Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n
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A61178
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A sermon preached before the Artillery Company of London at St. Mary Le Bow, April 20, 1682 by Thomas Sprat ...
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Sprat, Thomas, 1635-1713.
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1682
(1682)
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Wing S5058; ESTC R16434
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15,174
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38
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A SERMON Preached before The Artillery Company OF LONDON AT St. Mary Le Bow April 20. 1682. BY THOMAS SPRAT D. D. One of His Majesties Chaplains in Ordinary Published at their request LONDON Printed for Iohn Baker at the three Pigeons in St. Paul's Church-yard 1682. To the Honourable Sir William Prichard Knight and Alderman President of the Artillery Company Sir Iames Smith Knight and Alderman Vice-President To the Right Worshipful Sir Matthew Andrews Treasurer As also to the Right Honourable Earl of Thanet Lord Allington Lord Lumley Lord Paston To the Right Worshipful and Worshipful Sir Iohn Narborough Iohn Shales Esq Philip Frowd Esq Maj. Richard Burdon STEWARDS And to the whole Court of Assistants Field-Officers Captains and Gentlemen Professing and Exercising Arms in that Renowned and Honourable Society Right Honourable c. IN obedience to your commands I have published this honest-and loyal Discourse which is all I can say to its advantage except what was an unexpected commendation to it that the Enemies of our Church and State have thought fit to dislike it and to shew they did so have had recourse to their old Arts of lying and slandering But it is no matter what they say or do whilst you continue like your selves to think the practice of Loyalty not only a part of your Profession as Souldiers but of your Religion as Christians As to the main Doctrine here delivered there is not any one true Son of the Church of England but will consent to it nor any of its Adversaries that can oppose it without renouncing the common Principles of Christian Government As for the manner of handling it I have reason to ask your pardon but not theirs That I have not managed it as so noble an Argument deserves I beg your excuse That I have not treated of it with bitterness or virulency I believe even they will confess when they shall read it and let them consider what moderation and temper a man had need be of that in this Nation and this Age shall speak against Faction and Rebellion without extraordinary Severity Right Honourable c. I am Your most humble and most obedient Servant Thomas Sprat April 29 1682. A SERMON Preached before The Artillery Company St. LUKE xxii part of ver 36. He that hath no Sword let him sell his garment and buy one WHen in such Warlike Solemnities as yours of this day men of my Profession are admitted to the honour of bearing any part I suppose it is not expected that we should cloy and vex your ears with the terms of your own Art or affect impertinently to entertain you with discourses on the Heroic Science of Arms. The weapons of our warfare are not carnal but spiritual And if it was justly esteemed once a very indecent presumption in a Philosopher to read a Lecture of Battels before one great Commander how much more improper would it be for a Divine to undertake to teach the Art of War in the presence of so many But when you call us hither to serve you in these your annual Triumphs I know you do it with a pious design That as all Wars of old were usually begun with a public Sacrifice so these your exercises of War should first be consecrated by devotion That here in the House of God you should first receive the Churches Prayers and Benedictions on those Weapons which abroad you are so ready to employ in the Churches defence That of those Arms of which you have elsewhere learnt the skilful and the glorious practice here you might consider the saving and the religious use How a meer natural Courage may be so improved by Piety as to become a most Christian Grace How Victory may be not only made lawful and barely innocent but how it may be sanctified and sanctified not first by Rebellion then by Sacrilege but by fighting only in a truly good and righteous Cause and by defending it not with hypocritical zeal and zealous cruelty not only with Valour and Conduct but with Fidelity Loyalty Justice Equity and Charity How this may be done it being I humbly conceive my proper business here to deliberate whilst I endeavour to do it I must intreat the favour not only of your common patience but of your more than ordinary pardon if besides my many other infirmities that which ought to have been an advantage shall prove my disadvantage if even this great appearance so beautifully-terrible as an Army with Banners which guards this place and secures all within it and round about it particularly us of the Clergy shall yet happen somewhat to discompose me so that I shall not be able to bring a firmness of mind equal to the greatness of the occasion However for my incouragement I have brought with me our blessed Lord the Great Captain of our Salvation speaking to you with power and in the words of my Text pronouncing that which at first hearing seems a most surprizing Doctrine for the Prince of peace to deliver That sometimes the Habiliments of War are more necessary more becoming a Christian than the very Robes of Peace That in some seasons of imminent danger those of his Disciples who had not Swords were obliged to sell if need were their very garments to buy them Such is the literal sense of the words But was not this a strange Precept for that King to injoyn whose Kingdom was not of this world How could this be consistent with that meekness in Persecutions that long-suffering of Injuries that very love of Enemies with which his whole Gospel abounds How was this conformable to his mild example who went as a Sheep to the slaughter and as a Lamb that is dumb Who though he might have summoned more than twelve Legions of Angels to his immediate rescue yet never employed them as a Triumphant Host but as an Harmonious Choir to sing Peace on Earth good will towards men How comes he just then as he was going to be betrayed by one of his own Disciples into the hands of his most cruel Enemies against whom he designed nothing less than opposition how comes he then to talk of furnishing his Attendants with Instruments of War and of preferring Swords before Garments Then especially when presently after as soon as he was seized on by the High Priests Officers he severely rebuked the great Apostle St. Peter for but once using the Sword Put up thy Sword says he into its place He that taketh the Sword shall perish by the Sword It is true these two remarkable Sentences of our blessed Saviour that to St. Peter and this in my Text may seem at first view capable of contrary interpretations But if we shall examine the circumstances and occasions of their delivery we shall soon find that they do not only very well agree with each other but both together may teach us the whole Christian Doctrine of War what use of secular Arms the Gospel permits what it condemns
most vehement persuasions or dissuasions of Conscience none the greatest pretences to new Light or Divine Inspirations can justifie any Member of a Christian State or Church nor any whole Church to violate the establish'd Laws of their Country by resisting Nay there can be no surer proof of an erroneous Conscience of a Spirit that is not of God than this if it shall provoke Men possess'd with it under any colour of the Cause of God to Arm against and by open force to oppose the Powers that undoubtedly are of God 'T is true of old under the Jewish dispensation God himself thought fit sometimes by an immediate call different from that of the Civil Government to excite private Men to draw the Sword and to perform acts of Supreme Justice Yet then he made them cease to be private Men any longer first placed them in his own stead shew'd certain signs of his presence with them and often gave them the power of Miracles to confirm what they did So that no man now ought to imitate such extraordinary Examples without being able to produce the like extraordinary Commission And that is not now God's method any longer His reveal'd Law being now completely discover'd God himself has seldom or never now recourse to such instances of his absolute Prerogative And therefore certainly no man ought to usurp them at his pleasure To the Law and to the Testimony to his written Word he now refers us and as that commands to Kings and all that are in Authority to whom alone he has committed the executive part of his common Power as to the Vicegerents upon Earth of his Justice and Mercy Thirdly therefore on a public Call only and only in a public Cause can just public Arms be taken up and so they may be even by Christians for the Cause of God and the King which though in words they seem divided yet in reality they are one and the same and inseparable as the same Sword of old was call'd the Sword of the Lord and of Gideon the Supreme Magistrate This my Brethren is not only the best but the only true Cause of God in this World for which all Subjects are bound in Conscience to fight the Cause of their lawful Soveraign that which he Authorizes either by his Person or his Commission or his Allowance This I say is the only true Cause even of God which can justly call for your Swords Besides this we know God has another Cause in the World that of his own Church and the true Religion which whenever it is united with the Soveraign Authority as Blessed be God it is in our Nation then that is of all others unquestionably a Cause the most sacred the nearest and dearest to God himself But wherever the Cause of the true Religion and that of the Supreme Power are at variance then God himself is pleas'd to take his own Religion into his peculiar care to maintain and advance it in a way that of all others is the most Divine a way that is more esteem'd of God himself let me say it than even your way of triumphant Arms and Conquest For such is the way of gentle teaching and innocent living and patient suffering and meek obedience By this Method only God chose to begin the Gospel and first rais'd the Christian Church whilest the Empire was Heathen and the World idolatrous and by no other Methods but such as conform to this most surely not by forcible resistance or open violence does God still allow the Gospel to be carried on by Subjects wherever the Soveraign Power is addicted to Superstition or Idolatry But what say they must we not arm against the lawful Prince for the Cause of God and his Truth How then shall we exercise our Zeal for the true Religion What then will become of the true Religion it self No not for the Cause of God For then at best you will oppose one Cause of God against another and as you order it the false Cause of God against the true and thus for the seeming interest of Christianity you infringe the fundamental Percepts of it Not you My Brethren I speak this for the sake of some without Doors if they would but hear us But alas they make it a part of their Religion not to hear us However I must say that Zeal may be irregular and wicked though in the Cause of the true Religion Zeal is not only to be justfy'd by the cause which raises it but as much by the authority on which it acts As for the right and well-order'd Zeal whenever it has not the count'nance or concurrence of the Magistrate it ought only to be employ'd in peaceable Actions in their Wishes and Studies and Prayers in their Counsels and Advises when call'd to it but chiefly in amending their own lives and turning the edge of their Zeal on their own Sins by that innocent but effectual way too to do their parts to preserve and spread the true Faith Wherefore let them no longer intitle the true Religion to their own Discontents or Ambitions What Religion can there be in Mens persuing violent paths on a pretence of the Glory of God but contrary to his express commands Let them practice its duties and God will assert its interest Religion desires none to be its Champions except they first become its Disciples and such are not they who will do evil that good may come Can such men think to give us better examples for the propagating Religion than the first great Masters and Founders of Christianity did or can they hope for better Success in it than they had and what way did they judge best what by Experience did they find best to promote it Prodigious indeed was the Gospels first increase But far more admirable the means of it which were chiefly their Enemies Persecutions their own Submission and the power of Miracles By the wonders they wrought they exercised a violence over Nature but none over Laws or civil Governments to change or to subvert them By a lowly yielding to the Heathen Empire they first soften'd its fury then converted it they piously render'd to their Caesars the things that were Caesars they cheerfully pay'd them Tribute readily took up Arms at their Summons most willingly perform'd all their Laws except such as that of adoring them Though they could not be induced by fear or favour to rank their Princes equal with their God yet they preserved them in the next place though they would never worship them as Gods upon Earth yet they religiously obey'd them as God's Deputies and Representatives they judg'd those who rebell'd against them worthy of Death as if they had actually rebell'd against God himself What else means St. Paul when in so many words he declares That whosoever resisteth the Power resisteth the Ordinance of God and they that resist shall receive to themselves Damnation Out of all doubt he there speaks of the Temporal Power and of Eternal