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A62326
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Twelve sermons upon several occasions by Samuel Scattergood ...
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Scattergood, Samuel, 1646-1696.
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Wing S845; ESTC R39513
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116,309
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shewed to S. Peter when he turned and looked upon him after his fall and by that look infused new Grace into his Heart which immediately burst out at his Eyes in tears of repentance Let us not therefore be high minded but let us fear for happy is the Man that feareth alway but he that hardneth his heart shall fall into mischief Proverbs 28.14 Secondly if we will take heed that we fall not from Grace let us take heed that we fall not into Sin especially into presumptuous and willful Sin against the light of our conscience All Sin whatsoever though it be but a Sin of Ignorance or Infirmity tends more or less if it be not speedily repented of to the impairing and diminishing of the Grace of God in our Hearts which is bestowed upon us on purpose to preserve and defend us from the power of Sin that it may not Reign in our mortal Bodies that we should obey it in the lusts thereof But Sins of Presumption and Wilfulness against our knowledge and the checks of our conscience do not only much impair Grace but they totally exstinguish it and bring us into great danger of final Apostacy For there can be no fellowship betwixt Righteousness and Unrighteousness no Communion betwixt Light and Darkness no Concord betwixt Christ and Belial no Agreement nor Cohabitation of the Spirit of God and Satan And therefore David prays most earnestly against such Sins as these Psal 19.13 Keep back thy Servant from presumptuous Sins let them not have domminion over me then shall I be upright and I shall be innocent from the great Transgression And how deadly a wound such Sins make in the conscience God for our instruction that his example might be a warning to us to beware of the like Sins suffered him to find by a sad Experience That premeditated wilful Murder of one of his innocent subjects changed the Man after God's own Heart into one after the Heart of him who was a murderer from the beginning and made him such an one as Satan would have all Men to be if he could prevail It is impossible while he was in this Condition that he should find any comfort in the performance of his Devotions if he did then perform any at all His Hand his Tongue his Heart were all out of tune all unfit for the Celebration of God's Praises in which they were wo … continually to be imployed Even his own sacred Hymns and Anthems were nauseous to him and the sweet Psalmist of Israel was become a stranger to the songs of Sion Grace was then lost and Sin reigned in him the Spirit of God had for that Time forsaken him and Satan had taken Possession of his Soul Let us take heed then of presumptuous and wilful Sins and every habitual Sin is a step towards them they wrought a sad change in David but they may work a worse in us God was pleased to raise him again but if we fall after the same manner he may perhaps deny the same Favour to us and then our Case is irrecoverable Thirdly If we will take heed that we fall not from Grace let us endeavour daily to grow in it and improve it So S. Peter exhorts us in the end of his Second Epistle Ye therefore beloved seeing ye know these things before beware lest ye also being led away with the errour of the wicked fall from your own steadfastness But grow in Grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ He that thinks he hath Grace enough already hath indeed very little or none at all but blessed are they that hunger and thirst after Righteousness for they shall be filled The path of the just saith Solomon is as the shining Light that shineth more and more unto the perfect Day Prov. 4.18 And our blessed Saviour compares the Kingdom of Heaven by which is meant the Grace of God in our Hearts unto a grain of mustard seed which though it be less than all the seeds that be in the earth yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes a tree So likewise should the Grace of God grow and increase in our Hearts and so it will do if it be not purely by our own fault hindered and stifled That we may not therefore fall from Grace let us be careful to improve that Grace which God hath already bestowed upon us by waiting upon him duly and constantly in all those Ordinances which he hath appointed for the begetting preserving and increasing it in our Souls such as are diligent Reading and Meditating in his Word at home hearing it preached and expounded in his House frequent receiving the Holy Sacrament and praying unto God continually both in private and publick as our Church teaches us that his Grace may always prevent and follow us and make us continually to be given to all good Works He that doth these things in Truth and sincerity shall never fall God will never leave nor forsake such a Man but will be sure to guide him with his Counsel here and afterward receive him to Glory FINIS BOOKS Printed for and Sold by John Hartley over-against Grays-Inn in Holborn A Dissertation upon the Epistles of Phalaris with an Answer to the Objections of the Honourable Charles Boyle Esq By Richard Bentley D. D. Master of Trinity College in Cambridge Chaplain in Ordinary and Library-keeper to His Majesty 8vo Price 6 s. The History and Fate of Sacrilege discover'd by Examples of Scripture of Heathens and of Christians from the beginning of the World continually to this Day By Sir Henry Spelman Kt. Wrote in the Year 1632. A Treatise omitted in the late Edition of his Posthumous Works and now publish'd for the Terrour of Evil Doers To which is added an Historical Account of the beginners of a Monastick Life in Asia Africa and Europe By Sir Roger Twisden Kt. and Baronet Price 4 s. Catalogus Universalis Librorum in omni Facultate Linguaque Graeca praesertim insignium rarissimorum non solum ex Catalogis Bibliothecarum Bodleianae Lugduno-Batavae Ultrajectinae Barberinae Thuanae Cordesianae Tellerianae Slusianae Heinsianae sed etiam ex omnibus fere aliis prelo impressis magno labore sumptu in usum Studiosorum collectus Cura J. H. 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himself least we be wearied and faint in our Minds So God will certainly give a blessing to our endeavours his Grace will be ever ready to prevent assist and further us in all our Actions here and his Bounty will not fail to crown us with Glory and Honour and Immortality hereafter SERMON XII 1 COR. X. 12. Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall OF all those manifold and subtile Stratagems with which the great Enemy of our Salvation seeks to beguile us of our Everlasting Inheritance there is none more dangerous than that by which he end eavours to perswade us that we have already attained to such a Measure of Perfection that we are fully ripe for Heaven and that our Faith is so strong that it is able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked to baffle the strongest Temptation with which it can be assaulted and to stand invincible even unto the End against all the Force and Policy of the Powers of Darkness This Temptation had prevailed so far among the Corinthians that many of them were so puffed up with the conceit they had of that great proficiency they had made in the School of Christ and of that knowledge they had gained in the Mysteries of the Gospel under so excellent a Tutour as S. Paul that they thought that now they had done their work and that they were past all danger of falling away from Christ And particularly upon the Notion they had entertained of Christian Liberty they ventured upon some Actions which though they might perhaps in some Cases be in themselves lawful yet upon the Account that they gave offence to weaker brethren they could not be practised by them without breach of Charity and were therefore by this Circumstance rendered sinful and hurtful to their own Souls One of which practices was their eating of things offer'd to Idols which though the Apostle seems to grant to be a thing indifferent to them that have knowledge to discern that an Idol is nothing in the World and that meat commendeth us not to God but that if we eat we are not the better neither if we eat not are we the worse yet he advises them to take heed least by any means this liberty of theirs become a Stumbling block to them that are weak least through their knowledge the weak brother perish for whom Christ died Therefore from this abuse of their Christian Liberty and from that too confident Opinion of that knowledge and Faith which God had bestowed upon them he labours to reclaim them in severall Chapters of this Epistle And this he doth first by propounding to them his own Example shewing them that as to the point of Christian Liberty he was so tender of the Salvation of all Men that he very frequently abridged himself of that Liberty which otherwise he might have used and that he became all things to all Men that he might by all means save some and that he would eat no flesh while the World stands rather than by so doing to make his brother to offend And as for being puffed up with the consideration of the manifold Graces which God had bestowed upon him he declares that he was so far from it that instead of that he still called to mind the length of that race which he had to run before he could obtain the Prize least he should faint and come short of it and the strength of those Enemies which he had to overcome least by his carelesness and security he should give them an occasion to get an advantage over him I therefore so run saith he not as uncertainly so fight I not as one that beateth the Air but I keep under my body and bring it into subjection least that by any Means when I have preached to others I my self should be a Cast-away Chap. 9.26 27. And lest his own Example should not be sufficient to disswade them from this Spiritual Pride he propounds to them in the second Place the Example of the Children of Israel in the beginning of this tenth Chapter unto my Text. God had bestowed most extraordinary Graces and Favours upon that People and yet upon their abuse of them he was so highly displeased at them that he destroyed them all in the Wilderness but two and not one of those Persons that came out of Egypt entered into the Land of Promise but only Caleb and Joshua Now these things saith he were our Examples to the intent we should not lust after evil things as they also lusted They who had received great Grace under the Law by their abuse of it came short of their earthly Canaan and we who have received far greater Grace under the Gospel may by our abuse of it come short likewise of our heavenly one Wherefore let him that thinketh c. In the handling of which words I shall do these three Things 1. I shall shew you that they who think they stand nay that do stand i. e. are for the present true Believers may nevertheless depart from the Faith and fall from Grace 2. That it is every Man's Duty to take heed lest he do so fall 3. I shall give you some necessary Rules and Directions to be observed by all that will take heed that they do not so fall First I say that true Believers may depart from the Faith and fall from Grace And here by true Believers I mean not the Elect For altho' even they also may fall for a time yet it is certain that they shall rise again for as much as God's Election ever supposes and includes final Perseverance whereas the other though they be for the present regenerate and true Believers though not Elect may fall from Grace not only totally but finally so as never to rise again by Repentance And this as it is the express Doctrine of our Church which declares in her sixteenth Article That after we have received the Holy Ghost we may depart from Grace given and fall into Sin so it is most agreeable also to the Doctrine of the Holy Scriptures as will appear by these following Instances 1. It is plain from our Saviour's Parable Matth. 18. of the Servant unto whom his Lord upon his humble Supplication freely forgave that vast Debt of ten thousand Talents which he was in no wise able to pay by which is meant God's pardoning and justifying of a Sinner upon his true Repentance As therefore that Servant forfeited his Lord's Favour again by his Cruelty to his Fellow-servant so likewise may he that is at the present regenerate and reconciled unto God fall again into a State of Damnation 2. There is nothing more plain than this from those Passages Ezek. 18.24 33.12 When the Righteous turneth away from his Righteousness and committeth Iniquity and doth according to all the Abominations that the wicked Man doth shall he live All his Righteousness that he hath done shall not be mentioned in his Trespass that he hath