our eternal safety I must certainly appear to you to serve the Interests of your Immortalities when I persuade and exhort you to avoid that which does so greatly endanger them and this is what you have been taught to call Soul-saving Doctrine Lastly I have opportunity here to present you as I do with a most hearty and persuasive Address that might induce you from the consideration of your Religion to resolve upon a firm steady and unstained Loyalty to his Majesty that now is Our Lawful and Vndoubted Sovereign whom God long preserve that we may none of us so much as seem to wish well to those that are doing what in them lies to hurry us into the most miserable Anarchy and Confusion Consider how contrary to the Religion we all Profess such Accursed Practises are and let us by all means avoid the encouraging any such Designing and Restless Heads as can never so much as pretend to protect our Religion 'till they have first violated it in the most necessary parts of it Never say to them God speed lest if we partake with them in their Sins God give us to partake with them in their Plagues But amidst all the Tragical noises with which evil men would Alarm our fears to desperate Actions let us be persuaded to calm our minds with the remembrance of the watchful and wise Conduct of Divine Providence which superintends all affairs below and peculiarly those of his Church let us not forget the experiences of Divine care for our Religion which has been gloriously discovered for it in all the necessities it has been in Psal 22. 4 5. Let us abide upon the Gracious and Repeated Promise of as Just a Prince as ever swayed the Scepter over us But then let us be faithful to the Government that that may not be uneasie to us And that we may be the more engaged to practise what I exhort to consider we all that Hereby we shall create to ourselves strong and sure titles to the Divine Protection for God did never for sake or forget those that in Piety and Charity submission to his own Appointments and Obedience to his Deputies in the World and perseverance in well-doing have committed their causes to him Hereby we endear ourselves to our Prince who will always value Loyal and Obedient Subjects and Protect that Religion that teaches men to be so Hereby we add a Lustre to our Profession while we walk worthy of that Holy Name that is named upon us And render that and ourselves truly Honourable to all Mankind and especially to those that Govern us And let us never forget That amending our lives and living strictly according to the rules of our Religion is the best and only way to Protect that and ourselves in the peaceable enjoyment of it To Conclude and to give you a short but full direction how you may accomplish all these blessed and happy purposes I exhort you in the Name of God that you go on heartily to espouse and steadily to persevere in the Communion of the Church of England to revere her Governours to value her Teachers and to practise her Doctrines By so doing you will be sure to tread aright and be out of danger of being beguiled by any false pretences or insinuations into any actions that may become hurtful to yourselves or your Religion Here you will find to be taught unspotted Piety towards God firm Loyalty to our Prince hearty and extensive Charity to one another and if we do and persevere in doing these things we shall never fall But amidst all the Changes and Vncertainties of an uneasie World shall be supplied with the fresh assistances of God's Holy Spirit proper to our states and so guided by the particular care of his wakeful Providence that we shall at the last attain the accomplishment of all our Desires and the reward of all our Labours in portions of an endless and unconceivable Bliss Which God of his Infinite Mercy Grant to us All through Jesus Christ our Lord to whom with the Father and the Eternal Comforter be Glory and Honour and Praise Now and Ever Amen FINIS
Loyalty Essential to Christianity BEING A SERMON Preached the Thirtieth of June 1685. Upon the Occasion of the News OF THE Damnable Rebellion IN THE WEST AND In the Course of the Constant Lecture in the Parish Church of Dedham in Essex By Thomas Grey A. M. Preacher there LONDON Printed by Henry Clark and Sold by Walter Davis in Amen-Corner MDCLXXXV Imprimatur C. Alston R. P. D. Hen. Episc Lond. a Sacris Domesticis TO THE Right Honourable and Right Reverend FATHER in GOD HENRY Lord Bishop of LONDON One of His Majesties most Honourable Privy Council c. MY LORD I Am emboldned to hope for your pardon in offering to the world so mean a Discourse under the Patronage of your Lordships Name because I am very certain that you will never decline the owning that glorious subject it Treats of which in opposition to our Adversaries of both sides is the peculiar and unblemished Glory of our Church in which your Lordship does justly bear so great a Character The news of the horrid Rebellion broke out in the Western parts of this Kingdom shrouding it self under the wonted colours that all such Villanies assume occasioned my offering these following thoughts in the next ordinary course of my Preaching to my Country and plain Auditory of whom it pleases me to tell your Lordship that I hope and beleive they have heartily received the Doctrines of Loyalty to their Prince and Duty to the Church as a part of their Religion And concerning this mean Publication I will confess My Lord that I was not unwilling by it to let our Enemies know that even the most inconsiderable of the Clergy of our Church will yet do their utmost to assert the glorious Doctrines of it whenever bold and malicious men shall attempt the dishonoring of any of them And I hope 't is not amiss for your Lordship to receive some Testimonies to prove That those of us that judge ourselves the meanest of our Reverend Brethren among whom we are will yet never By Divine Assistance desert the great and hitherto victorious Champions of our Church and Cause But that by our Practising and Preaching the Doctrines of sound and undefiled Religion toward God and of entire and unfeigned Loyalty to our Prince we shall endeavour to Continue to After Ages the Memory and Records of what Principles our Church has taught us and what we have taught our People May it please your Lordship To forgive this whole Address and to accept the dutiful Tender of my Vowed Prayers My Lord Your Lordships Most Humble and Most Obedient Servant Tho. Grey Dedham July 8. 1685. TITUS III. 1. Put them in mind to be subject to Principalities and Powers to obey Magistrates to be ready to every good Work A Doctrine that is at all times proper and useful to be taught though it has had the misfortune that attends several other excellent parts of Christian Religion I mean to be looked upon even by the greatest pretenders to Piety as a matter of but very little consequence and if it be acknowledged to contain any thing of necessity in it yet some evil instructors of our People have taught them to clog it with so many limitations that in truth it comes but to very little with some of them But however that be yet they have effectually discovered their endeavours to remove this necessary and excellent Doctrine of our Religion as far from that as they have from their own Breasts Certain it is and our sad experience has but too too much confirmed it that in despight of all our Exhortations to the contrary they had so far insinuated their own prejudices into the minds of all that did but a little favour them that those of them that would not altogether disown the Obligations of our Religion in this particular portion of it did yet freely and openly censure our publick Discourses on that Subject as mean insipid and unedifying and hardly so good as Moral Preaching which by the way is a disgraceful lessening Phrase as they imagin which the Leaders of the Faction have invented thereby to render our Exhortations to the Performance of the very chiefest parts of Practical Religion despicable and so ineffectual to those for whose sakes we chiefly intended them and who in truth through the crafty insinuations of such designing Guides did most need them But indeed this was a necessary though a Hellish Policy for they did well enough foresee that if we could but persuade Men to the careful practise of Humility Peace and Charity among one another and of Submission and Obedience to their lawful Governours in Church and State Those Fundamentals of our Religion it would quickly and unavoidably have defeated all their Factious and Schismatical Designs which most palpably have succeeded but in the same Proportions that those lovely and happy Virtues have decayed among us It is evident then that a Discourse of this Nature could at no time be unseasonable to People in our Circumstances But I have judged it more peculiarly proper to entertain you with a plain and honest Exhortation to a firm and sincere Loyalty and from this particular Topick as 't is a Fundamental of the Religion we Profess now when there are found them among us that have entred into an open and damnable Rebellion against their Natural Prince upon that Pretext and that have the impudence to Publish the maintaining and supporting that for their design which they have already by their desperate Actions violated and dishonoured in one of its most sacred sanctions and which does particularly recommend the Care and Practise of it to the World I do not believe that you that hear me have any particular need to be now Admonished of this part of your Duty but yet to discover the steadiness of our own Principles that I might prevent any of you from being so much as alienated from your Duty in your Affections or wheadled into thinking well of such practises by the Cry of the Protestant Religion that I might lead you not only to a dislike but an utter abhorrence of such wretched Principles as can never tend to support or promote our Religion but to dishonour and ruin it and that are as contrary to your happiness in another World as they are destructive of your interest in this I have chosen to be obedient to this Apostolical Injunction Put them in mind to be subject to Principalities and Powers to obey Magistrates to be ready to every good Work Two things I shall observe from these words which shall be the limits of my Discourse First That Subjection and Obedience to lawful Governors is strictly and necessarily enjoyned by Christian Religion Secondly That all Ministers of the Evangelick Dispensation are entirely obliged to exhort their several Hearers to the careful and conscionable Practise of this as their just and necessary Duty And First Of the first of these That subjection and obedience to Magistrates and lawful Governors is strictly
were more Acts of Violence Rapine Cruelty Injustice and Irreligion committed in this our Nation during the few years of the prevailing of that Fatal and Execrable Rebellion over us than can be found in all our Histories to have been done by all the Male-Administrations of Government though surveyed with never so much prejudiced Judgments How many among us both in their Persons and Estates do bear those scars that are at once the loud Proclaimers of the Loyalty and Glory of them that wear them and also of the Tyranny and Rage of them that gave them If then it be evident as I think 't is from all has been offered on this particular that Obedience Loyalty and Submission to Governors is the undeniable Interest of Mankind it follows strongly that 't is effectually provided for and secured by the Doctrines of Jesus For the Son of God when he founded his Church by the delivering his Religion to the World that all men and particularly Princes and Governors might not want any sort of motives that might be proper to recommend it to their Love and Protection of it took effectual care by establishing the Duties of men one to another and of all men to their Rulers upon the same forcible Obligations and Penalties that he did those to God himself to secure so persuasive an Argument as that of the Interest of all Societies and Relations of men on the behalf of the Doctrine he was then to establish Fifthly I will go on to prove the truth of my Proposition from one of the Grand Designs and Intendments of Christian Religion in the World to which resisting of Governors is utterly contrary Now one of the great purposes of the Gospel was the establishing of Peace and Charity among men See how it was Prophesied before of the days of the Messiah Isa 11. 6 7 8 9 The Wolf shall dwell with the Lamb and the Leopard shall lye down with the Kid And the Lyon shall eat straw like the Oxe And the Reason is given Ver. 9 For the Earth shall be full of the knowledg of the Lord as the Waters cover the Seas The Author of our Religion is called The Prince of Peace was born in a time of Vniversal Peace and at his Birth the Heavenly Anthem sung by Angels was Peace on Earth Good Will towards or among men When he was going out of the World his Blessing was Peace I leave with you my Peace I give unto you Joh. 14. 27. And while he conversed with his Disciples he makes Charity to become the very Character of a Christian Joh. 13. 35 Hereby shall all men know that you are my Disciples if you have love one to another The whole Institution that he left I mean the Gospel is called the Gospel of Peace He that sent him to reveal it is the God of Peace the Message and Commands it carries do correspond Live peaceably with all men Follow Peace without which no man shall see God is the one half of that which is of so absolute necessity to happiness that it can never be attained without it But how effectually and summarily all this is defeated by resisting of Governors is so plain that it needs no Proof And moreover which was hinted before 't is utterly inconsistent with that temper of mind that Christianity requires in all that pretend to espouse it even Meekness Charity Gentleness and the like All which it requires so strictly and absolutely so universally and without the least colour of exception that 't is impossible for him to be a Hypocrite I mean to be able to pretend to the least shadow of Piety that acts contray to such a temper for he is a notorious opposer of the Religion of Christ in its greatest Fundamentals and in despight of all other Varnishes and Pretences whatever this alone pulls of the Vizard and presents him to the World as a stranger to the efficacy of Christian Principles if he be a Contentious and Vncharitable man Gal. 5. 22 23 The fruit of the spirit i. e. what it certainly works in that mind where it inhabits is Love Peace Long-suffering Gentleness Goodness Meekness c. so many several names being given to the same Essential Virtue of Charity does easily teach us how it delighted the holy kind and charitable Spirit of Jesus to impress such Characters upon all that should own and believe its Revelations And again Col. 3. 12 13 Put on therefore as the Elect of God i. e. as become those that are dear to and highly valued of God bowels of Mercies Kindness Humbleness of mind Meekness Long-suffering these are those parts of our Religion that are so closely recommended to us and that render us highly beloved and esteemed of God because they do constitute in us a God-like temper of mind and make us the Children of our Father which is in Heaven and because the Practise of them renders our Religion truly Glorious and Lovely in the World Now Rebellion and Disobedience to Governors must needs be wholly inconsistent with this temper of mind that is before described forasmuch as it arises from Rancour Discontent Malice Ambition Cruelty Impatience Pride Peevishness and the like evil habits of mind which how well they agree with what the Evangelick Institutes do require and promote in us let all men that know them judg Sixthly Another thing that inevitably concludes for what I have been so earnestly exhorting you to and is a result of what I last named is the consideration of that due submission to and acquiescing in the disposals of Divine Providence concerning us and all we have which we are bound to both by Natural and Revealed Religion I shall not suspect that you do so little understand your Religion as to go about to prove that contentment or a patient abiding the Will of Heaven concerning us is our Duty And a very little of Discourse will shew you how contrary resisting of supream Powers is to all that For Put the case that we be under all the Ills Hardships and Calamities that can be supposed nay and more and greater than can be supposed from our Governors is it not still the Great Ruler of the World that has appointed us this state and if we Contrive and Endeavour to free our selves from it by force of Arms what is it but violent and desperate resisting the Ordinance of God concerning our selves 'T is Rebellion against the Great Monarch of the Vniverse and declining that service he enjoyns us What is it but a wicked Resolve to break the Mighty Course of his Counsels or at best but a fruitless Attempt to free our selves by our own force from that condition of life which not so much his Vice-gerent as he himself has disposed to us 'T is telling the World and God Almighty to his face we will not be as he would have us 'T is a Gyant-like War and no less than an endeavour to fling his Providence out of the Earth which is