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A30727
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Christian liberty asserted in oposition to the Roman yoke delivered in a sermon preached in His Majesties royal chappel of Windsor, the 8th of Decemb. 1678 / by John Butler.
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Butler, John, D.D.
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1678
(1678)
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Wing B6277; ESTC R7538
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15,021
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44
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Imprimatur Geo. Thorp Rev. in C. P. D. Dom. Gulielmo Archiep. Cant. Ã sacris Domest Imprimatur Carolus Alston R. P. D. Hen. Episc Lond. Ã sacris domesticis Decemb. 18. 1678. CHRISTIAN LIBERTY Asserted in Oposition to the Roman Yoke Delivered in a SERMON PREACHED IN His Majesties Royal Chappel OF WINDSOR The 8 th of Decemb. 1678. By John Butler D. D. Canon of the said Chappel And Chaplain in Ordinary to His Majesty London Printed by M. C. for Walter Kettilby at the Bishops Head in St. Pauls Church-Yard 1678. TO HIS Illustrious HIGHNESS PRINCE RUPERT Count Palatine of the Rhine Duke of Bavaria and Cumberland Vice-Admiral of all England Knight of the most Noble Order of the Garter Constable of His Majesties Castle and Honor of Windsor and One of His Majesties most Honorable Privy-Council c. The Publisher humbly Dedicates the ensuing Discourse May it please your Highness THat the following Discourse becomes Publick is chiefly owing to the earnest and often repeated instances of several Persons of Honor and Quality who have persuaded themselves and me with them that it may not be altogether useless in this dissolute and therefore staggering age AND that it humbly approacheth your Highness is owing to your Highnesses Love to our Nation your unwearied industry for the support of the True Religion Established by Law amongst us your known and just indignation against the Roman yoke and to the many and signal favours which I most humbly and gratefully acknowledg to have been conferred upon me by your Highnesses hands on all offered occasions since I had first the Honor of depending on your Highness By these considerations I think my self obliged as well out of gratitude as equity to make your Highness this small Present Which however defective in it self will receive no small advantage by your Highnesses favourable acceptance With my hearty and dayly prayers for your Highnesses happiness here and hereafter I humbly take leave in quality of Your HIGHNESSES Most obliged most Faithful and most Humble Servant Jo. BUTLER A SERMON ON GALAT. v. v. I. Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free and be not intangled again with the yoke of bondage WE find here the Galatians in danger of dealing by the Holy Apostle and themselves just as the Israelites would have done by Moses and themselves after their deliverance from the Land of Egypt out of the House of Bondage Those because in their journey towards the Land of Promise they met with some difficulties would fain have been going back to serve again under their old tyrannical Oppressours remembring indeed the Flesh-pots the Leeks the Onyons and the Garlick but stupidly forgetting their making Brick without Straw or being severely chastised if they did not do it and that their Male Children had been ordered to be strangled or otherwise made away so soon as they were born into the world And these I mean the Galatians hearkning to the sly insinuations of some false Prophets among them converted Jews who had a mind to glory in their Flesh and weary also of suffering Gal. vi 13. persecutions raised against them by means of those of the Circumcision were wavering and staggering in their Religion and in great hazard of subjecting their necks to the yoke of the Ceremonial Law wholly abrogated by the perfect active and passive obedience of Christ contrary to the Doctrine which they had heard and believed destructive of that liberty wherewith Christanity had enfranchiz'd them and particularly of all hopes of benefit by it in order to their salvation for it follows immediately after my Text Behold I Paul say unto you that if ye be circumcis'd Christ shall profit you nothing AN unhappy parallel this wherein however the Israelites have this advantage of them they were but in via these in patria those journeying towards their promised Land these put into actual possession of it having by the preaching of this blessed Apostle been freed from the slavery of Idol-Worship having had Jesus Christ crucified so evidently set forth amongst Gal. iii. 1. them as if it had been done even before their very eyes and having embraced the Doctrine of Justification by Faith without the works of the Law IT was high time therefore for their spiritual father to take care of them and to cry out Stand fast therefore c. AND I would to God that as the Galatians imitated the Israelites in their senseless desire after their former servitude so many very many amongst us did not write after the Galatians Copy BUT now that I may take up the Lamentation of the Prophet Baruch Wo is me for Isai xlv 3. the Lord hath added grief to my sorrow I fainted in my sighing and I find no rest GOD hath long since wonderfully brought us out of the darkness of Superstition and Idolatry into his marvellous light set us at liberty one and all King Priest and People from most intolerable as well Temporal as Spiritual bondage under the Roman Yoke And now after all we i. e. too many amongst us some out of vincible and therefore criminal zeal some out of worldly interest and some out of base Cowardise are ready most ungratefully to be intangled with and subject our necks to the same insupportable yoke of bondage again Nay which is yet worse as the Israelites had the better of the Galatians in that those were only on their way towards their Promised Land these in possession of it So have the Galatians this advantage of us that they were yet upon their feet they were not yet quite fall'n for otherwise the Apostle would not have bid them stand but rise up BUT amongst us multitudes are fall'n away being already intangled with this yoke of bondage and for others nets and snares are dayly and hourly spread abroad not by Fishers but Hunters of men to intangle them And all this done to the dishonor of Almighty God and his true Religion the scandal and hazard of the State the sorrow and anguish of all good men and the exceeding great peril if not utter loss of thousands of Souls IS any one therefore fall'n Let him rise up again Is any man yet standing yet so as to stagger and waver in his Religion Let him take heed lest he fall always remembring with which words the Apostle concludes the foregoing Chapter and upon which he grounds the charge in my Text that we are not children of the bond-woman but of the free Stand therefore stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free and be not intangled again with the yoke of bondage IN which words we have I. A Persuasion or Exhortation Stand fast II. A Dissuasion or Dehortation Be not intangled THE first The Persuasion or Exhortation is back'd with two cogent arguments 1. THE one drawn ab utili jucundo from the profit and pleasure of thus standing it is in liberty The Galatians were and we are free 2.
Jews had said to terrifie the Galatians the Apostle asks them this question this only Gal. iii. 2. would I learn of you received you the spirit by the works of the Law or by the hearing of faith q. d. did I who am a Jew when I preached to you the Gospel of Christ upon which the Lord working with me you received the Holy Ghost and saw that Doctrine confirmed by miracles did I oblige you to any such custom AND This only would I learn of the Papists did we first receive the Gospel from them I know very well that some of them want not confidence to affirm any thing but we are better assured that Christianity was planted in this Island long before any of the Popes agents set their feet here And when they did come what did they do for us but corrupt our Religion by degrees and draw us into their yoke by making us believe that if we did not keep close communion with and observe them in all things we should certainly be damned BUT the Galatians were weary of their past and afraid of their future persecutions if they did not comply with the Jews THE more Fools they ARE ye so foolish says our Apostle have Ch. iii. 3 4. ye suffered so many things in vain if it be yet in vain q. d. Have ye embraced the Gospel with resolutions to suffer in the profession of it have ye done it hitherto and will ye now by foolishly thinking to avoid persecutions lose the Crown laid up in store for you on that account THE more fools they and the more cowards we WE have suffered in the defence of our Religion of the cause of God and his Vicegerents against a schismatical and rebellious generation of men but yet such as were set on and managed undoubtedly by our old implacable adversaries of Rome How many men of all ranks and degrees with an invincible courage lost their Estates their Liberties their Lives in the quarrel and are we faint-hearted now Have a care He that seeks thus to save his life is in a fair way to lose it BUT stay is the Liberty wherewith we are made free worth the contending for i. e. so as to oblige us to die if called to it rather than yield to the Roman Yoke IS it I do not in the least doubt it I am sure the first blessed instruments of our happy Reformation and their followers thought so else they would never have lost their Lives in the cause BUT Good God! in what an age do we live when a sort of men among our selves of loose and corrupt principles have not stuck to affront the memory of those blessed men and women with the name of Foxian Martyrs Such fellows will look to themselves I 'll warrant them NOW to satisfie you in the point I will in as few words as I can give you an account of this liberty wherewith we are made free and then tell me what you think on 't WE have the Oracles of God those Fountains of living water which contain all things necessary for our Salvation put into our hands 2 Tim. 3. 17. and read to us according to the Apostles times in a known tongue We have the Word of God purely dispensed by Workmen that need not be ashamed rightly dividing the word of truth We have the Sacraments rightly and duely administred according to our blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ his own holy Institution And all this which characterizeth a true Church in order to our future happiness Then which both tends to that and also to our present well-being we are taught to obey our King and all that are put in authority under him without resisting to suffer death rather than lift up a finger against him never to expect to see the face of God with comfort unless we be of a peaceable disposition and live an holy life so taking the holy Jesus for our pattern as yet despairing most justly of all benefit from our own or others pretended righteousness to rely upon his most meritorious Death and Passion for our Salvation In a word to honour all men to love the Brother-hood nay our very enemies to fear God and honour the King These for brevity's sake I offer only as a specimen of that great and glorious liberty wherewith we are made free And what think ye now is not this liberty worth the contending for worth every mans contending for I will not so much as suspect that any person here thinks otherwise But if any such there be I shall only desire your patience a little while till I come to paint out to them the yoke of bondage which is to be given us in exchange for this liberty and then I hope they will be satisfied In the mean time let us stand fast in the liberty wherewith we are made free Stand fast therefore For Christ his sake stand fast Which is the Apostles second argument to enforce his exhortation Stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free CHRIST made the Galatians us and the whole world free by his meritorious Death and Passion on his part and by faith and repentance on ours Christ made us free by enjoining us no more than his own perfect law of liberty leaving power indeed to the Guides of the Church to take care that all things should be done with decency and order but not to alter or diminish no nor to add a tittle that was not built upon that foundation And all the Epistles of the holy Apostles are but so many Comments upon that Law As for the straw therefore and stubble which our adversaries of Rome have built upon this foundation in order to our making brick for the repair of their tottering Tower away with it LET us follow Christ the author and finisher of our faith and not the corrupter of it Christ the Captain of our Salvation the Shepherd and Bishop of our Souls and not his pretended Lieutenant and Vicar who acts both beyond and contrary to his Commission Remember I beseech you your first Vow when you were baptized into Christ who purchased your liberty by shedding his own most precious Blood for you and not into that man or Church who are most notoriously known ready to take it from you at the expence of your bloud if they cannot compass it by other means Remember that at that time you promised faithfully to be the Souldiers of Christ and to fight manfully under his Banner and do not run from your Colours by ungratefully and cowardly quitting your Post STAND fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free AND now one would think the Apostle had said enough to make his Galatians stand fast by urging to them their liberty and the author of it that there needed no more to be said in the case and that therefore if those would not prevail upon them all other arguments would prove insignificant and useless NO such matter He