Scripture and I know that learned men have arts by obscure places to confound the plainest just as the Philosopher did motion Neither am I so perverse and singular not to think that universal practise and profession of the Church does much assure and confirm explications of Scriptures whether obscure or plain But this I say that the diversities of explication come as I now said from the diversity of principles or rather prejudices and that this only is the cause of it I thus demonstrate First in the Socinian who interprets all those Scriptures which the Catholic world hath still apply'd to the Divinity and satisfaction of Christ that I name no more points otherwise then the Church did alway and I affirm he does it not because he thinks the words do favor his interpretation but because his principle requires it namely this To admit nothing into his faith but what agrees with that which he counts reason which in a Socinians faith is judg of all points in the last resort And I mean reason upon natural principles and thus I prove it Socinus speaking of Christ's satisfaction says the word is not in Scripture yet if it were there very often I would not believe it because it does not consist with right reason that is with the arguments that he had brought against it drawn from human principles And therefore he there adds those things which 't is apparent cannot be i. e. that appear such to him who judges by the principles of natural reason which yet cannot judg of supernatural and infinite beings tho the Holy Scripture does expresly say they are yet must not be admitted idcirco sacra verba in alium sensum quam ipsa sonant per inusitatos etiam tropos quandoque explicantur and for this reason we make use of even unusual tropes strain'd figures to explain the words of Holy writ to other senses then the words themselves import And so he therefore serves that great variety of words by which the Scripture does express Christs suffering for our sins in our stead as our sacrifice against the universal notions of those words not only which the Church of Christ but which the Jews and which the heathen world had of them And when his reason told him that Christ could not be God one with his Father that he was so far from having any being from eternity as that he was not at all till he had a being from the Blessed Virgin Therefore when the Scripture saies directly I and the Father are one he must strain it to this meaning are of one mind we agree in one altho St John avert that by distinguishing those two expressly Yea worse when to prove that Christ had a being e're the world was made we urge from the first Chap. to the Hebr. what St Paul produces from the Psalms and does apply to him most particularly Thou Lord in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth and the Heavens are the works of thine hands they shall perish but thou remainest and they all shall wax old as does a garment and as a vesture shalt thou fold them up and they shall be changed but thou art the same and thy years shall not fail They explain it thus that God by Christ will at last destroy these Heavens and this Earth and change them according to that saying in the Psalms which altho the Apostle produce at length as it stood there both concerning the Creation and destruction of the world yet he intended only to apply this last to Christ. And tho he say as well of the same Lord Thou Lord in the beginning didst lay the foundation of the earth and the heavens are the works of thine hands as thou shalt change them yet he meant no more but that this change God would effect by Christ. It is not possible that the text can give any the least countenance to this interpretation The different explication of this Scripture does not come from the obscurity of any words in it for in the Psalm they and we understand the same words in the same sense exactly therefore that we differ here is not from any thing in the words quoted but is wholly from the Principle And we may not wonder for the plain sense will not sute with their Hypothesis There are no other that are instanc'd in as differing from us in points of faith but the Romanist I know not whether they account those differences to be in things necessary to salvation If that be true that they allow for what cause they know best some that are reconcil'd to their Church to communicate with ours that is join in our worship and by doing so own the profession of our faith in distinction to that of others or at least espouse the scandal of the owning it Then one would think they must account that there is nothing in our worship don that is unlawful nor omitted that is necessary nor any thing Heretical profest at least that there 's no scandal in the owning that profession For if there were they did allow them only to profess and act gross sin which certainly they would not do So that poor Protestants when they are pleas'd to give leave may be no Heretics and therefore there is nothing of it self in that profession faulty But yet on the other side since we see they call us Heretics and when they have no power over us damn us to Hell fires and when they have had power damn'd us to the fire and fagot also sure they think the differences to be in things necessary But yet the account is easy how not the obscurity of Scripture but a Principle or prejudice does cause this For we are bound in conscience to grant they believe their own Principles Now 't is a Principle with them that their Church cannot erre and therefore that their present faith and consequent depending practice was their faith and practice alwaies That it may appear so they must seek for countenance from Scripture and if any thing there seem to thwart their faith or practice they must smooth and disguise it that it may look friendly And 't is most certain if the Scripture should be never so express against them whilst they think it is not possible that they can err they cannot think it possible Scripture can mean what it pretends to speak 'T were easy to make instances As first for invocation of the Saints departed which with them is a point of faith Bellar. and Cochleus produce that of the Psalms I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills from whence cometh my help Psalm 121. 1. and altho the text directs that looking up expressly to the Lord that made heaven and earth v. 2. and tho it be a Principle with them that on those everlasting hills there were no Saints in Davids time that could be invocated they were all in limbo then they say yet as I said they would have
they did receive from their immediate Forefathers as of Faith and saw their practice of For if this Principle were their Rule always and if it be now it must they say have bin so then the Faith of each succeeding Age must needs have bin the Faith of the preceding and by consequence there having bin no change the Faith of this Age must needs be the same with that of Christ and his Apostles Now since in the resolution of our Faith we proceed not by this Rule upon this Principle we have no Rule of faith nor certain resolution of it and by consequence no Faith Now it appears at first sight fully evident that this Rule of theirs does supersede and quite evacuate those Doctrines that maintain either the sayings of the Fathers or Decrees of Councils or the Definitions of the Popes or the infallible Autority of the Church whatever that Church signify hath any part or interest in the Rule of faith and very justly so for Fathers are but eminent Members of the Church Popes can pretend to be but Heads of that Church Councils but the Representatives and what infallible Autority soever can be in the Church that Church being the Congregation of the Faithful and those onely being Faithful that hold the true Faith therefore till it be known which is the true Faith it cannot be known who are the ture Faithful nor by consequence which is the Church nor therefore which is Head Member or Representative of it or hath that Autority and therefore before all those men must have a Rule for their Faith whereby they may try which is the true But when we say we have God's own Revelation of his will what he would have to be believ'd his Word the Scriptures they add that since we cannot know which is the Scripture but by the continued testimony of those that recommended it from the beginning neither can that be the Rule which needs another Rule to establish it nor can that which is believ'd upon that other Principle of universal testimony be any part of the Rule since what is believ'd is the Object of Faith and so presupposes the Rule of Faith and therefore we who make that to be the onely Rule have no Rule no not a part tho the Trent Council do allow the Scriptures to go shares with Tradition 'T is easy to reply that that which is the Object of that Faith whereby we assent to it as a book written by such inspir'd men or as a true historical Narration of which Testimony does assure us may yet be the Rule of that Faith whereby we assent to Doctrines as reveal'd from God which we believe those are that we find there recorded And it were as easy to retort that if this arguing were good men could not know that the Doctrine which Christ and his Apostles orally deliver'd to them was from God but by the testimony of the Miracles they taught therefore neither could Christ's or the Apostles oral tradition living voice be a Rule of Faith to those Ages since they were the Objects of belief and presuppos'd those Miracles as the Rule by which men did believe what Doctrines came from God nor can the Succession of Doctrine be the Rule for we know not the whole Succession but by the living voice of the present Church that does deliver Doctrine by the foresaid Rule or Principle But not to reply to this Scholastically but suppose for their sakes that Scripture could be known to be the word of God no otherwise than by testimony yet that it might be the Rule one short familiar instance shall evince irrefragably to the meanest understanding We know the Books of Scripture are entituled Books of the Old and New Testament both Scripture it self and Fathers giving cause for that expression Now in making a man's testament the Testator's last bequests or that which he last of all wills as to the disposal of his goods and possessions is the primary rule we know by which they are to be disposed off and when that disposition and will of his is put into writing sign'd and seal'd that writing or that Instrument is secundarily the rule by which Legacies must be demanded and upon performance of conditions the Inheritance entred upon Now possibly they that either demand Legacies or the Executors yea the Heir indeed himself it may be know not either hand or seal however that the writing was in good deed honestly subscrib'd and sealed by the deceased party none can know but who were present and saw or heard him declare and publish it and if any are concern'd to be assur'd whether it be a true will neither forg'd nor alter'd or deprav'd they can no otherwise be satisfied than by their testimony It is on that account that men give credit to that will from thence it is of force and afterwards continues to be so as to all ends and uses of a Will by being witnessed and sworn to that is prov'd and then enrolled and layd up in an Office for that purpose and by that becomes a firm Record and as such is there conserved Now certainly no man is so far destitute of common sence to say either the Witnesses or their Testimony or the Office that conserves the Instrument or the Clerks and Registers or Judg of that Office is the Rule by which the man's goods must be distributed or the Rule of those things that the Heir or the Excecutors must perform for the man's last Will I shew'd you was the prime Rule that Will put into writing sign'd and seal'd that is that Instrument the secondary Rule of all that and the Testimony Office Clerks and Judg are but onely means of bringing that Will to the knowledg of all such as are concern'd the way of assuring the truth and uncorruptness of the Instrument and of conserving it entire for after uses The Application of this to Christ our Savior's Testament is easy If by Penmen which himself inspir'd he caus'd his last Will in disposing the Inheritance of Heaven to be written and what things he would have believ'd what don all which he seal'd with his own God's Seal with Miracles and if those Penmen and the other Witnesses before whom he declar'd and publish'd it did attest it and gave it to the Church to be conserv'd there and her Pastors are perpetual successive Conservators of the integrity of these Records 't is plain our Lord's Will here is primarily the Rule of Faith and Action and secondarily the Testament that authentic Instrument is so and the Testimony is no more that Rule here than in the man's Will nor yet than the prerogative Office nor the Pastors or the Head if such an one there were than the Clerks the Judg of that Office nor all nor any of these are the Rule it self The Testimony is but the means of conveying down to us the knowlege of that Testament and of the uncorruptness of it and as far as that Conveyance and that
not good and I am sure of my own heart that if I thought it were so I would not do it here is no chusing of a sin not with the least degree of inclination 'T is this secures the Physitian who cannot possibly be assur'd there may not something lurk in his Patient's body for whose dark and unwholsome closets he hath no prospective to which the physic he prescribes may be pernicious yet because God hath revel'd no certain grounds for guidance in this case therefore he upon diligent search and grounds of art which are the best God hath allow'd us prescribing what he really believes will do him good satisfies a good conscience Upon the same account the Pilot satisfies himself where he adventures his ship and fraight upon shelfs and shallows and the Captain when he leads his men upon he canon's mouth and other desperat attemts of war Shall I make more familiar instances to you some have doubted whether celebrating Christ's Nativity be not will-worship because 't is not commanded in Scripture other have doubted of the use of Garments prescribed Ministers from the same ground and from their being significant Now as to these not to shew the unreasonableness of these doubts tho I could easily do it for in God's name why is it to set apart a day to thank God for the Redemtion of mankind will-worship and yet to set apart a day for the deliverance of a Nation from a temporal plague not will-worship Is the fifth of November in the Scripture any more than the twenty fifth of December Or is it the infinitely greater mercy of Christ's Birth-day that makes it more unlawful than the Gunpowder-Treason day and therefore 't is not lawful because 't is more fit And for the Garments of the Clergy I would they were all significant but that that is an argument against them in these daies It is true Scripture prescribes them not and by that rule they should wear none for it prescribes none but pray tell me will not any of these doubting men seek a Pulpit to preach in or now a daies a bason to baptize with never looking whether they have a warrant in Scripture to command it Just so rational and sensible men select a particular habit for a Priest whereby his words and exhortations may be receiv'd with greater respect and authority and this without any written precept for as where Scripture commands it renders every thing necessary so where it is silent it renders nothing unlawful in such circumstantials So a prescribed way of Praier is boggled at and why that more unlawful than a limited way of praising God They had effusions of those in the first times why do not we as well pretend to the one as to the other Or why should it be less faulty to have set forms of singing Psalms than have set forms of Liturgy in which too people might communicate as they do also join in praises or indeed would that Rhyme and tune become unlawful should the Magistrate command them too But passing over this and to speak in short of the whole matter If the man that doubts bids his conscience stand aside and because of legal penalties muffles himself and resolvedly goes on notwithstanding his speculative irresolution with desperat boldness judging it better to trust God with his soul than the Law with his estate or liberty if he fears to consider or enquire least he should get conviction that suits not with his interest and thinks it easier to doubt than to be certain because he 's certainly determin'd to do what is enjoin'd tho it be never so unlawful This is a profligate state of mind that wants nothing but occasion to engage upon the greatest villanies and close with Apostacy it self when recommended by impunity But if this doubting makes another scheme of reasoning and performs what is enjoind because the Magistrate's command is certain but its unlawfulness is only dubious and the safest course is ever the most innocent because it is the most prudent then the obligation to suspend the going on to act in case of doubting is superseded by another obligation actually to obey the undoubted injunction of Superiors and the good Subject will not fail to be a good Christian too But alas why should I busy my self in picking cases which here I hope are not useful when as upon this very Proposition we are now upon other things do apply themselves to most mens hearts of a more strong concern and of more daily practice If an action otherwise lawful will make up an indictment to our condemnation if don with a doubting conscience what guilt and damnation is there in those actions that are don against present full perswasion of conscience Truly my Brethren I have no aggravation for sins don against knowledg that being the worst that can be said of sin and I shall only add that they who so defie their conscience are in the ready way to have no conscience the sad estate of whom my last did display to you and in short 't is no wonder if God's Vicegerent do depart when he is so affronted There is a great and sad example of this procedure Rom. 1. 18 19 20. For the wrath of God is reveled from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold the truth in unrighteousness Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them for God hath shewed it unto them For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen being understood by the things that are made even his eternal power and God-head so that they are without excuse There is no plea for such because they did not use their knowledg to his service but sin'd against it and by their deeds of darkness put out that light which was vouchsafed them by God yea indeed did commit those deeds of darkness in the face of light I have to what I have already said one word to add for the scrupulous conscience Scruples are little suspicions in things of small concern or indifferency and where there is but little ground for otherwise they swell into that we call doubts and which denominates a doubting conscience Now scruples which are small particles of dust do indeed cast dust into the eies which dim the sight and make the eies to roule and fret and grieve and so do these the mind they disturb duty wonderfully by taking up the heart and making it restless and unquiet and so quite discompos'd for duty for the heart is still call'd aside wandring about that which troubles it And indeed these quite take off the edge of the mind for while scruples arise I am unsatisfied in every thing I do and then with what heart can I do them I am in fear of every performance and such a fear exceedingly damps love and quashes all endeavors I have no cheerfulness in my actions and consequently never can be eager and forward but cold and slack
countenance from Scripture and for want of better they are therefore forc'd to interpret those words I will lift up mine eyes unto the Hills thus I will invocate the Saints Now will any say 't is the obscurity of this Scripture that does hinder Protestants from seeing the bright evidence of this argument and not rather that it is the weak foundation of this practice that does make the Romanists seek to build it on those mountains So among those several texts which in the 2d Nicen general Council are produc't for adoration of the images of Christ and of the Saints and are expounded to evince it none is plainer then that which I produced now from Bellarmin I shall give one or two examples from the Psalms Thy face Lord will I seek and Lord list thou up the light of thy countenance upon us and again the rich among the people shall entreat thy face therefore David thought the picture of Christ was to be ador'd It is their own conclusion from these texts and they have no better for it Yet they saw the doctrine in these so apparently as that with great opposition to great Councils and more bood-shed I think then yet ever any doctrine hath bin setled with it was impos'd Yea more the first experiment of the Popes power over Soveraign Princes was on the account of this same doctrine when for opposing Image-worship Gregory the 26d excommunicated the Greek Emperour Pope Constantine for the same cause indeed had 14 years before don so to Philippicus but he did not go much further whereas Gregory absolv'd the Emperor's subjects in the Roman Dutchy from their Allegiance commanded them not to pay him any tribute nor in any wise obey him whereupon they kill'd their Governors and swore obedience to the Pope And this was the beginning of St Peters patrimony and it was thus gotten by this doctrine which they saw so cleerly in these Scriptures when they cannot see the contrary in those plain words Thou shalt not make to thy self any whether Graven image or idol it matters not since it follows nor the likeness of any thing which is heaven above c. nor in those where God takes care expresly that himself be not worship't by an image Deut. 4. 15. and then judg if 't is obscurity or plainness that makes them see or not see doctrines in the Scripture rather if it be not meerly the necessity of prejudice So again we differ in the meaning of the 14th chap. of the 1. of Cor. where we think St Paul asserts and argues yea and chides against all service in an unknown tongue in the public assemblies saying all must be don there so as it may be understood and to edification But that which is perform'd there in an unknown tongue does not edify says he there yet to justify this practice they must make it have a different meaning which no Fathers countenance but which several expound as we do yea and diverse of their own do so too particularly their Pope John 8th in his 247th Epistle writing expresly on that Subject Once more so their half communion that it may be reconcil'd with that express command Drink yee all of it and this do obliges them to find another meaning drink yee all must be directed to them only as Apostles and do this must signify consecrate the Elements altho St Paul apply it most directly to the drinking and the drinking to his lay Corinthians Nor dare they say in truth it means the other for St Paul when he does say do this did not intend to make his Lay Corinthians male and female all priests and give them power to consecrate The words are plain there 's nothing in the text obscure that makes us differ but the practice had by little and little grown upon them till it became Universal and so grew into their faith and then since they believe they cannot erre they must expound Christ's words so as they may not contradict their practise because that would overthrow their Principle But the Church that builds upon no Principle but Gods word can have no temtation to pervert or strain it since what ever does appear to be the meaning of it that their Principle must needs engage them to believe And therefore if it say This is my body we believe it if it saies too after consecration it is bread we believe that also and because it therefore says 't is both we so believe it one that it may be the other which since both say it is impossible that it can be substantially neither hath God in express words told us which it is substantially therefore seeing when he calls it body he is instituting his Sacrament there 's all reason in the world he should mean Sacramentally since 't is the most proper meaning and by consequence 't is bread substantially as all waies of judging in the world assure us Here 's no stress on Scripture as there is no Principle to serve when as the other makes us differ not in Scripture only even where 't is plainest but tradition too For the most express and evident sayings of the primitive Fathers are on every head of difference as much the matter of contention as the texts of Scripture are as it were easy to demonstrate if that were my business So that it is meer deceit to lay our quarrels to defects in Gods word and particularly to its obscurity which a man would think were evident enough from this that Children knew it The last thing I am to speak to And that from a child thou hast known the holy Scriptures which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus I cannot pass this that it is St Chrysostomes observation that Timothy was nurst up in the Scriptures from his childhood Yea and since his Father was an Heathen he must have bin taught them by his Grandmother Lois and his Mother Eunice whose faith St Paul speaks of 2 Tim. 1. 5. Children therefore then and Women and they sure are Laics read the Bible Yea and since they knew it they must read it in a language which they understood and we know where that is unlawful now If we consider the first prohibition that appear'd in that Church with Synodical autority against such mens having any Bibles in their own tongue we shall find it was immediatly upon the preaching of the Waldenses one of whose doctrines it was that the Scripture was the rule to judg of faith by so that whatsoever was not consonant to that must be refus'd This they preach't in France and over Europe in the latter end of the twelf Century and that Council which forbad their having of the Bible we find lately put forth by the frier D. Achery as held at Tholouse in the beginning of the 13th Century It seems they apprehended then their doctrines hardly
the first voice of nature teacheth us the direct contrary And whosoever he be that is I will not say unjust to others but not kind friendly and apt to do good to them he that hath regard for onely self and mesures all by his own inclinations and interests is such a thing if nature onely judg of him as ought to have bin expos'd when he was born and to have no pity shew'd him when in teares and in his blood he cri'd for it he should be still abstain'd and seperated from as one whom Nature her self excommunicates as one who is no part of human society but the proper native and inhabitant of the desert But he that is unrighteous who by worng whether of violence or fraud or but of debt makes his own satisfactions that to serve his uses and occasions dares take or but detain from others what is due to them and supports his pomp and plenty with that which of right ought to cloth and feed others and so eats the bread and drinks the tears and may be blood of Creditors he that is so unmerciful as to be thus cruel tho Almighty God were silent even Nature would her self prosecute such a person with her out-cries as we do fire when 't is broke out and rages for he is all one fire also spreads and seises all it can come near whether mans or Gods house to make fuel for it self and to encrease its blaze so that the other should be lookt upon with the same dreads and abhorrency for he is the same disorder in the frame of Nature and in this the voice of Nature is the voice of God which is our other medium to discover what is natural Now since we have declar'd that natural vertue is in man the imitation of God is as it were the workings off of those forms of goodness that are in him and the lines and rules of it are but the lineaments of his perfection 〈◊〉 will be easy to evince that the rule for mercy is a most important law of Nature since the practice of it is so natural to God himself Now to prove this passing by all other methods of probation I shall content my self with that one declaration of himself he made when he proclaim'd himself the Lord the Lord God merciful and gracious long suffering and abundant in goodness and truth keeping mercy for thousands forgiving iniquity transgression and sin and that will by no means utterly cut off the guilty so I understand it out of Jer. 46. 28. will not make a full end a clear riddance of them when I visit God seems here to have taken flesh in his expressions e're he was incarnate that he might have words to phrase his goodness in and he had bowels of mercy before he was made man and yet all this he says are but the back parts of his goodnes Exod. 33. v. ult but that of it which we meet with in his dealings with the Sons of men as we see it à posteriori and in its effects here but the face and glory of it was so bright and dazeling that he tells his friend there Moses that 't was not possible for him to see it and live Yet now St Paul saith God hath given us the light of the knowledg of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ 2 Cor. 4. 6. Indeed there was Divinity of mercy and more too humanity was taken in that God Almighty might be able to bestow more then himself and all that he might shew compassion on us men It seems O Lord thou wilt have Mercy yea and Sacrifice too If thou require such an offering as the Sacrifice of thine own blood and of thine own Son that thou mightest have mercy on us and then let men dispute that vindicative justice is essential to God that sin and its punishment are annext by as unchangable necessity as Gods Attributes are to his being and that by the express exigence of his nature he no less necessarily executes it then the fire burns we may well be content it should be so when this strict necessity if such there were did but make way for was subservient to the ends of infinite Mercy and by that demonstrates that benignity compassion and forgiveness are much more the inclinations of his nature and if he intended man in any thing his image sure he did in mercy therefore do's our Savior charge us be yee merciful as your heavenly Father is merciful who as he had no other reason to create the world so 't is most certain that he had no other reason to redeem it That Oeconomy was intended as the means of mercy to poor Sinners in reducing them which is the Mercy my third observation speaks of which was this that of all acts of Mercy those are best and most well-pleasing in Gods sight which are emploi'd in the conversion of Sinners that was such for which our Savior is here pleading when he saith I will have Mercy But here I mean not such conversions as they are emploi'd about who compass sea and land not so much to convert men from the evil of their waies to the true real practice of Christianity as to convert them to their Church to which men would not go so fast but that by the debauch of all good Christian discipline there are such easy absolutions to be had tho men be not converted from their evil waies for it is impossible to find a Church or a Religion in the world which men may sin so hopefully and comfortably in as that of Rome as it now stands But these busy Agitators of conversion besides that they convert not men to Catholic Christianity but to a name and indeed faction have made Catholic a word of party if they should multiply we should soon find they would have Sacrifice not Mercy I do not mean their Host that Sacrificium incruentum bloody Sacrifices we know are a main part of their doctrine and their practice who have us'd to turn whole Nations into shambles for their Church's sake and make bonfires with burnt-offerings of their fellow Christians But waving these Conversions those the proposition speaks of are such as reduce Sinners from their evil doings to the universal faithful practice of all virtue and all piety Now of all acts of Mercy that those which endeavor this are best Nature herself would judg since they do aim at reinstating man the crown of all her workmanship in the integrity and rectitude of Nature which is his own true perfect state and is therefore the most proper and best for him as relating to that state But God who beyond that design'd to make man who had faln from his own nature to partake of the Divine Nature as St Peter saith 2. Pet. 1. 4. and in order to it call'd us to glory and vertue v. 3. cannot but account that kindness which endeavors the recovery of Sinners from corruption and misery to the state of vertue
an erring Conscience this when it is such strongly the man does not so much as doubt of his opinion and while he does not doubt what temtation can he have to think of rectifying especially if men are perswaded that their Conscience is directed by such Guides as cannot err We cannot but remember how the violation of all Laws and of all rights sacred and secular sedition and rebellion and such other dreadful consequents as we must not remember being dictated by conscience undertaken on account of Religion were esteem'd the characteristics of a godly side nor are we suffer'd to forget how the same things undertaken on account of holy Church make Saints and Martyrs for let not men pretend these are not Doctrines or directions of the Chuch of Rome There is no one of the rebellious parties but it may with much more truth and modesty affirm they are not theirs since they have not declar'd them so authentically and if we are not sure these are their doctrines 't is impossible to know that they have any for none of their doctrines have a greater attestation If som few declaring their opinion to the contrary shall against the declarations of the Tenets of their Scholes and the directions of much greater numbers their Casuists the rules and practice of their whole law the determinations of particular and general Councils make them not to be their doctrine then no Church hath any doctrines Now if as one side of these pretend some to a Divine Light within themselves some to the Divine Spirit speaking in the Scriptures for their Guide so the other plead the public Spirit of the Church speaking at least in the Assemblies of their general Council most infallibly and consequently all of them must judg it is impossible their Guide can err how is it possible to prescribe means to rectify the errors of such Consciences But should I pass these guilts of the first magnitude to which 't is wonderful a Conscience can be debaucht and err into them should I mention one that 's common to all of them violating the Laws disturbing the Peace of the Government unhinging the constitution of it by illegal meetings to disseminate their principles and make more errors and more separation wider breaches I shall not tell these that the Church no where gives a privilege to any to assemble not for Gods own worship from whose principles or practices the State hath reason to expect commotions or sedition the diminishing their secular Powers or endangering their persons and on that account forbids them Sure I am there is no one word in the Gospel for it and I leave all the mentioned parties Popish or the other to consider whether they have bin so innocent as not to be suspected justly and would onely ask each party of them whether it alone have right to act according to its conscience thus and otherwise against the Laws so that all others what sincerity so'ere they act with have no privilege or whether it be the Christians birth-right and due to all others If any party say that it alone hath right besides that all the rest will never grant this nor have reason for it and so all must quarrel yet if they do say so sure there 's nothing else but truth or confidence of having it can make them judg so but since every the most erring conscience does and must beleive the truth is with him he hath the same reason so contentions must be endless this state of conscience is just the Leviathans state of war besides that this pretence of any single party for it self makes war with the hypothesis it self of liberty of conscience But if they grant all other Sects to have just right to act according to their conscience then those that really believe the doctrine of their Church is true their ways blameless and the statutes which restrain the liberties of the Recusants and the Dissenters are all just those of them also that have sworn obedience to these statutes and those Magistrates and Governors too that are bound by oath to the execution of them and to take care of the peace of their Subjects and hold that as 't is a duty and an obligation in conscience on them these I say have just right too to act according to their conscience also and by consequence to execute the Laws upon those others and then I am sure in conscience and according to the very rules of all these men of liberty those have a right to take away their wild and dangerous liberties and by the very Principles of all these Dissenters are as much bound in conscience to restrain them as they think themselves bound to use those liberties according to their conscience Yea these are bound in conscience to suffer all their Governors to put restraints upon them because to do so is for them to act according to their conscience or if they think as 't is not strange if they think contradictions that they have a right in conscience to contend for this with Governors who yet they acknowledg to have a right too to restrain their liberties since all as themselves have granted have the same right there must needs be endless quarrels and contentions both with Governors and with themselves and just of all sides in which each hath right which is another contradiction also and so still this state of conscience will be the Leviathans state of war and must dissolve all Government as being inconsistent with it Whether any consequents in prospect or design can make this state of things allow'd and eligible or how far Governments can properly secure themselves if it be allow'd which yet 't is certain that they have a right to do against the clamorous pretences of all conscience whatsoever as to Church Laws yet how far they can I say secure themselves against such sorts of men 〈◊〉 side who declare that their Government it self is sinful or 〈◊〉 t'other side a sort of men who not onely here in this Nation after the most dire and hateful treason ever hatch'd or thought of were not nor are suffer'd by the Guides of their conscience by their Pastors neither their Supreme one nor their particular Confessors to give assurance of their civil obedience and allegiance to their own Prince But in France after the murder of two Kings by them both of their Religion when as Lewis the 13th did design and ask the advice of his Parliament to make provision for his own safety and assurance of the Loialty of his Subjects by an Oath a thing by Gods own People since 't was a Kingdom practic'd all the Clergy those Directors of the consciences of that Nation were so far from suffering it that they made the King to cause the Parliament to raze out what of it was drawn and registred in their Journals professing to his face that they would excommunicate all as Heretics that were against that Proposition that the Pope could depose Kings But
and if God himself knew the best way to keep off his Indignation from us then here it is for he prescribes Come my people enter thou into thy chambers and shut thy doors about thee hide thy self as it were for a little moment until the indignation be overpast Before I do divide the Text I shall tell you in what sense I interpret those words Enter thou into thy chamber and shut the doors about thee which if it be not according to the immediat and literal importance of them is yet such as is justified by a parallel place of Scripture dictated by our Savior himself and will afford us most wholesom observations I take them in the sense they have Matt. 6. 6. But thou when thou praiest enter into thy chamber and shut thy door so that here they will be the form of prescribing praier in dangerous and sad times when if thou look unto the earth thou shalt behold nothing but trouble and darkness and dimness of anguish why then lift up thine eyes to Heaven go to thy Praiers in times of change when thou knowest not which way to betake thy self go to the Closet of thy devotions take off thy thoughts from these sad objects here below and fix them on the comforts of Religion divert thy thoughts from the occasions of discontent and employ them in meditations upon God in converses with him in contemplations of his Promises and joys in one word spend thy time in Praiers and Devotions That 's the sense the parts are 1. A perswading invitation come my people wherein are the persons invited my people secondly the invitation come 2. Here is that they are invited to set down by way of counsel and that hath several branches 1. Enter thou into thy chambers 2. Shut thy doors about thee 3. Hide thy self with the duration of it as it were for a little moment and secondly the end of this and all the rest that the Indignation may pass over them until the Indignation be overpast In the handling of them I shall take this course first from the first general I shall speak somwhat of the persons invited that have this compellation my people and giving you some reasons of it From the second I shall observe that in times of storm or any sadness the onely way to withdraw our selves from the violences of discontents and troubles is to retire to praiers and the onely comfort then is in the Closet-exercises of Devotion 3. From the next part hide thy self that Praiers are in sad daies the onely great security and the devotion-chamber a sure hiding place from Indignation 4. From the duration that the sorrows of the afflictions which God does suffer to fall upon his own devout People they last but for a little moment 5. From the last there is none of Gods Indignation in them all that overpasses them First of the compellation my People come my People Now God may speak to those here for two reasons first to shew us that in the times of storm and of the breakings out of indignation God invites none to courses of security puts none upon ways of safety do's not take care of any but those that are his People and those in whom his People are concern'd as Kings who are the nursing Fathers of his Church as for others let them take their own courses look to themselves but come ye come my People My People is a word that includes relation and wherein it do's consist you will find from the correlative set together with it in the very making of the Covenant I will be their God and they shall be my People they who take God to be their Lord and assume to become his obedient liege People such have indeed a right and title to his Protections to provide for and take care of them it is his office he undertook it in his Covenant and not to do it were to renounce his compact which he bound himself to with an Oath which 't is impossible for him to do But as for others they have no plea to these Can Rebels claim protection and such who renounce relations that put themselves off from being his People expect that he should look after and take care of them be their Guardian and Security The different condition of these two sorts of People in relation to Gods caring for them in time of judgment you will find Mal 3. 16 17 18. In the times of undisturb'd abundance and of full prosperity when the God of this World is good to them that serve him when the Lord lets men alone and the ungodly thrive then indeed his protections are not much regarded but wickedness wealth seem the strongest security but when God sends his Indignation abroad and when his Judgments sweep away those confidences then this will be a comfortable consideration come what will come I have one that hath writ me in his note-book in his Book of Remembrance to put him in mind that he is to provide for me and when the most florishing ungodly shall be stript of all his hopes and trusts no least relief from them nor can he look for any from the Lord God hath not so much as directions for him here he hath no part not in his perswasions is not invited to his Counâ—els then have I one that will make me up amongst his Jewels have the same cares of me as of his peculiar precious treasures and calls me to security Come my People Or secondly my People to let us see what arts of invitation God does use to perswade us to take good counsel he gives us all the compellations of kindness and speaks us as fair as possibly not to do him a courtesy but to be kind to our selves In other places when he hath no design upon them then he cries to Moses thou and thy People Exod. 32. 7. but when he would do good unto us when he would entice us to be safe then come my People So he does elsewhere use all the titles of love and cloths his invitations with the wordings of our most known Courtships that that which useth to prevail with us may do his work upon us So in the Canticles 5. 2. Open to me my love my dove my spouse my undefiled and the whole book is but the Arts of Divine wooing Strange that the heavenly Bridegroom must court so much to be receiv'd by his Spouse Good God! that thou must be forc'd to give us good words to prevail with us to be good unto our selves that we must be sooth'd temted and flatter'd into preservations and mercies that we should refuse remedy and Antidote unless it be guilded that to lie hid in times of Judgment and to escape Indignation is not motive enough to us but we must be woo'd to do so safety it self must speak us fair or we will none of it and God must flatter us into the places of security Come my People enter into thy chambers the
Testimony is assur'd and certain so far they must grant the Faith we give that that writing is the Rule must be assur'd and certain And since all the means and kinds of their Tradition make that very Testimony and Conveyance of that Book therefore all that certainty and that infallibility their faith can have from those grounds the same certainty and infallibility the faith we give to that Book must needs have too on their own grounds But it hath more for since the ground of all faith must be testimony and by consequence none but Divine Testimony can be ground sufficient for Divine Faith and that Testimony was I shew'd you Miracles wrought by the Publisher to confirm the Doctrine both which are in this Rule of ours Therefore altho that universal Testimony all their Tradition for it which is merely humane may be a sufficient method of conveyance to derive all notice as the first men's eyes and ears that saw the Miracles and heard Christ tho they be but humane senses were sufficient to them also they suffice not yet to a Divine Belief they cannot ground that Faith which must be given to Divine supernatural Doctrines upon a Divine Testimony which Tradition is not but our Rule hath So that the resolution of our Faith is made by a Divine Rule such as theirs pretends not to be made by and the mere conveyance of that Rule to us hath all that certainty and that infallibility that they pretend their Rule it self to have and so we may have Faith and may be Christians But we are never the nearer however for if the Rule of Faith if true must be a means to make our assent more infallible than Science upon Demonstration and there can be no other such Rule besides the living voice and present practice of that Church which does and always did resolve her Faith into it by this Principle not to believe or teach or practise any thing as of Faith but what they did receive from their immediate Forefathers as of Faith and saw their practice of which most undeniably renders their Faith impossible to be erroneous therefore we that owne neither such a resolution rule or principle can neither have true rule nor Faith But yet how fine soever and self-evident this Principle and Resolution appear to them as speculators if it were practically enquir'd into it would appear the weakest of all other For first I might evince that ever since the first beginnings of Religion and mankind while either they had no other rule at all but this of oral practical tradition as in the first times before the Law was given and Scripture wrote their faith and practice grew all false and diabolical or when they had another rule so far as they made use of this rule thereby that they did make void their own Faith and God's Laws as the Pharisees among the Jews or lastly when they had not an entire rule written as in the first Age of Christianity while the Scriptures were not spread amongst Believers but they had the living and inspir'd voice of the Apostles to resolve their Faith into and by that Rule and Principle of oral practical Tradition most perfectly yet then the most execrable Heresies that ever infested the Church had their rise and growth Secondly I might demonstrate their Church did not always so resolve their Faith and by that Principle Look thro their Councils all from the beginning where their Church sometimes the whole Church met together either to confirm the true Faith or confound the false and you shall find no footsteps of this oral practical Tradition but of doctrinal enough The Sayings of the Fathers and Decrees of Former Councils and the Texts of Scripture these they call their Demonstrations Thirdly where there is most need still of a certain rule and resolution there this is unpracticable wholly namely in all great divisions of the Church in points of Faith To instance in the Arrian contentions where the World was against St Athanasius and St Athanasius against the World and the Pope himself Liberius was then Arrian who could then hear and distinguish the living voice of the Church When the whole East was so universally and bloudily divided in the matter of Images one Greek Council defining against them and another for it and the West as much the French Italian German Bishops presently in a great Synod declaring against them and the British Church particularly Now I will not ask how it was possible the greater parts of the whole Church should so at once have laid aside their infallible self-evident Rule and chanc'd together to forget it should not once bethink themselves whether they had seen their Forefathers practise that Worship or no and heard them teaching that they had received it too from their Forefathers nor ask how it was possible their Enimies should not mind them of it if it were the Churches rule and had bin generally taught and practised and assure them by their Principle how impossible that it should be erroneous But there is not a word of this in the whole two Nicene Councils but some Texts of Scripture and some Sayings of the Fathers which no more evince the practice than Tentordin steeple does cause Goodwin Sands But I will ask how in the noise and the confusion of both States and Churches while wars and Anathemas thunder'd in the quarrel how it was possible poor souls could hear and distinguish what the living voice and present practice of that Age was which was so extremely various and contradictory Those that were then to be instructed in the Faith what could they hearken to How could they guide themselves by that Rule when as in their Doctrines they condemn'd each other in their practice murder'd one another And when each party pleaded that theirs was the Faith deliver'd to them which should they believe The major party How should they know infallibly which was How be assured the major party is requir'd Why truth must be on that side where the most are What self-evident Rule had they to judge of these by Surely none Accordingly it was not by this Rule but by being overpower'd they receiv'd that Faith and practice Fourthly that it may appear in no case useful in the calmest Sun-shine of the Church and when if ever they were all of one mind namely before Luther when if ever there were any Article that the Latin Church was possessed of an explicit belief of it was that of Purgatory as it is now held amongst them there was all expresses of an oral practical Tradition for it and if there were not 't is impossible to know when any Doctrine is receiv'd upon that Principle so that the Rule is frivolous as to practice yet as if that Principle had ow'd the very Founder of it a great spight he must go write a Book against that Purgatory which stood by his own Principle for which he is under censure by his own Church But least
more absolutely than in others but in all these there are promises and promises were made to be believ'd and every faithful Christian that trusts to them does know whom he hath believ'd But yet it cannot be denied since God hath threatned Ezek. 14. 13 14 c. When a Land sinneth against him by transgressing grievously then he will stretch out his hand against it and if he say sword go thro the Land and pour out fury upon it in bloud and break the staff of bread thereof he swears tho Noah Daniel and Job were in it they should but deliver their own souls then if we chance to see wickedness overspread a Nation vice and profaness grown so universal and habitual that 't is almost natural when impunity hath made it safe and upon that account familiar and then familiar practice made it necessary yea and great examples made it honorable and by this all virtue is made mean and contemtible and insolently domineer'd over or derided petulantly when a people looks so like the thing God threaten'd so 't is hard to apply the promises of safety to it or with confidence rely upon God for its preservation And yet there is the resolution of a case so like this in the Prophet Micah c. 7. as is able to revive a dying hope and give it vigor and security Wo is me for I am as when they have gathered the summer-fruits as the grape-gleanings of the Vintage there is no cluster to eat the good man is perished out of the Land and there is none upright among men they all lie in wait for bloud they hunt every every man his brother with a net That they may do evil with both hands the Prince asketh and the Judg asketh for a reward and the great man uttereth his mischievous desire so they wrap it up The best of them is as a briar the most upright sharper than a thorn-hedg and then he adds the day of visitation cometh now shall be their perplexity but he recollects himself and says Therefore I will look unto the Lord I will wait for the God of my salvation my God will hear me Rejoice not against me O mine Enimy when I fall I shall arise when I sit in darkness the Lord shall be a light unto me So that when we cannot hope well of the Commonwealth yet we may hope in God still And I pray you tell me whether way looks quieter and safer hath more comfortable expectations to confederate make factions lay plots dark somtimes illegal and unjust contrivances and sow the seeds of trouble and dissention and think with these to carry all their own away not enduring to submit to Providence or be contented with God's dispensations but will help him as if he had need of such arts or instruments and could not govern except his commands were broke when 't is certain such contrivances if they do not thwart his counsels which if they comport not with he laughs at and defeats yet they do his commands and then he will punish them however he may let them give a while some trouble And then whether is this better or to do our duty faithfully and trust God when we are assur'd if one sparrow two of which are worth yet but one farthing fall not to the ground without our Heavenly Father a Church and State shall not fall without him But yet 't is certain Governments are somtimes broken or else fall in pieces and while the fury of the sword does ravage all the innocent as well as guilty suffer the same miseries and the same carnage does devour the righteous with the wicked yea Religion hath bin swept away too by the inundation and whole Churches have bin quite un-Christian'd and no doubt there was all reason in the world for this Yet tho I will not take upon me to mark out the lines by which God moves either in his ways of mercy or of judgment nor to give the reasons of them yet when plenty hath brought in all sorts of luxury and dissoluteness and as it must needs that corrupts all loosens all the bonds by which Societies and Government consist the very bonds of common right and justice those that either mens propriety or their security and lives depend on and besots men so as that they take no other rule or measure of their interests than as things serve the ends and satisfactions of luxurious appetites and if Religion also while 't is trampled on despised and scofft down by such sensual persons that have no Religion and so not having countenance being injur'd and cut short by others does decay or else if willing to comply and save it self it grow it self debaucht in some measure learn by formalities to serve worldly purposes yea possibly learns to adopt principles and consecrate some practices which are enimies to the very nature of Religion wound destroy Christianity and dishonor the God of it if every thing does thus seem to provoke and call for present ruin and God stir himself up as he did in the Prophet Shall I not visit for these things shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this yet in such a Nation if there be enough remaining of those that can stand in the gap and maintain the breach against him as once Moses alone did he will turn away his indignation so as not to stir up his whole wrath and altho he leave them not altogether unpunisht he will not destroy them utterly Now he knows what the numbers are of faithful Christians such as wrestle day and night with him and do not let him rest If the hairs of our heads be all numbred sure the knees are that cleave to the ground in humble adorations and petitions to him Yea and so they are for when Elijah brought his charge in against Israel whose condition lookt so desperate that he thought there was no servant of God but himself I even I onely am left 1 Kings 19. 10. God tells him v. 18. he had seven thousand knees in it that had never bowed to Baal and when those three Noah Daniel and Job are not able seven thousand men yet may prevail Indeed if once Religion grow so low be so defiled that 't is not worth preserving with all those corruptions that get into it when not onely the Professors of it are deprav'd but its very constitution in its vitals in the doctrines both of faith and manners vitiated and it is hard to shew where God did ever overthrow a Church and a Religion wholly where it was not so and then it was not he that did destroy it it destroy'd it self If also in a state Judgment be turned into Wormwood and you find oppression for Justice and for Righteousness behold a crying in a word if a Church and State sink by such proportions as Sodom and the rest of the Cities of the Plain when in all Pentapolis there was not ten Righteous for whose sake five great
some men made this reliance or dependance trust or faith our whole condition of the Covenant But tho 't is true the Covenant does require some disposition in us that we also may be trusted for those that are not faithful to him cannot have faith in him for us he knows our needs he knows our hearts too and if they be false he sees it and the trust is broken on both sides such hearts cannot trust him for it is impossible that one can trust upon another if he know that other does discern that he is false to him for he knows that he is not in condition to be dealt with by the rules of trust Yet the sincere and honest-hearted person may cast all his care there Faith does his work and he knows well whom he hath believed The sum is this however grievous Sinner one hath bin if he return and with intire submission to God's will become faithful to him and assure his own heart towards him he may commit himself and all his Spiritual and Eternal interests with all assurance absolutely into his hands and his temporal so far as they shall be succesful in all cases except those wherein God sees it necessary for his more advantage to determin otherwise All his concerns too for Religion he may put into the same safe hands with all assurance for God will never destroy his own Religion if it do not change first vitiate and put out it self And in whatever Judgments God at any time shall bring upon the publick he may perfectly assâ—re himself that whatsoever happens shall be for good to him for how sad soever the necessity be he knows both it and how to remedy it and is able and hath said he will he is true and just and faithful in his promises it is his very Nature that he cannot change or fail him and how desperate soever his condition seem here that state is God's opportunity and that time his set time and depending on him is yet a further engagement to him Yet in all this I have said very little all these grounds for trust reliance the old Covenant afforded Thus far the Jew knew whom he had believ'd but sure the Christian knows more comfortably hath more cause to trust on God as on the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. And certainly we may rely upon that Father that he will deny us nothing who denied ns not his son 'T is St Pauls argument Rom. 8. 32. He that spared not his own Son but delivered him up for us all how shall he not with him also freely give us all things We may resign our selves into his hands that lov'd us at these rates and cannot but be confident as the Apostle was v. 38 39. that neither death nor life nor Angels nor principalities nor powers nor things present nor things to come nor height nor depth nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which he hath to us in and thro Christ our Lord and Savior or shall hinder him from preserving and delivering us in and from the hopes and fears the terrors and allurements of them all the temtations that either fear of death or hope of life or malice of the Devil and his Angels or of Principalities or powers whether earthly Potentates or infernal or distresses present or to come or heights of honor or depths of disgrace may assault us with How can these hinder when sin could not hinder Or what possibly can separate when God chose to be divided as it were from his own Son rather than any thing should separate him from the love of man And then what may we not expect from this the Eternal Son of God who became one of us that so he himself suffering by being temted might be able to succour them that are temted Heb. 2. 18. Able to succour Sure he could have don it ere he took upon him weak flesh being God Almighty he was not less able when he was Omnipotent yet being when he was made man himself afflicted having the experience of our infirmities in all points temted like as we are he is enabled to be much more sensibly compassionate and toucht with the feeling of our weak condition which himself felt so the ability which he hath gain'd is the Omnipotency of kindness One would have thought indeed it had bin large enough before when to shew mercy to us seem'd more dear to him and more considerable than to enjoy Divinity when he emtied himself of this that he might be qualified for the other How infinitely willing then was he to be compassionate to us when he takes flesh to learn to be compassionate How desirous was he to succour us who lays down Heaven and glory above and life here below that he might be able to succour us To whom can we betake our selves for mercy with such confidence as him who made himself like one of us that he might be a merciful High-Priest to expiate and make reconciliation We that are the sheep of his pasture what hands can we possibly resign our Souls into with such assurance as to those of this Bishop and Shepherd of our Souls this good Shepherd who not onely seeks the lost sheep that is run away but who also lays down his life for his sheep 10. 15. And what may not his poor Church depend upon him for who purchased to himself his Church with his own bloud What design can he have to fail us possibly who would be crucified for us In a word if one that for us men and for our Salvation would come down from Heaven be incarnate and made man a man of sorrows and afflictions and would suffer want shame and reproches agonies a Cross a bitter passion and a cruel death for us and who is sat down on the right hand of Majesty and Power hath all power in Heaven and Earth the keys of Death and Hell in whom all the promises of God are yea and Amen faithful and true faithful to immutability Jesus Christ yesterday to day and the same for ever if I say he that is all this can be trusted we know whom we have believed And now I have no more to do but onely ask whether we are assur'd of any other whom on more or safer grounds we have or may believe I will upbraid none with that Irony which Eliphas insults on Job with c. 5. 1. Call now see if there be any that will answer thee and to which of the Saints wilt thou turn thee There are that do with all the evidence imaginable of a strong confidence and chearful hopes to speed in doing so pour out their needs their whole Souls to a fancied or it may be true Saint whom they have adopted as the object of their invocation which it seems they cannot do so feelingly with such a close and intimate dependance with such comfortable expectations upon Christ himself Now I would onely put the question of f
2 Tim. 3. 8. nor by a wretchless unconcerndness take up with slight appearances and receive a vulgar error for a sacred revelation and having mens persons in admiration Jude 16. believe as doctrines the devices or commandments of men Matt. 15. 9. not to consider what this celebrated Teacher or this Sect and Party say but make our resort to the Law and to the Testament what Law of God there is for or against this action For in this case it is most true There is one Law-giver who can save and destroy James 4. 12. and if sin be the transgression of a law 1 John 3. 4. it inevitably follows that where no law is there is no transgression Rom. 4. 15. And yet 't is strange to see how men amuse and embarras themselves in things that have no bottom or foundation in Scripture and in the mean time omit the weighty matters of the law judgement mercy and faith Thirdly if I have bin engag'd in any practices of which by the contrary practices of other sober rational men I see there may be reason if not to doubt yet to search into them then I 'le take the same course in order to the settling or the rectifying of my judgment and especially if any obligations to the contrary have got possession of me if obedience and meekness and peace of the State or Church or any sacred bond in a word if any commands of Superiors or engagements to them seem strong for the other side then nothing but clear Law of God or my Superiors shall fixe me Fourthly where things are not absolutely convincing on either side and there is no clear Law on neither or else so much like Law on both sides here as I must suspend if possible my action for these must needs make doubts so if I be necessitated to act on one side or other then if my conscience do mistake according to the degree of my diligence in examining so will be the degrees of my guilt If I have search't to my utmost and so offend out of an ignorance I could not overcome it is the constant doctrine of all that the mercy of our God by the tenure of the Gospel will not impute the error to a person otherwise of holy life but if there was a means of knowing that either heat or any other thing did hurry me from a sufficient consideration thereof according to my means so is my sin Abimelech had a competent ground to think that Sarah was not Abrahams wife when both herself and he had told him so and upon that he saies he took her to him in the integrity of his heart his conscience reasonably well-inform'd telling him that he might do it and yet God pâ—nisheth his hast he determin'd too speedily his desire was too quick did not proceed by those slow steps that a good careful conscience do's move with that will examin with all strictness where he discerns there will be gross sin on the other side The Jews had a strong prejudice against Christ's reformation of the Law by those so many promises of Scripture that their sacrifices should be eternal and when for many ages they had bin brought up in a Religion so own'd by God and were so harden'd in that Religion by all their Teachers 't was no wonder they rejected the Apostles preaching out of conscience of their own Religion Paul himself had don so and yet God gives them up to final induration for it because they had sufficient means of knowing Christ was sent by God to reform their Religion for have they not heard Rom. 10. 18. Thy diligence therefore shall alleviate the fault and where it is us'd in a good measure probably will not suffer the conscience to be long positive and peremtory in a mistake but at the most will let it only be a doubting conscience which how far 't is an evil eie and how we are to guide our selves out of that darkness it do's lead into we must now shew A doubting conscience may be either in things of very little moment and also where there is very little light to guide it and then we only call it scrupulous or else in things of consequence and of these we now treat and the Position is that he that acts according to a doubting conscience sins and this evil eie leads into utter darkness The Aphorism is a certain reveled pronunc't truth he that doubteth is damn'd if he eat Rom. 14. 23. However sacred the tribunal of conscience can be thought to be it must not stand in competition with the Throne of Almighty God and oblige us to do that which the Divine Command has interdicted or to leave that undon the doing of which he has expresly charg'd upon us It was thought to be a tyrannous hardship which the Egyptian task-masters put upon the Israelites that they should be beaten because they made not brick when they had no straw to make it with but it would seem a more tyrannous cruelty to punish them if they made and also to punish if they did not make it But so it is he who chuses to do that which his conscience suggests he ought to avoid as being ill and resolves to omit that which he judges or believes he ought to do as being good has all the inordination of mind that constitutes the most flagrant guilt he pursues evil and turns away from good apprehended to be such and so has that depravation of mind that constitutes a Devil But on the other side our opinions cannot alter the real natures of things nor will my belief that my act is laudable make it to be so any more than my fancy that Poisons are wholsome food will free them from their noxious venim and render them restoratives and cordials In like manner my adventuring on an action which I think is bad upon the cold reserve of a possibility that it may be otherwise involves the desperate resolution of doing it howsoever which differs very little from doing it tho I know it to be certainly unlawful But a doubting conscience admits of a counterpoise from a contrary doubt and there is fear of sin as on the one so also on the other part I am uncertain whether I may not do ill in acting and yet whether I may not do worse in forbearing or thus I am not sure that what I enterprize is lawful but yet I have no ground to believe it is unlawful Now from this exigent thus declared I might deduce resolutions in many cases of our life As 1. When there is no ground to build a certain judgment on of either side but it is only probable the thing is not sin and consequently I cannot be sure it is not yet if upon that probability I act this is clear different from the state of the doubting conscience for tho I may have some doubt 't is possible the thing may not be good yet having honestly examined it I have no reason to think it
another Argument as that there cannot be an Earth because there is an Heaven Indeed if we fulfill my Text then we shall reconcile these Kingdoms and bring down Heaven into us for that 's a state where there is neither sin nor suffering where there shall be no tears because no guilt to merit them and no calamity to â—â—ke them Now Reformation does work this here in some degree and afterwards our comforts that are checker'd with some sufferings and our Piety which is soiled with spots shall change into Immortal and unsullied Glories he prepare us all Who washt us from our sins in his own Blood and by his sufferings hath made us Kings and Priests to God and his Father to whom be Glory and Dominion for ever and ever Amen The Second SERMON Preached at WHITE-HALL October 20. 1661. PSALM LXXIII 1. Truly God is good to Israel even to such as are of a Clean Heart ' T WAS a false Confidence the Jews did nourish That they should dwell securely in their Land notwithstanding their provocations because the Worship and the House of God was in it They did but trust on lying words the Prophet says when they did trust upon The Temple of the Lord the Temple of the Lord As if the Temple were a Sanctuary for those that did profane it and the horns of the Altar would secure them when 't was the blood upon the Altar call'd for Vengeance Nor was that after-plea of theirs valid We are the chosen Israel of God We have Abraham to our Father As if when by their works they had adopted to themselves another Parent were of their Father the Devil they could claim any but their present Fathers interest or have the blessings of forsaken Abraham Now if it be no otherwise with us but because in our Judah God is known his Name great in our Israel with us in Salem that is in peace he hath his Tabernacle now and his dweling in Sion And so much knowledg such pretences to the Name of God and to his Worship are not with other Nations nor have they such advantages to know his Law If as each party of us does assume these Priviledges to it self so each do also rest in them although their Lives answer not these advantages If while they judg themselves Christs chosen Flock boast Covenants and Alliances with God although they violate all those Relations they yet trust those will secure them For why the being of such a Party and Persuasion is the signature and Amulet that will preserve them in Gods favour the charm through which he will not see Iniquity in Jacob nor perversness in Israel Lastly If we that were the distinctive Character of Israel that of a Ransom'd Purchas'd People for sure our Rescues rise unto the number and the rate of those which brought the Sons of Jacob from the House of Bondage if we as they presume and furfeit upon goodness and think these gifts of God too are without Repentance beliâ—â—â— our being his Redeemed his Church conceit our Orthodox Profession as once we thought our righteous Cause should do will shield us from the danger of our Enemies and of our Vices too and neither let our Foes nor our selves ruin us with such my Text and my intentions prepare to meet lest we should fill the Parallel and as we equal Israel in our Deliverances and imitate their practices we do transcribe the fatal Pattern too in the most full resemblance and repletion of an entire excision for although God be truly loving to his Church yet the ungodly does his soul abhor however in a signal manner he be good to Israel yet this his kindness does confine it self to such as are of a clean heart The words need not much explication By Israel is meant the Church of God and by his goodness to it all his external mercies also and protections as the Psalm evinces and by such as are of a clean heart those that to the profession of Religion and Holiness of outward conversation do add internal purity and sincerity for some trnaslate it such as are of a clean heart some such as are trueâ—hearted and sincere And it signifies both The words thus explicated give me these Subjects of Discourse First a general Proposition Truly God is good to Israel to his Church Secondly an assignation of Conditions under which that general Proposition holds All are not Israel that are of Israel it holds only in such as are of a clean heart And in this we have first a quality appropriate to the Church Cleanness Secondly with its subject the Heart and there I shall enquire why that alone is mention'd whether the cleanness of the Heart suffice and having answered that shall proceed Thirdly to consider them together in both the given senses as they mean a sincere heart and a pure undefiled heart In each of which Considerations because the latter part of my Text is a limitation of the former shewing where that general Proposition is of force where it is not I shall as I proceed view all the several guilts opposed to either notion of Cleanness and see how far each of them does remoye from any interest in the Lords goodness to his Church which is the natural Application of each part and shall be mine 1. Truly God is good to Israel his Church And sure this Proposition is evident to us by its own light to whom God proved his goodness to astonishment by exercising it to Miracle while he at once wrought Prodigies of kindness and Conviction to which we have only this proof to add That God hath been so plentiful in Bounties that we are weary of every mention of them and have so furfeited on Goodness that we do nauseate the acknowledgment So that his kindness in sustaining his Compassions does vie with that which did effect them who as he will not be provok'd not to be good by such prodigious unthankfulness so neither will he by the most exasperating use of his Favours God did complain of Israel Thou hast taken thy fair Jewels of my Gold and my Silver which I had given thee and madest to thy self Images My meat also which I gave thee my fine Flour mine Oyl and Honey wherewith I fed thee and hast even set it before them for a sweet savour And if men now do offer things in which God hath the same propriety to baser Idols to their Vices if they do sauce his meat which he hath given them to sacrifice to Luxury take his silver and gold to serve in the Idolatry of Covetousness and use his Jewels to dress Images also for foulest adorations If Atheism grow against Miracle and Goodness too and men do most deny God now when he hath given greatest evidences of his kind Providence I know not by what argument encouraged unless his in the Poet Factum quod se dum negat hoc videt beatum because they see they fare best now though
Church First If the Church of Rome have reason to expect infallible assistance of the Spirit in any case it is as much in Canonizing of a Saint as in any other it being as unhappy to determine a false Object for Religious Worship to their Church as a false Article of Faith there is as much need that there should be an infallible proposal of the one as other for when she does Decree by the Authority of the Omnipotent God such a one is a Saint receiv'd in Glory and so renders him the Object of their Worship if he should chance to be a Reprobate to cause the People to fall prostrate to the Shrine of one that 's damn'd and call his flames to warm Gods Altar and the Votaries breast to make the whole Church worship one that is in Hell is liable to greater aggravations of impiety than an erroneous Opinion in very many of their points of Faith can be But it is known their Church hath Canoniz'd one of this Nation Becket who though he was indeed illegally and barbarously Murthered yet 't is not the Suffering but the Cause that makes the Martyr now he did not fall a Sacrifice for his Religion but was slain because he did disturb the State by suspending all the Bishops that upheld the Kings just cause against him so that neither King nor State could live in peace for him for opposing also those Laws which himself had sworn to Laws that were not onely truly Sovereign Rights but are maintain'd even unto this day as Priviledges by the Gallican Church and they not branded for so doing In a word he was slain for those actions which his own Bishops condemned him for as a perjur'd man and a Traytor And for persisting in them to the death he was Sainted Now whatever the estate of this man be in the next World I meddle not with that Yet for Disobedience and Rebellion to place one in Heaven whence for those things Lucifer did fall does seem to shew what Spirit they are of that Canonize such Saints For the Church to pray to Christ that by the wounds of this Saint he would remit their sins does express what rate their Church does set upon the merits of resisting Princes and disturbing States in the behalf of Holy Church When such actions make men fit to be joynt purchasers with Christ in the Redemption of the World But when the French Histories say 't was disputed long after in Paris whether he were Damn'd or Sav'd that the Church in her publique Offices should pray to go thither where he is gone to have his Society though it express their most infallible assurance of the condition of those men who for their sakes resist the Secular Powers yet O my Soul enter not thou into their counsels in this world neither say a Confederacy to whom they say a Confederacy much less pray to be in their Society who by resisting S. Paul says do receive unto themselves Damnation Secondly It is notorious that in their first General Council at Lyons Anno 1245. the Emperour Frederick the second by the Sentence of the Pope and the whole Council after long deliberation and producing several Arguments which they say are not sleight but effectual to prove the suspicion of Heresie is depriv'd of his Empire all his Subjects are absolv'd from their Oath of Allegiance and by Apostolical Authority forbidden to obey him Therefore that such things may be done in the cases of Religion hath the Authority of a General Council 't was that Council that Decreed Red Hats to Cardinals Hats red it seems not onely with the Royal Purple but with the Blood of Kings and of Royalty it self Thirdly I should have urged the well known Canon of the General Council of Lateran the greatest their Church ever boasted of which says That if the temporal Lord shall neglect to purge his Territories from such as the Church there declares Hereticks he shall be Excommunicated by the Metropolitan and if he do not mend within a year complained of to the Pope that so he may declare his Subjects absolv'd from their Allegiance and expose his Lands to be seiz'd by Catholicks who shall exterminate the Hereticks saving the right of the chief Lord Provided he give no impediment to this But the same law shall be observed to those that have no chief Lords that is who are themselves Supream This I should urge but that some say that penal Statutes which are leges odiosae tantum disponunt quantum loquuntur Therefore this Canon since it does not name Kings it does not they say concern them although 't is plain it do sufficiently enough But that there may be therefore no evasion Fourthly In the General Council of Constance that part of it I mean that is approv'd by their whole Church The Pope and Council joyn together in commanding all Arch-Bishops Bishops and Inquisitors to pronounce all such Excommunicate as are declared Hereticks in such and such Articles and that of Transubstantiation half-Communion and the Pope's Supremacy are among them or that favour ot defend them or that Communicate with them in publique or in private whether in sacred Offices or otherwise etiamsi Patriarchali Archiepiscopali Episcopali Regali Reginali Ducali aut aliâ quâvis Ecclesiasticâ aut mundanâ proefulgeant dignitate And Commands them also to proceed to Interdicts and deprivation of Dignities and Goods and whatsoever other Penalties vias modos Thus that Council though it took away the Peoples right to the Blood of Christ denying them the Cup in the Sacrament gave them in exchange the Blood of their own Kings making them a right to that And that they extend the force of these Canons to the most absolute Princes even to him that pleads exemption most to the King of France is plain because when Sixtus the fifth thundred out his Bulls against the then King of Navarre afterwards King Henry the fourth of France and the Prince of Conde depriving them not onely of their Lands and Dignities but their Succession also to the Crown of France absolving their Subjects from their Oaths forbidding them to obey them he declared he did it to them as to relapsed Hereticks favourers and defenders of them and as such fal'n under the Censures of the Canons of the Church Now there are no other Canons that do take in Kings but these which can touch him for that of Boniface the eighth which says the Pope hath power to judg all temporal Powers is declared not to extend to France Cap. meruit de priviledg in extravag communibus Thus by the publique Acts of their Church and by the Canons of their General Councils we have found in causes of Religion Deprivation of Princes Wars and Bloodshed and the other consequent Miseries are establish'd Rebellion encouraged by a Law And if Rebellion be as the sin of Witchcraft then we know what manner of Spirit they are of that do
encourage it sure Witches have no spirit but the Devil for familiar But the Church of England on the other side in her publique Doctrine set down in the Book of Homilies establish'd in the 39. Articles of her Religion says in express words that it is not lawful for Inferiours and Subjects in any case to resist and stand against the Superiour Powers that we must indeed believe undoubtedly that we may not obey Kings Magistrates or any other if they would command us to do any thing contrary to Gods Commands In such a case we ought to say with the Apostle we must rather obey God than Man But nevertheless in that case we may not in any wise withstand violently or Rebel against Rulers or make any Insurrection Sedition or Tumults either by force of Arms or otherwise against the Anointed of the Lord or any of his Officers 1 Book of Hom. 2 part of the Serm. of Obed. Not for Reformation of Religion for what a Religion 't is that such men by such means would restore may easily be judged even as good a Religion surely as Rebels be good men and obedient Subjects 2 Book of Hom. 4 part of the Serm. against wilful Rebellion The very same thing is defined in the first of the Constitutions and Canons Ecclesiastical of the year 1640. for Subjects to bear Arms against their King offensive or defensive upon any pretence whatever is at least to resist the Powers which are ordain'd of God and though they do not invade but onely resist S. Paul tells them plainly he that resists receives unto himself damnation This was the Doctrine of the Church in those her Constitutions and although there was no Parliament then sitting to enact these Canons into Laws yet since that time the Law of England is declar'd to say the same and we obliged by it to acknowledg that it is not Lawful upon any pretence whatsoever to take up Arms against the King by this Parliament whose memory shall be for ever blessed And now it is not hard to know what manner of Spirit our Church is of even that Spirit that anoints the Lords Anointed that is which Commissions them Gods Spirit as we find it phras'd in Scripture And 't is obvious to each eye that there is much more resemblance betwixt present Rome and the Image of Babylon as S. John hath drawn it in the Revelations than there is of Babel and the Church of England as to those Confusions which seditious Doctrines make as the Romanists pourtrai'd her But far be it from me to conclude hence that all of their Communion do allow their Doctrines Though they stand on the same bottom that their Faith of half-Communion and Transubstantiation do even Acts of the same Councils yet I doubt not multitudes of loyal Souls of this our Nation do abhor the Tenents by what Rule of theirs I know not I confess Nor shall I enquire what Security a Prince can have of the Allegiance of those who by the most infallible Rules of their Religion can be loyal onely on Condition by the leave of those who are his Enemies on whose will and power all their Oaths and duty are depending If the most essential interest of Princes will not move them to consider this sure I am I shall not undertake it But I shall take the confidence out of the premises to infer that no Religion in the World does more provide for the security of Kings than the Christian as it is profess'd in our Church does And when we see the Interest of the Crown and Church were twisted by God in the preservations of this day nor could be separated in the late dismal Confusions but died and reviv'd together in the Resurrection they that hate the execrable mischiefs of those times or love the Crown or do not come to mock God when they come to give him thanks for his great glories of this day cannot choose but have good will for our Sion cannot have an unconcernedness for this Religion a cold indifference to it or any other which where-ere it is alas I fear betrays too openly indifference and unconcernedness for Religion it self For if I should appeal to our most Sceptick Statists and not beg one Principle of a Religion but take their own Religion was contriv'd they say by pretending to engage a God to uphold his Vicegerent and by putting after everlasting punishments before mens fears for they saw present ones restrained not Treason was contriv'd I say to uphold States Then that must be the best with them that best upholds and then I have evinc'd the Christian is secure as 't is prosess'd by our Church But then shame to those who to gratifie their lusts meerly labour to perswade themselves and others there is no such thing in earnest as a Resurrection to punishments who by publique raillery in sacred things and turning all to merriment endeavour to take off the sense of all Religion and have done it in great measure and so thrown down the best-Basis on which Government subsists which they themselves confess was necessary to be fram'd on purpose for it For if there be no after fears he that is stronger than to need to fear the present may rebel kill Kings These Atheists are Fanaticks I am sure in Politicks more traiterous than our mad Enthusiasts or than the Canons of the Popish Councils To these Sadduces in Christianity we may say ye know not what spirit ye are of who know not whether there be any Spirit But it is indeed because they are all flesh themselves But then if the works of the flesh be manifest Adultery Fornication Seditions Heresies Murders Drunkenness c. we know what manner of Spirit they are of even the spirit that did enter into the Swine the Legion indeed of Spirits one Spirit is not Devil enough to animate the flesh into so many of those works But the fruits of the Spirit that Gospel Spirit which we Christians are of are love peace long-suffering gentleness goodness faith meekness temperance joy in the Holy Ghost and they that do bring forth such fruits are baptised indeed with the Holy Ghost and if with fire fire that came down from Heaven too 't was onely to consume their dross that they may be pure mettal fit as for the King's Inscription meek Christians good Subjects so for Gods Image to be stamp'd upon that is renewed in Righteousness and true Holiness Fire this that will sublime our very flesh into spiritual body that we may begin here that incorruptible which our corruptible must put on when our vile Bodies shall be made like to the glorious Body of our Saviour To which state that Spirit which rais'd up Jesus from the dead bring us by quickning our mortal Bodies To whom c. The Eleventh SERMON Preached at CHRIST-CHURCH IN OXFORD Novemb. 8. 1665. Being the Monthly Fast-day for the Plague LUKE XVI 30 31. Nay Father Abraham but if one went unto
in conscience to that superior to depart from their own Judgment and to yield and sign their assent to his determinations Witness the matter of Jansenius Yea their great Cardinal is positive that If the Pope could err so far as to call evil good good evil to prohibit vertues or command vices the Church were bound in conscience to believe those vices good and honest and those vertues evil So far he Indeed if that Church be the Mother and Nurse of all Christians 't is from her breasts only they must seek the sincere Milk of the word Now that she is so they must take her word as Children do their Parents words that they are so And indeed this is properly to receive the Doctrine as a little Child not judge nor reason not examin but believe it And such legendary doctrines as well as Histories which they deliver are most fit to be receiv'd by such as Children Yet as if this had been the proper method among Christians always in S. Austin's time we find the Manichees derided Christianity that discipline of Faith because by that men were commanded to believe and were not taught how to distinguish truth from falshood by clear reason and again that it requires us to assent before we have a reason for it And long before that Celsus did advise the Christians to receive no doctrines but on the account of reason credulity being the inlet to deceit saying they that without grounds believe are like those that admire and â—e satisfied with juglers and take appearances and sleight of hand for truth adding many of the Christians neither would receive nor give a reason of their faith but us'd to say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 do not you examin but believe 't is your faith shall save you and as if from the beginning it were so we cannot but have heard the story of that man that reading Genesis where Moses says In the beginning God created the Heaven and the Earth And he said let there be light and there was light c. Swore at him saying this Barbarian only asserted boldly but prov'd nothing As if Argument and Reason never had place in the Jewish or the Christian Religion only those who were the inâ—titutors of each Religion did deliver it others had no more to do but to believe it that is to receive it as a little Child Whether these reproaches and the Oath of these known enemies may go for proofs that it was so I shall not now enquire But it is certain on the other side S. Paul requires of his new Christian Corinthians that they be not Children in understanding that they be in malice Children but in understanding Men. Now a Man and a Child differ not in this that the one hath an understanding reasonable soul and the other hath not but in that the one cannot use his understanding or his reason and the other where he acts as man does So that our Religion in requiring that we be in understanding men does require of us that we use our reason in it And since assenting to a thing as truth is an Act of the highest faculty of the soul of man as it is properly and truly reasonable namely as it understands and judges it is not possible a man should really believe a thing unless he satisfie himself that he hath reason for so doing Yea whether that be true or not which many men so eagerly contend for that the will though free is bound and cannot choose but will that which appears best at that time it wills yet it is sure that he who with his understanding which is not free in her apprehensions and judgments but must necessarily embrace that which hath most evidence of truth He I say who really assents to any proposition does satisfie himself that he hath better and more cogent reasons for that then the contrary And therefore it is impossible that any man can verily believe a thing which he is throughly convinc't is contrary to clear and evident right reason for he cannot have a better reason for the thing that is so and were it possible for any man to believe so there could be neither grounds nor Rules for such a ones belief for there is nothing in the World so false and so absur'd although he were assur'd it were so but he might assent to it for whatever demonstrations could be offer'd why he should not yet it seems he might believe against acknowledg'd evident truth and reason but this were onely wish or fancy and imagination not belief And to prevent such Childish weak credulity was the great work and care of Christ so far is he from requiring we should be as Children in this kind For when he was ascended up to heaven he gave some Apostles some Evangelists some Pastors and Teachers he shed down the Holy Spirit and his gifts that we might not be as Children tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of Doctrine Eph. 4. 14. First For want of rational grounds instable in our Faith as Children are in body and in judgment also taking all appearances for truths If men were only to believe there must needs be as great variety of Religions as of teachers And though God hath appointed that some Church should be as perfectly infalliable as that of Rome pretends to be yet since there are so many Churches and the true one therefore could be known no otherwise then by some marks there must be disquisition before Faith and men must reason and examin ere they can believe upon good grounds for were they to receive Religion as a little Child be nurst up with the Doctrine as with milk a Child we know may suck infection from the poyson'd breast of an unwholesom mother or some other person for it knows not to distinguish and so may be nurst to death A soul like theirs that is but rasa tâ—bula white paper is as fitted to receive the mark of the beast as the inscription of the living God just as the first hand shall impress Therefore we are bid not to believe every Spirit not every Teacher though he come with gifts pretend and seem to be inspir'd but try them and our Saviour forewarn'd the Jews of false Christs that should come with signs and wonders Something therefore must be known first and secur'd before the understanding can be thus oblig'd to give up its assent and Captivate every thought into obedience as S. Paul directs Now what that was here to the hearers in the Text is easily collected namely that he was the Christ that does require it And S. Paul expresses it in the forecited place where he says we must bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ to wit of that Christ who as he does himself profess that if he had not done among them the works which no other had done they had not had sin John 15. 24. If his
their Bibles to be burnt in one Month 17000 were put to death And the Persecution lasted at that rate for ten years time so that in Egypt only it is said there were slain 144000 and 70000 banisht The Laity it seems were allowed Bibles then Or put the case higher in Adrian's or Trajan's time who both lived within an Hundred years of Christ who Martyr'd them 'till weariness slackned the Execution and they gave off onely as it were that so they might cease to persecute themselves and we have the Officers engaged attesting this all which must needs be as notorious as the Light Now Secondly 't is most impossible those so vast multitudes of every Nation should have met together forg'd a Code of Doctrines and agreed so uniformly in professing a Religion and in dying for it for we may as easily believe that there were never any men before this Age we live in but that these began the kind as that those of that Age began the Christian Religion Thirdly 't is as impossible that their immediate Ancestors who lived in the Apostles Age who heard their Preaching received their Writings saw the Miracles they did if they did any and many of them must have seen Christ also after he was risen if it were so yea multitudes of them were themselves parties in the gifts of Tongues and Miracles if there were any and so could not be impos'd on but must necessarily know whether they were truths or forgeries It is as Impossible I say so many should agree together to betray all their Posterity into the profession of a Religion from which they could look for no advantage but the certain total Ruin of themselves and their posterity it was not possible they could have done this if they had not thought all this was true and since they did know whether it were true or not if they thought it was true they did know it was and if they knew it was then it is certain that it was so and these Scriptures and the Doctrines Christians deliver so far as they have not varied since that time from these Authentical Records they have the Seal of God Miracles to attest they come from God I might have urged completion of Prophecies to prove the same First those in the Old Testament of the Messiah which so eminently came to pass in Christ that they sufficiently clear those Books to be Divine Next Christ's predictions in the New particularly those about Jerusalem which saith Eusebius He that will compare with what Josephus an eye-witness and no Christian writes of it or what our selves know of that Nation and that place indeed he must acknowledge the Divinity of his words But enough hath been said to prove they come from God and therefore we must so receive them as the Word of God with perfect resignation of our Souls and submission of our judgments denying every apprehension that would start aside from and not captivate it self to that prime truth which cannot be deceived nor lye and renounce all discourses Reason offers that resist such abnegation of it self and all our other faculties that is receive this word of the Kingdom as a little Child I do not here affirm by saying this that our Religion does disdain or keep distance from the service of any of Mans faculties for it sometimes admits them not as Ministers only but as Judges 'T is plain the senses were the first I do not say conveyance onely but Foundation of Faith which was built on the first believers eyes and ears they heard the Doctrine saw the Miracles were sure they saw and heard them and so supposing the signs sufficient to confirm the Doctrine to have come from God were certain of their truth without any Authority of a Church to influence that faith into divine And S. John therefore does not onely call in and admit and urge their testimony That which we have heard which we have seen with our Eyes which we have lookt upon and our hands have handled of the word of Life that declare we unto you But our Saviour in the highest point of Faith appeals directly to their Judgment Reach hither thy finger and behold my hands and reach hither thy hand and thrust it into my side and be not faithless but believing And S. Austin also gives them the decision of a point of Doctrine which of all others now troubles the Church most for speaking of the Eucharist he says that which you see is Bread and 't is a Cup it is that very thing which your eyes tell you ' t is Tertullian also long before that had appealed to them in that very cause And in an instance where their sentencè passes 't is not strange if Reason also take the Chair and do pretend to Judge And truly when the Scripture that does call those Elements Christs Body and his Blood does also call them after Consecration Bread and Wine and since they must be called one of them by a figure for they cannot be in Substance both and since that Scripture hath not told us where the Figure lies hath not expresly said 't is this but in resemblance that in Substance Here if Reason that hath Principles by which to judge of Bodies which are expos'd to all the notices and trials of our several faculties and to which a Trope is not a stranger it can judge of figurative speeches when it therefore finds if it admit the figure in that form This is my Body 'T is but just the same which was in the Jews Sacrament the Paschal Lamb which they call'd the Body of the Passover though it were but the memorial a figure which was always usual in Sacraments and is indeed essential to Sacraments And which is used in all things that are given by exhibitive signs But if it should resolve it to be Bread and Wine onely in a figure besides a most impossible acknowledged Consequence that a man can be nourisht by them which the Romanists dare not deny nor yet dare grant that men can feed upon a trope be nourish't with a figure besides this if reason shall resolve that it must judge against all Rules it hath of judging by and judge in contradiction to known Principles and trample on all Laws of sense and understanding which especially when the Scripture hath no where defined expresly must be most unreasonable yea most impossible to judge that true that is to say believe that thing which it sees is most irreconcileable with known truths Here therefore Reason is not insolent if it give verdict by its proper evidences men are not bound to swallow contradictions as they do the Wafer or receive as a little Child that discerns the Lords Body no more then it does the repugnancies that are consequent to their Hypothesis concerning it Or to make another instance when the Scripture says God is a Spirit yet does also give him hands and eyes
a discourse and it hath filled so many that there is nothing left unsaid or to be said against as to the main And they that pick some little sayings seeming against this order out of those Ancients which were themselves of it and wrote much expresly for it and think by those means to confute it do the same thing with that Romanist who tore some little shreds that look as if they favour'd some opinions of the Romanists out of the Books of Protestants most of which were directly writ against the Church of Rome and putting those together went about by them to convince the world there never were any such things as Protestants but they that did profess to be so were all Papists But I will say no more then my Text hath done which evidences it not a separation only of Degree but Order by a new Ceremony and commissionating to new powers If I would stay on words 't is expressed here by one that speaks very great distances 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 separate which does in Scripture word the distances that the censures of the Church do make Luke 6. 22. and still in the Greek Liturgies when absolution is given 't is said to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to free them from all curse and separation as if to pass into the bounds of this uncall'd were such a thing as to leap over the Censures of the Church over the Line of Excommunication and to break through this wall of separation were to break through Anathema's and Curses Yea 't is used to express the distance betwixt the Lord's two hands his right hand and his left at the day of Doom Mat. 25. 32. betwixt which hands there is a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a most insuperable gulf But these I shall urge Indeed the Fathers of the Church have been in these last days counted 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 separate in the severest sense cast out as the dung of the Earth and the calling it self was under reprobation as if it separated only to the left hand of God But so it was with their Predecessours in the Text Saint Paul says of himself and the rest of his Order that they were counted 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the filth of the World and the off-scouring of all things 1 Cor. 4. 13. and as if they were called only to ruine and consecrated for a sacrifice he says the Lord hath set us forth as men appointed to death vers 9. Indeed since God hath pleased to own you as his Churches Angels we are not troubled if some have counted you as the off-scouring of the Earth while we know Angels do relate to Heaven And let them consider how they will reprobate those to the left hand of God whom Christ calls stars in his right hand and he is at the right hand of his Father and while you were accounted so you did but follow them that went before in Sufferings as well as Office and to do so was part of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the work that they were separated to which is the next part For the work I shall but run this over and reflect upon it as I pass according as it is of persent Concernment and First Saint Paul's work was to Preach the Gospel and we find him doing it from this time forward to his End The high Priest of the Jews was called the Angel of the Lord of Hosts of which name an Heathen does give this account that he was call'd so because he was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Angel or the Messenger of Gods Commands so Diodorus Siculus And Malachy gives the same reason Mal. 2. 7. he was the Substitute to him upon Mount Sinai and gave the Law also only without the thunder Our Governours succeed into the Name they are the Churches Angels and when we hear the word from them we have it as it were from Heaven again and we receive our Law too 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by the disposition of Angels Indeed the Case now is not like Saint Paul's the Gospel then was to be first revealed to all the World and by continual inculcating secur'd against the depravations which all the malice of the Devil and the World sought to infuse and the unskilfulness of infant Christians did make them apt to entetrain But now we are all confirm'd Christians Yet truly the time is now such as did give occasion for Saint Paul's charge to Timothy 2 Tim. 4. 1 2 3. a time wherein they will not indure sound doctrine but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers He therefore that is in Timothy's place must heap up Reproofs and Exhortations or he must heap good sound dispensers of them Such as will feed the Lambs with sincere milk not chaf'd and heated with commotion and busie restless Faction not embitter'd with overflowings of a too-ful gall not sour'd with eager sharpnesses of a malicious or a dissatisfied mind not impoisoned with the foul tinctures of a scandalous life nor the Corrosive infusions of Schismatical and turbulent opinions He that caters thus for his flock and provides such as by doctrine and by practice do instruct them to live quiet and peaceable lives in all godliness and honesty He like the Angel on Mount Sinai gives the Law to a Nation together preaches to his whole Diocess at once Continually The second work was praying for and blessing them This does begin and close every Epistle that he asserts of himself constantly and 't is well known the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 gifts of those times inspir'd for this Work Now thus our Angels also are Angels of Incense the High Priests Office in especial Those that did daily Minister performd a service of Incense too that did accompany the prayers of the people and sent them up in perfume but the High Priests Incense was part of the Expiation and was the Cloud that cover'd the transgressions of the people when he came with them all about him before the Mercy-seat And they who shall consider that the prayer of Moses Now Moses and Aaron were among the Priests Psal. 99. 6. and He was the chief Priest did withhold the Arm of God when it was stretcht forth in fury to destroy and did commit a violence upon the Lord such as he could not grapple with but seems to deprecate and fain avoid and says Let me alone that I may destroy them Exod. 32. 10. If thou wilt permit me my fury shall prevail upon them saith the Arabick but if thou pray it cannot therefore let go thy prayer saith the Chald. and let me alone And they who shall consider also that his prayer did maintain a breach against the Lord when he had made one and was coming to enter in a storm of indignation then this made head against him and repuls't him Psal. 106. 23. They that consider these effects will certainly desire the Prayers and
70 times 7 times And 't is not easily provok't not apt for sudden violent heats instantly all one fire quick as lightning Such heats are from another passion which though sometimes they do but flash and die yet oft they have their Thunder-bolt and most what do fore-run a storm whereas the heats of Charity are calm as sun-shine such as do not consume but cherish For 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the same verse Love is kind and gracious full of humanity This Vertue is a kind of universal friendship hath nothing of reserv'd morose or sour an humour that makes solitude in the midst of Society and makes men onely their own company their Rule and scope and such a person Aristotle says must be either a God who can enjoy nothing beside himself is his own blessed and immortal entertainment or a wild beast whose nature is unsociable because 't is savage whereas Love is a pious complaisance to all 't is condescention too for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the 5. v. does not think any thing unseemly how contemptible soever nor unworthy of him so he may do his Neighbour good he will debase himself to meanest Offices to work a real kindness Thus Christ because he lov'd his own knowing the Father had given all things into his hand he took a Towel and girded himself and put water in a Basin and washt his Disciples feest making the lowest act of servitude be his Expression and our Example That is but slender Charity that will keep state Heaven could not unite Majesty and Love But to exercise this God did descend from Glory into the extremity of Meanness 'T is Bowels that express compassion and tender kindness Now those we know of all parts of the Body are employed in the most low ignoble Offices and to such Love condescends where 't is true Again 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it cover all the naked with a garment and the deformed the leprous Sinner with a covering too for Charity covers a multitude of sins hides his own wrong from his own eyes this Love too like that in the Poets cannot see yea covers all that is no fit for light suffers onely the graces to be naked near him and not to name all which you may find there 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ver 7 believeth all things however incompatible to love and to be wise have been accounted yet this Love is S. James his Wisdom that came down from Heaven Cap. 3. 17. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 interpret any thing to the most favourable sense and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 easie to â—â—persuaded still believes the best and where it cannot yet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hopes the best Affection while it lives cannot despair for then it must deposite its desires which are onely the warmth of Love and 'till it die cool not but if all do not answer hopes yet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he does wait for it is not discourag'd with relapses and the repetitions of injuries but still expects and suffers all the contradictions of spite and wrong Now if all these acts and the many other there are essential to Love and all be under Obligation and S. Paul says there they are so much Duty that without these performances all Faith and all Graces profit nothing the Preaching Rhetorick of Men and Angels would be nothing else but tinkling and working Miracles but shewing tricks It follows then these Acts must necessarily have a certain object there must be some body that we are bound to love thus And if that Object be or Neighbour as that is most sure 't is clear my Neighbours injury or hate or enmity to me cannot take off nor yet diminish in the least that Obligation I have to all those Acts but I must love him though he be mine enemy in every of those instances For it is plain his having wrong'd me does not make him cease to be my Neighbour nay more that enmity does formally dispose and qualifie my Neighbour for the Object of my love And many of its Acts cannot relate but to a man that injures me it must be in respect to provocations that love is said to cool into such a temper as is not easily provokt For men are not provokt with kindnesses I cannot suffer any thing but wrong nor suffer long except there be continuation and frequency of wrongs Nor is it possible I should forgive unless it be offences done against me And so for divers of the rest Now it were strange the enemy should supersede the obligation of the Duty which cannot be a Duty but in order to an Enemy that injury should give me a release from doing that which I can neverr have cause or occasion to do but in the case of injury that I should have leave not to obey the Command for that meer reason which alone maks it possible to obey it and which alone makes the Command Whereas indeed because I must needs love in these expresses therefore he must needs be my enemy whom I must love But if he be without all provocation very unjustly so if his hate be his sin so that he hath offended God too in it may I not then espouse Gods quarrel thus farr not to love his Enemy if I must mine own not to love the injurious the sinner Vice certainly is the most hateful thing that is and therefore it must needs render the subject not to be belov'd accordingly 't is said that the ungodly and his ungodliness are both alike hateful unto God Wis. 14. 9. and David does comply with God in this Psalm 139. Do not I hate them O Lord that hate thee yea I hate them with perfect hatred I count them mine enemies And when I reflect on mine under this Notion or if mine be such as set themselves against Religion and the peace and quietness of the Church am I bound to love them If so then I may be allow'd to do it with a little regret sure But yet if we consider how these in the Text are designated by that Appropriation your enemies which means those that hate you my Disciples those that in the last words of my Text will persecute you even for your being mine and yet those they are bid to love we may conclude in the next place we may not hate our enemies as Sinners Nor yet does enmity with God his Church or his Religion qualifie a person for our aversation or mischiefs I except here Apostacy and utter obduration in it a state that incapacitates for mercy and by consequence for love and kindness There is a sin which S. John would not say that we should pray for and the Church thought that there was such a sinner Iâ—dian but as to less degrees they that are suppos'd to persecute Disciples and in doing so persecute Christ himself may well be granted sinners enemies to God and Christianity but yet says he I say unto you love these your enemies Tertullian