swell against their reprehender innocent souls will be cheered and cleered by it Numb 5.21 22. Resolved offenders being reproved in stead of penitence break into choller fury sparkles in those eyes which should gush out with water and in stead of embracing the counsel will rage at the Counsellour Crossed wickednesse proves desperate and in stead of yeelding seeks for revenge of its own sins upon others uprightnesse whereas if anothers simple fidelity shews it self in reproving the honest-hearted he loves his Monitor so much the more by how much the more he smarteth allowing of truth as well when it hurts him as when it helps him But unsound flesh loves to be stroked the least roughnesse puts it into a rage a festered conscience will not endure a drawing plaster a putrid and scabbed limb delights to be scratcht and rubbed foule faces would have false glasses Diomedes must have a crooked shooe for his wry foot Caligula must be adored as a God forsooth though he live like a Devil poysoning his unckle and deflowring all his sisters Thorns must be touched with a gentle hand not grasped these ulcers must be no further searched into than the dead flesh reaches for if you but touch them to the quick you shall quickly hear of it and be sure to smart for it Sect. 3. But to bring this home to you of this place with whom my businesse lyes for hitherto I have but spoken in the air as the Apostle speaks or onely paved a way to my intended matter or at uttermost but given you a Preparative before hand as Physicians do to their Patients that their physick may work the more kindly your Pastour hath for many years preached in the Metropolitane City where they are more civilized and better bred without any clamour yea with much approbation for they enterteined him as Lot did those Angels that came to fetch him out of Sodom but you enterteine him as coursely as the Ammonites did Davids messengers Nor did the Devil ever so rage in this rude place as he hath done since his preaching hath awakened your consciences and by the looking-glasse of the Law and light of the Gospel shewen you the deformity filthiness of your souls A notable argument that Satan fears he shall be routed and his Kingdome more shaken in your quarters than hath fallen out in former times or by the preaching of any that have gone before him for he daily rages more and more amongst you As for instance at first he was opposed by a few simple Sectaries and that was no small honour to him as Hiram told Austin in the like case But now his preaching against drunkennes deceitfulnes swearing Sabbath-breaking ignorance formality and such other common sins hath brought all the parish about his ears not alone the wit-foundered Drunkard but the civil Justiciary the formal Hypocrite the ignorant Animal and all sorts of impenitent sinners And why But because the virtue and efficacie of Gods word which is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword to divide between the soul and spirit joynts and marrow as it is Heb. 4.12 hath discovered and made manifest to your selves and others the very secrets and most inward intents of your hearts Insomuch that your consciences are forced to bear witness against your selves that you are the parties to whom he speaks as if he named you or each of you in particular as you have an instance 1 Cor. 14.24 25. Heb. 4.12 whence your guilty consciences suggest that he aims at you in particular though he names none when indeed it is onely the prerogative and spirituallity of the Word above all other writings to discover the hearts and speak home to the consciences of all that hear it delivered with power and authority As for the Messenger the truth of his heart gives him boldness to profess before him who onely knows it that he strives against no man but his strife malignes no man but his malice envies no man but his envie as Hierome speaks Yea he could be more glad to see any mans even his greatest enemies amendment than his punishment This I say is the genuine reason why hundreds of you fret and chase and fume and swell and storm and rage and are ready to burst again when you hear him Your sins and deformities are so discovered and detected your presumptuous confidence of being Christians good enough and of your going to Heaven so questioned that your peace is disturbed and you will be revenged of some body It is observable that when our Saviour sent forth his Apostles to preach abroad in the world having first taught them the way his words to them were Behold I send you forth as sheep amongst wolves Matth. 10.16 Are not you these wolves not onely wolvish but meer wolves yes you are and will be until the Gospel shall have wrought a change in your hearts and natures Hebr. 10.16 Acts 15.9 and 20.29 Again Matth. 7.6 he sayes Cast not your pearls before swine lest they tread them under their feet and turning again all to reut you Are not you those unreasonable beasts and swine If not who are Yea you are more bruitish than a swine or any other unreasonable creature For whereas Christ by his Ministers would reconcile you to God as Joab did Absalom to David by the woman of Tekoah you cry they come to torment you before the time Matth. 8.29 Your case is just like his in the Gospel that called himself Legion who having been possest with Devils a long time was at length very loth to part with his guests yea he thought himself tormented when Christ came to cast out them and save him Mark 1.24 Luke 8.28 Sect. 4. Now what course do you take to be revenged of him For this makes you hate him above measure mis-construe his actions and intentions rail on him slander him curse him withstand and contrary his doctrine watch for his halting combine together and lay plots how you may do him the most mischief which is all you are able to do for else you would bring him before the Magistrate imprison smite wound and put him to death as the Jews served Christ as I could shew you from a world of testimonies and examples out of the Word See onely John 16.2 33. Matth. 24.9 Matth. 10.34 35 36. Luke 12.51 52 53. and 21.16 17 But our comfort is you have not so much authority as malice resembling the Serpent Porphyrus which abounds with poison but can hurt none for want of teeth Though your punishment shall be never the lesse for good and evil thoughts and desires in Gods account are good and evil works and shall so be judged in that Court of Justice where is no partiality But since you cannot do as you would you will do what you can as it fared with Zoilus that common slanderer or as it does with the Devil Revel 12.15 For if the Law binds your hands yet you will be smiting with your
tongues and if the Law so keeps you in awe that you dare not smite him on the mouth as the High Priest did Paul Acts 23.2 Yet you will do what you dare you will smite him with the mouth as Ziba did honest Mephibosheth 2 Sam. 16.3 And the like touching his maintenance because you cannot out him of his living you will defraud and rob him of his means and livelihood and neither pay him a peny your selves nor suffer others so far as you can help it which is a plot to pluck up all religion by the roots For how should our Pastours feed our souls if we feed not their bodies How should the lamp burn if we take away the holy oyl that should maintein it and in case it burn not there will be but a dark house So that to expect that Ministers should preach without maintenance is as if you should shut a bird into a cage give her no meat and yet bid her sing Never the lesse it pleases you that you can as you think displease him and withall pleasure your selves in saving your silver little dreaming what you do for look but narrowly into it and you shall see that this is not onely persecution theft sacriledge murther of bodies and souls of provoking God to send a famine of his Word and the like but you become by it guilty of high treason against God in thus using his Ambassadour and against Christ and all his members as I have elswhere made manifest Though it is wicked enough for you to impeach his credit asperse his spotlesse name and take away his reputation that so none else may hear him or regard what he delivers which is a wickeder plot than your blind souls are able to discern Besides A good name sayes Salomon is better than a good ointment and to be chosen above great riches Prov. 22.1 Indeed his life is so well known that all the harm you do him is but as a candle to a white wall that may much black it among such Sensualists as your selves but cannot burn it though that be too much for a mans good name is like a milk white ball that exceedingly gathers soil even with tossing Nor can he expect to fare better so long as he tarries with you where Satan hath his throne in a place that mostly consists of Swearers Drunkards and Drink-sellers He hath by his powerful preaching raised the Devil in many of you but it will be hard laying him again yea once to expect it when God hath given men over to their own lusts were an effect of frenzie not of hope For can he with Crabronius be ever pudling in a wasps nest and think to escape their stings Or be still blowing in the dust and not endanger his eyes It is no way possible For he that toucheth pitch shall be defiled therewith He that reproveth a scorner purchaseth to himself shame and he that rebuketh the wicked getteth himself a blot Prov. 9.7 8. See Jer. 18. Though I speak not this to dis-hearten him whom God hath placed over you for Gods glory we are bound to redeem with our own lives And a conscionable Minister is like David who would venture upon a Bear rather than lose a Lamb. Or Jacob who would endure heat by day and frost by night rather than neglect his flocks Or Moses who would fight with odds rather than the Cattle should perish with thirst Onely a Balaam wants this mercie Nor can I wish him to spare you ever the more by delivering himself in a gentler tone as you like the men of Bengala would have onely words of down and honey have him speak nothing but pure roâ—es preach unto you Peace peace and prophesie of wine and strong drink then should he be a welcome Prophet to you But this were to fulfill the proverb Like Pastour like people Hos 4.9 Yea this were for the blind to lead the blind that both might fall iâ—to the ditch together Luke 6.39 Alas the fault lies nat in the Word nor in his delivering it but in the wickednesse of your hearts that are the hearers who like the Spider will suck poison from the self same flower that the Bee does honey Nor will any truth be it never so untoothsome offend any but ill minds Michah 2.7 Yea even the same words that are lansets to a bad mans conscience will be as balm to penitent sinners The Word being like some mighty wind that bears over tall Elms or Cedars with the same blast that it raiseth a stooping Reed Exod. 20.21 Sect. 5. Every good line of Gods Word adds sinew to the vertuous mind and withall heals that vice which would be springing in it The very judgements of God to a good man are sweeter than the honey and the honey-comb Psal 19.10 But alas the same report wherewith the spirit of Rahab melts hardens the King of Jericho Josh 2. Sergius Paulus was converted Elymas obdurated at the same Sermon Acts 13. Yea even the same face of the Judge without any inward alteration is seen with terrour to the guilty with joy and confidence by the oppressed innocent The same rod that brought plagues to the Egyptians brings deliverance to Israel But I dare refer the case to thine own conscience to determine if the custome of sin and the god of this world hath not totally blinded thee where the fault lies and who is to be blamed in this particular Is the Physician to be blamed for the pain of his Patient or the disease The Chirurgeon or the wound which he endeavors by all means to cure Yea what is the genuine reason why the worst men and members of a Parish evermore regard a good Minister least complain of his bitterness and seek by all means to remove him Is it not because they are feet and legs and thighs and arms out of joynt and so cannot endure the touch of the Chirurgeons hand the acrimony of his medicines Alas every good Physician hâ—d rather cure a disease by sleep and diet than by Scammony and Castorium but an intemperate sick man maketh a cruel Physician And in case the disease be desperate he must use the extremity of physick Nothing will ease the Pluresie but letting of bloud and to such as are sick of a dead Apoplexie they are forced to give a double quantity of physick or their faculties will not be awakened Which is the very case of these desperate sinners who if they wanted not brains would in stead of complaining be thankful The Physician and Chirurgion heals us not without pain and yet we reward them Yea had any of you but a leg or an arm putrefied and corrupt you would even give money and think your selves beholding too to have them cut off because it is the onely way and means to preserve the whole body And if so what love and thanks can be too much that is exprest to them who would would you give them leave pluck you out of Satans clutches
and bring you to life eternal Nor can he ever be thankful to God who is not thankful to the Instrument or means by whom God does or would do him good Besides it were a breach of Justice not to proportion the rebuke to the crime For for a Minister to use gentle reprehension in case of capital offences that is in case of thefts rapines sacriledges adulteries and incests to say to his people as Eli to his sons Why did you so Is no other than to shave that head which deserves cutting off For as it is with ill humours in the body that a weak dose doth but stir and anger them not purge them out yea if physick be not strong enough to purge out choller it encreaseth choller the humours it would have purged and expelled if it had been strong enough it inflameth exasperateth and sharpeneth And as the Sun in the Spring-time breedeth agues and other distempers because it stirreth humours and doth not waste them so it fareth with sins in the soul An easie and gentle reproof doth but encourage wickedness and make it think it self so slight as that rebuke importeth which is to patronize evil in stead of reproving it And experience shews that cold Preachers make bold sinners However such being like ill Archers that draw not their arrows up to the head seldome convert these sinners Nevertheless resolute sinners would have dissolute Teachers would have the Law according to their lives not their lives according to the Law That pleasâ—th them which is sweet to the sence not that which is wholesome to the conscience as the Holy Ghost informs us Isa 30.10 1 Kings 12.8 Mich. 2.11 Like wanton children they care not to be mended but to be commended He that praiseth them pleaseth them But wo to such Preachers as shall heal the hurt of these people with sweet words saying Peace peace and give them comfort as Jezabel did Ahab 1 Kings 21.5 6 7. when they rather deserve a curse Jer. 8.11 For this is no other than guilded treason like that of Hazael to his Master who told him with his mouth that he should recover when on the morrow he stifled him with his hand and a wet cloth 2 Kings 8.14 15. Whence the Holy Ghost brands all flattering Preachers that sow pillows for false Prophets Jer. 8.11 And indeed it is but a Mountebank trick to heal an ulcer and leave in the core A good Physician either for soul or body first tels the state of the disease with its symptomes and then prescribes and in prescribing first puls down the body with purgatives and then raiseth it with cordials And take this for a rule such as fear God are Ministers of his sending wil think is better to lose mens favors than their souls and be sure to discharge his conscience from the burthen of any ones bloud Ezek. 3.18 and 33.8 Yea an ingenious Patient should be so wise as to know that the stomack should raâ—her be pleased than the pallate and experience tels us that those things for the most part that are least pleasing are most wholesome Rue is an herb most bitter to the taste yet in regard of the vertue which is in it we usually call it Herb of grace And Physicians find that though Mithridate of all other Electuaries it be the most distasteful yet of all others it is the most wholesome And so it fares touching spiritual truths Whence a good Preacher cares not so much to stroke the car as to strike the conscience being like a good Physician who gives sharp medicines and bitter potions that he may make shoâ—t diseases and procure sound health The true method of preaching and the likeliest way to undeceive the deceived and with blessing from above to pluck sinners out of Satans snares is for a Minister to deal with his hearers as the Prophet did by Hazael when he plainly told him the abominable wickedness of his heart and what evil even beyond beleef he should shortly do or execute had he been wise enough to have been warned thereby Or as Nathan did by David when he so cunningly made him pronounce sentence of death against himself Or as Jonah did by the Ninâ—vites when with that short thundering Sermon of eight words he converted that great City Or as Peter by his Converts when he told them they were the men that had crucified the Lord of life Or John Baptist by Herod and all that came unto him Or as Christ by the woman of Samaria when he so represented the very thoughts of her heart unto her conscience that she was forced to confesse He hath told me all thingâ— that eveâ— I did Or as he did with Saul when he spake to him from Heaven which woâ—ds made him tremble and fall to the earth with astonishment Which makes one of the Fathers say that The crown of Preachers is the tears of their hearers And Saint Basil that Shaâ—p reprehension is the healing of the soul And Chrysostom say to his hearers If I make you smart give me the more thanks for it Nay says Busil It may well be feared that Ministers open not the word aright when wicked men kick not against it And Luther was of that judgement thaâ— he thought if Ministers should preach the word as they ought they should stir up all the Furies of Hell against themselves Sect. 6. Now what 's the reason why down right truth is so unpleasing to carnal minds when none can deny but it is by far the more wholesome It is this All men love the light as it shines but as it discovers and dirâ—cts the most of men hate it None so bad but they can away with pleasing truths and promisâ—s of mercie Or let the Minister walk in generals and labour more to fill the head with knowledge than the heart with grace to please the sence than speak to the conscience by driving an application close home to them in particular touching some one sin of theirs which is the soul of preaching so long they will like him yea he is a fair and good Church man a great Scholar But let him act the part of Boanerges thunder out the judgements of God against sinners let him do as God commands Ezekiel to do Ezek. 4.4 Answer them according to their Idols preach to their necessities presse them to holy duties reprove them for their unholy practices make known to them what evil consciences they have then they turn their backs upon him and hate him to the death as Ahab did Eliah and Michaiah Herod and Herodias John Baptist the Jews our Saviour and the Galatians Paul See Amos 5.10 yea they will say Away with such a fellow from the earth for it is not meet that he should live The case of all incorrigible and cauterized sinners as well the covetous as the riotous the civil such as seek to fill their chests as those that are all for satisfying their lusts For let a Minister but rowze and
laboured to keep others from it entreats him not with fair and sweet words as he did Agrippa who was hopefully coming on to embrace the truth Wherefore the same Apostle sayes to the one O full of all subtilty and all mischief thou child of the Devil and enemy of all righteousnesse Acts 13.10 But when he speaks to the other it is in a more mild gentle and winning tone Or as our Saviour himself used that Lamb of God who would not break the bruized reed nor quench the smoking flax As how doth he multiply wo upon wo and threaten double damnation when he was to deal with hard-hearted Hypocrites Opposers of the Gospel those Scribes and Pharisees Matth. 23. And indeed the best musick is made by a judicial correspondence of sharp and flat Let all merciful meal-mouthed Preachers such as flatter sin and flout holiness such whose scope of their preaching is but to feed the people with hopes though they give them no grounds for it that Heaven shall meet them at their last hour be their condition never so wretched which is the reason that most men walk in the broad way and yet every man thinks to enter in at the straight gate Let these I say take notice of this As also scorners of their teachers Instructors and more of their godly instruction then will they love where and what they now hate and hate where and what they now love But you have no cause to complain of either extream for in the Sermons against which you except there is matter of instruction of reprehension of consolation of exhortation for the ignorant for the sinfull for the faithfull for the despairing soul and drooping spirit not Gospel without Law nor Law without Gospel but a sweet composition of severity and mercie wherein Law and Gospel meet as Moses and Christ met upon the Mount the one to direct your obedience the other to answer for your disobedience if you will but repent and turn unto God with such Christian moderation as may argue zeal without malice and desire to win souls no will to gaul them For as Sauls servants did not onely tell him that he had an evil spirit but withall told him a remedy and helpt him to the party that gave him ease 1 Sam. 16.16 18. So your Pastour with a discovery of your sins shews you a means of cure and recovery for your souls Yea do but submit and the very same Word like the sword of Achilles will heal again whom it hath wounded Whereas if you forthwith flye from your Admonisher it is as if one that is launsed should flye from his Chirurgian before his wound can be bound up Sect. 9. Again slight not him whom God hath placed over you lest hereafter when you lye gasping on your death-beds and come to a sight and sence of your sad condition you wish Oh that I had now but the opportunity to converse with such a Minister as Saul slighted Samuel while he lived but would fain have heard and conversed with him when he was dead A case which often fals out for when godless persons are in any distress they still pray the people of God to pray for them and commonly those too whom they have most slighted hated and abused For the Oppressour is in no mans mercie but his whom he hath trampled upon and injuries done us on earth give us power in Heaven Whereupon Jeroboams hand being dried up for stretching it out against the Prophet he sueth to the man of God saying I beseech thee pray unto the Lord thy God and make intercession for me that my hand may be restored unto me and the man of God besought the Lord and the Kings hand was restored 1 Kings 13.4 6. And thus it fared between the Israelites and Samuel 1 Sam. 12.19 between Miriam and Moses Numb 12 13. Thus when the Lords wroth was kindled against Eliphaz and his two friends nothing would appease the same but the prayer of Job whom they had so contemned Job 42.7 8. Thus Simon the Sorcerer prayes Peter to pray for him Acts 8.24 Yea of whom did Dives being tormented in Hell flames expect and seek for ease but from Lazarus whom lately before he had despised Luke 16.24 For though the wicked scorn and despise the godly in their prosperity yet in their distress they onely are set by for advice and to pray unto God for them who are more ready to sollicite God for their mortallest enemies and persecutours than they to desire it be it at the time when they wrong them most witness Stephen when they stoned him Act. 7.60 And our Saviour Christ when they crucified him Luke 23.34 Yea they account it a sin to cease praying for their worst enemies 1 Sam. 12.23 To all which I might add how such as have wronged and persecuted the servants of God are not seldome forced to confess their own folly wickedness and unthankfulness the Godlies superlative goodness c. As Laban did to Jacob Genes 30.27 and Pharaoh to Moses Exod. 9.27 28. and again chap. 10.16 17. and Saul to David saying I have sinned I have done foolishly and have erred exceedingly thou art more rightous than I for thou hast rendered me good and I have rendered thee evil c. 1 Sam. 24.18 26.21 Rare acknowledgements from Heathen and Christian Kings to their own Subjects Yet God will have it so and conscience will compell them to do so though perhaps afterwards when the rod is off their backs they are apt to harden again and return to their old byass as did the same Pharaoh and Saul For no longer than they smart no longer can they see and unless affliction opens their eyes there is no perswading them but the righteous man is worse than his neighbour yea none so vile as Haman thought and reported of Mordecai and the Jews and Ahab of Elijah and Saul of David And this I can assure you beyond all exceptions that if ever your eyes be opened before you drop into Hell when the mask of prejudice is taken from before your eyes you will be cleer of another mind to what you are you will love that down right preaching which now you hate and hate those clawing and Rhetorical discourses that now you so much adore and admire Sect. 10. Wherefore receive with meekness the ingrossed Word which is able to save your souls Jam. 1.21 Entertain it with an honest and good heart and in so doing you shall entertain both God and Christ with it as our Savior himself plainly tels you Joh. 13.20 See also Chron. 34.27 28. Yea hear the Word indifferently and impartially and the rather from such as thou hast hated for their bitterness perhaps God will converâ— and save thee by no other means or Minister than such as he hath placed thee under Saul if you observe it when he was possest with an evil spirit as all are that persecute their faithful Pastours all his spite was at David