Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n
Text snippets containing the quad
|
ID |
Title |
Author |
Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) |
STC |
Words |
Pages |
|
A48851
|
A sermon preached before the House of Lords, on November 5, 1680 by ... William Lord Bishop of St. Asaph.
|
Lloyd, William, 1627-1717.
|
1680
(1680)
|
Wing L2712; ESTC R20309
|
18,469
|
46
|
the Devil It holds we see in particular persons but it is much more visible in Societies And to this I come next that of Societies of men Christians of all other are most averse from ways of violence and blood especially from using any such ways upon the account of Religion And among Christian Churches where they differ among themselves if either of them use those ways upon the account of Religion they give a strong presumption against themselves that they are not truly Christians There is Reason for this because we know that Christ gave Love for the character by which his Disciples were to be known John 13. 35. By this shall all men know that you are my Disciples if you have love one to another And left men should unchristen others first that they may hate them and destroy them afterwards Christ enlarged his Precept of Love and extended it even to enemies and not only to ours but to the enemies of our Religion Matth. 5. 43 44. And to enable us to live according to this Precept he hath given us his Spirit whereof this is one of the Fruits For among the Fruits of the Spirit is not only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not only the love of the Brethren but the love of strangers even of enemies as the Apostle shews 2 Pet. 1. 5. On the contrary Hatred is one of the works of the flesh and they that have not the Spirit of Christ to subdue it are said to be hateful and hating one another Tit. 3. 3. Especially to his Disciples Christ saith The world hates you John 15. 19. You particularly as being Christians And even among Christians He that saith he is in the light and hates his Brother his fellow Christian he is in darkness still saith the Apostle 1 Iohn 2. 9. He hath a great want of that light which belongeth to a Christian. To see the use of this Character let any one consider how the Christians were treated by the enemies of their Religion and then let him consider how they used their enemies when they were in power he shall find that darkness differs not more from light than the persecuting genius of those enemies from the calm gentle spirit of Christians I say when they were in power for there is the tryal 'T is not much to be heeded what men do when they are under Authority When the Jews had the power to wreak their malice upon Christians they both killed the Lord Iesus and his Apostles and all Christians where they durst for fear of the Romans they never ceased till wrath come upon them to the uttermost nor even then for their malice lasts still it burns inward and they are not able to keep it from breaking out sometimes as it did here very lately upon an occasion of which I shall say no more in this place The Heathens likewise shewed their malice against Christians in divers cruel bloody Persecutions in the very infancy of our Religion and when the Blood of Martyrs being the seed of the Church it grew up so wonderfully and was so vastly numerous that it seemed an endless work to destroy it yet there were those Heathen Princes that despaired not of it even then especially Diocletan and his Colleague who killed many thousands of Christians only upon the account of Religion When the Government changed as it did in few years after the last Persecution and when Christianity was come to be the Established Religion there was no Heathen put to death nor no Jew upon the account of Religion till Popery prevailed which was as bloody as Judaism or Heathenism This calm gentle temper of the Primitive Christians which so gloriously shined forth when they came to be in Power was that which lay hid in them all the times of Persecution Then they could not shew it but in their Profession and so indeed they always did as appears by Tertullian and others who used to fay and glory in it Christianus nullius hostis a Christian is no mans enemy a Christian can be no mans enemy do what you will to him injure him slander him strip and torture him kill all others of his Religion before his eyes and then let him loose and give him power place him in your circumstances he cannot revenge himself upon you What! that humane nature could bear such things without any resentment it was not credible their enemies could not believe this none could believe it that did not feel it in himself till they came to see it and then all men believed it and acknowledged it to be the singular excellency of the Christian Religion But as our holy Religion excels all others in this admirable temper so by this we may usually judge who they are that excel among Christian Churches when there happens any difference between them whether touching the Faith or the terms of Communion They that were the more fierce they generally had the worst Cause As when the difference was about the keeping of Easter it was chiefly between the Roman and the Asian Churches The Asians were content that every Church should keep it at what time they pleas'd so themselves might be allowed to keep it as they had always done for they held the precise time to be as truly it was an indifferent thing The Romans would not allow that they were for imposing on other Churches and for breaking Communion with them that would not receive their Impositions Which as it argued in them a proud and wrathful disposition so even by that it appeared they had the worst of the Cause In like manner in that heat between Cyprian and Stephen where neither of them was right in the Cause for as it commonly happens when men contend the Truth lay between them yet sure St. Cyprian was in the right in this in holding that this cause was not sufficient to break Communion between Churches And there Pope Stephen was in the wrong for he did break Communion about it he denied jus hospitii he would not receive a message he would not hear of an Accommodation I forbear to repeat the ill terms he gave St. Cyprian you may read them in the end of Firmilian's Epistle We all allow that Cyprian was truly a Saint 'T is well they own him such in the Roman Church But how they can make that Pope so too I do not understand for it is plain that to his death he would not allow that Saint to be a Christian. The great power of Error in moving mens Passions and enraging them against the Professors of Truth and the power of true Religion in composing mens Passions on the other hand both these did appear as soon as ever a Heresie came to have Publick Authority on its side It was the Arian Heresie that was newly broke forth before the Council of Nice and that Council was called to suppress it which they did by no other force but putting Arians out of their Bishopricks They
Die Lunae 8. Novemb. 1680. ORdered by the Lords Spiritual and Temporal in Parliament Assembled That the Thanks of this House be and are hereby given to the Lord Bishop of St. Asaph for his pains in Preaching before their Lordships on Friday last being the Anniversary Thanks giving-day to Almighty God for the deliverance of this Kingdom from the Gun-powder-Treason and his Lordship is hereby desired to cause his Sermon then Preached to be Printed and Published Jo. Browne Cler. Parl. A SERMON Preached before the House of Lords ON November 5. 1680. By the Right Reverend Father in God WILLIAM Lord Bishop of St. Asaph LONDON Printed by M. C. for Henry Brome at the Gun in St. Paul's Church-yard 1680. TO THE LORDS Spiritual and Temporal Assembled in PARLIAMENT My Lords WHile I am paying my Obedience to your Lordships Commands for the Printing of this Sermon I humbly crave leave to say something for the clearing of my self from a Prejudice which if true would render me unfit to be so far owned by your Lordships as to be admitted to Preach before You and having done it to be commanded to Print my Sermon For I cannot but take notice that both before and since I received that Honour from you I have been tax'd as being not Protestant enough on account of a Book called Considerations touching the true way to suppress Popery in this Kingdom How far I was concerned in that Treatise the Preface to it sufficiently declares The Book it self was Publish'd in Michaelmas Term 1676. just two years before the Popish Plot was discovered The design of it was proposed to me as the likeliest Remedy at that time against the same Disease under which we are now labouring for Life or Death but it was before things were come to such a dangerous Crisis I saw it was much the same Design that many of the best and most eminent Protestants particularly Q. Elizabeth and K. James had at several times countenanced and put in practice with very good success they were next to the uniting of Protestants for the dividing of Papists whose chief advantage hitherto has been their Union such as it is and our needless Divisions But at that time I thought it more proper and seasonable than ever upon the best Iudgment that I could make of their and our Circumstances And I have some reason to think I was not mistaken in this For now I see that at the very time when this was brought to me and while I was forming my thoughts upon it the Papists themselves were in a great apprehension of this very thing as being of all other ways the most likely to blast their hopes and to preserve us from that Ruine which they were then bringing upon us Thus Coleman at that time wrote to the Popes Internuncio There is but One thing saith he to be feared whereof I have a great apprehension that can hinder the success of our Designs which is a Division among the Catholicks themselves How dividing them It follows by Propositions to the Parliament to accord their conjunction to those that require it on Conditions prejudicial to the Authority of the Pope and so to persecute the rest of them with more appearance of Justice and ruine the one half of them more easily than the whole Body at once And to shew that Coleman was not singular herein Cardinal Howard delivers this as their Iudgment at Rome where if any where they are Infallible Division of Catholicks will be the easiest way for Protestants to destroy them This being said for the Design from so good Authority I have this farther to say for my self that only the last part of that Book was my own in which I did justifie the Reformation of this Church and what I wrote in that part I am sure no Papist can disprove and I think no Protestant has cause to complain of it I thank God I have in this whole matter the witness of a goad Conscience and I hope likewise your Lordships good opinion of my honest zeal to maintain the Protestant Religion against Popery For a farther Testimony whereof and in obedience to your Lordships Commands I humbly present this following Discourse My Lords I am Your Lordships most humble and most obedient Servant W. Asaph A SERMON ON PSALM cxxiv 1 2 3. Verses 1. If it had not been the Lord who was on our side now may Israel say 2. If it had not been the Lord who was on our side when men rose up against us 3. Then they had swallowed us up quick when their wrath was kindled against us WHAT Deliverance it was upon which David made this Psalm at this distance of time we cannot certainly know But whatsoever it was this we find it was of the People of Israel And whensoever it happened we see they remembred it afterwards It was the manner of Gods people to remember a Deliverance many years and ages after they had received it and when that particular deliverance was forgotten yet still they kept up their Thanksgiving to God in a Psalm which being once composed for that former mercy might be used ever after upon any other like occasion The Deliverance of our Fathers on this day was as great as ever any was that God gave the Jews and we come now to celebrate it not many ages after but while some are yet living that remember it and we that have been born since are as sure of it as if we had been then living our selves and yet for fear it should be forgotten in our Age God hath been pleased to put us in remembrance by suffering the same Enemy to put us in fresh Dangers and then sending us new Deliverances If all this will not affect us with a sense of what we owe to God for his mercy we are so far from being like Gods ancient People that we deserve to be given up to strong Delusions to a belief of Popish Legends of a Cecil's Plot and such like sensless Fictions which none could give credit to that had not first subdued his understanding to the belief of any thing how incredible soever by the belief of Transubstantiation But if we may give any heed to our senses and to our reason if we may believe the Testimony of all men then living if we may judge from our own experience of the like designs since these I think are all the ways that we have to come to the knowledge of such things and it were easie to shew that all these ways we are sure of the Gunpowder-Treason As we cannot but think with horror of the danger that the King and Kingdom were then in so we cannot reflect on their Deliverance but with the greatest admiration We cannot think of it especially on this day without a thankful acknowledgment to God in such words as his antient people have left us in this Text If it had not been the Lord who was on our side now may Israel say