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A51221
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Of patience and submission to authority a sermon preach'd before the Lord Mayor and the Court of Aldermen at Guild-Hall Chapel on the 27th of January, 1683/4 / by John Moore ...
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Moore, John, 1646-1714.
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1684
(1684)
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Wing M2545; ESTC R32113
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43,694
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66
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this argument be justify'd and victorious Rebels may believe they are carrying on the work of the Lord. It may be here worth noting how Honorius I. who was Pope above an hundred years before Zachary did reprove the Bishops beyond the Po who were earnest with the Nobility to set up Arioaldus in the place of Adoevaldus King of Italy against their oath of allegiance and summon them to appear with their Cause before him The Popes it seems yet had not discover'd that they had power to dispense with oaths and cancell the obligation of that duty of submission to Kings which St. Peter had laid upon all Christians It was not in those days revealed that that Text Thou hast put all things under his feet was meant of the Pope and the better to accommodate it to his Holiness that we are to understand by the beasts of the field Men by the fowl of the air Angels by the fish of the sea Souls in Purgatory All put under the Pope's feet Now as to Hildebrand though he was a publisher of new Doctrines yet there will be no reason to believe he brought them down from Heaven if we may credit the account of his morals which is given by his Contemporaries Cardinal Benno taxes him with all the deadly sins each of which upon the commission of it does immediately put a man out of a state of salvation With murthers rapine adultery and constant practice of the Black-art Hildebrand however passes always with Bellarmine for a Saint and Baronius recommends his example to the imitation of Paul V. as the most excellent person that ever sate in the Papal Chair And they have no names bad enough to bestow upon Benno Both of them also insinuate the probability of the Book being written by a Lutheran which goes under Benno's name but Baronius was very unlucky in his conjecture that Reinerus Reineccius was the Father of this supposed spurious Piece when near 50 years before the Edition of Reineccius the Life of Hildebrand by Benno was publisht among the Tracts in the Book entitled Fasciculus rerum expetendarum ac fugiendarum It is the main business of these two Learned Men in their voluminous Works to ascribe uncontrollable I may say boundless power to the Bishops of Rome and to maintain their right in the most unconscionable claims to a sovereignty over Emperours and Kings otherwise Bellarmine would never have vented it for truth that the Pope can change the nature of things and that if falling into errour he should command vice and forbid vertue the Church would be bound to believe vertue to be vice and vice to be vertue It being strange that in the same period he supposes the Pope can err he should assign such a power to him as by reason of its inconsistency with the perfections of the Divine Nature we may not ascribe to the Almighty God himself Otherwise Baronius would not have pick'd out of the whole Catalogue of the Popes Gregory VII and Alexander the III. as Patterns for Paul V. to govern himself by At the later of whose Feet Friderick Barbarossa lying prostrate he trampled upon his Neck and began to sing that of David thou shalt goe upon the Asp and Basilisc And to the Emperour who his Spirits boiling within him said this submission is made not to thee but to Peter the angry Pope pressing harder with his Foot did reply both to me and to Peter And Hildebrand the other Pope recommended to Paul V. Henry IV. upbraids with having by money got favour by favour got the sword by the sword placed himself in the seat of Peace and when in the seat of Peace banisht Peace from it Gregory could not but confess himself advanced by violent hands into St. Peter's Chair In which Chair he did dictate or decree That his name alone should be rehearsed in the Churches That he has power to depose Emperours That he ought to be judged by no man That he can absolve Subjects from their allegiance to unjust Princes That he should give himself the title of Christ's Vicar and yet make his Kingdom to be of this World and by his Decrees set aside the plain Precepts of Christ that he should pretend to be the Successour of St. Peter and teach Doctrines directly contrary to those of St. Peter In which Chair he thunder'd out Curses against the Emperours Kings Princes Bishops and demanded Tribute almost of every Kingdom in Europe Engaging them in bloudy Wars and setting their Subjects loose from their duty and obedience He contrived an Oath in such a form to be imposed upon Kings as no honest man could take it Kings are to swear faithfully to observe whatsoever the Pope shall command them Bellarmine's Doctrine truly agrees with this Oath For if the Pope should command a Prince to murther an hundred of his innocent Subjects he was bound to believe it would be a vertue so to doe But the very rage of this fierce and haughty man discharged its self chiefly upon Henry IV. whom he excommunicated four times deposed him unheard and unconvicted and gave his Kingdom to Rodulphus And after a terrible journey in the depth of a severe Winter made him without all his Attendants and stript of his Royal Robes to wait barefoot and fasting three whole days before he would admit him but into his presence he all the time caressing his Mistris in the Castle at Canusium Insomuch as in his own Letter to the Germans upon this occasion he acquaints them that all wonder'd at the strange hardness of his heart and some cryed out of him as not proceeding with the gravity of Apostolic severity but with the cruelty of brutish Tyranny The Church of Liege farther inform us they had read that Hildebrand the onely Pope who hath added to the holy Canons had commanded the Marchioness Mawd as the condition of the forgiveness of her sins to subdue Henry the Emperour but whence say they is this new Authority by which impunity of the sins past and licence for those which shall be hereafter is offer'd to the guilty without confession and repentance These Proceedings do indeed suppose God to have committed to the Pope a power not onely of determining disputable points but as Benedict tells Paul V. of making new Creeds So that is was judiciously observ'd by Aventinus that Hildebrand did absolve men not from their sins but from the Law and Sacraments of Christ undermine the Peace and Piety of our Religion raise War and Seditions indulge Whoredom Murther Perjuries Perfidiousness Rapines Fire and to hide his Ambition did not onely devise Fables corrupt Annals pervert Records but also adulterate the heavenly Oracles Forcing the Divine Writings to serve his Lust by false glosses put upon them And the Councils of Mentz Brixia and Wormes did great service to Christianity and pursued truly the interest of the Church when they deposed
even the malice of those who torment their Bodies shall never have power to reach and harm their Souls and that for their sufferings in this world they shall receive an hundred fold in the next And as Christ alone is the Authour of those means which will uphold the Spirit in the most sorrowfull condition so he did likewise foresee there should be no men exposed to severer trials than the Professours of his Religion which is the reason he exhorts his Disciples to possess their souls in patience and that the Apostles do admonish their new Converts of the need they have of patience that after they have done the will of God they might receive the reward In managing of this argument I shall use the following method I. Explain the nature of Patience and set down the chief instances wherein it is to be exercised II. Propose the means by which it is to be obtained III. Represent the necessity of it and shew that it is a fundamental vertue to the Christian Life IV. Prove that no Religion or Philosophy furnishes men with such true and powerfull motives to patience as Christianity does I. I am to explain the nature of Patience By Patience in the most comprehensive sense of it we are to understand that Christian vertue whereby with a calm and even mind we do not onely bear pains injuries losses and reproaches but perform all those duties that are difficult tedious and irksome to flesh and bloud which our Religion does require and when it is for the sake of our Lord. Or Patience is that vertue which disposeth us not onely to submit to the wrong and misery which by the cruelty and injustice of others may happen unto us but obstinately to deny the importunity of our sensual appetites in order to promote the interests of piety and the glory of God In a word Patience is that blest temper of mind which enables us with all cheerfulness both to doe and suffer the will of God Patience then is not so properly any particular vertue as that happy disposition in our Souls which has a general influence upon all vertue It is the keeping the Passions within their due bounds free from commotion and disorder without which a man is not capable of real happiness or to be the master of any one vertue For as we are obliged by our Religion to be meek so what pretence can he make to that vertue who is uneasie to himself and others let things go as they will and clamours still in what condition soever God puts him it is our duty to be mercifull but who so cruel as he who will exercise no patience towards his offending brother blessed are we if we be Peace-makers but can there be peace if mens passions will not suffer them to yield to one another and to bear with each others infirmities we are bound to be not onely content but to rejoice when men revile us and we suffer all manner of evil for righteousness sake which we can never hope to do before we have laid up in our souls a great stock of patience We are commanded to watch and pray without ceasing and we may as well presume to see without light as to continue the performance of these duties without Christian patience The many benefits of patience are elegantly heap'd together by Tertullian It justifies all God's Decrees has place in every command strengthens faith governs peace promotes charity teaches humility waits for the repentance of men and the confession of their fault governs the flesh preserves the spirit bridles the tongue holds the hands tramples upon temptations repells scandals perfects martyrdom comforts the poor moderates the rich does not burthen the weak nor consume the strong delights the Christian invites the Heathen recommends the Servant to his Master and the Master to God adorns the Woman approves the Man is lovely in a Child commendable in the young admirable in the old beautifull in every sex and age But for the more full understanding of the nature of Patience and to render it beneficial to us in our conversations I will present you with some of the considerable instances in which the Christian Man does exercise his patience 1. The first instance shall be this that as none of the difficulties he does find in the duties of Religion do make him lay those duties aside so neither the number of temptations nor the frequency with which they assault him do cause him to give over his watching and making resistance against them or to fling away the spiritual weapons with which God has armed him for a defence His patience has given him leave to consider the whole matter and he is convinced that the greatest difficulties in Religion as in all Arts and Sciences do happen at the first and that when the hardships of the beginning are once past over the service of God will prove not onely eassie but very pleasant and that with the same or less labour than a man can raise an estate get a name or become powerfull he may fill his Soul with the solid and sincere pleasures of Religion A Possession incomparably more to be esteem'd than riches fame or power For though a man can never so clip the wings of his riches as that they may not in a moment all fly away never so secure his fame as that all on a sudden it may not quite perish by the same fickle breath which gave it being never so discipline and govern his arm'd powers as that they may not all turn upon him and destroy him yet neither the envy nor the strength of the whole world can rifle his mind of that tranquillity and joy which springs up from the conscience of things well done and the faithfull discharge of his duty to God Moreover why should we grudge at the pains to be taken in a godly life when the reward of them will be so great and inexpressible it is also fit and reasonable that there should be some hard parts in the business of Religion to the end that the pleasures which it does create might make the more deep and lasting impressions upon us and teach us to set the higher rate upon them and to be very solicitous and fearfull lest by any false step we lose those blessings which cost us so much care and toil Besides there will be still less cause to complain of the labour that goes to the making of a good man when we shall consider that the uneasinesses in God's service do proceed from our own fault for what can be more agreeable to the native sentiments of our mind than the Laws of our God before we contract sinfull habits and customs and thereby alter the complexion and very constitution of our nature and suffer our selves to be enslaved to the lusts of the world and the flesh And it is but just we should taste of the fruit of our own planting And though the paths that lead to Heaven prove strait