they can more easily assault us This he repeats again vers 13. Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God that is because you have so many so great and dangerous Enemies to conflict withal take unto you to put it on that is that Divine Armour which God himself furnishes you withal and let no part of it be wanting but be intirely at all times covered with it that so you may be able to withstand or to resist with constancy and patience in the evil day or the time when you must indure many calamities for Christs sake And having done all to stand that is having compleated your resistance by an unyielding resolution to consent to nothing against your duty you may remain as conquerours over all those Enemies that assaulted you Stand therefore vers 14. he repeats it a third time the more to imprint their Duty in their mind and to excite and encourage them unto it He would not have them doubt of getting the better but be confident they should be able to withstand all manner of opposition provided they put on intirely that compleat Armour which he was about to recommend to them from God himself Without that their confidence even in Christ and his mighty Power would not keep them in safety but they were to trust in Him imploying those weapons which He had given them for their defence and security Let me therefore briefly explain them that you may see what you have to do if you would be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might In which it is impossible that any body should be able to direct you so well as the Apostle himself and therefore I shall seek for no other means of attaining this Divine strength but those which he hath set down in the remaining part of the Epistle for this day 1. And first you must take care to have your loyns girt about with truth vers 14. that is with a true understanding of all things that concern our duty safety and happiness Which we can receive from no place so certainly and so amply as from the Revelation our Lord hath made of the mind of God to us in his Gospel which is called the word of truth teaching us both what is true and false and what is good and evil so fully that we want no necessary Information Direction or incouragement in our Christian warfare Only we must make it our business throughly to understand the mind of God and to let it sit close to our hearts for that is to have it girt about us This will make us ready against all assaults and they will find us better prepared to receive them we shall be the more at liberty and have nothing interpose to intangle our mind and hinder us from doing our duty For that was the end of a Souldiers girding up his cloaths about his loyns that he might be the more nimble and expedite in action when he was not incumbred by his garments hanging loosely about his heels Such will the clear knowledge of things especially of the Truth as it is in Jesus render our minds Which will find themselves fit for any service and able to perform it with ease and freedom when they are delivered by this illumination from all vain opinions about those things which we call Good and Evil in this world from all false principles from causeless doubts and scruples from confusion of thoughts and uncertainty of mind which weaken and discourage the hearts of men in any incounter with their spiritual enemies Whose great advantage lyes in our ignorance and folly mistakes and false perswasions which this Divine Light shining in us will chase away and let us see through all the thin pretences whereby we are tempted to commit any Sin or to neglect our duty and make the vanity of them so transparent that we shall never be cheated by them any more For Truth is great and will prevail not indeed unless it be seated and rooted in our minds but if it have taken fast hold there it hath the Lord on its side whose mighty power resides there where his sacred Truth doth which being the sense of his own mind is something of himself residing in us There would not for instance be so many deserters and revolters from their Religion so many cowardly and timerous spirits who will do nothing for it so many cold and indifferent persons who care not what becomes of it if we understood the truth of it better and its principles did not hang loose in our minds but we had a lively sense of its excellency purity simplicity and Divine original Which would preserve us also from doing any thing unbecoming our Religion while we make profession of it and pretend to admire it and love it and to endeavour to preserve it For who could act contrary to its principles whose heart were affected deeply with this single truth that he who knows his Masters will and doth it not shall be beaten with many stripes It will go exceeding hard with that man and he will lye under the severest lashes of his own Conscience as well as under the heavy displeasure of his Lord and Master who taught him the way of God in truth if he would have taken care and set his heart to walk in it Which leads me to the next II. Unto this clear knowledg of the truth as it is in Christ we must add the Brest-plate of Righteousness Which is nothing else but integrity of heart and loyal Affection to our blessed Lord and Master Christ a sincere and unfeigned love to the business of Christianity which we understand to be the will of God For a Brest-plate you know is the defence of the region of the heart and Righteousness I take here to be as much as uprightness and sincerity in what we pretend and therefore both put together signifie the unfeigned bent of our will the cordial consent of our heart and affection to all that we know to be the mind of Christ aiming at nothing in the world but to keep a good Conscience and thereby to preserve the love of God and at last to obtain favour with Him in the day of the Lord. Which besides that it is most highly esteemed by our blessed Saviour above all knowledge and wisdom in the world and may certainly depend upon His power for the maintenance of that which is so dear unto Him hath many singular advantages in it to make us successful in our Christian warfare For a constant sense of our fidelity to our Lord naturally gives us a stronger confidence that He will be faithful unto us This makes us also as bold and fearless as Lyons when we have nothing within to dismay us but all the reason in the world to be secure and confident that we shall still attain our end which is to approve our selves to our Lord and Master whatsoever befals us And on the other side nothing more daunts all opposers
WARD MAYOR Cur. prima tent die Jovis quarto die Novemb. Annoque Regis CAROLI Secundi Angl. c. xxxij THis COURT doth desire Master Dean of Peterburgh to Print his SERMON preached at the Guild-hall Chappel on Sunday morning last WAGSTAFFE A SERMON Preached before the Right Honourable THE LORD MAYOR AND THE ALDERMEN OF THE City of LONDON At Guild-Hall Chappel Octob. 31. 1680. Being the XXI Sunday after TRINITY By SYMON PATRICK D. D. DEAN of PETERBVRGH and Chaplain in Ordinary to His MAJESTY LONDON Printed by I. M. for R. Royston Bookseller to His most Sacred Majesty 1680. To the RIGHT HONOURABLE Sir PATIENCE WARD Lord Mayor Of the CITY of LONDON Right Honourable IT is so hard on some occasions to be a thoroughly good Christian and much more to be such a Magistrate that some have given over the endeavour of it out of a perswasion that it is impossible Which as it proceeds from great ignorance of the Christian Religion so would be a great disparagement to it if our blessed Saviour and his Apostles had not taken special care not only to breed in us a quite contrary opinion but also to raise our minds to the highest degree of confidence that we shall be able by the Divine assistance to surmount the greatest difficulties This I have endeavoured in as plain a manner as I could devise to press in this Sermon which by the desire of that Honourable Court where Your Lordship presides I now humbly present to Your and the publick view Which will do the more good I hope not only because Your Lordship judged it very seasonable at Your entrance upon Your Office but because I was directed to this subject not so much by my own Prudence as by a kind of Divine Providence which I have oft observed on the like occasions For having in the common course of my Sermons this year at my own Parish Preached upon some part of the Epistle for the Day I found there was no need to go out of my way to meet with a fitting Argument upon that Sunday when I was appointed to preach to Your Lordship And therefore I sought no further but applyed my self to prosecute the first words which occurred there and that not with such matter as humane invention might have furnished me withall but such as the Apostle himself suggested in the rest of the Epistle for that day And indeed they are matters of great and weighty importance which though there be many of them I have both comprehended in a little room and also made them not hard to be remembred because I have considered them as relating all to one and the same end and as having not only the same scope but such a dependance also one upon another that they cannot well be separated I am sure where they are all united there the Divine Blessing will be for they are the compleat Armour of God that heavenly defence which will certainly secure us in our station if we will but make use of it with a mind to be and to do what soever Christ would have us The first step toward which is rightly to understand our duty as should have been pressed more largely if I had had room enough from those words be girt about with Truth In which if we be defective we shall miscarry do what we can and the more Zealous we are the more we shall be out of the way But it is not likely we shall be defective in any material part of Christian Knowledge if to our serious study of a right understanding and judgment in all things we add according to the last Advice in this discourse most earnest prayer to God for his direction guidance and assistance and can appeal to Him in such words as those of David which are full of sincere affection that we are heartily resolved to do whatsoever we know to be our duty and that there is nothing we long for so much in this world as to know it intirely CXIX Psal 34 35. Give me understanding and I shall keep thy law yea I shall observe it with my whole heart Make me to go in the path of thy Commandments for therein do I delight Which that Your Lordship may alwayes do and thereby acquit your self in your difficult charge to the general satisfaction of all good men is the hearty prayer of My LORD Your most humble Servant S. PATRICK A SERMON Preached before the RIGHT HONOURABLE THE LORD MAYOR and ALDERMEN Of the CITY of LONDON EPHES. vi 10. Finally my Brethren be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might I Have chosen you see for your present instruction Right Honourable and well beloved the beginning of the Epistle for this Day In the first word of which the Apostle signifies that he was drawing to a conclusion of this Letter to the Christian Church at Ephesus Finally my Brethren I have nothing more to add but this all that remains is to exhort you to be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might He had made his most earnest Prayer to God in the middle of this Epistle iii. 14 c. that he would grant them according to the riches of his glory to be strengthned with might by his spirit in the inner man that so they might be able to perform all their Christian duty which follows in the insuing part of the Epistle till you come to my Text. In which he puts them in mind that it was not sufficient to receive strength from Heaven in their inner man but they must also be strong or strengthen themselves not indeed in themselves but in the Lord in that heavenly strength which our blessed Saviour gives us and in the power of his might wherewith He will always assist our weakness There lyes the security of Christians from whom our Saviour expects a faithful obedience both in their single and in their relative capacity either as Men or Women or as Husbands or Wives as Parents or Children as Masters or Servants all whose duties the Apostle had just before most punctually set down because He requires no impossible thing but such an obedience as he strengthens us with might by his spirit to perform if we will but be careful and diligent to strengthen our selves in him and in the power of his might In which words we cannot but observe these two things First A Christian duty incumbent upon them which was to be strong or to strengthen themselves For it is an Exhortation of the Apostle to the Ephesians whom he charges with this as the very upshort of his foregoing discourse Secondly The ability they had to perform this duty which is in or by the Lord For there he tells them their strength lyes in him and in the power of his might that is in his mighty insuperable power The first of which supposes that they would need a great deal of courage and resolution for that is to be strong in the
Apostles language to be able to do their duty in all relations in all times and in all conditions and circumstances of life The second supposes that their own natural courage or mere Philosophical Resolution called Fortitude would not be sufficient to carry them through all difficulties but upon some occasions their spirit would quail unless they were supported by a diviner sort of Vertue which he calls being strong in the Lord. By the Lord meaning our Blessed Saviour who bred in his Disciples souls a new kind of valour which men were not acquainted withal before or of which we read nothing in the Books of mere Philosophers For as they do say little or nothing of that trust and confidence which all good men ought to repose in God and of a vigorous application of their mind to Him for strength and resolution to be truly vertuous so they could say nothing of such devoute addresses to our Lord for it Who sending his Apostles into the world to propagate his Religion which was sure to meet with mighty opposition furnished them with a suitable courage which they indeavoured to infuse into all others who by entertaining their Doctrine might have need of the like vertue Which is this here in my text of a quite different sort from those now named For it arises not from natural heat or from the mere soundness of our natural principles of reason and the honest resolution which we have firmly built thereupon but from a far higher original the mighty invincible power of the Lord Jesus which was always in their eye and on which they stedfastly relyed As there was very great need having other kind of enemies to grapple withal than mere natural men thought of not meerly with flesh and blood as it follows after my text that is with humane powers and their savage malice and cruelty but with the Devil and his Angels who did all they could to dishearten them and hinder their spreading of this Religion For which end they instigated both the Jewiâ—â— Rulers and Heathen Kings and Princes to persecute them with the greatest rage and the most Diabolical fury And the very same powers of Hell we have reason to think are now at work to confound us and our Religion The Reformation of which was little less wonderful in one regard than the first publication of the Gospel For it flew like lightning and on a sudden all these northern Countries purged themselves from the Romish pollutions with a marvellous consent as swiftly and in as short a space of time as the Gospel at its first Preaching ran among the Gentiles and excited them to free themselves from Pagan Idolatries And immediately the Devil set his Agents at work to disgrace and spoil the Reformation by Sects and Heresies and to deter men from embracing it by the most dreadful punishments just as when the Gospel broke out he laboured to uphold his Authority by the like arts and instruments of deceit and cruelty And now the powers of darkness seem to be making their very last attempt in these Countries to overthrow that which was so happily and by such an extraordinary hand of God established And who knows but their fury may proceed to such violence as without an extraordinary courage we shall not be able to stand fast in the Faith to quit our selves like men and to be strong as the Apostle exhorts in the 1 Cor. xvi 13 We had best therefore fortifie our selves beforehand with a good stock of this Divine Vertue which we shall have great use of upon other occasions though by the merciful Providence of God that trial of it should be prevented for which we humbly pray and hope to inable us to do as well as to suffer all things that would hinder our doing the will of God I am not able to say to which of these my Text most relates whether to the words foregoing or to those that follow But which way soever we take them there will be little or no difference and it will be best to refer them to both Because the power of Christ is as necessary for us to enable us to discharge those Christian duties before mentioned as to withstand those trials which he tells the Ephesians in the Verses following would discourage and dishearten them in their obedience Now to the end that we may be furnished with a sufficient strength for both I shall do these two things First Shew you wherein this duty consists of being strong or strengthening our selves in the Lord and in his mighty power Secondly What our work is or what we have to do that we may be indued with this mighty Vertue I. For the first of these by the LORD being meant as I said our blessed Saviour who laying down his life for us is raised again and made the Lord of all all power in Heaven and in Earth being given to him as he himself told his Apostles and afterward was proved by sensible effects to be strong in him consists in these three things 1. First To be possessed with a lively faith of the Power and Glory which our Lord now hath at Gods right hand 2. Secondly To keep this Faith alive in our hearts that it may make us on all occasions repair to Him representing Him always as actually present to us by the Power of his might to aid and succour us 3. Thirdly In this Faith to be stedfastly resolved to stick to him and not to stir from the duty He enjoins us notwithstanding any thing that may oppose us to discourage nay indanger us in the doing of it Of these we have such frequent occasion to treat at some time or other that it may be sufficient now only to repeat them 1. We must represent the Majesty and Power wherein our Lord reigns at Gods right hand so strongly to our souls that they be possessed with a pregnant and lively sense of it and be disposed thereby to depend upon him continually as an Almighty Saviour 2. And then this Faith when it is settled in our hearts we must actuate and excite that it may make us look upon Him as present with us at all times by his Almighty Power to aid and assist us to support and comfort us as well as able at last Eternally to reward us 3. And lastly This Faith must settle in us a firm resolution and purpose to adhere to his service and resist all temptations to the contrary till by his Power we overcome them and remain faithful to the very death expecting from him the Crown of Life This He expects from us and this we must charge our selves withal and be faithful to it and stedfast in it For if we doubt not of His Power why should we not depend upon it and by the force of it do that for which He communicates it unto us Hath He not made us many pretious Promises that by them we may be partakers of a Divine Nature Hath He not said He will be
your duty by Faith by Hope by reading and meditating in the Holy Scriptures by ardent Prayer to the Almighty especially in sincere fellowship and communion one with another you shall prevail likewise and get the better of every thing that opposes your sincere resolution to do and suffer the whole will of Christ Jesus In Him therefore incourage your selves and receive this word of Exhortation which the Apostle here gives us be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might Fortifie your selves with a firm belief that he is able to send you relief and that He will not fail to succour you from above if you resolutely indeavour to do your duty in the way that He hath prescribed you The words seem to me to be the very same with those of the Lord to Joshua when he was to enter into Canaan and subdue that Country which are repeated thrice within the compass of a few Verses i. Josh 6. Be strong and of a good courage and vers 7. only be thou strong and very couragious and again vers 9. Have not I commanded thee be strong and of a good courage neither be thou dismayed for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest From which words you may take the truest interpretation of my Text and look upon Joshua and the Israelites as a lively picture of the state of us Christians The Lord promised to be with him whithersoever he went and bad him nothing doubt but by his strength he should vanquish all the Canaanites But for all this he and the Israelites were to go up armed against them and both to fight according to such directions as He gave them and to keep themselves from every polluted thing which He forbad them and not depend merely on the arm of the Almighty to give them the victory Even so must we strengthen our selves in our Blessed Lord and the power of his might and think we hear Him say to us Have not I commanded you be strong therefore and of a good courage be not dismayed I the Lord am with you whithersoever you go and whatsoever you do and by me you shall overcome all difficulties But we must not so trust to this Power of his as to be remiss and negligent our selves no He will strengthen and impower us if we put on the whole Armour of God and fight against our own passions and evil desires the worlds temptations and the Devils suggestions continually opposing to them Faith and Hope and the word of God and Prayer and an honest resolution not to yield by any means to their importunities but to be the more excited by their solicitations to use our most earnest indeavours to vanquish them Then as David saith to his Son Solomon perswading him to enter upon a great work 1 Chron. xxviij 20. so may I say to every one of you Be strong and of a good courage and do it fear not neither be dismayed for the Lord God will be with thee He will not fail thee nor forsake thee until thou hast finished all the work for the service of the House of the Lord. It is for God and for His glory that we fight resolutely against the Devil the World and the Flesh and therefore why should we doubt of his aid when by the Victory He will be honoured as well as our selves We not only may but ought to ask it and to expect it with a humble confidence in his Almighty Goodness who hath told us He will deny us nothing which we beg in the Name of the Lord Jesus And what can we beg of Him more acceptable to Him as well as necessary for us than this that we may be able in our place and station and in every condition to do Him all faithful service And when will his Name think you be more prevalent and obtain greater Salvation for us than when according to his own particular order and last desire we make mention of it and commemorate his love in the Communion of his body and blood There we may offer up our Prayers and Meditations in the most acceptable and prevailing manner There also we may excite our Faith and quicken our Hope and inflame our Charity and knit our selves one to another in Brotherly love and ingage to Him our Fidelity and by all these means receive a greater increase of strength and courage to do and to endure whatsoever He would have us And therefore let me admonish you of this for a conclusion of this discourse in which I have delivered or rather the Apostle taught us many important truths but none perhaps of greater moment than this that when the Apostle advises us here to Pray with all Prayer and Supplication this way of praying and supplicating by making a commemoration of Christs Death and Passion in the Holy Eucharist where we represent to God how He offered himself a Sacrifice for us is certainly included This is one sort of Prayer and the chiefest among Christian people nay the most proper to them of all other From whence we may safely conclude that they who neglect this lye more open to temptations than other men They have not put on the whole Armour of God but want a principal part of it and that part which is most properly Christian and therefore must blame themselves that they are no better men but are so frequently overcome and fall into sin even against their resolutions perhaps and notwithstanding their Prayers and their looking up to the Lord Jesus for help There is a great thing still wanting they do not use all the means that He hath appointed for the obtaining of his help There is one manner of address to Him which they either live in a constant neglect of or but seldom apply themselves seriously to its solemn use For if they did in good earnest and with all their hearts do this often in remembrance of Him as He hath required they would find their Christian resolution mightily fortified and their souls indued with much strength to do all the rest of the will of Christ Nay they would at last do their duty though in it self difficult chearfully and triumphantly saying with St. Paul elsewhere viij Rom. 35 c. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ shall tribulations or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword Nay in all these things we are more than conquerours through Him that loved us To whom with the Father and the Holy Ghost be Glory and Majesty Dominion and Power both now and ever Amen FINIS