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A67023
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A sermon preached at the Oxfordshire-feast, Novemb. 25. 1674 in the church of St. Michael's Cornhill, London / by John Woolley ...
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Woolley, John, b. 1645 or 6.
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1675
(1675)
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Wing W3525; ESTC R10339
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13,609
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42
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Countrymen For we are Brethren Brethren in the same great Family the Church of Christ Brethren in the same Protestant Religion Brethren of the same County and most of us Brethren in the same City We are tied together to Love and Peace by all the Obligations of Religion of humane nature and of humane frailty We even we are under all those Obligations with which wise and peaceable Abraham prevail'd over his Nephew Let us therefore be at unity as Brethren in an House let us agree and consent to do good yea let us rejoice together for the good of others Then shall this Solemnity be a Solemnity of Blessing and Αγάπη may be the Name for our Feasts they may be Charity it self as the Meetings of the Ancients were call'd And 't is God be thanked in our Power to be so In order to this give me leave to recommend to you at this time two Circumstances wherein it were to be wisht we could all agree And then I have done First then Let us be united in our Religion For if Abraham complyed so much and took such care to be at peace in worldly Affairs How much more should we strive to be at peace in our Religion whose very business is Charity and whose Gospel is a Gospel of peace Consider your tender Mother the Church of England and be not easily perswaded to think amiss of her of her who hath pray'd and intreated her disobedient Sons to come to her who hath divested her self of many innocent and honourable Priviledges to satisfie the weak and discontented And I hope no man would have her go naked would strip her of all her decent Ornaments to content the Pride and Avarice of her disobedient Children those Children whom she would have gathered under her wings as a Hen gathereth her Chicken and they would not There are indeed many Pretences and Suggestions many Scruples and Objectins which I may not answer now many Jealousies and Fears of Popery and Superstition But 't is well if the Romans do not serve us as one of them did the mutinous Jews of old for Pilate as Eusebius Euseb Hist lib. 2. cap. 6. Joseph lib. 2 de bello Judaic c. 18. tells us out of Josephus I say Pilate when he was made Governour by Tiberius and when he could not hope the Jews would ever suffer him to bring in his Emperors Standards and Images openly into the City for the Jews abhorr'd and detested such things and the forenam'd Josephus a Jew reckons it among Solomon's Crimes his making the Similitude Joseph Ant. l. 8. Lat. Frob. 2 Chron. 4. of Brazen Oxen under the Molten Sea and of Lyons on his Throne I say this Pilate contriv'd to bring those Images into the City in the dark night and cover'd too and veil'd over But when he had once got them in it cost the Jews many tears and lamentations much danger and more sorrow before they could get them remov'd again And let us take care and I pray God we do not find Popery and Superstition Images and Idols maskt under the Garments of Zeal and Reformation brought into this Church which was once and is still the Glory and Support of the Protestant Interest But secondly That which I chiefly design at this time and I humbly beg you all to agree in Is a Generous and Free and Charitable Supply for your Poor Countrymen For those who mourn in secret and dwell in the low Tabernacles of Smoak and desolate want For those who themselves also would have made a part of this Solemnity had not God in his Providence disposed them to a sadder Entertainment Remember the Fatherless and the Widow whose cry cometh up to Heaven even now while we are paying our Devotions toward it Those who sustain the necessities and hardships the cold and hunger of the whole year upon the hopes of being comforted by the Bounty and Charity of this day Nor need I use many words to perswade you my Brethren For besides the tyes of Religion and natural Compassion methinks we of all other men have the greatest Obligations upon to be Charitable We were born in that County which is blest with an University the very Seat and dwelling-place of Charity She lies scatter'd indeed in private Bosomes and hath now and then taken up her Lodgings in other places But in your Country is her Mansion-house there is her Throne and place of abode It was in your County that she first appeared in State and 't was Oxford that was blest with the early designs of Charity that being the place where the two first endow'd Colleges of Christendom were built as Cambden Cambd. in Oxfordsh p. 381. Eng. assures us From your County one of our best Kings Charles the Martyr always excepted namely Edward the Confessor At Islip began his life And another of our most valiant Kings Richard the first took in his Cambden ibid. At Oxon. great Spirit from your Air. Thus Honourable and Famous hath your County been even above any County in the World and hath but one Equal and that in our own Nation too Let us not then degenerate from the Credit and Honour of our Native Soyl but let us be a Repute to our Country and a Support to our poor Countrymen Let part of that Charity which dwelt among your Fore-Fathers posses your minds And let us answer the expectation of the World and the hope of our poor Brethren at this Day For beside our Religion and the Genius of our Country even Nature and Pagan Philosophy bids us be Charitable to the Indigent And Aristotle an Heathen can advise That the Arist l. 6. polit c. 5. rich are bound to supply the poor with Necessaries Nor can I imagine what can hinder any of us from this natural and pleasant Duty unless we detain that from the poor which we design to bestow upon our sins unless we forbear to give that which we have already devoted to Wantonness Intemperance and costly Follies It concerns us therefore to be more Temperate and Sober and then we shall be more Generous and Charitable Let us spend less upon our Vices upon our gaudy and vain Apparel upon costly Banquets and endless Quarrels and then we shall have enough to satisfie the just Conveniencies of our Quality and yet enough to spare to the empty Bowels and craving Necessities of the poor And here I may recommend to you the frugal Modesty in Diet and Apparel of the ancient Christians whose Women which in most Nations are allow'd to be clad somewhat more delicately observ'd a wonderful Plainness and Gravity For Tertullian in his Tert. Apol. cap. 6. Apology for the Christians tells us of their Women Aurum nulla noverat preterquam unico digito c. The Women wore no Gold nay scarce knew any but their Wedding-Ring But the contrary was an early Vice even in the Church especially among the Women whose Ornaments and Apparels colour'd Garments and painted Petticoats Tertullian sticks not to call the Invention De cultu faem l. 2. c. 10 not of men but of evil Angels But 't was his advice and from him let me give it you to take care of this Vice and to remember that Gravity in Clothes Plainness and Decency in Apparel are the Maintainers of those two most excellent Vertues Modesty and Charity Nor may we think that this advice of his proceeded from the Necessity of the times or the Poverty of the Christians For the same Father tells us nay and Apolog. he tells the Heathen to their Faces That the Christians gave more Money away in the Streets than the Heathens spent upon their gods and their Altars upon their gaudy and their costly Superstitions And what was the reason why the Christians did and were able to do so much Why I can give it you out of the same Father since I have began Tert. Apol. cap. 43. to speak out of him namely because they were temperate chaste and sober For when the Heathens complain'd that the Christians were a sort of Close-fisted men that they spent no money at all he bravely answers But I 'le tell you saith he who are they that complain they are the Brothel-houses and the Taverns they are the Ministers of Lust and Luxury and Vice that complain and none else And let all such complain yea for ever complain among us also And if we are curious to know how the Christians spent their Money the same man Apol. cap. 39. tells us They had a Box wherein every one monthly cast in what his Charity and Estate allowed And this went non potaculis non epulis not to maintain Gluttony and Drunkenness but to relieve the poor to bury the poor to Children without Father or Mother or any subsistence to the Aged to the Imprisoned and such like poor Christians Nor can I conclude with and I think you cannot take a better patern than this nor can you grudg I hope to do that once a Year which the ancient Christians who were under worse circumstances than most of you are did once every Month. Thus have I from the Example of Abraham recommended to you Love and Peace and Condescention And from the ancient and best Christians have I recommended Bounty and Charity to the Poor and Distressed What remains but that we go and do likewise having the fear of God before us while we are Feasting together and the Charity of Christians when we have done And having minded you of these two things namely of Temperance at our Dinner and of Bounty after it I will conclude with a part of Scripture which I hope you will all remember taken out of Nehemiah ch 8. ver 10. Go your way eat the fat and drink the sweet and send Portions to them for whom nothing is provided And then as it follows This day will be holy unto our Lord neither shall ye be sorry for the joy of the Lord will be your strength To whom the Eternal Creator Three Persons and One God be Glory and Honour Might Majesty and Dominion now and for ever Now the God of Patience and Consolation grant you to be like-minded one towards another according to Christ Jesus And The Blessing of God Almighty the Father Son and Holy Ghost be among us and remain with us this Day and for ever more Amen The End
Friendship and Unity Give me leave again to recommend to you the Example of Abraham in this following method And first Let us take notice of Abraham's willingness to be at peace from the manner of his endeavouring after it exprest in these words Let there be no strife I pray thee c. Secondly Let us take notice of Abraham's willingness to be at peace in the matter in which this quarrel was like to be namely in the matter of worldly gain in Lands and Possessions together with the extent of it it was like to grow even among their Servants also among their Herdmen c. As to the manner of Abraham's address you have partly seen it already in his applying himself to Lot his Nephew and Inferior and it is farther exprest in his humble words and gentle intreaties Let there be no strife I pray thee I pray thee What lowly meek and friendly language is here He that could have commanded intreats he that was Lord and Master prays and beseeches for peace What melting Language was this How must this dominari affectibus rule and controul the Passions far more than the Eloquence of Cicero or Demosthenes or to put it into the phrase of a better Orator than both these His words indeed are sweeter than honey yea than honey or the honey-comb Nor was this civil and obliging Language a fit of Courtship or a good humour only but the usual and frequent practice of this mighty Prince An instance of whose courteous behaviour fit to be taken notice of by all proud and morose men we have in Gen. 23. where also the very Heathen the Sons of Heth may upbraid our Quakers and such like untaught and illiterate Clowns The Story in short is this Sarah was now dead and Abraham though grief might have made him sullen comes and treats friendlily and obligingly with the Sons of Heth about a burying-place and they do it in such language and such a manner that even the Courts of civiliz'd Nations cannot exceed them So early and so natural is the practice of civil words respectful Behaviour and honourable Compellations for at ver 5 6 we thus read And the Children of Heth answered Abraham saying unto him Hear us my Lord Thou art a mighty Prince among us in the choice of our Sepulchers bury thy dead Ver. 7. And Abraham stood up and bowed himself to the people of the Land And so he doth again at the 12th Verse He doth not it seems think it inconsistent with his Religion or inconsistent with his Honour to bow his Body and pay his respect even to the Heathen in whose esteem he was a mighty Prince He takes their awful and civil compellation of Lord and gives them back his bodily Complement though as far from Superstition and as tender of Gods Honour as any of our morose Pretenders can be Let those men therefore consider this and go not you into their ways a main part of whose Religion it is to be unmannerly both to God and to man But to return to my Text We are to take notice in it of Abraham's kind and meek language of his praying and beseeching even while he was at odds with his Nephew Which may be remembred to the conviction and be it spoken to the shame of us Christians who in a contest or a quarrel in a small pet or some trifling disagreement do rail at and backbite do slander and abase each other Cursings and evil-speakings are our frequent Arguments and we shoot out our arrows even bitter words This enrages and envenoms the Wound adds bitterness to the Gall turns a Dispute into a Frenzy and makes that Madness which should be Reason But on the other side when do we hear such language as this in my Text or to whose Ear hath the report come Let there be no c. between me and thee I pray thee my Brother I beseech thee for peace my Friend Come let 's agree and dwell together in Unity No we are so far from such meek and tender Expressions so far generally from intreating for peace that when men speak unto us of it we make our selves ready for Battel We will not move one step forward to be at peace But we fix our selves and sit down in the Chair of the Scornful Επὶ καθÎδÏα λοιμῶν In cathedra pestium as Tertullian of old reads it out of the Greek Tert. lib. de spectac sub initio Translation of the Bible The Scornful man is a Pest and Infection his Breath poisons the Air and blasts the credit of all that come near him Such cruel things are bitter words that they are and may be compar'd to what we fear most of all even to the Plague and Pestilence Let us therefore avoid all such unnatural and reproachful words Let our Discourse even in Disputes and Controversies be amiable and obliging be courteous peaceful and condescending And let all such men know who are given to a proud and haughty speech that Abraham a better man than the best of such Scorners chides them severely in this Example and though he be dead yet speaketh Nor must they look to dwell in his peaceful Bosom or to have one drop of water to cool those tongues which before-hand are set on fire of Hell as St. James expresseth it Cap. 3. Wherefore Beloved Country-men seeing these things are so Let us wholly conform our language and behaviour our endeavours and our intreaties to peace and friendship If our Enemies curse let us bless if they revile let us beseech And who can tell but a soft word may melt that man's heart who will not be corrected with Scorpions nor subdued with a rod of Iron Thus have I done with the manner of Abraham's address his peaceful and kind approaches hoping that your Education and good manners your natural goodness and your Christian Piety will improve this Example to the publick honour quiet and advantage both of your selves and others As to the remaining part in which I shall be short namely the matter of this debate and growing quarrel 't was about Flocks and Herds about Fields and Possessions And no wonder for Riches and Gain have made Breaches in the closest and most compact Friendships These have made Fathers cruel and Sons disobedient have torn Families into pieces and scatter'd blood and ruine among the dearest Relations And therefore it being the common fate of mankind to quarrel for such mean concerns I cannot but conjure you by Charity and Religion by the Honour and Remembrance of your Country and lastly by this great Example That you quarrel not about such things Suffer not your selves to be hurried by this common Stream into the wide Sea and open Tempests of wranglings and disagreements Waste not your Time and your Estates and your Charity to boot in long and vexatious Suits at Law Prefer your Charity before your Riches Prefer the peace of God and of your Neighbour and of your own Consciences before wealth