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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A59548	The duty and happiness of doing good two sermons : the former, preached at the Yorkshire feast, in Bow-Church, Feb. 17, 1679 : the other, before the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of London, at the Spittle, Apr. 14, 1680 / by John Sharpe ...	Sharp, John, 1645-1714.	1680 (1680)	Wing S2976; ESTC R6463	37,896	84

spending them Let this be the compass to steer and direct us in our pursuit after knowledge in our learning Arts and Sciences in the managery of our Trades and employments in a word in the choice and in the prosecution of every design that is proposed to us In all these things the great enquiry is to be what good will they tend to How shall we be rendred more useful to the world if our designs and endeavours as to these matters do take effect Let this be the great rule by which we proceed in the Education of our Children and Relations and the provisions we make for them in the world Let it be our first care to possess them with a deep sense of the duty they owe to the Publick and to furnish them with such qualities as will render them profitable members of it and to put them into such professions and employments as may afford them fair scope for the exercise of those qualities If we thus provide for them though we otherwise leave them never so small an Estate yet with the Blessing of God they have a good Portion Lastly let this design of doing good influence our very Offices of Religion When we make our applications to the Throne of Grace let us be sure to have the Publick always in mind and even when we pray for our selves let it be with this design and resolution that as God in mercy bestows upon us the Blessings and the Grace we pray for we will employ them for the good of others O that we would thus seriously concern our selves in doing good O that we would once lay aside all our little selfish designs and that narrowness and penuriousness of Spirit with which most of us are bound up and with ardent Love and Charity set our selves not to seek his own but every man anothers good as the Apostle exhorteth Secondly if the doing good be so necessary a duty as hath been represented what must we say of those men that frame to themselves Models of Christianity without putting this duty into its notion There is a sort of Christianity which hath obtained in the world that is made up of Faith and knowledge of the Gospel Mysteries without any respect to Charity and good works Nay have we not heard of a sort of Christianity the very perfection of which seems to consist in the disparaging this duty of doing good as much as is possible crying it down as a heathen virtue a poor blind piece of Morality a thing that will no way further our salvation nay so far from that that it often proves a hindrance to it by taking us off from that full relyance and recumbency that we ought to have on the Righteousness of Jesus Christ only in order to our Salvation But O how contrary are these Doctrines to the Doctrine of Christ and his Apostles How widely different a thing do they make Christianity to be from what it will appear if we take our notions of it from their Sermons and Practices Is it possible that he that went about doing good himself made it his meat and drink the business and employment of his life should set so light by it in us that are his followers Is it possible that they that so often call upon us to do good to be rich in good works above all things to have fervent charity among our selves telling us that all faith is nothing all knowledge of Mysteries is nothing all gifts of Prophecy and Miracles are nothing but that Charity is all in all I say is it possible that they should think doing good so insignificant so unprofitable nay so dangerous a thing as these I spoke of do represent it But I need not further reprove these Opinions because I hope they find but few Patrons but this seriously ought to be reproved among us viz. that we do not generally lay that stress upon this duty we are speaking of that we ought to do Many are ready enough to acknowledge their Obligations to do good and count it a very commendable thing and a work that God will bless them the better for yet they are loth to make it an essential ingredient of their Religion they think they may be Religious and serve God without it If they be but sober in their lives and just in their dealings and come to Church at the usual times they have Religion enough to carry them to Heaven though in the mean time they continue covetous and hard and uncharitable without bowels of pity and compassion and make no use of their wealth or their power and interest or their Parts and industry or their other Talents committed to them for the doing good in the world Far be it from any man to pretend to determine what vertues or degrees of them are precisely necessary to Salvation and what Vertues or degrees of them a man may safely be without But this is certain that charity and doing good are none of those that can be spared The Scripture hath every where declared these qualities to be as necessary in order to our Salvation as any condition of the Gospel Nay if we will consult St. Matth. 25. where the Process of the General Judgment is described we shall find these to be the great points that at the last day men shall be examined upon and upon which the whole case of their eternal state will turn So that if we take the Scripture for our Guide these men at last will be found to be much mistaken and to have made a very false judgment both of Religion and of their own condition Thirdly From what hath been said about doing good we may gather wherein that Perfection of Christianity which we are to aspire after doth consist It has been much disputed which is the most Perfect life to live in the world as other men do and to serve God in following our employments and taking care of our families and doing good offices to our neighbors and discharging all other duties that our relation to the publick requires of us or to retire from the world and to quit all our secular concernments and wholly to give up our selves to Prayer and Meditation and those other exercises of Religion properly so called This latter kind of life is so magnified by the Romanists in comparison of the other that it hath engrossed to it self the name of Religious None among them are thought worthy to be styled Religious persons but those that Cloyster up themselves in a Monastery But whatever excellence may be pretended in this course of life it certainly falls much short of that which is led in a publick way He serves God best that is most serviceable to his Generation And no Prayers or Fasts or Mortifications are near so acceptable a Sacrifice to our Heavenly Father as to do good in our lives It is true to keep within doors and to attend our devotions though those that are in appearance most abstracted

The Duty and Happiness of doing good TWO SERMONS The Former Preached at the YORK-SHIRE FEAST In Bow-Church Feb. 17. 1679. The Other Before the Lord MAYOR AND ALDERMEN OF LONDON At the SPITTLE Apr. 14. 1680. By IOHN SHARPE D. D. Rector of St. Giles in the Fields and Chaplain to the Right Honourable the Lord High Chancellour of England LONDON Printed for Walter Kettilby at the Bishop's-Head in St. Paul's Church-yard 1680. A SERMON Preached at the Second GENERAL MEETING OF THE GENTLEMEN and others in and near LONDON Who were Born within the COUNTY of YORK In the Church of St. Mary-le-Bow February 17. 1679 80. By IOHN SHARPE D. D. Rector of St. Giles in the Fields and Chaplain to the Right Honourable the Lord High Chancellour of England LONDON Printed for Walter Kettilby at the Bishop's Head in St. Paul's Church-Yard 1680. To my Honoured FRIENDS and COUNTRY-MEN Mr. William Petyt Mr. Richard Graham Mr. Iohn Cooke Mr. Mich. Wrightson Mr. Tob. Humphrys Mr. Anth. Lawson Mr. Iohn Short Mr. Francis Boynton Mr. Peter Short Mr. Gab. Wettenhall Mr. Arthur Sedgwick Mr. Thomas Watson Stewards of the last York-shire Feast GENTLEMEN I Now at length Present you with that Sermon which at your desire I Preached at the Second Anniversary Meeting of our Countrey-men and which you were pleased so far to Approve as to Request the Publication of it That I have not performed your Request so soon as might be expected I hope you will pardon me since I had not till this time a convenient leisure to Transcribe my Papers for the Press If this plain Discourse now that it is publick do any way conduce to promote Doing Good which is the Argument of it I shall thank God for the Success and You for putting me upon the Attempt Gentlemen I am Your Affectionate Countrey-man Friend and Servant IOHN SHARPE A SERMON PREACHED At the Second general Meeting of the Gentlemen and others in and near London who were Born within the County of York ECCLES iii. 10. I know that there is no good in them but for a man to rejoyce and to do good in his life THis Book of Ecclesiastes gives us an account of the several Experiments that Solomon had made in order to the finding out wherein the Happiness of Man in this World doth consist and these Words are one of the conclusions he drew from those Experiments No man had ever greater Opportunities of Trying all the ways wherein men generally seek for Contentment than he had and no man did ever more industriously apply himself to or took a greater liberty in enjoying those good things that are commonly most admired than he did And yet after all his Labor and all his Enjoyments he found nothing but Emptiness and Dissatisfaction He thought to become Happy by Philosophy giving his heart as he tells us to seek and search out all the things that come to pass under the Sun Yet upon Tryal he found all this to be Vanity and vexation of Spirit He applyed his mind to Political Wisdom and other sorts of Knowledge and his Attainments in that kind were greater than of any that were before him yet he experienced at last that in Wisdom was much grief and he that increaseth Knowledge increaseth Sorrow He proved his heart as he tells us with Mirth and Wine and all sorts of Sensual Pleasures to find if these were good for the Sons of men and yet so far was he from his desired satisfaction in these things that he was forced to say of Laughter that it was mad and of Mirth what good doth it He turned himself to works of Pomp and Magnificence he built him stately Houses and made him Gardens and Vineyards and Orchards and Fountains He increased his Possessions and gathered Silver and Gold and the precious Treasures of Kings and of the Provinces He got him a vast Retinue and kept the most splendid Court that ever any Prince of that Countrey did yet as he tells us when he came to look upon all the works that his hands had wrought and on the labour that he had laboured to do behold all was vanity and vexation of Spirit and there was no profit under the Sun But wherein then is there any Profit if not in these things What is that good that the sons of men are to apply themselves to in order to their living as comfortably as the state of things here will allow This question after an intimation of the uncertainty and perplexedness of all humane events but withal of the exactness of the Providence of God who hath made every thing beautiful in its season He thus resolves in the words of the Text I know saith he that there is no good in them but for a man to rejoyce and do good in his life that is to say I have found by long experience that all the Happiness that is to be had in the good things of this life doth arise from these two things Rejoycing in the enjoyment of them and doing Good to others with them while we live Take away these two uses and there is no good in them Or if you please we may Interpret the first part of his Proposition not of things but of men thus I I know there is no good in them i. e. I am convinced that there is nothing so good for the sons of men or nothing that move contributes to their happiness in this world than that every man should rejoyce and do good in his life And to this purpose the words are rendred by several Interpreters but it is no matter which of the sences we pitch upon since in effect they come both to one thing Two things then Solomon here recommends to every one that would live comfortably in this world Rejoycing and doing Good and I do not know what can be more proper and seasonable to be recommended and insisted on to you at this time and on this occasion than these two things for the putting them in practice makes up the whole design of this Meeting We are here so many Brethren met together to Rejoyce and to do Good To Rejoyce together in the sense and acknowledgment of Gods mercies and Blessings to us and in the enjoyment of Society one with another And to do Good not only by encreasing our Friendship and Mutual Correspondence but by joyning together in a chearful Contribution to those our Country-men that need our Charity To entertain you therefore upon these Two Points seems to be my Proper Business But in treating of them I shall make bold to invert the order in which they are put in the Text and shall first speak of doing Good though it be last named and shall afterwards treat of Rejoycing The truth is doing good in the order of nature goes before Rejoycing for it is the Foundation of it There can be no true joy in the Possession or use of any worldly blessings unless we can satisfie