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A70263
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Several sermons upon the fifth of St. Matthew .... [vol. 1] being part of Christ's Sermon on the mount / by Anthony Horneck ... ; to which is added, the life of the author, by Richard Lord Bishop of Bath and Wells.
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Horneck, Anthony, 1641-1697.
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1698
(1698)
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Wing H2851; ESTC R40468
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201,926
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515
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Righteousness for Tribulation works patience and Patience experience and Experience hope and Hope makes not ashamed But this is not all Behold also in this similitude the Nature of your future Joys when the Child is born the Woman for Joy forgers her anguish so when your Fruit is ripe it shall be laid up in the granary of Heaven and when you shall put off this Body of Flesh and Sin for the Joy that will crown your Temples you 'll forget all the former anguish you labour'd under God will comfort you and your Eyes shall see it the Lord Jesus will call to you and your Ears shall hear it Enter you into the Joy of your Master Heaven is the vast Store-house of all Comforts there where-ever you cast your Eye you 'll behold nothing but Comfort Comfort in the Spirits of Men made perfect Comfort in the general Assembly of the first born which are written in Heaven Comfort in the innumerable Company of Angels Comfort in the Hallelujah's of Cherubin and Seraphin Comfort above you Comfort within you Comfort round about you There your Heart will break no more there your Understandings will be clouded no more there no storms no enemies will discompose you any more there all that can make Men sad will be removed from your sight for sin will be gone and Devils will tempt no more there you will lie incircled in the everlasting Arms and Rivers of Joy will flow round about you your present April Showers will produce a glorious May and after your gloomy Night the Son of Righteousness will shine upon you with healing under his Wings and as one hour changed Joseph's Fetters into a Chain of Gold his Rags into shining Robes his Stocks into a Chariot his Prison into a Palace his Water into Wine so in that moment that your Souls shall enter into the Regions of endless Comfort your mourning will be changed into dancing your tears into laughter your sackcloth into silks your ashes into garlands your thorns into lawrels your fasts into festivals and your unutterable sighs and groans into unspeakable joys SERMON V. St. Matth. Ch. V. Ver. 5. Blessed are the Meek for they shall inherit the Earth THIS Blessedness or Beatitude in some Latin Copies of the New Testament is the second but in the Original and in the Syriack and Arabick Versions it is the third and these as the most authentick our Translation follows what is said of Meekness here is taken out of Psal. XXXVII 11. where we read as it is in the Text The Meek shall inherit the Earth Christ came not to reverse the Morals under the Law but to ratifie and confirm and to refine them into greater perfection and to enforce them with new Motives and Arguments Moral Vertue hath been the same in all Ages and being founded on the Law of Nature must needs be unalterable The encouragements for the practice of it are greater in the Christian Religion than in any other whatfoever and the lines of the Duty are here drawn in livelier Colours but the Vertue it self like the Nature of that God from whom it flows receives no changes In the explication of the Text we are to consider as in the preceding Sentences I. What Meekness is and who the Meek are and what their Character is II. Wherein their Blessedness consists III. How they shall inherit the Earth I. What Meekness is 1. To be meek is not to be mealy-mouth'd or gentle or calm when it is our Duty to be angry and it is our Duty to be so partly with our selves when we sin against Heaven and in the presence of an Omnipotent God and that is the anger or indignation spoken of 2 Cor. VII 11. partly with others when they do notoriously affront the Divine Majesty and wrong their Consciences Gall. III. 1 2. particularly 1. With those who are under our Command and Power and Jurisdiction such as Children Servants and other Relations or Persons whose Masters Governours Guardians Teachers or Tutours we are when they prove incorrigible in their sins Gen. XLIX 6 7. 2. Even with others of our Acquaintance and Persons whom we converse with when they profane the Name of God or run out into licentiousness and will not be reclaim'd by softer means Gal. V. 12. Moses though one of the meekest Men in the World yet his anger justly wax'd hot when he saw the Israelites commit Idolatry Exod. XXXII 19. And our Saviour himself tho' the Pattern of Meekness yet could not behold the profanation of the Temple without anger John II. 15 17. and St. Paul and Barnabas though Preachers of this Christian Meekness yet were obliged to break out into Passion when they saw the Priest of Jupiter bringing Oxen and Garlands to do Sacrifice to them Acts XIV 14 15. Elis Meekness to his Children prov'd his folly and his Calmness is a Cause where God was dishonour'd pulled down God's Vengeance upon his Posterity A soft Expostulation here was altogether unseasonable and instead of saying to his Sons why do you do so he should have severely punish'd them when their stubbornness baffled all the gentler means of their Reformation Meekness properly relates to injuries done to our selves where the injury is directly offer'd to God our Meekness must turn into Zeal in all sins against our Neighbours and our own Souls God is wrong'd because all sin is a Transgression and dishonouring of the Law of God but some sins are more immediately levell'd against God yet even in God's cause where the anger is just and lawfull discretion must guide the Passion in a good Cause men may be too hot and where the anger turns into fury it becomes madness and instead of advancing diminishes and darkens the glory of Religion There is a rational anger which with some warmth and heat pleads and argues for God's Honour but runs not out into unseemly Behaviour or into reviling Language And this is that anger we are to shew when God is dishonoured when we dishonour him and when others do so So that Meekness doth not exclude all anger for as all Meekness is not lawfull so all Anger is not sinfull Be ye angry and sin not saith St. Paul Eph. IV. 26. which shews that some sort of anger is innocent And it is so when it is 1. In God's cause and from a sense of his Glory which we see dishonour'd by the sin or by the wrong our Neighbours do either to God or to their fellow Christians for though it be lawfull sometimes to be angry at a fault we see in our Brethren yet the anger must be more upon the account of the indignity offer'd to God by the offence than upon the Account of the wrong or prejudice we our selves suffer by it 2. It must be kept within due bounds and limits must not turn into rage and throwing about Coals and Fire-brands and odious and offensive Names Nor 3. Must it turn into malice and hatred but must still be follow'd with Acts
they are briefly these 1. It was to imitate the Eternal Father that at divers times and in divers manners spake to the Fathers of old He gave his Law to the Jewish People on Mount Sinai Exod. XIX II. The Son being to give a Law to the Christian World begins the Promulgation of it on a Mountain too and in doing so discover'd his Divine Authority and it was an Item that the same God that spoke on Mount Sinai spoke in this Mountain too only here lay the difference the Law on Mount Sinai was publish'd in the Midst of Thunder and Lightning for which reason we find it call'd a Fiery Law Deut. XXXIII 2. The Law of the Gospel was deliver'd in a sweet and still Voice to represent the Nature and Temper of it to express the Calmness of Mind the secret Satisfaction the spiritual Joy it causes and the Rest it leads to both Temporal and Eternal 2. He thought fit to deliver this comprehensive Sermon on a Mountain to shew the Sublimity and Grandeur of his Doctrine and Precepts that the Law he intended to give transcended the Laws of all Nations in the World in wholsomeness and excellency that the Laws which had hitherto govern'd Mankind were low creeping things to what he was going to publish and what an Excellent and Heroick Spirit Obedience to his Precepts would give to his true Followers raise them above the World make them despise sublunary Vanities advance them above the common level of Philosophical Vertues and fit them for dwelling at last on the everlasting Hills on the Mount where God is seen and will be seen to Eternal Ages even the Kingdom that fades not away But I must go on and take notice of another Circumstance here mention'd and that is IV. Christ's sitting down on the Mount Even this Posture hath some Mystery in it For 1. In doing so Christ asserted the Greatness and Majesty of his Person even in sitting down to speak while the Multitude and the Disciples stood round about him This may be call'd an Early Act of his Royalty as Kings do sit while their Subjects of all sorts and degrees stand about them Sitting among the Jews was a Posture denoting liberty and freedom from slavery which was the reason why the Synagogue chang'd the Posture of standing at the Passover a Posture or sign of Servitude into sitting or leaning and with very good reason might Christ sit down here when he taught the People whose business it was to proclaim liberty to the Captives to free the World from the bondage of sin and to rescue them from the Tyranny of the Devil But 2. In sitting down to teach we may add Christ imitated the Jewish Custom which was that the Teachers sat and the Hearers stood Unto this St. Luke alludes Ch. IV. 20. where speaking of Christ teaching in the Synagogue he says He closed the Book and gave it again to the Minister and sat down and the Eyes of all that were in the Synagogue were fastened upon him In these Synagogues which were in the Nature of our Parish-Churches there was a Seat whereon the Teacher sat and the Auditours stood at his Feet which gave occasion to that proverbial Phrase That such a one had been brought up at the Feet of such a Teacher as St. Paul saith of himself That he had been brought up at the Feet of Gamaliel Acts XXII 3. And of this Nature was the other Expression the Jews made use of viz. To wallow or roll in the Dust of such a Master's Feet whereby they noted the Humility that the Auditour ought to shew to him that teaches him But V. One circumstance more must here be consider'd and this relates to the Disciples that came unto him The following Sermon being directed to them it concerns us to know who these Disciples were And 1. They were the Twelve Apostles who are call'd so by way of Eminency as being the Chief the principal Disciples of Christ by whose Life and Doctrine men were to conclude and learn the Nature of Christ's Kingdom The word Disciple 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Talmid in the Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mathetes in the Greek is one that is taught by another and puts himself under his Tuition and Discipline following his Doctrine and way of living And so did the Holy Apostles with respect to Christ and though Judas proved a Devil and an Apostate afterward yet at first without all peradventure he shew'd the same Zeal that the rest did and was true to his Master's interest These Twelve Christ chose as Patriarchs of the Christian Common-wealth in imitation of the Twelve Sons of Jacob which were the Pillars and Foundation of the Jewish Republick and these Apostles trod exactly in their Master's Steps the Son of Perdition excepted and therefore call'd Disciples 2. Not only these Twelve who were Christ's Domesticks were call'd so but all such of the Multitude that believ'd in the Great Jesus and took him for the Messiah or Saviour of the World for to such also the Name of Disciples is given Luke VI. 13. Acts IX 26. Acts XI 26. John VI. So that all that have given their Names to Christ Jesus resign'd themselves to the Rules of his Discipline and profess his Religion are concern'd in this Sermon Every one that names the Name of Christ The Lessons here given reach all such whether high or low whether Princes or Subjects whether rich or poor whether Nobles or Peasants Christ in the following Sermon lays down one way for all nor must any Man be so foolish as to hope to be excused from the Obligation of the following Commands upon the Account of his Rank and Condition and as impossible as the Practice of some of the following Precepts particularly that of forbearing private Revenge doing good to them that hate them c. may seem to Gentlemen and Persons of Quality yet Christ considered Men here not as Gentlemen or Noblemen but as Christians if Christians they must be his Servants if Servants they must do what their Master bids them do if not the bare Name will never save them Inferences 1. Christ seeing the Multitudes and touch'd with compassion to their Souls went up into a Mountain to teach them A Man in whom the Spirit of Christ is cannot but be touch'd with the same compassion to behold the great Numbers of People that go astray from the way to Salvation Ah! how many Thousands do we see ride Post to everlasting Misery It 's true all the Rhetorick in the World cannot make them believe so much but so it is and if without such and such Qualifications there is no inheriting the Kingdom of God what must we think of so many Millions who never have so much as a sad or melancholy Thought about these Qualifications and is not this making haste to be miserable And can a Man that hath a Sense of the Veracity of God in the Gospel behold such Numbers without being griev'd or concern'd