Neither hath this Man sinned nor his Parents that is they have not either of them so sinned as that he should be born blind for a Punishment of his own or their Sin but he was therefore born blind that the Works of God should be made manifest in him From the Words thus explained I shall take Occasion very briefly to do these two Things I. To shew that the temporal Evils which befall Men are not always inflicted upon them as Punishments for Sin II. To shew what other wise Ends of Providence the temporal Evils and Afflictions that befall good Men do serve for I. I shall shew that the temporal Evils which befall Men are not always inflicted upon them as Punishments for Sin Neither hath this Man sinned nor his Parents that he should be born blind says our Saviour And what was true in his Case is undoubtedly true in a great many others And the Holy Scripture it self furnishes us with several Examples of this kind But that of Job being one of the most remarkable ones I shall at present instance only in that Where first of all we may take notice of the Character that is given of him by the Holy Spirit of God Job 1.1 That Man was perfect and upright and one that feared God and eschewed Evil. So far was he from being a greater Sinner than others that on the contrary there was none upon Earth at that time so good as he Hast thou says God himself considered my Servant Job that there is none like him in the Earth Job 1.8 Certainly then if any Man could even merit to be exempted even from the common Miseries and Calamities of Humane Life it was he And yet it pleased God to order it quite otherwise And in him that Observation of the Wise Man was strictly verified That there be Just Men unto whom it happeneth according to the Work of the Wicked Eccles 3.14 For if in the next place we take notice of the Afflictions which befell this good Man I believe we may truly say that there is no Example of any the greatest Sinner that ever lived that was so hardly dealt by as he was Sometimes indeed a mighty Oppressor is forced to disgorge his ill gotten Wealth and is on a sudden from the greatest Plenty reduced to the most Miserable Want Sometimes again a notorious Sinner who escapes in his own Person is punished very severely in his Children and has his Punishment multiplied by enduring in the Misery of every one of them whom he loves as himself as much Pain and Torment as he would do if the Calamity that befell them had befallen himself And again The Punishments that are inflicted upon Men in this Life by the divine Providence are commonly single either miserable Want and Poverty or some painful Sickness or noisom Disease or perhaps a violent or untimely Death And when any of these Evils befalls any Man we can scarcely forbear crying out A Judgment A Judgment Surely this Man was a great Sinner or else he would not have been so afflicted What then should we have thought of a Man in whom all these Miseries and Afflictions were united as they were in Job Who was one Day Job 1.3 the greatest of all the Men of the East having seven thousand Sheep and three thousand Camels and five hundred Yoke of Oxen and five hundred she Asses and a very great House-hold Job 1.21 and the next day was bereft of all his Substance Job 1 2 4 5. and left as naked as he came out of his Mothers Womb who was one Day blessed with ten hopeful Children who were very obedient to their Father and very loving to one another and the next Day was deprived of them all at once and that too by a violent Death Job 1.19 by the Fall of an House upon their Heads And it added not a little to the Greatness of these Afflictions that they came all upon him suddenly when no such Evils were foreseen or could reasonably be feared and that they happened all at the same time the Messenger of one ill piece of News having scarcely told his Tale Job 1.16 17 18. before he was succeded by another the Messenger of a worse But hitherto he had suffered only in his Estate and in his Children but it was not long before he was brought to suffer likewise in his own Person Job 2.6 and that too in the worst Manner that the Devil himself could devise in such a Manner as perhaps no other Man either before or since hath ever suffered being smitten all over with sore Boyls Job 2.6 7. from the sole of his Foot unto his Crown so that he had not one sound Part in his whole Body And who would not have thought this Evil especially when added to all the others aforementioned a sufficient indication of God's high Displeasure against him Who that had seen such a miserable Object as he then was would not have concluded as his Friends then did Job 4.7 c. 8.3 4.11.6 that all these Calamities were certain Expressions and sure Tokens of God's severest Vengeance upon him for some great and crying sins well known to God although concealed from the World 'T is true indeed all this while his own Life was spared Job 2.6 the Devil had no Permission from God to touch that and he was not as some notorious Sinners sometimes are taken off by an untimely Death But his Affliction was not the less but much the greater for this for though an untimely Death to such as live in Ease and Plenty and Prosperity and Sin may be justly reckoned a Misfortune yet most certainly to such as are good Men and yet are in extreme Want or Pain or Misery it is a great Happiness to be delivered out of their sad and wretched state tho' it be by Death And so this good Man thought it would have been to him and therefore as patient as he was Job 3.2 c. could not forbear cursing the Day wherein he was born to endure such Misery and heartily wishing for Death to put an End to it Wherefore saies he is Light given to him that is in Misery and Life unto the bitter in Soul Which long for Death but it cometh not and dig for it more than for hid Treasures Which rejoyce exceedingly and are glad when they can find the Grave Job 3.20 21 22. Thus you see that all those Miseries and Calamities of Life which when they singly befal Men are sometimes Acts and Expressions of the divine Vengeance upon them for some great and crying Sins did all together befall this good Man of whom yet in the midst of his Calamity God himself gives this excellent Character Job 2.3 And the Lord said unto Satan hast thou considered my Servant Job that there is none like him in the Earth a perfect and an upright Man one that feareth God and escheweth Evil And still he holdeth fast
Christian Church as Portions of divine Revelation are spurious and supposititious who can tell but that those which forbid Swearing and Drunkenness and Fornication and Adultery and other abominable Lusts not fit to be named are so as well as those which I suppose this Author chiefly aims at which deliver to us the Doctrine of the Trinity and other Articles of our Christian Faith And therefore seeing the heavenly Doctrines and the pure and perfect Precepts of Christianity are both built upon the same Foundation of the Prophets and Apostles Jesus Christ himself being the chief Corner Stone if this Foundation be peck'd at and undermined and so weakened that one Part of the Building falls to the Ground I doubt it will be impossible by any Art to uphold the other But to return to my Subject 2. Another End of God's Providence in sending Afflictions upon good Men is for the Benefit of others who beholding their good Example may be thereby both directed and encouraged in the Practice of those Vertues which are proper to an afflicted State This was probably the Reason of Job's Afflictions This most certainly was one Reason why the History thereof and of his Behaviour under them is recorded in the Holy Scripture that by his Example others might be incited to the like Patience and Submission to the divine Will under all the Adversities of this Life Nay this was in part the Design even of our Saviour's Sufferings as we are told by St. Peter 1 Pet. 2.21 Christ also suffered for you leaving you an Example that ye should follow his Steps And therefore this also we may reasonably think was one End and Design of Providence in the Afflictions of our late martyred Soveraign whose Memory we this Day celebrate For to excite Men to the Practice of difficult Vertues there is need not only of Precept to direct and of Promise to stir up their Endeavours but likewise of Example to show them that the Duties commanded them are not impracticable and thereby to encourage them to do their utmost in an Assurance that their Labour shall not be in vain And the Example of Kings and great Persons being generally the most taken Notice of and also upon other Accounts more influential than the Examples of meaner Men it was agreeable to the Goodness of God and the Wisdom of Providence to chuse him out for this purpose that he might be an excellent Example to his own and to all succeeding Ages of all the Graces and Virtues that are proper to almost every State and Condition of Life that Men can be in And to this End it was expedient that God should expose him to divers Temptations and put him upon almost every kind of Trial. In all which he acquitted himself bravely like a Man and like a Christian For in his Prosperity he was not high-minded he did not trust in uncertain Riches he did not forget God he did not despise the Poor he was guilty of no Excess in the Use of sensual Pleasures So that in him amidst the Glories of a Crown and the Splendor and Plenty of a Court you might have seen all that Humility that Temperance that Chastity that Contempt of the World that Mortification and Self-denial and that strict and regular Piety and Devotion which might be expected but is not always found even in a Religious Cloyster And yet in his Adversity when it pleased God to make Trial of him that Way he was no less an eminent Example of all the Vertues and Graces that are proper to that State Indeed had he been always bred up in the School of Adversity he could not have born his Afflictions better than he did And this Consideration adds very much to the Excellence of his Example because his Afflictions as they were very grievous in themselves so they were also highly aggravated by their succeeding to a State of the greatest Plenty and Prosperity For 't is no such great Matter for a poor Man to be contented if he was always poor and was bred up hardly from the Beginning Nor is it so much Commendation to a Man to bear any Affliction patiently after he hath been a long while used to it But the greatest Trial of a Man's Vertue is in bearing well a great Change of his Condition for the worse And when from Plenty he is reduced to Want from great Prosperity to miserable Adversity from the highest Honour to the vilest Disgrace if then he acquits himself well and bears this great Change of his Fortune with Meekness and Equanimity he becomes an excellent Pattern to the World of the most difficult and heroick Vertues Such therefore was that Prince whose Memory we now celebrate Who was exactly the same in all Conditions and shewed himself even at the first Trial a perfect Master of all those Vertues which are suitable to an afflicted State which others can scarcely learn after they have been long in it Such was his Piety that in every thing that happened to him he meekly resigned himself to the divine Will and chearfully submitted to whatever God was pleased to lay upon him in a firm Belief that what God ordered was best And such was his Charity that he freely forgave the rude Insolencies and Affronts of his own Subjects even of those who had been in a particular Manner highly obliged by him And he not only forgave them himself but prayed earnestly to God to forgive them too And this humble and dutiful Behaviour towards God under the severest Trials And this charitable and Christian Behaviour towards Men under the greatest Provocations to Anger and Revenge fully justified his Integrity and perfected his Example so that now from the various Accidents both of Prosperity and Adversity which befell him and his Behaviour under them all Men in all Estates may be instructed in the Duties of their Condition and by the Pattern of such a great King and such an excellent Man may be incouraged to the Practice thereof And if it had not happened to this Just Man according to the Work of the Wicked we should have wanted one of the most Excellent Examples of Piety and Vertue that ever the World produced And upon these Grounds I suppose it is that the Church always celebrates the Memory of Martyrs with Joy and Gladness nay and keeps even the Days of their Martyrdom as Festivals not as Fasts as Days of Rejoycing not of Mourning viz. partly because of the great Advantage which the Church reaps from the Instruction and Encouragement of their Example who have suffered for the Truth 's sake And partly because those Days on which they suffered the worst of Deaths were even to them themselves the best Days of their whole Life the Days which did put a Period to all their Miseries and give them Admittance to everlasting Joys And therefore the ancient Church called them not the Days of their Death or Martyrdom but their Birth Days because they were then delivered out of an evil
and troublesom World and born again unto a new and endless Life of unspeakable Felicity Eccles 7.1 so that to them the Day of their Death was in truth much better than the Day of their Birth And upon both these Accounts we also might very well celebrate this Day of the Martyrdom of our late Pious and Gracious Soveraign K. CHARLES I. as his Birth Day and keep it as one of our highest Festivals had he fallen as the ancient Martyrs did by the Hands of Infidels or Strangers or by any other Hands than our own But this is our Unhappiness and indeed a most just Cause of the bitterest Grief and deepest Humiliation to us that we can never think of his exemplary Piety and Goodness without at the same time reflecting upon our own great Wickedness And that the more we admire his Vertues the more we must condemn our Selves through whose Iniquity it thus happened to him For tho' the Justice of God may be easily cleared and vindicated in suffering the best of Men to be grievously afflicted to be reviled and persecuted and even to be barbarously murthered by the Hands of the Wicked tho' I say these Dispensations of Providence so far as they are the Acts of Providence are both just in themselves and ordained to wise and good Ends this will by no means serve to excuse those wicked Men who are the Means and Instruments of the Afflictions of the Righteous because every Act is to be judged of by its self and not by the Effects which may follow from it but are not the natural Consequences thereof And if we may not do Evil that Good may come and our Damnation is just if we do that which is Evil tho' we design Good by it as the Apostle Teaches Rom. 3.8 much less may we allow our selves to do Evil only because God can bring Good out of it and much more will our Damnation be just if we do Evil with an evil Design altho' God can turn our Injury into Good to them to whom we meant it for Evil or may otherwise so order it that it shall produce very beneficial Effects to Mankind For who can think that the Persecutors of the Apostles and first Christians were the less to blame because God in his Wisdom so contrived it that the Blood of the Martyrs became the Seed of the Church and the most effectual means of Spreading Christianity in the World Or who will go about to excuse from the greatest sin that ever was committed the Betrayers and Murderers of our Lord because what they did Acts 2.23 4.28 was what God himself had fore-ordained for the accomplishing the Redemption of Mankind And therefore by the same Reason Altho' the sufferings of our late Martyred Soveraign did without all Doubt conduce much to his own spiritual Advantage and to the increasing the Glory of his Celestial Crown And He by his pious Deportment under them became an excellent Example to all others who are or shall be called to the like sufferings And while we consider these Advantages thereof both to him and us we may justly commemorate the same with Joy and Thankfulness and might reasonably keep this as we do the Days of other Saints with Feasting and Rejoycing yet when we consider on the other Hand who were the Means and Instruments of his Afflictions this opens quite another Scene and brings a black Cloud upon this most glorious Day and justifies the Wisdom of that Authority which has commanded us to keep it in a quite different manner even with Weeping and with Fasting and with Mourning because there is no Way to expiate a National Guilt but by a National Repentance For tho' it may charitably be believed nay tho' it be certainly true that there was not an actual consent of all the People perhaps not of an Hundredth Part of the People even of that Generation to this Act of great Wickedness and horrid Barbarity by which the Protestant Religion hath received the greatest Wound and Reproach and the People of England the most unsupportable Shame and Infamy Stat. 12. Car. 2. c. 30. yet when 't is consider'd that it was done by those who had then by the Help and Affistance of better meaning Men attained to an uncontroulable Power and that it was done under the Name and Authority of a Parliament tho' the Party which called themselves so and which passed the Ordinance for erecting that prodigious and unheard of Tribunal which they called An High Court of Justice for Tryal of his Majesty were not a tenth Part of the whole And when 't is further considered that a great many of those who did not give an actual consent thereto by their Voices gave too great a consent thereto by their Silence and by their not endeavouring in time to hinder it The whole Nation I fear can hardly be thought guiltless Nay and even we also who live now so many Years after the Act is done may yet be justly thought to give too great a consent to it and to be in some sort Partakers with our Fathers in the Guilt of shedding this righteous Blood if we can speak of this villainous Act or of the Preparations to it without Abhorrence Nay more If we do not heartily grieve and mourn at the Remembrance thereof for if you look into Ezek. 9.4 5 6. you will see that even in the Judgment of God himself they which do not mourn for the sins of others and especially for the publick Abominations that are done in the midst of the City or Nation to which they belong are Partakers therein And besides It may be also considered That tho' we who live now were not any of us of the number of those that were actually concerned in this villainous Act of murthering the Lord 's Anointed being perhaps not then Born or not of competent Age to be concerned in such Matters yet 't is an usual thing with God and what he has expresly threatned to visit the Sins of the Fathers upon the Children Exod. 34.7 and upon the Childrens Children unto the third and to the fourth Generation And if he sometimes does this for private and personal sins much more may we reasonably think he often does the same for such sins as are publick and national because tho' one Generation passes away and another comes the Nation never dies the Nation is still the same in this Age that it was in the last and will be the same in the next And this Threatning of God I think has been in some measure verified upon us For we have already felt many stroaks of the divine Vengeance as we have great Reason to believe upon this very Account 'T is reasonable I say to think this because some of the Judgments which have befallen us since have been the natural Effects and Products of this Days Wickedness for such I think we must all allow to be those many Years of Anarchy and Confusion which immediately succeeded this bloody Tragedy and also to name no more those dismal Fears and Apprehensions that we have since been in of Popery and Arbitrary Power occasioned in great measure by the Expulsion of the Royal Seed and Education in a Foreign Country and Religion That these will be the last Expressions of God's Anger against us for this great sin we hope but at the same time we have much greater Reason to fear they will not so long as all the same Wickednesses do abound which have drawn down those many heavy Judgments of God upon us which we have already felt And we can have no reasonable Assurance that we shall not be punished yet seven times more for our Iniquities unless now by a sincere Repentance and a thorough Reformation of our Lives and an unfeigned Humiliation of our Souls and an utter Detestation of all such villainous Practices for the future we endeavour to appease the Anger of God and to move him to Compassion towards us This then let us do and then let us Pray as we are taught in our Litany and we may reasonably hope God will hear our Prayer Remember not Lord our Offences nor the Offences of our Fore-Fathers Neither take thou Vengeance of our Sins Spare us good Lord spare thy People whom thou hast redeemed with thy precious Blood and be not angry with us for ever Amen FINIS Books Printed for Walter Kettilby at the Bishops-Head in St. Paul's Church-Yard GReat Men's Advantages and Obligations to Religion Represented in a Sermon Preached before the King in the Chapel in St. James's July 17th 1698. By Henry Hesketh Chaplain in Ordinary to his Majesty A Sermon Preached before the Right Honourable the Lord-Mayor the Aldermen and Governours of the several Hospitals of the City of London at St. Bridget's Church on Wednesday in Easter-Week 1698. being one of the Anniversary Spittle-Sermons By Thomas Lynford D. D. and Chaplain in Ordinary to his Majesty A false Faith not Justified by care for the Poor Prov'd in a Sermon Preach'd at St. Paul's Church August 28. 1698. By Luke Milbourn a Presbyter of the Church of England Mysteries in Religion Vindicated Or the Filiation Deity and Satisfaction of our Saviour asserted against Socinians and others with occasional Reflections on several late Pamphlets By Luke Milbourn a Presbyter of the Church of England
his Integrity altho' thou movest me against him to destroy him without a Cause And this one Example alone is I think a sufficient Proof of the first Point I was to speak to which was to show that the temporal Evils which befall Men are not always inflicted upon them as Punishments for Sin But the Day we are here met together upon may likewise furnish us with another great Example of it in our late gracious Soveraign King CHARLES I. And we should be injurious to his Memory if we should not now at this time briefly reflect thereupon Of whom we may say as was said of Job That he was a perfect and upright Man One that feared God and eschewed Evil for even his greatest Enemies his wicked Murtherers could not charge him with any Vice or Immorality or even with any Frailty or Infirmity but such as might be consistent with Integrity of Heart and Mind And of whom if we consider him as a King we may I think truly say for what Profit can there be in flattering the Dead especially One whom a great many now adays make it their Business and I suppose hope to find their Interest in it to blacken and defame as was said of good King Josiah Like unto him was there no King before him May there 2 Kings 23.25 after him arise many like him A King that could not by the softness of his Education nor by the Ease and Plenty of a Court nor by the many bad Examples that were ever before his Eyes of those who had greater Restraints upon them than he had be tempted to any Luxury or Excess or Extravagance in his way of Living A King whom the Pleasures of Sense of which he had or might have had as great a share as any could not make in love with Pleasure or fond of this World and whom the Multitude of Cares and Business that attend a Crown could not make to neglect or omit his constant Exercise of Devotion A King that naturally cared for his Subjects and pitied them as a Father does his Children that readily condescended to any thing that he thought was for their Good and would have granted more than he did to them if he could have done it without betraying the Rights of the Crown wherewith he was intrusted and which he valued more the Interest of Religion And indeed rather than do either of these he was contented to lose not only his Crown from off his Head but his Head too Such was the Saint of the Day whose Memory we now celebrate and whose Death we lament A Sinner indeed we can't deny him to be in the same Sense in which the Scripture says that all Men are Sinners Rom. â— 23 and that there is not a Just Man upon Earth Eccles 7.20 that doth Good and sinneth not But excepting only the Weaknesses of Humane Nature and such slips and infirmities as the best Men are liable to we may truly say of him 2 Kings 22.2 as was likewise said of Josiah that He did that which was right in the sight of the Lord and turned not aside to the right Hand or to the left And yet to this just Man it happened according to the Work of the Wicked or rather much worse For tho' there have been many cruel Tyrants and bloody Persecutors and Monsters of Wickedness which have been made Examples to the World of the divine Vengeance yet hardly hath it happened even to the worst of them so ill as it did to this the best of Kings and the best of Men. They have indeed some of them been overpowered by some neighbouring Prince displaced from their Government and driven into Exile And they have others of them been risen up against by their own oppressed Subjects and either slain in Battel or else being overcome they have been deposed from their Kingly Power shut up in Prison and secretly Murthered the just and wise Providence of God so permitting it to be But in all History I believe there is no Example parallel to this in every Respect scarcely any like it That a Soveraign King even while he was owned a King should have an Army of his Subjects levied in his Name and as 't was pretended by his Authority against his Person That they that endeavoured to depose and kill him should yet give out that they were fighting for him And that when they had got him into their Power they should set up a Court of Judicature upon him composed out of his own Subjects who had sworn Allegiance to him That there they should formally Arraign and Try him against whom only Treason could be committed for the Crime of High Treason And that at last they should proceed so far in their Hypocritical Impiety as to pass Sentence of Death on him from whom only the Judges of Life and Death could legally derive their Power and to Execute as a Villainous Malefactor the Father of their Countrey their rightful Lord and Soveraign The Evils that he suffered considered in themselves were as great as could well be endured but the Manner in which they were inflicted and the Persons from whom he suffered them were highly aggravating Ingredients in his Affliction so that all things considered perhaps no Man our Lord and Saviour only excepted did ever suffer more And now from these two great and notable Examples I hope we are sufficiently convinced that the temporal Afflictions which befall Men are not always certain Tokens of God's Displeasure nor always designed for the Punishment of their Sin upon whom they are sent And what we should learn from the Consideration of this Point is To beware how we pass a Judgment upon any Man from what befalls him in this Life Because such Judgment if it be not false is at the best rash and uncertain and we cannot Eccles 9.1 2. as the Wise Man says know Love or Hatred by all that is before us for all things come alike to all and there is one Event to the Righteous and to the Wicked And tho' nothing comes to pass by Chance and no Evil of any kind ever befalls any Man but by the Designation of the divine Providence yet the very same Event which to one Man is an Expression of God's Anger to another Man may be an Instance and Token of his Kindness and therefore when we cannot certainly tell which it is Charity obliges us to believe the best And this leads me to the Second thing propounded which was II. To shew what other wise Ends of Providence are served by the temporal Evils and Afflictions which befall Men. Neither hath this Man sinned nor his Parents that he was born blind but that the Works of God should be made manifest in him And what was said of this Man's Blindness is as true of any other worldly Evil that at any time befalls any Man If it be not intended for Punishment as it is not always there are some other Works of God that