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A54462 A sermon preached at the anniversary meeting of the Eton-scholars, at St. Mary Le Bow, on Decemb. the 6. 1681 by William Perse ... Perse, William, 1640 or 41-1707. 1682 (1682) Wing P1653; ESTC R11012 16,268 40

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during their own time but to be Patterns and Examples to all succeeding Generations these supernatural Illuminations by degrees vanished and disappeared Now the Foundation was not only laid but a superstructure raised these Scaffolds which were only erected for the more easie and safe finishing of it were taken down He therefore who from this example of our Saviour will argue for a necessity of Enthusiastick Inspirations for the Interpretation of Scripture may by the same Rule maintain that a Christian Prince with an hundred Men may encounter a Pagan Enemy coming against him with Twenty Thousand because once by the especial Command of God Gideon reduced his great Army to three hundred and with them Vanquished the Host of the Midianites which were as the Sand of the Sea for multitude We are to Guide and Govern the several Periods and Circumstances of our Lives by those stated Rules and Measures which God in his Infinite Wisdom hath appointed for us not to propose one or two extraordinary Examples for our Patterns and Imitation We must make use of those plain easie and natural Methods which are laid down before us for the Improvement of our Reason and the Information of our Judgments not expect that our Understanding which the Wise Man calls The Candle of the Lord should be lighted as the Wood upon his Altar sometimes was by an immediate fire from Heaven And how necessary it is for all those who are designed to be the Ministers and dispenfers of the Word of God to apply themselves betimes to those means which are most proper for the attainment of that Knowledge which may prepare them for the through discharge of their Duty will sufficiently appear by the great damage the Church hath in all Ages sustained by the Ignorance of foolish and unlearned Men. He must not pretend to understand the Scriptures or to be conversant in the Style and Language of them who does not acknowledge that they abound in Tropes and Figures in Parables and dark Speeches and that there are divers weighty and important verities couch'd under those Allegorical and Enigmatical forms of Speech which cannot be discovered till that Vail and Covering be done away by the Skill and Industry of those whose Education entitles them to that sort of Learning What Monstrous Opinions what Prodigious Absurdities what Pernitious Doctrines hath this want of Art to distinguish between what is to be taken in a proper and literal what in a Forein and borrowed sense begat in the Christian World To this the Error of the Millenaries which began so early and hath continued so long more or less in the Church owes its first rise and Original Unskilful and unwary Men looking no farther than the bare letter of the Text applying those Glorious and specious Metaphors under which the Prophets of Old shadowed the Spiritual Riches and Happiness of Christs Kingdom to their down-right Natural meaning made such a Plat-form and Idea of that State as best suited with their Fancy and Imagination And how hard a matter it was even for our Saviour himself the great Teacher of Truth to wean his own Disciples from that false Opinion they had in the time of their Ignorance suck'd in of his Earthly and Temporal Kingdom the Evangelical History does abundantly demonstrate This sort of Ignorance begat the Follies and idle Dreams of the Anthropomorphites whilst taking those things which were spoken Figuratively in favour to the weakness of our shallow Understandings concerning the Essence of the Invisible God in their Natural Capacity they have represented him as a Corporeal Visible Substance consisting of Humane Members and even such a one as themselves And truly one would almost think that those of the Romish Church who stick so close to the literal sense of that Sacramental expression This is my Body had forgotten that our Saviour ever made use of any Figures of Speech in the several Discourses which he made whilst he was conversant here on Earth And when their great Bellarmine crouds in that Text Blessed are the Poor in Spirit to Patronize the Order of their Mendicant Friers I should almost judge him to be of the same Opinion had we not more Reason to believe that he and the rest of them do rather endeavour to bend the Scriptures to their Designs than to accommodate their Designs to the Rules of Scripture And as the inconveniences are many which have accrued to the Church by the Ignorance and Impudence of those who have presumed to touch the Mysteries of the Sanctuary with unwash'd and unhallowed Hands so on the other side she must acknowledge her self to owe the Defence of her Religion the Propagation of her Faith and the Confutation of her Adversaries to the Learned Pens and the Eloquent Discourses of those Wise Master-Builders which God raised up in all Ages for her Security and Preservation The Ancient Fathers and Writers who spent themselves and their time to serve the Church not only in their own Age but to succeeding Generations had lost much of their aim and the People of God much of the Benefit was intended them had their Learnned Apologies for the Christian Religion their Pious Explanations of the same Faith their useful Commentaries their strong and solid Arguments layen moulding in Libraries without a Key to unlock the meaning of them their Books had long since undergone the same Fate with themselves and become as they have done a prey for Moths and Worms But now by us though dead they yet speak and become profitable like the Scriptures of which they treat for Doctrine for Reproof for Correction for Instruction in Righteousness Who unless he attain to the Knowledge of the Greek Tongue by the Advantages of a happy Education can discover the Golden Mines of St. Chrysostom's Eloquence For where is that Excellent Fluent Comprehensive Language Naturally now spoken Even Greece her self once the great Nurse and Favourer of Arts that labours as well under the sad and deplorable Fate of Barbarism and Ignorance as the Yoke of Turkish Slavery needs the help of acquired Learning to enable her to understand the great Masters of her own Attick Elegance I might Instance in the other Famous Language which like a Vagabond hath no certain home for Rome her self hath lost her Ancient Tongue as well as her first Faith Both whatever some pretend to say in the defence of them are Corrupted and her Language as well as Manners in the decay and declination of her Empire degenerated into a soft and effeminate Delicacy Should I pursue this Argument as far as it would go I might tire both my self and you but I must remember that I told you that that Learning which is the product of a Liberal Education was not only though chiefly necessary for those who wait at the Altar but also serviceable to all Persons in those several stations and Professions to which the Divine Providence hath assigned them which was the second Proposition I laid down Setting aside