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A44095
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Some considerations of present use wherein is shewn that the strong ought to bear with the weak, and the weak not clamour against or censure the strong, in which the true notion of the strong and weak is stated / delivered in a farewell-sermon at St. George Buttolph-Lane, London, by Benjamin Hoffman ...
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Hoffman, Benjamin.
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1683
(1683)
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Wing H2347; ESTC R36002
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14,423
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41
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SOME CONSIDERATIONS OF Present Use Wherein is shewn That the Strong ought to Bear with the Weak and the Weak not Clamour against or Censure the Strong IN WHICH The true Notion of the Strong and Weak is Stated Delivered in a Farewell-Sermon at St. George Buttolph-Lane London By Benjamin Hoffman Master of Arts of Baliol College Oxford and late Lecturer there Rom. 15.1 We therefore that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak Rom. 16.17 18. Now I beseech you Brethren mark them which cause Divisions and Offences contrary to the doctrine which you have learned and avoid them For they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ but their own belly and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple LONDON Printed for F. Gardiner at the White-horse in Ludgate-street 1683. TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE DANIEL EARL OF NOTTINGHAM BARON of DAVENTRY And one of the Lords of His Majesty's Most Honourable Privy-Council My Lord HOW great a Stranger soever I may be to Your Lordship I am not much at a loss for an Apologie for the Boldness of devoting this mean Present to Your Honourable Name The inexpressible Favours I had the Honour to receive from Your Noble Father have justly entitled Your Lordship to the best of my Performances 'T was His generous Charity made me what I am and what the Product of that may be is and shall be a due Tribute to Your Lordship His Vertues Your Lordship inherits and nothing can more fully compleat the utmost Aim of my Ambition than an Opportunity of shewing my self Grateful to Your Lordships Father's Immortal Memory and of manifesting my self in what Circumstance soever My Lord Your Lordships Most Obedient Servant B. Hoffman To the Parishioners of St. George Buttolph-Lane and St. Buttolph's Billingsgate Gentlemen IT is not unknown to most Persons that have known me what Relation for several years last past I have stood in to you and since we liv'd so friendly and kindly together for so long a time I was resolv'd to do all in me lay to part as fairly at the last and to leave some certain Testimony of my Respect behind me And since it is at this time the Indeavour of divers Learned Men in the Church to Sweeten and Reconcile Mens Minds to the Doctrine and Discipline of the Church of England that so the Civil Power may not surprize them without due warning and weighty Reasons given why they ought now especially to indeavour an Union Since several others are upon this Charitable and Seasonable Design I thought my Words might come among you with more Esteem and Reception than a meer Stranger 's And though I every way fall short of the worth of those other Persons that have bended their Purposes this way yet when I consider the Kindnesses I have receiv'd from most of you in all other Cases I cannot in the least imagine I shall be disappointed in my Expectations now in this last piece of Respect I am shewing to you and if it doth in the perusal any Person Service I shall heartily thank God and really Rejoice in my Brothers return I am Your Faithful Servant Benjamin Hoffman Rom. XV. 5 6 7. Now the God of patience and consolation grant you to be like minded one towards another according to Christ Jesus That you may with one mind and one mouth glorifie God even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ Wherefore receive ye one another as Christ also received us to the glory of God BEfore I proceed to the distinct speaking to the Words of my Text it is necessary that I first lead you to the Consideration of the Apostle's Method and Design in two or three of the foregoing Chapters Now the sum of that which the Apostle is arguing is laid down in the 13th Chapter of this Epistle In the whole he is managing the Jewish and the Christian Professors and such as were partly of one and partly of the other Perswasion with all the caution and wariness that can be possibly that he may give none offence to either And in order to this he lays down Rules that ought to be universally received by Men of all Pretensions And these he begins with in the 13th Chapter and first Verse Let every soul saith he be subject to the higher powers for there is no power but of God therefore let your lesser Disputes be of what nature they will if you believe a God you must be Obedient for the powers that be are ordained of God as if he had said Nothing in Christianity ought to be pretended or made use of to give any man Immunity from Obedience for this from all Subjects of what Quality soever is due to those to whom Allegiance belongs And this Doctrine he prest in opposition to some that St. Peter and St. Jude reprehended viz. Such as despise Government and are self-willed and presumptuous and that are not afraid to speak evil of Dignities 2 Pet. 2.10 And this Obedience he presses v. 5. that it must be from the heart It 's possible a cunning Rebel or prosperous Oftender may avoid Wrath and Punishment and therefore his Obedience must not be for fear of Wrath only i. e. not only so far as will keep him from a Fine a Prison or a Gallows but it must be from his Conscience i. e. in Obedience to the Constitution of God whose Officer he is For every Supreme Magistrate Legally placed in any Kingdom hath and must be thought to have Commission from God tho' he be an Heathen And after the Apostle had managed this Argument throughly how Christians should carry themselves towards their Governours he then descends to tell us how they should carry themselves one towards another and for this he lays down Love and Charity and Bearing one with another as the Foundation and Ground-work of all good Christian Conversation and here at the time of writing this Epistle he found great Divisions and Dissentions already crept into the Church of Jewish Believers not only against the Gentiles but likewise among themselves some Converts clearly discerning that they had a freedom from the Judaical Yoke and others conceiving themselves still to be under that Dispensation and hence came the Quarrel viz. That those that were zealous for the Mosaical Law condemned and were angry at all others as Breakers of God's Law that did not observe them as they did and on the other hand they that were instructed in the Knowledge of their Christian Liberty were resolved to maintain that Liberty which was purchased by Christ and were apt to despise and contemn those that still continued scrupulous in the abolisht Judaical Rites and so between the one and the other the Christian Communion was likely to be broken and an inveterate Separation to be made among them and to both of these St. Paul applies himself Those of you that do not think your selves bound to observe those Laws you that understand better do not you
reject the scrupulous or erroneous Judaizer but receive him to your Communion Him that is weak in the Faith receive ye but yet so receive him as that he may not thereby be encouraged to take too much upon him receive him but not to doubtful disputations as if he had said If he be weak and erroneous in himself let him not be censorious and troublesome to others do not you despise and reject him neither perswade I that he should molest you so that this Chapter was writ and this Advice here given that the strong might be gentle and courteous towards the weak and not the weak from hence be clamorous against the strong as some especially in these days make this and such like advice in Holy Writ to be as it were a Shelter and a Sanctuary for them to do and say what they please under the pretence of Weakness and that prudent and legal Restraints must not be talkt of without grieving or judging our Brother But there is a great deal of difference between mildly and wisely indeavouring to reduce men to Catholick Communion and between offering any Offence or Despising them as I shall shew farther anon and St. Paul plainly doth it in the following Chapter for if saith he after so much Charity and Tenderness and Good-will that the strong bear towards the weak they do not hearken then the Offence lies on their side and at their doors and Consciences Rom. 16.17 18. Now I beseech you Brethren mark them which cause divisions and offences and if after all the friendly Offers you make to Communion they will not comply avoid them for they which are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ but their own belly and interest and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple And thus for the introducing my ensuing Discourse I have shewed you the Design of the Apostle which is as I shew'd you 1. To lay down hearty Obedience to Magistrates as the indispensible Duty of all Christians and Men that own a God 2. To have Christians friendly towards each other the strong not to Despise or Scorn the weak and the weak not to Clamour at and Censure the strong that the strong should more value his Brother's Soul than a needless humouring and pleasing himself ch 15. v. 1. and that the weak should not be Loud and Positive in Disputations that he doth not understand And that all in their several places may do this he proposeth both the Fountain and Example of all Heavenly and Christian Graces Now the God of patience and consolation grant you to be like minded one towards another according to Christ Jesus wherefore receive ye one another as Christ also received us to the glory of God Upon these Words I shall briefly and plainly discourse upon these following things 1. Give a short and easie Explication of the Words of the Text. 2. In some few Words touch upon the Duty of Obedience to Magistrates 3. I shall principally endeavour to shew you how we ought to carry our selves towards each other with reference to Communion the Strong to the Weak and the Weak to the Strong which may serve as a Method or Incitement to us to be like-minded one towards another that we may with one mind and one mouth glorisie God and receive one another as Christ also received us to the glory of God 4. Conclude with some Practical Reflexions upon the Whole As for the Text the Apostle is here wishing a very great Blessing upon the Infant Christian-Church and he founds the Rise of all Blessings in God And so the meaning of the Words is this Now saith he I have laid down as amply and as plainly as I can the Duty of Christians one towards another I beseech God who is the Fountain of Patience and Consolation the God of Patience and Consolation i. e. the God from whom all Patience and Consolation comes make you to be like minded one towards another i. e. cause that you may all think and own the very self-same thing lest through diversity of Opinions there arise Discords Hatreds Separations Offences and Scandals to the great damage of the Church and Glory of God Or if there be some little difference in Opinion among you don't separate and break asunder and rend the Communion of the Church of Christ yet still be like minded one towards another i. e. come with equal degrees of Charity and Love one towards another and hope the best one of another for that the sense no doubt is that by like-mindedness is meant agreeing in the same Truths 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to think the very same thing So that the plain meaning no doubt is this God grant saith the Apostle that your Heats and Differences being laid aside whether about the Observation of Meats or Days or the like that you may think and agree mutually in the same thing and that according to Christ Jesus This is added to restrain them from agreeing in any false or erroneous Opinions but wishes their sense of Religion to be agreeable to Christ the Author of all Truth That you may with one mind and one mouth glorifie God That when you come to pray to or praise God you may not onely do it in the same Form and sound of Words but also with all your Minds full of mutual Affection one towards another without any surly demeanour contempt hatred or censuring of each other that you may do it so unanimously as if there were but one Mind and one Mouth among you He would have the Weak and the Strong lay aside their Differences and joyn in the Fundamentals to glorisie God together Wherefore saith he receive ye one another as Christ also received us to the glory of God i. e. Look upon each other as Brethren in all humility of kindness and condescension embrace and succour one another In stead of despising and driving Men from your Communion help up them that are fallen let one endeavour to bring the other to himself the Strong reduce the Weak the Learned the Ignorant and the believing Gentile the prejudiced Jew and let him cherish and instruct and be tender of him with a Brotherly Care and Affection Even as Christ also received us to the glory of God Christ did much more than all this for us that he adviseth us to do one for another Christ did not disdain us that are more unworthy of his Presence than we are of each others So our Saviour saith by St. John ch 17. v. 24. Father I will that those whom thou hast given me be with me where I am that they may behold my glory which thou hast given me So that Christ received us into the Fellowship and Partnership of the Glory of God and therefore we ought to receive one another So that the whole meaning of the Text is The Apostle beseeches God to grant them the same Sentiments and Understanding of the true Religion of Christ or if they