Selected quad for the lemma: duty_n
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A51830
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Two sermons both preached at Northampton, one at the assizes March 1693, the other at a visitation October the 10th, 1694 by John Mansell ...
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Mansell, John, 1644 or 5-1730.
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1695
(1695)
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Wing M513; ESTC R32049
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23,984
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62
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shall save those that hear them too And that is a mighty addition to their promised Reward For such Souls as theirs which have so long glowed with Divine Love and breathed the most fervent Charity must needs be sensible of the fullest Satisfaction to behold others happy as well as themselves Nay to behold others happy by their means And O the generous the God-like pleasure To see how many they have brought to Heaven along with them whilst they enter those Everlasting Doors in no ordinary State but attended by throngs of followers who shall all own their Holy Leaders and all do honour to the Blessed Instruments of their great Salvation Whilst those happy Guides double their own happiness by the sight of their followers and shine the brighter for the addition of their Lights whilst they take their particular Share in every one of their followers Joys and if you will pardon the boldness of one Expression I would say whilst they seem to tythe their very happiness bp partaking of all those Joyes of which they have been the Instrumental Causes Thus doubly happy both in themselves and in their Flocks they will seem to enjoy two Heavens in one But 4. And Lastly The Text presents us with the Beautiful Order and Harmonius Connextion between the Work the Honour and the Reward Do this and thereby save your selves Take heed to your own Salvation and so ye may the more successfully take heed to the Salvation of others For it is too sad a Truth that he who neglects his own Salvation is never like to take much care of other Mens We must therefore begin with our selves and like other young Artists make our first Experiments at home before we can hope to work successfully for others And this same Order is observed in the former part of the Verse wherein the taking heed to our selves obtains the first place before taking heed to our Doctrione and that with all the reason in the World since he who has first taken all due Pains with his own Soul is like to have both the larger Experience and the tenderer Concern for the Souls of that Flock which God hath intrusted him to feed Whereas they who take little heed to themselves will in all probability take less to those that heat them Such though they may have ever so many other Accomplishments yet they will want the one thing necessary They may perhaps study hard and Preach plausibly for their Credit but there will be little of Conscience in the Case they may hold the most saving Truths Notionally for the honour of being Orthodox but Duty will be very little concerned in all they do such may possibly be great Scholars but by no means good Pastors They may Preach Themselves but not Jesus Christ who is best Preached by a Holy Life and indeed is never well Preached without it So that to these the words of the great Schoolman may not unaptly be applyed though in a Sence differing from his own intention Aquin. Sic attendunt Doctrinae ut sui curam negligunt they so aim at the honour of being Learned Men that they neglect the greater of being Good Men and so they do but improve their Excellent Parts they are little concerned for the more Excellent Improvement in Christian Vertues But now the faithful Feeder of Christ's Sheep whose Study is all in Order to practice Venatorius Qui recte docet nec minus recte vivit who lives what he Preaches he by beginning with his Life will proceed the more happily with his Doctrine Calvin Vt Doctrinae non repugnat vitae and takes care that his Life do not contradict his Doctrine the grossest Solaecism of which a Preacher can be guilty And this Method is observed again in Acts 20.28 Take heed to your selves and to the whole Flock To your selves in the first place and so ye will succeed the more effectually with your Flock For alass it is matter of dayly and deplorable Observation that the People are much apter to learn from one ill Action of their Preachers than from a hundred good Discourses and we see them more ready to repeat the Failings of his Life than the Excellencies of his Doctrine and if the last be ever taken notice of it is usually but to slur the more sly Reproach upon the former He is a Rare Man in a Pulpit but he is thus or thus out of it This calls all the Sacred Truths we utter into question for all Mankind have that Natural Logick to conclude that there is no great reason to believe him who doth not much seem to believe himself And indeed who can comfortably hope to be saved by him that is himself like to be a Castaway Not as if the Efficacy of the Word and Sacraments depended absolutely upon the worthiness of the Instrument Since it is certain that God both can and oftentimes doth save many by the Ministry of such as are not likely to be saved themselves And without doubt Judas at the Apostles first Mission wrought as many Miracles and made as many Converts as any of the others that were sent But though God doth not alwayes bind himself to the most proable Means yet all this is no thanks to the Unworthy Tool Cui enim cui similes Dixerim Sacerdotes malos nisi aquae baptismatis quae peccata baptisatorum diluens illos ad Regnum Coeleste mittit at ipsa poslea in Cloacas descendit Greg. Hom. 17. in Evang. though abundantly to his Glory who can make such Excellent Use of so improper Instruments Whereas by all the Rules of Moral probability those are most likely to save them that hear them who have first taken all necessary heed to save themselves And the whole both Honour and Reward of the Ministerial Function depends absolutely upon this Method And now instead of taking upon me to conclude with a word of Exhortation give me leave to turn it into a Congratulation And O happy we my Brethren Whom God hath so graciouslyy admitted into the Meanest Share of so Divine a Work a Work attended by so great an Honour and like to be crowned with so Glorious a Reward Happy we whom God hath set apart for his own immediate Service and to imploy us about the Salvation of others that we are Commissioned to speak to Men on the behalf of God and to God on the behalf of Men that to our care is committed the Conduct of those precious Souls for whom Christ died and that the dearest Concern of Heaven is intrusted to our Management But more happy we if convinced of our own Happiness and warmed with a Holy Sence of our Sacred Imployments we take such heed to our Lives and Doctrines as may keep up the Dignity of our Divine Commissions and so Live and so Preach that no Man may have Reason to despise us Tit. 2.15 but that we by faithfully heeding the Duty laid down in the Text
of my respect to your Place and Personal Merit And if this poor Discourse prove but as successful in contributing to the advancement of Religion in the World as it hath been in the kind acceptance of my Reverend Brethren of the Clergy I have all that could be wished and more than could reasonably have been hoped for by Reverend Sir Your most Obedient Humble Servant JOHN MANSELL Old Stratford Octob. 22. 1694. A SERMON Preached at the VISITATION IN NORTHAMPTON 1 TIMOTHY iv 16. For in doing this thou shalt both save thy self and those that hear thee THE saving of Mens Souls out of that Universal Chaos of fallen Nature wherein all was without Form and void and full of Darkness Was a work that had as much of the God in it as the first Creation of Humane Bodies out of the Dust of the Earth And though this great work was first set on foot in Heaven and God himself first put his own Almighty hand unto it yet by an Act of the most condescending Goodness Man was in time admitted into an Infer our Partnership of the Mighty Undertaking Servat Deus nos sed non sine nobis Ar. And that not only whilst every Man as assisted by Enabling Grace is to work out his own Salvation and so that which was first the Free Gift of God becomes the Work of Man too But also as there was a certain Order of Men instituted to carry on this Gracious Design who were set aside by Divine Designation to take care of their own and other Mens Souls and who by doing so should both save themselves and those that hear them In this Epistle St. Paul Preaches particularly ad Cleran So that the whole may be looked upon as one short but very full Visitation Sermon In the words immediately before the Text He presents the Clergy with a brief Summary of their Duty under those two heads their Doctrine and their Manners Take heed to thy self that is to thy own Life and Conversation and take heed to thy Doctrine that is both how and what thou teachest that the sound and useful Truths of the one may receive an experimental proof from the bright Example of the other That their most Powerful Sermons being only Instructive Comments upon their own Holy Lives They themselves living as they speak as well as speaking as they would have others live by that two-fold Rhetorick of their Living Doctrine and their Speaking Lives they may advance the Glorious Work of Mans Salvation But this Subject of Instructing the Clergy in their Duty hath not been more often handled upon such occasions as this then I believe it needless to be urged in such an Audience as this wherein it becomes me to suppose the Reverend Hearers much better able to inform the Speaker than the Speaker them Setting aside therefore those words doing this which immediately respect their Duty from the remaining part of the Text I shall observe briefly 1. God's admirable Design in instituting the Priestly Order it was to imploy it about the Salvation of Souls 2. The extraordinary Honour of those whom God imploys in so great a Work 3. The Incomparable Reward proposed to those who acquit themselves well in that great Imployment 4. The Harmonious Order and Connexion between the Work the Honour and the Reward And all these parts seem to be summed up in in that single word save God designed to imploy them about the saving of Souls It is their Honour to be imployed about the saving of others and it will be their Reward to be saved themselves and the Method to be observed in both is first to take heed to the saving themselves that so they may the more effectually save those that hear them 1. Then we have God's design in instituting the Priestly Order the Ministerial Function it was to imploy it about the Salvation of Souls And he was pleased betimes to discover this Gracious Design of his to the World For if we look back to the Original Institution of the Priesthood we shall find that Adam the first of Men was the first of Priests also And though it may pass in the Number of Problems whether there was to have been any certain Order of Priests in Paradise since there would not have been any occasion for some particular Persons being imployed between God and other Men But as it will be in Heaven hereafter so probably it would have been in that lower Heaven upon Earth all would have been Kings and all would have been Priests Neither the Regal nor the Sacerdotal Power as it is likely would have found any place in that Equality which was necessary to make even Eden it self equally a Paradise to all Men. But waving this Speculation it is certain that Man no sooner fell than the Priesthood rose God in his very first Discourse with guilty Adam not only as it is plain revealed the Eternal Priesthood of his Holy Son Jesus but as it is more than probable instituted the Priestly Office amongst Men too And though we can trace no foot-steps of any one Mans Offering Sacrifice for another in the Antidiluvian World the Two Eldest Sons of Adam each offering his own Sacrifice as if in Conformity to the Paradisical State every Man was still to be his own Priest and the first Notices we meet with of a contrary custom was at Noah's coming out of the Ark where indeed he Sacrificed as a Publick Person yet from thenceforth we find the Priestly as well as Kingly Office continued down in the Fathers of Families Omnes Primogeniti ex stirpe Noah St. Hierome All the first Born of the Line of Noah were Priests as that Father observes Until God was afterwards pleased to Establish the Priesthood in the Tribe of Levy Which Family he accepted of by way of Commutation instead of the first Born of all the other Tribes Numb 3.12 And at last in compliance to the gross Conceptions of the Jewish Nation he after the manner of Earthly Princes fixed the Seat of his visible Empire in his Temple at Jerusalem and there set forth his Revealed Religion with all the Pomp becoming so great a Majesty Making that House his own Royal Residence and the Priests of the Aaronic Order his Principal Ministers of State Adorning them with their particular Insignia of Honour and the Visible Regalia of their Sovereign Master Gold Purple and Embroideries Jewels Pretious Ointments and Arabian Gums Solemn Instruments of Musick and whole Hecatombs of Beasts for Sacrifice gloriously contributing to the Magnificence of their Publick Services And thus the Priesthood stood even equal in State to the Crown and long supported it self in all that Grandeur until God saw fit to remove those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 those Elements at once both Rich and Beggarly Gal. 4.9 together with their Attendant Statutes that were not good Ezek. 20.25 that is had no Essential Moral Goodness in them And setting up a new Scheme of Religion