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A63880
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A sermon preached before the Lord Mayor and the Court of Aldermen at Guild-Hall Chappel on the 7th of May 1682 / by Francis Turner ...
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Turner, Francis, 1638?-1700.
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1682
(1682)
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Wing T3281; ESTC R1763
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16,172
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40
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Moore Mayor Jovis xi die Maii 1682. Annoque Regis CAROLI Secundi Angl. c. xxxiiij THis Court doth desire Dr Turner to Print his Sermon Preached on Sunday Morning last at the Guild-Hall Chappel before the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of this City Wagstaffe A SERMON Preached before the Lord Mayor AND The COURT of ALDERMEN At Guild-Hall Chappel on the 7th of May 1682. By FRANCIS TURNER D. D. LONDON Printed by J. Macock for R. Royston Bookseller to His most Sacred Majesty 1682. TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE Sir JOHN MOORE Knight Lord Mayor OF THE CITY of LONDON And to the Right Worshipful the ALDERMEN his Brethren My Lord WHEN I delivered this mean discourse in so solemn an Audience where the King's Ministers of Justice with others of the long Robe met the worthy Magistrates of this Great City to begin the Term at the Church with imploring the Blessing of God upon that excellent Government which you and they joyntly support I was much encourag'd to see so many Noble Persons and so numerous an Assembly practising so Religiously beforehand the Doctrine I came to Preach joyning in the Publick Supplications and Common-Prayers Your devout Appearance and hearty Concurrence in the Divine Service gave me some Idaea of those times a gallant Loyal Citizen describes in a Speech of his which for it's Eloquence might have flow'd from the Mouth of any Roman or Grecian Orator and for it's Piety might have become the Tongue of the gravest Divine There have been Times says See Alderman Garro-way's lately reprinted speech spoken at a Common-Hall in the Year 1642. he that he that should speak against the Book of Common-Prayer in this City should not have been put to the patience of a Legal Tryal We were wont to look upon it as the greatest Treasure and Jewel of our Religion and he that should have told us he wished well to our Religion and yet would take away the Book of Common-Prayer would never have gotten Credit I have been says he in all the parts of Christendom and have conversed with Christians in Turky Why in all the Reformed Churches there is not any thing of more Reverence than the English Liturgy not our Royal Exchange or the Name of Q. Elizabeth so famous In Geneva it self I have heard it extolled to the Skies I have been three Months together by Sea not a Day without hearing it read twice The honest Mariners then despised all the World but the King and the Common-Prayer-Book he that should have been suspected to wish ill to either of them would have made an ill Voyage But though so goodly a Congregation as yours whose Devotions I had the Honour to serve that Day was one of the best sights I had ever seen yet I live in hopes of seeing a better one Day I mean the same Honourable Assembly translated from your Lordship's Chappel to our Church of St. Paul's which begins to lift up its head and to beg for its self from every Charitable Hand especially from those within the Walls of the City its Fellow-sufferer Now I should forget my self and the Duty to which I Exhorted others if I should not give this proof of my obedience to You that are in Authority and I do it the more cheerfully to You that imploy your Authority so well and wisely as Fearing God Honouring the King and not medling with them that are given to change I should not be true to my Text if I should not submit my self and this plain Sermon to be dispos'd of as you have been pleas'd to Order My Lord I am your Lordship's most humble and most obedient Servant FRAN. TURNER A SERMON Preach'd before the Lord Mayor c. 1 TIMOTHY ii 1 2. I exhort therefore that first of all Supplications Prayers Intercessions and giving of Thanks be made for all Men. For Kings and for all that are in Authority that we may lead a quiet and peaceable Life in all Godliness and Honesty I Exhort therefore first of all And I be-beseech you Brethren to suffer the word of Exhortation So the same blessed Apostle that exhorts us here addresses himself to his Brethren of the House of Israel Heb. 13. 22. No question this in my Text is an Exhortation to the greatest of all Duties which the Divine Writer thinks so necessary to recommend at the highest rate I exhort therefore first of all Indeed here are two of our most important Duties joyn'd together or as it were interwoven and we are exhorted to them both First To the due performance of the publick Worship and Service of God for which there is all this Provision that Supplications Prayers Intercessions and giving of Thanks be made for all Men Secondly These Offices of the Church are most particularly directed to secure the Honour and Obedience due to the Civil Magistrate whether supreme or subordinate for Kings and for all that are in Authority Thirdly The use of these good means is referr'd to these two great Ends the first of which most concerns our Temporal welfare that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life the second reaches even our Eternal Condition that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all Godliness and Honesty 1. And first we are exhorted to the care of Gods publick Worship and Service on which we are now attending to which the Apostle presses us elsewhere that we should all of us be either Preachers or at least not hearers only but doers of this word of Exhortation not forsaking the assembling of our selves together as the manner of some is but exhorting one another For I must observe to you that St. Paul is not writing instructions here to his beloved Son and Disciple Timothy for his private Devotions but from his way of speaking not barely I exhort thee to pray but I exhort first of all that Prayers be made that is be prepared appointed establisht 't is probable that he is dictating as the great Apostle of the Gentiles and as Paul the Aged directing this Apostolical young Man to whom this Charge is committed that he might know how he ought to behave himself in the House of God which is the Church of the Living God For Timothy whom he besought to abide still at Ephesus was this Church's Angel Therefore St. Paul enjoyns him what was convenient for ordering the pure Worship of God in Spirit and in Truth for settling it in the Church where the Holy Ghost had made him a Bishop And it may farther appear what kind of publick Worship is prescrib'd to this Church of Ephesus from what was practis'd in the most flourishing Churches in the first and the best Ages the greatest Lights of the Ancient Church undoubtedly left behind them the plainest Commentaries on my Text in the pious Offices they compos'd for Divine Worship True indeed what they left so well devis'd and design'd has been corrupted since with Letanies to Saints and Angels and many false Doctrines are crept into their
Devotions in the Church of Rome which would be practical Errors in us and turn our very Prayers into Sin if we should joyn throughout with them in Theirs though to speak truth they do not all pretend so much as to joyn themselves in what the Priest is in a manner whispering to himself in an unknown tongue they neither hear nor understand it But I beg leave to say in behalf of the Church of England when our Israel came out of Egypt and our House of Jacob from among the People of a strange language though we borrowed some Jewels of them I mean some part of their Antient Prayers and brought them away yet we have so accurately filed them so carefully polisht and freed them from the rust they had once contracted those that possest them heretofore do hardly know them again nor will they own them now being rather dazled than delighted with their present lustre so that we are in no danger of such a Process in Law as 't is said the Egyptians commenc'd against the Israelites to recover their Jewels again many hundred Years after since they had proof enough in whose hands they were from the Book of Exodus But our Book of Divine Service is no such perilous Evidence in our case our wise and pious Reformers receiv'd indeed and retain'd some part of a Liturgy let none think ill of the Word for 't is a Scripture-word for the Worship of God in several places of Scripture they retain'd I say some part of a Liturgy that was us'd before the Reformation but us'd before Popery too for what they so retain'd was most of it out of the Scripture out of the Epistles and Gospels and the Book of Psalms And so we may say they receiv'd and translated the Bible it self which was before in the same hands but in a manner useless to the People since neither That was allow'd them in our Mother Tongue Nay to speak truly we can hardly be said to have retain'd any Prayers of theirs rather we have restor'd the Pure and the Primitive Devotions and rejected such as were truly and properly theirs that were liable to any just Exceptions we have kept to those of the Old Catholick stamp and laid by the New the Catholick falsly so called we have try'd and purify'd ours seven times in the fire they rose as it were from the Ashes of those Renowned Protestants who compil'd them those excellent Men that suffer'd a glorious Martyrdom for being Protestants they were the Men that separated the precious from the vile and that is the admirable temper which God approves Jerem. 15. 19. if thou take forth the precious from the vile thou shalt be as my mouth and I may add the next words to determine the Case between our truly Apostolick Church of England and those of Rome Let them return to thee but return not thou unto them But now let no Man imagin that the same forms if compos'd with sufficient variety may not be us'd for all men whom here we are bound to pray for or that they may not be constantly used by all men of the same National Church and the more constantly us'd so much the more devoutly with daily increasing fervors if all men would bring along with them a due intention of mind and would practise the method of retiring within themselves by a good preparative Meditation And consider I beseech you as to that objection of stinting or confining the Spirit any mans Prayer for others offer'd I mean in behalf of a whole Congregation be it to the Speaker never so unpremeditated is as much a form to the hearer if he goes along with it as if it were premeditated nor ought sett Prayers to be call'd a stinting of the Spirit when David a Man after Gods own heart has left us almost as many Forms of Devotion as he left Psalms behind him Form thy Spirit by the affection of the Psalm says St. Austin that is frame and enlarge thy Conc. 3. in Psal 30. Soul to follow the same Holy Spirit that pour'd it forth Alas what 's our Spirit in Comparison of Christ's Spirit for he had the spirit without measure and yet at two several times he repeated and recommended the same Prayer that is the Lord's Prayer and in Matt. 26. 44. He pray'd the third time saying the same Words And if it be said that a Form of Prayer can never express the needs and necessities of all men who are here to be prayed for 't is answered that no more indeed can all the most tedious Extemporary Effusions be so particular But yet a devout mind in the swiftness of thought can easily apply and sufficiently extend the Lord's Prayer or a Psalm to particular Occasions as a certain Father of the Desart instructs his Disciples how every one of them might become a kind of Psalmist That we may enjoy this Treasure saith he it is necessary that we say the Psalms with the same Spirit with which they were compos'd and accommodate them unto our selves in the same manner as if every one of us had compos'd them or as if the Psalmist had directed them purposely for our uses Loving when he loves fearing when he fears hoping when he hopes praising God when he praises weeping for our own and others sins when he weeps begging what we want with the like Spirit wherein his Petitions are fram'd loving our Enemies when he shews love to his praying for ours when he prays for his c. To proceed then our Apostle prescribes in the first place Supplications which are Letanies or Deprecations for imploring Mercy and Protection against evils to come next Prayers to procure the good things we stand in need of then Intercessions as the Apostle Heb. 7. 25. most properly calls such Petitions of any kind as are made for others seeing he ever liveth to make Intercessions for us and lastly giving of Thanks the most excellent act of the Soul and the most delightful for 't is a joyful and a pleasant thing to be thankful These several kinds of Prayers were to be made for all men with a Charity as diffusive as the Love of God to the World with a good will as universal as the Providence of his Goodness But I must not dwell on any of these Common Places I proceed to that which is more particularly design'd and recommended by St. Paul to Timothy that such Devotions as these should be offered up to God as for all men so especially for Kings and for all in Authority c. First then our solemn Prayers must be made for Kings a customary Duty paid to the Kings of the Earth and to the Royal Lineage by the Jewish Church under the Old Testament and here confirmed by this Apostle under the New And how even Heathen Emperours valued the Prayers of the Church is evident from the famous Decrees of Cyrus and Darius those Great Kings Ezra 6. 10. where their design of rebuilding the Temple and