a zeal and diligence much exceeding that which they bestow upon other opinions of equal weight; and lay a greater stress upon it, than any show of reason will allow them. 4. They usually are zealous for a party and division, against the unity of the Catholic church. 5. Their zeal is most commonly turned against the faithful pastors of the church; for it is hard to keep in with schism, and with faithful pastors too and if the ministers will not own their sin and error, they will disown the ministers. The Anabaptists, and other sects of late, would never have been so much against Christ's ministers, if the ministers had not been against their way. 6. Their course doth in the conclusion, bring down religion, and hinder the thriving of the Gospel and of godliness. Mark, what is the issue of most of those ways, that these men are so hot for! Doth it go better or worse with the church and cause of Christ in general, where they are, than it did before? Is religion in more strength and beauty, and life, and honour? Or doth real holiness more abound? If so, be not too hasty to censure their zeal. But usually all these dividing ways, are the diseases of the church; which cause its languishing, decay, and dissolution. 7. Lastly, this selfish zeal is commonly censorious, and uncharitable, and diminisheth Christian love, and sets those reproaching and despising each other, that should have lived in the union and communion of saints. Where you find these properties of your zeal and desire, for the promoting of your opinions or parties in religion, you have great reason to make it presently your business to find out that insinuating self, which maketh your religion carnal, and to deny and mortify it.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

Carnal Liberty to be Denied: what.

17. ANOTHER selfish interest to be denied, is, carnal liberty. A thing that selfishness hath strangely brought of late into so much credit, that abundance among us think they are doing some special service to God, their country, the church, and their own souls, when they are but deeply engaged for the devil, by a self-seeking spirit, in a carnal course. For

the discovery of this dangerous, common disease, I must first tell you, that there is a threefold liberty which must carefully be differenced. 1. There is a holy, blessed liberty which no man must deny. 2. There is a wicked liberty, which no man should desire. 3. And between these two there is a common, natural, and civil liberty, which is good in its place, as other worldly matters are, but must be denied, when it stands in competition with higher and better things; and, as all other worldly matters, is holy when it is holily esteemed and used; that is, for God; but sinful when it is sinfully esteemed and used, and that is for carnal self.

I. The first of these is not to be denied, but all other li berty to be denied for it. This holy liberty consisteth in these following particulars. 1. To be freed from the power of sin, which is the disability, the deformity, the death of the soul. 2. From the guilt of sin, and the wrath of God, and the curse of the law. 3. To be restored to God by Christ, in union, reconciliation, and sanctification; and our enthralled spirits set free, to know, and love, and serve him, and delight in him. Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty; 2 Cor. iii. 17. God is the soul's freedom, who is its lord, and life, and end, and all. 4. To be delivered from satan as a deceiver, and enemy, and executioner of the wrath of God. 5. To be freed from that law or covenant of works, which requireth that which to us is become impossible. 6. To be freed from that burdensome task of useless ceremonies, imposed on the church in times of infancy and darkness. 7. To be freed from the accusations of a guilty conscience, and those self-tormentings which in the wicked are the foretastes of hell. 8. To be freed from such temporal judgments here as might hinder our salvation, or our service of God. 9. To be free from the condemning sentence at the last day, and the everlasting torments which the wicked must endure. 10. And to be delivered into the blessed sight of God, and the perfect fruition and pleasing of him, in perfect love, and joy, and praise to all eternity. This is the liberty which you must not deny, which I there

fore name, that by the way you may see, that it is not for nothing that the other sorts of liberty are to be denied.

II. The second sort of liberty is, that which is wicked and directly evil, which all men should deny; and this is a

freedom from righteousness, as the apostle calls it, Rom. vi. 20. To be free from a voluntary subjection to God, and free from those sighs and groans for sin, and that godly sorrow which the sanctified undergo; and to be free from all those spiritual motions and changing works upon their hearts, which the Spirit doth work on all the saints; to be free from holy speeches, and holy prayer, and other duties, and from that strict and holy manner of living which God commandeth; to be at liberty to sin against God, and to please the flesh, and follow their own imaginations and wills, let God say what he will to the contrary: to be free to eat and drink what we love and have a mind of, and to be merry, and wanton, and lustful, and worldly, and take our course without being curbed by so precise a law, as God hath given us; to be free from a heavenly conversation, and those preparations for death, and that communion with God which the saints partake of: this is the wicked liberty of the world, which the worst of carnal men desire; and the next beyond this, is a liberty to lie in the fire of hell, and a freedom from salvation, and from the everlasting joy and praises of the saints. If freedom from grace and holiness deserve the name of freedom, then you may next call damnation a freedom.

And it is part also of this sinful, miserable liberty to be free from the government, and officers, and good laws which rule the church and commonwealth. And such wretches there are in the world, that seriously judge it a desirable liberty to be free from these. They think that their country is free, when every man may do what he list, and they have no king or other governors, or none that will look after them, and punish their miscarriages; and they think the church is free, when they have no pastors, or when pastors have least power over them, and they may do what they list. And indeed if they were rid of magistrates and ministers, they were free! As a school is free that hath shut out the master, or have rejected him, and teach and rule one another! And as a ship is free when the master and pilot are thrown overboard; and as an army is free when they have cast off or lost their commanders! Or to speak more fitly, as a hospital is free when they are delivered of their physician; and as the madmen in bedlam are free when they have killed, or escaped from their keepers! As infidels keep their

freedom, by refusing Christ in himself; so carnal dividers and heretics keep their freedom, by refusing his officers, and Christ in those officers; " For he that heareth them, heareth him; and he that despiseth them, despiseth him; and he that despiseth, despiseth not man but God;" Luke x. 16. 1 Thess. iv. 8.

And another part of this ungodly liberty is, to be free from the exercise, at least, of this power of magistrates and ministers, so far as not to be restrained from sin, though they be not free from the state of subjects. To swear, and be drunk, and live as most ale-sellers, on the damning sins of others, and make a trade of selling men their damnation, and to have no magistrate punish them, no officer trouble them, and no neighbour accuse them; this is their liberty. To game, and roar, and revel, and have nobody say to them, why do you so, is part of their liberty. To have leave without restraint to make all others as bad as themselves, and if they are infidels or heretics, to persuade other men to it: if they hold any opinion against the God that made them, against Christ, against the Spirit of God, against the word and laws of God, against his ministers, his church, his ordinances, against any necessary point of faith, or if they have any false conceit that leads straight to hell, that they may have full power, licence, and authority, to bring as many as they can to be of the same mind, that they may not be unprofitable servants to the devil, nor go to hell alone, this is a great part of their impious liberty. And because the name of conscience is become honourable, they call this by the name of liberty of conscience; when indeed it is liberty of practice that they mean, and not liberty of conscience; for their conscience cannot be altered by force, nor touched by the sword. It is they that deprive men of the liberty of their consciences, whilst by false teaching they put out the eye of conscience, and enslave it to sinful, false conceits. And conscience is science; and error is not science but ignorance; and therefore as error is not conscience, but the destruction of conscience; so liberty to error, is no liberty of conscience, but a liberty to destroy conscience: much less is it liberty of conscience to sin against God, and draw others from conscience into error, and poison men's souls,

VOL. XI.

and hinder the Gospel, and promote the work and kingdom of the devil.

And many of our miserable, sottish people take it for a part of their desired liberty to be free from ministers' spiritual oversight and government, and not be catechised or called to an account, or examined about the state of their souls, nor questioned about their lives, but that they may do what they will, and have sacraments, and all ordinances on what terms and in what manner they will, and to have ministers how their judgment to theirs, and lay their consciences at the feet of every carnal, ignorant wretch, and be but their servants to do what they would have them; this is the liberty that satan's servants do desire.

And withal, that they may be free from necessary payments for the safety of the commonwealth, and from the necessary retribution to God, for the church and poor, yea from giving but the ministers their own; all this they take for part of their liberty. But they are all such liberties as Christ never purchased, and the Gospel never bestowed, and never made the owners happy: it is a liberty to starve their own souls, and go quietly to everlasting torment, and not be molested by preachers and puritans, but to sin against God, and damn themselves, and be let alone, and have nobody tell them of it, or ask them, why will you do so? In a word, it is that liberty that Christ died to save his people from, and which the Gospel would take down, and the Spirit, ministry, and ordinances would overthrow, and which no wise and good man hath reason to desire; and it is that liberty which God will save all those from, whom he will save from the flames of hell.

III. The third sort of liberty is that which is in itself indifferent, or to be reckoned among the common, transitory benefits of this life, which with God's blessing is a mercy; and well used may do good, but otherwise is hurtful, or little worth. This liberty is not the natural liberty of the will, which in regard of its own illicit acts is nothing but the power of self-determination; and in regard of internal imperate acts, is nothing but a power or freedom to do what we will. For these are so our own, if not ourselves, that no man can take them from us; at least the first. Nor is it the ethical liberty of the soul from sin by gracious habits; this is ever good, as was said before. Nor is it a political

for