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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
Damnation to ensue upon resisting it than which what more grievous Punishment could have bin inflicted had they immediately resisted God himself And recollect I intreat you the time when this was so positively pronounc'd by St. Paul It must have bin written under the reign of Claudius or Nero. So that it is evident all that resisted them were without repentance in a damnable state Can there be then any colour so specious any cause so just in which instead of Damnation a Christian subject may justly expect to receive to himself Salvation on the account of resisting Was it then forbidden on the penalty of everlasting Death to rebel against those Emperors most cruel Tyrants most fierce Enemies to the Christian Name Monsters of Men either of no Religion or a false one and yet a disgrace to Heathenism it self if however on the most solemn obligation of Conscience they were not to be oppos'd much less destroy'd by any Christians what can be said greater or more august than this what stronger what more sacred Confirmation can be given to our conscientious ob 〈…〉 nother manner of Authority By how many more tyes Temporal and Eternal are we bound to yield a faithful subjection to a Christian King Under whose gentle Protection his Subjects prosper though some almost against their wills a King whose Power is only shewn by moderate Laws which to his mildness owe their Moderation in a word a King who is the best nursing Father of the best Church in the Christian World Against this Doctrine I know the Enemies of our Peace will be ready with their old and obsolete Objection That this is Court Flattery and a Divinity only sit for Camps and standing Armies I must tell them it had bin well for our Country if we had never heard of worse Camp-Divinity than this we had then never felt the real tyranny of a standing Army And if they would consult Scripture for other uses than to pervert it they would soon be convinc'd that this is good Evangelical Divinity Nay this Assembly gives me confidence to inform them what they will be more loath to hear that now God be prais'd this is not only good Camp but good City-Divinity too But when we teach the great Doctrine of Obedience if we must be said to flatter our comfort is we flatter in no worse company than that of the Apostles St. Peter and St. Paul and wellnigh of all the divinely-inspired Penmen of the Bible However when they accuse the Church of England of this kind of Flattery that is of unshaken fealty to the Crown let them consider which of the two is the more excusable Flattery to humour the uncertain populace and the unstable vulgar which to serve is the lowest Slavery or to Preach a due Submission to the Lawful establish'd Government which to obey is the safest Liberty You see My Dear Brethren the course of my Argument has brought us to such a Cause as is worthy of your Swords if need shall require Though the Ardour of your Loyal Valour must give me leave to say I hope and I verily believe there will be no such need I am persuaded and I think I may presage that this present alacrity and vigor to which you and His Majestie 's other Loyal Subjects have bin of late awaken'd this cheerful posture and prepared readiness of your Swords to be drawn will be an abundant Safety to our King and Country without once drawing them Such will be the Innocence as well as Justice of your Arms such the desperate condition of your Adversaries that whenever they draw their Swords against their Prince they must throw away the Scabbard whilest yours by God's Providence being manag'd with an ordinary watchfulness and sobriety will be sufficient to defend him without ever unsheathing them But if which God in his Infinite Mercy aâ—â—ert if ever the same tumultuous spirit on the same groundless insinuations shall once more infatuate the corrupt part of the Nation to their own Destruction to their own certainly it will be at last if they do not again meet with the like mercy But if God in his unsearchable Judgments shall suffer our Country in the same Age to be scourg'd again the same calamitous way then what can be a more Noble or more Pious Cause wherein to employ your Arms than this of the King and his Family A Cause in which you will scarce meet with an Enemy but he or his Relations have bin already forgiven And so they will carry about with them the black guilt not only of Rebellion but of an ungrateful Rebellion after Pardon receiv'd a Sin which the Devil is not capable of committing whil'st you will have a Cause in which all your several Interests that are elsewhere scatter'd of personal Preservation of political Duty of conscientious Obedience are united In this one Cause all your Countries Blessings all your Churches Rights all your own Securities are involved in defending his Life his Throne who is the breath of our Nostrils the anointed of the Lord who has not only this common to him with other Kings that he is the Image of the Divine Power but has this peculiar to himself or communicated to him with a very few that he is the Image of the Divine Mercy of whose Abhorrence of all Illegal Oppressions or Arbitrary Proceedings if the grace of all his former Oblivions and Indemnities has not yet convinc'd a stubborn Generation of Men after they have so long injoy'd the benefits of them what need they any other new Argument than this here before me that when he has such a Nobility and Gentry such a Militia of the whole Kingdom especially yours entirely at his Service yet he is pleas'd to use your Arms no otherwise than now in the peaceful Exercises of War For such a King whilest his Goodness and Benignity gives you no occasions to fight for him what can all his Subjects do less than to love and revere him in Peace to yield him an active Obedience the more cheerfully since he has taken care we shall have no opportunities of giving him a passive Obedience not only not to hinder but to perform his just Commands to think our selves only capable of being a great People by making him greater Every Soul to be Subject to him So if we believe St. Paul there is a necessity we should be The Phrase in the Original is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies the necessity not only of a cold and forc'd and meerly just Subjection but of a regular well-disposed Submission not only to live quietly but in a quiet order nay more to live as it were in Military Order under him For the word belongs to your Profession The Rules of the warlike Art are properly call'd Tacticks and such should be our Obedience to our Soveraign so exact as that which you practice in Armies so as strictly to observe his Orders so as to be careful not to transgress his Laws for love of him more than for fear of Punishment so as to be silent from Murmurings loud only in Applauses and Thanks to Almighty God for the felicities of his Reign Happy all his Subjects if all were but sensible of their Happiness and would do their parts to perpetuate it Happy if all would remember what he has forgot and remember it not to upbraid others but to beware and grow wiser themselves for the future Happy if all were such as you So willing to obey the King in quiet times so skilful to serve him in the Administrations of his Justice so ready and able to guard him against all Confusions Such an Academy of Arts as well as Arms such a Company of Citizens such a Nursery of Commanders cannot under God but afford him a sure defence in his Wars as you do already supply him with the Riches and Ornaments of Peace Happy is the People that is in such a case Happy is the People whose God is the Lord The Lord of Hoasts who giveth Salvation to Kings who delivereth his Servant David from the hurtful Sword and arms him with the Sword of Justice which he manages by a law of Kindness and which I beseech Almighty God may flourish in his hand for many many years in his House for all Generations to come Amen FINIS 2 Cor. 10.4 Joh. 18.36 Acts 8.32 Mat. 26.53 Luke 2.14 Mat. 26.52 Calvin Grotius Dr. Hammond c. Contra Manich lib 22. Luke 6.29 Cicero Pro Milone James 4.1 Eph. 6.11 Rom. 3.8 Rom. 13.2 Rom. 13.1 Rom. 13.4 Ps. 144.