more holy and necessary the office and work is, the greater is your sin in corrupting it, or making it suspected or abhorred. Consider soberly of these things, and then go on and speak against a life of holy diligence if you dare. I know you will say, 'It is not godliness, but singularity, or humour, or disobedience, or hypocrisy, or faction, that you oppose; and perhaps you will instance in some that are guilty of some of these, or seem so at the least. But 1. I do here solemnly profess that I hate these crimes as well as you; and that it is not any part of my intentino to plead for intemperance, disobedience in lawful things, for schism, or faction, or any irregularity. And this I here put in against those that are disposed to misunderstanding, and misreport us, and leave it as on record to prove them slanderers, that shall accuse me of defending any such thing. And I do protest against those on the other side, that will fetch encouragement for any transgression, from my necessary plea for the holy industry and vigilancy of believers. And, moreover, I do profess that it is only the opposers of holiness that I mean in this defence, and have not the least intent to intimate that any others are guilty of that crime that are not. But having premised this protestation, to prevent mistakes and false reports, I answer now to the guilty. 2. If it be crimes only that you are against, deliver yourself so, as may not lay reproach or suspicion on godliness, which is most opposite to all crimes. Cannot you preach against divisions, disobedience, or any other sin, without any scornful intimations or reflections against men's diligent serving of the Lord? 3. Why do not you commend those that are not liable to your accusations, and encourage them in holiness, and draw others to imitate them? And why do you not commend the good, where you discommend the evil that is commixt? 4. Shall health and life be made a scorn, because there are few but have some distemper and disease? Shall Christianity and holiness be secretly reproached, because all Christians have some fault to be accused of? If men be faulty, you should persuade them to be more strict and dili gent, and not less. It is for want of watchfulness and strictness that they sin. Nothing is more contrary to their faults than holiness. There is no other way for their full reformation. And therefore all true humbled Christians are ready to confess their faultiness themselves; but so far are they from thinking the worse of piety for it, that it is one great reason that moveth them to go on, and to read, and hear, and pray, and meditate, and do so much that they may get more strength against their faults. Must they think ill of food, and physic, and exercise, because they are infirm? All faithful ministers tell their people plainly of their sins (so far as they are acquainted with them) as well as you. But they do it not in a way reproachful to their holy diligence. They do not, therefore, call them off from godliness, nor tempt them to be less in the use of means, but more, by how much their need is greater. A holy heart, and a malignant heart, will shew their difference in the reproving of the same fault. The one layeth all the odium on the vice, and honoureth the holy obedience of the saints. The other fasteneth his sting upon the godly, and under pretence of dishonouring their faults, doth seek to fasten the dishonour on their holiness. And those that are so minded, will never want occasion or pretence, for the worst that satan would have them say. The church will never be without some hypocrites, and scandals, nor the best without some faults and passions; nor the holiest action without some mixture of human frailty and infirmity; nor will the very goodness and holiness of the action, be free from plausible calumnies and scorns, while there is the wit and venom of the serpent in the heads and hearts of wicked men. How easy is it to put a name of ignominy upon every person, and every duty? To charge any man with hypocrisy, or pride. To take the wisest man for self-conceited, because he is not of the accuser's mind. To call our obedience to God by the name of disobedience unto man, when man forbids it, as they used the three witnesses, and Daniel himself for praying in his house ", though they confessed they had nothing else against him. To call God's truth by the name of heresy, and heresy by the name of truth. To charge all with schism that dare not subject their souls to the usurpation and arrogant impositions of the sons of pride, that have neither authority nor ability to govern us, as the Papists deal by the greatest part of the Christian world. To lay snares for men's consciences, and then accuse them for falling into those snares. To make new articles of faith, till they have transcended the capacity of divine and rational belief, and then condemn us for not believing them. To make laws for the church, unnecessary in their own opinion, and sinful in other men's, and command things which they know that others think the Lord forbids, and then load them with the sufferings and reproaches of the disobedient, turbulent, heretical, schismatical, or seditious. To call men factious, if they will not be of their faction. And sectaries, if they will not unreasonably subject their souls to them, and join with an imperious sect against the catholic unity and simplicity. All which the Romanists practise upon the church of Christ. How easy, but how unreasonable, and yet how unresistible is all this. How easy is it to call a meeting of sober Christians, for prayer and mutual edification, such as that was, Acts xii. 12. by the name of a factious, schismatical conventicle; and a meeting of drunkards, or gamesters, by a more gentle, less disgraceful name. To say a man becomes a preacher, when he modestly reproveth another for his sins, or charitably exhorteth him in order to his salvation, or giveth any necessary plain instruction to his family, for whom he must give account. Believe it, it will be a poor excuse to any man, that becomes an enemy to the diligence of a saint, that he could thus cloak his malice, and clothe a saint with the visor of an hypocrite, and the rags of any odious sect. If the Pharisees were to be believed, it was not they, but Christ that was the hypocrite; nor was it the Son of God, but an enemy to Cæsar, and a blasphemer, that they put to death. But will not Christ know his sheep though he find them torn in a wolf's skin? You say it is turbulent precisians that you strike; but what if Christ find but one of the least of his brethren bleeding by it? It is but hypocrites or schismatics that you reproach; but if Christ find a humble, serious Christian suffering by your abuse, and you to answer it, I would not be in your coats for all the greatness and honour that you shall have before your ever lasting shame. If Tertullus accuse a pestilent fellow, and a mover of sedition, and Christ find a holy, laborious apostle in bonds and suffering by it, it is not his names that will excuse him, and make an apostle, or persecution to be another thing. can. To return to the endangered flocks: Look upwards, sirs, and think whether heaven be worth your labour! Look downwards, and think whether earth be more worthy of it! Lay up your treasures where you must dwell for ever. If that be here, then scrape, and flatter, and get all that you But if it be not here, but in another life, then hearken to your Lord, and lay up for yourselves a treasure in heaven, and there let your hearts be set. And upon the peril of everlasting misery, hearken not to any man that will tempt you from a diligent, holy life. It is a serious business, deal seriously in it; and be not laughed or mocked out of heaven, by the flouts of a distracted, sensual atheist. If any of them will pretend sobriety and wisdom, and undertake to prove that God should not be loved and served, and your salvation sought with all your might, and with greater care and diligence than any earthly thing, procure me a sober conference with that man, and try whether I prove him to be a befooled servant of the devil, and a mischievous enemy of your salvation and his own. O that we might have but so-: ber debates, instead of jeers, and scorns, and railing, with this sort of men! How quickly should we shew you that they must renounce the Scripture, and renounce Christianity, and (if that be nothing with them) that they must renounce God, and renounce right reason, and unman themselves, if they will renounce a holy, heavenly life, and blame them that make it their principal business in the world to prepare for the world to come. But if they will not be entreated to such a sober conference, will you that hear them (if you care what becomes of you) but come to us, and hear what we can say for a holy life, before you hearken to them; and let your souls have fair play, and shew that you have so much love to yourselves, as not to cast away salvation at the derision of a fool, before you have heard the other side. If I make not good the strictest law of God Almighty, x Matt. vi. 20, 21. against the most subtle cavils of any of the instruments of satan, then tell me that infidels or epicures are in the right. Compare their words with the words of God; consider well but that one text, 2 Pet. iii. 11., and tell me whether it suit with their opinions, "Seeing all these things must be dissolved, what manner of persons ought we to be in all manner of holy conversation and godliness; looking for and hasting to the coming of the day of God!" Did these words but sink into your hearts, the next time you heard any man reproach a holy, heavenly life, it would perhaps make you think of the words of Paul to such another: "O full of all subtlety and all mischief, thou child of the devil; thou enemy of all righteousness, wilt thou not cease to pervert the right ways of the Lord "?" And if holiness be evil spoken of by them that never tried it, what wonder! Christ hath foretold us that it must be so. "Blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute you, and say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake. Rejoice and be exceeding glad, for great is your reward in heaven; for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you." If ye were of the world, the world would love his own; but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you," &c. "They think it strange that you run not with them to the same excess of riot, speaking evil of you, who shall give account to him that is ready to judge the quick and dead. If ye be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye; for the Spirit of glory, and of God, resteth upon you. On their part he is evil spoken of, but on your part he is glorified." Seneca himself oft telleth us, that among the heathens, virtue was a derision, so far is the nature of man degenerated. The question is not what you are called or taken to be, but what you are. Intus teipsum considera, (inquit Sen.) non qualis sis aliis credas; plerumque boni inepti, et inertes vocantur. Mihi contingat iste derisus. Equo animo audienda sunt imperitorum convitia, et ad honesta vadendi contemnendus est iste contemptus;" that is 'Inwardly consider of thyself and judge not what thou art by the words of others. For the y Acts xiii. 10. z Matt. v. 11, 12. a John xv. 19, 20, |