Selected quad for the lemma: knowledge_n
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A57509
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A sermon preached at Blandford-forum in Dorset-shire, December the 19th, 1682, at the Lord Bishop of Bristol's visitation by Richard Roderick ...
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Roderick, Richard, 1647 or 8-1730.
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1683
(1683)
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Wing R1770; ESTC R7208
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11,789
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30
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Prince of Peace would have his Gospel taught as himself establish'd it with Meekness and Gentleness would have Gain-sayers convinc'd and the Cavils of unreasonable Men put to silence by the Power of the Spirit That the noblest Conquest which is quietly gain'd over Minds revolted from God and Reason Force may enslave the Man but this fetters his Will and captivates his Understanding Wherefore that restless unwearied Fury wherewith some Men carry on the business of Religion in a violent sanguinary way is not a Christian agreement to propagate our Saviour's Doctrines but a conspiracy of Traytours against him not the Zeal of Christians but the rage of Lunaticks But here let me not be mistaken as if I intended to wrest the Sword out of the Magistrate's Hands who is the Minister of God a Revenger to execute Wrath upon them that doe Evil. That doe Evil I say for as long as Men keep their Thoughts to themselves they are indeed can be accountable onely to the Searcher of Hearts But when Pride Obstinacy Faction or suppose we Folly broaches their Opinions to the disturbance of Church or State to the dangerous violation of the Laws of either here Christianity does not forbid nay commands the publick execution of Justice Even the mischievous Fool though the designing Knave should not lurk under as he too often does may be justly punished Otherwise the Magistrate would bear the Sword in vain would not have Power to take edged Tools out of the Hands of those that ought not to be entrusted with them and really would be placed as unguarded Sheep in the midst of Wolves Whatever be pretended on the part of Offenders when the Publick lies at stake Mercy to the Troublers of it is the greatest Cruelty to the Innocent is the tenderness of Children and Fools is to destroy the whole Body in compassion to a few corrupted Members He that without very good reason winks at Crimes though perhaps in their own Nature small yet in their Tendency of fatal Consequence has more to answer for than he that committed them because it is less excuseable to countenance Offences in cold Bloud than to act them in hot I appeal to the Consciences of those who now think themselves Wronged and have Advocates it were to be wish'd I could not say among our selves that complain they are persecuted by the due execution of Laws whether they can imagine it to be a thing indifferent of no concern to the Honour of God and the Peace of the State whether Men be of one Heart and of one Soul or not Whether when every one says I am of Paul and I of Apollo and I of Cephas such Divisions do not naturally follow as crucisie Christ asresh and put him to open Shame And certainly to conceive that our Redeemer would in his Houshold the Church be so much less faithfull than Moses as to leave such necessary things out of order without Power somewhere to settle them would be no less absurd than to fancy with Epicurus that the wise the gratious Father of all has abandoned the Orphan World to the blind direction of Chance This goodly Frame of the Universe might as soon have jumpt together casually and be kept so as Men will be joined together as they should be without an over ruling Discipline without a coercive Power The most rational Persuasives we dayly see cannot pierce and break the Obstinacy that is rooted by Prejudice Peevishness or Design The Madness of the People is sometimes such that it won't be stilled by any Words except of him who spoke the World into a Being and the roaring of the Sea into a Calm What then shall Men be permitted to embrace and publish what Opinions they please though such as influence their Actions to the Hazard of Ecclesiastical or Civil Affairs God has not so left himself without a Witness but besides establishing Divine Laws has authorized Humane whenever not repugnant to the other to give knowledge of Salvation to his People to give Light to them that sit in Darkness and to guide their Feet into the way of Peace He demands not onely the Purity but also the humble Submission of the Heart expects the Resignation of the Will and Understanding to him and his Vicegerents These he has impowered to add to yea upon occasion to take from what his own Wisedom had ordained God appointed the People to kill the Passover in the first Month Hezekiah the Levites in the second Christ himself observed the Feast of Dedication though of Humane Institution thereby acknowledging the Authority of Rulers in Matters Ecclesiastical And certainly since They are commissioned to lay Injunctions it will be the Subjects Duty to perform and theirs to require yea force Obedience to them For Authority supposes a right to assert it and the power of enacting Laws implies an Obligation to make and oftentimes to execute the Sanctions of them It is not here designed to whet the Magistrate's Sword and Rage to put him upon using the one and laying out the other in Cruelty and Oppression No there should be a Fellow-feeling among the Members of Christ. He that punishes Offences may and ought to pity the Offenders The Bowels may yern while the Hand strikes The Father corrects in kindness and by the bye he spoils his Child if he spare the Rod. God himself in Mercy thinks upon Wrath the several Chastisements of the Lord whether immediately inflicted or onely permitted by him as all Penalties should chastise past miscarriages in order to prevent future the Sufferer's Obliquity is always the meritorious Cause his or others Amendment the Impulsive And surely those that are deputed by him to doe Justice and to shew Mercy upon the Earth may be kind as our heavenly Father is that is punish with design to reclaim And if gentler Methods will not prevail if every Indulgence from the higher Powers onely encourages Men to be more sawcy in their Demands if a Factious Seditious Party be manifestly hatching and carrying their treasonable Associations to introduce a tyrannical Commonwealth in the place of the best setled Monarchy and a novel Religion instead of the truly Apostolical If designs of bringing in an Egyptian Bondage be so plainly set on Foot that onely they which are surrounded with an Egyptian Darkness can chuse but see them when Dangers thus threaten the Government undoubtedly they that sit at the Helm of it may lay aside their injured Patience and proceed to the utmost Severities Christian Liberty will not in the Subject patronize or in the Magistrate oblige to indemnifie the Licentious effects of it Be it for ever remembred that the great the good Constantine made severe Edicts against Dissenters the Apostate the barbarous Julian tolerated them This the Policy of the most malicious Enemy of the Faith in hopes thereby to overthrow it That of the most religious Defender to propagate and establish it I proceed in the last place to conclude with IV. An
A SERMON Preached at Blandford-forum IN DORSET-SHIRE December the 19th 1682. AT THE Lord Bishop of BRISTOL's VISITATION By RICHARD RODERICK B. D. Student of Christ-Church in Oxon and Vicar of Blandford-forum LONDON Printed by M. Flesher for Henry Clements Bookseller in Oxford 1683. A SERMON Preached at BLAND FOR D-FORUM IN DORSET-SHIRE December the 19th 1682. ACTS 2. 42. And they continued stedfastly in the Apostles Doctrine and Fellowship and in breaking of Bread and in Prayers IT is too too observable that when Men have once wickedly complyed with discover'd or weakly given up their Assent to unsearch'd Errours their main business afterwards is right or wrong to justify the Principles which they have imbibed The Care that should have been taken to prevent is laid out to hide their Deformity and disguise their Shame Hence the Writings of Fathers and perhaps the Decrees of Councils are entituled to them Scripture is wrested and Antiquity raked into to give Patronage to the foulest Misdemeanours Thus of old St. Origen was made use of to defend the Heresie of the Arians St Cyprian of the Donatians St. Ambrose St. Jerome and St. Austin of the Pelagians And of late the uncommissioned Zeal of Gregory Nazianzene and the Stories of Theodoret have been cited to excuse Disobedience to Princes and to null the rights of their next Heirs Thus Schism has always fled for Sanctuary to the Altar and from those who most constantly attended upon it especially in the first Ages of Christianity has endeavoured to gain Credit and Success Thus also too many in our Days though God be praised their number decreases and was never such as they boasted of too many for the defence of their Separations plead that Liberty in which they suppose the Primitive Christians stood fast and renounce that indispensible Communion which the Church enjoyns upon pretence that from the beginning it was not so Whereas indeed we are assured that the early Fore-runners in the Faith did not make or follow separate Congregations and divided Interests but They continued stedfastly in the Apostles Doctrine and Fellowship and in breaking of Bread and in Prayers The Words are a Character of the Primitive Christians of the Church in the times of the Apostles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here rendred Fellowship 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 breaking of Bread however taken by some learned Men the former for that most liberal distribution and wonderfull Charity conspicuous in those Days the latter for breaking of common Broad according to the custom of the Jews in the beginnings of their Feasts Yet by others of great Authority This is supposed to denote the Eucharist which the Apostles blessed That the Communion which they were the chief Members of Without any farther Explication of the Text. I. I shall endeavour to shew that the Primitive Christians not onely such as were contemporary with the Apostles but those also that succeeded them were united in Judgment and Practice as to Matters of Religion and the Worship of God They continued stedfastly in the Apostles Doctrine and Fellowship and in breaking of Bread and in Prayers II. I shall examine what Means were used in the Primitive Church thus to unite Men in Judgment and Practice as to Matters of Religion and the Worship of God III. I shall enquire how far now-a days the Magistrate and those in Authority under him may proceed in order to the uniting Men in Judgment and Practice as to matters of Religion and the Worship of God IV. I shall conclude with an Exhortation to what is here said to have been the Practice of the Primitive Christians and ought to be ours that we also be united and continue stedfastly in the Apostles Doctrine and Fellowship and in breaking of Bread and in Prayers I. I am to shew that the Primitive Christians were united in Judgment and Practice as to Matters of Religion and the Worship of God they continued stedfastly in the Apostles Doctrine and Fellowship and in breaking of Bread and in Prayers At the time when that prodigious effect of Omnipotent Mercy was express'd in the Incarnation of our Redeemer the distracted World not keeping any regularly traced Path towards Salvation wandred in Darkness and in the Shadow of Death The Jews had made the written Law give way to the oral they had prostituted their Understandings to the Direction of those blind Guides which taught for Doctrines the Commandments of Men and by magisterial Confidence and precise Hypocrisie Qualifications which often come together so far enslav'd the Judgments of their Proselytes that if two of them held contradictory Opinions each notwithstanding was thought infallible The Heathens though the Light of Nature would not suffer them to be ignorant of what was good yet could not come to the knowledge of the Lord much less of what he required in the acts of Devotion The Jews had lost their way the Gentiles never knew it But after his coming whom the Father sent to be a Light to lighten These and to be the Glory of Those the Partition-Wall betwixt Jew and Gentile was broken down and both united into and made Members of one Body whereof Christ is Head Our Saviour having thus gathered and constituted his Church and setled an orderly Government in it the Primitive Christians knew it to be their Duty and accordingly held Communion with the one and submitted to the other They rejoyced to be of one Fold under one Shepherd not loosely scattered abroad as Sheep having none They heard and obeyed his Voice when he spoke by them whom the Holy Ghost made Overseers of his Flock They contended earnestly for the Faith which was once delivered unto the Saints and Christ having provided for his Service in a regular way came together in Unity to the House of the Lord to offer Prayers and Thanks-givings jointly to the Almighty and Violence to Heaven with united Forces When the Disciples were but few These all continued with one accord in Prayer and Supplication Act. 1. 14. And when the Word of God mightily grew and prevailed The multitude of them that believed were of one Heart and of one Soul Acts 4. 32. No foolish Prejudices uncharitable Surmises or fruitless search after sarther Purity excluded them from the Fellowship of their Brethren from a common Participation of the Sacraments and Prayers and carrying on the designs of Christianity with joint Endeavours and Affections They kept the Unity of the Spirit in the Bond of Peace of outward Communion endeavouring to walk worthy of that Vocation wherewith they were called in one Lord one Faith one Baptism They knew that the Lord had always even before the times of Christianity been jealous of his Honour and manifested his Jealousie by requiring an awefull Observance and punishing the least neglect of the Place where his Honour dwelt An immediate stroke from Heaven was sent upon the Men of Ashdod of Gath and of Ekron for detaining the Ark of God upon the