leading aside unstable souls: against these we must stop our ears, or lend our attention, according to the foregoing measures and significations. But here also I am to insert two or three cautions.

1. We cannot expect that by these or any other signs we ⚫shall be enabled to discover concerning all men, whether they teach an error or no: neither can a man by these reprove a Lutheran or a Zuinglian, a Dominican or a Franciscan, a Russian or a Greek, a Muscovite or a Georgian; because those that are certain signs of false teachers, do signify such men who destroy an article of faith or a commandment. God was careful to secure us from death by removing the lepers from the camp, and giving certain notices of distinction, and putting a term between the living and the dead: but he was not pleased to secure every man from innocent and harmless errors, from the mistakes of men and the failings of mortality; the signs which can distinguish a living man from a dead, will not also distinguish a black man from a brown, or a pale from a white; it is enough that we decline those guides that lead us to hell, but not to think that we are enticed to death by the weaknesses of every disagreeing brother.

2. In all discerning of sects, we must be careful to distinguish the faults of men from the evils of their doctrine; for some there are that say very well and do very ill; sicì yàg

Δὴ νορθηκοφόροι πολλοὶ, Βάκχοιδί γε πῦροι,

Multos thyrsigeros, paucos est cernere Bacchos;

Many men of holy calling and holy religion, that are of unholy lives: "Homines ignavi opera, philosophi sententia." But these must be separated from the institution: and the evil of the men is only to be noted, as that such persons be not taken to our single conduct and personal ministry. I will be of the man's religion if it be good, though he be not ; but I will not make him my confessor, Μισώ σοφιστὴν, ὅστις οὐδ ̓ air cogós. If he be not wise for himself, I will not sit down at his feet, lest we mingle filthiness instead of being cleansed and instructed.

3. Let us make one separation more, and then we may

consider and act according to the premises. If we espy a design or an evil mark upon one doctrine, let us divide it. from the other that are not so spotted. For indeed the public communions of men are at this day so ordered, that they are as fond of their errors as of their truths, and sometimes most zealous for what they have least reason to be so. And if we can, by any arts of prudence, separate from an evil proposition, and communicate in all the good, then we may love colleges of religious persons, though we do not worship images; and we may obey our prelates, though we do no injury to princes; and we may be zealous against a crime, though we be not imperious over men's persons; and we may be diligent in the conduct of souls, though we be not rapacious of estates: and we may be moderate exactors of obedience to human laws, though we do not dispense with the breach of the Divine; and the clergy may represent their calling necessary, though their persons be full of modesty and humility; and we may preserve our lights, and not lose our charity. For this is the meaning of the apostle, "Try all things, and retain that which is good:" from every sect and community of Christians take any thing that is good, that advances holy religion and the Divine honour. For one hath a better government, a second a better confession, a third hath excellent spiritual arts for the conduct of souls, a fourth hath fewer errors; and by what instrument soever a holy life is advantaged, use that, though thou grindest thy spears and arrows at the forges of the Philistines; knowing thou hast no master but Christ, no religion but the Christian, no rule but the Scriptures, and the laws, and right reason other things that are helps, are to be used accordingly.

These are the general rules of Christian prudence, which I have chosen to insist upon: there are many others more particular indeed, but yet worth not only the enumerating, but observing also, and that they be reduced to practice. For the prudence of a Christian does oblige and direct respectively all the children of the institution, that we be careful to decline a danger, watchful against a temptation, always choosing that that is safe and fitted to all circumstances; that we be wise in choosing our company, reserved and wary in our friendships, and communicative in our cha

rity; that we be silent, and retentive of what we hear and what we think, not credulous, not inconstant; that we be deliberate in our election and vigorous in our prosecutions; that we suffer not good nature to discompose our duty, but that we separate images from substances, and the pleasing of a present company from our religion to God and our eternal interest for sometimes that which is counselled to us by Christian prudence, is accounted folly by human prudence, and so it is ever accounted when our duty leads us into a persecution. Hither also appertain, that we never do a thing, that we know we must repent of; that we do not admire too many things, nor any thing too much; that we be even in prosperity and patient in adversity, but transported with neither into the regions of despair or levity, pusillanimity or tyranny, dejection or garishness; always to look upon the scar we have impressed upon our flesh, and no more to handle dangers and knives; to abstain from ambitious and vexatious suits; not to contend with a mighty man; ever to listen to him, who, according to the proverb, "hath four ears, reason, religion, wisdom, and experience;" rather to lose a benefit, than to suffer a detriment and an evil; to stop the beginnings of evil; to pardon and not to observe all the faults of friends or enemies; of evils to choose the least, and of goods to choose the greatest, if it be also safest; not to be insolent in success, but to proceed according to the probability of human causes and contingencies; ever to be thankful for benefits, and profitable to others, and useful in all that we can; to watch the seasons and circumstances of actions; to do that willingly which cannot be avoided, lest the necessity serve another's appetite, and it be lost to all our purposes. Insignis enim est prudentiæ ut quod non facere non possis, id ita facere ut libenter fecisse videaris;" not to pursue difficult, uncertain, and obscure things with violence and passion. These if we observe, we shall do advantage to ourselves and to the religion; and avoid those evils which fools and unwary people suffer for nothing, dying or bleeding without cause and without pity. I end this with the saying of Socrates : Χωριζόμενα δὲ φρονήσεως, καὶ ἀλλαττόμενα ἀντὶ ἀλλήλων, μὴ σκιαγραφία τις ᾖ ἡ τοιαύτη ἀρετὴ, καὶ τῷ ὄντι ἀνδραποδώδης τε, καὶ οὐδὲν ὑγιές, οὐδ ̓ ἀληθὲς, ἔχῃ —

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"Virtue is but a shadow and a servile employment, unless it be adorned and instructed with prudence;"s which gives motion and conduct, spirits and vigorousness, to religion, making it not only human and reasonable, but Divine and celestial.

SERMON XXIII.

OF CHRISTIAN SIMPLICITY.

And harmless as doves.-Matt. x. latter part of verse 16.

:

OUR blessed Saviour having prefaced concerning prudence, adds to the integrity of the precept, and for the conduct of our religion, that we be simple as well as prudent, innocent as well as wary. Harmless and safe together do well for without this blessed union, prudence turns into craft, and simplicity degenerates into folly. Prudens simplicitas' is Martial's character of a good man; a wary and cautious innocence, a harmless prudence and provision; Vera simplicitate bonus.' A true simplicity is that which leaves to a man arms defensive, his castles and strong forts; but takes away his swords and spears, his anger and his malice, his peevishness and spite. But such is the misery and such is the iniquity of mankind, that craft hath invaded all the contracts and intercourses of men, and made simplicity so weak a thing, that it is grown into contempt, sometimes with, and sometimes without, reason: "Et homines simplices, minimè malos," the Romans called "parum cautos, sæpe stolidos;" unwary fools and defenceless people were called simple. And when the innocence of the old simple Romans in Junius Brutus's time, in Fabricius and Camillus's began to degenerate, and to need the Aquilian law to force men to deal honestly; quickly the mischief increased, till the Aquilian law grew as much out of power as honesty was out of countenance; and there, as every where else, men thought they

& Plat. Phædo. Fischer. p. 288.

got a purchase, when they met with an honest man: and ἠλίθιον Aristotle calls χρηστόν, and τὸν ὀργίλον καὶ τὸν μανικὸν, άæλoũv'—“ A fool is a profitable person, and he that is simple is little better than mad:" and so it is when simplicity wants prudence. He that, because he means honestly himself, thinks every man else does so, and therefore is unwary in all or any of his intercourses, is a simple man in an evil sense and therefore St. Gregory Nazianzen remarks Constantius with a note of folly, for suffering his easy nature to be abused by Georgius, Οἰκειοῦται τὴν βασιλέως ἁπλότητα· ὅντως γὰρ ἐγὼ καλῶ σὴν κουφότητα, αἰδούμενος τὴν εὐλάβειαν —“The prince's simplicity, so he calls it for reverence;" but indeed it was folly, for it was zeal without knowledge. But it was a better temper which he observed in his own father, ή ἁπλότης καὶ τὸ Toulous doλov, such "a simplicity which only wanted craft or deceit," but wanted no prudence or caution: and that is truly Christian simplicity, or the sincerity of an honest, and ingenuous, and a fearless person; and it is a rare band, not only of societies and contracts, but also of friendships and advantages of mankind.

We do not live in an age in which there is so much need to bid men be wary, as to take care that they be innocent. Indeed in religion we are usually too loose and ungirt, exposing ourselves to temptation, and others to offence, and our name to dishonour, and the cause itself to reproach, and we are open and ready to every evil but persecution : from that we are close enough, and that alone we call prudence; but in the matter of interest we are wary as serpents, subtle as foxes, vigilant as the birds of the night, rapacious as kites, tenacious as grappling hooks and the weightiest anchors, and, above all, false and hypocritical as a thin crust of ice spread upon the face of a deep, smooth, and dissembling pit; if you set your foot, your foot slips, or the ice breaks, and you sink into death, and are wound in a sheet of water, descending into mischief or your grave, suffering a great fall, or a sudden death, by your confidence and unsuspecting foot. There is a universal crust of hypocrisy, that covers the face of the greatest part of mankind. Their religion consists in forms.

a Orat. 21.