If you make a law of order, and in the sanction put a clause of favour for tender consciences, do not you invite every subject to disobedience by impunity, and teach him how to make his own excuse? Is not such a law, a law without an obligation? May not every man choose whether he will obey or no? and if he pretends to disobey out of conscience, is not he that disobeys equally innocent with the obedient; altogether as just, as not having done any thing without leave; and yet much more religious and couscientious? Quicunque vult is but an ill preface to a law; and it is a strange obligation that makes no difference between him that obeys and him that refuses to obey.

But what course must be taken with tender consciences? Shall the execution of the law be suspended as to all such persons? That will be all one with the former for if the execution be commanded to be suspended, then the obligation of the law by command is taken away, and then it were better there were no law made. And indeed that is the pretension, that is the secret of the business; they suppose the best way to prevent disobedience is to take away all laws. It is a short way indeed; there shall then be no disobedience; but at the same time there shall be no government: but the remedy is worse than the disease; and to take away all wine and strong drink to prevent drunkenness, would not be half so great a folly.

I cannot therefore tell what to advise in this particular, but that every spiritual guide should consider who are tender consciences, and who are weak brethren, and use all the ways of piety and prudence to instruct and to inform them, that they may increase in knowledge and spiritual understanding. But they that will be always learning, and never come to the knowledge of the truth; they that will be children of a hundred years old, and never come to years of discretion, they are very unfit to guide others, and to be

curates of souls: but they are most unfit to reprove the laws, and speak against the wisdom of a nation, when it is confessed that they are so weak that they understand not the fundamental liberty which Christ hath purchased for them, but are servants to a scruple, and affrighted at a circumstance, and in bondage under an indifferent thing, and so much idolaters of their sect or opinion, as to prefer it before all their own nobler interests, and the charity of their brother, and the peace of a whole church and nation.

To you, my Lords and Gentlemen, I hope I may say as Marcus Curius said to a stubborn young man, Non opus vos habere civem qui parere nesciret; the kingdom hath no need of those that know not how to obey. But as for them who have weak and tender consciences, they are in the state of childhood and minority; but then you know that a child is never happy by having his own humour; if you chuse for him, and make him to use it, he hath but one thing to do; but if you put him to please himself, he is troubled with every thing, and satisfied with nothing. We find that all Christian Churches kept this rule; they kept themselves and others close to the rule of faith, and peaceably suffered one another to differ in ceremonies, but suffered no difference amongst their own; they gave liberty to other churches, and gave laws, and no liberty, to their own subjects: and at this day the churches of Geneva, France, Switzerland, Germany, Low Countries, tie all their people to their own laws, but tie up no man's conscience; if he be not persuaded as they are, let him charitably dissent, and leave that government, and adhere to his own communion: if you be not of their mind, they will be served by them that are; they will not trouble your conscience, and you shall not disturb their government. But when men think they cannot enjoy their conscience unless you give them good livings, and if you prefer them not you afflict their consciences, they do

but too evidently declare, that it is not their consciences but their profits they would have secured. Now to these I have only this to say, that their consciences is to be enjoyed by the measures of God's word, but the rule for their estates is the laws of the kingdom; and I shew you yet a more excellent way; obedience is the best security for both, because this is the best conservatory of charity and truth, and peace. Si vis brevi perfectus esse, esto obediens etiam in minimis, was the saying of a saint; and the world uses to look for miracles from them whom they shall esteem saints: but I had rather see a man truly humble and obedient, than to see him raise a man from the dead, said old Pachomius.

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But to conclude: If weak brethren shall still plead for toleration and compliance, I hope my Lords and Bishops will consider where it can do good, and do no harm; where they are permitted, and where themselves are bound up by the laws; and in all things where it is safe and holy, to labour to bring them ease and to give them remedy: but to think of removing the disease by feeding the humour, I confess it is a strange cure to our present distempers. that took clay and spittle to open the blind eyes, can make any thing be collyrium; but he alone can do it. But whether any human power can bring good from so unlikely an instrument, if any man desires to be better informed, I desire him, besides the calling to mind the late sad effects of schism, to remember that no church in Christendom ever did it. It is neither the way of peace nor government, nor yet a proper remedy for the cure of a weak conscience.

I shall therefore pray to God, that these men who separate in simplicity, may by God's mercy be brought to understand their own liberty, and that they may not for ever be babes and Neophytes, and wax old in trifles, and for ever stay at the entrances and outside of religion; but that they would pass in interiora domûs, and seek after peace and

righteousness, holiness, and justice, and love of God and evangelical perfections; and then they will understand how ill-advised they are, who think religion consists in zeal against ceremonies, and speaking evil of the laws.

My Lords and Gentlemen, what I said in pursuance of publick peace and private duty, and some little incidences to both, I now humbly present to you, more to shew my own obedience, than to remind you of your duty, which hitherto you have so well observed in your amicable and sweet concord of councils and affections, during this present session. I owe many thanks to you, who heard me patiently, willingly, and kindly; I endeavoured to please God, and I find I did not displease you: but he is the best hearer of a sermon who first loves the doctrine, and then practises it; and that you have hitherto done very piously and very prosperously. I pray God continue to direct your councils so that you in all things may please him, and in all things be blessed by him, that all generations may call you blessed instruments of a lasting peace, and restorers of the old paths, the patrons of the church, friends of religion, and subjects fitted for your prince, who is just up to the greatest example, and merciful beyond all examples; a prince who hath been nourished, and preserved, and restored, and blessed by miracles; a prince whose virtues and fortunes are equally the greatest.

SERMON V.

A SERMON

PREACHED AT

THE OPENING OF THE PARLIAMENT.

1 SAM. XV. part of verses 22 and 23.

Behold to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams.

For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry.

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In the world nothing is more easy than to say our prayers, and to obey our superiours; and yet in the world there is nothing to which we are so unwilling as to prayer, and nothing seems so intolerable as obedience: for men esteem all laws to be fetters, and their superiours are their enemies: and when a command is given, we turn into all shapes of excuse to escape from the imposition: for either the authority is incompetent, or the law itself is statutum non bonum, or it is impossible to be kept, or at least very inconvenient, and we are to be relieved in equity; or there is a secret dispensation, and it does not bind in my particular case, or not now; or it is but the law of a man, and was made for a certain end; or it does not bind the conscience, but it was only for political regards; or, if the worst happen, I will obey passively, and then I am innocent. Thus every man snuffs up the wind, like the wild asses in