of Faith whose Discipline whose Manner and Rites of Worship are more correspondent to Antient Tradition and Catholick Doctrine and Practice Is there any Protestant Church in Europe wherein the Word of God has been taught more sincerely and more to the edification of the people than among us Is there any Protestant Church that has more comfortably lived under their own Vines and their own Fig-Trees has more freely enjoyed all the benefits and privileges that either Religion or their Birthright could Intitle them to than we have done Is there any Protestant Church that has been preserved so miraculously that hath received so many wonderful deliverances from Enemies of all sorts Enemies of the Hills and of the Vallies and yet notwithstanding all notwithstanding the contrivances of false Brethren within ourselves and the assaults of the Publick Adversaries abroad does still not only continue in Being but Flourisheth also as God be thanked we do at this Day The care that God hath taken of this Nation hath been wonderful his Providences towards us are to be admired for the Rareness and the Graciousness of them â—…mnd therefore justly may the Lord of the Vineyard after all this Care all these Providences expect some good Fruit from us proportionable to his Kindness to us And long has he waited for it But what Fruits have we produced after all these great opportunities and this great patience Can we really say that we now are Better than our Fore-Fathers of the Reformation who perhaps had not more light certainly had not that experience of Gods Mercies and Deliverances that we have I am affraid our Hearts will give it Against us Can we say that we are not worse than they That we have at least made as good an use and improvement of the Talents that have been committed to us as they did It is to be feared we shall be cast upon this Point also Our own experience will tell us if we have lived any considerable time in the world That even since our remembrance Though God hath more and more both heaped his Favours and his Severities upon us yet we have grown worse and worse His Mercies have not Melted us His Judgments have not Reclaimed us He hath done all that is Possible both by Gentle and Severe Methods to bring us to a sense of our Duty but We like the Deaf Adder have stopped our Ears and have not hearkned to the voice of the Charmer though he charmed never so wisely What therefore these things considered can we expect but that God should pass the same Sentence upon this Unthankful this Irreclaimable People of England that the Lord of the Vineyard passed upon the Fig-Tree in the Parable Cut it down why doth it cumber the ground Or If you will take it in the words of the Prophet what should hinder or what can we expect but that God should speak to us that is decree upon us what he did to his beloved people in the fifth of Isaiahs Prophecy O Inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah judg I pray you between me and my Vineyard What could I have done more to my Vineyard that I have not done in it Wherefore then when I looked that it should bring forth Grapes brought it forth Wild Grapes And now go to I will tell you what I will do with my Vineyard I will take away the hedg thereof and it shall be eaten up and break down the wall thereof and it shall be troden down and I will lay it wast it shall not be pruned or digged but there shall come up briers and thorns This is the Judgment that is here threatened in the Text which I now come in the Second place more particularly to consider A grievous Judgment without doubt it is and the greatest that can fall upon any Nation For so much as our Souls are of greater concernment to us than our Bodies So much are Spiritual Mercies to be preferred before Temporal And so much the greater misery is it for any people to be deprived of them than of the other For that Nation that was once Gods own peculiar people to be abandoned by him and to be layed in common with the rest of the world that are under the Prince of the power of the Air For that Nation that once enjoyed the influences of Gods presence and the Light of the Truth and the benefits of his Ordinances now to be stript of all these To be without God without Light without the Ordinary means of saving their Souls O what more deplorable condition can be imagined And yet thus severe hath God been with many Nations thus when their sins have cryed loud and the sinners have been impudent and all Methods of amendment have been ineffectual God hath in anger Removed their Candlestick from among them The Church of Ephesus which Christ thus threatens in the Text Nay all the other six Churches of Asia to which the Epistles are sent are sad instances of this Once most flourishing Churches they were even the very Paradise of the Lord but now they lie wast and desolate over run with Ignorance and Barbarity and Mahometanism That Africa which is not now more fruitful of Monsters than it was once of excellently Wise and Learned men That Africa which formerly afforded us our Clemens onr Origen our Tertullian our Cyprian our Augustine and many other extraordinary Lights in the Church of God That Famous Africa in whose soyl Christianity did thrive so prodigiously and could boast of so many Flourishing Churches Alas is now a Wilderness The wild Boars have broken into the Vineyard and eaten it up and it brings forth nothing but briers and thorns To use the words of the Prophet And who knows but God may suddainly make this Church and Nation This our England which Jeshurm-like is waxed fat and grown proud and has kicked against God such another example of the Vengeance of this Kind It is true in all appearance there is no danger of having our Candlestick removed from us in the same sense or manner that those Churches I have instanced in had theirs We have no apprehensions that either Mahometanism or Paganism will come into these Kingdoms At least not in our days It is another kind of removal of our Candlestick that we have reason to fear It is another Religion nigher at hand that is most likely to displace our Candlestick You all know what Religion I mean It is Popery that most threatens us It is that restless busie Religion that has made so much disturbance in Christendom that has always been and is still so active by all means just or unjust by fraud or force to insinuate it self into all places It is this we ought to have the most apprehensions of It is true those that are of this Religion do profess the Name of Christ and we do not deny them the Title of a Christian Church But of all sorts of Christianity this seems to be the worst and
A SERMON Preached on the Day of the Public Fast April the 11 th 1679. AT St. Margarets Westminster BEFORE THE Honourable House of Commons BY JOHN SHARP Rector of St. Giles in the Fields and Chaplain to the Right Honourable Heneage Lord Finch Lord High Chancellor of England Published by Order of the House LONDON Printed by M. C. for Walter Kettilby at the Bishops Head in St. Pauls Church-Yard 1679. A SERMON ON REVEL ii 5. I will come unto thee quickly and will remove thy Candlestick out of his place except thou repent WE are this day met together to humble ourselves for our sins before God and to implore his mercy to this Nation in the Preserving our King our Laws our Religion and our Lives and in Blessing the present Publick Counsels in order thereunto And never was a work of this nature more seasonable or more necessary than at this time and to us of this Kingdom For as our sins were never greater never cried louder to Heaven for Vengeance so the Judgments they deserve did never more visibly threaten us than they do at this Day Insomuch that if our circumstances be duly considered we may have just reason to apprehend that our Saviour in the way of his Providence does now speak to the People and Church of England the same words that he ordered St. John by the way of Letter to speak to the Church of Ephesus Remember from whence thou art fallen and repent and do the first works or else I will come unto thee quickly and will remove thy Candlestick out of his place except thou repent This Church of Ephesus as also the other six Churches of Asia to each of which St. John by the command of our Saviour doth here address a several Epistle were at the time when these Letters were dictated very flourishing Churches favoured as much with the especial presence and influence of Christ as ever any Churches were This appears from the Preface to this Epistle in the first Verse of this Chapter wherein Christ the Author of the Epistle is described as holding the seven Stars in his right hand and walking in the midst of the seven Golden Candlesticks The seven Stars are the Angels of the seven Churches as he himself Interprets them that is according to the sence of all Antiquity The Bishops the Presidents the Governours of those Churches His holding them in his hand is his supporting and directing them for the good of the people The seven Golden Candlesticks in the midst of which he walked are as he himself likewise expounds them the seven Churches themselves as being the places where those Stars those Lights did shine And his walking among those Candlesticks is his presence in those Churches Encouraging or Reproving Rewarding or Punishing the members of them as there was cause having the power in his hands either to continue those Lights among them or to remove them to another place I insist on the Explication of this passage because it lets us in to the meaning of the phrase that we meet with in the Text of removing the Candlestick out of its place which from hence we plainly see to be the Un-Churching any people the withdrawing the Light of the Gospel from them Well But this Church of Ephesus to which the Epistle I am now concerned in was written how much soever Christ had done for them had it seems made but a bad requital of his kindnesses At first indeed they had walked very worthily and are much commended by our Saviour for their Zeal and Piety and Labour in Religion but now they were fallen to a great degree of negligence and remissness It is true they at this time continued Orthodox in their Doctrines and Opinions they did both know and profess the true Religion and were Zealous against false Doctrines which also our Saviour takes notice of and commends them for This saith he thou hast That thou hatest the deeds of the Nicolaitans which I also hate but yet notwithstanding so offended was he with the Loss of their first Love the decay of Devotion and Charity among them that he threatens them solemnly in the Text That if they did not repent and do the first works he would remove their Candlestick out of its place that is as I said he would withdraw from them his presence and the Light of his Gospel This is a brief account of my Text as to the first design and litteral meaning of it that is as it concerns the Church of Ephesus I now desire leave to make such Application of it to ourselves as may be subservient to the ends designed in the Solemnity of this Day And we have warrant enough to make such an Application for let us not flatter ourselves what is here Reproved and what is here Threatened hath not such a peculiar respect to the particular Church of Ephesus but that it doth equally concern all Churches so far as they fall under the same Character Which whether we at this day day do or no it is fit we should seriously examine ourselves about Here are three things considerable in the Text. First a great Sin and Guilt supposed Secondly a great Judgment denounced for that Guilt no less than the Un-Churching of that people that had contracted it Thirdly the means prescribed for the averting that Judgment viz. Repentance My Application of the Text shall proceed upon the same Heads that is I shall first desire leave to enquire whether we of this Nation at this day for our manifold sins and guilt may not be judged to be in as bad or worse circumstances than the Church of Ephesus in the Text and consequently have not just reason to fear the same Judgment that they are here threatned with Secondly I shall consider the Judgment here threatened how grievous a one it is and consequently how great an argument the consideration of it ought to be to us all to Repent Thirdly I shall speak somthing of this Repentance how it ought to be exprest if we would thereby prevent the Judgment I begin with the first of these points which concerns our sin and our guilt to make some representation of the Spiritual Maladies and Diseases that this Nation groans under those publick grievances by which the Holy Spirit of God is provoked to withdraw himself from us and to give us up to the Power and Dominion of other Masters This I must confess is a very melancholy and unpleasing Argument but yet very necessary to be insisted on and that very freely too especially upon such an occasion as this and most of all when I speak to those whose Concernment and whose Care it is to inspect these Matters and from whom we hope for a Cure of our Distempers It is here taken notice of the Church of Ephesus to her commendation that she retained the truth of the Christian Doctrine in opposition to the Heresies of those times and this God be thanked may be
Holiness and Purity How our Brethren of the Separation will dispose of their Members that are of this temper I know not But as to all those that pretend to be of our Communion and yet live scandalous lives and think that their owning themselves for the Sons of the Church will make Atonement for their Immoralities It is to be feared they have done us more hurt than ever they will do us good And unless they would Reform it may perhaps be wished that we were rid of them Let them declare themselves Fanaticks Papists Any thing rather than Members of the Church of England And though by their Recession and going over to the Enemies Camp we might possibly be so weakened that we could not support ourselves but must be forced to fall under our Adversaries Yet I do not know whether even then the Church would not be the better for it And it would perhaps be more desireable to live in a mean low afflicted condition without such Company than to govern the world with it But Fourthly These are not all the Maladies which this distressed Church and Nation labours under There is another Wound that is as Wide and Bleeds as much as any of the rest And which if timely care be not taken of it may cause her expiration as soon as any other I mean the Unnatural Un-Christian Feuds and Divisions that are amongst us our Nations being rent and torn into so many Parties and Factions and the cruel and bitter Animosities with which each party does prosecute the other And all this if men would consider for Little things in comparison things certainly not worth all this heat things that the Wisest and Best of the several dissenting parties confess to be indifferent O! How do men by these foolish and unaccountable Divisions weaken the common interest that all pretend at least to be concerned for What advantages are hereby given to the Adversaries It is likely indeed that as They first set on foot so They still continue to foment these differences They laugh at this opportunity of making Proselytes to their Religion and a plentiful Harvest they have hereby Reaped to themselves But where is our wisdom in the mean time Have men no more understanding than to be still hot and eager in their contentions about a shadow when there is an Enemy at the Gate that is in a fair way to take from us the Substance Some indeed may be apt to dispute which side ought to comply Whether the Dissenters ought to come over to the Established Church or the Church to them It is not now a time fully to debate the Merits of that Cause But this may be truly said If men would be honest and sincere and mix no passion or worldly concernment with their Religion the Point would soon be Decided on the Churches side Every man that calls himself a Protestant would think himself obliged to obey Lawful Authority in all things where he was convinced their commands were not Unlawful And if he could not with a safe Conscience come up to it in all things he would come up as far as he could And as for those things that he was not satisfied about as he would not Condemn or Censure Those that were persuaded or practised otherwise so neither would he raise any disturbance in the Church by joyning himself to an opposite Party And on the other side Those that did Conform to the Church in all things would not withdraw their Charity from their fellow Christians for not doing so much as They. Though they differed from them in several Opinions yet they would joyn hands with them in all Christian Offices of Mutual Love and Charity and in a joynt opposition of the Common Enemy But alas Things are not thus with us And I note it as a fault for which we ought deeply to be affected this Day And if men did duely weigh the sinfulness and the danger that all Schisms and Separations of this kind do bring upon a Nation they would be thus affected If human conjectures about the Reasons and Causes of Divine Judgments may be allowed it will appear from History and Experience that there has been as much War and blood-shed caused in the world as many Nations desolated as many Churches Ruined by the malignity and evil influence of this Sin of Schism as any other And if ever God in judgment shall think fit to give over this flourishing Church of ours as a prey to that mighty Hunter that would erect an Universal Spiritual Monarchy to himself upon the Ruines of all the particular Churches of Christendom we should have good Reason to believe that the unnecessary Divisions and Quarrels among ourselves had a great hand in bringing on the Judgment In all appearance we of this Nation might be Impregnable as to our Religion if those Protestants amongst us who have been so long separated from the Communion of our National Church would once return into its bosom that we might all heartily join together in Loving and Assisting one another and Opposing the publick Adversary But Fifthly and Lastly If the state of our Church and Nation was not near so bad as I have now represented it Yet there is another thing still that all even the best of us have reason to be sensible of and to mourn for as that which of it self is sufficient to bring destruction upon us And that is our Ingratitude to God for his many Mercies and Deliverances and our Unprofitableness under those means of Grace that he has been pleased so long to afford us I cannot call this a particular sin It is if you will an Aggravation of all the rest or all of them summed up together However I give it a particular consideration because it is a thing that God has set a Mark upon and has so far declared his displeasure against it that he has determined it a just cause to Un-people or Un-Church a Nation Our Saviour tells us that when a certain man had Planted a Fig-Tree in his Vineyard and came and sought Fruit thereon and found none he said unto the Dresser of his Vineyard Behold these three years I come seeking fruit on this Fig-Tree and find none cut it down it why doth it cumber the ground Let us apply this Parable to ourselves as certainly the Reason of it will sufficiently prompt us Was ever Fig-Tree or Vineyard more curiously Planted more carefully Drest more richly Manured more securely Fenced from the outrages of Beasts of Prey than our Fig-Tree our Vineyard the Church of England For of a Church this Parable is necessarily to be understood Is there any one of the Protestant Churches in Europe that has been so regularly Reformed that in the first Constitution of it was Established upon Principles so justifiable so agreeable with the Laws of Nature and Christianity and the Civil Rights of the Kingdom as this Church of England was Is there any Protestant Church in Europe whose Articles