we are capable to partake more and more of the Divine Perfections 3. There is no fundamental Doctrine of Christianity but an obligation naturally flows from it to some instance or other of a good Life If the Doctrine be that God is the maker of Heaven and Earth does not an obligation from thence lve upon all his Creatures to Gratitude and Praise if the Doctrine be that God is the great Soveraign of the World does not a duty plainly follow that we his Subjects are to govern our selves by his Laws does not the Doctrine of his Infinite Goodness make it our duty to love him and imitate him and that of his irresistible Power to dread the giving him the least offence and to submit our selves to his pleasure does not the Doctrine that Truth is one of his Essential Attributes make it our duty to believe him and to depend upon his promises does not the Doctrine of his unsearchable Wisdome oblige us to give up our wills unto his and to leave the Events of things to his wise Disposal does not the Doctrine of his Omnipresence his all seeing Eye engage us to have a constant and awful regard of him and to walk circumspectly in all our paths The Doctrine of Gods providence being concerned not only in our most weighty affairs but also extending even to those small things of which we our selves take no thought what powerful motives does it afford us against dejection pensiveness of mind and immoderate cares the Doctrine of all things working together for the good of the faithful Servants of God what a mighty obligation does it lay upon us to be contented and easy in our present condition how much soever it may be beset with adversities and afflictions and to take no indirect course to use no unlawful method or meanes to get out of it the Doctrine of Gods only having such a power over our Souls that he can destroy them how plainly does it imply that we are to dread God more than man and to disobey man rather than God The Doctrine of the necessity of the Sufferings and Passion of Christ does it not make it our indispensable duty to mortify the Flesh and to crucify the Lusts thereof and to prepare our selves rather to suffer Affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of Sin for a Season and should not the Doctrine of his Resurrection and Ascention carry our thoughts and great designs into the other World and fix our Hearts and all our Affections upon the Treasure which is in Heaven In a word does not the Doctrine of a day of Judgment in which sentence shall pass upon all men for every Thought Word and Deed Oblige us if we have the least love of our selves and dessire of our own eternal welfare to put our Accounts in exact Order and to break off our Sins by a timely and sincere Repentance And this was the method generally of the Apostles when they have delivered a Doctrine they presently draw an Inference from it which is in the nature of a Precept and where they do not express the Precept it is ever imply'd and easy thence to be Concluded Seeing all these things shall be disolved what manner of Persons ought ye to be in all holy Conversation and Godliness i. e. if ye believe this Christian Doctrine of the dissolution of the World your lives must come up to your Principle and your faith be render'd effectual by the holiness of your Conversation every man that hath this hope in him he purifyeth himself even as he is pure do you hope to see God it unquestionably followes that you are to endeavour to be like him by imitating his purity if ye then be Risen with Christ seek those things which are above i. e. if ye believe Christs Resurrection and as believers of it have been Baptized into a profession of the Christian Faith then it becomes you to mind those things which will procure your own Resurrection likewise As ye therefore have receiv'd Jesus Christ the Lord so walk ye in him if ye have receiv'd the Doctrine of Jesus Christ let not your behaviour carry any thing in it unsutable to his holy Doctrine but be ye mindful to Govern your selves by the Practical Rules therein contein'd But against the point I am now upon some will be apt to object that one great Doctrine of our Religion the mystery of the holy Trinity does not seem at all to concern a good life now tho it may so seem to them who slightly examin things yet those who shall be at the pains more exactly to consider this Doctrine will be otherwise perswaded For when we consider God so loved the World as to send his only begotten son to save all them from perishing who shall believe on him does not this lay the highest obligation upon us which is possible to make all the returns of praise and love and gratitude and obedience When we consider there was that aversion in the divine nature to sin that God would not pardon it before ample satisfaction was made at the Cost of the blood and life of his own Son can there be any argument in the World more effectual to deter a man from sin and if he have any ingenuity to make him abhor the thoughts of it when we consider that this very same Son of God who was the brightness of his Fathers glory and express image of his person is now our high Preist and has entered the holy of holies and does daily offer up our prayers to God and constantly there intercede with him on our behalf will not this be apt to create in us a mighty confidence to address our selves to the throne of Heaven in all our wants and strong hopes that God will never forsake us in distress When we consider the holy Spirit has consecrated our bodies and made them the Temples wherein he will vouchsafe to dwell which is the peculiar privilege and mercy of the Gospel is there not a deep engagement thereby laid upon us to prepare these bodies for his reception by keeping them pure from intemperance and filthy Lusts for fear we greive this holy guest and cause him to desert such unclean habitations and vex him that he turn to be our enemy And so I hope the sense of the 2d Point is cleared and the truth of it establisht that it is the design of the Doctrines of the Gospel to advance Godliness and that there is an aptness and direct tendency in them all to enforce the practice of it upon Christians this notion the Ancients had of Christian Religion when they stiled it an institution according to Godliness and an institution that comprehends all virtue and accordingly the first Christians as Minut. Felix observes were distinguisht from other men not by any thing peculiar in their habit and dress but by their innocence and modesty There was no other mark of
MOORE MAJOR Curia Specialis tent die Lunae xxix no. Maii 1682. Annoque Regni Regis Caroli Secundi Angl ' c. xxxiiii ta This Court doth desire Dr. Moore to Print his Sermon Preached yesterday at the Guild-Hall Chappel before the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of this City Wagstaffe A SERMON Preach'd before the Lord Mayor AND THE Court of ALDERMEN AT GUILD-HALL Chappel ON The 28th of May 1682. By JOHN MOORE D. D. Chaplain to the Right Honorable Heneage Earl of Nottingham Lord High Chancellor of England LONDON Printed for Walter Kittilby at the Bishops Head in St. Paul's Church-Yard 1682. To the Right Honorable Sir John Moore Lord Mayor and the Court of Aldermen of the City of London My LORD THE Meekness Peace and Charity of which our Saviour was so Zealous a Preacher and so great an Example seem to be in a manner lost in the beats bitterness and noise with which men manage their Disputes about his holy Religion as if the Character of a true Christian was to be taken rather from the contentiousness of his Spirit and his skill in Controversy than the Purity of his Mind and Conversation When yet nothing can bring a greater disparagement upon Christianity and prove more fatal to the Professors of it than to make it the occasion of those Evils and Mischiefs among Men and of that disturbance in the World which God purposely intended it should allay and extinguish It was my design in this Discourse which in obedience to your Commands I now make Public to take men off from their furious debates about 〈…〉 often not material to 〈…〉 earnestly to press them unto the ex 〈…〉 of those Primitive Vertues upon which our Religion has always laid so much stress and which our Lord hath so plainly declared to be the indispensable conditions of our Salvation by shewing that all necessary Christian Doctrines have a natural tendency to that Godliness which is now too generally neglected And I am the more bold to perfix your Lordships name to it because you are known to be so fair a Pattern of that Practical Religion I recommend both in your private life as a Christian and in your Public Capacity as a Magistrate I am My Lord Your Lordships most humble and obedient Servant John Moore A SERMON Preached before the Lord Mayor c. May 28. 1682. 1 TIM VI. 3 And to the Doctrine which is according to Godliness WHen we consider there never was any Religion in the World which did so earnestly recommend and so strictly enjoyn Godliness as the Christian Religion has done and yet that so little of it do's appear in the lives of Christians we must conclude that there are either great defects in the Religion or faults in the Professors of it we must either say there is not a sufficiency in the means Christianity do's prescribe and afford towards the attainment of true Piety and Virtue or else that the blame is to be laid upon them who having undertaken the Christian Profession do neglect or despise the means and instruments provided by their Religion to make them Holy here and happy for ever And it will not be hard to determin on which side the fault lies for God and Religion have not been wanting to Men but Men have been wanting to themselves There being nothing required in our Religion as our Duty and a necessary Condition of our Happiness which is above our strength assisted with that Grace which every one may obtaine who sincerely prays to God for it Therefore if men will not make use of that Grace which God so plentifully poures forth upon all it is but fit and equal that they impute their defects to themselves And few have had the boldness directly to charge their Vices upon God as if he had denyed them power and opportunitys to have been better They will lay their faults upon themselves but with some privat reserves and Suggestions that those faults are very pardonable ones as being neither much offensive to God nor plainly repugnant to the state of good men So the Common way has been for men to frame such a model of Religion to themselves as might sute with a vitious life and help to quiet the complaints of an uneasy conscience Thus when Persons are debauch'd in their morals they are apt presently to turn Hereticks in their Faith It having been observed that nothing is more usual than for men to shelter the Monstrous impiety of their lives under some or as notoriously impious Opinion and to depart as far in their belief from the true Doctrins of Christ as they had before Strayed in their practice from his Holy precepts Thus some men have justified a wicked life by denying the differences between Good and Evil and others have excused it by pretending all their actions are under a fatal decree and come necessarily to pass Some again make the performance of Obedience to Gods Laws very needless by disowning his providence and care of the World Others would exempt themselves from the ties of godliness and virtue by fansying their Religion to consist only in true believing and others place it all in outward shew and Ceremony Some again hope they may enjoy both the brutish pleasures of this life and the pure ones of the next and carry their sins a long with them to Heaven by so exalting and extending Gods mercy unto obstinately Impenitent Sinners as to deny both his Justice and Truth and others cut the sinews of Religion by calling in question the Resurrection of the Dead and the rewards of the Life to come So Simon Magus that infamous Magician and Founder of all the Heresys which followed him that he might serve his vain Glory and Ambition did covet the gifts of the Holy Ghost and hoped to purchase them by Money he also boasted that he himself was God and appeared in Samaria as the Father among the Jews as the Son and to the Gentiles as the holy Spirit he also deny'd that Man had any liberty of will or that there was any necssity of good Works So the Nicolaitans for a cover to their abominable Lusts taught there ought to be Community of Wives and that to commit Fornication and to eat meats offer'd to Idols were things indifferent Thus Menander and Marcion disowned Gods being the maker of the World ascribing that work of Omnipotency to Angels Thus also Himenaeus and Philetus denied the Resurrection Some of these ungodly Men lived in the days of the Apostles of whom St. Jude saies they turned the grace of God into lasciviousness denying the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ Now what in the Primitive Church was the disease only of some few Men seems in our unhappy age to have been a plague which has generally infected and spread its malignity over the Face of the Christian World Great numbers in these times as they have given themselves up to the filthiest of the vices among
to their Masters but because their Masters whose tempers were softned by the love which the Religion of Jesus does inspire would treat them tenderly and kindly and be glad of an opportunity of being beneficial to them and this is the Doctrine which is according to Godliness For if any man Teacheth otherwise and consent not to wholsom words even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ and to the Doctrine which is according to godlines he is proud knowing nothing but doting about questions and strifes of words whereof cometh envy strife railings evil surmisings perverse desputings of Men of Corrupt minds destitute of the Truth supposing that gain is godliness from such withdraw thy self So dangerous a thing it is for a Christian more to busy himself about Contentious disputes than the Rules of an holy Life for a doting upon Questions may betray him into that wrath and envy which shuts men out of the Kingdom of Heaven but it must be a continual exercise of himself according to Godliness that will carry him thither So true also is it that neither the Spiritual relation of Brotherhood between Christians has destroy'd the several Orders Ranks and Qualitys of men in civil Societys nor that Christian liberty has taken away the obligation which is upon Servants to be obedient to their Masters and the Duty that is upon the People to be Subject to their Governors this being part of the Doctrine which is according to Godliness But to come to a further improvement of our Text there are these five Propositions which seem very proper and natural to be insisted on from it and which accordingly I shall make it my business to treat of in this Discourse 1. That Godliness is a fixt and certain thing not variable according to places and times or the humors of men but the reasons of it are Eternal and Unchangeable 2 That the Scope and end of the Doctrines of the Gospel is to advance Godliness and recommend the practice of it to mankind 3. That it is an Argument both of the Truth and Excellency of the Christian Religion that all the Doctrines thereof are Conformable to Godliness 4. That they who teach or perswade men they may be saved by their true Opinions or sound Belief tho not accompanied with a Godly life do defeat the very design of the Gospel and obstruct that influence it should have on the minds of men 5. That whatsoever Doctrins are not according to Godliness are so far from being necessary that they cannot be true 1. That Godliness is a fixt and certain thing not variable according to places and times or the humors of men This is apparent both from the Text and the Reason of the thing first of all the Text plainly implys it St. Paul requires every man should give consent to the Doctrine which is according to Godliness What can we gather from hence but that according to him Godliness must be the standard and measure by which men are to Judge of Doctrines if a Doctrine be according to Godliness he is to assent to it if not according to Godliness he is to dissent from it All men therefore must have one certain unvariable notion of Godliness in their minds or else they can never know what Doctrines they are to embrace and what to reject But secondly this do's more evidently follow from the notion of Godliness it self for Godliness is nothing else but a being like God it is a Copying out in our minds and manners all the perfections of the Divine Nature so far as we are capable Now if those qualitys and perfections in God be Eternal and unalterable then certainly the notion of Godliness in us must be so also It is true if we go to the criticism of the word this term of Godliness is sometimes used in a stricter sense and imports no more then the worship of God properly so called which consists in our having just and worthy apprehensions of God and in rendring to him that Love Thanks-giving Honor and Adoration which is due to the Great Governor of the World and our best Benefactor But in the larger sense of the word and as it is here taken by the Apostle Godliness is a Comprehension of all the Moral Virtues and takes in not only acts of Religion towards God but those of Righteousness towards our Neighbour and of Sobriety with respect to our Selves In a word It is a walking sutably to that Nature and that Reason which God has given us and for Gods sake Which notion of Godliness being admitted it cannot possibly be thought an Arbitrary thing but must be eternal and immutable as the nature of mankind is or rather as God is who contrived that nature We may talk what we please of the indifference of Good and Evil but the more we think the more we shall be convinced that there is an Eternal goodness and evil in things as they fall under a Moral Consideration Now some actions have an agreeableness with Gods holy Nature and some an utter incongruity with it and if his holy Nature is always the same eternal and unchangeable then also will those things be eternally good which have an agreement with this blessed Nature and those eternally evil which do vary from it thus as to love and honour God are acts most agreeable to his perfect Nature so will it be eternally the duty of the Creature to pay them unto him and it is a repugnancy in terms to suppose God can command his Creatures to hate him or to do the least thing which is contrary to the rectitude of his Nature Besides there are such eternal respects and relations between things that some actions will be ever good and some evil We cannot suppose a Benefactor but we must acknowledg that gratitude and thanks are his due We cannot allow a person to be Innocent but we must grant too that no injury or hurt ought to be done unto him How unreasonable then is that Opinion which makes the Civil Law of the Magistrate the only measure of Good and Evil for should the Magistrate forbid me to put up Prayers to God would therefore the service of God be Evil or should he Command me to kill my Father would therefore Parricide be lawful If so then there are actions antecedently good to the Laws of the Magistrate and dutys not alterable by them in performance of which doth the Godly man exercise himself Day and Night They are saies Justin Martyr a very acceptable to God who do those things which are in their own Nature Vniversally and Eternally good 2. The Scope and end of the Doctrines of the Gospel is to advance Godliness and to recommend the practice of it to Mankind it being much truer of Christs Doctrines what was said of the Lacedaemonian Laws That it is the property of them all to inflame mens minds with the love of virtue and to create a contempt of empty and sensual pleasure To this