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ID Title Author Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) STC Words Pages
A29274 A sermon preached before the King at White-Hall, January XXX, 1675/6 by Henry Bagshaw ... Bagshaw, Henry, 1632-1709. 1676 (1676) Wing B432; ESTC R22956 15,000 36

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A SERMON Preached before the KING AT VVHITE-HALL January xxx 1675 6. By HENRY BAGSHAW D. D. Rector of St. Botolphs Bishopsgate and Chaplain to the Lord high-HIGH-TREASURER of England LONDON Printed by William Godbid and are to be sold by Moses Pitt at the Angel against the little North-door of St. Paul's Church 1676. To the Right Honourable THOMAS EARL of DANBY Lord high-HIGH-TREASURER of ENGLAND And One of the LORDS of His MAJESTIES MOST HONOURABLE PRIVY COUNCIL MY LORD I Have adventured upon the Publication of this Discourse to the World as a poor Testimony of my Obedience to Your Lordships Pleasure Uprightness is my Subject and the Great Example of it is a PRINCE to whose Memory you pay homage Religion shines in such Instances and borrows new Majesty from the Pattern nay Martyrdom it self looks Royal and the Blood thus shed paints its Glory It is one Mistake in the World to cry down Titles as meer Names when as they produce Noble Effects and are such a shadow to Virtue that they protect it by following If Goodness gives Honour a real grace Honour pays it back in opinion therefore the usefulness that is in it renders it a fit Object of our regard However alone it cannot profit the Persons without Goodness be joyned You MY LORD have a great share in Temporal Dignity Your try'd worth has recommended You to Your Prince and the stedfast Integrity of Your Actings The first provokes Envy and the second Love to acknowledge it Your Fastness to the CHURCH is as well known and the employment of Your Power to oblige May God continue You an Instrument in His Service establish You with His Grace and preserve in You a Goodness as well as Greatness of Name which is the earnest Prayer of MY LORD Your Lordships most obedient Servant and Chaplain HENRY BAGSHAW A SERMON Preached before the KING PSALM xxxvij 37. Mark the perfect man and behold the upright for the end of that man is peace IT has been a perplexing Question in all Ages and by all sorts of Religions entertain'd why Good and Evil should be blended and mixt and without any show of choice dispensed amongst Men in the secret course of God's Providence This indifferency of acting in humane Affairs has made Heathens to conclude that an uncertain Chance governs the World nay it has further prevailed upon true Worshippers to suspend the exercise of their Faith though not utterly to destroy the root of it And such a kind of doubting the Church was subject to in David's time whence this Psalm was written for their cure who through weakness of flesh took sense for their guide and the outward surface of things for their argument to build on By the one they fell under a shortness of sight by the other they had emptiness for their object Therefore he sets them in a sure way of considering Events and that is to mark and examin them with their understandings to take their flight beyond present appearances to the ends and periods of things where the substance of Beings is discern'd because the truth of their state is laid open Otherwise we should be all apt to mistake and ready to pronounce a false judgment So a little before my Text he acquaints us what imagination he had when he first saw the wicked man whom he presently compares to the green bay tree as looking fresh and gay in the ornament of power though blood likely was the moisture that fed it His lawrels and his crimes they flourished together and an impious hand became the planter of his glory so that the Prophet thought at the first glimpse the prosperity of his condition to be most desirable But lo the exit of all He passed by and was not Verse 36. yea I sought him says the Psalmist but he could not be found As if all that greatness he beheld were rather some image in sleep where fancy sports with its own creation than a real object without presented to the beholder Who is it now he opposes to that wicked man or propounds to us devoutly to regard It is the perfect and upright Worshipper and the end he assigns him is peace or a glorious reward notwithstanding those seeming blasts in his life-time and the apparent ruins of his state when like a Cedar cut down he leaves upon the earth the sad reverence of his fall Mark the perfect man and behold the upright for the end of that man is peace I know the Septuagint read these words in the abstract which is followed too by some other Translations but the Hebrew-Text and the scope of the Psalmist not to speak of our own Bibles will justifie the sense I have mentioned And so I intend to handle them where we may consider three things First A Duty enjoyn'd Mark and behold that is as from a watch-tower look far off and observe Secondly The Subject wherein it is employ'd The perfect and upright man which includes also the opposite party the evil doer Thirdly The Fruit or Effect of this Observation Which is to discern a distinctness of end namely the upright man's peace or reward which necessarily supposes the others punishment I shall cast the two first into one proposition which is this That we ought to be heedful Observers of God's Providential Rule in the World and particularly of his Dispensation to his People As for heeding his Rule in the general 1. The Usefulness of the Work 2. The Excellency of our Faculties calls for it 1. The Usefulness of the Work since by an exactness of search we discover not only a Hand of Power but an Eye of Wisdom in turning the Wheel where all the courses of it are serviceable to God's Glory and the intricacy of its motions brings about the accomplishment of his Designs The result of this Discovery is increase of Faith settlement of Mind and a close dependency upon the Supreme Do but regard the Throne above you will regard too the Chain that is tyed to it how immoveably God holds there the Links of Causes not to be broken off nor alter'd but by His special appointment Did we thus mind the order of the whole Frame the connexion of Events and God's care to uphold what he has purposed a Spirit of Atheism would quickly vanish and the Light of that Theater we walk in would at once convince and reform us 2. The Excellency of our Faculties calls for such a beholding For God has planted in us contemplative powers as well as active nay the pure and spiritual exercise of the Soul lyes in the former It is the subliming of our Understandings the exalting of our Reason the great prerogative of our Beings to view God and his Works He is continually viewing them and Himself and we show the nobleness of our descent from Him when thus employ'd in our speculation If you regard the actions of Sense here Brutes do surpass us and the pleasures they enjoy are more accurate because they have