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A97012
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A sermon preached at the Oxfordshire feast at St. Mary le Bow, November 15, 1694 by Samuel Walker, M.A. ; published at the request of the stewards.
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Walker, Samuel, M.A.
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1695
(1695)
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Wing W414; ESTC R42867
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8,197
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26
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for he will be kind to none he neither follows the Example of Christ nor obeys the Doctrine of his Gospel who prefers his private interest before the publick good blameable then in the superlative degree are those men which having been advanced by their Country and injoying a prosperous fortune a plentiful portion of this world refuse to perform those kind Offices by which they have been raised Such black ingrate such prodigies of unthankfulness have not the Spirit nor natural Love of that noble Heroic Roman who preferred the good of his Country before and above his own Life for he sacrificed the one for the preservation of the other Such Men deserve not the Name of Christians for they have nothing of the genuine temper of the Gospel Spirit nay such Men are strangers to natural affection as well as to a holy Catholic Charity and are not so morally vertuous as many of the Heathens Surely such Men have no Souls or no value for them that consider not affectionately the many obligations due to their native Christian Soil that are so wilfully blind as not to see the benefits and blessings they have received and so obstinately unthankful that they will not acknowledge the hand which frankly gave them But I hope better things of you my beloved Countrymen that as you have already begun to exercise your benignity and Charity so you will increase more and more in that excellent Grace and Vertue for the same Commandment of God which obligeth you to day will be of the same force to morrow the same kind of Tribute thou payest this day will be no less due the next for every day brings a new obligation of that Obedience which we owe unto the living God This Life of ours is as it were a Journey the Commandments of God are the ways of it there is not a more frequent expression in the sacred Pages than walking in the Law and Statutes of the Lord walking in the ways and paths of God and they who are not exercised day and night in the Law of the Lord do not walk in the paths of God but rather stand still in the way of Sinners for Gods Servants must not imitate Ahaz's Sun that moved gradually backward nor Joshua's Sun that moved neither backward nor forward but David's Sun that appears gloriously array'd like a Bridegoom out of his Chamber and rejoyceth as a young man to run his race and he runs in vain that runs swiftly setting out but faints before he arrives at the mark for such a racer will never obtain the prize and it is as fruitless to begin in a vertuous course and not to continue in it to the end Such a man will be never able to say with St Paul I have fought a good fight I have finished my course I have kept the faith henceforth there is laid up for me a Crown of Righteousness He that will be Paul's Scholar must persevere in the good course he hath begun to walk in his Doctrine is to increase and his Practice answerable to it I press towards the mark of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus Phil. 3. v. 14. It is not sufficient to know the way of Righteousness and to make some progress in it there must be a daily and constant abounding a going on in the good and the right way or else we can have no comfortable hope of that glorious Crown of Eternal Life The Apostle beseeches you to encrease more and more he frequently pressed this laudable Duty he exhorted his Philippians to abound in love his Corinthians to abound always in the work of the Lord Nor is he singular in this he hath many Joint-labourers Timotheus and Silvanus St. Peter also accords with him in the last words of his second Epistle Grow in Grace saith he and in the Knowledge of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ And growth there is not an addition a daily increasing more and more Gods Husbandry hath no time to lye fallow nor will he suffer the branches of his Vine at any time to be unfruitful nay he expects from it a great increase and therefore he prunes off the bad branches dresses trims and cultivates the goodones that they may bring forth more fruit John 15. v. 3. Hast thou then been exercised in the School of Virtue in the performance of a pious Duty of a vertuous Office thou hast done well but not enough for constancy and perseverance are required in all the works of the Lord. Hast thou been charitable continue in the practie of that sweet noble and divine grace hast thou been devout proceed in thy devotion hast thou been meek and humble deck thy self still with lowliness of mind hast thou been bountiful slack not thy liberal Hand abound more and more in piety and charity do good to all Men saith the Apostle but especially to the Houshold of Faith when it stands in need of your charity increasing in this heavenly Vertue more and more Every creature almost in the World yields you a motive a perswasive to the Duty The Sun is restless in her rounding course the Moon and all the Stars move as constantly in their courses as the Days and Time the flaming Fire is always ascending the liquid Water even running the sprightly Air in perpetual motion Let us therefore not stand in the way of Sinners nor set in the Seat of the Scornful but walk in the Law of the Lord and exercise our selves in it Day and Night Where is the Husbandman that doth not dig his Garden dress his Orchard till and manure his Lands that they may yield a good increase a plentiful crop in due Season and should not a man be more industrious more careful for his Soul than his Garden or Orchard is not his Eternal State preferrable to Temporal Possessions and all the good things of this Life And how do they then value and esteem those precious Jewels their immortal Souls who neglect the Doctrin of the good Apostle in my Text that inwardly adore the Mammon of Unrighteousness and say in their hearts to a wedge of Gold thou art our hope and our Confidence and lay no foundation for Eternal Life by the works of Charity and Mercy Some men there are but not members of this honourable Society whose Mouths are full of Charity but in their Hands are no Gifts they give large Portions with their Mouths but kindnesses from their Hands are very difficult to be seen felt or understood this lip-love and mouth-charity is condemned by the Apostle because it consists only in words not in deed and to say God bless you to a Brother that is naked and wants Cloathing or I wish you well to a Sister that wants Food are no better than airy empty Compliments and do no more fill the belly and warm the back than a golden dream doth fill the pocket and inrich the Man Jam. 2. v. 15. If a Brother or Sister be naked or destitute of daily Food and one of you say unto them depart in peace be ye warmed be ye filled Notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful for the Body what doth it profit them Finally My Beloved Brethren that you may be incouraged to practice the Duty of the Text consider the great advantages and blessings peculiar to a holy pious Charity The first is that the merciful charitable Christian hath the promise of Gods protection in the day of distress and danger of his favour and loving kindness in the day of his visitation Psal 41. v. 1. Blessed is he that considereth the poor the Lord will deliver him in the time of trouble v. 2. The Lord will preserve him and keep him alive and he shall be blessed upon earth and thou wilt not deliver him into the will of his Enemies v. 3. The Lord will strengthen him upon a bed of Languishing thou wilt make all his bed in his sickness Prov. 19. v. 17. He that hath pity upon the poor lendeth unto the Lord and that which he hath given he will pay him again Prov. 28. v. 27. He that giveth unto the poor shall not lack he that encreaseth more and more in charity shall find favour with God which is better than life it self Prov. 11. v. 25. The liberal Soul shall be made fat and he that watereth shall be watered also himself These are the good Blessings of this Life which God hath promised to the Righteous Merciful man Secondly Spiritual Blessings and those of the Life to come are likewise promised to him as you may read Psa 112. v. 9. He hath dispersed abroad he hath given to the poor his Righteousness remaineth for ever that is he shall be remembred not only in this Life but in the Life to come 1 Tim. 6. v. 17. Charge them that are rich in this World that they trust not in uncertain Riches but in the Living God that they do good that they be rich in good works laying up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come that they may lay hold on Eternal Life In a word unless we show it to our Brother God will show none to us they who have not charity for their fellow Christians will receive none from the hands of the Lord when they stand most in need of it We shall all be judged at the last day according to the works of Mercy therefore I beseech you to increase more and more in Charity and Mercy that the Son of God may welcom you into his heavenly Kingdom with a Come ye blessed Children of my Father inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the World FINIS
A SERMON Preached at the Oxfordshire Feast AT St. MARY LE BOW November 15. 1694. By Samuel Walker M. A. Non memini me legere malâ morte mortuum qui libenter opera Charitatis exercuit habet enim multos Intercessores Impossibile est multorum preces à Deo non exaudiri Hieronymus Published at the Request of the Stewards Imprimatur Jan. 23. 1694 5. Guil. Lancaster LONDON Printed by Fr. Leach for the Author 1695. TO THE STEWARDS OF THE Oxfordshire-Feast For the Year 1694. Gentlemen YOur Kindness and Request hath obliged me to publish the ensuing Discourse of Brotherly Love and Christian Charity God grant that you and I and every Christian may increase in that and every good Grace and Vertue in this Life that at the last Day we may partake of the Mercy of God unto Eternal Life through the Merits of Jesus Christ our Lord is the hearty wish of Your most Affectionate Country-man and Humble Servant S. W. 1 THESS IV. 10. But we beseech you Brethren to increase more and more NO sooner had our Blessed Lord the glorious Son of the Eternal God compleated that grand mysterious work of our Redemption but he sent his Disciples to preach the Gospel not to some few selected people whom he better loved than the rest of mankind but to all the Nations of the world for so their Commission runs Mat. 28. Go preach the Gospel to all Nations And among other Gentile places the happy news the glad tydings of the Gospel was affectionately delivered and charmingly preached by St Paul the Apostle of the Gentiles to the Inhabitants of Thessalonica the Metropolis of Macedonia Where his Doctrine found such kind entertainment that a great multitude of devout Greeks believed and of the chief women not a few Acts 17. v. 4. But no sooner had the good Apostle preached unto them the Resurrection of the author and finisher of our Faith but the malicious ill-natur'd Jews with certain lewd fellows of the basest sort assaulted the house of Jason for Paul's sake carrying both the Apostle and Disciple before the Magistrates of the City accusing them of Tumult and Sedition representing them troublers of the World and Enemies to Caesar so that the good Apostle was under a constraint to depart from Thessalonica which made him leave his new Converts unsettled not throughly established in the Faith But yet so firm and solid was the foundation which he had laid that all the black Regiment of Hell with the Prince of the Powers of Darkness could not extirpate nor overturn it The sleight and the cunning the violence and force of all the false Prophets could not court them to embrace another Doctrine nor fright them into an Abhorrence of that which they had received from St Paul Who hearing from some of his Brethren and Fellow labourers of their stedfastness in the Faith wrote this Epistle to congratulate their constancy their perseverance in the same and to arm them against all temptations all afflictions which might attack their sincerity and assault their Christian fortitude and having thus confirmed them in this Chapter he exhorts them v. 1. to please God by abounding more and more in all the duties of piety v. 4. to keep their bodies pure and undefiled v. 6. he dehorts them from fraud and oppression v. 9 10. he commends their fraternal love and charity for saith the Apostle of them Ye exercise it towards all the brethren that are in Macedonia And without vanity and self-reflection my beloved Brethren and Fellow Countrymen I must commend your charity and love which you have often shewed one to another but we beseech you brethren that ye increase more and more Now the reason why St. Paul addressed himself in this humble courteous language of intreaty is I conceive that his Doctrine might the better charm their affections and be the more firmly rooted in their hearts that love might lead them to the practice of their duty rather than fear frighten them into a compliance with it The Apostle who had taken some with a holy guile experimentally knew that that Obedience is more sincere which proceeds from a principle of love than that which is compelled by fear My body and external parts may be forced but no compulsion can prevail against my soul That 's the most sweet and welcome Obedience which is voluntary and unconstrained A Lion peradventure may be stroaked into a bondage but sooner will he be hewed in pieces than beaten into a chain That is surely an imperfect kind of Obedience which bows men to their duty by threats and terrors there is very little of the heart in such performances which can therefore find very little acceptance with God our Saviour who would have the ground of our Obedience to be love John 14. v. 15. If you love me keep my commandments The drift and design of St. Paul was to incourage his Thessalonians in their vertuous practices in their Christian progress and therefore he beseeches them to increase and that he might the better prevail with them he adds that christian appellation of Brethren I beseech you Brethren But how the Apostle a Jew born at Tarsus in Cilicia could call the Thessalonians Grecians by birth Brethren may perhaps be questioned For the satisfaction therefore of such a Curiosity it may be observed that the word Brethren is variously used as well in the Book of God as our common language for not only they are called Brethren that are born of the same as Jacob and Esau but they also who derive their Original from the same stock so Abraham and Lot though but Brothers Sons were called Brethren People of the same Nation such as follow the same Art or Trade that are partners in the same Office or Employment are called Brethren Paul and Sosthenes fellow-labourers in the work of the Ministry are so called 1 Cor. 1.1 but in neither of these respects doth Saint Paul call the Thessalonians by that Christian name but because they were brethren in the Christian Faith and they may properly be called brethren that profess the same Faith worship the same God and in the same manner are members of the same Church and through the merits of the blessed Jesus are interessed in all the priviledges belonging to the Sons of God This is a Spiritual brotherhood and in this sense we are all Christians and as such we are brethren in Christ Jesus And therefore my beloved I shall use the loving language of the Apostle to perswade you to that excellent duty of Charity upon our solemn Feast-day which is a Feast of Love and Charity which you have often exercised to the lowly branches of your Country to your honour But we beseech you Brethren to increase more and more Highly reasonable necessary for us and incumbent upon us is the practice of this great and honourable duty if we consider that God Almighty is our merciful Father that he daily feeds and cloaths us that