SERMONS PREACHED Upon Several Occasions. By ROBERT SOUTH, D.D. and Chaplain to his royal Highness the Duke of YORK.  
OXFORD, Printed by H. Hall, for Ric. Davis and Will. not. 1679.   

The CONTENTS.  
SERMON I.  Math. 10.33. 
But whosoever shall deny me before men him will I also deny before my Father which is in Heaven  
SERMON II.  1 King 13. ch. 33, 34. v. 
After this thing Jeroboam returned not from his evil way, but made again of the lowest of the people Priests of the High places: whosoever would, he consecrated him, and he became one of the Priests of the High Places.  
And this thing became sin unto the house of Jeroboam, even to cut it off, and to destroy it from off the face of the Earth.  
SERMON III.  Gen. 1.27. 
So God created man in his own Image, in the Image of God created he him.  
SERMON IV.  Prov. 3.17. 
Her ways are ways of Pleasantness.  
SERMON V.  2 Titus, last verse. 
These things Speak and Exhort, and rebuk with all Authority. Let no man Despise thee.  
SERMON VI.  7 John 17. 
If any man will do his Will, he shall know of the Doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself.   

These Errors( amongst many more that have escaped the press) the Reader is desired to correct, as most perverting the sense.  
IN the Preface for nad red and, for homnem red hominem. In the Sermons for Sun r. son. p. 6. l. 3. for Strikes his words r. Strikes at his words. p. 6. l. 20. for loose r. lose. p. 11. l. 21. for unite consent r. unite and consent. p. 12. l. 25. for all carnalityes r. all the carnalityes. p. 16. l. 11. for here r. hear. p. 21. l. 14. for the metaphysics r. of metaphysics. p. 22. l. 2. for a probable r. Probable. p. 25. l. 13. for the poor r. that poor. p. 41. l. 17. for ao Sacrifice r. to Sacrifice. p. 61. l. 22. for laws hinder. r laws can hinder. p. 68. l. 2. for Pro. selites. r. Proselytes. p. 74. l. 15. for Innovations. r. Innovators. p. 82. l. 12. for {αβγδ} r. {αβγδ} p. 86. l. 20. for yet argues. r. yet it argues. p: 89. l. 13. for {αβγδ}. p. 89, l. 20. for the golden Censer. r. his golden Censer. p. 91. l. 5. for perfection. r. impersection. p. 97. l. 4. for the disputant. r. the Skill of the disputant. p. 104. l. 13. for remains. r. retains. p. 137. l. 7. for tho where &c. r. that where. p. 149. l. 10. for bottom r. bosom. p. 164. l. 8. for that are so peculiarly. r. that so peculiarly. p. 178. l. 24. for show groundless. r. show the groundless. p. 239. l. 1. for when. r. when. p. 267. l. 6. Truth. r. truth's. p. 295. l. 22.   

INTEREST DEPOSED, AND truth RESTORED, OR A Word in Season delivered in Two SERMONS: The first at St. MARYES in OXFORD, on the 24th of July, 1659. being the time of the Assizes: as also of the Fears and Groans of the Nation in the threatened and expected ruin of the Laws, ministry, and Universities. The other Preached before the Honourable Society of LINCOLNS-INN. By ROBERT SOUTH, then Master of Arts, and Student of CHRIST-CHURCH. The Fourth Edition.  
OXFORD, Printed by H. Hall, Printer to the University, for Ric. Davis, and Will. not. 1678.   

TO THE RIGHT WORSHIP-FULL EDWARD ATKINS, sergeant at Law, and formerly one of the Justices of the COMMON-PLEAS.  
Honoured Sir,  
THough at first it was free, and in my choice, whether or no I should publish these Discourses, yet the Publication being once Resolved, the Dedication was not so indifferent; the Nature of the Subject, no less than the Obligations of the Author, styling them in a peculiar manner Yours: For since their drift is to carry the most Endangered, and Endangering Truth, above the Safest, when sinful, Interest; as a practise upon grounds of Reason the most Generous, and of Christianity the most Religious; to whom rather should this Assertion repair as to a Patron, then to Him whom it has for an instance? Who in a case of eminent competition choose Duty before Interest, and when the judge grew inconsistent with the Iustice, preferred rather to be Constant to sure Principles, than to an unconstant Government: And to retreat to an innocent and Honoable privacy, then to sit and Act iniquity by a Law; and make your Age and Conscience,( the one Venerable, the other Sacred Drudges to the tyranny of fanatic, Perjured usurpers. The next attempt of this Discourse is a Defence of the ministry, and that at such a time when none owned them upon the Bench( for then you had quitted it) but when on the contrary we lived to hear one in the very face of the university, as it were in defiance of us and our Profession openly in his Charge defend the Quakers and Fanaticks, persons not fit to be named in such Courts, but in an Indictment. But, Sir, in the Instructions I here presumed to give to others, concerning what they should do, you may take a narrative of what you have done: what respected their Actions as a Rule or Admonition, applied to yours is only a Rehearsal, whose Zeal in asserting the Ministerial Cause is so generally known, so gratefully acknowledged, that I dare affirm, that in what I deliver, you red the words indeed of One, but the Thanks of All. Which affectionate Concernment of yours for them, seems to argue a spiritual sense, and experimental taste of their Works, and that you have reaped as much from their Labours, as others have done from their Lands: For to me it seemed always strange, and next to Impossible, that a man converted by the word Preached, should ever hate and persecute a Preacher. And since you have several times in discourse declared yourself for that Government in the Church, that is founded upon Scripture, Reason, apostolical practise and Antiquity, and( we are sure) the only one that can consist with the Present Government of State, I thought the latter Discourse also might fitly address itself to you, in the which you may red your Iudgment, as in the other your practise. And now since it has pleased Providence, at length to turn our Captivity, and answer persecuted Patience with the unexpected returns of Settlement; to remove our Rulers, and restore our Ruler; and not onely to make our Exactors righteousness, but what is better, to give us righteousness instead of Exaction, and hopes of Religion to a Church worried with reformation; I believe upon a due and impartial reflection on what is past, you now find no cause to Repent, that you never dipped your hands in the Bloody High Courts of Justice, properly so called only by Antiphrasis; nor ever prostituted the Scarlet rob to those Employments, in which you must have worn the Colour of your Sin in the Badge of your Office: but notwithstanding all the Enticements of a Prosperous villainy, abhorred the purchase, when the price was Blood. So that now being privileged by an happy Vnconcernment in those legal murders, you may take a sweeter relish of your own Innocence, by beholding the misery of others Guilt, who being Guilty before God, and infamous before men, Obnoxious to both, begin to find the first fruits of their sin in the universal scorn of all, their apparent Danger, and unlikely Remedy: which beginnings being at length consummated by the hand of Justice, the cry of Blood and sacrilege will cease, mens doubts will be Satisfied, and Providence Absolved.  
And thus, Sir, having presumed to honour my first essays in Divinity, by prefixing to them a Name, to which Divines are so much obliged; I should here in the close of this Address, contribute a Wish at least to your Happiness: But since we desire it not yet in another World, and your Enjoyments in this( according to the Standard of a Christian desire) are so complete, that they require no Addition; I shall turn my Wishes into Gratulations, and congratulating their fullness only wish their Continuance: Praying that you may still possess what you possess; and do what you do; that is reflect upon a clear, unblotted, acquitting Conscience, and feed upon the ineffable Comforts of the Memorial of a Conquered temptation; without the danger of returning to the trial. And this( Sir) I account the greatest felicity that you can enjoy, and therefore the greatest that he can desire, who is  
Yours in all Observance, RO. SOUTH. Ch. Ch. 25. of May, 1660.   

The Preface to the Reader.  
THat being conscious to myself of having in Discourse so often condemned the scribbling of the present Age, I should yet now own it by my Practise; especially in that sort of Writing in which several have gone before me, whom it is no glory to come behind; I find a necessity of bespeaking the Readers acceptance with Excuse, which yet I trust I shall not manage so, as to make it only matter for another, but present him with Reason, as well as Apology. And first for the Publication of these two Discourses, the one preached in the time of our Fears, the other of our Hopes, and now both coming forth in the beginning of our Fruition, I shall not pled their having past the Test and Approbation of two of the most Judicious and Learned Auditories in the Nation, as supposing that was rather for the seasonableness of the Truth, than any Elegance of the Composure, and more for the Venture than the performance: Yet from whatsoever cause it came, I shall not Vouc● it as a reason of the publication; since the same persons may appland the same thing from the Pulpit, that they shall afterwards hiss coming from the Press; as could be easily instanced in the Forlorn Works of some unfortunate Divines: But much less was it the insolent imprudent itch of appearing in public that induced me to this, as being confident that these Discourses had more Hearers than they are like to find Readers; so that my present attempt may be rather termed an Edition than a publication. But least of all I pled the importunity of Friends that stale pretence for publishing so many scribles; such as being by much importunity brought to the press, need a greater to bring them to perusal. But because a sordid, complying Spirit has been often charged upon the University, and( we must confess) a spice of it has appeared in many amongst us, who have fouled, as well as disturbed these fountains; I thought good to let our Detractors understand that in the very depth of Sectarian barbarism, when the professed Enemies of the Church were the only favourites of the State, and the very Pillars of it, the Universities, and ministers were falling, there has been some, who durst assert a truth, though to the visible danger of their present Enjoyments, and the utter extinction of their future Hopes; and for so desperate a service the most inconsiderable person was the fittest, whose success would have equally been an advantage, and whose ruin no loss. Nor can I deny but that I was desirous to clear myself from the undeserved surmises, that some( whose good esteem I have cause to value) have had of me; as if the injurious favours of some had not only courted, but won me to a servile compliance, which I always abhorred: But such was my fate, that some while they were in power injured me by Persecution, when Declining, by their favour. The Vindication also of some things here delivered was no small inducement to a Publication: For notwithstanding the forementioned acceptance these Discourses found, yet the former was attached by some severe Reprehenders, who according to the canting Dialect of Walling ford house( which forty years ago would not have been understood, neither will it forty years hence) charged it as full of much Wrath and Darkness; but it seems it was such darknss as the tyrannizing Egyptians began to feel: And I am sure no more Wrath then was deserved, and therefore very well bestowed. However, Providence has encouraged it to see the Light, while some of its Reprehenders sit in Darkness. Yet since by Warrant from the spirit itself, we may be angry, and sin not, the sharpness of a Reprehension is to be ascribed to the Nature of the thing that merits, not to the Temper of him that delivers it. And since it has pleased God to unshackle men from Engagements, Visitations, and the Awe of Usupers, it is not to be expected, that perjury, Blood, and sacrilege, can be any longer Gospellized into Acts of piety, or high strains of Evangelicall perfection, because indeed they go much beyond the command. Yet that person, the late Oppressor of this Nation, and the known Father of Enthusiasts, in whom those three perfections eminently concurred, and who, we confess, is glanced upon in what follows, even him I have heard commended, as one, who notwithstanding those forementioned Infirmities( so called I conceive, because they were the matter of his daily Temptations) yet as to the main was truly pious, and to use his Encomiasts very expression, had great Communion with God. I suppose in the same sense, that the Faithful. Innocent,& devout, hold Communion with the devil. Wherefore if by wrath was meant a Free( though at that time Dangerous) Animadversion upon such Spots of Christianity, We own the Charge, and readily confess, that the ensuing Discourse was not Calculated for the soothing of Galled Consciences, but really intended to gull them more; nad professedly designed to reprove Avarice, Oppression, pious Frauds, Blasphemies, and Perjuries; ways not heretofore known of holding Communion with God. And as for personal reflections, I know none such spoken, but made such by being applied. And if some proceeded to Application before I did, and from their consciousness inferred their concernment, the over-ruling sentence of a Guilty conscience placing them under the dint of any of these Reproofs, I am not he that either can, or would Absolve them: For as I have often said, either they are not Guilty, and so they are not concerned in them, or Guilty, and so they deserve them. But whereas it has been further objected, that I proposed many doubts, which I left unanswered; I am sorry, that it was a fault, to think so honourably of my Auditory as to esteem it needless: But it is not in my power to inform some mens Ignorance, nor my desire to gratify their Humour: And whether this Plea proceeds from a tender Conscience, or a tender head, I am not much concerned, but acquiesce fully in this, that for the Objections, those that were Learned, could hear and answer them; those that were not, could not apprehended them, both therefore equally without danger. And whereas I do not now at least in the Printing them, add their solutions; I answer, that in regard I profess to publish the Sermon I then prached, I should not verify my word, should I by such Additions make it another. Having given an account of my design in the former Discourse, and wiped off the Censures that for some time have stuck upon it, I shall endeavour to prepare the Reader for a fair understanding of the Second, which being preached before many of the most considerable Members of the House of Commons, had an Auditory suitable to its design. For in as much as an Erastian Antiministerial Spirit has for many years acted most of the Nation, who would command the Service, without submitting to the discipline of the ministers; And since Arguments from piety or Scripture work little upon most of them, I thought it the best service that could be done to the Ecclesiastical Cause, to make it appear that even a politic consideration would persuade that, which was commanded upon a spiritual: By showing how Religion is that alone that holds together the whole frame of Government; it being upheld itself by the Encouragement, and Honour of the Clergy. So that whereas I enforce it chiefly by Arguments drawn from Civil Concernments, I would have none offended, since my intent is limited here only to this respect, it being an Argument ad homnem; not the only One that the Subject would afford, but that which was the most likely to reach the temper of the Times. And if I infer the necessity of Religion, and an Honourable Clergy from the Exigence of the Civil Interest, I suppose the necessity of it from Gods Command, and from the salvation of mens souls, is unquestionable: Wherefore I shall take the boldness to entreat those who shall think it worthy their Reading, before they Censure, to vouchsafe it least an attentive perusal, in as much as it presents to them some Truths, I think not often observed, I am sure, nor usually delivered. For my own part, I cannot conceive how Religion can stand without a ministry, nor the ministry without its two Essential Props, Jurisdiction and Respect. It is the old, sly, and undermining Plea, that Ministers ought only to procure respect by their learning, and laborious, upright life; other advantages belong not to them. But to answer this; besides, that late experience proves, that the most Pious, and the most Learned have been the most persecuted and contemned, it is irrational to think, that men ever yet made their Duty the measure of their practise. And howsoever all ought, yet there are but very few who reverence Ministers for those Qualifications; but still those that do not, must be governed, or the Church ruined: therefore the Assistance of Secular supports must be taken in. Most therefore will confess Church Government Necessary, though they deny that Necessity to any determinate kind. But since Church Government in General sequestered from its several kinds, is a mere Idea, I am apt to think that the determination of it was commanded together with the thing itself. And since only Particular, not universal Natures fall under practise, in as much as the Apostles did actually Govern the Church, it must needs be that it was by a certain determinate kind of Government: And then considering the Infallible apostolic Spirit by which they were acred, I conceive their practise and example was a Virtual Command: especially when the reason and grounds of it continue still the same. What that practise was, though there are many not obscure Traces of it in Scripture, yet I desire to gather it from the general practise of the Church successively continued from their times: the most rational Guide where the Scripture is silent, and the best Comment where it is Obscure. And upon this Rule and Ground, I hold it more reasonable to err, than upon fanatic principles to stumble upon the Truth. Having thus shown my intent in these Sermons, and also the Rule, to the guidance of which I intend to resign myself, in whatsoever God shall hereafter call me either to Speak or Act as a Minister, I shall venture these Meditations into the world. What reception they may find I am ignorant, but not solicitous. But sure, of all persons; Ministers, Scholars, and especially those of the universities, have little cause to censure, or reprehend me, who have freely ventured the Whole of my Small Advantages from them, in asserting them in a day of the blackest danger and rebuk, that I trust will ever befall the Church. However, I value not the taunts, the murmurs of any: I have learned by bearing, to contemn them. Frequent Endurance has bread an Apathy. But Whatsoever men shall mutter, rail, or declaim against these Writings, either out of a dislike of the Subject here treated of, or a personal hatred of myself; yet in this I rest satisfied, and assured, that the truth here spoken of, will stand, whatsoever becomes of him that spoken it.   
Math. 10.33. 
But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I deny before my Father which is in Heaven.  
AS the great comprehensive Gospel duty is the denial of Self, so the grand Gospel sin that confronts it, is the denial of Christ. These two are both the commanding and the dividing Principles of all our Actions: For whosoever acts in opposition to one, does it always in behalf of the other. None ever opposed Christ, but it was to gratify Self: None ever renounced the Interest of Self, but from a prevailing love to the Interest of Christ. The subject I have here pitched upon, may seem improper in these times, and in this place, where the number of Professors, and of men is the same; where the Cause and Interest of Christ has been so cried up; and Christs personal Reign and kingdom so called for, and expected. But since it has been still Preached up, but Acted down; and dealt with, as the Eagle in the Fable did with the Oyster, carrying it up on high, that by letting it fall he might dash it in pieces: I say, since Christ must Reign, but his Truths be made to serve; I suppose it is but Reason, to distinguish between Profession and Pretence; and to conclude, that mens present crying, hail King, and bending the knee to Christ, are onely in order to his future Crucifixion.  
For the discovery of the sense of the words, I shall inquire into their occasion. From the very beginning of the Chapter we have Christ consulting the propagation of the gospel; and in order to it( being the onely way that he knew to effect it) sending forth a ministry; and giving them a Commission, together with instructions for the Execution of it. He would have them fully acquainted with the Nature and Extent of their Office; and so he joins Commission with instruction; by one he conveys Power, by the other knowledge. Supposing( I conceive) that upon such an Undertaking, the more learned his Ministers were, they would prove never the less faithful. And thus having fitted them, and stripped them of all manner of defence, v. 9. He sends them forth amongst wolves: A hard Expedition, you will say, to go amongst wolves; but yet much harder to convert them into Sheep; and no less hard even to discern some of them, possibly being under Sheeps clothing; and so by the advantage of that dress, sooner felt, than discovered: probably also such as had both the properties of wolves, that is, they could whine and howl, as well as bite and devour. But that they might not go altogether naked among their Enemies, the onely armor that Christ allows them, is Prudence and Innocence; Be ye wise as Serpents, but harmless as Doves, v. 16. Weapons not at all offensive, yet most suitable to their Warfare, whose greatest encounters were to be Exhortations, and whose only Conquest, Escape. Innocence is the best caution, and we may unite the expression to be wise as a Serpent, is to be harmless as a Dove. Innocence is like a polished armor; it adorns, and it defends. In sum, he tells them, that the opposition they should meet with, was the greatest imaginable, from the 16. to the 26. v. but in the ensuing verses he promises them an equal proportion of assistance; which if it were not an Argument of force enough to out-weigh the fore mentioned discouragements, he casts into the balance, the promise of a Reward to such as should Execute, and of Punishment to such as should Neglect their Commission: The Reward in the former verse, Whosoever shall confess me before men, &c. the punishment in this, But whosoever shall deny, &c. As if by way of preoccupation he should have said, Well: here you see your Commission, this is your Duty, these are your Discouragements: never seek for shifts and evasions from worldly afflictions; this is your reward, if you perform it, this is your Doom if you decline it.  
As for the Explication of the words they are clear and easy; and their Originals in the Greek are of single signification, without any ambiguity; and therefore I shall not trouble you, by proposing how they run in this, or that Edition: or straining for an interpretation where there is no difficulty, or distinction where there is no difference. The onely Exposition that I shall give of them, will be to compare them to other Parallel Scriptures, and peculiarly to that in the 8. Mark 38. Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of me and my words, in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him also shall the Sun of man be ashamed, when be cometh in the glory of the Father, with the holy Angels. These words are a Comment upon my Text.  

1. What is here in the Text called a denying of Christ, is there termed a being ashamed of him, that is, in those words the Cause is expressed, and here the Effect: for therefore we deny a thing, because we are ashamed of it. First Peter is ashamed of Christ, then he denies him.  
2. What is here termed a denying of Christ, is there called a being ashamed of Christ and his words: Christs truths are his second Self. And he that offers contempt to a Kings letters or edicts, virtually affronts the King; it strikes his words, but it rebounds upon his Person.  
3. What is here said before men, is there phrased, in this adulterous and sinful generation. These words import the hindrance of the duty enjoined which therefore is here purposely enforced with a non obstante to all opposition. The Term Adulterous I conceive may chiefly relate to the Jews who being nationally espoused to God by Covenant, every sin of theirs was in a peculiar manner spiritual Adultery.  
4. What is here said, I will deny him before my Father, is there expressed: I will be ashamed of him before my Father and his holy Angels, that is when he shall come to judgement, when revenging Justice shall come in pomp, attended with the glorious retinue of all the Host of Heaven. In short, the sentence pronounced declares the judgement, the solemnity of it the terror.   
From the words, we may deduce these Observations.  

1. We shall find strong motives and temptations from men, to draw us to a denial of Christ.  
2. No Terrors, or Solicitations from men, though never so great can Warrant or Excuse such a denial.  
3. To deny Christs words, is to deny Christ.   
But since these Observations are rather implyed then expressed in the words, I shall wave them, and instead of deducing a doctrine distinct from the words, prosecute the words themselves under this Doctrinal Paraphrase.  Whosoever shall deny, disown, or be ashamed of either the Person or truths of Jesus Christ for any fear or favour of man; shall with shane be disowned, and Eternally rejected by him at the dreadful judgement of the great day. 
The discussion of this shall lye in these things.  

1. To show how many ways Christ and his truths may be denied, and what is the denial here chiefly intended.  
2. To show what are the causes that induce men to a denial of Christ and his truths.  
3. To show how far a man may consult his safety in time of persecution, without denying Christ.  
4. To show what is imported in Christs denying us before his Father in Heaven.  
5. To apply all to the present Occasion.   
But before I enter upon these, I must briefly premise this, that though the Text and the Doctrine run peremptory and absolute, Whosoever denies Christ, shall assuredly be denied by him: yet still there is a tacit condition in the words supposed, unless repentance intervene. For this and many other Scriptures, though as to their formal terms they are Absolute, yet as to their sense they are conditional. God in mercy has so framed, and tempered his word, that we have for the most part, a Reserve of mercy wrapped up in a Curse. And the very first judgement that was pronounced upon fallen man, was with the alloy of a promise. Wheresoever we find a Curse to the Guilty expressed, in the same words mercy to the Penitent is still Understood. This premised, I come now to discuss the first thing, viz. How many ways Christ and his truths may be denied, &c. Here first in general I assert, that we may deny him in all those acts that are capable of being morally good or evil: those are the proper Scene in which we act our confessions or denials of him. Accordingly therefore all ways of denying Christ I shall comprise under these three.  
1. We may deny him and his truths by an Erroneous, heretical judgement. I know it is doubted whether a bare error in judgement can condemn: but since truths absolutely necessary to Salvation, are so clearly revealed, that we cannot err in them, unless we be notoriously wanting to ourselves; herein the fault of the judgement is resolved into a precedent default in the will: and so the case is put out of doubt. But here it may be replied, are not truths of absolute and fundamental necessity, very disputable: as the Deity of Christ, the Trinity of Persons? if they are not in themselves disputable, why are they so much disputed? Indeed I believe if we trace these disputes to their original cause we shall find, that they never sprung from a reluctancy in Reason to embrace them. For this reason itself dictates as most rational, to assent to any thing though seemingly contrary to Reason, if it is revealed by God, and we are certain of the Revelation. These two supposed, these disputes must needs arise only from curiosity and singularity; and these are faults of a diseased will. But some will further demand in behalf of these men, whether such as assent to every word in Scripture, for so will those that deny the natural Deity of Christ and the Spirit, can be yet said in Doctrinals to deny Christ? to this I answer, since words abstracted from their proper sense and signification, loose the nature of words, and are only equivocally so called: inasmuch as the persons we speak of, take them thus; and derive the letter from Christ, but the signification from themselves, they cannot be said properly to assent so much as to the words of the Scripture. And so their case also is clear. But yet more fully to state the matter, how far a denial of Christ in belief and judgement is damnable: We will propose the question. Whether those that hold the fundamentals of faith, may deny Christ damnably, in respect of those superstructures and consequences that arise from them? I answer in brief by fundamental truths are understood, 1. Either such without the belief of which we cannot be saved, or, 2. such, the belief of which is sufficient to save: If the question be proposed of fundamentals in this latter sense, it contains its own answer; for he that believes those truths, the belief of which is sufficient to save, the disbelief or denial of their consequences cannot damn. But what and how many these fundamentals are, it will then be agreed upon when all Sects, Opinions and persuasions do unite consent. 2ly. If we speak of fundamentals in the former sense, as they are only truths without which we cannot be saved: it is manifest that we may believe them, and yet be damned for denying their consequences: for that which is only a Condition without which we cannot be saved, is not therefore a Cause sufficient to save: much more is required to the latter, then to the former. I conclude therefore, that to deny Christ in our judgement, will condemn, and this concerns the learned: Christ demands the homage of your understanding: he will have your reason bend to him, you must put your Heads under his feet. And we know that heretofore he who had the Leprosy in this part, was to be pronounced utterly unclean. A poisoned reason, an infected judgement is Christs greatest enemy. And an Error in the judgement, is like an imposthume in the Head, which is always noisome, and frequently mortal.  
2. We may deny Christ verbally, and by oral expressions. Now our words are the interpreters of our hearts the transcripts of the judgement with some further addition of good or evil. He that interprets usually enlarges. What our judgement whispers in secret, these proclaim upon the house top. To deny Christ in the former imports enmity, but in these open Defiance. Christs passion is renewed in both: he that mis-judges of him, condemns him, but he that blasphemes him spits in his face. Thus the Jews& the Pharisees denied Christ. We know that this man is a sinner, Joh. 9.24. and a deceiver, Mat. 27.63. and he casts out divels by the prince of the divels. 2. Mat. 24. And thus Christ is daily denied, in many blasphemies printed& divulged, and many horrid Opinions vented against the truth. The schools dispute whether in morals the external Action superadds any thing of good or evil to the internal elicit Act of the will: but certainly the enmity of our judgments is wrought up to an high pitch before it rages in an open denial. And it is a sign that it is grown too big for the Heart, when it seeks for vent in our words. Blasphemy uttered is Error heightened with Impudence. It is sin scorning a concealment, not onely committed, but defended. He that denies Christ in his judgement sins, but he that speaks his denial, vouches and owns his sin: and so by publishing it does what in him lies to make it universal and by writing it to establish it eternal. There is another way of denying Christ with our mouths, which is Negative: that is when we do not aclowledge and confess him: but of this I shall have occasion to treat under the discussion of the third general Head.  
3. We may deny Christ in our Actions and practise, and these speak much louder then our tongues. To have an Orthodox belief, and a true Profession, concurring with a bad life, is only to deny Christ with a greater solemnity. Belief& Profession will speak thee a Christian but very faintly, when thy conversation proclaims thee an infidel. Many while they have Preached Christ in their Sermons, have red a lecture of atheism in their practise. We have many here that speak of Godliness, Mortification and self-denial; but if these are so, what means the Bleating of the Sheep, and the lowing of the Oxen, the noise of their ordinary sins, and the cry of their great ones? If Godly, why do they wallow and steep in all carnalities of the world, under pretence of Christian liberty? Why do they make Religion ridiculous by pretending to prophesy, and when their Prophecies prove delusions, why do they Blaspheme? If such are self-denyers, what means the gripping, the prejudice, the coverousnesse, and the pluralities preached against,& retained, and the Arbitrary Government of many? When such men Preach of self-denial and humility I cannot but think of Seneca, who praised Poverty, and that very safely, in the midst of his great Riches and Gardens; and even exhorted the world to throw away their Gold, perhaps( as one well conjectures) that he might gather it up; So these desire men to be humble, that they may domineer without opposition. But it is an easy matter to commend patience, when there is no danger of any trial, to extol humility in the midst of honours, to begin a Fast after dinner. But O how Christ will deal with such persons when he shall draw forth all their Actions bare and stripped from this decieving veil of their heavenly speeches! He will then say, it was not your sad Countenance, nor your Hypocritical groaning, by which you did either confess or honour me: but your Worldliness, your luxury, your sinister partial dealing; these have denied me, these have wounded me, these have gone to my heart: these have caused the weak to stumble, and the profane to blaspheme: these have offended the one, and hardened the other. You have indeed spoken me fair, you have saluted me with your lips, but even then you betrayed me. Depart from me therefore you professors of holiness, but you workers of iniquity.  
And thus having shown the three ways by which Christ may be denied, it may now be demanded, which is the denial here intended in the words.  
Answer 1. I conceive if the words are taken as they were particularly and personally directed to the Apostles upon the occasion of their mission to preach the Gospel, so the denial of him, was the not acknowledgement of the Deity or Godhead of Christ; and the reason to prove, that this was then Principally intended, is this; Because this was the truth in those dayes chiefly opposed, and most disbelieved, as appears, because Christ and the Apostles did most earnestly inculcate the belief of this, and accepted men upon the bare acknowledgement of this,& baptism was administered to such as did but profess this, 8. Act. 37, 38. And indeed as this one aphorism Jesus Christ is the Son of God, is virtually and eminently the whole Gospel, so to confess or deny it is virtually to embrace or reject the whole round and series of Gospel truths. For he that acknowledges Christ to be the Son of God, by the same does consequentially aclowledge that he is to be believed and obeied, in whatsoever he does enjoin and deliver to the Sons of men: and therefore that we are to repent and believe and rest upon him for salvation, and to deny ourselves: and within the compass of this is included whatsoever is called Gospel.  
As for the manner of our denying the Deity of Christ here prohibited, I conceive it was by words and oral expressions verbally to deny, and dis-acknowledge it: This I ground upon these reasons.  
1. Because it was such a denial as was before men, and therefore consisted in open Profession, for a denial in judgement and practise, as such, is not always before men.  
2. Because it was such a denial or confession of him as would appear in Preaching but this is managed in words and verbal profession.  
But now 2ly. If we take the words as they are a general precept equally relating to all times, and to all persons, though delivered only upon a particular occasion to the Apostles( as I suppose they are to be understood) so I think they comprehend all the three ways mentioned of confessing or denying Christ: but principally in respect of practise and that 1. Because by this he is most honoured or dishonoured. 2. Because without this the other two cannot save. 3. Because those who are ready enough to confess both in judgement and profession, are for the most part very prove to deny him shamefully in their doings.  
Pass we now to a Second thing, to show  
What are the Causes inducing men to deny Christ in his truths. I shall propose Three.  
1. The seeming supposed absurdity of many truths: upon this foundation heresy always builds. The Heathens derided the Christians, that still they required and pressed belief, and well they might( say they) since the Articles of their Religion are so absurd, that upon Principles of Science they can never win assent. It is easy to draw it forth and demonstrate, how upon this score the chief Heresies that now are said to trouble the Church, do oppose and deny the most important truths in Divinity. As first, here the denier of the Deity and satisfaction of Christ. What( says he) can the same Person be God and man? the Creature and the Creator? can we ascribe such attributes to the same thing, whereof one implies a Negation and a Contradiction of the other? Can be be also Finite and Infinite, when to be finite is not to be infinite, and to be infinite not to be finite? And when we distinguish between the Person, and the Nature, was not that distinction an invention of the schools, savouring rather the metaphysics, then Divinity? If we say that he must have been God, because he was to mediate between us and God, by the same reason they will reply, we should need a Mediator between us and Christ, who is equally God, equally offended. Then for his satisfaction, they will demand to whom this satisfaction is paid? If to God, then God pays a Price to himself: and what is it else to require and need no satisfaction, then for one to satisfy himself? Next comes in the denier of the Decrees and free grace of God. What( says he) shall we exhort, admonish, and entreat the Saints to beware of falling away finally, and at the same time assert that it is impossible for them so to fall? what shall we erect two contradictory Wills in God, or place two contradictories in the same Will: and make the Will of his Purpose and Intention run counter to the Will of his Approbation? Hear another concerning the Scripture and Justification. What( says the Romanist) rely in matters of faith upon a private Spirit? How do you know this is the sense of such a Scripture? Why by the Spirit. But how will you try that Spirit to be of God? Why by the Scripture: this he explodes as a circled, and so derides it. Then for Justification. How are you Justified by an imputed Righteousness? Is it yours before it is imputed, or not: if not( as we must say) is this to be Justified to have that accounted yours, that is not yours? But again, did you ever hear of any man made rich or wise by imputation? why then Righteous or Just? Now these seeming Paradoxes, attending Gospel truths, cause men of weak prejudiced intellectuals to deny them, and in them Christ, being ashamed to own faith so much( as they think) to the disparagement of their Reason.  
2. The Second thing causing men to deny the truths of Christ, is their Unprofitableness. And no wonder if here men forsake the truth and assert interest. To be pious is the way to be poor. Truth still gives its followers its own Badge and Livery, a despised nakedness. It is hard to maintain the truth, but much harder to be maintained by it: could it ever yet feed, clothe, or defend its asserters? Did ever any man quench his thirst, or satisfy his hunger with a Notion? Did ever any one live upon Propositions? The restimony of Brutus concerning virtue, is the apprehension of most concerning truth: that it is a Name, but lives and estates are things, and therefore not to be thrown away upon Words. That we are neither to worship or cringe to any thing under the Deity is a truth too strict for a Naaman: he can be content to worship the true God, but then it must be in the house of Rimmon: the reason was implyed in his condition, he was Captain of the Host, and therefore he thought it reason good to bow to Rimmon, rather then endanger his place: better Bow, then Break. Indeed some times Providence casts things so, that truth and interest lye the same way: and when it is wrapped up in this covering men can be content to follow it, to press hard after it, but it is as we pursue some beasts only for their skins: take off the covering, and though men obtain the truth, they would lament the loss of that. As Jacob wept and mourned over the torn Coat, when Joseph was alive. It is incredible to consider how interest outweighs truth. If a thing in itself be doubtful, let it make for interest and it shall be raised at least into a Probable; and if a truth be certain, and thwart interest, it will quickly fetch it down to but a Probability; nay if it does not carry with it an impregnable Evidence, it will go near to debase it to a down right falsity. How much interest casts the balance in cases dubious, I could give sundry instances, let one suffice. And that concerning the unlawfulness of Usury. Most of the Learned men in the World successively both Heathen and Christian do assert the taking of Use to be utterly unlawful; yet the Divines of the Reformed Church beyond the Seas though most severe and rigid in other things, do generally affirm into be lawful. That the case is doubtful and may be disputed with plausible arguments on either side, we may well grant: But what then is the reason that makes these Divines so unanimously concur in this opinion? Indeed I shall not affirm this to be the reason, but it may seem so to many: that they receive their Salaries by way of pension, in present ready money, and so have no other way to improve them; so that it may be suspected, that the change of their salary, would be the strongest argument to change their opinion. The truth is. Interest is the grand wheel and spring that moves the whole Universe. Let Christ and Truth say what they will, if interest will have it, gain must be Godliness: if enthusiasm is in request, learning must be inconsistent with Grace. If pay grows short, the University Maintenance must be too great. Rather then Pilate will be counted Cesars enemy, he will pronounce Christ innocent one hour, and condemn him the next. How Christ is made to truckle under the world, and how his truths are denied and shuffled with for profit and pelf, the clearest proof would be by Induction and Example. But as it is the most clear, so here it would be the most unpleasing: Wherefore I shall pass this over, since the world is now so peccant upon this account, that I am afraid Instances would be mistaken for Invectives.  
3. The third Cause inducing men to deny Christ in his truths, is their apparent danger. To confess Christ, is the ready way to be cast out of the Synagogue. The Church is a place of Graves as well as of Worship and profession. To be resolute in a Good cause is to bring upon ourselves the punishments due to a Bad. Truth indeed is a profession of the highest value, and therefore it must needs expose the owner to much danger. Christ is sometimes pleased to make the profession of himself costly, and a man cannot buy the truth but he must pay down his life and his dearest blood for it. Christianity marks a man out for destruction: and Christ sometimes chalks out such a way to Salvation, that shall verify his own saying, He that will save his life shall loose it. The first ages of the Church had a more abundant experience of this: What Paul and the rest planted by their Preaching, they watered with their Blood. We know their usage was such as Christ foretold, he sent them to Wolves, and the common course then was Christianes ad Leones. For a man to give his name to Christianity in those dayes, was to list himself a Martyr, and to bid farewell not only to the pleasures but also to the hopes of this life. Neither was it a single death only that then attended this profession, but the terror and sharpness of it was redoubled in the manner and circumstance. They had Persecutors, whose Invention was as great as their cruelty. Wit and Malice conspired to find out such tortures, such deaths, and those of such incredible anguish, that only the manner of dying was the punishment, Death itself the deliverance. To be a Martyr signifies only to witness the truth of Christ, but the witnessing of the truth was then so generally attended with this Event, that Martyrdom now signifies not only to witness, but to witness by death. The word besides its own signification importing their practise. And since Christians have been freed from Heathens, Christians themselves have turned persecutors. Since Rome from Heathen was turned Christian, it has improved its persecution into an Inquisition. Now when Christ and truth are upon these terms, that men cannot confess him, but upon pain of death, the reason of their Aposcacy and Denial is clear, men will be wise and leave Truth and misery to such as love it, they are resolved to be Cunning, let others run the hazard of being Sincere. If they must be good at so high a rate, they know they may be safe at a cheaper. Si negare sufficiat, quis erit Nocens? If to deny Christ will save them, the truth shall never make them guilty. Let Christ and his flock lye open and exposed to all weather of Persecution, Foxes will be sure to have holes. And if it comes to this that they must either renounce Religion, deny and Blaspheme Christ, forfeit their lives to the fire or the sword, it is but inverting Iobs wives advice, Curse God and live.  
3. We proceed now to the Third thing, which is to show, how far a man may consult his safety, &c.  
This he may do two ways.  
1. By withdrawing his Person. martyrdom is an heroic act of faith. An Archievement beyond an Ordinary pitch of it: to you says the Spirit it is given to suffer. 1. Phil. 29. It is a peculiar additional gift: it is a distinguishing excellency of degree, not an essential consequent of its Nature. Be ye harmless as Doves says Christ; and it is as Natural to them to take flight upon danger, as to be innocent: Let every man thoroughly consult the temper of his faith, and weigh his courage with his fears, his weakness and his Resolutions together, and take the measure of both, and see which preponderates, and if his spirit faints, if his heart misgives and melts at the very thoughts of the fire, let him fly and secure his own soul, and Christs honour. Non negat Christum fugiendo, qui ideo fugit ne neget: He does not deny Christ by flying, who therefore flies that he may not deny him. Nay, he does not so much decline, as rather change his martyrdom: He flies from the flamme, but repairs to a Desert; to poverty and hunger in a wilderness. Whereas if he would dispense with his conscience, and deny his Lord, or swallow down two or three Contradictory oaths, he should neither fear the one, nor be forced to the other.  
2. By concealing his judgement. A man sometimes is no more bound to speak than to destroy himself; and as Nature abhors this, so Religion does not command that. In the times of the Primitive Church, when the Christians dwelled amongst Heathens, it is reported of a certain Maid, how she came from her Fathers house, to one of the Tribunals of the Gentiles, and declared herself a Christian, spit in the Judges face, and so provoked him to cause her to be executed. But will any say that this was to confess Christ, or die a Martyr? He that uncalled for, uncompelled, comes and proclaims a Persecuted Truth, for which he is sure to die, only dies a confessor of his own folly, and a Sacrifice to his own rashness. martyrdom is stamped such only by Gods command; and he that ventures upon it without a Call, must endure it without a Reward: Christ will say, who required this at your hands? His Gospel does not dictate imprudence: No Evangelical Precept justles out that of a lawful self preservation. He therefore that thus throws himself upon the Sword, runs to Heaven before he is sent for: where though perhaps Christ may in mercy receive the man, yet he will be sure to disown the Martyr.  
And thus much concerning those lawful ways of securing ourselves in time of Persecution; not as if these were always lawful: For sometimes a man is bound to confess Christ openly, though he dies for it; and to conceal a Truth is to deny it. But now to show when it is our duty, and when unlawful to take these courses, by some general rule of a perpetual, never-failing truth, none ever would yet presume: For, as Aristotle says, We are not to expect Demonstrations in ethics, or politics, nor to build certain rules upon the contingency of human Actions: So, in as much as our flying from persecution, our confessing, or concealing persecuted Truths, vary and change their very nature, according to different circumstances of time, place, and persons, we cannot limit their Directions within any one universal Precept: You will say then, How shall we know when to confess, when to conceal a Truth? when to wait for, when to decline persecution? Indeed the only way that I think can be prescribed in this case, is to be earnest, and importunate with God in Prayer for special direction: And it is not to be imagined, that he who is both faithful and merciful, will leave a sincere foul in the dark upon such an occasion. But this I shall add, that the Ministers of God are not to evade, or take refuge in any of these two forementioned ways. They are public persons: and good shepherds must then chiefly stand close to the Flock when the wolf comes. For them to be silentin the Cause of Christ is to renounce it; and to fly, is to desert it. As for that place urged in favour of the contrary, in 23. v. when they persecute you in this City flee into another, it proves nothing, for the Precept was particular, and concerned only the Apostles; and that but for that time in which they were then sent to the Jews, at which time Christ kept them as a reserve for the future: For when after his death they were indifferently sent both to Jews and Gentiles, we find not this clause in their Commission, but they were to sign the Truths they preached with their blood; as we know they actually did. And moreover, when Christ bids them, being persecuted in one City fly into another, it was not( as Grotius acutely observes) that they might lye hide, or be secure in that city, but that there they might Preach the Gospel: So that their flight here was not to secure their Persons, but to continue their business. I conclude therefore, that faithful Ministers are to stand and endure the brunt. A common soldier may fly, when it is the duty of him that holds the Standard to die upon the place. And we have abundant encouragement so to do. Christ has seconded and sweetened his command with his promise: Yea the thing itself is not only our duty, but our glory. And he that has done this work, has in the very work partly received his wages. And were it put to my choice, I think I should choose rather with spitting and scorn to be tumbled into the dust in blood, bearing witness to any known Truth of our dear Lord, now opposed by the Enthusiasts of the present Age, than by a denial of those Truths through Blood and Perjury wade to a sceptre,& Lord it in a Throne. And we need not doubt, but Truth, however oppressed, will have some followers, and at length prevail. A Christ, though Crucified, will arise: And as it is in the 11. Rev. 3. The Witnesses will prophesy, though it be in Sackcloth.  
Having thus dispatched the third thing, I proceed to the fourth, which is to show, what it is for Christ to deny us before his Father in Heaven. Hitherto we have treated of mens carriage to Christ in this world; now we will describe his carriage to them in the other. These words clearly relate to the last judgement, and they are a summary description of his proceeding with men at that day.  
And here we will consider:  

1. The Action itself, He will deny them.  
2. The Circumstance of the Action, He will deny them before his Father, and the holy Angels.   
1. Concerning the first; Christs denying us, is otherwise expressed in the 13. Luk. 27. I know you not. To know in Scripture language is to approve; and so not to know, is to Reject and condemn. Now who knows how many Woes are crowded into this one sentence, I will deny him? It is( to say no more) a compendious expression of Hell, an Eternity of Torments comprised in a word: it is Condemnation itself, and what is most of all, it is Condemnation from the mouth of a Saviour. O the inexpressible horror that will seize upon a poor soul when he stands arraigned at the bar of Divine Justice! When he shall look about and see his Accuser, his Judge, the Witnesses all of them his remorsless Adversaries: The Law impleading, Mercy: and the Gospel upbraiding him, the devil, his grand Accuser, drawing his Indictment; numbering his sins with the greatest exactness, and aggravating them with the cruelest bitterness; and Conscience, like a thousand Witnesses, attesting every Article, flying in his face, and rending his very heart. And then after all, Christ, from whom only Mercy could be expected, owning the Accusation. It will be Hell enough to hear the sentence; the very Promulgation of the Punishment will be part of the punishment, and anticipate the Execution. If Peter was so abashed when Christ gave him a look after his denial; if there was so much dread in his looks when he stood as Prisoner, how much greater will it be when he sits as a judge? If it was so fearful when he looked his denier into Repentance, what will it be when he shall look him into Destruction? Believe it when we shall hear an Accusation from an Advocate, our eternal doom from our intercessor, it will convince us that a denial of Christ is something more than a few transitory words: What trembling, what out-cries, what astonishment will there be upon the pronoucing this sentence! Every word will come upon the sinner like an Arrow striking through his reins; like Thunder that is heard, and consumes at the same instant. Yea it will be a denial with scorn, with taunting exprobrations; and to be miserable without commiseration, is the height of misery. He that falls below Pitty, can fall no tower. Could I give you a lively representation of guilt and horror on this hand, and paint out eternal wrath, and decipher eternal vengeance on the other, then might I blow you the condition of a sinner hearing himself denied by Christ: And for those whom Christ has denied, it will be in vain to appeal to the Father, unless we can imagine, that those whom Mercy has condemned Justice will absolve.  
2. For the Circumstance, He will deny us before his Father, and the holy Angels. As much as God is more glorious than man, so much is it more glorious to be confessed before him, than before men: And so much glory as there is in being confessed, so much dishonour there is in being denied. If there could be any room for comfort after the sentence of damnation, it would be this, to be executed in secret, to perish un-observed. As it is some alloy to the infamy of him that dyed ignominiously, to be butted privately. But when a mans folly must be spread open before the Angels, and all his baseness ript up before those pure Spirits, this will be a double Hell: to be thrust into utter Darkness, only to be punished by it, without the benefit of being concealed. When Christ shall compare himself, who was denied, and the thing for which he was denied together, and parallel his merits with a lust, and lay Eternity in the balance with a trifle, then the folly of the sinners choice shall be the greatest sting of his destruction. For a man shall not have the advantage of his Former Ignorance and Error, to approve his sin: Things that appeared amiable by the light of this world, will appear of a different odious hue in the clear discoveries of the Next: As that which appears to be of this colour by a dimn candle, will be found to be of another looked upon in the day. So when Christ shall have cleared up mens apprehensions about the value of things; he will propose that worthy prise for which he was denied: He will hold it up to open view, and call upon Men and Angels: Behold, look, here's the thing, here's that piece of dirt, that windy applause, the poor transitory pleasure, that contemptible danger, for which I was dishonoured, my Truths disowned, and for which life, eternity, and God himself was scorned and trampled upon by this sinner: judge all the world, whether what he so despised in the other life, he deserves to enjoy in this? How will the condemned sinner then crawl forth, and appear in his filth and shane before that undefiled tribunal, like a toad or a Snake in a Kings presence Chamber. Nothing so irksome as to have ones folly displayed before the Prudent: ones impurity before the Pure. And all this before that company surrounding him, from which he is neither able to look off, nor yet to look upon. A disgrace put upon a man in company is unsupportable: it is heightened according to the greatness, and multiplied according to the number of the persons that hear it. And now as this circumstance [ before his Father] fully speaks the shane, so also it speaks the danger of Christs then denying us. For when the accusation is heard, and the person stands convict, God is immediately lifting up his hand to infljct the eternal blow; and when Christ denies to exhibit a ransom, to step between the stroke then coming, and the sinner, it must inevitably fall upon him, and sink his guilty soul into that deep and bottomess gulf of endless perdition. This therefore is the sum of Christs denying us before his Father, viz. unsupportable shane, unavoidable destruction.  
I proceed now to the Uses that may be drawn from the Truths delivered. And here( Right Honourable) not only the present occasion, but even the words themselves seem eminently to address an Exhortation to your Honours. As for others not to deny Christ, is openly to profess him, so for you who are invested with Authority, not to deny him, is to defend him. Know therefore, that Christ does not only desire but demand your defence, and that in a double respect.  
1. In respect of his Truth. 2. Of his Members.  
1. He requires that you should defend and confess him in his Truth. heresy is a Tare sometimes not to be pulled up but by the Civill Magistrate. The word Liberty of Conscience, is much abused for the defence of it, because not well understood. Every man may have Liberty of conscience to think and judge as he pleases, but not to vent what he please. The reason is, because Conscience bounding itself within the thoughts, is of private concernment, and the cognizance of these belong only to God: but when an opinion is published, it concerns all that hear it, and the public is endamaged, and therefore becomes punishable by the Magistrate, to whom the care of the public is entrusted. But there is one truth that concerns both ministry& Magistracy, and All, which is opposed by those who affirm, that none ought to Govern upon the Earth but Christ in person: Absurdly; as if the Powers that are, destroyed his; as if a Deputy were not consistent with a King; as if there were any Opposition in Subordination. They affirm also, that the Wicked have no right to their Estates, but only the faithful, that is, themselves, ought to possess the Earth. And it is not to be questioned, but when they come to explain this principle, by putting it into execution, on, there will be but few that have estates at present, but will be either found, or made Wicked. I shall not be so urgent to press you to confess Christ by asserting and owning the Truth contrary to this, since it does not only oppose Truth, but Propriety, and here to deny Christ, would be to deny yourselves.  
2. Christ requires you to own and defend him in his Members; and amongst these, the chief of them, and such who most fall in your way, the Ministers, I say, that despised, abject, oppressed sort of men, the Ministers; whom the world would make Antichristian, and so deprive them of Heaven,& also strip them of that poor remainder of their Maintenance, and so allow them no portion upon the Earth. You may now spare that distinction of Scandalous Ministers, when it is even made Scandalous to be a Minister. And as for their discouragement, in the Courts of the Law, I shall only note this, that for these many years last past, it has been the constant observation of all, that if a Minister had a Cause depending in the Court, it was ten to one but it went against him. I cannot believe your Law justles out the Gospel; but if it be thus used to undermine Christ in his Servants, beware that such Judgments passed upon them, do not fetch down Gods Judgments upon the Land; and that for such abuse of the Law, Christ does not in anger deprive both you and us of its Use.( My Lords) I make no doubt, but you will meet with many suits in your course, in which the persons we speak of are concerned, as it is easy to prognosticate from those many worthy Petitions preferred against them, for which the well-affected Petitioners will one day receive but small Thanks from the Court of Heaven. But however their Causes speed in your Tribunals, know that Christ himself will recognise them in a greater. And then what a different face will be put upon things! When the usurping, devouring Nimrods of the world shall be cast with scorn on the left hand: And Christ himself in that great Consistory shall deign to step down from his Throne, and single out a poor despised Minister, and as it were taking him by the hand, present him to, and openly thus confess him before, his Father. Father, here is a poor servant of mine, that for doing his duty impartially, for keeping a good conscience, and testifying my truths in an hypocritical pretending age, was wronged, trod upon, stripped of all: Father, I will that there be now a distinction made, between such as have owned& confessed me with the loss of the world, and those that have denied, persecuted and insulted over me: It will be in vain then to come and creep for mercy: and say, Lord when did we insult over thee? when did we see thee in our Courts, and despised or oppressed thee? Christs reply will be then quick and sharp: Verily in as much as you did it to one of these little, poor despised ones, ye did it unto Me,  
2. Use is of information, to show us the danger as well as the baseness of a dastardly Spirit; in asserting the interest and truth of Christ. Since Christ has made a Christian course a Warfare, of all men living, a Christian: whose infamy is not so great, but it is sometimes less then his peril. A Coward does not always scape with disgrace, but sometimes also he loses his life: wherefore let all such know, as can enlarge their consciences like Hell, and call any sinful compliance submission, and style a Cowardly silence in Christs cause, discretion and prudence: I say let them know, that Christ will one day scorn them, and spit them with their policy and prudence into Hell; and then let them consult how politic they were for a temporal Emolument, to throw away Eternity. All that causes men to deny Christ, is either the Enjoyments, or the miseries of this life: but alas at the day of judgement all these will expire; and as One well Observes, what are we the better for pleasure, or the worse for sorrow when it is past? but then sin and guilt will be still fresh, and Heaven and Hell will be then yet to begin. If ever it was seasonable to preach Courage in the despised, abused cause of Christ, it is now, when his truths are Reformed into nothing, when the hands and hearts of his faithful Ministers are weakened,& even broken, and his worship extirpated in a mockery, that his honour may be advanced. Well, to establish our hearts in duty, let us before hand propose to ourselves the worst that can happen. Should God in his judgement suffer England to be transformed into a Munster. Should the faithful be every where Massacred. Should the places of learning be demolished, and our colleges reduced( not only as One in his Zeal would have it) to Three, but to none. Yet assuredly Hell is worse then all this, and is the portion of such as deny Christ: wherefore let our discouragements be what they will: loss of places, loss of Estates, loss of life and Relations, yet still this sentence stands ratified in the Decretals of Heaven. Cursed be that man, that for any of these, shall desert the truth, and deny his Lord.   

ECCLESIASTIALL POLICY THE BEST POLICY: OR RELIGION The best Reason of STATE: In a SERMON delivered before the Honourable Society of LINCOLNS-INN. by RO. SOUTH.  
OXFORD, Printed by H. Hall. for Ric. Davis and Will. not. 1678.   
1 King. 13. ch. 33, 34. v. 
After this thing Jeroboam returned not from his evil way, but made again of the lowest of the people Priests of the High places: whosoever would, he consecrated him, and he became one of the Priests of the High places.  
And this thing became sin unto the house of Jeroboam, even to cut it off, and to destroy it from off the face of the Earth.  
JEroboam( from the name of a person became the character of impiety,) is reported to Posterity eminent, or rather notorious, for two things; Usurpation of Government, and Innovation of Religion, 'tis confessed, the former is expressly said to have been from God; but since God may Order, and dispose, what he does not approve; and use the wickedness of men while he forbids it; the design of the first cause does not excuse the malignity of the second: And therefore the advancement and sceptre of Jeroboam was in that sense only the work of God, in which it is said, 3. Amos 6. that there is no evil in the City which the Lord has not done. But from his attempts upon the Civil Power, he proceeds to innovate Gods Worship; and from the subjection of mens bodies and Estates, to enslave their consciences, as knowing that true Religion is no friend to an unjust Title. Such was afterwards the way of Mahomet, to the Tyrant to join the Impostor, and what he had got by the Sword to confirm by the Alcaron; raising his empire upon two Pillars, Conquest, and inspiration. Jeroboam being thus advanced, and thinking Policy the best Piety, though indeed in nothing ever more befooled; the nature of sin being not only to defile; but to infatuate. In the 11. chap. and the 27. v. he thus argues; If this people go up to do Sacrifice in the house of the Lord at Jerusalem, then shall the heart of this people turn again unto their Lord, even unto Rehoboam King of Judah, and they shall kill me, and go again unto Rehoboam King of Judah. As if he should have said, The true Worship of God, and the converse of those that use it, dispose men to a considerate lawful Subjection. And therfore I must take another course: my practise must not be better then my Title; what was won by Force must be continued by Delusion. Thus sin is usually seconded with sin: and a man seldom commits one sin to please, but he commits another to defend himself. As 'tis frequent for the Adulterer to commit murder, to conceal the shane of his Adultery. But let us see Jeroboams politic procedure in the next ver. Where upon the King took counsel, and made two Calves of Gold, and said unto them, it is too much for you to go up to jerusalem, be hold thy Gods O Israel. As if he had made such an Edict: I Jeroboam, by the advice of my council, considering the great distance of the Temple, and the great charges that poor people are put to in going thither; as also the intolerable burden of paying the first fruits, and tithes, to the Priest, have considered of a way that may be more easy, and less burdensome to the people, as also more comfortable to the Priests themselves; and therefore strictly enjoin, that none henceforth presume to repair to the Temple at jerusalem, especially since God is not tied to any place or form of Worship; as also because the Devotion of men is apt to be clogged by such Ceremonies; therefore both for the ease of the people, as also for the advancement of Religion, we require and command, that all henceforth forbear going up to jerusalem. Questionless these, and such other Reasons the Impostor used to insinuate his devout Idolatry. And thus the Calves were set up, to which Oxen must be sacrificed; the God and the Sacrifice out of the same Herd. And because Israel was not to return to Egypt, Egypt was brought back to them; that is, the Egyptian way of Worship, the Apis, or Serapis, which was nothing but the Image of a calf, or ox, as is clear from most Historians. Thus Jeroboam having procured his people gods, the next thing was to provide Priests. Hereupon to the Calves he adds a Commission, for the approving, trying, and admitting the Rascality and lowest of the people to minister in that service: such as kept cattle, with a little change of their Office, were admitted to make Oblations to them. And doubtless besides the approbation of these, there was a Commission also, to eject such of the Priests and Levites of God, as being too Ceremoniously addicted to the Temple, would not serve Jeroboam before God, nor worship his Calves for their Gold, nor approve those two glittering sins for any reason of State whatsoever. Having now perfected Divine Worship, and prepared both Gods and Priests: In the next place, that he might the better teach his false Priests the way of their new Worship, he begins the Service himself, and so countenances by his example, what he had enjoined by his command in the 11. v. of this chapter, And Jeroboam stood by the Altar to burn Incense. Burning of Incense was then the Ministerial Office amongst them, as Preaching is now amongst us. So that to represent you the nature of Ieroboams Action: It was as if in a Christian Nation the chief governor should authorize and encourage all the scum and refuse of the people to Preach, and call them to the Ministry by using to Preach, and invade the Ministerial Function himself. But jeroboam restend not here, but while he was busy in his work, and a Prophet immediately sent by God declares against his Idolatry, he endeavours to seize upon, and commit him, in the 4. v. He held forth his hand from the Altar, and said, lay bold of him. Thus we have him completing his sin, and by a strange Imposition of hands persecuting the true Prophets as well as ordaining false. But it was a natural transition, and no ways wonderful to see him that stood affronting God with false Incense in the right hand, persecuting with the left, and abet the Idolatry of one arm with the Violence of the other. Now if we lay all these things together, and consider the parts, rise, and degrees of his sin, we shall find, that it was not for nothing, that the Spirit of God, so frequently, and bitterly in Scripture stigmatizes this person: For it represents him, first encroaching upon the Civil Government, thence changing that of the Church, debasing the Office that God had made sacred, introducing a false way of Worship, destroying the right. And in this we have a full and fair description of a foul thing; that is, of an Usurper, and an Impostor: or, to use one word more comprehensive than both, of Jeroboam the son of Nebat who made Israel to sin.  
From the Story and practise of Jeroboam we might gather these Observations.  
1. That God sometimes punishes a Notorious sin, by suffering the sinner to fall into a worse.  
Thus God punished the Rebellion of the Israelites by permitting them to fall into Idolatry.  
2. There is nothing so absurd but may be obtruded upon the Vulgar under pretence of Religion.  
Certainly otherwise a Golden calf could never have been made either the Object, or the means of Divine Worship.  
3. Sin, especially that of perverting Gods Worship, as it leaves a guilt upon the Soul, so it perpetuates a blot upon the Name.  
Hence nothing so frequent, as for the Spirit of God to express wicked, irreligious Kings, by comparing them to Ahab or Jeroboam. It being usual to make the first and most eminent in any kind, not only the Standard for Comparison, but also the Rule of Expression,  
But I shall insist only upon the words of the Text, and what shall be drawn from thence. There are two things in the words that may seem to require Explication.  

1. What is meant by the High places.  
2. By the Consecration of the Priests.   
1. Concerning the High Places. The use of these in the Divine Worship was general and ancient. And as Dionysius Vossius observes in his Notes upon Moses Maimonides, the first way that was used, long before Temples were either built, or thought lawful. The reason of this seems to be, because those places did not shut up, or confine the Immensity of God, as they thought an house did, and withall gave his Worshippers a nearer approach to heaven by their Height. Hence we red that the Samaritans worshipped upon mount Gerezim, 4. joh. 20. v. And Samuel went up to the High place ao Sacrifice, 1 Sam. 9.14. And Solomon Sacrificed at the High place in Gibeon, 1 King. 3.4. Yea the Temple itself was at length built upon a mount or High place, 2 Chr. 3.1. You will say then, Why are these places condemned? I answer, that the use of them was not condemned, as absolutely and always unlawful in itself, but only after the Temple was built, and that God had professed to put his Name in that place, and no other: Therefore what was lawful in the practise of Samuel and Solomon before the Temple was in being, was now detestable in jeroboam, since it was constituted by God the only place for his worship. To bring this Consideration to the times of Christianity. Because the Apostles& Primitive Christians preached in houses, and had only private meetings, in regard they were under persecution, and had no Churches; this cannot warrant the practise of those now adays, that prefer Houses before Churches, and a Conventicle before the Congregation.  
2. For the second thing, which is the Consecration of the Priests, it seems to have been correspondent to Ordination in the Christian Church. Idolaters themselves were not so far gone, as to venture upon the Priesthood without Consecration and a Call. To show all the solemnities of this would be tedious, and here unnecessary: The Hebrew word which we render to Consecrate, signifies to fill the hand, which indeed imports the manner of Consecration, which was done by filling the hand: for the Priest cut a piece of the sacrifice, and put it into the hands of him that was to be consecrated; by which Ceremony he received right to Sacrifice, and so became a Priest. As our Ordination in the Christian Church, is said to have been heretofore transacted by the Bishops delivering of the Bible into the hands of him that was to be ordained, whereby he received power Ministerially to dispense the mysteries contained in it, and so was made a Presbyter. Thus much briefly concerning Consecration.  
There remains nothing else to be explained in the words, I shall therefore now draw forth the sense of them in these two Propositions,  

1. The surest means to strengthen, or the readiest to ruin the Civil Power, is either to establish, or destroy the Worship of God in the right exercise of Religion.  
2. The next, and most effectual way to destroy Religion, is to embase the Teachers and Dispensers of it.   
Of both these in their order.  
For the prosecution of the former we are to show,  

1. The truth of the assertion, that it is so.  
2. The reason of the assertion why and whence it is so.   
1. For the truth of it, it is abundantly evinced from all Records both of Divine and profane History, in which he that runs may red the ruin of the State in the destruction of the Church, and that not only portended by it as its sign, but also inferred from it, as its Cause.  
2. From the Reason of the point it may be drawn.  
1. From the judicial proceeding of God, the great King of Kings, and supreme Ruler of the Universe; who for his commands is indeed careful, but for his Worship Jealous: And therefore in States notoriously irrelegious, by a fecret and irrisistible power, countermands their deepest projects, splits their councils, and smites their most refined Policies with frustration and a curse: being resolved that the Kingdoms of the world shall fall down before him, either in his Adoration, or their own confusion.  
2. The reason of the doctrine may be drawn from the necessary dependence of the very Principles of government upon Religion. And this I shall pursue more fully. The great business of government is to procure obedience, and keep off disobedience: the great springs upon which those two move are Rewards& Punishments, answering the two ruling affections of mans mind, Hope and Fear. For since there is a natural reluctancy between the judgement and the Appetite, the former respecting what is honest, the latter what is pleasing, which two qualifications seldom concur in the same thing, and withall mans design in every Action is delight: therefore to render things honest also practicable, they must be first represented desirable; which cannot be but by Proposing honesty clothed with pleasure; and since it presents no pleasure to the sense, it must be fetched from the apprehension of a future Reward. For questionless duty moves not so much upon command as promise. Now therefore that which proposes the greatest and most suitable rewards to obedience,& the greatest terrors& punishments to disobedience, doubtless is the most likely to enforce one, and prevent the other. But it is Religion that does this, which to happiness and misery joins Eternity. And these, supposing the Immortality of the soul, which Philosophy indeed conjectures, but only Religion proves, or ( which is as good) persuades. I say these two things, eternal happiness and eternal misery, meeting with a persuasion that the soul is immortal, are without controversy of all others, the first the most desirable, and the latter the most horrible to human apprehension. Were it not for these, Civill government were not able to stand before the prevailing swing of corrupt nature, which would know no Honesty but Advantage, no Duty but in Pleasure, nor any Law but its own Will. Were not these frequently thundered into the understandings of men, the Magistrate might enact, order and proclaim, Proclamations might be hung upon Walls and Posts, and there they might hang, seen and despised, more like Malefactors, then laws: But when Religion binds them upon the Conscience, Conscience will either persuade or terrify men into their practise. For put the case a man knew, and that upon sure grounds, that he might do an advantageous murder or robbery, and not be discovered; what human laws hinder him, which he knows cannot inflict any penalty, where they can make no discovery? But Religion assures him, that no sin, though concealed from human eyes, can either escape Gods sight in this world, or his vengeance in the other. Put the case also, that men looked upon Death without fear, in which sense it is nothing, or at most very little; ceasing while it is endured, and probably without Pain, for it seizes upon the Vitals and benumbs the senses, and where there is no sense, there can be no pain. I say, if while a man is acting his will towards sin, he should also thus act his reason, to despise death; where would be the terror of the Magistrate; who can neither threaten or inflict any more? Hence an old Malefactor in his Execution, at the gallows made no other confession but this; that he had very jocundly passed over his life in such courses, and he that would not for fifty years pleasure, endure half an hours pain, deserved to die a worse death then himself: questionless this man was not ignorant before, that there was such things as laws, assizes, and Gallows; but had he considered, and believed the Terrors of another world, he might probably have found a fairer passage out of this. If there was not a Minister in every Parish, you would quickly find cause to increase the number of Constables: And if the Churches were not employed to be places to hear Gods law, there would be need of them, to be prisons for the breakers of the laws of men. Hence 'tis observable that the tribe of Levi had not one place or portion together like the rest of the Tribes: but because it was their office to dispense Religion, they were diffused over all the Tribes, that they might be continually preaching to the rest, their duty to God; which is the most effectual way, to dispose them to Obedience to man: for he that truly fears God cannot despise the Magistrate. Yea so near is the connexion between the Civil state, and Religious, that heretofore, if you look upon well regulated, civilized, heathen Nations, you will find the Government and the Priesthood united in the same person: Anius Rex idem hominum, Phaebique Sacerdos. Virg. 3. Aen. If under the true worship of God; Melchisedech king of Salem and Priest of the most high God, Heb. 7.1. And afterwards Moses( whom as we aclowledge a pious, so Atheists themselves will confess to have been a Wise Prince) he, when he took the Kingly government upon himself, by his own choice, seconded by Divine institution, vested the Priesthood in his brother Aaron, both whose concernments were so coupled, that if Nature had not, yet their Religious, nay their civil Interests, would have made them brothers. And it was once the design of the Emperour of Germany, Maximilian the first, to have joined the popedom and the Empire together, and to have got himself choose Pope, and by that means derived the papacy to his succeeding Emperors. Had he effected it, doubtless there would not have been such scuffles between him and the Bishop of Rome; the civil Interest of the State would not have been undermined by an Adverse Interest, managed by the specious and potent pretences of Religion. And to see even amongst us, how these two are united, how the former is upheld by the latter: the Magistrate sometimes cannot do his own office dexterously, but by acting the Minister: hence it is, that Judges of Assizes find it necessary in their Charges, to use pathetical discourses of Conscience, and if it were not for the sway of this, they would often lose the best Evidence in the world against Malefactors, which is Confession: for no man would confess and be Hanged here, but to avoid being Damned hereafter. Thus I have in general shown the utter inability of the Magistrate to attain the Ends of Government, without the Aid of Religion. But it may be here replied, that many are not at all moved with arguments drawn from hence; or with the happy or miserable state of the Soul after death, and therefore this avails little to procure obedience, and consequently to advance Government. I answer by confession: that this is true of Epicures, Atheists, and some pretended philosophers, who have stisted the Notions of a Deity, and the Souls immortality; but the Unprepossessed on the one hand, and the well disposed on the other, who both together make much the mayor part of the world, are very apt to be affencted with a due fear of these things: And Religion accommodating itself to the Generality, though not to every particular temper, sufficiently secures Government, in as much as that stands or falls according to the Behaviour of the multitude. And whatsoever Conscience makes the Generality obey, to that Prudence will make the rest conform. Wherefore, having proved the dependence of Government upon Religion, I shall now demonstrate, That the safety of Government depends upon the Truth of Religion. False Religion is in its nature the greatest bane and destruction to Government in the World. The reason is, because whatsoever is False, is also Weak. Ens and Verum in Philosophy are the same: and so much as any Religion has of Falsity, it loses of strength and existence. Falsity gains Authority only from ignorance, and therefore is in danger to be known; for from Being false, the next immediate step is to be Known to be such. And what prejudice this would be to the Civil Government, is apparent, if men should be awed into obedience, and affrighted from sin by Rewards and Punishments, proposed to them in such a Religion, which afterwards should be detected, and found a mere falsity, and Cheat; for if one part be but found to be false, it will make the whole suspicious. And men will then not only cast off Obedience to the Civil Magistrate, but they will do it with disdain and rage, that they have been deceived so long, and brought to do that out of Conscience which was imposed upon them out of design: For though men are often willingly deceived, yet still it must be under an Opinion of being instructed; though they love the Deception, yet they mortally hate it under that appearance: Therefore it is no ways safe for a Magistrate, who is to build his Dominion upon the Fears of men, to build those fears upon a false Religion. 'tis not to be doubted, but the absurdity of Jeroboams Calves, made many Israelites turn subjects to Rehoboams Government, that they might be proselytes to his Religion. Herein the Weakness of the Turkish Religion appears, that it urges Obedience upon the promise of such absurd Rewards, as that after death they should have Palaces, Gardens, beautiful Women, with all the Luxury that could be: as if those things that were the occasions, and incentives of sin in this world, could be the rewards of Holiness in the Other. Besides many other inventions, false, and absurd, that are like so many chincks and holes to discover the largeness of the whole fabric, when God shall be pleased to give light to discover, and open their reasons to discern them. But you will say, What Government more sure and absolute then the Turkish, and yet what Religion more false? Therefore certainly Government may stand sure and strong, be the Religion professed never so absurd. I answer that it may do so indeed by accident, through the strange peculiar temper and gross ignorance of a people; as we se it happens in the Turks, the best part of whose Policy, supposing the absurdity of their Religion, is this, that they prohibit Schools of Learning; for this hinders Knowledge, and Disputes, which such a Religion would not bear. But suppose we, that the Learning of these Western Nations were as great there as here, and the Alcoran as common to them as the Bible to us, that they might have free recourse to search and examine the flaws and follies of it, and withall that they were of as inquisitive a temper as we: And who knows, but as there are vicissitudes in the Government, so there may happen the same also in the temper of a Nation. If this should come to pass, where would be their Religion? And then let every one judge, whether the Arcana imperit, and Religionis would not fall together. They have begun to totter already; for Mahomet, having promised to come and visit his Followers, and translate them to Paradise after a thousand years, this being expired, many of the Persians began to doubt and smell the cheat, till the Mufti or chief Priest  told them, that it was a mistake in the figure, and assured them, that upon more diligent survey of the Records, he found it two thousand instead of one. When this is expired, perhaps they will not be able to renew the Fallacy. I say therefore, that though this Government continues firm in the exercise of a fals Religion, yet this is by accident, through the present genius of the people, which may change; but this does not prove, but that the Nature of such a Religion( of which we only now speak) tends to subvert and betray the Civil Power. Hence Machiavel himself, in his Animadversions upon Livy, makes it appear, that the weakness of Italy, which was once so strong, was caused by the corrupt practices of the Papacy, in depraving, and misusing Religion to that purpose, which he, though himself a Papist says could not have happened, had the christian Religion been kept in its first, and native simplicity. Thus much may suffice for the clearing of the first Proposition.  
The Inferences from hence are two.  
1. If Government depends upon Religion, then this shows the pestilential design of those that attempt to disjoin the Civil and Ecclesiastical Interests, setting the latter wholly out of the Tuition of the former. But tis clear that the Fanaticks know no other step to the Majestracy but through the ruin of the ministry. There is a great Analogy between the body Natural and politic; in which the Ecclesiastical or Spiritual parts justly supplies the part of the soul; and the violent separation of this from the other, does as certainly infer death and dissolution, as the disjunction of the body and the soul in the Natural; for when this once departs, it leaves the body of the Common wealth a carcase, noisome, and exposed to be devoured by Birds of prey. The ministry will be one day found according to Christs word, the salt of the earth, the onely thing that keeps Societies of men from stench and corruption. These two Interests are of that nature, that 'tis to be feared they cannot be divided, but they will also prove opposite; and not resting in a bare diversity, quickly rise into a Gontrariety: These two are to the State, what the Elements of Fire and Water to the Body, which united compose, separated destroy it. I am not of the papists Opinion, who would make the Spiritual above the Civil State in power as well as dignity, but rather subject it to the Civil; yet thus much I dare affirm, that the Civil, which is superior, is upheld and kept in being by the Ecclesiastical and inferior; as it is in a Building, where the upper part is supported by the lower; the Church resembling the foundation, which indeed is the lowest part, but the most considerable. The Magistracy cannot so much protect the ministry, but the Ministers may do more in serving the Magistrate. A taste of which truth you may take from the Holy War, to which how fast and eagerly did men go, when the Priest persuaded them, that whosoever dyed in that Expedition was a Martyr? Those that will not be convinced what a help this is to the Magistracy, would find how considerable it is, if they should chance to clash, this would certainly eat out the other. For the Magistrate cannot urge obedience upon such potent grounds, as the Minister, if so disposed, can urge disobedience. As for instance, if my Governor should command me to do a thing, or I must die, or forfeit my Estate; and the Minister steps in, and tells me, that I offend God, and ruin my soul if I obey that command, it's easy to see a greater force in this persuasion from the advantage of its ground. And if Divines once begin to curse Meros, we shall see that Lovi can use the Sword as well as Simeon; and although Ministers do not handle, yet they can employ it. This shows the imprudence, as well as the danger of the Civil Magistrates exasperating those that can fire mens consciences against him, and arm his Enemies with Religion. For I have red heretofore of some, that having conceived an irreconcilable hatred of the Civil Magistrate, prevailed with men so far that they went to resist him even out of conscience, and a full persuasion and dread upon their spirits, that not to do it were to desert God, and consequently to incur damnation. Now when mens rage is both heightened and sanctified by Conscience, the War will be fierce; for what is done out of Conscience, is done with the utmost Activity. And then Campanella's Speech to the King of Spain will be found true, Religio semper vicit, praesertim Armata: Which sentence deserves seriously to be considered by all Governours, and timely to be understood, lest it comes to be felt.  
2. If the safety of Government is founded upon the truth of Religion, then this shows the danger of any thing that may make even the true Religion suspected to be false. To be false, and to be thought false, is all one in respect of men, who act not according to Truth, but Apprehension. As on the contrary, a false Religion, while apprehended true, has the force and efficacy of truth. Now there is nothing more apt to induce men to a suspicion of any Religion, than frequent innovation and change: For since the object of Religion, God, the subject of it, the soul of man, and the business of it, Truth, is always one and the same: Variety and Novelty is a just presumption of Falsity: it argues sickness and distemper in the mind, as well as in the body, when a man is continually turning and tossing from one side to the other. The wise Romans ever dreaded the least Innovation in Religion: Hence we find the advice of maecenas to Augustus caesar in Dion Cassius in the 52 Book: where he counsels him to detest, and persecute all Innovations of Divine Worship, not only as contemners of the Gods, but as the most pernicious disturbers of the State: For when men venture to make changes in things sacred, it argues great boldness with God, and this naturally imports little belief of him: which if the people once perceive, they will take their Creed also, not from the Magistrates Laws, but his example. Hence in England, where Religion has been still Purifying, and hereupon almost always in the Fire and the Furnace; Atheists, and Irreligious persons have took no small advantage from our changes. For in King Edward the sixts time, the Divine Worship was twice altered in two new Liturgies. In the first of Queen Mary, the Protestant Religion was persecuted with Fire and Faggor, by Law and public counsel, of the same persons, who had so lately established it. Upon the coming in of Queen Elizabeth, Religion was changed again, and within a few daies the public Council of the Nation made it death for a Priest to convert any man to that Religion, which before with so much eagerness of Zeal had been restored. So that it is observed by an Author, that in the space of twelve years there were four changes about Religion made in England, and that by the public Council, and Authority of the Realm, which were more than were made by any Christian state throughout the world in fifteen hundred years before. Hence it is that the Enemies of God take occasion to blaspeme, and call our Religion Statisme:& now adding to the former, those many changes that have happened since, I am afraid we shall never be able to claw off that name: Nor, though we may satisfy our own consciences in what we profess, to repel and clear off the objections of the rational world about us, which not being interested in our changes as we are, will not judge of them as we judge: but debate them by impartial Reason, by the Nature of the thing, the general Practise of the Church; against which New Lights, sudden Impulses of the Spirit, Extraordinary Calls, will be but weak arguments to prove any thing but the madness of those that use them, and that the Church must needs whither, being blasted with Inspiration. We see therefore how fatal and ridiculous Innovations in the Church are: And indeed when Changes are so frequent, it is not properly Religion, but Fashion. This I think we may build upon as a sure ground, that where there is continual Change, there is Uncertainty, and uncertainty in Religion, is a sufficient reason, if not to deny, yet to doubt of its Truth.  
Thus much for the first Doctrine, I proceed now to the second, viz. That the next, and most effectual way to destroy Religion, is to Embase the Teachers and Dispencers of it. in the handling of this I shall show,  
1. How the Dispensers of Religion, the Ministers of the word are embased or rendered vile.  
2. How the Embasing or vilifying them is a means to destroy Religion.  
1. For the first of these, the Ministers and Dispencers of the Word are rendered base or vile two ways.  
1. By divesting them of all Temporal privileges, and Advantages, as inconsistent with their Calling. It is strange since the Priests Office heretofore was always Splendid, and almost regal, that it is now looked upon as a piece of Religion, to make it low and sordid. So that the use of the word Minister is brought down to the signification of it, a Servant: for now to serve and to minister servile and ministerial, are terms equivalent. But in the Old Testament the same word signifies a Priest, and a Prince, or chief Ruler: hence, though we tranflate it Priest of On, 41. Gen. 45. and Priest of Midian, 3. Exod. 1. and as it is with the people so with the Priest, 24. Esa.  
2. Junius and Tremellius render all these places not by Sacerdos, Priest; but by Praeses, that is, a Prince, or at least a chief counsellor, or Minister of State. And it is strange, that the Name should be the same, when the Nature of the thing is so exceeding different. The like also may be observed in other Languages, that the most Illustrious Titles are derived from things Sacred, and belonging to the Worship of God. {αβγδ} was the Title of the Christian Caesars, correspondent to the latin Augustus, and it is derived from the same word that {αβγδ} cultus, res sacra, or sacrificium. And it is usual in our Language to make Sacred, an Epithet to Majesty: there was a certain Royalty in things Sacred. Hence the Apostle, who I think was no Enemy to the simplicity of the Gospel, speaks of a royal Priesthood, 1 Pet. 2.9. which shows at least, that there is no contradiction or impiety in those terms. In Old time, before the placing this office only in the Line of Aaron the Head of the Family, and the First-borne offered Sacrifice for the rest, that is, was their Priest. And we know that such Rule and dignity belonged at first to the Masters of Families, that they had jus vitae& necis, jurisdiction and power of Life and Death in their own Family, and from hence was derived the beginning of Kingly Government; a King being only a Civil Head, or master of a politic Family, the whole People; so that we see the same was the foundation of the Royal and Sacerdotal Dignity. As for the Dignity of this Office among the Jews, it is so pregnantly set forth in Holy writ, that it is Unquestionable, Kings and Priests are still mentioned together. 2 Lamen. 6, The Lord hath despised in the indignation of his Anger, the King and the Priest 5 Hosea 2, Hear O Priests, and give ear O house of the King. 17. Deut. 12, And the man that doth presumptuosly, and will not hearken unto the Priest that standeth there to minister before the Lord thy God, or unto the Judge, even that man shall die. Hence Paul together with a blow, received this Reprehension, Act. 5.4. Revilest thou Gods High Priest? And Paul in the next verse does not defend himself, by pleading an extraordinary Motion of the Spirit, or that he was sent to reform the Church, and might therefore lawful y vilify the Priesthood, and all Sacred Orders; but in the 5. v. he makes an excuse, and that from Ignorance, the only thing that could take away the fault; namely, that he knew not that he was the High Priest, and subjoines a reason which further advances the Truth here defended: For it is written, thou shalt not speak evil of the Ruler of thy people. To Holy Writ we might add the Testimony of Josephus of next Authority to it in things concerning the Jews, who in sundry places of his History, sets forth the Dignity of the Priests, and in his second Book against Appion the grammarian, he has these words, {αβγδ}, the Priests were constituted Judges of all doubtful causes. Hence Justine also in his 36 Book has this, Semper apud Judaeos mos svit, ut Eosdem Reges& Sacerdotes haberent: though this is false, that they were always so, yet argues that they were so frequently, and that the distance between them was not great. To the Jews we may join the Egyptians, the first Masters of Learning and Philosophy. Synesius in his 57. Epist. having shown the general practise of Antiquity, {αβγδ}, gives an instance in the Jews& Egyptians who for many Ages, {αβγδ}, had no other Kings but Priests. Next we may take a view of the Practise of the Romans: Numa Pompilius, that civilized the fierce Romans, is reported in the 1. book of Livy, sometimes to have performed the Priests office himself. Tum Socerdotibus creandis animum adjecit, quanquam ipse plurima sacra obibat, but when he made Priests, he gave them a dignity almost the same with himself. And this honour continued together with the Valour and Prudence of that Nation. For the Success of the Romans did not extirpate their Religion. The college of the Priests being in many things exempted even from the jurisdiction of the Senate, afterwards the Supreme Power. Hence Juvenal in his 2. Sat. mentions the Priesthood of Mars, as one of the most Honourable places in Rome. And Jul. Caesar who was choose Priest in his minority, thought it not below him to continue the same Office when he was Created absolute governor of Rome under the name of perpetual dictatory. add to these the practise of the Gaules mentioned by Caesar in his 6. Book de Bello Gallico, where he says of the druids, who were their Priests, that they did judge de omnibus fear controversiis publicis privatisque. See also Homer in the 1. Book of his Iliads representing Cryses priest of Apollo with his Golden sceptre, as well as the Golden Censer. But why have I produced all these examples of the Heathens? Is it to make these a ground of our imitation? No, but to show that the giving honour to the priesthood, was a custom Universal amongst all civilized Nations: And whatsoever is Universal, is also Natural, as not being founded upon compact, or the particular humours of men but flowing from the Native results of Reason: and that which is Natural, neither does nor can oppose Religion. But you will say, this concerns not us, who have an express Rule and Word revealed. Christ was himself poor and despised, and withall has instituted such a ministry. To the first part of this plea I answer; That Christ came to suffer, yet the sufferings and miseries of Christ, do not oblige all Christians to undertake the like. For the second, That the ministry of Christ was low, and despised by his institution, I utterly deny. It was so indeed by the malice and persecution of the Heathen princes, but what does this argue or infer for a low, dejected ministry in a flourishing State, which professes to encourage Christanity? But to dash this cavil, red but the practise of Christian Emperours and Kings all along down from the time of Constantine, in what respect, what honour and splendour they treated the Ministers, and then let our adversaries produce their puny, pitiful Arguments for the contrary, against the general, clear, undoubted vogue and current of all antiquity. As for two or three little Countries about us, the Learned and impartial will not value their practise; in one of which places the Minister has been seen, for meet want to mend shoes on the Saturday. and been heard to preach on the Sunday. In the other place, stating the several orders of the Citizens, they place their Ministers after their Apothecaries: that is, the Physician of the Soul after the Drugster of the Body: a fit practise for those, who if they were to rank Things as well as Persons, would place their Religion after their Trade.  
And thus much concerning the first way of Debasing the Ministers and ministry.  
2. The second way is by admitting Ignorant, Sordid, Illiterate persons to this Function. This is to give the royal stamp to a piece of led. I confess, God has no need of any mans Parts, or Learning; but certainly then, he has much less need of his Ignorance, and ill Behaviour. It is a sad thing when all other Employments shall empty themselves into the ministry: When men shall repair to it, not for Preferment, but Refuge; like Malefactors, flying to the Altar only to save their lives; or like those of Ely's Race, 1 Sam. 2.36. that should come crouching, and seek to be put into the priests Office, that they might eat a piece of Bread. Heretofore there was required splendour of Parentage to recommend any one to the priesthood, as Josephus witnesses in a Treatise that he wrote of his own Life; where he says, to have right to deal in things Sacred, was amongst them accounted an argument of a Noble and Illustrious Descent. God would not accept the Offals of other professions. doubtless many rejected Christ, upon this thought, that he was the Carpenters Son, who would have embraced him, had they known him to have been the Son of David. The preferring undeserving persons to this great service, was eminently Jeroboams Sin, and how Jeroboams practise and offence has been continued amongst us in another guise, is not unknown: For has not Learning unqualified men for approbation to the ministry? Has not parts and Abilities been reputed Enemies to Grace, and qualities no ways ministerial? While Friends, Faction, Well-meaning, and little understanding, have been Accomplishments beyond Study and the University; and to falsify a story of Conversion, beyond pertinent Answers and clear Resolutions to the hardest and most concerning Questions. So that matters have been brought to this pass, that if a man amongst his sons had any blind, or disfigured, he laid him aside for the ministry, and such an one was presently approved, as having a mortified Countenance. In short, it was a fiery Furnace, that often approved dross, and rejected Gold. But thanks be to God, those Spiritual Wickednesses are now discharged from their high places. Hence it was, that many rushed into the Minstery, as being the only Calling that they could profess, without serving an apprenticeship Here also we had those that could Preach Sermons, but not Defend them. The reason of which is clear, because the Works and Writings of Learned men might be borrowed, but not the Abilities. Had indeed the Old Levitical Hierarchy still continued, in which it was part of the Ministerial Office to flay the Sacrfices, to cleanse the Vessels, to seoure the Flesh-forks, to sweep the Temple, and carry the filth and rubbish to the Brook Kidron, no persons living had been fitter for the ministry,& to serve in this nature at the Altar. But since it is made a labour of the mind; as to inform mens judgments, and move their affections, to resolve difficult places of Scripture, to decide and clear off Controversies, I cannot see how to be a Butcher, Scavinger, or any other such Trade, does at all qualify, or prepare men for this work. But as unfit as they were, yet to clear a way for such into the ministry, we have had almost all Sermons full of gibes and scoffs at human Learning. A way with vain Philosophy, with the disputer of this world, and the enticing word of mans wisdom, and set up the foolishness of Preaching, the simplicity of the Gospel: Thus Divinity has been brought in upon the ruins of Humanity; by forcing the Words of the Scripture from the sense& then haling them to the worst of drudgeries, to set a Jus Divinum upon ignorance& perfection, and recommend Natural Weakness for Supernatural Grace. Hereupon the Ignorant have took heart to venture upon this great Calling,& instead of cutting their way to it, according to the usual course, thro the knowledge of the tongues, the Study of Philosophy, Schole-divinity, the Fathers& Councils, they have taken another,& a shorter Cut, and having red perhaps a Treatise or two upon the heart, the bruised Reed, the crumbs of Comfort, Wollebius in English, and some other little Authors, the usual Furniture of Old Womens closerts, they have set forth as accomplished Divines, and forhwith they present themselves to the Service;& there has not been wanting Jeroboams, as willing to consecrate, and receive them, as they to offer themselves. And this has been one of the most fatal,& almost irrecoverable blows that has been given to the ministry.  
And this may suffice concerning the second way of Embasing Gods Ministers; namely, by entrusting the ministry with raw, unlearned, ill bread Persons, so that what Solomon speaks of a Proverb, in the mouth of a Fool, the same may be said of the ministry vested in them, that it is like a Pearl in a swines snout.  
I proceed now to the second thing proposed in the Discussion of this Doctrine, which is to show, how the Embasing of the Ministers tends to the destruction of Religion.  
This it does two ways.  
1. Because it brings them under exceeding scorn and contempt;& then let none think Religion itself secure: For the Vulgar have not such Logical heads as to be able to abstract, such subtle conceptions, as to separate the Man from the Minister, or to consider the same person under a double capacity, and so honour him as a Divine, while they despise him as poor. But suppose they could, yet Actions cannot distinguish as Conceptions do, and therefore every Act of Contempt strikes both, and unavoidably wounds the ministry through the sides of the Minister. And we must know, that the least degree of Contempt weakens Religion, because it is absolutely contrary to the nature of it. Religion properly consisting in a reverential esteem of things Sacred. Now that which in any measure weakens Religion will at length destroy it: For the weakening of a thing is only a partial destruction of it. Poverty and meanness of condition exposes the Wisest to scorn; it being natural for men to place their esteem, rather upon things Great than Good;& the Poet observes that this Infelix Paupertas has nothing in it more intolerable than this, that it renders men Ridiculous. And then how easy and natural it is for Contempt to pass from the Person to the Office from him that speaks, to the thing that he speaks of, Experience proves. Counsel being seldom valued so much for the Truth of the thing, as the Credit of him that gives it. Observe an excellent passage to this purpose in the 9 Eccl. 14, 15. We have an account of a little City with few men in it, be sieged by a Great and Potent King,& in the 15. v. we red that there was found in it a poor Wise man, and he by his wisdom delivered the City. A worthy service indeed, and certainly we may expect that some honourable recompense should follow it; a Deliverer of his Country, and that in such distress, could not but be advanced: but we find a contrary event in the next words of the same verse, Yet none remembered that same poor man? why? what should be the reason? Was he not a man of parts& wisdom? and is not wisdom honourable? Yes, but he was poor: But was be not also successful as well as wise? true; but still be was poor: And once grant this,& you cannot keep off that unavoidable sequel in the next verse, The poor mans wisdom is despised, and his words are not heard. We may believe upon Solomons word, who was Rich, as well as wise,& therefore knew the force of both:& probably had it not been for his Riches, the Queen of Sheba would never have came so far only to have heard his Wisdom. Observe her behaviour when she came. Though upon the hearing of Solomons wisdom, and the resolution of her hard Questions she expressed a just admiration, yet when Solomon afterward show her his Palace, his Treasures, and the Temple which he had built, 1 King. 10. c. 5. v. it is said, there was no more spirit in her. What was the cause of this? certainly the magnificence, the pomp& splendour of such a Structure: it struck her into an ecstasy beyond his wise Answers. She esteemed this as much above his Wisdom, as Astonishment is beyond bare Admiration. She admired his wisdom, but she adored his Magnificence. So apt is the mind, even of wise persons, to be surprised with the superficies, or circumstance of things, and value, or undervalue Spirituals, according to the manner of their External Appearance. When Circumstances fail, the substance seldom long survives, clothes are no part of the Body, yet take away clothes, and the Body will die. Livy observes of Romulus, that being to give Laws to his new Romans, he found no better way to procure an esteem& reverence to them, than by first procuring it to himself, by splendour of Habit and Retinue,& other signs of Royalty. And the wise Numa, his successor, took the same course to enforce his Religious Laws, namely, by giving the same Pomp to the Priest who was to dispense them. Sacerdotem creavit, insignique eum vest,& curuli Regiâ sellâ adornavit. That is, he adorned him with a rich rob, and a royal chair of State. And in our Judicatures take away the Trumpet, the Scarlet, the Attendance, and the Lordship, which would be to make Justice Naked, as well as Blind, the Law would lose much of its Terror, and consequently of its Authority. Let the Minister be abject and low, his interest inconsiderable, the Word will suffer for his sake: The Message will still find reception according to the Dignity of the Messenger Imagine an ambassador presenting himself in a poor frieze Jerkin, and tattered clothes, certainly he would have but small Audience, his Embasy would speed rather according to the weakness of him that brought, than the Majesty of him that sent it. It will fare alike with the Ambassodors of Christ, the People will give them Audience according to their Presence. A notable example of which we have in the Behaviour of some to Paul himself, 1 Cor. 10. c. 10. v. Hence in the Jewish Church it was cautiously provided in the Law, that none that was blind or lame, or had any remarkable defect in his body, was capable of the Priestly Office: because these things naturally make a person contemned,& this presently reflects upon the Function. This therefore is the first way by which the low, despised condition of the Ministers, tends to the destruction of the ministry& Religion: namely, because it subjects their persons to scorn, and consequently their Calling: and it is not imaginable that men will be brought to obey what they cannot Esteem.  
2. The second way by which it tends to the ruin of the ministry is, because it discourages men of fit and able Abilities from undertaking it. And certain it is, that as the calling dignifies the man, so the man much more advances his Calling. As a Garment, though it warms the Body, it has a return with an advantage, being much more warmed by it. And how often a good cause may miscarry without a wise mannager; and the Faith for want of a Defender, is, or at least may be known. 'tis not the Truth of an Assertion, but the Disputant that keeps of a baffle; not the Justness of a Cause, but the Valour of the Souldiers that must win the Field: When a Learned Paul was converted,& undertook the ministry, it stopped the mouths of those that said, None but poor, weak, Fisher-men Preached Christianity, and so his Learning silenced the scandal, as well as strengthened the Church. Religion placed in a soul of exquisite knowledge and abilities, as in a Castle, finds not only habitation but defence. And what a learned foreign Divine said of the English Preaching, may be said of all, Plus est in Artifice quam in Arte. So much of moment is there in the Professors of any thing, to depress or raise the Profession. What is it that kept the Church of Rome strong, athletick,& flourishing for so many centuries, but the happy succession of the choicest wits engaged to her service by suitable preferments? and what strength do we think would that give to the True Religion that is able thus to establish a Fals? Religion in a great measure stands or falls according to the abilities of those that assert it. And if, as some observe, mens desires are usually as large as their Abilities, what course have we took to 'allure the former, that we might engage the latter to our assistance? But we have took all ways to affright& discourage Schollers from looking towards this sacred calling: For will men lay out their Wit& judgement, upon that employment, for the undertaking of which, both will be questioned? would men not long since have spent toilsome daies& watchful nights in the laborious quest of knowledge preparative to this work, at length to come& dance attendance for approbation from a Juncto of petty Tyrants, acted by Party& Prejudice, who denied Fitness from Learning,& Grace from Morality? will a man exhaust his livelihood upon Books,& his Health, the best part of his life upon Study, to be at length thrust into a poor Village, where he shall have his due precariously,& entreat for his own,& when he has it, live poorly and contemptibly upon it, while the same or less labour bestowed upon any other calling, would bring not only comfort but splendour, not only maintenance but abundance? 'tis I confess the duty of Ministers to endure this condition: but neither Religion nor Reason does oblige either them to approve, or others to choose it. Doubtless Parents will not throw away the towardness of a child,& the expense of Education upon a Profession whose labour is increased,& whose rewards vanished. To condemn promising lively parts to contempt,& penury in a despised calling. What is it else but the casting of a Moses into the mud, or to offer a Son upon the Altar:& instead of a Priest to make him a Sacrifice. Neither let any here reply, that it becomes not a Ministerial spirit to undertake such a calling for reward? for they must know, that it is one thing to undertake it for a reward,& not to be willing to undertake it without one: it is one thing to perform good works only that we may receive the recompense of them in Heaven,& another thing not to be willing to follow Christ& forsake the world if there were no such recompense. But besides, suppose it was the duty of Scholars to choose this calling in the midst of all its discouragements. Yet a prudent governor, who knows it to be his wisdom as well as his duty, to take the best course to advance Religion, will not consider mens duty, but their practise: not what they ought to do, but what they use to do:& therefore draw over the best qualified to this service, by such ways, as are most apt to persuade& induce men. Solomon built his Temple with the Tallest Cedars:& surely when God refused the defective,& the mained for sacrifice, we cannot think that he requires them for the Priesthood. when learning, abilities& what is excellent in the world forsake the Church, we may easily foretell its ruin without the gift of prophecy. And when ignorance succeeds in the place of learning, weakness in the room of judgement, we may be sure, heresy& Confusion will quickly come in the room of religion. For undoubtedly there is no way so effectual to betray the Truth, as to procure it a weak Defender.  
Well: now instead of raising any particular Uses from the Point, that has been delivered, let us make a brief Recapitulation of the whole. Government, we see depends upon Religion,& Religion upon the Encouragement of those that are to dispense,& assert it. For the further Evidence of which truths we need not travail beyond our own Borders; but leave it to every one impartially to Judge, whether from the very first day that our Religion was unsettled,& Church Government flung out of doors, the Civil Government has ever been able to fix upon a sure foundation. we have been changing even to a Proverb. The indignation of Heaven has been rolling& turning us from one form to another, till at length such a giddiness seized upon government, that it fell into the very dregs of Sectaries, that threatened an equal ruin both to Minister& Magistrate.& how the State has Sympathized with the Church, is apparent. For have not our Princes as well as our Prists been of the lowest of the People? Have not cobblers, Draymen, mechanics governed, as well as Preached? Nay have not they by Preaching come to Govern? was ever that of Solomon more verified, that Servants have Rid while Princes and Nobles have gone on Foot? But God has been pleased by a miracle of mercy to dissipate this confusion& Chaos,& to give us some openings, some dawnings of liberty and settlement. But now let not those that are to rebuild our Jerusalem, think that the Temple must be built last. For if there be such a thing as a God, and a Religion, as, whether men believe it or no, they will one day find and feel, assuredly he will stop our Liberty, till we restore him his worship. Besides it is a senseless thing in reason, to think that one of these interests can stand without the other, when in the very order of Natural causes, Government is preserved by Religion. But to return to Jeroboam with whom we first began. He laid the foundation of his Government in destroying, though doubtless he coloured it with the name of Reforming Gods worship: but see the issue. Consider him Cursed by God; maintaining his usurped title, by continual vexatious wars against the Kings of Judah, smote in his posterity, which was made like the dung upon the face of the Earth, as low and vile as those Priests whom he had employed. Consider him branded,& made odious to all after ages. And now when his kingdom and glory was at an end,& he& his Posterity rotting under ground,& his Name stinking above it: Judge what a worthy prise he made in getting of a Kingdom, by destroying the Church. Wherefore the sum of all is this, to advice and desire those whom it may concern, to consider Jeroboams punishment,& then they will have little heart to Jeroboams sin  
FINIS.   

A SERMON PREACHED At the Cathedral Church of St. Paul, Novemb. 9. 1662. By ROBERT SOUTH, M.A. public Orator to the university of Oxford, and Chaplain to the Lord high chancellor.  
OXFORD, Printed by H. Hall, for Ric. Davis and Will. not. 1678.   

To the Right Honourable, THE Lord Mayor and Aldermen Of the City of LONDON.  
Right Honourable,  
WHen I consider how impossible it is for a person of my condition to produce, and consequently how imprudent to attempt, anything in proportion either to the Amplenesse of the Body you represent, or of the Places you bear, I should he kept from venturing so poor a piece, designed to live but an hour, in so lasting a Publication, did not what your Civility calls a Request, your Greatness render a Command. The truth is, in things not unlawful great Persons cannot be properly said to request, because, all things considered, they must not be denied. To me it was Honour enough to have your Audience; enjoyment enough to behold your happy Change, and to see the same City, the Metropolis of Loyalty and of the Kingdom; to behold the Glory of English Churchs reformed, that is, delivered from the Reformers; and to find at least the service of the Church repaired, though not the buildings; to see St. Pauls delivered from Beasts here, as well as St. Paul at Ephesus: and to view the Church thronged onely with Troops of Auditors, not of Horse. This I could fully have acquiesced in, and received a large personal reward in my Particular share of the public Joy: but since you are further pleased, I will not say by your judgement to approve, but by your Acceptance to encourage the raw endeavours of a young Divine; I shall take it for an Opportunity, not as others in their sage Prudence use to do, to quote three or four Texts of Scripture,& to tell you how you are to rule the City out of a Concordance; no, I bring not Instructions, but what much better besits both you and myself, your Commendations. For I look upon your City as the great and magnificent stage of Business, and by consequence the best place of Improvement; for from the Shool we go to the university, but from the universities to London. And therefore as in your City-meetings you must be esteemed the most considerable Body of the Nation; so met in the Church, I look upon you as an Auditory fit to be waited on, as you are, by both universities. And when I remember how instrumental you have been to recover this universal settlement, and and to retrieve the old Spirit of Loyalty to Kings( as an ancient testimony of which, you bear not the Sword in vain) I seem in a manner deputed from Oxford, not so much as Preacher to supply a course, as orator to present her thanks. As for the ensuing Discourse, which,( lest I chance to be traduced for a Plagiary by him who has played the thief) I think fit to tell the world by the way, was one of those that by a worthy hand were stolen from me in the Kings Chappal, and are still detained, and to which now accidentally published by your Honours Order, your Patronage must give both value, and protection. You will find me in it not to have pitched upon any subject, that mens guilt, and the consequent of guilt, their concernment might render liable to exception, nor to have rubbed up the memory of what some heretofore in the City did, which more and better now detest, and therefore expiate: but my subject is inoffensive, harmless,& innocent as the state of Innocence itself, and( I hope) suitable to the present design and Genius of this Nation, which is, or should be, to return to that Innocence, which it lost long since the fall. Briefly, my business is, by describing what Man was in his first estate, to upbraid him with what be is in his present: between whom Innocent, and fallen( that in a word I may suit the subject to the place of my discourse) there is as great an unlikeness, as between St. Pauls a Cathedral, and St. Pauls a Stable. But I must not forestall myself, nor transcribe the work into the Dedication. I shall now only desire you to accept the issue of your own requests; the gratification of which I have here consulted so much before my own deputation: while like the poor widow I endeavour to show my officiousness by an Offering, though I betray my poverty by the measure; not so much caring though I appear neither Preacher nor Scholar,( which terms we have been taught upon good reason to distinguish) so I may in this but show myself  
Your Honours very humble Servant, Robert South Worcester-house, Nov. 24. 1662.   
Gen. 1.27. 
So God created man in his own Image, in the image of God created he him.  
HOW hard it is for Natural Reason to discover a Creation before revealed, or being revealed to believe it: The strange opinions of the old Philosophers, and the Infidelity of modern Atheists, is too sad a Demonstration. To run the world back to its first original and infancy; and( as it were) to view Nature in its cradle, to trace the outgoings of the Ancient of dayes in the first Instance and Specimen of his Creative Power, is a research too great for any mortal Enquiry: and we might continue our Scrutiny to the end of the World, before Natural Reason would be able to find out when it begun.  
Epicurus his Discourse concerning the Original of the World is so fabulous and ridiculously merry, that we may well judge the Design of his Philosophy to have been Pleasure, and not Instruction.  
Aristotle held, That it streamed by connatural Result and Emanation from God, the Infinite and Eternal Mind, as the Light issues from the Sun; so that there was no Instance of Duration assignable of Gods eternal existence, in which the World did not also co-exist.  
Others held a Fortuitous Concourse of Atoms. But all seem jointly to explode a Creation; still beating upon this ground, that to produce Something out of Nothing is Impossible and Incomprehensible. Incomprehensible indeed I grant, but not therefore Impossible. There is not the least transaction of sense and motion in the whole man, but Philosophers are at a loss to comprehend, I am sure they are to explain, it. Wherefore it is not always rational to measure the truth of an assertion by the standard of our Apprehension.  
But to bring things even to the bare perceptions of Reason, I appeal to any one, who shall impartially reflect upon the Ideas and Conceptions of his own mind, whether he doth not find it as easy and suitable to his Natural Notions, to conceive that an Infinite Almighty Power might produce a thing out of nothing, and make that to exist De Novo, which did not exist before; as to conceive the World to have had no beginning, but to have existed from Eternity: Which, were it so proper for this place and exercise, I could easily demonstrate to be attended with no small train of absurdities. But then, besides that the acknowledging of a Creation is safe, and the denial of it dangerous& irrilegious, and yet not more,( perhaps much less) demonstrable than the affirmative; so over and above it gives me this advantage, that, let it seem never so strange, uncouth, and impossible, the Nonplus of my reason will yield a farer Opportunity to my faith.  
In this Chapter we have God surveying the works of the Creation, and leaving this general Impress or Character upon them, That they were exceeding good. What an Omnipotence wrought, we have an Omniscience to approve. But as it is reasonable to imagine that there is more of design, and consequently more of perfection, in the last work, we have God here giving his last stroke, and summing up all into Man, the Whole into a Part, the Universe into an Individual: so that whereas in other Creatures we have but the Trace of his foot-steps, in Man we have the draft of his hand. In him were united all the scattered perfections of the Creature; all the graces and Ornaments, all the Airs and features of Being, were abridged into this small, yet full, System of Nature and Divinity. As we might well imagine that the great Artificer would be more then ordinarily exact in Drawing his own Picture.  
The Work that I shall undertake from these words, shall be to show what this Image of God in Man is, and wherein it doth consist: which I shall do these two ways: 1. Negatively, by showing wherein it does not consist. 2. Positively, by showing wherein it does.  
For the first of these we are to remove the erroneous opinion of the Socinians. They deny that the Image of God consisted in any Habitual Perfections that adorned the Soul of Adam: But as to his Understanding bring him in voided of all Notion, a rude unwritten blank; making him to be created as much an Infant as others are born; sent into the World only to red and spell out a God in the Works of Creation, to learn by degrees, till at length his understanding grew up to the stature of his Body. Also without any inherent habits of virtue in his Will; thus divesting him of all, and stripping him to his bare Essence So that all the perfection they allowed his Understanding was Aptness and Docility, and all that they attributed to his will was a possibility to be virtuous.  
But wherein then according to their opinion did this Image of God consist? Why; in that Power and Dominion that God gave Adam over the Creatures: In that he was vouchsafe his immediate Deputy upon Earth, the Viceroy of he Creation, and Lord Lieutenant of the World. But that this Power& Dominion is not adequately and formally the Image of God, but only a part of it, is clear from hence; Because then he that had most of this, would have most of Gods Image: and consequently Nimrod had more of it then Noah, Saul then Samuel, the Persecutors then the Martyrs, and Caesar then Christ himself, which to assert is a Blasphemous Paradox. And if the Image of God is only Grandeur, power and sovereignty, certainly we have been hitherto much mistaken in our Duty: and hereafter are by all means to beware of making ourselves unlike God, by too much Self-denial and Humility. I am not ignorant that some may distinguish between {αβγδ} and {αβγδ}, between a lawful Authority& an Actual Power; and affirm, that Gods Image consists onely in the former: which wicked Princes, such as Saul and Nimrod, have not, though they possess the latter. But to this I answer,  
1. That the Scripture neither makes nor owns such a distinction, nor any where asserts, that when princes begin to be wicked, they cease of right to be Governours. Add to this, that when God renewed this Charter of Man's sovereignty over the Creatures to Noah and his family, we find no exception at all, but that Cham stood as fully invested with this Right as any of his Brethren.  
2. But secondly, This savours of something ranker then socinianism, even the tenants of the Fifth Monarchy, and of sovereignty founded only upon Saintship; and therefore fitter to be answered by the Judge, then by the Divine; and to receive its confutation at the Bar of Justice, then from the Pulpit.  
Having now made our way through this false Opinion, we are in the next place to lay down positively what this Image of God in Man is. It is in short, That universal Rectitude of all the faculties of the Soul, by which they stand apt and disposed to their respective Offices and Operations. Which will be more fully set forth, by taking a distinct survey of it, in the several faculties belonging to the soul.  

1. In the Understanding.  
2. In the Will.  
3. In the Passions or Affections.   
1. And first for its noblest faculty, the Understanding: It was then sublime, clear, and aspiring, and as it were the souls upper Region, lofty and serene, free from the vapours and disturbances of the inferior affections. It was the leading, controlling faculty; all the Passions wore the colours of Reason: it did not so much persuade, as command; it was not Consul but dictatory. Discourse was then almost as quick as Intuition; it was nimble in proposing, firm in concluding: it could sooner determine then now it can dispute. Like the Sun, it had both light and agility; it knew no rest but in motion; no quiet, but in activity. It did not so properly apprehended, as irradiate the Object; not so much find, as make things intelligible. It did arbitrate upon the several Reports of sense, and all the varieties of Imagination; not like a drowsy Judge, only hearing, but also directing their Verdict. In sum, it was vegete, quick, and lively; open as the Day, untainted as the Morning, full of the innocence and spritliness of Youth; it gave the Soul a bright and a full view into all things, and was not only a Window, but itself the Prospect. Briefly, there is as much difference between the clear Representations of the understanding then, and the obscure discoveries that it makes now, as there is between the Prospect of a Casement, and of a Key hole.  
Now as there are two great functions of the Soul, Contemplation, and practise, according to that general division of Objects, some of which only entertain our Speculation, others also employ our Actions; so the Understanding with relation to these, not because of any distinction in the faculty itself, is accordingly divided into Speculative and practic; in both of which the Image of God was then apparent.  
1. For the Understanding Speculative. There are some general maxims& Notions in the mind of Man, which are the rules of Discourse, and the basis of all philosophy. As that the same thing cannot at the same time be, and not be. That the Whole is bigger then a Part. That two Proportions equal to a third, must also be equal to one another. Aristotle indeed affirms the Mind to be at first a mere Rasa tabula; and that these Notions are not ingenite, and imprinted by the finger of Nature, but by the latter& more languid impressions of sense; being onely the Reports of observation, and the Result of so many repeated Experiments.  
But to this I answer two things.  
1. That these Notions are universal, and what is universal must needs proceed from some universal, constant Principle, the same in all particulars; which here can be nothing else but human Nature.  
2. These cannot be infused by observation, because they are the rules by which men take their first apprehensions and observations of things, and therefore in order of Nature must needs precede them: As the being of the Rule must be before its application to the thing directed by it. From whence it follows, that these were Notions not descending from us, but born with us; not our Off-spring, but our Brethren; and( as I may so say) such as we were taught without the help of a Teacher.  
Now it was Adams happiness in the state of innocence to have these clear and unsullied. He came into the World a Philosopher, which sufficiently appeared by his writing the Nature of things upon their Names: he could view Essences in themselves, and red Forms without the comment of their respective Properties: he could see Consequents yet dormant in their principles, and effects yet unborn and in the Womb of their Causes: his understanding could almost pierce into future contingents; his conjectures improving even to prophecy, or the certainties of Prediction; till his fall it was ignorant of nothing but of Sin; or at least it restend in the notion without the smart of the Experiment. Could any difficulty have been proposed, the resolution would have been as early as the proposal; it could not have had time to settle into Doubt. Like a better Archimedes, the issue of all his inquiries was an {αβγδ} an {αβγδ}, the off-spring of his brain without the sweat of his brow. Study was not then a Duty, nightwatchings were needless; the light of Reason wanted not the assistance of a Candle. This is the doom of fallen man to labour in the fire, to seek truth in profundo, to exhaust his time and impair his health, and perhaps to spin out his dayes, and himself into one pitiful, controverted Conclusion. There was then no poring, no struggling with memory, no straining for Invention. His faculties were quick& expedite: they answered without knocking, they were ready upon the first summons, there was freedom, and firmness in all their Operations. I coufess 'tis difficult for us who date our ignorance from our first Being,& were still bread up with the same infirmities about us, with which we were born, to raise our thoughts, and imagination to those intellectual perfections that attended our Nature in the time of Innocence; as it is for a peasant bread up in the obscurities of a cottage, to fancy in his mind the unseen splendour of a Court. But by rating Positives by their Privatives, and other arts of Reason, by which discourse supplies the want of the Reports of sense, we may collect the Excellency of the understanding then, by the glorious remainders of it now, and guess at the stateliness of the building, by the magnificence of its ruins All those arts, rarities, and inventions, which vulgar minds gaze at, the ingenious pursue, and all admire, they are but the relics of an Intellect defaced with Sin and Time. We admire it now, only as Antiquaries do apiece of old coin, for the Stamp it once bore, and not for those vanished lineaments, and disappearing draughts, that remain upon it at present. And certainly that must needs have been very glorious, whose decays are so admirable. He that is comely when old and decrepit, surely was very beautiful when he was young. An Aristotle was but the rubbish of an Adam, and Athens but the rudiments of Paradise.  
2. The Image of God was no less resplendent in that which we call man Practical Understanding, namely, that store-house of the Soul, in which are treasured up the rules of Action, and the seed of Morality. Where we must observe that many, who deny all Connate notions in the Speculative Intellect, do yet admit them in this. Now of this sort are these maxims, That God is to be worshipped. That Parents are to be honoured. That a mans word is to be kept, and the like; which being of universal influence, as to the regulation of the behaviour,& converse of mankind, are the ground of all virtue,& civility, and the foundation of religion.  
It was the privilege of Adam Innocent to have these Notions also firm and untainted, to carry his Monitor in his bosom, his law in his heart, and to have such a Conscience, as might be its own Casuist: And certainly those Actions must needs be regular, where there is an Identity between the rule, and the faculty. His own mind taught him a due dependence upon God, and chalked out to him the just proportions, and measures of behaviour to his fellow-creatures. He had no catechism but the Creation, needed no Study but Reflection, red no book but the volume of the world, and that too not for rules to work by, but for Objects to work upon. Reason was his Tutor,& first principles his magna moralia. The Decalogue of Moses was but a transcript, not an Original. All the Laws of nations and wise Decrees of State, the Statutes of Solon, and the twelve Tables, were but a paraphrase upon this standing rectitude of Nature, this fruitful principle of Justice, that was ready to run out, and enlarge itself into suitable determinations, upon all emergent objects, and occasions. Justice then was neither blind to discern, nor lame to execute. It was not subject to be imposed upon by a deluded fancy, not yet to be bribed by a glozing appetite, for an Utile or Jucundum to turn the ball and to a false or dishonest sentence. In all it directions of the inferior faculties, is conveyed its suggestions with clearness and enjoined them with power; it has the Passions in perfect subjection; and though its command over them was but suasive, and political, yet it had the force of coaction, and despotical. It was not then, as it is now, where the Conscience has only power to disapprove, and to protest against the exorbitances of the Passions; and rather to wish, than make them otherwise. The voice of Conscience now is low,& weak, chastising the Passions, as old Eli did his lustful, domineering Sons; Not so my Sons, not so: but the voice of Conscience then was not, This should, or this ought to be done; but this must, this shall be done. It spoken like a Legislator: the thing spoken was a Law:& the manner of speaking it a new Obligation. In short, there was as great a disparity between the Practical dictates of the understanding then, and now, as there is between empire and advice, counsel and command, between a companion and a governor.  
And thus much for the Image of God as it shone in mans understanding.  
2. Let us in the next place take a view of it, as it was stamped upon the Will. It is much disputed by Divines concerning the power of mans will to Good and Evil in the state of Innocence; and upon very nice, and dangerous precipices stand their determinations on either side. Some hold that God invested him with a power to stand, so that in the strength of that power received, he might without the auxiliaries of any further influence have determined his will to the choice of good. Others hold, that notwithstanding this power, yet it was impossible for him, to exert it in any good action, without a superadded assistance of grace, actually determining that power to the certain production of such an act. So that, whereas some distinguish between sufficient and effectual grace; they order the matter so, as to aclowledge none sufficient, but what is indeed effectual, and actually productive of a good action. I shall not presume to interpose dogmatically in a controversy, that I look never to see decided. But concerning the latter of these Opinions, I shall only give these two remarks.  
1. That it seems contrary to the common& natural conceptions of all mankind, who aclowledge themselves able, and sufficient to do many things, which actually they never do.  
2. That to assert, that God looked upon Adams fall as a sin, and punished it as such, when as without any antecedent sin of his, he withdrew that actual grace from him, upon the withdrawing of which, it was impossible for him not to fall, seems a thing that highly reproaches the essential equity& goodness of the divine Nature.  
Wherefore doubtless the will of man in the state of Innocence, had an entire freedom, a perfect equipendency and indifference to either part of the contradiction, to stand, or not to stand, to accept, or not accept the temptation. I will grant the Will of man now to be as much a slave as any one will have it, and be only free to Sin; that is, instead of a liberty, to have only a licentiousness; yet certainly this is not Nature, but Chance. We were not born crooked: We learnt these windings and turnings of the Serpent, and therefore it cannot but be a blasphemous piece of ingratitude to ascribe them to God; and to make the plague of our Nature the condition of our Creation.  
The Will was then ductile, and pliant to all the motions of right Reason, it met the dictates of a clarified understanding half way. And the Active informations of the Intellect, filling the Passive reception of the will, like Form closing with Matter, grew actuate into a third, and distinct perfection of practise: The Understanding, and Will never disagreed, for the proposals of the one never thwarted the inclinations of the other. Yet neither did the Will servilely attend upon the Understanding, but as a favourite does upon his Prince, where the service is privilege,& Preferment; or as Solomons servants waited upon him. It admired its wisdom, and heard its prudent dictates, and counsels, both the direction, and the reward of its obedience. It is indeed the nature of this faculty to follow a superior guide, to be drawn by the Intellect; but then it was drawn, as a Triumphant Chariot, which at the same time both follows& triumphs; while it obeied this, it commanded the other faculties. It was subordinate, not enslaved to the Understanding: Not as a Servant to a Master, but as a Queen to her King; who both acknowledges a Subjection, and yet remains a Majesty.  
Pass we now downward from mans Intellect and Will,  
3. To the Passions; which have their residence and situation chiefly in the Sensitive Appetite. For we must know, that in as much as man is a compound& mixture of Flesh as well as Spirit, the soul during its abode in the body, does all things by the mediation of these Passions, and inferior affections. And here the Opinion of the stoics was famous and singular, who looked upon all these as sinful defects and Irregularities, as so many deviations from right Reason, making Passion to be only another word for Perturbation. Sorrow in their esteem was a sin scarce to be expiated by another, to pity was a fault, to rejoice an extravagance, and the Apostles advice, to be angry and fin not, was a contradiction in their Philosophy. But in this, they were constantly outvoted by other Sects of Philosophers, neither for famed, nor number less then themselves: So that all arguments brought against them from Divinity would come by way of overplus to their canfutation. To us let this be sufficient, that our Saviour Christ, who took upon him all our natural infirmities, but none of our sinful, has been seen to Weep, to be sorrowful, to Pity, and to be Angry. Which shows that there might be gull in a Dove, Passion without Sin, fire without smoke, and motion without disturbance. For it is not bare agitation, but the sediment at the bottom that troubles and defiles the Water. And when we see it windy and dusty, the wind does not( as we use to say) make, but only raise a dust.  
Now though the Schools reduce all the Passions to these two heads, the concupiscible, and the irascible Appetite: yet, I shall not tie myself to an exact prosecution of them under this Division, but at this time leaving both their terms and their method to themselves, consider only the principal and most noted Passions from whence we may take an estimate of the rest. And first, for the grand leading affection of all, which is Love. This is the great Instrument and Engine of Nature, the bond and cement of Society, the spring and spirit of the Universe. Love is such an affection, as cannot so properly be said to be in the Soul, as the Soul to be in that. It is the whole man wrapped up into one desire, all the powers, vigour, and faculties of the Soul abridged into one inclination. And it is of that active, restless nature, that it must of necessity exert itself; and like the fire, to which it is so often compared, it is not a Free Agent, to choose whether it will heat or no, but it streams forth by natural results, and unavoidable emanations. So that it will fasten upon an inferior, unsuitable Object, rather then none at all. The Soul may sooner leave off to subsist, then to love; and like the Vine, it withers and dies, if it has nothing to embrace. Now this affection in the state of Innocence was happily pitched upon its right Object; it flamed up in direct fervours of devotion to God, and in collateral emissions of charity to its Neighbour. It was not then only another and more cleanly name for Lust. It had none of those impure heats, that both represent and deserve Hell. It was a Vestal and a virgin fire, and differed as much from that which usually passes by this name now a-daies, as the vital heat from the burning of a fever.  
Then for the contrary Passion of Hatred. This we know is the Passion of defiance,& there is a kind of aversation and hostility included in its very essence and being. But then,( if there could have been hatred in the world, when there was scarce any thing odious) it would have acted within the compass of its proper object. Like Aloes, bitter indeed, but wholesome. There would have been no rancour, no hatred of our Brother: An innocent nature could hate nothing that was innocent. In a word, so great is the commutation, that the Soul then hated onely that, which now onely it loves, that is, Sin.  
And if we may bring Anger under this head, as being according to some a transient hatred, or at least very like it. This also, as unruly as now it is, yet then it vented itself by the measures of reason. There was no such thing as the transports of malice, or the violences of revenge: no rendering evil for evil, when evil was truly a non entity, and no where to be found. Anger then was like the sword of Justice, keen, but innocent and righteous. It did not act like fury, and then call itself zeal. It always espoused Gods honour: nor ever kindled upon any thing but in order to a Sacrifice. It sparkled like the coal upon the Altar, with the fervours of piety, the heats of devotion, the sallies and vibrations of an harmless activity. In the next place, for the lightsome Passion of Joy. It was not that, which now often bugbeares this name; that trivial, vanishing, superficial thing, that only gilds the apprehension, and plays upon the surface of the Soul. It was not the mere crackling of thorns, a sudden blaze of the Spirit, the exultation of a tickled fancy, or a pleased appetite. Joy was then a masculine and a severe thing: the recreation of the judgement, the Jubilee of reason: it was the result of a real good suitably applied. It commenced upon the solidities of Truth, and the substance of fruition. It did not run out in voice, or undecent Eruptions; but filled the Soul, as God does the Universe, silently and without noise. It was refreshing, but composed; like the pleasantness of youth tempered with the gravity of age; or the mirth of a festival managed with the silence of contemplation.  
And on the other side for Sorrow. Had any loss or disaster made but room for grief, it would have moved according to the severe allowances of Prudence, and the proportions of the provocation. It would not have sallied out into complaint, or loudness, nor spread itself upon the face, and writ sad stories upon the forehead. No wringing of the hands, knocking the breast, or wishing ones self unborn; all which are but the ceremonies of sorrow, the pomp and ostentation of an effeminate grief: which speak not so much the greatness of the misery, as the smallness of the mind. Tears may spoil the eyes, but not wash away the affliction. Sighs may exhaust the man, but not eject the burden. Sorrow then would have been as silent as Thoughts, as severe as Philosophy. It would have restend in inward sences, tacit dislikes: and the whole scene of it been transacted in sad and silent reflections.  
Then again for Hope. Though indeed the fullness and affluence of mans enjoyments in the state of Innocence, might seem to leave no place for hope, in respect of any further addition, but only of the prorogation, and future continuance of what already he possessed. Yet doubtless, God who made no faculty but also provided it with a proper object, upon which it might exercise, and lay out itself, even in its greatest innocence, did then exercise mans hopes with the expectations of a better Paradise, or a more intimate admission to himself. For it is not imaginable, that Adam could fix upon such poor, thin enjoyments, as riches, pleasure, and the gaieties of an animal life. Hope indeed was always the Anchor of the Soul, yet certainly it was not to catch or fasten upon such mud. And if as the Apostle says, no man hopes for that which he sees, much less could Adam then hope for such things as he saw thro.  
And lastly, for the affection of fear. It was then the instrument of caution, not of anxiety; a guard, and not a torment to the breast that had it. It is now indeed an unhappiness, the disease of the Soul, it flies at a shadow, and makes more dangers then it avoids: it weakens the Judgement, and betrays the succours of reason. So hard is it to tremble, and not to err, and to hit the mark with a shaking hand. Then it fixed upon him that is only to be feared, God: and yet with a filial fear, which at the same time both fears, and loves. It was awe without amazement, dread without distraction. There was then a beauty even in this very paleness. It was the colour of devotion, giving a lustre to reverence, and a gloss to humility.  
Thus did the Passions then act without any of their present jars, combats, or repugnances; all moving with the beauty of uniformity, and the stillness of composure. Like a well-governed Army, not for fighting, but for rank and order. I confess the Scripture does not expressly attribute these several endowments to Adam in his first estate. But all that I have said, and much more, may be drawn out of that short aphorism, God made man upright, Eccl. 7.29. And since the opposite Weaknesses now infest the nature of Man fallen, if we will be true to the rule of contraries, we must conclude that those perfections were the lot of man innocent.  
Now from this so exact& regular composure of the faculties, all moving in their due place, each striking in its proper time, there arose by natural consequence the crowning perfection of all, A good Conscience. For as in the Body, when the principal parts, as the Heart and Liver, do their offices, and all the inferior, smaller vessels act orderly, and duly, there arises a sweet enjoyment upon the whole, which we call Health. So in the Soul, when the supreme faculties of the Will and Understanding move regularly, the inferior Passions and Affections following, there arises a serenity and complacency upon the whole Soul, infinitely beyond the greatest bodily pleasures, the highest quintessence& elixir of worldly delights. There is in this case a kind of fragrancy, and spiritual perfume upon the Conscience; much like what Isaac spoken of his sons garments, That the scent of them was like the smell of a field which the Lord had blessed. Such a freshness and flavour is there upon the Soul, when daily watered with the actions of a virtuous life. Whatsoever is pure, is also pleasant.  
Having thus surveyed the Image of God in the Soul of Man, we are not to omit now those characters of Majesty that God imprinted upon the Body. He drew some traces of his Image upon this also; as much as a spiritual Substance could be pictured upon a corporeal. As for the Sect of the Anthropomorphites, that from hence ascribe to God the figure of a Man, eyes, hands, feet, and the like, they are too ridiculous to deserve a confutation. They would seem to draw this impiety from the letter of the Scripture sometimes speaking of God in this manner. Absurdly, as if the mercy of Scripture expressions ought to warrant the blasphemy of our Opinions. And not rather show us, that God condescends to us, only to draw us to himself; and clothes himself in our likeness, only to win us to his own. The practise of the Papists is much of the same nature, in their absurd and impious picturing of God Almighty: but the wonder in them is the less, since the Image of a Deity may be a proper object for that, which is but the Image of a Religion. But to the purpose: Adam was then no less glorious in his externals; he had a beautiful body, as well as an immortal Soul. The whole compound was like a well-built Temple, stately without,& sacred within. The Elements were at perfect union and agreement in his body; and their contrary qualities served not for the dissolution of the compound, but the variety of the composure. Galen, who had no more Divinity, then what his physic taught him, barely upon the consideration of this so exact frame of the body, challenges any one upon an hundred years study, to find, how any the least fiber, or most minute particle might be more commodiously placed, either for the advantage of use, or comeliness. His stature erect, and tending upwards to his Centre; his countenance majestic and comely, with the lustre of a native beauty, that scorned the poor assistance of Art, or the attempts of Imitation. His body of so much quickness and agility, that it did not only contain, but also represent the Soul: for we might well suppose, tho where God did deposit so rich a Jewel, he would suitably adorn the Case. It was a fit work-house for sprightly vivid faculties to exercise and exert themselves in. A fit tabernacle for an immortal Soul, not only to dwell in, but to contemplate upon: where it might see the World without travail; it being a lesser Scheme of the Creation, nature contracted, a little Cosmography or map of the Universe. Neither was the body then subject to distempers, to die by piecemeal, and languish under Coughs, Catarrs, or Consumptions. Adam knew no disease, so long as temperance from the forbidden fruit secured him. Nature was his Physician: and Innocence, and Abstinence would have kept him healthful to immortality.  
Now the Use of this point might be various, but at present it shall be only this; To remind us of the irreparable loss that we sustained in our first Parents, to show us of how fair a portion Adam disinherited his whole posterity by one single prevarication. Take the picture of a man in the greenness& vivacity of his youth, and in the latter date and declensions of his drooping years, and you will scarce know it to belong to the same person: there would be more art to discern, then at first to draw it. The same, and greater is the difference between Man innocent and fallen. He is as it were a new kind or species; the plague of sin has even altered his nature, and eat into his very essentials. The Image of God is wiped out, the creatures have shook off his yoke, renounced his sovereignty,& revolted from his dominion. Distempers and Diseases have shattered the excellent frame of his body; and by a new dispensation, Immortality is swallowed up of Mortality. The same disaster, and decay also has invaded his spirituals: the passions rebel, every faculty would usurp and rule; and there are so many governours, that there can be no government. The light within us is become darkness; and the Understanding, that should be eyes to the blind faculty of the Will, is blind itself, and so brings all the inconveniences, that attend a blind follower under the conduct of a blind guid. He that would have a clear, ocular demonstration of this, let him reflect upon that numerous litter of strange, senseless, absurd Opinions, that crawl about the world, to the disgrace of Reason, and the unanswerable reproach of a broken Intellect.  
The two great perfections, that both adorn, and exercise mans understanding are Philosophy, and Religion: For the first of these; take it even amongst the Professors of it, where it most flourished, and we shall find the very first notions of common sense debauched by them. For there have been such, as have asserted, That there is no such thing in the world as Motion: That Contradictions may be true. There has not been wanting one that has denied Snow to be white. Such a stupidity or wantonness had seized upon the most raised wits, that it might be doubted, whether the Philosophers, or the owls, of Athens were the quicker sighted. But then for Religion; What prodigious, monstrous, misshapen births has the Reason of fallen man produced! It is now almost six thousand years, that far the greatest part of the World has had no other Religion but Idolatry. And Idolatry certainly is the first-born of Folly, the great and leading paradox, nay, the very abridgement and sum total of all absurdities. For is it not strange, that a rational man should worship an ox, nay the image of an ox? that he should fawn upon his Dog? bow himself before a Cat? adore Leeks and garlic, and  shed penitential tears at the smell of a deified onion? Yet so did the Egyptians, once the famed masters of all arts and learning. And to go a little further; we have yet a stranger instance in Isa. 44.14. A man hews him down a three in the wood, and part of it he burns, in the 16. ver. and in the 17. ver. with the residue thereof he maketh a God With one part he furnishes his Chimney, with the other his chapel. A strange thing, that the fire must first consume this part, and then burn Incense to that. As if there was more Divinity in one end of the stick, then in the other; or, as if it could be graved and painted omnipotent, or the nails and the hammer could give it an Apotheosis. Briefly, so great is the change, so deplorable the degradation of our nature, that whereas before we bore the Image of God, we now retain onely the Image of Men.  
In the last place, we learn from hence the Excellency of Christian Religion, in that it is the great and onely means that God has sanctified and designed to repair the breaches of Humanity, to set fallen man upon his legs again, to clarify his Reason, to rectify his Will, and to compose and regulate his affections. The whole business of our Redemption is in short only to rub over the defaced copy of the Creation to re-print Gods Image upon the Soul, and( as it were) to set forth Nature in a second, and a fairer edition.  
The recovery of which lost Image, as it is Gods pleasure to command, and our duty to endeavour, so it is in his power only to effect.  
To whom be rendered and ascribed, as it most due, all praise, might, majesty and dominion, both now and for evermore. Amen.  
FINIS.   

A SERMON PREACHED BEFORE THE covert At Christ-Church chapel IN OXFORD. By ROBERT SOUTH, D. D. public Orator to the university of Oxford, and Chaplain to the Lord High Chancellor of ENGLAND.  
OXFORD, Printed by H. Hall, for Ric. Davis and Will. not. 1678.   

To the Right Honourable EDWARD Earl of CLARENDON, Lord High Chancellor of England, and Chancellor of the University of Oxon. and one of His Majesties most Honourable Privy Council.  
My Lord,  
THough to prefix so great a Name to so mean a Piece, soems like enlarging the Entrance of an house, that affords no Reception: yet, since there is nothing can warrant the Publication of it, but what can also Command it; the Work must think of no other Patronage, then the same that adorns, and protects its Author. Some indeed vouch great Names, because they think they deserve, but I, because I need such: and had I not more occasion then many others, to see and converse with, your Lordships Candour and proneness to pardon, there is none had greater cause to dread your judgement; and thereby in some part I venture to commend my own. For all know, who know your Lordship, that in a Nobler respect, than either that of Government, or Patronage, you represent and Head the best of Universities: and have traveled over too many Nations, and Authors, to encourage any one that understands himself, to appear an Author in your Hands: who seldom red any Books to inform yourself, but only to countenance and credit them. But, my Lord, what is here Published, pretends no Instruction, but only Homage; while it teaches many of the World, it only describes your Lordship; Who have made the ways of Labour and virtue, of doing, and doing Good, your Business and your Recreation, your Meat and your Drink, and, I may add also, your Sleep. My Lord, the Subject here treated of, is of that Nature, that it would seem but a Chimera, and a bold Paradox, did it not in the very Front carry an Instance to exemplify it; and so by the Dedication convince the World, that the Discourse itself was not impracticable. For such ever was, and is, and will be the Temper of the generality of mankind, that, while I sand men for Pleasure, to Religion, I cannot but expect, that they will look upon me, as only having a mind to be pleasant with them myself; nor are men to be Worded into new Tempers, or Constitutions: and he that thinks, that any one can persuade, but He that made the World, will find that he does not well understand it.  
My Lord, I have obeied your Command, for such must I account your Desire; and thereby Design, not so much the Publication of my Sermon, as of my Obedience: for, next to the supreme Pleasure described in the ensuing Discourse, I enjoy none greater, then in having any opportunity to declare myself,  
Your Lordships very Humble Servant, and Obliged Chaplain, Robert South.   

A SERMON PREACHED AT covert, &c.  Proverbs 3.17. 
Her ways are ways of Pleasantness.  
THe Text relating to something going before, must carry our Eye back to the 13 verse, where we shall find, that the thing, of which these words are affirmed, is wisdom: A Name by which the Spirit of God was here pleased to express to us Religion, and thereby to tell the world, what before it was not ware of, and perhaps will not yet believe, that those two great things that so engross the desires and designs of both the Nobler and Ignobler sort of mankind, are to be found in Religion; namely, Wisdom and Pleasure; and that the former is the direct way to the latter, as Religion is to Both.  
That Pleasure is mans chiefest good,( because indeed it is the perception of Good that is properly pleasure) is an assertion most certainly true, though under the common acceptance of it, not only false, but odious: for according to this, pleasure and sensuality pass for terms equivalent, and therefore, he that takes it in this sense, alters the Subject of the discourse. Sensuality is indeed a part, or rather one kind of pleasure, such an one as it is. For Pleasure in general, is the consequent apprehension of a suitable Object, suitably applied to a rightly disposed faculty; and so must be conversant, both about the faculties of the Body, and of the Soul respectively; as being the result of the fruitions belonging to Both.  
Now amongst those many Arguments, used to press upon men the exercise of Religion, I know none that are like to be so successful, as those that answer, and remove the prejudices that generally possess, and bar up the Hearts of men against it: amongst which, there is none so prevalent in Truth, though so little owned in Pretence, as that it is an Enemy to mens pleasures, that it bereaves them of all the sweets of Converse, dooms them to an absurd and perpetual Melancholy, designing to make the world nothing else but a great Monastery. With which notion of Religion, Nature and Reason seems to have great cause to be dissatisfied. For since God never Created any faculty, either in Soul or Body, but withal prepared for it a suitable object, and that in order to its gratification; can we think that Religion was designed only for a Contradiction to Nature? and with the greatest and most irrational Tyranny in the World to tantalise, and tie men up from enjoyment, in the midst of all the opportunities of enjoyment? to place men with the furious affections of hunger, and thirst in the very bottom of Plenty; and then to tell them that the envy of providence has sealed up every thing that is Jutable under the Character of Unlawful? For certainly, first to frame appetites fit to receive pleasure, and then to interdict them with a Touch not, taste not, can be nothing else, then onely to give them occasion to devour, and prey upon themselves; and so to keep men under the perpetual Torment of an unsatisfied Desire: a thing hugely contrary to the natural felicity of the Creature, and consequently to the wisdom, and goodness of the great Creator.  
He therefore that would persuade men to Religion, both with Art and efficacy, must found the persuasion of it upon this, that it interferes not with any rational pleasure, that it bids no body quit the enjoiment of any one thing that his Reason can prove to him, ought to be enjoyed. 'tis confessed, when through the across circumstances of a mans temper or condition, the Enjoyment of a pleasure would certainly expose him to a greater inconvenience, then Religion bids him quit it; that is, it bids him prefer the endurance of a lesser evil before a greater, and Nature itself does no less. Religion therefore entrenches upon none of our privileges, invades none of our Pleasures; it may indeed sometimes command us to change, but never totally to abjure them.  
But it is easily foreseen, that this Discourse will in the very beginning of it be encountered by an Argument form Experience, and therefore not more obvious than strong; namely, that it cannot but be the greatest trouble in the world for a man thus( as it were) even to shake off himself, and to defy his Nature, by a perpetual thwarting of his innate Appetites and Desires; which yet is absolutely necessary to a severe and impartial prosecution of a Course of Piety: nay, and we have this asserted also, by the Verdict of Christ himself, who still makes the Disciplines of self-denial and the across, those terrible blows to flesh and blood, the indispensible requisites to the being of his Disciples. All which being so, would not he that should be so hardy as to attemt to persuade men to Piety from the pleasures of it, be liable to that invective taunt from all mankind, that the Israelites gave to Moses; Wilt thou put out the eyes of this People? Wilt thou persuade us out of our first Notions? Wilt thou demonstrate, that there is any delight in a across, any Comfort in violent abridgement, and which is the greatest Paradox of all, that the highest Pleasure is to abstain from it?  
For answer to which, it must be confessed, that all Arguments whatsoevr against Experience are fallacious; and therefore in order to the Clearing of the Assertion laid down, I shall premise these two Considerations.  
1. That Pleasure is in the Nature of it a Relative thing, and so imports a peculiar Relation and Correspondence to the state and condition of the Person to whom it is a Pleasure. For as those who Discourse of Atoms affirm that there are Atoms of all forms, some round, some triangular, some square, and the like; all which are continually in motion, and never settle till they fall into a fit circumscription or place of the same figure: So there are the like great diversities of Minds and Objects; whence it is, that this Object striking upon a mind thus or thus disposed, flies off, and rebounds without making any impression; but the same luckily happening upon another of a Disposition as it were framed for it, is presently catched at, and greedily clasped into the nearest Unions and Embraces.  
2. The other thing to be considered; is this, That the Estate of all men by Nature is more or less different from that estate, into which, the same persons do, or may pass, by the exercise of that which the Philosophers called Virtue, and into which men are much more effectually and sublimely translated by that which we call Grace; that is, by the supernatural over powring operation of Gods Spirit. The difference of which two estates consists in this; that in the former the sensitive apperites rule and domineer; in the latter the supreme faculty of the Soul, called Reason, sways the sceptre, and acts the whole man above the irregular demands of Appetite and Affection.  
That the distinction between these two is not a mere figment, framed only to serve an Hypothesis in Divinity; and that there is no man but is really under one, before he is under the other, I shall prove, by showing a Reason why it is so, or rather indeed why it cannot but be so. And it is this. Because every man in the beginning of his life, for several years is capable only of exercising his sensitive faculties and desires, the use of Reason not showing itself till about the Seventh Year of his Age; and then at length but( as it were) dawning in very imperfect Essays and Discoveries. Now it being most undeniably evident that every Faculty and Power grows stronger and stronger by exercise; is it any wonder at all, when a man for the space of his first six years, and those the years of ductility and impression, has been wholly ruled by the propensions of sense, at that age very eager and impetuous; that then after all, his Reason beginning to exert and put forth itself, finds the man prepossessed and under another power: so that it has much ado by many little steps, and gradual conquests, to recover its prerogative from the usurpations of appetite, and so to subject the whole man to its Dictates: the difficulty of which is not conquered by some men all their Days. And this is one true ground of the Difference between a state of Nature, and a state of Grace, which some are pleased to scoff at in Divinity, who think that they confute all that they laugh at, not knowing that it may be solidly evinced by mere Reason and Philosophy.  
These two considerations being premised, namely, That Pleasure implies a proportion and agreement to the respective States and Conditions of men; and that the state of men by Nature is vastly different from the estate into which Grace or virtue transplants them; all that Objection leveled against the foregoing Assertion is very easily resolvable.  
For there is no doubt, but a man, while he resigns himself up to the Brutish guidance of sense and appetite, has no relish at all for the Spiritual, refined delights of a Soul Clarified by Grace and virtue. The pleasures of an Angel can never be the pleasures of a Hogg. But this is the thing that we contend for; that a man having once advanced himself to a state of Superiority over the Control of his inferior Appetites, finds an infinitely more solid and sublime pleasure in the Delights proper to his Reason, then the same person, had ever conveyed to him by the bare ministry of his Senses. His taste is absolutely changed, and therefore that which pleased him formerly, becomes flat and insipid, to his Appetite now grown more Masculine and severe. For as age and maturity passes a real and a marvelous Change upon the diet and recreations of the same person; so that no man at the Years and Vigour of Thirty, is either fond of Suger-plums or Rattles: In like manner, when Reason, by the assistance of Grace, has prevailed over, and outgrown the encroachments of sense, the delights of Sensuality are to such an one but as an Hobby-horse would be to a counsellor of State; or as tastless, as a bundle of Hay to an Hungry lion. Every alteration of a mans Condition infallibly infers an alteration of his Pleasures.  
The Athenians laughed the Physiognomist to Scorn, who pretending to red mens minds in their foreheads, described Socrates for a crabbed, lustful, proud, ill natured Person; they knowing how directly contrary he was to that Dirty Character. But Socrates bid them forbear laughing at the man; for that he had given them a most exact account of his nature; but what they saw in him so contrary at the present, was from the conquest that he had got over his Natural disposition by Philosophy. And now let any one consider, whether that Anger, that Revenge, that Wantonness and Ambition, that were the proper pleasures of Socrates, under his Natural temper of crabbed, lustful, and proud, could have at all affencted or enamoured the mind of the same Socrates, made gentle, chast and humble by Philosophy.  
Aristotle says, that were it possible to put a Young mans eye into an Old mans head, he would see as plainly and clearly as the other; so could we infuse the inclinations and principles of a virtuous person into him that prosecutes his debauches with the greatest Keeness of desire, and sense of Delight, he would loathe and reject them as hearty, as he now pursues them. Diogenes being asked at a Feast, why he did not continue eating as the rest did, ansuered him that asked him with another question, Pray why do you eat? Why says he, for my pleasure; why so, says Diogenes, do I abstain for my Pleasure; and therefore the vain, the Vicious and Luxurious person argues at an high rate of inconsequence, when he makes his particular desires, the general measure of other mens delights. But the case is so plain, that I shall not upbraid any mans understanding by endeavouring to give it any farther Illustration.  
But still, after all, I must not deny that the change and passage from a state of Nature, to a state of virtue, is laborious, and consequently irksome and unpleasant: and to this it is, that all the forementioned expressions of our Saviour do allude. But surely the baseness of one condition, and the generous excellency of the other is a sufficient Argument to induce any one to a change. For as no man would think it a desirable thing, to preserve the Itch upon himself, only for the Pleasure of Scratching, that attends that loathsome distemper: so neither can any man, that would be faithful to his Reason, yield his Ear to be bored through by his domineering appetites, and so choose to serve them for ever, only for those poor, thin gratifications of sensuality that they are able to reward him with. The ascent up the hill is hard and tedious, but the serenity and fair prospect at the Top, is sufficient to incite the Labour of undertaking it, and to reward it being undertook. But the difference of these two conditions of men, as the foundation of their different pleasures, being thus made out; to press men with arguments to pass from one to the other, is not directly in the way, or design of this Discourse.  
Yet before I come to declare positively the pleasures that are to be found in the ways of Religion: one of the grand duties of which is stated upon Repentance; a thing expressed to us by the grim names of Mortification, Crucifixion, and the like: and that I may not proceed only upon absolute Negations, without some Concessions; we will see, whether this so harsh, dismal, and affrighting duty of Repentance is so entirely gull, as to admit of no mixture, no alloy of sweetness, to reconcile it to the Apprehensions of Reason and Nature.  
Now Repentance consists properly of two things,  

1. Sorrow for Sin.  
2. Change of Life.   
A word briefly of them both.  
1. And first for Sorrow for Sin: Usually, the sting of Sorrow is this, that it neither removes nor alters the thing we sorrow for; and so is but a kind of reproach to our Reason, which will be sure to accost us with this Dilemma. Either the thing, we sorrow for, is to be remedied, or it is not: If it is, why then do we spend the time in mourning, which should be spent in an active applying of Remedies? but if it is not; then is our Sorrow Vain and Superfluous, as tending to no real Effect. For no man can weep his Father or his Friend out of the Grave, or mourn himself out of a Bankrupt condition. But this Spiritual Sorrow is effectual to one of the greatest and highest Purposes, that mankind can be Concerned in. It is a means to avert an impendent wrath, to disarm an offended Omnipotence; and even to fetch a Soul out of the very jaws of Hell. So that the End and Consequence of this sorrow, sweetens the sorrow itself: and as Solomon says, In the midst of laughter, the heart is sorrowful; so in the midst of sorrow here, the heart may rejoice: for while it mourns, it reads; That those that mourn shall be comforted and so while the penitent weeps with one eye, he views his Deliverance with the other. But then for the External expressions,& vent of Sorrow; we know that there is a certain pleasure in weeping; it is the Discharge of a big and a swelling grief, of a full and a strangling discontent: and therefore he that never had such a burden upon his heart, as to give him opportunity thus to ease it, has one pleasure in this World, yet to Come.  
2. As for the other part of Repentance, which is change of life; this indeed may be troublesone in the Entrance; but it is but the first bold onset, the first resolute Violence and invasion upon a vicious habit, that is so sharp and afflicting. Every impression of the Lancet Cuts, but it is the first only that Smarts. Besides, it is an Argument hugely unreasonable, to pled the Pain of passing from a vicious Estate, unless it were proved, that there was none in the continuance under it: But surely, when we red of the Service, the Bondage, and the Captivity of Sinners, we are not entertained only with the Air of Words, and Metaphors; and instead of Truth, put off with Similitudes. Let him that says it is a trouble to refrain from a Debauch, convince us, that it is not a greater to undergo one: and that the Confessor did not impose a shrewd Penance upon the Drunken man, by biding him go and be drunk again: and that lisping, raging, redness of Eyes, and what is not fit to be name in such an Audience, is not more toilsome, then to be clean, and quiet, and discreet, and respected for being so. All the trouble that is in it, is the trouble of being sound, being cured, and being recovered. But if there be great arguments for Health, then certainly, there are the same for the obtaining of it: and so keeping a due proportion between Spirituals and Temporals, we neither have, nor pretend to greater Arguments for Repentance.  
Having thus now, cleared off all, that by way of Objection can lye against the Truth asserted, by showing the proper Qualification of the Subject, to whom only the ways of Wisdom, can be ways of Pleasantness; for the further prosecution of the matter in hand, I shall show what are those properties that are so peculiarly set off, and enhance the Excellency of this Pleasure.  
1. The first is, That it is the proper pleasure of that part of man, which is the largest and most comprehensive of Pleasure, and that is his mind: a substance of a boundless comprehension. The mind of man is an Image, not only of Gods Spirituality, but of his Infinity. It is not like any of the Sences, limited to this or that kind of object: as the sight intermedles not with that which affects the smell: but with an universal superintendence, it arbitrates upon, and takes them in all. It is( as I may so say) an Ocean, into which all the little rivulets of Sensation, both External& Internal, discharge themselves. It is framed by God to receive all and more then Nature can afford it; and so to be its own motive to seek for something above Nature. Now this is that part of man, to which the Pleasures of Religion properly belong: and that in a double respect.  

1. In reference to Speculation, as it susteins the name of Understanding.  
2. In reference to practise, as it susteins the name of Conscience.   
1. And first for Speculation: the pleasures of which have been sometimes so great, so intense, so engrossing of all the Powers of the Soul, that there has been no room left for any other Pleasure. It has so called together all the Spirits to that one Work, that there has been no supply to carry on the Inferior operations of Nature. Contemplation feels no Hunger, nor is sensible of any Thirst, but of that after knowledge. How frequent and exalted a Pleasure did David find from his Meditation in the Divine Law! all the day long it was the theme of his Thoughts. The affairs of State, the government of his Kingdom, might indeed employ, but it was this only that refreshed his mind.  
How short of this are the delights of the Epicure! how vastly disproportionate are the Pleasures of the Eating, and of the Thinking man! indeed as different as the silence of an Archimedes in the study of a Problem, and the stillness of a Sow at her wash. Nothing is comparable to the pleasure of an Active, and a prevailing thought: a thought prevailing over the difficulty and obscurity of the Object, and refreshing the Soul with new discoveries, and images of things; and thereby extending the Bounds of Apprehension, and( as it were) enlarging the Territories of Reason.  
Now this pleasure of the Speculation of Divine things, is advanced upon a double Account.  

1. The Greatness.  
2. The newness of the Object.   
1. And first for the greatness of it. It is no less then the great God himself, and that both in his Nature, and his Works. For the Eye of Reason, like that of the Eagle, directs itself chiefly to the Sun, to a glory that neither admits of a Superior, nor an Equal. Religion carries the Soul to the study of every Divine Attribute.  
It poses it with the amazing thoughts of Omnipotence; of a Power able to fetch up such a Glorious fabric, as this of the world, out of the Abyss of Vanity and Nothing, and able to throw it back into the same Original Nothing again. It drowns us in the speculation of the Divine Omniscience; that can maintain a steady infallible comprehension of all Events in themselves Contingent and Accidental; and certainly know that, which does not certainly exist. It confounds the greatest subtleties of Speculation, with the Riddles of Gods Omnipresence; that can spread a single Individual substance through all spaces; and yet without any commensuration of parts to any, or circumscription within any, though totally in every one. And then for his Eternity; which non-plusses the Strongest and Clearest Conception, to comprehend how one single Act of Duration, should measure all Periods and Portions of time without any of the distinguishing parts of Succession. Likewise for his Justice; which shall prey vpon the sinner for ever, satisfying itself by a perpetual Miracle, rendering the Creature immortal in the midst of the flames; always consuming, but never consumed. With the like wonders we may entertain our Speculations from his Mercy; his Beloved, his Triumphant Attribute; an Attribute, if it were possible, something more then Infinite; for even his Justice is so, and his Mercy transcends that. Lastly, we may contemplate upon his supernatural, astonishing works; particularly in the Resurrection, and reparation of the same numerical Body, by a reunion of all the scattered Parts, to be at length disposed of into an estate of Eternal woe or Bliss; as also the greatness and strangeness of the Beatifick Vision; how a created Eye should be so fortified, as to bear all those Glories that stream from the fountain of uncreated Light; the meanest expression of which Light, is, that it is unexpressible. Now what great and high Objects are these for a Rational Contemplation to busy itself upon! Heights that scorn the reach of our Prospect; and Depths in which the tallest Reason will never touch the Bottom: yet surely the pleasure arising from thence is Great and Noble; for as much as they afford perpetual matter and employment to the inquisitiveness of human Reason; and so are large enough for it to take its full scope and range in: Which when it has sucked& drained the utmost of an Object, naturally lays it aside, and neglects it as a dry and an Empty thing.  
2. As the things belonging to Religion entertain our Speculation with great Objects, so they entertain it also with new. And novelty we know is the great parent of pleasure; upon which account it is that men are so much pleased with Variety, and Variety is nothing else but a continued Novelty. The Athenians, who were the professed and most diligent Improvers of their Reason, made it their whole business to hear or to tell some new thing: for the truth is, Newness especially in great matters, was a worthy entertainment for a searching mind; it was( as I may so say) an High taste fit for the relish of an Athenian Reason. And thereupon the mere unheard of strangeness of Jesus and the Resurrection, made them desirous to hear it discoursed of to them again, 17. Acts 23. But how would it have employed their searching Faculties, had the Mystery of the Trinity, and the Incarnation of the Son of God, and the whole economy of mans Redemption, been explained to them! For how could it ever enter into the thoughts of Reason, that a satisfaction could be paid to an Infinite Justice? Or, that two Natures so unconceivably different, as the human and Divine, could unite into one person? The knowledge of these things could derive from nothing else but pure Revelation, and consequently must be purely New to the highest discourses of mere Nature. Now that the Newness of an Object so exceedingly pleases and strikes the mind, appears from this one consideration; that every thing pleases more in expectation then fruition: and expectation supposes a thing as yet new, the hoped for discovery of which is the Pleasure that entertains the expecting, and inquiring mind: Whereas Actual discovery( as it were) rifles and deflours the Newness and Freshness of the Object, and so for the most part makes it Cheap, Familiar and Contemptible.  
It is clear therefore, that, if there by any pleasure to the mind from speculation; and if this pleasure of speculation be advanced by the greatness and newness of the things contemplated upon; all this is to be found in the ways of Religion.  
2. In the next place, Religion is a pleasure to the mind, as it respects practise; and so susteins the Name of Conscience. And Conscience undoubtedly is the great Repository and Magazine of all those pleasures that can afford any solid refreshment to the Soul. For when this is calm, and serene, and absolving, then properly a man enjoys all things, and what is more, Himself, for that he must do, before he can enjoy any thing else. But it is only a Pious life, led exactly by the rules of a severe Religion, that can authorize a mans Conscience to speak comfortably to him: It is this that must word the sentence, before the Conscience can pronounce it; and then it will do it with Majesty and Authority; It will not whisper, but proclaim a Jubilee to the mind. It will not drop, but pour in oil upon the wounded heart. And is there any pleasure comparable to that which springs from hence! The Pleasure of Conscience is not only greater then all other Pleasures, but may also serve instead of them: for they only please and affect the mind in Transitu, in the pitiful narrow compass of actual fruition; whereas that of Conscience entertains and feeds it a long time after with durable, lasting reflections.  
And thus much for the first ennobling property of the Pleasure belonging to Religion, namely, that it is the pleasure of the mind, and that both, as it relates to Speculation, and is called the Understanding; and as it relates to practise, and is called the Conscience.  
2. The second ennobling property of it is, that it is such a pleasure as never satiates, or wearies: for it properly affects the Spirit, and a Spirit feels no weariness, as being privileged from the causes of it. But can the Epicure say so of any of the pleasures that he so much dotes upon? Do they not expire, while they satisfy? and after a few minutes refreshment, determine in loathing and unquietness? How short is the Interval between a pleasure and a Burden? How undiscernible the Thansition from one to the other? Pleasure dwells no longer upon the Appetite, then the necessities of Nature, which are quickly, and easily provided for; and then all that follows, is a load and an oppression. Every morsel to a satisfied Hunger, is only a new Labour to a tired Digestion. Every draft to him that has quenched his Thirst, is but a further quenching of Nature; a provision for Rheum and Diseases; a drowning of the quickness, and activity of the Spirits.  
He that prolongs his meals, and sacrifices his Time, as well as his other Conveniences, to his Luxury, how quickly does he out-sit his pleasure? and then how is all the following time bestowed upon Ceremony and Surfet! till at length after a long fatigue of Eating, and Drinking, and babbling, he concludes the great work of Dineing gently, and so makes ashift to rise from Table, that he may lie down upon his Bed: Where, after he has slept himself into some use of Himself, by much ado he staggers to his Table again, and there acts over the same brutish Scene: so that he passes his whole life in a dozed Condition between sleeping,& waking, with a kind of drowsiness, and confusion upon his Sences; which, what pleasure it can be, is hard to conceive; all that is of it, dwells upon the tipp of his Tongue, and within the compass of his palate; a worthy prise for a man to purchase with the loss of his Time, his Reason, and Himself.  
Nor is that man less deceived, that thinks to maintain a constant tenor of Pleasure, by a continual pursuit of Sports and Recreations: For it is most certainly True of all these things, that as they refresh a man when he is weary, so they weary him when he is refreshed; Which is an evident Demonstration that God never designed the use of them to be continual; by putting such an emptiness in them, as should so quickly fail and lurch expectation.  
The most Voluptuous, and loose person breathing, were he but tied to follow his Hawks, and his Hounds, his Dice, and his Courtships every day, would find it the greatest Torment, and Calamity that could befall him; he would fly to the Mines and the galleys for his Recreation, and to the Spade and the Mattock for a Diversion from the misery of a continual un-intermitted Pleasure.  
But on the contrary, the Providence of God has so ordered the Course of things, that there is no Action, whose usefulness has made it the matter of Duty and of a Profession, but a man may bear the continual pursuit of it, without loathing or Satiety: The same shop and Trade, that employs a man in his Youth, employs him also in his Age. Every morning he rises fresh to his Hammer& his Anvil; he passes the Day singing: custom has naturalised his Labour to him: His Shop is his Element, and he cannot with any enjoyment of himself live out of it. Whereas, no custom can make the painfulness of a Debauch easy, or pleasing to a man; since nothing can be pleasant that is Unnatural. But now, if God has interwoven such a pleasure with the works of our ordinary Calling; how much superior and more refined must that be, that arises from the survey of a Pious& well governed Life! Surely, as much as Christianity is nobler than a Trade.  
And then, for the Constant freshness of it; it is such a pleasure as can never cloy or overwork the mind: for, surely no man was ever weary of thinking, much less of thinking that he had done well or virtuously, that he had conquered such and such a Temptation, or offered Violence to any of his Exorbitant Desires. This is a delight that grows and improves under thought and reflection: and while it exercises, does also endear itself to the mind; at the same time employing and inflaming the Meditations. All pleasures that affect the Body, must needs weary, because they transport, and all Transportation is a Violence; and no Violence can be lasting, but determines upon the falling of the Spirits, which are not able to keep up that height of motion that the Pleasure of the Senses raises them to. And therefore how inevitably does an immoderate laughter end in a sigh? which is only Natures recovering itself after a force done to it. But the Religious Pleasures of a well disposed mind, moves gently, and therefore constantly; it does not affect by Rapture and ecstasy; but is like the pleasure of Health, which is Still and Sober, yet Greater and Stronger, then those that call up the Senses with grosser and more affecting impressions. God has given no man a Body as strong as his Appetites; but has corrected the Boundlesness of his Voluptuous desires, by stinting his strengths, and contracting his Capacities.  
But to look upon those pleasures also, that have an higher object than the Body; as those that spring from honour and grandeur of Condition; yet we shall find, that even these are not so fresh and constant, but the Mind can nauseate them, and quickly feel the thinness of a popular Breath. Those that are so fond of Applause while they pursue it, how little do they taste it when they have it! Like lightning, it only flashes upon the face and is gone, and it is well if it does not hurt the man. But for greatness of Place, though it is fit and necessary, that some persons in the world should be in love with a splendid servitude, yet certainly they must be much beholding to their own fancy, that they can be pleased at it. For he that rises up early, and goes to bed late, only to receive Addresses, to red and answer Petitions, is really as much tied and abridged in his freedom, as he that waits all that time to present one. And what pleasure can it be to be encumbered with dependences, thronged and surrounded with Petitioners? and those perhaps sometimes all Suitors for the same thing: whereupon all but one will be sure to depart grumbling, because they miss of what they think their due: and even that one scarce thankful, because he thinks he has no more than his due. In a word, if it is a pleasure to be envied and shot at, to be maligned standing, and to be despised falling, to endeavour that which is impossible, which is to please all, and to suffer for not doing it; then is it a pleasure to be great, and to be able to dispose of mens fortunes and preferments.  
But further, to proceed from hence to yet an higher degree of Pleasure, indeed the highest on this side that of Religion; which is the pleasure of Friendship and Conversation. Friendship must confessedly be allowed, the Top, the Flower, and Crown of all Temporal enjoyments. Yet has not this also its flaws, and its dark side? For is not my Friend a man, and is not Friendship subject to the same Mortality and Change that men are? And in case a man loves, and is not loved again, does he not think that he has cause to hate as hearty, and ten times more eagerly then ever he loved? and then to be an Enemy, and once to have been a Friend, does it not embitter the rapture, and aggravate the calamity? But admitting that my Friend continues so to the end; yet in the mean time, is he all Perfection, all virtue, and Discretion? Has he not humours to be endured, as well as kindnesses to be enjoyed? And am I sure to smell the Rose, without sometimes feeling the Thorn?  
And then lastly for Company; though it may Reprieve a man from his Melancholy, yet it cannot secure him from his Conscience, nor from sometimes being alone! And what is all that a man enjoys, from a weeks, a months, or a years converse, comparable to what he feels for one hour, when his Conscience shall take him aside and rate him by himself!  
In short, run over the whole circled of all Earthly Pleasures, and I dare affirm, that had not God secured a man a solid pleasure from his own Actions, after he had rolled from one to another, and enjoyed them all, he would be forced to complain, that either they were not indeed Pleasures, or that Pleasure was not Satisfaction.  
3. The third ennobling property of the Pleasure that accrues to a man from Religion, is, that it is such an one as is in no bodies power, but only in his that has it; so that he that has the Property, may be also sure of the Perpetuity. And tell me so of any outward enjoyment, that Mortality is capable of. We are generally at the mercy of mens Rapine, Avarice, and Violence, whether we shall be happy or no. For if I build my felicity upon my Estate or Reputation, I am happy as long as the Tyrant, or the Railer will give me leave to be so. But when my concernment takes up no more room or compass, then myself; then so long as I know where to breath, and to exist, I know also where to be happy: for I know I may be so in my own Breast, in the Court of my own Conscience, where if I can but prevail with myself to be Innocent, I need bribe neither Judge nor Officer to be pronounced so. The pleasure of the Religious man, is an easy and a portable pleasure, such an one as he carries about in his bosom, without alarming either the Eye or Envy, of the world. A man putting all his pleasures into this one, is like a Travellers putting all his goods into one Jewel: the Value is the same, and the Convenience greater.  
There is nothing that can raise a man to that generous absoluteness of condition, as neither to cringe, to fawn, or to depend meanly; but that which gives him that happiness within himself, for which men depend upon others. For surely I need salute no great mans Threshold, sneak to none of his Friends or Servants, to speak a good word for me to my Conscience. It is a noble, and a sure Defiance of a great Malice, backed with a great Interest; which, yet can have no advantage of a man, but from his own Expectations of something that is without himself. But if I can make my Duty my delight; if I can feast, and please, and caress my mind with the pleasures of worthy Speculations, or virtuous practices, let Greatness and Malice vex and abridge me if they can: my Pleasures are as free as my Will; no more to be controlled then my Choice, or the unlimited range of my Thoughts and my Desires.  
Not is this kind of Pleasure only out of the reach of any outward Violence; but even those things also, that make a much closer impression upon us, which are the irresistible decays of Nature, have yet no influence at all upon this. For when Age itself, which of all things in the world, will not be baffled or defied, shall begin to Arrest, Seize, and remind us of our Mortality, by Pains, Aches, deadness of Limbs, and dullness of Sences; yet then the pleasure of the mind, shall be in its full Youth, Vigour, and freshness. A palsy may as well shake an Oak, or a fever dry up a Fountain, as either of them shake, dry up, or impair the delight of Conscience. For it lies within, it Centers in the heart, it grows into the very substance of the Soul; so that it accompanies a man to his Grave; he never out-lives it, and that for this cause only, because he cannot outlive himself.  
And thus I have endeavoured to describe the Excellency of that Pleasure that is to be found in the ways of a Religious wisdom, by those excellent properties that do attend it; which whether they reach the Description that has been given them, or no, every man may convince himself, by the best of Demonstrations, which is his own trial.  
Now, from all this Discourse, this I am sure, is a most natural and direct consequence, that if the ways of Religion, are not ways of Pleasantness, they are not truly and properly ways of Religion. Upon which ground, it is easy to see what judgement is to be passed upon all those affencted, uncommanded, absurd Austerities, so much prized, and exercised by some of the Romish Profession. Pilgrimages, going barefoot, Hair-shirts, and Whips, with other such Gospel. Artillery, are their only helps to Devotion: Things never enjoined, either by the Prophets under the Jewish, or by the Apostles under the Christian economy; who yet surely understood the proper, and the most efficacious Instruments of Piety, as well as any Confessor, or friar of all the Order of St. Francis, or any Casuist whatsoever.  
It seems, that with them, a man sometimes cannot be a Penitent, unless he also turns Vagabond, and foot it to Jerusalem; or wanders over this or that part of the world to visit the Shrine of such or such a pretended Saint; though perhaps in his life, ten times more ridiculous then themselves: thus, that which was Cains Curse, is become their Religion. He that thinks to expiate a Sin by going barefoot, does the Penance of a Goose; and only makes one Folly, the atonement of another. Paul indeed was Scourged and Beaten by the Jews, but we never red that he Beat or Scourged himself: and if they think that his keeping under of his Body imports so much; they must first prove, that the Body cannot be kept under by a virtuous mind, and that the mind cannot be made virtuous but by a Scourge; and consequently that Thongs and Whipcord are means of Grace, and things necessary to Salvation. The Truth is, if mens Religion lies no deeper then their Skin, it is possible that they may Scourge themselves into very great Improvements.  
But they will find that Bodily exercise touches not the Soul; and that neither Pride, nor Lust, nor Covetousness, nor any other 'vice was ever mortified by Corporal Disciplines: 'tis not the Back, but the Heart that must Bleed for sin: and consequently, that in this whole course they are like men out of their way; let them Slash on never so fast, they are not at all the nearer to their Journyes end: and howsoever they deceive themselves and others, they may as well expect to bring a Cart, as a Soul to Heaven by such means. What Arguments they have to beguile poor simplo, unstable Souls with, I know not; but surely the Practical Casuistical, that is, the Principal, Vital part of their Religion savours very little of Spirituality.  
And now upon the result of all, I suppose that to exhort men to be Religious, is only in other words to exhort them to take their Pleasure. A Pleasure High, Rational, and Angelical; a pleasure, embased with no appendent sting, no consequent Loathing, no Remorses, or bitter farewells. But such an one, as being Honey in the Mouth, never turns to gull or Gravel in the Belly. A pleasure made for the Soul and the Soul for that; suitable to its Spirituality, and equal to all its Capacities. Such an one as grows fresher upon Enjoyment, and though continually Fed upon, yet is never Devoured. A pleasure that a Man may call as properly his own, as his Soul and his Conscience; neither liable to Accident, nor exposed to Injury. It is the fore-taste of Heaven, and the Earnest of Eternity. In a word, it is such an one, as being begun in Grace, passes into Glory, Blessedness and Immortality, and those pleasures that neither Eye has seen, nor Ear heard, nor has it entred into the Heart of Man to Conceive.  
To which God of his Mercy vouchsafe to bring us all: to whom be rendered and ascribed, as is most due, all Praise, Might, Majesty, and Dominion, both now and for evermore: Amen.  
FINIS.   

A SERMON Preached at LAMBETH-CHAPPEL on the 25th of November, Vpon the Consecration of the Right Reverend Father in God Dr John DOLBEN Lord Bishop of ROCHESTER. By ROBERT SOUTH, D. D. public Orator to the university of Oxford, and Chaplain to the Lord High Chancellor of ENGLAND.  
OXFORD, Printed by H. Hall. for Ric. Davit and Will. not. 1678.   

To the Right Reverend Father in GOD, JOHN, Lord Bishop of ROCHESTER, Dean of the Cathedral Church of WESTMINSTER, And Clerk of the Closet to His Majesty.  
MY LORD,  
THough the interposal of my Lord of Canterburies Command for the Publication of this mean Discourse, may seem so far to determine, as even to take away, my Choice; yet I must own it to the World, that it is solely and entirely my own Inclination, seconded by my Obligations to your Lordship, that makes this, that was so lately an humble attendant upon your Lordships Consecration, now ambitious to Consecrate itself with your Lordships Name. It was my Honour to have lived in the same college with your Lordship, and now to belong to the same Cathedral, where at present you credit the Church as much by your Government, as you did the School formerly by your Wit. Your Lordship even then grew up into a constant Superiority above others; and all your After-greatness seems but a Paraphrase upon those Promising beginnings: for whatsoever you are, or shall be, has been but an an easy prognostic from what you were. It is your Lordships vnhappeness to be cast upon an Age in which the Church is in its Wane, and if you do not those glorious things that our English Prelates did two or three hundred Years since; it is not because your Lordship is at all less than they, but because the Times are worse. Witness those magnificent Buildings in Christ-Church in Oxford, begun and carried on by your Lordship; when by your Place you governed, and by your Wisdom increased the Treasure of that college: and, which must eternally set your famed above the reach of Envy and Detraction, these great Structures you attempted at a time when you returned Poor and bare, to a college as bare, after a long Persecution, and before you had laid so much as one ston in the Repairs of your own Fortunes: By which incomparably high and generous undertaking, you have shown the World how fit a Person you were to build upon Wolseys foundation: A Prelate, whose Noble designs you Imitate, and whose mind you Equal. Briefly, That Christ-Church stands so high above ground, and that the Church of Westminster lies not flat upon it, is your Lordships Commendation. And therefore your Lordship is not behindhand with the Church, paying it as much Credit and Support, as you receive from it; for you owe your Promotion to your Merit, and, I am sure, your Merit to yourself. All men Court you, not so much because a great Person, as a public good. For, as a Friend, there is none so hearty, so Nobly warm and active to make good all the Offices of that endearing Relation: As a Patron, none more able to oblige and reward your dependents; and, which is the Crowning Ornament of Power, none more willing. And lastly, as a Diocesan, you are like even to outdo yourself in all other Capacities; and, in a word, to exemplify and realize every Word of the following Discourse; which is here most humbly and gratefully presented to your Lordship, by  
Your Lordships most obliged Servant ROBERT SOUTH. From St. James's, Dec. 3. 1666.   

A SERMON Preached at LAMBETH-CHAPPEL on the 25th of November, Vpon the Consecration of the Right Reverend Father in God, Dr John DOLBEN Lord Bishop of ROCHESTER.  2 Titus, last Verse. 
These things Speak and Exhort, and rebuk with all Authority. Let no man Despise thee.  
IT may possibly be expected, that the very taking of my Text out of this Epistle to Titus may engage me in a Discourse about the Nature, Original, and Divine Right of Episcopacy; and if it should, it were no more then what some of the greatest, and the learned'st persons in the world( when men served Truth instead of Design) had done before: For, I must profess that I cannot look upon Titus as so far un-Bishopt yet, but that he still exhibits to us all the essentials of that Jurisdiction that to this day is claimed for Episcopal. We are  told in the fifth Verse of the first Chapter, That he was left in Crete to set things in order, and to ordain Elders in every City; which Text one would think were sufficiently clear and full, and too big with Evidence to be perverted; but when we have seen Rebellion commented out of the thirteenth of the Romans; and since there are few things but admit of Gloss and probability, and consequently may be expounded as well as disputed on both sides, it is no such wonder, that some would bear the world in hand, that the Apostles design& meaning is for Presbytery, though his words are all the time for Episcopacy; No wonder, I say, to us at least, who have conversed with too many strange unparalleled Actions, Occurrences and Events, now to wonder at any thing; Wonder is from surprise; and surprise ceases upon Experience.  
I am not so much a Friend to the stale Starched Formality of Preambles, as to detain so great an Audience with any previous discourse extrinsic to the Subject matter and design of the Text; and therefore I shall fall directly upon the Words, which run in the form of an Exhortation, though in appearance a very strange one; for the matter of an Exhortation should be something naturally in the Power of him to whom the Exhortation is directed. For no man exhorts another to be strong, beautiful, witty, or the like; these are the felicities of some Conditions, the object of more Wishes, but the effects of no mans Choice. Nor seems there any greater reason for the Apostles exhorting Titus, That no man should despise him; for how could another mans Action be his Duty? Was it in his power that men should not be wicked and injurious? and if such persons would despise him, could any thing pass an obligation upon him not to be despised? No, this cannot be the meaning; and therefore it is clear, that the Exhortation lies not against the Action itself, which is onely in the Despisers power; but against the just occasion of it, which is in the will and power of him that is Despised; it was not in Titus's power that men should not despise him, but it was in his power to bereave them of all just cause of doing so; it was not in his power not to be Derided, but 'twas in his power not to be Ridiculous.  
In all this Epistle it is evident that St. Paul looks upon Titus as advanced to the dignity of a prime Ruler of the Church and entrusted with a large diocese, containing many particular Cities under the immediate Government of their respective Elders; and those deriving Authority from his Ordination, as was specified in the fifth Verse of the first Chapter. And now looking upon Titus under this Qualification, he addresses a long Advice and Instruction to him, for the discharge of so important a Function, all along the first and second Chapter: but sums up all in the last Verse, which is the subject of the ensuing Discourse, and contains in it these two things.  

1. An account of the Duties of his Place or Office.  
2. Of the means to facilitate, and make effectual their Execution.   
The Duties of his place were two. 1. To Teach. 2. To Rule. Both comprised in these words; These things speak and exhort, and rebuk with all Authority.  
And then the means; the only means to make him Successful, Bright and Victorious in the performance of these great works, was to be above Contempt, to shine like the Baptist, with a clear, and a triumphant Light. In a word it is every Bishops duty to Teach, and to Govern; and his way to do it, is not to be despised.  
We will discourse of each respectively in their Order.  
1. And first, for the first branch of the great work incumbent upon a Church Ruler, which is to Teach. A work that none is too great or too high for: it is a work of Charity, and Charity is the work of Heaven, which is always laying itself out upon the Needy, and the Impotent; nay, and it is a work of the highest and the noblest Charity; for he that teacheth another, gives an alms to his soul, he clothes the nakedness of his Understanding, and relieves the wants of his impoverished Reason: he indeed that governs well, leads the Blind; but the that teaches, gives him Eyes; and it is a glorious thing to have been the Repairer of a decayed Intellect, and a Subworker to Grace, in freeing it from some of the inconveniencies of Original Sin. It is a Benefaction that gives a man a kind of Prerogative: for even in the common Dialect of the world, every Teacher is called a Master: it is the property of Instruction to descend, and upon that very account it supposes him, that instructs, the superior, or at least makes him so.  
To say a man is advanced too high to condescend to teach the Ignorant, is as much as to say, that the Sun is in too high a place to shine upon what is below him. The Sun is said to rule the day, and the Moon to rule the night: but do they not Rule them only by enlightening them? Doctrine is that, that must prepare men for Discipline; and men never go on so cheerfully, as when they see where they go.  
Nor is the dullness of the Scholar to extinguish, but rather to inflame the charity of the Teacher: for since it is not in men as in vessels, that the smallest capacity is the soonest filled; where the labour is doubled, the value of the work is enhanced; for it is a sowing where a man never expects to reap any thing but the Comfort and Conscience of having done virtuously. And yet we know moreover, that God sometimes converts even the dull and the slow, turning very Stones into Sons of Abraham; where besides that the difficulty of the Conquest advances the trophy of the conqueror; it often falls out, that the backward Learner makes amends another way, recompensing Sure for sudden, expiating his want of Docility with a deeper and a more rooted Sincerity. Which alone were argument sufficient to enforce the Apostles injunction of being instant in season and out of season; even upon the highest and most exalted Ruler in the Church He that sits in Moses chair, sits there to Instruct as well as to Rule: and a Generals office engages him to led as well as to Command his Army. In the first of Ecclesiastes, Solomon represents himself both as Preacher and King of Israel: and every soul that a Bishop gains, is a new accession to the extent of his Power; he preaches his Jurisdiction wider, and enlarges his spiritual diocese, as he enlarges mens apprehensions.  
The Teaching part indeed of a Romish Bishop, is easy enough, whose Grand business is onely to teach men to be Ignorant, to instruct them how to know Nothing, or which is all one, to know upon Trust, to believe implicitly, and in a word, to see with other mens eyes, till they come to be lost in their own souls. But our Religion is a Religion that dares to be understood; that offers itself to the search of the Inquisitive, to the inspection of the severest and the most awakened Reason: for being secure of her substantial Truth and Purity, she knows that for her to be seen and looked into, is to be embraced and admired: as there needs no greater argument for men to love the light then to see it: It needs no Legends, no Service in an unknown tongue, no inquisition against Scripture, no purging out of the heart and sense of Authors, no altering or bribing the voice of Antiquity to speak for it; it needs none of all these laborious Artifices of ignorance; none of all these cloaks and coverings. The Romish Faith indeed must be covered, or it cannot be kept warm; and their Clergy deal with their Religion as with a great Crime; if it is discovered they are undone. But there is no Bishop of the Church of England, but accounts it his Interest, as well as his Duty to comply with this Precept of the Apostle Paul to Titus, These things teach and exhort.  
Now this Teaching may be effected two ways;  

1. Immediately by himself.  
2. Mediately by others.   
And first immediately by himself. Where God gives a Talent, the Episcopal rob can be no Napkin to hid it in. Change of Condition changes not the abilities of Nature, but makes them more illustrious in their exercise; and the Episcopal dignity added to a good Preaching faculty, is like the erecting of a stately Fountain upon a Spring, which still for all that remains as much a Spring as it was before and flows as plentifully, only it flow with the circumstance of greater State and Magnificence; Height of place is it tended only to stamp the endowments of a private condition with Lustre and Authority: And thanks be to God, neither the Churches professed enemies, nor her pretended friends, have any cause to asperse her in this respect, as having over her such Bishops, as are able to silence the Factious, no less by their Preaching, then by their Authority.  
But then on the other hand, let me add also, that this is not so absolutely necessary, as to be of the vital Constitution of this Function. He may teach his diocese who ceases to be able to preach to it: for he may do it by appointing Teachers, and by a vigilant exacting from them the care and the instruction of their respective Flocks. He is the Spiritual father of his diocese; and a Father may see his Children taught, though he himself does not turn Schoolmaster. It is not the gift of every Person, nor of every Age, to harangue the multitude, to Voice it high and loud, & Dominari in Concionibus. And since Experience fits for government, and Age usually brings Experience perhaps the the most Governing years are the least Preaching years. In the  
2. Second place therefore, there is a teaching Mediately, by the Subordinate ministration of others; in which, since the Action of the Instrumental agent is upon all grounds of Reason to be ascribed to the Principal, He that ordains and furnishes all his Churches with able Preachers, is an Universal Teacher, he instructs, where he cannot be Present, he speaks in every mouth of his diocese, and every Congregation of it every Sunday feels his Influence, though it hears not his Voice. That Master deprives not his Family of their food, who orders a faithful Steward to dispense it. Teaching is not a Flow of Words, nor the Draining of an Hour glass, but an effectual procuring, that a man comes to know something that he knew not before, or to know it better. And therefore Eloquence and Ability of speech is to a Church governor, as Tully said it was to a Philosopher, Si afferatur non repudianda, si absit non magnoperd desideranda: and to find fault with such an one for not being a Popular Speaker, is to blame a Painter for not being a good Musician.  
To Teach indeed, must be confessed his Duty; but then there is a Teaching by Example, by Authority, by restraining Seducers, and so removing the Hindrances of knowledge. And a B shop does his Church, his Prince and country more Service by ruling other mens Tongues, then he can by employing his own. And thus much for the first Branch of the great Work belonging to a Pastor of the Church, which was to Teach and to Exhort.  
2. The second is to Rule, Expressed in these words; rebuk with all Authority. By which I doubt not but the Apostle principally intends Church censures, and so the Words are a Metony my of the Part for the whole, giving an instance in Ecclesiastical Censures, instead of all other Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction. A Jurisdiction, which in the Essentials of it is as old as Christianity, and even in those Circumstantial additions of secular encouragement, with which the Piety and Wisdom of Christian Princes always thought necessary to support it against the Encroachments of the injurious World, much Older, and more Venerable, then any Constitution that has divested the Church of it.  
But to speak directly to the Thing before us; We see here the great Apostle employing the utmost of his Authority in commanding Titus to use his: and what he said to Him, he says to every Christian Bishop after him, rebuk with all Authority. This Authority is a Spiritual Sword put into the hands of every Church-Ruler, and God put not this Sword into his hands, with an intent that he should keep it there for no other purpose, but onely for Fashionsake, as men use to wear one by their sides. Government is an Art above the attaimment of an ordinary Genius, and requires a wider, a larger, and a more Comprehending Soul than God has put into every Body. The Spirit that animates and acts the Universe, is a Spirit of Government; and that Ruler that is possessed of it, is the Substitute and Vicegerent of Providence, whether in Church or State. Every Bishop is Gods Curate. Now the Nature of Government Contains in it these three parts.  

1. An Exaction of Duty from the Persons placed under it.  
2. A Protection of them in the performance of their Duty.  
3. Coercion and Animadversion upon such as neglect it. All which are in their Proportion ingredients of that Government that we call Ecclesiastical.   
1. And first it implies Exaction of Duty from the Persons placed under it: for it is both to be confessed and Jamented, that men are not so ready to Offer it, where it is not exacted: Otherwise, what means the Service of the Church so imperfectly and by halves red over, and that by many who profess a Conformity to the Rules of the Church? What makes them mince and mingle-mangle that in their Practise, which they could swallow whole in their Subscriptions? Why are the public prayers curtailed and left out, Prayers composed with Sobriety, and enjoined with Authority, onely to make the more room for a long, crude, impertinent, upstart Harangue before the Sermon?  
Such persons seem to comform( a Word whose signification they never make good) onely that they may despise the Churches Injunctions under the Churches Wing, and Contemn Authority within the protection of the Laws? Duty is but another English Word for Debt, and God knows, that it is well if men pay their Debts when they are called upon. But if Governors do not remind men of, and call them to Obedience, they will find that it will never come as a Free-will-offering, no not from many who even serve at the Altar.  
2. Government imports a Protection, and Encouragement of the Persons under it, in the Discharge of their Duty. It is not for a Magistrate to frown upon, and brow-beat those who are hearty and exact in the management of their Ministry; and with a Grave insignificant Nodd, to call a well Regulated, and Resolved Zeal, Want of Prudence and Moderation. Such Discouraging of men in the ways of an Active Conformity to the Churches Rules, is that, that will crack the Sinews of Government, for it weakens the Hands, and damps the Spirits of the Obedient. And if onely Scorn and rebuk shall attend men for asserting the Churches Dignity,& taxing the murder of Kings, and the like: Many will choose rather to neglect their Duty safely and creditably, then to get a broken Pate in the Churches Service, onely to be rewarded with that, that shall Break their Hearts too.  
3. The third thing implyed in Government, is Coercion and Animadversion upon such as neglect their Duty. Without which Coercive power, all government is but Toothless and precarious, and does not so much command, as beg obedience. Nothing I confess is more becoming a Christian, of what Degree soever, then Meekness, candour and Condescension; but they are virtues that have their proper Sphere and Season to act and show themselves in, and consequently not to interfere with others, Different indeed in their Nature, but altogether as Necessary in their Use. And when an insolent despiser of Discipline, nurtur'd into Impudence and Contempt of all Order by a long Risk of Licence and Rebellion, shall appear before a Church governor, Severity and Resolution are that Governours virtues, and Justice itself is his Mercy; for by making such an one an example,( as much as in him lies) he will either Cure him, or at least Preserve others.  
Were indeed the Consciences of men as they should be, the Censures of the Church might be a sufficient Coercion upon them; but being, as most of them now adays are, Hell and Damnation-proof, her bare anathemas fall but like so many Bruta fulmina upon the Obstinate and Schismatical: who are like to think themselves shrewdly hurt, by being cut off from that Body, which they choose not to be of; and so being punished into a Quiet enjoyment of their beloved Separation. Some will by no means allow the Church any further power then onely to Exhort and to advice, and this but with a Proviso too, that it extends not to such as think themselves too Wise, and too Great to be Advised: according to the Hypothesis of which persons, the Authority of the Church, and the obleiging force of all Church Sanctions, can bespeak men onely thus; These and these things it is your Duty to do, and if you will not do them, you may as well let them alone. A strict and efficacious Constitution indeed, which invests the Church with no power at all, but where men will be so very Civil as to obey it, and so at the same Time pay it a Duty, and do it a courtesy too.  
But when in the Judgement of some men, the Spiritual Function as Such, must render a Churchman, though otherwise never so Discreet and qualified, yet merely because he is a Churchman, unfit to be entrusted by his Prince with a share of that Power and Jurisdiction, which in many circumstances his Prince has judged but too necessary, to secure the Affairs and Dignity of the Church; and which, every thriving grazier can think himself but ill dealt with, if within his own country he is not mounted to: It is a sign, that such discontented Persons intend not that Religion shall advice them upon any other Terms, then that they may Ride and Govern their Religion.  
But surely all our Kings, and our Parliaments, understood well enough what they did, when they thought fit to prop and fortify the Spritual Order with some power that was Temporal; and such is the present state of the World, in the judgement of any observing Eye, that, if the Bishop has no other defensives but Excommunication, no other power but that of the Keys, he may, for any notable effect that he is like to do upon the factious and contumacious, surrender up his Pastoral Staff, shut up the Church, and put those Keys under the Door.  
And thus I have endeavoured to show the Three things included in the general Nature of Government; but, to prescribe the manner of it in particular, is neither in my Power nor Inclination: onely, I suppose, the Common Theory and Speculation of things is free and open to any one whom God sent into the world with an ability to contemplate, and by continuing him in the World, gives him also oppottunity. In all that has been said, I do not in the least pretend to advice, or Chalk out Rules to my Superiors; for some men cannot be Fools with so good acceptance as others. But whosoever is called to speak upon a certain occasion, may, I conceive, without offence take any Text suitable to that occasion; and having taken it, may, or at least ought to speak suitably to that Text.  
I proceed now to the second thing proposed from the Words, which is the Means assigned for the Discharge of the Duties mentioned, and exhibited under this one short Prescription, Let no mon despise thee: In the handling of which I shall show,  

1. The ill effects and destructive Influence that Contempt has upon Government.  
2. The groundless Causes upon which Church-Rulers are frequently despised.  
3. And lastly, the just causes that would render them, or indeed any other Rulers, worthy to be disposed. All which being clearly made out, and impartially laid before our eyes, it will be easy and obvious for every one, by avoiding the Evil so marked out, to answer and come up to the Apostles Exhortation.   
And first we will discourse of Contempt, and the malign hostile Influence it has upon Government. As for the thing itself, every mans Experience will inform him, that there is no Action in the Behaviour of one man towards another, of which human Nature is more Impatient then of Contempt; It being a thing made up of these two Ingredients, an undervaluing of a Man upon a belief of his utter Uselesnesse and Inability, and a spiteful endeavour to engage the rest of the World in the same Belief, and slight Esteem of him. So that the immediate Design of Contempt, is the shane of the Person contemned; and shane is a Banishment of him from the good Opinion of the World, which every man most earnestly Desires, both upon a Principle of Nature and of Interest. For it is Natural to all men to affect a good Name;& he that despises a man, Libels him in his Thoughts, Reviles and Traduces him in his Judgement. And there is also Interest in the Case: For a Desire to be well thought of directly Resolves itself into that owned and mighty Principle of self-preservation: For as much as Thoughts are the first wheels and motives of Action; and there is no long passage from one to the other. He that Thinks a man to the ground, will quickly endeavour to Lay him there: for while he Despises him, he Arraigns and Condemns him in his Heart; and the after Bitterness and Cruelties of his practices, are but the Executioners of the Sentence passed before upon him by his Judgement. Contempt, like the planet Saturn, has first an ill Aspect, and then a destroying Influence.  
By all which I suppose it is sufficiently proved, how Noxious it must needs be to every governor: for, can a man respect the person whom he Despises? and can there be Obedience where there is not so much as Respect? will the Knee bend, while the Heart Insults? and the Actions Submit, while the Aprehensions Rebel? And therefore the most experienced Disturbers and Underminers of Government, have always laid their first Train in Contempt, endeavouring to blow it up in the Judgement and Esteem of the Subject. And was not this method observed in the late most flourishing and successful Rebellion? for how studiously did they lay about them, both from the Pulpit and the press, to cast a slurr upon the Kings person, and to bring his governing Abilities under a Disrepute? and then, after they had sufficiently Blasted him in his Personal Capacity, they found it easy Work to dash and overthrow him in his Political.  
Reputation is Power: and consequently to Despise is to Weaken. For where there is Contempt, there can be no Awe; and where there is no Awe, there will be no Subjection; and if there is no Subjection, it is impossible without the help of the former Distinction of a politic Capacity, to imagine how a Prince can be a governor. He that makes his prince despised and undervalued, blows a Trumpet against him in mens Breasts, beats him out of his Subjects hearts, and fights him out of their Affections; and after this, he may easily strip him of his other Garrisons, having already dispossessed him of his strongest, by dismantling him of his Honour, and seizing his Reputation.  
Nor is, what has been said of princes, less true of all other Governours, from Highest to Lowest, from him that Heads an Army, to him that is Master of a Family, or of one single Servant; the formal Reason of a thing equally extending itself to every particular of the same kind. It is a Proposition of Eternal Verity, that None can Govern while he is Despised. We may as well imagine that there may be a King without Majesty, a Supreme without sovereignty. It is a paradox, and a Direct contradiction in practise: for, where Contempt takes place, the very Causes and Capacities of Government cease.  
Men are so far from being Governed by a despised person, that they will not so much as be taught by Him. Truth itself shall lose its Credit, if Delivered by a person that has none. As on the Contrary, be but a person in Vogue and Credit with the Multitude, he shall be able to commend and set off whatsoever he says, to authorize any nonsense, and to make popular rambling incoherent Stuff, seasoned with Twang and Tautology, pass for high rhetoric and moving Preaching; such indeed, as a Zealous Tradesman would even Live and die under. And now I suppose it is no ill topic of Argumentation, to show the prevalence of Contempt, by the contrary Influences of Respect; which thus( as it were) Dubbs every little, pettit Admired person, Lord and Commander of all his Admirers. And certain it is, that the Ecclesiastical, as well as the Civil governor, has cause to pursue the same Methods of Securing and Confirming himself; the grounds and means of Government being founded upon the same bottom of Nature in both, though the Circumstances, and Relative Considerations of the Persons may differ. And I have nothing to say more upon this Head, but that, if Churchmen are called upon to Discarge the parts of Governours, they may with the highest Reason expect those Supports and Helps that are indispensably Requisite thereunto: and that those men are but Trapann'd, who are called to Govern, being invested with Authority, but bereaved of Power; which according to a true and plain Estimate of things, is nothing else but to mock and betray them into a Splendid and Magisterial way of being Ridiculous. And thus much for the ill Effects and destructive Influence that Contempt has upon Government: I Pass now to the 2d. Thing, which is to show Ground-less Causes, upon which Church-Rulers are frequently Despised.  
Concerning which, I shall premise this; That nothing can be a reasonable Ground of Despising a man, but some Fault or other chargeable upon him; and nothing can be a Fault that is not Naturally in a mans power to prevent; Otherwise, it is a mans Unhappiness, his Mischance or Calamity, but not his Fault. Nothing can justly be Despised, that cannot justly be Blamed; and it is a most certain Rule in Reason and moral Philosophy, That where there is no Choice, there can be no Blame.  
This premised, we may take notice of two usual grounds of the Contempt men cast upon the Clergy, and yet for which no man ought to think himself at all the more worthy to be Contemned.  
1. The first is their very Profession itself; Concerning which, it is a sad, but an experimented Truth, that the Names detived from it, in the refined Language of the present Age, are made but the Appellatives of Scorn. This is not charged Universally upon all, but experience will Affirm, or rather proclaim it of much the greater part of the World; and men must persuade us that we have lost our Hearing, and our common sense, before we can believe the Contrary. But surely the Bottom and Foundation of this Behaviour towards Persons set apart for the Serice of God, that this very Relation should entitle them to such a peculiar Scorn, can be nothing else but atheism; the growing, rampant Sin of the Times.  
For call a man Oppressor, gripping, Covetous, or over-reaching person, and the Word indeed being ill befriended by Custom, perhaps sounds not well, but generally, in the apprehension of the Hearer, it signifies no more, then, that such an one is a Wise, and a Thriving, or in the common Phrase, a Notable man; which will certainly procure him a Respect: And say of another, that he is an Epicure, a Loose or a Vicious man; and it leaves in men no other Opinion of him, then that he is a Merry, Pleasant, and a gentle Person: and that he that taxes him, is but a Pedant, an vnexperiened, and a Morose fellow; one that does not know men, nor understand what it is to Eat and Drink well; But call a man Priest or person, and you set him, in some mens Esteem, ten degrees below his own Servant.  
But let us not be Discouraged, or Displeased, either with ourselves, or our Profession upon this account. Let the Vertuoso's Mock, Insult, and Despise on: yet after all, they shall never be able to Droll away the Nature of things; to trample a Pearl into a pibble, nor to make Sacred things Contemptible, any more then themselves, by such speeches, Honourable.  
2. Another groundless Cause of some mens despising the Governours of our Church, is their loss of that former Grandeur, and privilege that they enjoyed. But it is no real Disgrace to the Church merely to lose her privileges, but to forfeit them by her Fault or misdemeanour, of which she is not conscious. Whatsoever she enjoyed in this kind, she readily acknowledges to have streamed from the Royal Munificence, and the favours of the Civil power shining upon the Spiritual; which Favours the same power may retract and gather back into itself when it pleases. And we envy not the Greatness and Lustre of the Romish Clergy; neither their Scarlet Gowns, nor their Scarlet Sins. If our Church cannot be Great, which is better, she can be Humble, and content to be Reformed into as low a Condition, as men for their own private Advantage would have her; who wisely tell her, that it is best and safest for her to be without any power, or Temporal advantage; like the good Physician, who out of tenderness to his Patient, lest he should hurt himself by Drinking, was so kind as to rob him of his silver Cup. The Church of England Glories in nothing more, then that she is the truest Friend to Kings, and to Kingly Government of any other Church in the World; that they were the same Hands and Principles that took the Crown from the Kings Head, and the Mitre from the Bishops. It is indeed the Happiness of some Professions and Callings, that they can equally square themselves to, and thrive under all Revolutions of Government; but the Clergy of England neither know nor affect that Happiness; and are willing to be Despised for not doing so. And so far is our Church from encroaching upon the Civil power; as some who are Backfriends to both, would maliciously insinuate, that were it stripped of the very Remainder of its privileges, and made as like the primitive Church for its Bareness, as it is already for its purity; it could Cheerfully, and, what is more, Loyally, want all such privileges; and in the want of them pray hearty, that the Civil power may flourish as much, and stand as secure from the Assaults of fanatic, Antimonarchicall principles, grown to such a dreadful height, during the Churches late Confusions, as it stood while the Church enjoyed those privileges. And thus much for the two groundless Causes upon which Church Rulers are frequently Despised. I descend now to the  
3d and Last thing, which is to show those just Causes, that would render them, or indeed any other Rulers worthy to be Despised. Many might be Assigned, but I shall pitch only upon Four; in Discoursing of which, rather the Time, then the Subject will force me to be very Brief.  
1. And the first is Ignorance. We know how great an Absurdity our Saviour accounted it, for the Blind to led the Blind, and to put him that cannot so much as See, to discharge the Office of a Watch. Nothing more exposes to Contempt then Ignorance. When Sampsons eyes were out, of a public Magistrate, he was made a public Sport. And when Eli was blind, we know how well he governed his Sons, and how well they governed the Church under him. But now the Blindness of the Understanding is Greater and more Scandalous; especially, in such a seeing Age as Ours; in which the very Knowledge of former times, passes but for Ignorance in a better dress: an Age that flies at all Learning, and inquires into every thing, but especially, into Faults and Defects. Ignorance indeed, so far as it may be Resolved into Natural inability, is, as to men, at least, Inculpable, and consequently, not the Object of Scorn, but Pity: but in a governor, it cannot be without the Conjunction of the highest Impudence; For who bid such an one Aspire to Teach, and to Govern? A blind man sitting in the Chimney corner is pardonable enough, but sitting at the helm he is Intolerable. If men will be Ignorant and Illiterate, let them be so in Private and to themselves, and not set their Defects in an high place, to make them Visible and Conspicuous. If Owls will not be hooted at, let them keep close within the three, and not perch upon the upper bows.  
2. A Second thing that makes a Governor justly despised, is Viciousness and ill Morals. virtue is that, that must Tipp the preachers Tongue, and the Rulers sceptre with Authority. And therefore with what a Controlling, Overpowering force did our saviour Tax the Sins of the Jews, when he ushered in his Rebukes of them, with that high assertion of himself, Who is there amongst you that convinces me of Sin? Otherwise, we may easily guess with what impatience the world would have heard an incestuous Herod discoursing of Chastity, a Judas condemning Covetousness, or a Pharisee preaching against Hypocrisy; Every word must have recoyled upon the Speaker. Guilt is that, that quells the Courage of the Bold, ties the Tongue of the Eloquent, and makes Greatness itself sneak and lurk, and behave itself poorly. For, let a Vicious person be in never so high Command, yet still he will be looked upon but as one great 'vice, empowered to Correct and Chastise others. A Corrupt Governor is nothing else but a reigning Sin. And a Sin in Office may Command any thing but Respect. No Man can be Credited by his Place or Power; who by his virtue does not first Credit that  
3. A Third thing that makes a Governor justly despised, is fearfulness of, and Mean Compliances with, Bold popular Offenders. Some indeed account it the very Spirit of Policy and prudence, where Men refuse to come up to a Law, to make the Law come down to them. And for their so doing, have this infallible recompense, that they are not at all the more Loved, but much the less Feared; and, which is a sure Consequent of it, accordingly Respected. But believe it, it is a Resolute tenacious Adherence to well Chosen Principles, that adds Glory to Greatness, and makes the face of a Governor shine in the Eyes of those that see & examine his Actions. Disobedience, if complied with is infinitely encroaching, and having gained one degree of Liberty upon Indulgence, will demand another upon Claim. Every 'vice Interprets a connivance an Approbation.  
Which being so, is it not an Enormous indecency, as well as a gross impiety, that any one who owns the Name of a Divine, bearing a great Sinner brave it against Heaven, talk Atheistically, and scoff Profancly at that Religion, by which he owns an Expectation to be saved, if he cares to be saved at all, should instead of Vindcating the Truth to the Blasphemers Teeth, think it Discretion and Moderation( forsooh) with a Complying Silence, and perhaps a Smile to boot, tacitly to approve, and strike in with the Scoffer, and so go Sharer both in the Mirth and Guilt of his profane Jests?  
But let such an one be assured, that even that Blasphemer himself, would inwardly Reverence him, if Rebuked by him; as on the Contrary, he in his Heart really Despises him for his Cowardly base Silence. If any one should reply here, that the Times and Manners of men will not bear such a practise, I confess, that it is an Answer from the mouth of a professed Time-server, very Rational: But, as for that man that is not so, Let him satisfy himself of the Reason, Justice and Duty of an Action, and leave the Event of it to God, who will never fail those, who do not think themselves too wise to Trust Him. For let the worst come to the worst, a man in so doing would be ruined more Honourably, then otherwise preferred.  
4. And lastly. A fourth thing that makes a governor justly Despised, is a wilderness to Despise others. There is a kind of Respect due to the Meanest person, even from the Greatest; for it is the mere favour of providence, that he who is Actually the Greatest, was not the Meanest. A man cannot cast his Respects so low, but they will Rebound and Return upon him. What Heaven bestows upon the Earth in kind Influences, and benign Aspects, is payed it back again in Sacrifice, Incense and Adoration. And surely, a great person gets more by Obliging his Inferior, then by Disdaining him; as a man has a greater advantage by Sowing and Dressing his Ground, then he can have by trampling upon it. It is not to Insult and Domineer, to look Disdainfully, and Revile Imperiously, that procures an Esteem from any one: it will indeed make men keep their Distance sufficiently; but it will be Distance without Reverence.  
And thus I have shown four several Causes, that may justly render any Ruler Despised; and by the same Work, I hope, have made it Evident, how little Cause men have to Despise the Rulers of our Church.  
God is the Fountain of Honour, and the Conduit, by which he Conveys it to the Sons of men, are virtuous and Generous Practices. But as for Us, who have more Immediately and Nearly Devoted, both our persons and Concerns to his Service; it were infinitely vain to expect it upon any other terms. Some indeed may please and promise themselves high Matters, from full Revenues, stately Palaces, Court-Interests, and great dependences. But that which makes the Clergy glorious, is to be Knowing in their Profession, Unspotted in their Lives, Active and Laborious in their Charges, Bold and Resolute in opposing Seducers, and daring to look 'vice in the face, though never so Potent and Illustrious. And lastly, to be Gentle, Courteous, and Compassionate to all.  
These are our Robes, and our Maces, our Escutchions and highest Titles of Honour: for by all these things God is honoured, who has Declared this the Eternal Rule and Standard of all Honour deriveable upon men, That those who Honour Him, shall be Honoured by Him.  To which God, fearful in Praises, and working Wonders, be rendered and ascribed as is most due, all Praise, Might Majesty and Dominion, both now and for ever more. Amen. 
FINIS.   

A SERMON UPON the 7. John 17. Preached By ROBERT SOUTH, D.D. and Chaplain to his royal Highness the Duke of YORK.  


Imprimatur  
JO. NICHOLAS Vic. Can. OXON. Die 29. Junii. 1678.    
OXFORD, Printed by H. Hall for Ric. Davis and Will. not. 1679.   
7. John 17. 
If any man will do his Will, he shall know of the Doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself.  
WHen God was pleased to new model the World by the introduction of a new Religion, and that in the room of one set up by himself, it was requisite, that he should recommend it to the Reasons of men with the same Authority, and evidence, that enforced the Former; and that a Religion established by God himself should not be displaced by any thing under a Demonstration of that Divine Power that first introduced it. And the whole Jewish economy, we know, was brought in with miracles; the Law was writ and confirmed by the same Almighty hand. The whole universe was subservient to its Promulgation. The signs of Egypt and the read Sea; Fire and a Voice from Heaven; the Heights of one, and the Depths of the other; so that( as it were) from the Top to the bottom of nature, there issued forth one universal united Testimony of the Divinity of the mosaic Law and Religion. And this stood in the World for the space of two thousand years; till at length, in the fullness of Time, the reason of men ripening to such a Pitch, as to be above the Pedagogy of Moses's Rod, and the Discipline of Types, God thought fit to display the substance without the Shadow, and to red the World a Lecture of an higher, and more sublime Religion in Christianity. But the Jewish was yet in possession, and therefore that this might so enter, as not to intrude, it was to bring its Warrant from the same hand of Omnipotence. And for this cause, Christ, that he might not make either a suspected, or precarious address to mens understandings, out does Moses, before he displaces him; shows an Ascendant Spirit above him: raises the Dead, and cures more Plagues then he brought upon Egypt: casts out Devils, and heals the Deaf, speaking such Words, as even gave ears to hear them: cures the Blind and the Lame, and makes the very Dumb to speak for the Truth of his Doctrine. But what was the result of all this? Why, some look upon him as an Impostor, and a Conjurer, as an Agent for Beelzebub, and therefore reject his Gospel, hold fast their Law, and will not let Moses give place to the Magician.  
Now the Cause that Christs Doctrine was rejected, must of necessity be one of these two. 1. An insufficiency in the Arguments brought by Christ to enforce it Or 2. An indisposition in the Persons, to whom this Doctrine was addressed, to receive it.  
And for this; Christ who had not onely an infinite Power to work miracles, but also an equal wisdom, both to know the just force, and measure of every Argument, or motive to persuade, or Cause Assent; and withall to look through and through all the Dark Corners of the Soul of man, all the Windings and turnings, and various Workings of his Faculties; and to discern how, and by what means they are to be wrought upon; and what prevails upon them, and what does not. He, I say, states the whole matter upon this Issue. That the Arguments by which his Doctrine addressed itself to the minds of men, were proper, adequate, and sufficient to compass their respective ends in persuading, or convincing the Persons to whom they were proposed: and moreover, that there was no such defect in the Natural light of mans understanding, or Knowing faculty; but that considered in itself, it would be apt enough to close with, and yield its assent to the Evidence of those Arguments duly offered to, and laid before it. And yet, that after all this, the Event proved otherwise; and that, notwithstanding both the Weight and fitness of the Arguments to persuade, and the light of mans Intellect to meet this persuasive evidence with a suitable assent, no Assent followed, nor were men thereby actually persuaded, he Charges it wholly upon the Corruption, the perverseness, and Vitiosity of mans will, as the onely Cause that rendered all the Arguments, his Doctrine came clothed with, despiteful. And consequently, he affirms here in the Text, that men must love the Truth, before they thoroughly believe it; and that the Gospel has then only a free admission into the Assent of the Understanding, when it brings a passport from a rightly disposed Will: as being the great faculty of Dominion, that commands all, that shuts out, and lets in, what Objects it pleases, and in a Word, keeps the keys of the whole Soul.  
This is the Design, and purport of the Words; which I shall draw forth and handle in the Prosecution of these four following Heads.  

1. I shall show; What the Doctrine of Christ was, that the World so much stuck at,& was so averse from Believing.  
2. I shall show; That mens unbelief of it, was from no defect or Insufficiency in the Arguments brought by Christ to enforce it.  
3. I shall show; What was the True and proper cause, into which this unbelief was resolved.  
4. And lastly, I shall show; That a Pious and well disposed mind, attended with a readiness to obey the Known will of God, is the surest and best means to enlighten the Understanding to a belief of Christianity.   
Of these in their order: and  
First for the Doctrine of Christ. We must take it in the Known and Common division of it, into matters of Belief, and matters of practise.  
The matters of Belief related chiefly to his Person& Offices. As, that he was the messiah, that should come into the World. The Eternal Son of God; begotten of him before all Worlds. That in time, he was made man, and born of a pure Virgin. That he should die and satisfy for the Sins of the World: and that he should rise again from the Dead: and ascend into Heaven: and there sitting at the right hand of God, hold the Government of the whole World, till the great and last day: in which he should judge both the Quick and the Dead, raised to life again with the very same Bodies: and then deliver up all Rule and Government into the hands of his Father. These were the great Articles and Credenda of Christianity, that so much startled the World, and seemed to be such, as not onely brought in a New Religion amongst men, but also required a New Reason to embrace it.  
The other part of his Doctrine lay in matters of practise: Which we find contained in his several Sermons, but Principally in that Glorious, full, and admirable discourse upon the mount; recorded in the 5, 6, and 7. Chapters of St Matthew. All which particulars if we would reduce to one general Comprehensive Head, they are all wrapped up in the Doctrine of Self denial, prescribing to the World the most inward purity of Heart, and a Constant Conflict with all our sensual Appetites, and Worldly Interests; even to the quitting of all that is dear to us, and the Sacrificing of Life itself, rather then knowingly to omit the least Duty, or commit the least Sin. And this was that, which grated harder upon, and raised greater Tumults and boilings in the Hearts of men, then the strangeness and seeming unreasonableness of all the former Arcicles, that took up Chiefly in Speculation and Belief.  
And that this was so, will appear from a Consideration of the State and condition the World was in, as to Religion, when Christ promulged his Doctrine. Nothing further then the outward Action was then looked after; and when that failed, there was an Expiation read●●●● the Opus Operatum of a Sacrifice. So that all their virtue and Religion lay in their Folds and their Stals; and what was wanting in the Innocence, the Blood of Lambs was to supply. The Scribes, and Pharisees, who were the great. Doctors of the Jewish Church, expounded the Law no further. They accounted no man a murderer, but he that struck a Knife into his Brothers heart. No man an Adulterer, but He that actually defiled his neighbours Bed. They thought it no injustice nor irreligion to prosecute the Severest Retaliation or Revenge: so that at the same time their outward man might be a Saint, and their inward man a Devil. No care at all was had to kerb the Unruliness of Anger, or the Exorbitance of Desire. Amongst all their Sacrifices, they never sacrificed so much as one Lust. Bulls and Goats bled apace, but neither the Violence of the one, nor the Wantonness of the other ever dyed a victim at any of their Altars. So that no Wonder, that a Doctrine that arraigned the Irregulatities of the most inward motions, and affections of the Soul, and  told men, that Anger and harsh Words were murder, and looks and desires Adultery; that a man might stab with his Tongue and assassinate with his mind, poliute himself with a Glance, and forfeit Eternity by a cast of his Eye. No wonder, I say, that such a Doctrine made a strange bustle and distmbance in the World, which then sart Warm and easy in a free Enjoyment of their Lusts; ordering matters so, that they put a Trick upon the great Rule of virtue the Law, and made a Shift to think themselves guiltless, in spite of all their Sins; to break the Precept, and at the same time to baffle the Curse. Conniving to themselves such a sort of Holiness, as should please God& themselves too, jostisie and save themselves harmless, but never sanctify nor make them Better.  
But the severe Notions of Christianity turned all this upside down; filling all with Surprise, and Amazement: they came upon the World, like light darting full upon the face of a man a sleep, who had a mind to sleep on and not to be disturbed: They were terrible astonishing alarms to Persons grown fat& Wealthy by a long and successful Imposture; by suppressing the True sense of the Law, by putting another Veil upon Moses; and in a word, persuading the World, that men might be honest and Religious, happy and Blessed, though they never denied, nor mortified any one of their Corrupt Appetites.  
And thus much for the first thing proposed; which was to give you a brief draft of the Doctrine of Christ, that met with so little assent from the World in general, and from the Jews in particular. I come now to the  
Second thing proposed. Which was to show. That mens unbelief of Christs doctrine was from no defect, or insufficiency in the Arguments brought by Christ to enforce it. This I shall make appear two ways.  

1. By showing, that the Arguments spoken of were in themselves Convincing and sufficient.  
2. By showing, that upon supposition they were not so, yet their Insufficiency was not the Cause of their Rejection.   
And first for the first of these. That the Arguments brought by Christ for the Confirmation of his Doctrine were in themselves Convincing and Sufficient. I shall insist only upon the Convincing Power of the two Principal. One from the Prophecies recorded concerning him; the other from the Miracles done by him. Of both very briefly.  
And for the former. There was a full, entire Harmony, and Consent of all the Divine Predictions receiving their Completion in Christ. The strength of which Argument lies in this; that it Evinces the Divine mission of Christs person, and thereby proves him to be the messiah; which by Consequence proves and infers the Truth of his Doctrine. For He that was so sent by God, could declare nothing but the Will of God. And so evidently do all the Prophecies agree to Christ, that I dare with great Confidence affirm, that if the Prophecies recorded of the Messiah are not fulfilled in Jesus of Nazareth, It is impossible to Know or distinguish, when a prophesy is fulfilled, and when not, in any thing or Person whatsoever; which would utterly evacuate the use of them. But in Christ they all meet with such an invincible Lustre, and Evidence, as if they were not Predictions, but after-Relations, and the Penmen of them not Prophets, but Evangelists. And now, can any Kind of Ratiocination allow Christ all the marks of the Messiah, and yet deny him to be the Messiah? could he have all the signs, and yet not be the Thing Signified? could the Shadows that followed him, and were cast from him, belong to any other Body? All these things are absurd and Unnatural. And there fore the force of this Argument was Undeniable.  
Nor was that other from the Miracles done by him at all inserior. The strength and force of which, to prove the Things they are alleged for, consists in this. That a Miracle being a work exceeding the power of any Created Agent, and consequently being an effect of the Divine Omnipotence, when it is done to give Credit, and Authority to any Word or Doctrine declared to proceed from God, either that Doctrine must really proceed from God, as it is declared; or God by that Work of his Almighty power must bear Witness to a falsehood, and so bring the Creature, under the greatest Obligation that can possibly engage the Assent of a Rational Nature to believe and assent to a lye. For surely a greater Reason then this, cannot be produced for the Belief of any thing, then for a man to stand up and say. This and This I tell you as the mind and Word of God, and to prove that it is so, I will do that before your Eyes, that you yourselves shall confess can be done by nothing, but the Almighty power of that God, that can neither deceive, nor be deceived. Now if this be an irrefragable Way to Convince, as the Reason of all mankind must confess it to be, then Christs Doctrine came attended, and enforced with the greatest means of Conviction imaginable. Thus much for the Argument in Thesi; and then for the Assumption that Christ did such Miraculous and Supernatural Works to Confirm what he said, we need only repeat the message sent by him to John the Baptist: That the Dumb spake, the Blind saw, the Lame Walked, and the Dead were Raised. Which particulars none of his bitterest enemies ever pretended to deny; they being conveyed to them by an Evidence past all Exception, even the evidence of sense; nay of the quickest, the surest, and most authentic of all the sences, the Sight: which if it be not certain in the Reports and representations it makes of things to the mind, there neither is, nor can be naturally, any such thing as Certainty, or Knowledge in the World. And thus much for the first part of the second General thing proposed: namely, That the Arguments brought by Christ for the proof of his Doctrine, were in themselves Convincing and Sufficient.  
I come now to the other part of it, which is to show, That admitting or supposing that they were not sufficient, yet their insufficiency was not the Cause of their actual Rejection. Which will appear from these following Reasons.  
First, Because those, who rejected Christs Doctrine and the Arguments by which he confirmed it, fully believed and assented to other things conveyed to them with less evidence. Such as were even the miracles of Moses himself: upon the Credit and authority of which stood the whole economy of the Jewish Constitution. For though I grant, that they believed his miracles upon the Credit of Constant unerring Tradition, both written and unwritten, and grant also, that such Tradition was of as great Certainty as the Reports of sense; yet still I affirm, that it was not of the same Evidence; which yet is the greatest, and most immediate ground of all assent.  
The Evidence of sense( as I have noted) is the Clearest that naturally the mind of man Can receive; and is indeed the foundation both of all the Evidence and Certainty too, that Tradition is capable of: which pretends to no other Credibility from the Testimony and Word of some men, but because their word is at length traced up to, and originally terminates in, the sense and Experience of some others: which could not be known beyond that compass of Time, in which it was exercised, but by being  told and reported to Such, as not living at that Time saw it not, and by them to others, and so down from One Age to another. For we therefore believe the Report of some men Concerning a thing, because it implies that there were some others that actually saw that thing. It is clear therefore, that Want of Evidence could not be the Cause that the Jews rejected and disbelieved the Gospel; Since they embraced and believed the Law, upon the Credit of those miracles that were less Evident. For those of Christ they knew by sight and sense, those of Moses only by Tradition: which though equally certain, yet were by no means equally Evident with the Other.  
Secondly, They believed and assented to things, that were neither Evident, nor Certain, but onely Probable: For they conversed, they traded, they merchandised, and by so doing, frequently ventured their whole Estates and Fortunes upon a Probable Belief or persuasion, of the Honesty and Truth of those they dealt and corresponded with. And Interest, especially in Worldly matters, and yet more especially with a Jew, never proceeds but upon supposal at least, of a firm, and sufficient Bottom: From whence it is manifest, that since they could believe and Practically rely upon, and that even in their Dearest Concerns, bare Probabilities, they could not with any Colour of Reason, pretend want of Evidence for their Disbelief of Christs Doctrine, which came enforced with Arguments far surpassing all such Probabilities.  
Thirdly, They believed and assented to things neither evident nor certain, nor yet so much as Probable, but actually false and fallacious. Such as were the absurd Doctrines, and Stories of their rabbis. Which, though since Christs time, they have grown much more Numerous, and fabulous then before, yet even then did so much pester the Church, and so grossly abuse and delude the minds of that People, that Contradictions themselves asserted by rabbis were Equally received and revered by them as the Sacred and infallible Word of God. And whereas they rejected Christ and his Doctrine, though every Tittle of it came enforced with miracle, and the best Arguments that Heaven and Earth could back it with; yet Christ then foretold,& after Times confirmed, that Prediction of his, in the 5. John. 43. that they should receive many Cheats and Deceivers coming to them in their own name. Fellows that set up for Messias's, only upon their own Heads, without pretending to any thing singular or miraculous, but Impudence, and Imposture.  
From all which it follows, that the Jews could not allege so much as a Pretence of the Want of Evidence in the Argument, brought by Christ to prove the Divinity and Authority of his Doctrine, as a Reason of their Rejection and disbelief of it; since they embraced, and believed many things; for some of which they had no Evidence, and for others of which they had no Certainty, and for most of which, they had not so much as Probability. Which being so, from whence then could such an obstinate Infidelity, in matters of so great Clearness and Credibility take its rise? Why, this will be made out to us in the  
Third thing proposed. Which was to show, What was the True and proper Cause, into which this Unbelief of the Pharisees was resolved. And that was in a Word, The Captivity of their Wills and affections to Lusts directly opposite to the Design and Spirit of Christianity. They were extremely ambitious, and insatiably Covetous; and therefore no Impression from Argument or Miracle could reach them; but they stood proof against all Conviction. Now to show, how the Pravity of the Will could influence the Understanding to a disbelief of Christianity; I shall premise these two Considerations.  
First, That the Understanding in its assent to any Religion, is very differently wrought upon in persons bread up in it, and in persons at length converted to it. For in the first, it finds the mind Naked, and unprepossessed with any former Notions, and so easily and insensibly gains upon the Assent, grows up with it, and incorporates into it But in persons adult, and already possessed with other Notions of Religion, the understanding cannot be brought to quit these, and to change them for new, but by great Consideration and examination of the Truth and firmness of the one, and comparing them with the flaws& weakness of the other. Which cannot be done without some Labour and Intention of the mind, and the thoughts dwelling a Considerable time up on the Survey and discussion of Each Particular.  
Secondly, the other thing to be considered, is. That in this great Work, the understanding is chiefly at the Disposal of the Will. For though it is not in the Power of the Will, directly either to cause or hinder the Assent of the understanding to a thing proposed, and duly set before it, yet it is antecedently in the Power of the Will, to apply the understanding faculty to, or to take it off from the Consideration of those Objects, to which, without such a Previous consideration, it cannot yield its Assent. For all assent presupposing a simplo apprehension or knowledge of the terms of the Proposition to be 〈◇〉. But unless the understanding 〈◇〉 and exercise its cognitive, or Apprehensive Power about these terms, there can be no actual Apprehension of them. And the Understanding, as to the Exercise of this Power, is subject to the Command of the Will, though as to the specific nature of its Acts it is determined by the Object. As for instance; My Understanding cannot assent to this Proposition; That Jesus Christ is the Son of God: But it must first consider, and so apprehended, what the terms and Parts of it are, and what they signify: and this cannot be done, if my Will be so Slothfully, Worldly, or Voluptuously disposed, as never to suffer me at all to think of them; but perpetually to carry away, and apply my mind to other things. Thus far is the understanding at the Disposal of the Will.  
Now these two Considerations being premised: namely, That Persons grown up in the Belief of any Religion, cannot change that for another, without applying their understanding duly to consider and compare both: and then, That it is in the power of the Will whether it will suffer the understanding thus to dwell upon such Objects, or no. From these two, I say, we have the true Philosophy and Reason of the Pharisees unbelief. For they could not relinquish their Judaîsme, and embrace Christianity without Considering, weighing and collating both Religions: and this their understanding could not apply to, if it were diverted, and took off by their Will; and their Will would be sure to divert and take it off, being wholly possessed and governed by their Covetousness, and Ambition; which perfectly abhorred the Precepts of such a Doctrine. And this is the very Account, that our Saviour himself gives of this matter, in the 5. John 44. How can ye believe( says he) who receive honour One of Another? He looked upon it as a thing morally impossible, for Persons infinitely Proud and Ambitious, to frame their minds to an Impartial, unbiased Consideration of a Religion that taught nothing but self-denial & the cross: that Humility was honour,& that the Higher men climbed, the further they were from Heaven. They could not with patience so much as think of it, and therefore, you may be sure, would never assent to it. And again, when Christ discoursed to them of alms, and a pious distribution of the goods and riches of this World in the 16. Luke, it is said in the 14. v. That the Pharisees who were Covetous, heard all those things and derided him. Charity and Liberality is a Paradox to the Covetous. The Doctrine that teaches alms, and the Persons that need them are by such equally sent packing. Tell a Miser of Bounty to a friend, or Mercy to the Poor, and point him out his Duty with an Evidence, as bright and pierceing as the Light, yet he will not understand it, but shuts his Eyes as close as he does his hands, and resolves not to be Convinced. In both these Cases, there is an Incurable Blindness caused by a Resolution not to see: and to all intents and purposes, he tat will not open his eyes, is for the present as Blind, as He that cannot. And thus I have done with the third thing proposed, and shown, what was the true Cause of the Pharisees Disbelief of Christs Doctrine. It was the Predominance of those two great Vices over their Will, their Covetousness, and Ambition. pass we now to the  
Fourth and last, Which is to show, That a Pious and well disposed Mind, attended with a readiness to obey the known will of God, is the surest and best means to enlighten the Understanding to a belief of Christianity. That it is so, will appear upon a double Account:  
First, upon the Account of Gods Goodness, and the method of its dealing with the Souls of men: which is to reward every degree of sincere obedience to his will, with a further discovery of it. I understand more then the Ancients, says David, 119. Psalm. 100. verse. But how did he attain to such an Excellency of understanding? was it by longer Study, or a greater Quickness and felicity of Parts, then was in those before him. No, he gives the Reason in the next Words: It was because I keep thy Statutes. He got the start of them in point of Obedience, and thereby out stripped them at length in point of Knowledge. And who in old time were the men of Extraordinary Revelations, but those who were also men of Extraordinary Piety? who were made Privy to the Secrets of Heaven, and the Hidden Will of the Almighty, but such as performed his Revealed Will at an higher rate of Strictness then the rest of the World. They were the Enochs, the Abrahams, the Elijahs, and the Daniels: such as the Scripture remarkably testifies of, that they walked with God. And surely, he that walks with Another, is in a likelier way to know and understand his mind, then He, that follows him at a distance. Upon which account, the Learned Jews still made this one of the Ingredients that went to Constitute a Prophet, that he should be perfectus in moralibus. A Person of exact Morals and unblamable in his Life. The gift of prophesy being a Ray of such a light, as never darts itself upon a Dunghill. And what I here observe occasionally of Extraordinary Revelation, and prophesy, will by Analogy and due proportion extend even to those Communications of Gods Will, that are requisite to mens Salvation. An honest, hearty simplicity, and proneness to do all that a man knows of Gods Will, is the Ready, certain, and infallible way to know more of it. For I am sure it may be said of the Practical knowledge of Religion, that to him that hath shall be given, and He shall have more obundantly.  
I dare not, I confess, join in that bold Assertion of some, that Facienti quod in se est, Deus nec debet, nec potest denegare Gratiam. Which indeed, is no less then a direct contradiction in the very terms: for if Deus debet, then id quod debetur non est gratia: there being a perfect inconsistency between that which is of Debt, and that which is of free Gift. And therefore leaving the non debet, and the non potest, to those, that can bind and loose the Almighty at their pleasure; So much I think, we may pronounce safely in this matter; That the goodness and mercy of God is Such, that he never deserts a sincere person, nor suffers any one that shall live( even according to these measures of sincerity) up to what he knows, to perish for want of any knowledge necessary, and what is more, sufficient to save him.  
If any one should here say. Were there then, none living up to these measures of sincerity, amongst the Heathen? and if there were, did the goodness of God afford such persons Knowledge enough to save them? My answer is according to that of St Paul, I judge not those that are without the Church: they stand or fall to their own master: I have nothing to say of them. Secret things belong to God, it becomes us to be thankful.  
Secondly, A pious and well disposed will is the readiest means to enlighten the understanding to a knowledge of the Truth of Christianity, upon the account of a Natural Efficiency; for as much as a Will so disposed will be sure to engage the mind in a severe Search into the great and Concerning truths of Religion: nor will it only engage the mind in such a Search; but it will also accompany that Search with Two dispositions, directly tending to, and principally Productive of, the Discoveries of Truth, namely Diligence and Impartiality.  
And 1. for the Diligence of the Search. Diligence is the Great Harbinger of Truth; which rarely takes up in any mind, till that has gone before, and made room for it. It is a Steady, constant and pertinacious study that naturally leads the Soul into the Knowledge of that, which at first seemed locked up from it. For this keeps the understanding long in Converse with an object, and long Converse brings acquaintance. Frequent Consideration of a Thing wears off the strangeness of it; and shows it in its several lights and various ways of Appearance to the View of the mind.  
Truth is a great Strong hold, barred& fortified by God& Nature; and Diligence is properly the understandings laying siege to it: So that as in a Kind of Warfare, it must be perpetually upon the Watch; observing all the Avenues and passes to it, and accordingly making its Approaches. Sometimes it thinks it gains a point; and presently again, it finds itself baffled and beaten off: yet still it renews the onsett, attacks the Difficulty afresh; plants this reasoning and that Argument, this consequence and that distinction, like so many intellectual Batteries, till at length it forces a Way and passage into the Obstinate Enclosed Truth, that so long with stood, and defied all its assaults.  
The Jesuits have a saying common amongst them, touching the Institution of Youth( in which their chief Strength and Talent lies) that Vexatio dat Intellectum. As when the mind casts, and turns itself restlessly from one thing to another, strains this power of the Soul to apprehended, that to Judge, another to divide, a fourth to Remember: thus traceing out the Nice and scarce observable difference of some things, and the real Agreement of others, till at length it brings all the Ends of a long and various Hypothesis together, sees how one part coheres with and depends upon another, and so clears off all the appearing Contrarieties& Contradictions, that seemed to lie cross and uncouth and to make the whole unintelligible. This is the Laborious and Vexatious inquest that the soul must make after Science. For Truth, like a Stately Dame, will not be seen, nor show her Self at the first Visit; nor match with the understanding upon an Ordinary Courtship or Address. Long and tedious attendances must be given, and the hardest fatigues endured, and digested: nor did ever the most pregnant wit in the World bring forth any thing great, lasting, and Considerable, without some Pain and travail, some Pains and Throws before the Delivery.  
Now all this, that I have said, is to show the force of Diligence in the investigation of Truth, and particularly of the Noblest of all Truths, which is that of Religion. But then as Diligence is the great Discoverer of Truth, so is the Will the great Spring of Diligence. For no man can hearty search after that, which he is not very desirous to find. Diligence is to the understanding as the Whetstone to the Razor, but the Will is the Hand that must apply one to the other.  
What makes many men so strangely immerse themselves, some in chemical, and some in Mathematical inquiries, but because they strangely love the things they labour in. Their intent Study gives them Skill and Proficiency, and their particular affection to these Kinds of Knowledge puts them upon such Study. Accordingly, let there be but the same Propensity, and Bent of Will to Religion, and there will be the same sedulity and indefatigable Industry in mens Enquiry into it. And then in the Natural course of things, the consequent of asedulous Seeking is finding, and the fruit of Enquiry is Information.  
Secondly, a pious and well disposed Will gives not only Diligence, but also Impartiality to the understanding in its Search into Religion: Which is as absolutely Necessary to give success to our Enquiryes into Truth, as the former. It being scarce possible for that man to hit the mark, whose Eye is still glancing upon something beside it. Partiality is properly the understandings judging according to the Inclination of the Will and affections, and not according to the Exact Truth of things, or the merits of the Cause before it. Affection is still a Briber of the Judgement; and it is hard for a man to admit a Reason against the Thing he loves; or to confess the force of an Argument against an Interest.  
In this case, he prevaricates with his own understanding, and cannot seriously and sincerely set his mind to consider the Strength, to poise the Weight, and to discern the Evidence of the Clearest and best Argumentations, where they would conclude against the Darling of his Desires. For still, that beloved thing possesses, and even engrosses him; and like a coloured glass before his Eyes, casts its own Colour and Tincture upon all the images and Ideas of things that pass from the Fancy to the understanding: and so absolutely does it sway that, that if a strange irresistible Evidence of some unacceptable Truth should chance to surprise and force Reason to assent to the Premises, Affection would yet step in at last, and make it quit the Conclusion.  
Upon which Account, Socinus, and his followers state the Reason of a mans believing or embracing Christianity, upon the Natural goodness or virtuous disposition of his mind, which they sometimes call Naturalis Probitas, and sometimes Animus in Virtutem Pronus. For( say they) the whole Doctrine of Christianity teaches nothing, but what is perfectly suitable to, and coincident with, the Ruling Principles that a virtuous, and well Inclined man is Acted by; and with the main Interest, that he proposes to himself. So that, as soon as ever it is declared to such an One, he presently closes in, accepts, and complies with it. As a prepared soil eagerly takes in, and firmly retains such seed or plants, as particularly agree with it.  
With ordinary minds, such as much the greatest part of the World are, 'tis the suitableness, not the Evidence of a Truth, that makes it to be assented to. And it is seldom, that any thing Practically Convinces a man, that does not please him first. If you would be sure of him, you must inform, and gratify him too. But now, Impartiality strips the mind of prejudice and Passion, keeps it tight and even from the bias of Interest and Desire; and so presents it like a Rasa Tabulae equally disposed to the Reception of all Truth. So that the Soul lies prepared, and open to entertain it; and prepossessed with Nothing, that can oppose, or Thrust it out. For where Diligence opens the Door of the understanding, and Impartiality keeps it, Truth is sure to find both an Entrance and a Welcome too.  
And thus I have done with the fourth and last General thing proposed and proved by Argument, that a Pious and well disposed mind, attended with a Readiness to obey the known will of God, is the furest and best means to enlighten the Understanding to a belief of Christianity.  
Now from the foregoing particulars, by way of Use, we may collect these two things.  
First, the true Cause of that atheism that turcism and Cavilling at Religion, that we see, and have cause to lament in too many in these dayes. It is not from any thing Weak or Wanting in our Religion to support, and enable it to look the Strongest Arguments, and the severest and most Controlling Reason in the face. But men are Atheistical, because they are first vicious; and question the Truth of Christianity, because they hate the practise. And therefore, that they may seem to have some Pretence, and Colour to sin on freely, and to surrender up themselves wholly to their sensuality, without any Imputation upon their judgement, and to quit their morals, without any discredit to their Intellectuals, they fly to several stale, trite, pitiful objections and Cavils, some against Religion in general, and some against Christianity in particular, and some against the very first Principles of Morality, to give them some poor Credit and Countenance in the pursuit of their brutish Courses.  
Few Practical errors in the world are embraced upon the Stock of Conviction, but Inclination: For though indeed the judgement may err upon the Account of Weakness, yet where there is one Error that enters at this door, ten are let into it through the Will. That for the most part being set upon those things, that Truth is a direct obstacle to the Enjoyment of; and where both cannot be had, a man will be sure to buy his Enjoyment, though he pays down Truth for the purchase. For in this case the further from Truth, the further from Trouble. Since Truth shows such an one, what he is unwilling to see, and tells him, what he hates to hear. They are the same beams that shine, and enlighten, and are apt to scorch too: and it is impossible for a man engaged in any wicked way, to have a clear understanding of it, and a quiet mind in it together.  
But these Sons of Epicurus, both for Voluptuousness, and Irreligion also,( as it is hard to support the former without the latter) these, I say, rest not here; but( if you will take them at their word;) they must also pass for the onely Wits of the Age; though greater Arguments I am sure may be produced against this, then any they can allege against the most Improbable Article of Christianity. But heretofore the Rate and standard of Wit was very different from what it is now adays. No man was then accounted a wit for speaking such things, as deserved to have the Tongue curt out that spake them. Nor did any man pass for a Philosopher, or a man of depth, for talking atheistically; or a man of Parts for employing them against that God that gave them. For then, the World was generally better inclined; virtue was in so much reputation, as to be pretended to at least. And virtue, whether in Christian, or in an Infidel, can have no Interest to be served either by atheism or Infidelity.  
For which Cause, could we but prevail with the greatest Debauchees amongst us to change their Lives, we should find it no very hard matter to Change their Judgments. For notwithstanding all their talk of Reason, and Philosophy, which( God knows) they are deplorably strangers to; and those unanswerable Doubts, and Difficulties, that, over their Cups or their Coffee, they pretend to have against Christianity; persuade but the Covetous man not to deify his money; the Proud man not to adore himself; the Lascivious man to throw off his lewd amours; the Intemperate man to abandon his Revels; and so for any other 'vice, that is apt to abuse and pervert the mind of man; and I date undertake, that all their Gyantlike objections against Christian Religion shall presently vanish and quit the field. For he that is a good man, is three Quarters of his Way towards the Being a good Christian, wheresoever he lives, or Whatsoever he is called.  
Secondly, In the next place, we learn from hence the most Effectual way and means of Proficiency and growth in the Knowledge of the great and Profound Truth of Religion; and how to make us all not only good Christians, but also expert Divines. It is a knowledge, that men are not so much to Study, as to live themselves into. A knowledge that passes into the Head through the Heart. I have heard of some, that in their latter years through the feebleness of their Limbs have been forced to study upon their knees: and I think it might well become the youngest, and the strongest, to do so too. Let them daily and incessantly pray to God for his Grace; and if God gives grace, they may be sure that knowledge will not stay long behind. Since it is the same Spirit and Principle, that purifies the Heart, and clarifies the Understanding. Let all their inquiries into the deep and mysterious points of Theology be begun and carried on with fervent Petitions to God; that he would dispose their minds to direct all their Skill and Knowledge to the Promotion of a good life, both in themselves and others; that he would use all their Noblest Speculations,& most Refined Notions, onely as Instruments, to move, and set a Work the great Principles of Actions, the Will, and the Affections; that he would convince them of the Infinite Vanity and uselesseness of all that Learning that makes not the Possessor of it a Better man: that He would keep them from those Sins that may grieve and provoke his holy Spirit, the fountain of all true light and knowledge, to withdraw from them; and so seal them up under Darkness, Blindness, and Stupidity of mind. For where the Heart is bent upon, and held under the power of any vicious Course, though Christ himself should take the contrary virtue for his Doctrine, and do a miracle before such an ones Eyes, for its Application; yet he would not Practically gain his Assent, but the Result of all would end in a non persuadehis etiansi persuaseris. Few Consider what a Degree of Sottishness and Confirmed Ignorance men may sin themselves into.  
This was the case of the Pharisees. And no doubt, but this very Consideration also gives us the true Reason and full Explication of that notable& strange passage of Scripture, in the 16. Luke and the last verse: That if men will not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the Dead. That is, where a strong, inveterate Love of Sin, has made any Doctrine or Proposition, wholly unsuteable to the Heart; no Argument, or Demonstration, no nor miracle whatsoever, shall be able to bring the Heart cordially to close with, and receive it. Whereas on the Contrary; if the Heart be piously disposed, the Natural goodness of any Doctrine is enough to vouch for the Truth of it: for the suitableness of it will endear it to the Will, and by endearing it to the Will, will naturally slide it into the Assent also. For in Morals, as well as in metaphysics, there is nothing really good, but has a Truth Commensurate to its Goodness.  
The Truths of Christ crucified are the Christians Philosophy, and a good life is the Christians logic; that great instrumental introductive Art, that must guide the mind into the former. And where a long Course of Piety, and Close Communion with God has purged the Heart, and rectified the Will, and made all things ready for the Reception of Gods Spirit: Knowledge will break in upon such a Soul, like the Sun shining in his full might, with such a Victorious light, that nothing shall be able to resist it.  
If now at length, some should object here; that from what has been delivered, it will follow: That the most Pious men are still the most Knowing; which yet seems Contrary to Common Experience and observation. I answer; that as to all things directly Conducing, and necessary to Salvation, there is no doubt, but they are so: as the meanest Common soldier, that has fought often in an Army, has a truer and better knowledge of war, then He that has red and writ whole Volumes of it, but never was in any battle.  
Practical Sciences are not to be learnt, but in the way of Action. It is Experience that must give Knowledge in the Christian Profession, as well as in all others. And the Knowledge drawn from Experience, is quiter of another Kind from that which flows from Speculation, or discourse. It is not the Opinion, but the Path of the Just, that the wisest of men tells us, Shines more and more unto a perfect Day. The Obedient, and the men of practise are those Sons of Light, that shall outgrow all their doubts and ignorances, that shall ride upon these Clouds,& triumph over their present Imperfections; till Persuasion pass into Knowledge, and Knowledge advance into Assurance, and all come at length to be Completed in the beatifical Vision, and a full fruition of those joys that God has in Reserve for them, whom by his Grace he shall prepare for Glory.  
To which God Infinitely Wise, Holy, and Just be rendered and ascribed, as is most due, all Praise, Might, Majesty and Dominion, both now and for evermore. Amen.  
FINIS.