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A28278
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A sermon preached before the honourable House of Commons, at St. Margaret's Westminster, January 30th,1698/9 by Ofspring Blackall ...
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Blackall, Offspring, 1654-1716.
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1699
(1699)
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Wing B3053; ESTC R13120
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15,662
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33
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his Integrity altho' thou movest me against him to destroy him without a Cause And this one Example alone is I think a sufficient Proof of the first Point I was to speak to which was to show that the temporal Evils which befall Men are not always inflicted upon them as Punishments for Sin But the Day we are here met together upon may likewise furnish us with another great Example of it in our late gracious Soveraign King CHARLES I. And we should be injurious to his Memory if we should not now at this time briefly reflect thereupon Of whom we may say as was said of Job That he was a perfect and upright Man One that feared God and eschewed Evil for even his greatest Enemies his wicked Murtherers could not charge him with any Vice or Immorality or even with any Frailty or Infirmity but such as might be consistent with Integrity of Heart and Mind And of whom if we consider him as a King we may I think truly say for what Profit can there be in flattering the Dead especially One whom a great many now adays make it their Business and I suppose hope to find their Interest in it to blacken and defame as was said of good King Josiah Like unto him was there no King before him May there 2 Kings 23.25 after him arise many like him A King that could not by the softness of his Education nor by the Ease and Plenty of a Court nor by the many bad Examples that were ever before his Eyes of those who had greater Restraints upon them than he had be tempted to any Luxury or Excess or Extravagance in his way of Living A King whom the Pleasures of Sense of which he had or might have had as great a share as any could not make in love with Pleasure or fond of this World and whom the Multitude of Cares and Business that attend a Crown could not make to neglect or omit his constant Exercise of Devotion A King that naturally cared for his Subjects and pitied them as a Father does his Children that readily condescended to any thing that he thought was for their Good and would have granted more than he did to them if he could have done it without betraying the Rights of the Crown wherewith he was intrusted and which he valued more the Interest of Religion And indeed rather than do either of these he was contented to lose not only his Crown from off his Head but his Head too Such was the Saint of the Day whose Memory we now celebrate and whose Death we lament A Sinner indeed we can't deny him to be in the same Sense in which the Scripture says that all Men are Sinners Rom. â— 23 and that there is not a Just Man upon Earth Eccles 7.20 that doth Good and sinneth not But excepting only the Weaknesses of Humane Nature and such slips and infirmities as the best Men are liable to we may truly say of him 2 Kings 22.2 as was likewise said of Josiah that He did that which was right in the sight of the Lord and turned not aside to the right Hand or to the left And yet to this just Man it happened according to the Work of the Wicked or rather much worse For tho' there have been many cruel Tyrants and bloody Persecutors and Monsters of Wickedness which have been made Examples to the World of the divine Vengeance yet hardly hath it happened even to the worst of them so ill as it did to this the best of Kings and the best of Men. They have indeed some of them been overpowered by some neighbouring Prince displaced from their Government and driven into Exile And they have others of them been risen up against by their own oppressed Subjects and either slain in Battel or else being overcome they have been deposed from their Kingly Power shut up in Prison and secretly Murthered the just and wise Providence of God so permitting it to be But in all History I believe there is no Example parallel to this in every Respect scarcely any like it That a Soveraign King even while he was owned a King should have an Army of his Subjects levied in his Name and as 't was pretended by his Authority against his Person That they that endeavoured to depose and kill him should yet give out that they were fighting for him And that when they had got him into their Power they should set up a Court of Judicature upon him composed out of his own Subjects who had sworn Allegiance to him That there they should formally Arraign and Try him against whom only Treason could be committed for the Crime of High Treason And that at last they should proceed so far in their Hypocritical Impiety as to pass Sentence of Death on him from whom only the Judges of Life and Death could legally derive their Power and to Execute as a Villainous Malefactor the Father of their Countrey their rightful Lord and Soveraign The Evils that he suffered considered in themselves were as great as could well be endured but the Manner in which they were inflicted and the Persons from whom he suffered them were highly aggravating Ingredients in his Affliction so that all things considered perhaps no Man our Lord and Saviour only excepted did ever suffer more And now from these two great and notable Examples I hope we are sufficiently convinced that the temporal Afflictions which befall Men are not always certain Tokens of God's Displeasure nor always designed for the Punishment of their Sin upon whom they are sent And what we should learn from the Consideration of this Point is To beware how we pass a Judgment upon any Man from what befalls him in this Life Because such Judgment if it be not false is at the best rash and uncertain and we cannot Eccles 9.1 2. as the Wise Man says know Love or Hatred by all that is before us for all things come alike to all and there is one Event to the Righteous and to the Wicked And tho' nothing comes to pass by Chance and no Evil of any kind ever befalls any Man but by the Designation of the divine Providence yet the very same Event which to one Man is an Expression of God's Anger to another Man may be an Instance and Token of his Kindness and therefore when we cannot certainly tell which it is Charity obliges us to believe the best And this leads me to the Second thing propounded which was II. To shew what other wise Ends of Providence are served by the temporal Evils and Afflictions which befall Men. Neither hath this Man sinned nor his Parents that he was born blind but that the Works of God should be made manifest in him And what was said of this Man's Blindness is as true of any other worldly Evil that at any time befalls any Man If it be not intended for Punishment as it is not always there are some other Works of God that
Neither hath this Man sinned nor his Parents that is they have not either of them so sinned as that he should be born blind for a Punishment of his own or their Sin but he was therefore born blind that the Works of God should be made manifest in him From the Words thus explained I shall take Occasion very briefly to do these two Things I. To shew that the temporal Evils which befall Men are not always inflicted upon them as Punishments for Sin II. To shew what other wise Ends of Providence the temporal Evils and Afflictions that befall good Men do serve for I. I shall shew that the temporal Evils which befall Men are not always inflicted upon them as Punishments for Sin Neither hath this Man sinned nor his Parents that he should be born blind says our Saviour And what was true in his Case is undoubtedly true in a great many others And the Holy Scripture it self furnishes us with several Examples of this kind But that of Job being one of the most remarkable ones I shall at present instance only in that Where first of all we may take notice of the Character that is given of him by the Holy Spirit of God Job 1.1 That Man was perfect and upright and one that feared God and eschewed Evil. So far was he from being a greater Sinner than others that on the contrary there was none upon Earth at that time so good as he Hast thou says God himself considered my Servant Job that there is none like him in the Earth Job 1.8 Certainly then if any Man could even merit to be exempted even from the common Miseries and Calamities of Humane Life it was he And yet it pleased God to order it quite otherwise And in him that Observation of the Wise Man was strictly verified That there be Just Men unto whom it happeneth according to the Work of the Wicked Eccles 3.14 For if in the next place we take notice of the Afflictions which befell this good Man I believe we may truly say that there is no Example of any the greatest Sinner that ever lived that was so hardly dealt by as he was Sometimes indeed a mighty Oppressor is forced to disgorge his ill gotten Wealth and is on a sudden from the greatest Plenty reduced to the most Miserable Want Sometimes again a notorious Sinner who escapes in his own Person is punished very severely in his Children and has his Punishment multiplied by enduring in the Misery of every one of them whom he loves as himself as much Pain and Torment as he would do if the Calamity that befell them had befallen himself And again The Punishments that are inflicted upon Men in this Life by the divine Providence are commonly single either miserable Want and Poverty or some painful Sickness or noisom Disease or perhaps a violent or untimely Death And when any of these Evils befalls any Man we can scarcely forbear crying out A Judgment A Judgment Surely this Man was a great Sinner or else he would not have been so afflicted What then should we have thought of a Man in whom all these Miseries and Afflictions were united as they were in Job Who was one Day Job 1.3 the greatest of all the Men of the East having seven thousand Sheep and three thousand Camels and five hundred Yoke of Oxen and five hundred she Asses and a very great House-hold Job 1.21 and the next day was bereft of all his Substance Job 1 2 4 5. and left as naked as he came out of his Mothers Womb who was one Day blessed with ten hopeful Children who were very obedient to their Father and very loving to one another and the next Day was deprived of them all at once and that too by a violent Death Job 1.19 by the Fall of an House upon their Heads And it added not a little to the Greatness of these Afflictions that they came all upon him suddenly when no such Evils were foreseen or could reasonably be feared and that they happened all at the same time the Messenger of one ill piece of News having scarcely told his Tale Job 1.16 17 18. before he was succeded by another the Messenger of a worse But hitherto he had suffered only in his Estate and in his Children but it was not long before he was brought to suffer likewise in his own Person Job 2.6 and that too in the worst Manner that the Devil himself could devise in such a Manner as perhaps no other Man either before or since hath ever suffered being smitten all over with sore Boyls Job 2.6 7. from the sole of his Foot unto his Crown so that he had not one sound Part in his whole Body And who would not have thought this Evil especially when added to all the others aforementioned a sufficient indication of God's high Displeasure against him Who that had seen such a miserable Object as he then was would not have concluded as his Friends then did Job 4.7 c. 8.3 4.11.6 that all these Calamities were certain Expressions and sure Tokens of God's severest Vengeance upon him for some great and crying sins well known to God although concealed from the World 'T is true indeed all this while his own Life was spared Job 2.6 the Devil had no Permission from God to touch that and he was not as some notorious Sinners sometimes are taken off by an untimely Death But his Affliction was not the less but much the greater for this for though an untimely Death to such as live in Ease and Plenty and Prosperity and Sin may be justly reckoned a Misfortune yet most certainly to such as are good Men and yet are in extreme Want or Pain or Misery it is a great Happiness to be delivered out of their sad and wretched state tho' it be by Death And so this good Man thought it would have been to him and therefore as patient as he was Job 3.2 c. could not forbear cursing the Day wherein he was born to endure such Misery and heartily wishing for Death to put an End to it Wherefore saies he is Light given to him that is in Misery and Life unto the bitter in Soul Which long for Death but it cometh not and dig for it more than for hid Treasures Which rejoyce exceedingly and are glad when they can find the Grave Job 3.20 21 22. Thus you see that all those Miseries and Calamities of Life which when they singly befal Men are sometimes Acts and Expressions of the divine Vengeance upon them for some great and crying Sins did all together befall this good Man of whom yet in the midst of his Calamity God himself gives this excellent Character Job 2.3 And the Lord said unto Satan hast thou considered my Servant Job that there is none like him in the Earth a perfect and an upright Man one that feareth God and escheweth Evil And still he holdeth fast