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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A40889	Fifty sermons preached at the parish-church of St. Mary Magdalene Milk-street, London, and elsewhere whereof twenty on the Lords Prayer / by ... Anthony Farindon ... ; the third and last volume, not till now printed ; to which is adjoyned two sermons preached by a friend of the authors, upon his being silenced.; Sermons. Selections	Farindon, Anthony, 1598-1658.	1674 (1674)	Wing F432; ESTC R306	820,003	604

they do well to be angry even to death but not at their sin of themselves but their brethren For Meekness and cruelty cannot harbor in the same breast Nor will it come near the habitations of Covetousness Ambition and Hypocrisie for where these make their entrance Meekness takes the wing and flyes away Therefore to conclude let us mark these men and avoid them as the Apostle counsels And though they bring us into bondage though they smite us on the face though they take from us all that we have let us pity them and send after them more then they desire our prayers that God will open their eyes that they may see the snare of the Devil which holds them fast while they defie him and all his works and what a poor and narrow space there is betwixt them and Hell while they think they are in the presence and favour of God In a word though they curse let us bless though they rage let us pray and as the Apostle counsels Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamour and evil speaking be put away from us with all Eph. 4. 31 32. malice And let us be kind and meek one to another tender-hearted forgiving one another even as God for Christs sake hath forgiven us The Third SERMON PART III. MATTH V. 5. Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth WE cannot insist too long upon this subject yet we must insist longer then at first we did intend For this holy oyl like that of the Widows increaseth under our hands and flows more plentifully by being powred out That which our last reached unto you was the Object of Meekness which we found to be as large as the whole world 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith St. Paul Let your moderation be known unto all men For Meekness is not cloyster'd up within the walls of one Society nor doth it hide it self behind the curtains of Solomon but looks further upon the tents of Kedar upon Bethel and Bethaven We could not nor was it necessary to gather and fetch in all particulars but we then confined our meditations to those which we thought most pertinent and within their compass took in the rest which were Error in opinion and which is the greater error nay the greater heresie saith Erasmus Error in life and conversation Where we took off those common pretenses and excuses which Christians usually bring in as Advocates to plead for them when they forget that Meekness without which they cannot be Christians For what is in Error or in Sin which may raise my anger against my brother Errantis poena est doceri saith Plato If he erre his punishment is to be taught and if he sin we must molest and pursue him and beat upon him with line upon line with reprehension upon reprehension till we convert him If he erre why should I be angry and if he sin why should I hate him The way to uphold a falling House is not to demolish it nor is it the way to remove Sacriledge to beat the Temple down When we fight against Sin and Error we must make Christ our patern qui vulnus non hominem secat qui secat ut sanet who levels his hand and knife against the disease not against the man and never strikes but where he means to heal And now to add something which the time would not before permit Let us but a while put upon our selves the person of our adversaries and ours upon them and conceive it as possible for our selves to erre as for them and if we do not thus think we fall upon an error which will soon multiply and draw with it many more For we cannot erre more dangerously then by thinking we cannot erre And then to this let us joyn a prudent consideration of those truths wherein we both agree which peradventure may be more and more weighty then those in which we differ that so by the lustre and brightness of these the offence taken by the other may vanish as the mist before the Sun For why should they who agree in those truths that may lift them both up together to Heaven fall asunder and stand at distance as enemies for those which have no such force and activity This is to hazard the benefit of the one for the defense of the other and for the love of a truth not necessary to abate our love of that which should save us to forfeit our Charity in a violent contention for Faith and so be shut out of Heaven for our wild and impertinent knocking at the gates Therefore in all our disputes and debates with those whom we are so ready to condemn of error let us walk by this rule which Reason and Revelation have drawn out to be our guide and direction That no Text in Scripture can retain the sense and meaning of the blessed Spirit which doth not edifie in Charity Knowledge puffeth up swelleth us beyond our sphere and compass but it is Charity alone that doth edifie which in all things dictates what is expedient for all and so builds us up together in a holy Faith We cannot think that Doctrine can be of any use in the Church which exasperates and envenoms one man against another It is St. Bernards observation And therefore Moderation and Meekness is that Salt which Christ requires to be in us that wise and prudent seasoning Mark 5. 90. of our words that purging of our affections amongst which Ambitions and Envyings are the most violent Have this salt in your selves and then as it follows you shall have peace one with another And this Peace will beget in you a holy emulation to work out your eternal peace together with fear and trembling Secondly for Sin why judgest thou thy brother or so much forgettest that name as to be enraged against him The judgment is the Lord's who seeth things that are not as if they were What though he be fallen upon a stone and sore bruised he may be raised again and be built upon that foundation which is sure and hath this zeal The Lord knoweth who are his This open Profaner may become a zealous Professor this false witness may be a true Martyr this Persecutor of the Church may at last be a glorious member of it and a stout Champion for the Truth He that led the Saints bound to Jerusalem did himself afterwards rejoyce in his bonds and suffer and dye for that truth which he prosecuted The Apostle where he erects a kind of discipline amongst the Thessalonians thus 2 Thess 3. 14. draws it forth If any man obey not our word that is be refractory to the Gospel of Christ have no company with that man that he may be ashamed that seing others avoid him he may be forced to dwell at home to have recourse unto himself to hold colloquy with his own soul and to find out the plague in his heart which makes him thus like a Pelican in

but because God enjoyn'd them Look upon Abrahams offering of his Son Isaac simply by it self and that will seem a Sacrifice fitter for Moloch then a merciful God who requireth not so much as a Lamb from our fould but the Lord commanded it and then the Patriarchs obedience stil'd him for ever after Gods friend Consider the action alone without other Circumstances and what a barbarous thing it was for the Israelites to dispossess the Canaanites of their lives and fortunes who had done them no wrong when the very Heathen call'd Alexander but a more glorious Thief for doing less But God when their sins were full had devoted them to slaughter and then they were call'd the Lords battels Davids most bitter curses and execrations would damn a Christian if he should vomit them out of spleen but when the Holy Ghost did dictate them then they became the raptures of a zealous Prophet Think of Rahabs preserving the Spyes by a down-right lye Sampson's killing of himself with divers actions of this nature and then let me see him who can name any one thing which God cannot make lawful either by doing it himself or commanding it in others And yet it 's a common saying amongst the Civilians and Schoolmen That some things are in themselves immutable which God himself cannot alter plac'd as it were out of Gods reach as that some things are not evil because God hath forbidden them but are bad in their own nature before God hath laid any command concerning them at all robbing God as it were of part of his Legislative power which is to stamp every action good or bad as it seems best to his Divine will and pleasure Whereas if you examine it rightly what they say God by his Almighty power cannot make such and such actions lawful proceeds not from any Null-obliquity in the actions themselves but because we have wrapt them up in irreconcilable terms As for instance God cannot make it lawful for me to commit murder for it is a plain contradiction that ever it should be lawful to kill a man unlawfully but then God can make it lawful for me to kill any one living though I have never so neer a relation to him So again God cannot make it lawful for me to steal because to steal is to take away another mans right or property whilst it is his right but God can make it lawful for me to possess my self of any thing which another has by changing the property and by giving me a right unto it so that we may as infallibly conclude the action just whatsoever it be as we can assure our selves that God does it or authorizes it to be done though it seems to us never so irregular and even to contradict the Law of Nature Well then does the Prophet Jeremy here lay down this as a Maxim which he cannot deny that God is just though at first sight the prosperity of the wicked seems to overthrow it being if God does it it must needs be just because without any more ado God makes every action just by doing it though we at present cannot find the reason of it Why what would we have would we be Gods our selves and call the Lord to give us an accompt of all his Actions would we appoint him a day to bring in all his Reasons before us why he deals thus and thus with us Is this that we desire with the Prophet here to dispute the Question with the Almighty to circumscribe and bound him in within our limits to make a circle round about him which he should not pass but upon such causes as our wisdoms shall think fit But what a ridiculous thing is it in us to cry up Gods Councels as unsearchable and fling him off because we cannot comprehend him First to confess his paths past finding out and then renounce God because we cannot track him How childish does it shew in us to acknowledge a Lord God whose wayes are not our wayes nor his thoughts as our thoughts and yet bring him to our barr set him before our Courts of Justice and measure his actions by our line and plummet which are things of another kind quite of another nature from Gods which bear no proportion to them at all For he who pronounces of Gods actions according to those rules of Justice we have is guilty of the same vanity as if he should measure length by breadth and judge of colours by sound which are toto genere diversa and carry not the least Analogie to one another Seneca in one of his heats says He would rather believe Drunkenness a vertue then Cato vicious for being intemperate A speech vain enough in regard of him to whom he directed it but most excellently true if applyed unto God For we should rather believe Injustice to be Justice that to kill is to make alive to fail our hopes is to satisfie our longings as we think of Physicians Medicines that to poyson is to restore rather then by conceiving otherwise lay the least imputation upon Gods Truth because we cannot reconcile his proceedings with our Reason We do indeed heap up all the glorious titles upon God imaginable call him the Almighty wise God the Everlasting Councellor but in our dealings with him we do by retail take them all back again to our selves and when he comes to exact any duty or obedience from us which is troublesome then we cavil and murmur as if He had no power at all but were indeed a meer Idol How could it happen else that We who will trust a Lawyer with our whole Estate and without any scruple give him up all our Deeds and Writings to manage as he thinks fit yet will not trust our God one moment but as soon as ever we apprehend that things do cross our Interests presently we fall upon God accuse his Judgments for the miscarriage and as much as in us lies would take the business quite out of his Hand in seeking by unlawful means to preserve our selves How I say can it be else that we who dare commit our Lives into a Physitians hands and never question his Method though he put us to a new pain every hour as if he studied only how to torment us most will yet leave nothing to the Wisdom and disposing of God without Articles Conditions at every turn exacting an account of his Proceedings When the Jews admir'd how God could possibly lay aside his ancient people and turn to the Gentiles whom he never knew St. Paul Rom. 9. answers this Question with another saying Who art thou O man that replyest against God As if he had said suppose I could not assign any Reason for this Action of Gods would it therefore follow He were unjust 't is God whom thou replyest against and thou who do'st reply art but a man God whose way is in the Whirlwind and the Clouds are the dust of his feet Nahum 1. 3. God unsearchable in his Councils and Man so

the Publick so require in like manner God in that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Philo calls the Common-wealth of the Jews Gods own peculiar Kingdom where he reigned temporally as the very Civil Magistrate of that Nation never ty'd himself up so strictly by his promises as that he might not lawfully for his own glory and the good of his people upon some extraordinary cases as to purge to correct to punish or for tryal of them recal those good things he promised to the Righteous and confer them upon the wicked A most clear instance of this absolute Dominion in God we see in that under the Law he punishes frequently one man for another nay a whole Common-wealth for the sin of one man and stranger yet whole Ages of posterity for the offence only of one single person Which proves most evidently God might even under the Law where the Holy One seem'd most to be limited afflict without any consideration of guilt or demerit or else the punishment could not have justly past the offenders person And this consideration meerly might have still'd the Prophet from asking this question But then that there should be some perhaps in this very Congregation who when they suffer as they think unworthily some who call themselves Christians who demand of God why he gives them up into the hands of a Tyrant to suffer what they deserve not That such ask it is a wonder to me far greater then the Question it self Have you so learn'd Christ Pienty Peace and Victory over Enemies these indeed were the blessings under the Law when God did not think fit as yet to discover fully the Joyes of a better life he tempted Israel with the bliss of this and instead of Heaven shewed them Canaan But when it pleased him by Christ to reveal unto us a new Heaven and a New Earth a Resurrection and an eternal weight of glory ready to crown all such as do believe and practise then he proposes loss of estate and loss of friends poverty scorn shame nakedness imprisonment and death it self to his Disciples for these I these are the blessings of the Gospel and by his example he proved them to be so For what Crown had he but of Thorns what Scepter but of Reeds or where was he ever lifted up but upon the Cross Prosperity Why were I to study for an Argument to render a Church suspected for a false One I would object the outward splendor of it not that God does not bestow sometimes temporal blessings upon his chosen people even under the Gospel to refresh and recover their wearied Spirits after a difficult tryal But this I say is quite besides the promise of the Gospel a thing extraordinary in respect of it Prosperity If this proves the goodness of a Cause how many Arguments can the Turk alledge to assert his Mahomet Every battel he wins is a new Objection against us and every Town he takes in Christendome he gets ground of us in our Religion also What would become of the glorious Martyrs if it should be a blemish to suffer Why did St. Paul call his scars the marks of the Lord Jesus which were this true they were the stigmata and brands of guilt and when the Apostle gloried in his infirmities and troubles then he did but cry up his own sins Nay upon this account we cannot possibly quit the eternal Son of God whose whole life was but one continued Passion We we Christians should wonder that wicked men do not alwayes prosper We should admire how it comes to pass that they do ever miss of their designs that a Traytor does not ever escape Justice and the Oppressor does not alwayes hold his prey Which made some pious Christians to reverence and esteem Affliction so much to think it so proper and peculiar to a Christian as many times they have doubted of their Calling and Election upon no other ground but this because they did not find themselves miserable enough therefore for want of others to do it for them they persecuted their own selves and gave away their Estates when no body else would take them from them Like noble Souldiers they grew weary of peace and ease and like the Fencer in Rome who was sick when he could venture his life but once a day And this is so certain and evident that if you examine this Question strictly it will appear an Objection rais'd not out of any desire to clear Gods Justice or that true Holiness might be promoted upon the Earth or out of any consideration that concerns the glory of God but meerly out of Calamity and a By-respect of our own which I shall shew you plainly and then the Objection will fall to the ground of it self As first Men ask this Question Why do the wicked prosper because we do not see the usefulness of Affliction nor sufficiently apprehend what rare and admirable effects it doth produce which amongst the rest is Patience 't is something indeed when a sinner suffers the punishment he hath deserved meekly and humbly yet he that dares sin durst likewise if he could resist the punishment due to that sin and when he doth suffer who doth the sinner oblige in suffering Not God for it troubles him to punish He swears as he lives he would not do it What praise is it what glory is it if when you be buffeted for your faults you endure it patiently says the Apostle 1 Pet. 2. 20. No this only is true Patience Patience indeed when we suffer for doing well And pray tell me How can men bear injuries if there be no wicked men to do them or how could a man loose his own were there no violence to wrest it out of his hands If you suppose a robbery you must suppose a Thief too where there is a Rebellion there must be a Rebel and a Traytour where there is a Treason for he that is born of God cannot sin 1 John 3. 9. He such an one cannot be the Instrument of any wrong for when he does unrighteously he ceases to be righteous Abel would never have killed Cain nor would the Israelites have oppressed Pharaoh Paul would never have imprisoned the Romans nor the Martyrs have kill'd their Persecutors and so we should have lost all these glorious examples of Constancy and Zeal if God had not given leave to such wicked acts lost the very priviledge of a Christian which he injoyes above the Saints in Heaven which is to suffer Nay had there been no Priests and Elders to take away his life Christ had not dyed and then as St. Paul argues You had been yet in your Sins When we suffer for sin we do as the Latin's best of all tongues express it dare poenas give in exchange for some unlawful gain or pleasure either our body to the Executioner or our estates to the Exchequer this is a due debt which we stand obliged to see satisfied But when we suffer for doing well and