Divine Characters in Two Parts
Mans corruption makes him (even at the lowest) hardly endure a superior, but if once tickled with the entrance upon, or hope of sovereignty, he brooks no equal. There is much ado to keep great spirits in the place of subjects: but let them be once admitted to share in royalty with their Masters, they are restless till they engross it, and make servants or nothing of their Masters. If Charles Martel and Pipin his son, be admitted to steer with the Kings of France, they want but the Popes title or a new coin'd distinction to get the possession of sole sovereignty. So our hypocrite well knows if he can but bring in a companion that will prove a rival, that in the end will thrust truth besides the Throne. Therefore if he have a mind to undermine any truth, let him set up any competitor, and his work is more then half done. He need but sit still and look on, he is sure of the issue? Let but man or anything wherein man hath to do, be once allowed to share with Christ in the matter of merit, intercession, authority, jurisdiction; this will soon set Anti-christ above all that is called God, or worshipped. Thus traditions once magnified above proportion, began to accuse Scripture as insufficient, obscure, a dead letter, a leaden rule, a nose of wax; and in time, a very Childrick not fit to reign. Let those that troubled the Galatians, set up works to share with Christ in the matter of justification; circumcision to be joined with Baptism; some legal ceremonies to go cheek by joule with Christian Liberty, and this will soon remove them to another Gospel.
Contrarily, the Disciple of truth will neither preach nor receive any other Gospel then what he hath received in the written word.
He knows but one Lord, one Lord, one faith, one Gospel in truth and indeed. If any other be obtruded he rejects it as spurious, because no change, no additament in matters of faith is henceforth to be expected or admitted, the same Doctrine, the same Sacraments are to continue to the end of the world. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and today, and forever.
If any hand-maid will know her distance, she is welcome so long as she keeeps her due limits, if Hagar once perk up, and grow malipert, out of doors she shall, how grievous soever it be unto him in other respects. For well he knows the aspiring nature of in-mates, and that God, abhorring the adultery of Alchimy-doctrine, hath made his Truths like gold and silver. Gold cannot endure the least quantity of Latin to be mixed with it; nor silver of tin: no more will truth brook the least mixture with any adulterous wares, or society with any competitor, nor will the judicious Christian take Alchimy for current coin, although it bear the stamp of the Kings image and superscription.
If the true Christian once discovereth this plot of Satan, or of any his Ministers, he resolves not to give place by subjection (or admixtion) no not for an hour, that the truth of the Gospel might continue with him. In this case it was that Paul withstood, not only those of the circumcision. but even the blessed Apostle Peter, and that to his face; who, though free from erring in doctrine, gave offense by his practice in favor of the Jewish Ceremonies, and went not with a right foot according to the truth of the Gospel, but admitted those obsolete rites to come to near it. We have a cloud of such witnesses opposing the usurpations of Anti-Christ in every progress of the Mystery of iniquity. The Scriptures alone are abundantly able to make the simplest Christian wise enough unto salvation, and thoroughly to furnish him to every good work, as a rule sufficient for all the Israel of God; Therefore he gives heed to this as the surest way-mark, the most infallible guide, without minding what others say that pretend to show us a shorter cut or a surer way.
Thus this hypocrite under pretence of not suffering truth to go naked, puts her into linsey-woolsey, garments, thereby to pervert the Gospel of Christ; * the disciple of truth remembering him that forbad such clothing, abhors such minglings, and the truth of the Scriptures alone is with him, all in all. The one sets up somewhat else with truth, to pull it down; the other admits only of truth, that he may the better uphold and maintain it.
This hypocrite, in all his erratick opinions, ever advanceth man, with derogation from [Character 4] God —.
It is not enough that he set up errors in the room of truth, unless his errors set up man in the room of God. If he admit of such a thing as predestination, it is only such as passeth upon fore-sight of works, or faith, or free use of our own will; taking the freedom of Election from God, and giving the glory of his grace, to the free will of man. If he allow of justification by God, he gives it either to man's act of faith, or to the merit of his works; if not in whole, yet in part man must have his share, and it must be believed for a truth, that the most honorable way for Christ to save sinners, is not (as God would have it ) to save them by himself; but by making man able to merit his own salvation. Thus as the Jews, being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and going about to establish their own righteousness, submitted not themselves to the righteousness God; so these will put in for a part at least in the honor of saving, or they will not be saved. And what Lactantius observed of the Heathenish idolaters, is true of this hypocrite; He seems zealous for God, but yet in truth he owns him no otherwise than as a Jupiter, an helping father, instead of an absolute Savior, beside whom there is no other to save. For he that takes in man to help save himself, cannot own God as doing all.
If God tell us that we are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ; this hypocrite makes it a great point of Christian modesty to be still doubting of our salvation further then we earn it at fingers ends; not trusting so much to the power of God, as to our own will for perseverance in grace. If he receive God's Word for divine truth, it is for man's sake, the testimony of the Church, and in man's sense too, as the Church interprets it; man's traditions must be of equal authority with the written Word, and God must not be believed, unless man saith he speaks true. Thus the Romanist, who yet enjoins blind obedience to be given to man, and to take all upon trust from the sea of Rome, or from their more immediate superiors, although far inferior to their Roman God; but let God speak never so plainly, none must believe him further than those Rulers or Pharisees have believed on him ; there they can be bold to inquire, dispute, dispence, contradict and blaspheme; for, if Paul say, it is better to marry then to burn , not so, saith Bellarmine, in the case of Priests; here, melius est urere quam nubere, it is better to burn than to marry, whatever the Adversaries bawle to the contrary. If Paul withstood Peter to the face, because he was to be blamed ; I deny that, saith Baronius, who will maintain that Peter was not to blame. Dare these Cardinals use their Pope so? Thus these hypocrites who believe not God without a surety; but man upon his own authority, are by false sureties brought to believe the devil instead of God? and to set up doctrines of devils speaking lies in hypocrisy, that derogate from the truth and honor of God .
Nor is this kind of hypocrite to be found only in the adulterous bed of the man of sin beyond the Alps, but even nearer home. Are there not found elsewhere men arising, and speaking many of the same perverse things, to draw away disciples after them ? They pretend to more strict examinations of the common Tenets, and to be more diligent inquirers after truth. But mark their positions they broach, and we shall ever discover this snake in their bosoms, and this design to lie at the bottom of them all. What else doth the doctrine of Election upon foresight of faith set up, but man to be the cause of passing that decree? what means that of universal redemption, universal grace, and many more, but to make the whole work of man's salvation to depend upon the will of man in accepting if he please, or rejecting as he list what is offered by God?
Contrarily, the sincere disciple of Christ altogether advanceth God, how much soever man be abased.
He will not endure that any flesh should glory in God's presence . He can and doth make use of men as helpers of his faith ; but not as having dominion over it, or as authors of it; which he freely acknowledgeth to be not of himself, but the sole gift of God , as well as salvation it self. As he desires to hear none but those that receive only from the Lord what they deliver unto him; so he receives nothing from them, but what they have received of the Lord. He can esteem them very highly for their works sake ; but he looks upon them as no more but Ministers by whom he hath believed, even as the Lord gives to every man . He can wait upon Paul's planting, and Apollos watering, but he looks only at God for the increase . And when he finds the increase, he acknowledgeth the demonstration of the Spirit and of power, and will not endure that his faith should stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God . If his Minister wax proud, and exalt himself above that which is meet, and arrogate what is due to God, as Herod; he will not cry out, the voice of a God , but leaves him as one that is falling into the condemnation of the devil; as well knowing that only he that only seeketh his glory that sent him, is true, and deserves to be heard and honored. He will make man's will and reason yield and stoop, that the truth of God may alone be advanced. He detracts not from the just power and authority of man, as the Anabaptist, Familist, and other Separatists; but if man will reach any doctrine by which man comes in competition with God, under a fair pretence of making God amends some other way, he abhors it as a doctrine of devils. He tries not the word by the Revelations of man, but revelations by the Word of God. He disclaims that holiness of man which might move God to Elect him, and renounceth those works and faith itself, as a work that pretends to justify him; that free grace might be magnified and man abased, and not rejoice in himself. He will never join in that worship, in which God must be beholding to man to invent and prescribe it. He will never be of that Religion which sets up man above all that is called God, or that is worshipped. He reverenceth and makes honorable account of those Christian Worthies, the ancient Fathers of purer times, as holy and learned men; yet men, and not God; holy, but not without blemish; learned, but not infallible, not without their errors. Yea, he receiveth not the Prophets and Apostles themselves without exception, because holy or learned above others, but because they were infallibly inspired , and spake (and wrote) as they were moved by the holy Ghost .
Thus this Hypocrite is as the Serpent in the fable, whose tail would needs take upon it to lead the way; the true Christian will not set a step in any way, but where Christ his head hath led the way, and left us an example that we should follow his steps . The one cares not how low he sets God, so he may exalt man; the other never troubles himself to lay man low, so he may exalt God.
This hypocrite makes the Scripture but a letter of credence, and his own fancies the [Character 5] instructions by which he acteth.
He will say as you do, that the Scripture is the Rule; so you will believe as he bids you, that his fancies are the meaning of that Rule. He will accept of any text, so you except not against his gloss. If you will believe as the Church believes, he cares not what you believe. Let but the horse feed where he ties him, and he will be sure to tie him where he shall have nothing to feed on, but what he gives him. If the letter of the word serve not his turn, you must take his interpretation contrary to the letter, to be the meaning of the letter. Hoc est corpus meum, this is my body, must be understood of inanimate bread, speaking of a proper body, not of a living Christ, speaking of inanimate bread, signifying his living body.
If you come to plead your evidence in his Court, he will take away your evidence, and tell you, you must trust the Court, the Advocate; yea, the adversaries themselves. He will assure you he hath excellent wares; but he makes his shop as dark as he can; if he have any light, it is a back light, and that is sure to be a false one. In d • ctrines, he carries not his customers to the lightsome part of the Scriptures, but to the darkest end of his shop, or the ware-houses under ground, such as are human traditions, authorities or inventions of men, that so he may sell off his false wares instead of staple commodities; alchimy instead of silver; yea, he can make a Cellar of a Shop, darkening the Scriptures with Allegories, &c. that his collusion may not appear; just as Papists darken their Churches with pictures of the Fathers, that they may make children of their proselytes; and then multiply their Tapers to give a greater luster to their images and ornaments. He locks up the Scriptures and the key too from the people, when he seems most ready to open and divulge them; as Plato, his Philosophy, under Allegories, or as Aristotle, under exotic terms of Art.
Contrarily, the Disciple of Christ desires to be credited in nothing, but what he makes out of the Scriptures alone.
If the Scriptures be under lock, he makes a key out of the lock itself, and pretends to nothing but what is written. If he try the spirits, it is by the Word, and believes not that spirit to which the Word bears not witness ; nor will himself be tried by ought else. He never takes that for truth that seeks corners, nor that for evidence that loves concealments. He is not as the Egyptian that affects Hierogliphicks; but as the old Roman that wrote all his Laws in open Tables. He is not for dark lanthornes, or for putting a candle under a bushel, but upon a candlestick. Alchimy shows best in the dark, but he will not take that for silver that cannot endure trial by the open day. If the Scriptures give not testimony to Christ , he pronounceth him a false christ , cried up by false prophets that are gone out into the world . He will do nothing in the dark; but cometh to the light of Scripture , that his deeds may be made manifest that they are wrought in God; and manifested so, that they may be made manifest not only to God, who searcheth the heart, but to the consciences of men , who must judge by the works.
Thus the hypocrite pretends a commission, that he may deceive; the other in all things produceth his commission, that he may prove himself to be no deceiver. The one abuseth an authority which he cares not for, but only to serve himself of it; the other keeps close to his rule, that he may show how much he makes conscience not to wrest or abuse it; the one alledgeth the words of Scripture without the sense; the other takes that for the word, which is the true meaning of God. The one falls down to an idol in the Sacrament of the Supper, and feeds upon a shadow in a dream, by wresting of the words; the other lifts up his heart to God and feeds upon Christ indeed by following the sense. The one knows no eating of Christ, but in the Capernaitical sense ; the other feeds on him by faith, which finds his flesh to be meat indeed ; not for the belly, but for the soul, and so he lives by him
[Character 6] This Hypocrite first hangs out an opinion of his own, then forceth the Scripture to countenance and own it.
First, he seeth vanity and lying divination, and then saith, the Lord saith it , when all is but a vain vision . Thus the devil persuaded Christ to tempt God, and then urgeth Scripture, (He shall give his Angels charge over thee, &c. ) to warrant the temptation. Thus the Pope usurps the place of an head and foundation of the Church, and then flies to those wrested words of Christ to Peter , Thou art Peter, and upon this rock will I build my Church. He first begets a bastard, then fathers it upon Scripture, and lays it at God's door to be nursed and kept at his charge.
Thus most of the Popish opinions are more ancient then their proofs, and most of their proofs are more man's than God's, yet fathered upon God to feather their own nests the better. No Heretic enters the lists with an Orthodox Christian, but he is ready with Rabshekeh , to say, Am I come up without the Lord? He well knoweth that albeit the sense of the Word destroy his fancies, yet the Name of the Word gives credit to his fables.
On the contrary, the disciple of Christ, first hearkeneth what God the Lord speaks in the Scripture, then speaks the same thing which the Scripture doth.
He comes not to a Scripture to corrupt the Word of God , nor to make Merchandise of it; but to learn from it, and to teach as he hath learned, in all sincerity, as of God, in the sight of God, speaking of Christ, as in Christ. He admits of no coin, although bearing the image and superscription of God, but what is coined in his own mint. He admits of no doctrine, brings forth none, but what was conceived in the womb of the Words: Let Papists call the Scripture the Exchange for Heretics, because sometimes by them abused; and the Devils Voucher, because by him alleged to tempt Christ himself unto sin ; yet, as our Savior refused not to be tried thereby, but opposed the same book in the genuine sense against the Devils abuse of the letter of it; so a Christian that hath received the love of the truth, will not be ashamed to own whatever Scripture (under the greatest disgrace) avoucheth, nor be to seek of weapons taken out of that armory to discover and repel all the fallacies of the Devils Sophisters, let them be as cunning as he can make them to wrest the Scripture to their own destruction .
Thus, this Hypocrite hath recourse to the Word for clothes to apparel his bastard; the true Christian goes to the same word for milk to nourish the child that was begotten of it; the one makes use of the word to name the child of his own brain; the other writes the name of truth upon the child of the Word.
This Hypocrite under color of purging of errors crept into the Text, [Character 7] cuts off what makes not for his turn, and mangles the rest to fit it for his use.
He is a great pretender to preserve or restore the purity of Scripture, which he gives out to be corrupted; not that he careth for the Scripture more than Judas for the poor; but, that under color of purging out this corruption, he may cut off what he list that makes against him. He cannot only wrest Scripture, but wring off the neck of it, if it stand in his way. He can mangle it by concealing a part, as Satan in alleging that of the Psalmist, He shall give his Angels charge over thee, leaving out those words (which indeed make the former capable of fulfilling) to keep thee in all thy ways: that, shows where the protection and guard of Angels may be expected, not when we go without God, much less when against him. Thus, the Papists, in their common Catechisms prepared for the vulgar, blot out the second Commandment that might make their vassals to boggle at images, as if that were foisted in by some Lutherans or Calvinists, as the Northern borderers were wont to say of the eighth Commandment, when pressed with it to suppress their daily thieveries, that that Commandment was none of God's making, but thrust into the Decalogue by King Henry the eighth. And, as some Arians not able to stand before the strength of that text, There are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the holy Ghost, and these three are one, reject the whole as spurious, lest their Dagon should fall before it; so there are still not wanting some who will make bold with Scripture to allow what makes for them, and to proscribe what ever is against them; not upon that score, but under color of a spurious additament to the genuine Text.
Thus, they pretend the original of the Old Testament is corrupted by the Jews; and the original of the New by Heretics, that thereby they may set up their corrupt vulgar Latin Translation (in whom one of their own hath noted above nine hundred errors) in the room of the Originals, preferring it before them for purity and authority.
On the contrary, the true disciple of Christ esteemeth every Word of God concerning all things to be right; nor daring to curtail, or alter it, or to add unto it.
He doth not pick and choose, but he takes, and eats all the Book of God. He hath no design to cross the Word, therefore he hath no design upon the Word to pervert or curtail it. He needs not to pervert, or decurt that holy and straight Rule, or any Author agreeing therewith, to maintain any private opinions. His Religion is cut out by the measure of the Word. And if in anything his opinions deviate from it, he will bring his opinions to the Word, or cast them away. He knows that all truth is uniform, no one part thwarteth another; and that, he takes for his clothing; neither using the sheers nor the needle; for he neither cuts off any part of the word as too much for his purpose, nor sows on any shreds to patch up his Religion. He can spare nothing which the Word affords, nor admit of anything, although coming from an Angel from heaven, which may add to the Gospel of Christ.
Thus the hypocrite is like the false mother that is earnest to have the child divided; the disciple of truth, as the true mother, abhors that division. The one cares not for Scripture, unless he may order it as he pleaseth; the other reverenceth it so much that he will not endure to see it mangled, but gives himself up to be absolutely ordered by it.
[Character 8] This Hypocrite delights most in finding out new interpretations, and strange senses of Scripture, quarrelling the plain and most generally received Expositions thereof.
Understand this chiefly in points wherein he differs from the Orthodox Tenets, and harmony of truth. And here, sometimes he makes advantage of various and doubtful readings. Thus some Romanists to deprave the first Gospel that ever was published to the world reading haec for hic, and, instead of He (that is, Christ) shall break thine head, they read, she shall break it, and so transfer to the Virgin Mary the work of our Redemption performed by Christ. So, to prove their Church to be the only and perpetually visible Church instead of the true reading, In them he hath set a Tabernacle for the Sun, they embrace the corrupt rendering of the vulgar Latin, posuit in sole Tabernaculum suum; he hath set his Tabernacle in the Sun. And to make out their uncomfortable and heterodox position of uncertainty of salvation, they take hold of that of the Preacher mistranslating, No man knoweth either love or hatred by all that is before them , which Jerome; through mistake renders thus (if that translation be his) nescit homo utrum amore vel odio dignus sit, sed omnia in futurum servantur incerta. Man knows not whether he be worthy either of love or hatred, but all things are kept doubtful until hereafter; and hence they will needs conclude, that a Christian in this life cannot be assured of his salvation.
And, how many of that faction, and other disciples of Pelagius have toiled and sweated to put new interpretations upon the seventh and ninth chapters of the Epistle to the Romans, as they also wrest sundry other Scriptures to maintain the Pelagian Tenets touching the decrees of God, and divers other points depending thereupon, which are in difference between them and the Orthodox, who knoweth not?
Again, this hypocrite sometimes, despairing of making out his fancies by plain Texts, he flies to allegories, to prove the Popes transcendency above the Emperor, he quotes that place, God made two great lights, the greater light to rule the day; to prove the Popes double power, he alledgeth Ecce duo gladii . Behold here are two swords. To establish the Popes coactive usurpation, he produceth that, arise Peter, kill and eat. To prove the faith of Laics to depend wholly on their Clergy, he quoteth that place, The Oxen were plowing, and the Asses were feeding beside them. To confirm further the visibility of their Church, he alledgeth the City on a Hill which cannot be hid; whereas we may rather conclude their Church to be Babylon, because it retaineth the place that City of that is built upon seven hills. He would show us the City, and have us imagine the Hill. I mean such an Hill as Christ pronounced his Apostles to be. On the contrary, the Separatist, though he see the Hill and Rock of truth plain enough in the Word and Sacraments preserved among us, yet he will not believe there is a City, that is, a true Church, there. Sometimes this hypocrite, hath a doctrine, a revelation, an interpretation differing from all that ever went before him, and that he fathers upon a light within him, which yet he is not able so to make out that others may see as well as he. Whereas this light is an ignis fatuus, a light that befools him, and makes him strive to make fools of others. If it were a true light, it would illighten others. Whatsoever makes manifest is light (w), if then it cannot make manifest, it is manifest that it is no light, but a Jack with the lanthorn, or rather indeed palpable darkness * instead of light.
Thus this hypocrite perverteth the Scripture by corrupting the letter, or turneth off our eyes from the sense, by drawing them after pretended Allegories. Plain interpretations are not for his turn, and therefore let there be never so great a consent of the best and soundest Expositors therein, he looks down upon them all with scorn and contempt, as being all wide, or short of the truth, and is ready to say to them thwarting his forced glosses, which way went the Spirit of the Lord from me to speak unto you.
Contrarily, The true disciple of truth, delights most in the plainest sense, whereto the consent of Scripture and Analogy of faith do most clearly lead him.
He knows that as the Word of God is plain to him that with an honest heart, desires to understand and obey it : so there are plain Texts enow, to prove everything necessary to salvation, without help of allegories, which when made use of by the Spirit of God in Scripture (not invented by man to help midwife a bastard into the Church) they were never esteemed Argumentative, beyond their proper and literal scope and meaning. And so far is he from disliking that sense or Exposition that is most common, that he loves it the better, because so many of the judiciously learned concur in it; and is so much abhorrent from new coined glosses, that he therefore suspects them till he hath sifted them to the bran, which if he want ability to do, he will suspend his entertaining of them, until by the help of some more able discerner of things that differ, he hath tried this Spirit whether it be of God or not , and searched the Scriptures to see whether these things be so ; especially in those times wherein he that is blind may everywhere discover many false prophets gone out into the world. He is a child of light ; loves the light, and cometh to it, because he doth truth . But he abhors false lights, that tend to deceive and cozen with a false gloss; not to manifest the true worth and goodness of what is shown to him by it. Let others pretend what they will of a light within them, if they cannot make it out by the light without them, the Law and the Testimony of God's written Word, he soon determines with God himself (the name of whose light they abuse) that there is no light in them.
Thus this hypocrite useth the Scripture as Balaam his Ass, if she will carry him on in his way, he rides her; if she refuse to go further, he will beat and abuse her, being sorry that he hath not a sword to kill her; the true Christian makes use of it, as of a Moses rod which he preserves entire without bending it one way or other, that it may better enable him to produce by it what ever is commanded of God.
This hypocrite is a great admirer of himself, and a despiser of others. [Character 9]
He that dares be so bold with God himself, as to set up man above him, will not forget the lifting up of himself with trampling upon others. An Heretic, what show soever he make of humility through hypocrisy, is ever a proud man . To speak great swelling words of vanity , is so natural to him, that it is a chief part of his art whereby he doth allure, and draw away disciples after him, even those that were clean escaped from them who live in error. Simon Magus bewitched the people more by his giving out that himself was some great one , than by his sorcery. For to him (hereupon) they had regard, from the least to the greatest, saying, this man is the great power of God . You shall see this spirit in every Heretic mentioned in Scripture. Zedekiah the false prophet, how doth he scorn and vilify Micaiah, when he will not speak as they did to the King ? How scornfully do the Pharisees take up the Officers that commended the preaching of Christ? and, how contemptibly of him? Have any of the Rulers, or of the Pharisees believed on him? But this people that know not the Law are cursed! How disdainfully do they answer that poor man who being cured of his natural blindness, asked them if they would he Christ's Disciples ! They reviled him, saying thou art his Disciple, we are Moses Disciples; we know that God spake unto Moses, but as for this fellow we know not whence he is!
Thus those seducers in Corinth, how did they lift up the crest above Paul, commending themselves ; and disparaging him for a man of neither grace in his presence nor weight in his speech , his bodily presence is weak, and his speech contemptible, or nothing worth. How did those false Apostles, deceitful workers transforming themselves into the Apostles of Christ, boast and glory in themselves, and vilify Paul ? and this is the common badge of all such imps of Satan, under the guise of a voluntary humility, to be vainly puffed up by their fleshly mind ; Nor is this any wonder; for, if even he that proclaims himself a servant of servants, exalteth himself so high, that God himself must be content with the lower hand ; will not they who call the Master of the house Beelzebub, much more call them of his household, until they perish in the gain-saying of Core ?
Contrarily, the true disciple of truth doth nothing in strife or vain-glory; but in lowliness of mind, he esteemeth others better then himself .
Thus Paul while a Pharisee and a false teacher, tells us what high thoughts he had of himself a man of the highest form, and the highest in his form. But when it pleased God, who called him by his grace, to reveal his son to him, and to make him a Paul, a teacher of truth, how doth he fall in his own eyes, and set others above him? I am the least of the Apostles, not meet to be called an Apostle There is no true Teacher, but he is truly humble, and dares not make himself of the number, or compare himself with those who commend themselves . If he be put to it by false Apostles that thereby seek not only to derogate from his Ministry, but to shake the faith of those who depend upon it; He will tell you when he boasteth, and why; as being compelled to it by others, not affecting it himself; and even then corrects himself too, I am become a fool in glorying . In such cases it is no more unseemly to appeal to men that know his abilities, then to appeal to God from men when his innocence is unjustly traduced. He can be exalted where God may be honored, but he will never exalt himself against or above the meanest servants of Jesus Christ, nor tread upon them to make himself higher; and it is a trouble to him to glory, even when it is needful to hold up the reputation of his Ministry without cause calumniated.
Thus the Hypocrite is a Diotrephes, that loveth to have the preeminence ; the true Christian is as Paul, that though he be free from all men, yet makes himself (not in hypocrisy, but in reality) a servant to all, that he might gain the more unto Christ. The one stud es his own reputation more then the winning of souls; the other cares not how low he be in reputation , and how high others, so it may tend to the increase of the body of Christ, to the edifying of it in love.
[Character 10] This Hypocrite, what ever show of zeal for the truth he holds forth in his eccentrick opinions, hath chiefly self-interest in his eye.
This is the first wheel, yea, the Phusee, the inward spring that moves his watch so swiftly, and the haven he contends unto, although he seem never so earnest to make another Port. He seems as zealous for the truth, as ever Jehu was against the house of Ahab; yea, so zealous, that he will not stick to persecute the Church of God for those truths which he calls heresy; but all is to swim through the blood of the truth to his own gain or greatness. He is (as Canaan) a Merchant, but the balances of deceit are in his hand . He is not for buying the truth, but sells the souls of men . He pretends to be a great admirer of truth, and to have the persons of some who hold it forth, in admiration for advantage sake . But the naked truth is, if you uncase him, he runs greedily after the error of Balaam for reward . He will forsake the right way, and go astray any whether, even following Balaam the son of Bozor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness; for under pretence of teaching the way of God more purely, he privily brings in damnable heresies; and, through covetousness will he with feigned words make merchandise of you ; and under color of buying the truth, he sells it and the souls of men too, for the wages of iniquity.
What makes the man of sin so zealous for his doctrines of the Saints merits, works of Superirrogation, Indulgences, Purgatory, and many more, but that he may have the selling of all? Purgatory keeps his Kitchen warm, Indulgences be the commodities he sells to deliver souls out of Purgatory, works of Superirrogation of the Saints (which he, as the common treasury of the Church, hath in keeping) must be held out; or in vain to think of making a market of his indulgences, for they will never go off, without those works as that which gives worth and value to them. Therefore he pursues with fire and fagot all that oppose them. All Germany must be in an uproar, the Emperor must fight, and all must assist, if Luther, but a poor Monk, shall oppose these great truths of Antichrist. Our Henry the eighth shall be styled Defender of the Faith, for writing in their defense. But when his emissaries sent out to publish his indulgences, return with an huge mass of treasure made of them, Pope Leo the tenth, then blesseth himself, and unmasketh to his Cardinals with this exclamation; What a world of wealth have we gotten by that fable of Christ! sporting themselves with their own deceivings .
Indeed all are not led with that low bait of base gain, some with Corah and his company are taken with ambition to make themselves higher, by making Moses and Aaron lower. The quarrel was, that Moses and Aaron took too much upon them, and lifted themselves up above the Congregation of the Lord; their pretence was plausible, all the Lord's Congregation are holy everyone of them, and the Lord is among them; but that which made them so zealous, was not indeed the superiority of some above the rest, but that themselves were not those superiors. Therefore Moses tells them back in the same words, that which lay deepest in their hearts, namely their ambition; Ye take too much upon you ye sons of Levi . It was not enough for them to be brought so near unto God, unless they might have the Priest-hood also . Their word is parity, a levelling; but their aim was Domination. Balaam aimed at both, else he would never have been so mad and sottish to go on, after so many extraordinary warnings to return. He could be well content to curse Israel upon a civil account as enemies to Balak; but it was in hope of a blessing from Balak according to that engagement made by his Ambassadors I will promote thee to very great honor, and I will do whatsoever thou sayest unto me. What makes the Pope so zealous to maintain the supremacy of Peter, but that he may under that title, the better require Kings and Emperors to hold his stirrup, and to kiss his foot; that he may have not only dominion over their faith, but domination over them and all their Dominions.
And thus, as it was with the old Pharisees, They loved the praise of men more then the praise of God; so is it with all Heretics, they have an eye at themselves to their own gain, wealth, applause, preferment, in all the strugglings of their seeming zeal for their private opinions under the name and style of the truths of God.
Contrarily, the true disciple of Christ cares not what he loseth, what he suffereth, so truth may prevail and triumph, and that the Word of the Lord may have a free course, and be glorified.
He loves the truth for the truths sake, and abhors juggling in a thing so sacred, and the prostituting of divine verity to the base lusts of man. He can do nothing against the truth (whatever he might gain by it,) but for the truth, (whatever he part with for it.) He will buy the truth at any rate, but not sell it upon any terms, What Balaam said in hypocrisy, because the Lord restrained him from doing what he would, that the disciple of truth speaks from the heart should, God leave him to do what he list, If Balak should give me his house full of silver and gold, I cannot go beyond the Word of the Lord my God, to do less or more. Every grain of truth is precious to a sincere heart; it is like his faith , much more precious then the gold that perisheth, though tried with fire, the Law of God's mouth is better unto him then thousands of gold and silver . Therefore he cannot be so weak and foolish as to put gold or honor in the scale with truth; or, so far forget himself to let go such a price put into his hand to get wisdom, for that which is so far below it; or to part with that which cannot be valued with the gold of Ophir, with the precious Onix, or the Sapphire; And which the gold and the Crystal cannot equal, therefore with him, the exchange of it shall not be for Jewels of fine gold .
Thus this Hypocrite, as the Waterman, rows one way, and looks another; the true Christian as those Converts, that ask the way to Zion with their faces thitherwards , the one under color of giving witness to the truth maintains a profitable error, the other abhors even to maintain truth itself upon the account of worldly profit; the one supposeth gain to be godliness, the other from such turns away .
[Character 11] This Hypocrite in his most glorious shows of holiness, is a Patron and Teacher of sin.
He is a great professor of an holy and austere life, not out of love to holiness, but to gain the more credit to his errors, and to make the more proselytes. But all his righteousness is Pharisaical, and a cloak for his inward covetousness and guile. Trace his footsteps to his den, and you shall find this Fox at his prey, and these Wolves, ravening in their holes, notwithstanding their sheep's clothing. The Pharisees pretended much piety in mantaining their bills of divorce , although no fornication were committed; but in the judgment of Truth itself, this was to teach him that, for any other cause put away his wife, to commit adultery, and to be guilty of what she committed after such an unlawful desertion. Thus what Moses permitted for the hardness of their hearts, they maintained and allowed for good and warrantable, and so were both Teachers and Patrons of sin, how glorious soever their outsides were. Nor were they any better in teaching children, required of their parents to supply their wants, to say, it is Corban ; that is, a gift devoted and consecrated to Corban, the public chest, of which the Pharisees had the the keeping, (& the emptying of it too;) and then they should be free from relieving their aged and needy parents. This was to make void the fifth Commandment by their traditions, and to teach sin, to oppose duty in honoring their father and their mother. To say nothing of the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balak to lay a stumbling block before the children of Israel, to send out their fairest Virgins and women under pretence to victual their camp, or out of curiosity to take a view of those stangers, thereby to inflame the Israelites lust, and to commit fornication; whereby he did them more mischief then all his cursing could have procured. Nor will I make mention of the Nicolaitan Tenets, to justify obscene practices. The Apostle Peter deciphers out those heretics which privily brought in damnable heresies, not only by their more close and secret practices , having eyes full of adultery, and that cannot cease from sin , how much soever they dissemble it to beguile unstable souls; but, by their tenets and assertions, wherein they teach to despise Government, by speaking evil of Dignities .
Thus, as the Antichrist (who as for other reasons, so more especially for teaching of sin, ) deserves this brand from the holy Ghost to be called that man of sin ; Because he not only breaketh the Commandments of God, but teached men so, more then ever the old Pharisees did, who never received Christ, nor made profession of him.) He openeth a School of vice, giving dispensations for incestuous marriages, from sworn allegiance, from safe conducts of Princes, confederations of States (O! Regulus, how true a Roman wert thou, in comparison of these, not Romans, but Carthaginians rather!) that establisheth wickedness by a Law, allowing public brothel-houses, taking money for whores (albeit no hire of an whore should come into the Tabernacle of God, ) teaching that fornication is but a venial sin; and in their Priests, not so bad as marriage, with many more, that I blush to name; so is this, more or less the character of every Heretical hypocrite that teacheth and maintaineth lies instead of truths of God, which lays men under greatest contempt with God; for, the prophet which teacheth lies, he is the tail, that is, the basest, the very skum of all.
Contrarily, the Teacher of truth is truly a Minister of righteousness.
He intendeth the advancement of God's glory, as well by the purity of his doctrine, as by the integrity of his life. In his doctrine he is a Teacher of righteousness ; in his life a doer of the will of God . In all things showing himself a pattern of good works, in doctrine showing uncorruptnesse, gravity, sincerity , sound speech that cannot be condemned, that he that is of the contrary part may be ashamed, having no evil thing to say of him.
I do not say he is without his faults, his errors, in many thing we offend all . But his faults do not flow from his doctrine, but are forbidden by it: his errors nor are his continued, after better information. He may err, but will be no Heretic. If he were Apollos himself, he will not think much to be more perfectly instructed , and then he is sure, that if in any point he be otherwise minded, God will reveal even this unto him . He knows that returning into the right path is no disgrace to him that hath deviated. Pride will not do it, but humility will soon find the sweet of it. Saint Augustine got more honor by his Retractations, then by any other work; and he that can take shame to give God glory, will be sure to find the shame taken off, and immortal honor set in the room.
Thus, this hypocrite is as Ahab's Prophets that to prophecy good to the King, taught him to sin against God and his own life; the true Christian is as Micaiah, who will rather endure a prison, and eat the bread of affliction, then with false prophets to engage Ahab to his own destruction; the one is as that woman Jezebel teaching and seducing the servants of Christ to commit fornication , the other as the Angel, and the rest of Thyatira, which have not this doctrine , nor any like it.
The more care and pains is taken with this Hypocrite to reduce him, the more obstinately [Character 12] he retaineth his errors.
Obstinacy in error is the formalis ratio, the essential form, and specifical difference of heresy, by which it is distinguished from simple error; therefore it must needs be one of the clearest and most distinguishing characters of an heretical hypocrite, the more he is confuted and admonished, the more violently and tenaciously to bend his tongue like a bow for lies, to hold fast his deceit, and to refuse to return . He doth insanire cum ration, run mad with reason, that is, with that which he calls reason, and brings either reason against Scripture, or Scripture against reason; his own irrational Arguments against express and clear evidence of Scripture, or Scripture wrested against all Analogy of faith made out by sound reason, and will give a reason (as he calls it) for things most apparently contrary to Scripture; and thus as the Sun-beams confounded by contraction, into a glass do burn; so this Heretic makes the Scripture contorted, to set fire on the truth, and to become a ground for his error.
At his first entry upon an error, he is more modest; little more then a Sceptic, and perhaps vents it only by way of Quaere or Question, to see how it will take; as the devil in his first onset upon Eve ; yea, hath God said, ye shall not eat of every tree of the Garden? as well knowing, that truth once questioned is half lost, especially where men or Satan being parties, make themselves witness and judge. He will first shake a truth, by drawing out from some other weak or unstable souls that know not the depths of Satan, as they speak, a reason of the truth they maintain, or of the error they oppose; then, showing to them the weakness of their reason (which cannot be strong, themselves being so weak;) he comes on with his own opinion and reason to back it, as the Serpent afterwards did to Eve . Ye shall not surely die, for God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as God's, &c. and we all know and feel the issue, This he doth at first privily, in the garden, to the weaker vessel, more ductile and easy to be deceived; and he takes his time, when the man, more able to discover and oppose his devices, is away. Of this sort are they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts; ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth ; while men, that should look better to him, sleep, he sows his tares .
Thus he begins, perhaps with one single opinion, which by degrees he adventures to bring into the light, as cats do their kittins before they can well see, thinking that now others will be as much in love with his brat as he is himself; and being as much taken with his opinion, as Phidias the Painter with the first picture of his own drawing, who, where-ever he went, strongly conceited that he saw his picture go before him; this idolizer of the child of his own brain, begins to be confident, that where-ever he walks in the field of the Scripture, he finds his own idol as surely set up, as Nebuchadnezzar's image in the plain of Dura . And now, as the fishes that are taken in an evil net, and as the birds that are caught in the snare ; so is this poor self-conceited son of man in an evil time; the snare of the devil suddenly falls upon him, and he is taken captive by him at his will . He himself, that before sought to subvert others, is now perverted in himself; he not only deceiveth, but is himself deceived ; the devil soon sears his conscience with an hot iron , and makes him reprobate concerning the faith .
Let now any sound and godly Minister of Christ take him to do, and endeavor to show him his errors, to confute them by plain and pregnant Scripture, and to show him the absurdities that follow his fanatic opinion, he slights all arguments, scorns and derides all opposers, as so many silly boys, not worthy to contend with this great Goliath; and as Jannes and Jambres withstood even Moses himself, so doth this man resist the truth . He is engaged, and he will go through with it; and as for those which others call absurdities, if he cannot evade them, but sees they are necessary consequents of his grand error, he owns them all for truths; for he must take in them, or throw the head of Sheba over the walls to Joab the pursuer, and so part with his darling, as Phaltiel with his whore , which he is resolved to keep, and rather then part with it, give his body to be burned ), so true is that of the spirit of truth, evil men and seducers wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived; worse and worse in being deceived, as well as in deceiving; yea, they deceive their own selves.
He is not only perverted; but past all help of admonition, although convinced in his own conscience, because he is subverted and sinneth against the clear light, and will justify his errors against all evidence of truth, being condemned of himself . He knows himself to be in an error, and his own judgment tells him so, and his conscience calls upon him to renounce it upon pain of hell fire, yet he goes on in his sin. What he hath a will to hang out for a truth, he will never acknowledge to be disproved and confuted; nay, he will presume and conclude it proved by the fullest disproof thereof.
Thus the Pharisees having once engaged themselves in proclaiming Christ to be a Samaritan, and to have a devil , after our Savior had proved to them that he had not a devil, both because he sought God's glory and not his own, and propounded salvation and immortality to such as receive the doctrine of the Gospel, the Jews hereupon concluded more confidently, Now we know that thou hast a devil . What he is resolved not to believe, he will never confess to be proved, how strongly soever confirmed; and what he resolves to believe he will persist in it, as not confuted, how clearly soever by Scripture itself condemned. Nor is it any marvel to see such men suffer death for their opinions, their disease being that of the Gangrene , which not only spreadeth, but where cure is refused or neglected, certainly destroyeth; yea, though you bray this fool in a mortar, yet will not this folly depart from him . Nor is the reason hereof less evident then the thing itself, that men may be satisfied with the truth hereof, and not be beguiled with the sleights of this hypocrite, nd cunning craftiness whereby he lies in wait to deceive. He is,
First, a proud man knowing nothing , that is, as he ought to know , because what knowledge he hath, puffeth him up . It causeth such a swelling in his mind and heart that he cannot see his way, as swelling of the face that swells over the very eye-lids and shuts up the eye.
Next, he hath a seduced heart which leads him aside , so that when (as people overcome of the green-sickness ) he feedeth upon ashes, mere delusions, he cannot deliver his soul, nor say, is there not a lie in my right hand? An heart he hath exercised with covetous practices , no marvel then if he commit idolatry with his own idol, covetousness being so inseparable from idolatry . Add hereunto, the witchery that is in heresy, not only to entice, but to befool and besot men, as it did the Gallatians. It is not without truth, that the devil useth enchantments and witchcraft to draw people after the fondest and sottishest errors that ever he broached by the weakest and simplest of his seducing spirits. For the Apostle in express terms, imputes the falling off of the Gallatians from the truth to seducers, to plain witchcraft practiced upon them ; and the delusions of Satan drawing men to believe a lie, are called strong delusions, or the energy or efficacy of deceit, the very strength of Satan, whose vassals they are, for being lifted up with pride, they fall into the condemnation of the devil , not only to be condemned as he is, but condemned to him, to be under his tyranny here, and torments in hell. Therefore, what ever they pretend, they are the Apostles of Satan , his works they do , and their reward shall be according to their works , to which erratick stars is reserved the blackness of darkness forever .
Contrarily, the true disciple of truth in his greatest seeking of truth with his whole heart, is ever jealous of himself, and quits any error so soon as discovered.
While he is in a condition to know but in part (f), he knows himself subject to error as well as others; and therefore in the first place, he seeks the teaching of God by the teachings of men; and prays, O let me not wander from thy Commandments . But if he do wander, in an error he may be, because this is human; but an Heretic he will not be, because this is Satanical. If in some points he be otherwise minded, than he ought, this often happens through infirmity, or want of information; but his ingenuity is such, that when ever he hath information of it, he quickly and willingly parts with it, as true penitents from their idols, saying, get thee hence . He may through ignorance be as confident as Peter that Christ did too much, in washing his feet; but no sooner doth Christ discover his error, and tell him, If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me ; He soon changeth his mind and his language too; Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head . He may be subject through weakness and error, to dissimulation; Peter, and Barnabas (an honest plain-hearted soul) were sick of this disease ; but when a Paul comes that tells them plainly of their error, they soon reform and discard their error. The whole body of the Apostles together were in a great error touching the restoring of the temporal and Civil power and Kingdom to the Nation of the Jews, supposing Christ to have intended that by his resurrection from the dead . But so soon as he discovered their error to them, they inquire no further after that matter, but according to his command, they after his ascension, returned from Mount Olivet to Jerusalem , and there waited for the holy Ghost, according to his promise, whereby they might be better enabled to promote his Kingdom which is not of this world. It is his grief, if he be in anything otherwise minded then Christ and his Apostles; but it is his comfort, that God shall reveal this unto him , and his good spirit shall lead him into all truth ; although not to know all that Jesus did and spake , yet to be ign •• ant of nothing necessary to be known, for the secret of the Lord is with them that fear him, and he will show them his Covenant , to make them know it .
Thus this Hypocrite incorporateth his error, as the stomach the nourishment of meat, the true Christian vomits it up as poison, that he may not be destroyed by it; the one marries it, the other sues out a bill of divorce against it; the one sets so light by all confutations of his error, as Job by the book that any Adversary could write against him taking it upon his shoulder, and binding it as a Crown unto him; the other shakes it off as Paul the Viper, so soon as he feels it to take hold of his hand . The one as Herod will keep his Herodias, let John the Baptist say what he will against it, the other as Abimelech puts Sarah (how fair soever) away in hast, so soon as it is discovered to him to be unlawful to keep her.
CHAP. X. The Schismatical Hypocrite Is he who under a color of attaining to more purity, rends and wounds the body of which he is a member.
AS in the body politick, Seditious hypocrites rend and tear that, under pretext of redressing abuses in the Civil Government; and of governing better, (with which Absalom began his treason, and rebellion;) so in the Ecclesiastical body there are seldom wanting men purer in their own eyes then their neighbors, that will still be quarrelling the present worship, or Order, instituted of Christ, and observed in that Church whereof they are members, until under color of reforming these, and of removing abuses in the members of the Church, they break all rules of Order appointed by Christ, and of love between themselves, and so put all into confusion.
This hypocrite may well be yoked with the heretical. The Heretical hypocrite corrupts the doctrine of faith; this, the rules of worship, Order, and love commanded of Christ. Heresy is a poison, and Schism a wound in the body; and many times this wound engendereth the poison; Schism is ofttimes the inlet to heresy: for he that causelessly quarrelleth with any worship or Order instituted by Christ, and exercised in the Church to which he belongeth, and that upon pretence of showing a more excellent way, must needs infringe the doctrine touching those Institutions, and set up another of his own, contrary to, or at least differing from that of Christ; and, if he persist therein to separation, wherein comes that man short of heresy? Yea, of apostasy? This is the sad case of men unsettled, heady, high-minded, self-ended, and ambitious of glory. For daily experience showeth that such men, although bottomed upon the right foundation of doctrine, and, in their first appearing in such an eccentrick motion, they hold not any heterodox opinion in matters of faith (for this would utterly blast their design,) yet wanting the mortar and Cement of humility and love, they are soon dislocated, and removed even to another Gospel.
And to say truth, Heretics who are open enemies, little differ from Schismatics, who are mutinous parties, that seldom rest till their mutiny break out into open hostility. The itch of schism grows, by often rubbing, into the scab of heresy. There is no schism, but runs up into some heresy, to justify her departure from the Church, if she proceed to a separation. The measures the Devil observeth, in his dance are, first schism; then separation, the next heresy, and the last is apostasy. And all the variance, debate, strifes, confusions, and troubles, that like so many fits of the mother, rise up in that Church (whose unhappiness it is to have such an Esau struggling with Jacob in the same womb,) is to be set upon the account of this hypocrite: for, as he that takes part in a fray which begins in words, and ends in blood, shall be found guilty of the murder committed; So this hypocrite must answer for all the mischievous effects of his hare-brayn'd course, how specious and plausible soever his first setting out may seem to be.
This Schismatic being denominated from schism (the spawn of the Devil, of which he is engendered) will hardly be discovered aright, unless we rightly understand the nature of schism, which however it often ends in separation from that particular body of which it is a part, yet is too often found in those who break not off all communion with the body in the assemblies thereof.
For whether we regard the first and native signification, which imports a rending of the same thing that was continuous, into parts; a scissure or parting asunder of that which before was but one, or undivided, as the rent in a cloth, or in the veil of the Temple; (which still hung upon the same curtain rod even after that rent made in it;) or, whether we look upon it in the borrowed use of it, in a civil consideration, it notes a dividing of the people one from another, not always to a renouncing of all commerce and converse; but, in point of opinion and affection, in reference to some other thing about which they differ; Some judging thus, others thus. So we read of many divisions among the people because of Christ, as whether they should suffer him to be apprehended by the officers sent to take him, or not: So, else where; In which places the word in the original is 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 schism; where we read not that they thereby ceased from all civil Communication, and became of one, several civil bodies, but continued as one, yet much divided and torn among themselves, which was no small burden and trouble to them. So this must needs, in an Ecclesiastical sense denote divisions in opinion and judgment of members of the same Assembly; either about their Teachers and Guides, or about their Administrations, or about their members, in all which they neither spake the same thing, nor joined together in the same mind, and in the same judgment, but had sharp contentions, and suffered strong convulsions to the disturbing, distorting, and distracting of the whole body.
He that is guilty of this, is a schismatic: and he that doth thus under pretence of coming nearer to Christ, in a purer and more refined way, while in truth and indeed he raiseth up, entertaineth, or countenanceth causeless dissensions and divisions in the Church, contrary to the order of Christ, and the rules of prudence and love, in forbearing one another, is a schismatical hypocrite. He is a breaker of unity, under color of purity; an author of confusion, under pretext of order; and an obstructer of charity under a show of love: His Religion is ad oppositum, it doth him good to do somewhat apart and singular, to preach Christ out of contention He neither will be led nor driven, but thinks himself fitter to drive his leader, and loves nothing, though of Christ's own appointment, that is in fashion and use in the Church, if not of his own introducing.
On the Contrary, the true Christian endeavoreth to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace.
He finds and feels the benefit of his prayer that is the Head, for all the members that are his body, to the Father, that they all may be one in us, and so made perfect in one. Therefore he makes it his main study to be like minded with them, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind; and, his daily care, to do nothing through strife or vain glory; But, that all his things be done with charity. By the truth of faith he cleaves unto Christ; the head, and is one spirit with him; by the bond of love, to all his fellow members, as one body with them. He not only not forsaketh their assemblies, but assembles with them, in love to them, not to irritate, but to conciliate, and to provoke one another to love and to good works. He desires and studies such a Communion with the Saints on earth, that even in this respect, God's will may be done on earth as it is in heaven by the spirits of just men made perfect: and that his agreement with his fellow-members here may not only resemble, but hold some proportion with that perfect Communion he hopes to enjoy with them in heaven. And forasmuch as he hath purified his heart in obeying the truth to unfeigned love of the brethren, he is careful to love them all with a pure heart, fervently. He will not separate, as the manner of too many is; no, not for what he or others may, through pride, or prejudice, esteem a better way. And in the Church of which he is a member, he will neither despise other members as having no need of them, nor start out of his place by a dislocation, whereby the rest of the members should be put to the least pain. In the place wherein he is set, he abides with God.
He knows that where the Saints communicate in love, there the Lord commandeth the blessing, even life forever more. And every error in doctrine, every failing in worship, every swerving from order is not sufficient warrant for separation, or non-communion. How then should the Church of Corinth have come together, among whom the Apostle prayed and desired that there might be no Schisms or divisions (a)? He will pass by offenses which he cannot reform; love the brother-hood, (b) partake of the Ordinances of Christ in Love, and maintain Order, and peace, whoever breaks either the one or the other.
Thus this Hypocrite like Absalom, pretends reformation, but puts all into confusion; the true Christian keeps back the paths of all breakings out by prudent forbearance in love: the one seeks to set the Church on fire by his zeal, the other casts water on those sparks by his love, The one makes the paths of the Church so uneven and rough, that even the wisest can hardly walk in them without danger of stumbling; the other covets to make them as smooth as Solomon's Palace that was paved with love for the daughters of Jerusalem.
[Character 1] This Hypocrite hath the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ in respect of persons.
Look what respect he bears to men's persons, such is his religion, such is his carriage in the Church. If the place he holds there will bear it, he likes nothing better then to act Diotrephes; and in all things loves and seeks to have the preeminence. None must be received into the Church, either as Teachers, or Members, but whom he pleaseth. None must continue in the Church, but those of his own gang. If even an Apostle himself be not of his opinion, will not yield him the right hand, is willing to ease the Church of such unnecessary and unwarrantable burdens as he imposeth, he will not receive or admit even St. John himself, but prate against him with malicious words. If any of the Church have a mind to give to godly Christians the right hand of fellowship, and to receive them as brethren, unless he be sure they will in all things veil bonnet to him and his opinions, say as he saith, and do as he doth, he will not receive them himself, but forbiddeth them that would; and not only so, but casteth them out of the Church as rotten members, that presume to do ought against his declared opinion or practice, how singular or absurd soever.
If he be a private member (yet pragmatical) he will drive on his own particular design in all his actings, and therefore if there be several teachers within his compass, he considers who is most suitable to his private ends, and him he cries up beyond all reason and moderation; not so much to make him great whom he so applaudeth, as to make himself great in that applauded man's opinion, and to wind himself the further into his affections for self ends and advantages. And here he will cry up Paul, to derogate from Apollo; or extol Apollo to detract from Cephas; or applaud any of these, with neglect of Christ, as his own interest leads him; whereas these are but Ministers by whom the Church believeth. He will consider nothing but his own advantage, according to which he hath the persons of men in admiration, or contempt.
If a Minister never so able and godly, agree not with him in opinion or in ordering the Church Assemblies, he is either weak, or peevish; if any of the Church stand for him, this hypocrite is extremely disquieted: Thus those seducing spirits in the midst of all their zealous affecting of the Galatians, not affecting them well, that is, upon right grounds and ends, they would exclude the Galatians, from the truth of the Gospel, and even from their own reason and understanding, making very focles of them, that they might affect those seducers, and be ready for their sakes to pluck out the eyes of Paul, for whose sake they once would have plucked out their own, and have given them to him.
On the contrary, the true Christian receives truth not for his sake that brings it, but for the truths sake that is brought.
He looks upon Paul and Apollo, and every faithful Minister of Christ with reverence and honor; yet, not to make them Lord's of his faith, or absolute directors in matters of worship or order in the Church, but as Ministers by whose ministry he hath believed, even as the Lord hath given unto every man. He will receive truth from the meanest servant of Jesus Christ, although he preach the Gospel through much infirmity, without despising or rejecting it: but, an error, he will not willingly swallow down, although recommended to him by an Angel from Heaven. If there be some disorders, he will in the spirit of meekness and humility desire to remove them; if that cannot be, he will rather bear it with grief to preserve peace, than oppose it with faction under color of zeal, tending to separation, in hope that God will in time reveal that which is truth unto those that at present are otherwise minded. He will not forsake the Assemblies of the Saints, which cannot be left without sin, nor wanted without punishment.
Thus this hypocrites piety is but partiality; and his zeal, faction; the true Christian observes all things prescribed of Christ, without preferring one before another, doing nothing by partiality. The one exalteth some, that he may divide, the other is without partiality, that he may prevent division.
The Schismatical hypocrite breaketh the rules of love upon pretence of holiness. [Character 2]
He is very pure in his own eyes, yet not purged from his filthiness , and therefore hath bitter envying and strife in his heart , which breaks out against all rules of charity. Stand apart (or stand off saith this man) for I am holier then thou ; at least as holy as any, and as meet to be a master of the Assembly. If others exercise more authority, he sticks not to tell them, they take too much upon them, seeing all the Congregation is holy everyone of them . Thus he puts holiness to mutiny against order, peace and love all at once; against order, by refusing to submit to it; against peace, because disorder ever ends in confusion; and against love, because the way of peace he hath not known.
That famous Schism of the Donatists confining the Church to their African Assemblies as the only Staple of truth and holiness; spread itself far, and lasted long, but at length vanished. But now it is at last revived partly in the Papists, and partly in the Separatists. The Papacy, especially as such, is a very Schism (though not without many heresies serving to uphold that part;) for they confine truth and holiness, Church and Christ, and all, to that Sea of Rome. So that if we admit it the name of a Church (as a thief may be said to be a true man) it is a very Schismatical one, that, deviating from the one true Catholic Apostolic Church, will needs yet retain the name and title, when for substance it is the most absolute Synagogue of Satan on this side Hell.
For, are there not found in it Altars, against Altars, Popes against Popes at the same time, Councils against Councils; to say nothing of Friars against Friars, Dominicans against Franciscans, and Jesuits against both? do they not bite and devour one another, tear and spoil one another to the utmost of their power? Do they not cast us out of their Synagogues for not joining with them against those very truths, which the Apostles and true Primitive Martyrs sealed with their bloods? yea, doth not Saint Peters Vicar, kill and eat the flesh of his own Church and members, so often as they do but touch him in his patrimony, profits, or designs? Who is so great a stranger in Israel that he knoweth not these things?
And as for Separatists among ourselves; what divisions, sub-divisions and crumblings into nothing are not found among them? First, they fall out with parochial Congregations as not pure enough for them to join with; either the Minister wants a lawful call, or gifts, or both; or, the worship is corrupt in whole, or in part; or the members are unsound, or disorderly. Then among themselves being separated, everyone hawking after the glory of making or promoting that separation, must take upon him the moulding and ordering of their new Congregation; at which some others, as ambitious as the former, quarrel, and find some error in that way, and if this be not reformed, away go they and draw other disciples after them till at length they fall off from all assemblies of the Saints, and throw off all duty. First, they rend the Church while they continue in it, then rend themselves quite off from the Church by separating from it.
Contrarily, the true Christian maketh love a part of holiness, and never accounts that holiness wherein love is wanting.
He knoweth that two things are requisite to every member of a Church that would not walk disorderly; truth and love, salt and peace. The truth must be spoken and held forth in love, thereby to grow up into him in all things, which is the head even Christ ; and this truth must be poudered with salt , of true wisdom and discretion that a Christian may know how he ought to answer every man. And love must cement every joint, and cover all deformities and imperfections that are in the joints; and so he and the rest of the members have peace one with another. Truth is the nail that is driven by the Masters of the Assemblie; the salt of wisdom as the hammer by which that nail is driven; and love the oil in which that nail is dipped, whereby it goes up to the head without rending or breaking in pieces any members of the Church, into which it is driven. In all professions there must be unity and unanimity; unity to knit the members together; unanimity to keep them so. And as in trades, so in the profession of godliness, men must not only be free of the same occupation, but also members of the same corporation, and study the peace and welfare of it. Even Satan maintains a kind of unity (or rather a conspiracy) in his Kingdom, else it could not stand. How much more then the Kingdom of Christ (which Satan seeks to divide that he may overthrow it) ought to study unity as much as purity? his Church being as Jerusalem , a City that is compact, not as made of many stones, but as if all were but one stone, that it may be at unity within it self.
Thus this hypocrite sets up an holiness which may cast out peace; the true Christian loves the truth and peace that he may promote true holiness. The one is for dividing under a color of holiness; the other follows peace with all men and holiness , as verily believing that without both no man shall see the Lord.
[Character 3] This hypocrite hath always a prejudice against authority.
Government, Order, Antiquity, Custom, consent of Churches, are names and things little beholding to him. Because they may err, therefore he presumeth that they do err. With him all imparity in the Church savors of Antichristian Policy, and pride which must be rooted out. Therefore speaks evil of dignities; whereas Angels which are greater in power and might, bring not railing accusation against them before the Lord . Yet is it no less pride for him to think himself equal with the highest and best, and none meet to be above him; and while he shutteth pride out of one door of order, be lets it in at another of parity. He loves (as Salmons) to swim against the stream, till he be taken in the net. Corah and his company had never been so bold with Moses for his civil administrations, had it not been out of envy to Aaron's mitre, and his exaltation above the rest of the Levites; not because unlawful to be worn, whatever they pretended, but because it was on any head but their own. He studies to know wherein he may not obey authority, rather then wherein he may and ought to obey it; and is better pleased to find any fault to administer matter of exception against obedience, then to find no fault at all, or to have faults amended.
Contrarily the true Christian honoreth authority, and judgeth favourably of those that are in it.
He knoweth God to be a God of order in all the Churches of the Saints; and that all are not one member, nor have one office in the body; all are not Apostles, all are not Evangelists, all are not Pastors, Teachers, or helps in Government in the Church. The several members have their several places, their several offices in the body, which if they keep not there will be a dislocation, a convulsion, a Schism in the body. Therefore he looks upon Government administered according to the mind of Christ, as the Ordinance of Christ, and obeyeth those that have the rule over him; submitting himself , not opposing of them. Those that in some things fail, he pitieth and prayeth for, covering their nakedness, going backward with the garment of love, as Sem and Japheth did that of their father Noah . And the Elders that rule well, he accounteth worthy of double honor .
Thus this hypocrite walking after the flesh, despiseth government ; the true Christian walking after the spirit, dares not have an undutiful thought of his Governors; the one seeks to pull down the government to exalt himself; the other upholds it to exalt Christ.
The Schismatical Hypocrite is a great ingrosser of the Churches Commons. [Character 4]
Thus that man of sin hath rent away a great part of the Christian world from the unity of Christ and his Gospel, whereof all Saints partake in common , and excludes all that are not of his Synagogue, and have not his mark, from salvation; which yet belongs to all believers, and therefore called the common salvation . They engross the title of Catholics, whereby they would imply both truth of doctrine and universality of consent to be found only with them; but upon no better grounds then the Turks arrogate the titles of Mussulmanni, that is, Orthodox; and Islani, that is at unity. It is not his number that excuseth from Schism, no more then the ten Tribes falling off from the house of David, could make the two Tribes that adhered thereunto guilty of that rent, and the ten Tribes innocent. Nor is it his residence in the chief City (once the seat of the most famous Christian Church in the world out of which he hath shouldered the Emperor, discharge him from being guilty of the rent, no more then Caesar's usurping thereof, and forcing the Senate into a corner could acquit him of usurping; else Caesar must be a true Common-wealths man at Rome, and Cato and the Senate, rebels at Brandusium.
But there is nothing more absurd than to hear the papal party call themselves the Romish Catholic Church, which two words imply a contradiction, as if one should say, a general particular Church. Neither is there anything more sacrilegious then the appropriations (or impropriations rather) of that Church, whereby they challenge to themselves as their peculiar, whatsoever glorious things are spoken of that one Catholic militant Church, the true City of God on earth.
And there are not none elsewhere who arrogate all purity in doctrine worship and discipline as their own particular free-hold and peculiar; making their own opinions and administrations the only standards to weigh and measure all other Churches by, who must all be pronounced too light at least, if not Babylonish and Antichristian, if found to deviate from them, or not to come fully up to them in all things: Yea, he will (if not formally excommunicate, yet) in effect non-communion all of the same Church, and debar them the Sacraments, how sound soever in the faith, and unblameable in conversation; if they cannot be satisfied of the truth of grace in his heart which is invisible, and to be left to the judgment of the searcher of hearts, where their open wickedness saith not in his heart, that there is no fear of God before their eyes, and that they have altogether broken the yoke.
Contrarily, the true Christian holdeth communion with all wherein they communicate with God.
As he is at unity with all man-kind, not degenerated into beasts, in r • gard of the common image of God, and with all men of honesty and civility, for the love of human society, as a friend to the government of God; so is he with all that are called Christians, as upon whom the Name of the Lord is called, and with all called to be Saints, with all that in every place call upon the Name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours , that is, with all those that profess piety, and not openly contradict it with their lives, for the love he hath to the new creature, which is the special image of God; yea, with all those of whom there is any hope to gain them to acknowledgment of the truth which is after godliness , for love to their souls, and to the work of God in the conversion and salvation of men.
He dares not join with Idolaters and spirits of error discovered by Scripture, against the clear light of Evangelical truth, though the Church of Rome count him a Schismatic for refusing her. He accounts it to be a folly and madness to be carried with shows and pretences of place, names, multitudes, or titles, when the Lord Jesus himself appeareth as it were in the field against those fooleries, as with the banner of the everlasting Gospel displayed, and his sword drawn, calling all his faithful subjects to arms, and saying with Jehu, Who is on my side, who ?
Nor doth he account it less madness of the other side to think that we can never go far enough from Rome, in whatever they hold or practice, and to condemn all for Antichristian Idolatry and Popery that is to he found among them. For the devil is not such a fool as to put his eldest son to make a total Apostasy, but he lets him hold some truths, and practice some duties allowed of God, the better to give countenance to the trumperies, witchcrafts, and delusions which he hath received from the Devil. Baptism the Lord's Supper, yea, the Gospel itself is not to be thrown off because held and continued by Antichrist. Nay rather, God permits him to maintain and preserve these, that those men who embrace true piety, may take them up and use them with more purity, and to better purposes. He will not go further from the devil himself, then he goes from God. He will not reject truth as error, because that father of lies confesseth it. Will any wise man deny Christ to be the holy one of God, because the devil once pronounced him to be so? Will any discreet Christian throw off all truths that the devil hath taken up? Will any hate the light, because Satan transformeth himself into an Angel of light ?
The wise Christian therefore separateth from Satan as Satan, from Papists as Papists; from wicked men wherein they are wicked; from everyone so far and no further, then he separateth himself from God, as fearing the footsteps of such separation, for that they who affect and begin it, cease not till they have separated themselves, not only from all Religion, but common honesty.
Thus this hypocrite incloseth other men's commons and so destroys his own benefit in the communion of Saints; the other throws open all enclosures which may prejudice the least and weakest of Saints in the enjoying of his just rights. The one by inclosing, excludes himself; the other by giving all their rights, preserveth his own.
[Character 5] The Schismatical Hypocrite pretends to much knowledge, but without judgment.
He hath gotten so much eye-sight as to find fault, but not so much judgment as to discover the true way to redress it. He findeth some error in the one extreme which he opposeth, but sees▪ not the danger and mischief in the other extreme, which he crieth up and applaudeth. He seeth the mote in another, but not the beam nearer home. To join in evil, as in superstition, &c. is a great sin; but therefore to separate from the superstitious in commanded duties is an evil which he seeth not. It is sin to join in will-worship; but not a duty therefore to refuse to join in true worship, be the worshippers what they will. It is good to abhor the Popish hierachy, but evil to fall into an absolute anarchy, and popular confusion, where everyone will be a ruler, but none willing or fit to be ruled. It is good to stick close to the written word, even in worship and discipline, as well as in doctrine; but not to force the holy Ghost, seeking by strained interpretations to make him father of all our conceits. If men have a mind to be contentious (as all Schismatics have) there will be no end of strife, especially in things wherein the Scriptures speak not expressly and definitively. For in things of this nature, better have to do with an Heretic, then with a Schismatic; for although in the Schismatic the matter of contention be of less weight, yet the spirit of contention is greater, and the violence more strong to maintain it.
Contrarily, The true Christian joins to his knowledge judgment, and to both love.
The wise man hath his eyes in his head, said the wisest of men , and he hath his heart at his right hand , while the fools heart is at his left. He can see and judge; the other seeth without judgment; the true Christian not only seeth what is before him, but what is not yet obvious to every eye. Where any Christians assemble themselves, holding forth the truth in the main, and desire and endeavor to keep the Ordinances of Christ free from pollution and contempt, he dares not for every light error in judgment or practice forsake those assemblies as the manner of some is, but rather to bear with patience, and to bewail with grief, what through their ignorance or weakness he cannot yet reform, while there is any hope of reformation; he can become a Jew that he may gain the Jews, rather then wholly to separate from them; to them that are under the Law, as under the Law to win them; to them that are without Law, as without Law (being not without Law to God, but under the Law to Christ, ) that he might gain them that are without Law. To the weak he becomes as weak, that he might gain the weak. He can be made all things to all men, that he may by all means save some. Not that he joined with the Jews in denying Christ, but conformed to what ever was not against Christ; nor to them that are under the Law, in matter of justification by works, but in making it the rule of his obedience to the Law of faith; nor to them that are without Law, as a son of Belial; but as not tying them to ought that concerned the Ceremonial Law; nor, to the weak as humouring them in their weakness, but bearing with them in a spirit of meekness, till of weak they become strong. If he find them head-strong in passion where weakest in judgment; he doth not knock them down with violence, but overcome them by patience, as skillful fishers do the strongest fishes, not vexing them with doing before them what he knows they cannot away with, but rather forbearing his own liberty, then offend their weak consciences . And all this he doth for the Gospels sake, that he may be partaker thereof with them .
Thus this Hypocrite is as the bird-eyed horse, that takes notice of everything that may cause him to start, and to endanger his rider; the other is as a sober man that is not frighted with shadows, nor flies off for trifles; the one knows nothing as he ought to know, for lack of judgment; but the other being spiritual, judgeth all things .
The Schismatical Hypocrite is all for things, but nothing for the right timing of [Character 6] them.
As the State Hypocrite is wholly an observer of times, ordering things to the times to promote his own interest by both, so the Schismatical Hypoctite is all for unseasonable pressing of things, without any consideration of times. This man knoweth not his time, and so by unseasonable putting on of things in an unseasonable time, himself is snared, and he seeks to ensnare others, in an evil time . He would have the Church in all things so ordered now, as in the Apostles time; not only for doctrine and worship, but for all circumstances then taken up for necessity to avoid persecutions; (which might be avoided without prejudice to the Gospel, as things then stood, as in the case of Paul's purifying , and sundry other incidents:) Then, the Magistrate meddled not with matters of Religion, unless to persecute it, and the Christians never appealed to them, unless in criminal causes, and cases contrary to the Laws of the Empire ; therefore now, the Magistrate must have nothing to do in matters of Religion, no more then Gallio, who, to avoid the being a Judge in such matters, cared not for the contempt done to his authority as a Civil Judge, before his face at the judgment seat itself , which this hypocrite by his principle must needs justify, and cries up as an excellent resolution in a Christian Magistrate; albeit the Spirit of God brands him upon record as a most profane wretch, for so doing, to all posterity.
Thus he thinketh that the command to come out of Babylon , extends to all times and seasons, for going not only from Rome, but from all that retain anything which he calls Romish, whether truly Babylonish or not; and that the least offense given or taken, is warrant sufficient to make a rent in the Church, and to prefer a mischief before an inconvenience; which however it may in some cases hold in the Laws of men, yet is ever sinful and dangerous in the things of God, where notwithstanding the inconvenience, Christ may be had and enjoyed, as in Corinth, notwithstanding the many offenses there given to such as were truly godly, in the matter of the Lord's Supper itself , as well as in other things; and yet even there Paul would have no Schism ; and that considering the times, wherein many things must be born, for want of power and opportunity to reform them.
Contrarily, the true Christian wisely considereth the times and seasons, as well as things.
He is as much in truth and in deed for an absolute and complete reformation as any Schismatic in the world; yea more, for he will omit no season by which it may be promoted; whereas the other, for want of taking the due season, is sure to prevent the doing of what he pretendeth, and to bring in the mischief of a rent and confusion, instead of a true reformation. If he live in an age wherein an Asa , an Hezekiah , or a Josiah (h) reigneth, that will cause the people to worship the true God in the right order and manner, and under whom the house of God is by their care and zeal thoroughly purged, and that the righteous flourish, and are exalted; He will then apprehend it to be a fit season for him to appear (within his own rank and sphere) to remove the very least disorders, and be as forward as any to purge out whatsoever does offend; and to abstain from all appearance of evil, purging out the old leaven, that all may be a new lump , saving (such as need it) with fear, pulling them out of the fire, hating the very garment spotted with the flesh .
But if God let a Jeroboam reign, to ordain Feasts, Altars, Sacrifices and Priests devised of his own heart ; making the lowest of the people Priests, and suffering whosoever would be consecrated to become one of the Priests for his high places ; Or if a profane Gallio be at the helm, who cares not what Religion men profess . Then indeed he accounts it wisdom especially if a private Christian, to lie hid as much as he can, as those seven thousand in Ahab's time; and to keep silence in that time, because it is en evil time ; unless where God by his providence calls him out to bear witness to the truth, so as either he must deny the truth, or suffer for it. In this case, he rejoiceth in being a partaker of Christ's sufferings .
And even Ministers of Christ who at sometimes must not count their lives dear unto them , but be partakers of the afflictions of the Gospel according to the power of God ; at another time, if they be persecuted in one City, they may and ought to flee into another ; when it is to reserve themselves for better times, to do more and greater service unto Christ. Then Paul and his company at Ephesus, will not expressly and openly inveigh against Diana when it may raise tumults to the hazard of the Gospel, and the ruin of those few that in that City received it: Yea when it may advantage him for his preservation from present mischief, and unto future service, he dares profess himself a Pharisee , so far as the Pharisees held the truth, viz. touching the point of the resurrection of the dead, and the acknowledgement of Angels and Spirits, which the Sadducees denied, and the Pharisees confessed .
Thus the Schismatical hypocrite observes not his time, and thereby destroys what he seeks to build; the true Christian knoweth his time, and so serves Christ and saves himself: the one unseasonably venteth his passion, to the prejudice of Religion; the other seasonably shows his prudence to the advantage of the truth.
[Character 7] The Schismatical hypocrite is zealous, but out of his element.
This is the fountain of Schism, the arrogating of that to a man's self which belongs not to him, with contempt of others whom they ought to honor. This hypocrite thinks he doth nothing, if he keep within his own line. If he dares not execute the Magistrates office, for fear of a premunire; yet he will be ever finding fault with the Magistrate, if himself may not do what he list in contempt of Laws, and cry out, persecution, when his own folly causeth the stripes to fall upon his fools back; or; that the Magistrate wants courage and zeal, if in all things (though never so unwarrantable and senseless) that he would put the Magistrate upon. He thinks so well of himself, that he believes himself able to govern his Governors, and to rule his Rulers; and to be, if not a Magistrate, yet a reformer even of Magistracy itself, and of all that execute it. He is like an ill man'd colt that takes the bit in his teeth, and runs away with his Rider, and never leaves running (unless stopped by force) till he hath cast him.
And as for the Ministers office, this Corah and his complices will make more bold, not only to reprehend, but usurp it. For doting on his own conceited gifts, he makes no bones to become a Teacher cf the Law, understanding neither what he saith, nor whereof he affirmeth ; even before he hath learnt his Catechism, and while he hath need that one teach him again the first principles of the Oracle of God , having need of milk and not of strong meat.
And even in these extravagancies, if you observe his strain and temper of carrying them on, his wine is all turned into vinegar, which (without any oil) he pours into the wounds of his brethren; yea, of his betters whom he ought not to mention without reverence and honor. He entertaineth irreverent opinions, and uttereth contemptible words of authority, and dislikes men the more, by how much their places require more respect and observa • ce: which is one of the Characters that no less than two Apostles give of him . He thinks a private man may execute the office either of Magistrate or Minister, or at least direct and over-rule them in it.
He useth Religion, as men loving contention make use of the Law, that is, to make it a cudgel to break other men's heads (although many times with the ruin of themselves) not as a means to reduce and reclaim them. His zeal is more against persons then corruptions; and if against corruptions, it is for the persons; sake and he is against the persons for their places sake; not simply, but because he may not have them, who in his own opinion is more worthy of them. First, he falls out, and then hunts to find out some fault to warrant his quarrelling; and (as the Donatists of old) is more glad to find a fault then to see it amended, and to proclaim then to cover it, to carp then to cure it, and is unwilling the color of evil speaking should be taken away.
There is no duty which he practiseth so much as reprehension, none that he more abuseth in the practice of it. In reprehending, he sets by the spirit of meekness, and forgets all reverence: He knows not how to entreat an Elder as a Father, but rather as Shimei reviled David to his face, as his slave. He cannot speak of authority, but with slighting; or of Ministry, but with contempt.
And as himself is, so he seeks to make his associates and disciples, whom by perverse speakings he can draw after him. He makes his choice among the meaner sort of people, who are soonest deluded, and most violent after engagement; for they being least able to judge, are soonest flattered into a high conceit of their own sufficiency, and so are the fittest timber whereof he seeks to erect his frame, as being most apt to envy others above them, and most heady and furious in faction against those whom they envy; contrary to the Papist, who delights to deal most with the rich and noble, who are ablest to pay the best price for their salvation, and to help him to bear rule by their means.
Contrarily, the sober Christian measureth his duty by his place.
As he forsakes not his calling, so he exceeds not his bounds in that calling. He can heartily reverence the Magistrate for his place, even when he mourns for his failings and corruptions He giveth place to authority, as a power ordained of God ; though not to build faith upon; yet to keep order, and to be the Minister of God for his good. He knows that God is a God of order, and hath appointed to each member his proper office, as well as place in the body; and that the least dislocation of any member, is both troublesome and dangerous to the whole body. His main care therefore in reference to the community, is, that there may be no Schism in the body , even by the least encroachment, or usurpation upon those above him, or contempt, or slighting of those below him.
Thus, this hypocrite delights most to be eccentrick, the true Christian keeps within his own sphere; the one loves to play the Bishop in another man's Diocese, as a busy body in other men's matters , the other studies to be quiet and to do his own business .
This Hyp crite is soon ripe, all fire on the sudden. [Character 8]
He is no sooner a Professor, but a great zealot; and presently espies great faults, many corruptions and impure mixtures, which never any man but himself saw before, in the Church whereof he is a member: Schism is like a contagious disease that seizeth most on the best complexions. A man must have some show of knowledge and zeal before he be a Schismatic, although such an one knows nothing as he ought to know ; yet so soon as he thinketh he knoweth anything, he will be correcting reforming and censuring as many as come in his way, and seeking to cast out brethren for the Lord's Name sake, supposing and saying that thereby the Lord will he glorified , and that because he thinks himself holier then they, and that God must needs own anything that he doth.
Popery indeed delights to meet with men either grossly ignorant, whom her Agents may lead by the nose; or, openly profane, that never made conscience of anything; giving then not only liberty, but temptations to any wickedness; and, the grosser, the better for their purpose, that afterwards they may confess them with greater advantage to themselves: first, they debauch, then, confess them, that so they may afterwards fleece them to better purpose. But Schism must have her disciples a knowing people, that is, in conceit, and in the estimate they raise of themselves, that so they may sooner serve the devil by making rents and divisions so soon as this piece of new clothe is sowed to the old.
He is like a mushrome, up in a night; or, as the Caterpillar, engendered of the East wind on the sudden. If Satan can but blow into him the spirit of presumption, you shall soon find this turned into a spirit of contradiction and contention, censuring others contemning of superiors; and then, exit Schismaticus, Out he goes a Schismatic in grain to vex all where ever he comes; no great need of solid knowledge; so there be a show of it; less of judgment, so he may be judge; least of all the denial of himself, of which he is now an admirer. So that it is no marvel to find a Schismatic to be formed and fashioned in a night, and next morning in arms, like the brood of Cadmus his Serpent.
On the contrary, the true Christian grows up by degrees, and walks on towards perfection by sober steps.
He is not all upon the spur, but puts a strong bridle upon his head-strong passions, that he may make no more hast then good speed. He is fruitful, but not before his time, He is like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season ; or like the wheat in the field, that though it grow up, he knoweth not how ; for the manner; yet for the measure the earth brings forth, first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear, which is not done on the sudden, but the husbandman waiteth and hath long patience for it ; Or he is like the child in the womb, begotten at once, but the several parts are formed by degrees in time, and afterwards perfected for birth and living in the world; So is everyone that is born of God, he comes on by leisurely steps, and when he hath gone as far as he can, plus ultra is his word; there is yet much to which he hath not attained . His knowledge is not by him held to be ripe, till it be seasoned with a sound judgment; his understanding not right till it be poised by prudence; his zeal not qualified, till it be allayed with humility and meekness.
Well may we wait and give time to the forming of such a piece; well may we inquire and search with the Apostle? Who is a wise man and endued with knowledge, let him show out of a good conversation, his works with meekness of wisdom.
Thus, this Hypocrite makes more hast then good speed, the sincere Christian makes better speed then hast; the one by impetuous violence destroys what he pretends to build; the other by seeming to be more slow, more speedily attains his end. The one is as a flash of lightning, that makes way for thunder; the other as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day .
CHAP. XI. The Superstitious Hypocrite. Is he that through groundless fear worshippeth God according to the fancies of man.
EVen in the midst of ungodliness not come to the height of Atheism, there is in all men some impression of a God-head, which is clearly understood, and manifested by the things that are made. The apprehension of a God, calls for worship: But, want of true knowledge of God, breeds a servile fear; and the not understanding what worship he requireth, makes men (ignorant of both) to set up an Idol of their own brain in the room of God; and, through fear to prosecute him with a worship of their own: both which make up superstition, of which the superstitious hypocrite is molded and formed.
All ungodliness divideth itself into two main channels, Atheism, and Superstition: and, in one of these streams all the Sons of Adam, alienated from the life of God, are continually swimming and dabling. Atheism denieth God, either in opinion, saying there is no God: or, in affection, wishing there might be none: or, in conversation, living as if there were none, Supersition is little better, for albeit it acknowledge God, yet knows him not, makes an Idol of him; and then, gives him what best pleaseth itself, and takes from him what is best pleasing to him; not out of love to serve him, but out of fear of mischief from him.
Hence some Etymologize superstition, quasi supra statutum, a thing beyond Statute, or Rule: that is, as the Greek word importeth , a servile and preposterous fear of an imaginary God, which the true God neither enjoyeth, alloweth, or regardeth. Hence some learned (among the Heathens) who knew not the true God, nor his true worship, place superstition, not so much in the matter or form of worship, as in the degree and excess of fear which is vain and unwarrantable. Nor is this all: for, this fear produceth sundry errors in worship; fear disposing or rather forcing to a worship, but not showing how. Hence the superstitious person inventeth and useth sundry ceremonies and rites of his own head, or takes them up by tradition in the worship of God; accounting himself so much more religious than others, by how much his brain is more firtile, and his hand more active in such kind of ceremonies and worship as best pleaseth his fancy, with greater fear and more show of zeal then appears in others who knowing the unwarrantablenesse and folly of them, cannot but sleight and abhor that in which he placeth all his devotion.
Thus the affrighted Philistines, by the counsel of their Priests and Diviners, offered five golden Emerods, and five golden Mice to the God of Israel, according to the number of the Lord's of the Philistines, as a trespass offering for making to bold with his Ark, when themselves had been smitten with Emerods, and many with death; thinking by this means to escape further evils. And upon no better account did the Athenians erect an Altar, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , to the unknown God ; hoping by unwarranted sacrifices to appease, and pacify his anger breaking out upon them.
Yea, to come nearer to our purpose, the Israelites themselves were too sick of this malady in the midst of their highest formal devotions, having their fear towards him taught by the precepts of men , whereby the Hypocrite abuseth and affronteth God instead of worshipping and honoring him. For, whereas God is a Spirit, and will be worshipped in Spirit and in Truth the Superstitious Hypocrite, instead of truth, sets up his own seeming wisdom (wherewith shall I come before the Lord, &c. ) as if God had left him in the dark: and, for Spirit, a natural blind devotion, rather fearing in excess, than loving God in any tolerable measure; not so much hoping for help, as desiring to be freed from hurt.
Naturally, men (not wholly given over to a reprobate sense) affect to be religious: but no man by nature is rightly devout. The Atheist indeed naturally fights against natural conscience, when once he hath maliciously fought against God; and so becomes worse then the worst nature could make him. But the superstitious person is far more dangerous in the consequent and issue, because he maketh God to be what he is not, and the creature to be what it is not, putting upon God his own superstitious fancies as true worship: and gives rules to others to do the like. An Atheist for the most part hurts but one, or few, with his opinion: but the Superstitious lays a foundation of abomination for many generations. Jeroboams Calves held all the Kings of Israel fast in the cords of the same sin. If men be plucked out of the pit of Atheism, they will easily be persuaded to climb the high places of superstition, as delighting to go from one extreme to another, without taking the mean in their way, as Plutarch observeth in Tullus Hostilius; and as we have daily experience in godless men, who of Atheistical livers turn Popish zealots in an instant, it being an easy conversion from no religion to a false, whereby they become twofold more the children of hell than they were before.
On the contrary, the true Christian worshippeth God in spirit and truth, without the fear of man.
He consults not with flesh and blood, how or wherewith to worship him who is a Spirit: but takes notice what God himself hath shown him, and what the Lord requireth of him , and keeps only to that.
His fear is God's, not man's. He feareth God truly, because he is taught of God how to fear him, and feareth none but God in the things of God. Fear of God in him is as the true Serpent of Moses that devoured all the counterfeits of the Magicians; for it is coupled with love to God, which casteth out all false fears . He feareth God, none more, or so much: but it is a godly fear joined with true reverence; both which produce an acceptable obedience: For, he serveth God acceptably, with reverence and godly fear . His heart is devoted to the fear of God , not which is after the precepts of men, but according to the Commandment of the everlasting God, who teacheth not only whom to fear, but how to fear him . And, from that slavish fear of this Hypocrite he is graciously delivered by him which is his fear , partly by faith, which teacheth him his duty, and the rule to perform it, whereupon he doth it not out of fear to be hurt, but out of hope to be accepted and blessed: and partly by Love, which cannot dwell with so dismal a companion as slavish fear, and therefore expelleth it (as light doth darkness) not only as unworthy of harbor, but as an enemy to true piety under a specious veil of devotion.
He knows that however false gods be good fellows, and care not how many we worship, so themselves be not left out, and be content with any worship (as the Devil from Christ ), so they may have some; yet the true God is more jealous, and admits neither of fellows, nor so much as of worship that is not of his own prescribing for manner as well as for matter . Therefore he regulates his devotion by the standard of the Scriptures, casteth out slavish fear as an enemy to godliness, and as the mother and womb of all superstition.
Thus, this Hypocrite serves God out of a false fear, without love: the truly devout Christian fears him out of love. The one is satisfied, if to be rid of his fear, he serves any God, in any manner; the other to show his love, worshippeth the true God in the right way only. The one (like Darius who would have parted Asia ) is content to divide with God, to be rid of his fear; he other (as Alexander that would have all or none,) resolves against all division between God and man.
The superstitious hypocrite observeth and serveth the creature more than the Creator . [Character 1]
Superstition is a large field containing whatsoever is taken from God, and given to the Creature under pretence of serving God more exactly. He will worship Angels that thereby he may seem more devoutly to worship God. He will in a voluntary humility, worship Saints, under color of being more humble in his addresses to God by them. Ignorant he is of the true God, and his ignorance makes him abound in superstition, even until he rise up at last to gross Idolatry, if not stopped in his course by instruction touching the nature of the true God, and the true worship of God.
He seems in his profession to abhor Idolatry, yet naturally falls into it ere he be aware, even when he thinks himself furthest off from it. For he that pretendeth to worship God otherwise then himself hath prescribed, worshippeth not God, but gives a will worship to some other thing that is not God, but a god of his own making, whether through a false notion of the mind, as sometimes Saint Augustine conceived of the God head, as of a Globe of fire; or, through a false representation, as Aaron, under the similitude of a calf. And towards such a God, he is very devout, while that which he worshippeth is not God, but his own vain fiction and opinion.
To speak here of the innumerable superstitions found among heathens without the pales of the visible Church, upon which they engraffed all their Idolatries, Divinations, Incantations, Adjurations, Sorceries, and other abominable practices, is out of our line at this time; we being now upon the sent of an hypocrite within the Church, whose religion is little other then mere superstition: Nor shall I pursue all the superstitious fopperies of that Schismatical Synagogue of Satan, the pretended Church of Rome: for we are now hunting of those closer hypocrites among ourselves that profess departure from Babylon, and make great shows of devotion, which yet is nothing else but a mask for their more close and subtle superstition.
He is a great Devoto; but, wherein? If the creature command anything in worship; as, cringing, or ducking to an Altar, observing of meats, or days, or forms: No man shall go beyond him, or reach him. A Saints day is more religiously observed than the Lord's Sabbath; a Surplice more carefully put on, than the New man: the Litany more devoutly attended, than the most soul-piercing Sermon. He can better away with a Crucifix, than with a discourse against that superstition. He is more afraid of an Hare crossing his way, than of an Harlot in his bed: more troubled at a salt falling towards him, than of the guilt of sin lying heavy upon him. He setteth up some Saint in Heaven as an over potent favourite in grossing both the graces of the Prince, and the privileges of the Subject. With him the blessed Virgin is above her Son, if not to command him, yet to do feats in heaven, more than faith in the heart, to prevail with him. Images and pictures are unto him better instructors then the written word, and greater helps to his devotion then the Gospel of Christ. An Image, an Ephod, and a Teraphim are all one to him that respects not truth so much as blind devotion. If be have them, he is never the better; but, if he want them, farewell his Religion.
With him the Stars, who were set for signs and seasons of things natural, are made more surely prophetical and predictionary, than the Prophets of God that decry those fooleries: he can gather more things future, contingent, and voluntary, from the Stars, than from the Scriptures, touching the sad providences that may befall him or others for sin. He ascribes more to Hali than to Paul: he can tell you more what weather is likely to be, from the observation of Saint Swithines day, the twelve days of Christ-tide, the Conversion of Paul, or of the Thursday before the change of the Moon, than he is able to discern of the Kingdom of God, even when Christ himself is preached unto him . And thus, as common people use to be more favorable in their opinions to Empericks and Wizards, than to the solid Physician (observing when they hit, and dissembling, when they miss;) so this hypocrite will plead more for those senseless and absurd rules and predictions of Astrologers, Calculators of nativities, Figure-casters, and other impostors, even when God hath frustrated the tokens of those liars, and made those diviners mad ; than he will for the Scriptures themselves, which he makes use of no otherwise than the Heretic, who learns the Devils lesson out of God's Book. A judgment from the Stars, as he calls it, is of more weight with him, than the judgment of him that made them against such judgments.
Nor will he set out of Dreams neither, (which always give wings to fools,) but is a greater observer of dreams, (in the multitude of which there are many vanities ); than of what he doth or may see without spectacles in the waking Word against filthy dreams . For, as in old time, when the written Word was not complete, God sometimes spake by dreams, not to make men superstitious, but more holy ; the Devil who is God's ape, too often mingled himself with dreams; so he doth still, to increase superstition among men, as Gregory the Great well observed, that he may the better delude man in his sleep whom he thinks not enough to ride in the day; and many times suggesteth that in the night, which he cannot make good in the day: So that this hypocrite had need of those two gates which the Poets feigned to be set up for sleep; one of horn for true dreams; and another of Ivory for the false. Yet all would be too little to show this dreamer, which came through the Horne, and which through the Ivory: Seeing such dreamers are given up to strong delusions to believe a lie, which they love, instead of the truth wherein they have no delight.
Yea, this devout hypocrite is not without his Charmes and Spells sometimes: but, as those wretched Exorcists in Popery, make use of Oil, Salt, Spittle, &c. (even in the Sacrament of Baptism,) and of holy water, and crosses, to drive away Devils; So this hypocrite fears not to use, apply, and repeat words or sentences of Scripture, either pronounced or written, for cures of diseases in man and beasts. And for chasing of evil spirits from houses and other places. In all which the devil is content to be at command, that he maymore surely take all such silly birds in his net, and make them his own forever.
To which may be added, fond adjurations by the creatures, by which he putteth them in the place and office of God, calling them in to be witnesses of truth and avengers of perjury. But what a folly, yea madness is it for a man bearing upon him the Image of God, and the Name of Christ, to swear by this fire, this light, this bread, &c! as if those inanimate creatures were able to judge of truth and falsehood, and had a commission from God so to do. Wherefore as Lactantius sometimes proved Jupiter to be no god, because he swore by Stix, or Hell: So may we argue such superstitious hypocrites to be less then men; or at least then true Christians, because they swear by things inferior to themselves, contrary to the good old rule, He that sweareth, sweareth by the greater . Of the same nature were all those Oaths (forbidden by our Lord ), by the Heavens, the Earth, by Jerusalem, by their Heads, &c. and especially those superstitious Oaths by the Temple or the Gold of the Temple; by the Altar, and the gift that is upon it; like those of the superstitious Papists, by the Mass, by Saint Mary, Saint Peter, Saint Paul, all which the superstitious hypocrite frequently useth with as much, yea with more veneration and reverence, then he doth the glorious Name of the blessed God himself.
On the contrary, the truly devout Christian observeth and useth the creatures in that rank and place which is due unto them.
He neither carelessly slighteth them, nor superstitiously stands in awe of them, nor immeasurably dotes upon them out of a fond opinion that they will, or can do for him what superstitious minds conceit of them. He suffereth not his corrupt reason blinded with superstition, to imagine, or create unto itself a forbidden use of the creatures, but searcheth to what office God hath ordained them, and what use it is that God himself hath allowed us to make of them; and there he stayeth.
He dares not worship Angels, when he understands them to be his fellow servants , (although of a higher rank ); yet, as being taught of God so to do, he can honor them; and praise God for them, as appointing them to be his guard while he lives , and his convoy to heaven when he dies. He is careful not to shame or weary them while they attend him. He goeth on in his ways appointed him of God, that they may conduct and preserve him ; not, out of that way, least they come as adversaries against him. He propounds them as patterns of obedience, to do God's will on earth, as they in heaven . He dares not oppose the least of God's little ones, as knowing their Angels do always behold the face of God in heaven , and will find a means to requite it. He learneth of them to esteem highly of the work of grace where ever he discerns it, because therein the Angels are so greatly delighted . Finally, he rejoiceth much the more in his Christian condition and communion, in that he is hereby admitted to fellowship with such glorious companions ; yea, whereby he is in Christ ; exalted above them; not to puff him up, or to debate them, but the more, on both sides to lift up Christ above all.
Touching Saints departed, how glorious soever, he dares not apply to them as Mediators to pray for him, because he finds that Abraham himself, the father of the faithful is ignorant of us ; and of our condition on earth, and Israel knoweth us not, as discerning how it is with us. He honoreth the Prophets, but abhors to erect glorious Sepulchers to their memories, and yet hate their virtues, and persecute them in their successors; but his main care is, when he mentions them with honor, to imitate their graces, and to bless God for the benefit of their examples .
And as for other creatures, he will not set those above him whom God hath put under his feet ; but only make them the matter of his praise unto God, that the Lord may rejoice in his works . He admireth God's goodness in making them for him, and useth them to his glory , that while he hath the use, God may have the praise . He is careful not to add to their bondage , by nourishing that corruption that subjected them to vanity, but learns of them to sigh for a full deliverance.
He makes not only an ordinary use of them in moderation for natural necessities, and lawful refreshings, but also a spiritual, and a sabbatical use of them, therein to behold the glory of God the Creator of them.
Finally, if he be subject to dreams, he doth not thereby take upon him to prophecy future events, but improves them to present use. He hunts not for revelations by them, but observeth thereby (in a profitable way) his complexion, state of health, or, as critical observations in sickness. He takes notice by them of his special inclinations to special lusts and corruptions, because in sleep nature erects herself more freely without restraint, and so he takes them (as Joseph ) as warnings, not what shall inevitably beside him, though he do what he can to prevent it, but to avoid what lusts are in him, or evils before him, to prevent the mischiefs that otherwise are sure to fall upon him; yea he makes use sometimes of false fears, and of groundless apprehensions, to become unto him profitable cautions.
Thus, the superstitious hypocrite, because he believes every word, except that of God; sets the creature, to whom he makes himself a slave, above God whom he believeth not; the devout Christian sets up God in whom alone he believeth, above the creature, which is but vanity, and a lie, beyond what truth itself speaks of it. The one believeth the worst of God, and therefore flies to the creature; the other believes the best of God, and therefore depends wholly on the Creator.
This Hypocrite is then most devout, when he hath most of his own will in his devotions. [Character 2]
Superstition is rightly called will-worship , because by its good-will, it would have no other worship. Human invention is the grand Magazine of all superstition, and man's own will, the master of it. This hypocrite will like no way but of his own choosing , and in that his soul delighteth, how abominable soever. He will choose that in which God delighteth not . Let him but go to Bethel or Gilgal, he shall bring his sacrifices every morning, and what not? for this liketh him well .
This is the true reason why all superstitions are so greedily embraced, so strenously asserted, not only by the devisers, but by the receivers also, because proceeding from one human root, and principle which in one man answereth to another, as in water face answereth to face . Here no pains will be thought too great, no cost too much, if a man may come before the Lord, and bow himself before the most high God, with the invention of his own brain, and the result of his own heart .
Yea, he will not stick at things required of God, so he may have his mind in the doing of them, at least in the manner and inward affections. He will fast, afflict his soul, so he may but find pleasure , in seeking his own will and ends, and keep his old sins. They are willing to do what God would have them, so they may do it when themselves please, although then he forbid it. The Israelites that were cowards below the meanest faith, when God bad them march, were forward enough, beyond all reason, to rush on upon forewarned danger, after God had forbidden them . Thus as some self-willed servants will work hard when they have their own minds, although otherwise idle enough when commanded to do things in their masters way; so will this hypocrite take great pains to serve God, as he himself listeth.
Upon this ground it is that Popery findeth so many friends, so many Devoto's. because it is a religion suitable to carnal reason, grateful to sense, framed to please the natural • man that is apt to superstition, and fitted to every disposition. If a man be loose, there are dispensations; if strict and austere, there be not only rules, but orders of perfection (such as it is;) if a man be carried with shows; there is more then a Theatrical pomp, if any be otherwise affected, there is a counterfeit simplicity and beggarly rudeness in their Cappuchins and sundry others among them. If he be taken with doctrines that are the children of men's brains, and the figments of men, there is that which will please him, free-will, merit, works of superirrogation, anything to gratify proud flesh that loves to be its own Savior. Glosses are preferred before the Text, and the sense of the Church leadeth captive the sense of the holy Ghost: the Statutes of Omri are more heeded then the Law of God; the definitions of Popes are more religiously embraced than the principles of the Gospel. God's express will and authority is confronted with pretended antiquity; Scripture rules, with custom. And here the superstitious mole will dignity to choose; and, (as those people of old thought they might safely err, or rather that they could not err, with Aaron no not in worshipping a calf instead of God) confidently concludeth that it is better to err with Rome, than to be in the right with Zion: and he more willingly (although very dangerously) enquires what others do in God's service, that he may bear himself upon his neighbors; then keep close to what God plainly and peremptorily forbids, or commands in his word.
On the contrary, the true worshipper is best pleased when he comes up nearest to God's will with renouncing of his own.
As is his birth and original, so is his life and contentment, the Christian acts as he is principled of God, as the men of the world speak and do what they have seen with their father, so he speaks and doth what he hath seen with his Father . He is born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of man, but of God . Therefore he is for God's will, not man's; Privation is as necessary a principle of regeneration, as of generation, whereby not only inferior concupiscence or sensuality, but reason, and the reasonable appetite, the will comes to be denied, and opinion mortified. Philosophy saith, know thyself; but Christianity, deny thyself : He cannot truly say as a good subject, thy Kingdom come, that saith not in truth, not mine, but thy will be done .
Christ's army, as that of Barak , consisteth all of voluntaries : yet subject, and are called the chariots of Aminadab: th • t is, of my willing people. Reason and Will are principal, as in human, so in divine actions; but not with like liberty. For here, reason must assent, but not invent; prove, and approve, but not reprove; apply the rule, but not be the rule. Will must subscribe, not prescribe. Reason must be the disciple of faith to believe what God promiseth; Will, the hand-maid of obedience to do what God requireth. He saith, let God be true, and every man a liar ; he gives due honor to antiquity, authority, universality, as under God, for God, with God, but in no case against him.
Thus, the one offereth God a will-worship, the other a willing worship: the one serveth God according to his own heart, the other with his heart. The one ad placitum, at his own pleasure no man reproving or restraining his forwardness; the other according to the will of God, but pleasing to none else; nature ever distasting, men opposing, and Satan resisting what God in his wisdom enjoineth.
This hypocrite holds not the head . [Character 3]
While he pretends to be a great servant of Christ, yet a slave to the world; He lets go Christ, yea opposeth and excludeth him, by cleaving to what is contrary to him. As he that is a friend to the world; in the guises, fashions and cursed practices of it, is an enemy to God ; so he much more that follows the world in the things of God, must needs be an enemy to Christ. What is free-will but the ground of merit? and what is merit by works, but an enemy to the righteousness of God which is by faith? He that will be his own Savior, although but in part, must needs give him the lie that saith, besides me there is no Savior . He that will take of the honor of his merit, and sole intercession, and give it to Saint or Angel, must not think by a complement of per Jesum Christum, through Jesus Christ, at the end of his prayer, to hold Christ the head, whom in this practice of his he denieth; for either he thinks Christ not as willing as Saints or Angels, or not sufficient of himself without them, to help and supply him, whereby he gives the lie to him that said, He is able to save to the uttermost all th • se that come unto God by him, seeing he ever lives to make intercession for them. He therefore that honoreth the members with praying to them, looseth the head whose honor alone this is, to be prayed unto. He pleads for works in the matter of justification, and so opposeth grace in God, by which we are freely justified as much as he that pleads against works as not necessary to a justified person (for that which is of works is not by grace, and that which is of grace is not by works, and therefore such an one cannot hold the head, by whom alone this grace is communicated and conveyed to all the sons of faith.
He will have the will to be as free to good as to evil; if not by nature, yet by common and universal grace purchased by Christ, whereby every man equally now may be saved if he will, therefore he cannot hold the head, who saith, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy ; and that it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy , and whom he will he hardeneth ; so that this alone is enough to cut him off from the head; for, albeit it be of the essence of the Will to be free: that is, to will freely what it willeth, without necessity of coaction; yet not to be at liberty to will what God would have it, although at first so created and enabled. Sin hath how bound and determined it to sin, not to sin by compulsion, but of choice; not in the nature, but in the use of it; not in this, that it actually willeth; but, in that it cannot now of itself will what in duty it should. So it freely willeth evil, but it can will nothing else; as in heaven the will chooseth only good, and can will nothing else; being altogether abhorrent from whatsoever is evil. The will then throughout, in the use of it is voluntary in the choosing of what it would, yet not arbitrary to choose what is contrary to the present State of the person endued with it.
Yet mark here a notable fraud; this Hypocrite pretends to be a great exalter of grace, and yet even therein abaseth it; and, to be an abaser of nature, and yet in the same thing exalteth it. He ascribes man's perfection in the state of innocence to grace, not to nature, that the decay may seem to be only of grace, nature remaining still entire, and able now to join with grace in the work of reparation: But hereby nature is exalted, as being able to join with grace in man's conversion; and grace is abased as being able to do nothing without the free and voluntary help of nature; which is to cast off the head, the author of grace, and the restorer of nature by putting a new life into it to make it live; and not, only furnishing her with crutches to enable her to go the better.
And, doth he hold the head, that denies the imputation of Christ's righteousness (who is the Lord our righteousness unto justification? He that denies his satisfaction, or the imputation of his righteousness and satisfaction, denies him to be made unto us of God, wisdom, and righteousness . But this he would not be thought to do without reason. How can one, saith he, that is a sinner in himself become righteous by the righteousness of another? Thus he grows mad with reason that he may oppose the head.
For, did he consider and believe the union between Christ and believers, he would soon find that they are all one in him and in his father , Flesh of his flesh, and bone of his bone ; not naturally, but mystically, yet really, and truly. They are the body of Christ, and members in particular . For, as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body being many, are one body, so also is Christ . He therefore that denies Christ's righteousness to be ours, severs the body from the head, and himself from both.
And whereas he should be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world , superstition keepeth him alive thereto, and therein, by a slavish subjecting him to human Ordinances in the matters of worship and conscience. This also thrusteth him off from the Head. For, where the true believer is dead, and buried with Christ , not only in regard of the guilt of sin, by the merit; and of the dominion of sin, by the crucifying power of Christ's death; but also of the thralldom of conscience under human Ordinances, by the liberty , which Christ hath likewise by the same death purchased for him; this Hypocrite, having never attained to the former benefits of Christ's death, is likewise destitute of this, and so he is as living in the world, and under as much bondage by it, as if Christ had never died. He receiveth Laws from men to bind the conscience, putting from him the liberty wherewith Christ hath made free all that hold the head; and so he puts from him Christ himself, who now can profit him nothing . Vain men may count it a great perfection to receive all Ordinances of men in the worship of God; and their rules of touch not, taste not, handle not , in meats and drinks; but the holy Ghost pronounceth such perfect ones to be severed from the Head, and to cut off themselves from all communion with Christ in his death.
On the contrary, the Religious Christian holdeth fast, and groweth up into him in all things; who is the head, even Christ .
He hath parted with the world, and is crucified to it by the cross, to wit, the death of Christ; and therefore will not as one living in the world be any longer subject to worldly Ordinances, in the things of Christ. He is severed and delivered by Christ from human Ordinances and dependencies in all things that properly concern God Christ, and conscience. So that he cannot receive doctrines from men, or Laws from the Church which contradict, or enervate the Laws and truths of Christ. He accounteth the most specious Ordinances of men in this kind, but as golden fetters, which he is loath to put on, or to be subject unto them, lest he should put off Christ. Therefore as Moses was to make all things according to the pattern shown to him in the Mount ; so the true Christian will in all things keep close to his rules that shown that pattern, between whom and him there is such an union, such a communion, that from this Head, He and all the body, by joints and bands having nourishment ministered and knit together, increaseth with the increase of God .
He renounceth all liberty of will, but what he hath from Christ, to think or will anything (spiritually good) as of himself, as knowing and acknowledging that all his sufficiency is of God . If he seek justification it is only from Christ and his righteousness with renouncing of his own , as dross and loss; dross in itself, because all his righteousnesses are as filthy rags ; and loss, because he that resteth upon it looseth Christ; whosoever seeks justification by the works of the Law is fallen from grace, Christ is become of ne effect unto him .
Thus, this hypocrite forsaketh Christ by depending on man; the true Christian departeth from man to cleave unto Christ; the one will have his own righteousness or none; the other relies only on the righteousness of God, as knowing his own to be none. The one is all for the Ordinances of Christ, which have nourishment in them; the other feedeth upon ashes, and soweth the wind, by receiving the Ordinances of men. [Character 4]
This Hypocrite cannot content himself with the body , but it very zealous to join the shadow with it.
In this he is a Jew of the later edition; not one that renounceth Christ, but joins Moses with Christ. The Law, in the morning of the world, before the rising of the Sun of righteousness by his incarnation, was a shadow that went before the body; for the Ceremonial Law had then a shadow of good things to come, not the substance . But after his appearance, and the dispatch of the work of redemption in his own person, all those things that went before him to give notice of his coming, fell back behind him, and became worthless and useless: so as, the not retaining of them is a denial of Christ's coming in the flesh; and, now to join them with the body, is to make the body but a shadow that can profit us nothing .
What troubles such spirits have created to the Church, even after Christ was ascended and had fulfilled all things, the history of the troubles at Antioch , the Schisms at Rome , the divisions in the Churches of Corinth , Galatia , Colossae , and other places (even in the Apostles own times) sufficiently bear witness; in all which, half-Jews, half-Christians, albeit they admitted of Christ for a Savior, yet they confidently asserted, that without circumcision, and the retaining of sundry other Rites and Ceremonies enjoined in the Ceremonial Law of Moses, men cannot be saved, no not by Christ: which one assertion occasioned no small disputes and dissensions .
But as in other points of Arianism, Pelagianism, &c. although the Authors be dead, yet their opinions live; and, with brows of brass appear with open face in the clearest Sunshine of the Gospel; so doth this Judaising superstition, to eat out the heart and life of true devotion.
Hath not this Hypocrite been at Rome? doth not a great part of his Religion consist in meats, in drinks, in days, wherein he placeth both piety and necessity yea, merit and perfection? His Fasts, his Feasts, his Jubilees (at first every fiftieth, and of late (because gain is sweet) every fifteenth year) are all professedly ascribed to the Jewish solemnities. His Priests, Altars, Sacrifices, his Sanctum sanctorum, or Holy of holies, are they not all in imitation of the Jewish Ordinances? and, in the Church of Lateran, in his Holy of holies, instead of the Tables of the Law, and the pot of Manna, there are, if you believe him,
Yea, at length he hath found out Aaron's rod, and put it in an Ark. He hath an High Priest after the manner of Aaron; or (as some blasphemously say) rather, of Melchizedek. He hath his unction and consecration too, not only of Priests, but of Altars and Temples, and of all vessels and utensels belonging to his superstitious devotion; and that upon this account and reason; If the Jews (saith he) who served shadows, had such things among them, much more we that enjoy the substance; contrary to the Apostles Logic and Divinity too, who from the appearance and presence of the body, proves the abolition of the shadow ; and the taking away of the first, that is the shadow, by establishing the second, to wit, the body .
And were this Hypocrite confined only to Rome and her territories, we should not allow him a room among these Characters: but we have too many such among ourselves, half Protestants, half Papists (all hypocrites, if not Atheists, ) who more admire and imitate the Jewish pomp of Rome, than embrace the simplicity of the Gospel. He must have his Holy of holies, his Altar, his Tapers, his real presence, his Sacrifice, his Priests, his days, his meats, his consecrations, his duckings, his bowings, his elevations, his adorations; is loath to let go anything formerly used in Pope holy Church, because of the custom, antiquity, esteem of it among them who professedly take all these from Moses, not Christ; from mungrel Jews, not primitive Christians. And so vain is he, that these shadows affect him more then the substance; he lays out more of his heart, purse, and labor upon them, than upon the body it self; whereby it comes to pass that, embracing (as he did, a cloud instead of Juno ) the shadow of Christ our King, he lets the Prince himself go unsaluted; and, catching at the shadow of meat, dreaming that he eats, when he comes to awake he will find himself empty and hungry, and must needs starve for want of solid food.
Contrarily, the faithful Christian embraceth the substance as succeeding to the shadow.
He knows that many things which had a good beginning and use, are not therefore perpetual; but, many times, of a temporary nature and office. What better then the brazen Serpent? yet, what worse when abused to superstition? At first, it led to Christ; afterwards, from him to the devil: Therefore then, he will break it in pieces . He looks upon Christ in the Old Testament, as shining out of the East, that made large and long shadows to those Fathers that then lived; but now he beholds him as in his Meridian, or rather Zenith, where he neither makes, nor admits of any shadow at all. The body at a distance is the cause of the shadow; not the shadow, of the body. Therefore, when the body is present, and near us, even in the mouth and in the heart , he looks no longer after the shadow, but fixeth only upon the body, and keeps close to that. He that was the cause of them, hath taken them away, and is come himself in their room.
The shadow is not the substance, but a mere accident that can never do the deed expected from the substance; but the body is the substance that must effect it. He wisely considereth that those shadows of rites and sacrifices could never make the comers thereunto perfect; for then they would not have ceased to be offered: He finds no true righteousness, expia ion of sin, or peace of conscience in them; but in Christ, the Body, he hath all. And when he looks upon the shadow, he finds it to be a very obscure and imperfect figure of the Body; especially in former times, before the body, appeared. It is hard to know a man by his shadow till himself appear, So Christ was hardly and rarely known by those shadows before his coming in the flesh. And when he comes, he causeth the shadow to flee away, yea, not to be. With good reason therefore doth the faithful Christian content himself with the Body, looking no more after the shadow.
Thus, the superstitious hypocrite imagineth unto himself a night at noon, and stumbleth at noon day as in the night. The other rejoiceth that the day is broken, and the shadow fled away. The one looks upon the shadow, as the fathers upon the Law of shadows, before the Son of God appeared; The other looks on them as being removed, as things that are made; and, upon Christ which cannot be shaken, as the only remaining substance coming in their room. The one looks on them as they who came from Judea, to teach their continuance; the other, as the Apostle to the Hebrews, to prove their abolition.
[Character 5] The superstitious hypocrite loves carnal slavery better then spiritual liberty.
Where Christ sets him at liberty, he is unwilling to be free. Let the y • ke of bondage be never so hard and heavy, his saying is, I love my Master — I will not go out free. He will rather run the adventure of loosing all benefit by Christ, then not be circumcized. He had rather be a debtor to do the whole Law, then be loosed from that yoke from which Christ hath freed him. He loves man's yoke better then Christ's manumission. Pope, Witches, any man that speaketh perverse things, sways more with him by human Impositions, then God or Christ, by divine Institutions. Let a Friday, a Lent, any day be imposed by man, and he Religiously observes it even to superstition: Let God free him from these, and only charge him to remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy, this pleaseth him not.
Let Paul tell him, ye observe days and months, and times, and years, I am afraid of you lest I have bestowed upon you labor in vain; This stirs him not, he will observe them still: but let God say to him, if thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath from doing thy pleasure on my holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord honorable, and shalt honor him, not finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words, He counts this a burden, and a weariness. He loves a mass, better than a Sermon, anything better then that which is the command of Christ, so that it is hard to say whether his baseness be greater in not accepting of liberty; or his insolence, in imposing new burdens upon himself and others, after Christ hath freed him; to create new virtues, or new vices; to set prizes upon his own Inventions, and to bind God to the payment; as they who by Regular Professions and Vowes under color of giving God an over-plus of service, bind themselves to that which they need not, and offer to him what he accepts not, and in the mean time scant him of that duty and service which he justly expecteth. If God say it is better to marry then to burn, and allows him liberty of marriage; He saith, it is better to burn then to marry, if once he hath foolishly vowed single life.
On the Contrary, the faithful Christian stands fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made him free .
If God impose, he is ready to submit. If man subjugate him where Christ hath called him to liberty, he hath no shoulders to bear it. Obedient to superiors, he will be in things lawful; but, blind obedience, under the notion of Regular, will not down with him. And even in things imposed by God, he looks most at that which must take the first place. Sacrifice is good, but Mercy is better, and the greater duty: therefore where both cannot be performed, Mercy is preferred, and his conscience not ensnared, nor troubled for not offering that Sacrifice which could not consist with Mercy .
If God bring poverty upon him, he knows how to want, and in all Estates to be content ; but, to make choice of poverty, being called to an estate of plenty; or, set in a lawful way thereunto, and remembering that it is a more blessed thing to give, then to receive ; and that charge given to the rich, to be rich in good works , which is impossible, where all is willfully given away without warrant; he dares not make himself poor by vowing of poverty. And albeit God may give a special Commandment to a boasting Perfectist, to sell what he hath, and to give to the poor ; yet he looks upon that as upon the tempting of Abraham, to offer his Isaac : but with this difference, God did it to Abraham for trial of his faith; to the other, for discovery of his hypocrisy in his confident boasting.
He can like well of continency and chastity, but if God call him to marriage, he looks upon it as both lawful and honorable . He accounts it no less violence to nature, and temptation to sin, without the special gift of continency, not given to all, to vow perpetual virginity; because, neither is virginity in itself simply good; for then the commoner the better: which is not so in this case, because then, both man-kind and the Church must perish: nor is it (as every virtue is) an habit of the mind, but a privation, and belongeth to the body; nor is the contrary of virginity evil, as the contrary to chastity is. Therefore he interprets our Savior's saying , He that is able to receive it, let him receive it, not as meant of all, nor to any sort of men, (for all men cannot receive it; ) but to them only to whom it is given , by special and extraordinary gift for advancement of the Kingdom of God.
Nor will he be rash with his mouth to vow against what is not simply sinful, in a passion; or, for compassing the better some carnal design. He knows such vows are snares, and do often hurry men upon temptations and sins, as Jephthah 's vow, and many more.
Thus this hypocrite is content to purchase slavery with the loss of liberty; the true Christian will not sell his liberty upon any conditions. The one, if he have liberty, useth it as an occasion to gratify the flesh ; the other, if he be under any tyranny of the flesh, will never give himself or Christ any rest; till the Son hath made him free, that he may be free indeed ; the one is under a spirit of bondage, and likes best of slavery, the other under a spirit of Adoption, and therefore prizeth and preserveth his spiritual liberty. The one boasts of being Abraham's seed, that never was in bondage to any man , yet is a slave to every man; the other is truly his seed that is free indeed, even while he makes himself a servant unto all .
[Character 6] This Hypocrite is ever hampering and entangling conscience.
It is the nature of superstition to bind where God looseth, and to loose where God bindeth, to fish in troubled waters, and to delight in puzzling and perplexing both himself and others: for being purblind, the superstitious hypocrite is always poaching and poring in the dark, and naturally stumbles upon that which proves a stumbling block both to himself and others, causing divisions and offenses. He is dogmatized, that is, subject to, and burdened with Ordinances, that perplex and trouble him, and he is well contented with it. For, he suffers, if a man bring him into bondage, if a man devour him, if a man take of him, if a man exalt himself, if a man smite him on the the face .
He will stand still with the pack-horse, or rather kneel down with the Camel, to take his load, till his back crack again. Most of his inquiries, most of his zeal runs out upon doubtful subjects, doting about questions and strifes of words whereof cometh envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings, perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth . His chief Quaeres are, whether such and such meats be lawful? whether such days be to be observed? and, being stupefied with superstition, and terrified with some hellish apprehensions, he easily subjects his conscience to every man's tyranny, that will lay a stumbling block, or an occasion to fall, in his way . He can swallow a Purgatory, a whip in Lent, with greatest devotion.
And as he is a troubler of his own house and soul, so is he a great disturber of others, especially if he be, or conceit himself to be of any learning and parts. He is ever in his doubtful disputations, even when he is to deal with the weakest , whereas he ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not please himself, but to please his neighbor for his good to edification . He zealously affecteth the people he hath to do with, but not well; yea, he would exclude them, that they might affect him . He can press upon them a Purgatory, Images, a Crucifix, and what not; and so troubles them, that he deserves to be cut off for his puzzling disputes about ensnaring questions. The yoke of ceremonies was a burden that neither the later Jews nor their fathers were able to bear , yet this he endeavors with might and main to put upon the necks of the disciples: and, it is strange to see that men should be so mad and greedy when God hath pulled down the wall of that Bride-well, to run again into that prison, and to fetter themselves, and other anew.
Contrarily, the true Christian is ever delighted most in those truths which set the conscience free.
He will not be the servant of men , that load and entangle him with niceties and scruples; but, as the free servant of Christ, he will keep himself free from all men that attempt it. He looks upon himself as redeemed from whatever he received by tradition from his fathers.
He disdains all comforters that pretend to give ease to his conscience by penances, pilgrimages, whippings, confessions in the ears of a Priest, and such like miserable comforts. He looks upward above all these to the blood of Christ, to satisfy divine justice, to expiate sin, and to pacify conscience. Ashur shall not save him, he will not ride upon horses of his own strength or merit; neither will he say to the works of his hands, ye are my gods. But, in God alone he expects to find mercy . His cordials drawn hence, the more they are examined, the more they are approved, and do give more full and lasting, yea everlasting consolations and good hope through grace; for mercy is infinite whereby God was moved to promise grace; his truth infallible whereby he is engaged to keep promise, and his power omnipotent to make good his engagement; which he apprehends, not as the despairing conscience apprehends God to be strong to condemn or destroy; but, mighty to save. And into these, the more narrowly we look, the more bottomless we find them.
Thus, this hypocrite hath the art of disturbance; the true Christian labors to settle all upon a firm foundation. The one cares not how he loads the conscience with unnecessary burdens, the other seeks to ease it of uncomfortable fears; the one troubles his own house, and inherits the wind ; the other by avoiding doubtful disputations, possesseth his soul in peace.
The superstitious hypocrite affecteth darkness.
Darkness in the understanding, darkness in the tongue, darkness in the eye, darkness [Character 7] in his deeds too.
Of some things he is willingly ignorant, that he may not abate of his blind devotion; he loves not to hear what may open his eyes to see the vanity and folly of what he affecteth, but rather gives a stop to such discourses. He closeth his eyes that he might not see , and stoppeth his ears that he might not hear, and loves to be groping in the dark as if he had no eyes . If comfort or counsel be offered him even in secret, contrary to his own way and blind profession, he cries out as once that Popish Bishop lying on his death-bed did, when one of his fellow Bishops visiting him, persuaded him to rely upon the merits of Christ alone for salvation: O my Lord, quoth he, no more of that; if you once open that gap to the people, then farewell all. Thus as the Athenians sometimes punished those who made known the causes of Eclipses, because it diminished fear and superstition in the people; so this hypocrite shuns nothing more then too much knowledge in himself or others, whereby the esteem of his superstitious vanities, and his own judgment about them should be abased. As ignorance in natural Philosophy raiseth a belief and reputation of counterfeit miracles; so ignorance in the superstitious is not only the mother but supporter of all superstitious devotion. Therefore he will not hear of confutations of merits of works of indulgences, Purgatory, superstitious customs, &c. but avoids all disputations about them all he can, and had rather be blind with superstition, than have his understanding opened to deliver him from it.
When he speaks, he loves to speak darkly and ambiguously; least, speaking out plainly, all would decry him. Therefore as painted faces seek a shade, so doth superstition endeavor to deliver itself in the dark. He is good at darkening counsel, by words without knowledge . Hence as the Heathenish Priests had their mythologies, and strange canting expressions of their imaginary unaccessable deities, to amaze and low-bel their blind superstitious followers, and thereby to hold up their Popish and apish idolatries in greater veneration; so this hypocrite hath his terms of Art suitable to his superstition wherein he nuzzleth his blind disciples. He can also tell them of strange apparitions, terrible whippings by spirits that walk in the dark, and thousand such like old wives tales merely to hold men in the same bondage, with himself.
His very Temples and places of devotion must be as dark as sumptuous; as secluse as pompous. The windows must be darkened with pictures in them, that so the very places may strike a kind of terror into all that frequent those places. He knows that counterfeit beauties are more glorious by torch-light, or in the shade than in open Sun; so are all his fopperies and counterfeit devotions more lovely, or rather less ridiculous in a darkish room.
His works also are in the dark , therefore he hateth the light. And as of old, the ancients of Israel had their grossest idolatries in the dark, every man in the chambers of his imagery ; so this hypocrite hath his more odious superstitions in corners and in the dark, where he may more fully stretch and glut himself upon them, with less contradiction or notice. He hath his private Oratories, and in them his Altar, Tapers, and all other Massing trinkets more complete than in the Cathedral. And there he powers out his superstitious devotions, with greater zeal, and with stronger opinion of better acceptance, for the place sake, and will not be persuaded to pray in any room of his house but there.
On the contrary, the true Christian loves the light.
True Religion stands with all truth, and is like unto God in whom is no darkness at all ; and therefore rejoiceth in the light, without seeking of corners, so doth the true Christian, who hates every false way of superstition, out of love to the Law. He maintains nothing, but what he is well content should be brought to the test and standard of the Word. If he be in an error of opinion or practice, he doth not hide it, as Adam did his nakedness, but brings it to the Law and to the Testimonies . If he hear ought from others, he carries all to the Scriptures, to see whether those things be so , although delivered by Paul himself. He will not be carried by names of men, or Churches, jurare in verba Magistri, to subscribe to all they deliver; nor will he contradict even his maid-servant, if she speak more truth, or better reason then he . He is a child of light, and therefore loves it, and walks in it ; and is ever jealous of those that skulk in the dark.
Thus, the superstitious hypocrite is a blind leader of the blind ; the true Christian cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest that they are wrought in God . The one is a teacher of lies in the dark; the other a disciple of truth in the light.
[Character 8] The Superstitious Hypocrite is most strict in matters of smallest moment.
He will pay tythe of mint, and annis, and cummin; but; to the weightier matters of the Law, judgment, mercy and faith , he is not so forward. He is very zealous and precise in his touch not, taste not, handle not ; whereas he can let righteousness, peace and •• y in the holy Ghost, (wherein the Kingdom of God consisteth ) to stand by unsaluted; yet he cannot but know, that meat commendeth us not to God ; and that all things of this nature (wherein superstition busieth herself most) perish and are consumed in or with the using , yea, and are 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ordained and appointed to perish with their use.
Thus the superstitious Priests made no scruple to hire a traitor, to suborn false witnesses, to apprehend, to bind, to smite, to scourge, to blaspheme, to condemn the innocent Lamb of God, and to crucify the Lord of glory; yet made great conscience not to step over the threshold into the judgment hall of an heathen Judge, lest (forsooth!) they should be defiled, but that they might eat the Passover yet this shunning of Pilate's Hall was no Commandment of God. They made no conscience to give a price for innocent blood; but made great scruple of putting it into the Treasury as being unlawful .
In these later times this hypocrite speaking lies in hypocrisy, forbids marriage , and alloweth flews: is very severe in commanding abstinence from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving, yet makes nothing for the good of the Catholic cause (as he varnisheth over his own interest) to poison and massacre Emperors and Kings, which God hath forbidden to be touched. He will not touch money, or eat flesh on a Friday, but he will take rent for brothel-houses, and allow Priests an absolution