And some ungodly Preachers, who never felt the work of Faith or Love to God in their own souls, for want of holy experience, savour not, and understand not holy Preaching; and therefore spend almost all their time, in declaiming against some particular vices, and speaking what they have learned of some virtues of sobriety, justice or mercy. And when they have done, cover over their ungodly unbelieving course, by reproaching the weaknesses of the former sort, who cry down Preaching mere morality. But let such know, that those Ministers and Christians, who justly lament their lifeless kind of Preaching, do mean by morality, that which you commonly call Ethics in the Schools, which leaveth out not only Faith in Christ, but the Love of God, and the Sanctification of the Spirit, and the heavenly Glory. And they do not cry down true morality, but these dead branches of it, which are all your morality: It is not morality it self inclusively that they blame, but mere morality, that is, so much only as Aristotle's Ethics teach, as exclusive to the Christian Faith and Love. And do you think with any wise men (or with your own consciences long to find it a cloak to your Infidel or unholy hearts and doctrine, to mistake them that blame you, or to take advantage of that ignorance of others? The Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the Love of God the Father, and the Communion of the Holy Ghost, do shut up your Liturgy by way of Benediction; but it is almost all shut out of your Sermons, unless a few heartless customary passages: And when there is nothing less in your preaching, than that which is the substance of your Baptismal Covenant and Christianity, and your customary Benediction; you do but tell the people what kind of Christianity you have, and what Benediction: that is, that you are neither truly Christians, nor Blessed.
And some ungodly Preachers, who never felt the work of Faith or Love to God in their own souls, for want of holy experience, savour not, and understand not holy Preaching; and therefore spend almost all their time, in declaiming against some particular vices, and speaking what they have learned of some vertues of sobriety, justice or mercy. And when they have done, cover over their ungodly unbelieving course, by reproaching the weaknesses of the former sort, who cry down Preaching meer morality. But let such know, that those Ministers and Christians, who justly lament their lifeless kind of Preaching, do mean by morality, that which you commonly call Ethicks in the Schools, which leaveth out not only Faith in Christ, but the Love of God, and the Sanctification of the Spirit, and the heavenly Glory. And they do not cry down true morality, but these dead branches of it, which are all your morality: It is not morality it self inclusively that they blame, but meer morality, that is, so much only as Aristotles Ethicks teach, as exclusive to the Christian Faith and Love. And do you think with any wise men (or with your own consciences long to find it a cloak to your Infidel or unholy hearts and doctrine, to mistake them that blame you, or to take advantage of that ignorance of others? The Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the Love of God the Father, and the Communion of the Holy Ghost, do shut up your Liturgy by way of Benediction; but it is almost all shut out of your Sermons, unless a few heartless customary passages: And when there is nothing less in your preaching, than that which is the substance of your Baptismal Covenant and Christianity, and your customary Benediction; you do but tell the people what kind of Christianity you have, and what Benediction: that is, that you are neither truly Christians, nor Blessed.
