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A80830
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A sermon preached before the Right Honourable the Lords assembled in Parliament, upon the fast-day appointed, February 4. 1673/4 By Herbert Lord Bishop of Hereford.
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Croft, Herbert, 1603-1691.
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1674
(1674)
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Wing C6974; ESTC R225556
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12,618
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34
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love have malice instead of peaceful agreement either violent oppression or cunning supplanting one another yea fighting and murthering one another insomuch that 't is become a Proverb among the Turks What fight and kill one another as the Christians do Good God that the peaceful name of Christ should be thus horribly blasphemed Christians who should be the blessed example of peace to the whole world are become the scandalous reproach of Murtherers to the whole world So it is a most lamentable truth which will be laid home to our charge when we shall appear before the terrible Tribunal of Christ our King the Prince of Peace And what 's the cause of all our Discord our wicked lusts and passions From whence come Wars and Fightings among you saith St. James 4 1. Come they not hence even of your lusts that war in your members And these very lusts which war in our members cause us to war one with another And what are these lusts St. John tells us 2.16 The lust of the flesh the lust of the eyes and the pride of life First the lust of the flesh What Wars and bloodshed hath this wicked lust of the flesh caused all the world over from the beginning to the end How early in Scripture do we find the destruction of the Shechemites for the rape of Dinah Jacob's Daughter the fleshly lust of one man brought this calamity upon the whole City and Country to their utter ruine And in Prophane Story the most ancient famous ten years War of the Greeks with Troy was it not for the like Paris rapture of Helen which set all that part of the world in a flame This might have been a fair warning unto Greece not to offend in that kind Yet Sparta a City there once so famous for Justice and so successful for it but refusing to do Justice to Scedasus of Leuctra for the ravishment of his Daughters suffered that lamentable Defeat in the Plains of Leuctra soon after where their King Cleombrotus and all their Nobility were totally routed and killed by the Thebans And if you please to pass from Greece into Italy there you will presently find that hopeful Monarchy planted by Romulus in Rome supplanted and totally eradicated by the Rape of Lucretia And again when the Roman Empire was re-established with greater power and glory then the world ever saw before or since when it had conquer'd so many Nations as there scarce remained a people worth the conquering and Rome became as it were the Empress of the World I beseech you what subdued this mighty power doth not a chief Poet of their own tell us 't was Luxuria victumque ulciscitur orbem Luxury so enervated the Sinews of this before invincible people that they were quite over-run by several barbarous Nations who slaughtered them as Sheep defaced and broke down their Triumphant Arches and trampled all their Glory under foot And was it not just so afterwards in the Grecian Empire As the Goths and Vandals over-ran the Romans so the Saracens and Turks subdued the Grecians made by Luxury the most effeminate and most feeble Nation in the World and thereby exposed to Invasion and Rapine Their splendidness and voluptuousness of living was an alluring bait to their greedy Neighbours who seeing them fatted for the slaughter and stretched forth on their beds of Ivory in supine negligence took wing like hungry Ravens for the prey And so you may go on and in all Histories find Luxury the constant fore-runner of Destruction and many dismal examples of great devastations caused by this fleshly lust And as for the lust of the Eyes by which is understood the lusting after those things which we see others enjoy this begets in as unsatiable desires and then for the satisfying of these what animosities and feuds daily arise among us For as Boetius saith well the poor narrow riches of this world which he calls Augustas inopesque divitias can't satisfie the boundless covetousness of men and besides all being already possest by some or other Quae ad quemque perveniunt non fit sine caeterorum injuria What one man acquires another must lose Now all men being desirous at least to keep what they have and most men labouring to encrease what they have which cannot be without the decay of others this must needs cause quarrels in the world And thus our bickerings at Law are numberless our military contentions endless Nation against Nation Kingdom against Kingdom and in all Nations Family against Family yea the same Family divided Brother against Brother Children against Parents nay Man and Wife one Flesh often divided into two deadly Enemies And that which makes our wickedness far more notorious is that not one of a thousand or of ten thousand breaks this Christian peace for necessary Food and Rayment whereof they have no want but rather abundance for a very small pittance sufficeth nature so that 't is not want but wantonness which sets them a lawing and fighting for they who most abound are commonly most at Law most in War striving for more even to excess and to what end to consume it upon their lusts as Saint James saith Thus wicked Covetousness seeks it wicked Contentions acquire it and wicked Lusts consume it all wickedness therefore no Peace but Discord and Confusion And the very same unchristian Discord is caused by the pride of life for every one loves to be at the top and all men hate to be under how then is it possible but Contention must needs accompany Ambition seeing that which one man affects another detests and will be sure to oppose to the utmost of his power Other Vices allow of some association men of like corrupt affections commonly consort together and help each other in their designs but Solus superbus odit elatum pride divides and sets them at variance endeavouring to suppress one another Both would be uppermost which can't be therefore one must needs fall that the other may get up This hath often produc'd great quarrels betwixt private persons and bloody Wars betwixt Princes in which large Field I could expatiate far but want of time forbids and makes me hast to some useful Application of what I have already said for which I crave your patience Many complaints I hear abroad the world but very little to the purpose not one of a hundred considers matters aright much less lays to heart the true cause of that whereof they complain All the evils men suffer arise originally from sin had man never sinned he had never known misery Sin then is the root of all and this we hug and cherish in our bosoms yet cry out against the evil fruits thereof But shall I tell you the true causes of our misery We have made a League a most unfortunate evil League and we have made a War a most dangerous destructive War A League with Satan and a War with God These are the radical causes of our distraction and unless
rooted up will be our confusion Wherefore our Lamentations for this or that temporal Calamity are very childish In Reason and Religion we should lament the cause not the effect remove the cause the effects presently cease but the cause remaining the effects that is Calamities will follow Not long since we lamented a great Plague that destroyed many thousands that ceased but our sin the cause thereof that remained therefore another Calamity soon followed Then we lamented a great and dreadful Fire which consumed our Capital City that also ceased but Sin still remained Then we lamented a dangerous War when our Enemies sailed up the River so near us that it strook a terror into the hearts of all they likewise are gone our Sin still remains So we go on lamenting one Calamity after another and labouring still with might and main to redress the present Grievance but neglect the Cause Like men in a Feaver pain'd here and pain'd there we toss from side to side to find rest we call for this and that drink to quench our thirst but all in vain the Feaver of Lust still burns in our bowels and till this be cured no ease no rest to be had So that were all things now setled just to our own satisfaction what then Oh then you were happy Can you be so simple Hath God no more Viols of Wrath to pour upon us Cannot he send a Famine And truly methinks it is beginning already A Famine that may make us eat our own Flesh our own Children as it was in Jerusalem and you shall see by and by that our sin is no way short of theirs He may rain down fire and brimstone upon us as he did upon Sodom and Gomorrah and I am sure our Sin very much resembles theirs He may cause the earth to open and swallow us up quick Men Women and Children as he did Corah Dathan and Abiram and without doubt our Rebellion against God is far greater than theirs And thus I might proceed without end for the Viols of God's wrath are as numberless as our sins and whilst these continue expect them to be poured forth I beseech you consider with all submissive reverence who uttered the words of my Text There is no Peace saith my God to the wicked And is he your God also do you believe in him do you trust in him Then I beseech you believe him when he saith There is no peace to the wicked The lusts which war in our members and war against God will certainly bring down Vengeance and Calamities from God And of the three Lusts which I have discoursed of to you the lust of the flesh especially is that which makes war more desperately against God then any other it being more directly opposite to the Spirit of God for as Saint Paul saith Gal. 5.17 The flesh lusteth against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh and these are contrary one to the other As contrary as fire and water they cannot possibly subsist together For as water quencheth the fire so the lust of the flesh quencheth the Spirit of God and never fails to bring in Prophaneness and Atheism as experience hath fully manifested in other Nations and now most evidently in this lewd sinful Nation The same observation was made by Cicero 1700 years ago who in his Book which he wrote De natura Deorum tells us The purer a man is in his life the more he is inclined to a belief of the Godhead and consequently foulness and debauchery of life is the common road to unbelief Wherefore I shall now chiefly insist upon this lust of the flesh not having time to make reflexions upon the other two the lust of the eyes and the pride of life which are grown to a vast excess but the lust of the flesh most horribly exorbitant in both the parts of it Voluptuousness of Diet and Lasciviousness of Body The business of Diet which formerly was the care and talk of Women to their Cooks and Caterers is now become the study and discourse of Men even Gentry and Nobles whose brain is sunk into their guts and so are become very skilful in the belly Science for they have invented many rarities never heard of in former Ages and they are so early ripe in this art that before they have studied Philosophy or Grammar they are Masters in the Art of Cookery A most noble and admirable Science Nor are they less skilful in Drinks than Meats and 't is a thing which adds much to their reputation that there is not a sort of Wine growing in any part of France Germany Spain Italy but they have the particular names thereof far more ready then their Creed or Pater-noster and will entertain you with a score at least at one meal so that even to taste them all will distemper any man used to a sober Diet this is a great study in this Age. As for the study of Plato Aristotle Plutarch Seneca and such tedious non-sense for they afford no delight to any of the five Senses but only fill the brain with airy Fancies these are left to poor dull Servitors in Colledges who are forc'd to trade with these Authors for a livelihood But they whom nature hath stock'd with parts compleat and to whom worthy Ancestors have left a large Estate acquired by eminent Virtue and great industry and consequently to be spent in bestial Luxury no doubt on 't why should not they enjoy themselves please their Palate and fill their paunch with whatever the air the water the earth affords Come let us eat and drink for to morrow we shall die Thus having by the lust of Voluptuousness by curious and excessive eating and drinking provoked the lust of Lasciviousness They give themselves up to work all manner of uncleanness with greediness as Saint Paul saith both Fornication and Adultery are not only frequently acted in private but publickly owned St. Paul saith Ephes 5.12 That it was a shame even to speak of those things which were done of them in secret What would he have said had he heard the Actors brag of those things in publick Great Iniquities I confess have been acted in all Ages but certainly never so avowed Men in the dark formerly skulkt into lewd houses and there had their revellings but now men married men in the light bring into their own houses most lewd Strumpets feast and sport with them in the face of the Sun mean while their neglected scorned disconsolate Wives are forc'd to retire to their secret Closets that they be not spectators of these abominations And whoever doth not approve yea and practice such detestable wickedness whoever is not a Devil incarnate is reproacht by these as a devillish Hypocrite For they have so totally quenched the light of the Spirit in this nasty puddle of uncleanness they have so seared their Consciences with burning Lust they have so metamorphosed themselves into lascivious Goats as they have no more belief of God in