remembrance again Joh. 14. 26. He admonisheth and directeth us his Clients how to order and solicit our own business what Evidences to produce how to manage and plead them making up our failings by his Wisdom and not only so but as the word Paraclete here imports he intercedeth also with God for us not in such a manner as Christ is said to doe whom St. John also calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 our Advocate with the Father 1 Joh. 2. 1. For as much as that Bloud which He shed for us on the Cross speaks for us better things than that of Abel and continually pleads our Pardon before the Tribunal of God but the Holy Ghost is said to make intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered because he stirreth us up to Prayer prompting and teaching us also how to pray as we ought to doe in all our Necessities So that as Christ is the first Advocate by working our Reconciliation with God so is the Spirit our other or second one by testifying and applying the same unto our Souls 2dly He is our Advocate not only in respect of God but of Men too by maintaining our Cause against the World against Tyrants and Persecutors 1. Against the World as oft as it accuseth us by false and slanderous Calumniators laying to our charge things we never did The Spirit in this case maketh us not only plead our Innocency but rejoyce in the Reproaches of Christ count our selves happy in this that it is not such low marks as we are which the malice of the World aimeth at but the Spirit of glory and of God which resteth upon us who is on their part evil spoken of 1 Pet. 4. 14. 2dly Against Tyrants and Persecutors Whence it is that our Saviour Mat. 10. 19. bids his Disciples not be concern'd what they should speak when they should be delivered up to Men because it should be given them in that same hour what they should speak And he adds vers 20. It is not ye that speak but the Spirit of your Father that speaketh in you And we know how that God in all Ages did by the mouths of Infants maintain his Truths to the shame and confusion of Tyrants who endeavour'd to suppress them But here it may be objected Was not the Holy Ghost given to the Jewish Church before the coming of Christ Did He not comfort and support them under a long and tedious expectation of his appearance Was He not then a Teacher of the Faithfull and when that Cloud of Witnesses suffered for the Cause of the God of Jacob when they were sawn in pieces and stoned was not the Holy Ghost their Advocate as well as the Martyrs under the Gospel Did He not speak by the Mouth of Daniel when cast to the Lions and of the three Children who chanted out the Praises of God in the midst of the flames of the firey furnace How then does our Lord say here If I go not away the Comforter will not come to you since so many Ages before He was come and as a Comforter too For Resolution hereof we are to observe That although the Three Persons of the Blessed Trinity be equally the Principles of all those Acts they produce without according to the received Maxim of the Schools yet with a considerable difference in relation to those three distinct Oeconomies or Dispensations towards the Church That of the Father lasted till the Coming of Christ in the Flesh yet so as that in that space of time 't is generally believed that the Son of God did sometimes appear as to Abraham Jacob and Joshua being a kind of Essay or Prelude to his Incarnation and the Holy Ghost did then also impart some degree of Efficacy to the Faithfull However This is properly to be reckoned the Oeconomy of the Father The second was That of the Son from his Incarnation to his Ascension yet so as that the Father made his voice to be heard at Jordan and Mount Tabor This is my beloved Son in whom I am well-pleased hear ye Him As at another time in the Audience of the People Joh. 12. 28. I have both glorified it and will glorifie it again Then also did the Holy Ghost appear in the form of a Dove yet still this is to be accounted the Oeconomy of the Son That of the Holy Spirit commenced from his Descent upon the Apostles and shall last unto the end of all things Differing herein from the other two That in the two first Dispensations Men's senses were usually affected with some extraordinary miraculous and sensible Objects God the Father shewing himself in a Cloud and Pillar of Fire giving out his Oracles from between the Cherubins consuming the burnt-offerings with Fire from Heaven and filling the Sanctuary with his Glory And the Son of God conversing so familiarly with Men that it made St. John say That which was from the beginning which we have heard which we have seen with our eyes which we have looked upon and our hands have handled of the word of life declare we unto you Whereas I say All was as it were visible and palpable here 'T was far otherwise in the Dispensation of the Spirit The Heavens were not seen to part nor was God's terrible Voice heard in the Air no Shechinah no Glory or sensible Mark of the Presence of the living God in his Temple For which reason the third Person in the Trinity has the Special Name of Spirit given Him For as He is styled Holy in respect of that Sanctification he worketh in us though that same Title belongs also to the other two Persons as having the same Spiritual Essence yet the Holy Ghost bears the name of Spirit in regard of his altogether Spiritual Dispensation and those Graces he imparts to each faithfull Soul which are Heavenly and Spiritual such as are the Knowledge of the secrets of the Kingdom of Heaven and his inward Vertues and Consolations As for Knowledge it was so weak and imperfect under the Ancient Oeconomy that in respect of that our Lord preferrs the least in the Kingdom of Heaven i. e. the meanest Christian to all the Prophets not excepting the Baptist himself Nor can it be deny'd but that the very first Principles and Rudiments of Christianity do far surpass the highest Attainments of the Law The Jews were under a Cloud and the Doctrine of the Prophets was but as a light shining in a dark place All was then Shadow or rather Night and Moses his Veil was over the Eyes of the whole Nation God made himself known to the Jews as the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob not as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ of whom They had a very wrong Notion looking upon him as the Conqueror of the World such was the very Apostle's fancy of him and that even after his Resurrection Act. 1. The ineffable Mystery of the Trinity that of Godliness which without controversie is great God manifested
crosseth the very end and design of his Coming into the world and is expresly contrary to his Doctrine and Example 2. Because it is a very improper way to advance Religion by And 3. Such as does not serve their purpose who make use of it which is To gain Proselytes to their Cause 1. I say It crosseth the very end c. For as God the Father was not in the whirlwind but in the still voice so his Son 's coming into the world is said to be like rain coming down into a fleece of wooll scarce to be heard He shall not strive nor cry neither shall any man hear his voice in the streets says the Prophet Esay speaking of Christ ch 42. v. 1. His behaviour was to be mild and gentle not boisterous and clamorous such a way becoming Him who was the Prince of Peace whose business it was to reconcile men to God and to themselves and who came not to destroy men's lives but to save them He tells us indeed in one place that He came not to send peace on earth but a sword Matt. 10. 34. or as it is in St. Luke ch 12. v. 51. divisions yea and such divisions as should set a man at variance against his father and the daughter against her mother v. 35. that is He foresaw what would be the event of his coming That the nearest Relations would hate and persecute one another to death upon the score of Religion That different pretences thereunto would separate those whom nature and bloud had most closely link'd together That none here would pardon less than they who were by nature obliged to love most And we see how sharp-edged this Sword has always proved even to the cutting asunder all natural and civil tyes and obligations so that a man's greatest foes are many times those of his own houshold Now this was no natural but an accidental effect of Christ's coming and of that Doctrine He brought with Him whose proper character it is to be pure and then peaceable Jam. 3. 17. mild and gentle not like the Law a killing letter much less like Draco's Laws writ in bloud but admirably fitted for the perfecting men's Natures and the sweetning of their Tempers and Spirits and calculated for the peace and order of the World which how inconsistent it is with those violent ways of Excommunications and Murthers some Men practice against such as differ from them never so little in opinion in matters of Religion I cannot see Nor indeed can I find any thing in the Gospel in the Doctrine or Practice either of Christ Himself or of his Apostles to authorize or countenance any such violent proceedings but enough to condemn them When an enemy had sown Tares in the field and some over-hasty people were presently for plucking them up our Lord we see forbids them and will have them both grow up together till the harvest when God should make the separation Matth. 13. 28 29 30. So when the Disciples would call down fire from Heaven to consume the Samaritans who were both Schismaticks and Hereticks He checks them for it telling them That they knew not what Spirit they were of Luk. 9. 54 55. That however the doing so might suit with the firey temper of Elias it did not at all with that of his Disciples It is not for Christianity to assume a power to inflict itself nor is it commissionated to plant it self with violence or to destroy all that refuse or oppose it If it be to be writ in bloud 't is in that of its own Confessors only as it was in that of its Author whose practice was as mild and gentle herein as his doctrine For when some of his Disciples being scandalized at the eating of his flesh went back and walked no longer with Him which was direct Apostasie does He use any menaces or force to reduce them No He leaves them to themselves and only cautions his Disciples to beware of their pernicious Example by gently expostulating with them Will ye also go away Joh. 6. 67. And when He afterward sent out those his Disciples to convert the World He sent them forth as Lambs among Wolves Luk. 10. 3. which does not found like a Commission to tear and worry them that would not come into the flock but rather to be torn and worried by them Their Commission was to preach the Cross not to inflict it And when any City would not receive their Doctrine all they were to doe in such a case was only to shake off the dust of their feet against it That is to suffer nothing of theirs to cleave unto them to have nothing more to doe with them but to leave them to their own ways and to God's judgment How well our Modern Apostles have copied out this Doctrine and these Examples I leave it to all the World to judge Surely those qualifications which St. Paul requires in the servants of the Lord not to strive but to be gentle unto all men and in meekness to instruct those that oppose themselves 2 Tim. 2. 24 25. are not to be found in them who now call themselves Converters who carry the Gospel in one hand and a Sword in the other That if Men will not receive That into their Heads They shall be sure to have This sheath'd in their Bowels 2. But this as it is a most unchristian so is it a very improper way to advance Religion by it being impossible to settle That by violence which cannot be forc'd and where 't is forc'd 't is not Religion The Understandings and Wills of Men are not to be bound with the same fetters their Bodies are The Apostle indeed says There is a way of bringing every thought into Captivity to the obedience of Christ but he tells us withall that the weapons by which that victory is obtained are not carnal 2 Cor. 10. 4. One may as well invade and think to get a conquest over thoughts and chain up a mind as force a Man to will against his own will Not whole Armies can besiege ones Reason nor Cannons batter his Will Religion is seated in those Faculties to which outward force can have no access The Sword hath no Propriety that way Silence it may but it can never convince and rather breed an aversion and abhorrence of that Religion whose first address is in bloud and rapine For 3ly It is certain that all compulsion here gains nothing to any Cause but the infamy of those rigours that are used to promote it Outward force may make a Man more a Hypocrite than he was before but never more a Convert It may tye up his Tongue or his Hand not change his Heart make him perhaps dissemble his Opinion but never constrain him to alter it And what is the advantage that is got by such Proselytes who shall still bear an Enemies heart towards those who force them outwardly to profess what inwardly they abhor and to be of their
Church when they cannot make them of their Religion I doe not think that those Christianos nuevos those new Christians as they call them in Spain That is such as the Inquisition has made Christians of Mahumetans doe much love the Religion they turn to and much less those who turn them to it by employing Fire and Faggor These indeed are undeniable Evidences of cruelty in them that use them but slender Motives of credibility to beget belief in them that suffer by them And this way will not fail to multiply enemies instead of procuring friends to any Cause though never so good For as Persecution to the true Church is but as the Pruning to the Vine which gains in its bulk and fruit what it loseth in a few luxuriant branches lopt off so even Heresies themselves thrive by being prun'd too the cropping of these Weeds does but serve to thicken them the bloud of the Devil's Martyrs proves as much the Seed of his Synagogue as that of Gods Saints does of his Church and the destroying of the Persons of Hereticks supposing them such does but add life to their Cause And indeed what encouragement have Men to receive a Religion from their Oppressors or how can they think that they who torture and kill their Bodies are really concern'd to save their Souls And while the felicities of another World are recommended to them only by such as doe deprive them of all in this we cannot wonder at their little appetite to embrace them or to find the oppress'd Indians protest against that Heaven where the Spaniards are to be their Cohabitants Add we to all this That such Motives as these can never demonstrate Truth For how successfull soever their force proves yet it cannot prove the Doctrines true For by that argument it proves the Religion it goes about to settle true It proves that that which it destroys was true before while it prevailed and had the power And then such a testimony is given to the truth of Christianity which Heathenism had before and Turcism hath since And thus you see how all violent ways to propagate the Faith cannot be acceptable to God the Father as being directly contrary to his Nature and Will nor yet to his Son since they cross the very end and design of his coming into the World his Doctrine and Practice Fly in the very face of Religion it self and can never serve their turn who make use of it From all which it follows That they who pursue such ways neither know God the Father nor his Son Jesus Christ. I know what is commonly said by some who practice this way of compulsion in excuse and defence of it That many who serve God at first by compulsion may come after to serve him freely That these sorts of Conversions doe not augment the number of Saints but they diminish that of Hereticks That although some among them may prove bad Converts themselves yet they have Families to be saved that their Children may make good Christians and though the stock be naught yet the branches may be sanctified But the answer hereunto is easie That neither good Intents nor casual Events can justifie unreasonable Violence which instead of rendering Men orthodox Christians makes them rather Atheists Hypocrites and Formalists For being constrained to practice against Conscience they soon come at last to lose all Conscience Nor are Men to owe the Salvation of Souls to any unwarrantable proceedings because they must not doe any present evil in prospect of any future good This was another gross error of these persons in the Text as I am now to show you in the next place 2. The Jews here thought their Zeal to the Temple and their Ritual Observances so invincibly meritorious that no crime could defeat it And we see how apt many Christians are to ascribe so much to the force of a good meaning as if it were able to bear the stress and load of any sins that can be laid upon it A good purpose shall hallow all they doe and make them boldly rush into the most unchristian practices in prosecution of what some call The good old Cause others The Catholick Faith For how doe Men swallow down the deadliest Poyson Perjury Sacriledge Murther Regicide and the like in confidence of this their preservative and say grace over the foulest sins How many have made themselves Saints upon that account that would never have been such upon any other And how much Religion groans under the Reproach of all those Evils which zeal and good meanings have consecrated is notorious to all the World Men call the over-flowing of their gall Religion and value their Opinions so high and their eagerness in abetting them that they think the propagating of them so important a service to God as will justifie all they doe in order to this end Now not to speak of their Error in the choice of their Opinions That of many opposite one only can be the Right my present business shall be to shew you 1. The Impiety and 2. The Danger of this strong delusion in respect of that Malignant influence it has on Practice For the clearing of which two things we are to observe That to the making an Action good and warrantable these three things are requisite 1. A good Intention in the Doer 2. That the Matter of the Action be in it self good and 3. That it be rightly circumstantiated For a failure in either of these three things quite vitiates the whole Action 1. The first thing necessary to a good Action is a good Intention in the Doer This we learn from Matth. 6. 22. If thine Eye that is thy Intention for so Interpreters generally understand it be single thy whole Body shall be full of light Be the matter of an Action never so good yet if a Man's aim and intention in the doing of it be not so all is stark naught For Actus moralis specificatur ex fine And Finis dat speciem in moralibus And as the End is the first thing that sets an Agent a working so is it the last that perfects its work Nay so valuable in the sight of God is a good Intention where-ever it be found That as He sometimes prevents an evil Act in him in whom He discovers a good Intention as in Abimilech so does He sometimes reward a good Purpose tho' it proceeds not to act as in David T is true that a good End alone does not justifie any action but it is as true that there can be nothing good or tolerable without it And although a good meaning doth not wholly excuse yet an evil one wholly condemns it But then 2dly Besides a good Intention two things more are requisite to the making an Action good 1. That the Matter of it be such 2. That it be rightly circumstantiated 1. That the Matter thereof be good For our Intention as our zeal must be always in a good thing And a thing is then
very proposing of these four Particulars 1. That they so exempt all Ecclesiastical persons from Subjection to Princes as to allow these no co-active but only a directive Power over them 2. That by the Seal of Confession they tye up their Priests from revealing any traiterous Plots of Rebels against their Soveraigns 3. That the Pope by his Authority can when he pleases absolve Subjects from their Oaths of Fidelity to them 4. That 't is not lawfull for Christians to obey an Heretical Prince By which Maximes 't is evident how impossible it is for any Man that believes them to be a good Subject He must be no Papist if he be true to his Prince since he can be so no longer than the Pope will suffer him Whatever such a Man's practice may be as no doubt many noble Gentlemen of that persuasion have been Loyal to their last breath yet his Principles are rebellious and if his natural generosity or some other respect keeps him fast to his King his Religion I am sure does not bind him And when there happens a contest between Honour and Religion 't is odds but the latter will carry it For put the case the Pope should command one thing and the King another I would fain know whether of the two a Papist conceives himself oblig'd to obey If he says His King he can be no good Roman Catholick If the Pope as he must say unless he will renounce his profession 't is impossible for him to be a good Subject since the Pope whom with Bellarmine he acknowledges the Head of the Church one that cannot err and that has power to make Articles of Faith according to the determination of the Council of Trent hath ex Cathedra declared these forenamed Principles of Rebellion to be such Articles of Faith and the denying them to be so no less than Heresie You see the doctrines of these false Prophets of Rome and they have exemplified them all by their practices The Pharisees were great boasters of their Father Abraham and so are these of the Fathers of the Church as if they were their only legitimate offspring and the sole heirs of their learning and piety And these two they have so engross'd to themselves that they look upon all the world besides as bankrupt As to learning 't is so confin'd to the Colleges of Jesuits that if we may believe them it very seldom travels beyond their walls who being the only Rabbi's have appropriated to themselves the swelling Titles of Angelical Seraphical and the like All besides them having but one eye while these like the Chineses have two As to piety and devotion the Catholick-church like the Temple of the Lord among the Jews is ever in their mouths They are the only godly Party the Favorites and Minions of heaven Nothing to be seen in their Churches but miracles and nothing on their Walls but devotion and indeed all their religion is but paint The very habit of a Monk with them is miraculous beyond St. Paul's handkerchief and a Franciscan's frock wrapt about a dying man shall as infallibly make him a Saint as Rablais his gown a Physician All the Pharisee's arts of dawbing and pargetting are but rude and gross and his colours faint to those of a Mendicant View him with his shaven head his long beard and longer beads his ill habit and worse looks prostrating his body to the ground before his woodden god and what Pharisee can compare with him And yet this is the best side of the man and of his religion which like an Egyptian Temple belies and shames its fair frontispiece with some ridiculous Ape within There is no such hypocrisie as that which lurks under a Cowle no pride to that of a feigned and voluntary humility nor any such lewdness as that which is gilded over with devotion Should I lay the dirt of their Cells before you or rake up the bones of buried Infants the prospect would be too nasty and dismal We know what good use they make of their Confessions They who are well acquainted with them find them one thing abroad and another at home one thing at their Altars and another in their Chambers These Pedlers of devotion carry all on their backs abroad while their storehouses lye empty They can appear to the eye of the world like so many Baptists with their Camels hair and leathern girdles which they brag of as Antisthenes of old did of the rents of his garment that served only to let in light to sober Spectators to view the Wearer's vanity And what is all their Tinsel devotion but a Pharisaical will-worship That rabble of insignificant and superstitious ceremonies wherein they out-doe the most hypocritical Pharisees in Crosses Relicks Agnus's Exorcising of devils of their own raising and ridiculous cringings and postures not to be found among the Pharisees whose behaviour was sober and grave in comparison of that antick Mascarading and religious Mummery practised by these Romish Augurs who cannot chuse but laugh sufficiently at themselves for them and do no doubt much more at them who are so silly as to admire them The Pharisees had their superstitious washings 'tis true but they had no holy water to fright away the Devil nor did they wear their Philacteries as these men doe a piece of St. John's Gospel about their necks to charm him Indeed those many Sects of religious orders among Papists derive from them but are far more numerous and ridiculous exceeding them as much in their Crimes as they doe in their Fopperies Did they compass sea and land to gain a Proselyte these will run farther than the Indies to gain Souls that is to extend Empire like subtle Foxes preying far from home or rather going about like roaring Lyons seeking whom they may devour And when they have gained men they make them much more the children of the Devil than themselves being sure when once they have them to keep them fast and tame enough either by a gross ignorance or the consciousness of those sins which they have pickt out from them by Confessions and which they continually nurse up by their Indulgencies Had the Pharisees subtle ways to entrap men these their disciples can out-wit them and a Pharisee is but a Dunce to a Jesuit in his art of Legerdemain spiritual juggling and holy frauds whose fundamental Principle 't is That Gain is Godliness If the Pharisees were covetous these have hearts exercised with all manner of covetous practices Let the Quarry be never so mean these Hauks will stoop to it To say the truth The religion of these men is founded in policy and interest and the whole current of their doctrines and practices run that way as 't is easie for any one to see that well considers them 'T is this that sets the Fryars and Jesuits together by the ears all the quarrel between them being this Who shall bring most grist to their several mills A man can
their wrecks And to this purpose like another Aeolus he lets fly his boisterous Winds his Seminary Priests and Jesuits Alas He is the principal Author of our disturbances These but the Instruments who like so many Puppets dance by the motion of his hand 'T is no marvel if these his sworn Vassals his Janizaries in continual pay should advance the Interest and fight for the Cause of their great Lord and General wherein themselves are so much concern'd Nor do they boggle at any thing that may promote it be it never so impious while the good of the Catholick Cause as the Pharisaical Gold did their Altar shall sanctifie all their lewdest practices 'T is no marvel I say that such men should doe any thing who are members of such a Church whose tender mercies are cruelty whose piety butchery religion faction devotion sedition zeal fire and martyrs traytors Surely such Cannibals as daily devour their God will make no bones to swallow up whole States or which is worse to blow them up This was their attempt this day and this is still their design no doubt 'T is no Fable this but a History Habemus confitentes reos What need we any farther Witnesses than the Parties themselves All Garnet's tricks and equivocations at last fail'd him when being put to it he could not deny but that he had a head and hand in it confessing withall that his principal motive to this villany was an Excommunication thundred out against Queen Elizabeth by Pius Q. and Sixtus V. which sticking still on King James as not repealed but rather confirmed by their Successors obliged him in Conscience to attempt the Murther of his Sovereign in obedience to the Pope his greater Lord. This Bill was produc'd in the indictment of the said Garnet and gave occasion to the Oath of Supremacy So that the matter of fact being as clear as the confessions of the Contrivers and Instruments themselves could make it all the subtlety of Papists can never disprove or disguise it Here is no shift no starting-hole left them The Mine was contrived at Rome though 't was to be sprung here at Westminster The Pope himself laid the Train which his Ministers by his order were to give fire to And how near were they to doe it and we to be undone There wanted but a little light Match to have sent up a Church and State into the air Nor did our Enemies make any doubt but that they should have seen us flying there and which was their charity that our Fall thence should have been as low as Hell However lest the Plot should possibly fail as through God's infinite mercy it did of its intended effect they had a Declaration ready to indict the Protestants of that Treason For the Brat would have been too foul for the Pope to father though himself very well knew it was his own natural issue and all the world besides And indeed the very shape and complexion of this Monster shews it not to be of an English Extraction Nothing but the Pope and the Devil could lay such a Cockatrice's Egg nor any but a Jesuite hatch it Let them take it between them and let it remain an eternal blot upon them and their religion guilty of a design than which nothing yet ever lookt more like Hell the darkness and the flames of it being all in it I need not display the horror of it the very prospect thereof being ghastly beyond all expression Let your thoughts supply the defect of my rhetorick and tell you whether such fruits as these be the fruits of the Spirit of God or of his true Prophets Surely their Vine is the Vine of Sodom their Grapes are Grapes of Gall and their clusters bitter And yet how many are there that can relish no other but what an Italian soil produceth though they be as mortal as those of the forbiddentree Without doubt our English palats have been strangely corrupted of late days that we should be so bewitch'd and intoxicated with the cup of Rome's abominations as to suck out the very lees and dreggs thereof with such delight and pleasure I know the troubles of our late Wars have given the Romish Emissaries opportunity of beguiling many who discontented with their sufferings at home and pincht with necessity or offended with the many Sects which the licentiousness of the War had begot or couzened with the pretences of antiquity vanity glory and splendor of the Romish Church and perhaps allured by those pleasing doctrines and opinions whereby their Casuists gratifie Sinners have revolted from us and do still revolt Much talk there is of the increase of Popery and if true 't is not much to be wonder'd at for a Plague is infectious and a Gangreen spreading and evil as well as good communicative But surely Papists need not bragg much of their gain when they consider how and whom they get They are such as we can spare them men that had no religion till they found them one and whose noreligion was better than what they have gotten who living like Atheists that they may seem at least to be of some religion pretend to be Papists and being cast out by us were fit for them to receive These be their prey These their spoils I envy them not such Proselytes who add nothing to the repute of any side but number nor do we lose any thing but what would shame us our Church being but the purer for having such dreggs purg'd out Ancient Rome had at first wanted men to inhabit it if Romulus had not opened an Asylum and modern Rome would not be so much replenished if there were not a Sanctuary there for such Converts Let me bespeak such as St. Paul did his Galatians O ye foolish People who hath bewitched you that ye should not obey the truth That having known God as ye have done ye should turn again to weak and beggarly Elements whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage Lick up your vomit and forsake the truth of God to follow lies and Jewish fables For what is Popery but one great one what are its new doctrines but old heresies patch'd and trick'd up and only so old as to be rotten Look into its practices too whether that which Tacitus says of Rome heathenish be not as true of Rome apostate That all shameless and heinous enormities ran into it as into a common sewer Christian Rome now if I may give it that name is no more like what once it was than Jesuits are like Apostles And yet these be the men ye doat on and if you can get any one of their Tribe into your houses you can say to your selves as Micah did Judg. 17. 13. Now I know the Lord will doe me good because I have a Priest Such a Priest indeed as his was who like a Serpent cherisht in your bosome will sting you to death Let me apply the old Proverb 'T is ill going in Procession where the
in the Council of Nice but killing and treading down each other in that of Ephesus What would he have said had he lived to behold those fatal Tragedies which have been acted since on the Theatre of the World upon the score of Men's different persuasions How have they put one another out of their Synaguoges cast them out of their Churches by Excommunications and by worrying them to death turned them out of the World too and so as much as in them lay destroyed peoples Souls as well as their Bodies I dare say that Jews and Heathens put together have not spilt so much Christian bloud as Christians themselves have done For proof whereof I might appeal to Massacres foreign and domestick Croysades Persecutions raised and carried on against Men with the utmost rage and violence merely for not being able to bring their Judgments to the same pitch and level with that of their Persecutors not to mention the bloudy design of this Day which had it taken effect would at once have blown up a Church and a State And all this with the same pretences of holy zeal and pious intentions that Jews and Heathens had and with as equal ignorance too For however they thought hereby to doe God service yet God Himself we see does not think so nor Christ neither who chargeth all such Zealots with utter ignorance both of the Nature of God the Father and of Himself also These things will they doe unto you says He because they have not known the Father nor Me. Which leads me to the second Head of my Discourse to wit Our Lord's Judgment of or rather Sentence of Condemnation past here upon all such persons and their practices They have not known the Father nor Me. I know not what good opinion some may have of Ignorance in matter of Devotion so as to make it the Mother thereof I am sure the Scripture all along makes it the source of all impiety of atheism oppression cruelty and of all that confusion that is in the World Have they no knowledge that they are all such workers of mischief eating up my people as it were bread Psal. 14. 8. It was this Ignorance that crucified Christ Had they known it they would not have crucified the Lord of Glory says St. Paul 1 Cor. 2. 8. And he thanks his ignorance for his persecuting and blaspheming 1 Tim. 1. 13. They are the dark places of the earth that are full of the habitations of cruelty Psal. 74. 20. And when men walk on still in darkness all the foundations of the earth are out of course Ps. 82. 5. That is There is nothing then but confusion in the world They proceed from evil to evil because they know not me saith the Lord Jerem. 9. 3. And here we see that Christ Himself chargeth all the cruelty that should be exercised on his Servants upon men's not knowing the Father nor Himself But wherein did this their Ignorance consist It consisted I say in these two Things 1. In that they thought that such violent courses as they took to bring men in to them as their putting them out of their Synagogues and their killing them could be an acceptable Service to God 2. That their pious Intentions Their thinking thereby to doe God service could be able to bear them out and justifie this their way of proceeding 1. I say first That they were grosly mistaken in thinking that those violent courses they took could possibly please God This was their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 their First grand mistake For there was nothing in the Divine Law to shew God's approbation of any such thing Nor do we find that the ancient Jews who alone worshipping the true God and being his peculiar People might in that regard have had some colourable pretence to persecute all that were out of God's Covenant as enemies to Him did notwithstanding use any rigorous much less barbarous and cruel ways to compell men to come into their Church The Law indeed required the life of an Apostate to Idolatry whether 't were a single Person or a City Deut. 13. And therefore to prevent the Jews running into Idolatry to which they were so prone Death which was the only proper restraint in that case was put into the Law by God who was Himself then the Supreme Magistrate in that Theocracy against whom it was exact Rebellion and Treason to take another God and therefore was by Him punished with Death But this Law concerned those only who were within the Pale of the Jewish Church nor do we find that any who were without were forcibly compelled to come into it This was wholly left to their own choice and they were suffered to go on in their own way without being obliged to receive the Mosaical Law It was never God's method this to drag men to his Service nor otherwise to work on their understandings than by rational convictions He might have made use of his great Power to confound but he hath always pleaded with men by way of Argument a Way most suitable to the nature of reasonable Creatures and to his own abhorring all manner of cruelty and by his forbearance long-suffering and goodness seeking to lead men to repentance And therefore they who have any other apprehensions of a Divine Being measure Him by their own fierce and inhumane Temper thinking wickedly that he is such a one as themselves and be they who they will They know not the Father Nor do they know the Son neither I say Whosoever employ any violent ways or means to force men's consciences in matter of Religion do not know Christ. Let me not here be mistaken as if I were against all manner of legal compulsion I deny not Magistrates the power of constraining them to outward acts of Justice Honesty and Religion too who are destitute of the inward Vertues such acts falling within their Jurisdiction serving to preserve Civil Societies of whom Magistrates are properly Lords and who do obtain their ends if the outward acts be done There are two Swords among Christians the spiritual and the temporal and both these have their due office and place in the maintenance of Religion But we may not take up Mahomet's Sword or like unto it that is We must not propagate Religion by sanguinary Persecutions nor force consciences so long as men's opinions destroy not faith or morality that they keep them to themselves and do not spread them to the ruine of the established Religion and Government For when they doe so as some Peoples very Religion is treasonable the Treason not the Religion is then punished by the Magistrate But setting a-side this case I say That as all outward compulsion to oblige men to quit their present Persuasion without any rational conviction is directly contrary to the Will of God the Father as I have already shown you so to that of his Son Jesus Christ as will appear upon these three following accounts 1. Because it