and cannot be misguided But sure the world hath had proof enough of the danger of such Guardians of their Faith and 't is to be hoped when men have run through all these mazes and are grown giddy and tir'd therein they will be perswaded to repose themselves whither all men fly at their last distress under the better security of a good life Not that this excludes thoughtfulness or devotion or supersedes the necessity of Church Doctrine or Discipline for the honest use of those and a modest teachable submission to these are great parts of a good life But it calms the Passions purges the Affections tunes the instruments of Reason and eases the Soul of all inward Disorders And that this is the best preparation even for Saecular Wisdom all men do own in that none go reeking in Lust wallowing in Riot flaming in Passion to any serious study Councel or Action they take their most virtuous moods for those and do appear the best men and Christians when they would shew themselves the best Philosophers and Counsellors But a good life doth more then this to the preserving us from deadly Errors for it begets in us a quick sehse of whatsoever is contrary to its self as all such Errors still are and though the good mans art may fail him in small mistakes yet his continual exercise of goodness as the experience of every Artist in his Trade and the naturate sagacity of every Creature in what is good or evil to it makes him very apprehensive of what is very false and dangerous But its greatest safety is in this that it entitles us to Gods especial care and guidance who though he had not told us so often as he hath That the meek he will guide in judgment and teach his wayes If ye continue in my words ye shall know the Truth He that heareth my words and doth them is founded upon a Rock yet if our thoughts be not very unworthy of him we shall not dare to suspect that he will ever abandon a true Lover and Doer of his Will who desires nothing but to be conform'd to himself by it to be bewildred and benighted in the errors of the wicked that lead to death The jealousie of such a sportive cruelty we should abhor to have of any worthy Friend or Master and 't is beyond all expressions base and unreasonable of him who is Light and Love Who should he forsake a Soul wholly devoted to his Laws to wander and be misguided to its ruine must forget not only his Promises but his very Nature his Truth and Goodness and if once we call these into doubt we sink into bottomless Scepticism where we shall not find any surer footing for the certainty of our Senses then of our Faith The same foundations then that Heaven and Earth are built upon the same is every good mans Faith yea Heaven and Earth may pass away but the goodness of the Lord endureth for ever Here therefore is the most firm and Chatholick security that God hath provided for men of all capacities whereby the meanest Reasoner whose head akes at a hard argument is as safe if he be but as honest and good as the Scribe or the Disputer or the man that is mighty at demonstration Let us therefore as the Apostle St. Peter advises us commit the keeping of our Souls to God in weldoing as unto a faithful Creatour and pray ever as our Apostle hath taught us in the end of this Chapter Now our Lord Jesus Christ and God even our Father who bath loved us and given us this everlasting consolation and good hope comfort our hearts and stablish us in every good Word and Work to whom be all glory given world without end Amen ERRATA PAge 5. line 19. for their read ment 20. for whether read rather p. 6. l. 1. for 〈◊〉 read 〈◊〉 disbelief read disbelieve p. 7. l. 12. for prescribe read proscribe p. 18. l. 4. read 〈◊〉 11. after These p. 24. l. 7. read the before aspects p. 28. l. 12. read its for their p. 31. l. 2. for read natural FINIS Mâ—tth 24.24 Ephes 4.14 â—iph bâ—r 2â— Isa 44.20 Rom. 1.23 Greg. Nazian 〈…〉 John 8.44 Prov. 1.20 c. Mark 6 2â— Tit. 2.11 â—2 Rom. 1.18 Ephes 4.19 1 Tim. 1.19 20. Jam. 1.21 2 Tim. 3.4 1 Pet. 2.2 Matth. 13â— 13,14,15 By the Ea 〈…〉 Monmouâ—â— in the Hist the Civil wars of Itaâ— â—ph 4.14 Rom. 16.18 2 Tim 3.6 2 Cor. 11.2 2 Cor. 4.4 Matth. 5.16 1 Pet. 2.15 1 Cor. 1.27.28 â— Cor. 11.13 Joh. 8.46 Joh. 4.1 Mat. 17.15 Rom. 1.2 Psal 25.9 Joh. 8.38 32. Matth. 7.25
A SERMON Preacht before the KING At Whitehall November the XXX 1673. By Roger Hayward D. D. Chaplain in Ordinary to His MAJESTY By His Majesties special Command LONDON Printed for Thomas Basset at the Sign of the George near St. Dunstans Church in Fleetstreet 1673. 2 Epistle to the Thessalonians 2 Chap. 10 11. Vers Because they received not the love of the Truth that they might be saved For this cause God shall send them strong delusion that they may believe a Lye THough the words do relate to a Prophecy yet I need not be so bold as to rifle into the doubtful contents of it to find out the plain sense of them Whatsoever Age or Place of Christendome this dreadful Comet foreseen by the Apostle directly hung over yet that it hath an evil Aspect more or less upon all is evident from the evil influence it hath every where scatter'd and we are not free from which is describ'd in the words that I have read Wherein we have these two things considerable 1. The sad condition of some men God shall send them strong delusion that they may believe a lye 2. The reason of it because they received not the love of the truth that they might be saved And whatever offence the phrase of Gods sending may give us as if Darkness could flow from him who is Light the reason assign'd for it will easily remove VVhat the strong delusion here threatn'd is the verse before my Text tells us The coming of Sathan with powers and signs and lying wonders such as our blessed Saviour foretold with this accompt of them They would deceive if it were possible the very Elect. Divers and deep have been the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the methods of imposture in Religion but the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it s utmost effort and choise master-piece hath been the counterfeiting those Credentials which God hath ever given to his immediate Messengers Power and Holiness it being contrary to his Perfections and an invincible bar to all belief for him to send a weak or wicked person on his extraordinary Errand How far the first of these hath been forg'd as by Simon Magus the person suppos'd by some to be primarily meant here Apollonius Tyanaeus and others we are told by History But the Devil hath long since at least among us laid by that old Engine as being unfit to ensnare an inquisitive Age But pretence of Holiness will never be out-dated the Sheeps cloathing will be a fresh and fashionable disguise to the end of the world yet neither of these delusions ever have been or can be so strong or subtile as to elude all means of discovery For though a lying wonder may be Mechanism or Conspiracy be so perform'd as to puzzle a very curious enquiry into the matter of fact only and a Sanctimonious vizor may be so accurately made as to startle an unwary admirer that gazes only on the outside of it yet a careful search into the integrity charity and humility of the person will certainly discover the forgery counterfeit power and purity tast alwayes very strong of malice and pride But thanks be to God we cannot pretend the danger nor plead the excuse of such temptations such is the honest genius of our Religion that it dazzles not our Eyes with any strange feats nor deafs our Ears with unintelligible sounds nor amuses our Minds with uncouth severities nor offers any other Proofs for it self then those its great Master hath left it save only the strange success of them against the will and interest of the greatest power and policy in the world VVe are then safe from this first evil unless we will be so humorous as to cheat our selves into the belief of lyes which is the second part of their sad condition To rake up the ashes of old Heretiques would be here as useless as unsavory and to rake into the wounds of our own Church to seek the Lye would be as barbarous Some Balsom we rather take from the words for the healing of the sore of the Daughter of Israel if it be not yet incurable viz Every false Perswasion doth not amount to this emphasis of error nor must we write on it the doom in my Text lest we fall under our own condemnation A small mistake may indeed as 't is menag'd grow up to the dimensions of a gross error let the vehicle be never so innocent the ingredients make it a deadly poyson But a lye is an error which carries its contradiction in its face not at the end of a long chain of consequences hookt artificially together which is so thick and palpable that not Faith and Philosophy onely but even Humanity checks at it as being repugnant to that sense or testimony which is current through the whole world And of this nature there are too many extant I will not search into this or the other sect or communion for them onely lay down some general undeniable Characters and whatsoever Doctrines or Propositions answer them I hope 't will be no rudeness or affront to leave the lye at their doors 1. Those that deny the being or providence of God cannot justly be angry at that reproach which they roundly put upon the whole world All men Jews and Heathens yea their very Idols and Altars and the whole Creation do with one consent condemn these yea so far do they contradict themselves that they give the making and menagement of the whole world to such a blind Power which they dare not trust with the care of that little pittance of it they call their own And however sportive men may in the transports of their pleasures be with God yet this argues the denial of him to be the greatest falsity that it needs so much confidence and wildness and contempt of all things that are venerable amongst men to support it Again 2. Such Opinions as do violate his Perfections or charge any thing that is evil on him that advance any Creature to his glories or degrade him to its likeness cannot escape this evil name Those that of old invaded his honour and gave it to others are said by the Prophet to hold a lye in their right hand and by the Apostle to change the truth of God into a lye And those that represent him as cruel or unjust as peevish and easie to be provok't and yet easie to be flatter'd are not the Idea of the true God but the meer Figments and Idols of their own devising or whether their own Images which they set up in pomp and then fall down and worship 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Evil men since they must have a God will have the making of him and then no doubt he shall be such an one as shall best serve their own purposes a meer imaginary Creature of their own 3. VVhatever destroys the evidence of sense in those things that fall properly under its cognizance or the sufficiency of moral motives
to induce a firm Faith in those things which do not nor can't falls justly under this censure For greater assurance then these give us in their respective objects we cannot have and upon this men adventure all that is dear to them even their lives and he that is so much Infidel to himself as to disbelief his own sense or to the whole world as to refuse that security which is universally accepted amongst men engages himself in invincible jealousies of all persons actions and things whatsoever he may as well suspect the Food on his own Table as adore that on Gods and question any Record as well as that of the Bible So fair do Scepticism and Infidelity bid for the Lye that they cut off all the means not of all faith in God only but also in men yea of all knowledge and civil correspondence Lastly VVhatever errors destroy a good life and licentiate wickedness such for instance as confound the difference of Good and Evil that dispense with subjection truth honesty and mercy and the inseparable duties of Relations that decry the necessity of good works that establisheth a Religion void of Virtue a Faith without Obedience Repentance without Amendment all which do not by a perplext course of consequences but by a direct force set up Iniquity as by a Law The common sense of Mankind the universal Conscience is the most safe and steddy ark and repository of Truth firmer then Seths Pillars or the two Tables which can never moulder away in which all the virtues of a good life are so deeply ingrav'd that they are not to be eras'd without the violation of it Truth and Justice Charity and Sobriety are older then the Laws of the Sons of Noah and more durable then Mount Sinai they are the same yesterday to day and for ever the Data of all Laws the bonds of all Societies the hallowed soyl all Religions have been built on of which that is the best that is most exactly fram'd to them all men approve and defend these as their common Birth-right their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and are ready joyntly to prescribe him as a common enemy that assaults them The grosseness of any Error is not in the little remote absurdities that Art may urge it with God forbid that the misnaming or misplacing the terms in a Syllogism should be damnable but in the immediate mischievous effects of it if the next streams be deadly we may conclude the fountain to be poysonous and whatsoever Doctrine authorizes evil we may boldly pronounce it to be a Lye A name so hateful for the relation it bears to the Devil that I dare not affix it to any errors but such as stand anathematiz'd for such by the truest oecumenical council even the common consent of the whole world And now it may be wondered how in so nice and squeamish an Age such tough and unsavoury Untruths should be so greedily swallow'd and I might be thought were not such conceipts too notoriously own'd to have devis'd some Monsters to make sport with how men whose understandings serve them well as to other things should yet be so stupid as to deny him that made them or to make him such an one as they please or to turn Infidels to themselves and all men or lastly to think real virtue upon which their own all other mens comfort and security depend to be but an old Heathen notion a Levitical shadow as very a trifle in Gods accompt as in their own This may seem strange but the wonder will soon be over if we will consider the second part of the Text The reason of this sad doom Because they received not the love of the truth that they might be saved A sad charge as heavy as the doom That it imports more then bare Infidelity is plain from the words which signifie 1. An unworthy reception of truth they received not the love of it 2. The defeating the design of it were not saved by it There are too many that receive the Doctrines and Promises of a holy Life for that is the specifical sense of truth in the holy Scripture with scorn and contempt who disdaining the sneaking guilt of the triflers in my Text aspire to that of Blasphemers of Truth for whom therefore a more dreadful judgment then that here if any can be so is of old appointed Because you have set at naught all my Counsel I also will laugh at your Calamity I will mock when your fear cometh Others receive it with more civility with an agreeable countenance and behaviour but a cold indifferency as they would a stranger and if its approach dresse Language or arguing chance to please them their civility may improve to that gladness that Herod afforded the Baptist and 't is a welcome Guest for an hour A third sort receive it with a zealous fondness with Passions and Raptures yet not it but the phrase the tone the action that conveighs it For let the same truth be read in a Lesson in a lower key and with a more compos'd behaviour and it looses its warm entertainment And what is all this but flattery and falshood It may be the love of something that is agreeable to the Ears as sweet Accents or smooth Periods are let the matter be serious or frivolous or to the Fancy as such discourses as sooth mens particular tempers whether they are true or false or to the Understanding as a well-fram'd Hypothesis of the motions of the Planets But all this even the clearest notion of truth falls short of the love of it This admits it beyond all the chambers of imagination and discourse into the treasures the affections of the Soul seats it there in full power casts out whatsoever is distastful to it and subjects all things even its dearest inclinations to its Laws and whatsoever is short of this is but being slightly pleas'd or instructed by it not saved which is the second part of their charge That men look upon Salvation as a bare Reversion which hath nothing of duty or happiness in it on this side the Grave as it argues a strong love of their Sins so it doth a gross ignorance of the design of the Gospel the onely effect of which that should or can be expected from it here as it every where declares is that it save us from our sins without which the strongest hopes of Heaven are but the Dreams of a Fools Paradise If therefore men will not be better'd by it if notwithstanding its plainest Precepts highest Promises and most frightful Terrors if in defiance to the strongest motives the Blood of Jesus and the Bowels of God to invite them and all the Aids of Heaven tender'd to assist them and all the treasures of Love and Vengeance laid open to perswade them they will continâ—e in their wickedness and not be saved with whatsoever solemnity they receive they do effectually but reject and baffle the truth This is their