The Use of Exhortation

Having disclosed and lamented our miscarriages and neglects, our duty for the future lies before us, God forbid that we should now go on in the sin that we have confessed, as carelessly as we did before. Then would the exclamation of Salvian fall upon us, (de Gubern., 1. 3, p. 87,) “Novum siquidem monstri genus est; eadem pene omnes jugiter faciunt, quae fecisse plangunt. Et qui intrant Ecclesiasticam domum, ut mala antiqua defleant, exeunt; et quid dico exeunt 1 In ipsis pene hoc Orationibus suis ac supplicationibus moliuntur: Aliud quippe ora hominum, aliud corda agunt: Et dum verbis praeterita mala j)langunt, sensu futura meditantur: ac si oratio eorum rixa est magis criminum quam exoratrix; ut vere ilia in eis ScriptLirae maledicto compleatur, ut de oratione ipsa exeunt condemnati, et oratio eorum fiat in peccatum.”

Be awakened, therefore, I beseech you, brethren, by the loud and manifold voice of God, to set more seriously to the work of God, and to do it for the future all your might, and to take heed to yourselves, and to all the flock. The reasons why you should take heed to yourselves, I gave you in the beginning. The reasons why you should take heed to all the flock, I shall give you now, as motives to enforce this exhortation; and the Lord grant that they may work with us according to their truth and weight!

I. The first quickening consideration which the text here afibrdeth us, is taken from our relation to all the flock. We are overseers of it. In this I shall further shew you these, subordinate particulars, which will manifest the force of this consideration.

1. The nature of the office requireth us to take heed. What else are we overseers for 1 “Episcopus est nomen quod plus oneris quam honoris significat,” saith Polid. Virgil., p. 240; and a father before him. To be a bishop or pastor is not to be set up as idols for the people to bow to, or as idle, slow bellies, to live to our fleshly delight and ease. The particulars of our duty we have somewhat touched before, and more shall do anon. It is a sad case that men should be of a calling that they know not the nature of, and undertake they know not what. Do these men know and consider what they have undertaken, that live at ease and pleasure, and have time to take their superfluous recreations, and to spend an hoiu: and more at once in loitering and vain discourses, when so much work doth lie upon their hands 1 A^Tiy, brethren, do you consider where you stand, and what you have taken upon you 1 You have undertaken the conduct, under Christ, of a band of His soldiers, against principalities, and powers, and spiritual wickedness in high places. You must lead them on to the sharpest conflicts; you must acquaint them with the enemies’ stratagems and assaults; you must watch yourselves, and keep them watching. If you miscarry, they and you may perish. You have a subtle enemy, and therefore must be wise; you have a vigilant enemy, and therefore must be vigilant; a malicious, and violent, and unwearied enemy, and therefore you must be resolute, courageous, and unwearied. You are in a crowd of enemies, compassed with them on every side, and if you heed one and not all, you will quickly fall. And, oh, what a world of work have you to do! Had you but one ignorant old man or woman to teach, though willing to learn, what a tedious task were it; but if they be as unwilling as ignorant, how much more difficult! But to have such a multitude of these, as most of us have, what work ^Yill it find us! Who that ever tried it, knoweth it not by experience! What a pitiful life is it to reason with men that have almost lost the use of reason, and to talk with obstinate, wilful people, that know what they will and resolve, but not why they do it; and to argue the case with them that neither understand themselves nor you, and yet think that no man hath understanding that contradicteth them, and that are confident they are in the right, when they can shew nothing but that confidence to make them so! Their vnR is the reason of their judgments and lives: it satisfies them, and it must satisfy you. 0 brethren, what a world of wickedness have we to contend against, even in one soul, and what a number of those worlds! What rooting have their sins! With what disadvantage must truth come upon their ears! How strange are they to the heavenly message that we bring them; and know not what you say when you speak in that only language that they understand! And when you think you have done something, you leave your seed among the fowls of the air: wicked men are at, their elbows to rise up and contradict all that you have said. They will cavil, and carp, and slander you, that they may disgi-ace your message, draw them away from Christ, and quickly extinguish the good beginnings that you hoped you had seen. They use, indeed, weaker reasons than yours, but such as come with more advantage, being near them, and familiarly and importunately urged, and such as are fetched from things that they see and feel, and which are befriended by their own flesh. You speak but once to a sinner, for ten or twenty times that the messengers of Satan speak to them; moreover, how easily do the cares and businesses of the world devour and choke the seed which you have sown! And if it had no enemy but what is in themselves, how easily will a frozen, carnal heart extinguish

those sparks which you have been lono; in kindlino;! and for want of fuel and further help, they will go out of themselves. What abundance of distempers, and lusts, and passions do you cast your gracious words amongst! and what entertainment such companions will afford them, you may easily conjecture. And when you think your work doth happily succeed, and have seen men under troubles and complaints, confessing their sins, and promising reformation, and living as new creatures and zealous converts; alas! after all this, they may prove unsound and false at the heart, and such as were but superficially changed, and took up new opinions, and new company, without a new heart. How many are after a notable change, deceived by the profits and honours of the world, and fallen away wiile they think they stand! How many are entangled again in their former sensuality; and how many do but change a disgraceful way of flesh-pleasing, for a way that is less dishonourable, and maketh not so great a noise in their consciences! How many grow proud before they reach to a settled knowledge, and greedily snatch at every error that is presented to them, under the name of truth; and in confidence of the strength of their unfurnished intellects, despise them that they were wont to learn of, and become the greatest grief to their teachers, that before rejoiced in their hopeful beginning! and like chickens that straggle from the hen, they are carried away by that infernal kite, while they proudly despise the guidance and advice of those that Christ hath set over them for their safety. 0 brethren, what a field of work is there before us! not a person that you can see but may find you work. In the saints themselves, how soon do their graces languish if you neglect them; and how easily are they drawn into scandalous ways, to the dishonour of the gospel, and their own loss and sorrow! If this be the work of a minister, you may see what a life he hath to lead. Up, then, and let us be doing with all our might. Difficulties must quicken, and not discourage in a possible and necessary work. If we cannot do all, let ns do what we can; for if we neglect it, woe to us and them! Should we pass over all these needful things, and by a plausible sermon only think to prove ourselves faithful ministers, and to put off God and man with such a shell and formal visor, our reward would prove as superficial as our work.

2. Consider also, that it is your own voluntary undertaking and engagement that all this work is laid upon you. No mp-n forced you to be overseei-s of the Church; and doth not common honesty bind you to be true to your trust?

3. Consider also, that you have the honour to encourage you to the labour; and a great honour indeed it LS to be the ambassadors of God, and the instruments of men’s conversion and salvation, “to save men’s souls from death, and cover a multitude of sins;” indeed, the honour is the attendant of the work. To do, therefore, as the prelates of the Church, in all ages, have done, — to strive for precedency, and fill the world with vile contentions about the dignity and superiority of their seats, — doth shew that they much forget the nature and work of that office which they strive about. I seldom see men strive so furiously who shall go first to a poor man’s cottage to teach him and his family the way to heaven; or who shall first endeavour the conversion of a sinner; or first become the servant of all. Strange, that for all the plain expressions of Christ, men Tvdll not understand the nature of their office! If they did, would they strive who would be the pastor of a whole county and more, when there are ten thousand poor sinners in it that cry for help, and they are not so eager to engage for their relief; nay, when they can patiently live in the houses with riotous, profane persons, and not follow them seriously and incessantly for their change? They would have the name and honour of the work of a county, who are imable to do all the work of a parish, when the honour is but the appendix of the work. Is it names and honour, or the work and end, that these desire”? Oh, if they would faithfidly, humbly, and self-denyingly lay out themselves for

Christ and His Church, and never think of titles and reputation, they should then have honour whether they would or not; but by gaping after it, they lose it. For this is the case of virtue’s shadow, “Quod sequitur fugio, quod fugit ipse sequor,”

4. Consider also, you have many other excellent privileges of the ministerial office to encourage you to the work. If you will not, therefore, do the work, you have nothing to do with the privileges. It is something that you are maintained by other men’s labours, and live on the commonwealth’s allowance. This is for your work, that you may not be taken off it, but, as Paid requireth, may wholly give yourselves to these things, and not be forced to neglect men’s souls whilst you are providing for your own bodies. Either do the work then, or take not the maintenance.

But you have far greater privileges yet than thi&. Is it nothing to be bred up to learning, when others are bred at the plough and cart; and to be furnished with so much delightful knowledge, when the world lieth in ignorance 1 Is it nothing to converse with learned men, and talk of high and glorious things, when others must converse with almost none but silly ignorants 1

But especially, what an excellent life is it to live in studying and preaching Christ; to be still searching into His mysteries, or feeding on them; to be daily in the consideration of the blessed nature, or works, or ways of God! Others are glad of the leisure of the Lord’s day, and now and then an hour besides, when they can lay hold of it; but we may keep a continual Sabbath. We may do nothing else almost but study and talk of God and glory, and call upon Him, and drink in His sacred, saving truths. Our employment is all high and spiritual. Whether we be alone or with others, our business is for another world. Oh, were but our hearts more suitable to this work, what a blessed, joyful life should we live! How sweet would the pulpit be, and what a delight would our conference of these thinors afford! To live among; so many silent, wise companions, whenever we please and of such variety: all these, and much more such privileges of the ministry, bespeak our unwearied diligence in the Work,

5. You are related to Christ as well as to the flock; and He being also related to you, you are not only advanced, but secured by the relation, if you be but faithful in the work that He requireth. You are the stewards of His mysteries, and rulers of His household, and He that hath entrusted you will maintain you in His work. But then, “It is required of a steward that a man be found faithful.” (1 Cor. iv. 2.) Be true to Him, and never doubt but He will be true to you. Do you feed His flock, and He vnB. sooner feed you, as He did Elias, than forsake you. If you be in prison. He will open the doors; but then you must relieve imprisoned soids. He will give you a tongue, and wisdom that no enemy shall resist; but then you must use it faithfidly for Him. If you will put forth your hand to relieve the distressed, and willingly put it to His plough. He will wither the hand that is stretched out against you. The ministers of England, I am sure, know this by large experience. Many a time hath God rescued them from the jaws of the devourer. Oh, the admirable preservations and deliverances that they have had from cruel Papists, from tyrannical persecutors, from malicious sectaries, and misguided, passionate men! Brethren, in the fear of God, consider why it is that God hath done all this! Is it for your persons, or for His Church 1 AVhat are you to Him more than other men, but for His work and people’s sake 1 Are you angels, or men “? Is your flesh of any better mettle than your neighbours 1 Are you not of the same generation of sinners, and need His grace as much as they? Up, then, and work as the redeemed of the Lord; as those that are purposely rescued from ruin for His service. Oh, do not prepare a remediless overthrow for the English ministry, by your ingratitude, after all these deliverances! If you believe that God hath rescued you for Himself, live to Him then, as being unreservedly His that hath delivered you.

11. The first motive mentioned in the text we have spoken of, which is from the consideration of our office itself. The second is from the efficient cause. It is God, by His Spirit, that makes, us overseers of His Church, therefore it concerneth us to take heed to ourselves and it. I did before shew you how the Holy Ghost is said to make bishops or pastors of the Church in three several respects: By qualifying them for the office; by directing the ordainers to discern their qualffications, and know the fittest men; and by directing them, the people, and themselves, for the affixing them to a particular charge. All these were done then in an extraordinary sort, by inspiration, at least very often. The same are all done now by the ordinary way of the Spirit’s assistance. But it is the same Spirit still; and men are made overseers of the Church (when they are rightly called) by the Holy

Ghost now as well as then. It is a strange conceit therefore of the Papists, to think that ordination by the hands of the man is of more absolute necessity in the ministerial office than the calling of the Holy Ghost. God hath determined in His Word that there shall be such an office, and what the work and power shall be, and what sort of men, as to their qualifications, shall receive it. None of these can be undone by man, or made unnecessary. God also giveth men the qualifications which He requireth. So that all that the Church hath to do, whether pastors or people, ordainers or electors, is but to discern and determine which are the men that God hath qualified, and to accept of them that are so provided, and upon consent to install them solemnly in this office. But I purposely cut short the controvertible part.

What an obligation, then, is laid upon us by our call! If our commission be sent from heaven, it is not to be disobeyed. When Paul was called by the voice of Christ, he was not disobedient to the heavenly vision; when the apostles were called by Christ from their secular employments, they presently leave friends, and house, and trade, and all, and follow Him. Though our call be not so immediate or extraordinary, yet it is from the same Spirit. It is no safe course to imitate Jonah, in turning our back upon the commands of God. If we neglect our work, He hath a spur to qjiicken us, and if we overrun it. He hath messengers enough to overtake us, and fetch us back, and make ‘OS do it; and it is better to do it at first than at last. This is the second motive.

III. The third motive in the text, is from the dignity of the object. It is the Church of God which we must oversee and feed. It is that Clmrcli for -wliicli the world is much upheld, which is sanctified by the Holy Ghost, which is united to Christ, and is His mystical body; that Church which angels are present with, and attend upon as ministering spirits, whose very little ones have their angels beholding the face of God in heaven. Oh, what a charge have we undertaken! And shall we be unfaithful 1 Have we the stewardship of God’s own family, and shall we neglect it 1 Have we the conduct of those saints that must live for ever with God in glory, and shall we neglect them? God forbid! I beseech you, brethren, let this thought awaken the negligent! You that draw back from painful, displeasing, suffering duties, and will put off men’s souls with ineffectual formalities, do you think this is an honourable usage of Christ’s spouse? Are the souls of men thought meet by God to see His face, and live for ever in His glory, and are they not worthy of your utmost cost and labour 1 Do you think so basely of the Church of God, as if it deserved not the best of your care and help 1 Were you the keepers of sheep or swine, you might better let them go, and say, they be not worthy the looking after; and yet you would scarcely do so if they were your own. But dare you say so by the souls of men, even by the Church of Christ 1 Christ walketh among them. Remember His presence, and keep all as clean as you can. The praises of the most high God are in the midst of them. They are a sanctified, peculiar people, a kingly priesthood, a holy nation, a choice generation, to shew forth the praises of Him that hath called them; and yet dare you neglect them? What a high, honour is it to be but one of them, yea, but a doorkeeper in the house of God; but to be the priest of these priests, and the ruler of these kings, — this is such an honour as multiplieth your obhgations to dihgence and fidelity in so noble an employment.

IV. The last motive mentioned in my text is, the p7’ice paid for the Church vMch ice oversee. God the Son did purchase it with His own blood. Oh, what an argument is here to quicken the negligent; and what an argument to condemn those that will not be quickened to their duty by it! “Oh,” saith one of the ancient doctors, “if Christ had but committed to my keeping one spoonful of His blood in a fragile glass, how curious should I preserve it, and how tender should I be of that glass! “If, then. He have committed to me the purchase of His blood, should I not as carefully look to my charge “? What, sirs! shall we despise the blood of Christ 1 shall we think it was shed for them that are not worthy of our utmost care? You may see here, it is not a little fault that negligent pastors are guilty of. As much as in them lieth, the blood of Christ should be shed in vain: they would lose Him those souls whom He hath so dearly bought!

Oh, then, let us hear those arguments of Christ, whenever we feel ourselves grow dull and careless: “Did I die for them, and wilt not thou look after them 1 AVere they worth my blood, and are they not worth thy labour? Did I come down from heaven to earth, to seek and to save that which was lost; and wilt not thou go to the next door, or street, or village to seek them “? How small is thy labour and condescension as to mine 1 I debased myself to this, but it is thy honour to be so employed. Have I done and suffered so much for their salvation; and was I willing to make thee a co-worker with me, and wilt thou refuse that little that lieth upon thy hands V Every time we look upon our congregations, let us believingly remember, that they are the purchase of Christ’s blood, and therefore should be regarded accordingly by us.

And think what a confusion it will be at the last day to a negligent minister, to have this blood of the Son of God to be pleaded against him, and for Christ to say, “It was the purchase of my blood that thou didst so make light of, and dost thou think to be saved by it thyself V 0 brethren, seeing Christ will bring His blood to plead with us, let it plead us to our duty, lest it plead us to damnation.

I have done with the motives which I find in the text itself: there are many more that might be gathered from the rest of this exhortation of the apostle; but we must not stay to mention all. If the Lord will set home but these few upon your hearts, I dare say we shall see reason to mend our pace: and the change will be such on our hearts, and in our ministry, that ourselves and our congregations mil have cause to bless God for it. I know myself unworthy to be your monitor; but a monitor you must have; and it is better for us to hear of our sin and duty from anybody than from none at all. Receive the admonition, and you will see no cause in the monitor’s unworthiness, to repent of it; but if you reject it, the unworthiest messenger may bear that witness against you that will confound you. But before I leave this exhortation, as I have applied it to our general work, so I shall carry it a little further to some of the special parts and modes of our duty which were before expressed.

I. And first, and above all, see tlmt the work of saving grace he tho7’ougJihj wrought on your own souls. It is a fearful case to be an unsanctified professor, but much more to be an unsanctified preacher. Doth it not make you tremble when you open the Bible lest you should read there the sentence of your own condemnation “? When you pen your sermons, little do you think that you are drawing up indictments against your own soids! When you are arguing against sin, you are aggravating your own. When you proclaim to your hearers the riches of Christ and grace, you publish your own iniquity in rejecting them, and your unhappiness in being without them. What can you do in persuading men to Christ, in drawing them from the world, in urging them to a life of faith and holiness, but conscience, if it were but awake, might tell you that you speak all this to your own confusion] If you mention hell, you mention yoiu’ own inheritance; if you describe the joys of heaven, you describe your misery that have no right to it. AVhat can you devise to say, for the most part, but it will be against your own souls? Oh, miserable life, that a man should study and preach against himself, and spend all his days in a course of self-condemnation! A graceless, unexperienced preacher is one of the most unhappy creatures upon earth; and yet is he ordinarily most insensible of his unhappiness: for he hath so many counterfeits that seem like the gold of saving grace, and so many splendid stones that seem like the Christian’s jewel, that he is seldom troubled with the thoughts of his poverty; but thinks he is rich, and wanteth nothing, when he is poor, and miserable, and blind, and naked. He is acquainted with the Holy

Scripture; he is exercised in holy duties; he liveth not in open disgraceful sin; he serveth at God’s altar; he reproveth other men’s faults; and preacheth up hoHness both of heart and life: and how can this man choose but be holy 1 Ohj what an aggravated misery is this, to perish in the midst of plenty, and to famish “udth the bread of life in our hands, while we offer it to others, and urge it on them! — that those ordinances of God should be the occasions of our delusion, which are instituted to be the means of our conviction and salvation! — and that while we hold the lookins;- glass of the gospel to otherSj to shew them the true face of the state of their souls, we should either look on the back of it ourselves, where we can see nothing, or turn it aside, that it may misrepresent us to ourselves! If such a wretched man would take my counsel, he should make a stand, and call his heart and life to an account, and fall a-preaching awhile to himseK before he preach any more to others: he should consider whether food in the mouth will nourish that goeth not into the stomach; whether it be a Christ in the mouth or in the heart that will save men; whether he that nameth Him should not depart from iniquity; whether God will hear their prayers, if they regard iniquity in their hearts; whether it will serve the turn at that day of reckoning to say,” Lord, we have prophesied in thy name,” when they shall hear, “Depart from me, I know you not; “and what comfort it will be to Judas when he is gone to his own place to remember that he preached with the rest of the apostles, or that he sat with Christ, and was called by Him “friend;” and whether a wicked preacher shall stand in the judgment, or sinners in the assembly of the just. When such thoughts as these have entered into his soul, and kindly worked awhile upon his conscience, I would advise him next to go to the congregation, and there preach over Origen’s sermon on Ps. 1. 16, 17: “But unto the wicked saith God, What hast thou to do to declare my statutes, or that thou shouldest take my covenant into thy mouth”? seeing thou hatest instruction, and hast cast my words behind thee.” And when he has read this text, to sit down, and expound and apply it by his tears; and then to make a free confession of his sin, and lament his case before the assembly, and desire their earnest prayers to God for pardoning and renewing grace; and so to close with Christ in heart, who before admitted him no further than into the brain, that hereafter he may preach a Christ whom he knows, and may feel what he speaks, and may commend the riches of the gospel by experience.

Verily, it is the common danger and calamity of the Chiu:ch to have unregenerate and inexperienced pastors, and to have so many men become preachers before they are Christians; to be sanctified by dedication to the altar as God’s priests, before they are sanctified by hearty dedication to Christ as His disciples; and so to worship an unknown God, and to preach an unknown Christ, an unknown Spirit, an unknown state of holiness and communion with God, and a glory that is unknown, and likely to be tmknown to them for ever. He is likely to be but a heartless preacher, that hath not the Christ and grace that he preacheth in his heart. Oh that all our students in the university would well consider this! What a poor business is it to themselves, to spend their time in knowing some little of the works of God, and some of those names that the divided tongues of the nations have imposed on them, and not to know the Lord himself, nor exalt Him in their hearts, nor to be acquainted with that one renewing work that should make them happy. They do but walk in a vain show, and spend their lives like dreaming men, while they busy their wits and tongues about abundance of names and notions, and are strangers to God and the life of saints. If ever God awaken them by saving grace, they will have cogitations and employments so much more serious than their unsanctified studies and disputations were, that they will confess they did but dream before. A world of business they make themselves about nothing, while they are wilful strangers to the primitive, independent, necessary Being who is all in all. Nothing can be rightly known, if God be not known; nor is any study well managed, nor to any great purpose, where God is not studied, AVe know little of the creature, till we know it as it standeth in its order and respects to God; single letters and syllables uncomposed are nonsense. He that overlooketh the Alpha and Omega, and seeth not the beginning and end, and Him in all who is the All of all, doth see nothing at all. All creatures are as such broken syllables; they signify nothing as separated from God. Were they separated actually, they would cease to be, and the separation would be an annihilation; and when we separate them in our fancies, we make nothing of them to ourselves. It is one thing to know the creatures as Aristotle, and another thing to know them as a Christian. None but a Christian can read one line of his “Physics” so as to understand it rightly. It is a high and excellent study, and of greater use than many do well understand; but it is the smallest part of it that Aristotle can teach us. When man was made perfect, and placed in a perfect world, where all things were in perfect order, and very good, the whole creation was then man’s book, in which he was to read the nature and will of his great Creator; every creature had the name of God so legibly engraven on it, that man might run and read it. He could not open his eyes, but he might see some image of God, but nowhere so fully and lively as in himself: and therefore it was his work to study the whole volume of nature; but first and chiefly to study himself. And if man had held on in this prescribed work, he would have continued and increased in the knowledge of God and himself; but when he would needs know and love the creature and himself, in a way of separation’ from God, he lost the knowledge of all, both of the creature, himself, and God, so far as it could beautify and was worth the name of knowledge; and, instead of it, he hath got the unhappy knowledge which he affected, even the empty notions and fantastical knowledge of the creature and himself as thus separated. Thus, he that lived to the Creator, and upon Him, doth now live to, and as upon the other creatures and

himself; and thus, “every man at his best estate (the learned as well as the illiterate) is altogether vanity. Surely every man walketh in a vain show: surely they are disquieted in vain.” (Psal. xxxix. 5, 6.) It must be well observed, that as God laid not by the relation of a Creator by becoming our Redeemer, nor the right of His propriety and government of us in that relation, but the work of redemption standeth in some subordination to that of creation, and the law of the Redeemer to the law of the Creator; so also the duties that we owed God as Creator are not ceased, but the duties that we owe to the Redeemer as such are subordinate thereto. It is the work of Christ to bring us back to God, whom we fell from, and to restore us to our perfection of holiness and obedience; and as He is the way to the Father, so faith in Him is the way to our former employment and enjoyment of God. I hope you perceive what all this driveth at, viz., that to see God in His creatures, and to love Him, and converse with Him, was the employment of man in his upright state; that this is so far from ceasing to be our duty, that it is the work of Christ by faith to bring us back to it; and therefore the most holy men are the most excellent students of God’s works, and none but the holy can rightly study or know them. His works are great, sought out of all them that have pleasure therein; but not for themselves, but for Him that made them. Your study of physics and other sciences is not worth a rush, if it be not God by them that you seek after. To see and admire, to reverence and adore, to love and delight in God appearing to us in His works, and puqDOsely to peruse them for the knowledge of God, this is the true and only philosophy, and the contrary is mere foolery, and is called so again and again by God himself. This is the sanctification of your studies, when they are devoted to God, and when He is the life of them all, and they all intend Him as their end and principal object.

Therefore I shall presume to tell you by the way, that it is a grand error, and of dangerous consequence in the Christian academies, (pardon the censure from one so unfit for it, seeing the necessity of the case commandeth it,) that they study the creature before the Redeemer, and set themselves to physics, and metaphysics, and mathematics, before they set themselves to theology; whenas, no man that hath not the vitals of theology is capable of going beyond a fool in philosophy; and all that such do is but doting about questions, and opposition of science, falsely so called. And as by affecting a separated creature-kno”wledge Adam fell from God, so those that mind these y3e/3/fAoix?

Kevocpcoviw?, KOi avTidea-efi rry ievaivvfiov yvaxreca, they

miss the end of all right studies, rrepl rrjv ‘jrlarLv ■tjaro-^’qcrav while they will needs prefer these, they miss that faith which they pretend to aim at. Their y)retence is, that theology being the end, and the most perfect, must be the last, and all the subservient sciences must go before it. But, 1. There is somewhat of natural knowledge indeed pre-requisite, and somewhat of art, before a man can receive theology; but that is no more than their mothers can teach them before they go to school. 2. And it is true, that all riht natural knowledge doth tend to the increase of theoloo;ical knowledo;e; but that which is a means to its perfection, may be the effect or consequent of its beginning. 3. The end must be first known, because it must be intended before the choice, or use of means. 4. The Scripture revealeth to us the things of God himself in the most easy way, and therefore He must be first learnt there. 5. The book of the creatures is not to shew us more of God than the Scripture doth; but by representing Him to us in more sensible appearances, to make our knowledge of Him the more.

306 GILDAS SALVIANDS .*

intense and operative, and being continually before our eyes, God also would be continually before them, if we could aright discern Him in them. It is evident, therefore, that theology must lay the ground, and lead the way in all our studies, when we are once acquainted with so much of words and things as is needful to our understanding the sense of its principles. If God must be searched after in our search of the creature, and we must affect no separated knowledge of them, then tutors must read God to their pupils in all; and divinity must be the beginning, the middle, the end, the life, the all of their studies; and our physics and metaphysics must be reduced to theology, and nature must be read as one of God’s books, which is purposely written for the revelation of Himself. The Holy Scripture is the easiest book. When you have first learnt God and His will there, in the necessary things, address yourselves cheerfully to the study of His works, that you may there see the creatui’e itself as your alphabet, and their order as the connexion of syllables, words, and sentences, and God as the subject-matter of all, and the respect to Him as the sense or signification; and then carry on both together, and never more play the mere scrivener; stick no more in your letters and words, but read every creature as a Christian or a divine. If you see not yourselves and all things as living, and moving, and having being in God, you see nothing, whatever you think you see. If you perceive not in your perusals of the creatures, that God is all, and in all, and see not e

axrrov, Kac St’ avrov, Kai et? avrov tcl Trdirra, (Rom. xi. 36,)

you may think perhaps that you know something, but you know nothing as you ought to know. (1 Cor. viii.

2.) But he that seeth and loveth God in the creature, the same is known and loved of Him. (Ver. 3.) Think not so basely of the works of God and your physics, as that they are only preparatory studies for boys. It is a most high and noble part of holiness to search after, behold, admire, and love the great Creator in all His works. How much have the saints of God been employed in it! The beginning of Genesis, the books of Job, and the Psalms, may acquaint us that our physics are not so little akin to theology as some suppose. I do therefore, in zeal to the good of the Church, and their own success in their most necessary labours, propound it to the consideration of all pious tutors, whether they should not as timely, and as diligently read to their pupils, or cause them to read, the chief parts of practical divinity, (and there is no other,) as any of the sciences; and whether they should not go together from the very first. It is well that they hear sermons; but that is not enough. If they have need of private help in philosophy besides public lectures, much more in theology. If tutors would make it their principal business to acquaint their pupils with the doctrine of life, and labour to set it home upon their hearts, that all might be received according to its weight, and read to their hearts as well as to their heads, and so carry on the rest of their instructions, that it may appear they make them but subservient unto this, and that their pupils may feel what they drive at in all, and so that they would teach all their philosophy “in habitu theologico,” this might be a happy means to make happy souls, and a happy Church and commonwealth. The same I mean also respecting schoolmasters to their scholars. But when

308 GTLDAS SALVIA xrs:

languages and philosophy have ahnost all their time and diligence, and instead of readmg philosophy like divines, they read divinity like philosophers, as if it were a thing of no more moment than a lesson of music, or arithmetic, and not the doctrine of everlasting life; this is it that blasteth so many in the bud, and pestereth the Church with unsanctified teachers! Hence it is that we have so many worldlings to preach of the invisible felicity, and so many carnal men to declare the mysteries of the Spirit, and I would I might not say, so many infidels to preach Christ, or so many atheists to preach the living God; and when they are taught philosophy before, or without religion, what wonder if their philosophy be all or most of their religion; if they grow up in admiration of their unprofitable fancies, and deify their own deluded brains, when they know no other God; and if they reduce all their theology to their philosophy, like Campanella, White, and other self-admirers; or if they take Christianity for a mere delusion, and fall with Hobbes to write “Leviathans,” or with Lord Herbert to write such Treatises “de Veritate” as shall shew the world how little they esteem of verity: or at best, if they turn Paracelsian Behmenists, and spin them a religion from their own inventions! Therefore I address myself to all them that have the education of youth, especially in order to preparation for the ministry. You that are schoolmasters and tutors, begin and end with the things of God. Speak daily to the hearts of your scholars those things that must be wrought into their hearts, or else they will be undone. Let some piercing words fall frequently from jour mouths, of God, and the state of their souls, and the life to come. Do not say, they are too young to understand and entertain them. You little know what impressions they may make which you discern not. Not only that soul of the boy, but a congregation, or many souls therein, may have cause to bless God for your zeal and diligence, yea, for one such seasonable word. You have a great advantage above others to do them good. You have them before they are grown to the worst, and they will hear you when they will not hear another. If they are destined to the ministry, you are preparing them for the special service of God; and must they not first have the knowledge of Him whom they must serve 1 Oh, think with yourselves, what a sad thing it will be to their own souls, and what a wrong to the Church of God, if they come out from you with common and carnal hearts, to so holy, and spiritual, and great a work! Of a hundred students that be in one of your colleges, how many may there be that are serious, experienced, godly men: some talk of too small a number. If you should send one half of them on a work that they are unfit for, what cruel work will they make in the churches or countries! Whereas, if you be the means of their thorough sanctification, how many souls may bless you, and what gTeater good can you do the Church! When once their hearts are savingly afiected with the doctrine which thej’- study and preach, they will study it heartily, and preach it heartily. Their own experience will direct them to the fittest subjects, and will furnish them with matter, and quicken them to set it home. I observe, that the best of our hearers can feel and savour such experimental preachers, and usually do less regard others, whatever may be tlicir accomplishments. See, therefore, that you make not work for sequestrators, nor for the groans and lamentation of the Church, nor for the great tormentor of the murderers of souls.

II. My second particular exhortation is this: Content not yourselves to have the main work of grace, but he aho very careful that your graces he Icept in life and action, and that you preach to yourselves the sermons that you study, before you preach them to others. If you did this for your own sakes, it would not be lost labour; but I am speaking to you upon the public account, and that you would do it for the sake of the Church. When your minds are in a heavenly, holy frame, your people are likely to partake of the fruits of it. Your prayers, and praises, and doctrine will be heavenly and sweet to them. They will feel when you have been much with God. That which is on your hearts most, is likely to be most in their ears. I confess I must speak it by lamentable experience, that I publish to my flock the distempers of my soul. AVhen I let my heart grow cold, my preaching is cold; and when it is confused, my preaching Till be so: and so I can observe too often in the best of my hearers, that when I have a while grown cold in preaching, they have cooled accordingly; and the next prayers that I have heard from them have been too much like my preaching. We are the nurses of Christ’s little ones. If we forbear our food, we shall famish them; they will quickly find it in the want of milk; and we may quickly see it again in them, in the lean and dull discharge of their several duties. If we let our love 2;o down, we are not likely to raise up theirs. If we abate our holy care and fear, it will appear in our doctrine. If the matter shew it not, the manner will. If we feed on unwholesome food, either errors or fruitless controversies, our hearers are likely to fare the worse for it. AVhereas if we could abound in faith, and love, and zeal, how would it overflow, to the refreshing of our congregations, and how would it appear in the increase of the same graces in others!

0 brethren, watch, therefore, over your own hearts! Keep out sinful passions and worldly inclinations; keep up the life of faith and love; be much at home; and be much with God. If it be not your daily, serious business to study your own hearts, and subdue corruptions, and live as upon God — if you make it not your very work which you constantly attend, all will go amiss, and you will starve your auditors; or if you have but an afiected fervency, you cannot expect such a blessing to attend it. Above all, be much in secret prayer and meditation. There you must fetch the heavenly fire that must kindle your sacrifices. Remember you cannot decline and neglect your duty to your own hurt alone; many will be losers by it as well as you. For your people’s sake, therefore, look to your hearts. If a pang of spiritual pride should overtake you, and you should grow into any dangerous or schismatical conceits, and vent your own overvalued inventions to draw away disciples after you, what a wound might this prove to the Church that you are set over! and you might become a plague to them instead of a blessing, and they might wish they had never seen your faces. Oh, therefore, take heed of your own judgments and afiections! Error and vanity will slily insinuate, and seldom come without fair pretences. Great distempers and apostasies have usually small beginnings. The prince of darkness doth frequently personate the angels of light, to draw children of light again into his darkness. How easily also will distempers creep into our aflfections, and our first love, and fear, and care abate! Watch, therefore, for the sake of yourselves and others.

More particularly: a minister should take some special pains with his heart before he goes to the congregation. If it be then cold, how is it likely to warm the hearts of the hearers? Go, therefore, then especially to God for life, and read some rousing, awakeninor book, or meditate on the weight of the

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subject that you are to speak of, and on the great necessity of your people’s souls, that you may go in the zeal of the Lord into His house.

ni. My next particular exhortation is this, Stir up yourselves to the great icorh of God, when you are upon it, and see that you do it icith all your might. Though I move you not to a constant loudness, (for that will make your fervency contemptible,) yet see that you have a constant seriousness; and when the matter requireth it, as it should do, in the application at least of every doctrine, then hft up your Toice, spare not your spirits, and speak to them as to men that must be awakened either here or in hell. Look upon your congregations believingly, and with compassion, and think in what a state of joy or torment they must all be for ever; and then, methinks, it will make you earnest, and melt your heart in the sense of their condition. Oh, speak not one cold or careless word about so great a business as heaven or heU I Whatever you do, let the people see that you are in good earnest. Truly, brethren, they are great works that are to be

done, and you must not think that trifling will despatch them. You cannot break men’s hearts by jesting with them, or telling them a smooth tale, or patching up a gaudy oration. Men will not cast away their dearest pleasures upon a drowsy request of one that seemeth not to mean as he speaks, or to care much whether his request be granted. If you say, “The work is God’s, and He may do it by the weakest means,” I answer, It is true, He may do so; but yet His ordinary way is to work by means, and to make not only the matter that is preached, but also the manner of preaching, to be instrumental to the work: or else it were a small matter whom He should employ that would but speak the truth. If grace made as little use of the ministerial persuasions as some conceive, we need not so much mind a reformation, nor cast out the insufficient.

A great matter also, with the most of our hearers, lies in the very pronunciation and tone of speech. The best matter will scarcely move them, if it be not movingly delivered. Especially, see that there be no affectation, but that we speak as familiarly to our people as we would do if we were talking to any of them personally. The want of a familiar tone and expression is as great a defect in most of our deliveries as anything whatsoever, and that which we should be very careful to amend. AYhen a man hath a reading or declaiming tone, like a schoolboy saying his lesson or an oration, few are moved with anything that he saith. Let us, therefore, rouse up ourselves to the work of the Lord, and speak to our people as for their lives, and save them as by violence, pulling them out of the fire. Satan will not be charmed out of his profession. We must lay siege to the souls of sinners, wliicli are his garrisons, find out where his chief strength lieth, and lay the battery of God’s ordnance against it, and ply it closely till a breach be made; and then suffer them not by their shifts to make it up again, but find out their common objections, and give them a full and satisfactory answer. We have reasonable creatures to deal with, and as they abuse their reason against truth, so they will accept better reason for it before they will obey. We must, therefore, see that our sermons be convincing, and that we make the light of Scripture and reason shine so bright in the faces of the ungodly, that it may even force them to see, unless they wilfully shut their eyes. A sermon full of mere words, how neatly soever it be composed, while there is wanting the light of evidence, and the life of zeal, is but an image, or a well-dressed carcase. In preaching, there is intended a communion of souls, and a communication of somewhat from ours unto theirs. As we and they have understandings, and wills, and afi’ections, so must the bent of our endeavours be to communicate the fullest light of evidence from our understandings unto theirs; and to warm their hearts by kindling in them holy afi’ections, as by a communication from ours. The great things which we have to commend to our hearers have reason enouorh on their side, and lie plain before them in the Word of God; we should, therefore, be so furnished with all store of evidence, as to come as with a torrent upon their understandings, and bear down all before us, and with our dilemmas and expostulations to bring them to a nonplus, and pour out shame upon all their vain objections, that they may be forced to yield to the power of truth, and see that it is great, and will prevail.

IV. Moreover, if you would prosper in your work, be sure to keep up earnest desires and expectations of success. If your hearts be not set on the end of your labours, and you long not to see the conversion and edification of your hearers, and do not study and preach in hope, you are not likely to see much fruit of it. It is an ill sign of a false, self-seeking heart, that can be content to be still doing, and see no fruit of their labour. So I have observed that God seldom blesseth any man’s work so much as his whose heart is set upon success. Let it be the property of such as Judas to have more regard to the bag than to their business, and not to care much for what they pretend to care; and to think if they have their tithes, and the love and commendations of the people, that they have enough to satisfy them. But let all that preach for Christ and men’s salvation, be unsatisfied till they have the thing they preach for. He had never the right motives of a preacher that is indifferent whether he do obtain them, and is not grieved when he misseth them, and rejoiced when he sees the desired issue. When a man doth only study what to say, and how with commendation to spend the hour, and looks no more after it, unless it be to know what people think of his own abilities, and thus holds on from year to year, I must needs think that this man preaches for himself, and drives on a private trade of his own, and does not preach for Christ even when he preaches Christ, how excellent soever he may seem to do it. No wise or charitable physician is content to lpe still gi’ing physic, and see no amendment among his patients, but have them all to die upon his hands; nor will any wise and honest schoolmaster be content to be still teaching, though his scholars profit not; but either of them would grow weary of the employment. I know that a faithful minister may have comfort when he wants success; and thouoh Israel be not gathered, our reward is with the Lord, and our acceptance is not according to the fruit, but according to our labour; and as Greg. M. saith, “Et .^thiops etsi balneum nio;er intrat, et nio;er eo-reditur, tamen balneator nummos accipit.” If God set us to wash blackamoors, and cure those that will not be cured, we shall not lose our labour, though we perform not the cure. But then, he that lonoeth not for the success of his labours can have none of his comfort, because he was not a faithful labourer; this is only for them that I speak of, that are set upon the end, and grieved if they miss it. This is not the full comfort that we must desire, but only such a part as may quiet us, though we miss the rest. What if God will accept a physician though the patient die 1 He must work in compassion, long for a better issue, and be sorry if he miss it, for all that; for it is not only our ovm reward that we labour for, but other men’s salvation. I confess, for my part, I marvel at some ancient, reverend men, that have lived twenty, forty, or fifty years with an unprofitable people, where they have seen so little fruit of their labours that it was scarcely discernible, how they can with so much patience still go on! Were it my case, though I durst not leave the vineyard nor quit my calling, yet I should suspect that it was God’s will I should go somewhere else, and another take my place, that might be fitter for them; and I should not be easily satisfied to spend my days in such a manner,

Y. Do well, as well as say well. Be zealous of good works. Spare not for any cost, if it may promote your Master’s work.

1. Maintain your innocence, and walk without offence. Let your lives condemn sin, and persuade men to duty. Would you have your people be more careful of their souls than you will be of yours “? If you would have them redeem their time, do not you misspend yours. If you would not have them vain in their conversations, see that you speak yourselves the things which may edify, and tend to minister grace to the hearers. Order your own families well, if you would have them do so by theirs. Be not proud and lordly, if you would have them to be lowly. There is no virtue wherein your example will do more, at least to abate men’s prejudice, than humility, and meekness, and self-denial. Forgive injuries, and be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good. Do as your Lord, who when He was reviled, reviled not again. If sinners be stubborn, and stout, and contemptuous, flesh and blood will persuade you to take up their weapons, and to master them by their carnal means; but that is not the way, further than necessary self-preservation or public good requireth it, but overcome them with kindness, and patience, and gentleness. The former may shew that you have more worldly power than they, wherein yet they are ordinarily too hard for the faithful; but it is the latter only that will tell them that you overtop them in spiritual exceUeuce, and in the true qualifications of a saint. If you believe that Christ was more imitable than Caesar, or Alexander, and that it is more glory to be a Christian than to be a conqueror, yea, to be a man than a beast, which often exceed us in strength, then contend with charity, and not with violence, and set meekness, and love, and patience against force, and not force against force. Remember you are obliged to be the servants of all. Condescend to men of low estate. Be not strange to the poor of your flock. They are apt to take your strangeness for contempt. Familiarity, improved to holy ends, is exceedingly necessary, and may do abundance of good. Speak not stoutly or disrespectfully to any one, but be courteous to the meanest as your equal in Christ. A kind and winning carriage is a cheap way of advantage to do men good.

2. Remember what I said before on works of charity. Go to the poor, and see what they want, and shew at once your compassion to soul and body. Buy them a catechism, and some small books that are most likely to do them good, and bestow them on your neighbours, and make them promise you to read them, and especially, to spend that part of the Lord’s day therein, which they can spare from greater duties. Stretch your purse to the utmost, and do all the good you can. Think not of being rich; seek not great things for yourselves or posterity. What if you do impoverish yourselves to do a greater good; will it be loss or gain 1 If you believe that God is your safest purse-bearer, and that to expend in His service is the greatest usury, and the most thriving trade, shew them that you believe it. I know that flesh and blood will cavil before it will lose its prey, and will never want somewhat to say against that duty that is against its interest. But mark what I say, and may the Lord set it home upon your hearts: That man who has anything in the world so dear to him, that he cannot spare it for Christ, if He call for it, is no true Christian. And because a carnal heart will not believe that Christ calls for it, when he cannot spare it, and therefore makes that his self-deceiving shift; I say further, that That man that will not be persuaded that duty is duty, because he cannot spare that for Christ, which is therein to be expended, is 710 true Christian; for a false heart corrupteth the understanding, and that again increaseth the delusions of the heart. Do not take it therefore as an undoing, to make you friends of the mammon of unrighteousness, and to lay up a treasure in heaven, though you leave yom’selves but little on earth. “Nemo tam pauper potest esse quam natus est; Aves sine patrimonio vivunt, et in diem pecua pascuntur; et hoc nobis tamen nata sunt; quoe omnia si non concupiscimuspossidemus,*’ inquit Minutius Felix, p. (mihi) 397. You lose no great advantage for heaven by becoming poor; “Quia viam terit, eo fselicior quo levior incedit.” (Id.)

I know where the heart is carnal and covetous, words will not wring their money out of their hands. They can say all this, and more to others; but saying is one thing, and believing is another. But with those that are true believers, methinks such considerations would prevail. Oh, what abundance of good might ministers do, if they would but live in a contempt of the world, and the riches and glory of it, and expend all they have for their Master’s use, and pinch their flesh that they might have wherewith to do good! This would unlock more hearts to the reception of their doctrine than all their oratory will do; and without this, singularity in religion will seem but hypocrisy, and it is likely that it is so. “Qui innocentiam colit, Domino supplicat — qui hominem periculo surripit, opinam victimam caedit; hsec nostra sacrificia; hsec Dei sacra sunt; sic apud nos relegiosior est ille qui justior,” inquit idem Minutius Felix. (lb.) Though we need not do as the Papists, that will betake them to monasteries, and cast away property, yet we must have nothing but what we have for God.

1. The next branch of my exhortation is. That you would maintain your Chnstian and hrotherly unity and communion, and to do as much of God’s ivorh as you can in unanimity, and holy concord. Blessed be the Lord that it is so well with us in this county, in this regard, as it is! We lose our authority with the people when we divide. They will peld to us when we go together, who would resist and contemn the best of us alone. Two things, in order to this, I beseech you to observe:

1. Still maintain your meetings for communion; incorporate, and hold all Christian correspondence; grow not strange to one another; do not say that you have business of your own to do, when you shoidd be at any such meeting or other work for God. It is not only the mutual edification that we may receive by lectures, disputations, or conferences, though that is not to be disregarded, but it is especially for consultations for the common good, and the maintaining of our communion, that we must thus assemble. Thouoh your own person might be without the benefit of such meetings, yet the Church and our common work require them. Do not, then, shew yourselves contemners or neglecters of such necessary work. Distance breedeth strangeness, and fomenteth dividing flames and jealousies, which communion will prevent or cure. It will be our enemies’ chief plot to divide us, that they may weaken us. Conspire not, therefore, with the enemies, and take not their course. Indeed, ministers have need of one another, and must improve the gifts of God in one another; and the self-sufficient are the most deficient, and commonly proud and empty men. Some there be that come not among their brethren to do or receive good, nor afford them any of their assistance in consultations for the common good; and their excuse is, “We love to live privately.” To whom I say — Why do you not, on the same grounds, forbear going to church, and say you love to live privately 1 Is not ministerial communion a duty as well as common Christian communion? and hath not the Church always thought so, and practised accordingly? If you mean that you love your own ease or convenience better than God’s service, say so, and speak your minds. But I suppose there are few of them so silly as to think that it is any just excuse, though they will give us no better. Somewhat else lieth at the bottom. Indeed, some of them are empty men, and afraid their weakness should be known, when, as they cannot conceal it by their solitariness, they might do much to heal it by communion. Some of them are careless and scandalous men; and for them we have no desire of their communion, nor shall admit it, but upon public repentance and reformation. Some of them are so in love with their parties and opinions, that they will not hold communion with us, because we are not of their party and opinion; whereas by communication they might give or receive better information, or, at least, carry on so much of God’s work in unity as we are agreed in. But the mischief of schism is to make men censorious and proud, and take others to be unmeet for their communion, and themselves to be the only Church, or pure Church, of Christ.

The Papists will have no Catholic Church but the Romish, and unchurch all besides themselves. The Separatists and many Anabaptists say the like of their parties. The new Prelatical party will have no Catholic Church but Prelatical, and unchurch all except their party, and so avoid communion with others; and thus turning Separatists and Schismatics, they imitate the Papists, and make an opposition to schism their pretence. First, all must be accounted Schismatics that be not of their opinion and party, (when yet vfe find not that opinion in the creed,) and they must be avoided because they are Schismatics. But we resolve, by the grace of God, to adhere to more catholic principles and practices, and to have communion with all godly Christians that wdll have communion with us, so far as they force us not to actual sin. And for the separating brethren, as by distance they are like to cherish misinformations of us, so if by their mlful estrangedness and distance, any among us do entertain injurious reports of them, and think worse of them, and deal worse by some of them, than there is cause, they may partly thank themselves.

Sure I am, by such means as these, we are many of us grown so hardened in sin, that men make no great matter what they say one against another, but stand out of hearing and sight, and vent their spleen against each other behind their backs. How many jeers and scorns have they among their companions for those that are against their party! And they easily venture, be the matter never so safe. A bad report of such is easily taken to be true, and that which is true is easily made worse, when, as Seneca saith, “multus absolvemus, si cosperimus ante judicare quam irasci: nunc autem primum impetum sequimur.” It is passion that tells the tale, and that receiveth it.

2. The second thing, therefore, that I entreat of you is, that you would be very tender of the unity and peace of the Catholic Church; not only of your own party’s, but of the whole. And to this end these things will prove necessary: — Do not too easily introduce any novelties into the Church, either of faith or practice. I mean not that which seems a novelty to men that look no further than yesterday; for so the restoring of ancient things will seem novelty to those that know not what was anciently, and the expulsion of prevailing novelties will seem a novelty to them that know not what is such indeed. So the Papists censure us as novelists for casting out many of their innovations; and oiu- common people tell us we bring up new customs if we do not kneel at the receiving of the Lord’s Supper — a notorious novelty. Even in the sixth General Council at Trull, in Constantinople, this was the ninth canon: “Ne Dominicis diebus genuaflectamus, a divinis Patribus nostris Canonice accepimus: Quare post vespertinum ingressum Sacerdotum in Sabbato ad altare, ut more observatum est, nemo genu flectit usque ad sequentem vesperem post dominicam.” It is that which is indeed novelty that I dissuade you from, and not the demolishing of novelties. Some have already introduced such new phrases, at least, even about the great points of faith, justification, and the like, that there may be reason to reduce them to the primitive patterns.

A great stir is made in the world about the test of a Christian and true church, with whom we may have communion, and about that true centre and cement of the unity of the Church, in and by which our common calamitous breaches must be healed. And, indeed, the true cause of our continued divisions and misery is for want of discerning the centre of our unity, and the terms on which it must be done; which is a great pity, when it was once so easy a matter, till the ancient test was thought insufficient. If any of the ancient creeds might serve, we might be soon agreed. If Vincentius Lirinens/s test might serve, we might yet make some good shift — viz., To believe explicitly all that “quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus creditum est.” For, as he addeth, “hoc est etenim vere proprieque Cathohcum.’’ But then we must see, that the first age may not be excluded which gave the rule to the rest; and that this extend not to every ceremony which never was taken for imalterable, but to matters of faith; and that the acts and canons of councils which were not about such matters of faith, but mere variable order, and which newly constituted those things, which the apostolic age knew not, and therefore were not properly “credita,” much less “semper, et ab omnibus,” may have no hand in this work. I say, if either the ancient western or eastern creed, or this catholic faith of Vincentius, might be taken as the test for explicit faith, or else rather all those Scripture texts, that express the “Credenda” with a note of necessity, and the whole Scripture, moreover, be confessed to be God’s Word, and so believed in other points at least implicitly; this course might produce a more general communion and agreement: and more lines would meet in this centre, than otherwise are likely to meet. And, indeed, till men can be again content to make the Scripture the sufficient rule, in necessaries to be explicitly believed, and in all the rest implicitly, we are never likely to see a catholic, Christian, durable peace. If we must needs make the Council of Trent, or the Papal judgment our test; or if we must make a blind bargain with the Papists, to come as near them as ever we dare, and so to compose another interim, and make that a test, (when God never made it so, and all Christians will never be of a mind in it, but some dare go nearer Rome than others dare, and that in several degrees;) or if we must thrust in all the canons of the former coimcils about matters of order, discipHne, and ceremonies into our test, or gather up all the opinions of the fathers for the three or four first ages, and make them our test; none of all these wHl ever serve to do the business, and a catholic union will never be founded in them. It is an easy matter infallibly to foretell this. Much less can the writings of any single man, as Austin, Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, Beza, &c., or the late Confessions of any Churches that add to the ancient test, be ever capable of this use and honour.

I know it is said, that a man may subscribe the Scripture and the ancient creeds, and yet maintain Socinianism, or other heresies. To which I answer, So he may another test which your own brains shall contrive; and while you make a snare to catch heretics, instead of a test for the Church’s communion, you will miss your end, and the heretic by the slipperiness of his conscience will break through, and the tender Christian may possibly be ensnared. And by your new creed the Church is likely to have new divisions, if you keep not close to the words of Scripture. In such cases, when heretics contradict the Scripture which they have subscribed, this calls not for a new or more sufficient test, but the Church must take notice of it, and call him to account, and if he be impenitent, exclude him their communion. What! must we have new laws made every time the old ones are broken? as if the law were not sufiicient because men break it! Or rather, must not the penalty of the violated law be executed 1 It is a most sad case that such reasons as these should prevail with so many learned men to deny the sufficiency of Scripture as a test for church-communion, and to be still framing new ones that depart at least from Scripture- phrase, as if this were necessary to obviate heresies! Two things are necessary to obviate heresies — the law, and good execution. God hath made the former, and His rule and law are both for sense and phrase translated sufficient; and all their additional inventions, as to the aforesaid use, are as spiders’ webs. Let us but do our part in the due execution of the laws of Christ, by questioning offenders in orderly synods, for the breaking of these laws, and let us avoid communion with the impenitent; and what can the Church do more 1 The rest belongs to the magistrate to restrain him from seducing his subjects, and not to us.

Well! this is the thing that I would recommend therefore to all my brethren, as the most necessary thing to the Church’s peace, That you unite in necessary truths, and tolerate tolerahle failmgs; and hear with one another in things that may he home with; and do not make a larger creed and more necessaries than God hath done. And to that end, let no man’s writings, nor the judgment of any party, though right, be taken as a test, or made that rule. And, (1.) Lay not too great a stress upon controverted opinions, which have godly men, and especially whole Churches, on both sides. (2.) Lay not too great a stress on those controversies that are ultimately resolved into philosophical uncertainties, (as some unprofitable controversies are about free-will, and the manner of the Spirit’s operation of grace, and the Divine decrees, and pre-determination.) (3.) Lay not too great a stress on those controversies that are merely verbal, and if’ they were anatomised, would appear to be no more. Of which sort are far more, I speak it confidently upon certain knowledge, that now make a great noise in the world, and tear the Church, than almost any of the eager contenders that ever I spoke with seem to discern, or are likely to believe. (4.) Lay not too much stress on any point of faith which was disowned of, or unknown to the whole Church of Christ in any age since the Scriptiu’es were delivered us. (5.) Much less should you lay too much on those which any of the more pure or judicious ages were wholly ignorant of. (6.) And lest of all should you lay too much on any point which no one age since the apostles did ever receive, but all commonly hold the contrary. For to make such an eixor which all the Church held, to be such as is damning, were to uncburch all the Church of Christ; and to make it such as must exclude them from our communion, doth make the whole Church excommunicable, which is absurd, and doth shew that if we had lived in that age, you would it seems have separated from the whole Church. To give an instance of the differences among errors: That any elect person shall fall away totally and finally, is a palpable, condemned error, of dangerous consequence. But that there are some justified ones not elect, that shall fall away and perish, is an error of a lower nature, which may not break the communion of Christians; for otherwise we must renounce communion with the Catholic Church in Augustine’s days, and much more before, as is said before. What then 1 Shall I take this therefore for a truth which the Church then held? Some will think me immodest to say no; as if I were wiser than all the Church, and that in so learned an age, if not for so many: but yet I must be so immodest, as long as Scripture seemeth to me to warrant it. Why might not Augustine, Prosper, and all the rest, mistake in such a thing as that? but then I am not so immodest, nor unchristian, as to unchurch all the Church on that account: nor would I have separated from Austin, and all the Church, if I had then lived: nor will do now from any man on that account. Both sides will be displeased with this resolution; one, that I suppose all the Church to err, and ourselves to be in the right; and the other, that I take it for no greater an error. But what remedy? It will and must be so: read Prospers Pesp. ad Capit. Gall., and you may quickly know both Austin’s mind and his. He that shall live to that happy time, when God will heal His broken Churches, shall see all this that I am now pleading for reduced to practice, and this moderation take place of the new dividing zeal, and Scripture-sufficiency take place, and all men’s confessions and comments to be valued only as subservient helps, and not to be the test of church-communion, any further than they are

exactly the same with Scripture. And till the healing age come, we cannot expect that healing truths be entertained, because there are not healing spirits in the leaders of the Church. But when the work is to be done, the workmen will be fitted for it; and blessed will be the agents of so glorious a work!

But because the love of unity and verity, peace and purity, must be conjunctly manifested, we must avoid the extremes both in doctrine and communion. The extremes in doctrine are on one side by innovating additions; on the other side, by envying or hindering the progress of the light. The former is the most dangerous; of which men are guilty these ways: — (1.) By making new points of faith or duty. (2.) By making those points to be fundamental, or necessary to salvation, that are not so. (3.) By pretending of prophetical and other obscurer passages of the Scriptures, that they have a greater objective evidence, and we a greater certainty of their meaning, than indeed is so.

As I have met with some so confident of their right understanding of the Revelation, (which Calvin durst not expound, and profess he understood it not,) that they have framed part of their Confessions or Articles of Faith out of it; and grounded the weightiest actions of their lives upon their exposition; and could confidently tell in our late changes and diff’erences, which side was in the right, and which in the wrong, and all from the Revelation; and thence would fetch such arguments as would carry all, if you would but grant the soundness of their expositions; but if you put them to prove that, you marred all.

And these corrupters of sacred doctrine by their additions are of two sorts: some that are the first inventors, and others that are the propagators and maintainers; and these, when additions grow old, do commonly maintain them under the notion of ancient verities, and oppose the ancient verities under the notion of novelty, as is before said.

The other extreme about doctrine is by hindering the progress of knowledge; and this is commonly on pretence of avoiding the innovating extreme. It must be considered, therefore, how far we may go, and not be culpable innovators. (1.) Our knowledge must increase extensively “ad plura;” we must know more verities than we knew before, though we may not feign more. There is much of Scripture that will remain unknown to us when we have done our best. Though we shall find out no more articles of faith which must be explicitly believed by all that will be saved, yet we may find out the sense of more particular texts, and several doctrinal truths, not contrary to the former, but such as befriend them, and are connected with them. And we may find out more the order of truths, and how they are placed in respect to one another, and so see more of the true method of theology than we did, which will give us a very great light into the matter itself, and its consectaries. (2.) Our knowledge also must grow subjectively, intensely, and in the manner, as well as in the matter of it.

And this is our principal growth to be sought after: To know the same great and necessary truths with a sounder and clearer knowledge than we did: which is done, (1.) By getting strong evidence and reasons, instead of the weak ones which we trusted to before, (for many young ones receive truths on some unsound grounds.) (2.) By multiplying our evidence and reasons for the same truth. (3.) By a clear and deeper apprehension of the same evidence and reasons which before we had but superficially received: for one that is strong in knowledo-e seeth the same truth as in the clear light, which the weak do see but as in the tmlight. To all this must be added also, the fuller improvement of the truth received to its ends.

I shall give you the sum of my meaning in the words of that great enemy of innovation, Vincent. Lirinens., c. 28 — “Sed forsitan dicit aliquis: Kullusne ergo in Ecclesla Christi profectus habebitur 1 Religionis habeatur plane, et maximus: Nam quis ille est tam invidus hominibus, tam exosus Deo, qui istud prohibere conetur? Sed ita tamen ut vere profectus sit ille fidei; non permutatio. Siquidem ad perfectum pertinet, ut in semet ipsa unaquaeque res amplificetur: ad permutationem vero ut aliquid ex alio in aliud transvertatiir. Crescat igitur oportet et multum, vehementerque proficiat, tam singulorum quam omnium; tam unius hominis quam totius Ecclesiae astatum ac seculonim gradibus intelligentia, scientia, sapientia; sed in quo duntaxat genere, in eodem scilicet dogmate, eodem sensu, eademque sententia.”

And more plainly, and yet more briefly, cap. 30 — “Jus est etenim, ut prisca iUa ccelestis Philosophiae dogmata recessu temporis exciirentur, limentur, poliantur; seel nefas est, ut commutentur. Accipiant licet Eviclentiam, Lucem, Distinctionem; sed retineant necesse est plenitudinem, integritatem, proprietatem.” Let this mean then be observed, if we would perform both truth and peace.

About church-communion the common extremes are: on one side, the neglect or relaxation of discipline, to the corrupting of the Church, the encouragement of wickedness, and confounding the kingdom of Christ and Satan; and on the other side, the unnecessary separation of proud men, either because the churches own not their own opinions, or because they are not so reformed and strict in discipline as they would have them, or as they should be. I have ever observed the humblest men very tender of making separations; and the proudest most prone to it. Many corruptions may be in a church, and yet it may be a great sin to separate from it, so that we be not put upon an owning of their corruptions, nor upon anyactual sin. There is a strange inclination in proud men to make the Church of Christ much narrower than it is, and to reduce it to almost nothing, and to be themselves the members of some singular society, as if they were loath to have too much company in heaven. And by a strange delusion, through the workings of a proud fancy, they are more full of joy in their separated societies, than they were while they kept in the union of the Church. At least such powers of ordinances, and presence of the Spirit, purity, and peace, is promised to the weak by the leaders that would seduce them, as if the Holy Ghost were more eminently among them than anywhere else in the world. This hath ever been the boasting of heretics. As the aforesaid Vincentins saith, cap. 3 7 — “Jam vero illis quae seqiiimtur promissionibus miro modo incautos homines hseretici decipere consueverunt. Audent et enim polliceri et docere, quod in Ecclesia sua, id est, in Communionis siise Conventicido, magna et specialis ac plane personalis quaedam sit Dei gratia, adeo ut sine nllo labore, sine ullo studio, sine ulla industria, etiamsi nee quserunt, nee petant, nee pulsant, quicimque illi ad numerum suum pertinent, tamen ita divinitus dispensentur,” &c. But their consolations and high enjoyments, being the effect of self-con ceitedness and fancies, are usually so mutable and of short continuance, that either the heat of oppositions, or mutation to other sects, must maintain their life, or else they will grow stale and soon decay.

Having said thus much of the means, I return to the ends of this exhortation, beseeching all the ministers of Christ to compassionate the poor, divided Church, and to entertain such catholic principles and charitable dispositions, as tend to their own and the common peace. Hath anything in the world done more to lose our authority, and disable us for God’s service, than our differences and divisions *? If ministers could but be all of a mind, or, at least, concur in the substance of the work, so that the people that hear one might as it were hear all, and not have any of us to head a party for the discontented to fall into, or to object against the rest, we might then do wonders for the Church of Christ. But if our tonorues and hearts be divided, what wonder if our work be spoiled, and prove more like a Babel than a temple of God! Get together, then, speedily, and consult for peace, and cherish not heart-burnings, and continue not uncharitable distances and strangeness. If dividing hath weakened you, closing must recover your authority and strength. If you have any dislike of your brethren, or their ways, manifest it by a free debate to their faces, but do not unnecessarily withdraw from them. If you will but keep together, you may come to a better understanding of each other, or at least may chide yourselves. Friends, especially quarrel not upon points of precedency, or reputation, or any interest of your own. No man will have settled peace in his mind, nor be peaceable in his place, that proudly envieth the precedency of others, and secretly grudgeth at them that seem to cloud his parts and name. One or other will ever be an eyesore to such men. There is too much of the devil’s image on this sin for an humble servant of Christ to entertain. Moreover, be not too sensible of injuries; and make not a great matter of every offensive word or deed. At least do not let it interrupt your communion and concord in God’s work: for that were to wrono; Christ and His Church because another hath wronged you. And if you be of this impatient humour, you will never be quiet; for we are all faulty, and cannot live together without wronging one another. “Ubique causae supersunt nisi deprecator animus accessit,” saith Seneca. And these proud, over-tender men are often hurt by their own conceits; like a man that hath a sore that he thinks doth smart more when he conceits that some one hits it. They will think’ a man jeereth them, or contemneth them, or meaneth them HI, when it never came into his thought! Till this self be taken down, we shall every man have a private interest, and of his own, which will lead us all into several ways, and spoil the peace and welfare of the Church. While every man is for himself and his own reputation, and all mind their own things, no wonder if they mind not the things of Christ,

And as for those opinions which hinder our union, (alas, the great dividers of this age!) methinks, if I cannot change their minds, I might yet rationally expect of every party among us that profess themselves Christians, that they should value the whole before a part, and therefore not so perversely seek to promote their party as may hinder the common good of the Church, or so to propagate their supposed truths as to hinder the work of the main body of divine truths. And methinks a little humility should make men ashamed of that common conceit of unquiet spirits, viz., that the welfare of the Church, doth so lie upon their opinions, that they must needs vent and propagate them whatever comes of it. If they are indeed a living part of the body, the hurt of the whole will be so much their own that they cannot desire it for the sake of any party or opinion. Were men but impartially to consider in every such case of diflerence how far their promoting their own judgment may help or hurt the whole, they might escape many dangerous ways that are now trod. If you can see nowhere else, look in the face of the Church’s enemies how they rejoice and deride us. And as Seneca saith to demulce the angry, “Vide ne inimicis iracundia tua voluptati sit.” When we have all done, I know not which party of us will prove a gainer: so true are the old proverbs, “Dissensio ducum hostium succum,” and “Gaudent praedones, dum discordant regiones.” And is it not a wonder that godly ministers, thut know all this, how the common adversary derideth us all, and what a scandal our divisions are throughout the world, and how much the Church doth lose by it, should yet go on, and after all the loudest calls and invitations to peace, go on still, and few, if any, sound a retreat, and seriously call to their brethren for a retreat “? Can an honest heart be insensible of the sad distractions and sadder apostasies that our divisions have occasioned? “Saepe rixam conclamatum, in vicino incendium solvit,” saith Seneca. What scolds so furious that will not give over when the house is on fire over their heads? Well, if the Lord hath given that evil spirit, whose name is Legion, such power over the hearts of any that yet they will sit still, yea, and quarrel at the pacificatory endeavours of others who hunger after the healing of the Church, and rather carp, and reproach, and hinder such works than to help them on, I shall say but this to them. How diligently soever such men may preach, and how pious soever they may seem to be, if this way tend to their everlasting peace, and if they be not preparing sorrow for themselves, then I am a stranger to the way of joeace.

VIL The next branch of my exhortation is. That you would no longer neglect the execution of so ranch discipline in your congregations, as is of confessed necessity and right. I desire not to spur on any one to an unseasonable performance of the greatest duty. But will it never be a fit season 1 Would you forbear sermons and sacraments so many years on pretence of imseasonableness 1 Will you have a better season for it when you are dead 1 How many are dead already before they ever did anything in this work, that were long preparing for it! It is now near three years since many of us now present did engage ourselves to this duty: and have we been faithful in the performance of that engagement 1 I know some have more discouragements and hindrances than others; but what discouragements can excuse us from such a duty *? Besides the reasons that we then considered, let these few be further laid to heart: —

1. How sad a sio’n do we make it to be in our preaching to our people to live in the wilful, continued omission of any known duty! And shall we do so year after year, and all our days ‘? If excuses will take off the dano;er of this sio;n, what man will not find them as well as you? Read Amesius Medul. cap. 37, de Disciplin. Eccles., et Gelespi’s Aaron’s Eod, with Rutherford, and many more that are written to prove the need and dueness of discipline. Saith Ames, ib,, sec. 5 — “Immo peccat in Christum Authorem ac institutorem quisquis non facit quod in se est, ad banc disciplinam, in Ecclesiis Dei constituendam et promovendam.” And do you think it safe to live and die in such a known sin?

2. You gratify the present designs of dividers, whose business is to unchurch us and unchristian us, to prove our parishes no true churches, and ourselves no baptized Christians. For if you take them for people incapable of discipline, they must be incapable of the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, and other church-communion, and then they are no church. And so you will plainly seem to preach merely as they do, to gather churches where there were none before. And, indeed, if that be your case, that your people are not Christians, and you have no particular churches, and SO are no pastors, tell us so, and manifest it, and we shall not blame you.

3. We manifest plain laziness and sloth, if not unfaithfulness, in the work of Christ. I speak from experience; it was laziness that kept me off so long, and pleaded hard against this duty. It is indeed a troublesome and painful work, and such as calls for some self-denial, because it will cast us upon the displeasure of the wicked. But dare we prefer our carnal ease, and quietness, and the love or peace of wdcked men, before our service to Christ our Master 1 Can slothful servants look for a good reward 1 Remember, brethren, that we of this county have thus promised before God in the second article of our Agreement: — “We agree and resolve by God s help, that so far as God doth make known our duty to us, we will faithfully endeavour to discharge it, and will not desist through any fears or losses in our estates, or the frowns and displeasure of men, or any the like carnal inducements whatsoever.” I pray you study this promise, and compare your performance with it. And do not think that you are ensnared by thus engaging; for God’s law hath laid an obligation on you to all the same duty before your engagement did it. Here is nothing but what others are bound to as well as you.

4. The ministry that are for the Presbyterian government, have already by their common neglect of the execution made those of the separating way believe that they do it in a mere carnal compliance with the unruly part of the people, that while we exasperate them not with our discipline, we might have them on oiu* side. And we should do nothing needless that hath so great an appearance of evil, and is so scandalous to others. It was the sin and ruin of many of the clergy of the last times, to please and comply with them that they should have reproved and corrected, by unfaithfulness in preaching, and neglect of discipline.

5. The neglect of discipline hath a strong tendency to the deluding of souls, by making them think they are Christians that are not, while they are permitted to live in the reputation of such, and be not separated from the rest by God’s ordinance. And it may make the scandalous think their sin a tolerable thing, which is so tolerated by the pastors of the Church.

6. We corrupt Christianity itseK in the eyes of the world, and do our part to make them believe that to be a Christian is but to be of such an opinion, and to have that faith which James saith the devils had, and to be solifidians, and that Christ is no more for holiness than Satan, or that the Christian religion exacteth holiness no more than the false religions of the world: for if the holy and unholy are all permitted to be the sheep of the same fold, without the use of Christ’s means to difference them, we do our part to defame Christ by it, as if He were guilty of it, and as if this were the strain of His prescripts.

7. We keep up separation by permitting the worst to be ilncensured in our churches, so that many honest Christians think they are necessitated to withdraw. I must profess that I have spoke with some membei-s of the separated (or gathered) churches that were moderate men, and have argued with them against their way; and they have assured me, “That they were of the Presbyterian judgment, or had nothing to say against it, but they joined themselves with other churches upon mere necessity, thinking that discipline, being an ordinance of Christ, must be used by all that can, and therefore they durst no longer live without it when they may have it, and they could find no Presby-fcerian churches that executed discipline as they wrote for it;” and they told me, “that they did thus separate only ’ pro tempore,’ till the Presbyterians will use discipline, and then they would willingly return to them again.” I confess I was sorry that such persons had any such occasion to withdraw, and the least ground for such a reason of their doings. It is not keeping them from the sacrament that will excuse us from the further exercise of discipline, while they are members of our churches.

8. We do too much to bring the wrath of God upon ourselves and our cono;reo;ations, and so to blast the fruit of our labours. If the angel of the Church of Thyatira was reproved for suffering the seducers in the Church, we may be reproved on the same ground for suffering open, scandalous, impenitent ones. (Rev. ii. 20.)

9. We seem to justify the prelates, who took the same course in neglecting discipline, though in other things we differ.

10. We have abundance of aggravations and witnesses to rise up against us, which though I will purposely now pass over, lest I seem to press too hard in this point, I shall desire you to apply them hither, when you meet with them anon under the next branch of the exhortation.

I know that discipline is not essential to a church; but what of that 1 Is it not therefore a duty, and necessary to its well-being “? Yea, more; the power of discipline is essential to a particular political church; and what is the j)ower for, but for the work and use 1 As there is no commonwealth that hath not “partem imperantem,” as well as “partem subditam,” so no such church that hath not “partem regentem” in one pastor or more.

VIII. The last particular branch of my exhortation is, That you will now faitlifulhj discharge the great duty which you have undertaken, and which is the occasion of our meeting here to-daij, in personal catechising and instructing every one in your ‘parishes that will submit thereto. What our undertaking is you know, you have considered it, and it is now pubHshed to the world. But what the performance will be I know not; but I have many reasons to hope well of the most, though some will always be readier to say than to do. And because this is the chief business of the day, I must take leave to insist somewhat the longer on it. And,

1. I shall give you some further motives to persuade you to faithfulness in the undertaken work, presupposing the former general motives which should move us to this as well as to any other part of our duty.

2. I shall give to the younger of my brethren a few words of advice for the manner of performance.