for himself yea even the wicked for the Prov. 16.4 day of wrath Hath not the Potter power over the clay of the same lump to make one Rom. 9.21 vessel unto honour another unto dishonour was ever any thing more fully and plainly said in holy writ than this part of our Article Tim. I think not or can be Tit. These portions of Scripture to which more might be added were it needfull doe not barely assert a Predestination of some and not of others but assign also all the causes of such Predestination as 1. The Cause efficient to be the everlasting purpose of God. 2. The Cause formal Gods infinite goodness mercy and free grace 3. The Cause material the blood of Christ 4. The Cause final or end why both God the Father hath loved and Christ for his Elect hath suffered is the glory of God and the salvation of men so that I cannot see how any man who is at enmity with this Article can hold any good friendship with these Texts of Scripture or with those that arise to prove the next point which is this 6. They who are Elected unto salvation if they come unto years of discretion are called both outwardly by the word and inwardly by the spirit of God. These things are most evident and clear in the Scriptures where is set down both the calling of the Predestinate their obedience to the word being called their adoption by the Spirit to be the chidren of God and their holiness of life and conversation whom he did Predestinate them he also Rom. 8.30 Gal. 1.15 1 Thess 2.12 2 Tim. 1. 9. Eph. 1. 13. called God separated me from my mothers womb Called me by his grace Walk worthy of God who hath Called you to his Kingdom and glory He hath saved us and called us with an holy calling according to his own purpose and grace c. In whom also ye trusted after ye heard the word of truth the gospel of your salvation Ye have received the spirit of adoption whereby we cry Abba father the same spirit bearing witness Rom. 8.15 16. with your spirits that we are the children of God. And for their being chosen and called to holiness of life and good works the Apostle plainly enough asserts saying we are his Eph. 2. 10. workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works which God hath ordained that we should walk in them And the Grace of God hath appeared c. teaching us that denying Tit. 2. 11. 12. ungodliness and worldly lusts we should live soberly righteously and Godly in this present world yea saith the next Proposition 7. The Predestinate are both justified by faith sanctified by the Spirit and shall be glorified in the life to come All these blessed effects of Predestination doth the Scripture fully assert for know saith the Apostle a man is not justified by the works of the Law but by the faith of Jesus Christ Moreover whom he predestinated c. them he also glorified If children then heirs heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ And as we Gal. 2. 16. have born the image of the earthly so shall we bear the image of the heavenly Now are not all these consequents of Predestination viz. Justification Sanctification and Glorification Rom. 8. 30. v. 17. 1 Cor. 15. 49. fully enough expressed in these Texts Tim. Very fully in my opinion Tit. Therefore very well doth our Church say in the next part of this Article That 8. The consideration of Prodestination is to the godly most comfortable but to curious and carnal persons very dangerous To the former the Meditation of it must needs be exceeding sweet pleasant and comfortable because it greatly confirms their faith in Christ and encreases their love towards God. I account the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us If God be for us who Rom. 8. 18. v. 31 32 33 34. can be against us He that spared not his own Son how shall he not with him freely give us all things Who shall lay any thing to the charge of Gods Elect it is God that justifieth who is he that condemneth ye are sealed with the holy spirit of promise which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession unto the praise of his glory And again grieve not the holy Spirit whereby ye are sealed unto the Eph. 1. 13 14. day of Redemption Here is a deep and large Well of Consolation to the godly yet not affording the lest drop to carnal and wicked men Eph. 4. 30. Tim. But doth not this Doctrine lead towards Desperation Tit. by no means for no man either from the word of God or this Article of ouâ— Church can gather that he is a vessel of wrath fitted for destruction but contrariwise by many and great arguments may perswade himself that God wills not his destruction as by the next proposition plainly appears viz. 9. That the general promises of God set forth in holy Scripture are to be embraced of us such are Come unto me all ye that travel and are heavy laden and I will give you rest Math. 11. 38. 39. Joh. 3. 16. 17. 1 Tim. 2. 4. God gave his onely beloved Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish c. Who will have all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth These and many more such general Promiseâ— of grace and favour to mankind are heartily to be embraced of us as encouragements to faith repentance and an holy life So that whoever embraceth these promises and as our Church in the close of this Article saith 10. Will in his actions be directed by the revealed will of God hath no ground to despaire or to exclude himself out of the number of Gods Predestinate or chosen ones Thus you see the drift of this Article comprehending most fully and clearly that great doctrine of Predestination with all its coherent doctrines which is so much cryed down in our day and which is the wonder and shame of all by some sons of our Church who have subscribed it Tim. I must confess I have been one of those led by the example of the greater ones rather than by the depth of my own knowledge But surely these men have something to say for themselves is not our Church single in this point Tit. Admit she were yet there are two weighty reasons why they should not desert or oppose her in this First Because she hath the Scripture on her side And Secondly Because they have listed themselves her faithfull votaries by subscription Tim. That is true these are plaguy strong tyes Tit. But withall I say she is not single in this point for the Churches in Helvetia Basil and France believe and hold the same as their publick confessions bear witness yea all the reformed Church Tim. Who then are the enemies
as well as former Popish Plot against King the Kingdom our Religion and Lives to light but by providence In a word Tim think then say what was the safeguard of our present gracious Sovereign in many battles when divers fell on his right hand and left in sundry pursuits and in foreign Countries and what restored him to his Rights Crowns and people without the least opposition and with an universal consent and unheard-of acclamations of joy but wonderful providence Certainly there was as great a Concatenation of providences in his preservation and return as in the fall and rise of Joseph God give his Majesty an heart to remember and improve it or in Job's David's case or any recorded in holy Writ I cannot therefore disapprove the ingenuous return of a Scholar coming for Orders and being asked by his Poser how he proved a providence answered it being quickly after the Kings Restauration redeunte Carolo. And certainly wanted we other instances that 's sufficient and high enough alone Tim. This is something but not enough Tit. Enough surely to any but an Epicurean Tim. An Epicurean what 's that Call me no hard names if you do you 'll move my Choler Tit. I shall be sorry for that but if I should I 'le endeavour to make you amends by laying it again Tim. Tell me then why do you call me Epicurean Tit. Because I take you to be one of Epicurus his Scholars Tim. Epicurus who 's he Slid this is insufferable Epicurus and Epicurean Farewel Sir I 'le have no more of this Tit. Patience man a little and hear who this Epicurus was He was a certain ancient Gentleman Tutor to Mr. Hobbs whom I suppose you well knew Tim. You have abated my heata little by naming that person worthy Mr. Hobbs profound non-such Mr. Hobbs Tit. I knew how to nick you I know you are well acquainted with his works Tim. Huge well I have read them all and delight to read them Tit. More than to read the old doting Fathers the crabbed Schoolmen or any modern Divine not to say the Scriptures themselves Tim. I think he that reads Hobbs reads all that is to be read can be read or is worth the reading But what is all this to Epicuran Tit. You mistake Tim 't is Epicurean and the short is this Mr. Hobbs denies a providence he learned it of Epicurus you deny a providence being taught so of Mr. Hobbs and so you are either an Epicurean or an Hobbist which you please Tim Though I stiled you after the first as being the more ancient and so I thought the more honourable Tim. Well if this be all you mean by Epicurean I shall own it for Mr. Hobbs his sake and am of his opinion and shall be notwithstanding what you have urged Tit. I am sorry for it but if what I have inferred from the words of Christ prevail not what think you of the opinion of a grave Divine and good Christian Tim. I don't know who is it Tit. One that no doubt understood the Articles of our Church very well hear what he saith and you will judge who I mean O sacred Providence who from end to end Herb. on Provid Strongly and sweetly movest shall I write And not of thee through whom my singers bend To hold my Quill shall they not do thee right Of all the Creatures Tim. Hold here 's enough 't is Herbert but little to my conviction Tit. I was afraid so but will you be determin'd by a whole Church Tim. Now you come close could you but find a whole Church owning this Tit. I think 't is no hard matter Tim. What Church and where I pray Tit. The Church of England and in this very Article you have now read and that in these words There is but one living and true God Maker and Preserver of all things Now how will you grant God to be the Preserver of all things to this very moment and not allow of Providence And to assure you this is her meaning the prayers of our Church are answerable to her faith v. Coll. for the 8th Sunday after Trin. Whose never failing Providence c. Tim. Preserver I profess 't is so Preserver and never failling Providence Inever mindedit before This has somewhat in it to your purpose more than I have noted Tit. Something in 't for shame Tim knock under what subscribe such an Article as this and to the use of such a prayer as this and yet deny Providence Must God preserve the world and yet not be at the least concerned in any thing done in the world O non-sense stupidity the very Heathens spoke more like Divines and Christians than you and the rest of your Atheistical gang Hear what one of them saith and he none of the best neither Seneca I mean who calleth God the Keeper and Governour of the whole world a mind a spirit the Lord and Artificer or Creator of all the world he to whom every name agreeth Will you call him fate You will not be out for he it is on whom all things depend Will you call him Providence You wil say right for by his counsel the world is provided and taken care for that it remains steady Custodem Rectoremque universi animum spiritum mundani hujus operis Dominum Artificem cui nomen omne convenit Vis illum fatum vocare Non errabis Hic est ex quo suspensa sunomnia causa causarum Vis illum Providentiam dicere Recte dices Est enim cujus consilio huic mundo providetur ut in inconcussus eat actus suos explicet Sen. Nat. Qu. l. 2. cap. 45. and performeth its operations Thus he And Du-plessis Lord of Morney in his Book of the truness of Christian Religion chap. 13. sheweth that Providence is abundantly owned by Plato Plotinus Hierocles Aristotle Cicero and others And in short none but some of the most sensual and brutish Epicureans ever so much as called this in question Tim. And suppose they do What ill consequence can follow upon it Tit. Many and sad ones tho' perhaps otherwise in your opinion for first you hereby deny God's Mercy Wisdom and Goodness in that you suppose him to take no care at all of or regard to the numberless number of creatures that he hath made Next you abridge him of his Soveraignty and take his Prerogative from him which is this To dispense good and evil as he pleaseth Is there evil in the City and I have not done it saith the Lord Amoâ— Nay you do in effect deny his being and ungod him to suppose him to sit like an old man idle in Heaven and unconcerned at what is done here below Another sad consequence is that all the signs in Heaven Coâ—nets Blazing-stars all heavy and fore Judgments upon Kingdoms in general as War Plague Fire Famine signifie nothing with all personal calamity and afflictions And that all good as well as evil comes
Word doth import our own renouncing of Sin the World and the Devil and our Engagement to Christ and Obligation to live according to his Gospel And shall we entertain and encourage Sin in our Lives against all these Professions and Testimonies of our own O what Treachery and Perfidiousness is this to make such a stir against Sin in the Pulpit and yet to give it Countenance by our Practice O'tis this promotes Atheism and Debauchery 't is this that casts Contempt upon our Church reflects great Dishonour upon God and obstructs the Power and Prevalency of the Gospel Methinks if we are sincere Christians to whom the Glory of God is dearer than their Lives it must needs wound us to the Heart to hear the Name and Truth of God reproached for our sakes To see Men point to any of us and say There goes a covetous Priest a scandalous Preacher an open Tipler a frequent Swearer and secrer Whoremonger These are they that preach for Strictness and Holiness that condemn us by their Sermons and themselves by their Conversations Brethren bear with me for my Plainness and Zeal 'T is good saith the Apostle to be zealous in a good thing My Zeal for the Cause of God and Religion which lyes bleeding amongst us constrains me Whose Heart can endure to hear Men cast the Dung of our Iniquities in the Face of the Holy Ghost in the Face of the Gospel which we Preach and in the Face of all that desire to fear the Lord. For if one of us a Leader of a Flock be but once tho he continue not in it ensnared in a scandalous Crime all the pious Ministers and other Godly Christians round about him suffer by it For the Wicked and Ungodly and all our Enemies cry out they are all alike Their being nothing more common with evil Men than for the Faults and Crimes of one Professor especially if a Minister to reproach the whole Party O take heed therefore Brethren in the Name of God of every Word you speak of every Step you tread of every Action you do For you bear the Ark of the Lord you are entrusted with his Honour and dare you let it fall and trample it in the Dirt If you do God can find out ways enough to wipe off all that can be cast upon him but you will not so easily remove the Shame and Sorrow you hereby bring upon your selves Remember therefore that standing Decree of Heaven Them that honour me I will honour and they that despise me shall be lightly esteemed saith the Lord. And know thus much that all our Preaching and Persuation of others will prove but dreaming and trifling Hipocresy till we be throughly wrought upon to live according to the Word our selves For he that hath not so strong a Belief of the Word of God and the Life to come as will take off his own Heart from the Vanity of this World and set it upon a resolved Diligence for Salvation it cannot be expected that he would be faithful in seeking the Salvation of other Men. Surely he that dares damn himself dares let others alone in the way to Damnation He that will let go his hopes of Heaven rather than leave his wordly and sensual Delights I think will hardly leave these for the good and saving of others In reason we may conceive he will have little pity on others that is willfully cruelly to himself and that he is not to be trusted with other Mens Souls that is unfaithful to his own and will sell it to the Devil for the short Pleasures of Sin. I beseech you therefore Brethren as you tender the wellfare of your own Souls and the Souls of others as you would have the Church of God flourish the Kingdom of Satan lessened and the Gospel of our ever blessed Lord run and be gloryfied in the Conversion of Sinners and in the Lives and Conversations of his Saints take heed to your ways and become exemplary in your Lives that others seeing your good Works may glorify our Father which is in Heaven Nor would I put you only to an outward sober and civil Conversation but also as the means to it to look after an inward Renovation We as well as other Men have vitious and corrupt Natures which must be sanctified and renewed or we can never be saved Prove your selves therefore whether you be in the Faith in Christ by a through Sanctification and serious Repentance or not Take heed you be not void of those Graces of God's Spirits which you offer to others and excite others to pray for and endeavour after That you preach not the Word of Conversion to others and your selves being yet unconverted should prove Castaways And know that a Gospel Conversion or work of true Grace implys not only sober and righteous Actions but sanctified and renewed Affections not only blameless Lives but clean and pure Hearts and you shall be able to judg of the one by the other For if the inner Man be renewed the outward Man will be reformed where the Heart is truly sanctified by God's Spirit there the Life will be conformable to God's Law. And being satisfied about our own Spiritual State that it is safe and good let us in our respective places vigorously endeavour the Renovation and Conversion of others studying and by all means striving to fit our selves for so great a work as these that are sensible of the difficulty of it O what Qualifications are necessary for us who have such a Charge upon us as we have He must not be a Babe in Knowledg that will teach Men all those mysterious things that are necessary to be known in order to Salvation How many Difficulties in Divinity to be opened How many obscure Texts of Scripture to be expounded How many Duties to be done wherein our selves or others may miscarry if in the Manner End Circumstances and Matter they be not well informed How many Sins to be avoided which without understanding and foresight canâ—â—t be done What a number of Satan's Wiles of his sly and subtile Temptations must we open to our Peoples Eyes that they may escape them How many weighty and yet intricate Cases of Conscience must we dayly resolve And can such work and so much work be done without Knowledg and other due Qualifications O what strong holds have we to batter and how many of them what subtile diligent and obstinate resistance must we expect at every Heart we deal with Prejudice hath block'd up our way we can scarce procure a patient hearing but many think ill of what we say while we are speaking We cannot make a Breach in their groundless Hopes and carnal Peace but Men have twenty Shifts and seeming Reasons to make it up again and as many Enemies that are seeming Friends ready to help them We Dispute not with them upon equal Terms but have Children to deal with that cannot understand as we have distracted Men in Spirituals to reason with that will bawl us down with rogueing Nonsence we have Atheistical Persons to encounter that deny Principles wilful and unreasonable People that when they are silenced are never the more convinced and when they can give no Reason will give you their Resolutions I will not believe you nor all the Preachers in the World in this nor change my Mind nor alter my Course say what you will. Like the Man Salvian had to deal with that being resolved to devour a poor Man's Estate and being Lib. 4. de Gubernat p. 133. entreated by Salvian to forbear told him he could not grant his Request for he had made a Vow to take it so that the Preacher ita religiosissimi sceleris ratione was fain to depart Now when I consider all this and much more incumbent upon us Ministers which is no Burden for a Child 's Back I cannot but break out with the Holy Apostle and say What manner of Persons ought we to be in all Holy Conversation and Godliness Lord What manner of Persons ought we to be in all holy Resolutions and Endeavours for our great indispensable and weighty work Let us therefore with Seriousness and holy Resolutions separate our selves from the World and devote our selves with our Might to God and the good of Souls labouring both by our soundness of Doctrine and holiness of Living to add unto the Flock of Christ the Church of God such as shall be saved And to approve our selves in the sight of all Men to be the Lights of the World the Ambassadors of Christ a Chosen Generation and a Royal Priesthood shewing forth the Practices and Vertues of him who hath called us out of Darkness into his marvelous Light. Which that we may all do I conclude with that excellent Prayer of our Church pertinent to this Exhortation That it may please thee O Lord to illuminato all Bishops Priests and Deacons with true knowledg and understanding of thy Word and that both by their Preaching and Living they may set it forth and shew it accordingly And let every one that wisheth well to Zion say Amen ERRATA PAge 4 line 16. for sin read some P. 5. l. 46. f. there is r. therein is P. 7. in the Margent dele Pompin P. 10. l. 33. f. are r. â—s P. 10. l. 44. f. tongues r. thanks P. 13. l. 30. r. the sin of Nature P. 17. l. 19. f. this r. their P. 22. l. 58. f. the men r. these mâ—n P. 24. l. 4. f. new r. now P. 35. l. 26. dele a Commissaries P. 35. l. 42. f. proceeded r. proceeded P. 36. l. last f. examine r. ex animo P. 37. l. 27. f. there r. then P. 38. l. 39. f. last between them r. between us FINIS