Discourse of the Gospel of Peace, To the reader – Errata
AN EPISTLE TO THE READER.
READER,
I Am not careful to restrain my Address or Application to the Pious, Candid, or Courteous Reader, knowing that Books published in Print, are past all inclosures. I think it therefore best to give thee that which thou mayest take without my farther license, and most indefinitely interest thee in the account that follows.
We have a long time last past been agitated so much in the dust and darkness of contention, and mutually reproaching and (one way or other) afflicting and grieving each other, that we have almost lost all notions and idea's of our selves, our neighbour and fellow Christian, but what these provocations, heats and passions have created. And I wish I could say, that God and Religion too, did not share in the same injuries, from the same causes. Give me leave to say, that tho Dissenters from (I would that truth could not add) and oppressors of each other, may take the fall, and bear the blows by turns; the God of Peace, the Prince of Peace, and the Gospel of Peace, are by every turn losers in their honour and interest, whoever wins.
Methinks therefore (unless we cannot be weary of doing and suffering …ll) it cannot be unseasonable to p… you in remembrance of the Gospel of Peace, and the Government of our own spirits; nor my fact all guilty of injury, or imperti…ence, if it could reach no higher than a m…re Remembrancer. Certainly peace …s a most comprehensive bl…ssing, and by a…l pretended to be desired, as the end of all their adventures and encounters they meet with therein. But as man by the fall, and its … from worse to worse, hath lost his knowledg… …d se…se of the happiness that is real, and the way to it: So he has found (as he think…) a peace in prospect, and the way to that. But who can express the blindness, the madness, the perversness therein evident▪ What is the peace he thinks he has in his eye? It is the satisfying of his lust…, his unbridled, unbounded affections; and that by means as unrighteous, as lice…ti…us, as pernicious to himself and …thers, as they are in themselves unreasonable and unsatiable.
My b…siness therefore in the following Tracts, is t… perswade thee by the greatest evidence of truth and goodness, to se…k peace where '…is to be found; which the blessed Gospel of Christ only can shew thee, and the way to it; It being that (as the Apostle speaks) by whi…h life and immortality is brought to light.
I have endeavoured to obviate every material Objection, as far as a Tract of so small a bulk, and my poor capacity could reach. But the great, tho …tent Objections against entertaining this Evangelical Peace, which the mind bes…t…ed b…i… foolish and hurtful lusts knows not when th…y are answered, are, That there can be no peace in self-denial: No pleasure in mortif…ing th…se affections, the gratifyings of which is the only s…urce of pleasure, or rather the pleasure it self: No rest in that Divine fulness we talk of, so much out of reach and view; every weighty th…ght of which is so terrible or troublesome: N… gain or r…ches in the crossing of our esp…use… … rests: No wisdom or policy in imag…ing the reduction of a world of men, from the methods they have been so l…g …stowed to, and hard…d in. These Objections I shall answer to, with as gre…t … s…, and infi…tely greater reason and evidence. What self is the corruption of nature? What pleasure is that which is but the tickling the itch of a lothsome and destructive disease? Where is rest, if not in the fountain and center of all? What truth in manifest contradiction of all good and goodness? What interest is there in crossing our great End, and being drowned in eternal perdition, for a pleasant dream, or a short and little grasp of earth and vanity?
Is it not horrid beyond expression, to desire, and madness to expect that God himself should part with his honour to humour us? and vilifie his holy and infinite perfections by (not only permitting, but) maintaining and countenancing a company of worms in those disorders that bid defiance to his wisdom, truth, power over, and interest in his own creature; who by him was brought from nothing into being, all whose powers, supports, and comforts, derive from his fulness and bounty, who without his continuate concourse and supplies could neither eat nor drink, nor move, nor love, nor hate, nor live?
I could not forbear to start those secret vanities, which are the inward works and secret strengths by which our great adversary holds his prey till a stronger than he makes men willing to be happy, by being delivered from those powers of darknes…, and translated into the Kingdom of the dear Son of God, who is the King of Righteousness, and Prince of Peace. And what is this Kingdom of the dear Son of God but what is described by this Gospel of Peace?
Certainly the great all heal is to be gathered from this Gospel: were its directions universally or generally well understood, and embraced, and lived, the new heavens and the new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness, a holy and a happy Church and State would be immediately present. Nations, Cities, Families, Souls, from the greatest Prince to the meanest peasant, would not only speculatively, but feelingly know what true peace means. I am not now pleading for parties or great portions of this world. There has been such scrambling and scuffling for these among Christians by profession, and under pretence too of answering to the obligations of the Gospel, that the Gospel it self is almost lost, or smother'd in the crowd; or which is as bad or worse, 'tis charged with being the great peace-breaker, and causer of all the mischiefs. Some men think themselves wise enough to be happy in their own methods in the Church it self, were not the Gospel such an intermedler. The Gospel that teaches so much self-denial, that makes Jesus Christ in the form of a servant to be so perfect a pattern, especially for Ministers of the Gospel; that allows no compulsions but a Conscience well informed, and a spirit made willing by its Convictions, and the sensible apprehensions of God, and the great after-reckoning to the Divine Majesty. The Gospel, that obliges obedience to Princes out of Conscience to God, whose Representatives they are, reverence to their Persons, prayers and praises to God for their prosperity; Honour to whom honour, fear to whom fear, tribute to whom tribute, as most equal and due; love benignity, affableness and peaceableness to, and with all men.
I have therefore as a kind of Appendix to this Treatise of the Gospel of Peace, annexed a short one of the Government of our own spirits, without which all speculations will come short of use and practice. I know not what may be the acceptance or success of either, I leave them to his blessing, to the service of whose glory I can say by the Grace of God, they are designed. Some persons perhaps may esteem the whole impertinent, and the stile canting, and void of that masculine sense which is peculiar to one sort of men; but so much above the principles and genius of dissenters from them, especially those of the lower form, that if they should chance to read or hear somewhat of theirs that looks that way, they will hardly believe their own eyes or ears. But let them judg of me, or such as I and these poor Papers, as they please, I shall own and bless God for any thing of theirs that is worthy. And if I may but be a means to serve in any degree the interest of Christ, and souls, I hope I have counted the Costs, and shall not repent my undertaking, except the many sinful infirmities that have attended its manage, by an unworthy Servant in the Ministry of the Gospel,
July 23. 1687. JOHN FALDO.
ERRATA.
REader, I pray Correct or remember these few Escapes; Pag. 10. l. 21. read satisfaction. P. 95. l. 17. dele to his Merit and Intercession. P. 156. l. 2. r. Hero. l. 3. r. himself.