Selected quad for the lemma: death_n
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A23770
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A sermon preach'd before the King, Decemb. 31, 1665, at Christ-Church in Oxford by R. Allestree ...
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Allestree, Richard, 1619-1681.
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1666
(1666)
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Wing A1166; ESTC R17323
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16,852
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42
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indeed this Child riding as in Triumph in the midst of his Hosannas when he saw one City whose fall he was set for on this very accompt He was so far from being pleas'd with it that He wept over it in pity But alas that onely more declares the most deplor'd and desperate condition of such sinners Blessed Saviour Hadst thou no blood to shed for them nothing but tears or didst thou weep to think thy very bloodshed does but make their guilt more crimson who refuse the mercy of that bloodshed all the time that is offer'd Sad is their state that can find no pity in the tears of God and remediless their condition for whom all that the Son of God could do was to weep over them all that he did do for them was to be their fall Too sad a part indeed for Festival Solemnity very improper for a Benedictus and Magnificat To celebrate the greatest act of kindness the Almighty could design onely by the miseries it did occasion to magnifie the vast descent of God from Heaven down to Earth onely by reason of the fall of man into the lowest Hell of which that was the cause My Text hath better things in view the greatness of that fall does but add height to that Resurrection which He also is the cause of For Behold this Child is set for the rising again of many my remaining part Rising again does not particularly and only refer to the foregoing fall here in the Text which this Child did occasion as I shew'd you but to the state wherein all mankind both in its nature and its customs lay ingulf'd the state of ignorance and sin a state from which recovery is properly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a resurrection and a reviving in this life and so call'd in Scripture often as Ephes. 5. 14. Wherefore he saith A wake thou that sleepest 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and arise from the dead And Rom. 6. 13. Yield not your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin but yield your selves unto God as those that are alive from the dead Now to raise us from the death of sin into the life of Righteousness by the amendment of our own lives to recover us into a state of virtue is the thing this Child is said here to be set for This was that which God thought worth an Incarnation neither was there any greater thing in the prospect of his everlasting Counsel when He did decree his Son into the world then that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He is set for this The Word was made flesh to teach practise and perswade to Vertue To make men reform their lives was valued at the price of a person of the Trinity Piety and his exinanttion yea his blood and life were set at the same rates All of Him giv'n for our recovery The time would faile me if I should attempt only to name the various methods He makes use of to effect this How this Child that was the brightness of his Fathers glory came to lighten us shining in his Doctrine and Example how he sent more light The fiery Tongues Illuminations of the Holy Ghost to guide us in the ways of piety how he suffer'd Agonies and Death for sin to appale and fright us from it How He rose again to confirm Judgement to us to demonstrate the rewards of immortality to them that will repent and leave their sins and everlasting torments to those that refuse this Grace Grace purchased with the blood of God to enable them to repent and leave Besides all these The Arts and Mesnage of his Providence in preventing and following us by Mercies and by Judgments importuning us and timeing all his blessed Methods of Salvation to our most advantage Arts God knows too many if they serve us onely to resist and turn to wantonness and aggravation if we make no other use of Grace but this to sin against and overcome all Grace and make it bolster Vice by teaching it to be an incouragement to go on in it from some hopes we entertain by reason of this Child instead of doing that which he was set decreed to make us do And really I would be glad to see this everlasting Counsel of the Lord had had some good effects some though never so little happy execution of this great decree and that which God ordein'd from all Eternity upon such glorious and magnificent terms were come to pass in any kind Now certainly there are no evident signs of any great recovery this Child hath wrought among us in the world that 's now call'd Christian. After those omnipotent inforcives to a vertuous life which he did work out if we take a prospect of both worlds it would be hard to know which were the Heathen and there would appear scarce any other notice of a Christ among us but that we blaspheme Him or deride Him Sure I am there are no footsteps of Him in the lives of the community of men and I am certaine that you cannot shew me any Heathen age outgoing ours either in loosenesses and foul effeminacies or in sordidness and base injustice or in frauds and falseness or malignity hypocrisie or treachery or to name no more even in the lowest most ignoble disingenious sorts of Vice In fine men are now as Earthy Sensual yea and Devilish as when Sins and Devils were their Gods Yea I must needs say that those times of dark and Heathen ignorance were in many times of shining vertue and the little spark of light within them brake out through all obstructions into a glory of goodness to the wonder and confusion of most Christians 'T is true we are prity well reveng'd on them for setting us Examples so reproachful to us calling their Heroick actions splendida peccata only beauteous sins and well fac'd wickednesses and we have a reason for it because they never heard of Christ whose Name and Merit 't is most certain is the onely thing that can give value and acceptance to mens best performances while on the other side we Christians comfort and secure our selves in our transgressions from this Child and from his Name But if this Child were set to raise us up from sin and to establish stronger arguments for a good life then the Heathen ever heard of more especial Divine engagements to vertue then if their vertues were because they never heard of these engagements to them sins what censure will be past upon their actions that know all those engagements and despise them unless to defy knowledge and provoke against all Divine obligations all that God could lay shall prove more tollerable then to labour to obey without them without knowing why 'T is true they had not heard it may be of that Name then which there is no other Name under Heaven given unto men whereby they may be saved Yet they endeavour'd in some measure to do that which He that owns that Name and wrought the Covenant of those
Imprimatur ROBERTUS SAY VICE-CANCELLARIUS OXON A SERMON PREACH'D BEFORE THE KING Decemb. 31. 1665. AT CHRIST-CHURCH IN OXFORD By R. ALLESTREE D. D. one of the Canons of that Church Publish'd by His Majesties Command OXFORD Printed by W. Hall for James Allestree and Richard Davis A. D. 1666. II. Chap. of St. Luke part of the 34. vers Behold this Child is set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel and for a signe which shall be spoken against AND Simeon Blessed them and said c. A Benediction sure of a most strange importance If to bring forth one that is to be a large destruction if to be deliver'd of a Child that must be for the fall of many and the killing of the Mother's self be blessed if Swords and Ruines be comforts then my Text is full of these But if this be to Bless what is it to forespeak and abode ill Yet however ominous and fatall the words are they give us the event and the designe too of the Blessed Incarnation of the Son of God the Child of this Text and of this Season a short view of Gods Counsel in it and the Effects of it The Effects in these particulars 1. This Child is for the fall of many 2. For the rising again of many 3. For a signe with the quality of that signe he is for a signe that shall be spoken against 2. The Counsel and Designe of this is signifyed in the word here 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he is set and preordain'd to be all this First of the first effect This Child is for the fall of many And here I shall but only name that way whereby many men set this Child for their own fall while they make his holy Time to be but a more solemne oportunity of sinning We know many celebrate this great Festival with Surfets Excesses usual appendages of Feasting Oaths and Curses the ingredients of Gaming Dallyance and Lasciviousness the attendants of sporting of all which this seems as it were the Anniversary a set time for their return Thus indeed the Israelites did solemnize the Birth of their Idol-Calf They sate down to Eat and Drink and rose up to play And must we celebrate this Child too like that Calf because he was born among Brutes And must his Votaries also be of the Heard And he live and be worship'd alwayes in a Stable Because God became man must men therefore become beasts Is it fit to honour that Child with Iniquity and Loosness that did come into the World upon designs of Holiness to settle a most strict Religion Nothing can be more incongruous then this and certainly there is nothing of Gods Counsel in it But to you whose time seems nothing else but a constant Festival alwayes hath the Leisure and the Plenties and the Sports of one who as to these things keep a Christmas all their life this season as it does not seem to challenge those things to it self peculiarly so I shall not now insist on them but proceed to those wayes by which Simeon did Prophecy This Child would be for the fall of many in Israel And they are three 1. This Child whom I but now declar'd God had prepar'd to be the Glory of his People Israel yet his Birth was so inglorious and his Life answerable to it shall be so mean and poor and his Death so full of shame and curse that these shall prove a scandal to his people who shall be offended at them and being prepossest with prejudices of a Pompous Royal Messiah they will not believe in this but reject a Saviour that comes upon those disadvantages which will therefore prove occasions of falling to them That it was so is expressly said Behold I lay in Sion a chief corner stone a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence And that it was so upon this account is clear The great ones cry out of him This fellow we know not whence he is They that seem'd to know whence did upbraid him with it Is not this the Carpenter And therefore with a deal of scorn they question Do any of the Rulers or the Pharisees believe in him Yea Christ himself knew this would be so great a scandal that in the 11 Chapter of St. Mathew in the close of many Miracles which he wrought on purpose to demonstrate he was the Messiah he adds vers 6. and Blessed is he that shall not be offended in me As if he thought his mean condition would prove a greater argument against him then his mighty works were for him and it were a vaster Prodigy to see the Saviour of the world the promised Messiah poor and abject then to see one cure the Blind and heal the Lame and raise the Dead and they might think they had a stranger Miracle to confirm their unbelief then any he would work to make them believe in him And really that the Kingdom of the Messiah which the Prophets did express in terms as high as their own Extasies and Raptures in transported words as if it Vied with Gods Dominion both for extent and for duration should prove at last an Empire onely over twelve poor Fishermen and Publicans and one of them a Traytor too And that He that was born this King should be born in a Stable while he liv'd that he should not have an hole to put his Head in nor his Corps in when he died but his Grave too must be Charity this would startle any that did wait for the Redemption of Israel in those glorious expresses which the Prophets tract it out in To you indeed that are Votaries to this Child are confirm'd Christians these seeming disadvantages can give no prejudice However mean and abject his condition were that cannot make you to despise him who from that must needs reflect how dear you were to God when for your sakes meerly he became so mean and abject He became poor saith St. Paul that you through his poverty might be made rich He was made the Child of Man that you might be made Sons of God it was to pay the price of your Redemption that he so emptied himself thus he valued you and men do not despise meerly because and by those measures that they are esteem'd these are not there turns of love its passionate obliging ravishing effects do not use to be thus requited this his great descent cannot occasion your fall who know he descended only to assume you up to glory But 't is worth inquiry why since it was certaine that for this this Child should be the fall of Israel that for this they would reject him and the meanness of his condition would prove an unremoveable obstruction to their belief as it is to this day Why yet he would choose to be born in a condition so in the utmost extream to his own nature so all contradiction to his Divinity and so seemingly opposite to the very end of his