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A34598 Set on the great pot a sermon upon hospitality / preach'd at a late visitation at Turnbridge in Kent on 2 Kings IV. 38 by H.C. H. C. (Henry Cornwallis), 1654?-1710. 1694 (1694) Wing C6334; ESTC R28413 9,452 32

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Set on the Great Pot. A SERMON UPON Hospitality Preach'd at a late Visitation at Tunbridg in Kent On 2 KINGS IV. 38. By H. C. LONDON Printed for the Sons of the Prophets MDCXCIV To the Worshipful JOHN CORNWALLEYS OF WINGFEILD Esq One of their Majesties Justices of the Peace and Deputy-Lieutenant of the County of Suffolk And the Most Virtuous Grace his Wife The Author wisheth all Happiness here and Eternal Glory hereafter I Read in the Holy Writ that when St. Paul had refreshed himself at the House of Onesiphorus he expressed his Thankfulness to him in this Prayer The Lord have Mercy on the House of Onesiphorus and not being content with that single Prayer he publishes another in his Behalf God grant that he may find Mercy at the last Day He remembred him in his Prayers and publickly acknowledged his Hospitality in most of his Epistles In the like manner I that have often refreshed my self at your Table and have there been an Eye-witness of your Hospitality to others what can I do less for your free and generous Entertainments than become your Orator to God by my Prayers your Herald to the World by dedicating this Sermon of Hospitality to you to shew to the World I am none of those ungrateful Wretches that can receive a Kindness and immediately forget it Yours H. C. 2 KINGS IV. 38. And he said to his Servant Set on the great Pot and seethe Pottage for the Sons of the Prophets PErhaps the Repast that I am now about to deliver unto you may be thought too gross for some nicer Palates and the Text now read too light and airy for so Reverend and Learned an Auditory but if any think so I shall not apologize for my Text as long as I find it within the Verge of the Bible and a Portion of Holy Writ Neither shall I matter any that disgust the Entertainment since 't is the same that the Prophet Elishah affords his Guests and they Sons of the Prophets and Clergy-men too and will you disdain what they accepted of I shall not here stand upon criticizing and tell you how the Words are in the Original and read you the meaning in the Arabick Chaldaic and Syriac this would argue much Vanity in me and to you it would be superfluous and bode no better than casting of Water into the Sea Neither shall I stand upon the literal Meaning of the Words which every Cook better than my self knows but my Design is to extract something spiritual from this corporal Viand and present you with some Food for your Soul from this of the Body The Words express Elisha's Hospitality and frank Disposition to the Sons of the Prophets and may afford us this useful Theorem That a kind and liberal Reception neither niggardly sordid nor extravagantly profuse first became the Sons of the Prophets Or else take the Meaning in these Words viz. That all Clergy men especially the Elisha's of them those Persons that Nature and Heaven have so liberally bestowed their Favours upon and loaded with Riches and Greatness ought to be hospitable and charitable I am now to preach to a mix'd Congregation made up of Clergy-men and Laymen My Text Janus like hath two Faces the first respects you my Brethren of the Clergy the other of the Laity To you my Brethren of the Clergy that are this Day come to honour me with your Company I preach up Hospitality not only from the Example of Elisha but from the Holy Word of God which both commands and commends it to us To you of the Laity that are come with good and honest Hearts to hear my Doctrine I preach up Justice that you should be so just in paying your Tythes that you may be hospitably and charitably received at your Ministers Houses for if you withdraw their Dues how can they perform their Duty if you shut your Hands how can they enlarge their Tables and be given to Hospitality Now that Hospitality is a Duty injoined on all Christians and consequently on all the Preachers of that Doctrine I 'll prove by these three Arguments 1. From the Law of Nature 2. From the Scripture 3. From the Examples of good Men that encourage us to perform it 1. Then from the Law of Nature They are not merely positive but natural Laws that require us to be hospitable these are Laws written in our Hearts and our Minds which will direct us to them they are the easy and unforced Suggestions of our Souls and whoever he be that hath been but a little conversant with the Writings of the Heathens will find that they practised this Duty and that nothing was so detestable among them as not to be civil to Strangers Inhospitu littora populus barbarus were Appellations of the worst Sound in their Ears and every little School-boy that had been but some time conversant with the classical Authors will tell you how Homer brings in Nestor importuning Minerva and Telamaclus to stay with him he tells them they leave him as if he had no Entertainment for them or that he could not lodg them but this he would never suffer so long as he kept a Servant The Grecians are observed by Historians to have two Tables for Strangers and the jus Hospitii was looked upon as a most sacred thing This shews what Hospitality they used and what the Heathens themselves thought of it in those old times in which they lived So that indeed could we not find a Bible in our Closets neither had we the Will of God from Heaven revealed to us yet the Light of Nature will dictate to us this Truth And indeed 't is a piece of good Nature which so well becomes a Man that it is called Humanity and therefore the Antients called our Kindness to Strangers by this name Humanity as if they then shew themselves to have more of a Man in them than others when they were kind to Strangers and those People that wanted this Generosity were ever censured by them with this Expression to be barbarous and inhumane They banished inhospitable Men from the Society of Mankind and ranked them among the Wolves and Tygers They were not fit for the Company of Men and therefore they ranked them among the worser sort of Beasts 2. The Scripture But besides the Law written in our Hearts the Laws that we have revealed to us from the God of Heaven and written as I may say with the Finger of the Almighty I mean the Holy Scriptures give us full Proof of it How often in that Holy Book is Hospitality enjoined how often inculcated how much commended and how severely is the Neglect of it censured and punished as may be proved both out of the Old and New Testament If at your leisure you turn over those Sacred Leaves you will find that the ancient People of God the Jews are in most plain Words commanded to use Strangers well not to oppress them no not to vex them but to love them as