Selected quad for the lemma: death_n
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A81881
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The vanity of human respects. In a sermon. / By William Darel.
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Darrell, William, 1651-1721.
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1688
(1688)
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Wing D269B; ESTC R175904
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10,543
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27
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it abroad that Interest was the sole Motive of my Conversion not Conscience and that a Criminal Compliance with the Times rather turn'd my Will than Reason convinc'd my Iudgment and so I shall lose my Honour and forfeit my Reputation which is the greatest Treasure a Man of Quality can possess Pray Dear Christian give me leave to ask you this Question Can another Mans Wickedness warrant yours Can a Fear of being thought a Bad Man justifie your being so The World will say That Interest is your Motive if it be Religion is but a Cloak to cover your Vice and you deserve more Execrations than the Tongues of Men are able to fling on you But if Conscience be the sole Ground of your Conversion Will you be so unnatural as to pawn This on Wicked Mens Account Will you be really a Sinner our of a Fear of being esteem'd One This is a Folly above Expression and a Deference to an Enemy which should never be granted the dearest Friend But you will hazard your Honour What than Good GOD Shall I rather put to a venture the Salvation of my Soul than my Reputation Shall I be so inchanted with the vain Applause of Men who cannot be sufficiently blam'd as rather to fling up my Right to Heaven than to forfeit a Place in their Panegyricks O in what deceitful Balances do the unfortunate Children of Adam weigh Things How foolish is their Conduct whose only Ambition is to be thought Wise Believe me Honour will never save your Souls Dear Christians nor false Aspersions damn them So that in Prudence you ought not to startle at These nor to be so much enamour'd with That as to give it a greater Place in your Affections than your Duty But if you will be Slaves to Honour let it be to That which ennobles you not to That which disgraces you Be Great in the Sight of GOD not in the Opinion of Men who are sure to esteem That most which is of the least Value The Holy Fathers tell us 'T is an Honour to Be a Christian and I am sure 't is a greater to be a True Oue that is not only to Profess CHRIST but a Religion which hath its Being from his Eternal Wisdom not from the Aery Fancies of Men. Well Sir I am convinc'd 't is a Madness to be byass'd by any of these weak Arguments But Times may Change and the Religion which is now Protected may be Persecuted by an Equal Authority Times may Change 't is true But let me tell you Perchance many here present may be in their Graves before Those Times come Shall I then assure my Damnation out of the Apprehension of a Danger that perhaps will never come near me No no Seeing all my Care and Industry can never put my Soul in a perfect Security whil'st it moves in this Region of Vncertainties I will place it as near Heaven as I am able and never be frighted from so prudent a Care by any future Contingencies But suppose those Times were not only to Come but Present Can the Sword of Persecution the Rigor of Laws warrant any Man's Dissimulation Does GOD adapt his Church to the Times Hath He Instituted One for a Calm Another for a Storm I confess ingenuously I never saw in all the Monuments of Antiquity any Foot-steps of such an Indulgence As GOD is without Change so is his Religion and we are oblig'd under pain of Damnation to embrace it tho' it cost us the Sweat of our Brows nay and every Drop of Blood in our Veins This is CHRIST's Doctrine without any Hyperbole If any Man come to Me and hate not his Father and Mother and Wife and Children and Brethren and Sisters yea and his own Life also he cannot he My Disciple Luke 14.26 By which Words He declares in the most positive Terms imaginable That neither the Respect due to our Parents neither the Love of Wife and Children in fine neither the natural and in-bred Inclination all Men feel to conserve their Lâ—â—es can warrant the Transgression of GOD's Comâ—â—â—ds We must rather quit All we can hope for in this World and exspose us to All we can fear than â—â—ll one Inch short of our Duty And because it is 〈◊〉 the Leâ—st Command I am sure to Embrace tâ—â—t Faith which CHRIST hath Planted with His Sweat and Wâ—tred with His most precious Blood any Man 's not Prâ—â—essing It will be punished with Eternal Death He that Believeth not shall be Damned Mark 18.16 The Primitive Christians were convinc'd of this Truth and therefore no Human Motive was capable to with-draw them from CHRIST These Invincible Hero's saw Christianity condemn'd by unjust Decrees of the Roman Senate and more Cruelties put in Execution than were Enacted They beheld the Reeking Gore of their Massacred Brethren were Spectators of their Mangled Bodies which were either cast as a Prey to the Beasts of the Field or Birds of the Air. As their Divine Constancy rais'd their Souls above the World so the Cruelty of their Persecutors cast them lower than Beasts The Wounds they receiv'd the Torments they endur'd so chang'd their Features that nothing was more unlike Men but the Tormentors whose Barbarity plung'd them into so deplorable a Condition Yet Death in all these ghastly Disguises was not able to fright Young Lords and Tender Ladies from the Gospel They read GOD's Commands and were resolv'd to comply with Them. They knew their Souls were at stake and therefore to secure These they thought it no small Piece of Wisdom to expose their Bodies which once would fall a Sacrifice to Death in spight of Care and Artifice That the Tyrant's Rage if vehement would soon dispatch them that if remiss it might be borne So that what they could lose was only what Nature once would steal But Infidelity open'd a far different Scene It represented Heaven lost Hell found and Both for an Eternity These Motives so softned all the dismal Sequels of a Conversion to Christianity that they embrac'd it with Joy. And therefore I do not see why We who expect from our Obedience to CHRIST's Religion as great Recompences as They and ought to fear as great Punishments from our Infidelity should wander in a Labyrinth of Irresolations or rather should resolve to be argu'd out of the True Faith by such Arguments as weak Children and seeble Old Men have solv'd by the Effusion of their Blood. O GOD Seeing therefore this is thy Command I will seek the Truth not as if I fear'd to find it but like One who knows he may be eternally Happy with it and must be perpetually Miserable without it I will lay down Pâ—ejudice which is the worst of Counsellors and only take Sincerity with me in the Pursuit And when once I am so fortunate as to find this Treasure nothing but Death shall take it from me I will not value the Reproaches of Enemies nor the fawning Disswasions of Friends I will sacrifice my Honour to my Duty
THE VANITY OF Human Respects IN A SERMON By WILLIAM DAREL ISA. LI. Vers 7. Fear not the Reproach of Men neither be afraid of their Revilings Published with Allowance LONDON Printed for John Tottenham in London-House-Court in St. Paul's Church-Yard 1688. THE VANITY OF Human Respects IN A SERMON On LUKE II. Vers 49. Did you not know that I must be about my Father's Business GOD was not content to give us One Pledge of His Kindness by assuming our Nature but would add a Second by espousing our Miseries Those Showres of Tears with which He first saluted the World at His Nativity were scarce dried up when He permitted the Lance to open a Way to Streams of Blood that we might read His Kindness in as many Characters as He poured out Drops and that our Eyes might be Spectators as well as our Ears Witnesses of His Affection But as our Sins cry'd out aloud for a Saviour so did our Blindness plead as earnestly for a Leader A Redeemer's Death indeed could make us cease to be Bad His Life was requisite to point us out a Method to be Good And therefore He was pleas'd to leave us His own Life as a Model to frame ours by and to buy the Glory of His Body with the Price of those Vertues with which we must purchace the Happiness of our Sâ—uls He taught us Poverty at his Nativity bereaving Himself of all Things though He created All He preach'd us Obedience at his Circumcision and Patience at his Death But in this Day 's Gospel He gives us a Document as necessary to be learnt as it is hard to be put in execution viz. Nesciebatis in his quae Patris mei sunt oportet me esse Do you not know that my Affection to you must give place to that Love I bear my Father That all the Ties of Flesh and Blood are too weak to restrain me from my Duty Dear Christians Hear this Great Preacher and perswade your selves that it was not so much a Desire of satisfying his Parents which open'd his Sacred Mouth as of instructing you in a Point that perchance you all know though I fear sew practise Alas we live in so Complementing an Age that One false Step in regard of a Companion carries us into greater Convulsions than a Thousand Treasons against GOD. We lead Lives at Random as if we could be Sav'd by Proxy or as if the Fear of offending a Debauch'd Friend were a just Reason to offend GOD. Infine Our Judgments are so deprav'd by Heathenish Principles enacted by Christians that most Men Alas choose rather to be really Bad than to be thought Good A strange Frenzy I confess and a most Couragious Cowardize to stand the Stroke of a Thunder-bolt and to tremble at the Touch of a Tongue which takes its Point from our own Imagaination Give me Leave this Day to arraign human Respects from this Pulpit which Jesus Christ condemn'd in the Temple Be not angry if whil'st I accuse this Vice I fall not in It my self out of a Fear of displeasing Those whom I cannot please without betraying my Character and their Salvation I will draw my Discourse into Two Heads viz First I will discover the Intriegues of the Wicked to with-draw their Fellow-Creatures from the very Root of Godliness the True faith And then I will arm These with Weapons capable to over-come the strongest Human Respects which have always been the most fatal Obstacles the Devil can put in their way who seek the Truth Secondly I will address my Discourse to Those who in spight of all Opposition have embrac'd the True faith of Christ and will lay before them such Motives as shall be able to perswade any Man of Reason into a Resolution of bearing up close to the Duties of his Religion without which Compliance Faith is but a sounding Cymbal a specious Name and an insignificant Nothing 'T IS a great Happiness to Walk in the Way which leads us to Eternal Felicity and an Unhappiness above Expression to run in this World towards a Misery without Redress because Endless Those run the Fortune of the First who embrance a True Faith and Those the Misfortune of the Second who hugg a False One. So that we ought in Prudence to imploy all our Care to be in the Right And yet O Heavens our Study is to be in the Wrong notwithstanding as if our own Reason were too weak to work our Ruin our Companions lend us an Hand and We poor Creatures lay hold of it out of Civility though the Complement cost us our own Salvation 'T is a stupendious Thing to see what Divines this Corrupted Age and I may add too this Corrupted City hath brought forth and nourished and also how docile Scholars are in learning those Maxims they should never hear of without Horror Some teach raw Youth That poor Men here below grope in the Dark That Things beyond this World flote on Vncertainties And therefore That those black Stories of Hell those diverting Fables of Heaven are only fit to take place among the Romantick Tales of a Poetick Brain That the most Sparky Wits of Antiquity could never discover the least Glimmering of any other Divinity than Fortune And Why should We blind Batts pretend to discern a Being those Eagles never espied These Blasphemies edg'd with Wit and back'd with the Authority of Those whom Fools have plac'd in the Front of the Virtuosi are receiv'd by Youth which would fain find a Veil for the blackest Crimes as Oracles dropt from Heaven This Discourse is follow'd by Peals of Applauses every one cries The Gentleman hath Reason though in reality he hath no more than to deceive his Hearers nor Those than to be deceiv'd But if some are not overcome by this canting and modish Piece of Sophistry then He sits down in the Chair of the Scorner as the Psalmist expresses it and for want of Reason laughs his Auditory into his Atheistical Belief I must confess Railery hath more augmented-this Impious Doctrine than any other Engin either the Craft of Satan or Malice of his Emissaries ever set a running For though I can't tell how it comes to pass yet certain it is That whosoever patiently bears a Railery is judg'd defective in his Intellectuals And such is the present Perswasion of Mankind that it is a lesser Blemish to be esteem'd voyd of Grace than Wit. And then the Fear of losing a Place in the Academy of Wit or of being quite cut off from the Conversation of Men of Parts frights poor Creatures into a Resolution of embracing a Religion which hath no other Articles than to deny All. But because nothing but a Desire to Die as Beasts can perswade Men thus to Live like Them and that Few are so indulg'd to Sense as quite to lose it Therefore Others better acquainted with the Inclination of the Times will grant that there is a GOD. But then they turn Him into a Latitudinarian as if Any Worship satisfy'd