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A54829
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A collection of sermons upon several occasions by Thomas Pierce ...
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Pierce, Thomas, 1622-1691.
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1671
(1671)
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Wing P2167; ESTC R33403
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232,532
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509
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pleasantly prophane Things expressed in Holy Writ by foolish Talking and Iesting 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which are both branded in the same stile with Fornication and uncleannesse and other things not to be nam'd by reason of which saith the Apostle the wrath of God cometh upon the Children of Disobedience No In all our solemn meetings especially Then when we tread in God's Courts we ought to speak 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so as not to disgrace but adorn the Gospel We must use all our Learning and Elocution if we have any as the Apostles here did their miraculous gift of Tongues not to gratifie the Itch of ungracious men but to trumpet out the wonderfull works of God That they who cannot indure to think we can be eminently worthy may yet be forced to confesse we are serious Christians And since St. Iames is very positive that he who offendeth not in word is a perfect man let us contend and reach forth towards this perfection still indeavouring to to speak with the best Tongues we have if not as men fill'd with the holy Ghost yet at least like them that speak as the Spirit gives them utterance That so when other mens Tongues shall be employ'd in crying out for a Drop of water importuning the mountains to fall upon them to hide them from the face of Him that sitteth upon the Throne and from the wrath of the Lamb Our Tongues may joyn in Consort with the divine Choir of Angels with the Congregation of the first-Born whose names are written in heaven and with the Soules of just men made perfect Singing Hosannahs and Hallelujas to him that sitteth upon the Throne and unto the Lamb for ever more FINIS The Primitive Rule of Reformation Delivered in a SERMON BEFORE His MAIESTY at WHITEHALL Feb 1. 1662. IN Vindication of Our CHVRCH Against the NOVELTIES of ROME Published by His Majesties special Command The Ninth Edition TO THE High and Mighty Monarch Charles the II. By the Grace of God KING of Great Britain France and Ireland Defender of the Faith Most Gratious and Dread Soveraign THat which never had been expos'd unto a wittily-mistaking and crooked world but in a dutiful submission to Your Command may at least for This if for no other reason be justly offer'd to Your Protection And this is don with a steady though humble confidence of successe because THE DEFENDER OF THE FAITH which was once deliver'd unto the Saints cannot possibly chuse but be so to Him who does earnestly contend for the very same because for no other Faith than That which was from the Beginning If for This I have contended with as much earnestness from the Pulpit as The Romanists from the Presse do contend against it I have not only the Exhortation and Authority of a Text but the Exigence of the Time to excuse me in it Now as the Romans in the Time of the second Punick War could not think of a fitter way for the driving of Hannibal out of Italy than Scipio's marching with an Army out of Italy into Afrique giving Hannibal a Necessity to go from Rome for the raising of the Siege which was laid to Carthage So could I not think of a fitter Course to disappoint the Pontificians in their Attempts on Our Church than thus by making it their Task to view the Infirmities of their Own To which effect I was excited to spend my self and to be spent If I may speak in the phrase of our Great Apostle not from an arrogant Opinion of any sufficiency in my self who am one of the Least among the Regular Sons of the Church of England But as relying on the sufficiency of the Cause I took in hand especially on the Help of the All-sufficient who often loves to make use of the weakest Instruments to effect the bringing down of the strongest Holds I suppose my Discourse however innocent in it self will yet be likely to meet with many not onely learned and subtil but Restless enemies Men of pleasant Insinuations and very plausible Snares nay such as are apt where they have Power to confute their Opponents by Fire and Faggot But when I consider how well my Margin does lend Protection to my Text for I reckon that my Citations which I could not with Prudence represent out of a Pulpit are the usefullest part of my whole Performance because the Evidence and Warrant of all the rest I cannot fearfully apprehend what Wit or Language or ill us'd Learning can do against it so far forth as it is arm'd with Notoriety of Fact in its Vindication and hath the published Confessions of those their Ablest Hyperaspistae who cannot certainly by them of their own perswasion with honor or safety be contradicted If they are guilty in their Writings it is rather their own than their Readers Fault Nor is it their Readers but Their misfortune if they are found So to be by their own Concessions Nor can they rationally be angry at their Reader 's Necessity to believe them especially when they write with so becoming a proof of Impartiality as that by which they asperse and accuse Themselves If it finally shall apear They are condemn'd out of their mouthes as Goliah's Head was cut off by David not with David's but with Goliah's own Sword and that I am not so severe in taking Notice of their Confessions as They have been unto Themselves in the Printing of them for I cannot be said to have revealed any secrets by meerly shewing before the Sun what They have sent into the Light I think however They may have Appetite They cannot have Reason to complain I have intreated of many Subjects within the Compass of an hour on each of which it would be easie to spend a year But I have spoken most at large of the Supremacy of the Pope as well because it is a Point wherein the Honor and Safety of Your Majesties Dominions are most concern'd as because it is the chief if not only Hinge I have Bellarmine's assertion for what I say on which does hang the whole stress of the Papal Fabrick If herein as I have obey'd I shall also be found to have serv'd Your Majesty The sole discharge of my Duty will be abundantly my Reward because I am not more by Conscience and Obligation of Gratitude than by the Voluntary Bent and Inclination of my Soul Your Majesties most devoted and most Dutiful Subject and Chaplain THOMAS PIERCE MATTH XIX 8. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But from the beginning it was not so THere are but very few things either so little or so great whether in Art or Nature whether in Politie or Religion which are not willing to take advantage from the meer credit of their Antiquity First for Art Any part of Philosophy penn'd by Hermes Trismegistus any Script of Geography bearing the name of Anaximander any Musicall Composition sung by Amphion to his Harp any piece of the Mathematicks
which regarded not the high but the low estate of his Hand-maid after the rate of our being viler and more contemptible in our own And even by minding higher Things than now we doe we should lesse be highminded than now we are Then let us not stand at too great a distance from the most despicable Person for whom Christ dyed no not so much as from the man who bids us stand farther off for he is holyer than we since we are equally descended from the very same Eve and so by Her from the very same Adam and so by Him from the very same Earth Suppose a Potter of the same clay shall make a washpott and a Basin intending That for the Kitchen and This especially for the Closet shall the Basin say to the washpot I am better than Thou There may indeed be a great but there cannot be any intrinsick difference as wholly depending upon the Will and by That upon the usage of Him that owns them In this they certainly agree that they consist not of a different but of the same kind of Dirt and being broken both in pieces are equally cast unto the Dunghil That all were equal in the womb is contended by Philo the Learned Iew. That all were equal in the Laver of their Regeneration Gregorie Nazianzen does argue with exprobration as Beatus Rhenanus does well observe And so 't was rationally ordain'd by the Law of Moses That both the poorest and the richest the meanest and the most honorable the Virgin mother herselfe and her purer Babe however different they might be in all the Circumstances of Life should be equally rated as well at their Births as at their Burials And though the Emperour Leo Sirnam'd Isaurus had rather the Power than the Authority to put an excize upon women's child Births making every man pay for his being Born Yet 't was righteously provided under the legal Dipensation because by commission from God Himself that all the masculine children which were withall the First-born should pay the same kind of Custom at their entrance into the world and discharge the same Debt at their Exit too Perhaps to teach us This Lesson amongst some others that the difference of Degrees in the Sons of men although indeed 't is of divine yet it is not of natural but of positive Institution For though God puts them asunder as far as the Zenith is from the Nadir fixing a King upon the Throne and casting a Rebel into the Dungeon which is enough to stop the Mouths of all our levelling Fanaticks whether the Adamites abroad or the Anabaptists at home yet all men by Nature are no less than twice levell'd before they come into their Cradle and when they go into their Grave § 6. But though this is the Lesson which we are taught by that Law by which the mother after her child-Birth was to be purifi'd in the Temple Yet it may easily be demanded how the Law of purification could reach the Virgin For was shee not chaster than the Turtles shee came to offer was shee not her selfe a living Temple and very much purer than the Temple to which shee went for a Purification Can there be any cleaner Flame than what stream's forth from a Virgin Taper would we not wonder at such a Chymist as should use his Alembick to cleanse Elixirs And probably laugh at that Goldsmith who should refine his metals beyond their Quintessence To purifie a Virgin may seem a Soloecisme as great as for a man to wash Water And to purifie such a Virgin as had been happily impraegn'd by the Spirit of purity is just like washing the clearest water as it newly glide's forth from the crystal Spring not so much as deflowr'd by the embraces of the River much lesse by being mixt with the Brackish Ocean It s true indeed shee was a Mother but by so much the more a Maid too Shee was deliver'd of a Son but of such a Son as was the wisdom of the Father Shee lay in of an Infant but such an Infant as was The Word Shee encompassed a man but such a man as was Emanuel Shee brought forth a child but such a strange child as had the Goverment on his shoulders A child whose name was called wonderful Counsellour the mighty God the Everlasting Father the Prince of Peace Isa. 9. 16. And being deliver'd of such an Infant such a child such a manchild as This How could That which made her pure make her need a Purification Or to give this objection its utmost strength Admit that Marie in her Person mightstand in need of being purified though not in regard to the Babe shee bare Yet at least to the Parents of which she was born must therefore the Author of her Puritie submit himselfe to have a sâ—are in her Purification must Christ himself become the Subject as well as the Maker of thaâ— Law For so the greatest number of Copyes agree to have him reading 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the dayes not of her but of their Purification So reads the oldest and best of Manuscripts which 't is our happiness to possess in our English Archives So reads Origen out of choice whose matchless pains in comparing Manuscripts might make him the abler to choose aright So reads Erasmus and Zegerus Laurentius and De Dieu And by the stream of such strong Authority the Judgment of Beza is carried down And so is the Arabick Translation which seems to follow the Vulgar Latin as well in This as in other Things Nay so reads the Syriack which is in order of time before the Arabick from which our English Translators do seem to have render'd it in the singular Now that Mary should be Purified there is a reason more obvious Because though her self was a Mother-Maid in so much that a Child-Birth which defiled other Women may well be said to have cleansed Her so her real Purification was coetaneous with her delivery yet we know she was the Daughter of a Conjugal Bed and so the subject of an Original though not an Actual Vitiosity Albeit the Greek Fathers are wont to call her 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Mother of God yet did they not make her by That a Goddess as some in the world are bold to do by the Rapine and Sacriledge of their Devotion whilst they supplicate God the Son for the Merits of his Mother or pray unto the Mother to lay her commands upon her Son The Guilt of Adam did adhere to her righteous Soul although it could not mix with it And so she wanted at least a legal if not a literal Purification But how so derogating a Rite should be competent to her Son who was not meerly a Son of Adam may seem at least to be a Quere which should not pass unresolv'd § 7. But This was don saith Aquinas for our Instruction That we may carry our selves with