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A61618
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A sermon preached at White-Hall, February the 19th, 1685/6 being the first Friday in Lent / by Edw. Stillingfleet ...
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Stillingfleet, Edward, 1635-1699.
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1681
(1681)
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Wing S5658; ESTC R18636
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15,433
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36
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their Refuge onely at a day of Extremity but not their Choice when their Conditions please them But when the Prodigal Son had so slighted his Father broken his Commands despised the advantages he had at home and was so hardly brought to think of returning thither how came he now to be so incouraged in his Mind to arise and go to his Father and confess his fault with hopes of being forgiven after all this We find no other Account here given but that he was his Father however he had offended him and therefore he was resolved he would arise and go to his Father as though there were charms and force enough in that word to answer all Discouragements Which being an Argument taken from the Bowels of Pity and Compassion which a Father hath towards a relenting Child we must enquire how far this will hold with Respect to God who is so infinitely above all the fond Passions of Humane Nature that it is a diminution to his Glory and Majesty to be thought like to Mankind And therefore his thoughts and ways are said to be as far above ours as the Heavens are above the Earth To clear this we are to consider not onely that our Blessed Saviour doth here lay the force and weight of the Parable upon the tenderness of a Father to his Son but that he elsewhere argues from it in such a manner as to convince us that God hath far greater Pity and Compassion towards Mankind when they make due Applications to him than Fathers can have towards their Children even when they ask for necessary sustenance What Man is there of you whom if his Son ask bread will he give him a stone Or if he ask a fish will he give him a serpent If ye then being evil know how to give good gifts unto your Children How much more shall your Father which is in Heaven give good things to them that ask him There have been Philosophers so severe against the Passions of humane Nature that they would not allow any Pity or Commiseration towards others whatever their Condition or Relation were but onely acting according to Reason in supplying their Wants But the Christian Religion doth far more reasonably allow such Passions in Mankind as dispose them to doe good to others by fixing such an impression on their minds of others Misery as doth excite them to doe what is fitting for their Ease and Support And Compassion is not as some imagine such a mean and selfish Passion as doth arise onely from the apprehension that we may suffer the same things our selves which we pity others for but it is a generous Sense of what others feel joined with a Readiness to help them according to our Power And in this Sense our Saviour not onely allows it in Fathers towards Children but looks on it as necessary in humane Nature in order to the good and advantage of Mankind and therefore himself taking our Nature upon him is said to be touched with the feeling of our Infirmities and to have compassion on the Ignorant and on them that are out of the Way But although this be allowable in humane Nature how can such a thing as Compassion be attributed to the Divine Nature which is uncapable of such impressions and motions which we are subject to And yet the Scripture is very full and clear in attributing Pity and Compassion to Almighty God with Respect to his Creatures The Psalmist saith The Lord is full of Compassion and Mercy long-suffering and of great Goodness St. James saith He is very Pitifull and of tender Mercy And in that wonderfull Appearance to Moses when God himself declared his own Attributes the greatest part consists of his Kindness and Mercy towards Mankind The Lord God mercifull and gratious long-suffering and abundant in goodness and Truth keeping mercy for thousands forgiving iniquity transgression and sin And the Psalmist useth the very same similitude of a Father's Pity to his Children Like as a Father pitieth his Children so the Lord pitieth them that fear him And when the Prophet speaks of God's thoughts and ways being so much above Man's it is for this end to prove thereby that God may shew more pity to Mankind than they find in their hearts to shew to one another Let him return unto the Lord and he will have mercy upon him and to our God for he will abundantly pardon For my thoughts are not your thoughts c. But setting aside all this the whole Scheme of the Gospel is drawn upon the Supposition of God's Pity and Compassion towards Penitent Sinners which is the Reason our Saviour insists so much on the Proof of it in this whole Chapter Wherein we not onely reade of Joy in Heaven at the Repentance of a Sinner but the Compassion of God Almighty towards a Penitent Sinner is set forth with all the tenderness of an Indulgent Father running into the embraces of his Son when he saw him at a distance coming towards him What now is the meaning of all this Are we to conceive of God as one like to our selves who either do not see faults in those we love or do not hate them as we should do or are too apt to pass them over or are at first it may be apt to be angry upon a slight provocation and then as easily made Friends upon as little Reason as we were made Angry But none of these things ought to enter into our Minds concerning God with respect to the Follies of Mankind And in this Case if we will form in our Minds right and true Conceptions of the Divine Nature as we ought to doe we must have a great Care lest we attribute any thing to God which looks like Weakness and Imperfection as the Motions and Changes of Passions do therefore to understand his Pity and Compassion and Reconciliation to Penitent Sinners we must first know what his Anger and Displeasure against Sinners mean Some think that Epicurus did in earnest believe a God but he was therefore forced to deny Providence because he could not conceive that the Government of the World could be managed without such resentments as were inconsistent with the complete happiness of the Divne Being and therefore he rather chose to make him Careless and Easie than Active and liable to Passion The Stoicks attributed to God all that was Good and Kind and Obliging but would by no means endure that ever he should be said to be Angry or Displeased which Doctrine did in effect overthrow Providence with Respect to Moral Actions as much as the Epicureans For if God did not regard the difference of Mens Actions but was equally kind to them whether they did Good or Evil such a Providence would have as little Influence on Mens Lives as if there were none at all We must then suppose if we would uphold Religion and Morality in the World not onely that there is a Providence
A SERMON Preached at White-Hall February the 19 th 1685 6. Being the First FRIDAY in LENT BY EDW. STILLINGFLEET D.D. Dean of St. Paul's And Chaplain in Ordinary to His MAJESTY LONDON Printed for Henry Mortlock at the Phoenix in St. Paul's Church-yard MDCLXXXVI St. Luke xv 18. I will arise and go to my Father and will say to him Father I have sinned against heaven and before thee IN the foregoing Verse we find the Prodigal Son so far awakened and come to himself as to be sensible of the Miserable Condition he had brought himself into by his own folly and wickedness But before he came to this there is a Remarkable Turn in the course of his Life set down by our Saviour in the beginning of this Excellent Parable For He was first very Impatient of being under the Wise Conduct of his Father and thought he could manage his own affairs far more to his Contentment and Satisfaction if he were but permitted to use his Liberty and were not so strictly tyed up to the Grave and Formal Methods of Living observed and required in his Father's House Which might pass for Wisdom in Age and be agreeable enough to such whose Life and Vigour were decayed and who were now to maintain their Authority over their Children by seeming to be so much wiser than they But it is a rare thing for Youth and Age to agree in the opinion of Wisedom For it is not the Care the Experience the Judgment of a wise and tender Father that can allay the Heats or calm the Passions or over-rule the Violent Inclinations of Youth but whatever is cost them afterwards some will be still trying the Experiment whether it doth not more conduce to the happiness of Life to pursue their own Fancies and Designs than to hearken to another's Directions though a Father's whose Circumstances are so much different from their own Thus our Blessed Saviour represents in the Parable this young Prodigal as weary of being rich and easie at Home and fond of seeing the Pleasures of the World and therefore nothing would satisfie him unless he were Intrusted with the Stock which was Intended for him that he might shew the difference between his Father's Conduct and his own And this very soon appeared for this hopefull Manager had not been long abroad but he wasted his substance with riotous living And to make him the more sensible of his Folly there happened a more than ordinary scarcity which made his low and exhausted Condition more uneasie to him But the Sense of Shame was yet greater with him than that of his Folly and whatever shifts he underwent he would by no means yet think of returning home but rather chose to submit to the meanest and basest employment in hopes to avoid the Necessity of it But at last Reason and Consideration began to work upon him which is called his coming to himself and then he takes up a Resolution to go home to his Father and to throw himself at his Feet to confess his fault ingenuously and freely and to beg pardon for his former Folly in hopes of Forgiveness and Reconciliation I will arise and go to my Father and say to him Father I have sinned against heaven and before thee Under this Parable our Saviour sets forth the state of a Sinner 1. In his wilfull degeneracy from God his Father both by Creation and Providence his uneasiness under his just and holy Laws his impatience of being restrained by them his casting off the Bonds of Duty to him and running into all kind of Disorders without regard to God or his own Soul 2. In the dissatisfaction he found in his evil Courses being very much disappointed in the great Expectations he had in the Pleasures of Sin wasting his health interest reputation estate and above all the Peace and Tranquillity of his Mind which was more valuable than any other Delight whatsoever and he now found impossible to be enjoy'd in a course of Rebellion against his heavenly Father 3. In the Conviction of his Folly upon due Consideration of what he had done which is Emphatically called Coming to himself having before acted so much below himself and against himself unworthy of the Relation he stands in to God of those Faculties he had bestow'd upon him and of those hopes and expectations he might have had from him either as to this or another World 4. In the Resolution he takes upon this Conviction no longer to delay his purpose of Repenting and Returning home but to embrace the present opportunity of doing it freely heartily and ingenuously I will arise and go to my Father c. Having formerly in this Place and on a like Occasion considered the Prodigal Son 's coming to himself I shall now pursue the Method of his Repentance in the Resolution he here takes to arise and go to his Father c. And therein I shall enquire into these things I. What Grounds a Sinner hath to incourage him to Repent or to form such a Resolution in his Mind that he will arise and go to his Father when he knows he hath so much provoked and offended him II. How necessary it is in order to true Repentance to form a fixed and steady Resolution to go through with it I will arise and go c. First What Grounds a Sinner hath to incourage him to Repent or to make Application to his Father in order to Forgiveness since he is convinced he hath so justly offended him For if we consider the Circumstances here mention'd he had no such Reason to hope to be receiv'd into Favour upon such easie Terms as are here expressed For 1. He had wilfully forsaken his Father's House without any just Cause of Complaint of and hard usage there 2. He had embraced such a Course of Life which he knew was displeasing to him living riotously and disorderly in a way contrary to his Will 3. He never thought of Returning home till mere necessity forced him till Hunger and Poverty made him come to himself And what could be more disobliging to a Father than such Circumstances as these 1. His Father never forced him from home nor made his Condition uneasie there Our Saviour here represents Almighty God as dealing with Mankind like a tender and indulgent Father and not like a severe and hard Master his Laws being intended for our Good and not for his own Advantage There is no Duty of ours towards God or our selves or others but is founded on this Relation to God as a Father to Mankind Nothing can be more reasonable in general than that the Father should order and direct his Children and give such Rules which are fitting for them to observe And if we examine the particular Laws of Nature or the Dictates of Reason as to Good and Evil we shall find them very agreeable to God's Paternal Government What is the Duty of Prayer to God but asking daily Blessing of our heavenly Father What is our