The Causes of the Decay of Christian Piety, Imprimatur – Table of contents
IMPRIMATUR,
Hic liber vere Christianus qui si Primaevam spectes pietatem, Summam Eloquentiam, Rationum pondus nihil in eo deest quo minus possit nos Omnes quales tam accurate describit, vere Christianos efficere; Puriori aevo sane dignissimus est nisi quod tam potens sit qui vel nostrum Saeculum transformaret in melius. Benedicat Deus Operi & Authori.
THO. TOMKYNS. R. Rmo. in Christo Patri ac Domino Dno. GILBERTO Divina Providentia Archiepiscopo Cantuariensi à Sacris Domesticis.
THE CAUSES OF THE Decay of Christian Piety.
OR AN IMPARTIAL SURVEY Of the Ruines of CHRISTIAN RELIGION, Undermin'd by Unchristian Practice.
Written by the Author of THE WHOLE DUTY OF MAN.
INIMICVS HOMO FECIT HOC. MATH: 13.
LONDON, Printed by R. Norton for T. Garthwait, in S. Bartholomews Hospital, near Smithfield, 1667.
THE PREFACE.
THOUGH this be the first appearance this Tract has made in the world, yet its Being is of somewhat a more ancient date; it having received its lineaments and perfect form some years since: when the Author not having partiality enough to think it worthy publick view; had adjudg'd it, if not to perpetual darkness, yet at least to a long indefinite suspension from seeing light. In this interval, 'tis more than probable some passages may have lost much of their propriety to the present state of affairs, they having been adapted to circumstances which may since have received some change: and herein I must be speak the Readers candor, to make such allowances as the matter shall require; of which yet I suppose there will not occur very many, or very important occasions.
BUT would God I were to apologize for a yet far greater absurdity, that our scene were so shifted, that the whole design of the ensuing discourse, might become one entire impertinence, and that our more eminent conformity to the rules of our Christian institution, might supersede these disquisitions above our failances and aberrations. But alass, I find I have pitcht upon a subject not like to be out-dated; vice daily gaining not only strength, but impudence: nay we are not only become witnesses against our selves by declaring our Sin as Sodom, but we have forced God also to attest against us by punishing us in a manner no less conspicuous and manifest. And surely then 'tis more than time for us to take the Prophets advice, Hag. 1. 7. to consider our ways, to reflect not only on those robust, gyant-like provocations which have thus bid defiance to Heaven; but also to sift out those secret incendiaries that have inflamed us to this mad daring; to examine what that foreign, that inflamable bitumen, the untemper'd morter is with which we build our Babel, by discovering those misperswasions and false confidences, wherein many of our other guilts are founded: in order to which this slight Tract offers its feeble, yet well meant aids; being forced out of its retirement, and like Craesus his dumb Son, compell'd to speak by impulse of the present exigent: and how despicable soever the Mite contributed be in its self, yet if it may provoke the more wealthy to cast in richer gifts, it may prove no unprofitable agent for the Corban. 'Tis evident this is a season which not only warrants, but exacts the most importunate endeavours of perswading men to those things that belong to their Peace.
FOR although 'tis true that every state of sin, sets us also in a state of hostility with God, yet our present condition seems to have advanced us beyond the common degrees even of that. 'Tis we know, high insolence against a Prince to despise and violate his laws, but when to that are superadded contumelies, and design'd affronts to his person, this is such an accumulated outrage, as will vanquish the most resolv'd Patience. And this alass appears to be our case: we have long indulg'd to our selves the breach of all Divine laws, gratified every appetite, every passion and lust with the forfeiture of our allegiance, and as if this would not serve to render us irreconcilable enough to God, we are now grown to subjoyn malice to licentiousness; project not so much to please our selves, as to displease him; profess a contempt not only of his commands, but himself; and seek no less to dethrone Him, than abrogate those. Thus have we made it a kind of personal quarrel, and by those impious blasphemies we daily dart against Heaven, do as it were dare the Divine Majesty to vindicate its self. Whether his great longanimity may have given our Hectors a fancy, that they had vapour'd God (as they are us'd to do men) into a tameness, I shall not examine: but his late proceedings with us sufficiently testifie that he means no longer to decline our challenge. He now appears to avow the enmity as openly as we have done; and has already given us competent essays, how fearful a thing it is to fall into the hands of the living God, Heb. 10. 31.
'TIS true indeed that he has formerly own'd his controversie with our Land, and by a long series of great and heavy calamities attested himself the God to whom vengeance belongeth, Psal. 94. 1. Yet as great Monarchs use to quell lesser insurrections by their Lieutenants, and subordinate Officers, but when the rebellion grows high and desperate, then to encounter it in their own persons; so is it here observable that God then Chastised, and tried to reduce us by inferiour instruments, found us out Lictors among our selves, and made one mans sin the punishment of anothers: but now as if he had the same jealousie for his honour which Joab had at the siege of Rabba for Davids, 2 Sam. 12. 28. as if he fear'd to be rival'd in the glory of our ruine, he takes us into his own hand, marks us out, as he did Pharaoh, to be the Trophies of his own peculiar vengeance, appearing signally against us in all the dreadful solemnities of an enraged enemy.
FOR first, has he not as Moses speaks, Deut. 32. 41. whet his glittering Sword? Nay, has he not moreover (in the Scripture style) made it drunk with blood? by sweeping away multitudes of us in a raging PESTILENGE, which Marcht from one part of the Nation to another in a kind of Triumphant progress, as if it had receiv'd the same mandate God gave Abraham, Gen. 13. 17. Arise walk through the land, in the length thereof and in the breadth thereof, for unto thee will I give it. Whether it may not thus fatally complete its course, notwithstanding the halt it seems to make, and pass from our Dan to our Beersheba, is a question that can with no probability be resolv'd in the negative; for as it is not to be doubted but there were in Judea as great sinners as those on whom the Tower of Siloam fell, Luke 13. that those who have hitherto escaped have an equal share in the provoking cause of the Iudgement: So also that great unsensibleness many of us shew of what others groan under, is a very ominous abode; it being not only a dangerous symptome, but a probable means of drawing that calamity to our selves. When God sees we will suffer nothing by way of consent and sympathy with others, 'tis but equal we have our part in a more direct and immediate infliction, and feel what we would not compassionate. Thucydides mentions it as the effect of the great Plague at Athens that it had extinguisht humanity; brought in a kind of ferity and barbarousness among them, rendring them openly villanous to men, and blasphemous against God; foreign, there was no restraint of law or religion, one part being desperate upon prospect of their danger, the other presumptuous upon the contemplation of their Escape; and sure if we look impartially, ours will appear to have had somewhat of the same operation. Those compassions which the novelty it seems at first gave us to sufferers in this kind, seems now quite extinct; so unconcern'd are we grown to every thing that touches us not in our individuals, as if we owned no relation to the species of mankind, though backt also with that closer tye, which the spiritual consanguinity has superadded. A pregnant indication of this may, I doubt not, be collected (as from many other circumstances, so particularly) from the great hast has in many places been made, to lay aside those publick Humiliations & intercessions which were recommended to us as well by the command of Authority, as the common distress; but have been cast off without the substraction of either of those motives. Whether we are duly mindful of the afflictions of Joseph, that cannot afford one day in a monethmonth for a solemn reflection on them, I must leave to every mans conscience to discuss. But sure we are no less wanting to our selves than them in this neglect; the office being no less designed for Antidote than cure, to prevent the Iudgement where it is not, than to remove it where it is: and if we will neither deprecate on our own behalfs, nor intercede on others; we are sure as improvident, as uncharitable, and may justly expect the fatal event of both.
IN the interim, although the present respit from destruction, and our own deceitful hearts flatter us and say Peace, Peace; we have all reason to conclude that God is not attoned, the quarrel and hostility goes on, and his hand is stretcht out still, Es. 5. 25. And so indeed we find it in other dismal events. Slaughter we know is not the only effect of War; which as it destroys the lives of many, blasts the supports and Ioys of more. This consequence of hostility we find well exprest by the Prophet Joel 2. 3. The land is as the Garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness, and herein also hath the Lord of Hosts, the great God of battle shewed himself mighty against us, he has invaded us not only with Sword, but FIRE: and in so stupendous manner desolated the glory of our Land, that no humane fury, could have procured, or even have wisht the like vastation and ruines. That City which was great among the Nations, and Princess among the Provinces, Lam. 1. 1. lies buried in her own Ashes, and is both Funeral-pile and Urne to her self, and what neither foreign nor domestick enemies could in a succession of many ages effect, one blast of the breath of his displeasure, Psal. 18. has performed in a moment. So verifying even in a literal sense the Apostles affirmation, Heb. 12. 29. that our God is a consuming fire. Plutarch tells us when Fabius sackt Tarentum, he took not away their Images, but said, foreign let us leave the Tarentines their Gods that are offended with them. 'Tis our Calamity to be signally under the indignation of our incensed God, which in that great Captains judgement, was somewhat more dreadful than the worst inflictions of War: for what industry soever has been used to entitle either the negligence or designs of men unto our overthrow, yet sure never any judgement had more legible marks of Gods immediate hand: such as shew he meant to revenge the abuse of his former gentle methods: that those who would not be reformed by the slighter corrections wherein he dallied with them, might find a judgment worthy of God, Wisd. 12. 26. And sure such was this, which both for its greatness and irresistibleness does well own its Author, and shews his wrath was accended to a very excessive heat, that thus poured out its self not only like, but in Fire, Lam. 2. 4.
I shall not here assume the Polititians part, and weigh the detriment we have sustained by it in our civil interest, of which perhaps nothing but time and experience can give us a full estimate; it rather suits my design to observe what relates to our spiritual concerns, whilest Gods dwelling places were involved in the same ruine with ours; his own peculiar portion not exempted, but as the Prophet complains, Es. 64. 11. Our holy and beautiful houses where our fathers praised him are burnt with fire: this though perhaps least considered, is sure not the least sad circumstance, had only the scenes of our luxury, or our fraud been destroyed, it might have sent us with more fervency to the places of our devotion, and we might have frequented Gods houses the better, for being destituted of our own; but when these also are made parts of the common heap, 'tis a sad testimonial that our very religion was provoking; That that pageant-like piety which we deposited in our CHURCHES, only to make a shew with on holy-days, served only to defile those holy places, and rendred them so polluted as required no slighter purgation than that of FIRE. 'Tis we know-not long, since those mansions sacred to the Prince of Peace, were even in the vulgar obvious sense, made magazines for War; but yet more so in reference to that Pulpitwild-fire, which set the Nation in combustion; whether that strange Fire which some of our Nadabs and Abihu's introduced there, may not (even at this distance) have done its part to the drawing down this FIRE from Heaven, I leave to their serious reflection. But neither the Hypocrite nor the Seditious must ingross the guilt of this ruine: The Atheist vyes with both; for alass what should God do with Temples among those, who pay him no worship? or why should he let those sacred monuments remain among them, to whom all memorials of him serve but as occasions, and incentives to blaspheme him? They have long said with those in Job, Depart from us, for we desire not the knowledge of thy ways; and now 'tis but equitable (I had almost said Civil) to take them at their word, and no longer reside among those who so avowedly disclaim him.
AND this, 'tis much to be feared, may be the portent of this dismal vastation: we know men use not to deface those houses, where they intend to inhabit: and sure this abhorring his Sanctuary, and casting off his Altar, Lam. 2. is a dreadful sign, that he means no longer to continue his residence among us; indeed we find in Scripture that his promise of cohabiting is always limited to those who own themselves his people; and therefore when so many of us have openly renounced that relation, we can with no justice expect the blessing appendant to it.
BUT perhaps this will seem to such no formidable thing; Gods so withdrawing of himself is but agreeable to their wishes, a kind of quitting the field to them, and so rather matter of complacency than regret: but 'tis to be considered that there is another presence of God that will infallibly succeed this; when he removes that of his grace, 'tis to make way for that of his anger; like the Philistines we shall know the God of Israel is among us by his Plagues, 1 Sam. 5. or to make a yet more dreadful comparison, we shall like the damned in hell, discern his presence only in the punitive effects of it, and read his nearness in our sufferings. And sure this will be but an ill exchange, even to the profanest of us, those that have most despised or loathed the soft breathings of his Word and Spirit; will find it yet harder to endure the whirlewinds of his wrath, which will snatch from us those secular advantages for whose pursuit we have neglected the better part, Luke 10. 42. and leave us as little of worldly enjoyments, as we desired to have of spiritual.
OF this our late Calamities have given us a sad Preludium, and God knows how soon we may see the last scene of the fatal Tragedy, it being too probable that this is Gods last Experiment upon us, like the Causticks and Scarifyings to a Lethargick patient; if this bring us not to sense we are like to sleep on to destruction: And alas what uncomfortable symtomes appear even in this point also. Who is there that (unless awakened by his personal concernments) seems at all to startle at the noise of publick ruine? When God in displeasure threatned the Israelites that he would remit their conduct to his Angel, and not go himself with them. The text says, they mourned and no man put on his ornaments on him, Exod. 33. 4. or as the LXX, foreign, and the Syriack, foreign, they stript themselves of their Armour, their ruffling garb of War, and appeared in the penitential dress of sackcloth and ashes: but now that we are given up not to a conducting but destroying Angel, what signs of remorse do we shew? What vanity (I fear I may ask what vice) have we substracted, upon the sense of Gods anger? What nicety in cloaths or diet have we cut off in sympathy with the nakedness and hunger of our afflicted brethren? Nay, do not the unreasonable Iollities of too many among us, look as if we triumpht in their miseries, found Musick in the discordant sounds of their groans, and our own laughter; and emulated that infamous barbarity of Nero, who played while Rome burned? 'Tis mentioned by the Prophet as a most preposterous thing, a kind of impious Solecism to revel under the menace of judgements. Thus saith the Lord, A sword, a sword, it is sharpned to make a sore slaughter, it is furbished that it may glitter, should we then make mirth? Ezek. 21. 9, 10. and certainly it less befits us against whom God has not only prepared, but used his sword; who are not only under the threats, but actual Execution of his vengeance, and what is it but interpretatively to prompt him, to yet sharper inflictions, by shewing him that these have not edge enough to penetrate us? With how much indignation God resents this perverse, this contumelious behaviour, we may read, Esay 22. 12, 13, 14. In that day did the Lord call to weeping, and mourning, and to baldness, and to girding with sackcloth, and behold joy and gladness, slaying Oxen and killing Sheep, eating Flesh and drinking Wine; eating and drinking for to morrow we shall dye: Upon which follows, that severe denunciation: Surely this iniquity shall not be purged from you till you dye. Of so deep a tincture is this guilt, that 'tis as lasting as our lives, and like the fretting leprosie in the house, Levit. 14. 45. can be removed by nothing but its dissolution.
O then let us not adde this to the heap of our other provocations, mistake impudence or desperation for courage; and frantickly defie that omnipotence which we are sure we can not resist: but since it has pleased God even in wrath to remember mercy, let us transcribe his copy, be as kind to our selves as he has been to us, and stop in our career as he has done in his; not so madly affect a full parallel with Sodom and Gomorrah, as to force him to destroy that remnant, Es. 1. 9. which alone distinguishes our case: but rather take pattern from Nineveh; cry, and cry mightily to God, joyn humiliation to our prayers, and reformation to both. And could we be perswaded to do this with the same sincerity, and universality, we might hope it may be with the same success also: would every one who has contributed to the accending, as industriously contribute to the appeasing of Gods wrath: would all who have brought their fire-brands bring also their tears to quench them, as there would be no dry Eyes in the Nation at the present, so might it prevent as great a Generality of weeping ones for the future; secure us such a tranquility here, as may calmly convoy us to that impassible state, where all tears shall be wiped from our eyes, where there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying, nor pain, Rev. 21. 4.
THE TABLE OF CONTENTS.
Chap. 1.
THe character of Christian Religion, demonstrating its aptitude to plant exemplary Vertue and Sanctity.
Chap. 2.
The character of Christian-mens practice, shewing their multiplied failance, both from the rule of that holy Profession, and its genuine effect.
Chap. 3.
A survey of the mischiefs arising from Inconsideration.
Chap. 4.
From partial Consideration.
Chap. 5.
From carnal Consideration.
Chap. 6.
From partial Obedience.
Chap. 7.
From mistakes concerning Repentance.
Chap. 8.
From mistakes concerning Almighty God, and the methods of his Providence.
Chap. 9.
From disputes in general.
Chap. 10.
From its supplanting Charity.
Chap. 11.
From its engaging upon ill Arts and Scandalous practices to sustain the espoused cause and party.
Chap. 12.
From its ill effects on Civil peace.
Chap. 13.
Of the causes of disputes. First, Pride.
Chap. 14.
Secondly, Curiosity.
Chap. 15.
Thirdly, Interest.
Chap. 16.
Fourthly, Passion.
Chap. 17.
Fifthly, Zeal.
Chap. 18.
Sixthly, Idleness.
Chap. 19.
The Conclusion drawn from all the Premises.
Chap. 20.
The Close.