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A56704 A sermon preached at St. Paul's Covent-garden on the first Sunday in Lent being the second part of the sermon preached before the Prince of Orange / by Symon Patrick ... Patrick, Simon, 1626-1707. 1689 (1689) Wing P851; ESTC R31758 23,908 44

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Men. For the more thorowly we know the Will of God in Christ Jesus the more loving and peaceable as well as just and pure we shall be We shall make it our Business to do good to all but hurt to none no not to our Enemies and such as do hurt to us And therefore fill your Minds with a solid Knowledge of your Duty and not with Notions meerly or aiery Speculations which serve only for Talk and perhaps for Wranglings and Disputes There is a Knowledge I must here mind you which will hinder the fulfilling of this Prophecy for it makes Men fall out and quarrel one with another nay hate all those who are not of their Mind and Way But this is not the Knowledge of the Lord which as it is the Wisdom that is pure the Knowledge of the Holy so it is the Meekness of Wisdom the Way of Peace For it is the Knowledge of God's great Love to us in Christ Jesus and the Knowledge of that Love and Obedience we owe to him and of that extraordinary Kindness we ought to have one for another In this Knowledge let us grow and increase daily and not be like to those of whom St. Paul complains who doted about Questions and strifes of Words whereof cometh Envy Strife Railing evil Surmisings c. I. Tim. vi 4. I take it to be very remarkable that the Apostle cautions Timothy five or six times against this wrangling Religion which spent its time in Questions Doubts and Arguings about many useless Notions that tended to nothing but to fill Mens Minds with a false Opinion of Knowledge and to embroil the Church with Disputes that could never be determined or if they could it was never the more edified thereby either in Faith or Piety He begins with this Charge I. Tim. i. 4. Not to give heed to Fables and endless Genealogies which minister Questions rather than godly edifying which is in Faith. The critical Notion of which Words Fables and Genealogies is not to be expected in this Discourse It is sufficient to know that he means by Fables not only false and doubtful Relations which rely upon no certain Tradition but such as were idle also if they had been true because they served for nothing but to fill Mens Minds with unprofitable Thoughts and to keep out better Things Which was the fault also of that endless Pains which the false Apostles took to derive their Pedigree from the ancient Patriarchs which perhaps may be meant by Genealogies For they neither made Men a jot wiser nor more holy neither improv'd their Minds nor reformed their Wills and Affections Which is the great thing that the Gospel designs as he shews in the following Words where he tells what kind of Knowledge we should enquire after the end of the Commandment i. e. the Design of the Gospel is Charity the Love of God and of our Neighbour which springs out of a pure Heart purged from all sensual Affections and Passions and a good Conscience that aims only at being truly void of offence towards God and Man which arises out of Faith unfeigned that is a sincere Belief of the Gospel of Christ To the same effect he admonishes him again iv 7. Refuse profane and old wives Fables and exercise thy self rather unto Godliness Where it is evident he speaks of such Discourses as not only busied Mens Minds to no purpose but hindred them from being better imployed in serviceable Actions of Piety Mercy and other Christian Vertues And as in these two Places he opposes Piety to this sort of Knowledge so he doth in a third which I before named vi 3 4 5. where he describes those who doted about Questions and Strifes of Words as Men that consented not to wholesom Words even the Words of our Lord Jesus and to the Doctrine which is according unto Godliness Which he repeats again when he writes a second time to him in the next Epistle ii 22 23. Flee youthful Lusts but follow Righteousness Faith Charity Peace with them that call on the Lord out of a pure Heart But foolish and unlearned Questions avoid knowing that they gender strifes And the Servant of the Lord must not strive but be gentle unto all men c. By which you see that this is a Knowledge rather to be rooted out than planted and cherished though alas it hath been so diligently cultivated that it hath covered the Earth as the Waters cover the Sea which the saving Knowledge of Jesus Christ ought to have done The World hath been filled with Questions and Controversies and Men have thought themselves wise when they had learnt to argue and wrangle about them On this they have set their Hearts as if it were all Religion or the most considerable part thereof But to what end do we contend as Erasmus honestly glosses upon the first of these Places I. Tim. i. 6. whether Sin be a Privation only or a Spot which sticks to the Soul Let this rather be the Work of a Divine to persuade all Men to abhor and hate every Sin. We dispute whole Ages whether that Grace with which God loveth and draweth us be the same with that wherewith we love him again whether it be something created or increated Let us make this our Business rather that hy pure Prayers by Innocence of Life by pious Actions we may obtain the Favour of God to bestow his Grace upon us We squabble without end what it is that distinguishes the Father from the Son and both of them from the Holy Ghost whether a Thing or a Relation and how they can be Three when they are One Essence How much more pertinent would it be by all means to endeavour that we may piously and holily worship and adore that TRINITY whose Majesty is inscrutable and by our Concord and Agreement express to our power their ineffable Concord that so at length we may be admitted into their Blessed Fellowship for ever c. This indeed is a Contention most worthy of Christians to strive who shall have most Charity and be the forwardest to come to an amicable Agreement and make a friendly End of all their Differences In this we are truly Followers or Imitators of God whose great Design in sending his Son with the Gospel of his Grace to us was to reconcile us unto himself and one unto another If both be not wrought neither of them is nor is it possible for us to see happy days unless there be an Accord among us In order to which we must among other things avoid that contentious and quarrelsom sort of Knowledge by which Men lose not only their Charity but too often their Faith also and dispute themselves into Irreligion Which is so necessary a Caution that the Apostle I observe mentions it once more in the conclusion of his first Epistle to Timothy vi 20 21. O Timothy keep that which is committed to thy trust the Doctrine according to Godliness before mentioned v. 3.