... But we are lingering on the threshold. As we have little to do but to quote let us proceed. Our next extract shall be from the Christian's Sacrifice in the course of which he says
Christ doth not bid them woe because they were Pharisees as we are not but because they were hypocrites as we are. God delights himself in giving and therefore he loveth a cheerful giver but he cannot give cheerfully which gives not his heart. Therefore, as Judas thought the oil spent which was poured upon Christ and wished the price of it in his purse so they grouch and grieve when they should do good and think, shall I give it, shall I spare it, what will it bring? So the good work dieth in the birth like the bird which droopeth in the hand while the head considers whether he shall let her go or hold her still. As easy to wring Hercules club out of his fist as to wring a penitent tear from their eyes, a faithful prayer from their lips or a good thought from their heart which cannot afford the heart itself. All is too much which they do and they think God more beholding to them for blurting out a Pater Noster or staying a sermon or fasting a Friday than they do for all his benefits and when they have done what is their reward? Woe be unto you like the Scribes and Pharisees because you give not your hearts but your mouths, therefore we do but vex ourselves and lose our labour thinking to make God believe that we pray when indeed our lips do but pray whereby it comes to pass, as we serve him so he serveth us. Our peace is not in deed but in word. Our joy is not in the heart but in the countenance, a false comfort like our false worship for he which giveth God his lips instead of his heart teacheth God to give him stones instead of bread, that is, a shadow of comfort for comfort itselfe.
We call this, and we are sure our readers will, good old English with the ring of the true metal in it, manifesting great power mingled with tenderness and the result of thoughtful preparation with devout fidelity. Here is another passage from the same discourse
Thus ye have heard what God requires for all that he hath given you and how all your services are lost until you bring your heart. What shall I wish you now before my departure? I wish you would give all your hearts to God while I speak that ye might have a kingdom for them. Send for your hearts where they are wandering, one from the bank, another from the tavern, another from the shop, another from the theatre. Call them home and give them all to God and see how he will welcome thein as the father embraceth his son. If your hearts were with God, durst the devil fetch them? Durst those sins come at them? Even as Dinah was defloured when she strayed from home so is the heart when it strayeth from God. Therefore, call thy members together and let them fast like a quest of twelve men until they consent upon the law before any more terms pass to give God his right and let him take your heart which he wooeth, which he would marry, which he would endow with all his goods and make it the heir of the crown. When you pray, let your heart pray; when you hear let your heart hear; when you give, let your heart give; whatsoever you do, set the heart to do it and if it be not so perfect as it should or ought to be, yet it shall be accepted for the friend that gives it.
In another sermon, on The True Trial of the Spirits after speaking of the ministry which is now so despised that from the merchant to the porter there is no calling so derided so that one saith Moses is Quis, that is the magistrate is somebody but Aaron is Quasi quis, that is the minister is nobody. He adds, in words that we fear will be little heeded though greatly needed even in some of our cleverly progressive congregations.
There is a kind of preachers risen up of late which shroud and cover every rustical and unsavoury and childish and absurd sermon under the name of the simple kind of preaching like the popish priests which make ignorance the mother of devotion. But indeed to preach simply is not to preach rudely (hear, hear) nor unlearnedly nor confusedly but to preach plainly and perspicuously that the simplest man may understand what is taught as if he did hear his name. Therefore, if you will know what makes many preachers preach so barely and loosely and simply it is your own simplicity which makes them think so as they go on and say something, all is one and no fault will be found because you are not able to judge in or out and so it is come to pass that in a whole sermon the hearer cannot pick out one note more than he could gather him self.
We give the above for the benefit of those who have one string and only one to their bow and that string is the simple gospel. Had they lived two hundred years ago they would have put Master Henry Smith out of the synagogue and that quickly while the British Standard of that day would have tabooed him as a negative theologian. Happily Smith is dead and gone to heaven and there we hope all these vexatious but mistaken souls will also find their way in due time.
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