Five disputations of church-government and worship

And 1. I prove it hence, because the obligations of the common Law of Nature cease not upon the cessation of a point of Order: But if the Ministerial works should cease, the Obligations ⟨p. 154⟩of the Law of Nature must cease.— Here I have two points to prove. 1. That the Law of Nature (supposing the work of Redemption already wrought; and the Gospel and Ordinances established) obligeth men that are able and have Opportunity to do the work of Ministers. 2. And that this Law is not ceased when Ordination ceaseth.

Sect 23. The Law of Nature prohibits cruelty, and requireth Charity, and to show mercy to men in greatest Necessities according to our ability: But to suspend the exercise of the Ministerial office, were the greatest cruelty, where there is Ability and opportunity to exercise it: and to exercise it is the greatest work of Mercy in all the World. Nature teacheth us to do good to all m•n while we have time, and to save them with fear, pulling them out of the fire, and to love our neighbours as our selves; and therefore to see a man, yea a town and Country and many Countries, lie in sin and in a state of misery, under the Wrath and Curse of God, so that they will certainly be damned if they die in that condition, and yet to be silent, and not Preach the Gospel to them, nor call them home to the state of life, this is the greatest cruelty in the world, except the tempting and driving them to hell. To let the precious things of the Gospel lie by unrevealed, even Christ and pardon and holiness, and eternal life, and the communion of Saints, and all the Church Ordinances, and withal to suffer the Devil to go away with all these souls, and Christ to lose the honour that his grace might have by their conversion, certainly this in it self considered is incomparably more cruelty to men, then to cut their throats, or knock them on the head, as such: and as great an injury to God as by omission can be done. I need not plead this argument with a man that hath not much unmanned himself, much less with a Christian. For the one is taught of God by nature, to save men out of a lesser fire then Hell, and a lesser pain then everlasting torment, to the utmost of his power: And the other is taught of God to love his brother and his neighbour as himself. If the Love of God dwell not in him that seeth his brother in corporal need, and shutteth up the bowels of his compassions from him; how then doth the love of God dwell in him, that seeth his brother in a state of damnation, Cursed by the Law, an enemy to God, and within a step of everlasting death and desperation, and yet refuseth to