Besides the duty of private admonition,1 you must do your utmost endeavours to help men to profit by the public Ordinances. ⟨p. 476⟩And to that end you must do these things. 1. Do your endeavours for the procuring of Faithful Ministers where they are wanting. This is Gods ordinary means of converting and saving.2 How shall they hear without a Preacher? Not only for your own sakes therefore but for the poor miserable ones about you, do all you can to bring this to pass.3 If the Gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost. 4Where vision faileth, the people perish. Improve therefore all your Interest and Diligence to this end. Ride, and go, and seek, and make friends, till you do prevail: If means be wanting, to maintain a Minister, extend your purses to the utmost, rather then the means of mens Salvation should be wanting. Who knoweth how many Souls may bless you, who have been converted and saved by the Ministry which you have procured? It is a higher and nobler work of charity, then if you gave all that you have to relieve their Bodies: (Though both must be regarded, yet the Soul in the first place.) What abundance of good might great men do in this, if they were faithful improvers of their interests and estates, as men that believe God hath the chief interest, and will shortly call them to an account for their Stewardships? What unhappy Reformers hath the Church still met withal, that in stead of taking away the corruptions in the Church, do diminish that maintenance which should further the work? If our Ignorant Forefathers gave it for the service of the Church, and their more knowing posterity do take it away, without the least pretence of right to it, I doubt not but the pious intent of Progenitors will more extenuate the fault of their Ignorance, then the Knowledge of their Posterity will excuse their Sacrilege. Alas, that the sad example of King Henry the eighth's Reformation, and the almost *miraculous consumption of the estates of Impropriators, and the many hundred Congregations that live in woeful darkness for want of maintenance for a Ministry, should yet be no more effectual a warning to this Age. If they take away most, and give back a little, we are beholden to their bounty. If a corrupt Officer lose his Interest, the Church doth not lose hers. Here is great talk of reducing the Church to the Primitive pattern: If so;
BEsides the duty of private admonition,1 you must do your utmost endevors to help men to profit by the publique Ordinances. ⟨p. 476⟩And to that end you must do these things. 1. Do your endevors for the procuring of Faithful Ministers where they are wanting. This is Gods ordinary means of converting and saving.2 How shall they hear without a Preacher? Not onely for your own sakes therfore but for the poor miserable ones about you, do all you can to bring this to pass.3 If the Gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost. 4Where vision faileth, the people perish. Improve therefore all your Interest and Diligence to this end. Ride, and go, and seek, and make friends, till you do prevail: If means be wanting, to maintain a Minister, extend your purses to the utmost, rather then the means of mens Salvation should be wanting. Who knoweth how many Souls may bless you, who have been converted and saved by the Ministry which you have procured? It is a higher and nobler work of charity, then if you gave all that you have to relieve their Bodies: (Though both must be regarded, yet the Soul in the first place.) What abundance of good might great men do in this, if they were faithful improvers of their interests and estates, as men that beleeve God hath the chief interest, and will shortly call them to an account for their Stewardships? What unhappy Reformers hath the Church still met withall, that in stead of taking away the corruptions in the Church, do diminish that maintenance which should further the work? If our Ignorant Forefathers gave it for the service of the Church, and their more knowing posterity do take it away, without the least pretence of right to it, I doubt not but the pious intent of Progenitors will more extenuate the fault of their Ignorance, then the Knowledg of their Posterity will excuse their Sacriledg. Alass, that the sad example of King Henry the eighth's Reformation, and the almost *miraculous consumption of the estates of Impropriators, and the many hundred Congregations that live in woful darkness for want of maintenance for a Ministry, should yet be no more effectual a warning to this Age. If they take away most, and give back a little, we are beholden to their bounty. If a corrupt Officer lose his Interest, the Church doth not lose hers. Here is great talk of reducing the Church to the Primitive pattern: If so;
- 1§. 14.
- 2Rom. 10.14.
- 32 Cor. 4.3. Prov. 29.18.
- 4By sleight or by force they so muzzle the poor labouring Ox, that they make an As• of him. Tho. Scot in his Projector, pag. 31. Sacril gio poena est; neque ei soli qu••e sacro abstulerit, sed etiam ci qui sacro commendatum. Cicero. li. 1. de Legib. Cum diis pugnant sacrilegi. Qu. Curtius, lib. 7.By sleight or by force they so muzzle the poor laboring Ox, that they make an As• of him. Tho. Scot in his Projector, pag. 31. Sacril gio poena est; neque ei soli qu••e sacro abstulerit, sed etiam ci qui sacro commendatum. Cicero. li. 1. de Legib. Cum diis pugnant sacrilegi. Qu. Curtius, lib. 7.
- *Hath not England already been as the Eagles nest, that was set on fire with a coal that sticked to the flesh which was stolen from the Altar? De Ecclesia qui aliquid suratur Judae proditori comparatur. Aug. in Johan. The Arguments used of late to excuse this heinous sin, are much of the nature of those which Dionysius senior was wont to use in the like case; ut vid. in Valerii Maximi lib. 1. ca. 2. Et Justin. l. 21.Hath not England already been as the Eagles nest, that was set on fire with a coal that sticked to the flesh which was stoln from the Altar? De Ecclesia qui aliquid suratur Judae proditori comparatur. Aug. in Johan. The Arguments used of late to excuse this hainous sin, are much of the nature of those which Dionisius senior was wont to use in the like case; ut vid. in Valerii Maximi lib. 1. ca. 2. Et Justin. l. 21.
