Selected quad for the lemma: soul_n
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A58810
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A sermon preached before the Honourable Military Company at St. Clements-Danes, July 25 by John Scott ...
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Scott, John, 1639-1695.
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1673
(1673)
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Wing S2064; ESTC R38223
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15,491
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32
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A SERMON PREACHED Before the Honourable Military Company at St. Clements-Danes July 25. BY JOHN SCOTT Minister of St. Thomas Southwark LONDON Printed for Tho. Taylor at the Hand and Bible in the New Buildings on London-Bridge 1673. To the Right Worshipful Sir ROBERT PEYTON President and one of the Stewards elect Captain JOHN PERRY Lieut. GEORGE CLERK Lieut. THOMAS LOW Lieut. WILLIAM PEPPER Ensign JOHN MERYDALE Serjeant RALPH HOLLAND Stewards of the Honourable the Military Company and to the Stewards elect Sir RICHARD COMBES JAMES LONG Esq. CHARLES HUMPHREVILE Esq. CHRIST OPHER VANE Esq. JOHN AYLOFFE Esq. and to Captain JOHN HOOKER Treasurer Worthy Gentlemen EVer since I consented to your desires to Print this rude Discourse I have been hardly put to it to make an Apology for it at first I resolved to go the way of all Authors and indite my Patrons for committing a rape upon my modesty and dragging this poor offering like an unwilling Sacrifice to the Altar but upon second thoughts I could not but disapprove such a kind address as too disingenious and unmannerly for to avouch your importunities for the publication of so mean a discourse I might reasonably think would be to libel your Judgments and to make the world believe I designed Revenge rather than Obedience and therfore in conclusion I rather resolved to take all the blame upon my self hoping that in the great crowd of silly things that come abroad into the world this little trifle may pass unobserved but if it should be so unhappy as to be taken notice of I hope the world will not be so unconscionable as to deny me the priviledge of playing the fool as well as others whatsoever imperfections there may be in the Sermon the subject of it is so great and excellent that 't is no shame for any man to lie prostrate under it for intreating of such high Arguments insufficiency is both Art and Rhetorick If therefore I have not given it a Character as great as it deserves I hope this will in some measure excuse me that I am a man and not an Angel but however I fare in the esteem of others this comfort I have that the weaker the Discourse is the greater Argument it will be of the gratitude and obedience of Your humble and affectionate Servant JOHN SCOTT ERRATA PAge 1. for aley read aloy line 5. for our bodies r. as for our bodies p. 5. and us p. 8. for menaceth r. meaneth and to be left out p. 9. for infer r. infere put in can p. 10. for understa understandings p. 12. for By r. A. p. 13. add all other p. for ride r. run p. 15. for clutering r. clattering p. 17. acknowledge Epes 6. 11. Put on therefore the whole Armour of God THat which giveth us the advantage of Brutes and ranketh us in a form of Beings above them is the Rational and Immortal Spirits we carry about with us for our Bodies they are but clods of earth steeped in phlegme and kneaded into Humane shapes and do derive their Pedegree from the same Principles with flies and scare-bees and the most contemptible Animals but our Souls are of a purer alley and by their nature are allied to Angels and do border upon God himself and it is by the Title of these Rational Natures that we are now superior to Beasts and hope hereafter to be equal with Angels and yet besotted Creatures that we are how do we prefer our Bodies before our Souls imploying all our cares in providing for and pampering of our flesh as if our Reason were given us for no other end but to be Cook and Taylor to our Bodies to study Sauses and fashions for them whilst our Immortal Spirits pine and famish and like forlorn things are wholly abandoned by us to wretchedness and misery that it is so is apparent by too many woful instances the poor Labourer that sweateth and toileth all day for his Body thinketh much at night to bestow upon his Soul a Prayer of a quarter of an hour long the Tradesman that thinks no Industry too much to make a fair and ample provision for his Body grudgeth to expend a few good thoughts and endeavours in the purchase of an eternal Inheritance for his Soul the Souldier that shuts up his Body in ribs of Iron and Coats of Male to secure it from the Sword and Bullets of his Enemies exposeth his Soul unarmed to all the fiery darts of the Devil and though his understanding hath as much need of Knowledge as his Head hath of an Helmet his Will as much need of Justice as his Breast of a Bucklen his Affections as much need of Fortitude and temperance as his Legs and hands have of Greaves and Gantlets yet he ventures them all naked amongst a thousand Enemies as if his little Toe or Finger were more dear and precious to him than his Immortal Soul But if we would be good Souldiers and good men too we must arm our selves with in as well as without and as we harness our Bodies in Iron so must we put on upon our Souls the whole Armor of God and this is the councel of the Apostle in the Text which I have chosen for the subject of my ensuing Discourse Put on therefore the whole armour of God By the whole Armor of God here we are to understand the Christian Religion that is the Doctrine and Duties of Christianity as you may see at large from the fourteenth to the eighteenth Verses of this Chapter where the Apostle instances in the particular parts of which this whole armour consisteth the first is the Girdle of Truth that is the Doctrine of the Gospel in opposition to all Heathen errors and heretical insinuations The second is the Breast-plate of Righteousness that is sincere and faithful obedience unto Christ the third is the preparation of the Gospel of Peace that is the practice of Christian Charity and Peaceableness the fourth is the Shield of Faith that is the belief of the Promises and threats of the Gospel the fifth is the Helmet that is the hope of Salvation the sixth is the Sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God and the last is Prayer and Watchfulfulness These are the several parts of this Divine armour in which you see are reckoned both the Doctrines and Duties of Christianity by the putting on of these therefore nothing else can be meant but only our hearty belief of the Doctrines and our sincere Practice of the Duties of Christian Religion for to this sence the Phrase is frequently used in the New Testament thus when the Apostle exhorteth us to put on the Lord Jesus Christ in Rom. 13. 14. it is plain he meaneth nothing else but believing in Christ and obeying him And so also when in Ephes. 4. 22 24. he exhorteth them to put off the old man and put on the new he meaneth nothing else but that they should forsake their Heathen Superstitions and Idolatrous uncleannesses and
conform all their actions to the new Rule of Christian purity In the words thus explained you have first something implied which is that the Christian Religion is armour of defence unto the Souls of men Secondly something expressed that if we mean it should arm and defend us we must believe and practise it First that the Christian Religion is armour of defence unto the Souls of men that is it is of the same use to mens Souls as Armour is to their Bodies for as the end of armour is to defend mens bodies and secure them against the weapons of their Enemies so the great end and design of the Christian Religion is to defend mens Souls from whatsoever is hurtful and injurious to them Now there are but two sorts of evils in the world both which are injurious to the Souls of men The first is the evil of sin and the second is the evil of misery and against both these Christianity doth strongly arm us First for the evil of sin which upon several accounts is injurious to mens Souls it overthroweth the Order and Oeconomy of their natures inslaving their Reason to their Passions and Appetites as it discomposeth the tranquility of their minds by inspiring them with wild and inconsistent passions and it disturbeth the peace of their Consciences by suggesting black thoughts and horrible reflections to them these and several other ways is Vice injurious to our Souls And therefore 't is the design of Christianity to arm us against this great evil to secure and defend us against all the Weapons of unrighteousness Hence the Apostle telleth us that the Grace of God that is the Gospel was revealed from Heaven for this very end to teach us to deny all ungodliness and worldly lust and to live soberly and righteously and godly in this present world Tit. 2. 11. and St. John telleth us That for this purpose the Son of God was manifested that he might destroy tha works of the Devil 1 John 3. 8. this was the errant of the Son of God into the world and the design of that incomparable Religion he taught to destroy the works of the Devil And indeed if we consider what an effectual course Christianity taketh to defend us against sin we must confess it to be the most excellent armour in the world for 1. First It restraineth us from it by the purest Laws the Laws of Christian Religion have made so great a gulph between our sins and separated us from them by such an infinite distance that it is impossible for them to come at us or for us to go to them whilst we persevere in our obedience to them for they do not only forbid us that which is really evil but do also command us to abstain from all appearances of evil and do remove us so far out of the territories of sin that they will not permit us to approach the borders of it and lest we might unhappily go farther than we should they forbid us to go as far as we may and will not allow us so much as to come within the skirts and suburbs of iniquity For in moral actions the distance is frequently so small between the utmost of what is lawful and the nearmost of what is sinful that there are very few men in the world can set a rule to themselves hitherto may I go and no farther and therefore without an infallible guide to point out to them the just and particular limits of lawful and unlawful men can hardly be secure whilst they dwell upon upon the frontiers and neighbourhood of sin and therefore the Gospel commands us at least to endeavour to keep at distance from sinning and not come near the pitch lest we be defiled by it neither doth it only restrain us from outward acts but also from inward inclinations to evil we must be so far from murdering our Brother that we must not hate or wish ill to him so far from practising rapine and oppression that we must not so much as covet our neighbours Possessions so far from acting adultery that we must not look upon a woman to lust after her thus the Laws of our Religion you see do strike at the very root of sin and choak the very springs from whence those bitter streams derive and do not like other Laws meerly restrain our outward practice but also lay reins upon our desires and extend their Empire to our free-born thoughts In this respect therefore Christianity doth most effectually arm us against sin as it restraineth us from it by the purest Laws that ever were Secondly By disswading us from it with the most prevailing Arguments There is no Article of the Christian faith but is a copious Topick of motives to Virtue and if men would but take the pains to extract from each their proper and just inferences and to ponder those great obligations to gratitude and duty which the several Articles of their Religion do devolve upon them Christianity must necessarily do wonders in the world and work strange alterations in the lives and manners of Christians for there is no stone that it leaveth unturned nothing within us that is capable of perswasion but it addresseth to to win upon our hope it proposeth to us a happiness so extensive that we can neither desire nor imagine beyond it a happiness that is equal to the utmost capacities of our natures and parrallel to the longest duration of our beings that hath not the least tang of misery in it no bitter farewel nor appendant sting to it but is all quintessence composed of the purest extracts of joy and pleasure what greater motive can be urged to disswade us from sinning than the hope of such a happiness as doth so infinitely out-bid all that vice can proffer us and is weighty enough to preponderate all its temptations though all the world were in the counterballance but if we are so wedded to our lusts that no hope of advantage will disingage us from them Christianity thunders against them all the dreadful threats that are capable of scaring us into sober purposes it denounceth unquenchable fire and eternal vengeance against all unrighteousness and ungodliness of men and allarms our fears with all the inconceivable horrors that an everlasting hel menaceth and that this may not scare us only from open prophaness into close and secret hypocrisie it assureth us that there will be a day of fearful account and wherein all that we acted behind the Curtain shall be brought into publike view upon an open Theater and proclaimed to all the world by the Trumpet of God and the voice of an Archangel and that we may be assured that these terrors of the Lord are not meer bugs and scare crows it giveth us a fearful example of Gods severity against sin in the death and sufferings of his own Son wherein he hath proclaimed himself an implacable enemy to vice in that he would not pardon it without the blood of the most