this book according to their Principles and as they use to do by others Before they have soberly read it over they will carry about the Sectarian reports of it from hand to hand And when one hath said it the rest will affirm it that I have clawed with one party and have girded at the other and have sought to make them odious by bringing them under the reproach of Separation and of censuring and avoiding the ungodly and that being luke-warm my self and a complyer with sin I would have all others do so too And that these Reconcilers are neither flesh nor fish and attempt impossibilities even to reconcile Light and darkness Christ and Belial And that for the sake of Peace we would â—ell the Truth and would let in Church-corruptions out of an over-eager desire of Agreement And when they have all done neither party will regard them but they shall fare worse than any others and will lose both sides whilest they are for neither I know it is the nature of the disease which I am curing to send forth such breath and scents as these And I intend not to bestow a word to answer them 5. And some of the wise and sober Ministers who mark more the inconveniences of one side than of the other and look more to outward occurrences than to the Rule and to the inward state of Souls especially such as have not seen the times and things that I have seen will think that though all this be true it is unseasonable and may give advantage to such as love not Reformation And to them I shall return this answer 1. That if we stay seven years more for a seasonable time to oppose the radical sin of uncharitableness we may be in our graves and the sinners in their graves and the sin may be multiplied and rooted past all hope of remedy And why may you not as well stay seven years more for a seasonable time to Preach down all other sins as well as this Is this the least malignant or least dangerous sin 2. There was never a more seasonable time to tell men of their sin than when the temptation to it is the greatest when it is most growing and multiplying among us When God hath been so heinously dishonoured by it when the world doth ring of it when many Volumes reproach them for it And when the sensual and ungodly are hardened by it in their scorn of godliness to the apparent peril of their damnation yea more to turn our complaints from our Law-givers upon our selves It is want of Love and it is Dividing principles and practices that have silenced so many Ministers and brought us into all the confusions and calamities which we see and undergo 6. But there are many sincere and considerate Ministers who knowing this which I say to be true will be the more excited by it to lead the younger and passionate sort of Religious people into the wayes of Love and peace and to save them from the dangers here detected and perswade them to the practise of these Directions And for the use of these I write this Book And yet to end as I began I must add these notices for your right understanding of it 1. That this is not my first attempt upon this work but the progress of what I have been upon these three and twenty years About fifteen or sixteen years ago I preacht on the third Chapter of Saint Iames in a larger and a closer manner on this Subject than here I write because the times then called me to it 2. I perswade no Christian to justifie or own the sins or the least defects of any Church Minister or People in their Worship or in their lives though I perswade you to Communion with the Churches persons and worship-actions which have many faults For on Earth there is no person Church or Worship faultless and without corruption I justifie not the faults of my own daily Prayers and yet I never pray without them 3. I am not perswading Ministers to any unwise and unseasonable Preaching against the dividing Principles of the weak when the necessities of the Auditory more require other Doctrine Much less to exasperating railings and invectives And least of all to wrathful violence But only with prudence in season and with Love and gentleness to lead men into the truth If even with Infidels and Hereticks the Servant of the Lord must not strive but be gentle to all men apt to teach patient in meekness instructing those that oppose themselves if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth 2 Tim. 2. 24 25. How much more must the Children of Gods family be used with Love and tenderness But if the fierceness of any contradict what I say I only add that it is not an unexperienced person that speaketh it but one who through the mercy of God hath long kept a numerous flock in Love and unity and peace by such like means and hath seen the lamentable effects of the contrary way 4. While I say so much in this Treatise against the rash censuring of others I give you not the rule for mens censuring of themselves They know more by themselves They may search into the depth of their hearts and intentions which we cannot do They are allowed to be more suspicious censorious of themselves than of any others It more concerneth them And they have more to do with themselves and may be bolder with themselves We judg others in order to visible Church-Communion by visible and publick evidence But in order to their preparation for the judgment of God we must direct them to judge themselves according to the truth in the inward parts 5. While I draw you to peace and moderation towards others I desire not to quench the least degree of Christian zeal Nay I endeavour to kill that which would kill it The purified peculiar people of the Redeemer ane zealous but of what not to consume and destroy one another nor to hate and flye from one another nor to vilifie and backbite one another but they are zealous of good works And Paul will tell you what are good works Gal. 5. 22 23. Love joy peace long-suffering gentleness goodness faith meekness temperance Be zealous in Loving all Christians as Christians and all men as men Be zealous for Peace If it be possible as much as in you lyeth live peaceably with all men Rom. 12. 18. Be zealously patient gentle good meek temperate And the works of the flesh are hatred variance emulation wrath strife sedition heresies A zeal for these is earthly sensual and devilish as Iames telleth you And remember that the word which is translated there Envy is Zeal in the Original But our translators were afraid lest the prophane would have mistaken it if they had translated it Zeal ver 16. where zeal and strife is that is a striving contentious zeal there is confusion and every evil work If you believe
aggravate the faults of all that are against their way As if every infirmity were a crime and had no excuse yea they are oft glad to hear of some miscarriage in them for which they may speak against them And very readily take up such reports and are the willing-tongues of slanderous fame And in all this their faction maketh them impenitent For they think it tendeth to the disgrace of the other Party and so of their Cause which they account an errour and consequently that God hath use for their malicious Calumnies to his glory What company can you come into of forward Christians but they are talking against those of other parties except a few true entire Christians who are throughly possessed with the loving compassionate spirit of their Lord and have received the true impression of the Gospel And if you mark the cause you will find it as a sectarian spirit that prevaileth against the Catholick spirit of Christianity And in no sect more than in those that pretend to be the only Catholicks and to do all this against the Sectaries as such What bitter lies do the Popish sects under the name of Catholicks daily vent not only against Luther Calvin and other Reformers but any that stand against the peculiar interest of their party And they that can get the upper hand-and by worldly advantages become the domineering sect do think that thereby they are exempted from the name and number of sectaries and that all are sectaries that question their authority and do not absolutely obey them In all their discourse the stigmatizing of dissenters is an ordinary part One side reproacheth the other as Hereticks and Schismaticks And the other reproacheth them as hypocrites formalists and pharisaical persecutors And every party think that all this is a part of Christian zeal and if they did it not they should be guilty of lukewarmness and neutrality and consenting to the sins of others And thus the Church of Christ is engaged in a war against it self And when all men should know them to be Christs disciples by loving one another most men may perceive that they have too much contrariety to the Christian nature by their endeavouring to make each other odious And all because instead of distinguishing the members of the same Body by their several offices and degrees we are grown to make several Bodies of them and to set one part against another How many a Kingdomes conversion from Infidelity hath been hindered and how many a faithful Minister silenced or reproached and how many excellent Christians slandered and vilified and how many blamless customs forms and practises accused and how many infirmities aggravated as mortal crimes by a siding factious disposition and to promote the cause and interest of a Sect. Therefore as you love your integrity and peace keep up an impartial universal love and honour to all Christians as such and take heed of a dividing spirit DIRECT XX. Be very suspicious of your Religious passions and carefully distinguish between a sound and a sinful zeal lest you should father your sin on the spirit of holiness and think that you are most pleasing God when you offend him WE are seldome more mistaken in justifying our selves than in our Passions And when our Passions are Religious the mistake is both most easie and most perillous Easie because we are apt to be most confident and not suspect them the matter seeming so great and good about which they are exercised And Perilous because the greatness and goodness of the matter doth make the errour the greater and the worse I have shewed before how easie it is to think that our Religious passions are all the works of the spirit of God For we are apt to estimate them by the depth and earnestness which we feel But excellent persons have been here mistaken as Iames and Iohn were And not only so but when the passion is up the judgement it self is seldome to be far trusted For it inclineth us to err in all things that concern the present business Therefore still remember the difference between true zeal and false And know that he that is upright in the main and whose zeal for Christianity is sound may yet have much zeal that is unsound with it First It is an ill sign when your zeal is raised about some singular opinion which you have owned and not for the common salvation and substance of the Christian faith or practise Or at least when your odd opinion hath a greater proportion of your zeal than many more plain and necessary truths Secondly when your zeal is moved by any personal interest of your own By honour or dishonour By any wrong that is done you or any reputation of wisdome or goodness which lieth on the cause Or at least when your own interest hath too large a proportion in your zeal Thirdly when your zeal is more for the interest of your party than for the Universal Church and the common cause of Godliness and Christianity and can be content that some detriment to the whole may further the interest of the party Fourthly when your zeal tendeth to hurt and crueley and would have God rather to glorifie his Iustice by some present notable judgement than his Mercy by patience and forgiving And when your secret desire of fire from heaven or some destruction of the adversaries is greater than your desire and prayer for their conversion The sure mark of true zeal is that it is zealous Love It maketh you love your neighbours and enemies more fervently than others do But false zeal maketh you more inclined to their suffering and to reproach and hurt them Fifthly It is an ill signe when your zeal is beyond the proportion of your understanding And your prudence and experience is as much less than other mens as your zeal is greater True zeal hath some equality of Light and Heat Sixthly It is an ill sign when it is a zeal which is easily kept alive and hardly restrained For that sheweth the slesh and the Devil are too much its friends The true zeal of the spirit doth need the fuel of all holy means and the bellows of meditation and prayer to kindle it and all is too little to keep it up in the constancy that we desire But carnal zeal will burn of it self without such endeavours Seventhly It is an ill signe when some sect or false-teacher was the kindler of it and not the sober preaching of the truth Eighthly And it is an ill sign when it burneth in the same soul where lust and wrath and pride and malice burn And when it prospereth at the same time when the love of God and a heavenly mind and life decay The zeal of a sensualist of a proud man of a covetous man of a self-conceited empty person can hardly be thought a spiritual zeal 9. And it is an ill sign wâ—en it carrieth you from the holy rule and pretendeth to come from a spirit which will
not be tryed by the Scripture Or when it driveth you to use means which God forbiddeth in his Word and putteth you upon ways which the sealed Law and Testimony condemn It cannot be of God which is against Gods Word 10. Lastly it is a suspicious sign when it is contrary to the judgement experience and zeal of the generality of the most wise experienced tryed sober godly Christians and so to the ordinary working of Gods Spirit in other men who are as good as you For Gods Spirit is not contrary to it self By all these signs you may easily perceive how the dividing zeal of a Sect as a sect doth differ from the genuine Christian zeal The one is a zeal for some singular opinion The other is a zeal for Godliness and Christianity The one is kindled by some interest of our own religious reputation the other is kindled by the interest of the will and glory of God The one is for the strengthning of a Party The other is to increase the Church Universal and promote the common cause of Christianity even when some particular truth or duty is the Matter of it yet the general cause of godliness is the end The one is a burning hurting zeal even the same which hath made matter for so many Martyrologies and frightful Histories by inquisitions torments prisons flames massacreâ— and bloody wars And the same which hath silenced so many faithful Ministers and disturbed so many States and Churches The other is a zeal of Love which maketh men fervent in doing good to others The one causeth men to revile and despise and censure and backbite and zealously to make all dissenters seem odious that the hearers may abate their love to them The other maketh us value all that is good in others and to hide their nakedness and to make them better and to provoke the hearers to love and to good works The one tendeth to divisions and sidings and separations and distances from our brethren and to feed contentions The other is a zeal for unity amity and peace The one is the complexion of the weak and childish the proud and self-conceited the peevish and surly sort of Professours The other is the zeal of solid knowledge and of the prudent humble meek and well grounded sort of Christians The one is a zeal which flyeth most outward against the sins of other men and can live with pride and covetousness and selfishness and sensuality at home such serve not the Lord Iesus but their own bellies Rom. 16. 16 17. The other beginneth at home and consumeth all these vices in the heart and as zeal increaseth humility and meekness and love and self-denyal and temperance and heavenly mindedness increase The one is easily got and easily kept and hardly kept under O how easie is it to get and keep a contemptuous censorious backbiting dividing or persecuting â—eal But the other is not so much befriended by Satan or the flesh and therefore must be preserved by prayer and meditation and very great diligence How hard is it to keep up a zealous love of God and Man and a fervour in all our heavenly and spiritual desires Abate but your diligence and this will presently decay when the fierce contending hurting separating and persecuting zeal doth need no such fuel or labour to maintain it The one is kindled by the enflaming censures of some rash and passionate Preacher that knoweth better how to kill Love than to cause it or by the singular conceits of some Sectary or Divider or by the backbitings of some Doâ—g or malicious Calumniator The other is kindled by the humble and heavenly preaching of the Gospel and by the meditations on Christs example and a study to imitate him and his Saints in patience forbearance foâ—giving others and doing good The one is a zeal which carrieth men from the Scripture to pretenses of such revelations and inspirations and impulses as have no proof but the feeling and fancy of the person or at least to abuse the Word of God and plead it for that which it condemneth It provoketh men to some unlawful practâ—se under pretense of misinterpreted texts and of good ends and meanings The other still putteth you upon good and striveth against evil and goeth for tryal of every cause to the Law and to the testimony Lastly the one is a zeal which pretendeth the spirit and yet goeth contrary to the common workings of the spirit in the most part of the best and wisest Christians But the other is the common vital heat which animateth all the body of Christ and actualeth all his living members and keepeth up love and holiness in the Church and is the same in all humble heavenly Christians in the world It will be of great use to you in order to your own and the Churches peace to understand and observe the difference between these contrary sorts of religious zeal DIRECT XXI Lend not a patient ear to back-biters much less must you hastily believe them when they speak ill of others But shew your detestation of that sin though they should be most religious people that use it and do it upon a religious pretence I Do not say that it is always unlawful to speak that which is ill of another behind his back Sometime wicked men will take occasion to justifie sin it self by the advantage of a sinners name And sometime they will magnifie the vertues of some wicked man or of some of their sect on purpose to cast reproach on godliness or to make others odious by the comparison Yet in such cases we must repress their malignity more by a defensive than an offensive opposition But the usual course of back-biting in all sorts of men is sinful The back-biter how great or learned or religious soever is but the devils minister to preach down the love of others and to exhort you to hate your brother or to abate your charity to him And he that patiently hearkeneth to such is a partaker of their sin And he that believeth them hath taken the infection Most of our odious thoughts of others and our false and uncharitable censures do come in this way For the most part men censure and separate and persecute most where they are acquainted least but go by hear-say and judge of men by back-biters mis-reports And acquaintance and familiarity usually reconcileth them and sheweth them their errour You think it is a fair excuse for you when you either believe or report evil of another to say that you heard it from very honest and religious or reverend persons or you heard it from many and confidently uttered But God hath not allowed you to receive back-biters because they are godly or because they are many This very age and time doth experimentally confute this excuse In which it is so common a thing for false reports and news to be uttered with confidence and that by multitudes and many of them religious and yet neither truth nor ground
unity undisturbed peace and unfeigned Love but the very infidels and ungodly round about them did reverence both them and their religion for it And where did you ever see Christians divided unpeaceable and bitter against each other but it made them and their profession a scorn to the unbelieving and ungodly world and whilst they despise and vilifie one another they teach the wicked to despise and vilifie them all Seventhly I may therefore add that the Unity of Believers is one of Gods appointed means for the conversion and salvation of unbelievers And their Divisions and discord are an ordinary means of hardening men in infidelity and wickedness and hindering their love and obedience to the truth As a well ordered Army or a City of uniform comely building is a pleasing and inviting sight to the beholders when a confused rout or a râ—inous heap doth breed abhorrence even so the very sight of the concordant societies of Christians is amiable and alluring to those without when their disagreements and separations make them seem odious and vile As a musical instrument in tune or a set of musick delight the hearer by the pleasing harmony when one or more instruments out of tune or used by a rude unskilful hand will weary out the patience of the hearer so is it in this case and the difference is much greater between concordant and disconcordant Christians Who loveth to thrust himself into a fray And what wise man had not rather partake of the friendly converse than joyn with drunken men that are fighting in the streets Peace and Concord are amiable even to nature And you can scarce take a more effectual means to win the world to the Love of Holiness than by shewing them that Holiness doth make you unfeigned and fervent in the Love of one another 1 Pet. 1. 22. Nor can you devise how to drive men more effectually from Christ and to damn their souls than to represent Christians to them like a company of mad men that are tearing out the throats of one another How can you think that the unbelievers and ungodly should think well of them that all speak so ill of one another When the Lutheran flyeth from the Calvinist and the Episcopal from the Puritan and the Protestant from the Anabaptist and the Presbyterian from the Independent and all the other side implacably fly from them Can you wonder if the Infidel and the Idolater fly further from you all Mark well the words of Christ in his prayer Ioh. 17. 20 21 22 23. For them which shall believe on me by their word that they all may be one as thou Father art in me and I in thee that they also may be one in us that the world may believe that thou hast sent me And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them that they may be one even as we are one I in them and thou in me that they may be made perfect in one and that the world may know that thou hast sent me and hast loved them as thou hast loved me All these observations are obvious in these words 1. That the unity of Christians must be universal even of all that believe the Gospel of Christ. 2. That this Union should have some low resemblance to the Union of the Father and the Son 3. That it is Christs great desire and intercession for his Followers that they may be one 4. That their glory is for their Unity 5. That their Unity is their perfection 6. That the Father and Son are the Head or Center of the Unity 7. That this Unity is the great means of converting the world to the Christian faith and convincing Infidels of the truth of Christ as sent by God Open but your eyes and you may see all these great doctrines in this Prayer of Christs for his people Unity O that all the Christian Churches would try this means for the worlds Conversion Not on the impossible terms of Popery but on the necessary terms proposed by Christ. 8. External Unity and peaceable Church-communion doth greatly cherish our Internal unity of Love And Church-divisions do cherish wrath and malice and all the works of the flesh described by Paul Gal. 5. 21 22 23. I pray you consider how he describeth the fleshly and the spiritual man v. 14 15. For all the Law is fulfilled in one word even in this Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thy self But if ye bite and devour one another take heed that ye be not consumed one of another I say then walk in the spirit and ye shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh For the flesh lusteth against the spirit c. Now the works of the flesh are manifest adultery enmities or hatred variance emulations wrath strife seditions or as it may be read Divisions or factions heresies envyings murders c. But the fruit of the spirit is Love joy peace lâ—ng-suffering gentlenss goodness faith meekness temperance Against such there is no law And they that are Christs have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts If we live in the spirit let us also walk in the spirit Let us not be desirous of vain-glory provoking one another envying one another Obj. O but those that I separate from are guilty of this and that and the other fault Answ. Chap 6. 1. Brethren if a man be overtaken in a fault ye which are spiritual restore such a one in the spirit of meekness considering thy self lest thou also be tempted Instead of censorious disdain and separation bear ye one anothers burthen and so fulfil the Law of Christ which you think you fulfil by your unwarrantable separations while you are but fulfilling your fleshly passions When once parties are engaged by their opinions in Anti-churches and fierce disputings the flesh and satan will be working in them against all that is holy sweet and safe When united Christians are provoking one another to Love and to good works and minding each other of their heavenly cohabitation and harmonious praise and are delighting God and man by the melody of their concord The contentious zealots in their separate Anti-churches are preaching down Love and preaching up hatred and making those that differ from them seem an odious people not to be communicated with by aggravating their different opinions or modes of worship till they seem to be no less than Heresie or Idolatry If many thousands yet living in England or Ireland had not heard this with their ears yet Iames may be believed Chap. 3. 1 c. My Brethren be not many Teaching-Masters for that is the word knowing that we shall receive the greater condemnation For in many things we offend all which he addeth because the arrogancy of Sectaries was caused by the aggravating of other mens offences If any man offend not in word the same is a perfect man that is If you will shew that you are perfecter better your selves than those whom you account so bad see that
are not desperate and covereth sins instead of condemning without proof would equally cure them both And let me yet conclude with this double protestation against the carping slanderer who useth to falsifie mens words First That I intend not in all this any flattery of the ungodly or making them better than they are or forbearing plain reproof or Church-discipline nor any unlawful communion with the wicked nor countenancing them in any of their sins nor neglecting to call them to repentance Secondly That while I here name persecution my purpose is not to mark out any persons or party above others or determine who they be that are the persecutors But only to detect the deceitfulness of our hearts when we most complain of it and to shew that wherever that sin is indeed it cometh but from the same principle as sinful separation doth even from the death of Love to others Thirdly and I add that though I here aggravate the persecution of unjust excommunications or separations as robbing men of the priviledge of Christians yet leaving them the common liberties of men and subjects it is none of my purpose to equal this absolutely with that destroying cruelty which leaveth them neither and will not suffer them to enjoy so much liberty as Heathens and Infidels may enjoy or as Paul had under such Act. 28. ult DIRECT LVI Keep still in your thoughts the state of all Christs Churches upon Earth that you may know what a people they are through the world whom Christ hath communion with and may not be deceived by ignorance to separate from allmost all Christs Churches while you think that you separate from none but the few that are about you THousands of well meaning people live as if England were almost all the world And do boldly separate from their Neighbours here which they durst not do if they soberly considered that almost all the Christian world are worse than they But narrow minds who can look but little further with their Reason than with their eye-sight do keep out at once both Truth and Love It is a point that I have often had occasion to repeat and yet will not forbear to repeat it here again It is but about one sixth part of the known world who make any profession of Christianity and are baptized besides how much peopled the unknown part of the world may be we know not Of this sixth part the Ethiopians Egyptians Syrians Armenians the Greek Churches the Muscovites and all the Papists are so great a body that all the Protestants or Reformed Churches are little more than a sixth part of this sixth The Papists being about a fourth or fifth part and the other Christians making up the rest And of these Protestants Sweden Denmark Saxony and many other parts of Germany making up the greatest part are such as are called Lutherans And of the other half which are supposed to be more Reformed there is scarce any of so Reformed lives as these in England and Scotland And among these how great a number are they that you separate from If you look to the Papists their worship is by the Mass If you look to the Muscovians they have a Liturgy much more blameable than ours and have a few Homilies instead of preaching If you look to the Greek Church to the Armenians the Abassines and all the Eastern and the Southern Churches in Asia and Africa they also worship God by Liturgies much more lyable to blame than ours and have but little preaching among them besides Homilies and the Members of their Churches are commonly far more ignorant than the worst of ours even than the rudest part of Wales If you look to the Lutherans they have Liturgies and Ceremonies and Images in their Churches though not adored and have far worse Preachers and of worse lives and more unprofitable preaching than is usually found with us and the people more ignorant and vicious If you look to the remnant called the more Reformed Churches in Holland France Helvetia Germany though they have much less of Liturgy or Ceremonies yet are their Church-members usually as ignorant as ours and more addicted to intemperance and there is no less scandal in their lives than among ours Now this being the true state of the world and though we daily pray that it may be better yet it is no better I would only intreat you but to think of it as it is and that to answer me deliberately these few Questions Quest. 1. Do you believe that all baptized professed Christians not denying any essential part of Christianity are Christs Universal Visible Church Qu. 2. Do you not believe that this Church is only One and that every particular Church and every Christian is a part of it Qu. 3. Do you not believe that it is unlawful in any case whatsoever to separate from it And that to separate from the Universal Visible Church is visibly to separate from Christ Qu. 4. Do you not believe that to give a Bill of Divorce to the Universal Church or to many hundred parts of it or to any one part and to declare that they are none of the Church of Christ is not great arrogancy and injury to men and unto Christ himself Qu. 5. Dare you say before God Let me have no part in any of the prayers of all these Churches on earth who use a Liturgy as culpable as ours because I will have no Communion with them Do you set so light by your part in their prayers Q. 6. If you travelled or lived in Abassia Armenia Greece or any Christian Country where their worship is not Idolatry nor substantially wicked nor they force not the worshippers to any false Oaths subscriptions or other actual sin would you refuse all communion with them and all publick worshipping of God Or would you not rather joyn with them than with no Church at all Qâ— 7. When you remember on the Lords days that now all the Christian world are congregate and are calling upon God and praising him in the name of one Christ and in the profession of one Faith dare you think of being a Body separated from them all And can you think that Christ disowneth them all save you Qu. 8. Can you think it agreeable to the gracious nature design and office of Jesus Christ to cast off and condemn so many hundred parts of the Church-universal and to accept that one part only which you joyn with Judge by his actions and expressions in the Scriptures Qu. 9. If there were bâ—t ten persons of your mind in all the world would you believe that God would save none but those ten or accept the worship of no more or that it were lawful to have communion with none but those ten If not how can you think so in a case so neer it Qu. 10. Can you prove that Christ doth separate from all the Christians of the world which you separate from or that they have no visible Commâ—nion with him or
with authority and used to awaken them with an He that hath ears to hear let him hear did yet convert no more than he did what can we expect upon our drowsie and dry discourses but drowsiness in the hearers if not contempt Fifthly And alas the private work of the Ministery is done as poorly by too many who do pretty well in publick as if they knew not that it is any considerable part of their employment or as if indeed they believed not the immortality and preciousness of souls And if the praise of men constrained them not to do the publick part somewhat better they would become contemptible burthens of the Church Sixthly the great duty of Catechizing is so much neglected that few of the people understand the great fundamental truths and few are instructed in the true method of the Christian doctrines who know somewhat of the matter of them And such defects and languor in the Vital parts will one time or other appear in the externals Seventhly Formality and imagery choaketh or excludeth the sense life and power of the most necessary truths They that teach youth the â—â—rds of the Catechism do oft content themselves with that much as if they had made them understanding Christians and leave them as ignorant sensless of the importance of those words as they were before ever they learnt them The foresaid unacquaintedness with the people and their weaknesses doth make many teachers lose their labour while they measure the common people by themselves and think that they can understand such words as they themselves can understand When they little know how utterly ignorant abundance are of the matter when they have learned to speak all the words by rote Therfore experience hath oft constrained me to say that after all their study and learning in the Universities such Pastors as did never familiarly converse with the poor and vulgar of the flocks and try the exercise of personal instruction and exhortation upon them are no more to be regarded in many controversies about the Pastoral work and discipline than an unexperienced Physician or Chyrurgeon or Soldier or Pilot in many cases of their professions Which maketh many learned self-conceiced Doctors become the plagues while they think themselves the pillars of the Church There are no parents or masters but find it presently in their children how quickly they will learn a Catechism and therein the Creed Lords Prayer and Decalogue while they scarce understand the sense and matter of any of the plainnest words which they have uttered And we find it is just so with too many of the aged also And therefore if by other questions and explications you put them out of their rode and teach them not to fix their thoughts upon the matter as well as on the words it will all prove but as the teaching of a Paâ—rot and not of a true believer And what I have said of Catechising is true also of Prayer Confession and every other part of worship In which the Hypocrites part is easie even the out-side form and lifeless image But it is the inward Life the spirit and truth which is the excellent heavenly and difficult part Eighthly And some make a formality and a snare of the gift of extemporary expression And by a preposterous care to avoid all forms they teach them not these Catechism forms with that diligence as the matter doth require But leave their minds void of those orderly well-setled second notions which should help the first And thus while some neglect the soul or spirit of Christâ—anity and others neglect the form or body of it betwixt them both it is too much neglected by almost all Ninthly Too many are meer wordlings and ungodly self-seekers and enter upon the Ministery but as a trade to live by and never had that humble holy mind themselves which they expect in the people But as riches and preferment and honour and ease are the things which they most seek so they do proportion and choose the means accordingly And when they have thus made themselves contemptible and alienated the hearts of the people from them they theâ— call them all that passion can suggest not for their sin against God but for crossing their carnal ends and interest Tenthly And under all this ignorance negligence and vice pride maketh too many of them to be enemies to repentance and to all that would bring them to it so that they are not so much offended with the people for their own faults as for disliking theirs scarce a drunkard a swearer in all the parish is so impatient of hearing of their sins as many of these high minded impenitent Ministers Nay so far are they from enduring to be accounted of as they are that they expect applause and great veneration when they deserve not pardon And they think they are neglected or treated unreverently if their ignorance be not called wisdome and their hypocrisie go not for the only pieâ—y and their carnal discourse and conversation for which God threatneth their damnation Rom. 8. 5 6 7 8 13. be not cloathed with some fair and honourable names And when they have thus set the people so pernicious an example they storm against them for not being more obedient to them than they themselves will be to God and for rejecting the precepts and reproofs of that Scripture which they have rejected and despised before their faces I humbly propound it therefore to my Brethren that if they have a people who despise their Ministery and turn away from them and speak against them and seek after other teachers that they would first impartially ask their consciences I have we given them no cause or occasion of all this Is it not long of us Have we so preached so privately overseen and taught them and so lived as that all this confusion will not be justly laid at our doors When we have first truly cleared things at home we are the fitter then to expostulate with our people And when we have pulled out the beam of selfishness carnalâ—ty negligence and pride out of our own eyes we may the better see to cast the motes of childish peevishness and discontent out of the peoples eyes DIRECT II. â—t is needful to the peoples edification and concord that their Pastors much excel them in knowledge and utterance and also in prudence holiness and heavenliness of mind and life that so both the reverence of their calling and persons may be preserved and the people instructed by their examples I Doubt not but the ministrations of a weak and of an ungodly Minister are valid and may be effectual to the flock And that the innocent people forfeit not their priviledges in acceptable worship and effectual Sacraments though a wicked Pastor may forfeit his own acceptance and reward with God But yet because there are none of us so innocent whose consciences may not justly tell us that we have deserved to be afflicted in that kind and
good whilest they think that they only despise the praise or dispraise of men We are commanded not to please our selves but to please all men for their good to edification Rom. 15. 1 2 3. Our power over them is upon their minds and wills and not like Magistrates upon their bodies or estates Therefore when we have lost their hearts we have lost our power to do them good They will not easily hear him that is despised or abhorred by them Therefore a prudent care must be taken that we be not prodigal of our interest in them lest it prove to be cruelty to their souls Secondly And yet if we give up our selves to their conceits and humours and forsake the way of truth or peace to keep their favour it will prove the more dangerous extream I have before noted the peril of Ministers and the Church by this temptation The rawest and the rashest professours are commonly the most violent and censorious And so ready to scorn and vilifie the gravest wisest Pastors who cross their opinions that many honest Ministers have been overcome by the temptation to forsake their own judgement and to comply with the violent to escape their censures and contempt But this is not the way to the Churches peace It may prove a palliate cure for a time to put by at the present some sudden inconvenience But it prepareth for after troubles and confusions First it will make the rashest and indiscreetest people which is usually the women and young men to be the Governours of the Church Whilest all their Teachers must humour them lest they displease them Secondly When you have followed them a little way and think there to stop you must follow them still further and never can foresee the end For that weakness and passion of theirs which crieth up one errour to day is pregnant with innumerable more and may cry up more to morrow and so on And one errour commonly draweth on more and one miscarriage engageth them to another And the last are usually the worst And the same ends and reasons which made you go out of the way to please them will make you still follow them how far soever they go unless you repent Thirdly And if you repent and leave them it must cost you dearer than prevention would have done And you might have at much cheaper rates forsaken them just there where they forsook the way of truth and peace Fourthly And you will by following the conduct of giddiness and passion disâ—dvantage your Ministry as to all the less zealous and all the more sober and peaceable of the godly And you will bring your selves into contempt with these for your levity injudiciousness and instability And so you will lose much more than you will get Fifthly And in the mean time you will be made but the vulgars instrument to do hurt you will be used by them but to confirm themselves in their errours and to further dividing and unpeaceable designes-Sixthly And when all is done and your consciences are wounded and you are made the heads or leaders of factions at last those of themselves that God sheweth mercy to will see their errour and when they repent they will give you little thanks for your compliance A sinful humouring of rash professours is as great a temptation to godly Ministers as a sinful compliance with the Great ones of the world I mean it is a sin which our station and disposition afford us as great temptations to For though to a worldling wealth and honour be stronger temptations yet to a godly man the applause or censure of those whom we account most wise and godly may tempt much stronglier And alas how ordinarily doth the fire of Church and state which flameth about our own ears convince us of our errour in following those whom we should lead O how many doleful instances of it doth Church history afford us There are not many of the tumults that have cost the lives of thousands about Religion but were kindled by the young injudicious professours who drew in their Teachers to humour them in countenancing too much of their disorders Historians tell us that when King Francis of France had forbid the reproaching of the Papists way of worship and silenced the Ministers for not obeying him many of the hot brain'd people took up the way of provoking them by scornful pictures libels hanging up and down in the streets suchridiâ—ulous and reproachful rhimes and images But this which was none of the way of God began that persecution by provoking the King which cost many thousands if not hundred thousand lives before it ended And the Synod at Rochel which refused the grave counsel of Du Plessis Du Moulin and many such others was stirred up by the peoples zeal and ended in the blood of many score thousands and the ruine of the power of the Protestants in France Abundance of such sad instances might be given if England need to go any whether else for matter of warning than to it self He that after the experiences of this age will think it fit to follow the conduct of injudicious zealots is left as unexcusable as almost any man that never had a sight of hell The dreadful ruine of Ierusalem according to Christs prediction such as the world hath scarce seen besides was just in the like manner brought about by those furious ones whom Iosephus calleth the zealots But if you will do all things good and lawful to win men and offend them by no unnecessary thing and yet stand your ground and stir not an inch from truth or seberness piety or peace to please any people in the world This way shall do your work at last Men will at last perceive the worth of sober principles and wayes At least when Mountebanks have killed most of their patients the rest will repent and wish that tâ—ey had hearkened to the counsellers of peace They that run round when they find themselves giddy and ready to fall will lay hold upon somewhat which is firm and stable Compliance with one of the contentious parties may make you cried up by that party for a time But the contrary faction will as much cry you down and your estimation is but like an Almanack for a year And they themselves that needed your sinful help for some present job will be like enough ere long to cast you off as is aforesaid And if they do not you are objects of pity to sober standers by And in the next age the name of a Melancthon a Bucer a Bergiuâ— a Crocius an Vsher and other such Peace-makers will be pretious to posterity when the memory of fiery dividers will be dishonourable Keep your standing and stick closer to truth and justice and peace than to any party and resolvedly give up your selves to please God and you will be no loosers by it And its two to one but at last some of the contenders will desire you to be the arbitrators of