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A62600
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A sermon preach'd before the Queen at White-Hall, March the 8th, 1688/9 by John Tillotson ...
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Tillotson, John, 1630-1694.
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1689
(1689)
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Wing T1237; ESTC R4814
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16,700
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44
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Dr. TILLOTSON's SERMON Before the QUEEN A SERMON Preach'd before the QUEEN AT WHITE-HALL March the 8th 1688 9. By JOHN TILLOTSON D. D. Dean of Canterbury LONDON Printed for Brabazon Aylmer at the Three Pigeons against the Royal Exchange in Cornhil and Will. Rogers at the Sun over against St. Dunstan's Church in Fleet-street MDCLXXXIX A SERMON Preached at White-Hall MATTH 5. 44. But I say unto you love your enemies bless them that curse you do good to them that hate you pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute you THE Gospel hath promised forgiveness of Sins to us upon two Conditions That we sincerely repent of the Sins which we have committed against God and That we heartily forgive to men the injuries and offences which they have been guilty of towards us I shall at this time by Gods Assistance treat of the latter of these from the Words which I have recited to you which are part of our Saviours excellent Sermon upon the Mount. In which he doth not only explain but enlarge and perfect the Moral and Natural Law by adding to it Precepts and Prohibitions of greater perfection than either the Law of Moses or the Natural Law in their largest extent did contain He forbids Polygamy and Divorce except only in case of Adultery and likewise Revenge none of which were forbidden either by the Law of Nature or by the Law which was given by Moses And to these Prohibitions our Blessed Saviour adds several new Precepts of greater perfection than any Laws that were extant before But I say unto you love your enemies The Jewish Law commanded them to love their Neighbour meaning their brethren and those of their own Nation But our Saviour by commanding us to love our enemies hath in the most emphatical manner that can be commanded us to love all men For if any were to be excluded from our Charity none so likely to be so as our Enemies So that after a command to love our Enemies it was needless to name any others because men are naturally apt to love those that love them I say unto you love your enemies here the inward affection is requir'd Bless them that curse you here outward Civility and Affability are requir'd in opposition to rude and uncivil Language for so blessing and cursing do in Scripture frequently signify Do good to them that hate you here real acts of kindness are commanded to be done by us to our bitterest and most malicious Enemies Pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute you These are the highest expressions of Enmity that can be calumny and cruelty and yet we are commanded to pray for those that touch us in these two tenderest Points of all other our Reputation and our Life And to secure the sincerity of our Charity towards our Enemies we are requir'd to express it by our hearty Prayers to God for them To God I say before whom it is both impious and dangerous to dissemble and from whom we can expect no mercy for our selves if with feigned Lips we beg it of Him for others You see what is the Duty here required That we bear a sincere affection to our most malicious and implacable Enemies and be ready upon occasion to give real testimony of it And because this may seem a hard duty and not so easie to be reconciled either to our Inclination or our Reason I shall endeavour to shew that this Law is not onely reasonable but much more perfect and excellent and the practice of it more easie and delightful and upon all accounts much more for our benefit and advantage than the contrary And that upon four Considerations which I shall endeavour to represent with their just advantage and so as may I hope not onely convince our Judgments of the reasonableness of this Precept but likewise bend and sway our Wills to the obedience and practice of it I. If we consider the nature of the act here requir'd which is to Love which when it is not a meer Passion but under the government of our Reason is the most natural and easie and delightful of all the Affections which God hath planted in Humane Nature Whereas ill-will and hatred and revenge are very troublesome and vexatious Passions Both the devising of mischief and the accomplishment of it and the reflection upon it afterwards are all uneasie and the consequences of it many times pernicious to our selves The very design of Revenge is troublesome and puts the Spirits into an unnatural fermentation and tumult The man that meditates it is always restless his very soul is stung swells and boiles is in pain and anguish hath no ease no enjoyment of it self so long as this Passion reigns The execution of it may perhaps be attended with some present pleasure but that pleasure is unreasonable and brutish momentany and short like a flash of Lightning which vanisheth in the twinkling of an Eye It is commonly said that Revenge is sweet but to a calm and considerate mind Patience and Forgiveness are sweeter and do afford a much more rational and solid and durable pleasure than Revenge The Monuments of our Mercy and Goodness are a far more pleasing and delightful spectacle than of our Rage and Cruelty And no sort of thought does usually haunt men with more terrour than the reflection upon what they have done in way of Revenge Besides that the consequences of this Passion do commonly prove very prejudicial to our selves For the Revenge of one injury doth naturally draw on more and will oblige us for the same reason to a new Revenge of them and this brings on a perpetual and endless circulation of Injuries and Revenges So that whoever seeks Revenge upon another doth commonly in the issue take it upon himself and whilst he thinks to transfer the injury which he hath receiv'd upon him that did it he doubles it upon himself Such and so great are the troubles and inconveniences of a malicious and revengeful temper but there is no torment in Love as St. John excellently sayes To be kindly affection'd towards all to bear no grudge or ill-will no thought of displeasure or revenge towards any man is the easiest posture the most pleasant state of the Mind So that if not for their sakes yet for our own we should Love our Enemies and do good to them that hate us because to be thus affected towards all men is as great kindness to our selves as it is charity to others II. If we consider the qualification of the Object it is our Enemy whom we are requir'd to Love. In whom though there be something that is justly disgustful yet there is something also that is lovely and if we persist in our kindness to him notwithstanding his enmity to us the enmity may wear off and perhaps at length be chang'd into a sincere and firm friendship 'T is true indeed that with regard to our selves personal enmity towards us is one of the most inconvenient
very weighty Reasons The first I have already intimated because it is so very hard to behave ourselves towards Enemies as we ought This we shall find to be a difficult Duty to Flesh and Blood and it will require great Wisdom and Consideration and Humility of Mind for a Man to bring down his Spirit to the Obedience of this Command For the fewer Enemies we have the less occasion will there be of contesting this hard Point with ourselves And the other Reason is I think yet plainer and more convincing because Enemies will come of themselves and let a man do what he can he shall have some Friendship is a thing that needs to be cultivated if we would have it come to any thing but Enemies like ill Weeds will spring up of themselves without our care and toil The Enemy as our Saviour calls the Devil will sow these Tares in the night and when we least discern it will scatter the Seeds of Discord and Enmity among men and will take an advantage either from the Envy or the Malice or the Mistakes of Men to make them Enemies to one another Which would make one wonder to see what care and pains some men will take to provoke Mankind against them how they will lay about them and snatch at opportunities to make themselves Enemies as if they were afraid to let the happy occasion slip by them But all this care and fear surely is needless we may safely trust an ill-natur'd World that we shall have Enemies enough without our doing things on our part to provoke and procure them But above all it concerns every man in prudence to take great care not to make personal Enemies to himself for these are the sorest and the surest of all other and when there is an opportunity for it will sit hardest upon us Injuries done to the Publick are certainly the greatest and yet they are many times more easily forgiven than those which are done to particular Persons For when Revenge is every bodies work it may prove to be no bodies The general Wrongs which are done to Humane Society do not so sensibly touch and sting men as personal Injuries and Provocations The Law is never angry or in passion and it is not only a great indecency but a fault when the Judges of it are so Heat of Prosecution belongs to particular Persons and it is their memory of Injuries and desire to Revenge them and diligence to set on and sharpen the Law that is chiefly to be dreaded And if the truth were known it is much to be fear'd that there are almost as few private as publick Acts of Oblivion pass'd in the World and they commonly pass as slowly and with as much difficulty and not till the grace and good effect of them is almost quite lost II. Secondly If we ought to be thus affected towards our Enemies how great ought our kindness and the expressions of it to be to others To those who never disobliged us nor did us any Injury by word or deed to those more especially who stand in a nearer relation to us to our natural Kindred and to our spiritual Brethren to whom we are so strongly link'd and united by common Bond of Christianity and lastly to our Benefactors and those who have been before-hand with us in obligation For all these are so many special Ties and Endearments of men to one another founded either in Nature or Religion or in common Justice and Gratitude And therefore between all these and our Enemies we ought to make a very wide and sensible difference in our Carriage and Kindness towards them And if we do not do so we represent our Saviour as an unreasonable Law-giver and do perversly interpret this Precept of his contrary to the reasonable and equitable meaning of it For whatever degree of Kindness is here required towards our Enemies it is certain that so much more is due to others as according to the true proportion of our tie and obligation to them they have deserved at our hands nothing being more certain than that our Blessed Saviour the Founder of our Religion did never intend by any Precept of it to cancel any real Obligation of Nature or Justice or Gratitude or to offer Violence in the least to the common Reason of Mankind III. Thirdly Hence we learn the excellency and the Reasonableness of the Christian Religion which hath carried our Duty so high in things which do so directly tend to the Perfection of Humane Nature and to the Peace of Humane Society and which if all things be rightly consider'd are most agreeable to the clearest and best Reason of Mankind So that those things which were heretofore look'd upon and that only by some few of the wiser sort as Heroical Instances of Goodness and above the common rate of Humanity are now by the Christian Religion made the indispensable Duties of all Mankind And the Precepts of no other Religion that ever yet appeared in the World have advanced Humane Nature so much above itself and are so well calculated for the Peace and Happiness of the World as the Precepts of the Christian Religion are for they strictly forbid the doing of Injuries by way of prevention and in case they happen they endeavour to put a present stop to the progress of them by so severely forbidding the revenging of them And yet after all this it must be aknowledg'd to be a very untoward Objection against the Excellency and the Efficacy of the Christian Religion that the Practice of so many Christians is so unequal to the Perfection of these Precepts For who is there in the Changes and Revolutions of Humane Affairs and when the Wheel of Providence turns them uppermost and lays their Enemies at their Feet that will give them any Quarter Nay that does not greedily seize upon the first opportunities of Revenge and like an Eagle hungry for his Prey make a sudden stoop upon them with all his force and violence and when he hath them in his Pounces and at his Mercy is not ready to tear them in pieces So that after all our Boasts of the Excellency of our Religion where is the practice of it This I confess is a terrible Objection indeed and I must entreat of you my Brethren to help me to the best Answer to it Not by any nice Distinctions and Speculations about it but by the careful and honest Practice of this Precept of our Religion This was the old Objection against Philosophy that many that were Philosophers in their Opinions were faulty in their Lives But yet this was never thought by wise men to be a good Objection against Philosophy And unless we will lay more weight upon the Objections against Religion and press them harder than we think it reasonable to do in any other Case we must acknowledge likewise that this Objection against Religion is of no force Men do not cast off the Art of Physick because many Physicians do not