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knowledge: that, was never more frequent, more flourishing. But, if the main grounds of Christianity were thoroughly settled in the hearts of the multitude, we should not have so much cause of shame and sorrow, nor our adversaries of triumph and insultation. Shew less therefore, for God's sake, and learn more; and balance your wavering hearts with the sound truth of godliness, that you may fly steadily through all the tempests of errors. Make God's Law of your learned counsel, with David; and be happy. Else, if you will needs love darkness, you shall have enough of it: you have here inward darkness; there, outward, cnór Tepov; Matthew viii. 12. This is your own darkness; that, his, of whom the Psalmist, He sent darkness and it was dark: dark indeed! A thick and terrible darkness*, joined with weeping and gnashing.

I urge not their awful reverence in their devotion, our sleepy or wild carelessness; their austere and rough discipline of the body, our wanton pampering of the flesh: though who can abide to think of a chaste Pharisee, and a filthy Christian; a temperate Pharisee, and a drunken Christian?

How shamefully is this latter vice, especially, grown upon us with time! We knew it once in our ordinary speech appropriated to beggars; now, gallants fight for it. This beastliness had wont be bashful; now, it is impudent: once, children were wont to shout at a drunkard, as some foul wonder; now, not to be drunk is quarrel enough among men, among friends: those knees, that we were wont to bow to the God of Heaven, are now bent to Bacchus in a paganish, bestial, devilish devotion. To leave the title of Christians, for shame let us be either men or beasts.

My speech hastens to their holy and wise strictness of carriage; wherein I can never complain enough of our inequality. They hated the presence, the fire, the fashion, the books of a Gentile, of a Samaritan: neither was there any hatred lost on the Samari. tan's part; for if he had but touched a Jew, he would have thrown himself into the water, clothes and all †: both of them equally sick of a Noli me tangere; Touch me not, for I am holier. Îsaiah lxv. 5. Our Romish Samaritans haunt our tables, our closets, our ears: we frown not; we dislike not. We match, converse, confer, consult with them carelessly; as if it were come to the old stay of that indifferent Appelles in Eusebius; Sat est credere in crucifixum. But that, which I most lament, and ye, Fathers and Brethren, if my voice may reach to any whom it concerneth, in the bowels of Christ let me boldly, though most unworthy, move your wisdoms, your care to redress it: our young students, the hope of posterity, newly crept out of the shell of philosophy, spend their first hours in the great Doctors of Popish controversies; Bellarmin is next to Aristotle: yea, our very ungrounded artisans, young gentlemen, frail women, buy, read, traverse promiscuously the dangerous writ

* Two Tenebræ Caliginis. Exod. x. 22. † In aquam se cum vestibus. immergunt, ubi contigerint aliquem ex alià gente: paoμir yap nɣuvat &c. Epiph.

ings of our subtlest Jesuits. What is the issue? Many of thei have taken poison, ere they know what milk is; and, when they have once tasted this bane, they must drink and die. Oh, what pity, what vexation is it to a true heart, to see us thus robbed of our hopes; them, of their souls! I have heard, yea I have seen and envied, the cautelous severity of our adversaries; which, upon the deepest pains, forbid the sale, yea the sight of those authors, which they term infectious. Where was ever Calvin publicly bought in one of their church-yards? Where ever read without licence; without security? I censure not this, as the peculiar fault of this place: would God this open remissness were not a common evil; and had not spread itself wide through all those Churches that are gone out of Babylon! Let no man tell me of the distinction of that old Canonist (Barthol. Brixiensis :)" Some things," saith he, "we read, lest they should be neglected; as the Bible: some, lest they should be unknown; as Arts and Philosophy: some, that they may be rejected; as Heretical Books." True: but let them read, that can reject, that can confute: we distrust not our cause, but their weak judgments. A good apothecary can make a good medicine of a strong poison; must children, therefore, be allowed that box? I know how unworthy I am to advise only I throw down myself at your feet; and beseech you, that our losses and their examples may make us no less wise in our generation.

I follow the comparison. They paid tithes of all they had not a potherb, but they tithed it; Matthew xxiii. 23. Hear this, ye sacrilegious Patrons, the merchants of souls, the pirates of the Church, the enemies of religion: they tithed all; you, nothing: they paid to their Levites; your Levites must pay to you: your cures must be purchased; your tithes abated, or compounded for:

O the shame of religion! How too justly may I usurp of you that

of Seneca: "Petty sacrileges are punished, while great ones ride in triumph!" Never excuse it with pretence of ceremony. Moses never gave sostrict a charge for this as Paul: ἐν πᾶσιν αγαθοῖς ; Galatians vi. 6. communicate all thy goods with thy teacher; All, with an emphasis. Well fare yet the honest Pharisees, whose rule was, Decima, ut dives fias; "Tithe, and be rich." If ever thou be the fatter for this gravel, or the richer with that thou stealest from God, let me come to beg at thy door.

Woe to you, Spiritual Robbers! Our blind forefathers clothed the Church; you despoil it: their ignorant devotion shall rise in judgment, against your ravening covetousness. If robbery, simony, perjury will not carry you to hell; hope still that you may be saved. They gave plentiful alms to the poor; we, instead of filling their bellies, grind their faces. What excellent laws had we lately enacted, that there should be no beggar in Israel! Let our streets, ways, hedges witness the execution. Thy liberality relieves some poor: it is well but hath not thy oppression made more? Thy usury, extorting, racking, inclosing, hath wounded whole villages; and now thou befriendest two or three, with the plaisters of thy

bounty: the mercies of the wicked are cruel. They were precise in their Sabbath; we so loose in ours, as if God had no day: see whether our taverns, streets, highways descry any great difference. These things I vowed in myself to reprove: if too bitterly, as you think, pardon, I beseech you, this holy impatience; and blame the foulness of these vices, not my just vehemency.

And you, Christian Hearers, than which no name can be dearer, be persuaded to ransack your secure hearts: and, if there be any of you, whose awaked conscience strikes him for these sins, and places him below these Jews in this unrighteousness; if you wish or care to be saved, think it high time, as you would ever hope for entrance into God's kingdom, to strike yourselves on the thigh; and, with amazement and indignation, to say, What have I done? to abandon your wicked courses; to resolve, to vow to strive unto a Christian and conscionable reformation. Paul a Pharisee was, according to the righteousness of the Law, unreproveable; Phil. iii. 6: yet, if Paul had not gone from Gamaliel's feet to Christ's he had never been saved. Unreproveable, and yet rejected! Alas, my brethren, what shall become of our gluttony, drunkenness, pride, oppression, bribing, cosenages, adulteries, blasphemies, and ourselves for them? God and men reprove us for these: what shall become of us? If the civilly righteous shall not be saved, where shall the notorious sinner appear? A Christian below a Jew! For shame, where are we? Where is our emulation? Heaven is our goal; we all run; lo, the Scribes and Pharisees are before thee: what safety can it be, to come short of those, that come short of heaven? Except your righteousness &c.

III. You have seen these Scribes and Pharisees; their Righteousness, and our unrighteousness. See now, with like patience, their UNRIGHTEOUSNESS that was, and our righteousness that must be, wherein they failed, and we must exceed. They failed then in their Traditions and Practice. May I say they failed, when they exceeded? Their Traditions exceeded in number and prosecution; faulty, in matter.

To run well, but out of the way, according to the Greek proverb, is not better than to stand still. Fire is an excellent thing; but, if it be in the top of the chimney, it doth mischief rather. It is good to be zealous, in spite of all scoffs; but v naλ, In a good thing; Galatians iv. 18. If they had been as hot for God, as they were for themselves, it had been happy but now, In vain they worship me, saith our Saviour, teaching for doctrines the Traditions of men. Hence was that axiom received currently amongst their Jewish followers; "There is more in the words of the wise, than in the words of the Law *:"" More;" that is, more matter, more au thority. And from this, principally, arises and continues that mortal quarrel, betwixt them and their KARRAIM and MINIM unto this day.

A great Jesuit (Serarius,) at least that thinks himself so, writes

* Plus est in verbis sapientum, quàm in verbis Legis, Galatin.

thus, in great earnest ; "The Pharisees,” saith he, " may not unfitly be compared to our Catholics*" Some men speak truth ignorantly; some, unwillingly: Caiphas never spake truer, when he meant it not. One egg is not liker to another, than the Tridentine Fathers to these Pharisees in this point; besides that of free-will, merit, full performance of the Law, which they absolutely received from them: for mark; "With the same reverence and devotion, do we receive and respect Traditions, that we do the books of the Old and New Testament †," say those Fathers in their Fourth Session. Hear both of these speak, and see neither: if thou canst discern whether is the Pharisee, refuse me in a greater truth. Not that we did ever say with that Arian in Hilary; " We debar all words that are not written :" or would think fit, with those fanatical Anabaptists of Munster, that all books should be burnt besides the Bible. Some Traditions must have place, in every Church; but, their place: they may not take wall of Scrip ture: substance may not, in our valuation, give way to circumstance. God forbid !

If any man expect that my speech on this opportunity should descend to the discourse of our contradicted ceremonies, let him know, that I would rather mourn for this breach, than meddle with it. God knows how willingly I would spend myself into persua. sions, if those would avail any thing; but I well see, that tears are fitter for this theme, than words. The name of our Mother is sacred, and her peace precious. As it was a true speech cited from that Father by Bellarmin, "The war of Heretics is the peace of the Church" so, would God our experience did not invert it upon us, "The war of the Church is the peace of Heretics!" Our discord is their music; our ruin, their glory. Oh, what a sight is this brethren strive, while the enemy stands still, and laughs, and triumphs! If we desired the grief of our Common Mother, the languishing of the Gospel, the extirpation of religion, the loss of posterity, the advantage of our adversaries, which way could these be better effected, than by our dissensions? That Spanish Prophet (Escovedo) in our age, for so I find him styled, when king Philip asked him how he might become master of the Low Countries, answered; " If he could divide them from themselves." According to that old Machiavelian principle of our Jesuits, "Divide and Rule." And indeed it is concord only, as the posy or mot of the United States runs, which hath upheld them in a rich and flourishing estate, against so great and potent enemies. Our adversaries already brag of their victories; and what good heart can but bleed, to see what they have gained since we dissented, to foresee what they will gain? They are our mutual spoils, that have made them

Non male comparari Pharisæos Catholicis. ↑ Pari pietatis affectu et reverentiá, Traditiones unà cum libris Veteris et Novi Testamenti suscipimus et veneramur. Decr. i. Sess. 4. ‡ Nolo verba quæ scripta non sunt legi. § Bellum Hæreticorum pax est Ecclesiæ: ex Hilario, Bellar. || Concordia res parvæ crescunt, &c.

proud and rich *. If you ever therefore look to see the good days of the Gospel, the unhorseing and confusion of that strumpet of Rome, for God's sake, for the Church's sake, for our own soul's sake, let us all compose ourselves to peace and love: Oh pray for the peace of Jerusalem; that peace may be within her walls, and prosperity within her palaces.

For the Matter of their Traditions, our Saviour hath taxed them in many particulars; about washings, oaths, offerings, retribution : whereof he hath said enough, when he hath termed their doctrine, the Leaven of the Pharisees, that is, sour and swelling. St. Jerome t reduces them to two heads. They were turpia, anilia; some so "shameful," that they might not be spoken; others idle and "doltish;" both so numerous, that they cannot be reckoned. Take a taste for all; and, to omit their real traditions, hear some of their interpretative. The Law was, that no leper might come into the temple: their Tradition ‡ was, that if he were let down through the roof, this were no irregularity. The Law was, a man might not carry a burden on the Sabbath: their Traditional § gloss; if he carried ought on one shoulder it was a burden, if on both none; if shoes alone, no burden; if with nails, not tolerable. Their stint of a sabbath's journey was a thousand cubits: their gloss || was, that this is to be understood without the walls; but, if a man should walk all day through a city as big as Nineveh, he offends not.

The Church of Rome shall vie strange glossems and ceremonious observations with them, whether for number or for ridiculous

The day would fail me, if I should either epitomize the volume of their holy rites, or gather up those which it hath omitted. The new elected Pope, in his solemn Lateran procession, must take copper money out of his chamberlain's lap, and scatter it among the people, and say, Gold and silver have I none ¶. Seven years penance is enjoined to a deadly sin **; because Miriam was sepa rated seven days for her leprosy; Numbers xii: and God says to Ezekiel, I have given thee a day for a year; Ezekiel iv, 6. Christ said to Peter, Launch forth into the deep; Luke v. 4: therefore he meant that Peter's successor should catch the great fish of Constantine's donation ++. But I favour your ears. That one I may not omit, how St. Jerome, whom they fondly term their Cardinal, compares some Popish fashions of his time with the Pharisaical who, when he had spoken of their purple fringes in the four corners of their Tallin, and the thorns which these Rabbins tie in their skirts for penance and admonition of their duty: Hoc apud nos, saith he ‡‡, superstitiosæ mulierculæ in parvulis Evangeliis, in crucis ligno et istiusmodi rebus factitant; that is, "Thus superstitious

Nostra miseriâ tu es magnus. De Pomp. Mimus. + In Matthew xxiii. Præc. Mos. cum Expos. Rab. § Ibid. | Ibid. ¶ Sacrarum ceremoniarum lib. i. accipit de gremio Camerarii pecuniam, ubi nihil tamen est argenti; spargensque in populo dicit: Aurum et argentum non est mihi, quod autem habeo hoc tibi do. **Canon. Poenitential. page . †† Otho Frisingensis in præfat,

In Matthew xxiii,

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