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A43463 A sermon preach'd at the assizes held for the county of Surrey at Kingston upon Thames, March 30, 1699 by Henry Hesketh ... Hesketh, Henry, 1637?-1710. 1699 (1699) Wing H1621; ESTC R5317 15,803 32

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A SERMON Preach'd at the ASSIZES Held for the County of Surrey AT Kingston upon Thames March 30. 1699. By HENRY HESKETH Rector of Charlewood and Chaplain in Ordinary to His Majesty London Printed for Walter Kettilby at the Bishop's Head in St. Paul's Church-yard 1699. To the Right Honourable Sir JOHN HOLT Kt. Lord Chief Justice of England and One of His Majesty's most Honourable Privy-Council MY LORD IT is by Your Lordship's Command for such any signification of Your Desire shall always be to me that this Discourse is made thus Publick and the Kindness that you have shewed to the Author makes it Duty in him to lay it with all Humility and Thankfulness at your Feet I did not think that there was any thing in it to recommend it to such a kind Acceptance unless Honesty and Plain-dealing come in Reputation again But when I saw Your Lordship's Thoughts seconded by the Worthy Gentlemen upon the Bench and Grand Jury too I confess I was affected not so much with the favour shew'd to my self God knows as with the joyful hope that the true Spirit and Temper of Religion breathed in those Persons who by the Influence they have upon as well as Interest in their Country may happily propagate it to others below them May God Almighty verifie the Presage and inspire them with Zeal in this Noble Design May that Heavenly Dew which now I begin to hope is fallen upon the top of Hermon refresh not only the immediate Declensions but at last Water the very Fields of Zion And may Your Lordship and all those Worthy Persons rejoice in those Blessings which God hath promised to give there to all good Men now and in those greater Portions of Bliss that he hath provided for such hereafter This is and shall be the daily Prayer of My LORD Your Lordship 's Most humble and obedient Servant HENRY HESKETH 1 TIM i. 9. Knowing this that the Law is not made for a Righteous Man but for the Lawless and Disobedient for the Vngodly and for Sinners for Vnholy and Prophane c. THE Connexion of these Words is not so very plain but that we may pertinently enough stay to clear it and the rather because doing that may let us easilier into the meaning of them The Apostle had in the precedent Verses reflected with some smartness upon a company of pretended Apostles and false Teachers that had crept into the Conventions of Christians who pretending to a more perfect understanding of the Law than other Men boasted themselves to be the only true Teachers of it and seeming to penetrate deeper into the more abstruse sence thereof they took occasion to teach the belief of some strange mystical Genealogies and to amuse Men's Heads with needless though curious Speculations and Questions of no use either to Faith or Manners It is very probable the Apostle meant that primitive Sect of the Gnosticks so called from their pretending to a deeper and more exact Knowledge of the Mysteries of Christian Religion than others and his speaking of their busying themselves about Genealogies c. makes it very clear that he meant that Pestilent Sect which made a great noise with these a Specimen of which the Learned Grotius gives us in his Notes upon this place Having reflected upon these high Law Preachers with a design to warn Timothy and others to beware of them lest what he had said might be misinterpreted as if he meant to disparage or undervalue the Law he tells us ver 8. that the Law is good if it be used lawfully i. e. to that end and purpose for which it was made which was not to imploy Men in Genealogies and vain Janglings but to excite them to the doing of that good which it commanded as well as to restrain them from the Evil it forbid And when Men use it themselves and teach others to use it to these Ends they use it as they should and when they preach it up to this End they do laudably and well But it was not so very proper and pertinent to make such a noise with preaching the Law to Christians who if they answer'd their Character were good Men for whom the Law was not intended for we ought to know this that the Law was not made for a Righteous Man but for the Lawless and Disobedient for the Ungodly and for Sinners for Unholy and Profane c. In speaking to which Words I shall crave your Patience only while I do these two general things I. Endeavour to give the true sense and meaning of them II. And then endeavour to make that sense as useful to us as I can by drawing some such Inferences from it as may be pertinent to this Meeting and the end of it I. I begin with the first in which it will be needful to shew 1. In what sense and upon what reason it is here said that the Law is not made for a righteous Man 2. In what sense and upon what reason it is said to be made for the Lawless and Disobedient for the Ungodly and for Sinners in general and especially for such profane and wicked Persons as he afterwards particularly instanceth in These two I think will be enough on this first general for I do not think it so needful to waste our time in giving the Notion of a Righteous Man for whom the Law is said not to be made This is plain enough in Holy Scripture if Men would let it be so and had not some ill Ends in perplexing the Notion of it I confess there are two Notions of a Righteous Man as well as of Righteousness in Scripture the one more restrained and then it signifies a Just Man and the other more lax and large and then it is the same as a Good Man i. e. one that is careful to do his Duty in all the Instances of it respecting God his Brother or himself which our Apostle expresseth by living soberly and righteously and godly in this World Tit. 2.12 It is commonly taken in this sense and I believe almost always so where it is singly named and when one of the other words are not joyned with it as in this place and a hundred more both in the V. and N.T. and the word is very proper in this sense For as all Duty of what nature soever is founded in Justice and the variations of one are but so many Instances of the other so a good Man is properly called a righteous or a just Man because he is just to his God just to his Neighbour and just to himself Not alas that he is always exactly so and comes up to the Rule in every thing for this is a state of Imperfection and Weakness wherein the very best Men are sometimes born down by surprize and the violence of Temptations c. but being sincerely so to his Power begging Pardon for what he falls short in and striving still to do better he is upon the gracious Terms of the