Selected quad for the lemma: lord_n
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A42498
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Three sermons preached upon severall publike occasions by John Gauden.
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Gauden, John, 1605-1662.
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1642
(1642)
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Wing G373; ESTC R8318
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68,770
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144
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THREE SERMONS PREACHED UPON SEVERALL PUBLIKE OCCASIONS By JOHN GAUDEN D.D. LONDON Printed by R. Bishop for Andrew Crook and are to be sold at his shop at the Signe of the Green Dragon in Pauls Church-yard 1642. TO THE Right Honourable ROBERT Earle of VVarwick Baron of Lees one of his Majesties most Honourable Privie Councell My very honourable Lord THe many noble favours which I have received from your Lordship chiefly and from others of your noble Family compell mee since these Sermons will needs be publike beyond my intentions to adde to them the honour of your Lordships name and to set upon them this Seal of Gratitude from a heart that unfainedly prayes for all those encreases to your Lordship and yours which may make both your Lordship and them truly honourable in this and ever happy in the other world For so I must professe to all the world your Noblenesse hath abundantly deserved of your Lordships most humble and obliged Servant IOHN GAUDEN A SERMON preached before his MAIESTIE HEBR. 12.14 Follow peace with all men and holinesse without which no man shall see the Lord THough there needs a large Preface and Apology for the Speaker as Elihu used to Iob and his friends being a stranger to this place and no way proportionable to so great and sacred a presence yet I am sure there needs no Apology for the Text I have read unto you The weight of the matter being of greatest and highest concernment to every one of your soules may by the favour of your patience piety and wisedome much supply the want of gravity and sufficiency in the Speaker The subject I have propounded being so necessary and indispensible that without it none that heare me this day from the least to the greatest from the Cottage to the Palace from the Mill to the Throne neither hearer nor speaker shall ever be happy to see the face of God And certainly in this brokennesse and distraction of minds and times every one almost going a severall way full of fractions and divisions crossing and thwarting each other if we could all be so happy as to learne this lesson and conspire to follow these two Peace and Holinesse no doubt it would much abate and compose our distances while like lines we all tend to one Centre God or run parallel to that straight rule of his will and This is the will of God even your sanctification I should be too happy and aboundantly excusable for my boldnesse in speaking to you this day if through Gods assistance and your patience I might be able so to represent to you that smooth safe and beautifull way of Peace and Holinesse that by the serious and consciencious following of them all of us might orderly and cheerfully goe together the Prince with the People and the People with the Prince the hearts of each drawing neerer to other and all to God to the sight and fruition of him in whose presence is fulnesse of joy and life for evermore The Text is a sacred and solemn exhortation by which the Spirit of God directs all men the next and onely way to attaine the most soveraign good and desireable end the happy sight of God In it we have 1 The precept or direction Follow peace with all men and holinesse 2 The motive or inducement Without which no man shall see God not promissory and affirmative for in so doing you shall see God but menacing and negative such being indeed the temper of mens hearts that they are more terrified with losse than won and invited with the hopes of good the misery of suffering prevailing more with our hardnesse than the happinesse of enjoying The horror of being ever separated from the sight of God the chiefest good of the soule which can import no lesse than hell and extreme misery this happily may scare many one to follow Peace and Holinesse whom neither the pleasantnesse of the way nor the amplenesse of the reward would induce to forsake their pleasing but yet impure and dangerous courses In the Precept we have 1 the Object which is double Peace and Holinesse 2 The Act or Duty but one and serves to both Follow them We will consider the objects severally in their natures and carry along the Act or Duty with them 1 Of Peace Follow peace with all men Now although the beauty sweetnesse and usefulnesse of this subject which is so agreeable to my mind and so necessary to our times that I should be glad to meet it in every Sermon I make or heare and in every man with whom I deale though I say it might deserve and justifie a large and renewed discourse upon it yet I may but sparingly now speak of it and onely sprinkle you with a few drops of this pure and chrystall stream which makes all to flow with milke and honey wheresoever it runs in the Conscience in the Church or in the State and Civill Societies because I have not long agoe in a publick though farre inferiour Assembly largely discoursed of it And I would not seem to doe what I need not that is drive two Mills with one streame since the plenty of the other Branch of Holinesse will afford matter sufficient and worthy your attention my speech and all our practices Onely give me leave to point out briefly to you these three things 1 What this Peace is 2 How and by whom to be followed 3 Why. 1 For this generall Peace we can better tell what it is by the fruition than any description of it What health is to the body and calmnesse to the Sea and serenity to the day such is peace to the hearts and conversation of men it is a kind of sweet divine and heavenly concent harmony and beauty of minds and manners of affections and actions it is one of the fairest and pleasantest fruits of that which among Christians wee call charity by which each is endeared to other by a mutuall love and study of one anothers good welfare and happinesse as their own both private and publick temporall and eternall This must be followed to the latitude and extension of the subject with all men Rom. 12.18 As much as in you lies if it bee possible live peaceably with all men As farre as the common bounds of our nature extend we are to follow peace with all men so farre as men Pax cum hominibus bellum cum vitiis The more thou art an enemy to their enemies their sins and vices the more faithfull friend thou art to them Peccata interficio homines amplector is the Motto not onely of every good Magistrate but of every good man hate and slay their sinnes but love and save their soules There is a double bond for it 1 Commune vinculum naturae the common tie of our nature being all of one metall binds us to peace by making us sociable God having sweetned our nature beyond the savagenesse and fiercenesse of other creatures which are prone and armed