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A29503 Six sermons preached before the late incomparable princess Queen Mary, at White-Hall with several additions and large annotations to the discourse of justification by faith / by George Bright ... G. B. (George Bright), d. 1696. 1695 (1695) Wing B4675; ESTC R36514 108,334 272

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whole Body and drive out the Venom and Leprosie of Vice which hath so long defiled and deformed it After Hypocrisie Enthusiasm Immorality Impiety and Contempt of all Religion Superstition and Idolatry successively we are in hopes to see a serious enlightned and judicious Piety and Virtue which shall not so much frighten as shame and reason Men out of Vice And if together with this Virtue and Sobriety were always among others the Distinguishing Condition as they ought to be of Honour and all other Secular Advantages a great work would soon be in great measure done For I think Vice never yet had so much esteem as to have one small Martyr for it But 2. We are not to follow bad Examples when given They can but tempt us not force us when the Text tells us That evil Comunications corrupt good Manners the meaning is That they have always a natural tendency to it but not that they always effect it We may prevent and defeat their Influence by Precepts of Wisdom by Vigilancy and Resolution We may learn receive and possess our Minds with right and just Opinions with good and wholsome Instructions and Documents with generous Passions and Purposes We may soon attain to the Capacity of looking upon Examples to be only Representations not Reasons of our Manners to help our Imaginations but not Arguments to determine our Judgments We need not be either surprized or overborn by them We may we ought to discover examine confront and compare them with others receive or reject them if we please If we find them foolish mean impious or bad we are not to be drawn away by their Greatness Number Impunity nay Encouragement too For we need not be advised of a thing so common that the Companions and Ministers of Vice may be cherished honoured and rewarded when Religion and Virtue are neglected and slighted as troublesome uneasie and ill Company Thus we may behave our selves and not only secure our selves but many others from the Infection and Contagion of foolish and wicked Examples But it may be otherwise too and we are always in very great danger of them And truly generally as the state of the World now goes they reach us and have their mischievous and pernicious effects more or less upon us which ought not to dismay us but still to encrease our Caution Courage and Resolution Indeed we have had too long an Experience of it and have felt its Influence so deep and almost universal that it is not like in a long time yet to be worked and worn out by the most operative and powerfull Remedies that can be applied We seem to have great need of a Confederacy here too and all too weak and insufficient without the Conjunction of the Supream Power to head and conduct it which we may promise our selves Never can Authority and Power be employed in a better Cause in which they shall certainly have God on their side his Assistance Favour Blessing and Reward the Hands and Hearts of the best Men and the Consciences of all even of the very worst As for our particular Let us list our selves under this Confederacy and augment the number of Heaven's Forces against the Armies of Hell and Vice and even by Multitude oppress them if we can But if not that at least let us by Courage and Conduct make good our Ground and keep our selves entire not only receiving the boldest Attacks of Vice and Folly unmoved but sometimes charging through the most resolute of their Troops And may the God of all Power and Victory who is not an unconcern'd Spectator of the Endeavours and Prayers of his Faithfull Servants multiply their Number encrease their Zeal Courage and Constancy and in some measure grant them here present Success However we are abundantly assured that he will hereafter signally own their Service and crown it with a glorious Reward SERMON II. 1 PET. IV. 4. Wherein they think it strange that you run not with them to the same Excess of Riot speaking evil of you WHEN first Christian Religion was introduced and Societies which made Publick profession of it were formed there never appeared a greater contrariety of Manners in the World than there was between the Christians and all the rest of Mankind The former were eminently pure spiritually-minded humble just and in all instances charitable the latter most impure proud malicious envious cruel The Gentiles except here and there a Philosopher or a good Natur'd-man were as much corrupted in their manners and lives as inhabiting together upon this Earth could well bear Their very Religion was the worst part of their condition teaching them Beastliness and Cruelty to such excess that it was necessary to be corrected by the light of Nature and the supreme civil Power as the Bacchanalia among the Romans Some of the Fathers justly reproach them that their Religion taught them nothing of Morality as the Christian Religion did but only childish superstitious or beastly Rites and Ceremonies And the Holy Scripture in several places gives us abundantly to understand the most lamentable condition of the Gentile World when the Gospel or Christian Institution came first among them particularly the Epistles Rom. 1. Ephes 2. 4. to the Romans and the Ephesians As for the Jews though their Religion was good and wisely instituted in that place which it had of the whole Divine Oeconomy and Providence over all Mankind from beginning to end and although they had excellent Books of Morality of which I reckon Piety and Devotion the principal part in their hands yet both their inward manners and outward practice generally were little better than that of the Heathens except in one point of Idolatry They living every where promiscuously with the Gentiles and under their Dominion soon grew like them retaining only what they could of the Rites of their Religion and some true opinions concerning the Deity to distinguish them St. Paul chargeth them with an universal Defection and Corruption in his Epistle to the Romans Chap. 2. 3. and their own Writers are witnesses how wicked they were And the Talmudists particularly had a Tradition that just before the coming of the Messias Impudence in wickedness should abound as some think it will before his second Coming This was a deplorable State of humane Race but considering the Ignorance and Darkness which had so long covered the face of the Earth where they rarely heard or but suspected any thing better it was not so much to be wondered at But strange it was when they heard the Doctrine of the Gospel or did but see the contrary manners and practisers of its Professors that they were not all of them startled and yet stranger that they should wonder at the Christians that they would not live as they did And yet so it was then with the Heathens towards the Christians and so it is still with bad Christians little more such than in Name and infinitely the most Numerous towards the Good