The Measures of Christian Obedience, Title page – Preface
THE MEASURES OF Christian Obedience. OR, A DISCOURSE SHEWING What Obedience is indispensably necessary to a Regenerate State, and what Defects are consistent with it; FOR The Promotion of Piety, and the Peace of Troubled Consciences
By JOHN KETTLEWELL, Fellow of Lincoln-College in Oxford.
LONDON, Printed by J. Macock, for Robert Kettlewell, at the Hand and Scepter over against St Dunstan's Church in Fleetstreet, MDCLXXXI.
TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE, AND RIGHT REVEREND FATHER in GOD, HENRY LORD BISHOP of LONDON, And One of His Majesties Most Honourable Privy-Council, &c.
MY LORD,
HAving published this Treatise to promote, as much as in me lies, an intire Practice of our Blessed Saviours Precepts, and a comfortable expectation of his Rewards amongst us; I have presumed to address it to Your Lordship, hoping it will find Acceptance in Your Pious Judgment for the sake of those things which are contained in it, and because Your Lordship is a most eminent Example as a Christian, and a most discreetly zealous and diligent Promoter as a Bishop of the Subject of it.
In this Work my Great Design has been to press men to a conscientious regard of their whole Duty, and to show them how much contentment, and cheerfulness of Spirit they have reason to enjoy in the careful observance of it. And these are ends so excellent, as may well excuse the imperfections of any honest Endeavours, which shall be put forth in order to them. For what greater service can be done to our Blessed Lord, than to exalt his Authority in the hearts and lives of all his Followers? What greater honour can be brought to Religion, than to promote a pious practice, and thereupon a constant joy and cheerfulness in the minds of all its Professors? And what more faithful kindness can be shown to the Souls of Men, than cleerly to lay before them, and most earnestly to press upon them such things as will give them peace and comfortable expectations of God's love and favour in this World, and secure their eternal happiness in that which is to come? And since I have directed all the Parts, and every thing that I have said in the following Discourse, to these ends; I am willing to hope, that, notwithstanding all its defects, I have therein done no unacceptable service to my Saviour, and to all good men, who will be much readier to encourage any honest tendences to this purpose, than to reprove, and throw them by, for the sake of those weaknesses, and that want of skill, which shall be found in them.
In this hope, my Lord, I make bold to Present it to Your Lordship, whose great and most exemplary Virtue will not, I believe, be averse from Patronizing that, which tends even in a low degree to further and promote it. I pray God preserve Your Lordship, and continue You, what You now are, an Illustrious Pattern of all Private and Political Virtues to this Your Native Country. That Religion may still be adorned, and this distressed Church supported, by that exemplariness of an upright Conversation, that great Prudence, and unwearied Diligence, and undaunted Courage, and most wise and steady Zeal, which Your Lordship has always shown in Your High Station for the things of God committed to Your Care, and which have rendred You greatly serviceable to Your Saviour, and a most valuable Blessing to this poor Church and Nation. This, my Lord, is the most hearty Prayer of,
Your Lordships in all humble, and dutiful Observance, JOHN KETTLEWELL.
THE PREFACE.
READER,
THE design of this ensuing Treatise is to increase the piety, and promote the peace of all sincerely honest Consciences, by stating plainly and fully what are the terms indispensably required of all Christian men to their eternal pardon and salvation.
In this I have endeavoured to be as clear, and particular as possibly I could. For I write upon a Subject wherein all men are infinitely concerned; and therefore I have studied to write so as all might understand me. I have carried on my Discourse all along with a particular eye to the benefit of the plain and unlearned Reader, and suited things, as far as their nature would bear, and my skill would reach, to ordinary and vulgar apprehensions. And that they might have nothing to hinder or offend them in their progress, I have been industriously careful through the Body of the whole Book to insert nothing of the learned languages; but wheresoever any thing of that seemed fit to be added for the sake of others, I have preserved the Text unmixt, and cast it into the Margine. In the whole Work my study has been to speak things useful and necessary to be known, that the weight and worth of the matter might purchase a favourable censure for all the defects of Art, which shall be found in the composure.
By what I have here offered upon this Subject, I doubt not but it will appear, that although our Religion is most strictly pure, and nobly vertuous; yet is it by no means melancholy, or apt in its own nature to engender tormenting fears and endless scruples. For the Terms of pardon and salvation are no intricate or uncertain, but a fixt and easie thing: They are neither over-hard for our active powers, nor dark and inevident to our understandings: so that by the assistance of God's Grace we may perform them, and be very well assured of it when we do. God exacts an honest, but not an unerring obedience; he bears with our weaknesses, though not with our wilful failings: and this is ground enough whereupon to secure peace, and yet in no wise to supplant piety, since although our Religion is so exactly holy as utterly to dash all wicked mens presuming hopes; yet is it so indulgent still as to tempt no man, who is honestly obedient, to despair.
In pursuit of this Argument what piety is indispensably required, and what failings shall be indulged, that men may know when to hope and when to fear, and neither foster a peace without piety, nor phansie such a rigour in piety as leaves no room for peace, I have proceeded as particularly and perspicuously as possibly I could; being unwilling in a matter of this importance to leave my Reader either in doubt by an account which is too general and ambiguous, or in darkness by such as is obscure. And to give a prospect of the whole business, I have laid things down in this order in five Books.
In the first Book I have shewn what the condition of happiness is in general; viz. our obedience to the Laws of the Gospel, it being that whereby at the last Day we must all be judged to live eternally. And because some are tempted to think obedience needless when they read of pardon and hapiness promised to other things, as Faith, Repentance, &c. I have shewn particularly of those Speeches that they are metonymical, and that life and mercy are not promised to them as they are separate from obedience, but only as they effect and imply it.
But obedience being a general word, and mens great backwardness to it rendring them very slow to run it out into all those Particulars which are contained in it: to bring this Discourse yet nearer, and set it home upon their Consciences, I proceed in the second Book to show what those Laws are in particular which we are bound to obey, what is the nature of those several vertues and vices which are enjoined or forbidden by them; and from what expectations, and under what forfeitures we are bound to obey them. This indeed I found to be a toilsome work, and the most tedious part of this whole enquiry: but I thought it extreamly needful to a thorow piety, and a well-grounded peace, and that made me that I would not pass it over. For in the business of Duty and Obedience, men will ordinarily go no further than they needs must, but stand their ground, and dispute it out so long as they have any post in reserve to which they can still retreat. First, They do not believe that this or that particular vertue, which is urged upon them, is a Law of God; or, if they are forced to believe that, they think it is not so necessary that Heaven and eternal life should depend upon it; or if at last they are made to see that too, yet still they are in ignorance or errour about the nature of it, and so have no sense of guilt, or remorse of mind when they transgress and act against it. And therefore to make every particular Law have a full force upon them, both its nature and necessity must be evidently laid before them. They must be shewed what that is which it requires, and under what penalties it requires it. And then their Consciences are awakened, and their fears are raised, and so the Law is set in its full force to oblige them to its performance. Thus necessary is such a particular Discourse upon the several Laws of God and Instances of Duty to a pious performance of them; and it is no less necessary to a peaceable assurance in them that do. For unless a man knows the several instances of Duty, and understands what is meant by them; he cannot discern when he keeps, or when he breaks them, and so can have no comfort, or promise himself any reward upon his performance of them.
In the third Book I proceed to shew what sort of obedience is indispensably required of us to all the particular Laws which are described in the Second. And the necessary qualifications of it I reduce to two; viz. sincerity, and integrity. In discoursing upon which I endeavour to set out all the Parts, and state the just bounds of this obedience; and to examine those pretences, and confute those false grounds whereby men, who are unwilling to perform it, seek to evade or undermine it.
And having in the three first Books proceeded thus far in asserting the necessity, and setting out the true compass and just extent of piety; I go on to consult more directly the interests of peace in those two that follow.
In the fourth Book I shew what defects are consistent with that indispensable pitch of piety before described, and what destroy it. And this being a Point whereupon the peace of Consciences so nearly depends, I have been particular in the explication of it, and large in the proof. Those sins which are inconsistent with it, and destroy a state of Grace, are such as are voluntary and wilful: whereof some only destroy the state of acceptance for the present; but others either greatly wound, or utterly extinguish that habitual Vertue which should restore us to it for the time to come. But others there are which are allowed by it, and do not overthrow it; viz. all such defects as are involuntary, whether they be sins of innocent unwilled ignorance, or inconsideration. In discoursing whereupon, as I have been studious to explain them so particularly that no honest heart might fall into fears and doubts about them; so have I been careful withal to adde such marks and limitations to them, that no wilfully ignorant or inconsiderate Sinners may take encouragement thence to presume.
In the fifth Book I shew what is the remedy for all sin, and the Gospel-instrument of reconciliation; that so when at any time men are possessed with just fears by being fallen into real danger, they may again be restored to peace in their own minds by being first restored to Gods pardon. And having proceeded thus far in shewing what measures and degrees of piety God will exact of us, what failings he will connive at in us, and upon what terms, when once we have offended him, he will be again reconciled to us: I have gone in the last place to remove several causeless grounds of scruple, which make good men fear where no fear is, and condemn themselves when God will graciously acquit them.
These are the matters treated on in the ensuing Discourse, which was at first drawn up to serve the spiritual necessities of a truly pious soul, and which I have now sent abroad into the world, being made to believe it will not be altogether unserviceable to the Publick. If thereby I may promote the great end of my Lord and Saviour, in contributing to the growth of piety and the peace of consciences; I shall think my self most happy in having been a Furtherer, though in a low degree, of so noble and excellent a Design. But whatever the success in that be, I am sure I shall have the reward of a religious Design, and an honest endeavour, from him who estimates our pains, not by their events, which are not in our own power, but by their natural tendency, and our intentions, which are. In which confidence I send it out into the world, depending upon his Grace to set it home upon the Conscience, and make it effectual to guide the practice, and secure the comfort both of thee and me. For which end I hope I shall have the hearty prayers of all good men, especially of those, if any such there be, who shall receive benefit by this Treatise.