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A70459 A sermon preached before the Lord Mayor and Court of Aldermen, at the Guildhall-Chapel on the fifth of February 1681/2 by J. Lambe ... Lambe, John, 1648 or 9-1708. 1682 (1682) Wing L221; ESTC R17540 19,313 49

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A SERMON Preached before the Lord Mayor And COURT of ALDERMEN AT THE GVILDHALL-CHAPEL On the Fifth of February 1681 2. By J. LAMBE M.A. One of His Majesties Chaplains in Ordinary LONDON Printed for Walter Kettilby at the Bishops-Head in St. Pauls Church-yard 1682. Moore Mayor Jovis nono die Februarii 1681 2. Annoque Regis Carol. Secund. Angl. c. 34 o. UPon the motion of Sir John Lawrence Knight and Alderman This Court doth desire Mr. Lambe to Print his Sermon Preached at the Guild-hall Chapel on Sunday Morning last before the Lord-Mayor and Aldermen of this City WAGSTAFFE TO The Right Honourable Sr John Moore Kt. LORD MAYOR And to the Right Worshipfull Sir JOHN LAWRENCE Knight and Alderman AND To the rest of the Right Worshipfull Aldermen of the City of LONDON My LORD IN the following Sermon Preached before Your Lordship I have considered the Condition of man under some of the Principal circumstances of this present life and have endeavoured from thence to State the Notion of his Happiness to Prove the Possibility of Attaining it and to direct to the means and Methods by which it may be acquired This indeed is an Argument of the Greatest Weight of general Concernment hard to be explained and frequently mistaken But coming after so many great Philosophers and Learned men of all Ages who have considered this Subject and transmitted their thoughts upon it I cannot reasonably hope to have added any thing that was not observed before or Illustrated any thing that was obscure Yet in Obedience to Your Lordship's Order and in hope that the consideration of our common as well as our greatest good which the practice of our Religion will bestow upon us may somewhat conduce to compose the distractions and allay the animosities which Particular respects Private interests and parties of Religion have raised among us therefore under Your Lordship's Patronage I have Presumed to make my Sermon Publick who am My LORD Your Lordship 's Most Humble and Most Obedient Servant J. Lambe PSALM CXIX 165. Great peace have they that love thy Law WE judge of the Excellency of beings by the Perfection of their forms the Freedom of their motions and the undisturb'd exercise of their proper Powers In proportion therefore the Happiness of a reasonable creature is measured by the Liberty of his Mind the equal Government of his Soul the Authority of his Reason the proper use but due subjection of his inferior Faculties And wheresoever this order is interrupted 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Arria in Epict. wheresoever passion and self-will Usurp the Dominion of our understanding there must be Sickness Strife Distraction and all the violent effects of Eccentrick motions and intestine Warrs But this is the miserable State of the generality of men Inferiour objects grateful to sense continually present and easily enjoyed Subdue our affections withdraw our obedience undermine the Government of reason and subject us to the Tyranny of boundless will and passion And thus we are inslaved to sense Jam 1.8 Job 5.2 Pro. 24.28 moved by inconstant Principles govern'd by violence and contradictions acted by furious uncertain imaginations of our fancy Our Nature is forced our constitution corrupted the mind restless the heart faint from the Sole of the foot to the Crown of the head there is no sound part in us Would we therefore be healed of these infirmities would we be restored to our Original health serenity and ease Would we be delivered from the power of passion and all the vexations which arise from a foolish extemporary way of life We must then return to our Duty and Allegiance restrain this Brutish liberty conform to rules of Government and finally resolve our will into these Laws and limits which Infinite Wisedom and Goodness have prescribed Then shall our broken bones be healed then every part shall be re-instated in its proper place our lives shall be steddy our motions orderly our desires regular our ends consonant our wills obedient and our whole selves throughly cheerful and contented according to the experience of the Psalmist in this Pathetick declaration of my text Great peace have they that Love thy Law In the handling of these words I shall breifly consider these Four things First what is meant by the Law of God and when a man may be said to love it Secondly what we are to understand by Peace which the Psalmist joyns with the love of the Law of God as an inseparable adjunct or effect thereof Thirdly I shall illustrate the truth of the Assertion and consider the various Efficacies and Operations of the love of the Law of God to the production of joy and peace Fourthly I shall show you the full and perfect Agreement of this Peace thus flowing from the love of the Law of God to the Character of my text Great Peace c. And Lastly make Application of the whole I. I begin with the first of these namely to consider what is meant by the Law of God and when a man may be said to love it Though the Law in Scripture sometimes signifies the particular oeconomy of the Jews sometimes but a part of the Mosaick institution Yet here in my Text it must be understood in the Largest sense of all the various Manifestations of the will of God as well in the secret impressions of our duty upon minds as in those more sensible revelations so far as their reasons were general and their obligations Moral to the Patriarchs to Moses and the Prophets of old and at last by his Son our Saviour And that because there is no restriction in the Text no confinement of it to any particular part of the Law which then had been absolutely necessary for the understanding and practice of the Proposition But chiefly because the necessity of the matter it self requires it forasmuch as an Habitual peace could never be said to flow from the love of a part where our Obligations are alike to the whole Law Now to love the Law of God if we comprehend it in a Word is so to discern the Worth the Beauty and Perfection of it as to prefer it to chuse it and govern our lives according to it For a quick and lively sense of Excellencies in an object or of Particular Kindness and beneficence to our selves are the Necessary and Only Causes and Principles of Love which shows it self in Admiration Pleasure and impatient desire of the most intimate and compleat Enjoyment Now the Excellencies of a Law are the Authority of its Author the Wisedom Benefit Equity Compassion and Impartiality of the Law it self Wheresoever therefore we discern these Lovely qualities glorious in themselves and the highest perfections of a Law our Judgment of Necessity will approve it our Affections will be ravished our Souls will desire to be Conformed and United to it to be cast into the same mold to be Tinctured with the same Perfections to doe and to be what the Law requires as the