believe and rest upon him for salvation and to deny our selves and within the compass of this is included whatsoever is called Gospel As for the manner of our denying the Deity of Christ here prohibited I conceive it was by words and oral expressions verbally to deny and dis-acknowledge it This I ground upon these reasons 1. Because it was such a denial as was before men and therefore consisted in open Profession for a denial in judgment and practice as such is not always before men 2. Because it was such a denial or confession of him as would appear in Preaching but this is mannaged in words and verbal profession But now 2ly If we take the words as they are a general precept equally relating to all times and to all persons though delivered only upon a particular occasion to the Apostles as I suppose they are to be understood so I think they comprehend all the three ways mentioned of confessing or denying Christ but principally in respect of practice and that 1. Because by this he is most honoured or dishonoured 2. Because without this the other two cannot save 3. Because those who are ready enough to confess him both in judgment and profession are for the most part very prone to deny him shamefully in their doings Pass we now to a Second thing viz. to shew What are the Causes inducing men to deny Christ in his truths I shall propose Three 1. The seeming supposed absurdity of many truths upon this foundation Heresie always builds The Heathens derided the Christians that still they required and pressed belief and well they might say they since the Articles of their Religion are so absurd that upon Principles of Science they can never win assent It is easie to draw it forth and demonstrate how upon this score the chief Heresies that now are said to trouble the Church do oppose and deny the most important truths in Divinity As first hear the denyer of the Deity and satisfaction of Christ. What saies he can the same person be God and man the Creature and the Creator can we ascribe such attributes to the same thing whereof one implies a Negation and a contradiction of the other can he be also Finite and Infinite when to be finite is not to be infinite and to be infinite not to be finite And when we distinguish between the Person and the Nature was not that distinction an invention of the Schools savouring rather of Metaphysicks than Divinity If we say that he must have been God because he was to mediate between us and God by the same reason they will reply we should need a Mediator between us and Christ who is equally God equally offended Then for his satisfaction they will demand to whom this satisfaction is paid If to God then God pays a Price to himself and what is it else to require and need no satisfaction than for one to satisfie himself Next comes in the Denyer of the Decrees and Free-grace of God What says he shall we exhort admonish and intreat the Saints to beware of falling away finally and at the same time assert that it is impossible for them so to fall what shall we erect two contradictory Wills in God or place two contradictories in the same Will and make the Will of his Purpose and Intention run counter to the Will of his Approbation Hear another concerning the Scripture and Justification What says the Romanist relie in matters of faith upon a private Spirit How do you know this is the sence of such a Scripture Why by the Spirit But how will you try that Spirit to be of God Why by the Scripture this he explodes as a circle and so derides it Then for justification How are you Justified by an imputed Righteousness Is it yours before it is imputed or not if not as we must say is this to be Justified to have that accounted yours that is not yours But again did you ever hear of any man made rich or wise by imputation why then Righteous or Just Now these seeming Paradoxes attending Gospel truths cause men of weak prejudiced intellectuals to deny them and in them Christ being ashamed to own faith so much as they think to the disparagement of their Reason 2. The Second thing causing men to deny the truths of Christ is their Unprofitableness And no wonder if here men forsake the truth and assert interest To be pious is the way to be poor Truth still gives its followers its own Badge and Livery a despised nakedness It is hard to maintain the truth but much harder to be maintained by it could it ever yet feed cloath or defend its assertors Did ever any man quench his thirst or satisfie his hunger with a Notion Did ever any one live upon Propositions The testimony of Brutus concerning Vertue is the apprehension of most concerning Truth that it is a Name but lives and estates are things and therefore not to be thrown away upon Words That we are neither to worship or cringe to any thing under the Deity is a truth too strict for a Naaman he can be content to worship the true God but then it must be in the house of Rimmon the reason was implied in his condition he was Captain of the Host and therefore he thought it reason good to bow to Rimmon rather than indanger his place better Bow than Break. Indeed sometimes Providence casts things so that truth and interest lie the same way and when it is wrapt up in this covering men can be content to follow it to press hard after it but it is as we pursue some beasts only for their skins take off the covering and though men obtain the truth they would lament the loss of that As Iacob wept and mourned over the torn Coat when Ioseph was alive It is incredible to consider how interest out-weighs truth If a thing in it self be doubtfull let it make for interest and it shall be raised at least into a Probable and if a truth be certain and thwart interest it will quickly fetch it down to but a Probability nay if it does not carry with it an impregnable Evidence it will go near to debase it to a downright falsity How much interest casts the Balance in cases dubious I could give sundry instances let one suffice And that concerning the unlawfulness of Usury Most of the Learned men in the World successively both Heathen and Christian do assert the taking of Use to be utterly unlawfull yet the Divines of the Reformed Church beyond the Seas though most severe and rigid in other things do generally affirm it to be lawfull That the case is doubtfull and may be disputed with plausible arguments on either side we may well grant But what then is the reason that makes these Divines so unanimously concurr in this opinion Indeed I shall not affirm this to be the reason but it may seem so to many that they receive their Salaries by way of pension
the Body which united compose separated destroy it I am not of the papists Opinion who would make the Spiritual above the Civil State in power as well as dignity but rather subject it to the Civil yet thus much I dare affirm That the Civil which is superiour is upheld and kept in being by the Ecclesiastical and Inferiour as it is in a Building where the upper part is supported by the lower the Church resembling the foundation which indeed is the lowest part but the most considerable The Magistracy cannot so much protect the Ministery but the Ministers may doe more in serving the Magistrate A tast of which truth you may take from the Holy Warr to which how fast and eagerly did men go when the Priest perswaded them that whosoever dyed in that Expedition was a Martyr Those that will not be convinced what a help this is to the Magistracy would find how considerable it is if they should chance to clash this would certainly eat out the other For the Magistrate cannot urge obedience upon such potent grounds as the Minister if so disposed can urge disobedience As for instance if my Governor should command me to do a thing or I must die or forfeit my Estate and the Minister steps in and tells me that I offend God and ruin my soul if I obey that command it 's easie to see a greater force in this persuasion from the advantage of its ground And if Divines once begin to curse Meros we shall see that Levi can use the Sword as well as Simeon and although Ministers do not handle yet they can employ it This shews the imprudence as well as the danger of the Civil Magistrate's exasperating those that can fire mens consciences against him and arm his Enemies with Religion For I have read heretofore of some that having conceived an irreconcilable hatred of the Civil Magistrate prevailed with men so far that they went to resist him even out of conscience and a full persuasion and dread upon their spirits that not to do it were to desert God and consequently to incurr damnation Now when mens rage is both heightned and sanctified by Conscience the War will be fierce for what is done out of Conscience is done with the utmost Activity And then Campanella's Speech to the King of Spain will be found true Religio semper vicit praesertim Armata Which sentence deserves seriously to be considered by all Governours and timely to be understood lest it comes to be felt 2. If the safety of Government is founded upon the truth of Religion then this shews the danger of any thing that may make even the true Religion suspected to be false To be false and to be thought false is all one in respect of men who act not according to Truth but Apprehension As on the contrary a false Religion while apprehended true has the force and efficacy of truth Now there is nothing more apt to induce men to a suspicion of any Religion than frequent innovation and change For since the object of Religion God the subject of it the soul of man and the business of it Truth is always one and the same Variety and Novelty is a just presumption of Falsity It argues sickness and distemper in the mind as well as in the body when a man is continually turning and tossing from one side to the other The wise Romans ever dreaded the least Innovation in Religion Hence we find the advice of Mecoenas to Augustus Caesar in Dion Cassius in the 52 Book where he counsels him to detest and persecute all Innovators of Divine Worship not only as contemners of the Gods but as the most pernicious disturbers of the State For when men venture to make changes in things sacred it argues great boldness with God and this naturally imports little belief of him which if the people once perceive they will take their Creed also not from the Magistrates Laws but his example Hence in England where Religion has been still Purifying and hereupon almost always in the Fire and the Furnace Atheists and Irreligious persons have took no small advantage from our changes For in King Edward the sixth's time the Divine Worship was twice altered in two new Liturgies In the first of Queen Mary the Protestant Religion was persecuted with Fire and Faggot by Law and publick counsell of the same persons who had so lately established it Upon the coming in of Queen Elizabeth Religion was changed again and within a few daies the publick Council of the Nation made it death for a Priest to convert any man to that Religion which before with so much eagerness of Zeal had been restored So that it is observed by an Author that in the space of twelve years there were four changes about Religion made in England and that by the publick Council and Authority of the Realm which were more than were made by any Christian state throughout the world so soon one after another in the space of fifteen hundred years before Hence it is that the Enemies of God take occasion to blaspheme and call our Religion Statism and now adding to the former those many changes that have hapned since I am afraid we shall not so easily claw off that name Nor though we may satisfie our own consciences in what we profess be able to repell and clear off the objections of the rational world about us which not being interested in our changes as we are will not judge of them as we judge but debate them by impartial Reason by the Nature of the thing the general Practice of the Church against which New Lights suddain Impulses of the Spirit Extraordinary Calls will be but weak arguments to prove any thing but the madness of those that use them and that the Church must needs wither being blasted with such Inspirations We see therefore how fatal and ridiculous Innovations in the Church are And indeed when changes are so frequent it is not properly Religion but Fashion This I think we may build upon as a sure ground That where there is continual Change there is great shew of Uncertainty and Uncertainty in Religion is a shrewd motive if not to deny yet to doubt of its Truth Thus much for the first Doctrine I proceed now to the second viz. That the next and most effectual way to destroy Religion is to Embase the Teachers and Dispensers of it in the handling of this I shall shew 1. How the Dispensers of Religion the Ministers of the word are embased or rendred vile 2. How the Embasing or Vilifying them is a means to destroy Religion 1. For the first of these the Ministers and Dispensers of the Word are rendred base or vile two ways 1. By divesting them of all Temporal Privileges and Advantages as inconsistent with their Calling It is strange since the Priests Office heretofore was always Splendid and almost Regal that it is now looked upon as a piece of Religion to make it
labour bestowed upon any other calling would bring not only comfort but splendor not only maintenance but abundance 'T is I confess the duty of Ministers to endure this condition but neither Religion nor Reason does oblige either them to approve or others to choose it Doubtless Parents will not throw away the towardness of a child and the expence of Education upon a Profession the labour of which is encreased and the rewards of which are vanished To condemn promising lively parts to contempt and penury in a despised calling what is it else but the casting of a Moses into the mud or the offering a Son upon the Altar and instead of a Priest to make him a Sacrifice Neither let any here reply That it becomes not a Ministerial spirit to undertake such a calling for reward for they must know that it is one thing to undertake it for a reward and not to be willing to undertake it without one It is one thing to perform good works only that we may receive the recompense of them in Heaven and another thing not to be willing to follow Christ and forsake the world if there were no such recompence But besides suppose it were the duty of Scholars to choose this calling in the midst of all its discouragements Yet a prudent governour who knows it to be his wisdom as well as his duty to take the best course to advance Religion will not consider mens duty but their practice not what they ought to do but what they use to do and therefore draw over the best qualified to this service by such ways as are most apt to perswade and induce men Solomon built his Temple with the Tallest Cedars and surely when God refused the defective and the maimed for sacrifice we cannot think that he requires them for the Priest-hood When learning abilities and what is excellent in the world forsake the Church we may easily foretel its ruine without the gift of Prophecy And when ignorance succeeds in the place of learning weakness in the room of judgment we may be sure Heresie and Confusion will quickly come in the room of Religion For undoubtedly there is no way so effectual to betray the Truth as to procure it a weak Defender Well now instead of raising any particular Uses from the Point that has been delivered let us make a brief Recapitulation of the whole Government we see depends upon Religion and Religion upon the Encouragement of those that are to dispense and assert it For the further Evidence of which truths we need not travel beyond our own Borders but leave it to every one impartially to Judge whether from the very first day that our Religion was unsettled and Church Government flung out of doors the Civil Government has ever been able to fix upon a sure foundation We have been changing even to a Proverb The indignation of Heaven has been rolling and turning us from one form to another till at length such a giddiness seized upon government that it fell into the very dregs of Sectaries who threatned an equal ruine both to Minister and Magistrate and how the State has Symphathized with the Church is apparent For have not our Princes as well as our Priests been of the lowest of the People Have not Coblers Draymen Mechanicks governed as well as Preached Nay have not they by Preaching come to Govern was ever that of Solomon more verified that Servants have Rid while Princes and Nobles have gone on Foot But God has been pleased by a miracle of mercy to dissipate this confusion and Chaos and to give us some openings some dawnings of liberty and settlement But now let not those who are to rebuild our Ierusalem think that the Temple must be built last For if there be such a thing as a God and Religion as whether men believe it or no they will one day find and feel assuredly he will stop our Liberty till we restore him his worship Besides it is a sensless thing in reason to think that one of these interests can stand without the other when in the very order of Natural causes Government is preserved by Religion But to return to Ieroboam with whom we first began He laid the foundation of his Government in destroying though doubtless he coloured it with the name of Reforming God's worship but see the issue Consider him Cursed by God maintaining his usurped title by continual vexatious wars against the Kings of Iudah smote in his posterity which was made like the dung upon the face of the Earth as low and vile as those Priests whom he had employed Consider him branded and made odious to all after-ages And now when his Kingdom and glory was at an end and he and his Posterity rotting under ground and his Name stinking above it Judge what a worthy prize he made in getting of a Kingdom by destroying the Church Wherefore the sum of all is this to advise and desire those whom it may concern to consider Ieroboam's punishment and then they will have little heart to Ieroboam's sin A SERMON Preached at LAMBETH-CHAPEL on the 25 th of November Upon the Consecration of the Right Reverend Father in God Dr. IOHN DOLBEN Lord Bishop of ROCHESTER TO THE Right Reverend Father in GOD JOHN Lord Bishop of ROCHESTER Dean of the Cathedral Church of WESTMINSTER AND Clerk of the Closet to His Majesty My Lord THough the interposal of my Lord of Canterbury's Command for the Publication of this mean Discourse may seem so far to determine as even to take away my Choice yet I must own it to the World that it is solely and entirely my own Inclination seconded by my Obligations to your Lordship that makes this that was so lately an humble attendant upon your Lordship's Consecration now ambitious to Consecrate it self with your Lordship's Name It was my Honour to have lived in the same College with your Lordship and now to belong to the same Cathedral where at present you credit the Church as much by your Government as you did the school formerly by your Wit Your Lordship even then grew up into a constant Superiority above others and all your After-greatness seems but a Paraphrase upon those Promising beginnings for whatsoever you are or shall be has been but an easie Prognostick from what you were It is your Lordship's unhappiness to be cast upon an Age in which the Church is in its Wane and if you do not those glorious things that our English Prelates did two or three hundred years since it is not because your Lordship is at all less than they but because the Times are worse Witness those magnificent Buildings in Christ-Church in Oxford begun and carried on by your Lordship when by your Place you governed and by your Wisdom encreased the Treasure of that Colledge and which must eternally set your Fame above the reach of Envy and Detraction these great Structures you attempted at a time when you returned poor and
infest and plague the Universe For look over them all and you shall find that the greatest Annoyance and Disturbance of Mankind has been from one of these Two things Force or Fraud Of which as boisterous and violent a Thing as Force is yet it rarely atchieves any thing considerable but under the Conduct of Fraud Slight of Hand has done that which Force of Hand could never do But why do we speak of Hands It is the Tongue that drives the World before it The Tongue and the Lying Lip which there is no Fence against For when that is the Weapon a Man may strike where he cannot reach and a Word shall do Execution both further and deeper than the mightiest Blow For the Hand can hardly lift up it self high enough to strike but it must be seen so that it warns while it threatens but a false insidious Tongue may whisper a Lye so close and low that though you have Ears to hear yet you shall not hear and indeed We generally come to know it not by hearing but by feeling what it says A Man perhaps casts his Eye this way and that way and looks round about him to spy out his Enemy and to defend himself but alass the fatal Mischief that would trip up his Heels is all the while under them It works invisibly and beneath And the Shocks of an Earthquake we know are much more dreadfull than the highest and loudest Blusters of a Storm For there may be some Shelter against the Violence of the One but no Security against the Hollowness of the Other which never opens its Bosom but for a killing Embrace The Bowels of the Earth in such Cases and the Mercies of the False in all being equally without Compassion Upon the whole Matter it is hard to assign any One Thing but Lying which God and Man so unanimously joyn in the Hatred of and it is as hard to tell whether it does a greater Dishonour to God or Mischief to Man It is certainly an Abomination to both And I hope to make it appear such in the following Discourse Though I must confess my self very unable to speak to the utmost Latitude of this Subject and I thank God that I am so Now the Words of the Text are a Plain Entire Categorical Proposition and therefore I shall not go about to darken them by any needless Explication but shall immediately cast the Prosecution of them under these Three following Particulars As 1 st I shall enquire into the Nature of a Lye and the proper essential Malignity of all Falshood 2 dly I shall shew the pernicious Effects of it And 3 dly And lastly I shall lay before you the Rewards and Punishments that will certainly attend or at least follow it Every one of which I suppose and much more all of them together will afford Arguments more than sufficient to prove though it were no Part of Holy Scripture that Lying Lips are an Abomination to the Lord. And first for the first of these 1. What a Lye is and wherein the Nature of it does consist A Lye is properly an outward signification of something contrary to or at least beside the Inward Sense of the Mind so that when One thing is signified or expressed and the same thing not meant or intended that is properly a Lye And forasmuch as God has endued Man with a Power or Faculty to institute or appoint Signs of his Thoughts and that by vertue hereof he can appoint not only Words but also Things Actions and Gestures to be signs of the inward thoughts and conceptions of his Mind it is evident that he may as really Lye and Deceive by Actions and Gestures as he can by Words for as much as in the Nature of them they are as capable of being made Signs and consequently of being as much abused and misapplied as the Other Though for Distinction Sake a Deceiving by Words is commonly called a Lye and a Deceiving by Actions Gestures or Behaviour is called Simulation or Hypocrisie The Nature of a Lye therefore consists in this That it is a false Signification knowingly and voluntarily used in which the Sign expressing is no ways agreeing with the Thought or Conception of the Mind pretended to be thereby expressed For Words signifie not immediately and primely Things themselves but the Conceptions of the Mind concerning things and therefore if there be an Agreement between our Words and our Thoughts we do not speak falsly though it sometimes so falls out that our Words agree not with the Things themselves Upon which Account though in so speaking we offend indeed against Truth yet we offend not properly by Falshood which is a speaking against our Thoughts but by Rashness which is an Affirming or Denying before we have sufficiently informed our selves of the Real and True Estate of those Things whereof we affirm or deny And thus having shewn What a Lye is and wherein it does consist the next Consideration is of the Lawfulness or Unlawfulness of it And in this we have but too sad and scandalous an Instance both of the Corruption and Weakness of Man's Reason and of the strange Byass that it still receives from Interest that such a Case as this both with Philosophers and Divines Heathens and Christians should be held disputable Plato accounted it lawfull for Statesmen and Governours and so did Cicero and Plutarch and the Stoicks as some say reckoned it amongst the Arts and Perfections of a Wise-man to lye dextrously in due Time and Place And for some of the Ancient Doctors of the Christian Church such as Origen Clemens Alexandrinus Tertullian Lactantius and Chrysostom and generally all before St. Austin several Passages have fallen from them that speak but too favourably of this ill Thing So that Paul Lay-man a Romish Casuist says That it is a Truth but lately known and received in the World That a Lye is absolutely sinfull and unlawfull I suppose he means that part of the World where the Scriptures are not read and where Men care not to know what they are not willing to practise But then for the Mitigation of what has proceeded from these great Men we must take in that Known and Celebrated Division of a Lye into those Three several Kinds of it As 1st The Pernicious Lye uttered for the Hurt or Disadvantage of our Neighbour 2dly The Officious Lye uttered for our Own or our Neighbour's Advantage And 3dly and lastly The Ludicrous and Iocose Lye uttered by way of Jest and only for Mirth's Sake in common Converse Now for the first of these which is the Pernicious Lye it was and is Universally condemned by all but the other Two have found some Patronage from the Writings of those forementioned Authors The Reason of which seems to be that those Persons did not estimate the Lawfulness or Unlawfulness of a Lye from the intrinsick Nature of the Thing it self but either from those External Effects that it produced or from those Ends to
in present ready money and so have no other way to improve them so that it may be suspected that the change of their Salary would be the strongest argument to change their opinion The truth is Interest is the grand wheel and spring that moves the whole Universe Let Christ and Truth say what they will if Interest will have it Gain must be Godliness if Enthusiasm is in request learning must be inconsistent with Grace If pay grows short the University Maintenance must be too great Rather than Pilate will be counted Caesar's enemy he will pronounce Christ innocent one hour and condemn him the next How Christ is made to truckle under the world and how his truths are denied and shuffled with for profit and pelf the clearest proof would be by Induction and Example But as it is the most clear so here it would be the most unpleasing Wherefore I shall pass this over since the world is now so peccant upon this account that I am afraid Instances would be mistaken for Invectives 3. The third Cause inducing Men to deny Christ in his truths is their apparent danger To confess Christ is the ready way to be cast out of the Synagogue The Church is a place of Graves as well as of Worship and Profession To be resolute in a good cause is to bring upon our selves the punishments due to a Bad. Truth indeed is a Possession of the highest value and therefore it must needs expose the owner to much danger Christ is sometimes pleased to make the profession of himself costly and a man cannot buy the truth but he must pay down his life and his dearest blood for it Christianity marks a man out for destruction and Christ sometimes chalks out such a way to Salvation as shall verify his own saying He that will save his life shall lose it The first Ages of the Church had a more abundant experience of this What Paul and the rest planted by their Preaching they watered with their Blood We know their usage was such as Christ foretold he sent them to Wolves and the common course then was Christianos ad Leones For a man to give his name to Christianity in those days was to list himself a Martyr and to bid farewell not only to the pleasures but also to the hopes of this life Neither was it a single death only that then attended this profession but the terrour and sharpness of it was redoubled in the manner and circumstance They had Persecutors whose Invention was as great as their cruelty Wit and Malice conspired to find out such tortures such deaths and those of such incredible anguish that only the manner of dying was the punishment Death it self the deliverance To be a Martyr signifies only to witness the truth of Christ but the witnessing of the truth was then so generally attended with this Event that Martyrdom now signifies not only to witness but to witness by death The word besides its own signification importing their practice And since Christians have been freed from Heathens Christians themselves have turned persecutors Since Rome from Heathen was turned Christian it has improved its persecution into an Inquisition Now when Christ and truth are upon these terms that men cannot confess him but upon pain of death the reason of their Apostacy and Denial is clear men will be wise and leave Truth and Misery to such as love it they are resolved to be Cunning let others run the hazard of being Sincere If they must be good at so high a rate they know they may be safe at a cheaper Si negare sufficiat quis erit Nocens If to deny Christ will save them the truth shall never make them guilty Let Christ and his flock lie open and exposed to all weather of persecution Foxes will be sure to have holes And if it comes to this that they must either renounce their Religion deny and Blaspheme Christ or forfeit their lives to the fire or the sword it is but inverting Iob's wife's advice Curse God and live 3. We proceed now to the Third thing which is to shew how farr a man may consult his safety c. This he may do two ways 1. By withdrawing his Person Martyrdom is an Heroick act of Faith An Atchievement beyond an Ordinary pitch of it to you says the Spirit it is given to suffer Phil. 1.29 It is a peculiar additional gift it is a distinguishing excellency of degree not an essential consequent of its Nature Be ye harmless as Doves says Christ and it is as Natural to them to take flight upon danger as to be Innocent Let every man throughly consult the temper of his faith and weigh his courage with his fears his weakness and his Resolutions together and take the measure of both and see which preponderates and if his spirit faints if his heart misgives and melts at the very thoughts of the fire let him flie and secure his own soul and Christ's honour Non negat Christum fugiendo qui ideò fugit né neget He does not deny Christ by flying who therefore flies that he may not deny him Nay he does not so much decline as rather change his Martyrdom He flies from the flame but repairs to a Desert to poverty and hunger in a wilderness Whereas if he would dispense with his conscience and deny his Lord or swallow down two or three Contradictory oaths he should neither fear the one nor be forced to the other 2. By concealing his judgment A man sometimes is no more bound to speak than to destroy himself and as Nature abhorrs this so Religion does not command that In the times of the Primitive Church when the Christians dwelt amongst Heathens it is reported of a certain Maid how she came from her Fathers house to one of the Tribunals of the Gentiles and declared herself a Christian spit in the Judges face and so provoked him to cause her to be executed But will any say that this was to confess Christ or die a Martyr He that uncalled for uncompelled comes and proclaims a Persecuted Truth for which he is sure to die only dies a Confessour of his own folly and a Sacrifice to his own rashness Martyrdom is stampt such only by God's command and he that ventures upon it without a call must endure it without a Reward Christ will say who required this at your hands His Gospel does not dictate imprudence No Evangelical Precept justles out that of a lawful self-preservation He therefore that thus throws himself upon the Sword runs to Heaven before he is sent for where though perhaps Christ may in mercy receive the man yet he will be sure to disown the Martyr And thus much concerning those lawful ways of securing our selves in time of Persecution not as if these were always lawfull For sometimes a man is bound to confess Christ openly though he dies for it and to conceal a Truth is to deny it But now to shew when it
low and sordid So that the use of the word Minister is brought down to the literal signification of it a Servant for now to serve and to minister servile and ministerial are terms equivalent But in the Old Testament the same word signifies a Priest and a Prince or chief Ruler hence though we translate it Priest of On Gen. 41.45 and Priest of Midian Exod. 3.1 and as it is with the people so with the Priest Esa. 24.2 Iunius and Tremellius render all these places not by Sacerdos Priest but by Praeses that is a Prince or at least a Chief Councellour or Minister of State And it is strange that the Name should be the same when the Nature of the thing is so exceeding different The like also may be observed in other Languages that the most Illustrious Titles are derived from things Sacred and belonging to the Worship of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was the Title of the Christian Caesars correspondent to the Latine Augustus and it is derived from the same word that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cultus res sacra or sacrificium And it is usual in our Language to make Sacred an Epithete to Majesty there was a certain Royalty in things Sacred Hence the Apostle who I think was no Enemy to the simplicity of the Gospel speaks of a Royal Priesthood 1 Pet. 2.9 which shews at least that there is no contradiction or impiety in those terms In Old time before the placing this Office only in the Line of Aaron the Head of the Family and the First-born offered Sacrifice for the rest that is was their Priest And we know that such Rule and Dignity belonged at first to the Masters of Families that they had jus vitae necis jurisdiction and power of Life and Death in their own Family and from hence was derived the beginning of Kingly Government a King being only a Civil Head or Master of a Politick Family the whole People so that we see the same was the foundation of the Royal and Sacerdotal Dignity As for the Dignity of this Office among the Jews it is so pregnantly set forth in Holy Writ that it is Unquestionable Kings and Priests are still mentioned together Lamen 2.6 The Lord hath despised in the indignation of his Anger the King and the Priest Hosea 5.2 Hear O Priests and give ear O house of the King Deut. 17.12 And the man that doth presumptuously and will not hearken unto the Priest that standeth there to minister before the Lord thy God or unto the Iudge even that man shall die Hence Paul together with a blow received this Reprehension Act. 5.4 Revilest thou God's High-Priest And Paul in the next verse does not defend himself by pleading an extraordinary Motion of the Spirit or that he was sent to Reform the Church and might therefore lawfully vilifie the Priesthood and all Sacred Orders but in the 5th v. he makes an excuse and that from Ignorance the only thing that could take away the fault namely that he knew not that he was the High-Priest and subjoins a reason which further advances the Truth here defended For it is written thou shalt not speak evil of the Ruler of thy people To Holy Writ we might add the Testimony of Iosephus of next Authority to it in things concerning the Jews who in sundry places of his History sets forth the Dignity of the Priests and in his second Book against Appion the Grammarian has these words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Priests were constituted Judges of all doubtfull causes Hence Iustin also in his 36th Book has this Semper apud Iudaeos mos fuit ut Eosdem Reges Sacerdotes haberent though this is false that they were always so yet it argues that they were so frequently and that the distance between them was not great To the Jews we may joyn the Egyptians the first Masters of Learning and Philosophy Synesius in his 57. Epist. having shewn the general practice of Antiquity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 gives an instance in the Jews and Egyptians who for many Ages 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 had no other Kings but Priests Next we may take a view of the Practice of the Romans Numa Pompilius that civilized the fierce Romans is reported in the first Book of Livy sometimes to have performed the Priests office himself Tum Sacerdotibus creandis animum adjecit quanquà m ipse plurima sacra obibat but when he made Priests he gave them a dignity almost the same with himself And this honour continued together with the Valour and Prudence of that Nation For the Success of the Romans did not extirpate their Religion The College of the Priests being in many things exempted even from the Jurisdiction of the Senate afterwards the Supreme Power Hence Iuvenal in his 2. Sat. mentions the Priesthood of Mars as one of the most honourable places in Rome And Iul. Caesar who was chosen Priest in his private Condition thought it not below him to continue the same Office when he was Created absolute Governour of Rome under the name of Perpetual Dictator Add to these the practice of the Gauls mentioned by Caesar in his 6. Book de Bello Gallico where he says of the Druides who where their Priests that they did judge de omnibus ferè controversiis publicis privatisque See also Homer in the 1. Book of his Iliads representing Chryses Priest of Apollo with his Golden Scepter as well as his Golden Censer But why have I produced all these examples of the Heathens Is it to make these a ground of our imitation No but to shew that the giving honour to the Priesthood was a custom Universal amongst all civilized Nations And whatsoever is Universal is also Natural as not being founded upon compact or the particular humours of men but flowing from the Native Results of Reason And that which is Natural neither does nor can oppose Religion But you will say this concerns not us who have an express Rule and Word revealed Christ was himself poor and despised and withall has instituted such a Ministery To the first part of this plea I answer That Christ came to suffer yet the sufferings and miseries of Christ doe not oblige all Christians to undertake the like For the second That the Ministery of Christ was low and despised by his institution I utterly deny It was so indeed by the malice and persecution of the Heathen Princes but what does this argue or inferr for a low dejected Ministery in a flourishing State which professes to encourage Christianity But to dash this cavil read but the practice of Christian Emperours and Kings all along down from the time of Constantine in what respect what honour and splendour they treated the Ministers and then let our Adversaries produce their puny pitifull Arguments for the contrary against the general clear undoubted vogue and current of all Antiquity As for two or three little Countries about us the Learned and Impartial will not
the Just the Wise and Good God neither does nor can require of Man any thing that is Impossible or Naturally beyond his Power to Doe And therefore in the Second place the Measure of this Rule by which the just extent and bounds of it are to be determined must be that Power or Ability that Man Naturally has to doe or perform the Things Willed by him So that wheresoever such a Power is found there this Rule of God's Accepting the Will has no place and wheresoever such a Power is not found there this Rule presently becomes in force And accordingly in the Third and Last place The Abuse or Misapplication of this Rule will consist in these Two Things 1. That Men do very often take that to be an Act of the Will that really and truly is not so 2. That they reckon many things impossible that indeed are not impossible And first to begin with Men's mistakes about the Will and the Acts of it I shall Note these Three by which Men are extremely apt to impose upon themselves 1. As first the bare Approbation of the Worth and Goodness of a Thing is not properly the Willing of that Thing and yet Men do very commonly account it so But this is properly an Act of the Understanding or Judgment a faculty wholly distinct from the Will and which makes a Principal part of that which in Divinity we call Natural Conscience and in the Strength of which a Man may approve of things good and excellent without ever willing or intending the Practice of them And accordingly the Apostle Rom. 2.18 gives us an account of some who Approved of things excellent and yet Practised and consequently Willed things clean contrary Since no Man can commit a Sin but he must Will it first Whosoever observes and looks into the workings of his own heart will find that noted Sentence Video meliora proboque Deteriora sequor too frequently and fatally verify'd upon himself The 7th of the Romans which has been made the Unhappy Scene of so much Controversie about these Matters has several passages to this purpose In a word to Judge what ought to be done is one Thing and to Will the doing of it is quite another No doubt Vertue is a beautifull and a glorious thing in the Eyes of the most Vicious person breathing and all that he does or can hate in it is the Difficulty of its Practice For it is Practice alone that Divides the World into Vertuous and Vitious but otherwise as to the Theory and Speculation of Vertue and Vice Honest and Dishonest the Generality of Mankind are much the same For Men do not approve of Vertue by Choice and free Election but it is an Homage which Nature commands all Understandings to pay to it by necessary Determination and yet after all it is but a faint unactive thing for in Defiance of the Judgment the Will may still remain as perverse and as much a stranger to Vertue as it was before In fine there is as much Difference between the Approbation of the Iudgment and the Actual Volitions of the Will with relation to the same Object as there is between a Man's viewing a Desirable thing with his Eye and his reaching after it with his Hand 2 dly The Wishing of a Thing is not properly the Willing of it though too often mistaken by Men for such But it is that which is called by the Schools an Imperfect Velleity and imports no more than an idle Un-operative complacency in and desire of the End without any Consideration of nay for the most part with a Direct Abhorrence of the Means of which Nature I account that Wish of Balaam in Numb 23.10 Let me die the Death of the Righteous and let my last End be like his The thing it self appeared Desirable to him and accordingly he could not but like and desire it but then it was after a very irrational absurd way and contrary to all the Methods and Principles of a Rational Agent which never Wills a Thing really and properly but it applies to the Means by which it is to be acquired But at that very time that Balaam desired to Die the Death of the Righteous he was actually following the Wages of Unrighteousness and so thereby engaged in a Course quite contrary to what he desired and consequently such as could not possible bring him to such an End Much like the Sot that cried Utinam hoc esset Laborare while he lay Lazing and Lolling upon his Couch But every true Act of Volition imports a respect to the End by and through the Means and Wills a Thing only in that way in which it is to be compassed or effected which is the foundation of that most true Aphorism That He who Wills the End Wills also the Means The truth of which is founded in such a Necessary Connexion of the terms that I look upon the Proposition not only as True but as Convertible and that as a Man cannot truly and properly Will the End but he must also Will the Means so neither can he Will the Means but he must Vertually and by Interpretation at least Will the End Which is so true that in the account of the Divine Law a man is reckoned to Will even those things that Naturally are not the Object of Desire such as Death it self Ezek. 18.31 only because he Wills those Ways and Courses that naturally tend to and end in it And even our own Common Law looks upon a Man's raising Arms against or Imprisoning his Prince as an Imagining or Compassing of his Death Forasmuch as these Actions are the Means directly leading to it and for the most part actually concluding in it and consequently that the Willing of the One is the Willing of the Other also To Will a thing therefore is certainly much another thing from what the Generality of Men especially in their Spiritual concerns take it to be I say in their Spiritual concerns for in their Temporal it is manifest that they Think and Judge much otherwise and in the Things of this World no man is allowed or believed to Will any thing heartily which he does not endeavour after proportionably A Wish is properly a man of Desire sitting or lying still but an Act of the Will is a Man of Business vigorously going about his Work And certainly there is a great deal of Difference between a Man's stretching out his Arms to work and his stretching them out only to yawn 3 dly and Lastly A mere Inclination to a thing is not properly a Willing of that thing and yet in matters of Duty no doubt men frequently reckon it for such For otherwise why should they so often plead and rest in the goodness of their Hearts and the honest and well-inclin'd disposition of their Minds when they are justly charged with an Actual non-performance of what the Law requires of them But that an Inclination to a thing is not a Willing of that thing
him they neither melt nor endear him but leave him as hard as rugged and as unconcerned as ever All Kindnesses descend upon such a Temper as Showers of Rain or Rivers of fresh Water falling into the main Sea The Sea swallows them all but is not at all changed or sweetned by them I may truly say of the Mind of an Ungratefull person that it is Kindness-proof It is impenetrable unconquerable Unconquerable by that which conquers all things else even by Love it self Flints may be melted we see it daily but an Ungratefull heart cannot no not by the strongest and noblest Flame After all your Attempts all your Experiments for any thing that Man can doe He that is Ungratefull will be Ungratefull still And the reason is manifest for you may remember that I told you that Ingratitude sprang from a Principle of Ill-nature Which being a thing founded in such a certain Constitution of Blood and Spirits as being born with a Man into the World and upon that account called Nature shall prevent all Remedies that can be applied by Education and leaves such a Byass upon the Mind as is before-hand with all Instruction So that you shall seldom or never meet with an Ungratefull person but if you look backward and trace him up to his Original you will find that he was born so and if you could look forward enough it is a Thousand to One but you will find that he also dies so for you shall never light upon an ill-natur'd Man who was not also an ill-natur'd Child and gave several Testimonies of his being so to discerning Persons long before the Use of his Reason The thread that Nature spins is seldom broken off by any thing but Death I do not by this limit the Operation of God's Grace for that may do Wonders But humanly speaking and according to the method of the World and the little Correctives supplied by Art and Discipline it seldom fails but an ill Principle has its Course and Nature makes good its Blow And therefore where Ingratitude begins remarkably to shew it self he surely judges most wisely who takes the Alarm betimes and arguing the Fountain from the Stream concludes that there is Ill-nature at the bottom and so reducing his Judgment into Practice timely withdraws his frustraneous baffled Kindnesses and sees the folly of Endeavouring to stroke a Tyger into a Lamb or to court an AEthiopian out of his Colour 3 dly In the Third and Last place Wheresoever you see a Man notoriously Ungratefull rest assured that there is no true Sense of Religion in that Person You know the Apostle's argument in 1 Iohn 4.20 He who loveth not his Brother whom he hath seen how can he love God whom he hath not seen So by an exact parity of Reason we may argue If a man has no Sense of those Kindnesses that pass upon him from One like himself whom he sees and knows and converses with sensibly how much less shall his Heart be affected with the gratefull Sense of his Favours whom he converses with only by imperfect Speculations by the Discourses of Reason or the Discoveries of Faith neither of which equal the quick and lively Impressions of Sense If the Apostles reasoning was Good and Concluding I am sure this must be Unavoidable But the thing is too evident to need any proof For shall that man pass for a Proficient in Christ's School who would have been Exploded in the School of Zeno or Epictetus Or shall he pretend to Religious Attainments who is defective and short in Moral Which yet are but the Rudiments the Beginnings and first Draught of Religion as Religion is the Perfection the Refinement and the Sublimation of Morality so that it still pre-supposes it it builds upon it and Grace never adds the Superstructure where Vertue has not laid the Foundation There may be Vertue indeed and yet no Grace but Grace is never without Vertue And therefore though Gratitude does not inferr Grace it is certain that Ingratitude does exclude it Think not to put God off by frequenting Prayers and Sermons and Sacraments while thy Brother has an Action against thee in the Court of Heaven an Action of Debt of that Clamorous and Great Debt of Gratitude Rather as our Saviour Commands Leave thy Gift upon the Altar and first go and clear accompts with thy Brother God scorns a Gift from him who has not paid his Debts Every Ungratefull person in the sight of God and Man is a Thief and let him not make the Altar his Receiver Where there is no Charity it is certain there can be no Religion and can that man be Charitable who is not so much as Just In every Benefaction between Man and Man Man is only the Dispencer but God the Benfactour and therefore let all Ungratefull Ones know that where Gratitude is the Debt God himself is the chief Creditor Who though he causes his Sun to shine and his Rain to fall upon the Evil and Unthankfull in this World has another kind of Reward for their Unthankfulness in the next To which God the great Searcher and Iudge of Hearts and Rewarder of Men according to their Deeds be rendred and ascribed as is most due all Praise Might Majesty and Dominion both now and for evermore Amen A SERMON Preached at CHRIST-CHURCH Oxon. Before the University Octob. 14. 1688. PROV XII 22 Lying Lips are abomination to the Lord. I Am very sensible that by discoursing of Lyes and Falshood which I have pitched upon for my present Subject I must needs fall into a very large Common Place though yet not by half so large and Common as the Practice Nothing in Nature being so Universally decryed and withall so Universally practised as Falshood So that most of those things that have the mightiest and most controlling Influence upon the Affairs and Course of the World are neither better nor worse than down-right Lyes For what is common Fame which sounds from all Quarters of the World and re-sounds back to them again but generally a Loud Ratling Impudent Overbearing Lye What are most of the Histories of the World but Lyes Lyes immortalized and consigned over as a perpetual Abuse and Flam upon Posterity What are most of the Promises of the World but Lyes Of which we need no other Proof but our own Experience And what are most of the Oaths in the World but Lyes And such as need rather a Pardon for being took than a Dispensation from being kept And lastly what are all the Religions of the World except Judaism and Christianity but Lyes And even in Christianity it self are there not those who teach warrant and defend Lying And scarce use the Bible for any other Purpose but to swear upon it and to lye against it Thus a mighty governing Lye goes round the World and has almost banish'd Truth out of it and so reigning Triumphantly in its stead is the True Source of most of those Confusions and dire Calamities that