Selected quad for the lemma: reason_n
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A39741
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A sermon preached before the honourable House of Commons at St. Margaret Westminster, on Thursday, the 5th of November, 1691 by William Fleetwood ...
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Fleetwood, William, 1656-1723.
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1691
(1691)
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Wing F1252; ESTC R6743
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16,159
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32
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not conceiving aright of his extensive Goodness towards all the World They were certainly a People of the most gross capacity most sensual apprehension fleshiest heart and slowest understanding in the World and God in complyance to this Stupid temper dealt with them accordingly wrought Miracles continually amongst them and gave them almost every day some sensible token on other of his favourable presence and if he slackned but his Arm never so little a while he was fain to be at the expence of some new Miracle or some great Judgment even to convince them of his Goodness or his Power again The whole 78th Psalm which is an Epitome of their History may confirm the truth of what I have said Now God by this material as it were and sensible familar way of treating and conversing with them came to be thought in time their Local God their proper and peculiar Deity and was called and accounted by themselves as well as by the Nations round them the God of the Jews the God of Abraham and Their God in a hundred places and Our God in as many or more not only in contradistinction to the Gods of the Heathen or that he favoured them infinitely above all the Nations of the Earth besides For the first was very reasonable and the second very true but by way of exclusion to all the World besides and as though he had no care of or regard to any other part of Mankind and only exercis'd his Vengeance on their Enemies now and then as he or they saw fit Now this was a Narrow Notion of God's Providence and far unworthy the Immense Benignity of the Divine Nature which loves and governs all the World though not we think with equal yet with great Care and Tenderness and Wisdom proportioning his favours not to peoples merits but their necessities and to his own metcies Now tho this Jewish Selfishness and Humor of appropriating God's Goodness to themselves may seem of it self to be of little Consequence or Moment yet I believe it will appear that the fruits of it were not only the being obstinate and proud themselves but the scorning and the hating all mankind besides for so light and unballasted is the mind of man that even a gust of favour from an Earthly Prince drives him away and tosses him he knows not whither and makes him proud and insupportable and sets him on despising and it may be trampling on the World about him and though the reason be not the same yet the effects are much alike in the case of God's favours The Insolence of Spiritual pride is extravagant and insufferable and an overweening conceit of being extremely high in God's love and favour and one of his peculiar Saints and Creatures is the most dangerous Rock a Soul can dash against and has oft-times prov'd more fatal than some downright Vice it is the Parent of intollerable Arrogance stand by thy self come not near to me for I am holier than thou Is lxv 5. It is the Mother of Scorn and ill Nature God I thank thee that I am not as other men are extortioners unjust adulterers or even as this publican Luke xviii 11. and the passage from this Spirit of Pride and Contempt to that of Hatred and Violence is short and easie the Line that divides them almost imperceptible Again God had prohibited their Commerce in a great degree with any of the Nations round which they obeying became in some time churlish illnatured and untractable for nothing polishes and evens so the roughness of Mens morose Tempers as Traficking and Conversation and not attending or observing that the reason of Gods prohibition was from the proneness of their Hearts to Idolatry and falling so easily into the Worship of the People they Convers'd withal they thought it was only because those Gentiles were Profane hated of God and an Abomination in his sight which though it were true of all their evil Practices and sinful Customs yet it was by no means true of their Persons but of all things in the World ill Nature is the worst distinguisher it will not separate sin from sinners nor abstract the person from his faults God had declared his hatred and abhorrence of a great many particular Crimes and is Wise and Just and Merciful enough to love and pity an Offender even whilst he hates and punishes the Offence but impotent malicious Man can do nothing of all this yet thinks himself oblig'd to hate and persecute to death those whose Offences God declares against but sure the reason is as weak as the Malice is strong For what if God should hate a Man how does it follow I must hate him too unless commanded It is true God is the best example I can follow but his Judgments are unfearchable and his ways past finding out and he has always Reasons but yet not always such as may iustifie my imitation But as unreasonable and undue a Consequence as this appears yet 't is a very easie and a very frequent slip and all Men think they have a right as well as the Jews to say with David Do not I hate them that rise up against thee yea I hate them right sore as though they were mine enemies Which though it be reasonable and necessary to apply to the wickedness and evil practices of Men dishonouring and defaming God and his Worship yet the Complement would go too far from Civility to God to cruelty and hatred of our Neighbour Farther as God continually was pouring down his Benefits and Favours on the Jews whilst they continued firm and constant in his Service so he pursued their light Apostacies their Startings and Revolts with Punishments as close and constant and the Nature of Man which is much more Querulous than Grateful more sensible of one Evil than of an hundred Benefits and always prone to conclude on the worse side prompted the Jews to look on God as on an angry and vindictive being and one that seemed delighted in Justice rather than Forgiving and seeing he required Obedience with such exactness and punish'd their Offences with such rigor they easily imagined they must be as Zealous in his Service and as Jealous of his Honor as possibly they could and consequently must revenge all such Affronts and Indignities done to his mighty Name and holy Majesty with all severity and though this may be good to a very great degree yet there is danger it may pass into an ill extreame and ignorant and impotent Man knows no Mean but finding that to be in some measure his Duty which is partly his natural inclination he runs with all his might and never thinks of stopping and that 's the Reason that a great deal of Zeal degenerates very easily into Anger and Cruelty 't is only adding Fuel to a little and a gentle Flame kindled before such as is Zeal and t will in time a little time become a spreading and consuming Fire I am very sensible that these productions
Veneris 6. Novembris 1691. Ordered THAT the Thanks of this House be given to Mr. Fleetwood for his Sermon preached before this House Yesterday and that he be desired to Print the same And that Mr. Mountague and Mr. Hobby do acquaint him therewith Paul Jodrell Cler. Dom. Com. A SERMON Preached before the HONOURABLE House of Commons AT St. MARGARET WESTMINSTER on Thursday the 5th of November 1691. BY WILLIAM FLEETWOOD Chaplain in Ordinary to Their Majesties LONDON Printed for Tho. Bassett and Tho. Dring at the George and at the Harrow in Fleetstreet 1691. A SERMON UPON S. John Ch. xvi part of the 2d and 3d Verses Yea the time cometh that whosoever killeth you will think that he doth God service and these things will they do unto you because they have not known the Father nor Me. THIS day is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears For either we are met to no purpose or which is worse to a very bad one to mock and play with God or we are met to Celebrate with Praise and Thanksgiving the Deliverance of our Church and Nation from one of the most Execrable Attempts that ever was inspir'd into the Heart of Man by our great Enemy the Devil or brought to light by the good Providence of God an Attempt of such unusual Cruelty and Horror that nothing but the distance of Time and a cold Indifference for things past and gone could let us think thereon without such Indignation and such Fury as were not fit for Christian Hearts to harbour an Attempt that nothing but the English Mercy could have forgiven No Laws no Nation but our own but would have pursued the Authors and Abettors of such Cursed Principles with such severe Vengeance as would have fully and effectually secur'd themselves from any Second Fears or Second Dangers from that side an Attempt of which I shall say but a very poor and low thing when I shall have said No Age No History no Countrey in the World can parallel it If I would raise this Attempt as high as Justice will permit me and aggravate the thing according to the Truth I must say it was such an Attempt as the Jesuits themselves are ashamed of and begin though somewhat faintly to extenuate and deny and then I neither can nor need to say more For if those men whom God for the Sins of Mankind hath permitted to compass the World to overturn Kingdoms to disturb the Peace and Society of Men to destroy Morality to corrupt and stifle Christianity to settle wickedness by Principles and establish Sin by a Law if such I say once come to extenuate or deny an Attempt inspired by men of their own Order and one of them at least Beatified and to have been acted by their own Disciples there must needs be so much Hell and Horror in the composition of the fact that no good Man can well express it or conceive it and yet to come to my Text It was done by men that thought they thereby did God service Our Lord being about to leave this World and to go unto the Father thought good to prepare his Disciples for that sad parting by telling them beforehand what he himself must shortly undergo by the Rage and Fury of the wicked Priests and Governors with the Necessity and Benefits of those Sufferings and afterwards what they themselves must look for if they would take up his Cross and be his Disciples Remember the word that I have said unto you the Servant is not greater than his Lord if they have persecuted Me they will also persecute You and afterwards sums up the whole in these words they shall put you out of the Synagogue that is they shall excommunicate you yea the time cometh that whosoever killeth you will think he doth God service 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith S. Chrysostom on the place a mighty religious matter and a thing that will please God An Expiatory Offering as the Original may import and a Sacrifice that will atone for Sins And these things they will do unto you because they have not known the Father nor me So that we see our Saviour assigns the Jewish ignorance of God and of himself to be the Cause and Reason of all the Evils and Barbarities himself and his Disciples were to meet withal These things will they do unto you because they know not the Father nor Me. To know or not to know the Father and Christ is taken in a great many different Senses in the Holy Scriptures too many and of too little use at present to recount Those only that are pertinent to the design in hand and our Saviour's words must be such Senses and Acceptations as would influence the Jews to the Cruelties and Persecutions fore-told in this place The Jews could not be said not to know God in such a sense as to deny his Being for never People knew him better never was God so present to a Nation as to theirs The Lord thy God hath chosen thee saith Moses in Deut. 7. 6. to be a special people to himself above all people that are upon the face of the Earth there was such frequent and familiar commerce betwixt God and them by Voices Visions by Angels and inspir'd Prophets and by other ways that 't would be the improperest way of speaking in the World to say of the Jews they knew not God with respect to his Essence or their acknowledging a Deity Nor could it be said with any colour of Truth in our Saviour's time that the Jews knew not God in the sense it is often used in Scripture to reproach the World with forsaking the only True God and serving other Gods for the Jews were never freer from Idolatry than in our Saviour's days nay and had been for many years before and that good humour has continued since for almost Seventeen Hundred Years and amidst all their great Impieties their wide and wonderful Dispersions and their deplorable Calamities they have still retain'd the Worship of One and the True God with greater Simplicity than abundance of the Christian World for many Ages to its great shame Not to know God therefore in this place must in all reason signifie not so to know him as to conceive right Notions of him or form a Judgment suitable to the excellent extensive Goodness of the Divine Nature and not to know the Father is not to attend to or comprehend sufficiently the Dispensation and Oeconomy of God the Father in saving them and all Mankind by sending his Son Christ Jesus into the World and not to know the Son is not to receive and believe on him that was thus sent for their deliverance These Heads I shall insist on in the first place and in the second try to shew how such Barbarities and cruel Usages as are here fore-told may proceed from the aforesaid Heads and lastly apply my self to the business of the Day First then the Jews may properly be said not to know God as