it did upon the eighteen upon whom the Tower in Siloam fell in both cases the Providence of God doth interpose attending the whole Affair regulating and ordering and with exact knowledg of each circumstance permitting that which happens and the means by which it happens A very instructing Consideration which we should lay up in our minds heartily believing it and frequently entertaining our selves with it that we may be directed by it in our Prosperity and comforted with it in our Adversity for it will give us in our better state the best direction how to secure it and to all other methods and ways which we use to keep off evil it will make us add that which is best of all to secure by well-doing an Interest in the Favour of God. It is a great defect of Wisdom as well as of True Religion to be so nice as we often are in weighing the means of our welfare with the causes of danger and this with respect only to second causes forgetting all the while that which ought in the first and chiefest place to be remembred the Supreme Mover and Orderer even of those Causes and of the whole matter But if we laid to heart what we all believe that it is an unseen hand that governs all undoubtedly we should be more afraid of our sins than of all other miseries and more concerned to be strong in the Favour of God than in the Arm of Flesh This Consideration is equally good to comfort us under Adversity if that happens because God sends it for tho there may be good reason to take evil in evil part from men who seldom mean well to us when they trouble and grieve us yet there is this to make us patient that it is of God's sending too who means us no harm and will convert it to good which is the true reason of that excellent saying of Job ch 2. v. 10. Shall we receive good from the hand of God and shall we not receive evil For the Emphasis lies in these Words From the hand of God. For we rank him in effect with men if we cannot be pleased with him but when he gives us what we desire When good comes to us it is welcome from what hand soever it comes but this is one part of the singular Worship we pay to God that from him we can receive evil too without suspecting either the Goodness of his Intention or the Wisdom of his Counsel These are the Two Points which lye at the bottom of this Discourse of our Saviour viz. That Punishment belongs to Sin and That the Evils which happen in this World do not happen without the Providence of God attending upon all the Circumstances thereof I proceed now to those Points which are the direct purpose of this place whereof the 1. Is That they who suffer very great Evils are not always greater Sinners than those who in the mean time suffer nothing That is the plain Doctrine of our Saviour expressed in these Questions Suppose ye that these were greater sinners than all the Galileans and these than all that dwell at Jerusalem They indeed that heard him being Jews were ready enough so to suppose but this was that Error of theirs which he in the first place designed to correct and it was necessary for them to be set right in this matter by some great Authority because it was an Error so easie for them to slide into by reason of the Temper and Constitution of their Law which to them that kept it promised all the good things of this Life and threatned all the evils of Life to them that broke it But the time was now coming when these Considerations should not be so much regarded and God would establish a Covenant upon promises of an higher nature than those of the Law of Moses and upon more terrible penalties than were threatned by that Law And therefore this plain Doctrine of our Saviour which no doubt was something surprizing to his Hearers was very seasonable to be delivered just when that Law was expiring and a better was to take place The time was coming when all that would live godly in Christ Jesus should suffer Persecution when his Disciples should be hated of all men for his names sake and deliver'd up to be beaten and scourged and put to death Which when they should see they would have reason to remember that he had told them upon a particular occasion that they were not to call them the greatest Sinners who suffered such things as so many together never endured before but there was a notorious Provocation of Divine Justice to deserve it Now there were greater designs in hand than to keep a small Nation in comparison to the observation of a Law that required abundance of Ceremony and was content with the outward work which served to an happy Life in this World. The true rules of Righteousness and Charity were now to be laid down and men were to learn to live above the World and to be brought to the Practice of Piety by the promises of Immortality in a future State to reward them for any thing they should lose or suffer for it in this It would therefore be expedient that the power of this Faith should be sometimes demonstrated to the Glory of God and the Instruction of Man and that by examples of constancy in suffering for Righteousness it would also be expedient that the Profession of so holy a Faith should not be dishonoured by the continual scandals of men whose Conversation is quite contrary to their Profession and therefore that God should purify his Church in the Furnace of Affliction and sometimes separate the Sincere from the Hypocrite by bringing them to the Test of Persecution that those who hang loosely upon the Christian Communion might be shaken off and none but good examples left in it to bring greater Credit to the Gospel and more Proselytes to it than it had before Since therefore the Time was coming when men should suffer not at all as Sinners or Evil doers but for a good Cause and with a good Conscience most certainly it was a seasonable Instruction that the greatest Sufferers were not to be accounted the greatest Sinners But this I confess is a Reason that doth not reach the full intention of our Saviour in the Doctrine he laid down upon this occasion mentioned in the Text for his true Disciples in suffering for their Faith and Profession cannot be said to suffer for their Sins but his words considered with all the circumstances wherewith they are to be taken do suppose that when men suffer for their sins they are not to be accounted greater sinners merely for that reason than those who at the same time escape and suffer nothing for when he said that neither should they escape that heard him unless they repented it was implied or at least not denied that those things happened to the aforesaid Galileans and Jews as a Punishment of
SEVENTEEN SERMONS Preach'd upon Several Occasions Never before Printed By WILLIAM CLAGETT D. D. Late Preacher to the Honourable Society of Gray's Inn and one of His Majesty's Chaplains in Ordinary With the SUMM of a CONFERENCE On February 21 1686 between Dr. Clagett and Father Gooden about the Point of Transubstantiation LONDON Printed for W. Rogers at the Sun in Fleet-street over against St. Dunstan's Church 1689. THE PREFACE THere will need no more to recommend the following Discourses to the Reader than only to assure him he is not imposed upon by the Title Page but what is here presented to him as Dr. Claget's Sermons are really so being published from his own Papers and by his own Brother And indeed the Sermons themselves do sufficiently speak their Author for they every where express the Spirit the Judgment and the Reasoning of that Excellent Man tho' some of them perhaps want that Finishing which his Masterly Hand would have given them had he been to have published them himself The first of these Sermons he meant to have Printed if God had given him Life being prevailed upon by the Importunity of several of his Friends who then judged it very seasonable The last in this Collection was the last Sermon he Preached It was preached at St. Martins in the Fields on the day of his Lent-course there And that very Evening he fell into that Sickness which put a period to his Life twelve days after No Man perhaps in this Age of so private a Condition died more lamented For as he had all the amiable charming Qualities to procure the Esteem and Love of every one that knew him So God had bestowed upon him so many great and useful Talents for the doing Service to Religion to the Church to all about him And he so faithfully and industriously employed those Talents to those purposes that he was really a Publick Blessing and he had that Right done him as to be esteemed so He was born at St. Edmunds-Bury Sept. 24. 1646. being the Son of Mr. Nicholas Claget then Minister there His Vniversity-Education was at Emanuel Colledge in Cambridge His first Publick appearance in the World was at his own Native Town of Bury where he was chosen one of the Preachers Which Office he discharged for several years with so universal a Reputation that it might be truly said as to him That a Prophet had Honour in his own Country From thence at the Instance of some considerable Men of the Long Robe whose Business at the Assizes there gave them Opportunities of being acquainted with his great Worth and Abilities he was prevailed with to remove to Grays-Inn And indeed it was no small Testimony given to his Merits that he was thought worthy by that Honourable Society to succeed the Eminent Dr. Cradock as their Preacher In this Place he continued all the remainder of his Life and he behaved himself worthily in it and the Gentlemen of that House took all Occasions of declaring that he did so by the constant Kindness they expressed to him while he lived and the Respects they paid him at his Death He had indeed at the time of his Death two other Preferments besides that of Grays-Inn The Lord Keeper North his Wives Kinsman had given him a Living in Buckingham-shire but the other Place was that which he himself most valued next to Grays-Inn and that was the Lecture of Bassishaw to which he was chosen by that Parish about two years before his death It was the Lecture which Dr. Calamy had immediately held before him Never was there two greater Men successively Lecturers of one Parish nor ever was any Parish kinder to two Lecturers Dr. Claget dyed of the Small-Pox March 28th and was buried in the Church of St. Michael Bassishaw His Wife Mrs. Thomasin North a most Vertuous and Accomplish'd Woman dyed eighteen days after him of the same Disease and was buried in the same Grave with him There is this little Passage not unfit to be mentioned here The last Sermon Dr. Claget made tho' not the last he preached was that which is the sixteenth in this Collection upon this Text Shall we receive good at the hands of God and shall we not receive evil This Sermon he made upon occasion of the death of a Child of his that happened a little before And he had writ it fairly out I suppose for this end that his Wife might read it And accordingly she did so but upon a much sadder Occasion For it was after his death that she got this Sermon into her hands and then she made it her continual Entert ainment and a seasonable one it was as long as her strength would suffer her But to return to Dr. Claget We owe it to the Society of Grays-Inn that he was brought to this City But after he came hither his own Merits in a little time rendred him sufficiently conspicuous For so innocent and unblameable was his Life such an unaffected Honesty and Simplicity appear'd in all his Conversation so obliging he was in his Temper so sincere in all his Friendships so ready to do all sorts of good Offices that came in his way and withal so Prudent a Man so good a Preacher so dexterous in untying Knots and making hard things plain so happy in treating of common Subjects in an uncommon and yet useful way So able a Champion for the True Religion against all Opposers whatsoever and lastly so ready upon all occasions to Advise to Direct to Encourage any work that was undertaken for the promoting or defending the Cause of God. I say all these Qualities were so eminent in Dr. Claget that it was impossible they should be hid The Town soon took Notice of him and none that intimately knew him could forbear to love and admire him and scarce any that had heard of him to esteem and honour him If the Reader would know more of Doctor Claget let him peruse those Writings of his which he Published himself By them he will in some measure be able to make a Judgment of the Genius and Abilities of the Man. If a Friend can speak without partiality there doth in those Writings appear so strong a Judgment such an admirable Faculty of Reasoning so much Honesty and Candor of Temper so great plainness and perspicuity and withal so much spirit and quickness and in a word all the Qualities that can recommend an Author or render his Books Excellent in their kind That I should not scruple to give Dr. Claget a place among the most Eminent and Celebrated Writers of this Church And if he may be allowed that it is as great an Honour as can be done him For perhaps from the inspired Age to this the World did never see more Accurate and more Judicious Composures in matters of Religion than the Church of England has produced in our days The Discourses writ and published by Dr. Claget are these that follow A Discourse concerning the Operations of
hope of the same reward to influence us which Enoch had though not of being translated alive into a better World yet of going thither by the common passage of death which as to the substance of the reward is the same thing the other circumstance so singular in the case of Enoch being not altogether so much for his own sake as for the instruction of others There were but two Persons that went thus into a better World Enoch one For the instruction of a declining and degenerate age almost wholly sunk into a worldly Life Elias another for an admonition to a very corrupt age too the former when all things were running into licentiousness and disorder amongst the Patriarchs before the Law the latter when the time was as bad under the Law and both these to maintain a sense of God and another World while yet the revelation of a Future life was not so clear and publick as it was made by our Lord Jesus Christ who brought life and immortality to light And since he by his Doctrine and by his Resurrection and his Ascension into Heaven hath given us such evidence and notice of a life to come that a more clear evidence could not have been reasonably desired there is no need that the world under the Gospel should be admonished by such extraordinary methods any more Our blessed Lord himself was not translated into Heaven till after his death and Resurrection he in all things going before us shewing us by his example not only what our duty is but what and in what manner our reward shall be confered we must die and rise again and then ascend to the Heaven of Heavens for the consummation of our reward And having this hope Let us purify our selves as he is pure Having these promises dearly beloved let us cleanse our selves from all filthiness of Flesh and Spirit perfecting holiness in the fear of God. To conclude We have the same God to serve and obey that Enoch had the same promises and those more publickly and solemnly made and more strongly confirmed to us than ever they were to the Fathers we have I say the same promises to excite us that he had and all the same advantages that he had and in many respects much greater through the Revelation of the Gospel by our Lord Jesus and we are under no greater temptations and discouragements than he met with or if we were the grace of God is sufficient for us and therefore let us walk with God as he walked with him that when that time cometh of which Enoch prophesied as Saint Jude reporteth v. 14. That the Lord shall come with ten thousands of his Saints to execute judgment upon all and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have committed and of all their hard Speeches which they have spoken against him we may lift up our heads with joy and find mercy in that day The Sixteenth Sermon JOB 11.10 Shall we receive Good at the hand of God and shall we not receive Evil. THIS was part of Job's answer to that saying of his Wife in the former verse Dost thou still retain thy integrity Curse God and dye She pretended that his Piety and Virtue were now discerned to be unprofitable and that it was all one whether he blessed or cursed â— God for if he cursed him he could but dye and it was better to dye than to live in such misery To which he answered Thou speakest as one of the foolish Women speaketh What shall we receive good at the hand of God and shall we not receive evil The Idumean Women it is likely were wont to rail at their Gods when any great adversity befel them and Job told his Wife that she spake like one of them but not like one that knew and worshipped the true God From whom it is reasonable that we should take all in good part not only the good but likewise the evil things of this life There are two things intimated in the Text besides what the words express and they are these 1. Our life here is a mixture of Good and Evil. No man is wholly deprived of the comforts nor any man perfectly exempted from the troubles of it There is indeed a great variety in the mixture The afflictions of some being as inconsiderable as the Enjoyments of others But in some proportion all receive Good and Evil nor is any Man's condition at a perfect stay we change often for the better or the worse Sometimes from the bottom of adversity we rise to great happiness and at other times we fall as low which was the case of Job beyond ordinary examples All which is true as well of Families and Nations as of particular Persons 2. The Good we enjoy and the Evil we suffer are both from the hand of God. For his Providence always attends the working of second causes either disposing them or permitting them to produce those things that happen in the World. When the Air is healthy or infectious when the Seasons are Fruitful or unkindly when the wind makes a Shipwrack or when it brings the Ship safe into the Harbor when we suffer by the malice and passions of others or when they are taken in their own net and we escape we are in all these and the like events to look farther then the immediate causes of the Good or the Evil and to acknowledge the over-ruling Providence of God. Thus although they were the Sabeans and the Caldeans that slew Job's Servants and carried away his Cattel though his Sheep were destroy'd by Lightning and his Children by a Tempest that blew down the house upon them yet he omitting or not so much regarding the influence of these second causes applied himself to the consideration of that Providence under which they all concurred to reduce him to this sad state and he fell down upon the ground and worshipped and said Naked came I out of my Mothers Womb and naked shall I return thether The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away blessed be the name of the Lord. These are the two points intimated in the Text That this present life is a state of Good and of Evil and that both are from the hand of God. But 3. The main scope of the words is That we are to take all in good part from Divine Providence and to receive Evil from God's hand as well as Good. Which is a duty necessary to be understood and necessary to be practised by every one of us both for the discharge of a good conscience and likewise for our own ease and comfort in this uncertain and miserable World. I shall therefore in the first place illustrate the sense of this passage and shew what is meant by receiving evil at the hand of God and then I shall propound to your consideration some of those many reasons why we should effectually perswade our selves so to do As to the first The manner