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A67824
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A sermon concerning the wisdom of fearing God preach'd at Salisbury, on Sunday, July XXX, 1693 : being the time of the assizes / by E. Young ...
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Young, Edward, 1641 or 2-1705.
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1693
(1693)
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Wing Y63; ESTC R6328
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10,022
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32
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Moral or Divine till such time as Grace accompanies the Enquiry For a Man may know all the Offices and Bounds of Virtue and all the Precepts and Ends of Religion and yet not be wise because Wisdom is not the Speculation of these things but the Love and Practice of them Wisdom is not only Light but Strength to the Understanding whereby it is enabled to govern the Passions and make the Life regular whereas a bare Knowledge leaves the Understanding as weak in Government and the Life as irregular as before and indeed serves to nothing so much as the more inexcusable conviction of our Folly In ancient Rome when the Empire was come to its height and Learning and Arts were grown into reputation among them it was the Fashion for such as aim'd at the Credit of being Accomplish'd Gentlemen to frequent Conferences and entertain the Company with Discourses of Philosophy and all other Specimens of Study and Wit In consequence to this it hapned that others who had neither Parts nor Industry to accomplish themselves on this manner and yet were ambitious to have a share in every thing that made Men look Great made it their Practice to buy some Learned Slaves out of Greece and to carry those about with them into Company and there whatsoever Wit or Learning the Slaves could produce that their Masters look'd upon as their own and took the Glory of it unto themselves How ridiculous soever the affectation of this Practice may seem it is but too just an Emblem of the Generality of Mankind priding themselves in the attainment of mistaken Wisdom For while we please our selves with the knowledge of Arts and Laws and Policies and Business nay of Virtue and Religion too yet in the mean time our Understanding the Faculty where this Treasure of Knowledge lyes is very often no other than a Slave held in servitude to our Lusts and Passions These rule and command like the Roman Gallant and that only serves like the poor Greek to furnish Matter for our Vanity insomuch that we are not really the wiser for all the Wisdom we carry about us And thus it must be nor can it ever be otherwise till such time as the Fear of God presides over what we know and directs it to the Purposes of a Holy Life As for the Opinion of the World in this present matter which conferrs the Character of Wisdom upon several human Endowments however found separate from the Fear of God well may it pass for a Courtesie but its passing for a Due we have this Consideration to hinder viz. That not any of those Endowments no nor all of them together can prevent a Man from being a Fool. And this is a Truth I shall chuse to prove by Example Example being a good Remembrancer and this being a matter which we are not so like to doubt of as to forget I shall begin with the Example of the Rich Man mentioned St. Luke 12. who according to the vulgar Standard must certainly pass for a Wise Man for he understood Business and Improvements and Managery as we may guess by the encreasing of his Estate and the enlarging of his Barns And another piece of reputed Wisdom he was Master of too that is he resolv'd to enjoy what he had And yet how emphatically is this man call'd Fool in his peremptory Summons from God Thou fool this night shall thy soul be required of thee and then whose shall those things be that thou hast provided The next I shall mention is Achitophel a man of such sagacity and insight into Affairs that as the Sacred Story tells us his Counsel upon all occasions was As if a man had enquired at the oracle of God and yet this Great Man for all his mighty Talent of Wisdom had so little as to make a violent end of himself upon a small Affront and so at one Act to cut himself off both from all the Enjoyments of this Life and all the Hopes of a Future Too great a Proof of being a Fool I shall end with the Example of Solomon whose Character for Universal Wisdom is this That there never was the like before him nor ever shall be after him and yet so soon as he turned his Back upon the Fear of God see whither he sunk His heart clave unto strange women he had seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines and forasmuch as most of them were Idolaters he comply'd with them all in worshipping their several Idols And now say how the weakest man in the World could have shew'd himself a greater Fool than Solomon did in these Extravagances Well might he take it for his Motto as he does in the Book of Ecclesiastes which he is supposed to have written after his Recovery out of this Infatuation All is vanity but the fear of God And tho' perhaps few of those that fear not God have Appetites to carry them to the Extravagances of Solomon and fewer to the Desperateness of Achitophel yet none of them can escape the Folly of the first Instance that is to have their Soul stript of all its Enjoyments together without the provision of any to succeed And therefore we may conclude That whatever commendable things Human Wisdom may do by the bye yet it certainly fails of its main pretence that is of making a Man wise For it is not some Actions done with the semblance of Discretion in matters of smaller moment but the Discretion a man shews in actions of chief concern that must give him his Character And what then must be the Character of those that always want Discretion in the main And now I shall leave the whole matter upon your Thoughts under the illustration of this sensible Image viz. Human Wisdom in the prospect of its whole management looks like a man shewing great Skill in the choice of curious Paintings and Hangings and other Rarities wherewith to furnish his House when all the while an Enemy is burning the Town For thus it is that Human Wisdom provides noble Furniture for the Soul but never reflects that the Soul it self lyes perishing at the same instant Knowledge and Art and Reasoning and Experience and Dexterity are excellent Furniture and these Human Wisdom brings in But in the mean time what need of all this Sail to run against a Rock What needs the Pomp of all these excellent Qualities to be undone when a Man may be undone less reproachfully without them For it is certain that all these Qualities do not in the least prevent a Man's being undone 't is only the Fear of God that can do that and therefore we may most confidently determine That the Fear of God is the only Wisdom This is Wisdom not in Semblance but in Deed not Parcel-Wisdom but Wisdom entire not Wisdom for the Bye but Wisdom for the Main not Wisdom for a Day but Wisdom for Ever To God that is the Only Giver of this Wisdom and of every Perfect Gift be all Glory c. AMEN Sermons written by the same Author and sold by Walter Kettilby A Sermon preach'd before the Lord Mayor Feb. 4. 1682. on St. Mat. V. 3. A Sermon exhorting to Union in Religion preach'd at Bow-Church May. 20. 1688. on St. John XVI 31 32. A Sermon preach'd before the Queen on Easter-day on 1 Thess. IV. 18.
intended no more than the bare pleasing of our Passions But the Fear of God is a sure Guard against all these Mischiefs for when once this Fear has made us take care not to offend God our Souls will naturally tend to love him from the prospect of those gracious Promises wherein such as fear him are secure of a growing Interest Now the Wisdom of fearing God will be manifested 1 sty by considering the Reasonableness and 2 dly the Advantages of it 1 st I shall consider the Reasonableness of the Duty God Almighty gave us the passion of Fear on purpose to make us wise and its subserviency to Wisdom is visible in the whole course of Human Affairs For set aside Fear and there is no Providence in management no Weight in Counsel no Prudence in Election no Discretion in Acting all runs to Rashness and Folly and ends in exposing us to all manner of Evils As therefore in a Town alarm'd by an Enemy a Sentinel is set to watch their Approaches and to prevent the danger of a surprize so in regard of those many Evils and Dangers to which we are obnoxious in this Life God has set Fear in our Soul for a Sentinel to watch when and which way they come and to give us Caution that we may avoid them But the same God that has given us Fear for a Caution against Evils in general has in the mean time given us notice That His Displeasure is the greatest of all Evils and therefore as we account it a point of Wisdom to be watchful against other Evils so it is necessarily the chiefest point of Wisdom to be watchful against this The Fear of God is of so great importance to us that God seems to have intended a gracious intimation of it in every motion of our Natural Fears Our Natural Fears we know are either sudden or deliberate the sudden are such as come upon us surprizingly and without deliberation and of these we may observe that they are very often immoderate boundless and ungovernable and as they prevent our deliberation in their coming so they often baffle it being come and are not to be controul'd by any power of Reasoning How wonderfully will a man sometimes be affected at the hearing of a sudden noise in the Night his Blood runs back his Spirits sink his Soul melts within him and a Horror passes thro' every part of his Body Now such a Fear as this seems absolutely unreasonable a Wise and Good Man would not fear any Accident of Life no nor Death it self at such a rate and yet a Wise and Good Man cannot sometimes hinder such a Fear from rising upon a meer Bugbear occasion Now how unreasonable soever this Fear seems to be it carries a most reasonable Admonition along with it And as the Sentinel when set has a Word given him whereby to distinguish his proper Officer so GOD when he set this Fear in us seems to have given it his own Word a Word which it whispers to us upon each of its surprizing motions viz. Thus it is that a man ought to fear God Thus it is that a Man ought to fear God because ev'n as a man feareth so is his displeasure Ev'n as a Man feareth when he feareth most boundlesly most extravagantly so is his displeasure his Displeasure bears proportion to such a Fear as this tho' nothing in Nature does so besides it Thus God has made nothing in vain no not our vainest Fears from whom if we will give our selves leisure to reflect we may learn so important a Lesson Our deliberate and just Fears are as just to the same intimation and each of their motions point out God to the first glance of our Reasoning For if it be reasonable to fear Want how much more reasonable is it to fear Him whose Bounty is the Fountain of all our Supplies If it be reasonable to fear Disappointments how much more to fear Him whose Providence disposes the issue of all we project If it be reasonable to fear Disgrace how much more to fear Him whose estimation imports more towards it than that of all the World beside If it be reasonable to fear Pain and other Inconveniences of Life how much more to fear Him whose Pleasure determines both all our Ease and all our Sufferings In a word if it be reasonable to fear them that can kill the body how much more him who after he hath killed can cast into hell This then is the Moral and this is the Lesson of all our Fears Fear God And if it be not Wisdom to do so it is equally no Folly to kick against the Pricks to embrace a Scorpion to run under a falling Tower into the mouth of a Lyon into the bottomless Pit Thus much for the Reasonableness of the Duty let us 2dly consider its Advantages And to give my Thoughts a Track in this wide Field I shall confine them to this Particular viz. That the Fear of God is the cure of all other Fears and when I have said this I have imply'd a mighty Advantage because Fear when loose from God is undoubtedly both the greatest Burden and the greatest Snare that Human Life is acquainted with I call Fear the greatest Burden of Life because of its natural torturing power and I call it the greatest Snare of Life because of its moral corrupting power Let us reflect a little upon them both 1. Fear carries with it such a torturing power that could we but estimate the Conditions of all men together we should find that the World is at all times more miserable from what it fears than from what it feels Nay Fear is such a Tyrant that let us feel never so much it will still heap on weight and make that which may be worse than that which is As the Author of the Book of Wisdom tells us concerning the Egyptians That when they lay under their grievous Plague of Darkness yet their Fear was more grievous than the Darkness But 2. Beside this torturing power Fear has in it a corrupting and debauching power whereby its moral Mischiefs come to be excessive for Fear is the main Rock upon which most men split their Faith their Honour their Integrity all are sacrificed to some sort of cowardly compliances and Men become vitious perhaps less from the love of being so than from want of Courage to be otherwise And this is a sufficient Reason why Rev. 21. 8. the Fearful are set first in the List of those that go to Perdition So that tho' Fear was given us on purpose to make us wise yet it never effects that purpose till such time as it is fixed upon God and receives Virtue from that supreme Object to govern its motions in reference to all the rest for the fear of God like a wise Monarch set up in a disturbed State composes all the Tumults of vulgar Fears and keeping them subordinate to it self renders them both harmless and useful to their proper