LXXXII. SERM. account. Perfecution and murder of the fincere profeffors of religion, are damnable fins; and no zeal for GoD and religion can excufe them, or take away the guilt of them; zeal for GOD, will juftify no action that we do, unless there be difcretion to justify our zeal. There is nothing oftner mifleads men, than a mifguided zeal; it is an ignis fatuus, a faife fire, which often leads men into bogs and precipices; it appears in the night, in dark and ignorant and weak minds, and offers itself a guide to those who have loft their way; it is one of the most ungovernable paffions of human nature, and therefore requires great knowledge and judgment to manage it, and keep it within bounds. It is like fire, a good servant, but a bad master; if it once get head, it confumes and dévours all before it, and the great danger and mifchief of it is, that it is moft commonly found where it should not be, and poffeffes those most, who are leaft fit to govern it; and most frequently employed about what it fhould not be; and ten to one but it is either mistaken in the object, or in the measure and degree of it; and even when it is a virtue, it is a nice and dangerous one; for the wifeft men are apt to mingle their own paffions and interefts with their zeal for GoD and religion. So that it is not enough that men are acted by a zeal for God, and do fincerely follow the dictates of their confciences; but they must be careful to inform their confciences, and not fuffer themselves to be violently tranfported and hurried on by their own paffions and prejudice, and by a blind and furious zeal without knowledge. But what then? Would we have men not follow their own confciencies, or act contrary to them? No, by by no means: for though confcience be not our rule; S ER M. yet it is our immediate guide; and he does ill, who LXXXII. does act against his confcience. But men must be careful how they fettle their practical judgment of things, and conclude things to be lawful or unlawful, duties or fins, without reafon and good ground. -GOD hath given us understandings, to try and examine things, and the light of his word to direct us in this trial; and if we will judge rafhly, and fuffer ourselves to be hurried by prejudice or paffion, the errors of our judgment become faults of our lives: for God expects from us that we fhould weigh and confider what we do; and when he hath afforded us light enough to difcern between good and evil, that we should carefully follow the direction of it; that we fhould be fufpicious of our felves, when our zeal carries us to do things that are furious and cruel, falfe and treacherous, and have a & horrid appearance even to the light of nature; we fhould question that zeal which is fo contrary to christian goodness and meekness, to peace and charity, and which tends to "confufion and every evil work." I will conclude all with that excellent paffage of 33 4 "from above, is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, "and easy to be entreated; full of mercy and good "fruits; without partiality, and without hypocrify: and the fruit of righteousness is fown in peace of "them that make peace." Preached on No vember 5. 1686. SERMON LXXXIII. The best men liable to the worst treatment, from mistaken zealots. LXXXIII. JOHN XVI. 2. They shall put you out of the fynagogues: yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you, will think that be doth GOD fervice. TH SERM.HESE words were spoken by our blessed SAVIOUR, when he was about to leave the world; at the thoughts whereof, finding his difsciples to be exceedingly troubled, he comforts them by the confideration of the great benefit and advantage which from thence would accrue to them; he tells them that he was going to heaven to intercede for them, and to make way for their admiffion there; and withal promifeth, that his Father would fend the Holy Ghoft, who should abundantly fupply the want of his presence with them: but he tells them at the fame time, that they fhould meet with very ill entertainment and ufage from the world: but fo had he, chap xv. 18. "If the world hate you, ye know "that LXXXIII. that it hated me, before it hated you; " and whyS ER M. fhould they expect to be better treated than he was?" ver. 20." Remember the word that I said unto you, "the fervant is not greater than the LORD; if they "have perfecuted me, they will alfo perfecute you.' 66 And at the beginning of this chapter he tells them, that he did on purpose forewarn them of these things, to prepare their minds beforehand, and to arm them against the worst that might happen, ver. 1. "These things have I spoken unto you, that ye fhould not "be offended." And then he declares more particularly, how far the rage and malice of men should proceed against them, and in what kind they should fuffer: " they shall put you out of the fynagogues; yea, the time cometh, that whofoever killeth "will think that he doth GOD fervice." you So that our SAVIOUR here foretels two forts of perfecution, which his difciples fhould be exercised withal excommunication; "they fhall put you out "of their fynagogues:" and excifion; "yea the "time cometh, that whofoever killeth you will "think that he doth GoD fervice." And these perhaps were but feveral kinds and degrees of excommunication; for the clearer understanding whereof it will be requifite, briefly to explain the three degrees of excommunication among the Jews. The firft called Niddui, is that which our SAVIOUR here means, by "putting out of the fyna66 gogue; " and which he elsewhere expreffeth by agógioμos, or feparation. Luke vi. 22. "Bleffed "are ye when men fhall hate you, and when they "shall separate you from their Company." And the effect of this excommunication was to exclude men from the communion of the church and people of GOD, and from his fervice, which was a great difgrace; Dd 4 SERM. difgrace; because after this fentence, none of the LXXXIII, Jews were to converfe with them, but to look upon them as heathens and publicans. The fecond degree of this cenfure was called Cherem; which included the firft, but extended farther, to the confifcation of goods into the facred treasury, and devoting them to GOD; after which there was no redemption of them. And of this we find exprefs mention, Ezra x.. 7, 8. where it is faid, "that 66 they made proclamation throughout Judah, and "Jerufalem, unto all the children of the captivity, "that they fhould gather themfelves together unto "Jerufalem; and that whofoeyer would not come "within three days, according to the counfels of "the princes and elders, all his fubftance fhould be dovoted, and himself separated from the congre gation of those that had been carried away." 66 66 The third degree was Shammatha when the rebellious and contumacious perfon was anathematized and devoted, and, as fome conceive, according to the law (Lev. xxvii. 29.) was to be put to death; though other very knowing men in the Jewish learning think it amounted to no more than a final sentence, whereby they were left to the judgment of GOD, by fome remarkable judgment of his to be cut off from the congregation of Ifrael. Of the first and laft of thefe degrees of excommunication, our SAVIOUR feems here to speak; but whether in both inftances in the text, he alludes in' the one to the lowest, and in the other to the higheft degree of excommunication among the Jews, is not fo certain. To the first he plainly does, when he fays, "they fhall put you out of the fynagogues: and then he adds, that they fhould proceed much higher against them, even to put them to death; the |