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A67829
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A sermon preached at Lambeth January the 25th at the consecration of the Right Reverend Father in God, Thomas Lord Bishop of Bath and Wells / by Edward Young ...
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Young, Edward, 1641 or 2-1705.
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1685
(1685)
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Wing Y68; ESTC R34114
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12,744
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33
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A SERMON Preached at LAMBETH Ianuary the 25 th At the Consecration of the Right Reverend Father in GOD THOMAS Lord Bishop of Bath and Wells By EDWARD YOUNG Fellow of Winchester College LONDON Printed for William Grantham at the Crown and Pearl over against Exeter-Change in the Strand 1685. TO THE Most Reverend Father in GOD WILLIAM Lord Arch-Bishop of Canterbury AND Primate of All ENGLAND May it please your GRACE THE Commands of Your Grace as well as of Those other Honourable Assistants at the Consecration having encouraged this Sermon to appear in publick I have presumed farther to set Your Venerable name before it in order to give it Countenance and Commendation to all Good Men. The world will judge what abatements the Argument may have possibly received from the weakness of the Manager but abstracting from these I am sure that Religion has no Subject wherein the Interests of Piety are more nearly concerned than they are in that here treated of And therefore I cannot doubt but that Your Grace will be easie to forgive the Confidence of the Address in contemplation of that advantage the Argument may thereby get to serve those ends of Piety to which it is designed And yet I have one end more in this Address and that is That it may withal testifie to the World the just veneration I have for those mighty Accomplishments both of Nature and Grace wherewith God hath Blessed You in order to bless his Church with the fruits and benefits of them London Feb. 2. 1685. Your GRACE's Most humbly Devoted in all Duty and Obedience EDWARD YOUNG A SERMON ON 2 Tim. 1. 6. Wherefore I put thee in remembrance that thou stir up the Gift of God which is in thee by the laying on of my hands THEY are the words of St. Paul the Apostle for whose Doctrine and Example we this day peculiarly give God thanks They are his words to Timothy whom after he had planted the Church of Ephesus he did by the Laying on of his Hands Consecrate and appoint Bishop of that Church Of which St. Paul Theodoret tells us That he likewise planted this Church of Ours And if so Most Reverend Fathers You bear a Relation to the very Hands in the Text from which through a long and venerable Succession you derive your Authority However you bear an equal Relation to the Advice of the Text and Favour me therefore I beseech you while I make some Reflections upon it with an Humility as great as is my Unworthiness for such an Undertaking The words do 1. Offer to our Consideration The Solemnity of Laying on of Hands that Ancient Rite of Blessing by Prayer and thence accommodated by Divine Authority to the Designing of Men to any peculiar Charge in the Service of God 2. They offer to our Consideration the Charge or Office confer'd by this Solemnity and that is the Office Episcopal St. Paul Consecrating a Bishop and Investing Him with such Rights and Powers as we never find committed to a Simple Priest 3. The Person on whom hands were layd Timothy whose Character is given in the foregoing Verse That He was a Man of unfeigned Faith But these are Heads I shall not insist on I shall only take occasion from them to bless God for the great Happiness and Glory of our Church in the Legitimate Mission of Her Clergy The Due Distinction of Her Orders and the Virtue and Worthiness of Her Governours And in that which under Providence is the great occasion of all this the Pious care of Her Sovereign Guardian the King Whose eyes are upon such as are Faithful Who as God made choice of Ioshuah to lead the Israelites into Canaan because he had dar'd against the wishes of the People to give a True Report of that Good Land So He by whom Providence has designed to make us Happy if we will be Happy chooseth such to lead us as by Their ardent Love and Zealous Contention towards Heaven have given a True Report of the Desirableness of that Good Land A Truth which were it not for some few such Reports the World lies always under a propension to distrust I shall pass over these several Heads and insist only on the remaining matter of the words and that is the Gift confer'd on Timothy at his Consecration Stir up the Gift of God that is in thee by the laying on of my Hands The word here render'd Gift does in its General sense signifie any thing that God does graciously bestow upon Men But in this place it signifies that which we more peculiarly call Grace i. e. the Sanctifying Gift of God and so the Fathers interpret it or rather so our Apostle interprets himself in the following words where he specifies the Gift he means to be The Spirit of Might oâ— Love and of a sound Mind Grace then is the Subject concerning which I propose these Three things 1. To shew the Importance of it to Christian Practice 2. It s Distribution to Men and the Measures thereof And 3. Mans Relative Duty towards it in stirring of it up I begin with the Importance of Grace to Christian Practice All that I shall say thereon being designed to confirm this Proposition viz. That the Grace of God is absolutely necessary towards the discharge of every mans Christian Duty That there is a Sanctifying Principle communicated from Christ unto Believers preparing and assisting them to the fruits of Holiness and therefore called the seed of God That this Principle is moâ—e than all Natural Endowments or any Improvements of Nature that are meerly Human and therefore called the Gift That it is more than the Objective Influence of all Revealed Truths or of all the outward Actings of Providence and therefore called the Gift within Us That this Principle is wrought in us by the Operation of the Holy Spirit and therefore all Virtues are called the Works of the Spirit and Christians the Temples of the Holy Ghost are Truths that will appear to any indifferent Enquirer as evident as any that are written in the Book of God And it being the manner of the Holy Spirit in the Scriptures to bring down sublime Truths to our Understanding by familiar resemblances and to convey them more strongly to our minds by the Images of sensible things Our Apostle has in Two several places of his Epistles represented this Communication from Christ to Believers by the resemblance of those Spirits and Animal Iuyces that are communicated from the the Head to the several Members of our natural Body from which Spirits every Member derives its vigour and sensation and power to execute those functions which are due to the common service insomuch that if this influence from the head to any Member be casually obstructed that Member must necessarily languish and grow useless and retain no more than the Figure of a part And thus it is in the Mystical body of Christ the Visible Church There is a like variety and subordination
Difficulties upon his Duty and requires new measures of Grace to support him under it and accordingly such a person may safely depend upon God for such measures Or supposing a Man to want the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the happiness of Natural temper and to lay under complexional indispositions to Virtue this state brings unavoidable difficulties upon his Duty and requires greater Measures of Grace to be able to live well and accordingly such a person may safely depend upon God for such measures God Almighty taketh pleasure to manifest the strength of his Grace in such opportunities of humane weakness But on the other hand if a man shall affect such Difficulties and run himself by choice into such Indispositions such a one certainly brings a check upon the Divine assistance For in all the dispensations of Gods mercy the Wise Man's Rule is to be observed That God is found of those that tempt him not And so likewise in the Case of publick Charges which necessarily enlarge both the difficulty and the measures of human Duty the Conduct of Providence is always to be regarded We may safely follow Providence through any Difficulties for there God shall be with us and his right hand shall help us But if we advance to Difficulties as Ahab did to Ramoth Gilead onely directed by some false Prophet of our own Passions we Tempt God beyond a reasonable assurance of finding him in our Undertaking And this is the Reason why Pious Men of all Ages have trembled at the thoughts of seeking the Episcopal Charge lest by running officiously into the obligation of a mighty Duty they might tempt God and provoke him to withold that measure of Grace which was necessary for the due discharge of it I know that Our Apostle has said If a man desire the Office of a Bishop be desireth a Good Work Implying that it sometimes may lawfully be desired And without doubt it has sometimes been so and possibly may be so still It was so in those Times when Persecution raging against the Church fell always most severely upon her Bishops When the Office was accounted a Degree of Martyrdom when there were no splendid advantages annext to it which might tempt the carnal affections of Men to regard them more than they did the Duty At that time to desire it was to deserve it and a sufficient proof of an Inward Call or rather Animation to the Charge But as soon as it came to be baited with Honours and advantages then all Good Men became Iealous of themselves lest in desiring the Office of a Bishop they might not so much desire a Good Work as a Good Accommodation lest their Passions should draw them more prevalently than their Consciences which must necessarily have brought a check upon the Divine Blessing for the want whereof no Parts nor Wisdom nor Industry in their Administration could ever compensate From this pious Iealousie of theirs it followed that the Greatest Bishops have been not only Wisht and Nominated but Sought Woo'd and Commanded out of their Retirement to the Undertaking of their Charge Where after they had Undertaken it we find them bewailing themselves upon the Tremendous prospect of its duty and Crying that it was in punishment to their sins that God had committed the Helm of a Diocess into their hands Teaching the World what Caution is needful lest in a Charge of the most important service of God where it is impossible for a Man to acquit himself well without Gods particular Blessing and yet if he does not acquit himself well the miscarriage must needs be damnable any one should enter upon such a Charge with any other Motives than such as were conciliative of Gods Blessing and assistance For Who is sufficient for these things Says our Apostle and having left the Question undetermined he has left men under the obligation of a long suspense before they determine it in their own behalfs But when God who makes those whom he pleases sufficient shall determine it for any Man then Compliance is safe and the Blessing indubitable And thus it was in the Instance of our Bishop in the Text upon whom this discourse is grounded Of whom you may observe that he had a Providential designation to his Charge before Hands were laid upon him to Invest him in it He had his Designation from Prophecy Says the Text that is from the declaration of the Holy Ghost through the Mouth of some inspired Christians Now what was extraordinary in this Instance and proper only for an Age of Miracles we must not draw into Precedent but from what was Ordinary in it we must form our Rule and that Rule is this viz. That when the Authority to whom the outward care of the Church is committed by God shall from the good Report of a Person as of One of Unfeigned Faith call such a Person to the Charge this is a Providential designation and such a Person going in the Conscience of his Duty to the subsequent Rite of Laying on of Hands needs not doubt of such an Effusion of Grace as shall enable him to give a cheerful account of his Duty This only Caution being born in Remembrance That the Grace so given must be stirr'd up Which is my third and last Head The Original word signifies primitively the stirring up of Fire Grace being sometimes in the Scripture compared to Fire which by reason of its properties of Lighting Warming and Purging bears a just Analogy to those Aids that Grace brings in to reform the disorder of each faculty of our Souls But beside these Grace resembles Fire in another property and that is Unless it be stirr'd up and blow'd and Matter rightly apply'd it will go out The Natural Agency of the Fire and the Moral Agency of Grace agreeing in this That neither will serve our uses unless we work with them We may therefore receive the Heavenly gift in vain Nay the Negligent do always do so but if we stir it up by exercise and use we make it spread and improve and secure it's Aids to the full accomplishing of our Duty So that Grace and the Soul are like two Free Agents combining discâ—etionally to the same effect the one acting out of Duty and the other out of Compassion and both requiring mutual excitements and mutual endeavours Humane Diligence engages Grace because it is not consistent with the Laws of Mercy that they who are sincere should miscarry for want of assistance and Grace engages diligence because it is not consistent with the Laws of Virtue that they who are slothful should either succeed or be assisted I shall exemplifie the Doctrine in the Instance of the Text. Where we are inform'd that Timothy at his Consecration received a Gift or Effusion from the Holy Ghost and this Effusion our Apostle distributes in the following Verse into three particular Graces all necessary for the discharge of the Episcopal Office viz. Might Love and a sound mind