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 |
|
A39741
|
A sermon preached before the honourable House of Commons at St. Margaret Westminster, on Thursday, the 5th of November, 1691 by William Fleetwood ...
|
Fleetwood, William, 1656-1723.
|
1691
(1691)
|
Wing F1252; ESTC R6743
|
16,159
|
32
|
and effects may seem at first too mighty for the causes assigned but to one that well and throughly considers humane Nature with all its Folly Malice and Imperfection I am afraid they will appear too adequate and just A little Spring sends out a mighty Stream and a small Seed grows up into a tall and shady Cedar A mean and at first unheeded Principle becomes in time the bottom and foundation of a marvellous Superstructure and brings forth Fruits and Consequences not easily foreseen at first nor easily prevented or avoided afterwards Let any Man but call to mind What a little matter it was at first that biassed him to incline to such a Cause or Party and how that inclination carried him to wishing well and that to Affection and Affection to Siding with it and that to Zeal and Zeal to the promoting and advancing it and that to opposing all its hindrances and Opposition to Vexation and that to Ill Will and Ill Will to Mischief and that to Hatred and thence to Violence and Outrage and Cruelty and Persecution Let a Man I say but trace his own Heart at such a rate as this and he will find a little inconsiderable Cause sufficient to produce the most astonishing Effects And of all Causes none so fruitful and productive as those that border on Religion and call in God into their Interests and Party no mistakes so fatal and so desperate in their Consequences as those that are built on misapplied Scripture false Conceptions of Gods Nature with unworthy and dishonourable thoughts of any of his Attributes For as I intimated before Man thinks himself naturally obliged and is undoubtedly so where he can with Reason to imitate and draw as near to his God as possibly he may and therefore will as near as can be conform his inward and his outward behaviour to the Notions and Conceptions he has of Gods Nature Some Barbarous Gentiles of old conceived God to be an angry Sanguinary Being and the Consequence was they were inhumane in their Manners and Worship'd him with horrid Rites and humane Sacrifices and others Gentle and benign because they thought their Deity was Merciful and Good And therefore 't is of mighty use and benefit in all respects that Men should be taught to conceive nothing of God but what is Just and Honourable Merciful and Good And he may very properly be said not to know God that conceives any hard unworthy thing of him Secondly The Jews are said Not to know the Father because they did or rather would not know and understand the Dispensation and Oeconomy of God the Father designing to save the World by sending his Son Christ Jesus into it they were so strongly persuaded that their Law was to last for ever that they could not entertain so much as a thought of its Abolishment The Passeover was to be kept a feast to the Lord throughtout their generations You shall observe this thing saith Moses for an Ordinance to thee and to thy Sons for ever Exod. xii 13. 17. and 24. verses and chap. xix 9. and so for the offering of a sweet savour One Ordinance shall be both for you of the Congregation and also for the stranger that so journeth with you an Ordinance for ever in your generations Numb xv 15. The same of the heave Offring by an Ordinance for ever Numb xviii 8. And so for the continuance of the Priesthood in the House of Levy The Lord thy God hath chosen him out of all thy tribes to stand to minister in the name of the Lord him and his sons for ever Deut. xviii v. And of the Temple I have hallowed this house which thou hast built to put my name there for ever and mine eyes and my heart shall be there perpetually saith God himself to Solomon 1 Kings ix 3. 2 Chron. vi 6 7. and 16. with abundance of other places that they thought promised an eternity to their Constitution And being of a gross Understanding and taking all things litterally they could never be brought to think of parting with their Legal Dispensation Their Fathers had received it from God himself who engraved their Tables with his own Hands at first and afterwards had Dictated to Moses and delivered his Commands and Executed his Decrees by the frequent Ministry of Angels and this must needs enhance the price and value of the Law Moreover they had before their Eyes so many noble instances so many great and extraordinary examples of Patriarchs and Prophets Kings and valiant Heroes that had been born and bred up in this Way and pleased God and were his Favourites and the Sons of his Grace by walking steadily therein that 't was not easie to imagine such a Law could now at last displease him so as to renounce and to abrogate it and besides themselves had sucked its Precepts with their Mothers Milk had been initiated into its Rites with pain and blood and therefore could not lightly give it over and the Law and the Prophets were full of cautions and severe threatnings against such as should violate it themselves or attempt to persuade others and all this will naturally beget in Men a very strong tenacity of Opinions and an obstinate Resolution to mantain them against all Opposers And three or four Consequences of rough unruly Nature will without great care and the Grace of God bring them to a revengeful and exterminating Temper Had not our Saviour done such mighty Works amongst them as never had been done by Moses or Elias or any other of the Prophets and such as could be wrought by no mortal Power but carried with them evident tokens of an Almighty Hand and fulfilled their Prophecies so exactly the Jews had been not only excuseable but highly commendable in rejecting him But this is not at present so much my business as it is to shew that even honest and zealous Men that did not believe the Doctrines of our Lord might as St. Paul himself did degenerate into Hatred Cruelty and Persecution both of Him and his Disciples not to extenuate their Guilt so much as to shew the Force and Power of Human Nature byassed by such natural and accidental Prejudices And as to the Chief Priests and Rulers to whom our Lord immediately refers as to their not knowing the Son and therefore persecuting him to death and all his Followers the Account is this They were now in full and peaceable Possession of a Religion made up of glorious Out-sides and external Shews pompous Sacrifice and glittering Ceremonies with which the trifling World is ravish'd and surpriz'd the Hearts of the Worshippers exalted with vain Pride and the Beholders dazled and amaz'd And here was Jesus and they knew not who came to disturb them in their way of Worship preaching up grave and serious Matters talking of wonderful unheard of and unpractis'd Morals discoursing of Judgment Righteousness of Faith and Charity and other weighty Doctrines and Commands together with an unavoidable necessity
Veneris 6. Novembris 1691. Ordered THAT the Thanks of this House be given to Mr. Fleetwood for his Sermon preached before this House Yesterday and that he be desired to Print the same And that Mr. Mountague and Mr. Hobby do acquaint him therewith Paul Jodrell Cler. Dom. Com. A SERMON Preached before the HONOURABLE House of Commons AT St. MARGARET WESTMINSTER on Thursday the 5th of November 1691. BY WILLIAM FLEETWOOD Chaplain in Ordinary to Their Majesties LONDON Printed for Tho. Bassett and Tho. Dring at the George and at the Harrow in Fleetstreet 1691. A SERMON UPON S. John Ch. xvi part of the 2d and 3d Verses Yea the time cometh that whosoever killeth you will think that he doth God service and these things will they do unto you because they have not known the Father nor Me. THIS day is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears For either we are met to no purpose or which is worse to a very bad one to mock and play with God or we are met to Celebrate with Praise and Thanksgiving the Deliverance of our Church and Nation from one of the most Execrable Attempts that ever was inspir'd into the Heart of Man by our great Enemy the Devil or brought to light by the good Providence of God an Attempt of such unusual Cruelty and Horror that nothing but the distance of Time and a cold Indifference for things past and gone could let us think thereon without such Indignation and such Fury as were not fit for Christian Hearts to harbour an Attempt that nothing but the English Mercy could have forgiven No Laws no Nation but our own but would have pursued the Authors and Abettors of such Cursed Principles with such severe Vengeance as would have fully and effectually secur'd themselves from any Second Fears or Second Dangers from that side an Attempt of which I shall say but a very poor and low thing when I shall have said No Age No History no Countrey in the World can parallel it If I would raise this Attempt as high as Justice will permit me and aggravate the thing according to the Truth I must say it was such an Attempt as the Jesuits themselves are ashamed of and begin though somewhat faintly to extenuate and deny and then I neither can nor need to say more For if those men whom God for the Sins of Mankind hath permitted to compass the World to overturn Kingdoms to disturb the Peace and Society of Men to destroy Morality to corrupt and stifle Christianity to settle wickedness by Principles and establish Sin by a Law if such I say once come to extenuate or deny an Attempt inspired by men of their own Order and one of them at least Beatified and to have been acted by their own Disciples there must needs be so much Hell and Horror in the composition of the fact that no good Man can well express it or conceive it and yet to come to my Text It was done by men that thought they thereby did God service Our Lord being about to leave this World and to go unto the Father thought good to prepare his Disciples for that sad parting by telling them beforehand what he himself must shortly undergo by the Rage and Fury of the wicked Priests and Governors with the Necessity and Benefits of those Sufferings and afterwards what they themselves must look for if they would take up his Cross and be his Disciples Remember the word that I have said unto you the Servant is not greater than his Lord if they have persecuted Me they will also persecute You and afterwards sums up the whole in these words they shall put you out of the Synagogue that is they shall excommunicate you yea the time cometh that whosoever killeth you will think he doth God service 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith S. Chrysostom on the place a mighty religious matter and a thing that will please God An Expiatory Offering as the Original may import and a Sacrifice that will atone for Sins And these things they will do unto you because they have not known the Father nor me So that we see our Saviour assigns the Jewish ignorance of God and of himself to be the Cause and Reason of all the Evils and Barbarities himself and his Disciples were to meet withal These things will they do unto you because they know not the Father nor Me. To know or not to know the Father and Christ is taken in a great many different Senses in the Holy Scriptures too many and of too little use at present to recount Those only that are pertinent to the design in hand and our Saviour's words must be such Senses and Acceptations as would influence the Jews to the Cruelties and Persecutions fore-told in this place The Jews could not be said not to know God in such a sense as to deny his Being for never People knew him better never was God so present to a Nation as to theirs The Lord thy God hath chosen thee saith Moses in Deut. 7. 6. to be a special people to himself above all people that are upon the face of the Earth there was such frequent and familiar commerce betwixt God and them by Voices Visions by Angels and inspir'd Prophets and by other ways that 't would be the improperest way of speaking in the World to say of the Jews they knew not God with respect to his Essence or their acknowledging a Deity Nor could it be said with any colour of Truth in our Saviour's time that the Jews knew not God in the sense it is often used in Scripture to reproach the World with forsaking the only True God and serving other Gods for the Jews were never freer from Idolatry than in our Saviour's days nay and had been for many years before and that good humour has continued since for almost Seventeen Hundred Years and amidst all their great Impieties their wide and wonderful Dispersions and their deplorable Calamities they have still retain'd the Worship of One and the True God with greater Simplicity than abundance of the Christian World for many Ages to its great shame Not to know God therefore in this place must in all reason signifie not so to know him as to conceive right Notions of him or form a Judgment suitable to the excellent extensive Goodness of the Divine Nature and not to know the Father is not to attend to or comprehend sufficiently the Dispensation and Oeconomy of God the Father in saving them and all Mankind by sending his Son Christ Jesus into the World and not to know the Son is not to receive and believe on him that was thus sent for their deliverance These Heads I shall insist on in the first place and in the second try to shew how such Barbarities and cruel Usages as are here fore-told may proceed from the aforesaid Heads and lastly apply my self to the business of the Day First then the Jews may properly be said not to know God as