he is far more sensible and tender then in any the faculties of his Soul with which either his Body or his Credit or his Substance are weary and heavy laden And can we think the Articles of such a mans Faith can be dearer to him then his Health his Honour or his Estate which he so readily sacrifices to his Sins or That a contradiction should trouble his mind who hath no compassion left for these Can the harshest discords give any offence to those Ears that have been tun'd onely to cursing and calumny or the most ill-shapt unproportion'd objects to those Eyes that have delighted in the ugliest deformities of their own natures No more offence can the most inconsistent untruths give him who being past feeling hath given himself over to work all uncleanness with greediness Thus doth wickedness harden and enure the mind for the grossest errors and the more 2. Because it exposes a man to all temptations and makes him a ready prey for any belief that comes arm'd with the same weapons he hath been so often worsted with If Pleasure Honour and Profit can make a man a Beast a Villain or a Knave they may as easily where they stand for it make him an Infidel or Apostate If the smiles of a friend can strip a man of his Humanity they will shake his Creed which sits not so close to him He who abandons his Innocency for a little Railery would sure be quickly storm'd out of his Faith But what speak I of temptation He that persists in his wickedness in defiance to truth needs no Tempter being of himself propense to invent or imbrace the grossest lies For 3. There are two great depths of darkness whence all those Mists that be-night mens Understandings do arise an evil conscience and evil affections both which have their rise and growth from an evil life and do beguile men with a subtler sophistry then all outward imposture which borrows all its force from them 1. The evil Conscience works thus To the native delicate sense of the Soul the evil of guilt is very afflictive The remembrances of Blood Rapine Oppression Cozenage and the like are not onely frightful sights but cruel furies to a man Something then must be done for his ease he cannot live on this wheel nor lie down with this fire in his bosome nor can he shift off these Tortures that stick as close to him as the knowledge of himself does The common diversions of noise jollity and business will not alwayes last he must sometimes be alone and then the Tormenters return Thus like the evil Spirit in the Gospel He goes about seeking rest and can find none The onely sure and Catholick Remedy of Repentance from dead works which by the Blood of Jesus and the Promise of the Spirit we are assur'd will be successful is harsh and severe and requires cutting off the gangrend Hand and pulling out the enflam'd Eye and other rigours he can no more endure then the distemper 't is a long and heavy way to the City of Refuge and when one is there 't is but an imprisonment In this distress some Witchcraft must be sought to some easier arts found out to palliate the evil and asswage the pain And for this he hath heard much talk of a goodly and cheap Robe of Righteousness and a choice fucus of Faith with which he may so cover and beautifie the monsters that the all-seeing Eye of the most holy God shall not see sin in them In this disguise he presently puts them and having thus conceal'd them he apprehends no terror in them Thus thousands swallow this enthusiastick lye for indeed 't is very delicious and gives a great deal of ease to the vilest Sinner without the least trouble or distur bance to his Sin But if the man be frighted out of this phancy into a thoughtful mood and being arrested with the sense of God sees his nakedness through these Figleaves and feels that for all his finery he is yet in pain and something must be done besides this mummery for his ease he next casts about for what is easie not sure And being told that a slight exposing the evil by a short confession a very little attrition and a round satisfaction to the Church by the help of a few omnipotent words and in the close of all a little healing unction will infallibly effect the cure and lay these terrors Having so venerable authority for it he takes the opiate which lulls him into a pleasant slumber and giddiness and now he cryes Soul take thy ease and lust take thy liberty and whensoever the terrors do return 't is but repeating the remedy Toties quoties and all will be well But
A SERMON Preacht before the KING At Whitehall November the XXX 1673. By Roger Hayward D. D. Chaplain in Ordinary to His MAJESTY By His Majesties special Command LONDON Printed for Thomas Basset at the Sign of the George near St. Dunstans Church in Fleetstreet 1673. 2 Epistle to the Thessalonians 2 Chap. 10 11. Vers Because they received not the love of the Truth that they might be saved For this cause God shall send them strong delusion that they may believe a Lye THough the words do relate to a Prophecy yet I need not be so bold as to rifle into the doubtful contents of it to find out the plain sense of them Whatsoever Age or Place of Christendome this dreadful Comet foreseen by the Apostle directly hung over yet that it hath an evil Aspect more or less upon all is evident from the evil influence it hath every where scatter'd and we are not free from which is describ'd in the words that I have read Wherein we have these two things considerable 1. The sad condition of some men God shall send them strong delusion that they may believe a lye 2. The reason of it because they received not the love of the truth that they might be saved And whatever offence the phrase of Gods sending may give us as if Darkness could flow from him who is Light the reason assign'd for it will easily remove VVhat the strong delusion here threatn'd is the verse before my Text tells us The coming of Sathan with powers and signs and lying wonders such as our blessed Saviour foretold with this accompt of them They would deceive if it were possible the very Elect. Divers and deep have been the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the methods of imposture in Religion but the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it s utmost effort and choise master-piece hath been the counterfeiting those Credentials which God hath ever given to his immediate Messengers Power and Holiness it being contrary to his Perfections and an invincible bar to all belief for him to send a weak or wicked person on his extraordinary Errand How far the first of these hath been forg'd as by Simon Magus the person suppos'd by some to be primarily meant here Apollonius Tyanaeus and others we are told by History But the Devil hath long since at least among us laid by that old Engine as being unfit to ensnare an inquisitive Age But pretence of Holiness will never be out-dated the Sheeps cloathing will be a fresh and fashionable disguise to the end of the world yet neither of these delusions ever have been or can be so strong or subtile as to elude all means of discovery For though a lying wonder may be Mechanism or Conspiracy be so perform'd as to puzzle a very curious enquiry into the matter of fact only and a Sanctimonious vizor may be so accurately made as to startle an unwary admirer that gazes only on the outside of it yet a careful search into the integrity charity and humility of the person will certainly discover the forgery counterfeit power and purity tast alwayes very strong of malice and pride But thanks be to God we cannot pretend the danger nor plead the excuse of such temptations such is the honest genius of our Religion that it dazzles not our Eyes with any strange feats nor deafs our Ears with unintelligible sounds nor amuses our Minds with uncouth severities nor offers any other Proofs for it self then those its great Master hath left it save only the strange success of them against the will and interest of the greatest power and policy in the world VVe are then safe from this first evil unless we will be so humorous as to cheat our selves into the belief of lyes which is the second part of their sad condition To rake up the ashes of old Heretiques would be here as useless as unsavory and to rake into the wounds of our own Church to seek the Lye would be as barbarous Some Balsom we rather take from the words for the healing of the sore of the Daughter of Israel if it be not yet incurable viz Every false Perswasion doth not amount to this emphasis of error nor must we write on it the doom in my Text lest we fall under our own condemnation A small mistake may indeed as 't is menag'd grow up to the dimensions of a gross error let the vehicle be never so innocent the ingredients make it a deadly poyson But a lye is an error which carries its contradiction in its face not at the end of a long chain of consequences hookt artificially together which is so thick and palpable that not Faith and Philosophy onely but even Humanity checks at it as being repugnant to that sense or testimony which is current through the whole world And of this nature there are too many extant I will not search into this or the other sect or communion for them onely lay down some general undeniable Characters and whatsoever Doctrines or Propositions answer them I hope 't will be no rudeness or affront to leave the lye at their doors 1. Those that deny the being or providence of God cannot justly be angry at that reproach which they roundly put upon the whole world All men Jews and Heathens yea their very Idols and Altars and the whole Creation do with one consent condemn these yea so far do they contradict themselves that they give the making and menagement of the whole world to such a blind Power which they dare not trust with the care of that little pittance of it they call their own And however sportive men may in the transports of their pleasures be with God yet this argues the denial of him to be the greatest falsity that it needs so much confidence and wildness and contempt of all things that are venerable amongst men to support it Again 2. Such Opinions as do violate his Perfections or charge any thing that is evil on him that advance any Creature to his glories or degrade him to its likeness cannot escape this evil name Those that of old invaded his honour and gave it to others are said by the Prophet to hold a lye in their right hand and by the Apostle to change the truth of God into a lye And those that represent him as cruel or unjust as peevish and easie to be provok't and yet easie to be flatter'd are not the Idea of the true God but the meer Figments and Idols of their own devising or whether their own Images which they set up in pomp and then fall down and worship 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Evil men since they must have a God will have the making of him and then no doubt he shall be such an one as shall best serve their own purposes a meer imaginary Creature of their own 3. VVhatever destroys the evidence of sense in those things that fall properly under its cognizance or the sufficiency of moral motives
the Nation they live in as their Language their Habit their Laws and Customs are yet we know the great design of it is to instruct and encourage us in those things that may make us good and happy for ever and he that lists not to be so cannot be a true Friend to that Faith which should make him so Yet we see that Education Custom Interest and Prae-ingagement implant even in the worst of men a very tenacious reverence of their Belief but I hope we value ours upon stronger motives which though it be besides the design of my Text to recompt yet that I be not too impudent a Beggar of the Question the Characters I have given of gross and damnable errors will acquit if of the imputation of any such Search and try if there be any thing in it that tends to the denial of God the diminution of his Glory the countenance of Infidelity or a bad Life Then let it suffer in our esteem But if it be so tender of Gods honour that it won't venture to parcel it out to others upon the warranty of any critical distinction if it be so fair and ingenuous as not to impose upon our understandings and senses but subjects it self to the closest sober enquiries if it have so much esteem for true Goodness as to prefer it before all outward Ritualities and set it above the dispensations of any Interests or Powers whatsoever I hope it may find excuse with all those that are true Lovers of God Reason and Virtue But the great fault of our Faith and the sum of all those particulars 't is charg'd with is that it is too stubborn and nice and will not be commanded nor entreated beyond that Rule which the great Author of it hath left us and sure this should not be its reproach but commendation to those whose great glory it is to have transmitted the Holy Scripture to us if it offend in this 't is certainly on the safer side of a great modesty and an humble deference to our blessed Saviour and his holy Apostles Such an accompt of it as this But from his Royal lips who spoke and writ and liv'd and dy'd best for it next to the holy Jesus and his immediate Witnesses render'd it so acceptable to a profess'd Enemy of it Pardre Rhohose Confessor to the Infanta as the story is well known and voucht that he turn'd its Confessor in this honest acknowledgment If this be your Faith for ought I know you may be sav'd as well as I. But to return to my Text whatever accompt hath endear'd it to us nothing so much hazards it as a Pagan life and conversation There are two things men are commonly very fearful of in this case The weakness of their own Understanding and the wiliness and cunning craftiness of those that lye in wait to deceive As for the first however faulty simplicity may be in other things we have no great cause to apprehend it so here Yea the itch of Knowledge which drew man into the first fatal Error hath still continued to have the same evil influence whilst men are contented with that measure of knowledge which is fit for them and answers the offices and necessities of their Lives they are safe within these bounds But when they begin 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to soar above St. Johns Epistles to his Revelations and leave Charity to expound Mysteries disclose Prophesies and model Polities they enter into Clouds and Darkness and no wonder if they stray Gnostick is the true name of every Heretique Nor is the craftiness of Deceivers so dreadful as men make it For besides that the truly good man is seldom so idle or curious as to hearken to their Charms so his beloved Principles of humility peacefulness and submission make him abhorrent of them yea there is an awfulness in goodness that checks their boldest sollicitations but wickedness doth invite them as the luxurious Prodigal the Cheats and though their good Words and fair Speeches may lead captive silly Women yet 't is only such as are laden with Sins and led away with divers Lusts Let us not then impute that danger to these that is onely due to wickedness of life those do but assault the out-works this strikes at the vitals of our Faith and creates those strong prejudices to it which were they not aw'd by some outward regards would soon break out into open Hostility A sound Faith and a corrupt Life may be found together there are too many such monsters as Orthodox Reprobates men that hold the truth of God in unrighteousness but this they wholly owe to the restraints of the Divine Providence not to any inward friendship that maintains the union Didst not thou oh mighty God who rulest the raging of the Sea didst not thou likewise stop some means Principles from running out into their proper practices and other mens practices from setling in their proper Principles what a deluge of Infidelity and Barbarism would soon overflow thy poor Church Yet by whatever outward bond mens Faith is ty'd to them if it be not ingrasted in their Hearts and Lives it hangs but loose and lies at the mercy of any Engine to remove it that hath as much force as that which upholds it and let such ever bless God that they were born under a most Gracious Defender of their Faith God forbid we should ever again be fool'd with the old shooes and the mouldy bread of the Gibeonites to create of foment any publick jealousies the Language of which we too sadly know when they speak out is nothing but Arm Arm yet there is a godly jealousie the Apostle speaks of which we all ought to have of our selves which would call down our eyes from a busie prying into aspects of the heavenly bodies to behold the fatal Prognosticks in our selves which if we did consider would awaken such apprehensions as these in us How have we seen Truth approaching us with all the powers of reason sweetness and terror with all kind of demonstrations but the miraculous ones of the spirit and in lieu of them with the confirm'd experience of sixteen hundred years But what reception what success hath it found Let shame and sorrow answer If it hath escapt our scorn we have been very merciful to it and a cold patience hath been a high favour and now how indifferent must we needs be for that which we have treated so unworthily How easily may the subtilty of wit or the caresses of friendship perswade us from that which hath been our continual burthen which we have and do actually renounce 2. The best expedient for the defence of Truth and preventing the growth of gross Errors is the enforcement of a good life by the precepts and practice of it How vain and fruitless have Dispute and Controversie been how few Converts have they made and 't is no wonder there is a veil lies upon mens minds which must not be
to induce a firm Faith in those things which do not nor can't falls justly under this censure For greater assurance then these give us in their respective objects we cannot have and upon this men adventure all that is dear to them even their lives and he that is so much Infidel to himself as to disbelief his own sense or to the whole world as to refuse that security which is universally accepted amongst men engages himself in invincible jealousies of all persons actions and things whatsoever he may as well suspect the Food on his own Table as adore that on Gods and question any Record as well as that of the Bible So fair do Scepticism and Infidelity bid for the Lye that they cut off all the means not of all faith in God only but also in men yea of all knowledge and civil correspondence Lastly VVhatever errors destroy a good life and licentiate wickedness such for instance as confound the difference of Good and Evil that dispense with subjection truth honesty and mercy and the inseparable duties of Relations that decry the necessity of good works that establisheth a Religion void of Virtue a Faith without Obedience Repentance without Amendment all which do not by a perplext course of consequences but by a direct force set up Iniquity as by a Law The common sense of Mankind the universal Conscience is the most safe and steddy ark and repository of Truth firmer then Seths Pillars or the two Tables which can never moulder away in which all the virtues of a good life are so deeply ingrav'd that they are not to be eras'd without the violation of it Truth and Justice Charity and Sobriety are older then the Laws of the Sons of Noah and more durable then Mount Sinai they are the same yesterday to day and for ever the Data of all Laws the bonds of all Societies the hallowed soyl all Religions have been built on of which that is the best that is most exactly fram'd to them all men approve and defend these as their common Birth-right their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and are ready joyntly to prescribe him as a common enemy that assaults them The grosseness of any Error is not in the little remote absurdities that Art may urge it with God forbid that the misnaming or misplacing the terms in a Syllogism should be damnable but in the immediate mischievous effects of it if the next streams be deadly we may conclude the fountain to be poysonous and whatsoever Doctrine authorizes evil we may boldly pronounce it to be a Lye A name so hateful for the relation it bears to the Devil that I dare not affix it to any errors but such as stand anathematiz'd for such by the truest oecumenical council even the common consent of the whole world And now it may be wondered how in so nice and squeamish an Age such tough and unsavoury Untruths should be so greedily swallow'd and I might be thought were not such conceipts too notoriously own'd to have devis'd some Monsters to make sport with how men whose understandings serve them well as to other things should yet be so stupid as to deny him that made them or to make him such an one as they please or to turn Infidels to themselves and all men or lastly to think real virtue upon which their own all other mens comfort and security depend to be but an old Heathen notion a Levitical shadow as very a trifle in Gods accompt as in their own This may seem strange but the wonder will soon be over if we will consider the second part of the Text The reason of this sad doom Because they received not the love of the truth that they might be saved A sad charge as heavy as the doom That it imports more then bare Infidelity is plain from the words which signifie 1. An unworthy reception of truth they received not the love of it 2. The defeating the design of it were not saved by it There are too many that receive the Doctrines and Promises of a holy Life for that is the specifical sense of truth in the holy Scripture with scorn and contempt who disdaining the sneaking guilt of the triflers in my Text aspire to that of Blasphemers of Truth for whom therefore a more dreadful judgment then that here if any can be so is of old appointed Because you have set at naught all my Counsel I also will laugh at your Calamity I will mock when your fear cometh Others receive it with more civility with an agreeable countenance and behaviour but a cold indifferency as they would a stranger and if its approach dresse Language or arguing chance to please them their civility may improve to that gladness that Herod afforded the Baptist and 't is a welcome Guest for an hour A third sort receive it with a zealous fondness with Passions and Raptures yet not it but the phrase the tone the action that conveighs it For let the same truth be read in a Lesson in a lower key and with a more compos'd behaviour and it looses its warm entertainment And what is all this but flattery and falshood It may be the love of something that is agreeable to the Ears as sweet Accents or smooth Periods are let the matter be serious or frivolous or to the Fancy as such discourses as sooth mens particular tempers whether they are true or false or to the Understanding as a well-fram'd Hypothesis of the motions of the Planets But all this even the clearest notion of truth falls short of the love of it This admits it beyond all the chambers of imagination and discourse into the treasures the affections of the Soul seats it there in full power casts out whatsoever is distastful to it and subjects all things even its dearest inclinations to its Laws and whatsoever is short of this is but being slightly pleas'd or instructed by it not saved which is the second part of their charge That men look upon Salvation as a bare Reversion which hath nothing of duty or happiness in it on this side the Grave as it argues a strong love of their Sins so it doth a gross ignorance of the design of the Gospel the onely effect of which that should or can be expected from it here as it every where declares is that it save us from our sins without which the strongest hopes of Heaven are but the Dreams of a Fools Paradise If therefore men will not be better'd by it if notwithstanding its plainest Precepts highest Promises and most frightful Terrors if in defiance to the strongest motives the Blood of Jesus and the Bowels of God to invite them and all the Aids of Heaven tender'd to assist them and all the treasures of Love and Vengeance laid open to perswade them they will continâ—e in their wickedness and not be saved with whatsoever solemnity they receive they do effectually but reject and baffle the truth This is their