Selected quad for the lemma: peace_n
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A70378
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The true euangelical temper wherein divinity and ecclesiastical history are interwoven, and mixed, both to the profit and delight of the Christian reader, and moderately, and soberly fitted to the present grand concernments of this state, and church / preached in three sermons at St. Martins in the Strand ... by Jo. Jackson.
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Jackson, John.
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1641
(1641)
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Wing J76B; ESTC R24398
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51,187
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243
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whose bodies lye at Westminster with Kings and Counsellers of the earth who have there made themselves desolate places as Iob opened his mouth Chap. 3. vers. 14. And to second this whilst I am transcribing these Schedules and while these Sermons were betweene the Pulpit and the Presse loe what happened in the same place on Saturday being the 21. of this instant November 1640. Iohn Iames a Popish Recusant with a rusty dagger came into Westminster-hall and there did stab into the breast Peter Heywood Esquire one of the Kings Justices of the Peace within the limits of Westminster as hee was going up to the Committee for Religion to give up a booke of the names of all the Papists which inhabited or sojourned within the said limits being thereunto required by Parliament An attempt so daring and bold as nothing could bee more for if circumstances which individuate an action bee considered it will easily so appeare without any flow of words to greaten it The Gentleman being venerable for age and white and blooming as an Almond-tree in the very seats of secular justice the great Court of Parliament being convened and the Committees then sitting upon the person of a Justice of Peace being imployed about that businesse by the Parliament upon the very day before the House was to receive the holy Communion and which by that sudden and barbarous act was so unframed as that they were forced 〈◊〉 adjourne that holy businesse c. I hold mine own Religion so good as it needs not fetch lustre from the disgrace of another It is a poor Religion that must ascend and climbe up to its own glory by anothers dishonour and shame but these things are so palpable and apparent as if we should hold our peace the very stones out of the wall and the timber out of the roofe of that structure would speak But to the third Use which is The Vse of Correction ANd the last Use of redargution did not lie more direct against the whole bulk of Popery then the Use of Correction doth here against those publique Incendiaries and Conflagrators of the world who are all for the sword and war l Let them see to it who are such movers and stirrers up of warre saith Musculus upon this Text And let them look to it indeed who know onely how to ride the red horse of warre and take peace from the earth and kill one another Apoc. 6.4 who cry till they be hoarse again as they Iudges 7.20 The sword of the Lord and of Gideon who have ever in their mouthes that of Peter Master shall I smite Like Caesars souldier Doth the Senate deny my Master the Consulship but m this sword shall give it him But when shall you hear them speak in that phrase of the Prophet Ieremy Chap. 47. ver. 6. O thou sword of the Lord how long will it be ere thou be quiet put up thy selfe into thy scabbard rest and be still They are not for Esayes Prophecy of turning swords into plowshares c. but all for Ioels Chap. 3. of turning plowshares into swords c. These know not what spirit themselves are of I am sure farre from an Euangelicall spirit and temper The way of peace they have not knowne So farre from kennelling the Wolfe and the Lamb together or from stalling the Oxe and Lyon together as they foment and adde fuell to their inimicitious qualities I am not slipt into that Anabaptisticall conceit and tenet whereinto they say both Erasmus and Ferus two Beaucleâ—â—s fell that all warres were utterly unlawfull under the Gospel Holinesse to the Lord is found written upon n the bridles of horses which is a warlike beast as well as upon the high Priests frontlet which is a man of peace I will not now enter upon the point my self but referre onely him that is scrupulous herein unto a most learned and satisfactory Author Grotius in the first Booke and second Chapter De jure belli pacis wherein he proves just warres to be lawfull both by the law of nature and by the law of Nations and by Divine Law before the Gospell and lastly by the verdict even of the Gospel it self Neverthelesse the most can be said for warre is this that it may be necessary it cannot be good of it selfe even the same that was said of Aurelian a severe man A man rather necessary then good The best plea it hath in Divinity is either permission as Moses suffered divorce in small cases by reason of the hardnesse of mens hearts or necessity as David ate the Shew-bread and the Disciples plucked the eares of corn on the Sabbath day being driven thereto by hunger The direfull effects and sad consequences of War are so many and great as they may seem to require a just Volume I will bestow this one Paragraph in pointing at them And I will begin with two notable emblemes of the misery that is in Warre The one the Hawk and the Bitturn lying upon the ground with this word o No safety at all in Warre The Hawk hath struck down the Bitturn and seazed upon it and the Bitturne lying under strikes his bill upward through the Hawkes gorge The other is two pots floting upon a pond or surface of a water with this word p If we knock together we sink together In Warre any one may begin but it is in the power of the Conqueror when to end In Warre even the Conqueror is commonly a loser In Warre Fathers bury children whereas in peace children burie Fathers as Croesus Apophthegmatized when he was captivated by Cyrus In War holy things are projected to dogges witnesse that illustrious Temple of Jerusalem which was forty sixe years in building but scarce as many houres in demolishing In Warre every man is a Gadarene respecting a swine more then a man witnesse Titus Vespasian who in the sacking of Jerusalem sold thirty Jews for a peny to be a tulio to them who had sold Christ for thirty pence In War old men bow themselves at the feet of their enemy with as many teares and prayers as a dry brain and a faltring tongue can afford Women are distracted between care for the fruit of their bodies to preserve their children from sword and the sin of their soules to preserve their chastity from lust Lastly to say no more in Warre the barbarous Souldier ransacks houses breaks open locks rifles chests ravisheth wives and daughters blunts his sword with the blood of Fathers and sons and like Sampsons Foxes set on fire whole fields of corne These and such like things have occasioned many fair and goodly Proverbs and Apophthegmes whereinto a great deale of wisedome is abridged beside the character of Antiquity that is now stamped upon them As that of Probus the Emperour for one q I hope shortly Souldiers shall not be so much as necessary That of Antonius Pius taken up from Scipio That he had rather save one
Baptismall Laver awaited by a Dove the most peaceable of birds S. Iohns testimony of him Behold the Lambe of God A Lamb the most peaceable of beasts His Gospel an Euangelium that is Glad tidings of peace His Ministers Messengers of peace and reconciliation His Salve or Present when he came to his Disciples Peace be with you His Vale or Legacy when he went from them My peace I leave with you His threefold office all concurring to peace As a Prophet he did foretell and proclaime peace As a Priest he did earne and purchace peace As a King he did settle and confirme peace And lastly all this so luculently foretold by this our Prophet Esaias that he seemes rather i to write an history of a thing past then a prophecy of a thing to come and is rather an k Euangelist then a Prophet as S. Ierome most excellently speaketh of him And though this Prophecie shine as the Sun in the Firmament yet is there one every whit as bright as this in the second Chapter of this Prophecy at the fourth verse The words are these He shall judge among the Nations and shall rebuke many people and they shall beat their swords into plough shares and their speares into pruning-hooks Nation shall not lift up sword against Nation neither shall they learne Warre any more A Prophecy so trapped with the ornaments of speech that two of the Latin Poets k Martial and l Virgil like bold biards have plumed it to imp their owne traine just as before the Sibylls had done by my Text but to Application Application IN applying and making use of this point it will not bee amisse to hold to the former method of shewing how to elicite and fetch out of it the five-fold profit of 1 Doctrine 2 Redargution 3 Correction 4 Instruction and 5 Consolation and having so doâ—e to commit both the text and Sermons on it to the blessing of Gods Spirit which must incubate and brood both to make them fruitfull The Vse of Doctrine ANd first this point is profitable to bring forth this Doctrine that Christianity is a sociable Religion The end of Christs comming was to be a Mediatour not only to unite man to God but even man to man that Christians might dwell together in one house both Ecclesiastical the Church and oeconomicall the family and Politicall the Common-wealth lye downe together in the undefiled bed of holy and chast wedlock if they either need it or will it and in any other noble and lawfull familiarities of intimacie and deerenesse eate together both the Eucharisticall Bread of the Lords Table and the daylie bread of their owne boards Lastly play together in those honest and warrantable recreations which are of good report among the Saints to fit them better for both their generall and particular callings What is the Church but a Communion of Saints the Church Militant a Communion of Saints on earth and the Church Triumphant a Communion of Saints in Heaven Coetus fidelium A company or knot of the faithfull is a short and received definition of the Church The Religion of the Jews was all for distinction and separation of both persons and things the Jew from the Gentile the holy from the prophane the cleane from the uncleane But Christ did so demolish and breake downe that partition wall that it is like the Picts wall in Northumberland scarce one stone to be found upon another Christian Society is like a Fagot one stick keepes another glowing like stones in an arch one holds and fastens another Christ himselfe being the key-stone Solitary persons as they have indeed the fewest provocations unto evill so have they the fewest incitations unto good Divine Oracles still point at lonelinesse and solitude as at an abysse of misery Begin at the beginning it is observed to my hand that in the second dayes worke of the Creation God gave no commendation of nor blessing unto it as to the rest because it was a daies worke of division m And after that a little when he played his owne Critick it was the onely quarrell hee pickt with his workmanship that man was alone all was good and very good n but this was not good o Go on Elias a great Prophet yet hee complaines of it I onely am left alone p Iobs sorrowfull Messengers make it their under song of sad tidings I am escaped alone to tell thee q Martha murmures at it Master carest thou not my sister hath left mee to serve alone r Ieremy makes his threnes take their hint and rise from it how doth the popular City sit solitary s S. Paul bemones himselfe for it t Demas hath forsaken me yea u all forsooke me w Ruth bewailes it The hand of the Lord is gone out against me the Almighty hath imbittered my soule Yea it is every widows case as well as Ruths to be x desolate and alone But what say I of Elias or Iob or the like men of like passions with our selves Christ himselfe groaned under the burden of it when all his Disciples forsooke him and fled which thing the Evangelist notes as one of the criticall passages of his Passion and the Prophet sets it out as an heightning and advancing of his sufferings that hee trode the Wine-presse alone y So as this is the summe if a man be alone he shall be in misery and againe if a man be in any misery hee shall be left alone z Solitude and misery being like water and ice the one mutually producing the other Woe and alone goe together Eccles. 4.10 Hence it comes about that S. Iohn Baptist sent two of his Disciples to Christ a Yea a greater then the Baptist did so Christ did it in the Mission first of his Twelve b and after of his Seventy c both of which sacred Colledges he sent forth by two and two So of old two were of the Embassy to Pharaoh Moses and Aaron two into Canaan Ioshua and Caleb two to restore the Temple and worship of God after the Captivity of Babylon Ioshua and Zorobabel So likewise in the New Testament we have Christ and Iohn his Precursor two are sent to Jerusalem to prepare the last Supper Peter and Iohn two Witnesses Apoc. 11.3 So farther Iohn Husse and Ierome of Prague in the Councell of Constance Luther and Melancthon in Saxony Zwinglius and Oecâ—lampadius in Helvetia Bucer and Capito at Argentine Calvin and Farell at Geneva Binarii omnes all by couples and twoes That if the one fall his fellow may lift him up Eccles. 4.10 Hee that separates man from man doth as much as in him lyes separate man from God For what is poore and silly man alone but a very scrich-owle and satyre a melancholick and hypochondriack creature growing pensive and thought-sick turne him into his Oratory and let him shut the Chamber doore and doth hee not often