CHAP. V.

I Shall not need by particular instances further to demonstrate to You (my honoured Countrey-men) what your own observation daily proclaims,* namely, the strange pranks, cabrioles, or freaks, which the vulgar wantonnesse hath plaid of late years, under the colour and confidence of liberty in Religion (provided they profess no other Popery or Prelacy than what is in their own ambitious hearts & insolent man∣ners.) Nor is this petulancy onely exercised in the smaller circum∣stances, or disputable matters of Religion, but even in the very main foundations; such as have been established of old in all the generati∣ons and successions of the Churches of Christ, both as to good do∣ctrine and orderly conversation.

First, if you consider the (Magna Charta) grand charter of your souls, the holy Scriptures. Those lively oracles,* which were given by inspiration and direction of Gods Spirit, which beyond all books in the world have been most desperately persecuted, and most divinely preserved, having in them the clearest characters of divine Truth, love, mercy, wisdome, power, majesty and glory, the impressions and manifestations of greatest goodness, grace, both in morals & my∣steries, in the prophecies and their accomplishment, in the admirable harmony of prescience & performance, of Prophets & Apostles, setting forth the blessed Messias, as the prefigured Sacrifice, the promised Saviour, the desire of the world; those Books which have been de∣livered Page  154 to us by the most credible testimony in the world, the uniform consent of the pillar and ground of Truth,* the Catholick Church of God,* which the Apostle S. Paul prefers before that of an Angel from Heaven; that divine Record, which hath been confirmed to us by so many miracles, sealed by the faith and confession, the repen∣tance and conversion, the doctrine and example, the gracious lives and glorious deaths of so many holy Confessors and Martyrs in all ages, besides an innumerable company of other humble professors, who have been perfected, sanctified and saved by that word of life, dwel∣ling richly in them in all wisdome.*

Yet, even in this grand concernment of Religion, the holy Scriptures, (whose two Testaments are as the two poles on which all morality and Christianity turn, the two hinges on which all our piety and felicity depend) much negligence, indifferency and coldness, is of late used by many,* not onely people, but their heaps of Preachers, under the notion and imagination of their Christian liberty, that is, seldome or never seriously to read, either privately or publickly, any part of the holy Scripture, unless it be a short Text or Theame, for fashion sake, which (like a broken morsell) they list to chew a while in their mouths:* but the solemn, attentive, grave, devout, and distinct reading of Psalms or Chapters, or any other set portion of the holy Scriptures, old or new (to which S. Chrysostome, S. Jerome, S. Austin, and the other ancient Fathers, both Greek and Latin, so oft and so earnestly exhorted all Christians) this they esteem as a poor and puerile business, onely fit for children at school, not for Chri∣stians at Church; unless it be attended with some exposition or gloss upon it, though never so superficiall, simple and extempora∣ry; which is like painting over well-polished marble; being more prone to wrest, darken and pervert, than rightly to explain, clear or interpret the Scriptures, which of themselves are in most places easie to be understood: obscure places are rather more perplexed than expounded, when they are undertaken by per∣sons not very learned,* or not well prepared for that work; which was the employment anciently (as Justin Martyr tells us) chiefly of the (〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉) the Bishop or President then present, whose of∣fice was far above the (〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 or) Readers, who having done his duty, the other, as Pastor of the flock, either opened or ap∣plyed such parts of the Scripture as he thought best to insist upon.

Yet there are (now) many such supercilious and nauseous Christians, who utterly despise the bare reading or reciting of the Word of God to the Congregation, as if no beauty were on it, no life or power in it, no good or vertue to be gotten by it, unlesse the breath of a poore man further inspire it, unlesse a poore worm, like a snaile, flightly passing over it, set a slimy varnish upon it: as if the saving truth, and self-shining light of Gods Word, in the precepts, examples, promises, prophecies and histories, were not most cleare and easie of it self, as to all things neces∣sary Page  155 to be believed, obeyed, or hoped;* as if honest and pure-hearted Christians could not easily perceive the mind of God in the Scriptures, unlesse they used alwayes such extemporary spectacles, as some men glory to put upon their own or their auditors noses.

Certainly such new masters in our Israel forget how much they symbolize with the Papists in this fancy, while denying or disdaining all reading of Scriptures in publick, unless some expound them, though never so sorrily, slovenly and suddenly, they must by conse∣quence highly discourage, yea, and utterly forbid common people the reading of any portion of them privately in their closets or fa∣milies, where they can have no other expositors but themselves, and it may be are not themselves so confident, as to undertake the work of expounding the hard and obscurer places; as for other places which are more necessary and easie, sure they explain themselves sufficiently to every humble, diligent, and attentive reader or hea∣rer: the blessed use and effects of which if these supercilious Rab∣bies had found in themselves, while the Word of God is publickly, distinctly and solemnly read in the Church to them, doubtlesly they would not have so much disused, despised and decried this godly cu∣stome in the Church of England, of emphatick reading the Word of God in the audience of Christian Congregations.

O rare and unheard of Christian Liberty, which dares to cast so great a slighting and despiciency upon the publick reading of the Scriptures, which are the Churches chiefest Jewel, so esteemed and used by Jewes and Gentiles, full of its own sacred, innate and di∣vine lustre; then indeed most spendid and illustrious, when hand∣somely set, that is,* when the Priests lips preserve the knowledge of them, and duly impart them to Christian people, both by discreet rea∣ding and preaching, that is, explaining and applying them!