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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A49131	A sermon against murmuring preached in the Cathedral Church of St. Peter Exon on the XXIXth of May, 1680 / Thomas Long.	Long, Thomas, 1621-1707.	1680 (1680)	Wing L2982; ESTC R180131	20,243	36

many wonderful deliverances of him against the Conspiracies of Jeroboam the discontents of Joab Abiathar and Shimei who went to Gath to confer with fugitives and imbroil the kingdom again If we read of Solomons faults we read of his repentance also this Book of Eccles being a record of his Penitentials So that indeed the greatest cause of Evil in his later days was the libertinism of some who like sons of Belial would indure no yoak nor were satisfied till they had got an Indulgence and were more unsatisfied after they had it How much better had it been for them while the true Religion and publick peace were in safety to have been humble and thankful to God and the King to reform their own iniquities and to mourn in secret for the Vanities of the Court 3. If Solomons days had been as bad as the sins of these men deserved yet were it a point of piety to submit to the mighty hand of God and bear his indignation This was Solomons prescript approved by God himself 2 Chron. 6.24 c. If the people flee before their enemies if there be famine or pestilence What is to be done surely not as they did in the Prophet Jer. 8.20 who did fret themselves and curse God and the King and look upward as if they would be revenged on all that were above them but every man should search out the plague of his own heart and repent and make his supplication in Gods house saying I have sinned and done perversly and committed iniquity and then God promised to hear their prayers to forgive their sins and heal their land Thus did King David in his distress he saw the hand of God in it and opened not his mouth because it was the Lords doing Ps 9.39 and with this God quieted the men of Judah and Benjamin in the case of Jeroboam This thing is from me 1 Kings 12.24 And though they did not think so of King Solomon yet they ought to think that God was wise enough to dispose of all things for the good of his Church and people God and his Vicegerents have their Arcana imperii not to be rashly censured or curiously inquired into We should do our duty and leave the conduct of publick affairs to God whose Providence over-rules all and it is much better that things should be as God would have them than as we would for he acts all towards wise and gracious ends to which though humane actions like the lower Spheres have a contrary tendency of their own yet the first mover makes them all tend to his decrees who brings order out of Confusion and all whose ways are mercy and truth to them that keep his Covenant Non est judicandum de operibus Dei ante quintum actum we are short-sighted and cannot see to the end of Gods works which are begun in secret sometime carried on by contrary means by weak and divers agents but he knows how to bring light out of darkness and harmonyout of discord and all his providences shall end in Holiness and beauty too This is that which Solomon observed Eccles 3.11 God hath made every thing beautiful in its season when it comes to its perfection Some may think there is no necessity of Thunder and Lightning Storms and Tempests Frosts and Cold yet these contribute to the cleansing of the Air the health of our bodies and the fruitfulness of the year as much as calm and Sun-shine days In checker-work the variety of black and white adds to the beauty and some works of Providence like the China vessels are wrought and perfected in the bowels of the earth and require an age for their Perfection but then they come forth so transparent that every one that considers them may say This is the Lords doing and it is marvellous in our eyes 4. It is irreligious as being the ready way to destroy Religion and if that be ruined we may write Ichabod on all things else And this is not more easily destroyed than by our murmurings and contentions about it this Dove cannot fall but by a dart feathered from her own wing The little Foxes within that undermine the Hedge of Discipline make way for the wild Boar to break in and root up our pleasant Vines 'T is our crumbling into little factions under pretence of Religion that exposeth us to the enemies of it If the dangers we fear could but make us unite our Union would make us safe against all the attempts of our common adversaries 5. It is a tempting and provoking of God in a high degree to complain of those evils whose causes and remedies are in our own power But while we complain of them with our lips we draw them down with both our hands This is to do as the Jews who cryed out Venient Romani while they were Crucifying the Prince of Peace and so made way for those Roman Armies that brought a perpetual desolation on them If we only make an out-cry against Popery and instead of making up the breaches still inlarge them by quarrelling with such as are more ready and skilful to do it than our selves that Roman Eagle may make a prey of us all But if as God hath founded us upon a rock and compassed us about with his Salvation as with Walls and Bulworks we would be as Jerusalem a people at unity among our selves if as St. Paul adviseth we would do our duties to God and the King without murmurings and disputings those proud Waves that oppose themselves would be dasht in pieces as hitherto they have been and neither the gates of Rome nor of Hell prevail against us Lastly It is irreligious because it destroys the whole Analogy of Christian Faith it reflects on Gods Providence as if he wanted Wisdom or Goodness to Govern the world and sets their mouths against Heaven as that proud Alfonsus who said of the Creation that if he had been present he could have disposed of things in a better method It undermines the foundation of all Government in Church and State and Families if Inferiors should be allowed to question the Commands and Actions of their Superiors it makes those Christian graces of meekness patience and obedience which are injoyned towards evil Governours impossible It robs the Soul of that tranquillity and peace which it might have by resigning it self to God in well-doing The spirit of grace and peace will not enter into a discontented spirit God was not in the earthquake or the whirlwind but in the still voice 1 Kings 19.11 in the sedate and chearful Soul And therefore Moses calls the murmuring Israelites sinners against their own Souls i.e. against their peace and comforts of their life Numb 36.38 The Serpent will devour the Dove and these meager thoughts like Pharaohs lean kine eat up better thoughts and affections To a murmuring Soul wisdom will not enter And in a word it would make the Christian Religion to stink among the heathen and therefore thou dost not wisely to inquire after such things I have now finished my Discourse on the Text and if my hearers will but apply the things spoken of Solomons Kingdom to our own as every ordinary capacity may do there needs no other Application I shall end therefore as I begun Ne dicas Say not thou a confederacy to them that say a confederacy to thee be not allured by their promises nor affrighted by their threats for their feet are swift to shed bloud destruction and misery are in their ways the way of peace they have not known and there is no fear of God before their eyes Learn we of the men of Isachar in Davids days who had under standing of the times to know what Israel ought to do 1 Chron. 12.32 Penes vos est rcrum Arbitrium nobis relicta est obsequii Gloria Fear God and Honour the King and meddle not with them that are given to change but leave the Administration of publick affairs and the care of Succession of Crowns and Kingdoms to God and our Superiors who are more concerned in them and will provide better for them than we can do Let us set bounds to our Passions by Reason to our Fears and jealousies by Religion to our Errors by Truth to our Schism by Charity and an unanimous consent in the Worship of God and to our Murmurings by a cheerful improvement of the blessings we enjoy that the voice of the Turtle may be heard in our Land even Praises to our God for the wonderful mercies of This day and for the continuance of them Prayers for our King in the words of Solomons Subjects 1 Kings 8.66 The Lord make the name of Solomon better than the name of David and his Throne greater than the throne of David and they went to their tents joyful and glad of heart for all the goodness that God had done for Solomon his servant and for Israel his people Amen THE END

A SERMON AGAINST Murmuring PREACHED in the Cathedral Church Of St. PETER EXON On the XXIXth of May 1680. By THOMAS LONG D.D. One of the Prebendaries of that Church Exod. xvi 8. Your murmurings are not against us but against the Lord. LONDON Printed for Richard Royston Bookseller to His most Sacred Majesty MDCLXXX TO THE Right Reverend FATHER in GOD THOMAS LORD Bishop of EXETER THIS Sermon not reaching the ears of those for whom it was chiefly intended I have by your Lordships direction offered it to their hands that it may be as a Glass not only to shew them their distorted faces but infectious breaths which may fix some spots on the glass it self but such as I doubt not will be easily wiped off I have attempted a very difficult work The governing of an unruly evil for as St. James sayes every kind of beasts and serpents have been tamed by man Chap. 3.7 except the Serpent that is within him the Tongue which no man can tame It was made to be our Glory but we generally turn it to our shame especially while therewith we seem to bless God but curse and speak evil of those who bear most of his Image his Magistrates and Ministers v. 9. It is full of deadly poyson such as never hurts less than three at once the person slandered in his good name by Calumny the person that listeneth to him in his Charity by Prejudice and evil surmises and himself most of all by doing the Devils work in slandering his brethren v. 8. It is a Fire saith St. James v. 6. and the worst of fires for it is set on fire of hell i.e. the Devil the father of lyes He is that god of Contention who imploys these Boutefeaus as Mars did his Priests to scatter coals of fire in the Temple and inflame the whole course of Nature Other evils may be seen and avoided but this shoots out arrows that fly as invisibly in the day as in the dark it is of such a Versatile and Proteus-like nature that no knot can hold it but it defies the Laws of God and man Our tongues are our own we ought to speak who is Lord over us Psal 12. I should not have enlarged this discourse but that I perceive Calumny is become the malus genius of the Nation which seems to be possessed not with a dumb but a talkative spirit that hath turned Religion into lying and slandering And such mens Religion St. James assures us is vain ch 1.26 'T is like that wherewith the Votaries of Mercury did worship him by casting stones at his Image and murdering their brethren in Effigie Our Apostle discovers the root of this evil to be a bitter zeal or envying and strife in the heart Chap. 3.14 the blistering of the tongue is caused by an ulcerous heart and 't is from within out of the heart that all these impurities do proceed Wherefore according to our Saviours method I have endeavoured to cleanse first that which is within and to suppress the first motions of murmuring and discontent by applying the lenitives of Right reason and Christian Religion which teacheth us to be of a meek and calm a cool and quiet Spirit to do our own business and be content with such things as we have and not to quarrel at the providences of God and the Administration of publick affairs But now men are grown presumptuous self-willed they are not afraid to speak evil of dignities and things which they understand not 2 Pet. 2.10 They are not afraid to insinuate as if the King favoured the Plot which hath been declared to be against His Majesties person and the Established Religion They quarrel the Succession and would put by the true and undoubted Heir They insinuate that His Majesty is no friend to Parliaments and would Rule us by an Arbitrary power And as to the Church of England they accuse it for declining apace to Popery and approving Popish Socinian and Pelagian Doctrines as Lewes du Moulin and the Author of the Celeusma when it is confessed by foreign Divines that it is the greatest fence against those pernicious errors They talk as if the Church Governours were mere Thorns and the instruments of the Devil exercising Tyranny and Oppression whereas the termes of Conformity as to the people are confessed to be much more facile than ever they were since the first Reformation And in truth the Indulgence granted to such men hath destroyed more by 1000 to one than that which they call persecution i.e. the execution of good laws They tell the people of an utter impossibility of Conforming to the Church of England because of many heinous sins in that Conformity Baxter's Plea for peace and that the Conformists are generally guilty of Perjury And these baits are dispersed through the Nation and greedily swallowed by the Credulous people who consider not what deadly hooks are under them And how great a matter a little of such wild fire kindleth Against these false suggestions and dangerous murmurings the ensuing discourse is intended The Persians were wont to observe an Anniversary Festival which they called the death of Vices and as an Embleme thereof they destroyed as many Serpents as they found in the Land I could not devise how to celebrate this happy Festival better than by endeavouring the mortification of those murmuring and discontented vices which were the cause of our former troubles and reduced us to so low a condition that none but Gods own hand could deliver us as with all thankfulness we acknowledge But as Ezra says ch 9.13 If after all that is come upon us for our evil deeds for which God hath punished us less than we deserve and hath-given us such deliverance as this we should again break his Commandments and neither fear him for his Judgments nor obey him for his Clemency but continue to be as our Fathers were a murmuring and rebellious generation may not our God be justly angry with us till he have consumned us so that there be no remnant nor escaping May we not fear that he will deal with us as he did with the murmuring Israelites who for forty years together under the various and miraculous dispensations of mercies and judgments so grieved his Holy Spirit that he Swore in his wrath they should never enter into his rest Psal 95. Our sins have really brought us to that brink of destruction which our guilty fears make us to apprehend with horror and yet we strive with all our might to cast each other into that gulf which like an open Sepulchre is prepared to swallow us all Archimedes is said to have invented such an Engine as if he could have found where to six it he would have undertaken by it to remove the Globe of the Earth out of its place This Engine some Mathematicians suppose to have been a Screw which lost invention some of our Age have recovered And if male-contented spirits be permitted to insinuate to the