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A42952
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Trade preferr'd before religion and Christ made to give place to Mammon represented in a sermon relating to the plantations : first preached at Westminster-Abbey and afterwards in divers churches in London / by Morgan Godwyn ...
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Godwyn, Morgan, fl. 1685.
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1685
(1685)
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Wing G974; ESTC R15652
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53,257
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54
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are no such to be found Now when these mighty Works shall be hereafter rehearsed how will that glorious Name of the Church of England stand as it were in disgrace not only among those Primitive Worthies who at first so chearfully entred upon this Work and afterwards indured the heat of the Day but when compared even with these Moderns whom we bespeak as Schismaticks and Idolaters yet do each of them give those Testimonies of their Zeal and Charity which are equally requisite and would be no less commendable in us also But the want whereof doth furnish them with such Advantages and Arguments against us as would become our Wisdom no less than our Piety to remove Who whilst themselves do thus labour and are at charge and trouble to advance their Christianity beholding our COLDNESS and INDIFFERENCY not to say Aversion to the work do publish their own Acts but at the same time first at our too much secular Affections as applying our care more to the promoting of Interest than to the advancement of God's Glory or the good of Souls The Poverty of the Cause that is say they the want of Dignities and Preferments tho it be the way to make them occasioning it hitherto to lie fallow And they are too apt often to throw out something like that of Acosta in reproof of his alike rapacious and hungry Spaniards thus speaking At si metalla curari desierint Actum est Indorum negotium respublica interiit Neque alios fructus Hispani quaerunt neque alia ex causa vel mercatores negotiantur vel judices praesident vel ipsi quoque plerunque SACERDOTES Evangelizant c. Which I shall not English And this hath been publickly objected by those of the lowest from and order of Sectaries as I have in another Discourse upon this occasion before remembred And not only these extreams in Christianity but the quite different behaviour and respect of the very Mahumetans to their Religion may justly stirr up shame in us Whose assaulting their Slaves with tenders of Liberty thereby to induce them to espouse their Superstition is by us complained of perhaps for the example and because the like Generosity and Zeal for Religion is not found among our selves nor are we capable of being provoked to the least Emulation Thus even the Sea-Monsters draw out that is do willingly offer the Breast and give suck to their young Ones said Almighty God by our Prophet But the Daughter of my People is become cruel like the Ostriches in the Wilderness Nor doth the Dishonour hereof reflect upon this Church only but upon the whole Reformation Hence the forementioned Roman Author thus triumphantly insults If you cast your thoughts upon all Sectaries past and present since Christianity began you shall find no conversion of Nations wrought by any Which he elsewhere further explains saying That never any Protestants did any thing like them for the conversion of Infidels either in the nearer or farther parts of the large Vniverse Hence also they stick not to affirm our Reformation monstrous and from this so apparent Sterility do very confidently determine of its short-livedness because that things by God and Nature designed to perpetuity are always endued with a Faculty of Generation and of creating their like So that our Protestant Churches do from all Hands lie under most heavy Censures and Reproaches for this neglect and as it is represented unfaithfulness to Christ at least for not endeavouring not what should but what might be done And yet to our honour be it spoken we undergo them with as much Patience and Vnconcernedness as if the Enemy only were chargeable therewith and our selves were Innocent Altho to use our Prophets Words should we pass over to the Isles of Chittim and send unto Kedar and consider diligently that is should we consult the most Pagan and Barbarous Regions and even ransack thewide Universe searching into all the different Sects and Factions in Religion for a Precedent we should hardly find the like Instances of Impiety and Contempt of the Religion they profess practised and persisted in by the very worst and loosest of them And this possibly among other things hath rendred our Religion as reformed less esteemed by Strangers unto whom especially herein we seem rather Apostates than Christians Zealous of Trade and Gain but not of good Works Which doubtless hath been no small Impediment and Hinderance to many in their coming over to our Church even as probably it may have scandalized not a few to an Apostacy from it Lastly It is a dishonour and that in an especial manner to our English Nation It both was and will be the Eternal Reproach no less than the unpardonable Sin of those Styes of Filthiness Babylon and Nineveh that the first among her variety of Merchandises had 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not only Bodies but Souls of Men and that the other for it seems they were both great trading places did postpone God's Glory to her Traffick magnifying or preferring her Traders or Merchants above the Stars of Heaven And certainly it will be no great Credit for us to have thus exactly written after those beastly Copies that we have as it were conspired with Satan and entred into a confederacy with Hell it self upon the same account That we have exceeded the worst of Infidels by our first enslaving and then murthering of Mens Souls For how can it be endured that a Nation once so famous for Zeal and Piety should now at last become infamous for Irreligion That she should prostrate her self to that foul Idol Mammon and worship Trade So that for the sake thereof Christianity should be stifled and rejected That being so much indebted to those poor Barbarians for the Riches Trade and Commerce both by and from them acquired we should be so far destitute of common Justice as not to be ready as much as in us lyeth and certainly very much doth lie in us notwithstanding all our vain pretences in lieu thereof to impart some spiritual Gift as St. Paul speaks and to make known the Gospel unto them Who can believe that a People formerly so mighty in Conversions as if on a sudden struck with Barrenness and a Curse should become so utterly fruitless as not to be able to produce the least Access of Souls unto Christ out of such Multitudes and Myriads who do even invite and offer themselves to his Service That we should be so much out-done who formerly did so infinitely out-doe all others These if true are I fear but too evident Symptoms of a strange degeneracy of a declining old Age and Decrepitness in us and which cannot be far removed from our last fatal Period and final Dissolution and that God is determining of us as he once did of the Barren Fig-tree Cut it down why cumbers it the Ground And this leads me to The third and last Motive to this Reformation viz. The dread of
seen By whose means the Name of God came to be discovered to the Heathen who might otherwise have never heard of it Even as long afterwards the Persecution which attended S. Stephen's Martyrdom was an occasion for by nothing less will Men be persuaded to adventure abroad tho upon never so important an account of dispersing the Disciples and thereby a happy means of introducing the knowledge of Christ into remoter Countries Even such a Fatality may this unconcernedness draw upon these An unexpected Storm may force them into the parts we are speaking of and where these Impieties are so eminently practised as unto a Sanctuary and Refuge there as our Apochryphal Esdras relates of his Captive Israelites to keep those Statutes I shall also add and to promote that Faith which they neither kept nor thought needful whilst remaining in their own Land Wherefore to use the Prophet Daniel's Advice to King Nebuchadnezzar Let my Councel be acceptable unto you O my Fathers and Countrey-men and let us break off our Sins by Righteousness and our Iniquities by shewing Mercy unto the Souls of these poor innocent oppressed people if it may be a lengthning of our Tranquility as undoubtedly it will And in order thereunto let us lay before us these things and consider within our own Breasts whether this dishonour to our Religion and infamy to our Church and Nation this canker to our Estates calamity to our People and destruction to our Country hereby threatned these plagues to our Bodies and Damnation to our Souls be things so worthy our standing out against God and our contending for Rather let us endeavour a speedy composure and reconciliation At once striving to make at least some kind of reparation for what is past and no less joining in all laudable Proposals and ways for effecting these poor Peoples Christianity without any further delays still remembring that things of this Consequence are not to be made light of as was very piously discoursed to the great and no less zealous S. Athanasius upon the like occasion and considering that as many Souls as shall perish thro our neglect must be charged to our Account And first let us search into the Cause that so we may the easier arrive at the method and means of the Cure If it be Interest let it be satisfied as far as reasonably it may be if Ignorance let it be corrected by better advice if Sloth or Irreligion let it be check'd and disgrac'd not let any Obstinacy or Perversness be endured If ENCOVRAGEMENTS be needful let them be no longer wanting if Persuasions let them be discreetly applied but above all let us shew our selves hearty and sincere therein armed with most intense resolutions of persistance and persevering until arrived to its Accomplishment That so we may silence the Slanderer and the Blasphemer stop the Mouths of both Papists and Schismaticks and take away the reproach from our Church and Nation That those Sanballats and Elymas's the restless Obstructers of this work despairing of their wonted Success may be wearied out of and be made to desist from their prophane Opposition even as the old Heathens were of their Persecutions For nothing is able to withstand Zeal saith Solomon Prov. 27. For Zelus est aestus viri Zeal is the heat and ardency of a Man to the thing undertaken as the same Wise-Man hath it in another place And Cant. 8. 6. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Zeal is as invincible as the Grave or even Death it self and as it goes on The Coals thereof are the Coals of Fire which hath a most vehement Flame such a Flame as many Waters cannot quench nor can the Flouds drown it that is nothing can be too hard for And here let us call to mind that the Gospel hath once overcome the World armed with its full strength and force to withstand it And what a shame would it be now after so long possession to suffer it to be baffled and worsted by a few handfuls of scattered Inerm Out-laws Nor let any noise or pretence arising from the supposed difficulty of this work which Men fuller of Mischief than of Reason or Religion do create affright us nor any excuse from the remoteness of the places nor the condition of the parties be at all mentioned Our God being a God of the Valleys no less than of the Mountains and afar off as well as near at hand and it being not to be doubted but that a most plentiful Harvest might be thence obtained from suitable endeavours edged and heartened with due ENCOVRAGEMENTS Nor of the time no time being unseasonable to serve God and to do good in Nor from the present posture of Affairs which this very neglect may have but too much influenced and given occasion to And then the cause being removed the effect must presently cease For Piety and Holiness saith the Orator do appease God's Wrath and saith Solomon When a Man's way do please the Lord he maketh his Enemies to be at peace with him And likewise Isaiah The work of Righteousness is Peace and the effect of Righteousness quietness and assurance for ever And saith devout Ezra The Hand of our God is upon all them for good that seek him Nay even Heathen Rome went not without her Blessing for her Piety For Diis te minorem quod geris Imperas Was Horace's Divinity and no less an Article of Levie's Faith when he tell us that during King Numa's long raign this very thing viz. their Piety struck their before troublesom Neighbours into a dread of molesting them for fear lest at the same time they should be injurious to God unto whose Worship and Service they saw them so intensely addicted Now if their Piety was thus rewarded why should not we expect the same our Religion and Service being so much purer and infinitely more agreeable to God's Will than theirs in probability could possibly be The Prophet David assures us That when all the People should praise God then should the Earth bring forth her increase The Jews were to date Their Blessing from the very day of the laying of the Foundation of the Temple And may not we much more hope for the like Prosperity and Happiness to our Church and Nation for our laying a Foundation and setting about this so much greater and more glorious Work He doubtless that blessed Obed Edom for his Ark's resting in his House and Laban the Syrian for Jacob's sake will send his Blessing upon us also whilst by our charitable and pious Labours and our unwearied and faithful Idustry in this his sacred Vineyard we do become Instruments in God's Hand to save Men's Souls from Hell and their Lives from the Destroyers and do deliver such from the Snares of the Devil who are taken Captive at his Will And no less also for his Churches establishment in those parts and for the many