A COLLECTION OF SERMONS UPON Several Occasions By THOMAS PIERCE D. D. Praesident of St. Marie Magdalen College in Oxford OXFORD Printed by W. Hall for Ric Royston and Ric Davis MDCLXXI THE CONTENTS of this VOLUME ARE SERMONS PREACHED I. BEfore the Lord Major Court of Aldermen and Common Council of the City of London at St. Pauls Church upon the first Sunday after his Majesties Restauration 1660. II. Before the Honourable the House of Commons in Parliament Assembled at St. Margarets Church Westminster upon the 29. day of May being the Anniversary Day of the King and Kingdoms Restauration 1661. III. Before the Right Honourable the House of Lords at the Abby Church of Westminster upon a Solemn day of Humiliation occasioned by the Great Rain in Iune and Iuly 1661. IV. Before the King at Whitehall upon the Wednesday-Monthly Fast when the Pestilence decreased but yet continued As did also the War with the French and Dutch 1665. V. Before the Clergy of England in Convocation Assembled at S. Pauls Church touching the Power of the Church in a National Synod 1661. VI. Before the University at St. Maries Church in Oxford concerning the Rights of the Civil Magistrate and especially of the Supreme upon the opening of the Term 1664. VII Before the King at Whitehall upon Candlemas Day 1661. VIII Before the University upon Act-Sunday-Morning at St. Maries Church in Oxford touching the Usefulness Necessity of Human Learning c. 1664. IX Before the King at White-Hall in Vindication of our Church against the Novelties of Rome 1662. To which is added in this Edition X. A Paraenesis to the Reader touching the Sermon going before and the Discourse which follows after of Romes pretended Infallibility XI Before a Rural Congregation at the Funeral of Edward Peyto of Chesterton in Warwick-shire Esquire 1659. Englands Season FOR REFORMATION OF LIFE A SERMON DELIVERED IN St. PAUL'S Church LONDON ON THE SUNDAY Next following His Sacred Maiesties RESTAVRATION M.DC.LX Christian Reader THat what I committed the other day to the ears of Many I now so suddainly expose to the eyes of All as I dare not pretend to deserve thy Thanks so I conceive I cannot justly incurr thy censure For it is not in complyance with my peculiar inclinations which of themselves are well known to be sufficiently averse from any farther publication of single Sermons but partly to testify my Obedience to the commands of some Learned and pious Friends partly to frustrate the ill-meant whispers of some unlearned and peevish Enemies How farr I was from a design either to please or to provoke either this or that part of the Congregation And how probably desirous to profit both I leave them both to passe a Iudgement not by any one part but by alltogether It would no doubt have been greivous to me to suffer the contumâ—lies of Men for preaching Loyalty and Love and Reformation of Life a tender care of weak Brethren and a Christian Forbearance of one another if I had not thought it an happy lot to suffer ought for His sake who indur'd for mine such contradiction of sinners against himselfe some affirming he was a good Man and others saying Nay but he deceiveth the People If some are yet so devotedly the Servants of Sin as to hate me for bringing them unawares into the light because the Light hath reproved their evill deeds it cannot be from any hurtfulness either in Me or in the light but from their own sore eyes that their eyes are hurt When Men are exasperated with Lenitives and throw themselves into Paroxysmes after all our Pacifick and most Anodynous applications we ought not sure to think the worse but rather the better of our Praescriptions That Christ Himselfe could do no miracles amongst the Men of his own Country was only the Fault of their prejudice and â—nbeleif That the heat harden's clay is from the untowardness of the clay For if it were wax the heat would melt it Nor is the fault in the Sun but in the Dunghill if the more he shine's on it â—he worse it smell 's I know that those Lovers of publick Discord whom my endeavours to reconcile have made outragious as they are few in point of Number so in point of Quality they are of smallest Consideration And I know there are many most worthy persons whom the Virulence of mine enemies hatb made my Friends So that if I were studious to promote mine own Interest and did not very much preferr the consideration of their Amendment I should not indure as now I shall to sue for peace whilst I am injur'd But still remembring what it is to which as Christians we are appointed or as Souldiers markt out and that we are bound to follow our leader even the Captain of our salvation who was perfected through sufferings I shall cheerfully strive to approve my self as a minister of God by honour and dishonour by evill report and good report as a deceiver and yet true I will blesse being calumniated And being wrong'd above measure I will intreat The more it seems to be impossible to win the inventors of evill things to reconcileableness of Spirit the more will I labour for its Attainment For I will never cease to pray that by that powerfull convincing controuling Spirit which stilleth the raging of the sea and the madness of the People we may be knit together in one mind and in one judgment That the present time of our prosperity may prove the Season for our Amendment and change of life that all bitternesse and wrath and anger and clamor and evill speaking may be put away from us with all malice and that as members of one Body whereof Christ Iesus is the Head we may each of us indeavour in our several stations to keep the Unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace That this was really the intent of the Following Sermon the later part of the Sermon will make apparent For what was spoken in reflection upon the darknesse of the night was only premised as a Foyl to commend the Day And as a thing without which I could not make an impartial parallel between the Text and the Time Besides that in the method of healing wounds which a flatterer may palliate but cannot cure there is as charitable an use both of the Probe and the Abstersive as there can possibly be of the Oyl and Balsam The Decollation of Gods Anointed which was so farr a Deicide as he was one of those Gods who shall dye like men had been declared by the Parliament before I made my strictures on it to haue been a most horrid and hideous Murder And if my censors did not think they had once offended they would not be candidates as they are for a Royal Pardon It being so naturall for a pardon to include and connotate an offence that unlesse we were conscious of having sinn'd we could not
forth in its native Lustre And it appears by Magna Charta that all the Rights of the Church are the chiefest Liberties of the Subject To be but capable of the Honour the double Honour of the Clergy to wit the Reverence and the Revenue is an eminent part of the Layman's Birthright I pray be pleased to consider what is not every day observ'd That all the Dignities and Endowments which do belong unto the Church at once by the Statutes of God and Man are so many Rights which appertain to your childrens children I must not here be thought to forsake my Text For it ye compare it with the Context especially from the first to the eighth verse of this Chapter ye will see the great fitness of all I say and that my Text cannot be satisfied unless I say it For he that saith in this place by the Spirit of God Let every soul be subject to the higher Powers does also say by the same Spirit Obey them that have the Rule over you who have spoken to you the word of God and who do watch for your souls as those that must render an Accompt And the Interest of the former is so entwisted with the later That till our Bishops receive their Right though we are glad to have our King we may rationally fear we shall not hold him For ask I beseech you of the days that are past and ask from the one side of heaven to the other if ever there were any such thing as This that a King could be happy without a Bishop Lord What an Epocha will it make in our future Kalendars when men shall reckon from this Year as from the Year of Restitution But then like that which Saint Peter mentions Acts 3. 21. The Restitution is to be general as well to God as to the People And ye will find in Magna Charta which does deserve to be imprinted in all your memories That all the Rights of the Church were entirely granted unto God They were granted unto God and that for ever Now of so sacred a force is the word For ever That if a Statute shall be made against the Liberties of the Church The Law of the Land hath provided against that Statute And by an Anticipation declares it Null Shall I guess at the cause of so great a Caution It seems to be as for other Reasons so in particular for This Because to alter that Government was as well against the Kings Oath as against the Oathes of both Houses which swore the Right of his Supremacy as well in all Ecclesiastical as Civil causes Besides that in the Judgment of the most eminent in the world for depth of knowledge in holy things The order of Bishops is by Divine Institution And if 't is so in good earnest it will be dangerous to deal with the Laws of Christ as we read Agesilaus once dealt with those of Lacedaemon which he pretended onely to abrogate that he might not break them But whether so or not so a thing in Being and Debate is to pass for good until the Dispute shall be fairly ended And if an Errour must be adventur'd on either hand Religion tells us it ought to be upon the Right Would any know why I insist on such a subject in such a place my Reasons for it are plainly These First I insist on such a subject because my Text as I said does exact it of me And because 't is my duty at least to wish That the day breaking forth may be full and lasting That the Repentance of the Nation may be impartial and so to our SOVERAIGNS RETURN there may be added his Continuance in Peace and Safety I say in Safety not more to his Person than his Posterity Nor in Safety for a season so long as men are well humour'd but so long as the Sun or the Moon endures And then for you of this Place who are an honourable part of the English Nation That which I take to be your Duty I think is your Interest to indeavour The most I am pressing on you is this That ye will labour for the means of your being happy If ye think ye cannot be happy with the establishment of the Prelacy I shall pray you may be happy at least without it and also wish I may be able to pray with Faith too Only as often as I reflect on King IAMES his Motto No Bishop no King and withal do consider its having been verified once and before our eyes I think it my duty to desire it may not be verified any more But that it may rather be here applyed what was spoken heretofore of the Spartan Laws ut semper esse possent aliquando non fuerunt They only ceased for a Time to the end they might continue to all eternity These are sincerely the very Reasons for which I insist upon such a Subject Secondly I do it in such a place because I look on This Assembly as on the Head and the Heart of the Royal City I look on the City as on a Sea into which the main stream of the Nation runs Even the Parliament it self hath such a respect unto the City that if ye plead for Gods Spouse as ye have done for his Anointed for which your names will be pretious with late posterity if ye shall supplicate for a Discipline which is as old in this land as Christianity it self and stands established in Law by thirty two Acts of Parliament and without which ye cannot live unless by living under the Breach of your greatest Charter they will not onely be apt to grant but to thank you also for your Petition Having gone thus far in prosecution of the Advertisment That the Night of our Suffering is fairly spent and that the Day of our Injoyment begins to dawn And having directed unto the means with submission be it spoken to all Superiours by which our Day is to be lengthned not only into a year but an Age of Iubilee into a kind of perpetual Sabbath a Day of Rest from those works which either wanted Light or were asham'd of it which either borrow'd Darkness for their Cover or else which own'd it for their Cause I humbly leave what I have said to His acceptance and disposal in the Hand of whose Counsel are all your Hearts T is more than time that I proceed to the general Use of this Advertisment to which I am prompted by the word Therefore as 't is a word of connexion betwixt the Duty and the Deliverance Our Apostle does not thus argue Because the Night of Oppression is now far spent and the Day of Deliverance is hard at hand Let us therefore inioy the good things that are present let us stretch our selves upon 〈◊〉 bed of Ivory let us Crown our selves with Rose-buds let us drink Wine in bowles and let us dance to the sound of the Viol let us leave tokens of our joyfulness in every street
Resolution We will take the Cup of Salvation and call upon the Name of the Lord. The Cup of Salvation that is to say the Cup of Thanks for that Salvation which he hath wrought as Iunius and Tremellius do rightly explicate the Trope And mark the force of the Copulative by which these Duties are tyed together Without the Cup of Salvation that is The Cup of Thanksgiving unto the Author of our Salvation all our calling upon his Name will be quite in vain For when we spread out our hands he will hide his eyes and when we make many Prayers he will not hear Isa. 1. 15. And then to thank him as he requires is not only to entertain him with Eucharistical words with the meer Calves of our lips or a Doxologie from the teeth outwards but to imitate and obey him and to love him after the rate of his favour towards us That we may not forfeit all our interest in the temporal salvation we this day Celebrate nor bring a reproach on the Author of it for saving a people so ill deserving we must add to our verbal our vital Prayers nor only keep an annual Day but even an Age of Thanksgiving for our Deliverance And then with a greater force of Reason we must beware that we forget not the Lord our God who if he brought us not out of the Land of Egypt did yet deliver us this day from the house of Bondage We must not any of us forget him in whatever Represents or Presents him to us But Ye especially must not forget him presented to you in his Vicegerent whom the more ye do enable to be indeed what he is stiled Defensor Fidei by so much the greater will be your Glory and the better ye will provide for your childrens safety The more ye strengthen That Hand which under God is to brandish the Sword of Iustice and ceaseth to be a Sword of Iustice when wrested out of That Hand by the hand of Man the better protected your Peace will be from the ungainable Enemies of each Extream Nor can ye rationally hope to keep your Peace any longer than whilst the evil-ey'd Factions want power to break it Again beware that ye forget not the Soveraign Author of your Deliverance wheresoever ye shall find him presented to you in his Messengers and what I mean by that word I need not explain in so wise an Audience by whose continuing unrestor'd to their Ancient Priviledge and Right your own Restauration remain's imperfect Again beware ye do not forget him presented to you in his Members who are not only your fellow members but were your old fellow sufferers in the very same Cause to which they ever have adhered with the very same constancy and for which they have been Actors with the very same courage and do rejoyce in the greatness at least of Your Restauration how much soever they are mourners for the scandalous littleness of their own Prosperity I have shew'd is a dangerous weapon such as none but the merciful should dare to use And if ever there were a Parliament in which both Mercy and Iustice met this has the honour to be reputed so very exemplary for both that they who stand in need of both are very confident to obtain them now or never A Parliament so prepar'd by the special Providence of God for the perpetuating of Peace in our British world that nothing less than the presence of all perfections in a Prince can make us patiently think of its Dissolution Will ye hear the conclusion of the whole matter I shall deliver it to you briefly in this Petition That so far forth as ye regard the Righteous Judge of all the world and are season'd by Him with the manifold gifts of the blessed Comforter with the Spirit of wisdom and understanding with the Spirit of counsel and ghostly strength with the Spirit of knowledge and true godliness and lastly with the Spirit of his holy fear Ye will consider what I have said by your own Authority because in an absolute obedience to your own Order and Command ANd now the God of Peace and Power who brought you forth on this Day from the House of Bondage both defend and direct you from this day forwards in all your wayes That every one of your Persons and the whole of every one both Body Soul and Spirit may be kept blameless unto the coming of our Lord Iesus Christ. To whom with the Father in the unity of the Spirit who is abundantly able to keep us from falling and to raise us when we are down and to preserve us being raised and to present us so preserv'd before the presence of his Glory with exceeding Joy to the only wise God our Saviour be ascribed by us and by all the world Blessing and Glory and Honour and Power and Wisdom and Thanksgiving from this day forwards for evermore Amen FINIS Mercy Iudgment MET TOGETHER A SERMON PREACHED At the ABBY Church of WESTMINSTER by the Order of the Right Honourable the House of LORDS IN PARLIAMENT Assembled Upon a Solemn Day of Humiliation occasioned by the Great Rain in Iune and Iuly MD. DC.LXI AMOS 6. 12. Therefore thus will I do unto thee ô Israel And because I will do thus unto thee Prepare to meet thy God ô Israel § 1. THough 't is the Language of the Schoolmen Quicquid dicitur de Deo est Deus That whatsoever is said of God is God and that all his Attributes are Himself so that agreeably to This Infinitely must be Their stature as well as His and Eternity their Duration yet since the Psalmist hath adventur'd to take the Altitude of Two I mean his Mercy and his Iustice And since my Text hath each of these in so remarkable a Degree that they seem to be here in their Apogaeo I shall be bold to make use of the Psalmist's Figure and pronounce God's Mercy so much higher than his Iustice as to say in the words of that Royal Prophet That his Mercy reacheth unto the Heavens and his Iustice in comparison but to the Clouds Which is as much as to say in Directer Termes That though neither can be the greater where Both are Infinite yet he is much more delighted in the exhibition of the one than 't is possible for him to be in the execution of the other § 2. For though the Doom here denounced is sad and direful even the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of which St. Iohn speaks in the Revelation that is The Pale or Green Horse whose name is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 bringing Death in the Front and Damnation in the Rear Though the Lord of Hosts in this Chapter does Bellum dicere proclaim a War against his Rebells and that so grimly set off with a Train of Iudgments that War it self is one of the least And the Plague of Famine none of the greatest Yet if we look upon the Object of this Severity those
per tremenda illa mysteria quae adhuc restant percipienda Quorum idoneae Perceptioni quò fructuosiùs velificemini Gratia Domini Nostri Jesu Christi Dilectio Patris Communicatio Spiritûs Sancti sit cum omnibus vobis in Secula Seculorum FINIS THE PURIFICATION OF OUR LADY AND PRESENTATION OF OUR LORD A SERMON Preached before the KING At WHITE-HALL upon Candlemas Day 1661. LUKE 2. 22. And when the Dayes of her Purification according to the Law of Moses were accomplished they brought him to Ierusalem to present him to the Lord. § 1. VPon the Feast of the Nativity our Lord himself was a Present Upon the Feast of the Epiphanie He was Presented And now on the Feast of Purification He purposely comes to Present Himself He was a Guift sent at Christmas from God to Men. At Twelftide as God he is said to have received Guifts of Men. And now at Candlemas as Man he is a Guift unto God for the Sins of Men. At the 16 verse of this Chapter the Rural Votaries from the Fold did find him weeping in his Cratch At the 21 verse we find him bleeding in His Cradle But in the words of this Text we find Him smiling as we may guess in his Mothers Armes She devoutly carrying Him and her Devotion carrying Her and the Law of Moses carrying Both at once that Shee may be Purified and He presented unto the Lord. § 2. I have desir'd so much the rather in the choise of this Text to take advise with the Rubrick and the Gospel appointed for the Day Because we have hardly escap'd an Age of so much ignorance in the Canons and Disobedience to the Commands of our English Church that unless the old custome be now reviv'd the People of England like the Italian Priest will be in danger of disputing in time to come whether the Rubrick be Fish or Flesh and be as apt to be in doubt as the Man in Poggius whether the Pentecost were a Man or a Woman Again I choose so much the rather to do the work of each day on the day it self because the Festivals of the Church being consider'd in conjunction do comprehend the Fundamentals of Christian Faith And so a Pertinent discourse upon each of Them will when the Calendar is expir'd become a Body of Divinity § 3. I shall therefore make hast to the due Solemnity of the Day and by premising its several Names shall give a guess at some part of its Nature too 'T is call'd the Feast of Purification from the Pure Virgins being cleans'd from her Mosaical Impurity The word Impurity being us'd by such a Scriptural Catachresis as only to signifie the yoke or the obligation which by the ordinance of Moses was fasten'd on her 'T is call'd the Feast of Presentation from our Lords condescension to be presented unto the Lord. It might have been called the Feast of Ransome because no sooner was he presented and given to God but he was presently bought back with a Piece of Silver 'T was commonly call'd Hypapante throughout the Churches of the East from the Interview and meeting betwixt our Saviour and good old Simeon v. 28. Candlemas it was call'd or the Feast of Lights because of a Custome still retein'd in the Church of Rome though worthily cast off by the Church of England for that of old it was the Day wherein they consecrated Candles and that in honour to the Idol which was commonly call'd Februa A Goddess feign'd to be propitious to pregnant Women in their Child-births and therefore allow'd to have the Priviledge of giving a Name to this Month as well as the mode of Solemnizing this very Day § 4. From whence by the way 't will not be useless to observe that the purifying of Women after the Agonies of their Child-birth is a thing common to us of Christendom not only with the Iews but the Gentiles too and may be matter of contention to the Malice or Ignorance of a Sect which is either so stupid as not to know or else so obstinate as not to acknowledge or at least so over peevish as not to admit of a consideration That the very same custome in several Places may receive its Beginning from God and Belial though not observed in the samé but in a contrary manner not with the same but with a contrary mind nor at all to the same but to a contrary end 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Gregory Nazianzen 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Iew keeps Holy-Day but according to the Letter 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Gentile keeps Holy-Day but according to the Flesh. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Christian also keeps Holy-Day but according to the Spirit § 5. Let us Rejoyce then on This Day because it is the Day which the Lord hath made And again let us rejoyce even because it is the Day which hath made the Lord. I mean hath made him of a Lord to become a Servant hath made him of a God to become a Votary hath made him of a Giver become a Guift The Lord himself on this Day having been brought unto Ierusalem to be presented unto the Lord. § 6. And as the Text does thus instruct us to the Solemnity of the Day so the double Solemnity of the Day does teach us how to divide the Text or rather the Text divides it self into these two Generals The Purification of our Lady and the Presentation of our Lord. For each of which compellations we have not only Custome but Reason too For as Christ in the Greek does import a Lord so Mary in the Hebrew is known to signifie a Lady And it is obvious to infer That She may well be our Lady who was the Mother of our Lord. In both these Generals put together there are seven Particulars to be observ'd First the Actions which are express'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they brought 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they presented Next the Agents which are imply'd namely the Relations and Friends of Christ. They brought and They presented Thirdly the Subject 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they brought Him Fourthly the Place 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to Ierusalem Fifthly the End 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to present him unto the Lord. Sixtly the Time 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 when the dayes were accomplished wherein the Mother was to be purifyed Last of all the Obligation and Inducement unto the whole and that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Law of Moses To go no farther than the two Generals were too little for the Text And yet to insist on each Particular would be as certainly too much for the Time allow'd And therefore I shall pitch on a Middle course so extending the Generals and so contracting the Particulars as to wind them up together into these four Bottomes The Purification of the Parent at once a Maid and a Mother too The presentation of her Son at once presented unto the Lord and the Lord presented Next the Circumstances or Adjuncts of
let none of us go without his share of Voluptuousness for this is our portion our lot is this I say he does not thus reason like the swaggerers and Hectors in the second Chapter of Wisdom and in the sixt of the Prophet Amos but on the contrary That the serious consideration of an approaching deliverance should be a double enforcement to change of life for such is evidently the force of the particle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as that looks back on the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Because the Night is far spent and because the Day is at hand 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 let us therefore cast off those works of darkness and let us therefore put on the Armour of light Which is as if he should have said At this very Time and for this very Reason let us live better lives than we did before let us buckle up close to our Christian duties The Reformation of our manners will be the properest Answer to such a Blessing Such also was the Reasoning which Moses us'd to the People Israel Did ever people hear the voice of God as thou hast heard and live Deut. 4. 33. Thou shalt keep therefore his statutes that it may go well with thee v. 40. so again Deut. 8. 6 7. The Lord thy God bringeth thee into a good Land Therefore thou shalt keep the Commandments of the Lord. Such was the Reasoning also of Zacharie in his Divine Benedictus That the use we are to make of being saved from our enemies and from the hand of all that hate us is to serve the Authour of our deliverance in holiness and righteousness all the dayes of our life What now remains but that we go and do likewise Not arguing thus from our late great changes Because the Night of our Sufferings is well nigh spent and the Day of Restitution is hard at hand let us therefore put from us the evil day and cause the seat of violence to come neer for now it comes to our Turn to oppress the poor and to crush the helpless and to call our strength the Law of Iustice let us never so much as think of the afflictions of Ioseph Let our Joy run out into Debaucherie and surfet into the braveries of vanity and the Injoyments of our lust or at the best let us express it by the making of Bonfires and Ringing of Bells by solemn drinking of Healths and casting Hats into the Air whereby to make the World see that we are glad rather than thankful But let us manifest on the contrary and let us do it by demonstration that we are piously thankful as well as glad Because the Day of good things breaks in upon us Let us Therefore offer to God thanksgiving and pay our vowes unto the Lord. Our Vowes of Allegiance and Supremacy Our Vows to assert and maintain our Charters Our Vows to live according to Law and obey the Canons of the Church But above all let us pay him our Vow in Baptism by forsaking the VVorld before we leave it by subduing the Flesh unto the Spirit by resisting the Devil untill he flyes That whilst God is making all new without us we may not suffer our Hearts within us to be the only things remaining old But rather on the contrary that we may prove we are in Christ by that demonstrative argument of our becoming new creatures which until we do become we cannot possibly be in Christ 2 Cor. 5. 17. Do the two Twin Blessings of Peace and Plenty which have been for many years at so low an ebb begin to flow in upon us from every quarter Then let not our Souls be carried away with the pleasant violence of the Tide Let not any Man seekgreat things for himself but rather study to deserve then to injoy them Make no provision for the Flesh whereby to fulfil the lusts thereof but put ye on the Lord Iesus Christ and Adorn his Doctrine by a conformity to his Life Put on his Modesty and his Temperance in a perfect opposition to Rioting and Drunkenness put on his Chastity and his Pureness in opposition to Chambering and Wantonness put on his Bowels and his Mercy in opposition to Strife and Envy Ye know 〈◊〉 I told you in the beginning that Loyalty and Love are the two grand duties at which this Chapter does chiefly drive And having been instant for the first in the former part of my discourse I think it a duty incumbent on me to be as urgent for the second For Love is part of that Armour my Text commandeth us to put on Nay considering that Love is the fulfilling of the Law in the next verse but one before my Text the armour of Light may be said to be the armour of Love too Love must needs be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the whole armour of God in as much as it comprehendeth the fulfilling of the Law As one Scripture tells us that God is Light so another also tells us that God is Love and therefore the children of light must be children of love too Then let the same mind be in us which was in Christ Iesus who when he suffered threatned not but committed his cause to God who judgeth righteously And let us prove this mind is in us by our forbearing one another forgiving one another Even as God for Christs sake hath forgiven us As we are stones of that Temple in which the Head of the Corner is Christ himself He meant his Blood should be the Cement to fastenâ— every one of us to one another and altogether unto himself And since we see that Disloyalty is taking its leave throughout the Land le ts rather shut the Door after it by Love and Unity then by Breaches and Divisions open â—way for its Return Let us effectually make it appear by the modest use of our Injoyments Pacem Bello quaesitam esse That we fought onely for Peace and contended only for Union that the end of our strife was our Agreement that we aim'd at Truth rather than Victory or rather at the Victory of Truth and Righteousness Let our generous deportment become an evidence that as the greatest of our Calamities could not bow down our heads so the greatest of our Injoyments cannot trip up our heels That as our Crosses could not deprive us of Hope and Comfort so the Tide of our Prosperity shall but Illustrate our Moderation But above all let us distinguish betwixt our weak aud our wilful Brethren Of some Saint Iude saith we must have compassion making a difference But others he saith we must save with fear pulling them out of the fire That is we must save them even by making them afraid Must shew them the Terrors of the Lord and fright them out of the way to Hell We must in any wise rebuke them and must not suffer sinne upon them It is a Rule amongst Musicians that if a string be but True 't
and thank him for it by thy obedience Let thy gratitude be seen in thy conversation Be sure to love him and to serve him ' with all thy heart and with all thy soul. Forget him if thou canst unless thou canst forget thou wert Pharaob's Bondman Nay forget him if thou dar'st unless thou art so stout that thou dar'st be damn'd And yet beware lest thou forget him whilst thou art swimming in prosperity the stream of which may either drown thee or make thee drunk if thou are not fore-Armed with circumspection And therefore Beware that thou forget not the Lord that brought thee out of Egypt And that thou mayest not forget him write the Favours which he hath don thee upon the posts of thine house and place them as Frontlets between thine eyes tell them out unto thy children as thou walkest by the way both at thy lying down and thy rising up Let them be as a Signet upon thine Arme and as a Seal upon thine heart That the pleasures of thy Deliverance may not make thee forgetful of thy Deliverer forgetful of the Rock out of which thou wert hewn and kicking like Iesurun at him that made thee keep an Anniversary Feast a standing Passeover in May whereby to fix him in thy Remembrance Lastly a Duty so indispensable should be inforc'd upon the Soul by the present season A season of Peace and Prosperity succeeding a season of Persecution The greatest Incitement to the Duty should be the manifold Injoyment of this Deliverance For so 't is obvious to infer from the particle THEN so strongly implyed in the Hebrew that in the English 't is well express'd upon which there seems to lie the chiefest emphasis of the Text if we observe how it stands in a double Relation to the Context When the Lord thy God shall have brought thee into the Land to give thee great and goodly Cities and houses full of all good things when thou shalt have eaten and be full THEN beware that thou forget not the Lord that brought thee out of Egypt The Text is so fruitful of particulars and each particular is so apt to administer matter of Discourse that it hath been my hardest Question whereabouts I should begin and how I should end my meditations And after too much time lost in stating the Question within my self I have thought it at once the fittest and the most useful to be resolv'd as most immediately complying with the solemnity of the Time not to yield to the temptation of comparing our Land with the Land of Egypt for fear of seeming to have a pique at the Act of Indemnity and Oblivion otherwise 't were easie to make a Parallel because however our Native Country yet for twelve years together it was a very strange Land But not advancing one step beyond the Threshold to bestow my whole time upon the little word THEN as being a particle of connexion betwixt our Duty and our Deliveraâ—ce betwixt the Business of the Time and the Time it self betwixt the Occasion and the End of our present meeting looking like Homer's wise man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with a visible prospect on all that follows and with as visible a retrospect upon the words going before When Prosperity breaks in like a mighty stream in so much that I may say with our blessed Saviour This day is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears Then beware that ye forget not the Lord that brought you out of Egypt Beware ye forget him not at any time but especially at This. For the particle Then is an Important monosyllable and that especially in three respects First because of the Difficulty of having God in our Remembrance much more Then than at other times Next for the Dignity of the Duty rather Then than before or after Lastly by reason of the Danger of not performing the Duty Then when it becomes incumbent on us by many unspeakable obligations These especially are the Reasons of the particle Then in this place on which alone I shall insist in this Mornings Service For should I adventure upon the rest not only the hour but for ought I can conjecture the day would fail me AND first of all let us beware amidst the Effects of our Deliverance that we forget not the Author of it because it is difficulter THEN than at other times For the Flattery and Dalliance of the world hath perpetually been the Mother of so much Wantonness or Pride that Adam found it dangerous to be in Paradise yea and Lucifer to be in Heaven Do but look upon Solomon in the Book of Kings and again look upon him in his Ecclesiastes How was he there liâ—ted up by his Prosperity and how does he here Preach it down I know not whether as a Prince he more inioy'd his Pleasures or as a Prophet more condemn'd them Whether the luxury of his Table made him a Wanton or whether the vastness of his Wisdom made him a Fool 'T was That betray'd him to his Concubines and This permitted him to his Idols Since then a prosperous condition hath such a secret poyson in it as against which no Medicine hath been sufficiently Alexipharmacal and from the force of whose contagion there is no sort of men that hath been priviledg'd no not Adam the Innocent nor Solomon the Wise nor even Lucifer the beatified who were so hugely swell'd up with this Venom and so quickly burst not the first in a state of sinlesness nor the next in a state of grace nor yet the third in a state of glory since there is no other man than the man Christ Iesus that hath been ever temptation proof Lord how wretched a thing is happiness on this side Heaven and how dangerously treacherous are our Injoyments I suppose we are taught by our late experience how easie it is to be over-joy'd and how equally hard to be truly thankful for all those wonders of salvation which God hath wrought and is working for us the grateful commemorating of which is religiously the end of our present meeting Sweet-meats indeed are pleasant but then they commonly turn to choler 'T is sure the state of Humiliation which though we can worst feed upon we are notwithstanding best nourisht with we are such barren pieces of clay that our fruits will be wither'd with too much laughter if Grace does not water them sometimes with tears It should be matter of real gladness to a considering Christian that in the midst of his prosperity he can see himself sorrowful that as he was destitute with comfort so he abounds with moderation and that he does not live rejoycingly is many times a chief reason for which he ought It was David's resolution at such a time as this is to serve the Lord with fear and by a pious Oxymoron to rejoyce unto him with trembling And if we reflect on the abuses which many have made of a Restauration we may charitably pray that God will
in the Torments of their Erebus than in the Pleasures of their Elizium They told them of Minos and Radamanthus as the grim Judges of Offenders of Haggs and Furies as Executioners of the Sentence of such as Ixion and Prometheus as sad Examples of the Condemn'd All which saith Diodorus were but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so many Bugs or Mormo's to fright the People into Morality § 2. So great an Influence had Fear on the False Religions of the World And to discover as great an Influx which it had also upon the True Let me lead you forth a little out of the Forrest into the Garden wherein the very first Precept was fens't with Terror It was not said unto the Protoplast Thou shalt surely live if thou eatest not But as a method of greater force In the day that thou eatest thou shalt surely dye If we look into the Bible from the Beginning to the End This we shall find to have been the Method of each Person in the Trinity First of all it was the Method of God the Father when he deliver'd his Law from a Burning Mountain even with Thundering and Lightning with Blackness and Darkness with smoke and Tempest with the sound of a Trumpet and the voice of words which voice they that heard intreated that they might not hear it and so terrible was the sight that Moses said I exceedingly fear and quake This again was the Method of God the Son who said he came not to destroy but fulfil the Law his word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to fill it up He did endeavour to Preach his Hearers into the High-way of Heaven even by setting before them the pains of Hell He threatn'd them with Weeping and Gnashing of Teeth with a Worm that dyeth not and with a Fire that is not quenched We hear him saying It is Impossible that is to say exceeding Hard for a Rich man enter into the Kingdom of Heaven He saith the way to it is streight and the Gate Narrow and the Travellers that find it extreamly Few He bids us strive to enter in and never leave striving until we Conquer Nay this was the Method of the Comforter even of God the holy Ghost who taught St. Paul to constrain his Scholars by shewing the Terrors of the Lord. Nay to deliver them up to Satan for the Destruction of the Flesh that their Spirits might be saved in the Day of the Lord Iesus § 3. And indeed if we consider How many poor Souls have been debauch'd in these Times by the false Apprehensions of Christian Liberty and Conscience of Faith without Love Justification without Honesty and Repentance of Sins without Amendment so as the stales of those Heresies which had been brew'd in ancient Times are freshly broach'd in our Dayes and given for Drink to the giddy People we cannot but wish that all our Clergy would now become Boanerges or Sons of Thunder at least by shewing the strict necessity of Impartial obedience unto the Gospel that is to say unto the Statutes or Laws of Christ A living in Holiness and Righteousness in Piety and Probity in Godliness and Honesty in the Duties of the First and the Second Table without the which saith the Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews no man living shall see the Lord. § 4. This we see is so peculiar to that Amazing Lover of Souls that he does not only set Hell before us and sad Examples too behind but Temporal Crosses on either side And however surrounded thus with Terrors we find them All little enough For first it being not the greatness but the presentness of Danger which most affrights us He does not threaten his Rod only but often layes it upon our Backs And then because like common Mariners we would not Pray though in a Tempest were it impossible to be drown'd or to suffer Shipwrack He does not Punish only at present and for a Time But also threatens he will do it to all Eternity For if after this Life is swallow'd up of Immortality He should only have an Heaven for Loyal Subjects and never a Hell for his Rebellious ones men would be readier to say at the last period of their lives Let us eat and drink for to morrow we dye Than Let us fast and pray for to morrow we shall be happy § 5. If any â—iduciary shall say That Terrors work not a filial but servile Fear and rather cause an hypocriticall than Godly sorrow the Answer to it is very Easy That as Gods severity speaks his Power and That his Excellence so many times a servile Fear begets a Fear of Admiration And Admiration is apt to end in a Fear of Reverence and Reverence is a Compound which has Love as well as Fear for a chief Ingredient § 6. And if again it shall be objected that John and James are but uncomfortable Preachers enough to blast a mans Faith and Thunderstrike him into Despair I Answer to it by these degrees First that for here and there one who possibly falls into Despair Thousands rise to Presumption and Millions lye down in carnal Security Again The Sin of Despair is not so commonly understood as it is dangerously mistaken and that by some who Domineer in our open Pulpits There is a kind of Despair which is only the effect of a broken heart and the manifest sign of a tender Conscience The mark of such a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Repentance never to be repented There have been Persons in the world who have been so very passionately in Love with God and so amorous of his Purity that they have hated themselves extreamly because they have suspected they have not lov'd him And have been easily betray'd into such suspicion by their sense of some things which are unavoidable even the natural Infirmities of Flesh and Blood Every small Mote in anothers Eye hath seem'd a Beam in their own They have look'd upon their Sins through a kind of Microscope for such is the Glass of an holy Jealousie which hath made a little Ignorance to look as bigg as an Infidelity an human Frailty to seem as monstrous as an Apostacy from Grace Thence come those Syncopes of Spirit by which they are made to cry out with Christ Himself upon the Cross although 't is quite in another sense My God my God why hast thou forsaken me An evident Argument and sign not that God hath forsaken Them but rather that They have forsaken Sin So when Peter cry'd out and even to that very Saviour on whom he depended for his Salvation Depart from me ô Lord for I am a sinful man He drew Christ to him by his intreating him to Depart The more a Saint in Christs Eyes for being a Sinner in his own As there are many silly Shepherds who mistake a Repenting for a Despairing Sheep so there is oftentimes an Innocent but silly sheep which mistakes his own Weakness for want
House of Iacob their Sins Isa. 58. 1. But since the Voice by his Prophets is only heeded by very few that is to say here and there by a man of Wisdom at least give ear unto the voice which now he uttereth by his Rod and look ye up unto the hand that hath laid it on The Chaldee Paraphrase on the Persons to whom the words are directed is most remarkable For 't is not only hear ye Tribes as the Septuagint read and the vulgar Latine nor only hear ye the Rod as the Interlineary Hebrew But here ye Princes and Rulers and People of the Earth Or as I find it translated by Learned Grotius Audite Rex Proceres Conventus Which I cannot better English than by King Lords and Commons Let your Qualities or Conditions be what they will Audite Vos Virgam Hear Ye the Rod. So that the Voice of the Prophets in the beginning of the verse does seem to differ just as much from the voice of the Rod in the later end as the Prophecy from the Iudgment which is Prophecyed of or as the Threat from the Sentence and some degree of Execution or as the Preaching from the Text which is Preached on § 3. This is therefore God's Method for the calling of Sinners unto Repentance The publick Preachers of his Word do first give warning Then the truly wise in heart do fear and tremble at the Word Preach'd Yet the foolish and inconsiderate who are the most of Mankind being deaf to that Word and not afraid of that Warning The Rod comes in with its Sermon or excitation to Repentance and All are conjured to hearken to it This considering how the words are made obscure by an Elipsis which the most Critical Commentators have several Methods of filling up I do conceive to be the plainest and most satisfactory scope of the words in Hand The Lords Voice cryeth unto the City and the man of wisdom shall see thy Name Hear ye the Rod and who hath appointed it § 4. The Text in the General or in the Great does present us with an Embassy from Heaven to Earth which being taken in the Retail doth spread it self into these Particulars First the Embassadour here employ'd and that is expressed to be the Rod. Secondly the People to whom directed And These are imply'd in the Pronown Ye My Israel my Chosen the peculiar Lot of mine Inheritance Audite Vos hear Ye Thirdly the Audience or Attention which is to be given to the Embassadour Audite Hear Last of all we have the Potentate from whom the Embassadour is dispatch'd described clearly by the Periphrasis of Him who hath appointed it The first and second of these particulars will be best capable of Discourse not severally handled but in conjunction For the close Application of the Embassadour to the People the Rod to Israel will very seasonably afford us this Doctrinal Proposition That God Almighty is so far from conniving at or not seing Sin in his Children though the Tempter in these Times hath taught a great number of men to flatter themselves into Destruction by this Opinion that he hates and will punish it much more in Them than in Those that are Stranger and Aliens to him § 1. Which to the end I may evince in the clearest Method that I can use I shall first of all observe out of Aulus Gellius what He himself does observe out of Plato's Gorgias That there are three distinct ends for which Offenders are to be punish'd Whereof the first is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for the Amendment of Offenders The second 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for the Benefit of such as are Lookers-on The third 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for the Party's Satisfaction who is Offended And if we look on all Three as they are applicable to God in his laying on of stripes on the sons of Men whether the End of his Inflictions is to redeem us from our Iniquities or to fright Lookers-on from daring to do as we have don or to make some Amends to his injur'd Goodness we shall find him ever Iust after the measure that he is Merciful And as he is kinder by much to the little Flock which he hath tenderly Pent up in his rich Inclosure than to the numerous Herd which are turn'd out into the Common so is he rigider to the Sheep that rudely break out of the Fold than to the Swine or the Goats that were never in it For the better evidencing of which let us consider his Rod of Iustice with its three final Causes and mark how fitly it tends to each § 2. First I say the Rod of God is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Plutarch calls it the Med'cin or means of Cure unto the Souls of such men as are sick of Sin So much the Med'cin that Plato will allow it no other end and Lucius Seneca looks upon it as a Thing that can be useful for nothing else Nemo prudens punit quia peccatur sed nepeccetur We are not punished saith he because we have already sin'd but only to the end we may sin no more And his Reason is as plausible as the matter will bear Revocari praeterita non possunt futura prohibentur Whatsoever is past is past all Remedy And an evil of Sin already don no evil of Punishment can have the power to undo But what is future and yet to come may be anticipated at present and though we cannot retrive yesterday we may wisely provide against the morrow Nay the sharpest of Remedies is so desirable where continuance in Sin is the Disease that when the Patient cannot be cur'd 't is a kind of a Favour to cut him off Interdum ut pereant interest pereuntium Even Destruction it self is many times very Medicinal And many thousands had been undoâ— if they had not perish'd Sure I am that St. Paul was of this opinion when he deliver'd men up to Satan for the Destruction of the Flesh that their Spiriâ—s might be saved in the Day of the Lord Iesus And reflecting upon the words which were spoken by Christ of his own Betrayer Good it were for that man that he had never been born we may infer with good Logick It had been good for that man to have liv'd very little beyond his Birth For when the Devil shall give a Visit to such an Impenitent on his Death-bed his wish will unavoidably be one of these two That he had led his life better or sooner dyed So clear a Truth as this is the very Heathens could discern by the light of Nature Not Plotinus only the Platonist but Alexis the Comoedian 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That is the first Degree of Happiness is not at all to receive a life And the next is to leave it early § 3. To make my meaning more plain by a familiar Illustration Admit the Arm or the Legg of any mans body is gangren'd we
meeknesse as we have Christ for an Example paying Obedience from without us to publick Sanctions where none from within us is strictly due Every Christian like Christ Himself is to be actively Obedient in many things though not as necessary yet as conventent though not for conscience yet for the benefit of conformity though not for private yet for publick satisfaction though not to avoyd Sin in Himself yet not so much as to occasion it in other men But however this Reason may passe for good methinks 't were easy to give a better To wit that our Saviour being laden with the Iniquity of us all to use the words of the Prophet Esay was in all our behalfes to stand in need of a purification Being made Sin for us as St. Paul speaks to the Corinthians 2 Cor. 5 2. and at last numbred with the Transgressors and so made subject to the Levitical as well as the Moral Law of Moses born as he was of a Iewish parent a branch sprung forth from the Root of Iesse He was first to fulfil and then to abrogate the law of Rites or rather to abrogate whilst he fulfil'd it And this may help us to give a Reason besides the Poverty of his Parents why they offered not a Lamb but a pair of Doves For what needed the Type where the Antitype was present What place could there be for a Lamb out of the Fold when behold the Lamb of God that came down from Heaven The Lamb to expiate for our Souls as well as the Shepherd to direct them § 8. The Thought of which should sâ—â—ve to fill us not with Gratitude only and Love but even with wonder and admiration That the Lawgiver himself would be obedient unto the Law thereby to free us from the Law as the strength of Sin and so to free us from Sin as the sting of Death and so to free us from Death as 't is the Victory of Hell That the Holy of Holies and King of Kings would meekly take upon him the Form as well of a sinner as of a servant and become legally unclean whereby to take away from us our great uncleanness for according to the Hebraisme by which the Hellenisticks are wont to speak nothing worse can be meant by the legal uncleanness of a Iew than that external obligation to the performance of a Duty which by an arbitrary Law is incumbent on him And to This our blessed Saviour without the least stain of guilt did submit himself not at all for himself but for Us alone For Us it was that he descended from out the Bosom of the Father for Us he poured out himself so far forth as to be emptiâ—d of all his Glory that we might drink of his Fulness Grace for Grace For Us it was that he was cloyster'd in Marie's Womb for Us that he was folded in Marie's Armes for Us that he was put upon several Iournies whilst yet he could not either go or with ease be carryed To wit from Nazareth to Bethleem and from Bethleem to Ierusalem and that upon more accounts than one not only to be purified but presented unto the Lord. This as I said in the Beginning was the second Action of the Day and so deserves the second Place in the consideration of the Text. § 1. To give you the History of the Action from that which gave it its Original I must goe back to take my Rise from as farr as Exodus Where after Sundry dismal miracles for the freeing of Israel out of Aegypt the last and greatest was shewn at midnight When the sword of the Lord did cut off all the first-born among the Children of the Egyptians from the first-born of Pharoah that sate on his throne to the first-born of the Captive that lay in the dungeon But the first-born of Israel being miraculously preserv'd were immediately claimed by their preserver who besides the common Interest which he had in them as his Creatures did farher devote them unto Himself by a peculiar right of Redemption too And though by way of Commutation He took the Levites unto Himself in stead of all the first born of the Children of Israel Yet were not the Levites so full a Ransome but that they were farther to be ransom'd by the summ of five Shekels § 2. Now put all this together and it will prove an Adumbration of the holy Child Iesus who though the Lord and the Redeemer was yet presented unto the Lord and Redeemed this Day with a piece of Silver For He was sure the Fist-born who is expressed so in Scripture by way of Eminence and whom the First-born of Israel were but intended to represent He presented Himself as our Elder Brother and so again the first-born to redeem us from the Fury of the Destroying Angel He as the First-born or Heir of all things was presented this day to receive his right of Primogeniture by claiming the Heathen for his Inheritance and the uttermost part of the earth for his possession He again was the first-born who presented Himself unto as many as would receive him that he might give them power to be the Sons of God To sum up all in a word He is call'd the First-Born of every Creature Col. 1. 15. who was begotten of the Father before all Time And the first-born of his Mother brought forth into the world in the fulness of Time He was again the first-born by vertue of his office as Mediator The first that was born of a pure Virgin the first that ever was born without the least stain of Sin the first and last that was born both God and Man Many wayes the first-born he was brought on this day to be presented unto the Lord not as a Servant only or Sacrifice but as a King and a Priest too on whom his Brethren depended for Life and Fortune so to claim his own Right and so to communicate it to Us that whether Paul or Apollo whether Cephas or the World whether life or Death whether things present or things to come All might be ours as we are Christ's as Christ is God's § 3. From the whole History of the Action so farr at least as our Lord was concerned in it it will be easy enough to gather These usefull Considerations § 4. First that the Dayes being accomplish't when both the Mother and her Babe might have the freedom to goe abroad The first Journy they took was not to Nazareth but Ierusalem She brought Him to God's House before her own Implying this Caveat to Christian Parents that they suffer not the Devil to take the first Hansel of their Children but acquaint them with God in their very Nonage and so present them unto Him by a Religious Education That they devote them to his Service even as early as Hannah devoted Samuel That their enmity to Sin be as soon bespoken as the Child Hanibal at the Altar was bespoken by his
Father to hate the Romans That they suffer them not to lisp in the Language of Egypt but as Children put to Nurse in the Land of Goshen make them Suck in good manners as soon as Milk That they permit them not to enter within the Breath of the Prophane from whose unâ—avory communication like the New-landed Spaniard they can many times Swear when they cannot speak That they put so fit a difference betwixt themselves and Brute-Beasts as to become unto their children not only carnal but spiritual Parents and so beget them to God by a second Birth as not to afford them any reason to Curse their first This is the Use we are to make of our first Consideration the Mother's seasoning of her Babe not at Nazareth but Ierusalem § 5. Secondly let us consider That as of all the Iewish off-spring not the Females but the Males were to be offer'd unto the Lord as it were intimating unto us that They alone may expect to be admitted into God's Presence who Captivate the Lusts of the effeminate Flesh by the masculine power of a controuling spirit so of all the Males too none but the best or the first-born were set a part for God's Portion For when I say the first-born I mean the Might of the Parents and the beginning of their strength the excellency of Dignity and the excellency of Power as Iacob said of his Eldest Son Reuben They were not then like the Parents of our last and worst Times who when their children are Blind or Crooked or in a word nothing worth do fly for refuge to the Temple and make them Deodates God is little beholding to such a Parent who when his Son is too dull for either the Shop or the Exchange does straight present him unto the Lord by devoting him to serve in his dreadful House and as a Minister to wait at his holy Table Does give him over to the Pulpit because too old for the Grammar School And if he cannot Write or Read does therefore teach him to Pray extempore As if to the office of a Workman who needeth not to be asham'd there were nothing required but lungs and Impudence From the beginning I am sure it was not so For Kings and Princes in time of Yore were thought most proper to be the Priests And when the Priesthood was Entail'd on the Tribe of Levi it was by way of Prerogative and in reward of a special Service The Best by Pedegree by Sex by Primogeniture They that were every way the Best and the Choisest Persons were set apart in the Beginning for the peculiar Service of the most High § 6. From whence 't is obvious to infer That as of the fruit of a man's Body so by consequence of the Fruit of his Labour too of the fruit of his Substance and of the fruit of his Soul of every thing that he calls His He is not to offer up to God but the best and choisest We must not sacrifice to Pleasure with the strength and Beauty of our Age and think that God will be content with a noysome Carkass like the false Votary in the Apologue who vow'd to consecrate unto Iupiter Half of the All that he went to find and presently finding a Bagg of Nuts made no doubt but he should bravely perform his Vow by giving the shells unto his God and taking the Kernels unto Himself This were at best to forsake the world because the world forsakes Us And only to keep our Baptismal Vow because we know not any longer which way to break it Will God accept of our Presenting our selves unto him not as Christ on this Day when newly come into the world But as the Clinicks of old at our going out Will he accept of our coming when we come to him but in a Fright not of choise but necessity not at all as to our best but rather as to our last and our only Refuge Will he receive us when we shall choose him as the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not as the greatest Good Thing but the lesser Evil not as better and more desirable than the Injoyments of the Earth but as preferrable at least to the Pains of Hell It cannot possibly be our vertue to be forsaken of our Sins or rather bereaved of our strength whereby to be vigorously Sinfull and without which we can no longer be sturdy Sinners So again in proportion to this Discourse 'T is not enought that we present him with the Labour of our Lipps and that a little towards Night to make our Time the more supportable which is to make our better Actions a meer Divertisement to our worse But we must Sacrifice to our God the very best of our Day which is our Morning the very best of our Years which is our Youth the very best of our Body which is our Heart the very best of our Being which is our Soul Our Body must be the Temple our Heart the Altar our Sincerity the Priest our Devotion the Fire our blessed Saviour must be the God and our Soul the Sacrifice § 7. But then withal like a sacrifice it must be pure and unpolluted pure as the Virgin who was this Day Purified And unpolluted as the Babe who was presented this day in the holy Place And yet because we cannot other wayes be purified as the Virgin much less perfect as the Babe who yet hath commanded us to be perfect even as our Father in Heaven is perfect Mat. 5. ult and to purifie our selves as Himself is pure 1 Joh. 3. 3. Because I say we cannot otherwise be pure and perfect Let us do like the Virgin as well this day as from this day forwards Take the Babe into our Hearts as she now did into her Armes And so together with our Saviour present our selves unto the Lord. For as the Man that was condemn'd by the Roman Senate procured Love as well as Pardon by representing the Scars in his naked Bosome which were the Monuments of his Sufferings for the honour and Service of his Country so to obtein at once our Pardon and Acceptance also at Gods Tribunal not only Pardon of our Sins but Acceptance of our Persons we must recount the many sufferings of our Elder Brother in our behalf pleading the Scars and the Bloodshed sustein'd by the Captain of our Salvation To such objections as may be made by an Injur'd Iustice we must present an injur'd Iesus as our only Answer and Apologie To every Arrow levell'd at us by God's Displeasure we have but Christ and Him Crucified for our Shield or Helmet to intercept it Though with our Prayers and our Tears our only warrantable Weapons we humbly venture to contend with the Lord of Hosts hoping the Pungency of our sorrow will make him yield yield I mean to his own Resentment yet may we not hope to prevaile upon him unless we stand behind Christ and as the Virgin this Day hold him up as our Buckler our only Armour
the acknowledgment of the Heart but must That of the Mouth be required also Or can we not make it in our Clossets but they must have it in the Church too Must we powre out our Souls into the Ear of the Priest Or can he loose us from our Sins who is bound and manicl'd in his own But I would say to such an English or Scotish Naaman no other thing than was said by the Syrian Servant My Brother or my Sister suppose our Mother the Church of England had bid thee do some great thing wouldst thou not cheerfully have don it without Dispute How much rather when she saith wash and be clean That is confess and be forgiven vouchsafe to write after the Copy which the Virgin and her Babe in this Text have set thee Who did not as they might upon better pretensions than thou canst bring alledge the Priviledge of their Purity or the natural Indifference of what was commanded by the Law whereby to withhold their obedience from it They did not think much to present their Turtles because Themselves were the chaster and more innocent Paire He who thought it no Robbery to be equal with God thought it also no dishonour to be equal with Man And would be obedient to the Law how much soever he were above it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Clemens Romanus does well observe to my purpose The Sacrifices of God were not any where to be offer'd but precisely at Ierusalem nor any where at Ierusalem but in the Temple no nor any where in the Temple but at the Altar each of which places notwithstanding was antecedently Indifferent and so far only good as 't was commanded not commanded for being good 'T is in the Power at this day of God's Vicegerents upon Earth to limit the Time and the Place yea the manner also and measure I say not of private but publick Duties And by how much a thing is the more indifferent in its use it should the rather cease to be so when by legal Authority it shall be turn'd into a Law Since of Laws that are humane the only fit Subjects are things indifferent Nor can we solidly object the seeming difference of Authority in things indifferent under the Law and things indifferent under the Gospel whereof the former were commanded by God himself the later only by his Vicegerents For even These under the Gospel are at least mediately commanded by God himself as being commanded by that Authority which God hath commanded us to obey And let us distinguish how we can betwixt a Divine and a Humane Law we must acknowledge the Truth of this Proposition That Disobedience to the second Table is as bad as Disobedience against the first He Rebel 's against God who withholds his Obedience from God's Vicegerent And as there is indeed a Time to obey God rather than man so is there also as fit a Time to obey God by obeying Man Which if the Sons of disobedience would but unpassionately consider they would not make their Duties difficult by calling them humane Impositions nor cast about for expedients whereby to legitimate such a Sin as is compar'd by God himself to the Sin of Witchcraft § 4. Then let us imitate our Saviour in that Example of his Meekness we this day Celebrate Who rather than seem a Non-conformist or a contemner of the Law whereof the matter was but indifferent until established by lawful and just Authority Impuritatem simulabat as learned Vatablus Interprets thought fit to counterfeit an Impurity he could not possibly contract and made as if he had been unclean as a man born of a woman that he might yield unto a Law which did least concern him unless a Law for Purification was not impertinent to a Lamb whose happy Priviledge it was to be pure and spotless § 5. It was according to such a Law as was not Moral but Ceremonial that the Prophecy of Haggai was now accomplish'd when by the Presence and Presentation of God Incarnate the Glory of the later Temple did far exceed that of the former It was according to such a Law that the offering of the Temple which was this day presented was more immense than the Temple which circumscrib'd him It was according to such a Law that the Transcendency of the Gift which was this day given was at once adequate to the goodness and to the greatness of the Receiver To sum up all in a word it was according to such a Law that our Blessed Redeemer was pleas'd himself to be Redeem'd The great Redeemer of the world to be Redeem'd by a Country Maid And the Redeemer of the world by the dear purchase of his Blood to be cheaply Redeemed by a Maid for a little Silver Now to Him who this Day became obedient unto the Law which was Ceremonial that he might free us from being Slaves to the Law of Sin by Disobedience And was presented unto the Lord under the Form of a Sinner so to present us unto himself without the least stain of sin To the only wise God our Saviour who came on purpose to Redeem us from all Iniquity and to purifie to himself a peculiar People be ascribed by us and by all the world Blessing and Glory and Honour and Power and Wisdom and Thanksgiving from this Day forwards for evermore FINIS A SERMON PREACHED UPON Act-Sunday-Morning AT St. MARIES CHURCH IN OXFORD JULY 10. MDCLXIV Touching the Usefulness and Necessity of Humane Learning together with its Insufficiency without the Help of the Divine ACT. 2. 4. And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost and began to speak with other Tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance § 1. IF we look upon the Text as that does look upon the Context we shall find in it a Fitness for the Solemnity of the Time Not as if the Time of our Oxford Act were also the Time of our English Pentecost for such we know it is not But only in as much as this Hebrew Pentecost does in many things resemble our English Act. For § 2. All the Order of the Apostles were now assembled at Hierusalem which in the latitude of its Importance implies three Things not the Monarchy only and Church but University too of Israel Thither went up the Tribes not to the Sanedrim only but to the Temple There 's the Church On the Northside lyeth the City of the Great King There 's the Monarchy And what in the 87 Psalm we commonly render the Gates of Sion The Targum reads the Gates of the Schools Now the Schools of the Prophets whereof there were in Hierusalem not so few as four hundred at least as the Rabbins do make report in the later Times of the Iewish Politie And the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 more than once in the Septuagint These infer the University There it was that The Apostles were Altogether in an Assembly at once to receive and to shew their Parts to become
the Parable was speaking placentia to his soul soul take thine ease alledging no other reason than his having much goods for many years nothing is fitter to be observ'd than our Saviours words upon that occasion Stulte Thou Fool this night shall thy soul be required of thee then whose shall those things be which thou hast provided However the men of this world have quite another measure of wit and do esteem it the greatest prudence to take their pleasure whilst they are young reserving the work of mortification for times of sickness and old age when 't will be easie to leave their pleasures because their pleasures leave Them yet in the Judgment of God the Son the Word and Wisdom of the Father 't is the part of a blockhead and a fool to make account of more years than he is sure of dayes or hours He is a sot as well as a sinner who does adjourn and shift off the amendment of his life perhaps till twenty or thirty or fourty years after his death 'T is true indeed that Hezekiah whilst he was yet in the confines and skirts of death had a lease of life granted no less than fifteen years long but he defer'd not his repentance one day the longer And shall we adventure to live an hour in an impenitent estate who have not a lease of life promis'd no not so much as an hour shall we dare enter into our beds and sleep securely any one night not thinking how we may awake whether in Heaven or in Hell we know 't is timely repentance which must secure us of the one and 't is final impenitence which gives us assurance of the other VVhat the Apostle of the Gentiles hath said of wrath may be as usefully spoken of every other provoking sin Let not the Sun go down upon it Let us not live in any sin until the Sun is gon down because we are far from being sure we shall live 'till Sun-rising How many Professors go to sleep when the Sun is down and the curtain of the night are drawn about them in a state of drunkenness or adultery in a state of avarice or malice in a state of sacriledge or rebellion in a state of deceitfulness and hypocrisie without the least consideration how short a time they have to live and how very much shorter then they imagine Yet unless they believe they can dream devoutly and truly repent when they are sleeping they cannot but know they are damn'd for ever if the day of the Lord shall come upon them as a thief in the night and catch them napping in their Impieties Consider this all ye that forget God least he pluck you away and there be none to deliver you Consider it all ye that forget your selves That forget how few your dayes are and how full of misery Consider your bodies from whence they came and consider your souls whether is it that they are going Consider your life is in your breath and your breath is in your nostrils and that in the management of a moment for the better or for the worse there dependeth either a joyful or a sad Eternity If our Time indeed were certain as well as short or rather if we were certain how short it is there might bâ— some colour or pretence for the posting off of our Reformation But since we know not at what hour our Lord will come this should mightily ingage us to be hourly standing upon our watch And this may suffice for the subject of our second consideration Thirdly let us consider that if our dayes which are few are as full of trouble it should serve to make us less fond of living and less devoted to self-preservation and less afraid of the Cross of Christ when our Faith shall be call'd to the severest Trials O Death saith the son of Sirach acceptable is thy sentence unto the needy and to him that is vexed with all things The troubles incident to life have made the bitter in Soul to long for Death and to rejoyce exceedingly when they have found the grave If the Empress Barbara had been Orthodox in believing mens Souls to be just as mortal as their bodies death at least would be capable of this applause and commendation that it puts a conclusion to all our troubles If we did not fear Him who can cast both body and soul into Hell we should not need to fear Them who can destroy the body only because there is no Inquisition in the grave There the wicked cease from troubling and there the weary are at rest There the Prisoners lye down with Kings and Counsellers of the Earth The servant there is free from his Master There is sleep and still silence nor can they hear the voice of the Oppressor Mors Bona si non est Finis tamen Illa Malorum But we have farther to consider the threefold Antithesis which we ought to oppose to the three Clauses in the Text for as man who is born of a woman hath but a short time to live and is full of trouble so man as regenerate and born of God hath a long time to live and is full of bliss A life so long that it runs parallel with eternity and therefore without a Catachresis we cannot use such an expression as length of time It is not a long but an endless life it is not time but eternity which now I speak of Nor is it a wretched eternity of which a man may have the priviledge as he is born of a woman but an eternity of bliss which is competent to him only as born of God And of this bliss there is such a fullness that our heads are too thick to understand it Or if we were able to understand it yet our hearts are two narrow to give it entrance Or if our hearts could hold it yet our tongues are too stammering to express and utter it Or if we were able to do that yet our lives are too short to communicate and reveal it to other creatures In a word it is such as not only eye hath not seen nor ear heard but it never hath entred into the heart of man to conceive Incomprehensible as it is 't is such as God hath prepared for them that love him 1 Cor. 2. 9. If we compare this life with the life described in the Text it will several ways be useful to us for it will moderate our joyes whilst we possess our dear friends and it will mitigate our sorrows when we have lost them for it will mind us that they are freed from a life of misery and that they are happily translated to one of bliss Nay if we are true lovers indeed and look not only at our own interest but at the interest of the parties to whom we vow love we even lose them to our advantage because â—o theirs Lastly it sweetens the solemn farewel which our
souls must take of our mortal bodies we shall desire to be dissolved when we can groundedly hope we shall be with Christ we shall groan and groan earnestly to be uncloathed of our bodies with which we are burden'd if we live by this faith that we shall shortly be cloath'd upon with our house from Heaven We shall cheerfully lay down our bodies in the dust when 't is to rest in his peace who will certainly raise us by his power that we may rest and reign with him in glory THus have I don with my Text though but in the middle of my Sermon and but briefly consider'd it in its Antithesis because not pertinent any otherwise then by affording unto Mourners an use of comfort And because I am confident that there are many such here when I consider how many losses lye wrapt in one not only wearers of black but serious Mourners whose very souls are hung with sable and whose unaffected sorrow do call for comfort I shall furnish you with matter of real joy from the ground and occasion of all your sorrows For there is yet another Text upon which I must give you another Sermon A Text I say whose matter and form have been divided by God and Nature The inward form is ascended to him from whom it came down but the outward matter still lies before us And well may that person become our Text who was himself a living Sermon since the integrity of his Life was truly Doctrinal and the resplendent piety of his Death a very pertinent Application I am sure 't is well known in another place and therefore I hope 't is believ'd in this that I am none of their number who use to scatter abroad their Eulogies upon every man's Hearse meerly as customary offerings or things of course Those alone are my seasons wherein to make narratives of the dead when it may righteously be don for the use and benefit of the living Ye know that Jesus the Son of Sirach does set himself solemnly to the work and that with an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Let us now praise famous men Men renowned for their power men of knowledge and learning wise and eloquent in their instructions Rich men furnished with ability and living peaceably in their habitations There be of them that have left a name behind them that their praises might be reported And some there be who have no memorial who have perished as though they had never been and are bâ—come as though they had never been born and their children after them But these were merciful men whose righteousness hath not been forgotten their bodies are buried in peace but their name liveth for evermore for the people will tell of their wisdom and the congregation will shew forth their praise Our honour'd Brother now departed I will not say the unhappy but the now-blessed Subject of this solemnity as he deserves a noble Eulogie so he needs none at all He being one of those few of my particular acquaintance of whom I have seldom or never heard an ill word spoken But in this one thing he had the least resemblance unto his Saviour who was hated by many despis'd by more and basely forsaken almost by all This is therefore no commendation on which our Saviour proclaims a Woe Woe be to you when all men speak well of you Nor do I say that this worthy Gentleman was ill spoken of by none he was sure too worthy to be so befriended by the world I only say that I have seldom or never heard it And he was so much the less obnoxious to the dishonesty of the Tongue because as far as his Quality would give him leave he ever delighted in that obscurity which most young Gentlemen are wont to shun For although his extraction we know was noble and his fortune extreamly fair though his natural parts and abilities were truly great as well as greatly improved by Art and Industry he having been Master of many Languages and I am sure well vers'd in great variety of Learning yet still his modesty and his meekness were so much greater than all the rest that in a perfect contrariety to the vain-glorious and hypocritical he never turn'd his worst side outwards The late retir'dness of his life made him so blameless and inoffensive that I suppose it hath ditted the mouth of envy It was no doubt an effect of those two virtues I mean his modesty and his meekness that he so constantly observ'd that Apostolical Precept James 1. 19. For He if any man living was swift to hear but slow to speak And when he thought it his turn to speak it was rather much than in many words As the speech of Menelaus describ'd by Homer so perfectly free were his discourses from the fault of impertinence or superfluity So far was He from sitting down in the chaiâ— of the scornful as too many of his quality are wont to do nay so far from walking in the counsels of the ungodly from the time that he found them to be such that he made it his care and chiefest caution in his later years more especially not so much as to stand in the way of sinners For as much as I could judge of him who had the happiness to know him for many years he was a true Nathanael an Israelite indeed who though he had many Imperfections as one who was born of a Woman yet he had sure no guile as being also regenerate and born of God Methinks I hear him now speaking to all that knew him as Samuel did to all Israel I have walked before you from my childhood to this day Behold here I am witness against me before the Lord whose Oxe have I taken or whose Ass have I taken or whom have I defrauded whom have I oppressed or of whose hand have I received any bribe to blind mine eyes therewith and I will restore it To which methinks I here the Answer which was made to Samuel in the next verse thou hast not defrauded nor oppressâ—d us T is this that speaks a man right honest which is a nobler Title than right honourable though I may say very truly that he had many due titles of honour too For not to speak of his Ancestors who came in hether with the Conquest and that from the City Poitou in France from whence they derived the name of Peyto I think it more for his honour to have been many ways good to wit a good Husband and a good Father a good Master and a good Friend a good Neighbour and a good Landlord a good Christian and a good Man And which is a sign of more goodness than all the rest he never thought he was good enough especially in the first and the two last particulars It is an excellent ingredient in that religious composition which he had sent before him to bless his soul and left behind him in memory to
perfume his Name too that having been charged with a debt whether by his Fathers last will and testament or by the condition of the times or by both together he was ever in some pain till he had paid that debt or at least had made provision for it because until he had don justice he knew he could not so well shew works of mercy and that was doubtless a pregnant token of walking humbly with his God The three grand Duties which God requires in the sixth Chapter of Micah at the ninth verse The end of Christs coming into the world was to make us live soberly righteously and godly in this present world Tit. 2. 13. the first implying our whole duty towards our selves the second towards our neighbour the third towards our God That extraordinary person of whom I speak doth seem to me as well as others to have reached those ends He was so eminently sober that I believe he was never known to have sinn'd against his own body in any kind so eminently righteous that as I said he was in pain till he had rendred to every man his due Being so sober and so righteous he is inferred to have been so godly too as to have liv'd in opposition to those professors of Christianity who having a form only of godliness deny the power of it for give me leave to tell you what is not every day consider'd The most material part of godliness is moral honesty Nor was there any thing more conspicuous in the holy life of our blessed Lord. The second Table is the touchstone of our obedience unto the first And to apply what I say unto the honourable person of whom I speak we may conclude him to have lived the life of faith because we find him to have dyed the death of the righteous To pass on therefore towards his death as the fittest transition unto his burial I am enabled to say of him by such as were eye and ear witnesses that he abundantly injoyed that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that happy calmness of death which the Emperour Augustus was wont to pray for I say he injoy'd it in both acceptions of the word For first however he was sick of a burning Feaver which carried him up like Elias in a fiery Chariot yet he had this rare happiness which is the priviledge but of few that he even iâ—joyed his whole disease without the least taint of deliration That knot of union betwixt his body and his soul was not violently broken but very leasurely untied they having parted like two friends not by a rude falling out but a loving farewell Thus was his Euthanasia in the first acception of the word But he had it much more as to the second For Two things there are which are wont to make death terrible The first is suddenness the second sin He was so arm'd against the first that he did not only take care for the setting his outward house in order that nothing in this world might trash his flight towards a better but also sent for the Divine to imp the wings of his devotion and farther told his Physician that God had sent him his summons so well was he arm'd against the first of those Phobera and that by the help of our English Litany which prompts us to pray against sudden death and which he commanded one of his servants to assist him with upon his death-bed bestowing upon it when he had don a great deal of holy admiration Again so well was he prepared against the second that for the tenderness of his conscience and his deep resentment of all his sins those of the times more especially in which he deplored his unhappiness that he had had a great share till God was pleas'd in much mercy to shew him that errour of his judgment by which the errour of his practice was bred and cherish'd Next for his hatred of himself in remembrance of them though we may say that in comparison with many others alive and dead he had kept himself unspotted from the world Then for his stedfast resolutions of better life of making ample satisfaction for every ill that he had don and so of bringing forth fruits worthy of repentance if God should be pleas'd to inlarge his time and last of all for his sollicitude that all his family might live in the fear of God and redeem those opportunities which he seem'd unto himself to have sometimes lost or neglected I say in all these respects he appears to me as well as to others a more than ordinary Example But some may say that sick persons are ever sorry for their sins but it is many time a sorrow squeez'd out by sickness And as soon as they recover they do relaps too To which I say that though 't is often so in others yet in this exemplary Christian it could not be so For First it was a mark of his sincerity that he look'd upon his failings as through a Microscope which made them seem nearer and very much greater than they were He warn'd all those who stood about his sick bed to beware of those sins which the world calls little and of the nâ—-little sins which the world calls none yea from the very least appearances and opportunities of sin It was his own expression that all the sins of his former life did even kick in his very face yet he remembred the labourer who went late into the Vineyard and was rewarded He also made some reflections upon the thief on the cross that his faith might steer an even course betwixt the Scylla of despair and the Charybdis of presumption Secondly It was another good token of his sincerity that he was not meerly a death-bed penitent whose repentance too too often is but a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a sorrow according to the world but as divers persons can witness he began the great work in his time of health so as his sickness did but declare his having been a new creature by change of mind and that he did not fall back but press forwards towards the mark and persevere in so doing unto the end Thirdly 'T was another mark of his sincerity that he insisted on the nature of true repentance which still importeth an amendment and reformation of life Nor had he a willingness to recover his former health unless to the end he might demonstrate his renâ—vation by that carefulness that fear that indignation that vehement desire that zeal yea that revenge which S. Paul hath recorded as the effects of a godly sorrow in his Corinthians Abhorring and deploring those desperate notions of Repentance which the world is so commonly mistaken in Fourthly 'T was a comfortable token of his sincerity that he was obstinate in his Prayers against the precept of his Physician and resolv'd to pour out his soul though to the prejudice of his body As if he were piously