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A80830
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A sermon preached before the Right Honourable the Lords assembled in Parliament, upon the fast-day appointed, February 4. 1673/4 By Herbert Lord Bishop of Hereford.
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Croft, Herbert, 1603-1691.
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1674
(1674)
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Wing C6974; ESTC R225556
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12,618
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34
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reward We shall be great gainers by all such losses if we bear them patiently It is then the contention and fighting we have within our selves which doth us all the mischief they are our own passions which fight against our reason and these are the enemies that wound our souls which no other enemy can peach Nor do our passions war against our reason only but contend and fight one against another As our body is composed of several elements very opposite as fire and water earth and air so the affections and passions which spring from the body are as disagreeing and cross to each other as these elements and are at perpetual discord As for example The passion of covetousness how doth this force a man to pinch both back and belly to rise early and trot about and though he lie down wearied at night with many turmoiling affairs yet then solicitous care for the morrow forbids him sleep or to take any rest and all this to satisfie his greedy appetite of wealth which he hath no sooner scraped together and hoorded up in his Closet but a clean contrary passion of vain-glory forces open the Closet doors tumbles out the bags for his Neighbour hath built him a fair House richly furnished and he is resolved to out-do him whatever it cost thus Covetousness and Vain-glory war in his own breast Again an amorous lustful passion makes a man flatter and adore some beautiful imperious Dame observing all her freakish humours till at length she growing insolent and desiring to shew her domineering power puts some scornful affront upon him which cuts him to the heart and raises in him a fierce indignation requiring him even to kick out of doors this insulting Creature yet she in spight of all his wrath and fury holds him fast with her amorous hook by the nose like a Bear making him still dance after her pipe Just so the ambition of gaining some honourable and powerful place at Court will make the most haughty aspiring man crouch to and fawn upon all those whom he thinks may be instrumental for the gaining of it be they ever so unworthy in his own estimation yet his eager Ambition will force him to stoop and humble himself to these pitiful Creatures which his proud heart abhors Many more such contradictory passions are perpetually clashing and fighting in the breasts of worldly and wicked men never suffering them to enjoy any peaceful tranquility All this is briefly set forth by our Prophet in the Verse forgoing my Text The wicked are like the troubled Sea when it cannot rest whose waters cast up mire and dirt Gregory the great Moralist descants upon this place in a pious meditation adding to this passage of Isaiah that of David Psal 104.26 where he speaks of that great Leviathan taking his pastime in the Sea which Sea he interprets Corda mortalium tumidis cogitationibus fluctuosa and by Leviathan he understands Antiquum hostem qui in eorum lubrica cogitatione natat The various passions which the hearts of carnal men are subject to like furious winds blow where they list without any controul of Grace tossing them up and down like boisterous Waves of the Sea wherein the great Leviathan Satan takes his pastime endeavouring to raise the Tempest and Confusion to the heighth When he first tempts men to sin he turns the lessening end of his Prospective-glass unto their eye representing the greatest horrid Crimes as small harmless Peccadilioes but when he hath raised the mass of their sins to a vast deformed bulk fit to terrifie them then he turns the multiplying end to their affrighted consciences he raises up the mire and dirt thereof as our Prophet saith representing all in as foul and fearful a manner as possible he can never ceasing till he hath overwhelmed them in the depth of despair and this is his masterpiece his chief pastime to see men thus distracted and confounded Miserable wretches made by sin at last such mortal enemies unto themselves as in raging despair to cast themselves body and soul into eternal flames There can be no peace to the wicked who are not at peace with God who have not the assistance of his Divine Grace to repel the furious blasts of Satan God only and his Christ are able to say effectually to the Winds Peace and to the Sea Be still and his Disciples only can obtain this favour at his hands So saith David Psal 85.8 He will speak peace unto his people and to his Saints Be the Storm ever so great and the Vessel ready to sink a word from his Divine powerful mouth composes all Therefore David saith again Psal 119.165 Great peace have they which love thy Law and nothing shall off end them But the wicked have no share in this and therefore can have no setled peace neither within their own hearts nor one with another which is my third and last division of Peace Peace with others God is as it were the Center of all things from whom innumerable Lines issue forth towards the Circumference of the whole Universe and these Lines the nearer they are to the Center the nearer they draw to each other and in the Center are all conjoyned the farther they draw from the Center the more they are disunited one from another And from hence is that Maxime approved of as well in natural Philosophy as Divinity Omne quod fit unum participatione unius fit unum There can be no unity but by participation of the prime Unity and Entity which is God Ens unum verum bonum Now the wicked man partakes only of Gods Entity but hath no participation of his goodness or unity and therefore cannot be at any unity with himself or with others The same disordered passions which disturb his own peace and quiet disturb the peace of others also and his receding from God the prime Unity is the cause of all division and distraction And on the other side the nearer the godly draw unto God the more they are composed in their own breasts the more at peace and unity with others and in God are all as one This we see verified in that blessed multitude mention'd Acts 4. The whole multitude were of one heart and of one soul Thus it was with the Primitive Christians who drew near unto God but we Christians of this Age as we are more remote in distance of time from Christ so are our hearts far more remote from him and far divided one from another strangely different from those blessed Primitive Christians who were of one heart and one soul Where can you now find a whole Multitude a whole Congregation a whole Family of one heart of one soul alas of as many hearts almost as men Are we then Christians By this shall all men know saith Christ that ye are my Disciples if ye love one another Then by this do all men know that we are not Christs Disciples because we love not one another but instead of
love have malice instead of peaceful agreement either violent oppression or cunning supplanting one another yea fighting and murthering one another insomuch that 't is become a Proverb among the Turks What fight and kill one another as the Christians do Good God that the peaceful name of Christ should be thus horribly blasphemed Christians who should be the blessed example of peace to the whole world are become the scandalous reproach of Murtherers to the whole world So it is a most lamentable truth which will be laid home to our charge when we shall appear before the terrible Tribunal of Christ our King the Prince of Peace And what 's the cause of all our Discord our wicked lusts and passions From whence come Wars and Fightings among you saith St. James 4 1. Come they not hence even of your lusts that war in your members And these very lusts which war in our members cause us to war one with another And what are these lusts St. John tells us 2.16 The lust of the flesh the lust of the eyes and the pride of life First the lust of the flesh What Wars and bloodshed hath this wicked lust of the flesh caused all the world over from the beginning to the end How early in Scripture do we find the destruction of the Shechemites for the rape of Dinah Jacob's Daughter the fleshly lust of one man brought this calamity upon the whole City and Country to their utter ruine And in Prophane Story the most ancient famous ten years War of the Greeks with Troy was it not for the like Paris rapture of Helen which set all that part of the world in a flame This might have been a fair warning unto Greece not to offend in that kind Yet Sparta a City there once so famous for Justice and so successful for it but refusing to do Justice to Scedasus of Leuctra for the ravishment of his Daughters suffered that lamentable Defeat in the Plains of Leuctra soon after where their King Cleombrotus and all their Nobility were totally routed and killed by the Thebans And if you please to pass from Greece into Italy there you will presently find that hopeful Monarchy planted by Romulus in Rome supplanted and totally eradicated by the Rape of Lucretia And again when the Roman Empire was re-established with greater power and glory then the world ever saw before or since when it had conquer'd so many Nations as there scarce remained a people worth the conquering and Rome became as it were the Empress of the World I beseech you what subdued this mighty power doth not a chief Poet of their own tell us 't was Luxuria victumque ulciscitur orbem Luxury so enervated the Sinews of this before invincible people that they were quite over-run by several barbarous Nations who slaughtered them as Sheep defaced and broke down their Triumphant Arches and trampled all their Glory under foot And was it not just so afterwards in the Grecian Empire As the Goths and Vandals over-ran the Romans so the Saracens and Turks subdued the Grecians made by Luxury the most effeminate and most feeble Nation in the World and thereby exposed to Invasion and Rapine Their splendidness and voluptuousness of living was an alluring bait to their greedy Neighbours who seeing them fatted for the slaughter and stretched forth on their beds of Ivory in supine negligence took wing like hungry Ravens for the prey And so you may go on and in all Histories find Luxury the constant fore-runner of Destruction and many dismal examples of great devastations caused by this fleshly lust And as for the lust of the Eyes by which is understood the lusting after those things which we see others enjoy this begets in as unsatiable desires and then for the satisfying of these what animosities and feuds daily arise among us For as Boetius saith well the poor narrow riches of this world which he calls Augustas inopesque divitias can't satisfie the boundless covetousness of men and besides all being already possest by some or other Quae ad quemque perveniunt non fit sine caeterorum injuria What one man acquires another must lose Now all men being desirous at least to keep what they have and most men labouring to encrease what they have which cannot be without the decay of others this must needs cause quarrels in the world And thus our bickerings at Law are numberless our military contentions endless Nation against Nation Kingdom against Kingdom and in all Nations Family against Family yea the same Family divided Brother against Brother Children against Parents nay Man and Wife one Flesh often divided into two deadly Enemies And that which makes our wickedness far more notorious is that not one of a thousand or of ten thousand breaks this Christian peace for necessary Food and Rayment whereof they have no want but rather abundance for a very small pittance sufficeth nature so that 't is not want but wantonness which sets them a lawing and fighting for they who most abound are commonly most at Law most in War striving for more even to excess and to what end to consume it upon their lusts as Saint James saith Thus wicked Covetousness seeks it wicked Contentions acquire it and wicked Lusts consume it all wickedness therefore no Peace but Discord and Confusion And the very same unchristian Discord is caused by the pride of life for every one loves to be at the top and all men hate to be under how then is it possible but Contention must needs accompany Ambition seeing that which one man affects another detests and will be sure to oppose to the utmost of his power Other Vices allow of some association men of like corrupt affections commonly consort together and help each other in their designs but Solus superbus odit elatum pride divides and sets them at variance endeavouring to suppress one another Both would be uppermost which can't be therefore one must needs fall that the other may get up This hath often produc'd great quarrels betwixt private persons and bloody Wars betwixt Princes in which large Field I could expatiate far but want of time forbids and makes me hast to some useful Application of what I have already said for which I crave your patience Many complaints I hear abroad the world but very little to the purpose not one of a hundred considers matters aright much less lays to heart the true cause of that whereof they complain All the evils men suffer arise originally from sin had man never sinned he had never known misery Sin then is the root of all and this we hug and cherish in our bosoms yet cry out against the evil fruits thereof But shall I tell you the true causes of our misery We have made a League a most unfortunate evil League and we have made a War a most dangerous destructive War A League with Satan and a War with God These are the radical causes of our distraction and unless