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A61173 A sermon preached before the Honourable House of Commons at St. Margarets Westminster, January 30th 1677/8 by Thomas Sprat ... Sprat, Thomas, 1635-1713. 1678 (1678) Wing S5053; ESTC R16476 17,653 54

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A SERMON PREACHED before the HONOURABLE House of Commons At S t Margarets Westminster January 30 th 1677 8 By THOMAS SPRAT D.D. Chaplain in Ordinary to His MAJESTY LONDON Printed by T. N. for Henry Brome at the Gun in St. Pauls Church-yard 1678. Mercurii 30 Die Jan. 1677 8 ORdered That the Thanks of this House be Returnd to Dr. Sprat for his Sermon this day Preached before the House at St. Margarets Westminster And that he be desired to Print his Sermon And Sir Edmund Jennings Sir Charles Wheeler and Mr. Robert Wright are to give him the Thanks of this House and to Desire him to Print his Sermon Will. Goldesbrough Cler. Dom. Com. A SERMON Preached before the HONORABLE HOUSE of COMMONS At S t Margarets Westminster on Ianuary 30 th 1677 8 S t Mathew 5. vers 10. Blessed are they which are persecuted for Righteousness sake for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven WE are here Assembled to Lament the Death of one of the best Kings that ever Liv d and the most Pious Martyrs that ever Suffer'd We are this Day to bewail a Crime so detested by God and Man that unless this Day had been long since publickly appointed by the Voice of the whole Nation Pronounc'd by you the Representatives of it for us and our Posterity to Bewail it Yearly in this and all future Ages the Guilty Memory of this Day had for ever remain'd an Indelible Disgrace to the Present Age and to the whole English Name it self When we shall recollect the Afflictions and the Virtues of that Blessed King and shall remember that in his Virtues he Excell'd the most happy Princes in his Afflictions he Equall'd the most unfortunate Men though it should not incline us to Murmur at the Divine Providence whose Judgments are above our knowledge and therefore ought not to come under our Censure yet certainly it cannot but make us abhor the terrible Effects of furious Zeal when it mistakes Providence it cannot but raise in us the greatest Hatred of Faction on a Pretence of Liberty and of Ambition when it Counterfeits Religion Should it not fill us all with Grief and Amazement that such a King could suffer as a Tyrant who was to His People the most constant Defender of their antient Privileges the greatest Author of New Ones or as an Enemy of the True Religion who was in his Life the Great Ornament in his Death the most devout Example of it or as unworthy to Govern who not only by his Birth had a Successive Right to the Crown which he could not forfeit but also by his Personal Virtues might have deserv'd another Title to it if His Crown had been Elective and as His Murderers impudently pretended at the disposal of His Subjects Whether we consider Him on the Throne as he was there too short a space the Vice-Gerent of Gods Power or in the Church as he alwayes imitated and resembled the Divine Purity or should we measure him as we would any other Man should we take His Picture as He Himself delighted to be drawn with His Crown and Scepter laid aside and his Wife and Children or Servants by Him whether we observe His Royal and Christian or His Private and Moral Excellencies we might find in all some Extraordinary Character of Greatness and of that which is the only true Greatness such as was admirably Temper'd and Adorn'd with Goodness But those other more Resplendent parts of his Life are a Subject fitter for a History than a Sermon And no doubt if there shall be any Virtue any Praise of Virtue in the Generations to come after us His Name will live and be mention'd with Reverence in the Records of Honor though not in the Large Roll of those Kings who have been only Happy Prosperous and Victorous in this World yet amongst the far smaller number but much more Sacred more truely Glorious Number of those Kings that have been Saints and Confessors or Martyrs and therefore more than Conquerors I confess I might and give me leave to say it I intended to have Complain'd that the present Age had not made that Use of Him which it ought His Enemies for their Repentance and Amendment nor even His Friends for His Praise and Honor But blessed be God I am happily prevented in one part of the Complaint I have nothing now to wish but that His Enemies would as well perform their Duty to Him as it must be acknowledg'd you His Friends have done yours by that much Desir'd long Expected Yesterdayes Vote in which you have given a Resurrection to his Memory by designing Magnificent Rites to his Sacred Ashes So that now for the future an English Man abroad will be able to Mention the Name of King CHARLES the First without blushing and His Heroick Worth will be deliver'd down to Posterity as it alwayes deserv'd to be not only freed from Calumny or Obscurity but in all things most illustrious in all things to be commended in most things to be imitated in some things scarce imitable and only to be admir'd In confidence of this I will leave the rest of His just Panegyrick to the Registers of Civil History and I will only now employ that short time your favor shall allow me in representing to you that one particular Grace which I believe He had in as high a degree as our Mortal Condition of its self is capable to Receive His Magnanimity in Suffering And it will be best become this Religious Place and Office to recommend to you from amongst His many other Virtues that one Virtue of his Divine Patience which he could learn from no other Principle but his Religion To this purpose I have chosen to speak on these words of our Blessed Saviour wherein he proposes Persecution which to Nature seems the greatest Evil to be the greatest Good such as all his Disciples ought not only to endure well as a nenessary Burthen but to injoy as a Blessing The Words themselves consist of Three Parts First This New and Strange Christian Paradox that to be persecuted is a Blessing Secondly The only Qualification that can make it to be so It must be a Persecution for Rightneousness sake Thirdly The Great Reason why it is a Blessing because it is attended with the greatest Reward The Kingdom of Heaven I cannot now stay to insist distinctly on these Particulars or to handle the Argument in my Text as a Common place of Divinity It will neither agree with the present temper of your Minds or my own to treat of it in such cold and general terms But what I shall say on this great and Primitive Doctrine of Christianity shall be only so much as you may apply to the present occasion that when I come to recount the Kings unparallel'd Sufferings you His Friends may be something comforted in beholding the solid and eternal Foundation of His Suffering so well which was no other than the Faith into which we were all Baptiz'd and