II. This is a great vindication of our religion, that it can bear the light, and is ready to fubmit itfelf to any impartial trial and examination: we are not afraid to expose our religion to the publick view of the world, and to appeal to the judgment of mankind for the truth and reasonableness of it: Truth loves to come abroad and be seen, being confident of her own native beauty and charms, of her own force and power to gain upon the minds of men : and on the contrary, it doth justly draw a great fufpicion upon any religion, if it decline the light; and nothing can render it more suspected, than for the teachers of it to make it their great care to keep people in the dark about it; or, if they chance to peep into it, and to espy the defects of it, to awe them by the extremity of danger and suffering, from declaring against those errors and corruptions which they have difcovered in it. I do not know two worse signs of the falshood and corruption of any church or religion, than ignorance and an inquifition: these two are shrewder marks of a false church, than all the fifteen marks which Bellarmine hath mustered up are, to prove the church of Rome to be the only true Chriftian church. Methinks their church and ours differ like Egypt and Goshen, in the time of the plague of darkness: only in this they differ from Egypt, that God sent the plague among them, but the church of Rome affects it, and brings it upon themfelves s; a darkness so gross that it it may be felt; and to make it more thick and palpable, they impose upon men the belief of direct nonfense, under the grave venerable pretence of mystery, as in their doctrine of transubstantiation. And the great design of the inquifition, is to awe men from reading the scriptures, and from fearching into, and examining the grounds of their religion, because they think they will not bear the test. This is the condemnation of that church, that when light is come into the world, they love darkness rather than light, because their doctrines and their deeds are evil. III. And lastly, This gives us the plain reason why fome in the world are so careful to fupprefs and conceal the truth, and to lock up the knowledge of it from the people in an unknown tongue, and do so jealoufly guard all the avenues whereby light and knowledge should enter into them; because their doctrines and designs, and deeds are evil, and they are afraid they should be discovered to be so. This is the true reason why they love darkness rather than light: for the church of Rome are wise enough in their generation, to understand that nothing but the darkness of their shops can hinder people from difcerning the falseness of their wares; they have feveral things to put off to the people, which cannot bear the trial of a clear and full light. What else makes them conceal the word of God from con men ? That great light which God hath fet up in the world, to be a lamp to our feet, and a lanthorn to our fteps? It is not to keep out heresy, but light and truth. When they cannot be ignorant that God has fet up this candle on purpose to enlighten the world, why do they put it under a bushel, but that they are guilty to themselves, that several of their doctrines and practices will be discovered and reproved by it? What makes them in the face of the world to conceal from the people the second commandment, in their ordinary catechisms and manuals, but left the people should come to understand that God had expresly forbidden the worship of images? We do not conceal those texts, feeding sheep, and upon this rock will I build my church, for fear the people should difcern the Pope's fupremacy and infallibility in them, but are content to run the hazard of it, and let them find them there if they can. And then why do they mask the publick service of God, and the prayers and devotions of the people in an unknown tongue, but that they are afraid they should understand the gross superstitions and idolatry of many of them? If they, mean honestly, why do they caft fuch a mist about their religion? Why do they wrap and cover it all over in darkness, but that they are heartily afraid, that the more people understand it, the worse they will like it ? M 3 The The truth is, their doctrines are evil, and their deeds are evil, and plainly condemned almost in every page of the Bible; and therefore it is a dangerous book to be fuffered in the hands of the people; and there is hardly any thing which the church of Rome contends against, with more stiffness and zeal, than letting the people have the fervice of God, and the holy scriptures in a known tongue. When the office of the mass was not many years fince, by some Bishops and others in France, translated into the vulgar tongue, for the benefit of the people, how did the then Pope Alexander the VIIth thunder against them for it, calling them that did it fons of perdition, and condemning the thing as if it had been the wickedest thing in the world, and had directly tended to the overthrow of the Christian religion? And then for the use of the holy scriptures in the vulgar tongue, they have put that under so many Jocks and keys, that the greatest caution in the world is ufed in the permission and allowance of it to any particular person: the Prieft hath not power to do it, it is only the Bishops that can grant this liberty; and they do it very rarely, and only to those of whom they are very fecure, and this power since that time again revoked; so that the gospel, which before our Saviour's appearance was a mystery, bid from ages and generations, continues so still to the common people of the church of Rome, and is under a thicker veil, more muffled and hid from the people, in an unknown tongue, than it was to the Jews, under the obfcure prophecies, and dark types and shadows of the Old Testament. So that though Christ be read in their churches every day, as Moses was to the Jews in their synagogues, yet he hath a veil upon his face as Mofes had. Wo unto you Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for ye shut the kingdom of heaven against men, ant neither enter in yourselves, nor suffer those that would enter to go in. The people of the church of Rome are indeed to be pitied, who are kept in ignorance against their wills; but the governing pare of 1 of that church are without excuse, who, to cover their errors and corruptions, hide the scriptures from the people, love darkness rather than light; this therefore is their great condemnation. Witness the black and hellish design of this day t, such as never before entered into the heart of man, to have ruined a whole kingdom at once in its Prince and representatives; and by a cruel sudden blow, to have taken away the lives of the greatest and most confiderable affembly in the world. They must needs love darkness and hate the light, who have such designs to carry on, and such deeds of darkness to justify and make good; they had need to fupprefs, and, if possibly they can, to extinguish, not only that revealed truth of God, but even the great principles of natural religion, the belief of a God, and a judgment to come, that attempt such things. Time was, when in despite of the clearest evidence in the world, they did confidently deny that any fuch design was laid by those of their religion, but that it was a contrivance of some minister of state, who drew in a few rash and hot-headed perfons of desperate fortunes into it, and then betrayed and dif covered them: but when the late popish plot broke out here, then they were contented to own the gunpowder-treason, because they that were executed for it, did confess it, that they might with a better colour bring themselves off from this, which was so constantly denied by those who were condemned and executed for it: But this was but a shift and artifice to blind the clear evidence of this latter conspiracy, which prest so hard upon them: and since that, because they are afraid it is still believed, they have used all imaginable arts, and have taken a great deal of pains to wash this black-a-moor; yet the negro is a negro still, and I doubt not but they are still at work, carrying on the same design, which if God do not mercifully frustrate and disappoint, is like at last to involve this nation in great misery and confusion. + Preached November 5. 1684. But But the Lord reigneth, therefore let the earth rejoice, and the multitude of the isles be glad thereof. He that fitteth in the heavens laughs at them, the Lord hall have them in derision. There are many plots and devices in the heart of man: but the counsel of the Lord that shall stand. And if we would but live up to the light which we enjoy, and adorn our reformed religion by an holy and unblameable conversation; if we would avoid those bloody and rebellious ways, which are so natural and suitable to their religion, and so contrary to ours, and fo fcandalous to all religion; if we would break off our fins by repentance, and put an end to our foolish differences and divisions, by returning to the ancient peace and unity of this once happy and firmly compacted church, we have no reafon yet to despair, but that God would return to us in mercy and loving kindness, and think thoughts of peace towards us, and preferve the best religion in the world to us, and our posterity after us. • Now unto him that hath delivered us so often, and fo wonderfully, and doth deliver us, and we trust will still deliver us; to him be honour and glory, praise and thansgiving, for ever and ever. Amen. 1 : SERMON CCXLVII. True liberty, the refult of Chriftianity. JOHN viii. 36. 4 If the Son therefore shall make you frec, ye shall be 1 free indeed. by confidering the occafion of them, which was this. Upon our Saviour's preaching to the Jews, many believed on him; whereupon he tells |