Selected quad for the lemma: sense_n
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A29274
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A sermon preached before the King at White-Hall, January XXX, 1675/6 by Henry Bagshaw ...
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Bagshaw, Henry, 1632-1709.
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1676
(1676)
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Wing B432; ESTC R22956
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15,000
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36
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A SERMON Preached before the KING AT VVHITE-HALL January xxx 1675 6. By HENRY BAGSHAW D. D. Rector of St. Botolphs Bishopsgate and Chaplain to the Lord HIGH-TREASURER of England LONDON Printed by William Godbid and are to be sold by Moses Pitt at the Angel against the little North-door of St. Paul's Church 1676. To the Right Honourable THOMAS EARL of DANBY Lord HIGH-TREASURER of ENGLAND And One of the LORDS of His MAJESTIES MOST HONOURABLE PRIVY COUNCIL MY LORD I Have adventured upon the Publication of this Discourse to the World as a poor Testimony of my Obedience to Your Lordships Pleasure Uprightness is my Subject and the Great Example of it is a PRINCE to whose Memory you pay homage Religion shines in such Instances and borrows new Majesty from the Pattern nay Martyrdom it self looks Royal and the Blood thus shed paints its Glory It is one Mistake in the World to cry down Titles as meer Names when as they produce Noble Effects and are such a shadow to Virtue that they protect it by following If Goodness gives Honour a real grace Honour pays it back in opinion therefore the usefulness that is in it renders it a fit Object of our regard However alone it cannot profit the Persons without Goodness be joyned You MY LORD have a great share in Temporal Dignity Your try'd worth has recommended You to Your Prince and the stedfast Integrity of Your Actings The first provokes Envy and the second Love to acknowledge it Your Fastness to the CHURCH is as well known and the employment of Your Power to oblige May God continue You an Instrument in His Service establish You with His Grace and preserve in You a Goodness as well as Greatness of Name which is the earnest Prayer of MY LORD Your Lordships most obedient Servant and Chaplain HENRY BAGSHAW A SERMON Preached before the KING PSALM xxxvij 37. Mark the perfect man and behold the upright for the end of that man is peace IT has been a perplexing Question in all Ages and by all sorts of Religions entertain'd why Good and Evil should be blended and mixt and without any show of choice dispensed amongst Men in the secret course of God's Providence This indifferency of acting in humane Affairs has made Heathens to conclude that an uncertain Chance governs the World nay it has further prevailed upon true Worshippers to suspend the exercise of their Faith though not utterly to destroy the root of it And such a kind of doubting the Church was subject to in David's time whence this Psalm was written for their cure who through weakness of flesh took sense for their guide and the outward surface of things for their argument to build on By the one they fell under a shortness of sight by the other they had emptiness for their object Therefore he sets them in a sure way of considering Events and that is to mark and examin them with their understandings to take their flight beyond present appearances to the ends and periods of things where the substance of Beings is discern'd because the truth of their state is laid open Otherwise we should be all apt to mistake and ready to pronounce a false judgment So a little before my Text he acquaints us what imagination he had when he first saw the wicked man whom he presently compares to the green bay tree as looking fresh and gay in the ornament of power though blood likely was the moisture that fed it His lawrels and his crimes they flourished together and an impious hand became the planter of his glory so that the Prophet thought at the first glimpse the prosperity of his condition to be most desirable But lo the exit of all He passed by and was not Verse 36. yea I sought him says the Psalmist but he could not be found As if all that greatness he beheld were rather some image in sleep where fancy sports with its own creation than a real object without presented to the beholder Who is it now he opposes to that wicked man or propounds to us devoutly to regard It is the perfect and upright Worshipper and the end he assigns him is peace or a glorious reward notwithstanding those seeming blasts in his life-time and the apparent ruins of his state when like a Cedar cut down he leaves upon the earth the sad reverence of his fall Mark the perfect man and behold the upright for the end of that man is peace I know the Septuagint read these words in the abstract which is followed too by some other Translations but the Hebrew-Text and the scope of the Psalmist not to speak of our own Bibles will justifie the sense I have mentioned And so I intend to handle them where we may consider three things First A Duty enjoyn'd Mark and behold that is as from a watch-tower look far off and observe Secondly The Subject wherein it is employ'd The perfect and upright man which includes also the opposite party the evil doer Thirdly The Fruit or Effect of this Observation Which is to discern a distinctness of end namely the upright man's peace or reward which necessarily supposes the others punishment I shall cast the two first into one proposition which is this That we ought to be heedful Observers of God's Providential Rule in the World and particularly of his Dispensation to his People As for heeding his Rule in the general 1. The Usefulness of the Work 2. The Excellency of our Faculties calls for it 1. The Usefulness of the Work since by an exactness of search we discover not only a Hand of Power but an Eye of Wisdom in turning the Wheel where all the courses of it are serviceable to God's Glory and the intricacy of its motions brings about the accomplishment of his Designs The result of this Discovery is increase of Faith settlement of Mind and a close dependency upon the Supreme Do but regard the Throne above you will regard too the Chain that is tyed to it how immoveably God holds there the Links of Causes not to be broken off nor alter'd but by His special appointment Did we thus mind the order of the whole Frame the connexion of Events and God's care to uphold what he has purposed a Spirit of Atheism would quickly vanish and the Light of that Theater we walk in would at once convince and reform us 2. The Excellency of our Faculties calls for such a beholding For God has planted in us contemplative powers as well as active nay the pure and spiritual exercise of the Soul lyes in the former It is the subliming of our Understandings the exalting of our Reason the great prerogative of our Beings to view God and his Works He is continually viewing them and Himself and we show the nobleness of our descent from Him when thus employ'd in our speculation If you regard the actions of Sense here Brutes do surpass us and the pleasures they enjoy are more accurate because they have
it all the substance of peace yet being an invisible reward it is above the consideration of our outward man therefore we must take it in the widest extent where both the Eye of Faith and the Eye of Sense may joyn in the testimony As for the Eye of Faith it is most open and cleer when the End of the Righteous is come His Death gives it a quiet view and the darkness of the Scene is removed by the light of Eternity breaking in While he sleeps it awakes and delightfully expatiates over his Joys for it is now like a Mariner set on shore and stands safe upon fixt ground whereas Shipwracks at Sea did before disturb the apprehension so that it can with a composedness of thought contemplate his Bliss answerable to the softness of his repose Whatever distractions it might meet with in his life they are all buried with the Sufferer the doubts and scruples are taken away and no more is God's care of him called in question since it sees him as it were put in possession of a glorious Inheritance Thus a Saints decease procures a double liberty first to himself from the fetters of a calamity next to the Faith of a Beholder from the prejudices of the World But is the Eye of Sense alike capable of satisfaction And can we be entertain'd in our outward man with a true pleasure of beholding him We all readily grant it upon the sight of a recompence and a successful close of the righteous Man's days None stumbles at Providence in that Sun-shine nay his bare setting in light has that strength of lustre as to reflect it back upon his past troubles But how can the Spectator be secured from falling while he is viewing the Act of some black Tragedy when the vail of government is drawn over a Saint and he seems to be given up from above to the lust of his Enemies To stand in that case seems very hard by reason of the sadness of the spectacle And yet even here if we would take but direction we may still safely look on because there is proper matter for Sense to regard and from thence to form the Notion of Peace And this is grounded upon a threefold remarque 1. Of the Cause 2. Of the Manner 3. Of the Consequences of his End First the Cause has a brightness in it to strike our Senses when we see Truth and Justice Religion and Piety singly maintain'd and the Seal of Martyrdom cheerfully embraced in the midst of terrours from an armed multitude where Power and Victory might be Pleaders of Right but Blood and Sacriledge the Overthrowers And so the primitive Confessors powerfully convinced the Heathen World by a single maintenance of their Cause Alone they triumphed in what they professed because alone they stood up Champions to defend whence those that saw them fell from viewing to wonder from wonder to love and love easily ended in their Conversion Neither is this instance restrained to those times but every Age can produce one and let God's Call but warrant the like appearance the goodness of a Christian profession as it will arm a Saint to acknowledge it so it will justifie him to any enemy by the constancy of his defending Next the manner is visible when we see in the Witnesser meekness and charity faith and devotion match'd and joyn'd which speak of themselves a tranquillity of mind a compassion for Sinners a conscience of Glory and lastly a fitness for Heaven A stout defence is nothing without Grace to accompany it for both History and Experience can furnish us with Examples of the vanity of that sign but where Grace does attend it then becomes proclaimer of a good confession it erects a Scaffold for fame and martyrdom together And so the Saints of old by the manner of their departure prov'd the gloriousness of their End A heavenly flame appeared in their acts which directed the Spectator to look upward when they dyed And this kind of Religious Spirit all true Martyrs are endued with therefore to behold them in their last part with what piety they manage it according to the rules of their Blessed Saviour is to be alike convinced of the truth of their state and what a Kingdom above is prepar'd to receive them Lastly the consequence will declare it when we see the upright Man's Name and his Posterity flourish and the concern of Justice in his revenge first by a general confusion of things afterwards by a signal punishment of his Persecutors Pillars and Monuments being every where built upon the Ruins of his Adversaries to direct us in our Gaze and confirm us in this Truth That Innocence alone has the Authority of Execution when the Majesty of its Defender is gone If now other Ages we cannot recur to for one perfect Instance in every particular our own can richly afford it us for we find the consequences cleerly exemplified in our late Prince as well as the cause and manner of his End so that the Demonstration here is compleat and the very Eye of Sense can bring in its testimony that the end of the righteous is peace I would not be thought to anticipate the Fast which by a particular accident is removed but I am sure the Day of the Fact and your own Memories no accident can change This is that Fatal Time wherein a Glorious Martyr prepared for Sacrifice with all those Ornaments of Virtue that either a Soveraign or a Christian could put on and a bloody Enemy seemed over him to prevail with all those Crimes that Rebellion or Hypocrisie can contain Therefore by mentioning the time now I do but pay it its due debt and prepare your humiliation for the morrow It is not for me to attempt His Character whose Life was the exact Transcript of His Religion His Government the representative of His Goodness His Writings Princely as if the Pen were His Scepter but withall humble and charitable as if none had offended Him lastly His Sufferings all along a lively Expression of Christian Graces and a full Argument in themselves to reveal the righteousness of his Cause As little can I describe the guilt of His Murderers whose Inspirations were killing their Fasts but a Solemnity to devour who mixt their breach of Divine Law with the mockery of its Maker and to show wickedness was ripe with an impudence of sinning invaded that Head where the Oyl one would think were enough to protect it from danger All that they could possibly boast of was the current of prosperity for some time But Christian Observers should weigh their End as the Heathen Votaries did not mind the Garlands about the Heads of their Beasts but the Altars they were led to They might indeed like those Victims break loose for a while but could not properly be said to share in a deliverance The Peace they enjoy'd was but a disturb'd slumber before death but an unpleasant Feast before Execution Who can have confidence to affirm That