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A51602 A pious sermon preached by that late painfull and profitable minister of Gods word Humph. Munning, Rectour of Bretenham in the Countie of Suffolk. Munning, Humphrey, d. 1624. 1641 (1641) Wing M3079; ESTC R218631 14,244 28

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of God Come we to our meetings and merriments our carnall rejoycings Deus bone quae sunt nostra gaudia quae sunt nostra prandia Curios simulamus Bacchanalia vivimus Musc our eating and drinking like Epicures when we professe Christians can God be glorified by such irreligious behaviour Our babish and gawdy attire in our apparell being sick of some phantasticall fashion to day and full and weary of it to morrow putting all workmen to their wits end to follow the oft-turning weathercock of our restlesse and unchangable phantasies Our idle pastimes not as a parenthesis to the period of our labours but our labour a poore and short parenthesis to the large and long leaves of our pastimes Our unbrotherly contentions filling all the Courts and Consistories in the kingdome and setting every day a work such swarms of attorneys and advocates as we do are these things indeed think you to the glory of God And not to be infinite though in a subject that will scarcely suffer me to find any end Is it to the glory of God that his great and Divine majestie should be dallied withall in his most holy word that men shall call for sermons and erect exercises with great shew of godlinesse and when all comes to all the Ministers and Preachers of the word shall be of no other use to a great many but as minstrels and pipers are for their delight and pleasure as God saith to the Prophet Ezek. 33.32 Thou art unto them as a very lovely song of one that hath a pleasant voice for they heare thy words but they do them not Alas these words of the Apostle willing us to do all to the glory of God do even shame and confound us Our own glory is aloft but the glory of God is under foot everywhere and as if there were no danger to be competitours and corrivals with God in a thing so precious unto him we devest him daily of his glory to invest our selves Well let this Scripture a little school us let us remember that if we be as we should be Plantatio Domini ad glorificandum eum Isai 61.3 we are his workmanship formed and planted by him to the praise of his glory And he is worthy of all our labour and endeavour that can be employed that way But I shall not reach my project if I come not to the second part of the rule namely the end of our actions in respect of our brethren And that must be to edifie them As God must be glorified so our brethren must be edified in all that we do To edifie is to build up And all men are builders but some men do build the wrong way For even he that gives an offence to his brother doth build him up some way he destroyes him and pulls him down in goodnesse Scandalum est aedificatio ad delictum Tertull. but he builds him up and sets him forward in evil Take heed saith the Apostle that you do not so build up one another Give no offence to any man There be two words about this matter differing in sound but in sense and use I think all one Scandall is one and Offence is the other Scandalum is properly and literally tigillum the bridge of a trap which is set for a mouse or such other creature which as soon as the unhappy creature toucheth the trap falls and the poore beast is taken Spiritually and Metaphorically a scandall is any word or act said or done by one man which falls out to the hurt and destruction of another man in the case of conscience and religion Offendiculum the word that the Apostle useth here is a block or stone in a mans way whereupon he stumbleth either out of ignorance as a blind man doth or of weaknesse as aged and infirm persons do In religious use it is every occasion of sinne that one man gives to another either by false doctrine or bad example And this latter is often in the use of indifferent things The poore blind ignorant weak Christian goes on pretily well and cheerfully in the way of godlinesse till he comes to such a block or trap there he stumbles there he is taken either to his utter destruction or to his great hindrance in the way to eternall life Such a stumbling-block was the eating of meats sacrificed to idoles among the Corinthians By which act indiscreetly and uncharitably done of some three sorts of men were offended First the unbelieving Jews seeing the Christians to eat of things offered to idoles which they justly and by the law of God detested they by this thought the worse of Christian religion and were set the further off from it as the Turks and Jews at this day are offended and set off from our religion by the idoles and images of the Papists Secondly the Grecians that is the unconverted Gentiles these were offended likewise though not grieved For they thought the better of their own heathenish and idolatrous religion because the Christians did partake with them in their sacrifices and so were hardened in their superstition Thirdly weak Christians ignorant as yet of the Christian libertie under the Gospel and holding it in conscience a sinne to eat of such things yet were drawn on by example of others to eat against their conscience and so were made guilty of sinne Thus it was amongst the Corinthians in this matter of idolothytes or things sacrificed to idoles which out of the case of scandall or offence might lawfully have been used of them but in the case of offence to a weak brother was a sinne and offence against God also And the like evil as I think falleth out amongst us at this day by the daily abuse of our Christian libertie in other things For First the Papists seeing how loose and lawlesse we are in many things they though well enough pleased yet are truly offended thinking all our religion nothing but a carnall liberty and are ready upon every occasion to blaspheme and say Behold the fruits of your Gospel So they are utterly set off by this block Secondly the carnall Protestants usurers proud and covetous persons they are hardened in their sinnes by the example of our seeming best professours Behold say they these that professe most are as deep in these things as we they think to go to heaven for all this and why should not we Thirdly weak and ignorant Christians who for the most part do not inwardly consider the nature of things nor examine the reasons of their actions but are carried wholly by example they stumble and fall everywhere thinking they may safely do as others do yea though they do things whereof their conscience doth accuse and condemn them To remedie this great evil there is no way but to listen to the counsel and look to this rule of the Apostle Give no offence set no traps lay no blocks in any mans way Let this be a part of your Christian rule which God
these things are to be ruled is the end And that is double first the glory of God secondly the edification of our neighbour The first is set down in plain and expresse terms Do all to the glory of God The second is set down by a remotion of the contrary Give no offence cause none to fall or to stumble no Jew no Grecian much lesse any of the people and Church of God The example is taken from himself As in all things I please all men In all things of this nature in all indifferent things I do not so much respect mine own liberty or commodity as how the action will fall out to others not using my liberty or power in any thing but where I may further the salvation of others thereby Now to take these things as they ly in order first concerning the actions or things to be ruled they are as we see specially eating and drinking but in generall all things whatsoever For so the Apostle Whether ye eat or drink or whatsoever ye do From which generall words of the Apostle this generall doctrine doth arise unto us namely That all things whatsoever a Christian man doth must be done by a rule And a Christian hath no such liberty to do what he list at least to do as he list in any thing Though God hath given us great liberty in many things yet no such liberty as to be irregular or out of rule in any thing And the Scripture saith the same thing in other places though in other terms For that same integritie that God requireth of Abraham to walk before him and be upright the undefilednesse in the wayes of the Lord that David speaketh of in the Psalmes the sinceritie and unblameablenesse that the Apostles exhort unto otherwhere Walking honestly and pleasing God in all things what is all this I say but the observing of a rule in all things that we do as the Apostle here requireth And the best interpreters upon this place affirm so much * Piscator One saith This ought to be the scope of all our actions * Hemming Another saith Let this rule be observed in all things And * Marlorat a third saith No part of mans life no action TAM MINUTA not such a minute not such a minim of an action in a Christian but must be referred to this end The generall will the better appear if it be laid open in some particulars And first in this wherein the Apostle instanceth Whether ye eat or drink What is more free or wherein hath God given more liberty to man then in eating and drinking Every moving thing that liveth saith God Gen. 9.3 shall be meat for you even as the green herb have I given you all things And Deut. 12.20 If thou shalt say I will eat flesh because thy soul longeth to eat flesh thou mayest eat flesh whatsoever thy soul lusteth after And the Apostle telleth us 1. Tim. 4.4 Every creature of God is good and nothing to be refused if it be received with thanksgiving And in this chapter verse 25. Whatsoever is sold in the shambles that eat asking no question for conscience sake Behold here libertie enough And blessed be God that as Mr Calvin saith we need not cat our meat with a doubtfull and fearfull conscience And to teach otherwise were a doctrine of devils What then For all this libertie might a Jew therefore during the time of the Leviticall law have eaten of swines flesh or any other legally-unclean creature No you say That was forbidden by the Law and therefore not indifferent But I say The thing was indifferent still in its own nature and the prohibition of the law was but a restriction in the use for a time Or what shall we say to that temporary exception in the Apostles time Might a believing Gentile during that time have eaten of things strangled or of bloud or may we now abuse our libertie in eating and drinking I do not say to surfetting and drunkennesse but to the breach of any honest and Godly politick law amongst us Nay we see that notwithstanding this great libertie in this matter yet the Apostle doubteth not to give rules to our eating and drinking and such rules as do both restrain and limit the outward act and also in some sort do bind the conscience and make a man guilty of sinne in the neglect of the same So as notwithstanding our libertie in eating and drinking yet we may not be libertines therein Let us see the like in apparell The fair or as Tremellius translateth the desirable garments of Esau the parti-coloured coat that Jacob made for his sonne Joseph the changes of rayment that Joseph gave to his brethren and the vestures of divers colours that the kings daughters wore being virgins all these do declare what liberty God hath given unto us in the use of apparell Nolo ut de ornamentis auri vel vestis properam habeas in prohibendo sententiam A liberty that seemed so great to that learned Father Augustine that he giveth this Item or Caveat to Possidonius about this matter I will not saith he that you be very forward in censuring or judging any for their garments or ornaments of gold And experience doth teach us every day that as much grace is to be found under a gay coat as under a gray one And yet for all this when the daughters and ladies of Jerusalem would keep no rule in their apparell who knoweth not how sharply the Prophet rebuketh them Isai 3. Yea the Princes themselves and the Kings children are threatned that God will punish them for being clothed with strange apparell Zeph. 1.8 And the holy Apostles giving rules of sobrietie in apparell to Christian women do teach us that all our actions and fashions in this matter must go by a rule And I think all good minds do mourn to see how out of all rule men and women are now adayes in all callings and conditions I say in all I except not that which should be an example of humilitie and Christian sobrietie to all the rest Surely our pride doth testifie to our face and we are too farre gone in affecting the mark of dignitie in our habits and apparell which besides our sinne against God and our Christian rule is also as one censureth it and I think truly a note of pusillanimitie and b●se debilitie in our selves And to touch that a little wherein men are most irregular even the recreation of a Christian if any be at all must be done by a rule For if we must eat and drink by a rule if we must apparell our selves by a rule why must not our recreation be by a rule also Danaeus de ludo alea cap. 1. Certainly when the Apostle saith WHATSOEVER ELSE YE DO there is no remedie but play and pastime must be comprehended in this generall saith a great Divine I know what warres men are at in their judgements