doth furnish us with the beft helps and advantages for the performance of moral duties; it difcovers our duty more clearly to us; it offers us the greatest affiftance to enable us to the performance of it; it prefents us with the moft powerful motives and arguments to engage us thereto; fo that this revelation of the gofpel is fo far from weakening the obligation of natural duties, that it confirms and ftrengthens it, and urges us more forcibly to the practice of them. 3. The pofitive rites and inftitutions of revealed religion are fo far from intrenching upon the laws of nature, that they were always defigned to be fubordinate and fubfervient to them; and whenever they come in competition, it is the declared will of God, that pofitive inftitutions fhould give way to natural duties; and this I have thewn to be plainly the meaning of this faying in the text, I will have mercy, and not facrifice. If circumftances be fuch, that one part of religion must give place, God will have the ritual and inftituted part to give way to that which is natural and moral.

It is very frequent in fcripture, when the duties of natural religion, and rites of divine inftitution come in competition, to flight and difparage these in comparifon of moral duties, and to fpeak of them as things which God hath no pleasure in, and which in comparison of the other he will hardly own that he hath commanded. When ye come to appear before me, who hath required this at your hand? Ifa. i. 12. Thou defireft not faorifice, thou delighteft not in burnt offerings. Pfal. li. 16. Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or ten thousands of rivers of oil? He hath fhewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy?

But God no where makes any comparison to the disadvantage of natural duties; he never derogated from them in any cafe; he never faid he would have fuch a thing, and not mercy; or, that he had rather fuch a rite of religion fhould be performed, than that men should do the greatest good, and fhew the greateft charity to one another. It is no where made a

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257 queftion, Will the Lord be pleafed that we deal justly every man with his neighbour, and fpeak the truth one to another? that we be kind and tender-hearted, and ready to forgive that we be willing to diftri bute and give alms to thofe that are in need? there is no fuch queftion as this put in fcripture ; nay it is pofitive in these matters, that with fuch facrifices God is well pleafed. I inftance in this virtue more efpecially of kindness and compaffion, because it is one of the prime inftances of moral duties; as facrifice is put for all the ritual and inftituted part of religion, and this difpofition of mind our Saviour makes the root of all moral duties; love is the fulfilling of the law; and the Apoftle fpeaks of it as the great end and fcope of the gofpel; the end of the commandment is charity; and this temper and difpofition of mind he advanceth above knowledge, and faith, and hope; the greatest of thefe is charity; and without this, he will not allow a man to be any thing in Christianity; this he makes our higheft perfection and attainment, and that which abides and remains in the future ftate; charity never fails.

This our Saviour most effectually recommends to us, both in his doctrine, and by his example; this he preffeth as a peculiar law of his religion, and the proper mark and character of a difciple. This he requires us to exercife towards those who practise the contrary towards us; to love our enemies, and to do good to them that hate us.. And of this he hath given the greatest example that ever was; when we were enemies to him, he loved us fo as hardly ever any man did his friend, fo as to lay down his life for us; and he inftituted the facrament for a memorial of his love to mankind, and to put us in mind how we ought to love one another.

And now the application of what hath been faid upon this argument, to the occafion of this day, is very obvious, and there are two very natural inferences from it.

First, From what hath been faid upon this argument, it plainly appears what place natural and moral duties ought to have in the Chriftian religion

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and of all natural duties, mercy and goodness. This is fo primary a duty of human nature, fo great and confiderable a part of religion, that all pofitive inftitutions must give way to it; and nothing of that kind can cancel the obligation of it, nor juftify the violation of this great and natural law. Our bleffed Saviour in his religion hath declared nothing to the prejudice of it; but on the contrary hath heightened our obligation to it, as much as is poffible, by telling us, that the Son of man came not to destroy mens lives, but to fave them.

So that they know not what manner of spirit they are of, who will kill men to do God fervice; and to advance his caufe and religion in the world, will break through all obligations of nature, and civil fociety, and disturb the peace and happiness of mankind.

Nor did our Saviour by any thing in his religion defign to release men from the obligation of natural and civil duties. He had (as one would imagine) as much power as the Pope; but yet he depofed none of the princes of this world, nor did abfolve their fubjects from their fidelity and obedience to them, for their oppofition to his religion; he affumed no fuch power to himfelf, (no, not in ordine ad fpiritualia) nor, that ever we read of, did he give it to any other. Whence then comes his pretended vicar to have this authority? And yet the horrid attempt of this day was firft defigned, and afterwards carried on in profecution of the Pope's bull of excommunication, and was not fo much the effect of the defpair and difcontent of that party here in England, as the natural confequence of their doctrines of extirpating hereticks and depofing kings, and abfolving fubjects from their allegiance to them.

No zeal for any pofitive inftitution in religion can juftify the violation of the natural law, the precepts whereof are of primary and indifpenfable obligation. The Pope's fupremacy is not fo clear as the duty of obedience to civil government ; nor is tranfubftantiation fa plainly revealed in fcripture, as it is both in nature and fcripture, that we fhould do no murder. And

259 And yet how many thoufands have been put to death, because they could not understand this hard word, and believe this impoffible thing! And yet if the fupremacy of the Pope were clearly of divine right, and the doctrine of tranfubftantiation as plain as the inftitution of the facrament: yet thefe being but pofitive matters in religion, there would be no reafon to kill men for not understanding and believing these things; ; nay it would be contrary to religion to do it; because the law of mercy and humanity, which is the law of nature, ought not to be violated for the promoting of any pofitive inftitution; and God hath plainly faid, that he will have mercy rather than facrifice yea rather than the facrifice of the mass, if it were what they pretend it is, the offering of the natural body and blood of Chrift; because it would be needlefs: for propitiation of fin being once made by Chrift's offering himself once for all upon the crofs; there needs no more facrifice for fin. Nay, I will go further yet; I had rather never adminifter the facra-ment, nor ever receive it, than take away any man's life about it ; because the facrament is but a pofitive rite and institution of the Christian religion, and God prefers mercy, which is a duty of natural religion, before any rite or inftitution whatfoever. Befides, that all acts of malice and cruelty are directly contrary to the particular nature and defign of this bleffed facrament, which is to commemorate the fufferings of the Son of God for our fakes, and to give us an example of the greatest love that ever was, and thereby to excite us to the imitation of it.

2. What hath been faid gives us a right notion and character of that church and religion, which prefers the pofitive rites and inftitutions of religion, and the obfervance of them, to those duties which are of natural and eternal obligation, mercy and goodness, fidelity and juftice; and which for the fake of pretended article of religion, or rite of worship, (which if it were certain that they were revealed, and inftituted by God, are yet merely pofitive) will break the greateft of God's commandments, and teach men fo. It is too plain to be denied, that the principles and

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precepts of natural religion were never fo effectually undermined, and the morality of the Chriftian reli gion never fo intolerably corrupted and debauched, by any thing that ever yet had the face of religion in the world, as by the allowed doctrines and practices of the church of Rome; and this out of a blind and furious zeal for fome imaginary doctrines and rites of the Christian religion, which at the beft are of mere pofitive inftitution, and of the fame rank among Chriftians, that facrifices were in the Jewish religion. For which we need go no further for an instance, than in the occafion of this day's folemnity; upon which day, (about fourfcore years ago) there was defigned a mighty facrifice indeed, the greatest and richeft burnt offering that ever was pretended to be offered up to Almighty God, by thofe of any religion whatfoever; not the blood of bulls and goats, but of King, and Princes, and Nobles, more in value than thousands of rams, and ten thoufands of rivers of oil than all the beasts of the foreft, and the cattle upon a thousand hills.

Here was a prodigious facrifice indeed, but where was mercy? the thing God chiefly defires, and which above all other things is acceptable to him: No mercy, not even to thofe of their own religion, whom these nice and tender cafuifts, after a folemn debate of the cafe, had refolved to involve in the fame common destruction with the reft, rather no mercy, than that this facrifice which their mad zeal had prompted them to, fhould be omitted.

To conclude, They that can do fuch inhuman things, and think them to be religion, do not understand the nature of it, but had need to be taught the first rudiments of natural religion; that natural duties are not to be violated upon pretence, no, not for the fake of pofitive inftitutions; because natural religion is the foundation of that which is inftituted; and therefore to violate any natural duty for the fake of that which is inftituted, is for religion to undermine and blow up itfelf. Let thofe who do fuch things, and teach men fo, go and learn what that meaneth, Iwill have mercy, and not facrifice.

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