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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A58146	Blessedness, or, God and the world weighted in the balances of the sanctuary and the world found too light preached in a sermon at Paule, before the Right Honourable the Lord Major, Aldermen, and commonalty of the city of London, on a thanksgiving-day, for the prosperity of our navy in a conflict with the Spaniard, October 17, 1656 / by Francis Raworth ...	Raworth, Francis, d. 1665.	1656 (1656)	Wing R372; ESTC R18645	28,408	72

come to the Application of the Proposition and treat with your Consciences in these following Deductions or Conclusions First Conclusion from hence is a Vindication of that true Opinion that Gods people have of the false happiness of the World Wicked men are infiliciter felices unhappily happy you feliciter infelices miserable in your Imagination but happy really and indeed You rightly and righteously determine that a man may have a gay coat and a festered Conscience a great Estate in his hands but little or no true comfort in his heart that though Riches have not so much as the wings of a Sparrow in flying to us yet they when gotten make to themselves wings and that of an Eagle to flie away from us That worldly delights are but as a Snow-ball which being with much pains heaped up together melteth presently if the Sun do but shine out That restless man in wrestling and contending for what he desires is but like a childe running up and down in a pleasant Meadow after a painted Butterfly which when he hath taken all the recompence it affords is but onely to besmear his fingers You speak truly and soundly when you say That a dram of Grace is worth a pound of Gold that all the contents and Creatures in the earth are but meer Ciphers unless God be purposed to set on the first Figure That while a Diadem sitteth light on a Princes head it may for all that lie heavy enough on his conscience That there is no indivisible connexion between a Kingdom on Earth and a Crown in Heaven That a man may possibly swim in a Sea of Pleasures in this World and yet sink into an Ocean of wrath and Brimstone in the next That a man may be so honorable so rich so glorious while he lives that every man may be ready to say There goes an happy man yet that man when he dies for want of a configuration to Christ and title to God may be miserable to all Eternity Could men carry their estates beyond the Line of Mortality and with their money ●ee the Angels at last day to plead for them to prevent the Sentence of the Judge of Heaven and Earth or after that Sentence is pronounced bribe the flames of Hell-fire to be pitiful towards and not to prey on or torment them this were something for worldly happiness but when we see that there is no advantage though a man gain the whole world if yet he lose his own soul that all these sublunary felicities are consistent with Gods eternal indignation that these things neither singly nor joyntly can so much as asswage grief put off cares much less adjourn death or prevent Hell where there is no remission of sin no intermission of punishment where the pangs of the damned are not onely for the present intolerable but for the future interminable Who would not pray with a gracious heart Lord let me be rather miserable for a time as the world speaks that I may be happy for ever then that I should be happy for a season onely and after that miserable for ever Lord though I desire to be of the number of those Christians that have their hope and expectation in this world yet deliver me from those worldlings whose entire portion is in this world is this world Psal 17.14 Now we are ready to call the proud happy to lift up them high in our thoughts that are lifted up in the world but when Jesus Christ shall come to give to every man according to his works and in flaming fire to render vengeance to them that know him not on the one hand and on the other hand when he shall come to make up his Jewels that now are despised and to repair their reproaches before God in the sight and audience of men and Angels that now are triumphed over and trampled upon by men Who would deem himself happy at that day if he be not in their case whose God is the Lord The second Deduction Here we see as in a Looking-glass the false Opinion that worldly men have of true happiness or of the state of the godly How ready is a wicked man to compassionate the children of God Alas saith he To what purpose are these men so precise and exact It may be there may be a Judgement day it may be not and how miserable are they to provide for that which no man living ever saw while they neglect that which is obvious to their very senses Honors are certain riches are certain and while they expect their food they starve while they pretend after a Kingdom they go naked while they call God Father they want even the bread of children Whereas no man is miserable in another mans accompt but in his own You may possibly see a Joseph in Prison while Pharaoh keeps a Court a Job on a dung-hill while a Julian is on a Throne You may see them poor and reproached but did they ever tell you they were miserable and when they were without Estates and reputation that they wanted them to make them happy never say a childe of God is miserable till he say so of himself A wicked man may have Blessings and yet not be blessed and a childe of God may have curses still from men and yet not be cursed It s observed That men thus varyed their Opinion about happiness because they supposed the fruition of that whereof they were destitute would make them happy He that was poor said If I had but riches I should be happy and so riches came to be called happiness He that was in reproach said Oh! If I were but respected I should be happy and so respect and repute came to be called happiness He that was diseased said If I had my health I should be happy and so health came to be accompted an happiness The natural man is mistaken in his verdict the Saint saith I accompt all things loss and dung for Christ the natural man I accompt Christ loss and dung for any thing else in this life The Saint seeks for happiness in crosses Job 5.10 but the natural man or Philosopher will assoon seek for light in darkness heat in cold fire in water sweetness in gall and wormwood as for comfort in calamities Hence Christ reads a Lecture contrary to nature Not blessed are the merry but the mourners not the lofty but the weak not the Mammonist but the poor in spirit Matth. 5.3 Vos editis beatos esse pauperes Ergo ut tanto facilius f●atis beati omnia bona vobis adimimus Juliani scomma in Christianos factum Those eight Beatitudes are the eight Paradoxes of the world As Christ said He had bread to eat that his Disciples knew not of so the Disciples of Christ have an happiness to enjoy that the natural man knows not of The World should consider That a man can never properly be miserable till he lose that which made him happy You that call outward things

BLESSEDNESS OR GOD and the WORLD Weighed in the BALANCES OF THE SANCTUARY AND THE World found too light Preached in a Sermon at Pauls before the Right Honorable the Lord Major Aldermen and Commonalty of the City of London on a Thanksgiving-Day for the prosperity of our Navy in a conflict with the Spaniard October 17. 1656. By Francis Raworth Teacher to the Church at Shore-ditch London Printed by T. Maxcy for John Rothwell at the Fountain in Goldsmiths-Row in Cheap-side 1656. To the Right Honorable ROBERT TITCHBURNE LORD MAjOR And the Right Worshipful the ALDERMEN of the City of LONDON Honorable and Beloved IT cannot be denyed but that our greatest happiness in this world is That we have liberty to make provision for the world to come yet generally so unhappy are men as that they little ponder upon their future Crown and little consider of their present race but either they vainly mis-spend their time to allude to the Roman Emperor in gathering Cockle shells in heaping together the Mammon of unrighteousness or in a more degenerous way in a base drudgery for the lusts of the Flesh The Profession of Christianity laboreth under two Extreams some pretend to an Anticipation or prevention of Heaven and would fain perswade us that there is no state of Glory after this life These men notwithstanding their present Triumphs are under great Temptations and in a sober sense are rather besides their wits then above Gods Institutions Others charge the faithful Professors of Religion with usurpation against God with Antedating the state of Perfection as if they did confound the distinction between the Church Triumphant and Militant No say they Purity and Holiness are our aim on earth but our possession onely in Heaven These Sensualists may learn that the great change of man is made in this world and onely confirmed in the next the Tribunal Bar Regenerates no man but publiquely and finally acquitteth the Regenerate Heaven must first enter into us before we can enter into Heaven though the perfection of Purity be onely in Heaven yet the principle of Purity is to be had on Earth He that dies a sinner shall never rise a Saint He that by the Love of the Brethren shoots not the gulf here shall never pass from death to life hereafter He that hath not God to be his Lord now shall never have the Lord to be his God Wo be to that man that was born and is bred and shall be buried in sin that goes out of this world in that condition that he came into the world with happy had he been that he had never been born happy if when dead he never should have had a resurrection because he shall arise not so much to be judged as to be condemned Nothing is so much discoursed of as blessedness yet nothing so little understood some place it one thing some in another yet both amiss some men would be happy but without communion with God which is impossible These should know That God hath not onely Mines of Brass but Mines of Silver and Gold and that though the enjoyment of this world be not an Argument of Gods anger yet it s no argument of his peculiar love and therefore we must take heed of valuing the good things of Gods foot-stool above the good things of his Throne My work in this Sermon hath been to give the world its due both in its white and black sides I have weighed the blessedness of this world and of the next in the Balances of the Sanctuary and notwithstanding this world be pondrous in a providential sense yet comparatively by the verdict of God himself it is found too light to which when you had given a patient hearing you were pleased by your order to importune its publication I have satisfied your request and my prayers to God are That because it is a subject of the highest nature that it may have the deeper Impression on your hearts That as God hath lifted you up into the seat of Honor so you may lift up that God with Thankfulness That as you have publick Opportunities to do good to restrain Prophanation and discountenance Error so you may have hearts suitable to your Opportunities That as God hath thrown into your laps the outward Happinesse of this World so you may prize the Benefactor and set a greater Estimate on the light of his Countenance the least beam whereof is worth ten thousand Worlds Your Honors and the Churches Servant in the Gospel Francis Raworth PSAL. 144. ult Happy is that people that is in such a case yea Happy is the people whose God is the Lord. WHatsoever the Prophet David whose Character is A man after Gods own heart doth undertake he performs it cordially and heartily If he be in a gratulatory vein and fall to the praises of God he cannot nullifie and debase man too low with him He is but vanity and his days are but as a shadow not worthy to be taken notice of ver 3 4. And he cannot magnifie and advance the Lord too high He is his Goodness his Fortress his Tower his Deliverer and his Shield If he be in a praying posture he is so pathetical and powerful as if God q. d. could not deny him audience Bow the Heavens O Lord and come down send thine hand from above and deliver me out of great waters I and with such a majesty and life as if he had the key of Gods Armory to open it at pleasure and to throw out swords and flaming fire of wrath against the wicked Cast out lightning and scatter them shoot out sharp arrows and destroy them ver 5 6 7. Finally If he begin to exalt God he sets him out with such beauty and excellency as no Creature or created comfort can be preferred before no not possibly be weighed in the balance with him to which purpose it is observable that as the maledictions threatned against David were presented by the Prophet under three forms of War Famine and Pestilence so here in the latter part of this Psalm the Blessings of God are expressed under three contraries against the Pestilence is opposed this Petition That our sons may be as Plants grown up in their youth ver 12. Against Famine That our Garners may be full affording all manner of store ver 13. Against War That our oxen may be strong to labor that there be no breaking in nor going out that there be no complaining in our streets ver 14. And my Text is an Epiphonema with which he concludes Happy is that people that is in such a case c. There is a double blessedness sinistra beatitudo a Blessedness of the left hand a Blessedness of this World And secondly There is dextra beatitudo a right hand Blessedness a Blessedness of Grace of Salvation This Blessedness is the aim of men on earth but the perfect possession onely of men in Heaven Accordingly there is a double interpretation of this Text suitable

wicked many times deport themselves so comfortably so chearfully as if they were the children of God and on the contrary the children of God carry themselves so melancholily so despairingly as if they were wicked men and had no interest in God at all they rejoyce when they should mourn and you mourn when you should rejoyce Christians Is the Lord contented with you and is not God sufficient Will not you be contented with him Is the Lord satisfied with a My son give me thy heart and are not thou satisfied with this the Lord hath given me his spirit tolle meum tolle Deum It s remarkable that all the Beatitudes are fixed on unlikely conditions to intimate That the Judgement of this world and the Judgement of Gods children differ about Blessedness Shall that man rejoyce that hath but his Angels of gold to smile on him and wilt thou not rejoyce that hast the Angels of God I the God of Angels to tend on thee Is not he sad that hath onely a claim to the dirty and muddy streams of Peace and outward prosperity and wilt thou be sad that hast a title to the Well-head of Comfort to the Spring and Fountain of Happiness Shall he be merry that can but say This mirous House that Mannor is mine and wilt thou not be glad when thou saist That this God the Landlord of Heaven and Earth is mine Religion is no melancholy thing though the Religious may be often melancholy and what ever worldlings phansie though oft the body be sad yet the heart of a childe of God keeps Holy-day and if he be troubled it is not because he is Religious because the Lord is his God but because he is so carnal and doubts of that claim And surely one great reason why we are not so composedly chearful enough it is because we are not Christians enough Is God thy Father Christ thy Redeemer the Spirit thy Comforter will not this support thee Hast thou sometimes such triumph of heart that thou wouldst not exchange those few sweet minutes for all the World and dost thou live in the longing and thirsting for Death and a Resurrection and after them the sight of Glory and an immutable and immortal state of Heaven and Happiness where thou shalt sigh and sorrow no more And will not these hopes relieve thee Hath the Gospel disappointed thy thoughts Didst thou unadvisedly enter into Covenant with God Is not there that felicity and favor in Gods presence that thou didst promise thy self to finde in him Wilt thou change portions and exchange properties with the world Shall this man have thy pardon of sin and thou his riches that man thy hopes of Glory and thou his Lordship and Honor Speak out what wilt thou take for God what price for thy soul Will Pleasure and Past-time buy it Will Riches or Revenues buy it Are not all these things partial and improportionable to the God of Glory and Centre of all Happiness If the World can't come up to thy price and thou canst not mend thy market for shame be satisfied and be at rest If you would credit Christianity and commend thy God to the lost world get comfort in thy conscience away with unjust scruples against thy entituled peace part not with thy priviledge or thy God till thou canst meet with better If you value not your own peace have an estimation of Gods glory What will carnal men say Would you have us part with all for God when you are ready to part with God for nothing Why do you exclaim against our worldliness and our vain Pleasures when you your selves do seem to count Mortification and Heavenliness a burthen either keep your breath to your selves and reprove us no more or live up to your interest and to honor your God How do you convince us it is worth the while to sell all for the Pearl of price that when we have done so we should think our selves miserable after the bargain It seems rather by the anxiety and perplexity of your mindes that you envy our comforts in the world to which for shame you dare not return and would esteem it a piece of your happiness if we would be miserable with you for company But let the world consider that a Saints want of comfort proceeds not from the insufficiency of his purchase but from his want of faith to claim it And let Believers consider that as their unbelief is uncomfortable to themselves so it reproacheth God Hence many have denyed God and so have turned Atheists because they could not maintain Gods All-sufficiency and live like Epicures Habitual distrust of God is a greater Blasphemy in some sense then a total denyal of God for what greater shame then not to believe him whom we profess cannot deceive us and not to be content with him whom we acknowledge to be All-sufficient Verily the poorest soul in all this Congregation that can but say God is mine is happier then if he could say all the Mines of Gold and Silver in the West-Indies are mine Fifth Inference By way of perswasion to the worldly happy that they would look after the Lord Why will you seek any longer vitam beatam a blessed life in regionem mortis in the Region of death Pearls in the dust and Heaven compararatively in Hell Wilt thou perish for that which shall perish Dost thou love Gold so well as to run into Hell fire to fetch it Thou proclaimest thy happiness because of an healthy Body and wilt thou be less happy in having a sound Conscience How happy wert thou if besides these Rings of gold thou hadst but the inestimable Jewel if in thy Terrestrial and Earthly Paradice thou hadst but in the midst thereof the Tree of Life Jesus Christ You ought not to throw away Christ when you imbrace the world neither need you prodigally throw away the world when you embrace Christ Christ and the werld may dwell both in one house though not in one heart Be as covetous as thou wilt be as ambitious as thou wilt wouldst thou have earth wouldst thou have this World so thou maist and Heaven and the next too As Achsah when her Father gave her a Portion desired a Blessing so do thou at Gods hand and say Lord Thou hast given me the nether springs but I yet want the upper springs thou hast given me the Streams but what are all they without the Fountain As thou art not content with my things without my self so Lord I have thy Gold and Silver thy Comforts and Creatures but these are not thy self all these I may have and yet be poor naked be hopeless in this life and a damn'd wretch to all Eternity As the Father brings in King Ahab sitting in his chair of State with his Nobles attending about him and environed with all outward glory in the three years Famine crying out What avails all this if yet the Heavens continue to be Brass and the earth Iron So

to the double Blessedness in it One interpretation proposeth it by way of competition Blessed is the people that is in such a case that is while others are annoyed with the Pestilence have prosperity while others are consumed by the Famine have plenty while others are destroyed and harrassed with Wars Tumults and Alarums have peace and quietness in their Borders sic aiunt ferunt This is the Popular rumor this is the onely Language and Dialect of the vulgar If they can but have these things they think themselves happy whatever become of Religion or of their immortal souls but David stands up as offended with this vote and verdict How now Is this true Blessedness to enjoy the shell without the kernel the Ring without the Jewel to live like a Beast and die like a Dog and having no portion in God afterwards to be damned like a Divel No no saith the Prophet this is a false Maxime a man may be thus imaginarily happy he may have riches honor plenty pleasures and the world at will and yet be really in a miserable case to all eternity But if you speak of happiness I will put you a better case Happy yea thrice happy is that people whose God is the Lord a notable Epanorthosis and correction of the Opinion of worldly happiness But the second interpretation more probably supposeth it to be spoken by way of subordination and comparison as if David had said You call poverty and disgrace miseries and you call riches and honor happiness Why let this be granted that there is some kinde of felicity in this world and that it is better to be rich then poor to be in honor then in disgrace I will not affirm that there is an inconsistency inchoherency between a possession in this life and a propriety in the next let it be so that a people in such a case is happy and so it is a Synchoresis or grant it is true what you say How happy then is that people that hath not onely peace without but peace within that hath a portion in this world but yet not this world for their portion that hath a title not onely to the streams and Creatures but also to the Fountian Creator yea doubtless happy indeed Well fare that man that Nation who in this sense have God to be their Lord and farewell the contrary Prop. The proposition from hence is That the greatest happiness in this world is not to have this world to be our happiness but in our Worldly happiness to have God to be our Lord. The truth whereof will the better appear by setting before your eyes as in a Table and by weighing as in scales the happiness of this world and the happiness of Gods people 1. We must make an Anatomy of the World view it and see what it bids towards happiness and without offence I presume I must personate the moral or meer worldly man and shew you the happiness of being in his case 1. Let health strength and an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or good temper of body appear and indeed what is a velvet Pantofle to a dis-joynted foot a Velvet Jacket to a broken arm the most delicate vyands to a dis-eased Stomach The world my Beloved is like an Hospital of diseased Patients Here stands one man crying out of the Tooth-ach there sits another tormented with the stone there lies a third distracted with the Collick a fourth wracked with the Gout And who is there in this great Assembly that can say For my part I know not who you speak to I feel no distemper I bless God I ail nothing But how many are ready to complain with him that cryed out 't is true God hath set his Rain-bow in the Heavens his mark in the clouds that the world shall not again be drowned with water But what 's that to me that am like to be drowned presently So what is Peace and Tranquillity abroad when I have a burning fear within my body what is it to have plenty in the Land when I have a lingring Consumption and Feaver in my blood It is true there is never a gracious heart but would of the two rather be a Lazarus here then a Dives hereafter rather if God put it to his choice beg his bread on earth then his water in hell yet as to this world it is better to fare delicately then to be a Beggar to be a Dives then a Lazarus for a man to have work for God to do and to have ability of God to do it while others groan out their days and waste their precious time in languishments for others to have good blood running in their veins to have their bones as the Prophet speaks full of marrow and strength Who would not think himself happy to be in such a case Secondly What though a man have health if he enjoy not his Liberty I must confess It is better to be a Gally-slave at Algiere then to be a drudge to the Divel it is better to be a Cato in a Prison with shackels fetters about ones heels then a Caesar in the Senate house with a chain of Gold about his neck Yet how sweet is freedom not onely in Conscience but of Body Whom doth it not pity to see anothers Body to be a Gaol to his Soul and his House to be a Prison to his Body And who would not give the greatest sum with that Greek Captain in another sense to obtain this freedom Matth. 22.28 When I take a view of our weekly Bills of Mortality in London I finde a report of so many dying in one Parish of a Fever of so many dying in another Parish of a Consumption c. But when I cast my eye down to the bottom of the Leaf suspecting still that I should see some Funerals of the Plague contrarily for these 12. moneths and above I finde there nothing but Ciphers Ah Lord how unthankful are we for such a blessing when thou might'st as justly as suddenly turn our Ciphers into Figures cause our faces to gather paleness hang our streets with mourning and make us know what an happiness health and liberty is by the doleful and dreadful effects and restraint of the Plague and Pestilence Thirdly But what a case were man in though he had his health if he wanted Relations and Friends How comfortable is it in the Marriage state for a man to have his Table compassed about not with Thorns and Bryars but with Olive-plants emblems of peace How much better is it for a man to have so many children to call him Father then to have so many pieces of gold to call him Lord Therefore it is that when God would give us an Inventory of Jobs happiness he first sets down his piety A man fearing God but descending to his comforts in this life he begins with his children before his estate Item saith God Job had given him so many sons and daughters whereas certainly some