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land_n	church_n	good_a	king_n	1,394	5	3.5072	3	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A43672	A sermon preached at the Church of St. Bridget, on Easter-Tuesday, being the first of April, 1684, before the Right Honourable Sir Henry Tulse, Lord Mayor of London, and the Honourable by George Hickes ...	Hickes, George, 1642-1715.	1684 (1684)	Wing H1866; ESTC R12554	22,023	39

Tulse Mayor Curia Special tent die Mercurii in Hebdomad Festi Pasch secund April 1684 Annoque Reg. Regis Caroli Secundi Angliae c. xxxvi THis Court doth desire Dr. Hickes Dean of Worcester to Print his Sermon Preached in St. Brides Church on Tuesday last before the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of this City WAGSTAFFE A SERMON Preached at the Church of St. Bridget on Easter-Tuesday being the first of April 1684. Before the Right Honourable Sir Henry Tulse Lord MAYOR Of LONDON And the Honourable Court of ALDERMEN Together with the GOVERNORS of the Hospitals upon the Subject of Alms-giving By George Hickes D. D. Dean of Worcester and Chaplain in Ordinary to his Majesty LONDON Printed for W. Kettilby at the Bishops-Head in St. Paul's Church-yard and R. Kettlewell at the Hand and Scepter in Fleet-Street 1684. To the Right Honourable Sir Henry Tulse Lord Mayor of London and to the Honourable Court of Aldermen My Lord I Here present your Lordship with my Sermon which you heard with so much Candour and must profess my self glad of this opportunity to testifie the Respects which I have for your self and the Honourable Court of Aldermen among whom there is not one Man who hath not signalized his Loyalty in the late distinguishing times when the Common-wealth Party strugling for Empire with the Monarchy engaged and Loyal Men to shew themselves to be so and among those great and publick Spirits who durst stand up for the Government when a powerful and daring Faction durst oppose it your Lordship was one of the most Eminent for which His Majesty willing to declare His Royal Esteem for you hath committed unto your Administration the Government of this City which is vertually the Government of the whole Kingdom because as London is well or ill Governed so will all the Country be If the Governours of the City beat down Schisme and Faction and keep the Citizens in Peace and Order the Magistrates of all other Towns will be able and willing to do the same but if at any time they openly countenance Factious and Schismatical Spirits or underhand connive at them Faction and Schisme will presently grow too strong for the Magistrates in the Country Towns This my Lord hath been found true by the experience of many years insomuch that the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of London are in effect the Governours of all other Cities and Corporations who will obey or disobey their Magistrates in the same measure and proportion as you will let the Citizens obey or disobey you The King therefore my Lord hath done you a very signal Honour in committing so Comprehensive a Trust unto you the good or ill management whereof will make him easie or uneasie in his Government and the Nation happy or unhappy and as you and your Loyal Brethren of the Bench have in all things acted suitably to the Greatness of this Trust which his Majesty reposes in you So it is my hearty Prayer among other Loyal Subjects to God that this City may never want such a Lord Mayor and such a Court of Aldermen all of one Principle of Loyalty and all hearty Lovers of their King and the Church We already feel the happy Effects of having such Loyal Governours over us and if God in mercy please to continue the Blessing unto us we shall within a few years see such happy days as our Ancestors did before the deceivable multitude were led into the Gain-saying of Corah and taught to set up private Temples and private Altars in opposition to the Church God grant that we may so walk as to deserve the continuance of such a Blessing which is the daily Prayer of Your Lordships Most Obedient Servant George Hickes Heb. XIII 16. But to do good and to communicate forget not for with such sacrifices God is well pleased THE Primitive Christians living in a state of Persecution had no other way to relieve their poor Brethren but by transient Beneficence and Contributions not daring as yet to found Hospitals or erect Banks of standing and publick Charity for them lest they should be seized or escheat to the Higher Powers if they came to be discovered and this is the true reason why at first they had all things in common and why all along the New Testament and much longer we never read of Building or Endowing Houses of Charity but only of Collections and Contributions So that if a man had a mind to trifle as the Congregational Writers do in arguing against National Churches we might ask you Where are Hospitals commanded in the Scriptures Shew us an Example of any one man in the new Testament that builded an Hospital a School or a College No! these are but Humane Inventions mere ostentations of Charity and devices of Satan to make men trust in good works But the Gospel way of supplying the wants of the Poor which is of Gods own Institution is by giving distributing and making Collections as it is * 1 Cor 1é 1,2 written Now as concerning the Collection for the Saints do ye as I have given order to the Churches of Galatia let every one of you the first day of the week at the publick Assembly lay by something in store for the Collection as God hath prospered him that there be no need of gathering when I come and then I will send your liberality to Jerusalem by whomsoewer you shall approve So saith the Apostle to Timothy * 1 Tim. 6.17 Charge those who are rich that they be ready to give and glad to distribute and in my Text to do good and communicate forget not for with such sacrifices God is well pleased This indeed was the Primitive and only way of Charity while the Church was in the Wilderness but when after many Sufferings and much Passive Obedience she was setled as it were in the Holy Land under the protection of Christian Emperors and Kings she then let her light shine before men in standing and visible works of Charity proceeding to Erect Buildings of publick use and for the publick benefit insomuch that Julian the Apostate Emperor exhorted his Pagan Subjects in imitation of the Christians to build 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Soz. l. 5. c. 16. Naz. 1 Invect p. 102. Edit par 1630. Hospitals and Schools and Houses for reception of indigent Travellers together with Monasteries for Contemplative and Religious Persons of both Sexes thinking that the doing of these good Works would bring Paganisme into as much Credit among the Christians as it had done Christianity among the Pagans * Ep. 49. Appoint saith he unto Arcasius Chrief Priest of Galatia Hospitals for poor Travellers in every City for it is a great dishonour to us that when none of the Jews go about begging and the impious Galileans maintain not only their own but ours too our Poor should only be neglected and left naked and helpless by us So advantageous even by the Confession of its most malitious Enemy

men were equal in their Estates there would be neither Poverty nor Riches but one uniform state of Temporal things in all places just as if the Valleys were raised as high as the Hills or the Hills levelled with the Valley there would be nothing but one uniform plane all over the World But this Civil Equality is morally impossible because no Common-weal little or great can subsist without Poor They are necessary for the establishment of Superiority and Subjection in Humane Societies where there must be Members of Dishonour as well as Honour and some to serve and obey as well as others to command The Poor are the Hands and Feet of the Body Politick the Gibeonites and Nethinims in all Countries who hew the Wood and draw the Water of the Rich. They Plow our Lands and dig our Quarries and cleanse our Streets nay those who fight our battels in the defence of their Country are the poor Souldiers who as the Legions of Blaesus once complained in a Mutiny sell their lives * Denis in diem assibus animan corpus aestimari Tacit An. 1. c. 17. for seven pence a day As there must be Rich to be like the Centurion in the Gospel in Authority so there must be Poor to whom they may say Go unto one and he goeth and to another come and he cometh but were all equally Rich there could be no subordination none to command nor none to serve But in such a case the body Politick must dissolve as the Natural body was like to do in the Fable of Agrippa when the rest to the Members would work no longer for the Belly which they thought did nothing at all Wherefore the Poor being as necessary for the Rich as the Rich are for the Poor the common Law of Equity received among all Mankind obligheth us to do unto them as if Fortune or the hand of Providence should turn the Wheel we would have them do unto us There could be nothing more unjust nothing more against the Law and the Prophets nay nothing more Inhumane and Barbarous than not to relieve their necessities and as the Apostle speaks Let our abundance be a supply to their wants for they are not only our Brethren but our fellow Members of the same body Politick and such ought to be the mutual compassion of the Memb●rs that if one Member suffer all the Members suffer with it Wherefore saith * Deut. 15. God unto the Jews Thou shalt not harden thine Heart nor shut thine Hand from thy poor Brother thou shalt surely give unto him and thine heart shall not be grieved when thou givest unto him and for this thing the Lord shall bless thee in all thy works and in all that thou puttest thine hand unto for the Poor shall never cease out of the Land Therefore I command thee saying thou shalt open thine hand wide unto the poor and needy Brother in thy Land This suggest unto me the Third consideration upon which it becomes the Duty of the Rich to be liberal to the Poor out of gratitude to God who hath put the difference between them and as Hannah saith in Samuel hath made the Rich and the Poor For as the Body is not all one member but many So it is God that hath set he Members saith the Apostle every one of them in the body as it hath pleased him If thou art a Rich and Honourable Member it is he that made thee so if thou hast much Treasure and large Possessions they came by his special Blessing who expects that all and every Man whom the hath made Rich should make becoming returns of their thankfulness to him in their Gifts and Offerings to the Poor He is Lord Paramount of every Rich mans Estate and every Landed Man holds of him in Chief as it is written The Earth is the Lords and the fulness thereof and the Cattel that are upon a thousand Hills He hath made abundant Provision for all Men but because it is not consistent with the Being and Well-being of humane Polities that he should deal his Blessings to all alike therefore his Wisdom obligeth him to distribute them in very different proportions Like the Noble Man in the Parable to some he gives ten and to others five times as much as gives to another but then to those upon whom he bestows more than is sufficient he gives it not for their own sakes but for the sake of the Poor who ought to be maintained by them As a Prince or Great Man going into a far Country puts his Purse into his Stewards hands not altogether for his own sake but because to do so is necessary for the good Government of his Family that he rest depending for their maintenance upon him might be more subject and subservient to him But and if that Steward shall say in his heart my Lord delayeth his coming and will not give his fellow Servants their meat in due season the Lord of that Steward shall come in a day when he looketh not for him and cut him asunder because he was a Traytor to his Trust In like manner the Rich are Gods Stewards for the Poor he laies up their Maintenance in their Treasuries because he would have them depend upon them and serve them but then as St. Paul said of Masters It is their Duty to give unto them that which is just and equal as knowing that they have a Lord and Master in Heaven And as King Henry the Third did Enact by the 4th Chap. of the Statute of Merton That the Peers and Great Men of this Land should allow their Inferior Tenants sufficient common Pasture for their use So God the King of Kings and Supreme Lord of all the Earth hath Ordained That the Great and Rich in all places should provide and allow what is sufficient for the use and maintenance of the Inferior and Poorer sort Hence it comes to pass that we meet with so many Admonitions and earnest Exhortations to this great Duty of Charity in the Holy Scriptures and other Moral Writings as not to repeat those I have already had occasion to mention our Blessed Lord hath made universal Charity one of the greatest Duties of the Christian Religion saying Give to every man that asketh of thee and if you do good only to them who do good unto you what thank have you for Sinners also do the same and if you lend only to them of whom you hope to receive what thank have you for Sinners also lend to Sinners to receive as much again but love ye your Enemies and do good to all and lend to those from whom you can hope for nothing again and be merciful as your heavenly Father is merciful who is kind unto the unthankful and maketh his Sun to rise on the evil and on the good and sendeth his Rain on the just and unjust Nay he makes the best improvement of Riches to consist in the Charitable use of them in that