of Peace wherein the Unity of Spirit is to be held It is the violent forcing asunder the stones of the Spiritual Building and dashing them in pieces one against another Unity of Affections there can be none where strife comes but a biting and devouring one another and being devoured one of another Gal. 5. 15. And indeed an opening of a broad way to some common Enemy to enter in and make havock of all And the Unity of Faith is in no little danger Men of a contentious Spirit are always brim full of Objections against every thing and must swell till they burst if they have not leave to give vent to their uneasie Souls always in travel to bring forth something new in troublesome disputations which are soon begun but not so soon ended When the humour is once set abroach it runs everlastingly It would be labour to no purpose to say more of this the mischiefs of Strife have been a long time too visible not to be seen of all tho they seem to be too little considered by the most even so visible as to render the visible Church of Christ on Earth almost invisible too Let us only here add the wise Kings Observation and if it come not too late as I hope it may not to some of us let us take his advice too The beginning of Strife is as when one letteth out water therefore leave off contention before it be medled with Prov. 17. 14. How this Malignant and God knows at this day too predominant humour which so destroyeth the healthful State of the Church may be purged out the Second Rule will teach us In the mean time a Question is I suppose ready to be here asked by some which seemeth not impertinent and therefore deserveth some answer It is this Qu. Are we Christians bound without any dispute at all to swallow down every Doctrine which our Teachers shall commend unto our Faith And must we without any Examination of the lawfulness or unlawfulness of the things injoyned rest in the Will of our Superiors applying our selves without any more ado to the executing of their Commands May we not oppose Falshood and contend for the Truth and refuse to do wickedly when we are bid by men in Authority An. To this Question which hath been often ask'd and as often answered we shall here answer only so far as it seems to reflect upon the Rule here given or what hath been said of it We say therefore let it be far from any Christian to plead for or countenance an Implicit Faith and a blind Obedience or to disswade any man from making use of his Eyes or Reason in a sober inquiry into the Truth of Falshood of any Doctrine that is Preached or into the lawfulness or unlawfulness of any Command which is given by men All that we are to be disswaded from in this place is that we do not any thing of this out of Strife or with a quarrelsome and contentious mind Do it in meekness and humility and with a peaceable frame of Spirit as men truely zealous for the Truth and desirous to do your duty to God and Man and you shall neither hurt your selves nor be obnoxious to the Woe which belongs to them by whom Offences come More particularly 1. We are commanded to search the Scriptures Joh. 5. 39. For tho those words were spoken to the unbelieving Iews and not to Christians yet by a Parity of reason are we equally concern'd in the duty there injoyned If they having received of God the Books of Moses and the Prophets as the Rule of Faith and Life were obliged to search those Books for directions in both and particularly to convince them of their present duty now to believe in Iesus as the promised Messiah to the saving of their Souls as much cause have we who have received the Writings of the Evangelists and Apostles as our Rule of Faith and Holyness to search them diligently and to try all things by them that we may be sure we obey the Gospel of Christ without which there is no salvation to us That we may be alway in a readiness to give an answer to every man that asketh us a reason of the hope that is in us with meekness and fear 1 Pet. 3. 15. And that we be no more Children tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of Doctrine by the sleight of men and cunning craftiness whereby they lie in wait to deceive Eph. 4 14. And may not believe every Spirit but try the Spirits whether they be of God 1 Joh. 4. 1. Leave we therefore this Implicit Faith and taking things on trust on the naked credit of our Teachers without all Search and Tryal of their Doctrine to the Disciples of Rome against whose new Faith were there nothing more to object even this alone were enough to render it suspicious that it is afraid of the Light and of a fair Tryal by the Written Word God forbid that we should put out mens eyes and bid them stalk after others towards Heaven in the dark so long as God himself hath both given them Eyes to see withal and hath left them a plain Rule to walk by and a strict command to observe it A judgment of discretion to discern truth from falshood and good from Evil by such light as God hath given them must be allow'd to all if we will allow them to be Men and not Brutes Only let not this Universal Priviledge be abused to Strife And that it may not be so take these Directions 1. Have not the Faith of our Lord Iesus Christ the Lord of Glory with respect of persons Jam. 2. 1. These words of the Apostle Iames whatever interpretation they admit of as there used I may thus accommodate to the present matter Let not the Enmity or Prejudice you have taken up against any man or party nor yet the good opinion you have conceived of or great affection for any such byass or over-rule your search after the truth let them not corrupt your Judgment nor be your Motives to embrace some and reject other Doctrines But impartially weigh them all in the Ballance of the Sanctuary and choose them by their own weight Use men you may and must as far as you need them as helps to your own weakness but consider their reasons not their persons and what help you have by them not what opinion or affection you have had for them left you run into an Error not unlike that you condemn in the Romish Church of pinning your Faith upon your Friends sleeve For tho you thus may chance to hit upon the truth yet shall you be found herein to act through Strife and that infecteth even your believing of truth it self with sin 2. Take heed of doting about Questions and Strifes of words whereof cometh Envy Strife Railings Evil Surmisings Perverse Disputings of men of corrupt minds 1 Tim. 6. 4. See that they be not things unprofitable
THE RIGHT FOUNDATION OF Quietness Obedience and Concord Discovered in Two Seasonable Discourses SHEWING 1. The folly of Man's Devices 2. The stability of God's Counsel 3. The mischief of Strife and Vain-glory 4. The practice of true Humility By Clem. Elis A. M. Rector of Kirkby in Nottinghamshire Author of the Gentile Sinner LONDON Printed for Iohn Baker at the Three Pidgeons in St. Paul's Church-yard MDCLXXXIV To his Grace HENRY L d Duke of Newcastle Lord Lieutenant of Nottinghamshire and Privy-Counsellor to His most Sacred Majesty May it Please your Grace WIthout any Apology either for my weakness too apparent in this Performance or for my boldness in the Dedication I here in all humility beseech your Grace to accept of this very slender Present tho' it can signifie no more but only this that I acknowledge a duty incumbent upon me and tho' I shall never be able to make full payment I am very desirous to do all that I can towards the discharging of it In these little things which I have the confidence to call Two seasonable Discourses I have endeavour'd to do some part of that great Duty which I owe both to God and the King both to Church and State and particularly to that Congregation wherein under your Grace's noble Patronage I am set to exercise the Ministry committed to me It cannot therefore I hope look like a Presumption to give your Grace this account how your Tenants are instructed by me in their great Duties of Religion and Loyalty And if in that which is here humbly offered to your Grace's eye any Satisfaction be given in that particular I must account it reason enough why I thus expose my Infirmities to the view and Censure of the World and also why I despair not of a Pardon if it make so bold with your Grace as to tell the World wherever it comes that it is but the smallest part of that great Debt and Duty which is owing by My Lord Your Grace's most Humble and Obedient Servant Cl. Elis. The FOLLY OF MAN'S DEVICES AND STABILITY OF GOD'S COUNSEL A Seasonable Discourse ON Prov. XIX 21. There are many devices in a Man's heart nevertheless the Counsel of the Lord that shall stand MUch of the Wisdom of the ancient Heathens hath been conveyed to after Ages in Proverbs And these were in so high esteem with the learned'st of them that even their gravest Philosophers thought them some strength to their Arguments and their most Eloquent Orators no little ornament to their popular harangues yea in so great Veneration were they had with the generality of Mankind that they thought fit to father them on their Gods themselves and to signifie this caused them to be written over the doors of their Idol-Temples to the end that they might be the more universally learnt and religiously reguarded by men What a price then may we justly set on these Proverbs of Solomon whose rare Wisdom for its singular eminency is its self become Proverbial If their Antiquity may serve to enhance their value they are above four hundred years older than those which derive from the so much famed Wise Men of Greece If their Form be regardable they are short close and pithy Sentences comprizing a great deal of most sacred truth and necessary instruction in the fewest words apt by the acuteness and smartness of the expression to imprint the sense more deeply in the Mind and both by that and also their conciseness and brevity mightily befriending the Memory Like the most precious Iewel 's they are neither great nor burdensome easily portable and of inestimable worth Or like Chymical Spirits the least drop whereof is of a very diffusive Vertue and strong Operation such is their Universal use that we cannot miss amongst them the most excellent Rules of Duty both to God and Man suited to all Relations in Family or Kingdom to all conditions of high and low rich and poor to both Sexes and all Ages Lastly they are truely such as deserve not only to be written in Golden Letters on the Walls of our Churches but to be indelibly ingraved on the Tables of our Hearts as the Sacred Oracles of the Living God teaching us that only true Wisdom that is from above which as St. Iames telleth us is first pure then peaceable Jam. 3 17. Even that Wisdom whereby we are taught as here in the Text to attend to God's Counsel and to lay aside our own devices the best way of honouring our Father which is in Heaven and maintaining Peace among our selves who are Brethren upon Earth This Proverb is made up of two Propositions joyned or severed rather with this adversative Particle nevertheless signifying unto us thus much that tho the former of these two Propositions contain a certain truth which well deserveth our serious consideration yet the consideration hereof will do us no good but only increase our trouble by discovering unto us our weakness and folly if we do not firmly believe and finally acquiesce in that much more weighty truth which is taught us in the latter This we shall the better understand by observing First The two Subjects of these two Propositions and Secondly What things are affirmed of these two Subjects 1. The two Subjects are in the former Proposition Man in the latter the Lord. 1. The Subject of the former is Man a poor weak mortal creature groaning out a few troublesome dayes on Earth under the afflicting sense of infirmities and wants hastening every moment towards Death and Corruption Who cannot well tell himself what he is or whence he came or whither he must go and who knows himself by nothing so well as by a feeling of his own manifold imperfections He is the work of another in the hands and at the sole disposal of another on whom he totally depends for his life motion and being The History of his Life and Death Iob hath left us in a few words Iob. 14. 1 2. Man that is born of a Woman is of few dayes and full of trouble He cometh up like a flower and is cut down he fleeth also as a shadow and continueth not Would we know the very best of him that is to be known This is it Verily every man at his best state is altogether vanity Psal. 39. 5. How vain must be the devices of his heart who is himself at best but vanity 2. The Subject of the second Proposition is the Lord the most Great and Incomprehensible Glorious God the Eternal and Inexhaustible Spring of Being and Blessedness the Independent Self-sufficient infinitely great wise and good Creator Preserver and Governor of us and all the World without whom nothing ever was is or can be In whom we live and move and have our being Act. 17 28. Who giveth to all Life and Breath and all things V. 25. The unexpressible unconceiveable I AM that I AM Exod. 3 14. The Alpha and Omega the beginning and the end Rev. 21 6. All in All 1
say that either we are such as he ought not to punish at all or at least such as he ought not to punish after this manner If God send a Plague or a Famine or any kind of Mortal Sickness on a People for their sins is it reasonable for them to murmur against the Air and unseasonableness of the Weather And if God chastise us with evils of any other kind by what or whomsoever shall it be more reasonable to quarrel with and complain of the Instrument or the Messenger for executing upon us the Will of God then to seek out where the fault lieth whereby we have provoked him to anger and to amend it Iehu received the promise of a Kingdom to the fourth Generation for executing punishment on those whom God had determined to punish 2 Kings 10. 30. Yet did not Iehu depart from the sins of Ieroboam which made Israel to sin God sometimes giveth a King in his wrath and taketh him away again in his displeasure Hos. 13. 11. If he deliver men into the hands of their Oppressor tho he be the King of Babylon they must serve him and be quiet because they see it is the Will of God so to deal with them Ier. 27. Patience under our Sufferings and repentance of our sins and reformation of our lives and obedience to our Superiours in all lawful things even to the utmost to shew we own their Authority and decline not the hardest of their just commands are the best ways of reconciling our selves to God and turning his Judgments away from us and not to stand murmuring and complaining of that which in justice he is pleased to inflict upon us by what hand soever Why should a living man complain A man for the punishment of his sins Lam. 3. 39. Thus much for Correction III. In the next place let us be exhorted first ingeneral to attend God's Will in all things and let that take place of all the devices of our hearts Alas what would become of the World if God should disregard it slacken the reins of his Government and permit all to the hands of men Phaethon's guiding the Chariot of the Sun and firing the World would look no longer like a Fable Hot spirits and giddy heads with their bold devices and rash enterprizes would soon turn all things upside down and put more then one Nation into a combustion Men are of too different complexions and divided interests ever to unite in Peace and Order contrary humors and principles would always produce contrary Laws and Rules and every Party would be concerned to maintain that which would best uphold it not only to the ruine of the opposite Party but to the rending of the publick Peace and Welfare Then and no sooner let men talk of carrying on their own devices and designs when they either know themselves to be too strong for all men or can assure themselves that all men will be of their mind If any shall now ask whether we would have them sit still and unconcern'd how matters go right or wrong and whether it be not every mans duty to endeavour with all his might the rectifying of what he seeth amiss in Kingdom or Church To this some Answer hath been given already to which may be added thus much more 1. Be very sure that what you think to be amiss be so indeed before you go about to mend it Men are too apt to make their own irregular desires and wishes yea and not seldom an irrational Conceit and Phant'sie or even such a thing as this in some other men or party for whom they have a kindness the rule of right and wrong and so judge every thing to be amiss which they or such as they count their friends dislike Measure things by their proper rule not that of Self-interest or Affection but God's Word view and examine them by a true light be not misled by mens reports or vain surmises but try all things and then hold fast that which is good If you take not this course instead of mending what is amiss you will only marr that which his good Be sure that what you would amend be against God's Will or else it needs no mending and none will owe you thanks for your vain devices 2. Be as sure in the next place that you are every way rightly fitted and duly qualified for the work you take in hand See that you have both skill and strength and good Authority for what you undertake It is not every bold Bungler that hath face enough to praise himself and laugh at others who is fit for such a work as is the reformation of Kingdoms and Churches It is not all a thing to hold a Plow-staff and a Scepter Be content to employ your Talents accordingly as you are fitted with them and think it is Gods Will you should busie your selves in those employments for which he hath best furnished you and in those stations wherein he hath thought fit to place you If he had designed you for higher Callings he would probably have given you a more suitable Education and furnished you with better Tools And if other men who pretend to higher things shall tell you that they are wise enough both for themselves and you and thereby would tempt you to second them in their devices be sure first that they have indeed all that which you find wanting in your selves to fit them for being your leaders in such bold Attempts and that 's not only Wisdom and Strength but good Authority and a just Call unto the work from God Let them produce their Commission and shew you thus it is written and that must be the Will of God declared in his word not whispered into the Ear by a Pidgeon not dictated from an infallible Chair not sent in some flash of new Light or suggested by something blasphemously called the Spirit within them for the truth of all which you must at last be content with their own bare word which is sure to deceive you If you have not Authority from God for what you do he will say Who hath required these things at your hand Isai. 1. 12. To support the tottering Ark of God must needs appear a thing well pleasing unto God but let Uzzah do it and he dies for it 2 Sam. 6. 7. Be his zeal what it will he must have patience and expect his Call Men must know that tho it must needs be good to be zealous always in a good matter Gal. 4. 18. Yet should they take time to consider and pains to satisfie themselves that the matter be indeed as good as now it seems to them and that their zeal for it be good too for all zeal even for good is not so and that the good zeal carry them not beyond the bounds of their Authority Zeal for God must have the Will of God for its Rule it is otherwise a blind zeal a blemished Offering which God will not accept 'T is a
and vain Tit. 3. 9. that you are so earnest about Were all word-bickerings and impertinent disputes laid aside we should soon see controversial Divinity reduced into a much narrower compass Weigh well the matters in debate and be sure there is something in them that will quit cost and pay you well for your pains Take heed if the contention be but about a little straw and things of very little or no concernment to mens Souls or the good of the Church that your zeal grow not too hot lest you set all on fire and burn down the House over your heads Especially beware of that most unreasonable but very common disease of most wranglers fighting about words whilest you are agreed in the things themselves and see it not for the much dust that slies in your eyes by your bustling about nothing 3. Search for the Truth always and that purely for the Truths sake and the usefulness of it To find out Gods Will and not something that may suit with your own wishes should be your design That whereby God may be glorified the World benefitted your Souls saved not your humours pleased Some men seem to take great pains to search for the truth as before-hand resolved to hold it no longer or at least not much to regard it when they have found it upon any other account then that they see some others hold an Error whom they may be able to oppose with it they value the truth for nothing so much as for this that it is a Warrant for the exercise of their faculty of wrangling and contradiction 4. Search the Scriptures sincerely and reverently as the Sacred Oracles of life not being partial to any opinion which you have already taken up by chance and are faln in love with Take heed of wresting and forcing the words of Scripture to comply with your present Sentiments or of picking out hete and there a broken piece of a Sentence to patch up your own thoughts withal or how you judge of the sound of the words you hear by the sound that already rings in your ears Go to the Scriptures as to the Fountain of saving truth resolving to fetch both your Opinions and your Practice thence and to correct whatsoever is at present amiss in your self by them This is to give God his due honour and to let him be the sole Lord of your Faith 5. Content your selves with the most plain easie and obvious Truths for those are also the most necessary and least subject to disputes and meet with least opposition on any hand except it be from mens Lusts and against those you have liberty to contend with all your might so it be in your own Place and Station and with Christian Charity Remember always that in the Scriptures there be some things hard to be understood which the unlearned are apt to wrest to their own and others destruction 2 Pet. 3. 16. And in the interpreting whereof the most Learned think it both their Wisdom and Duty to be very modest How hard would it be for Christians to disagree would they rest in plainly revealed Truths which all good Protestants are agreed to be all things necessary to the salvation of sinners And how unreasonable a thing is it when we are are all agreed in these to strive even to the justling of one another or our selves out of the Church about those things whereof men may be safely ignorant and it may be ten to one whether one of ten ever understood 6. Have you found something which seemeth to you to be a truth whilest yet the greatest and most Learned part of the Christian World and particularly of the Church wherein you live thinketh it an Error Set not your selves presently as some Novices use to do in the Pope's Chair Remember you are at best but fallible men and should learn to be wise unto Sobriety Love not to be troublesome to the World with your pretended Knowledge neither be angry that all mens Judgments will not bow to yours Hast thou Faith have it to thy self before God Rom. 4. 22. Think it not a duty in you to make all the World know what you think you only know or the duty of all men to learn of you A good and humble Christian will satisfie himself in approving himself faithful to God and his own Conscience and will always have the Modesty to think that many men in the World are wiser then he and for this reason he cannot think it fit for him either to pride himself in his singular opinions or to vent them every where to draw Disciples after him to the breach of the Churches Peace We have a command indeed that our light so shine before men that they may see our good works and glorifie our Father which is in Heaven but where is the command to vent our opinions that they may see our Wisdom and glorifie us upon Earth Thus much concerning opinions 2. Now to that part of the Question relating to the commands of Superiours we may say again more generally That it is a most certain truth That we must obey God rather than men Act. 5. 29. And that we are bound to use all the means that God hath put within our reach to be fully perswaded in our minds touching the lawfulness of every Action we go about be it commanded or uncommanded by our Superiours Rom. 14. 5. And we are well assured by the Apostle That whatsoever is not of faith is sin Rom. 14. 23. And therefore no man ought to be debarred the liberty of securing his own Soul as well as he can by examining the lawfulness of the things commanded Only let this again be done without Strife That is to say 1. Make it manifest by your ready and unforced Obedience in all things of the lawfulness whereof you are already satisfied that your disobedience in other things wherein you are not yet satisfied is purely for Conscience sake and not through Strife but that as you obey cheerfully for the Lords sake so if in any thing you disobey 't is purely for the Lords sake too If this course had been taken in time by some men they might it is probable at this day have seen the Wisdom as well as Iustice of so doing He that with-holdeth obedience upon pretence of unlawfulness only must needs obey in all things which he granteth to be lawful or else he utterly voids his own pretence and declares himself more a lover of Strife than Conscience Whereunto then we have already attained let us walk by the same rule let us mind the same thing Phil. 3. 16. 2. In examining the Commands of Superiours make it not your business to seek out something which you may with some colour for your disobedience oppose against them when you see before-hand no apparent reason why you should not obey them He that seeing no cause why he should not obey goes to seek for one sheweth plainly his affection to Strife and that