Selected quad for the lemma: kingdom_n
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A30271
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Causa Dei, or, Counsel to the rich of this world to the highest part of the dust of the earth : to which is prefixed an humble address to the King's Majesty.
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Burgess, Daniel, 1645-1713.
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1697
(1697)
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Wing B5696; ESTC R15481
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49,787
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144
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only Coin that 's Currant the only Price at which you let your Souls go Nec quisquam Animi causa fit malus saith Seneca None are so prodigal of their Service as to serve the Devil grat is Esau will have red Pottage for it Ahab will have a Vineyard Gehazi will have Sheep and Oxen Achan will have a Golden Wedg Judas will have three Pound eight Shillings and Sixpence unto that Sum of ours came his Thirty Pieces Demas will try the Market and have as much as he can get In these things therefore in these is your Danger As it was exclaimed by a dying Miser In rich Grass laid all my Snakes You shall scarcely read of one in an Age like unto Job Who feared God and eschewed Evil when he was the Prince of the East more than when he was Poor to a Proverb Or like unto Jehosaphat who then when all Judah brought him Presents and he had Riches and Honour in abundance had his Heart lifted up in the ways of Jehova The Enjoyments which usually fuel Mens diabolick Lusts enflamed his Seraphick Love Genteel and Noble most Men are like Hannibal in Wars victorious but with Pleasures vanquished In Affliction they Pray in Prosperity they Blaspheme The very Man after God's own Heart was less exactly after it upon his Throne than in his Exile Multitudes we have known like to the Lamps in the old Roman Tombs Which as long as they were kept low and close burned and shone with a Light very Glorious But as soon as taken up went out with a Stench Rarely are hail Consciences held in the contagious Air of secular Pomp. White Silver draweth black Lines in all Hands Yellow Dust is choaking in all Throats And as Mercury it kills Men that come by it ever so Honestly if they use it not as carefully Opinion it is that gives it its Worth and Opinion is sufficient also to make it your Death For Covetousness the Canine Appetite after it is not more mortal than Fondness and immoderate Esteem of it To covet your Neighbours Vineyard is a Sin very hainous but to overvalue your own is not at all less The Causes and Effects of both are alike malignant It is said that the Runnagate from our Saviour went away because he had great Possessions had them in Possession and in Admiration It is not said nor can it be concluded that he coveted greater Possessions Wherefore Awake Sirs and look out A fronte Lupus a tergo Praecipitium Before and Behind 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 your Dangers are great Plato's Thunder is without a Bolt he has falsely said It 's impossible for you to be eminently Good Rich Abraham was as Good on Earth and is as Great in Heaven as poor Lazarus Except but Hell one would have looked for a Saint any where sooner than in Nero's Court. Yet in that Cage of all Uncleanness there lived some Birds of Paradise Usque adeó difficillimum est magnarum rerum Contubernio non corrumpi Your Seneca's words are very Sun-beams To keep Chaste in the bed of Prosperity is of extream Difficulty You may be saved it is most sure yet so as by Fire No Men take the Kingdom of Heaven but the Violent or any way but by Force Nor may you Rich look to take it but by special Force and Violence Up then and be Doing and God speed you For your Eyes are Witnesses the most do sleep the sleep of Death And if here and there one of you do stand by Grace yet Thousands at his side do fall God knows whither and Ten thousand at his right Hand Is this an hard Censure And is it said to your Monitor as it was said to our Saviour Thou art a Samaritan and hast a Devil I dare in his Name to reply in his words I have not a Devil but I honour my Father My Father of whom ye say that he is your God! CHAP. III. To the Dissolute and Profane DEvils are not all of them equally Outragious nor are all their Children alike Vicious some are chief of Sinners and farther from God's Kingdom than others And the name of this sort among you Rich is Legion for they are many And unto them I now turn me Sirs both Worshipful Honourable and Right Honourable You are they who have turned your selves upside-down Deposed the Man and Enthroned the Beast in you Who have fallen out with Reason Judgment and Conscience And have taken Sense Fancy and Passions for King Lords and Commons Supposing the former to be Sicilian Tyrants and these latter to be least Dread when most Soveraign Glorying therefore in your Bodies made Channels for your Lusts and your Souls made Slaves to both You are the Men who value alike the Holy Bible and the Alchoran the Lord's Prayer and an Ave Maria the Ten Commandments and the Laws of China the Holy Sacraments and Ropes of Sand. Who mind no more Heaven and Hell than the Elysian Field and Stygian Lake Who deem it to be base and below the strain of your Spirit to trembleat the Divine Word Or to fear its Judgments denounced before you feel them Executed Despising all Arguments but Storms and Whirlwinds Flames and Thunderbolts Who to the utmost of your Power do cast out of your Thoughts him that hath Power to cast you into Hell Torments Who do banish your Omnipresent Maker out of your Minds Racking your weak Brains to serve your ill Humours and to perfect their Mastery over your Consciences To possess you of the Heroical Perfection of Scoffing at Religion And of exposing what you name the squeamish Folly of Devotion Who do make use of Pasquils and Bottles to mortify natural Principles and to exhilarate your Frenzy That as King John said of his Buck look how Fat it is tho it never heard Mass You may boast what a Paradise you have found without looking into a Church And what undisturbed Lives you have tho they are like the Sheet in Peter's Vision full of all unclean Things Whose God is a Trinity of Colours Tastes and Sounds Whose Business is therewith to entertain your Senses Whose Schools are Play-houses Whose Books are Cards and Romances Whose Language is profane Swearing and Swaggering And whose Life if a Life it be is Rage Riot and Sleep Who are Ahabs that have perfectly sold your selves Reserving no more than the poor Ruines of your reasonable Nature Ruines which are not Mutes but loud Witnesses against you as you do know to your Sorrow For as small as Bees are getting their Stings into the Nose of a Bear they torment him As small as Mice are creeping into the Trunk of an Elephant they make him very uneasy And as small as the Reliques of your Reason are they do make every Felix to tremble as oft as they can get an Hearing from you They do together shame your Rebellion against them and extort your Veneration of them For railly and break Jests as fast as you break Laws if you
Lord most High hath sent me unto you and my Message is Gospel If not let it be Anathema The Gospel of the great Lover of Souls Of your Souls as truly as of any inferior Ranks Yea very particularly of Yours Indeed the Poor have his Gospel Preached to them But they have it not confined unto them And it is unto the Preaching of the Gospel it is not to Salvation by it that the Holy Apostle saith Not many Wise after the Flesh not many Mighty and not many Noble are called Most certain it is that Men of neither Poverty nor Riches are the greatest number of Heaven's Guests But we are fully as certain that Men of all Orders have the self-same Invitation For to the Feast thereof we are commanded by our Saviour to bid every Creature And to proclaim that whosoever comes unto him He will in no wise cast out Yea singularly doth the Lord rich in Mercy unto All invite you Rich ones His primary Design in giving you your Riches is to win your Hearts By the good things of this Earth he Allures and Perswades you to Heaven By them as by all his other Goodness he leads you to Repentance For what are Gifts but Messengers sent to fetch Affections to the Giver And is it not a Creature less ingenuous than Brutes who is not a Friend to him that giveth Gifts Gifts so Useful so Delectable and so Rare as your Riches That Good should be rendred for Evil is a Truth of some little Obscurity But that Good should be rendred for Good the Good of Duty for the Good of Bounty is a Truth of most Meridian-light and incapable of doubt But Are these Good Gifts convertible to very ill Vses Are your Riches generally your Snares Do your fat Soils usually breed Rank Weeds Have your Purples and fine Linen a qualitative Touch making proud Flesh And do your rich Wines less Recreate than Intoxicate you This is as True as Sad. But whose is the Fault He that reproveth God let him answer it God the Maker of your Treasures is Wise God the Donor of them Gracious Most apt he made them to enable and engage you to his chearful Service And it is sure he bestows them on you for the Purpose Giving you sufficient direction for the Holy Use of them Who doubts but it is by means of its own Poison that a Spider is made more Venomous by a Flower When Israelites do turn Egyptian Jewels into Idols who blameth the Jewels the Givers or Any beside the Idolatrous Abusers They are wilfully blind who see not that God is kind Riches are Innocent and the Possessors of them are Peccant The Possessors thrô whose Lusts that which is Good is made Death unto them Prosperity apt to be a Loadstone to draw them unto their Duty becomes a Stumbling-stone and occasion of Revolt Their Estates which should be as Joshua's Leaders to Canaan do become Pharaoh's that will not let them stir out of Egypt St. Austin's words are worthy of Cedar That Riches might not be thought to be the best Good God gives them often to the worst Men that they might not be thought to be evil Things he gives them sometimes unto the best Men. In short your own Hearts do tell you what a Price Riches are in a wise Man's Hand tho they are so dangerous a Sword in a Mad Man's It is granted you do most pronely abuse Divine Bounty Behold ye therefore another instance of your Saviour's overflowing Kindness What should he have done that he hath not done for Rich Men His admirable Grace doth you the Favour to give you loud Warning of your Danger To tell you of the Sin that dwelleth in you and of the Temptations that do incircle you of the beguiling Serpents in your Paradises And of your Deceivableness by them into the most deadly Sin For that you do incur when like the unruly raging Sea you do turn the sweet showers of Heaven into a filthy Brine He proclaims it extreamly hard for you to be Saved Not of design to put you into a needless Fright but unto a necessary Watch. He gives you a kind Alarm in an aweful Exclamation How hardly shall they that have Riches enter into the Kingdom of God! To the Life he paints forth the Difficulty in a pathetical Simile that of a Camel going through the Eye of a Needle Expressing your Salvation to lie but just within the line of Possibility And with great Prolixity he Inculcates this As most unwilling that like unwary Bees you should drown your selves and perish in your Honey As resolving that if by any Warning you will be Preserved you shall not be Lost Nor is this his Beacon all your Warning No he requireth all his Ambassadors to be your like Monitors Of any Mens Ears especially to Thunder in yours Using no more Gentleness nor any less Severity than will do you Good Charge them that be Rich in this World that they be not high-minded nor Trust in uncertain Riches but in the Living God q. d. None stand in more Jeopardy than Men in Prosperity The Places of none are more slippery The Charms of no inchanted Men are harder to be unbound Sampson was less strongly fettered by the Philistines than they by their Grandeurs Wherefore Go temper your Ministrations to the Quality of their Spiritual Diseases not of their secular Dignities Dare not flatter and fawn on them As you value their Lives treat them not meerly with soft Suasions and oiled Words And with Rebukes as cold as Eli's Not so not so Take up the two-edged Sword of the Spirit and call for fiery Tongues when you deal with a Magnus or a Dives Storm them with Vollies of Divine Commands Commands the aptest to tear Cedars to break Rocks to level Mountains To humble an Ahab to shake a Felix to cast down the strong holds of a Herod's Lusts Speak as Preachers sent from him who * The Text in Jo◠34.17 18 19. should be thus read Wilt thou condemn him that is most Just to say to a King thou art Wicked and to Princes ye are Vngodly Who accepteth not c. dares say to a King Thou art Wicked and to Princes Ye are Vngodly Who accepts not the Persons of Princes nor regardeth the Rich more than the Poor Because they are all the Work of his Hands Fear not as need requires to give Cordials to the Poorest of the Parish and Vomits to the Lord of the Mannor Consider the Rich as Men under the greatest Trusts and responsible for the greatest Talents Men whose Conversion is of more mighty Influence than meaner Mens and is therefore of more exceeding Concernment to the Kingdom of God By these Thoughts of them be provoked to double your blows upon them Charge them to know themselves to be but Men. And not to lift up themselves in their Imagination above their proper Region To remember that Mountains of Gold and Silver do not set a Soul nearer to