have encouraged them and as the time hath favoured their Reformation as they have called it proceeded from the rectifying of mens Errors to the lessening of their fortunes And they only have at length been called the wicked who have been rich and have had estates to lose That onely which I shall further say to you of it is this Separation is a sin which hath alwaies veyl'd it selfe in the disguise of sanctity Thus Montanus and his followers broke off Communion with the whole Christian Church then in the world because forsooth 't was revealed to them by divine illumination that the Holy Ghost was no where to be found but in their Conventicle An Heresie which beginning in Schisme proceeded at length to this monstrous conceit among them That only the house of Montanus was the true Church and that Montanus himselfe was the Holy Ghost Thus also the Donatists an over-scrupulous Sect of men divided themselves from the then Catholique Church because it was not pure enough for such sanctified Communicants nor complied with the inspired doctrines of the Father of that Sect. And this it seems was the fault of these Corinthians here in this Text who having intitled themselves to severall Teachers proceeded by degrees to divide themselves into severall Churches and Congregations every one of which challenging to themselves the true and right Religion and charging the others with the name of the false thought at length that no way was left to keep themselves pure and unspotted but by breaking off all Religious nay Civill Commerce and Communion with each other Hence for feare of infection it was held a crime for any but the Righteous to assemble or converse with any but the Righteous or for any to meet together at a spirituall Exercise but such who first agreed in the same purity of Opinions Here then if I may once more take the liberty to parallel one people with another is not this our very case Hath it not been the practice of many many yeares for those who call themselves the godly the righteous the children of the most High to breake off society and communion nay almost neighbourly civility with those whom they call the wicked As there were among the Jewes certaine uncleane places and things and persons which whosoever toucht were for that time uncleane too so hath not the like opinion past among us that there have been certaine unholy unsanctified places and persons which make those who touch or approach neer them unholy too Have not some Pulpits been thought unsanctified because forsooth the Preacher hath been ungifted And wherein I pray hath his ungiftedness appeared Because hee hath not expressed himself in that light fluent running passionate zealous stile which should make him for that time seem religiously distracted or beside himselfe Or because his Prayer or Sermon hath been premeditated and hath not flowne from him in such an Ex tempore loose careere of devout emptinesses and nothings as serve onely to entertaine the people as Bubbles doe children with a thin unsolid brittle painted blast of wind and ayre Or because perhaps the sands of his Glasse have not fleeted for two tedious houres together with nothing but the bold insolent defamation and reviling of his Prince Againe have there not been some who have thought our Temples unholy because the Common-Prayer Booke hath been read there And have renounced the Congregation where part of the Service hath been tuned through an Organ Hath not a dumb Picture in the window driven some from the Church And in exchange of the Oratories have not some in the heat and zeale of their Separation turned their Parlours Chambers and Dining-roomes into Temples and Houses of Prayer Nay hath not Christ been worshipt in places yet more vile and mean In places which have reduced him the second time to a Stable If I should aske the people of both Sexes who are thus given to separation and with whom a Repetition in a Chamber edifies more then a learned Sermon in the Church upon what religious grounds or motives either taken from the Word of God which is so much in their mouthes or from reason which is so little in their practice they thus affect to single and divide themselves from others I believe it would pose them very much to give a satisfying Answer Is it because the persons from whom they thus separate themselves are irreligious wicked men Men who are Christians onely in forme and whose conversation carries nothing but evill example and pollution with it If I should grant this to be true and should allow them to be out-right what they call themselves The Elect and Godly and Holy ones of the earth and other men to be outright what they call them The Reprobate the wicked the ungodly and prophane yet is not this warrant enough to divide or separate themselves from them Nor are they competent Judges of this but God only who by the mouth of his Son hath told us in the Parable that the wheat and corne is not to be separated from the chaffe and tarres when we list but that both are to grow together till the great harvest of the world Till then 't is a piece of the building of it that there bee a commixture of good and bad Besides let me put this Christian Dilemma to them either the persons from whom they divide themselves are holy or unholy If they be holy they are not to separate themselves from them because they are like themselves If they be unholy they are in charity to converse with them that they may reforme and make them better Did not our Saviour Christ and certainely his example is too great to be refused usually converse with Publicans and sinners Did he forsake the Table because a Pharisee made the Feast Or did he refuse a perfume because a harlot powred it on his head Or did he refuse to goe up into the Temple because buyers and sellers were there men who had turned it into a den of Theeves Certainely my Brethren we may like Christ keep company with Harlots and Hypocrites and Publicans and Sinners and yet retaine our innocence 'T is a weake excuse to say I will never consort my selfe with a swearer lest I learne to blaspheme Or I will utterly renounce all familiarity and acquaintance with such and such an Adulterer or with such and such a Drunkard lest I learne to commit Fornication from the one or Intemperance from the other In all such conversations we are to imitate the Sun who shines into the foulest puddles and yet returnes from thence with a pure untainted Ray If mens vices then and corruptions bee not a sufficient cause to warrant a separation what else can be Is it the place of meeting or Church or the things done there which hath made them shun our ordinary Congregations Yes say some we have held it very unlawfull as we conceive to assemble in such a place where we have seen Altars and Windowes
or Gods glory for its marke And this Saint John calls trying of the spirits which is then done when as I said before you reduce what you heare spoken by the Preacher to the infallible Rule of Truth the Word of God and make that well consâ—â—â—…ed the scales to weigh his Doctrine in Does hee preach charity and banish strife from his Pulpit Does he not flatter Vice though he find it clothed in Purple nor speak neglectfully of Vertue though he finde it clothed in rags Does he strive to plant the feare and love of God in his Auditory the forgivenesse of their enemies and pity towards the poore Dares he arraigne a publique sinne though never so fortunate or speak in defence of afflicted Innocence though over-borne by oppression Dares he maintaine his Christian courage in Tyrannicall doubtfull times And dares he call prosperous Sedition but a more successefull mischiefe Lastly does he preach such Christian Truths for which some holy men have died and to which he himselfe would not be affraid to fall a sacrifice This this man is to be hearkned to this man is fit to bee obeyed And this man speaking the same things which God himselfe doth in the Scripture whatever his gifts of pleasing or not pleasing sick fastidious delicate fancies be is thus at least to be thought of That though he speake not by the Spirit as a thing entailed upon him yet for that time the Spirit speaks by him which ought to be all one to you On the contrary does the Preachers Sanctity and Religion consist meerly in the devout composure of his looks and carriage Does he strive to preach downe Learning or does he call Study a humane folly Does he choose his Text out of the Bible and make the Sermon out of his Fancy Does he reprove Adultery but preach up discord Is he passionate against Superstition but milde and calme towards Sacriledge Does hee inveigh and raile at Popery and at the same time imitate the worst of Papists Jesuits urge Texts for the Rebellion of Subjects against their Prince and quote Scripture for the deposing and But chery of Kings Does hee startle at a dumb picture in a Church-window and at the same time preach all good order and right Discipline out of the Church Does an Oath provoke his zeale yet does he count lying in the godly no sin Lastly does hee preach separation upon weake untemper'd grounds Or does labour to divide the minds which hee should strive to reconcile Let him bring what demurenesse or composure of countenance he please into the Pulpit Let him if he please joyne sanctity of deportment to earnestnesse of zeale Let him never so devoutly bewaile the calamities of his Country which he hath helpt to make miserable Or let him weepe never so passionately over the Congregation which he hath broken into factions In short how seemingly holy how 〈◊〉 how unprophane soever his behaviour bee though the Scripture doe so continually over-flow in his mouth that hee will neither eat nor drinke nor speake nor scarce sleep but in that phrase yet as long as he thus forgets his Charity thus Preaches strife thus Division I shall so farre mistrust whether he have the Spirit that I shall not doubt to reckon him in the number of those false Prophets which S. John sayes are gone out into the world The Conclusion then of this Sermon shall be this Men and brethren I have with all the sincerity and plainnesse which might benefit your soules preacht Truth and Concord and mutuall Charity to you I have also for some yeeres not been so sleepy an Observer but that I have perceived some of you who have thought your selves more Religious then the rest to be guilty of the I might say Crime but I will rather say of the mis-guided Zeale of these Corinthians here in my Text There have been certaine Divisions and I know not what separations among you I have farther observed that certaine false causlesse prejudices and aspersions have been raised upon our University which to the grief of this famous Nursery of Gods Church at home and the reproach of it abroad are still kept waking against us by some of you as if Conscience and Religion as well as Learning and Gifts had so far forsaken us that all the Schools of the Prophets cannot afford you a set of able vertuous men fit to be the Lecturers to this soule-famisht Parish How we should deserve to be thus mistaken by you or why you should under-value those able Teachers which you have already or refuse to take your supply from so many Colledges which here stand present and ready to afford you choyce or why you should supplicate to the great Councell of this Kingdome in pitty to your soules to send you Godly Teachers which perhaps is but a well-meaning Petition from you but certainly 't is a great scandall and Libell against us I know not But whatever the mysterious cause be I am confident that unlesse they will sleep over their infamy and reproach it will alwayes be in the power of our despised University-Divines to make it appeare even to those whom you intend to petition That this is but a zealous errour in you And that they are as able to edifie you certainly as he whose occupation it was to repaire the old shooes of the Prophets I should shame some of you too much who were the Disciples of that Apostle if I should discribe him to you by a larger character Instead therefore of a farther vindication of the reproach throwne upon us that which I shall say of more neere concernment to you is this If I have in the progresse of this Sermon ript open any wounds among you it hath not been with a purpose to enlarge or make them bleed but to powre wine and Oyle into them and to heale and close them up Next If I have cleared any of your sights or inabled you at length to discerne that the reason why the mote in your brothers eye seemed so big was because an over-scrupulous zeale had placed a beame in your owne and that in contributing to the ruine of one of the purest Religions in the world the reason why you have swallowed so many monstrous Camels hath been because at first you made scruple and strained at gnats I have what I intended Which was to let you see that to divide and separate your selves from the communion of our Church if it had been guilty of a mole or two is as unreasonable as if you should quarrell the Moon out of her Orb or think her unworthy of the skies because she wears a spot or two writ on a glorious ball of light Lastly if I have said any thing in the reproof of discord or the praise of charity which may re-unite your minds and make you all men of the same heart and beliefe as well as of the same Citie and Corporation I shall thinke I have done the work and businesse of a just Divider of the World of God towards you and of a faithfull Servant and Steward towards my heavenly Master Whose blessing of peace be upon you all together with the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the fellowship of the Holy Ghost To which glorious Trinity be ascribed all Honor Praise Dominion and Power for ever AMEN FINIS S Pauls qualification Ephes. 5 15. Luk. 24. 49. Acts 9. 6. c. Act. 9. 17. The artiâ—… insinuation himselfe Unity of Asseâ—…blies Dan. 3. 16. Unity of minds Mat. 15. 17. 2 Cor. 10 10. Numb. 11. 29. 2. Cor. 4. 7.
you from whence have sprung our present distractions Or who are they who keep the wounds of our divided Kingdome bleeding Are they not certaine tempestuous uncharitable active men who make it their work and businesse to rob men of the greatest temporal blessing of the Scripture and to preach every man out of the shade of his owne Vine and out of the fruit of his owne Fig-tree and out of the water of his owne Cisterne Are they not men who will stone you for your Vineyard and then urge Scripture for it And will take away your field your possession your daily bread from you and then repay you with a piece of Esay or Ezekiel or one of the Prophets anc call this melting and reformation Are they not men who doe onely professe to have the art not to heale or close or reconcile but to inflame and kindle sides Men who blow a Trumpet in the Pulpit and there breath nothing but thunder and ruine and desolation and destruction Whose followers call themselves Brethren indeed and boast much of their charity But they call only such as are of their owne confederacy Brethren and make no other use of the word which was at first imposed by Christ to bee the stile and marke of agreement and peace then to bee the word and mark to know a faction by and make no other use of their charity which should extend it selfe to all men even to their very enemies but onely to keep themselves together in a separation and conspiracy Lastly these are the men who when they should strive to quench the present flame with their teares do conjure as earnestly by the name of Christ to discord and confusion as S. Paul here in this Text doth to order and agreement Men who call it prophecy and edification and building up of the people when they breake and divide them into Sects and Factions As zealously exhorting them to speake divers things as S. Paul here exhorts them to speake all the same Which is the next thing to be considered and the first step towards the reconciliation and peace here petitioned for which is unity and agreement in compellations and names in these words Now I beseech you Brethren that yee all speak the same thing Whether the dispersion of men after the building of the Tower of Babell over the face of the whole earth were a panishment or a blessing to mankinde I shall not in this Auditory examine or dispute Only thus much we learne from the History of that place that the occasion of that dispersion and separation of men from one another sprung first from the confusion which God threw among them and that confusion sprung from their diversity of speech For as speech was at first bestowed upon us by God that wee might hold league and society and friendship with one another so you may read in the 11. Chapter of Genesis that as long as all the world was of one language and of one speech they lived unanimously together like men of one family and house One heart one soule seemed to move in them all But when they once ceast to be unius labii homines men of the same lip and speech when as many languages were throwne among them as they afterwards possest Countries then society and co-habitation and brotherhood ceast among them too They were scattered abroad upon the face of all the earth saies the Scripture They who were before children of the same common Ancestours and derived themselves from the same common parentage and stock as if they had been borne in the adverse Hemispheres of the world or had taken their beginning from as many severall Parents as they afterwards found Islands of one great Family and Kindred became so many divided Nations As this diversity of Tongues at first broke the world into the severall crumbles and portions of men who from that time to this have divided it among them so there is not any one thing which hath so fatally divided Kingdomes and States and Churches against themselves somtimes to an utter extirpation many times to an eternall breach and Irreconciliation as diversity of Language I doe not meane when men speake divers tongues of severall dialects and significations as when they at the building of Babell spoke some of them Hebrew perhaps some of them Greek but my meaning is that nothing more directly tends to the division of a State or Church then for severall companies of men to distinguish and divide and separate themselves from one another by certaine words and names of marke and difference especially if they be words of disgrace and scandall and reproach mutually imposed and stuck upon each other Or words of faction and combination assumed and taken by themselves Then if hatred of person or difference of Religion doe accompany such words of distinction that for the most part befalls them which befell the men of the old world they breake society and Communion and crumble asunder and of one people become so many divided Nations and Churches to each other This is an Engine which the Devill and wicked Polititians have in all ages of the world made use of to disturb the peace and trouble the happinesse of Kingdomes and Common-wealths Making holy vertuous words and names many times the partition wall of separation And the device and incitement not onely to divide Kingdomes but Corporations and private Families against themselves As long as the Jewes called themselves by one and the same common name of their Father Jacob Israelites they made but one State one Common-wealth among them But when once ten Tribes ingrossed that name to themselves and the other two for distinction sake called themselves by the name of the Tribe of Judah the most united happiest neerliest allied people in the world a people of one blood as well as one language fell asunder and divided themselves like Jacob and Esau into two hostile irreconcileable never more to bee united Kingdomes And this was the case of these disagreeing Corinthians to whom S. Paul directed this Text As long as they called themselves by one and the same common name of Christians they made but one City one Church one place of Concord But when they once began to distinguish themselves by their severall Teachers when some said We are of Paul others we are of Cephas As third sort we are of Apollos And onely a fourth sort more Orthodox then the rest we are of Christ Then then indeed as if Christ had been devided or had beene the Author of severall Religions preacht among them by severall Apostles they became broken and rent and torne asunder into severall Churches and Congregations Where their usuall custome was not onely to oppose Sermon against Sermon and Gospell against Gospell and Teacher against Teacher but everie one in the defence of their owne Teacher and his Gospell thought it part of their Religion to extoll and quote and urge the purity and infallibility of the one to the
A SERMON CONCERNING Unity Agreement PREACHED AT CARFAX CHURCH in OXFORD August 9. 1646. By IASPER MAINE D. D. and one of the Students of Christ-Church OXON. ROM. 12. 18. Jf it be possible as much as lieth in you live peaceably with all men Printed in the Yeere MDCXLVII A SERMON CONCERNING UNITY and AGREEMENT 1 COR. 1. 10. Now I beseech you Brethren by the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ that yee all speake the same thing and that there be no Divisions among you but that ye be perfectly joyned together in the same mind and in the same judgement THough Truth from what mouth soever it bee spoken or in what shape or dresse soever it appeare be but one and the same and where it is rightly understood carries this uniting peacefull quality with it that it makes all its followers of one consent and mind too yet I know not from what mist or impotence lodged in our nature with whom errors and mistakes do for the most part prevaile more then Arguments or Demonstrations and with whom our owne mis-conceipts conveyed into us from such whom we think too holy to deceive us or too learned to deceive themselves do for the most part sticke so deeply and take such root and impression in us that it is not in the power of truth it selfe to remove them This one uniting peacefull Bond of minds this Ray of our Soules according to the severall Teachers of it and according to the severall formes and shapes into which they have cast it hath alwaies been looked on as so many severall Truths And to the discredit and disadvantage of it hath in all Ages been as severally entertained and followed Thus among the Heathen Plilosophers we finde the number of Sects to be much greater then the number of Sciences Every new famous Teacher who professed severlty in his looks and austerity in his manners had the power to draw a cloud of Disciples after him and to erect a new Truth with a new School And thus in the very Church of God it selfe the Gospell no sooner began to be preached to the world but it began to have its Sects and Schismes and sidings too The Apostles taught but one Faith one Baptisme one Christ one plaine open way of salvation to men yet they were mis-understood by some as if they had preached many Or as if the numbers of their severall Doctrines had equalled the number of their severall persons and they had every one where he went scattered a severall Gospell To speake yet more plainely to you and neerer home to the History of this Text The Corinthians to whom this Epistle was written as if from every new Teacher that came thither they had learned a new Religion began at length to have as many Religions among them as they had heard Teachers You might have distinguished divers Churches in the same City and have divided their Beleefs and Creeds by their Families and streets Where by a fallacy and deceit of the eare judging of the things taught by their affection to the Teacher and not judging of the Teacher by the things which he taught every one chose to himselfe the name of his Minister to make a Side and faction by One as you read at the 12. Verse of this Chapter said I am of Paul another I am of Apollos a third I am of Cephas a fourth I am of Christ As if Christ had either been divided or else were to stand with the rest as the name of a distinct Religion Or at least as if the Gospell which at first sprung from him like streams broken off from their spring-head were no longer to retaine the name of the Fountain from whence it rose but were to weare the stile of the severall pipes and channells by which it was conveyed abroad into the world This diversity of names and sides grew at first from their diversity of opinions and minds When the unlearned wresting the Scripture which they had heard preached to an Apostles sense would presume to impose that sense which was indeed not an Apostles on others And those others equally as unlearned thought it as reasonable so they could entitle it to another Apostle to impose their interpretation of Scripture on the first This diversity of minds proceeded at length to diversity of language and speech Congregation spoke censoriously of Congregation as if none had been in the right but they onely who most vehemently could charge others with being in the wrong Saint Paul was urged and quoted against Saint Peter and Apollos against both and Christ against all three Whose Sermons like those changeable figures which melancholly men frame to themselves in the clouds were made to weare the shape and form which every mans zeale and fancy suggested to him Hence in time from difference and disagreement in mindes and speech they grew to difference and disagreement in society and conversation too Difference of opinion bred separation of companies and that which was at first but a neighbourly dispute by degrees tooke flame and grew to be mortall hatred division and schisme Men of the next doore were no longer neighbours to one another All the bonds of Charity became utterly broken All Christian entercourse and familiarity and commerce ceast between them He was thought to be false and to betray his side who offered to shew himselfe affable or civill to one of another party In short the breach became so wide that he was thought to be the onely religious man who could most enlarge the rent and could bring most fuell to the present combustion which was thus unhappily kindled among them To compose these differences therefore differences not unlike those of our miserable distracted times and to make the Knot and Reconciliation as fast and strong as the disagreement and rent was large and wide S. Paul here in this Text prescribes a severall Cure for every particular and severall breach First to remove the discord which rose among them by calling themselves by severall names and to banish the ill consequences of all such factious compellations which for the most part are bitter Invectives and sharp arrowes of detraction hurld at one another he perswades them to unity of language and speech and exhorts them to call themselves all by the same name in these words Now I beseech you Brethren that ye al speak the same thing Next to remove their want of meetings and Communion together in the same place of Gods Worship he perswades them to unity of Assemblies and Congregation in these words Now I beseech you Brethren that there be no divisions That is as I shall in the progress of this Sermon make it clear to you from the Original that there be no separations that is as our English word doth wel express it that there be no private sequestred meetings no such things as Conventicles among you Thirdly to remove the root and spring of all these uncharitable strifes and divisions and separations he
were to be brought to the door of the Tabernacle of the Congregation and there to bee washt then the Priests Garments the Coat the Ephod the Brest-plate and Mitre were to be put upon them Lastly followed the anointing oyle which was powred upon their heads And this was the Consecration of the Priests of those times The Ceremonies of Consecration in the New Testament were different I confesse from those of the Old but yet equivalent and answerable to them in their kinde These were a publike meeting of the Church together a presentation there made of the person to bee made a Priest solemne prayers and supplications put up to God to make him usefull to his Church and for a seale of all the rest the Imposition of the Bishops hands assisted by his Presbyters Now my Brethren apply this to the strange Priests of our times who with unwasht feet thrust themselves into the Tabernacle not a sacrifice not so much as a handfull of meale or grain of Incense or drop of oyl spent towards their Consecration No solemne assembly no presentation of themselves made to God no imposition of hands not so much as a short Prayer or benediction or God speed you used towards their setting forth into the Lords Vineyard and you will find that these are the theeves and robbers pardon the hardness of the language I cannot make the Scripture speake mildlier then it doth which our Saviour Christ speaks of in the 1â— Chapter of S. John at the first Verse Men who enter not in by the doore into the sheep-fold but climbe up some other way In briefe men whose Sermons and Doctrines correspond to their consecrations By stealth they enter into the Ministery and by stealth they exercise it And whereas the mark and Character of all the true Ministers of the Gospel is to stand having their feet shod with the preparation of the Gospel of peace these men wander and goe about having their feet shod with the preparation of the Gospel of strife Men who never think themselves sufficiently Apostles till all the world doe call them the sons of thunder too Men who speake fire and throw lightning among the people and thinke they have then onely done the worke and businesse of an Apostle when they have cast the Congregation which they leave behind them into a cumbustion and flame I shall trouble your patience but with one Objection which may possibly be made against what I have hitherto said that is this Here some one of these moderne selfe-inspiring Teachers may say Sir you tell us of Ceremonies and Consecrations and I know not what Imposition of hands but either you have forgot your selfe or wisely dissembled the vocation of the Apostles Were not they without your formality of laying on of hands without all this adoe of conveying orders and the holy Ghost by fingers immediately called by Christ What imposition of hands went to change S. Peter from a Fisher-man into an Apostle or what Bishops Ceremonies past to make S. Paul in whose person you have all this while preacht against us of a persecutor of the Church to become a Doctor of the Gentiles Doth not your own Tertullian say Nonne Laici Sacerdotes sumus That any Lay-man if he please may be a Priest To this I reply first As for the Apostles 't is true indeed we doe not read that they were consecrated to their Ministerie by such Rites and Imposition of hands as were afterwards received and practised in the Church Yet something answerable to the Imposition of hands went to their Consecration before they were invested with full Authority to preach the Gospell to the world For besides their first vocation by Christ to be his Disciples from whom they learnt that Gospell which they afterwards preacht what saies the Scripture Tarry yee at Jerusalem sayes Christ to them after his Resurrection till I send the promise of my Father upon you and yee be indued with power from above And pray what was that promise and what was this power Certainly that which you read of in the second Chapter of the Acts where at the time prefixt by Christ the Holy Ghost descended on them And how did hee descend in a still soft secret invisible perswasion of the Fancy Or in the silent whisper of an unperceived Illumination No such matter Quod Episcopus aliis Spiritus sanctus Apostolis saies a learned man The holy Ghost here supplyed the Office of a Bishop descended upon them in an audible rushing wind which signified his election of them to the eare And sate upon their heads in the shape of cloven Tongues of fire which signified his election of them to the eye Hi ritus haec impositio These were his Ceremonies this his Imposition of hands sayes that Author So that all the difference betweene the Admission of the Apostles to the Ministery and others was onely this In other Consecrations the Bishop onely granted the power to preach but bestowed not the Guifts Here the Holy Ghost bestowed both He first by visible outward signes testified to the world whom hee had chosen and to whom they were to hearken And then furnisht them with Tongues and Languages and knowledge and parts fit to be the Guides and great Instructers of the world Let these men make it appeare to me that the Holy Ghost hath thus descended upon them thus furnisht them with parts and I will most willingly resign my place to them in the Pulpit Next as for S. Paul 't is cleare by the story of his Conversion that he received not his Commission to preach from that which Christ spoke to him immediately from Heaven But what saies the place After he was fallen to the Earth blinde Arise saies Christ to him and goe into the City and there it shall be told thee what thou must doe When hee came into the City a certaine Disciple named Ananias pre-instructed by Christ in a vision was sent to him who putting his hands on him saies the Text said to him Brother Saul the Lord even Jesus that appeared to thee in the way hath sent me that thou mightst receive thy sight and be filled with the Holy Ghost Till his Imposition of hands the holy Ghost was not bestowed upon him And when he was bestowed upon him yet he had not his full Commission he was but yet a Disciple consecrated by a Disciple To make him an out-right Apostle a higher second and more solemne consecration past upon him which you may read in the 13. Chapter of the Acts where sayes the Holy Ghost to the Prophets and Teachers of the Church of Antioch Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the worke whereunto I have called them Ver. 2. And how were they separated I pray The third Verse tells you When the Prophets and Teachers there mentioned had fasted and prayed and laid their hands on them saies the Text they sent them away till then they wanted power To which passage
worshipped superstitious garments worne and have heard the more superstitious Common-Prayer Booke read that great bolster to slothfull Ministers and twin-brother to the Mass and Liturgie of Rome Were this Charge true a very heavy one I confess had there been any among us so unreasonably stupid as to spend their devotion on a pane of glass or pay worship to the dumb sensless creature of the Painter or adore the Communion-Table the wooden issue of the Axe and Carpenter as I think there were none had there I say been very Idolaters among us yet unlesse they would have compelled them to be Idolaters too I after all the imparciall Objections which my weake understanding can frame can see no reason why they should not communicate with them in other things wherein they were no Idolaters I am sure if S. Paul had not kept company with Idolaters we to this day for ought I know had remained Infidels My Brethren deceive not your selves with a fallacy which every child is able to discover If such superstitions had been publikely practised among us it is not necessary that every one that is a spectator to anothers mans sin should presently be an offender Nor are all offences so like the Pestilence that he that comes within the breath and ayre of them must needs depart infected Thou seest one out of a blind zeale pay reverence to a picture he hath the more to answer for But why dost thou out of zeale altogether as blind thinke thy selfe so interested in his errour as to thinke thy self a partaker of his fault unless thou excommunicate thy selfe from his coversation Againe tell me thou who callest Separation security what seest thou in a Surplice or hearest in the Common-Prayer Booke which should make thee forbeare the Congregation where these are retained Is it the web or matter or colour or fashion of the garment or is it the frame or forme or indevotion of the Book which offends thee Or art thou troubled because they have both beene borrowed from the Church of Rome That indeed is the great argument of exception which under the stile of Popery hath almost turned Religion it selfe out of the Church But then it is so weake so accidentall so vulgar an Argument an Argument so fit for none to urge but silly women with whom the first impression of things alwaies takes strongliest that I must say in replie to it That by the same reason that thou poore tender-conscienc'd man who art not yet past milke or the food of infants in the Church makest such an innocent decent vesture as Surplices unlawfull because Papists weare them thou mayest make eating and drinking unlawfull because Papists dine and sup The subject is not high or noble enough to deserve a more serious confutation That therefore which I shall say by way of Repetition is onely this If to weare or do whatever Papists weare or doe be unlawfull as it will presently concerne us all to throw off our garments and turne Adamites so it will very neerely concern us too to lay aside our Tables and betake our selves to fasting as the ready way to famine Then to reject the Common-Prayer Book because some of the Prayers in it resemble the Prayers in the Romish Liturgie is as unreasonable as if thou shouldst make piety and devotion in generall unlawfull because Papists say their Prayers And so in opposition to whatever they do shouldst think thou art to turne Athiest because most in that Church do confess there is a God The time wil not give me leave to say much in the defence of that excellent Book Or if I should t is in any thing I presume which can fall from my imperfect mouth which wil be able to recover the use of it back again into this Church Yet thus much out of the just sense and apprehension which I have of the wisedome as well as piety and devotion of it I shall adventure to say That I cannot think that ever any Christian Church since the time that that name first came into the world had a publique forme of Gods Worship more Primitively pure more Religiously grave and more agreeable in all points to the Scripture then that is To which I shall only add this one praise of it more that there is not any Ancient Classically condemned Heresie to be found in the Records of Councells Church-Histories or the Confutations of Fathers which is not by some clause or other in that most Orthodox Book excluded Here then if there be any in this Assembly of that il-perswaded mind that he would not at this present make one of the Congregation if the Common-prayers were read let me once more ask him what that great Antipathie between him and that admirable Book is which should make them quarrel one another out of the Church Is it because it prescribes a Ring in marriage or a Cross in Baptisme over-scrupulous man who would'st rather choose to make a rent and schisme and division in the Church then be spectatour to thâ—ngs so harmless and indifferent But thy weak Conscience is wounded Weak indeed when a piece of marriage-Gold or a little water sprinkled in the signe and figure of a cross the Type and Emblem of thy Christianity shall drive thee from the Church I must confess to you freely if such things as the veneration of images or adorations of Altars or sacrifices for the dead or the worshiping of the Hoste or the Mass-book with all the unsignificant Ave Maryes and superstitious prayers which use to trauell round the Circle of a numerous set of Beads had been establisht among us by publique Authority And had been enforced upon the practice and Consciences of men and no Liberty of person or freedome of estates allow'd them unless they would conform to the present Golden Calf of superstition set up before them a separation had not only been allowable but necessary We would have offended God very much to be partakers of such dross And our best Answer would have been the Answer of the Three Children when the King would have had them fall down to the huge image and Colossus which he had set up O King we are not carefull to observe thee in this matter But where no such things were enjoyned where every one was left to the full use and exercise of his Christian liberty where nothing was blameable among us but the ridiculous over-acted postures and gestures of some few busie fantasticall men whose Popery lay in makeing discreet men laugh to see them so artificially devout and so affectedly ceremonious to divide and separate or to give us over for a lost Church because the Psalmes of David after his own Musicall way used to be sung to an Organ As innocently certainly as if they had been tuned through his own loud Cymball or had more softly been sung and vowell'd to his Harpe Or to renounce our solemne Assemblies for such sleight indifferent things as a piece of holy story in
and he was guilty of that unedifying crime forsooth of being eloquent in the Pulpit Others perhaps entertain'd it coldly from S. Peter because he had not been bred up in the School of Demosthenes nor tasted of the finer Arts and educations of Greece In short one and the same saving Truth for want of a little right judgment in the Hearers to compare it comming from several mouths past into divers opinions first and then these opinions broke forth into divers factions And is not this my Bretheren our very case Do but consider the present distempers of our poor divided Kingdome and pray what hath been the true root and spring of so much variance and hatred and heart-burning among us What hath crumbled us asunder and turn'd one of the purest and most flourishing Churches of the world into a heap of Heresies and confusion Hath it not been the very word of God it self In which all minds I confess should agree and which should be the rule to compose all our strifes and before whose decisions the greatest Scholars Disputes and the meanest mans Doubts should fall down and mutually imbrace and kiss each other How comes it then to pass that Religion which was ordained by God to be the oyl to cure our wounds should prove only the oyl to feed and nourish our combustious Whence is it that the Scripture that Sword of the Spirit should prove to us only {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} a two-edged sword and that no other use should be made of it by us but only to be the weapon of our Conflicts by committing the edges and making them enter duell and combat with each other Truly my bretheren all the reason that I can give you for this is That some perhaps wel minded people but not of understandings either strong or learned enough to reach the true sense and meaning of some places have stept beyond their measure and have presumed to interpret more then they have well understood Others of a more modest but credulous composition have thought that only to be the right meaning of the Word of God which they have heard from the mouth of the Preacher which they most affect Others of a more dangerous policy finding that the Scripture rightly expounded would extreamly make against the plot of their dark proceedings and that the holy Ghost cannot be bribed to finde Texts to make covetousness sedition or the slaughter of their Brethren or Rebellion against their Prince lawfull have with some formall helps of piety and zeal put to their expositions made the Scripture speak only those plausible untruthes which most complied with their ends and the peoples Fancy Hence the better to arrive to their Estates by the distractions of their minds they have dealt with them as cunning Anglers do with silly fishes troubled the stream and blinded them and then made them their prey The way to do this was to affront and disgrace clamour down all the primitive Truths for some Generations taught among them and to recall from their sepulchres and dust all the old intricate long since buried Opinions which were the madnesse of their own times and the Civill Warre of ours With which opinions they have dealt as the Witch of Endor dealt with her Familiar raised them up to the people clothed in a long mantle and speaking to them in the shape and voyce of a Prophet Hence come those severall acceptions and interpretations among you even in your ordinary discourses of one and the same plaine but sinisterly understood places of Scripture One following the practice of all the purest ages of the Church thinkes the Sacrament of Baptisme is to be administred to Infants Others who would certainly be a strange sight to the Congregation if they should appear the second time at the Font of late are taught to thinke that none are to be baptized but such as are old enough to be their owne Godfathers and can enter into Covenant with God and promise for themselves Some because it hath beene called a binding of the spirit to fetter their devotions in a set forme of Prayer have banisht that Prayer which Christ prescribed to his Apostles out of their Closets as well as Temples Others of as rectified a piety think no Prayer so likely to finde acceptance with God as that which was conceived and put into forme by his Sonne I should tire your patience too much to give you an exact Catalogue of all the rotten opinions which at this present swarm among us One who hath computed the Heresies which have sprung up in this Kingdome within these five years sayes they have doubled the number of those which were in Saint Austins time and then they were very neer fourscore One is a Chiliast and holds the personall Reigne of Christ upon Earth Another is a Corporealist and holds the death of the Soul with the Body Nay as 't is said in Africke a Lyon will couple with a Tyger from whence will spring a Libbard so certain strange unheard-of double-sex't Heresies are sprung up among us not able to understand what he would hold himselfe You shall have an Arrian and Sabellian lodged together in the same person Nay which is yet worse whatever Celsus spoke in scorn and Origen in vindication of our Redeemer Christ and his Mother hath of late trodden the Stage again and appeared to disturbe the World One I tremble to speak it hath called the Virgin Maryes chastity into question And others have spoken of the Saviour of the World so suspiciously as if he had been a thing of a stoln unlawfull Birth In short there want only some of those Munster men among us of whom Sleydan writes where one calleth himselfe God the Father another God the Sonne A third Paraclete or God the holy Ghost to make our Babel and confusion of wilde opinions at the height In this miserable distraction then where Heresie and Errour hath almost eaten up the true Religion And where all the light at the Gospel which shines among us is but like that imperfect light at the Creation which shined before the Sunne was placed in the firmament A light creeping forth of a dark Chaos and blind masse and strifefull heape of jarring Elements In this thick fogge of strange Doctrines I say which hath condenst it selfe into a cloud which hath almost overspread this whole Kingdome from which Truth seemes to have taken slight and made way for Ignorance to stile it selfe once more the Mother of devotion what way is there left to reconcile our minds or to beget one right knowledge and understanding of the wayes of God among us Truly I know none but that which Saint Paul here prescribes in the Text which is that we endeavour as near as we can to be of one mind and of one judgment But how shall this be brought to pass unless all judgments were alike clear and unbiassed Or unless laying apart all partiality and affection to their own