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command of St. By is im he was justbed, with Pai. *e are viris de vis justified,” with it. Jumes natas fut wring this inertienes. Auf den il de cffieurs peer; only ementer his your femi s vris, mi vi do but heath of a little hry. I bet smør man al your seTent ports, and mar testres uni al your peerat ngers. Hos we Time things he ind, n the boy pistes us injunction feclared and. decessary. “Whatsoever dogs te lesz, when ye jny, becere that ye recuse them, and ye shall have them.** Emswurms an event promised to faith as can be expressed: fá shall oùall any thing of God Tre: bacsis acc faith alone, bet farth a prayer: firth praying, not faith smply beleving. St St James: the prayer of faith shall save the sock:” but abis, in must be the effectual fervent prayer of a ngonous man:" so that futh shall prevail, but there mast be prayer in faith, and fervour in prayer, and devocion in fervour, and righteousness in devocion; and then impute the effeet to faith if you please, provided that it be declared, that effect cannot be wrought by faith unless it be so qualised. But Christ aids one thing more:

seans of bem, hese things will n are. n hemmafcens, aut voi vodice more. — they new mdliness." But the timation as the measures: hat was fthful to their vows

oh sa shrutian was the best my-mata me i hrti-n's word was as we te vas fauthful that pro dahan #geld nther tie than break ve me a me to his rist; he was nate me good as jonathan did Date median auth then: their reigen we v s. so nan and to do good to every and tight in se "True religion is to sat ve state and dow and to keep ourselves wmyned of ke wd That is a good religion In mandefied.” So St. James: and 89 ne, amom bloes shoiluar, “true religion," ta ma tinana anu datov ov, a pure faith mdx play sto;" for they make up the whole mywany A phineas; and no man could then prewad a faca sot ne that did do valiantly, and suffer yanarly, sod fed the devil, and overcome the 人人 Team * nga are as properly the actions of ** aime is đ charity; and therefore, they dak mahad infly feje moral definition of it. And this *** tuỹ nhierstood by Salvian, that wise and gohej před od Masalia: what is faith, and what is bearing, with he; "hominem fideliter Christo ngañaga mud, fulelem Deo esse, h. e. fideliter Dei manAata setrate,” “That man does faithfully believe in Christ, why is faithful unto God,-who faithfully kaaga Cork's commandments;" and, therefore, let us theaware that faith here, by our faithfulness to God, and by text disgence to do our Master's commandmenta; for "Christianorum omnis religio sine sceJere at macnia vivere," said Lactantius; "The whole religiem tổ a christian is to live unblamably," that is, in all holiness and purity of conversation.

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2. When our faith is spoken of as the great in strument of justification and salvation, take Abrahm's twith as your best pattern, and that will end the dispute, because that he was justified by faith, when his faith was mighty in effect; when he trusted in God, when he believed the promises, when he expected a resurrection of the dead, when he was strong in faith, when he gave glory to God, when against hope he believed in hope; and when all this passed into an act of a most glorious obedience, even denying his greatest desires, contradieting his most passionate affections, offering to God the best thing he had, and exposing to death his beloved Isnac, his laughters, all his joy, at the 2 Tim. ii. 16. Instit. lib. v. c. 9.

When ye stand praying, forgive; but if ye will not forgive, neither will your Father forgive you" So that it will be to no purpose to say a man is justified by faith, unless you mingle charity with it; for without the charity of forgiveness, there can be no pardon, and then justification is but a word, when it effects nothing.

3. Let every one take heed, that by an importune adhering to and relying upon a mistaken faith, he do not really make a shipwreck of a right faith. Hymenæus and Alexander lost their faith by putting away a good conscience; and what matter is it of what religion or faith a man be, if he be a villain and a cheat, a man of no truth, and of no trust, a lover of the world, and not a lover of God? But, I pray, consider, can any man have faith that denies God? That is not possible: and cannot a man as well deny God by an evil action, as by an heretical proposition? Cannot a man deny God by works, as much as by words? Hear what the apostle says: "They profess that they know God, but in works they deny him, being abominable and disobedient, and unto every good work reprobate.”1 Disobedience is a denying God, "Nolumus hunc regnare," is as plain a renouncing of Christ, as "Nolumus huic credere." It is to no purpose to say we believe in Christ and have faith, unless Christ reign in our hearts by faith.

4. From these premises we may see but too evidently, that though a great part of mankind pretend to be saved by faith, yet they know not what it is, or else wilfully mistake it, and place their hopes upon sand, or the more unstable water. Believing is the least thing in a justifying faith; for faith is a conjugation of many ingredients, and faith is a covenant, and faith is a law, and faith is obedience, and faith is a work, and indeed it is a sincere cleaving to and closing with the terms of the gospel in every instance, in every particular. Alas! the niceties of a spruce understanding, and the curious

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ments.

For the first, it is evident that every man pretends to it; if he calls himself christian, he believes all that is in the canon of the Scriptures; and if he did not, he were indeed no christian. But now consider, what think we of this proposition? "All shall be damned who believe not the truth, but have

nothings of useless speculation, and all the opinions | how do they prove this? Truly they hate the of men that make the divisions of heart, and do no- memory of Judas, and curse the Jews that crucified thing else, cannot bring us one drop of comfort in Christ, and think Pilate a very miserable man, and the day of tribulation, and therefore are no parts of that all the Turks are damned, and to be called the strength of faith. Nay, when a man begins | Caiaphas is a word of reproach; and, indeed, there truly to fear God, and is in the agonies of mortifica- are many that do not much more for Christ than tion, all these new nothings and curiosities will lie this comes to; things to as little purpose, and of as neglected by, as baubles do by children when they little signification. But so the Jews did' hate the are deadly sick. But that only is faith that makes memory of Corah as we do of Caiaphas, and they us to love God, to do his will, to suffer his imposi- built the sepulchre of the prophets; and we also are tions, to trust his promises, to see through a cloud, angry at them that killed the apostles and the marto overcome the world, to resist the devil, to stand tyrs; but, in the mean time, we neither love Christ in the day of trial, and to be comforted in all our nor his saints; for we neither obey him, nor imitate sorrows. This is that precious faith so mainly ne- them. And yet we should think ourselves highly incessary to be insisted on, that by it we may be sons jured, if one should call us infidels, and haters of Christ. of the free woman, "liberi à vitiis ac ritibus;" that But, I pray, consider; what is hating of any man, the true Isaac may be in us, which is Christ ac- but designing and doing him all the injury and spite cording to the Spirit, the wisdom and power of God, we can ? Does not he hate Christ that dishonours a divine vigour and life, whereby we are enabled, him, that makes Christ's members the members of a with joy and cheerfulness, to walk in the way of harlot, that doth not feed and clothe these members? God. By this you may try your faith, if you please, If the Jews did hate Christ when they crucified and make an end of this question: Do you believe him, then so does a christian too, when he crucifies in the Lord Jesus, yea or no? God forbid else; him again. Let us not deceive ourselves; a chrisbut if your faith be good, it will abide the trial. tian may be damned as well as a Turk; and chrisThere are but three things that make the integrity tians may with as much malice crucify Christ, as of christian faith; believing the words of God, con- the Jews did: and so does every man that sins wilfidence in his goodness, and keeping his command- fully; he spills the blood of Christ, making it to be spent in vain. "He that hateth you, hateth me; he that receives you, receives me," said Christ to his apostles. I wish the world had so much faith as to believe that; and by this try whether we love Christ, and believe in him, or no. I shall, for the trial of our faith, ask one easy question: Do we believe that the story of David and Jonathan is true? Have we so much faith as to think it possible that two rivals of a crown should love so dearly? Can any man believe this, and not be infinitely ashamed to see christians, almost all christians, to be irreconcilably angry, and ready to pull their brother's heart out, when he offers to take our land or money from us? Why do almost all men that go to law for right, hate one another's persons? Why cannot men with patience hear their titles questioned? But, if christianity be so excellent a religion, why are so very many christians so very wicked? Certainly they do not so much as believe the propositions and principles of their own religion. For the body of christians is so universally wicked, that it would be a greater change to see christians generally live according to their profession, than it was at first from infidelity to see them turn believers. The conversion from christian to christian, from christian in title to christian in sincerity, would be a greater miracle than it was, when they were converted from heathen and Jew to christian. What is the matter? Is not "repentance from dead works" reckoned by St. Paul° as one of the fundamental points of christian religion? Is it not a piece of our catechism, the first thing we are taught, and is it not the last thing that we practise? We had better be without baptism than without repentance, and yet both are necessary; and, therefore, if we were not without faith, we should be without • Heb. vi.

so?

pleasure in unrighteousness." m Does not every man believe this? Is it possible they can believe there is any such thing as unrighteousness in the world, or any such thing as damnation, and yet commit that which the Scriptures call unrighteousness, and which all laws and all good men say is Consider how many unrighteous men there are in the world, and yet how few of them think they shall be damned. I know not how it comes to pass, but men, go upon strange princíples, and they have made christianity to be a very odd institution, if it had not better measures than they are pleased to afford it. There are two great roots of all evil, covetousness and pride, and they have infected the greatest parts of mankind, and yet no man thinks himself to be either covetous or proud; and, therefore, whatever you discourse against these sins, it never hits any man, but, like Jonathan's arrows to David, they fall short, or they fly beyond. Salvian complained of it in his time: "Hoc ad crimina nostra addimus, ut cum in omnibus rei simus, etiam bonos nos et sanctos esse credamus:" "This we add unto our crimes, we are the vilest persons in the world, and yet we think ourselves to be good people," and, when we die, make no question but we shall go to heaven." There is no cause of this, but because we have not so much faith as believing comes to; and yet most men will pretend not only to believe, but to love Christ all this while. And "Lib. iii.

in 2 Thess. ii. 12.

neither. Is not repentance a forsaking all sin, and | bear contempt: but give them riches, and they grow an entire returning unto God? Who can deny this? insolent; fear and pusillanimity did their first work, And is it not plainly said in Scripture, "Unless ye and an opportunity to sin undoes it all. "Bonum repent, ye shall all perish?" But show me the militem perdidisti, imperatorem pessimum creâsti,” man that believes these things heartily; that is, said Galba: "You have spoiled a good trooper, show me a true penitent, he only believes the doc- when you made me a bad commander." Others trines of repentance. can never serve God but when they are prosperous ; if they lose their fortune, they lose their faith, and quit their charity: "Non rata fides, ubi jam melior fortuna ruit;" if they become poor, they become liars and deceivers of their trust, envious and greedy, restless and uncharitable; that is, one way or other they show that they love the world, and by all the faith they pretend to cannot overcome it.

If I had time, I should examine your faith by your confidence in God, and by your obedience. But, if we fall in the mere believing, it is not likely we should do better in the other. But because all the promises of God are conditional, and there can be no confidence in the particular without a promise or revelation, it is not possible that any man that does not live well, should reasonably put his trust in God. To live a wicked life, and then to be confident that in the day of our death God will give us pardon, is not faith, but a direct want of faith. If we did believe the promises upon their proper conditions, or believe that God's commandments were righteous and true, or that the threatenings were as really intended as they are terribly spoken, we should not dare to live at the rate we do. But “wicked men have not faith," saith St. Paul; and then the wonder ceases.

But there are such palpable contradictions between men's practices and the fundamentals of our faith, that it was a material consideration of our blessed Saviour, "When the Son of man comes, shall he find faith upon earth ?" meaning it should be very hard and scant: "Every man shall boast of his own goodness; 'sed virum fidelem,' (saith Solomon,) but a faithful man,' who can find ?" Some men are very good when they are afflicted.

Hanc tibi virtutem fractâ facit urceus ansâ,
Et tristis nullo qui tepet igne focus;
Et teges et cimex, et nudi sponda grabati,

Fit brevis atque eadem nocte dieque toga. MARTIAL. When the gown of the day is the mantle of the night, and cannot at the same time cover the head and make the feet warm; when they have but one broken dish and no spoon, then they are humble and modest; then they can suffer an injury and

Cast up, therefore, your reckonings impartially; see what is, what will be required at your hands; do not think you can be justified by faith, unless your faith be greater than all your passions; you have not the learning, not so much as the common notices of faith, unless you can tell when you are covetous, and reprove yourself when you are proud; but he that is so, and knows it not, (and that is the case of most men,) hath no faith, and neither knows God nor knows himself.

To conclude. He that hath true justifying faith, believes the power of God to be above the powers of nature; the goodness of God above the merit and disposition of our persons; the bounty of God above the excellency of our works; the truth of God above the contradiction of our weak arguings and fears; the love of God above our cold experience and ineffectual reason; and the necessities of doing good works above the faint excuses and ignorant pretences of disputing sinners: but want of faith makes us so generally wicked as we are, so often running to despair, so often baffled in our resolutions of a good life; but he whose faith makes him more than conqueror over these difficulties, to him Isaac shall be born even in his old age; the life of God shall be perfectly wrought in him; and by this faith, so operative, so strong, so lasting, so obedient, he shall be justified, and he shall be saved.

SERMON IV.

PREACHED AT THE

CONSECRATION OF TWO ARCHBISHOPS AND TEN BISHOPS,

IN THE CATHEDRAL CHURCH OF ST. PATRICK, IN Dublin

January 27, 1660.

Sal liquefit, ut condiat.

TO THE CHRISTIAN READER.

My obedience to the commands of the Right Honourable the Lord Justices, and the most Reverend and Learned Primate, and to the desires of my Reverend Brethren, put it past my inquiry, whether I ought to publish this following Sermon. I will not, therefore, excuse it, and say it might have advantages in the delivery which it would want in the reading; and the ear would be kind to the piety of it, which was apparent in the design, when the eye would be severe in its censure of those arguments, which, as they could not be longer in that measure of time, so would have appeared more firm, if they could have had liberty to have been pursued to their utmost issue: but reason lies in a little room, and obedience in less; and although what I have here said, may not stop the mouths of men resolved to keep up a faction, yet I have said enough to the sober and pious, to them who love order, and hearken to the voice of the spouse of Christ, to the loving and to the obedient: and for those that are not so, I have no argument fit to be used, but prayer, and readiness to give them a reason when they shall modestly demand it. In the mean time, I shall only desire them to make use of those truths which the more learned of their party have, by the evidence of fact, been forced to confess. Rivet affirms, that it descended "ex veteris ævi reliquiis," that presbyters should be assistants or conjoined to the bishops (who is by this confessed to be the principal) in the imposition of hands for ordination. Walo Messalinus acknowledges it to be "rem antiquissimam," "a most ancient thing," that these two orders, viz., of bishops and presbyters, should be distinct, even in the middle, or in the beginning of the next age after Christ. David Blondel places it to be thirty-five years after the death of St. John. Now, then, episcopacy is confessed to be of about one thousand six hundred years' continuance; and if, before this, they can show any ordination by mere presbyters, by any but an apostle, or an apostolical man; and if there were not visibly a distinction of powers and persons relatively in the ecclesiastical government; or if they can give a rational account why they, who are forced to confess the honour and distinct order of episcopacy, for about sixteen ages, should, in the dark interval of thirty-five years, in which they can pretend to no monument or record to the contrary, yet make unlearned scruples of things they cannot colourably prove; if, I say, they can reasonably account for these things, I, for my part, will be ready to confess, that they are not guilty of the greatest, the most unreasonable and inexcusable schism in the world; but else they have no colour to palliate the unlearned crime for will not all wise men in the world conclude, that the church of God, which was then holy, not in title only and design, but practically and materially, and persecuted, and not immerged in secular temptations, could not, all in one instant, join together to alter that form of church government, which Christ and his apostles had so recently established, and, without a Divine warrant, destroy a Divine institution, not only to the confusion of the hierarchy, but to the ruin of their own souls? It were strange that so great a change should be, and no good man oppose it: "In toto orbe decretum est;" so St. Jerome: "All the world consented" in the advancement of the episcopal order; and, therefore, if we had no more to say for it, yet in prudence and piety we cannot say they would innovate in so great a matter.

But I shall enter no further upon this inquiry: only I remember that it is not very many months since the bigots of the popish party cried out against us vehemently, and inquired, "Where is your church of England, since you have no unity? for your ecclesiastic head of unity, your bishops, are gone:" and if we should be desirous to verify their argument, so as indeed to destroy episcopacy, we should too much advantage popery, and do the most imprudent and most impious thing in the world. But blessed be God, who hath restored that government, for which our late king, of glorious memory, gave his blood; and that,

methinks, should very much weigh with all the king's true-hearted subjects, who should make it religion not to rob that glorious prince of the greatest honour of such a martyrdom. For my part, I think it fit to rest in these words of another martyr, St. Cyprian: "Si quis cum episcopo non sit, in ecclesia non esse :" "He that is not with the bishop, is not in the church :" that is; he that goes away from him, and willingly separates, departs from God's church; and whether he can then be with God, is a very material consideration, and fit to be thought on by all that think heaven a more eligible good than the interests of a faction and the importune desire of rule can countervail.

However, I have, in the following papers, spoken a few things, which, I hope, may be fit to persuade them that are not infinitely prejudiced; and although two or three good arguments are as good as two or three hundred, yet my purpose here was to prove the dignity and necessity of the office and order episcopal, only that it might be as an economy to convey notice and remembrances of the great duty incumbent upon all them that undertake this great charge. The dignity and the duty take one another by the hand, and are born together; only every sheep of the flock must take care to make the bishop's duty as easy as it can, by humility and love, by prayer and by obedience. It is, at the best, very difficult; but they who oppose themselves to government, make it harder and uncomfortable: but take heed, if thy bishop hath cause to complain to God of thee, for thy perverseness and uncharitable walking, thou wilt be the loser; and for us, we can only say, in the words of the prophet, "We will weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people :" + but our comfort is in God: for we can do nothing without him, but in him we can do all things: and, therefore, we will pray, "Domine, dabis pacem nobis; omnia enim opera nostra operatus es in nobis:" "God hath wrought all our works within us; and therefore he will give us peace, and give us his Spirit."+

"Finally: Brethren, pray for us, that the word of the Lord may have free course, and be glorified, even as it is with you; and that we may be delivered from unreasonable and wicked men; for all men have not faith."§

SERMON.

appoint over his family, the church: they are not here named, but we shall find them out by their proper direction and indigitation by and by.

2. But that which is expressed, is the office And the Lord said, Who then is that faithful and itself, in a double capacity. 1. In the dignity of wise steward, whom his lord shall make rulerit, it is a rule and a government; "whom the lord over his household, to give them their portion of meat in due season? Blessed is that servant, whom his lord when he cometh shall find so doing.-Luke xii. 42, 43.

Τίς ἐστιν ἄρα πιστὸς καὶ φρόνιμος οἰκονόμος. THESE words are not properly a question, though they seem so; and the particle rig is not interrogative, but hypothetical, and extends "who" to "whosoever;" plainly meaning, that whoever is a steward over Christ's household, of him God requires a great care, because he hath trusted him with a great employment. Every steward öv кaléστýкev ỏ Κύριος, so it is in St. Matthew; a ὃν καταστήσει ὁ Kúpos, so it is in my text; every steward whom the Lord hath or shall appoint over the family, to rule it and to feed it, now and in all generations of men, as long as this family shall abide on earth; that is, the apostles, and they who were to succeed the apostles in the stewardship, were to be furnished with the same power, and to undertake the same charge, and to give the same strict and severe

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shall make ruler over his household." 2. In the care and duty of it, which determines the government to be paternal and profitable; it is a rule, but such a rule as shepherds have over their flocks, to lead them to good pastures, and to keep them within their appointed walks, and within their folds: διδόναι ouroμérpiov that is the work, "to give them a measure and proportion of nourishment:" Tpoon ¿v kaip, so St. Matthew calls it: "meat in the season;" that which is fit for them, and when it is fit; meat enough, and meat convenient; and both together mean that which the Greek poets call åpμadıǹv uμnvov,b" the strong wholesome diet.”

3. Lastly: Here is the reward of the faithful and wise dispensation. The steward that does so, and continues to do so, till his Lord find him so doing, this man shall be blessed in his deed. "Blessed is the servant, whom his lord when he cometh shall find so doing." Of these in order.

1. Who are these rulers of Christ's family? for though Christ knew it, and, therefore, needed not to ask; yet we have disputed it so much, and obeyed so little, that we have changed the plain hypothesis into an entangled question. The answer yet is easy as to some part of the inquiry: the apostles are the first meaning of the text; for they were our fathers in Christ, they begat sons and daughters unto God; Cap. xxiv. 25. b Hesiod. Epy.

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