[175] Some speak too ignorantly and dangerously about the day of grace being past in this life.
Because I have said so much of this subject in the third part of my "Saints' Rest," and in a "Treatise of Self-acquaintance," and in my "Directions for Peace of Conscience," and before in this book, I shall be here the briefer in it.
Quest. I. What are the uses and reasons of self-judging, which should move us to it?
Answ. In the three foresaid treatises I have opened them at large. In a word, without it we shall be strangers to ourselves; we can have no well-grounded comfort, no true repentance and humiliation, no just estimation of Christ and grace, no just observance of the motions of God's Spirit, no true application of the promises or threatenings of the Scripture, yea, we shall pervert them all to our own destruction; no true understanding of the providence of God, in prosperity or adversity; no just acquaintance with our duty: a man that knoweth not himself, can know neither God, nor any thing aright, nor do any thing aright; he can neither live reasonably, honestly, safely, nor comfortably, nor suffer or die with solid peace.
Quest. II. What should ignorant persons do, whose natural capacity will not reach to so high a work, as to try and judge themselves in matters so sublime?
Answ. 1. There is no one who hath reason and arts sufficient to love God, and hate sin, and live a holy life, and believe in Christ, but he hath reason and parts sufficient to know (by the use of just means) whether he do these things indeed or not. 2. He that cannot reach assurance, must take up with the lower degrees of comfort, of which I shall speak in the directions.
Quest. III. How far may a weak christian take the judgment of others, whether his pastor, or judicious acquaintance, about his justification and sincerity?
Answ. 1. No man's judgment must be taken as infallible about the sincerity of another; nor must it be so far rested on, as to neglect your fullest search yourself; and for the matter of fact, what you have done, or what is in you, no man can be so well acquainted with it as yourselves. 2. But in judging whether those acts of grace which you describe, be such as God hath promised salvation to, and in directing you in your self-judging, and in conjecturing at your sincerity by your expressions and your lives, a faithful friend or pastor may do that, which may much support you, and relieve you against inordinate doubts and fears, and show you that your sincerity is very probable. Especially if you are assured that you tell him nothing but the truth yourselves; and if he be one that is acquainted with you and your life, and hath known you in temptations, and one that is skilful in the matters of God and conscience, and one that is truly judicious, experienced, and faithful, and is not biassed by interest or affection; and especially when he is not singular in his judgment, but the generality of judicious persons who know you are of the same mind; in this case you may take much comfort in his judgment of your justification, though it cannot give you any proper certainty, nor is to be absolutely rested in.
Direct. I. Let watchfulness over your hearts and lives be your continual work. Never grow careless or neglectful of yourselves: keep your hearts with all diligence. As an unfaithful servant may deceive you, if you look after him but now and then; so may a deceitful heart. Let it be continually under your eye.
Object. Then I must neglect my calling, and do nothing else.
Answ. It need not be any hinderance to you at all. As every man that followeth his trade and labour, doth still take heed that he do all things right, and every traveller taketh heed of falling, and he that eateth taketh heed of poisoning or choking himself, without any hinderance, but to the furtherance of that which he is about; so is it with a christian about his heart: vigilant heedfulness must never be laid by, whatever you are doing.
Direct. II. Live in the light as much as is possible. I mean under a judicious, faithful pastor, and amongst understanding, exemplary christians; for they will be still acquainting you with what you should be and do; and your errors will be easily detected, and in the light you are not so like to be deceived.
Direct. III. Discourage not those that would admonish or reprove you, nor neglect their opinion of you. No, not the railings of an enemy; for they may tell you that in anger (much more in fidelity) which it may concern you much to hear, and think of, and may give you some light in judging of yourselves.
Direct. IV. If you have so happy an opportunity, engage some faithful bosom friend to watch over you, and tell you plainly of all that they see amiss in you. But deal not so hypocritically as to do this in the general, and then be angry when he performeth his trust, and discourage him by your pride and impatience.
Direct. V. Put yourselves in another's case, and be impartial. When you cannot easily see the faults of others, inquire then whether your own be not as visible, if you were as ready to observe and aggravate them. And surely none more concern you than your own, nor should be so odious and grievous to you; nor are so, if you are truly penitent.
Direct. VI. Understand your natural temper and inclination, and suspect those sins which you are naturally most inclined to, and there keep up the strictest watch.
Direct. VII. Understand what temptations your place, and calling, and relations, and company do most subject you to; and there be most suspicious of yourselves.
Direct. VIII. Mark yourselves well in the hour of temptation: for then it is that the vices will appear, which before lay covered and unknown.
Direct. IX. Suspect yourselves most heedfully of the most common and most dangerous sins. Especially unbelief and want of love to God, and a secret preferring of earthly hopes before the hopes of the life to come; and selfishness, and pride, and sensual pleasing of the fleshly appetite and fancy: these are the most common, radical, and most mortal, damning sins.
Direct. X. Take certain times to call yourselves to a special strict account. As, 1. At your preparation for the Lord's day at the end of every week. 2. In your preparation for the sacrament of Christ's body and blood. 3. And before a day of humiliation. 4. In a time of sickness or other affliction. 5. Yea, every night review the actions of the foregoing day. He that useth to call his conscience seriously to account, is likest to keep his accounts in order, and to be ready to give them up to Christ.
Direct. XI. Make not light of any sin which you discover in your self-examination. But humble yourselves for it before the Lord, and be affected according to its importance, both in its guilt and evil signification.
Direct. XII. And let the end of all be the renewed exercise of faith and thankfulness, and resolutions for better obedience hereafter. That you may see more of the need and use of a Saviour, and may thankfully magnify that grace which doth abound where sin abounded; and may walk the more watchfully and holily for the time to come.
Direct. I. If you would so judge of the state of your souls, as not to be deceived, come not to the trial with an over-confident prejudice or conceit of your own condition, either as good or bad. He that is already so prepossessed as to resolve what to judge before he trieth, doth make his trial but a means to confirm him in his conceit.
Direct. II. Let not self-love, partiality, or pride, on the one side, or fear on the other side, pervert your judgment in the trial, and hinder you from the discerning of the truth. Some men cannot see the clearest evidences of their unsanctified hearts, because self-love will give them leave to believe nothing of themselves which is bad or sad. They will believe that which is good and pleasant, be it never so evidently false. As if a thief could be saved from the gallows, by a strong conceit that he is a true man; or the conceit that one is learned, would make him learned. Others through timorousness can believe nothing that is good or comfortable of themselves: like a man on the top of a steeple, who though he know that he standeth fast and safe, yet trembleth when he looketh down, and can scarce believe his own understanding. Silence all the objections of an over-timorous mind, and it will doubt and tremble still.
Direct. III. Surprise not yourselves on the sudden and unprepared, with the question, whether you are justified or not; but set about it as the most serious business of your life. A great and difficult question must have a well-studied answer, and not be answered hastily and rashly. If one should meet you in the street, and demand some great and long account of you, you would desire him to stay till you review your memorials, or have time to cast it up. Take some appointed time to do this, when you have no intruding thoughts to hinder you; and think not that it must be resolved easily or quickly upon the first inquiry, but by the most sober and judicious consideration, and patient attendance till it be done.
Direct. IV. Understand the tenor of the covenant of grace, which is the law that you must judge of your estates by: for if you mistake that, you will err in the conclusion. He is an unfit judge, who is ignorant of the law.
Direct. V. Mistake not the nature of true faith in Christ. Those that think it is a believing that they are actually pardoned, and shall be saved, do some of them presume or believe it when it is false, and some of them despair, because they cannot believe it. And those that think that faith is such a recumbency on Christ as always quieteth the mind, do think they have no faith when they have no such quietness. And those that think it is only the resting on the blood of Christ for pardon, do take up with that which is no true faith. But he that knoweth that faith in Christ, is nothing else but christianity, or consenting to the christian covenant, may know that he consenteth, even when he findeth much timorousness and trouble, and taketh not up with a deceitful faith.
Direct. VI. Remember in your self-judging, that the will is the man, and what you truly would be, that you are, in the sense of the covenant of grace.
Direct. VII. But remember also that your endeavours must prove the truth of your desires, and that idle wishes are not the denominating acts of the will.
Direct. VIII. Also your successes must be the proof of the sincerity of your endeavours: for such striving against sin as endeth in yielding to it, and not in victory, is no proof of the uprightness of your hearts.
Direct. IX. Mark what you are in the day of trial; for at other times it is more easy to be deceived: and record what you then discover in yourself: what a man is in trial, that he is indeed.
Direct. X. Especially try yourselves in the great point of forsaking all for Christ, and for the hopes of the fruition of God in glory. Know once whether God or the creature can do more with you, and whether heaven or earth be dearer to you, and most esteemed, and practically preferred, and then you may judge infallibly of your state.
Direct. XI. Remember that in melancholy and weakness of understanding, you are not fit for the casting up of so great accounts; but must take up with the remembrance of former discoveries, and with the judgment of the judicious, and be patient till a fitter season, before you can expect to see in yourselves the clear evidence of your state.
Direct. XII. Neither forget what former discoveries you have made, nor yet wholly rest in them, without renewing your self-examination. They that have found their sincerity, and think that the next time they are in doubt, they should fetch no comfort from what is past, do deprive themselves of much of the means of their peace. And those that trust all to the former discoveries of their good estate, do proceed upon unsafe and negligent principles; and will find that such slothful and venturous courses will not serve turn.
Direct. XIII. Judge not of yourselves by that which is unusual and extraordinary with you, but by the tenor and drift of your hearts and lives. A bad man may seem good in some good mood; and a good man may seem bad in some extraordinary fall. To judge of a bad man by his best hours, and of a good man by his worst, is the way to be deceived in them both.
Direct. XIV. Look not unequally at the good or evil that is in you; but consider them both impartially as they are. If you observe all the good only that is in you, and overlook the bad; or search after nothing but your faults, and overlook your graces; neither of these ways will bring you to true acquaintance with yourselves.
Direct. XV. Look not so much either at what you should be, or at what others are, as to forget what you are yourselves. Some look so much at the glory of that full perfection which they want, as that their present grace seemeth nothing to them; like a candle to one that hath been gazing on the sun. And some look so much at the debauchery of the worst, that they think their lesser wickedness to be holiness.
Direct. XVI. Suffer not your minds to wander in confusion, when you set yourselves to so great a work: but keep it close to the matter in hand, and drive it on till it have come to some satisfaction and conclusion.
Direct. XVII. If you are not able by meditation to do it of yourselves, get the help of some able friend or pastor, and do it in a way of conference with him: for conference will hold your own thoughts to their task; and your pastor may guide them, and tell you in what order to proceed, and confute your mistakes, besides confirming you by his judgment of your case.
Direct. XVIII. If you cannot have such help at hand, write down the signs by which you judge either well or ill of yourself; and send them to some judicious divine for his judgment and counsel thereupon.
Direct. XIX. Expect not that your assurance should be perfect in this life; for till all grace be perfect, that cannot be perfect. Unjust expectations disappointed are the cause of much disquietment.
Direct. XX. Distinguish between the knowledge of your justification, and the comfort of it. Many a one may see and be convinced that he is sincere, and yet have little comfort in it, through a sad or distempered state of mind or body, and unpreparedness for joy; or through some expectations of enthusiastic comforts.
Direct. XXI. Exercise grace whenever you would see it: idle habits are not perceived. Believe and repent till you feel that you do believe and repent, and love God till you feel that you love him.
Direct. XXII. Labour to increase your grace if you would be sure of it. For a little grace is hardly perceived; when strong and great degrees do easily manifest themselves.
Direct. XXIII. Record what sure discoveries you have made of your estate upon the best inquiry, that it may stand you in stead at a time of further need; for though it will not warrant you to search no more, it will be very useful to you in your after-doubtings.
Direct. XXIV. What you can do at one time, follow on again and again till you have finished. A business of that consequence is not to be laid down through weariness or discouragement. Happy is he that in all his life hath got assurance of life everlasting.
Direct. XXV. Let all your discoveries lead you up to further duty. If you find any cause of doubt, let it quicken you to diligence in removing it. If you find sincerity, turn it into joyful thanks to your Regenerator; and stop not in the bare discovery of your present state, as if you had no more to do.
Direct. XXVI. Conclude not worse of the effects of a discovery of your bad condition, than there is cause. Remember that if you should find that you are unjustified, it followeth not that you must continue so: you search not after your disease or misery as uncurable, but as one that hath a sufficient remedy at hand, even brought to your doors, and cometh a begging for your acceptance, and is freely offered and urged on you; and therefore if you find that you are unregenerate, thank God that hath showed you your case; for if you had not seen it, you had perished in it: and presently give up yourselves to God in Jesus Christ, and then you may boldly judge better of yourselves: it is not for despair, but for recovery, that you are called to try and judge. Nay, if you do but find it too hard a question for you, whether you have all this while been sincere or not, turn from it, and resolvedly give up yourselves to God by Christ, and place your hopes in the life to come, and turn from this deceitful world and flesh, and then the case will be plain for the time to come. If you doubt of your former repentance, repent now, and put it out of doubt from this time forward,
Direct. XXVII. When you cannot at the present reach assurance, undervalue not a true probability or hope of your sincerity: and still adhere to universal grace, which is the foundation of your special grace and comfort. I mean, 1. The infinite goodness of God, and his mercifulness to man. 2. The sufficiency of Jesus Christ our Mediator. 3. The universal gift of pardon and salvation, which is conditionally made to all men, in the gospel. Remember that the gospel is glad tidings even to those that are unconverted. Rejoice in this universal mercy which is offered you, and that you are not as the devils, shut up in despair; and much more rejoice if you have any probability that you are truly penitent and justified by faith: let this support you till you can see more.
Direct. XXVIII. Spend much more time in doing your duty, than in trying your estate. Be not so much in asking, How shall I know that I shall be saved? as in asking, What shall I do to be saved? Study the duty of this day of your visitation, and set yourselves to it with all your might. Seek first the things that are above, and mortify your fleshly lusts; give up yourselves to a holy, heavenly life, and do all the good that you are able in the world: seek after God as revealed in and by our Redeemer: and in thus doing, 1. Grace will become more notable and discernible. 2. Conscience will be less accusing and condemning, and will easilier believe the reconciledness of God. 3. You may be sure that such labour shall never be lost; and in well-doing you may trust your souls with God. 4. Thus those that are not able in an argumentative way to try their state to any full satisfaction, may get that comfort by feeling and experience, which others get by ratiocination. For the very exercise of love to God and man, and of a heavenly mind and holy life, hath a sensible pleasure in itself, and delighteth the person who is so employed: as if a man were to take the comfort of his learning or wisdom, one way is by the discerning his learning and wisdom, and thence inferring his own felicity; but another way is by exercising that learning and wisdom which he hath, in reading and meditating on some excellent books, and making discoveries of some mysterious excellencies in arts and sciences, which delight him more by the very acting, than a bare conclusion of his own learning in the general would do. What delight had the inventors of the sea-chart and magnetic attraction, and of printing, and of guns, in their inventions! What pleasure had Galileo in his telescopes, in finding out the inequalities and shady parts of the moon, the Medicean planets, the adjuncts of Saturn, the changes of Venus, the stars of the via lactea, &c.! Even so a serious, holy person, hath more sensible pleasures in the right exercise of faith, and love, and holiness, in prayer, and meditation, and converse with God, and with the heavenly hosts, than the bare discerning of sincerity can afford. Therefore though it be a great, important duty to examine ourselves, and judge ourselves before God judge us, and keep close aquaintance with our own hearts and affairs, yet is it the addition of the daily practice of a heavenly life, which must be our chiefest business and delight. And he that is faithful in them both, shall know by experience the excellences of christianity and holiness, and in his way on earth, have both a prospect of heaven, and a foretaste of the everlasting rest and pleasures.
FIRST,
WHAT SHALL BEFALL THE CHURCHES ON EARTH, TILL THEIR CONCORD,
BY THE RESTITUTION OF THEIR PRIMITIVE PURITY, SIMPLICITY, AND CHARITY:
SECONDLY,
HOW THAT RESTITUTION IS LIKELY TO BE MADE, (IF EVER,) AND WHAT SHALL BEFALL
THEM THENCEFORTH UNTO THE END, IN THAT GOLDEN AGE OF LOVE.
WRITTEN BY
RICHARD BAXTER;
WHEN BY THE KING'S COMMISSION, WE (IN VAIN) TREATED FOR CONCORD, 1661.
AND NOW PUBLISHED, NOT TO INSTRUCT THE PROUD THAT SCORN TO LEARN; NOR TO MAKE THEM WISE,
WHO WILL NOT BE MADE WISE: BUT TO INSTRUCT THE SONS
OF LOVE AND PEACE, IN THEIR DUTIES AND EXPECTATIONS.
TO TELL POSTERITY, THAT
THE THINGS WHICH BEFALL THEM WERE FORETOLD;
AND THAT THE EVIL MIGHT HAVE BEEN PREVENTED, AND BLESSED PEACE ON EARTH ATTAINED,
IF MEN HAD BEEN BUT WILLING; AND HAD NOT SHUT THEIR EYES AND HARDENED THEIR HEARTS
AGAINST THE BEAMS OF LIGHT AND LOVE.
TO THE READER.
It is many years since this Prognostication was written (1661, except the thirteen last lines); but it was cast by, lest it should offend the guilty. But the author now thinketh, that the monitory usefulness may overweigh the inconveniences of men's displeasure; at least, to posterity, if not for the present age; of which he is taking his farewell. His suppositions are such as cannot be denied: viz.
1. Eccles. i. 9, "The thing that hath been, is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun."
2. The same causes, with the same circumstances, will have the same effects on recipients, equally disposed.
3. Operari sequitur esse: as natures are, so they act; except where overpowered.
4. The appetite, sensitive and rational, is the principle of motion; and what any love they will desire and seek.
5. Therefore, interest will turn the affairs of the world; and he that can best understand all interests, will be the best moral prognosticator; so far men are causes of the events.
6. The pleasing of God, and the happiness of their own and others' souls, being the interest of true believers; and temporal life, pleasure, and prosperity, being the seeming and esteemed interest of unbelievers' cross interests, will carry them contrary ways.
7. Contraries, when near and militant, will be troublesome to each other, and seek each other's destruction or debilitation.
8. The senses and experience of all men, in all ages, are to be believed about their proper objects.
9. Men of activity, power, and great numbers, will have advantage for observance and success, above those that are modest, obscure, and few.
10. Yet men will still be men; and the rational nature will yield some friendly aspect towards the truth.
11. Those that are ignorant, and misled by passion, and carried down the stream, by men of malignity or faction, may come to themselves, when affliction, experience, and considerateness have had time to work; and may repent, and undo somewhat that they have done.
12. As sense will be sense, when faith hath done its best; so faith will be faith, when flesh or sense hath done its worst.
13. Men that fix on a heavenly, everlasting interest, will not be temporizers, and changed by the worldly men's wills or cruelties.
14. When all men have tired themselves with their contrivances and stirs, moderation and peace must be the quiet state.
15. When all worldly wisdom hath done its utmost, and men's endeavours are winged with the greatest expectations, God will be God, and blast what he nilleth; and will overrule all things, to the accomplishment of his most blessed will. Amen.
On these suppositions it is, that the following Prognostications are founded; which I must admonish the reader, not to mistake for historical narratives: but I exhort him to know what hath been, and what is, if he would know what will be; and to make sure of everlasting rest with Christ, when he must leave a sinful, restless world.
1. Mankind will be born in a state of infancy and nescience, that is, without actual knowledge.
2. Yea, with a nature that hath the innate dispositions to sloth, and to diverting pleasures and business; and more than so, to an averseness from those principles which are needful to sanctification and heavenly wisdom. The carnal mind will have an enmity against God, and will not mind the things of the Spirit, nor be subject to God's law, Rom. viii. 5-8.
3. Sound learning, or wisdom, in things of so high a nature as are the matters of salvation, will not be attained without hard study, earnest prayer, and humble submission to instructions; and all this a long time patiently endured, or rather willingly and delightfully performed.
4. And if the seeds of wisdom be not born with us, in a capacious disposition of understanding; but contrarily a natural unapprehensiveness blocks up the way; even time and labour will never (without a miracle) bring any to any great eminency of understanding.
5. And they that have both capacity, and an industrious disposition, must have also sound, and able, and diligent teachers; or at least escape the hands of seducers, and of partial, factious guides.
6. There are few born with good natural capacities, much less with a special dispositive acuteness; and few that will be at the pains and patience, which the getting of wisdom doth require; and few that will have the happiness of sound and diligent teachers; but fewest of all that will have a concurrence of all these three.
7. Therefore there will be but few very wise men in the world; ignorance will he common, wisdom will be rare.
8. Therefore error or false opinions will be common. For unless men never think of the things of which they are ignorant, or judge nothing of them one way or other, they are sure to err, so far as they judge in ignorance. But when things of greatest moment are represented as true or false, to be believed or rejected, the most ignorant mind is naturally inclined to pass its judgment or opinion of them one way or other; and to apprehend them according to the light he standeth in, and to think of them as he is disposed. So that ignorance and error will concur.
9. He that erreth, doth think that he is in the right, and erreth not: for to err, and to know that he erreth in judgment, is a contradiction, and impossible. (However in words and deeds a man may err, and know that he erreth.)
10. He that knoweth not, and that erreth, perceiveth not that evidence of truth which should make him receive it, and which maketh other men receive it; and therefore knoweth not that indeed another is in the right, or seeth any more than he.
11. Especially when every man is a stranger to another's mind and soul, as to any immediate inspection; and therefore knoweth not another's knowledge, nor the convincing reasons of his judgment.
12. As no man is moved against his own errors, by the reasons which he knoweth not; so pride, self-love, and partiality thence arising, incline all men naturally to be overvaluers of their own understandings, and so over-confident of all their own conceptions, and over-stiff in defending all their errors. As pride and selfishness are the firstborn of Satan, and the root of all positive evil in man's soul; so a man is more naturally proud of that which is the honour of a man, which is his understanding and goodness, than of that which is common to a beast, as strength, beauty, ornaments, &c. Therefore pride of understanding and goodness oft live, when sordid apparel telleth you that childish pride of ornaments is dead. And this pride maketh it very difficult, to the most ignorant and erroneous, to know their ignorance and error, or so much as to suspect their own understandings.
13. He that seeth but few things, seeth not much to make him doubt, and seeth not the difficulties which should check his confidence and stiffness in his way.
14. He that seeth many things, and that clearly knoweth much; especially, if he see them in their order, and respects to one another, and leaveth out no one substantial part which is needful to open the signification of the rest.
15. He that seeth many things disorderly and confusedly, and not in due method, and leaveth out some substantial parts, and hath not a digested knowledge, doth know much, and err much, and may make a bustle in the world of ignorants, as if he were an excellent, learned man; but hath little of the inward delight, or of the power and benefits of knowledge.
16. He that seeth many things but darkly, confusedly, and not in the true place and method, cannot reconcile truths among themselves; but is like a boy with a pair of tarrying irons, or like one that hath his clock or watch all in pieces, and knoweth not how to set them together. And therefore is inclined to be a sceptic.
17. This sort of sceptics differ much from humble christians; and have oft as high thoughts of their understandings as any others: for they lay the cause upon the difficulties in the objects, rather than on themselves: unless when they incline to brutishness or Sadducism, and take man's understanding to be incapable of true knowledge, and so lay the blame on human nature as such, that is, on the Creator.
18. Few hope so much as to see the difficulty of things, and make them doubt, or sceptical. But far fewer know, so much as to resolve their doubts and difficulties: therefore, though (as Bishop Jewel saith of faithful pastors) I say not that there will be few cardinals, few bishops, few doctors, few deans, few Jesuits, few friars, (there will be enow of these,) yet there will be few wise, judicious divines and pastors, even in the best and happiest countries.
19. Seeing he that knoweth not, or that erreth, knoweth not that another knoweth, or is in the right, when he is in the wrong; therefore he knoweth not whose judgment to honour and submit to, if he should suspect or be driven from his own: and therefore is not so happy, as to be able to choose the fittest teacher for himself.
20. In this darkness therefore he either carnally casteth himself on the highest and most honoured in the world, where he hath the most advantages for worldly ends; or he followeth the fame of the time and country where he is, or he falleth in with the major vote of that party, whatsoever it be, which his understanding doth most esteem and honour; or else with some person that hath most advantage on him.
21. If any of these happen to be in the right, he will be also in the right materially, and may seem an orthodox, peaceable, and praiseworthy man; but where they are in the wrong, he is contented with the reputation of being in the right, and of the good opinion of those whom he concurreth with; who flatter and applaud each other in the dark.
22. When wise men are but few, they can be but in few places; and therefore will be absent from most of the people, high or low, that need instruction. Besides, that their studiousness inclineth them, like Jerome, to be more retired than others, that know less.
23. This confidence in an erring mind, is not only the case of the teachers, as well as of the flocks; but is usually more fortified in them than in others: for they think that the honour of learning and wisdom is due to their place, and calling, and name, and standing in the universities; how empty soever they be themselves. And they take it for a double dishonour (as it is) for a teacher to be accounted ignorant; and an injury to their work and office, and to the people's souls, that must by their honour be prepared to profit by them; and therefore they smart more impatiently under any detection of their ignorance, than the common people do.
24. It is not mere honesty and godliness, that will suffice to save ministers or people from this ignorance, injudiciousness, and error; there having ever been among the very godly ministers, a few judicious men, that are fit to investigate a difficult truth, or to defend it against a subtle adversary, or to see the system of theological verities in their proper method, harmony, and beauty.
25. Morality hath innumerable difficulties, as well as school divinity; because that moral good and evil are ordinarily such by preponderating accidents (actions as actions, being neither; but only of physical consideration). And the work of a true casuist is to compare so many accidents, and to discern in the comparison which preponderateth, that it requireth both an acute and a large, capacious, farseeing wit, to make a man a true resolver of cases of conscience. And consequently to be a judicious pastor, that shall not lead the people into errors.
26. As few teachers have natural capacity for exactness, and a willingness and patience for long, laborious studies; so many by their pastoral oversight of souls, and many by the wants of their families, (especially in times of persecution, when all their public maintenance is gone, and they must live, with their families, on the charity of people, perhaps poor and persecuted as well as they,) are hindered from those studies, which else they would undergo.
27. It is few that grow to much exactness of judgment without much writing (for themselves or others); for study which is to be exactly ordered and expressed by the pen, is usually (at last) the exactest study: as the Lord Bacon saith, "Much reading maketh a man full; much conference maketh a man ready; and much writing maketh a man exact." There are few Cameros, men of clear judgment, and abhorring to write. And there are few divines comparatively that have opportunity to write much.
28. They that err in divinity, do think their falsehoods to be God's truth; and so will honour that which he hates, with the pretence of his authority and name.
29. Therefore they will call up their own and other men's zeal, to defend those falsehoods as for God, and think that in so doing they do God service.
30. And the interest of their own place, and honour, and ends, will secretly insinuate when they discern it not, and will increase their zeal against opposers.
31. Therefore, seeing they are usually many, and wise men but few, they will expect that number should give the precedency to their opinions, and will call those proud, or heretical, that gainsay them, and labour to defame them, as self-conceited, opinionative men.
32. Therefore too many godly ministers will be great opposers of many of those truths of God, which they know not, and which they err about, and will help on the service of Satan in the world; and will be the authors of factions and contentions in the churches; whilst too many are "proud, knowing nothing," (in those matters when they think they are most orthodox,) "but doting about questions and strifes of words, whereof cometh envy, strife, railing, evil surmisings, perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, (in this,) and destitute of the truth," 1 Tim. vi. 4, 5.
33. And if many good men will erroneously stand up against that truth which any man wiser than themselves maketh known, the worldly and malicious, that have a manifold enmity against it, will be ready to strengthen them by their concurrence, and to join in the opposition.
34. Not they that are wisest at a distance, but they that are nearest the people, and are always with them, are most likely to prevail to make disciples of them, and bring them to their mind: so great an advantage it is, to talk daily and confidently to ignorant souls, when there is none to talk against them, and to make their folly known.
35. Especially if the same men can get interest in their esteem as well as nearness, and make themselves esteemed the best or wisest men.
36. Therefore Jesuitical, worldly clergymen, will always get about great men, and insinuate into nobles, and will still defame them that are wise and good, that they may seem odious, and themselves seem excellent, and so may carry it by deceitful shows.
37. And they will do their best, to procure all wise and good men, that are against their interest, to be banished from the palaces of princes and nobles, where they are; lest their presence should confute their slanderers, and they should be as "burning and shining lights," that carry their witness with them where they come: and also to bring them under public stigmatizing censures and sufferings; that their names may be infamous and odious in the world.
38. And heretical pastors will play a lower game, and creep into the houses of silly people, prepared by ignorance and soul-disturbers to receive their heresies.
39. Between these two sorts of naughty pastors, (the worldly and the heretical,) and also the multitude of weak, erroneous, honest teachers, the soundest and worthiest will be so few, that far most of the people (high and low) are like to live under the influences and advantages of erring men; and, therefore, themselves to be an erring people.
40. In that measure that men are carnal, their own carnal interest will rule them. And both the worldly and heretical clergy, are ruled by carnal interests, though not the same materially. And the more honest, erring ministers, are swayed by their interests too much; insomuch, that on this account, it was no overvaluing of Timothy, or wrong to the other pastors, that it should plainly be said by Paul, "For I have no man like-minded, who will naturally care for your state. For all seek their own, not the things which are Jesus Christ's," Phil. ii. 20, 21. "Of your ownselves shall men arise, and speak perverse things, to draw away disciples after them," Acts xx. 30. Besides the grievous wolves which would not spare the flocks.
41. The interest then of the worldly clergy, will consist in pleasing the great ones of the world; for lordships, and worldly wealth, and honour, and to be made the rulers of their brethren, and to have their wills: and the interest of heretics will be to have many to be of their own opinion to admire them: and the interest of upright ministers will be to please God, and propagate the gospel, increase the church, and save men's souls; yet so that they have a subordinate interest, for food and raiment, and families, and necessary reputation, which they are too apt to overvalue.
42. Therefore, it will be the great trade of the worldly clergy, to please and flatter the rulers of the world, and by all artificial insinuations, and by their friends, to work themselves into their favour, and by scorns and calumnies to work out all other that are against their interest.
43. And it will be the trade of heretics, to insinuate into the more ductile people, especially as ministers of truth and righteousness, that have somewhat more excellent in knowledge or holiness, than the faithful ministers of Christ.
44. And it will be the work of faithful ministers, to save men's souls. But with such various degrees of self-denial or selfishness, as they have various degrees of wisdom and holiness.
45. Many great and piously disposed princes, like Constantine, will think that to honour and advance the clergy, into worldly power and wealth, is to honour God and the christian religion; and great munificence is fit for their own greatness.
46. And because such honour and wealth cannot possibly be bestowed on all, it must make a great disparity, and set some as lords over the rest.
47. And the unavoidable weakness, passions, and divisions of the clergy, will make rulers think, that there is a necessity; that besides the civil government, there should, be some of their own office, to rule the rest, and to keep them in order, obedience, and peace.
48. Ambition and covetousness will abuse this munificence of princes: and whilst that any church preferments are so great (beyond the degree of a mere encouraging subsistence) as to be a strong bait to tempt the desires of a proud and worldly mind, the most proud and worldly that are within the reach of hope, will be the seekers, by themselves, and by their friends.
49. Mortified, humble, heavenly men, will either never seek them, or with no great eagerness; their appetite being less, and their restraints much greater.
50. Therefore they that have the keenest appetites to church grandeur and preferments, and are the eager seekers, are most likely to find.
51. Therefore the lovers of wealth and honour, are more likely still to be the lords among the clergy; except in such marvellous happy times, when wise and pious princes call the more worthy that seek it not, and reject these thirsty seekers.
52. The greatest lovers of worldly wealth and honour, are the worst men, 1 John ii. 15; James iv. 4, &c.
53. Therefore, except in such times as aforesaid, the worst men will be still the rich and powerful in the clergy, for the most part, or at least, the worldly that are very bad.
54. These carnal minds are enmity to God, and cannot be subject to his law. And the friendship of the world is enmity to God. And the honour and wealth of these worldly men, will be taken by them for their interest; and they will set themselves to defend it, against all that would endanger it.
55. The doctrine and practice of humility, mortification, contempt of the world, forsaking all, taking up the cross, &c. is so much of the christian religion, that however the worldly clergy may formally preach it, their minds and interests are at enmity to it.
56. Such men will make church canons according to their interests and minds.
57. And they will judge of ministers and people according to their interest and mind; who is sound, and who is erroneous; who is honest, and who is bad; who is worthy of favour, and who is worthy of all the reproaches that can be devised against him.
58. The humble, mortified ministers and people, that are seriously the servants of a crucified Christ, and place their hopes and portion in another world, have a holy disposition, contrary to this worldly, carnal mind; and their manner of preaching will be of a different relish, and the tenor of their lives of a contrary course.
59. The generality of the best people in the christian churches will perceive the difference between the worldly and the heavenly manner of preaching and of living, and will love and honour the latter far above the former; because their new nature suiteth with things spiritual, and fitteth them to relish them.
60. The worst of vicious and worldly men will disrelish the spiritual manner of preaching and living, and will join with the worldly clergy against it.
61. The worldly clergy being hypocrites, as to christianity and godliness, (like Judas that loved the bag better than Christ,) they will make themselves a religion, consisting of the mere corpse and dead image of the true religion; of set words, and actions, and formalities, and orders, which in themselves are (many, at least, if not all) good; but the life they will not endure.
62. This image of true religion, or corpse of godliness, they will dress up with many additional flowers out of their own gardens, some tolerable, and some corrupting: that so they may have something which both their own consciences and the world may take to be honourable religion; lest known ungodliness should terrify conscience within, and shame them in the world without.
63. This image of religion, so dressed up, will suit their carnal auditors and people too, to the same ends; and therefore will become their uniting interest.
64. That which is but a weed among these flowers, the more heavenly ministers and people will dislike, and much more dislike the loathsome face of death (or lifelessness) in their religion.
65. These differences of mind and practice, will engage both parties in some kind of opposition to each other. The worldly clergy, or hypocrites, will have heart-risings against the ministers and people that think meanly of them, and will take it for their interest to bring them down: for enmity is hardly restrained from exercise. And Cain will be wroth that Abel's sacrifice is better accepted than his own.
66. The better ministers will be apt, through passion, to speak too dishonourably of the other; and the rash and younger sort, and the heretical hypocrites that fall in with them, will take it for part of a godly zeal to speak against them to the people, in such words as Christ used of the scribes and Pharisees.
67. Hereupon the exasperations of each party will be increased more and more; and the powerful, worldly clergy will think it their interest to devise some new impositions, which they know the other cannot yield to, to work them out.
68. Whether they be oaths, subscriptions, words, or actions, which they believe to be against God's word, the spiritual and upright part of the clergy and people will not perform them; resolving to obey God rather than man.
69. Hereupon the worldly part will take the advantage, and call them disobedient, stubborn, proud, schismatical, self-opinionated, disturbers of the public peace and order, "pestilent fellows, and movers of sedition among the people," that will let nothing be quiet, but "turn the world upside down," Acts xxiv. 5, 6; and will endeavour to bring them to such sufferings, as men really guilty of such crimes deserve.
70. And because the suffering and dissenting party of ministers, when silenced, will leave many vacancies in the churches, they will be fain to fill them with men, how empty and unworthy soever, that are of their own spirit, and will be true to their interests.
71. The exasperation of their sufferings will make many, otherwise sober ministers, too impatient, and to give their tongues leave to take down the honour of the clergy whom they suffer by, more than beseemeth men of humility, charity, and patience.
72. When the people, that most esteem their faithful ministers, are deprived of their labours, by the prohibitions of the rest, and themselves also afflicted with them; it will stir up in them an inordinate, unwarrantable, passionate zeal; which will corrupt their very prayers, and make them speak unseemly things, and pray for the downfal of that clergy, which they take to be the enemies of God, and godliness. And they will think that to speak easily or charitably of such men, as dare forbid Christ's ministers to preach his gospel, and by notorious sacrilege alienate the persons and gifts that were consecrated solemnly to God, is but to be lukewarm, and indifferent between God and the devil.
73. And when they take them as enemies to religion, and to themselves, the younger and rasher sort of ministers, but much more the people, will grow into a suspicion of all that they see their afflicters stand for: they will dislike not only their faults, but many harmless things, yea, many laudable customs, which they use; and will grow into some superstition in opposition to them, making new sins in the manner of worship, which God never forbad or made to be sins; and taking up new duties, which God never made duties; yea, ready to forsake some old and wholesome doctrines, because their afflicters own them; and to take up some new, unsound doctrines, and expositions of God's word, because they are inclined by opinion and passion conjoined, to go as far as may be from such men, whom they think so bad of.
74. And the vulgar people that have but little sense of religion, (that are not by the aforesaid interest united to the afflicting clergy,) having a reverence to the worth of those that are afflicted, and an experience of the rawness and differing lives of many that possess their rooms, will grow to compassionate the afflicted, and to think that they are injured themselves, and so to think hardly of the causers of all this.
75. Hereupon the powerful clergy will increase their accusations against the party that is against them, and declare to the world in print and from the pulpits, their ignorance, unpeaceableness, unruliness, giddiness, false opinions and conceits about the manner of worship, and how unsufferable a sort of men they are.
76. By this time the devil will have done the radical part of his work; which is to destroy much of christian love to one another, and make them take each other for unlovely, odious persons: the one part, for persecuting enemies of godliness, and hypocrites, and Pharisees; the other for peevish, seditious, turbulent, unruly sectaries. And on these suppositions, all their after characters, affections, and practices towards each other will proceed.
77. By this enmity and opposition against each other, both parties will increase in wrath, and somewhat in numbers. The worldly, afflicting clergy will multiply not only such as are disaffected to them, but downright fanatics, and sectaries that will run as far from them as they can, into contrary extremes. For when they are once brought into a distaste of the old hive, the bees will hardly gather into one new one; but will divide into several swarms and hives. As every man's zeal is more against the afflicting party, so he will go further from them; some to be separatists, some anabaptists, some antinomians, some seekers, some quakers, and some to they know not what themselves.
78. For the women, and apprentices, and novices in christianity, that have more passion than judgment, will abundance of them quite overrun, even their own afflicted teachers, and will forsake them, if they will not overrun their own judgments, in forsaking those that do afflict them.
79. And many hypocrites that have no sound religion; but ignorance, pride, and uncharitableness, will thrust in among them, in these discontents; or spring up in the nurseries of these briers of passion, and will bring in new doctrines, and new ways of worship, and make themselves preachers, and the heads of sects; by reason of whom, the way of truth shall be evil spoken of.
80. And many unstable persons seeing this, will dread and loathe so giddy a sort of men, and will turn papists, upon the persuasions of them that tell them that there is no true unity nor consistency but at Rome; and that all must thus turn giddy at last, that are not fixed in the papal head. And thus they that fly too far from the Common Prayer Book, will drive men to the mass; and the afflicters will make sectaries, and the sectaries will make papists.
81. When the violent clergy, instead of a fatherly government of the flocks, have driven the people into passions, distempers, and uncharitable disaffections to themselves, and have also been the great cause of multiplied heresies and sects by the same means, instead of being humbled and penitent for their sin, they will be hardened, and justify all their violences, by the giddiness and miscarriages of those sectaries, which they themselves have made.
82. And when they publish the faults of such, for the justification of their own violence, they will draw thousands into an approbation of their courses, (to think that such a turbulent people can never be too hardly called or used,) and consequently into a participation of their guilt.
83. By all this, the dissenters will be still more alienated from them; and many will aggravate the crime of the ministers that conform to their impositions, and obey them: and for the sake of a few that afflict them, they will condemn many laudable conforming ministers, that never consented to it, but could heartily wish that it were otherwise.
84. And the younger, and more indiscreet, passionate sort, will frequently reproach such, as unconscionable temporizers, that will do any thing for worldly ends, and that as hypocrites for a fleshly interest, concur with the corrupters and afflicters of the godly.
85. These censures and reproaches will provoke those conforming ministers, who are not masters of their passions, nor conquerors of their pride, to think as badly of the censurers as their afflicters do, and to join with them in the displaying of all enormities, and promoting their further sufferings, and publishing the folly and turbulency of their spirits, with spleen and partiality.
86. By these kind of speeches, preachings, and writings, multitudes of the debauched will be hardened in their sin against all religion: for when they observe that it is the same party of men, who are thus reproached, that are the strictest reprovers of their lewdness, their fornications, tippling, gaming, luxuries, and ungodliness; they will think it is no great matter what such a defamed, giddy sort of people say, and that really they are worse themselves.
87. Each party of these adversaries will characterize the adverse party as hypocrites: the passionate sufferers will call the afflicters hypocrites and Pharisees, that have no religion, but a formal show of outside ceremonies and words, and that tithe mint and cummin, and wash the outside, while within they are full of persecuting cruelty, and are wolves in sheep's clothing, loving the uppermost seats, and great titles, and ceremonious phylacteries, whilst they are enemies to the preaching of the gospel of Christ, and get revenues to themselves, and devour not only the houses, but the peace and lives of others, under pretence of long liturgies; and that devour the living saints, while they keep holy days and build monuments for the dead ones, whom their fathers murdered, &c. And the powerful clergy will call the others hypocrites, and labour to show that the Pharisees' character belongeth to them, and that their pretences of strictness in religion, and their long praying and preaching, is but a cloak to cover their disobedience, and covetousness, and secret sins; and that their hearts and inside are as bad as others, and that their fervency in devotion is but a hypocritical, affected whining and canting; and that they are worse than the lesser religious sort of people, because they are more unpeaceable, and disobedient, and add hypocrisy to their sin.
88. The ignorant, worldlings, drunkards, and ungodly despisers of holiness and heaven, being in all countries most contradicted in their way, by this stricter sort of men, and hearing them in pulpit and press so branded for hypocrites, will joyfully unite themselves with the censurers; and so they will make up as one party, in crying down the precise hypocrites; and usually make some name to call them by, as their brand of common ignominy: and they will live the more quietly in all their sins, and think they shall be saved as soon as the precisest, that make more show, but have no more sincerity, but more hypocrisy, than themselves.
89. The suffering party, seeing the ungodly and the conforming afflicters of them thus united, and made one party in opposition to them, will increase their hard thoughts of the adverse clergy, and take them for downright profane, and the leading enemies of godliness in the world, that will be captains in the devil's army, and lead on all the most ungodly against serious godliness, for their worldly ends.
90. And the young and indifferent sort of people, in all countries, that were engaged in neither part, being but strangers to religion, and to the differences, will be ready to judge of the cause by the persons: and seeing so many of the dignified, advanced clergy, and the more sensual sort of the people, on one side, and so many men of strict lives on the other, that suffer also for their religion, and hearing too that it is some name of preciseness that they are reproached by, will think them to be the better side; and so the title of the godly will grow by degrees to be almost appropriated to their party, and the title of profane and persecutors to the other.
91. All this while the nonconforming ministers will be somewhat differently affected, according to the different degrees of their judiciousness, experience, and self-denial.
Some of them will think these passions of the people needful, to check the fierceness of the afflicters (which doth but exasperate it); and therefore will let them alone, though they will not encourage them.
Some of the younger or more injudicious, hot-brained sort will put them on, and make them believe, that all communion with any conforming ministers or their parish churches is unlawful, and their forms of worship are sinful and antichristian; and that they are all temporizers and betrayers of truth and purity, that communicate or assemble with them.
The judicious, and experienced, and most patient and self-denying sort, will themselves abstain from all that is sin; and as far as it is in their choice and power, will join with the churches that worship God most agreeably to his word and will; but so, as that they will not be loud in their complaints, nor busy to draw men to their opinions in controvertible points; nor will unchurch and condemn all the churches that have something which they dislike as sinful; nor will renounce communion of all faulty churches, lest they renounce the communion of all in the world, and teach all others to renounce theirs: but they will sometimes communicate with the more faulty churches, to show that they unchurch them not (so they be not forced in it to any sin); though usually they will prefer the purest: yea, ordinarily they will join with the more faulty, when they can have no better, or when the public good requireth it. They will never prefer the interest of their nonconforming party, before the interest of christianity, or the public good. They will so defend lesser truths, as not to neglect or disadvantage the greater, which all are agreed in. They will so preserve their own innocency, as not to stir up other men's passions, nor to make factions or divisions by their difference. They will so dislike the pride and worldliness of others, and their injuries against God and godliness, as not to speak evil of dignities, nor to cherish in the people's minds any dishonourable, injurious thoughts of their kings, or any in authority over them. They will labour to allay the passions of the people, and to rebuke their censorious and too sharp language, and to keep up all due charity to those by whom they suffer; but especially loyalty to their kings and rulers, and peaceableness as to their countries. They will teach them to distinguish between the cruel that are masters of the game, and all the rest that have no hand in it; and at least not to separate from all the rest for the sake of a few. If they will go as far as Martin (in Sulpitius Severus) to avoid all communion with Ithacius and Idacius, and the councils of bishops, that prosecuted the Priscillianists, to the scandal of godliness itself; yet not for their sakes to avoid all others, that never consented to it: nor with Gildas, to say of all the bad ministers, that he was not eximius christianus, that would call them ministers, or pastors, rather than traitors. They will persuade the people to discern between good and evil, and not to run into extremes, nor to dislike all that their afflicters hold or use; nor to call things lawful, by the name of sin, and anti-christianity; nor to suffer their passions to blind their judgments, to make superstitiously new sin and duties, in opposition to their adversaries; nor to disgrace their understandings and the truth, by errors, factions, revilings, or miscarriages; nor to run into sects; nor to divide Christ's house and kingdom, while they pretend to be his zealous servants. They will persuade the people to patience, and moderation, and peace, and to "speak evil of no man," nor by word or deed to revenge themselves; much less to resist the authority that is set over them by God; but to imitate their Saviour, and quietly suffer, and being reviled not to revile again, but to love their enemies, and bless their cursers.
92. The more sober sort of the people will be ruled by these counsels, and will do much to quiet the rest. But the heretical part, with their own passions, will exasperate many novices and injudicious persons, to account this course and counsel aforesaid, to be but the effect of lukewarmness and carnal compliance with sin, and a halting between two opinions, and a participation in the sin of persecutors and malignant enemies of godliness: and they will believe that whoever joineth with the parish churches, in their way, is guilty of encouraging them in sin, and of false worship.
93. Hereupon they will defame the nonconforming ministers last described, as men of no zeal, neither flesh nor fish; and perhaps as men that would save their skin, and shift themselves out of sufferings, and betray the truth. And when such ministers acquaint them with their unsound principles and passions, they will say of them that they speak bitterly of the godly, and join with the persecutors in reproaching them.
94. And they will carry about among themselves many false reports and slanders against them; partly because passion taketh off charity and tenderness of conscience; and partly because an opinionative model, and siding religiousness, hath ever more followers, and a quicker zeal, than true holiness; and partly because they will think that human converse obligeth them to believe the reports which those that are accounted good men utter; and partly because that they will think, that the upholding of their cause (which they think is God's) doth need the suppression of these men's credit and reputation that are against it.
95. But the greater part of the honest nonconformist ministers will dislike the headiness and rashness of the novices and the sectaries, and will approve of the aforesaid moderate ways. But their opportunities and dispositions of expressing it will be various. Some of them will do it freely, whatever be thought of it; and some of them that have impatient auditors, will think that it is no duty to attempt that which will not be endured, and that it is better to do what good they can, than none. And some will think, that seeing the worldly clergy forbid them to preach the gospel of salvation, they are not bound to keep up any of their reputation or interest, as long as they have themselves no hand in the extremes and passions of the people. And some that have wives and children, and nothing but the people's charity to find them food and raiment, being turned out of all public maintenance by their afflicters, and prosecuted still with continued violence, will think that it is not their duty to beg their bread from door to door; nor to turn their families to be kept on the alms of the parish, by losing the affection of those people, whose charity only they can expect relief from: and therefore, they will think that necessity, and preservation of their families' lives and health, will better excuse their silence, when they defend not those that would destroy them, against the over-much opposition of the people; than the command of their afflicters will excuse their silence, if they neglect to preach the christian faith. And some will think, that finding themselves hated and hunted by one party, if they lose the affection of the other also, they shall have none to do their office with, nor to do any good to; and that they shall but leave the people whom they displease, to follow those passionate leaders, that will tempt them to more dangerous extremities, against the peace of christian societies.
But the most judicious and resolved ministers, that live not on the favour or maintenance of the people, or are quite above all worldly interest, will behave themselves wisely, moderately, and yet resolvedly; and will do nothing that shall distaste sober and wise men, nor yet despise the souls of the most impotent or indiscreet: but by solid principles, endeavour to build them upon solid grounds; and to use them with the tenderness, as nurses should do their crying children. But yet they will not cherish their sin, under the pretence of profiting their souls; nor, by silence, be guilty of their blood; nor so much as connive at those dangerous extremes, that seem to serve some present exigence and job; but threaten future ruin to the churches, and dishonour to the christian cause. And therefore they resolve not to neglect the duties of charity to the bitterest of their persecutors; and the rather, because it will prove in the end a charity to the church, and to the souls of the passionate, whose charity they labour to keep alive. And silence at sin is contrary to their trust and office: and they will not be guilty of that carnal wisdom, which would do evil that good may come by it; or that dare not seek to cure the principles of uncharitableness, divisions, or extremities in the people, for fear of losing advantages of doing them good; or that dare not disown unlawful schisms and separations, for fear of encouraging those malignants that call lawful practices by that name. They will do God's work (though with prudence, and not destructive rashness, yet) with fidelity and self-denial. And they will lay at Christ's feet, not only their interest in the favour of superiors; and their peace, and safety, and liberty, and estates, and lives, which are exposed to malignant cruelty, among the Cainites of the world; but also all the good thoughts, and words, and favour of the religious sort of people, yea, and pastors too. And they will look more to the interest of the whole church, than of a narrow party; and of posterity, than of the present time; as knowing, that at long running, it is only truth that will stand uppermost, when malignant violence, and sectarian passions, are both run out of breath. And therefore, in simplicity, and godly sincerity, they will have their conversations in the world; and not in fleshly wisdom, or selfish blinding passions or factions. Let all men use them how they will, or judge or call them what they will; they will not therefore be false to God and to their consciences. And seeing it is their office to govern and teach the people, they will not be governed by the favour of the most censorious, ignorant, or proud; but will guide them as faithful teachers, till they are deserted by them, and disabled. But the sober, ancient, wise, and experienced, will always cleave to them, and forsake the giddy and sectarian way.
96. In the heat of these extremities, the most peaceable and sober part, both of the conformists and nonconformists, will be in best esteem with the grave and sober people; but in the greatest strait, with both the extremes.
97. The godly and peaceable conformists, will get the love of the sober, by their holy doctrine and lives: but they will be despised by the sectaries, because they conform; and they will be suspected by the proud and persecuting clergy, as leaning to the dissenters, and strengthening them by their favour; because these ministers will, in all their parishes, more love and honour the godly nonconformists, than the irreligious, ignorant, worldly, dead-hearted multitude, or the malignant enemies of godliness.
98. Hereupon these conformists being taken for the chief upholders of the nonconformists, will be under continual jealousies and rebukes. And perhaps new points of conformity shall be devised, to be imposed on them, which it is known their consciences are against; that so they may be forced also to be nonconformists, because secret enemies are more dangerous than open foes.
99. These conformists being thus troubled, will feel also the stirring of passion in themselves; and by the injury, will be tempted to think more hardly of their afflicters than before. And so will part of them turn downright nonconformists; and the other part will live in displeasure, till they see an opportunity to show it. And these are the likeliest to cross and weaken the worldly, persecuting clergy, of any men.
100. And as for the moderate nonconformists, that understand what they do, and why, and seek the reconciling of all dissenters; they will also be loved and honoured by the sober, grave, and experienced christians: but both extremes will be against them. The sectaries will say, as before, that they are lukewarm, and carnal, selfish, complying men. The proud, imposing clergy will say, that it is they that have drawn the people into these extremes; and then complain of them that they cannot rule them. And they will tell them, that till they conform themselves, their moderation doth but strengthen the nonconformists, and keep up the reputation of sobriety among them. And the nearer they come to conformity, the more dangerous they are, as being more able to supplant it. And thus the moderate and reconcilers, will be as the wedge that is pressed by both sides, in the cleft of church divisions; and no side liketh them, because they are not given up to the factious passions or interest of either.
101. Only those will, in all these extremities and divisions, keep their integrity; who are, 1. Wise. 2. Humble and self-denying. 3. Charitable, and principled with a spirit of love. 4. And do take the favour of God and heaven alone for their hope and portion, whatever becometh of them in the world. But the worldly persecuting, and the sectarian party, will be both constituted by these contrary principles: 1. Ignorance and error. 2. Pride of their own understandings; every one thinking that all are intolerable that are not of their mind and way. 3. Uncharitableness, malice, or want of love to others as to themselves. 4. And overvaluing their worldly accommodations, honours, and estates.
102. Hereupon the instruments of a foolish shepherd, will still be used to the greater scattering of the flocks. And because none are so able to dispute against them as the moderate, therefore they will be taken for their most dangerous adversaries. And when they are greatly inclined to the healing of these wounds, the violent and lordly will not suffer them; but will pour oil upon the flames, which moderate men would quench. And, as if they were blindfolding and scourging Christ again, they will follow the people with afflicting wounds; and then charge the moderate ministers with their discontents; and charge them to reduce them to peace and conformity. And if they cannot get them to love and honour those that are still scourging them with scorpions, the scourgers will lay the blame on these ministers, and say, it is all long of them that the people love not those that wound them. And they that cry out most for peace will not endure it, nor give the peace-makers leave to do any thing that will accomplish it; nor will keep the spur out of the people's sides, whilst they look that others (spurred more sharply) should hold the reins; which yet at the same time they take out of their hands, and forbid them to hold, by forbidding them to preach the gospel. So that it will be the sum of their expectations, Perform not the office of pastors, nor preach the gospel of peace and piety to the people any more: but yet, without preaching to them, see that you teach them all to love and honour us, while we silence you, and afflict them; or else we will account you intolerable, seditious schismatics, and use you as such.