The shaking of the olive-tree the remaining works of that incomparable prelate Joseph Hall D. D. late lord bishop of Norwich : with some specialties of divine providence in his life, noted by his own hand : together with his Hard measure, vvritten also by himself.

CHRISTIAN LIBERTY Laid forth, in a SERMON Preacht to his late MAJESTY at WHITE-HALL, In the time of the Parliament holden anno 1628.

By JOS. B. of EXON.

Gal. 5.1.

Stand fast therefore in the Liberty wherewith Christ hath made you free.

AS if my tongue and your ears could not easily be diswonted from our late Parliamentary language; you have here in this text Liberty, Prerogative, the maintenance of both; Liberty of Subjects that are freed; Prerogative of the King of glory that hath freed them; maintenance of that liberty, which the power of that great prerogative hath atchieved; Christian liberty, Christs li∣beration, our persistence; Stand fast in the Liberty wherewith Christ hath made you free.

Liberty is a sweet word; the thing it self is much sweeter; and mens apprehensions make it yet sweeter then it is! Certainly if liberty and life were competitors, it is a great question whether would carry it, sure I am, if there be a life without it, yet it is not vital;

Man restrained is like a wild bird shut up in a cage; that offers at every of the grates to get out, and growes sullen when it can finde no evasion; and till stark famine urge it will not so much as feed for anger to be confined. Neither is the word more sweet then large; There are as many liberties as restraints; and as many restraints as there are limitations of superiour commands; and there are so ma∣ny limits of commands as there are either duties to be done, or sentences to be undergone: There is a liberty of the parts, and a liberty of the man:

There is a drunken liberty of the Tongue, which being once glibbed with intoxicating liquor runs wilde through Heaven and earth, and spares neither him that is God above; nor those which are called Gods on Earth; the Slanderer answer'd Pirrhus well; I confess I said thus, O King; and had said more if more Wine had been given me; treason is but a Tavern-dialect; Any thing passes well under the Rose; it is not the man but the liquor, not the liquor but the excesse that is guilty of this liberty.

There is an audacious and factious liberty of this loose filme; which not only ill-tutor'd Schollers take to themselves under the name of libertas prophetandi, pestering both Presses and Pulpits with their bold and brainsick fancies; but unletter'd Trades-men, and tat∣ling Gossips too; whith whom deep questions of Divinity, and censures of their Teachers are grown into common table-talk; and peremptory decisions of Theological problemes is as ordinary al∣most, as backbiting their neighbours.

There is a profane liberty of Atheous swaggerers which say, dis∣rumpamus Vincula; let us break their bonds: Not religion only, but even reason and humanity seem fetters to these spirits; who like the Demoniack in the Gospel, having broken all their chains finde no freedom but among the noysom graves of hatefull corruptions.

There is a disloyal liberty of those rebellious spirits, which despise government; and hold it a servitude to live within the range of wholesome lawes, there is no freedom with these unquiet dispositi∣ons, but in the bold censures of authority, in the seditious calumnia∣tions of superiours, and in their own utopical prescriptions. Every thing is good to these men save the present, and nothing save their own▪ though all these are not so much liberties, as licentiousness.

Besides these, there are civill liberties of Persons, Towns, In∣corporations,

Countries, Kings, Kingdomes; good reason these should be mutually stood upon; Religion was never an enemy to the due orders, and rights of policy; Gods book is the true Magna charta that enacts both King and People their own: He that hath set bounds to the wide Ocean, hath stinted the freest liberty; but these liberties are not for the pulpit; It is the Christian liberty wherewith we have to do; that alone hath scope enough both for our present speech and perpetual maintenance.

This Christian liberty stands either in immunity from evill, or en∣largement to good; The immunitie is from that which is evill in it self, or that which is evill to us: In it self, Sin, Satan: Sin, whe∣ther in the fault, or in the punishment; the punishment, whether inward, or outward: Inward, the slavery of an accusing conscience; Outward, the wrath of God, Death, Damnation. Evill to us, whether burdensome traditions, or the law; the Law, whether Moral, or Ceremoniall; Moral, whether the obligations, or the curse: Enlargement to good; whether in respect of the creature, which is our free use of it, or whether in respect to God; in our voluntary service of him; in our free accesse to him: Accesse whether to his throne of grace, or our throne of glory. I have laid before you a compendious tablet of our Christian liberty; lesse then which is bondage; more then which is loosenesse. Such abun∣dant scope there is in this allowed freedom, that what heart soever would yet rove further, makes it self unworthy of pitty in loosing it self. Do we think the Angels are pent up in their Heavens, or can wish to walk beyond those glorious bounds? Can they hold it a re∣straint, that they can but will good; like to our liquorous first pa∣rents that longed to know evil? Oh the sweet and happy liberty of the sons of God? All the world besides them are very slaves, and lye obnoxious to the bolts, fetters, scourges of a spiritual cruelty; It is hard to beat this into a carnall heart; no small part of our servi∣tude lyes in the captivation of our understanding; such, as that we cannot see our selves captive. This is a strange difference of mis∣prison; the Christian is free, and cannot think himself so; the the worldling thinks himself free, and is not so. What talk we to these Jovialists? It is liberty (with them) for a man to speak what he thinks, to take what he likes, to do what he lists; without restri∣ction, without controlment: Call ye this freedom, that a man must

speak and live by rule; to have a guard upon his lips and his eyes; no passage for a vain word or look, much less for a leud; to have his best pleasures stinted, his worse abandoned; to be tasked with an un∣pleasing good, and chid when he fails. Tush, tell not me; To let the heart loose to an unlimited jollity, to revell heartily, to feast without fear, to drink without measure, to swear without check, to admit of no bound of luxury, but our own strength; to shut out all thoughts of scrupulous austerity, to entertain no guest of inward motion, but what may sooth up our lawlesness. This is liberty; who goes lesse is a sla••e to his own severe thoughts. Get thee behind me Satan, for thou savourest not the things of God: If this be freedom, to have our full scope of wickedness, Oh happy Divels, Oh miserable Saints of God. Those though fettered up in chains of everlasting darkness can do no other but sin; these in all the elbow-room of the Empyreal heaven cannot do one evill act; yea the God of Saints and Angels, the Au∣thor of all liberty should be least free, who out of the blessed necessi∣ty of his most pure nature is not capable of the least possibility of e∣vill. Learn, O vain men, that there is nothing but impotence, no∣thing but gieves and manicles in the freest sins; some captive may have a longer chain then his fellowes; yea some offender may have the liberty of the Tower, yet he is a prisoner still. Some Goal may be wider then some Palace: what of that? If Hell were more spacious then the seat of the blessed, this doth not make it no place of torment. Go whether thou wilt, thou resolved sinner, thou car∣riest thy chain with thee; it shall stick as close to thee as thy soul; neither can it ever be shaken off, till thou have put off thy self by a spiritual regeneration, then only thou art free.

It is a divine word, that in our Liturgie, Whose service is perfect freedom; St. Paul saith as much, Rom. 6.18.20. Being freed from sin ye are made servi justitiae, the servants of righteousnesse: What is liberty but freedom from bondage, and behold our freedom from the bondage of sin tyes us to a sure liberty, that is our free obedience to God: Both the Orator and the Philosopher define liberty by Po∣testas vivendi ut velis, but withall, you know he addes, quis vivit ut vult, nisi qui recta sequitur. See how free the good man is; he doth what he will, for he wills what God wills, and what God would have him will; in what ever he doth therefore he is a free man; neither hath any man free-will to good but he: Be ambitious of this happy condition, O all ye noble and generous spirits, and do not

think ye live till ye have attained to this true liberty. The liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free; So from the liberty, we de∣scend to the perogative. Christs liberation.

Here is the glorious prerogative of the Son of God, to be the deli∣verer or redeemer of his people; They could not free themselves; the Angels of heaven might pitty, could not redeem them; yea alas, who could, or who did redeem those of their rank, which of lightsome celestiall spirits, are become foul Devils? Only Christ could free us, whose ransome was infinite; only Christ did free us, whose love is infinite; and how hath he wrought our liberty? By force, by pur∣chase, By force in that he hath conquer'd him, whose captives we were; by purchase, in that he hath pay'd the full price of our ran∣som, to that supream hand whereto we were forfeited: I have heard Lawers say, there are in civill Corporations three wayes of freedom; by Birth, by Service, by Redemption; By Birth, as St. Paul was free of Rome; by Service, as Apprentises upon expiration of their years; by Redemption, as the the Centurion, with a great sum pur∣chased I this freedom. Two of these are barred from all utter possibility in our spiritual freedom; for by Birth we are the sons of wrath; by service we are naturally the vassals of Satan; It is only the precious redemption of the Son of God that hath freed us.

Whereas freedom then hath respect to bondage, there are seven Egyptian Masters from whose slavery Christ hath freed us. Sin, an accusing Conscience, danger of Gods wrath, tyranny of Satan, the curse of the Law, Mosaicall Ceremenies, humane Ordinances; see our servitude to, and our freedom from all these by the powerfull liberation of Christ.

1. It was a true word of that Pythagorean, Quot vitia, tot domini, sin is an hard master: A master? Yea a tyrant; let not sin reign in your mortall bodies, Rom. 6 14. and so the sinner is not only servus cor∣ruptitiae, a drudge of corruptions 2 Pet. 2.19. but a very slave sold un∣der sin, Rom. 7.14.

So necessitated to evill by his own inward corruption that he can∣not but grind in this Mill, he cannot but row in this Gally: For, as posse peccare is the condition of the greatest Saint upon earth, and Non posse peccare is the condition of the least Saint above, so non posse non peccare is the condition of the least sinful unregenerate; as the prisoner may shift his feet but not his fetters; or as the snail cannot

but leave a slime track behind, it which way soever it goes: Here is our bondage; where is our liberty; Ubi spriritus domini, ibi libertas; where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty, 2 Cor. 3.7. Oh wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from this body of death; I thank my God through Jesus Christ. So then Christ hath freed us from the bondage of sin.

An accusing conscience is a true task-master of Egypt; it will be sure to whip us for what we have done, for what we have not done: Horrour of sin, like a sleeping Mastive, lyes at our door. Gen. 4.7. when it awakes it will fly on our throat. No closer doth the shad∣dow follow the body, then the revenge of self-accusation followes sin; walk Eastward in the morning the shadow starts behind thee, soon after it is upon thy left side; at noon it is under thy feet; lye down it coucheth under thee, towards even it leaps before thee; thou canst not be rid of it, whiles thou hast a body, and the Sun light; no more can thy soul quit the conscience of evil; This is to thee in∣stead of an Hell of Fiends that shall ever be shaking fire brands at thee, ever torturing thee with affrights of more paines then thy na∣ture can comprehend, Soeva conturbata conscientia, Wisd. 17.11. If thou look to the punishment of loss, it shall say as Lysimachus did, how much felicity have I lost, for how little pleasure: If to the pu∣nishment of sense it shall say to thee as the Tyrant dream'd his heart said to him out of the boiling caldron 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉; I am the cause of all this misery: Here is our bondage, where is the liber∣ty? Having our hearts sprinkled from an evill Conscience, Heb. 10.22. Sprinkled, with what? Even with the blood of Jesus, vers. 19. This, this only is it that can free us: It is with the unquiet heart as with the troubled Sea of Tiberias; the Winds rise, the Waters swell, the billowes roar, the ship is tossed, Heaven and Earth threat to meet; Christ doth but speak the word, all is calme; so Christ hath freed us Secondly from the bondage of an accusing conscience.

The conscience is but Gods Bayliff; It is the displeasure of the Lord of Heaven and Earth that is the utmost of all terribles; the fear of Gods wrath is that strong winde that stirrs these billowes from the bottom; set aside the danger of divine displeasure and the cla∣mo••rs of conscience were harmless; this alone makes an Hell in the bosome: The aversion of Gods face is confusion, the least bending of his brow is perdition Ps. 2. ult. but his totus aestus, his whole fury, as Ps. 78.38.

is the utter absorption of the creature; excandescentia ejus funditur sicut ignis; His wrath is poured out like fire, the rocks are rent before it, Nahum 1.6. whence there is nothing but (〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉) a fearfull ex∣pectation of judgment, and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversa∣ries, Heb. 10.27. Here is the bondage, where is the liberty? Being just fyed by faith we have peace with God, through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then Christ hath freed us thridly from the bondage of the wrath of God.

As every wicked man is a Tyrant, according to the Philosophers position; and every Tirant is a Devil among men: so the Devil is the Arch-tyrant of the creatures; he makes all his Subjects errand vassals, yea chained slaves, 2 Tim. 2. ult. That they may recover themselves from the snare of the Devil who are taken captive by him at his will: lo here is will, snares, captivity, perfect tyranny. Nahash the Ammonite was a notable Tyrant, he would have the right eyes of the Israelites put out, as an eminent mark of servitude; so doth this infer∣nal Nahash blind the right eye of our understanding; yea, with the spightful Philistim, he puts out both the eyes of our apprehension and judgment, that he may gyre us about in the Mill of unprofitable wick∣ednesse; and cruelly insult upon our remedilesse misery. And when he hath done, the fairest end is death, yea death without end; Oh the impotency of earthly tyranny to this; the greatest blood-suckers could but kill; and livor post fata, as the old word is; but here is an homicida ab initio; and a fine too; ever killing with an ever-living death, for a perpetual fruition of our torment. Here is the bon∣dage; where is the liberty? Christ hath spoiled principalities and pow∣ers, and made a show of them, openly triumphing over them in the same cross, Colos. 2.15. By his death he destroyed him that hath the power of death, tke Devil, Heb. 2.14. So then Christ hath freed us fourthly, from the bondage of Satans tyranny.

At the best, the law is but a hard Master, impossible to please, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 saith St. Paul: but at the worst, a cruell one; The very courtesie of the law was jugum, an unsupportable yoke, but the spight of the law is 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 a curse. Cursed is every one that continues not in all that is written in the book of the law to do it, Gal. 3.10. Do you not remember an unmercifull steward in the Go∣spell that catcheth his bankrupt fellow by the throat, and saies, Pay me that thou owest me; so doth the law to us; we should pay and

cannot; and because we cannot pay, we forfeit our selves; so as every mothers son is the child of death. Here is our bondage; where is our liberty? Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us; Oh blessed redemption, that frees us from the curse. Oh blessed redeemer, that would become a curse for us that the curse of the law might not light upon us; so Christ hath freed us fifthly, from the bondage of the law.

Moses was a meek man, but a severe Master; His face did not more shine in Gods aspect upon him, then it lowred in his aspect to men; His ceremonies were hard impositions; Many for number, costly for charge, painfull for execution. He that led Israel out of one bondage, carryed them into another: From the bondage of Egypt, to the bondage of Sinai; this held till the vail of the Temple rent; yea till the vail of that better Temple, his sacred body, his very heart-strings did crack a sunder, with a consummatum est; And now 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, Christ is the end of the law, Rom. 10.4. Now the law of the spirit of life hath freed us, Rom. 8.2. You hear now no more newes of the ceremonies of prefiguration, they are dead with Christ; ceremonies of decency may and must live; let no man now have his ear bored thorough to Moses his post; Christ hath freed us sixtly from the law of ceremonies.

Our last Master is humane Ordinances; the case of our ex∣emption where from is not so clear; concerning which I finde a double extream of opinion; The one that ascribes too much to them, as equalling them with the law of God; the other that as∣cribes too little to them, as if they were no tie to our obedience: The one holding them to bind the conscience no less then the posi∣tive laws of God; the other either sleighting their obligation, or extending it only to the outward man, not the inward: we must learn to walk a mid-way betwixt both; and know that the good lawes of our superiours, whether civill or ecclesiastical, do in a sort reach to the very conscience; though not primarily and imme∣diately as theirs, yet mediately and secondarily as they stand in reference to the law of God with our obedience to his instituted au∣thority; and therefore they tie us in some sort besides the case whether of scandall, or contempt. Where no man can witness, there is no scandall; where is no intention of an affront to the commanding power, there is no contempt, and yet willingly to

break good Iaws without all witness, without all purpose of affront is therfore sin because disobedience; For example, I dine fully a∣lone out of wantonnesse, upon a day sequestred by authority to a publick fast; I dine alone, therefore without scandall; out of wan∣tonnesse, therefore not out of contempt; yet I offend against him that seeth in secret, notwithstanding my solitarinesse, and my wantonnesse is by him construed as a contempt to the ordainer of authority. But when both scandall and contempt are met to aggra∣vate the violation, now the breach of humane lawes binds the con∣science to a fearfull guilt. Not to flatter the times, (as I hope I shall never be blurred with this crimination) I must needs say this is too shamefully unregarded; Never age was more lawlesse; Our fore-fathers were taught to be superstitiously scrupulous in obser∣ving the lawes of the Church, above Gods; like those Christians of whom Socrates the historian speaks of, which held fornication as a thing indifferent, de diebus festis tanquam de vita decertant, but strive for an holy day as for their life; we are leapt into a licentious neglect of civill or sacred lawes, as if it were piety to be disobedient. Doth the law command a Friday fast; no day is so selected for feasting; let a schismaticall or popish book be prohibited, this very prohibition endears it; let wholsome lawes be enacted against drunkennesse, idlenesse, exactions, unlawfull transportations, ex∣cesse of diet, of apparell, or what ever noted abuse: commands do not so much whet our desires, as forbiddances: what is this but to baffle and affront that sacred power which is entrusted to govern∣ment: and to professe our selves not Libertines, but licentiate of dis∣order. Farr, farr is it from the intentions of the God of order, un∣der the stile of liberty to give scope to these unruly humors of men; the issue whereof can be no other then utter confusion. But if any power (besides divine) in Heaven or Earth shall challenge to it self this priviledg, to put a primary, or immediate tie upon the con∣science, so as it should be a sin to disobey that ordinance, because 'tis without relation to the command of the highest, let it be anathe∣ma; our hearts have reason to be free in spight of any such Anti∣christian usurpation, whiles the owner of them hath charged us, not to be (thus) the servants of men 1 Cor. 7.23. so Christ hath lastly freed us from the bondage of humane ordinances.

Lo now ye have seen our liberation from a whole heptarchy of

spirituall tyranny; Stand still now awhile, Honourable and beloved, and look back with wondring and thankfull eyes upon the infinite mercy of our deliverer; sin beguiles us, conscience accuseth us, Gods wrath is bent against us, Satan tyrannizes over us, the law condemnes us, insolent superstition inthralls us, and now from all these Christ hath made us free. How should we now erect altars to our dear Redeemer, and inscribe them Christo liberatori; how should we from the altars of our devoted hearts, send up the holy sacrifices of our best obediences, the sweet incense of our perpetuall prayers. Oh blessed Saviour, how should we, how can we enough magnifie thee; no not, though those celestiall Choristers of thine should return to bear a part with us in renewing their gloria in excelsis, glory to God on high; Our bodies, our souls are too little for thee; Oh take thine own from us, and give it to thy self, who hast both made and freed it. To summe up all then; we are freed from the bondage of sin by the spirit of Christ; from an accu∣sing conscience by the blood of Christ, from the wrath of God by faith in Christ, from the tyranny of Satan by the victory of Christ; from the curse of the law by the satisfaction of Christ; from the law of ceremonies by the consummation of Christ; from humane ordinances by the manumission and instruction of Christ; and now stand fast in all these liberties wherewith Christ hath made you free; And so from the liberty, and prerogative, we descend to the maintenance of this liberty, Stand fast.

Is it any boot to bid a man hold fast our once recovered liberty; did ye ever hear of a wild bird that once let out of the cage where∣in she hath been long enclosed would come fluttering about the wires to get in again. Did ye ever see a slave, that after his ran∣some paid, and his discharge obtained would run back and sue for a place in his Gally. Casuists dispute whether a prisoner (though con∣demned) may upon breach of prison escape; and the best resolve it affirmatively; so Caietan, Soto, Navarre, Lessius, others: Their reason is; For that he is not sentenced to remain voluntarily in bonds, but to be kept so; neither is it the duty of the offender to stay, but of the keeper to hold him there: hence chaines and fetters are ordained, where otherwise twists of towe were sufficient: but never any Casuist doubted, whether a prisoner would be glad to be free; or once well escaped would or ought to returne to his gaol;

that self love which is engraffed in every breast will be sure to forbid so prejudiciall an act. God himself hath forbiden to deliver back the slave that is run from his Master Deut. 23.15. Hagar thought it an hard word, Returne to thy Mistress and be beaten, Gen. 16.9. If Noahs Dove had not found more refuge then restraint in the Ark, I doubt whether it had returned with an Olive-branch. O then what what strange madness possesseth us that being ransomed by the pre∣cious blood of the Son of God, paid down for us upon the crosse, we should again put our neck under the servile yoke of sin, Satan, Men: The two first shall go together; indeed they cannot be severed; where ever sin is, there is a Divell at the end of it; why will we be the servants of corruptions, 2 Pet. 2.19. Servants both by nature and by will: The Philosophers dispute whether there be servus natura, di∣vinity defines it clearly, servi eratis peccati, ye were the servants of sin; Rom. 6.19. though not more by nature then by will; contrary to the civill condition, there is no servitude here but willing. St. Pauls thesis, his servants ye are to whom ye obey, is reduced, by our Sa∣viour, to this hypothesis; He that doth sin is the servant of sin, Joh. 8.33.

Do we then obey the filthy lusts of our brutish sensuality, how high soever we look, we are but vassals: and our servitude is so much more vile, as our master is more despicable: A Princes vassal may think himself as good as a poor free-man, but a slaves slave goes in rank with a beast; such is every one that endrudgeth himself to any known sin. In whose eyes a vile person is contemned; saith the Psalmist: A vile person, who is that? Be not deceived, it is not the habits that makes a man vile, but the conditions. No rags can make the good man other then glorious; no robe can make the leud man other then base; when we see and hear of high titles, rich coates, antient houses, long pedegrees, glittering suites, large re∣tinues, we honour these (and so we must do) as the just monuments, signes, appendances of civill greatness; but let me tell you withall; the eyes of God, his Saints, and Angels look upon any of you as a vile person, if his sin be his Master: as they say of Lewis the eleventh, that he was the slave of his Physitian Corterius, but a tirant to others; so nothing hinders but that ye may be the commanders of others, and yet (the while) vassals to your own corruptions. It is the heathen, mans question: Blush, O ye Christians, blush for shame to hear it,

An ille mihi liber cui mulier imperat? Shall he go for a freeman that is a slave to his Curtizan; that is at the command of her eyes, and hangs upon the doom of her variable lips? Shall he go for a free∣man that is at the mercy of his cups, whether for mirth or rage? Shall he go for a free-man that is loaden with fetters of Gold, more servile to this mettal, then the Indian that gets it? Shall he go for a free-man that is ever fastned upon the rack of envy or ambition? Hate this condition, O all ye Noble and Generous Courtiers; and as ye glory to affect freedom, and scorne nothing so much as the reputation of baseness, abhorre those sins that have held you in a miserable and cursed servitude; Stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made you free.

Lastly what should we, or why do we inthrall our consciences to the sinfull yoke of the corrupt ordinances of men? That which the legall ceremonies were to the Jewes, Popish traditions are to us; yea more and worse; Those ceremonies were prefigurations of Christ to come; these traditions are defigurations, and deformati∣ons of Christ exhibited; Those were of Gods prescribing, these of that homo delinquentiae, as Tertullian construes it. That man of sin; see what a stile here is, as if he were made all of impiety, and cor∣ruption. That which Rehoboam said of himself, we may justly bor∣row here; The Popes little finger is heavier then Moses his loines; From these superstitions and Antichristian impositions Christ hath freed us by the clear light of the glorious Gospell of his Son Christ Jesus; Oh stand fast now in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made you free. Give leave, I beseech you, Most gracious Soveraign, and ye honourable and beloved Christians to my just importunity; if in these cold, slippery, back-sliding times, I presse this needfull exhor∣tation with more then common vehemence.

Hath the Gospell of Christ freed us from the Idolatrous adoration of Daniels Maazim, a breaden God; and shall any of us so farre ab∣dicate, not our religion onely, but our reason; as to creep, crouch, and to worship that which the baker makes a cake, and the Priest makes a God? Crustum pro Christo, as he said? And if Israel play the harlot, yet Oh why will Judah sin? If the poor seduced souls of forraign subjects, that have been invincibly noursled up in igno∣rance and superstition (whose wofull case we do truly commiserate with weeping and bleeding hearts) be carried hood-wink't to those

hideous impieties (which if they had our eyes, our means they would certainly detest) shall the native subjects of the Defender of Faith, who have been trained up in so clear a light of the Gospell begin to cast wanton eyes upon their glorious superstitions; and contrary to the lawes of God, and our Soveraign, throng to their ex∣oticall devotions? What shall we say Increpa Domine; Master re∣buke them: And ye to whom God hath given grace to see and be∣wail the lamentable exorbitances of their superstitions, settle your souls in the noble resolution of faithfull Joshua, I and my house will serve the Lord. Stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made you free.

Hath the Gospell of God freed us from the worship of stocks, and stones; from the mis-religious invocation of those who we know cannot hear us; from the sacrilegious mutilation of the blessed sacrament; From the tyrannical usurpations of a sinfull vice-god; From the dangerous relyance upon the inerrable sentence of him that cannot say true; from the idle fears of imaginary Purgato∣ries; from buying of pardons, and selling of sins; shortly, from the whole body of damnable Antichristianisme: and shall our un∣stable mouths now begin to water at the Onions and Garlick of our forsaken Egypt; Oh Dear Christians, if ye love your solus, if ye fear hell, stand fast in this liberty wherewith Christ hath made you free: What mercy soever may abide well-meaning ignorance, let the wil∣full revolter make account of damnation. I cannot without yearn∣ing of bowels think of the dear price that our holy fore-fathers stak't down for this liberty of the Gospel; no lesse then their best, and last blood; And shall we their unthrifty progeny lavish it out care∣lessly in a willing neglect; and either not care to exchange it for a plausible bondage, or squander it out in unncecessary differences? Do but cast your eyes back upon the fresh memory of those late flourish∣ing times of this goodly kingdome, when pure religion was not more cheerfully professed, then inviolably maintained: how did we then thrive at home, and triumph abroad? How were we then the terrour, the envy of Nations? Our name was enough to affright, to amate an enemy: But now, since we have let fall our first love, and suffered the weak languishments and qualmes of the truth un∣der our hands, I fear and grieve to tell the issue. Oh then suffer your selves, O ye noble and beloved Christians, to be rouzed up

from that dull and lethargick ind••fferencie, wherein ye have thus long slept, and awake up your holy courages for God, and his sa∣cred truth: And since we have so many comfortable and assured ingagements from our pious Soveraign, Oh let not us be wanting to God, to his Majesty, to our selves in our utmost endeavours of ad∣vancing the good successe of the blessed Gospell of Christ. Honour God with your faithfull, and zealous prosecutions of his holy truth, and he shall honour you: and besides the restauration of that antient glory to our late-clouded Nation, shall repay our good Offices done to his name with an eternal weight of glory in the highest heavens; to the possession whereof, he that hath ordained us, in his good time mercifully bring us, for the sake of the Son of his love Jesus Christ the just; To whom with the Father and the Holy Ghost one infinite God be gi∣ven all praise honour and glory now and for ever. Amen.