Selected quad for the lemma: mercy_n
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A35182
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A sermon preached in Christs Church Bristol at the assizes for that city and county, holden August the 1st, 1676 / by Samuel Crossman ...
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Crossman, Samuel, 1624?-1684.
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1676
(1676)
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Wing C7270; ESTC R31340
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14,837
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34
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were frequently added in the manner of taking away the lives of these holy men making the Christians extreamest dying torments their play their sport and pastime So that look which way we will we have much one and the same joyless prospect still before us Iniquity every where aboundeth And now may we too justly come from Ierusalem home to our selves He that should sometime since have asked us here in England If God should put up the sword of blood and war once more into its sheath If God should pitty our wilde confusions and restore our ancient rightful Government in peace If God should recall his destroying Angel and arrow of noisome pestilence sparing a remnant of us as brands pluckt out of the fire would we after such severe judgements after such signal mercies wallow as swine in the mire of fin any more I know we should have answered with indignation as Hazael did to the Prophet Is thy servant a dog that I should do this thing But not to dispute that question we may thankfully say men we are not dogs and yet as dogs have we returned to this vomit Let me as Samuel once said to the Israelites reason a little with you before the Lord in this matter Can we in cool blood think that we were delivered to commit all these evils Or that vicious courses carry any thing of a reasonable manlike return to divine goodness for such tender mercies can we come off at the bar of our own conscience with any excuse that holdeth water that beareth worth or weight in it Do we thus requite the Lord Oh foolish people and unwise Shall good nature and Education teach us better carriage toward men for kindnesses received from them and shall not Religion and grace much more keep us from returning evil for good unto God Hath former history brought such honourable reports to us of others that have been so eminently good in bad times and shall future history transmit our names with so much disgrace to posterity for being as wrechedly bad in good-times Oh that this danger and reproach might be rolled from us What we might and should be under those manifold advantages and mercies which blessed be God we comfortably enjoy our own consciences are able to inform us What we are it is matter of amazement to most that know or hear of us Former ages in this Island it may be have had their peculiar stains as Gildâ—s and several other Writers pathetically enough relate But such a general irruption of all sorts of sin as now we scarce finde in any history If heretofore times have been shamelesly dissolute it is now much more The foundations themselves are very far out of course 'T is become with many open Atheism toward God the Almightly himself is not spared 'T is become with many meer giddy scepticism in the most fundamental points of faith that faith which is reverently to be embraced not rudely or desultoriously to be tossed to and fro 'T is become with many common schism and separation from the publick assemblies of the Church A general irreverence contempt and scorn of allmost all Government And what too easily follows from such untoward premises the utmost immoralities of life Those evils which modest nature would heretofore have startled at they grow now the fashion and familiar practice of multitudes what horrid swearing the first and chief language that is heard from many children in the open streets what common drunkenness what wretched lewdness as if we might abuse our selves and dishonour our bodies those bodies which should be as so many Temples to the holy Ghost after any fordid sensual rate as we please What intolerable phantasticalnesse of habit what filthy laciviousness of speech what loathsome debauchednesse as the Sanies of Hell upon the whole Conversation so that as Reverend Hammond complaineth were it not for some few ancient primitive spirited persons we might have reason to think and say That Christian men are grown the impurest part of the world 'T is a smart exprobration we meet with in Salvian upon this account Non sufficiunt multis consuetudinarij reatus non vinolentiae non adulteria non homicidia nisi manus etiam in Deum injiciant The ordinary rates of sin would not then serve mens turns they were furiously set upon it like those Giants in the Poet to fly in the very face of God himself Men and brethren we must with blushing confesse to these high spring tides of sin to this exorbitant outragious posture are we also come The prophets Indictment may be in several particulars found true against us They overpasse the deeds of the wicked Ier. 5. 28. In defiance of all sober counsel from God or man many will be not only wicked but to use Solomons phrase Wicked overmuch though to the astonishment of beholders they thereby destroy themselves and die before their time Magistracy we have and Ministery we have And blessed be God we have them But still like the churlish Quartan Ague that stubborn dedecus medicorum as if the disease were too strong for the physick or our distemper above the means of cure much so it fareth with us sin proveth as those sons of Zerviah too hard for us it seems to bear no check but rather strugleth to get further ground of us And we must lament together both Magistrates and Ministers whether through defectiveness in us or through aversenesse and renitencies in the people or through the just displeasure of God against this whole Age so it is the good work of God for the suppressing of vice and promoting of vertue and pietie succeedeth but very poorly upon our hands These things are not spoken that we should as ships in a sea-storm fall fowl one upon another God forbid Obliquities of this nature were the adding of evil to evil that our guilt might become yet greater He that is without sin let him cast the first stone at his neighbour 'T is not the nature or temper of true holyness to make much popular noise in the world as if we were then only the brave Heroes and Champions for Religion when we can most satyrically lash at others No no every man stands or falls to his own master The greatest complainants if the case be impartially searcht are sometimes found persons as deeply in fault as any The best the holiest may safely lay their hands in a due modestness upon their hearts and say Are there not with us even with us also sins against the Lord our God The best acquitment of our selves in times of common corruption were to walk as Noah and to grieve as Lot Ingenuously to mourn and exemplarily to deport our selves every man in his place as becometh persons that truly fear God 3ly The last aspect of the words is upon some account in reference to the consequences yet sadder As they are one of the previous signes of Ierusalems destruction they import The encrease of sin the decay of Piety they
heartily must we seek Gods Grace as the souls divine and only true Antidote in evil times And blessed be God a holy watchfulness duly kept up may preserve us while security and carelesness would most certainly betray us into danger Watch and pray that ye enter not into Temptation Diogenes Laertius reporteth of Socrates though he lived in Athens where the plague often raged even to extremity in his time yet by his strict Temperance he kept himself in perfect health through all those dangers Such is the world likely enough to be An infected Athens Oh that we may be found as Socrates in a state of better health untouch't of all the evils of it Our Duty herein 't is truly great such as may prove a full employment for the whole soul but still such as approveth it self to every mans Conscience in the sight of God We may freely say as once Moses What doth God the Lord require of us but to keep our selves inoffensively clear from the sins of these last days not waving the good offices of love or kindness due to the persons of any and yet pertaking in evil with none Like Cassianus his Jewel-signet Universa quae occurrunt ad sui statum transformat nullius vero incursibus insigniri potest Such should every one of us likewise be As a seal of Diamond giving fair impressions of virtue upon every occasion to others but of that firmness as not to suffer the least impressions of vice to be made by any means upon our selves How happy oh how lovely were it could men be truly brought to this good consistency rais'd to this harmony with Heaven settled in this excellency of Spirit this steadiness of Life neither superciliously forward nor yet sinfully facile but discreetly Religious Then neither should Iniquity abound nor Piety decay then neither should our welfare fly from us nor those miseries which are the common attendants on sin hover with such frightful wings about us The general mending of bad times we must all confess 't is a great work it may be too great for particular persons and beyond their Sphear Abi frater in cellam c. as he said Our private prayers and tears may better become us then excentrical agitations But still 't is very much that every one might truly do in his place so much that could all be fairly perswaded the whole might soon become happily redressed However at the lowest ebb Noah Daniel and Job all good men may yet deliver their own souls when they cannot prevail to save the land But why speak we thus dejectedly Be of good cheer all ye that fear God Dabit Deus his quoque finem I am prone to hope it might be safely said Atheism and giddiness those hateful short liv'd things will quickly run themselves out of breath and the serious fear of God shall yet become a praise in the land Religion is an ancient weather-beaten Ship that hath successfully out-ridden many a hard Sea-storm and behold it is still above water or like those Witnesses in the Revelation Prophane men may rant and huff they may deride and insolently run over it supposing that they have dispatcht and slain it But this kinde of crucifying effecteth little it hindreth not the promised Resurrection Our Saviour after his sufferings and the Witnesses after their slaughter they both presently revive And thus Religion after all these rude affronts after all these vain attempts to eclipse it usually shineth forth to the joy of all good men as the Sun out of a dark cloud with much brighter rays To draw to a Close The Ends of the World are come upon us evil Days Days full of Sin full of danger as an holy man said Omnia periculis plena plena laqueis All things all places are as it were filled up with Temptations and snares Pudeâ— non esse impudentem as St. Austin so pathetically cried out It is come saith he to that height of impudence that a virtuous person is pâ—â— almost to blushing if he be not as shamelesly forwaâ—d in evil as the worst Now if ever may we say as the Apostle only Oh that it may be conducted with all due circumstances of candour Save your selves from this untoward generation Partake not with wicked men in their sins that you partake not with them in their plagues This good care we owe to our selves and our own preservation But that is not all There is somewhat more we still owe to God A striving against sin Hebr. 12. 4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 exerting our utmost strength and spirits even to an Agony in this Sacred Combat to foil and bring down the Enemy Upon these terms we became initiated into Christian Religion Thus to renounce the Devil and all his works Thus to bear up as Israel against Ama'ek a perpetual hostility against evil We â—aâ—e opened our mouth to the Lord as Iephthah and â—â—nnot go back â—his is that Holy War to which we are all called that harmlâ—ss war which alone aimeth to save not to destroy And happy are those that are found Gods Worthies in it Such virtuous Cato's did the Romans account as needful to contend against the vices of peace at home as their most valiant Scipio's to fight their enemies in times of war abroad We may slothfully meditate many foolish excuses but certainly while there is so much of sin up and down the world Every true Christian must hold himself very highly concern'd to appear so much the more visibly for God and goodness in his place Christianity 't is not the bare acknowledgment of that worthy name by which we are called but the practical exhibiting of such a Conversation as may be fairly presidential a real Patern and Copie to all And praised be God 't is possible as he said in the Poet Exemploque suo mores reget The strength of solid good Examples may very far stem the stream of Vice and by degrees recover men from the errour of their ways to the love and acceptance of better things Goodness of Life 't is an Argument will be resented and heard when it may be the lowdest words are not Conversation best winneth Conversation and is always the most prevailing Oratour in this case that may gain many happy converts where other means though truly righteous may yet prove abortive and miscarry And now could this desirable effect this pious conquest be attain'd we should soon finde the consequence like that rare passage that religious Close between Caecilius and Octavius in Minutius Felix Both joy'd neither griev'd Both Victors and yet neither Captive Such might our case also be a mutual mercy a general Triumph an universal joy satisfaction and honour on all hands Our stations may be different as the Occasion which we this Day wait upon sheweth but our Duty it is to all of us at least for substance but one An unfeigned upright approving our selves to God in all well-doing May we so resolve and so practice we have this just comfort that none can take from us whoever falleth this man standeth whoever is found a curse or shame to the place or times he liveth in loe here is one whom Posterity shall freely acknowledge both a Blessing and Honour to his Countrey We may cheerfully say as the spirit of God to the Churches in the Revelation They that defile not their Garments shall walk with God Or as our blessed Saviour in the Consolatory Promise immediately added to allay the sad tidings of the Text Though iniquity should abound and the love of never so many wax cold yet He that endureth to the end the same shall be saved Which God of his Mercies vouchsafe to us FINIS