maketh a true Martyr or Confessor, and not barely the suffering. He that suffereth for the truth and a good cause suffereth as a Christian, and he need not be ashamed, but may exult in the midst of his greatest sufferings, cheering up his own heart, and glorifying God on that behalf. But he that suffereth for 1 S. Pet. iv. his error, or disobedience, or other rashness, buildeth his comfort upon a sandy foundation; and cannot better glorify God, and discharge a good conscience, than by being ashamed of his fault, and retracting it. * 21. Seventhly, hereby we expose not ourselves only, which yet is something, but sometimes also, which is a far greater matter, the whole Reformed Religion by our default, to the insolent jeers of Atheists, and Papists, and other profane and scornful spirits. For men that have wit enough and to spare, but no more religion than will serve to keep them out of the reach of the Laws, when they see such men as pretend most to holiness, to run into such extravagant opinions and practices, as in the judgment of any understanding man are manifestly ridiculous, they cannot hold but their wits will be working; and whilst they play upon them, and make themselves sport enough therewithal, it shall go hard but they will have one fling among,† even at the power of Religion too. Even as the Stoics of old, though they stood mainly for virtue, yet, because they did it in such an uncouth and rigid way as seemed to be repugnant not only to the manners of men, but almost to common sense also, they gave occasion to the wits of those times, under a colour of making themselves merry with the Paradoxes of the Stoics, to laugh even true virtue itself out of countenance. 22. Lastly, (for why should I trouble you with any more? these are enow,) by condemning sundry indifferent things, and namely Church-ceremonies as unlawful, we give great scandal to those of the Separation, to their further confirming in that their unjust schism. For. why should these men, will they say, —and, for ought I know, they speak but reason,-why should * Compare Sermon vii. ad Populum, §. 24. +'among.' See above, Sermon i. §. 4. • Sensus cujusque, et natura re rum, atque ipsa veritas clamat. Cic. 'namely.' See above, Sermon vi. §. 27. 16. §. 21. §. 22. * they who agree so well with us in our principles, hold off from our conclusions? Why do they yet hold communion with, or remain in the bosom of that Church, that imposeth such unlawful things upon them? How are they not guilty themselves Rev. iii. 16. of that lukewarm Laodicean temper, wherewith they so often I Kings and so deeply charge others? Why do they halt so shamexviii. 21. fully between two opinions? If Baal be God and the Ceremonies lawful, why do they not yield obedience, cheerful obedience, to their Governors, so long as they command but lawful things? But if Baal be an idol and the Ceremonies unlawful, as they and we consent, why do they not either set them packing, or, if they cannot get that done, pack themselves away from them as fast as they can, either to Amsterdam, † or to some other place? The objection is so strong, that I must confess, for my own part, if I could see cause to admit of those principles whereon most of our Nonconformers and such as favour them ground their dislike of our ChurchOrders and Ceremonies, I should hold myself in all conscience bound, for any thing I yet ever read or heard to the contrary, to forsake the Church of England, and to fly out of Babylon,‡ before I were many weeks older. §. 23. With some Church. 23. Truly, brethren, if these unhappy fruits were but acciApplica- dental events only, occasioned rather than caused by such our tion to this opinions, I should have thought the time misspent in but naming them, since the very best things that are may by accident produce evil effects. But, being they do in very truth naturally and unavoidably issue therefrom as from their true and proper cause, I cannot but earnestly beseech all such as are otherwise minded, in the bowels and in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and by all the love they bear to God's holy truth which they seem so much to stand for, to take these things into their due consideration, and to lay them close to * e. g. Thomas Brightman, in his Apocalypsis Apocalypseos. In nostra Anglia perspicua res magis est, ubi talis est forma Ecclesiae constituta quae neque frigida est, neque fervida, sed in medio posita, et ex utrisque conflata. Frigida non est quatenus doctrinam salutis sanam, puram, integram profitetur, qua Romano Antichristo renuncia vimus, et ex illa gelida morte surreximus, in qua antea jacebamus. Fervida vero non est, cujus externum regimen maximam partem adhuc est Romanum. p. 62. + Compare Sermon iii. §. 41. A phrase much in use with some Separatists of that time. Compare Sermon viii. §. 31. their consciences. And as for those my brethren of the Clergy, that have most authority in the hearts of such as bias too much that way, (for they only may have some hope to prevail with them, the rest are shut out by prejudice,) if I were in place where, I should require and charge them, as they will answer the contrary to God, the Church, and their own consciences, that they would approve their faithfulness in their ministry, by giving their best diligence to inform the judgments of God's people aright, as concerning the nature and use of indifferent things; and, as in love to their souls they are bound, that they would not humour them in these their pernicious errors, nor suffer them to continue therein for want of their rebuke, either in their public teaching, or other- Levit. xix. wise as they shall have opportunity thereunto in private discourses. 17. §. 24. The chief that Error discovered. 24. But you will say, if these things were so, how should it, then come to pass that so many men pretending to godliness, Causes of and thousands of them doubtless such as they pretend, for it were an uncharitable thing to charge them all with hypocrisy, should so often and so grievously offend this way? To omit those two more universal causes, Almighty God's permission first, whose good pleasure it is, for sundry wise and gracious ends, to exercise His Church during her warfare here with heresies and schisms and scandals; and then the wiliness of Cor. xi. 19. S. Luke Satan, who cunningly observeth whether way our hearts in- xvii. 1. cline most, to looseness, or to strictness, and then frameth his temptations thereafter; so he can but put us out of the way, it is no great matter to him on whether hand it be, he hath his end howsoever. Nor to insist upon sundry more particular causes, as namely, a natural proneness in all men to superstition; in many an affectation of singularity, to go beyond the ordinary sort of people in something or other; the difficulty of shunning one without running into the contrary extreme; the great force of education and custom; besides manifold abuses, offences and provocations arising from the carriage of others, and the rest; I shall note but these two only as the two great fountains of error, to which also most of the other may be reduced, Ignorance and Partiality: from neither of which God's dearest servants and children are in this life wholly exempted. §§. 25-27. norance, xxii. 29. 25. Ignorance first is a fruitful mother of errors. Ye err, viz. 1°. Ig- not knowing the Scriptures. Yet not so much, gross IgnoS. Matthew rance neither: I mean not that. For your mere Ignaros,* what they err, they err for company; they judge not at all, neither according to the appearance, nor yet righteous judgment. They only run on with the herd, and follow as they are led, be it right or wrong, and never trouble themselves further. But by ignorance I mean weakness of judgment, P which consisteth in a disproportion between the affections and the understanding, when a man is very earnest, but withal very shallow; readeth much, and heareth much, and thinketh that he knoweth much, but hath not the judgment to sever truth from falsehood, nor to discern between a sound argument and a captious fallacy. And so, for want of ability to examine the soundness and strength of those principles from whence he fetcheth his conclusions, he is easily carried away Kevoîs λóyois, Eph. v. 6. as our Apostle elsewhere speaketh, with vain words, and empty arguments. As St. Augustine said of Donatus, Rationes arripuit, he catcheth hold of some reasons, as wranglers will catch at a small thing, rather than yield from their opinions, quas [..... diligentius] considerantes, verisimiles esse potius quam veras invenimus; which, saith he, we found to have more show of probability at the first appearance, than substance of truth after they were well considered of. §. 26. 26. And I dare say, whosoever shall peruse, with a judicious and impartial eye, most of those pamphlets that in this daring age have been thrust into the world, against the ceremonies of the Church, against episcopal government, to pass by things of lesser regard and usefulness, and more open to exception and abuse, yet, so far as I can understand, unjustly condemned as things utterly unlawful, such as are lusorious lots, dancing,† stage-plays, and some other things of like nature; when he shall have drained out the bitter invectives, unmannerly jeers, petulant girding at those that are in authority, impertinent digressions, but above all those most bold and perverse wrestings of Holy Scripture, wherewith such books are infinitely stuffed, he shall find that little poor remainder that is left behind, to contain nothing but kevoùs λóyovs, vain words and empty arguments. For when these great undertakers have snatched up the bucklers,* as if they would make it good against all comers, that such and such things are utterly unlawful, and therefore ought, in all reason and conscience, to bring such proofs as will come up to that conclusion, Quid dignum tanto? very seldom shall you hear from them any other arguments than such as will conclude but an inexpediency at the most. As, that they are apt to give scandal; that they carry with them an appearance of evil; that they are often occasions of sin; that they are not commanded in the Word; and such like. Which objections, even where they are just, are not of force, no, not taken all together, much less any of them singly, to prove a thing to be utterly unlawful. And yet are they glad many times, rather than sit out, to play very small game, and to make use of arguments yet weaker than these, and such as will not reach so far as to prove a bare inexpediency. As, that they were invented by Heathens, that they have been abused in Popery, and other such like. Which, to my understanding, is a very strong presumption that they have taken a very weak cause in hand, and such as is wholly destitute of sound proof; for, if they had any better arguments, think ye we should not be sure to hear of them? 27. Marvel not therefore if I charge them with ignorance, although in their Writings some of them may show much variety of reading, and other pieces of learning and knowledge. For if their knowledge were even much more than * See Sermon v. ad Clerum, §. 19. s As Parker, Didoclavius, &c. [Henry Parker, a barrister, Secretary to Lord Essex in 1642, and afterwards to Cromwell, among other works, published, in 1641, a Vindication of those who unjustly suffer by the mistake, abuse, and misapplication of the name of Puritans; and, The Altar Dispute, or a Discourse concerning the several innovations of the Altar, wherein is dis SANDERSON, VOL. I. cussed several of the chief grounds U §. 27. |