AN ADVICE Against LIBERTINISM Shewing the great Danger thereof and exhorting all to Zeal of the TRUTH Written by Edward Reynell Esq Ye have been called unto Liberty only use not Liberty for an occasion to the flesh Gal. 5.13 LONDON Printed for Abel Roper at the Sun in Fleet-street over against Saint Dunstons Church 1659. AN ADVICE Against LIBERTINISM IT is not the least of miseries in these erroneous and licentious times to see the thoughts and studies of men taken up for the most part in needless questions tening onely to strife and contention and not to that unum necessarium viz. the knowledge of Christ and the cementing of his seamless coat which was never so much and is still more then other divided through dissenting I might say distracted opinions the most part also bending like reeds with every wind of giddiness and self-interest a Religious stedfastness to sound and fixed principles being rara avis in these times of change and backsliding And with how much tenderness and grief of heart must it needs be resented to see Christ persecuted in the name of Christ his Word Ordinances and Ministers to be so much reviled and wounded in the house of his seeming friends and that our own swords should thus devour our Prophets Jer. 2.30 And truly great reason have all those who have found God under a constant and painful Ministry to be sad thereat seeing they thus prophesie in sack-cloth under a general unflexibleness and the great contempt and scorn of their calling A sad principle is taken up amongst us that we must have liberty of conscience to attend on what Teachers or Ordinance we please under which some take liberty for their lusts to attend on none O how soon having once with Hymeneus and Alexander made shipwrack of faith and the means to attain it shall we make shipwrack of a good conscience with it We need not with that famous Orator Marcus Antonius who to move compassion with the people brought Caesars Robes all bloody amongst them much endeavor to manifest the truth hereof and what further may we expect from such as thus go headlong on with a prejudicate opinion and resolving to admit neither debate nor gain-saying rashly adventure the precipice of their own fancy and endless Chimera's so often as the tide of novelties and giddiness shall ebb and flow in their unsetled thoughts obstinacy also being like dead flesh which soon makes the green wound of an error fester into the sore of an Heresie Never was there such a general defection of Religion as now it seems most pretended and held forth such general vitiousness growth of Schismes falseness in profession yea such indifferency therein without any true warmth or holy fire of zeal and godliness If any new doctrine be but commenced the Author thereof must be thought Religious And so backward are we to follow the Sun of Righteousness as that if in a dark night an Ignis fatuus do but precede us or the mists of error and ignorance come athwart us how do their glaring flames amaze our eyes as if those false lights were design'd on purpose to be our pathes whereas their Rayes lead us onely into into Rivers and precipices And doth not almost every hours experience shew how apt we are to embrace their discourses whose doctrine creeps and corrodes like a Cancer and hath justly driven themselves from the communion of the Church who steal into the affections of the ignorant with small humble and modest beginnings catch with flattery binde gently and at last kill privily their out-side of devotion though oftentimes outshinning a sincere Christian being but an ill bait to entice us into the nets of holiness and good discipline Since the more we appear for God the worse we are if we be not that indeed which we appear to be There is more danger of the Wolfe in the Lambs skin then in his own when once we begin to nauseate at old Truths and like flies about a candle to play about new lights it s a thousand to one but we singe our wings if we burn not our selves Those that observe the story of the Eastern Churches do alledge this as the great provocation of Gods wrath to bring upon them the blasphemous doctrine of Mahomet because they rejected the wholesom Truths of the Gospel But what need we go further to prove the sad experience hereof then Germany and God grant it appear not amongst our selves the same flames of evil Doctrine having unhappily broken out amongst us by those who as if they had been the spaun of those Gnosticks in the Apostles time account no sin of power enough to defile them because they were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by nature spiritual Some there are who leading silly women captive serve their ends upon the impotency of the Sex mixing scandal with their heresie Others there are who having surprised their will and possest their understanding with fair pretences of their false doctrine our nature being too apte to believe what we have a minde to presently conclude it Orthodox because spreading like icterical eyes transmitting the species to the soul with colours of their own making and we find the most pleasing doctrine to be ever the most taking it being the weakness of the Organ which thus makes us blear-eyed and carries us headlong into the Precipice of our corrupt humors wherein every man is so subject to hug his own opinion to hold his hand between the Sun and his face and yet stand staring upon every meteor and inflamed Comet And are there not some who having their zeal kindled at the wrong end and like nothing so well as that which goeth cross to the grain of Authority when they are looked on will seem to act vertue with much pompousness and outward bravery but when the Theatre is empty will put off their upper garment and retire into their primitive vileness Are there not some sad Christians benighted in the dark interest of coveteousness and ambition which too often heighren and serue up an external zeal by the wooden pins of worldly espects and make no more account of Religion then the profit or conveniency it brings with it Thus any thing seems lawful enough to some men that serves the ends of their ambition who yet are scrupulous enough in cases of conscience when nothing of interest doth intervene so sadly do evil men in these dayes make Religion the servant of interest their designs being therefore the fouler by how much the more they need to put on a fair out-side But herein it being bad sinning in a Religious habit we ought not to frame our devotions to their pattern how specious so ever they may seem to be according to the model of their own fancies these being but the colours of Religion with which the world is too often deceived by those who cover their Religion with a remote design least it should appear unhandsome in its own dress Our understandings being
so many Archimedes who seek for a place out of the world to set foot in of purpose to turn the world topsie turvey it would not be that so many hideous monsters of heresies of impiety and Atheism should so uncontrolably throw forth Blasphemies against Religion And doth not Religion and the glory of God herein suffer diminution doth not our Nation labor under general convulsions Hath it not been wasted through unheard of lacerations Is it not I say through the terrible and monstruous spreadings of Atheism and self-will'd opinions under which the Church of God now laboreth and the oppressive sighs of a mourning people are almoost tired out with tedious disappointments Surely he that sees the Church of God once glorious and triumphing to be now so full of rubbish and desormity he that sees her now complaining bedew'd with tears sitting in the dust and almost drown'd in cares and sorrows must needs cry out with the Prophet Lam. 1.1 How doth the City sit solitary that was full of people how is she becom as a widdow she that was great among the Nations and Princess among the Provinces how is she become tributary All that is just prudent and moderate now tasteth too much of common other paths must be found to heaven new ways must be cut out from God under the mould of our own Fancy to make him known unto us every one thinking that opinion most probable which he hath taken upon byasse of his own understanding And hence is it that so often we court a fancy or body of smoak thinking to entertain a Truth having much of affectation but least of effect since we tie our selves to a rotten branch in stead of adhering to the body of the Tree Hence is it that we see so many in the seemings of affected Piety who so well act all countenances as if with such merchandize Paradise were to be purchased being yet in heart like those pearls which in stead of a solid body have nothing but the husk And is it not from this that so many take devotion as a slight pastime others but as a slight complement that some bend that way for complacency of humors others for vain-glory yea too many are thereto transported for some slender cloak of liberty and certain accommodations of their proper interest expressing an unseemly devotion of Apish tricks which consist in a certain light and childish imitation of countenances and gestures without any solidity in the interior Oprodigy now adays to see so many who are only bold to do ill but in undertakings made for God and his truth have hearts of wax and souls trembling like leaves under the breath of windes As there is almost nothing so pittiful as a Prince disarmed who serves onely as a But to reproaches and a sport to insolency so what Rock would not be mollified among so many direful objects what eye office would not melt among so many spectacles of sadness to behold God disroabed of his Honor his Truths his Ordinances by those who being drowned in the inundation of impleties follow him by a muddy search rather then by a clear acquist Is not this to betray Religion which of it self is fair and glorious And do we not hereby give occasion to exorbitant souls to justifie their sins by our evil deportments who think that by depainting vice with a coal in another they make themselves as white as snow what need we thus go about to entertain ill-grounded fantasies and as sorceresses darken the glorious eye of the day with their charms to cloud our faith by renouncing the light of truth by embracing the dusky vapors of our own inventions Are not the Truths of God hitherto held forth unto us sufficient Why then by disentombing those Heresies which were long since enterred do we draw on us the Character of Infidels which will at last serve us to no other purpose but to reproach us in the eternity of our pains with the exorbitance of our infamy They who adulterate metals and poison the sources of lively fountains do less hurt then those who use their own interest for Text their ignorance for glosse and their passion for commentary Neither do those who desire to establish false things gain ought else upon the credulity of humane spirits but to make Truth to be the more doubted For as ill habites are easily made to slide into the hearts of children by imitation of parents or corruption of evil company so error illaqueates some men and opinion sets the complexion upon the procedures of the most And what is this but to oppose the shadow to the light and a lye to the truth Nay do we not herein set up Reason as Judge and resolve our Faith into Reason an error of too many in these dayes Do we not give vice the colour of vertue and keep truth in Iron chains yea which is worse imitate the sorcerers who imploy the Bible to fortifie their enchantments Experience hath of late too sadly told us that there is nothing which so much tempts Curiosity as Religion from whence it comes that as Jonah's ship every one seems to call upon his own God that the figure so much encroacheth upon the body and that like men smitten with blindnesse we are led into Samaria in stead of going to Dothan 2 King 6.19 But where we see any thus pretend to have new instincts towards discoveries above and beyond Scripture let us with the Apostle Col. 2.18 19. make it a marke of seducers to intrude into things they have not seen and however in the esteem of some they are as eminent as Apostles or an Angel of God yet if they once throw aside this glass introducing new and strange Doctrines though under great humility and shews of love if they go about to cause divisions if they forsake Ordinances vilifie Ministers and the old way of holy walking with God we are bound not to receive but to avoid them least we be deceived as Adam was and lose that knowledge of God which once we had Alas why should we thus betray the glory of God why do we thus batter his inheritance Are not our continued divisions the cause that the wayes to Sion do mourn that her Priests sigh and she is afflicted that all her beauty is departed her princes are become like Harts that finde no pasture and are gone without strength before the pursuer Lament 1.4.6 Have not our breaches been the inrode of so many licentious enormities Is it not from the fruitful mother of dissentions that so many impieties and the Authors thereof have increast amongst us and though not acted by command yet tolerated by connivance What is it â—he that hath so much disobliged the desires and frustrated the expectations of all men How comes it that their minds are dejected and their vertues disheartned whence comes it that the Magistracy is so vilipended the Ministry contemn'd and all things seem perverted was it not by the too furious
marchings of those Jehu's who at first made way to their ambitious expectations by all designs either violent or fradulent and whose best lustures have since proved but a foil to Religion that piety languisheth Religion fainteth that charity is accounted scandalous and superstitious that blasphemy assumes the uncontroled liberty of venting and that the beauty of Churches is so disgraced and sullied by sacrilegious hands Faelices nimium bona si sua norint How happy had we been had we learn't rather to live than to dispute had the waters of strife and the floods of contention been dried up how soon had that Dove with silver wings appeared amongst us Had that charity which is onely infused into us by the spirit of God but suffocated those super-seminated Tares of contentions how soon would it have cut off the occasions of those inhumane strivings neither would that black spirit of the Abysse have drawn men even from the Altar to run to the sword which they indifferently thrust into the bosom of the nearest Relations after which followed so many cryes and lamentations with such images of death still flying before our eyes as were able to wound the heart with compassion yea to move the most unnatural rage Hence it is that the godly evaporate into sighs and the convulsed world seems to mourn with the sad sence and apprehension of approaching judgement And surely he that now revels it in greatnesse he that sits idle amidst the complaints and mourning of the Church must needs be infuscated with the sooty vapors of an insensible heart Yea hard are those ears which bow not to the sad relation of our long bleeding miseries and hirder those eyes which can behold them without the moist testimonies of sorrow The Land grieveth for many horrid sins and may we not justly feat least Providence so often provoked by our renewed trespasses will cast us out as a prey to our enemies or that the Sun of righteousness may go down in our dayes It were to enter into a vast Labyrinth of discourses and reasons to represent at this time those various blasts of pernicious doctrine exagitated by factious whirlewinds since we may behold on the stage of the Church such a horrible sphere of Monsters and Tempests bloody Cornets and Arms of fire as the mali genii of seducing spirits cherishing so formidable a growth to abate our hopes and undermine our happinesse The highest superspection and vigilancy being therefore now more then ever requisite to preserve that truth which God hath espoused to himself and which we find the devil in all Ages to have raised instruments to disparage discountenance and oppose yea if possbly to over-throw in the rooting out of the Ministry and Professors thereof as being a spiritual Engine to batter down his Kingdom Neither do the present contrivances of those who I fear have long deceived the world with a laborious Hypocrisie since under the veil of Religion are concealed such flagitious and dangerous Tenents seem to happen by humane designment but as Cockatrise eggs long since hatching by that old serpent whose kingdom drawing to an end and having but a short time to reign there 's hopes these spirits and Emissaries who resemble the wooden Dove of Archytas the Philosopher which flew by engines whilst they had their operation and soared in the air but so soon as they ceased it trailed the wing on the earth will not long infest the air with their fulliginous breath And that God who draweth light out of the bosom of darkness and oftentimes suffereth not things violent to be long lastin will after we have profited by the experience of our evils disperse those amazing tumults and prevent the growth of that Atheism which everywhere abounds and threatneth ruine to his wayes as if some hidden poison had envaded the land All humane affairs are then only seated in the best station of felicity when they rejoyce in concord piety and unity of Religion it being an ill kind of solace for one man to compute his happinesse by the encrease of anothers grief And most miserable are they of all men who cannot be happy but by the miseries of another To what purpose is it to hold flowers to the nostrils when the body is parched and wasted with a violent feaver Heat in the opinion of some doth more hurt then the North-wind and stony spirits are not alwayes the most efficacious And who sees not that our Protestant dissentions have ever been the cause of our adversaries rejoycings As the sweetest influences are those which cause the sweetest effects in total nature and not sparkling Flames but invisible heats usually melt hard metal so who seeth not that silence and peace which are the two mansions of a good conscience are of much more worth then all the questions which enkindle divisions the best doctrine being that which best knoweth how to cement up concord But it hath been our unhappinesse of late that in the great vicissitude of things evil minds have too often intervened which vitiated the Councels retarded the endeavors and diverted the intentions of such who had a righter aim towards the advancement of the truth then such as were hurried into arms by a blind violence of spirit not so much for love of justice as greediness of revenge and under the vail of Religion labored to hide flagitious and damnable excessus Caesari in Dialog Caesarius a Geeek Author saith that Mill-stones having no corn to grind strike fire one on another And hath not the want of employment with particular reflections on gain profit and preferment interpos'd dissentions not onely among the neerest friends but often times among the Religious Against the unnaturalness whereof we find an eminent example in the magnanimity of David who could scarce be induced to a just resistance of his son Absolom though forcing his way unto his Fathers Throne through blood and rapine untill Joab had dissipated that languidnesse of his gentle minde And so detestable an undertaking was it held in those who were brethren by the bonds of Nature and Religion to sorfeit all civil respects to the rage of war as that if we take a review of the old Testament we shall find though there were many and bitter discords many tumults many wars yet they were ever against those who had collapsed into foul and apparent idolatry and the worship of the Gentiles Saint Peter 1 Pet. 3.8 in whose heart God had locked up the Maximes of the best Policy in the world invires us to be all of one mind to love as brethren to be pitiful and courteous And we find our Saviour in the Prophet Isaiah Isa 11.1 to be called a Rod and a Branch to correct some and to comfort others but is never termed a sword to kill and destroy Oh that the thoughts hereof would cut off all further occasions of inhumane strivings did our Saviour after he had triumphed over death salute his disciples with the sweet and amiable name
be willing to spare and keep it in the losse of the true Religion so must he deeds be sorry that ever he entred into the world when he considers the time to which God had reserved his Age to see the disasters and desolation of a place or people abandoned to the fury of Rapinous hands and the prophanation of the impious to see ravenous Harpys fatted with humane ruines to rush into those well feathered Nests which they built not to see whole Families loaded with injuries and the props of buildings to tremble with loud blasphemies yea to behold such fatal Comets which shall portend nothing but fire and sword to Church and State What an Edict do we finde published by an Apostle invested with Thunder and lightning 1 Cor. 6.6 And were he sent again into the world by Providence what would he imagine who then wanted patience to see a controversie about a field perhaps or a house if he should now behold those that claim the title of the faithful to oppose not a house or City one against another but even strive to precipitate whole Provinces yea a Nation into Rapes disorders and priviledged Plunders He that would not suffer one brother to go to law with another but rather to suffer wrong and sustain fraud would he have countenanced such inhumane spectacles with a Declatation of allowance as now appear visible in the face of this Age And if our Saviour enjoyned a removal of all scandals from his Kingdom dooming the Authors thereof to have a Mill-stone hanged about their Necks and their bodies cast into the Sea what will become of those who through their own ambitious ends as if God were bound to define all things according to their sense and will fall into division among themselves withdraw from each other and censure one another Wo and alas will brethren forgetful of their Covenant forgetfull of their Name and unmindfull of their Relations thus rage contemne yea destroy those which they ought not to hate Will not the people seeing so many Religions held forth as they think and so many severall wayes and minds think it is as good be of none as adventure among so many What just occasion of offence will hereby be given to the ignorant to the prophane and such as are yet unsetled in their judgement when either through pride or petulancy they shall see men change their opinions which a while ago they seemed to be so zealous for doth not this make them think that the rest may be as uncertain as those Surely it s an extream rage and furious dispair which thus expects nothing but the height of evils for its Remedy and how great a scandal the Lives of such Professors will at last throw upon the Church of God I wish the sad experience of the times may not too plainly manifest many no doubt having been kept off from the practice and approving of a godly life through the unhappy differences among our selves But that which is the soul of misfortune is the great contempt of that high Calling for which the Apostle thought none sufficient It is not denied but that God can make his Oracles speak without a voice and Oh what a great thing is nothing in the hands of God who can teach without a School and in a moment change ignorants into Doctors and Pesants into Prophets But what shall we neglect the ordinary means appointed in his word to lead us to him What can we expect from a Physitian that discourseth of war or a bare Scholar treating of the secret designs of Princes No more may we look for from those late Chaplains of Satans ordering who pretend good to do mischief and act his part in the attire of an Angel The spirit also is promised to lead us into all truth but not by fanatick Enthusiasmas The spirit of God speaks to us in and by but not besides or beyond the Scripture to hold therefore extraordinary Revelations whereby things were formerly made known to the Prophets or to pretend to immediate inspirations without the word is a delusion as monstruous as detestable and ought to be rejected as an instrument of Satan 2 Thess 2.2 and as the usual pretences of Impostors against whose fanatical conceits God hath sufficiently forewarned us 1 John 4.1 Galathians 1.8 The Scripture being written for our learning we are commanded there to search as the Conduit of Life and power of God unto salvation Of whom we are not taught to enquite at the Oracles of our lusts and Phantasies nor to be led by opinions of our own framing And surely the punishment of the Mongrel-blasphemer Levit. 24. should make all conscionable men afraid how they adventure this way to make bold with Gods sacred Name least perchance like the sons of Sceva they meet with some mad devils to whip them from their presumptious folly And yet to the sad reproach of a sinfull Nation may it be spoken none are now adayes more cried up then such as were never brought up in the Schools of the Prophets nor lawfully ordained to the Ministry which is now so commonly slandered by our Jesuited Sectaries telling the people that their Priests have deluded them that they have falsified the word which alas they themselves have too fouly wrested yea some of them have been pleased to call the greatest cheat could be put upon Christians But let the manifest punishment from heaven upon Vzziah serve among many other instances which might be produced as an example of terror to such secular Powers as will incroah upon Ministry and break the barriers that Providence hath established for the differencing of the spiritual and temporal authority Neither let the priviledge of Times though the barres of impudence seem broken down be made a colour to excuse any from Sacrilegious boldness who mingle mysteriously divine reasons with their own humane Fancies which as Queen and Governess ought to be chief Ruler and not suffragant in so sacred and holy a Subject Besides is it not an unseemly thing to see the sacred volume of our Belief-mysteries tossed up and down and plaid withall in every shop or kitching and that those divine Oracles which heretofore have been accounted Mysteries should be thus abused by such as go about sowing of schism setting of Errors and spreading of faction Surely so serious and venerable a study should not thus tumultuarily be discussed Gods word being a History religiously to be adored awfully feared and not fabulously reported The Jews and Mahometans and almost all Nations are with reverence wedded unto the bare language wherein their Religion had originally been conceived all change and translation having been directly forbidden And one of our Grecian Historians doth not without appearance of reason accuse his Age for so much as the secrets of Christrain Religion were so farre dispenced in publike as that every man might at his pleasure dispute of it and at randome vent his opinion of the same And certainly it should be