A SERMON PREACHED In a Congregation in the City of EXON ON THE Thanksgiving-day Thursday April 16. 1696. By a Minister of the Gospel LONDON Printed for Robert Osborne Bookseller near the Bear in Exon 1696. 1 Samuel 12.24 Only fear the Lord and serve him in truth with all your heart for consider how great things he hath done for you IF we look back to the eighth Chapter of this first Book of Samuel we shall find that the Israelites were extreamly desirous of a King The Government which God had set up amongst them did not satisfie them They were fond ef being like to other Nations round about them They would have a King to Rule over them They were weary of that easie that gentle Government which God had Erected they would have one that should Rule with a more absolute sway and exercise a Power more Despotical amongst them But this was a most apparent affront to their God it was an ungrateful contempt of his Government Therefore says God to Samuel 1 Sam. 8.7 They have not rejected thee but they have rejected me that I should not Reign over them i. e. This their eager desire of a King was not so much a quarrel they had against Samuel as it was a daring affront to God himself who had placed them under that sort of Government by Judges In this chap. 12th verse 1. we have an account of Samuel's discourse to this People in which he tells them that he had granted their request had complied with their unreasonable demand and had appointed them a King Then he goes about to convince them of their Ingratitude to their God in their having been so impatiently importunate for a King He recounts to them how eminently God had appeared on their behalf How signally he had delivered them with what wonders of Providence he had favoured them how he had many times secured them from the hands of their cruel Enemies who sought their destruction Then in the close he very tartly upbraids them with their disingenuous carriage to their God in their peremptory request of a King verse 12. Ye said unto me nay but a King shall Reign over us when the Lord your God was your King Farther to convince them of their sin against their God and of the Divine displeasure against themselves for so insolent a piece of Ingratitude He calls for a Storm of Thunder and of Rain verse 17. Is it not Wheat-Harvest to day I will call to the Lord and he shall send Thunder and Rain that you may perceive and see that your wickedness is great which ye have done in the sight of the Lord in asking you a King And immediately such a storm of Thunder and Rain was sent from Heaven which was somewhat unusual in those Countreys in time of Harvest as some assure us This Judgment somewhat awakened them hereupon they address Samuel to intercede with God for them verse 19. And all the people said unto Samuel pray for thy Servants unto the Lord thy God that we die not for we have added to all our sins this Evil to ask us a King Samuel tells them that he would become a Supplicant on their behalf For says he verse 23. God forbid that I should sin against the Lord in ceasing to pray for you As if he had said I am sensible that it is my unquestionable duty to pray for you as I am a man an Israelite a Minister I am obliged to do this for you Nay so far was he from putting them off with a Denial that he would not only pray for them which was part of his Office but as a faithful Minister he would likewise instruct and advise them for their advantage and happiness he would discover to them what course they should take what methods they should pursue to become a peaceful a prosperous and a flourishing People Therefore he says I will teach you the good and the right way A way far beyond any thing of the best Humane Politicks whatever a Method for safety and settlement far surmounting any thing they could possibly contrive And this way he lays before them in the words of my Text viz. Only fear the Lord and serve him in truth with all your heart for consider how great things he hath done for you In which words you have these things considerable as 1. An Exhortation to a duty Fear the Lord and serve him in truth with all your heart In which Exhortation you may again consider 1. The Matter exhorted to which is to fear the Lord and serve him in truth i. e. They were to worship him with a Worship of his own prescription and of Divine Institution 2. You have the Manner prescribed how this duty is to be performed with all the heart 2. You have the Encouraging Motive laid down to induce them to the more careful discharge of this prescribed duty and that in those words For consider how great things he hath done for you From the words I would present you with this Truth to be the subject of a short Discourse viz Doct. That the consideration of those great things which God has done for a People should be a powerful Argument to induce them to fear and serve him in truth and with all their hearts VVhat I have to say upon this subject I shall confine to these following Generals As 1. I shall briefly shew you what we are here to understand by fearing and serving of God 2. VVhat it may import to serve God in truth and with all the heart 3. Prove that the Consideration of the great things God has done for a people should be a powerful Argument to persuade them to serve God in Truth and with all the Heart 4. Shall make some practical improvement of it 1. I shall briefly shew you what we are here to understand by fearing and serving of God I shall not at present detain you with a discourse about the various significations of the word fear it will be sufficient for my present purpose to prove to you that this word many times in the Sacred Scriptures is of so ample a signification as to denote the whole worship of God Thus Deut. 10.12 And now Israel what doth the Lord thy God require of thee but to fear the Lord thy God i. e. to adore and worship him in opposition to all Heathenish Idolatries and false-worship And thus Psal 34.9 Oh! fear the Lord ye his Saints i. e. Pay him all the respect the reverence and adoration which is his due Thus Deut 6.13 Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God and serve him and shalt swear by his Name What we are here to understand by the fearing of God may be learnt from those words of our Saviour which are a comment upon this Text Matth. 4.10 Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve Here our Lord explains the word fear by worship So that frequently in the sacred writings we meet with the word
the great things God has done for us 4. Now let us consider the signal Mercies we do yet enjoy notwithstanding all the Malice and Designs of our Inveterate Enemies Our King is yet in Safety and our Nation in Peace We yet enjoy the Worship of God without Idolatry we have Liberty without Slavery The Sword does not ravage in the midst of our Bowels Every one sits down joyfully under his own Vine and his own Fig-Tree and there is none to make us afraid Micah 4.4 We live under the Conduct of Gentle Governours who do not make us to bend under a Gallick Yoke nor Reign over us with an Egyptian Rigour They do not Rule us with Rods of Iron nor Scepters of Steel But they treat us with all the Lenity and Mildness with all the Justice and Righteousness that the most discontented amongst us can possibly expect Can persons have the vanity to suppose that we should be full as easie under the Government of a Popish Power Can they believe that the late King now more fully taught the Methods of Persecution and Severity in the French Court would upon his return which God prevent be more tender of our Lives our Liberties or more intent upon the promoting of our common Tranquility What Man of thought or penetration can ever give admittance to so groundless a supposition Well notwithstanding the restless Malice of our Enemies Heaven showers down a plenty of Mercies incessantly upon us Let us thankfully own God as our Bountitul Benefactor in the bestowment of them as our Glorious Protector in continuing to us the quiet and peaceable possession of them We have many Eminent Blessings both Civil and Sacred which our Enraged Adversaries have not as yet been able by Cunning or Power to ravish from us Let our God have the glory of all Let the consideration of our present Tranquility engage us to fear God and to serve him in Truth and with all our heart Let us no more put him off with heartless and hypocritical Devotions Let all our Services be accompanied with Sincerity God was real in our Deliverance let us be real in our Duties Let our warmest Affections animate all our Devotions What greater Motive can be propounded to you to engage you in the cordial Service of your God than this great this signal this eminent Deliverance which he has so seasonably wrought out for us Deut. 11.7 8. Your Eyes have seen all the great acts of the Lord which he did therefore shall ye keep all the Commands which I command you this day Own the kindness of Heaven seen in the safety of the King and our own Security by Thankful Lips and Loyal Obedient Lives Let us offer him the Sacrifice of Praise let us magnifie his Name and grace our Profession by a Religious an Honest and a Sober Conversation that God may not frown upon us but may continue with us the Blessings of Time and at last ravish our Souls with the Joys of Eternity FINIS Books Printed for and Sold by Robert Osborne near the Bear in Exon. THE Pastor's Care and Dignity and the People's Duty A Sermon Preached at the Assembly of Ministers at Taunton Sept. 7. 1692. By G. Tross Christ's Ascension into Heaven asserted and practically improved in several Sermons By the Reverend Mr. Joseph Hallet late Minister of the Gospel in Exon. The Pastor's Charge and the People's Duty A Sermon for the most part Preached at the Assembly of Ministers at Exon June 7. 1693. By Samuel Stoddon
fear importing the whole worship of God In this sense are we to take the word fear in the Text And the following word serve is Exegetical of the former and likewise shews that by the word fear we are to understand a worshipping and an adoring of the True God Then as to the word serve it also imports the worshipping of God look back but to verse 10. of this Chapter and hence you may learn the meaning of this word For there is it said And they cryed to the Lord and said we have sinned because we have forsaken the Lord and have served Baalim and Ashtaroth But now deliver us out of the hands of our Enemies and we will serve thee Where the serving of God is put in opposition to the serving of Baalim and Ashtaroth and so plainly denotes the worshipping of God So that the thing which Samuel here presses the Israelites to is the paying that homage that honour and adoration to the great Jehovah to the only immortal God which are his due He would have them to give over the worshipping their Baalim and their Ashtaroth to renounce all Heathen Deities and to betake themselves intirely to the service of the only True God 2. I am to explain what it does import to serve and fear God in truth and with all the Heart And here 1. What it is to serve and worship God in truth Now to serve God in truth is to worship him in a way and a manner of his own appointment It is to present him him with such services as he himself has Authorized So that it is put in opposition to all false worship For Samuel does here caution the Israelites against all Idolatrous and Superstitious usages against all kind of worship that has not the stamp of Divine Authority put upon it for no worship can be pleasing to God but what can plead a Divine warrant Whatever pompous Devotions and gaudy Ceremonies men may adopt into their worship if they cannot shew a Commission from Heaven for them God will abhor them altho their esteem may be ne're so much buoyed up by Mens approbation and applause God's will and command is the Rule of worship not Mens teeming fancies Therefore it is a sin against God an affront to his Soveraignty for any man or any society of Men to use any othet sort of worship than that God has legitimated by his own Command Wherefore God rebuking the sinful complyance of the Jews with the Idolatrous worship of the Heathen nations condemns their practices as sinful because they were not bottom'd upon any command of his Jerem. 19.5 They have built also the high places of Baal to burn their Sons with fire for burnt-offerings unto Baal which I commanded not nor spake it neither came it into my mind They had no injunction from God for the warranting such a kind of worship that was enough to render it unlawful They acted without a Commission therefore was it false worship and sore displeasing to God Now worship may be false Either 1. With respect to the Object Or 2. With respect to the Medium of Worship 1. Worship may be false with respect to the Object of it As when persons terminate that worship which is only due to the great God on any Created and finite being when they pay that homage and adoration to the Creature which ought entirely to be confin'd to the glorious Creator either when they limit their Devotions to the Creature with a total neglect of the Almighty God and substitute some other person or thing in his Room to be the Object of their Religious adorations Thus some besotted wretches worship the Devil pay their homage to the Prince of Darkness as if He were the God who made them Apiece of Idolatry practised amongst many of the Inhabitants of Florida and the Natives of Virginia were formerly no strangers to it and generally in the Southern America they have set up the destroyer of Souls for their Deitie Lactant. de origin error Cap. 14. Some have worshipped the Hosts of Heaven the Sun the Moon and the Stars Nay the Jews themselves tho' instructed in the true worship of God became so sottish as to take up this piece of Idolatry in imitation of their Heathen Neighbours for it is said Jer. 19.13 And the houses of Jerusalem and the houses of the Kings of Judah shall be defiled as the place of Tophet because of all the houses upon whose roofs they have burnt Incense unto all the Host of Heaven Strange that a people favoured with so many stupendious Miracles to render the belief of the Messages of God to them the more easie should be so soon drawn away to the worshipping of the Celestial Luminaries one would have thought that the many excellent priveledges they were blessed with beyond others and the excellent informations they had from the inspired Prophets should have sufficiently fortified them against so gross a piece of Idolatry But we are told 2 Kings 17.16 That they left all the Commandments of the Lord their God and made them Molten Images even two Calves and made a grove and worshipped all the Host of Heaven and served Baal Others as the antient Persians have set up Fire for their God and with a blind Zeal have paid it their Devotions Matth. Theat Histor p. 13. says Chaldaei ignem sacrum pro Deo coluerunt that the Chaldeans also worshipped sacred Fire and he assigns the reason of it Cum enim audierant Sacrificia à Sanctis Patriarchis oblata Igne coelitûs delapso Incensa consumpta esse non Deum cujus potentiâ illud fiebat sed ipsum Ignem colere stolidi ceperunt They paid this Reverence to the Element of Fire because they had heard that it consumed the Sacrifices which were offered up by the antient Patriarchs But the Egyptians on the contrary chose out the Element of Water for their Deity and so made their devout Addresses to the Banks of their famous Nilus Hereupon says Julius Firmicus de Errore Prof. Relig. p. 2. Aegypti incolae Aquarum beneficia percipientes Aquam colunt Aquis supplicant Aquas superstiriosâ votorum continuatione venerantur The Egyptians perceiving the great advantages of the Element of Water worship the Waters Vid. Caelsi Rhodigini lectiones Antiquas p. 1489. pray to them and address them with their repeated superstitious Vows Others again altho' they worship God yet they admit either Angels or Men or some other creature to share with God in their devotional Addresses Thus many amongst the Heathens have adored sinful Men whose Vices gave them their Divinity and whose Crimes were their Consecrations Bacchus and Venus were numbred amongst their Deities and had their respective Homages paid them Vid. Caecil Cyprian de Idolorum vanitat p. 2. and Minut. Faelix de Idolorum vanitat p. 27. says sanê Acca Larentia Flora Meretrices propudiosae inter Romanorum Deos computandae Others have adored Men famous for
been able to open their Eyes or to make them to see the kindness of Heaven to us A Crown upon a Protestant head is the matter of their grief and nothing will content them but a Popish Governour They would have a King who is an Enemy to their Religion their Liberties and their Peace A strange Infatuation that any persons professing the Protestant Religion loving their own Countrey valuing their own Laws and Government studious of their own Tranquility should be governed by such a Temper whilst the late King James was upon the Throne encouraging the Popish Party visibly driving to Rome with a full Career then they were uneasie till they had dismissed him from the Government they concluded as justly they might that they could not long be safe if such Throngs of Priests and Jesuits were admitted to croud about the Throne But now the Tyde is turned and he that was before so much their Dread is now their Darling his Return is now eagerly desired whose Absence before they could have wished for Now it must be supposed he has been taught more Mildness and Mercy more Faithfulness and Veracity in the French Court and is now formed into a loving Temper ro Protestants We must now imagine that his long Converse with some of the Most Violent and Cruel of the Catholicks has much abated his Rigour calmed his Spirit and sweetned him into Lenity The discontented Party would have us believe that the late King having been provoked by the Loss of Three Kingdoms having been more fully instructed in the Politicks of France having been exasperated by the suggestions of the Papists about him is now the better qualified for the Government of a Protestant People They promise themselves that he will be all Clemency and Kindness to them that he will be studious of their Interest and they have expectations of I know not what immense Advantages which will accrue to them in case he should be restored But alas these unthinking persons do strangely forget what they actually suffered and what they were farther in danger of suffering under the late Reign They are of the Temper of the discontented Israelites whose cry it was Numb 14.4 Let us make a Captain and let us return to Egypt They forgat the Miracles at the Red-Sea and in the Wilderness Although God was bringing about of their compleat Deliverance and their comfortable Settlement yet were they discontented They would return to their former Bondage They had rather go back and lie down under Pharaoh's cruel Oppression than that God by Moses should deliver them Thus many amongst us are so lamentably besotted that they had rather have their necks galled with a Romish Yoke than accept of deliverance from the hand of a Protestant of a reformed Prince This is horrible ingratitude both to God and their King 2. By way of advice I would persuade all persons amongst us to fear and serve God in truth and with all the heart Do not dissemble with an All-knowing God in your Devotions Let your affections animate all your duties Keep close to the ways of worship of God's own prescription Take not up with any superstitious dotages of Men. Worship God according to his own Institutions and not according to Mens fancyful inventions See that all your Religious services be such as God does require both as to the matter and the manner of them too To encourage you to this I would lay before you no other Motive than what is offered you in my Text. For consider how great things the Lord hath done for you Consider the many favours and blessings which the bounty of Heaven has indulged us God has planted the reformed Religion in these Lands and made it a national stablishment He has favoured us with excellent civil Priviledges and Immunities He has continued these blessings now with us for many years notwithstanding the many daring impieties and Rebellions with which we provoked him Altho' we have despised the riches of his goodness slighted his mercy and taken no care to make suitable returns to his bounty yet has he not made us desolate nor p rmitted our restless Enemies to ravish from us our privelidges either Civil or Sacred He has brought us most excellent and wonderful Salvations when our case has been deplorable and we just upon the brink of ruine It was not long since we had a Popish Governour seated upon the English Throne swaying the Scepter according to the directions of Popish Council Then they attempted to Subject us to the Romish Yoke and to introduce amongst us the Idolatries and Superstitions of the Romish Church Had we but continued a few years longer under that Government in all probability we might have seen all our Religious and Civil Liberties torn from us For where ever Popery comes it brings Idolatry into the Church and usually slavery into the state The design which was then on foot was to have reduced us to the Posture of France to have made us Slaves and Idolators And had not our Gracious God happily prevented them by the late seasonable revolution instead of a well-limitted Monarchy in the state we should have smarted â—nder a barbarous Tyranny Instead of Religion and true worship in the Church we should have been over-run with multitudes of Superstitious Foperies and unwarrantable devotions In liew of Solid Gospel truths to have been preached to publick Auditorys we should have been entertained with nothing but Legendary Stories from the Priests and Monks of equal truth with the most fablous Romance Instead of Devout prayers in our own Tongue we should have been put off with a little Latine Service with some Ave Maria's pater nosters Beads would have been more frequently handled than our Bibles Instead of the Compleat Sacrament of the Lord's Supper we should have had only a Part of it the Cup being denyed the Layity by the Church of Rome To conclude Instead of an Indulgence to tender Consciences we should have been Treated with fire and faggot with all the Severities and Cruelties that Popish Malice could have suggested But blessed be the Lord who gave us not a prey to their Teeth Ps 124.6 He by a gracious an unexpected providence prevented these miseries which threatned us He sent our Moses amongst us to secure and deliver us from our more than Egyptian Foes He opporturely conducted our King to the Brittish shore led him on without blood or opposition to the â—hrone there he seated him to the general joy of the Nation and to the Confusion of our avowed Enemies where still he sits to the satisfaction of the most and the best of his Subjects But yet it must be confest that a Malignant party amongst us envy him his Honour and Advancement and are troubled to see so much vertue mounted to a Throne They grieve that one so fitted for Government one so tender of our safety one so concerned for the preservation of the Protestant Religion one so much an Enemy