for pity though not excuse Ignorance hath no praise but what it gains by yeilding There is safety in the greater and less degree of knowledge whiles the middle sort lies open to all assaults The greater doth surmount all captious apprehensions the less out of conscience of its own weakness submits to the guidance of more able judgements while the middle degree finds force enough to lead them into many labyrinths of doubts but none to conduct them out But if their hearts be not as faulty as their heads there is the spirit of meekness to restore whom the spirit of errour hath misled 'T is the Beasts in the reeds that marreth all A peevish spirit in a scrupulous conscience When love of contention would seem desire of assurance every straw seems a block How many foolish doubts are proposed wherein nothing is discovered but the weakness of him that raised them A weak brain and a wilful heart commonly go hand in hand The one begins the quarrel and the other maintains it To endeavour their conviction in stead of quenching the fire does but blow the coals Where satisfaction is but pretended to it is never received or if haply really intended yet if not received suspition is but augmented in either case further dispute doth more exasperate then reclaim They fear in arguing nothing but present contradiction which though they cannot scape they will not acknowledge and though they cannot divert conviction as usually they do by starting to some other matter if they cannot I say divert conviction they yet will smother it in an outbraving contempt A perverse generation which will not open their eyes to see a truth which either they do not know or not affect Nothing can silence them but either their own confusion or else the Churches And this is the first the beast of the Reeds a peevish spirit in a scrupulous conscience The second is Envie herein fitly emblematized by the Bull for who can stop an enraged Bull And who can stand before envie saith the wise man Prov. 27. Nothing is either more mischievous or lasting then enmity whose foundation is laid upon envie First where envie is there is confusion and every evil work saith St. James It is impossible they should be good themselves that maligne others for being so or that grieve not because themselves want but that another hath Not because themselves are evil but because another will not be so too Mischief must needs be their greatest delight whose greatest grief is anothers good Neither is it more hateful for its effects then for its continuance An injury may be forgotten where sufferance makes not the offenders more insolent But envie never ceaseth because that ceaseth not which occasions it Will you see one of these envious Bulls You shall find Zedekiah with his iron horns bellowing out defiance against Micaiah in the voice of exprobation Which way went the Spirit of the Lord from me to thee How hath innocence and desert been batted by the salvage Bulls of these times Goring the sides of their reputation with the horns of misprision and detraction And like that elder brother of theirs the fore-named Zedekiah blaspheming the Spirit of the Lord by ascribing thereunto the acts of that spirit that lusteth unto envie But more of these in the proper place Let this suffice for the second ground of their enmity The third is ignorance discovering its self in the Calves of the people Calves you know are but stollida animalia silly creatures do but follow where their Sires do lead them Those Calves of the Jewish Nation had never cryed up the Lord Jesus to be crucified for a seducer had not themselvs been seduced by those envious Bulls the chief Priests and Scribes who perswaded the people to ask Barabbas and crucifie Jesus I wist now Brethren that thorow ignorance ye did it or else you would not have crucified the Lord of life saith St Peter Ignorance is the mother of all mischief whatsoever it be that leads it miserable are the effects thereof Somtimes it is lead by passion which oversways the judgement Nothing doth more unman us then this vice a violent passion of grief at the prosperity of the wicked transported even David himself almost to condemn the generation of God's saints his own testimony shall be our warrant So foolish was I and ignorant even as a beast before thee Another fit of furious zeal for zeal is but a passion if it be not according unto knowledg enflamed Saint Paul to a bloody persecution of God's Church Somtimes it is lead by affection which blinds the judgement Great affection is subject to great deceit It first believes a possibility of that to the liking whereof it is enchained then strains the wit to find out arguments to prove it as possible as pleasing The possibility of it thus fancied begets a conceit that easily clothes it self in a contented errour Somtimes ignorance is lead by self conceit which seduceth the judgment The conceit of knowledge ruines almost as many as the professed want of it How many had been better taught if they had not thought they needed it not How many had been happy if they had had more knowledge and less opinion of it Knowledge puffeth up saith St Paul but that the conceit of it only should do so too is not more lamentable then usual Busie ignorance is ever accompanied with an opinion of wisdom Nor do such more offend in the opinion they have of themselves then in that they have of others They have a bad opinion of all that flatter not that good one they have of themselves Corrupt minds hate those that love not that which they like in themselves This is another ground of that enmity that springs from ignorance Let 's see a fourth Somtimes it is lead by a prepossession which prevents the judgement There is nothing more dangerous then an hasty admittance of any thing into our allowance What hath once won consent upon the Will is hardly removed Deliberation presupposeth doubt and tends to choice where choice is made and we are already resolved deliberation is excluded as needless and the errour is both swallowed and digested ere the truth is proposed and when it is it is rejected for prepossession begets affection affection is impatient of contradiction where we love to retain we love not those which would disswade us from it that 's another Somtimes it is lead by self-interest and that corrupts the judgement If godliness be great gain as St Peter saith what are they that make great gain out of their godliness A man may possibly reap secular advantage by that service which he does for God but not greedily affect it without the just censure of guilt Abraham would not be made rich by the King of Sodom Either greedily or unjustly to heap up profit to themselves in the prosecution of God's service is an undoubted argument that it was their own benefit and not God's glory that gave
first motion to those endeavours although the desire of gain may so blind the eyes and pervert the judgement as to deem the service will acquit the guilt of those corrupt affections Saul had never impleaded the intent of sacrifice in the reservation of the Amalekitish cattel had it not yeilded him some hope to wipe off the guilt of his disobedience thereby And although I dare not affirm yet I dare suppose that his words did but speak his thoughts and yet those thoughts gave no diminution to his sin because it was an evil eye first conveyed the motion of that service into his heart When men make self-interest the sphere of their actions they neither see nor understand beyond it And therefore St Paul made self-seeking one character of the Churches enemies All seek their own The primitive Christians did justly glory in the community of these outward things as one evidence of their integrity If this community did first help to support the Church for ought I know so far as it pleaseth God to permit self interest may help to pull it down These are the five grounds of that enmity which springs from ignorance The fourth general ground is pride which sets forth the men that delight in war The analogie holds in this Other sins hate the light Pride only loves to be seen The commission of other sins is attended with shame perhaps we are humbled for them too Pride only delights and glories in it self as therefore pride delights in its own enormity so do they that delight in war glory in their cruelty sober minded men wage war out of necessity and have peace for their end blood-thirsty and deceitful men raise war for delight and have tyrannie for their aim It is a prodigious pride in the hearts of these men in the valuation of themselves that think the blood of others a price low enough for their ambitious ends But all may not aspire there is also a spiritual pride which as it is more epidemical so is it more destructive to men and Religion Both the knowing are infected with it and the ignorant too It befools both and by a strange kind of working it makes the knowing more learnedly ignorant and the ignorant more opiniately knowing In both it works a delight to disturb the peace of the Church In reference to the first There is nothing more dangerous then knowledge without grace humility and charity The greatest heresies have sprung from the deepest wits Thy wisdom and thy knowledge have perverted thee saith the Prophet Isaiah Knowledge is good without which the mind is not good saith Solomon but it oft proves bad because they are bad who use it Those reaches of the brain which tend not to unity are the buds of fury not discretion and argue more a love of contention then desire of Reformation whether it be in opposing established truths by straining the wit to find out how reason might back their dis-affection to them or else by forging of errours by casting a fraudulent shew of reason upon those things which are indeed reasonless Either way yeilding an equal glory stirs them up to shew the bravery of their busie spirits And there is no ignorance so mischievous as perverted knowledge nor doth Pride work only upon the knowing but upon the ignorant also Somtimes by arrogating a conceit of those abilities which as far transcend their capacities as their conceit transcends their abilities The men are in a dream conceit is no more but that 's enough to beget a faculty supersentiendi by vertue whereof they are able to teach their teachers if these were as forward to learn as they were to instruct Somtime again by condemning all they cannot understand and contemning learning because themselves want it as if as that Oracle of humane wisdom did once observe reason were the only enemy of Religion and childish simplicity the mother of ghostly wisdom Thus doth their practise justifie the wise man's constant asseveration by pride only cometh contention Thus have I shown you that the Church hath enemies both abroaâ— and at home and the grounds of that enmity A word of their cruelty and then I will shew you what Beasts they be We can as little expect as find mercy at the hands of the professed enemies of the Church Their Religion doth as much commend as their inclination excite their cruelty But that the waters of the Sanctuary should be turned into blood is the astonishment of Angels as well as men Oh that the blood of the Covenant God made with men should be turned into a covenant of blood the engagement of Christians to devour one another A Turkish cruelty befits them who have practically translated Christ's Gospel into Mahomet's Alcoran Nor does the retained name of and profession of Christianity serve to any other end then that by seeming religious they may be more securely malicious Agreements in some points does but heighten the hatred occasioned by difference in others False zeal transports them fury knows no mean doth neither fear nor is satisfied with revenge Like as we see in some sudden tumults where there is store of pates there is store of confusion in which while any one breaks forth into outrage and mischief emulation and desire to seem no less zealous then he prompts the second to act the like or a greater mischief till some few hands hath conveyed the example to all So likely when difference of opinion causeth difference of affection it breaks forth into all hateful effects the heart is enflamed with malice that kindles the tongue to all bitter invectives hateful revilings terms of reproach envious detractions causless slanders false accusations The tongue summons up the hands to acts of violence and hastneth the feet to shed innocent blood till at length all the affections joyn in the conspiracy and help to set forward the mischief love to their errors doth excite them hope to prevail doth encourage them passion precipitates them and fear suggests necessity upon them to go on where nothing but ruine is expected in desisting for that Religion being a matter of highest concernment the undispensable prop of States the opposers thereof expect no favour if success in the defence thereof prove answerable to the endeavours and it is usual to shew no mercy where we expect none much less to expect any where we have shewed none they must be cruel Thus far of the proposition raised from the general scope of the Text. I must now produce the enemies themselves and will first draw them up and shew them in a full body and then set them in their several stations First the Beast of the Reeds are a certain sort of people that undermining the peace of the Church by a fained shew of holiness these heap up Teachers to themselves who make a breach in the quiet state thereof and are the Bulls of the Text who by bellowing out reviling reproaches against the ecclesiastical policy beget the Calves of
do what we have a mind to Or 2. Some violent prevailing fâ—ncy that hath stole first upon our affections then upon our judgements Or 3. A strong perswasion begotten by private ends and received growth from false principles Or 4. Diabolical Infusion for it must needs be so when injurious malicious and apparent ungodly practises are used for the promotion of pretended piety if it be I say any of these pretty Images which this new light hath insinuated into these men disguised under the name of Conscience what shall become of them What will they do when they shall lie under the stinging lashes of a guilty Conscience and the either dreadful apprehensions or unsufferable strokes of divine wrath and indignation both for their own breaking through the sacred tye and band of a just lawful ancient solemn and holy oath and cancelling all other bands of Religion and Reason but also as if men did not run fast enough to hell and damnation before for that they should hold forth this light to others to make them run the faster Seventhly and lastly Will a National Covenant restrain them No for that Covenant which they entered into for self-ends it failing to effect those ends they will as readily break and if they can work their desires into fruition by any means though never so contrary to that League or any part thereof Who fear not to take an oath contrary to God's Law will not fear to break if contrary to their own not so much as unlawful but as invalid Not out of conviction that they ought not advance their own ends by it but out of vexation that they cannot Thus have I shown you the Bulls of the Text. Now let us see the Calves of the people whom they mislead in their trains of errour They cause my people to err by their lightness and lies saith the Prophet There are no such plagues to a Commonwealth as seditious Priests The infection of errour is worse then the guilt it no sooner finds approbation in one but it borrows his perswasions for entertainment in another But keep we to the Bulls the grand ring-leaders of all how many pernicious Tenents have found both allowance and entertainment in vulgar minds from the authority of them whose positions they have found to jump with their own affections and private ends whence proceeds an admiration of their persons for advantage sake as the Apostle speaks which comes at length to a belief of the infallibility of their positions in all things whom they finde uncontrollable in some and remark'd for men that pretend to a greater measure of sanctity then others Now when these begin to make a breach in Church those incitations against the present state of things never want favourable audience which have prepared their way by the opinion of their holiness from whom they proceed with what spungy souls do these poor Calves soak in these waters of the Sanctuary which their applauded Teachers have either ignorantly or deceitfully corrupted to intoxicate them They are first induced to believe then to defend and the bold predictions of success from the Zedekiahs of the times and a mischievous confidence in the swelling numbers of their partisans gives them encouragement to all acts of violence and outrage Wicked men ask no leave to do when they find their hearts in their hands I mean their power answerable to their will And now travelling with the pangs of a false zeal they fall in labour of a monstrous Reformation Religion and Liberty of Conscience are made the grounds of their quarrel An easie perswasion wins the assistance of the Vulgar to those attempts whereby they are taught to believe they shall at once do service to God and right to themselves But hear O ye seduced Calves of the people It is the shew of goodness that maintains sin in the world The world could not be so bad as it is if all that were bad in it did appear so These Bulls could not have train'd you on to these acts of violence and outrage but by dissembled piety but you must know it is almost as great a crime in matters of Religion to be deceived as to deceive God will require your blood at their hands but you also may die in your sins and when you are in hell it will be no case to you that they are more tormented There is nothing more pleasing to the Divel then to see his malice against the Church to tryumph in your folly and misprision It was once piety to build Temples to the publique service of God and is it now piety to pull them down Did you pretend to fight for Religion to keep it from the violation of others that ye might commit a rape upon it your selves But alas the wound is incurable Here is no room for expostulation let us therefore see in a word the Religion this many headed monster hath hatch'd and the liberty of conscience they would have These also having their particular aims either secular advantage or desirous to pass for men enflamed with a godly zeal or rather led by both together for they have learned this art from the Bulls their Sires to have reconciled gain and godliness profit and zeal profit pricks forward zeal as provender does the Ass and their zeal countenanceth them in the profit they get and then it is piety in them to pull down Churches which was once piety to build up It is pure devotion that consecrates their fingers to the committing of sacriledge It is the fire of zeal that kindles their tongues to all manner of bitter invectives against all kind of Order and Government It is love to the truth makes them lovers of themselves in standing for it It is hatred of sin makes them so malicious It is separation from the wicked that makes them void of Christian society and common Morality and so full of pride scorn and contempt It is fear of maintaining idleness that makes them so uncharitable It is the correction of nature makes them without natural affection and the rooting out the wicked makes them unjust and their liberty of conscience is the practise of all this impiety permitted with impunity The sum of all It 's a Religion that will give them liberty to break down all the Houses of God in the Land and seize upon the Revenews thereof and tye the Ministers of Jesus Christ to their allowance a Religion that may give them liberty to commit sacriledge to speak evil of Dignities to turn the wicked out of their estates and invest them in their inheritance Briefly a Religion that may tolerate and countenance yea and justifie them in their covetous malicious cruel unnatural uncivil proud contemptuous and uncharitable actions This is only the Religion and Liberty of Conscience that will please the Calves In the sweet pastures whereof we will turn them to grass and come to the fourth rank The men that delight in war There be five marks of the delight men take
Bloody Affections Pride first bred the quarrel between God and man Adam would have been a God before he knew well what it was to be a man and while he thought to betroth a Deity he betrayed humanity and fell I had almost said as much below himself as he thought to have been above And there is still a secret pride in the heart of man that lifts up it self to a secet affectation of a Deity and therefore as a just and proper punishment men still as men aspire to be what they are not and reaching in their fancies at an higher degree of perfection in knowledge they disquiet both themselves and others in the pursuit thereof How did the Arian heresie fill the whole world with war and blood If discontent first broach'd that heresie yet it was pride of heart that brewed it and stirred up his busie spirit by inventing some notable novelty of doctrine to insinuate to the world how far his competitor came behind him who was yet preferred to that Ecclesiastical Dignity before him Of all affections the desire of being Authors of some new device in matters of Religion is if not the strongest yet to some most pleasing There are some contentious spirits that hugely delight to swim against the stream While the thoughts are tickled with the sweetness of fame the itch of vain glory presently infect the powers of the soul and there is no man which if that lovely pair charity and humility interpose not but will dote upon the issues of his own brain and propose them to general entertainment yea they will at once both wonder and be angry wonder at the incapacity and be angry at the obstinacy of any that shall refuse to yeild that approbation and reception of them which themselves the Authors think them worthy of Whence springs an earnest desire and that desire whets the endeavours by any means whatsoever to win entertainment for them in the allowance and beâ—â—â—f of men nor do they regard what practises they use to effect it The wickedness of the means is guilded over with the splendour of the reputation they hope shall be gained by it either fear or favour inability to resist or affection to defend strike reprehension dumb and somtimes blind measuring justice in the cause by the sword she holds in the one hand and not by the ballance in the other but it is not more pleasing to the Authors as pernicious to the Church Like as we see in secular interests No man can rise but by the fall of another Every one covets his own advantage which depending on the destruction of anorher he seeks it there So it is here Errour cannot rise but truth must fall what the one doth gain the other loseth the interest of either depends upon the ruine of the other and truth and errour never happen to quarrel but they leave bloody marks behind them upon the body of the Church But the gall of this bitterness too is that when the success of errour hath crown'd the endeavours of those whose pride of heart and vain-glory gave it birth the very fruition of their desires stops not the issue for what is acquired by violence must by violence be preserved Heresie would have less guilt if the defence thereof did not necessitate the addition of more or at least the continuance of the same mischief which the introduction gave beginning to wherein they are not unjustly said to delight if not as the principal end of their desires yet as a means for the accomplishment of that end That 's the fourth mark of them that delight in War attempted for proud and vain-glorious ends 5. The last mark is Their cruelty which they shew in managing of it If there be a bloody heart there will be a bloody hand too Men would think it vain to be wicked if they should not make use of their wickedness whose covetous and other bâ—â—e ends have carried them beyond the bounds of Law and Equity care not whither they run The apprehension of their danger frights them into all acts of violence for their security They think all plot their ruine that side not with them and therefore seek their own safety though it be with the ruine of all But safety which first occasioned this cruelty ends it not For guilty fear brings malice with it into a wicked heart when that is eased this will also be satisfied So that now disposition causeth cruelty as well as necessity and that safety which at first was sought by it ends at last with a delight in it And thus much of the enemies I will briefly touch the imprecation The Imprecation is made up of two terms but â—f different â—ffections â—â— is buâ— Rebuke the three first it is Scatâ—er the â—ourth Whence we note That 〈◊〉 must be proportioned as well to the manner of offending as the nature of the offence Circumstances though they do not alter the nature yet may aggravate the hainousness of crimes It is the intent that extends the guilt and the manner of committing the offence either shews it capable of being restrained in a wholsome rebuke or else worthy of judgement in a just dissipation Rebuke and Scatter To Rebuke tends to a possible conviction that ends with Reformation To Scatter tends to an otherwise impossible frustration that ends with confusion Rebuke to amendment they may submit Scatter to confusion for they delight in mischief and it shall happen to them Imprecations are of a dangerous consequence they are I grant rather to be feared then imitated yet on the other side I doubt not to affirm that as our charity to man commands our prayers to God for the conversion of the weak and seduced enemies of the Church so our zeal to the truth and glory of God may warrant us to pray for the dissipation of the wilful and malicious enemies thereof The writings of the Prophets are full of these Imprecations And although St Augustine a miracle of understanding supposes those to be only prophesies of what should come to pass then requests of what they desired yet his charity herein is rather to be commended then his sentence in all those to be embraced For how these words of David Be not merciful unto them who offend of malicious wickedness should be reducible to the form of a Prophesie is not so easily apprehended Nor that St Paul when he wished I would that they which trouble you were cut off meant only with the sword of excommunication is not so easily believed as some would have it Patience in our own sufferings is Christian but when God suffers it is impious God suffers when his Truth is persecuted and martyred when therefore wicked men shall meerly either out of fained scrupulosity as doth the Beast of the Reeds or else out of envie as doth the Bulls or out of ignorance as do Calves of the people or else out of ambition as do the men that delight in mischief when I say wicked men upon no other ground but such as these shall with bloody brains invent as did the Beasts of the Reeds and with bloody consciences allow and with a bloody Religion defend as did the multitude of the Bulls and with bloody affections advance as did the Calves of the people and with bloody hands execute as did the men that delight in mischief such sacrilegious and bloody practises as these then it is time for us to say Rebuke O Lord c. FINIS