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A39905
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The blessednesse of being bountifull, or, Our blessed Saviours usual proverb, opened, asserted, and practically improved by Simon Ford.
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Ford, Simon, 1619?-1699.
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1674
(1674)
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Wing F1477; ESTC R5927
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44,979
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151
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THE BLESSEDNESSE OF BEING BOUNTIFULL OR Our Blessed Saviours usual PROVERB Opened Asserted and Practically Improved By SIMON FORD D. D. LONDON Printed for James Collins at the Kings Arms in Ludgate-street 1674. VIRO NATALIBUS ERUDITIONE Omnimodisque VIRTUTIBUS Nobilissimo GEORGIO Baroni de BERKELEY IN ALBUM CURATORUM HONORIFICORUM HOSPITII Vulgo DICTI DE BRIDEWELL Alteriúsque de BETHLEM DEMISSIONE SUI GRATIOSA NUPER ADSCRIPTO ET PROINDE IN HAC PAGELLA HONORIS ergô SEPARATIM NOMINANDO HUNC TANQUAM TESTI EXPERTO De BEATITVDINE BENEFICENTIAE TRACTATULUM Humillimè Offert OMNI OBSERVANTIAE GENERE ADDICTISSIMUS SIMON FORD TO THE RIGHT WORSHIPFULL Sir William Turner Kt. PRESIDENT With his Assistants the Governours of the two HOSPITALS of Bridewell and Bethlem Gentlemen IF as it hath of late in like cases been customary I should plead the Authority of your Court as that which hath without any inclination of mine own solely prevailed with me to print this Discourse I must ingenuously confess it would be no other than a modester kinde of dissimulation with you and the World For I must own that when I delivered the substance of it from the Pulpit in two Sermons the one at the Spittle before the Lord Maior then being and the Aldermen of this City on Wednesday in Easter-week 1672. and the other which was but the former at the Instance of some of you repeated with some suitable enlargements in your own Chappel of Bridewell at your late General Meeting 1673. I was not without thoughts of publishing it because my principal Design in preaching it being as in Duty I am bound having by your favour been elected and hitherto continued Preacher to one of them to promote the good of the two Hospitals under your Government I justly conceived that the more publick I made it the more effectually it was like to answer my end Only I must withall acknowledge that the general acceptance which it found from those of you that heard me in both Auditories and the testification of your Desires by an express Order of Court to have it printed concurring with mine own inclinations gave me a great additional encouragement to adventure it thus to the publick View Concerning the success of which undertaking I am not altogether out of hope that it may in some sort answer my desires considering the serious Importance of the weighty Argument it handles and the great suitableness of the matter contained in it to the blowing up those few sparks of Charity which notwithstanding these hard Times remain yet unextinguished in the breasts of many worthy Citizens and others into such Acts and Expressions as the great Exigences of this City and particularly of these your Hospitals do require However if my hopes of success upon others should unhappily fail me yet I have reason to believe that my Endeavours herein will meet with a favourable acceptance and compliance from you who have already given me so great a pledge of it in commanding its publication I shall not farther enlarge this Dedicatory Address to you because I shall thereby the longer detain you from the Discourse it self which I hope you had no other design in calling for than that you might read and practise it and thereby acquire that Blessedness to your selves unto which it directs Which also that you may obtain is and shall be the constant Prayer of Right Worshipfull Your Obliged Servant in the Work of our Lord Jesus Simon Ford. The Blessedness of being Bountiful c. Acts 20. 35. It is more blessed to give than to receive SUch hath always been the acknowledged Dominion of Proverbial Sayings over the Principles and Lives of mankind that some Etymologists have thence taken an Argument to derive the Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 name of them from a Root which though it have another signification besides yet seems most of all to fit their purpose in that of ruling or commanding This Dominion besides what the worth and weight of their matter gives them is in a great degree conferred upon them by the great Reputation of their Authours who being ordinarily either wise or great or prosperous beyond the rate of other men contribute that veneration to their Speeches which is wont to be given to their Persons Which veneration also they obtain the rather because they are looked on by Posterity as the Abstracts of those grand Principles by the Practice whereof those eminent Persons arrived at that degree of excellency in which they were placed and are therefore esteemed the most certain and compendious measures by which the actions of all others can be governed who design to arrive at the same degree of eminency by their examples And hence probably it is that the wisdom of God thought meet to place a Book of such Sayings in the Canon of Holy Scripture with the great name of Solomon who was most eminently both wise and great and prosperous prefixed that the Principles of true Religion and Vertue of which that Book is composed might not be destitute even of that lower degree of recommendation superadded to their divine Authority which results from the credit of humane Testimonials To shorten this Preface It is upon this account that I chose at this time to speak from this Text which is much of the nature of a Proverbial Paradox which not only contains in it a great Truth and therein the most powerful motive to Works of Charity that can be couched in so few words but is withall recommended from the excellency of its Authour beyond any of that kind For supposing all those that are digested into that one Book of Holy Scripture before mentioned to be originally Solomon's which yet some question and only entitle him to the collection of the greatest part of them yet this Proverb is quoted from an Authour in all the mentioned respects far beyond both him and all other men one that was more truly than he wiser than all men ◠King 4. 31. 1 Cor. 1. 24. for he was the wisdom of God one that was infinitely greater than he or any other meer man for he was the Power of God and Psal 72. 8 9 10. of whose greatness even that of Solomon himself was but a Type or shadow and one that was also more prosperous than he and all the most successful men in the world seeing the greatest design that ever was undertaken in the World the redemption of mankind from all their greatest that is spiritual dangers and enemies prospered in his hand Is 53. 10. For it is the Lord Jesus Christ himself whom our Apostle having occasion to make use of this Proverb in his Visitation Sermon to the Elders of Ephesus of which my Text is a part avouches to be the utterer and frequent user of it Ye ought saith he to remember the words of the Lord Jesus how he said and it was his usual saying for so such forms of quoteing commonly import that it is more blessed or