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ID Title Author Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) STC Words Pages
A60950 A sermon preached before the covrt at Christchurch Chappel in Oxford by Robert South ... South, Robert, 1634-1716. 1665 (1665) Wing S4741; ESTC R38265 15,843 44

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A SERMON PREACHED BEFORE THE COVRT AT Christchurch Chappel IN OXFORD BY ROBERT SOUTH D. D. ●●●lick Orator to the University of Oxford and Chaplain to the Lord High Chancellor of ENGLAND OXFORD Printed by W. H. for William Nott and are to be sold by Richard Davis 1665. IMPRIMATUR ROBERTUS SAY Vice-Cancellarius Oxon. To the Right Honourable EDVVARD Earle of CLARENDON Lord High Chancellor of England and Chancellor of the University of Oxon. and one of His Majesties most Honourable Privy Couucil My Lord THough to prefix so great a Name to so mean a Piece seems like enlarging the Entrance of an house that affords no Reception yet since there is nothing can warrant the Publication of it but what can also Command it the Work must think of no other Patronage then the same that adorns and protects its Author Some inde●d vouch great Names because they think they deserve but I because I need such and had I not more occasion then many others to see and converse with your Lordships Candour and proness to pardon there is none had greater cause to dread your Judgment and thereby in some part I venture to commend my own For all know who know your Lordship that in a Nobler respect than either that of Government or Patronage you represent and Head the best of Universities and have Travelled over too many Nations and Authors to encourage any one that understands himself to appear an Author in your Hands who seldome read any Books to inform your self but onely to countenance and credit them But my Lord what is here Published pretends no Instruction but only Homage while it teaches many of the World it only describes your Lordship Who have made the ways of Labour and Vertue of doing and doing Good your Business and your Recreation your Meat and your Drink and I may add also your Sleep My Lord the Subject here treated of is of that Nature that it would seem but a Chimaera and a bold Paradox did it not in the very Front carry an Instance to exemplifie it so by the Dedication convince the World that the Discourse it self was not impracticable For such ever was and is and will be the Temper of the generality of mankind that while I send men for Pleasure to Religion I cannot but expect that they will look upon me as only having a mind to be pleasant with them my self nor are men to be Worded into new Tempers or Constitutions and he that thinks that any one can perswade but He that made the World will find that he does not well understand it My Lord I have obeyed your Command for such must I account your Desire and thereby Design not so much the Publication of my Sermon as of my Obedience for next to the Supream Pleasure described in the ensuing Discourse I enjoy none greater then in having any opportunity to declare my self Your Lordships very Humble Servant and Obliged Chaplain Robert South A SERMON PREACHED AT COURT c. PRO-VERBS 3. 17. Her Wayes are Wayes of Pleasantness THe Text relating to something going before must carry our Eye back to the 13 verse where we shall find that the thing of which these words are affirmed is Wisdome A Name by which the Spirit of God was here pleased to express to us Religion and thereby to tell the world what before it was not aware of and perhaps will not yet believe that those two great things that so engross the desires and designes of both the Nobler and Ignobler sort of mankind are to be found in Religion namely Wisdom and Pleasure and that the former is the direct way to the latter as Religion is to Both. That Pleasure is mans chiefest good because indeed it is the perception of Good that is properly pleasure is an assertion most certainly true though under the common acceptance of it not only false but odious for according to this pleasure and sensuality pass for terms equivalent and therefore he that takes it in this sence alters the Subject of the discourse Sensuality is indeed a part or rather one kind of pleasure such an one as it is For Pleasure in general is the consequent apprehension of a sutable Object sutably applied to a rightly disposed faculty and so must be conversant both about the faculties of the Body and of the Soul respectively as being the result of the fruitions belonging to Both. Now amongst those many Arguments used to press upon men the exercise of Religion I know none that are like to be so successful as those that answer and remove the prejudices that generally possess and barr up the Hearts of men against it amongst which there is none so prevalent in Truth though so little owned in Pretence as that it is an Enemy to mens pleasures that it bereaves them of all the sweets of Converse dooms them to an absurd and perpetual Melancholy designing to make the world nothing else but a great Monastery With which notion of Religion Nature and Reason seems to have great cause to be dissatisfied For since God never Created any faculty either in Soul or Body but withal prepared for it a sutable object and that in order to its gratification can we think that Religion was designed onely for a Contradiction to Nature and with the greatest and most irrational Tyranny in the World to tantalize and tie men up from enjoyment in the midst of all the opportunities of enjoyment to place men with the furious affections of hunger and thirst in the very bottome of Plenty and then to tell them that the envy of Providence has sealed up every thing that is sutable under the Character of Unlawful For certainly first to frame appetites fit to receive pleasure and then to interdict them with a Touch not tast not can be nothing else then onely to give them occasion to devour and prey upon themselves and so to keep men under the perpetual Torment of an unsatisfied Desire a thing hugely contrary to the natural felicity of the Creature and consequently to the wisdom and goodness of the great Creator He therefore that would perswade men to Religion both with Art and efficacy must found the perswasion of it upon this that it interferes not with any rational pleasure that it bids no body quit the enjoiment of any one thing that his Reason can prove to him ought to be enjoyed 'T is confessed when through the cross circumstances of a mans temper or condition the Enjoyment of a pleasure would certainly expose him to a greater inconvenience then Religion bids him quit it that is it bids him prefer the endurance of a lesser evil before a greater and Nature it self does no less Religion therefore intrenches upon none of our Priviledges invades none of our Pleasures it may indeed sometimes command us to change but never totally to abjure them But it is easily foreseen that this Discourse will in the very beginning of it be encountred by an Argument