288 SEVENTH SERMON such glosses as diminish and take away from the force of it, as the Pharisees did in their carnal interpreta- tions, (confuted by our Saviour, Matt. v. 21. 27. 3S. 43.) or by such super-inducements of human traditions as argue any defect, as they also did use, Matt. xv. 2. 9. Human arts and learning are of excellent use, as instruments in the managing and searching, and as means and witnesses in the expli- cation of holy writ, when piously and prudently directed unto those uses. But to stamp any thing of but a human original with a divine character, and obtrude it upon the consciences of men (as the pa- pists do their unwritten traditions) to bind unto obe- dience, to take any dead child of ours, as the harlot did, 1 Kings iii. 20. and lay it in the bosom of the scripture, and father it upon God ; to build any struc- ture of ours in the road to heaven, and stop up the way, is one of the highest and most daring presump- tions that the pride of man can aspire unto : to erect a throne in the consciences of his fellow - creatures, and to counterfeit the great seal of Heaven for the countenancing of his own forgeries, is a sin most severely provided against by God, with special prohi- bitions and threatenings, Deut. xii. 32. xviii. 20. Jer. xxvi. 2. Prov. xxx. 6. This therefore must be the great care of the ministers of the gospel, to show their fidelity in delivering only the counsel of God unto his people, Acts xx. 27. to be as the two golden pipes which received oil from the olive- branches, and then emptied it into the gold, Zech. iv. 12. First, to receive from the Lord, and then to deliver to the people, Ezek. ii. 7. Isa. xxi. 10. Ezek. iii. 4. 1 Cor. xi. 23. 1 Pet. iv. 11. 2. The people are hereby taught ; (1.) To examine the doctrines of men by the rule and standard of the word, and to
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