The Pulpit Guarded, Dedication 2 – Dedication 3
To my beloved Parishioners, and approved friends, the inhabitants of Kings-Norton, Grace and Peace be multiplyed.
My dearly beloved in the Lord,
MY hearts desire and Prayer for you is, that you might be saved: and since none can attain to Happiness, but such as walk in the way of Holiness;Isa. 35. 8. Heb. 12. 14. my desire is, that you may be kept pure and holy, not onelyonly from those gross blots which abound in this degenerate generation, but also from the spots of the times, such as Separation, Independency, &c. 'Tis your glory and my comfort, that when other people by their Pride and Censoriousness, by their Sects and Schisms are a dayly vexation and heart-breaking to their Ministers, yet you have been unanimous, though you be a great body, and many of you a knowing people, having enjoyed the means in one part of the Parish for almost fifty years together, and that by a succession of very eminent and able Divines, conformable non-conformists, conformable to the Canon of the Scripture (Gal. 6. 16. foreign) though not to the Bishops Canons: Where the Lord raise …p that valiant and Religious Knight Sir Richard Greavis, who by his wisdom and courage sheltred these Reverend Ministers from those Episcopal storms which otherwise had fallen upon them. I have found you also a very tractable people; few families but have submitted to examination before the Sacrament, and have freely sent in some hundreds of your children and servants to that end. You have begun well; persevere, that no man get your Crown from you. I have now served you above three Prentiships; and as Iacob said of himself, Few and evil had his days been, so mine have been few, but full of trials, internal and external. So soon as I began to exercise, my refusing to read the Book of Sports on the Sabbath endangered me. That lustre of years which I spent at Mosely, I was threatned by the Episcopal party for Nonconform…ty; since I came to you, I have suffered deeply by the Cavaliering party; often times plundred, five times their prisoner; oft cursed, accused, threatned, &c. Yet the Lord delivered me out of all, and hath made my latter end better then my beginning. 'Tis now my Motto, Per vincula cresco. We never lose by serving or suffering for Christ. And now at last I have been set upon by the Sectaries, who sometimes have spoken to me in the middle of Sermon, sometimes after, sometimes challenge me to dispute, &c. But my comfort is, that he that hath delivered me from the paw of the Lion, will also deliver me from every evil work, of evil and ungodly men.
Now I beseech you by all the mercies of God,Feb. 23. There were three Sermons in a house in the Parish, by a Long Cutler, a Na…lor, and a Milner. by all the pains and service amongst you, and sufferings for you; that you all minde the same things; let there be no divisions, no Sects nor Schisms found amongst you; but labour to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of Peace.An ignorant and uncha…echised person is a fit prey for the devil. When m…n are children in knowledge, then they are tosse… too and fro wi…h every winde of Doctrine. Pauls farewel to his Corinthians, shall be mine to you, 2 Cor. 13. 11. Finally, brethren, farewel: …e perfect, be of good comfort, be of one minde, live in Peace; and the God of love and Peace shall be with you.
And since errours are so rife amongst us,Epnes. 4. 14. Levit. 13. 44. and some begin to creep in amongst you, to draw you from the publike Ordinances; I shall give you a little preventing Physick.
1 Get your judgements rightly informed: the Understanding is the eye and Guide of the soul; if that be corrupt, and mislead you, you must needs fall into the ditch: if a disease get the brain, 'tis hardly cured; hence the learned observe, that corruption in judgement is worse then corruption in manners, especially when the mind has been enlightned with the knowledge of the truth. Leprosie in the head, was of all other Leprosies the most dangerous and destructive, and he was to be pronounced utterly unclean: he was unclean if he had the Leprosie in his hands or feet; but if 'twere in his head, then he was utterly unclean.
2 Be Real Christians; think it not sufficient that you are Christians in Name, and have a form of godliness, but be Christians indeed, and walk in the power of godliness; be Nathanaels, Israelites indeed; then, and never till then, you are worth beholding and admiring, Ioh. 1. 47. Behold, Many become i… matters of Religion meer S cep…ks, because they would not … Practicks, S. Ward.an Israelite indeed, &c. The reason why so many fall away, is, they were formalists, never humbled under the sight and sense of their sins, never received the truth in love, 2 Thes. 2. 10, 11. but lived in Pride, Hypocrisie, barren under the means of grace, and therefore God gives them up to strong delusions, to believe lyes: in his just judgement he punisheth one sin with another: when men be ungrateful, unfruitful, unanswerable to Times and Means, not walking worthy of the Gospel, then God gives them up to Heretical and soul-damning ways and Errours: if Ahab will not hearken to Micaiah a true Prophet, he shall be deluded by lying spirits; if the Gentiles when they know God by the light of nature, will not glorifie him as God,Rom. 1. 21, 24, &c. in giving that honour and respect to him which they could not but apprehend to be due to the divine Majestie,Anabaptism▪ Socinianism, Armin…anism, &c amee scourges to plague formal Pro…essors, and rotten hypocrites &c. God will give them up to vile affections; so punishing the breach of the first Table, by giving them up to the violation of the second.
3 Get meek and humble spirits; these the Lord hath promised to teach his way, when spiritual Pride is punished with a fall: those highflown Heresies which abound amongst us, whence come they but from Pride?Non est hodiè sciens q…i novitates non invenit. Hunt not after novelties, neither be wise above that which is written.
4 Let your principal care be about practical fundamental points, such as Faith, Obedience, a good Conscience, how you may mortifie your special corruptions, and crucifie the flesh with its affections and lusts; study how you may live soberly in the use of the creature, Religiously towards God, Righteously and justly in all your dealings with the sons of men; for if you do these things, you shall never fall: and that you may do them, is, and shall be the Prayer of him who is the weakest of all his Brethren, and the meanest in his fathers house, even
From my study in Kings-Norton March 3. 1650. Your servant, T. H.
To the Lay-Preachers at Henly, Warwick, A…lcester, &c. and to all their Factors, Favourers, Followers, and Abettors, &c. Truth and Peace.
BRethren for so in the judgement of charity I cannot but call you, though withal I must tell you that you are erring Brethren, and such as are troubled with the Falling-sickness; a disease very common in these last and worst times. Had you faln forward, you might have gained by your fall: to fall backward is more dangerous;1 S…m. 4. 18. as we see in old Eli, who fell backward, brake his neck, and died. But, which is worst of all, you are faln backward into one of the most dangerous paths that men can fall into; viz. the way of the Anabaptists who are (as*Sleid. Comment, l. 5. and l. 10. Histories tell us) a turbulent Sect, subverters of the very foundations of States, (viz. Magistracy and Ministery) Satans factors, his Seedsmen to sowe Errours and Heresies in the Nations;Simpson. Hist. p. 443. and how fruitfull they have been in this kind,Spanheim. Eng. wa…ning by G…rmanies …, p. 45, 46. we have sad experience amongst us. Heresie is of a spreading nature: sowe but a few Tares, and they quickly overspread the whole field: with fair words, and fine speeches, they deceive the si…ple; with plaistred words they parget over the matter: like the Whore of Babylon, 2 Pet. 2. 3. foreign Rev. 17.that hath a golden cup to hold out to her followers.
And that the world may see I do them no wrong, I shall present you with a Looking-glass (collected out of approved Authors) wherein you may clearly see the wrinkles and deformities, the deliriums and delusions of that deluded Sect; that by their fall, we may learn to tremble, and fear, lest we also be tempted, and led away with the errours of the wicked.