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A53569
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Twenty sermons preached upon several occasions by William Owtram ...; Sermons. Selections
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Owtram, William, 1626-1679.; Gardiner, James, 1637-1705.
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1682
(1682)
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Wing O604; ESTC R2857
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194,637
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508
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Which teaches us further to consider how grievous a burden guilt becomes whensoever a lively sense thereof is moved and excited in the Soul The spirit of a man will bear his infirmity but a wounded spirit who can bear Prov. 18.14 While the spirit within is clear and vigorous it will support and sustain the Soul under every outward loss or danger but if the Spirit it self be broken either by the calamities of the World or by the sense of its own guilt what shall support and sustain it But then it is here to be remembered that although the calamities of this world may indeed break the spirits of men yet that there is vast difference between the breaches made by them and those that are made by their own guilt These may seise upon the Soul but they cannot seise upon the Conscience those may enter the outmost trenches but they cannot enter the Royal Fort but guilt attaches and arrests the Conscience makes a desolation there where our chiefest support and comforts dwell for it comes arm'd with Gods displeasures and these are sharpned with such a force as nothing is able to resist the glorious Majesty the Almighty power the spotless purity the Sovereign dominion of God himself And hence that observation of David Psal 39.11 When thou with rebukes dost correct man for iniquity thou makest his beauty to consume away like a moth where the original word that is rendered beauty signifies all that is desirable all that is pleasant in any person that is not only noble stature excellent shape comely features lively air pure complexion and the like but gay humour pleasant wit fine address mirth and briskness in entertainment and whatsoever else it be that may serve to render any one acceptable in common Society and conversation All which beauty presently withers fades and dies as David here expresly tells us under the sense of Gods displeasures when he rebukes us for iniquity When thou with rebukes dost correct man for iniquity thou makest his beauty to consume away like a moth What then remains but that we reverence so great a God who can stain the beauty eclipse the Glory of all flesh with a single frown of his displeasure and that we express that reverence in most sincere obedience to him fear him for he is your Sovereign Lord fear him for he is a mighty God The Angels themselves so love God as that they fear and reverence his Maiesty The Devils tremble under his displeasure and the greatest persons cannot bear it no flesh no spirit can endure it It wasts the one confounds the other no creature is able to stand before it But after all although the Majesty of God Almighty have a most astonishing glory in it yet is the dread and terrour of it allayed and mitigated by his goodness and therefore as he demands our fear so doth he also require our love And hath he not reason so to do or do we want most powerful motives to excite and kindle our love to him He hath given us life and breath and being he daily gives us all the supplies and supports of life We eat the fruits of his kindness to us we wear the livery of his bounty we lie down and rise we sleep and awake live and move and have our being under the shelter of his providence And to proceed to higher things he hath given his own Son for us And he that spared not his own Son but delivered him up for us all how shall he not with him also freely give us all things Rom. 8.32 unless we deny them to our selves by refusing the terms whereupon he gives them What hath God by his prohibition denyed to men none of the blessings of this life none of the joys of that to come he hath not forbidden us wealth or power or reputation or peace or pleasure in this World much less denyed us eternal happiness in the other There is but one thing in all the World which he hath denyed us and that is sin and this very thing he hath refused us because it is really hurtful to us And although he hath not allowed us this yet can he give us that very thing that very happiness we seek in it for this we seek in every thing this he can give without our sin and what is more will give to them that truly love him whatsoever is really good for them He can give Wealth without Covetousness he can give Power without Oppression he can give Honour without Ambition and pleasure of life without any stain without any spot upon our innocence He needs not our sin to make us happy no nor do we need it neither to this purpose The truest happiness in all the World is to love God as our Lord commands with all the heart and soul and mind If we so love him we shall enjoy him and shall be eternally happy in him Which he for the sake of his only Son grant unto us Now to God the Father c. The Fifteenth Sermon Matt. 5.17 Think not that I am come to destroy the Law or the Prophets I am not come to destroy but to fulfil IF you view the following parts of the Chapter you shall find our Lord prescribing several rules of vertue which were at the least in some instances far more perfect and exact than those that were given in the Law of Moses or by the Prophets succeeding him and all of them stricter than those were in the sense received amongst the Jews which is the reason why he opposes what he said to what had been said to them of old Now because this seeming opposition between his precepts and those of Moses and the Prophets might create a suspicion among the Jews that he came to destroy the Law and the Prophets to contradict what they had said and to offer violence to their Laws he removes the occasion of that suspicion 1. By a caution in these words think not that I am come to destroy the Law or the Prophets 2. By an express declaration of the contrary I am not come to destroy but to fulfil The former I shall not insist upon because whatsoever is contained in that must be considered in the latter for the better understanding whereof it will be requisite to explain what is understood 1. By the Law and the Prophets 2. What by destroying the Law or the Prophets 3. And lastly what by fulfilling them 1. And for the first although it be very true indeed that the Son of God did not in any wise contradict either any history or prediction contained in the Books of the Old Testament but contrariwise confirmed whatsoever is there related and accomplished what was foretold of him yet I conceive that the Law is taken in this place for the Laws delivered in the Books of Moses and the Prophets for those rules of life which are contained in the other Books of the Old Testament which were received amongst the Jews and my
reason is because our Saviour in his following discourse in this Chapter takes no notice of matter of history or prediction but only of matter of Law and Precept 2. And then further as the Law and the Prophets signifie the precepts delivered in the Books of the Old Testament so when our Lord assures his hearers that he came not to destroy those precepts his meaning is that he did not come to thwart or oppose or contradict them or any thing which God designed in them for so is the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 taken in several places of the Scripture 3. And lastly when he further adds that he came to fulfil those precepts his sense necessarily must be this that he came to advance and improve or accomplish whatsoever God intended in them Having now sufficiently cleared the sense of the words before us I shall proceed to shew the truth of the several parts contained in them 1. And first of all of the negative part I am not come to destroy the Law or the Prophets 2. And secondly of that which is affirmative But I am come to fulfil them In my discourse on both which parts it will be convenient to consider the several kinds of Laws or Precepts given to the Jews Moral Ceremonial and Judicial apart or severally by themselves 1. And to begin with the negative part plain it is 1. In the first place That our Lord did no way contradict any moral precept of the Law but left his followers under perpetual obligations to obey all precepts of that kind All things saith he whatsoever you would that men should do to you do ye even so to them for this is the Law and the Prophets Matt. 7.12 Where we find him confirming that general rule which the Law and Prophets had delivered touching our duty towards our neighbours and consequently setling all particular acts of duty which the moral Law required toward them by the confirmation of that rule The same is done as to our duties both to God and man Matt. 22.37 39. where he establishes and approves the two great commands of the Law that we love God with all our heart and with all our mind and that we love our neighbour as our selves whereunto he presently adds these words on these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets These were the things which the Law and Prophets aimed at in all their precepts and exhortations and these hath Christ confirmed and ratified but no way prejudiced by the Gospel I say not now how much more holy rules of life our Lord hath given in several cases than were given by the Law or Prophets of that I shall give an account anon all that I now observe unto you is that an addition of higher precepts of obedience was no destruction or violation of those that were not so high as they but really an improvement of them just as the growth of a child to a man is no destruction but an improvement of the person or as a greater degree of vertues includes but doth not destroy the less from whence I conclude that although our Lord hath added perfecter rules of holiness than the Law or the Prophets had delivered yet he did not destroy them by so doing but further improved what they designed But the great difficulty doth not lie in reconcileing our Saviours words I came not to destroy the Law or the Prophets with what he did as to the moral part of the Law but with what befel its other branches namely the ceremonial and judicial both which parts fell to the ground after his coming into the World and what he did and suffered in it and yet in truth he did not destroy either of them in the sense wherein destruction is taken in these words that is to say he did not oppose or contradict them or otherwise behave himself toward them than was suitable to the mind and will of the Law-giver 2. He did not violate much less oppose any precept of the ceremonial Law but caused the Law it self to cease not by any opposition to it but by removeing all occasion of any further use of it as the Laws of war are not violated but cease and take no place in peace He introduced that very thing which the ceremonial Law designed the introduced the life and substance of those things which were foreshadowed in that Law and so he made it cease and vanish not by opposing or contradicting but by accomplishing the end of it as it will further appear to you when I shall shew how he fufilled it 3. Nor lastly did our Lord destroy that is violate or contradict the judicial part of Moses his Law namely the Law of the Jewish State for that Law fell of it self in the Jewish Common-wealth when the City of Jerusalem was destroyed when the generality of the people were carried away into captivity when the whole Government was dissolved and the Country became a Roman Province there was an end of that Common-wealth and so an end of those Laws whereby that Common-wealth was governed For the Laws of the Jewish Common-wealth were not given save only to the people of the Jews nor were they designed to continue longer than the Common-wealth it self continued so that when this was once dissolved those also fell of their own accord without any violation offered unto them by our Saviour from all which several considerations it plainly appears that he did not come to destroy or opose the Law or the Prophets or any precept contained in them and that he did not behave himself to either of them as one that came to oppose or thwart them So careful was he to give no scandal to create no real offence to the Jews by contradicting in any precepts moral ceremonial or judicial which the Law or the Prophets had established 2. Having shewed the truth of the negative part of our Saviours words which is that he came not into the World to destroy either the Law or the Prophets let us now proceed to give an account of the other part wherein he affirms that he came to fulfil them that is as I have before explained it to improve and accomplish what they contained and what was mainly designed in them And here proceeding in that method which I have used in the former part 1. I first observe that our blessed Lord fulfilled the moral part of the Law by giving stricter rules of holiness than either Moses or the Prophets had formerly given unto the Jews according to the received sense amongst the best of their Interpreters and no doubt in several cases stricter than Moses himself design'd and this is the sense wherein St Chrysostom and Tertullian and divers others of the ancient Christians affirm our Saviour to have fulfilled the moral Law as well as by personal obedience to it They teach that he filled up those vacuities that Moses had left in moral duties because the Jews were not able to bear them