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A64376
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A sermon preached at the anniversary meeting of the clergy-mens sons in the church of St. Mary-le-Bow, December 3, 1691 by Thomas Tenison.
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Tenison, Thomas, 1636-1715.
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1691
(1691)
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Wing T718; ESTC R23739
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10,892
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33
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living at such distance from the first Fountain of Evangelical Tradition and many find a way to their worldly Profit through the breaches of Unity It is in the few that Reason and Grace rule and what Equity can be expected where the Passions of Men give the Law Daily experience shews how narrow-minded how unjust how biassed Men are how they judge by their Affections and that instead of doing nothing by Partiality they scarce do any thing otherwise in such sort that where there are many Competitors for any Place every one of them finds his Friend and perhaps the most unqualifi'd Person does at length prevail 3. But Thirdly every Christian should walk by a straighter Rule considering 1 st What is the corrupt Original And 2 dly What are the sad effects of siding and partiality 1 st For the Cause of it It has its Original in the brutal Part of Man which ought not to give Law but to be mortifi'd and subdu'd St. Paul numbers fierce Zeal and Seditions amongst the works of the Flesh and expostulates with those who rais'd the foremention'd difference about the Persons and Gifts of Paul Apollos and Cephas saying Are ye not carnal and walk as Men Do ye not proceed after the common fashion of the Men of this World who have scarce a grain of the Salt of Wisdom in their Bodies whose Imaginations are false Glasses distorting the Images of Truth and Goodness whose Eyes are the Windows of Vanity and whose Ears let in delusive Report and are charm'd with Flattery whose Anger is a short madness whose Lusts are blind and impetuous whose very Stomach is such an Enemy and yet such a God to the rest of the Members and whose Heart is full of haughty Thoughts and earthly Desires Of these evils Partiality is made up but especially of the latter Pride and Covetousness Partial men resolve all into their own private Humour and Inclination They move about their own Center and wind in all they can as if they were a World by themselves so that in all they design and in all they do they have an eye to that recompence of Reward which may accrue to themselves in the gratifying of some peculiar Fancy Appetite or Passion 2. The Effects of Partiality answer the Cause of it And 1 st Hereby Men are alienated from God who governs the World by the Rules of Equity who is no respecter of Persons who accepts of no Man whose Cause is Evil who punishes and rewards every Man according to his works who gives this Command in Exod. 23. 2. Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil neither shalt thou speak in a Cause to decline after many to wrest Judgment or to pass Sentence merely upon a popular motive The same Just God in Psal. 50. 16 17 18. reproves those wicked and partial men who would take upon them to declare his Statutes judicially and to do it in favour of Offenders When thou sawest a Thief thou consentedst with him didst judge in favour of him and hast been partaker with Adulterers or become guilty of their Crime by not punishing of it Nor did he out of Arbitrary will accept of Abel and reject Cain but had regard to the Principles of their Hearts and according to them their Sacrifices were pleasing or displeasing to him This is the Spirit of that God that made us whom we ought to imitate but it dwells not in the heart of the selfish who are govern'd by Favour and Affection by Sides and partial Friendships and yet presume oftentimes to entitle the Righteous Lord to their own interested Declensions from the merit of Persons and Causes So the Congregation of the Children of Israel call'd those who were in a wicked Confederacy with Corah The People of the Lord. And Persons of like Temper fall into the like presumptuous Expressions and when they kill others out of Revenge they pretend they do God good service or offer a Sacrifice which needs not Frankincense to make it grateful to him Tho every offering that is good in it self is to him an Abomination when it comes from an unsound and blemished Heart And 2 dly as Partialists are not followers but dishonourers of God so are they injurious to the World 1. To the Justice And 2. To that which is the consequence of Justice the Peace and Order of it 1. They are Enemies to common Justice passing Sentence and proceeding according to the Affection that is predominant in them What Antinomians ascribe rashly to God is true of Partialists in their Actings They can see no Sin in their own People though one would think the dearer the Child were the more offensive would be the disobedience But Partiality blinds them and with such to be among them is merit From the Injustice of this Principle it was that S. Austin was so ill treated by the followers of Donatus They made the Division and then charg'd him with it and revil'd him saith Posidonius as a Wolf who ought to be kill'd in defence of the Flock In the mean time he was a holy and humble Man and stood on the just defensive part but they were fierce and factious and would not allow a Man to be a Christian if he said I am baptiz'd I embrace the Catholick Faith unless he added I am of the Party of Donatus The Partial likewise construe the Sufferings of others as perversly as they do their Lives They would perswade themselves or at least the World that Heaven it self testifies against the Persons whom they affect not by every misfortune which befalls them If Men of another way live piously and fall into some great affliction or die a sudden death they rashly call this a Judgment If some of their own way live immorally and either suffer in the World or in a moment are taken out of it they will say God by chastening them dealeth with them as the Children of his Love and his Bosom or that as Righteous they are taken away from the evil to come God hath forsaken him said the Enemies of David when he had but afflicted him for a Season The Heathens imputed all the Plagues which befel the Empire to the guilt of the Christians as Innovators not calling to mind the provocation of their own real Superstition and Idolatry And the Christians who were against Theodorit Ibas and Theodorus imputed all the Wars Famines and Pestilences in Italy to the favour shew'd to them in the Fifth Synod And the Miseries under which the Greek Church groaneth to this day are by the Friends of the Papacy ascrib'd to the distance it has kept from their Usurpation Good God! That Partial Men should pervert God's Judgments as well as their own and thereby oppose the Justice And 2. That which would otherwise have been the Fruit of it the Peace and Order of the World None are oftner complaining of the times than Partial Men and none occasion greater evil in them than they
A SERMON Preached at the Anniversary Meeting OF THE Clergy-mens Sons IN THE Church of St. MARY-le-BOW December 3. 1691. By THOMAS TENISON D. D. Lord Bishop Elect of LINCOLN LONDON Printed for Ric. Chiswell at the Rose and Crown in St. Paul's Church-Yard MDCXCI To my HONOURED FRIENDS and BRETHREN THE STEWARDS Of the Late Anniversary Meeting of Clergy-mens Sons Admiral Hen. Killegrew Richard Burch John Jackson William Pocklington Joseph Bentham Robert Hodson Edmund Godwin John Cradock Robert Clements Nathanael Baldicke Thomas Herskins Francis Archbold Anthony Palmer Benjamin White Fitz-Norris Wood Edward Tregenna STEWARDS My Honoured Friends and Brethren I Should think my self much wanting to the Duty I owe both to Our Corporation and to your Selves if I should wholly ascribe the publishing of this Sermon to your Importunity I am so very senfible of the excellent Ends and Methods of this Establishment that I am not willing to omit the least thing which may in your Judgments conduce to them It has this present year besides the Charity for putting forth Apprentices provided Five hundred and twelve Pounds towards the support of Widows of poor Ministers and their Children I fear the Needs of the next year will be greater than those of this but cannot but hope that the Supplies will grow in proportion to them That God will prosper both Givers Managers and Receivers is the hearty Prayer of My Honoured Friends and Brethren Your Faithful and Humble Servant THO. TENISON THE Bishop of LINCOLN's SERMON BEFORE The CLERGY-MENS SONS December 3. 1691. Imprimatur Dec. 17. 1691. Ra. Barker R. R. in Christo P. ac D. D. Johanni Archiep. Cant. à Sacris Dom. c. A SERMON Preached before the Clergy-Mens SONS 1 TIM V. 21. Last words doing nothing by partiality ST PAUL who had the care of many Churches being higher in Power and greater in Spiritual Gifts and more advanced in years and experience than Timothy who had also from his youth been by his Mother commended to his oversight and instruction does in this Chapter give him advice in matters appertaining to the Church of God He teacheth him how to behave himself towards Elders such as were so either by Age or by Function especially towards Elders by Office who fulfilled both senses of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies both to feed and to rule who were laborious in Doctrine as well as in Government He surther shews him his duty towards Widows who received Alms from the Church for their attendance on some inferior Offices in it towards those who were represented and accused as Offenders in order to Judicial Censure lastly towards such as were either to be ordained Ministers or as Penitents to be absolved For his direction in these Matters he lays before him two Rules Not to be hasty Not to be biassed in his Proceedings First To act without preferring one before another 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without prejudice without such a criminal haste as precipitates the Judgment before both sides are attentively heard and then in the words of the Text which make up his second Canon to Do nothing by partiality Three Heads of Discourse will contain under them that which by Gods Assistance I purpose to say upon this Text and this Occasion First In General Nothing is to be done by partiality Secondly In Special No Charity is to be partially administred Thirdly In Particular The Charity of this Corporation is not to be disposed otherwise than God be thanked so far as I understand it useth to be that is without Partiality or Respect of Persons First In General nothing is to be done by Partiality concerning which I shall consider 1. What the Nature of it is 2. How prone Mankind is to suffer it to put a bias upon its Actions 3. Why Impartiality should be the Rule of all our doings First For the Nature of Partiality it is a vicious Principle which inclineth Men to act not according to the merit of the Person or Cause but out of private and sinister Ends. It is here by the Apostle and by Clement also in his first Epistle †to the Church of Corinth called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is as much as to say Siding accepting of Persons or Declining from the reason of the Case through the influence of by-respects In Persons acting by themselves we call it Partiality when they act in Confederacy with others it hath the Name of Sedition in a State of Schism and Division in a Church of Faction in both And it sometimes takes place even where the Constitution is good for the best of Causes may be factiously espous'd and partially manag'd whilst evil-minded Men adhere to a Church or State not as such but as a Party and in order to the strengthning and defending themselves against the Side they hate and with which they can no more live than Fire with Water Such Partialists were the Pharisees who took very great pains to make Proselites converting them to their way rather than to the Jewish Religion to the end that Number might support them when Reason was wanting 2. Now Secondly This Partiality in acting either by our Selves or in Conjunction with a Party is that by which Mankind is very apt to be leaven'd If St. Paul had not discern'd that even Timothy himself had had the Seeds of this Corruption in his Nature he would not have given him Caution against it in so very solemn a manner as he did charging him as in the presence of God and his blessed Son and his Elect Angels those ministring Spirits whom God approves of to do nothing out of this Principle The same Apostle found it breaking out in his time in the Church of Corinth where all pretended to love the Gospel but one had a partiality for Paul another for Apollos and another for Cephas or Peter or perhaps for some other Teachers whose Names the Apostle thought fit to spare transferring their Parts to himself and his Brethren This went not then so far as the dividing them into distinct Communions but however it rais'd a strife amongst them about the preheminence of their Pastors whilst they affected them severally not as Christian Ministers but upon Personal Accounts and did this with Exasperation of Mind and with open Animosity And if Christians were so partial and contentious as if Christ himself was divided in that Primitive State when the Blood of Christ was yet almost warm upon the Cross when he was just risen from the Dead and ascended into the Heavens when Miracles like that constant one of the Sun were daily before Mens eyes when Christianity seem'd to be taken up in good earnest being profess'd with peril of Life certainly it can be no surprize to us to find Partiality in the Men of this Generation in which too many of the external Members of Christ's Church like those of the Natural Body that lye remotest from the heart are chill and cold as