Selected quad for the lemma: sense_n
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A60954
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Twelve sermons preached upon several occasions by Robert South ... ; six of them never before printed.; Sermons. Selections
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South, Robert, 1634-1716.
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1692
(1692)
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Wing S4745; ESTC R13931
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201,576
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650
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believe and rest upon him for salvation and to deny our selves and within the compass of this is included whatsoever is called Gospel As for the manner of our denying the Deity of Christ here prohibited I conceive it was by words and oral expressions verbally to deny and dis-acknowledge it This I ground upon these reasons 1. Because it was such a denial as was before men and therefore consisted in open Profession for a denial in judgment and practice as such is not always before men 2. Because it was such a denial or confession of him as would appear in Preaching but this is mannaged in words and verbal profession But now 2ly If we take the words as they are a general precept equally relating to all times and to all persons though delivered only upon a particular occasion to the Apostles as I suppose they are to be understood so I think they comprehend all the three ways mentioned of confessing or denying Christ but principally in respect of practice and that 1. Because by this he is most honoured or dishonoured 2. Because without this the other two cannot save 3. Because those who are ready enough to confess him both in judgment and profession are for the most part very prone to deny him shamefully in their doings Pass we now to a Second thing viz. to shew What are the Causes inducing men to deny Christ in his truths I shall propose Three 1. The seeming supposed absurdity of many truths upon this foundation Heresie always builds The Heathens derided the Christians that still they required and pressed belief and well they might say they since the Articles of their Religion are so absurd that upon Principles of Science they can never win assent It is easie to draw it forth and demonstrate how upon this score the chief Heresies that now are said to trouble the Church do oppose and deny the most important truths in Divinity As first hear the denyer of the Deity and satisfaction of Christ. What saies he can the same person be God and man the Creature and the Creator can we ascribe such attributes to the same thing whereof one implies a Negation and a contradiction of the other can he be also Finite and Infinite when to be finite is not to be infinite and to be infinite not to be finite And when we distinguish between the Person and the Nature was not that distinction an invention of the Schools savouring rather of Metaphysicks than Divinity If we say that he must have been God because he was to mediate between us and God by the same reason they will reply we should need a Mediator between us and Christ who is equally God equally offended Then for his satisfaction they will demand to whom this satisfaction is paid If to God then God pays a Price to himself and what is it else to require and need no satisfaction than for one to satisfie himself Next comes in the Denyer of the Decrees and Free-grace of God What says he shall we exhort admonish and intreat the Saints to beware of falling away finally and at the same time assert that it is impossible for them so to fall what shall we erect two contradictory Wills in God or place two contradictories in the same Will and make the Will of his Purpose and Intention run counter to the Will of his Approbation Hear another concerning the Scripture and Justification What says the Romanist relie in matters of faith upon a private Spirit How do you know this is the sence of such a Scripture Why by the Spirit But how will you try that Spirit to be of God Why by the Scripture this he explodes as a circle and so derides it Then for justification How are you Justified by an imputed Righteousness Is it yours before it is imputed or not if not as we must say is this to be Justified to have that accounted yours that is not yours But again did you ever hear of any man made rich or wise by imputation why then Righteous or Just Now these seeming Paradoxes attending Gospel truths cause men of weak prejudiced intellectuals to deny them and in them Christ being ashamed to own faith so much as they think to the disparagement of their Reason 2. The Second thing causing men to deny the truths of Christ is their Unprofitableness And no wonder if here men forsake the truth and assert interest To be pious is the way to be poor Truth still gives its followers its own Badge and Livery a despised nakedness It is hard to maintain the truth but much harder to be maintained by it could it ever yet feed cloath or defend its assertors Did ever any man quench his thirst or satisfie his hunger with a Notion Did ever any one live upon Propositions The testimony of Brutus concerning Vertue is the apprehension of most concerning Truth that it is a Name but lives and estates are things and therefore not to be thrown away upon Words That we are neither to worship or cringe to any thing under the Deity is a truth too strict for a Naaman he can be content to worship the true God but then it must be in the house of Rimmon the reason was implied in his condition he was Captain of the Host and therefore he thought it reason good to bow to Rimmon rather than indanger his place better Bow than Break. Indeed sometimes Providence casts things so that truth and interest lie the same way and when it is wrapt up in this covering men can be content to follow it to press hard after it but it is as we pursue some beasts only for their skins take off the covering and though men obtain the truth they would lament the loss of that As Iacob wept and mourned over the torn Coat when Ioseph was alive It is incredible to consider how interest out-weighs truth If a thing in it self be doubtfull let it make for interest and it shall be raised at least into a Probable and if a truth be certain and thwart interest it will quickly fetch it down to but a Probability nay if it does not carry with it an impregnable Evidence it will go near to debase it to a downright falsity How much interest casts the Balance in cases dubious I could give sundry instances let one suffice And that concerning the unlawfulness of Usury Most of the Learned men in the World successively both Heathen and Christian do assert the taking of Use to be utterly unlawfull yet the Divines of the Reformed Church beyond the Seas though most severe and rigid in other things do generally affirm it to be lawfull That the case is doubtfull and may be disputed with plausible arguments on either side we may well grant But what then is the reason that makes these Divines so unanimously concurr in this opinion Indeed I shall not affirm this to be the reason but it may seem so to many that they receive their Salaries by way of pension
him they neither melt nor endear him but leave him as hard as rugged and as unconcerned as ever All Kindnesses descend upon such a Temper as Showers of Rain or Rivers of fresh Water falling into the main Sea The Sea swallows them all but is not at all changed or sweetned by them I may truly say of the Mind of an Ungratefull person that it is Kindness-proof It is impenetrable unconquerable Unconquerable by that which conquers all things else even by Love it self Flints may be melted we see it daily but an Ungratefull heart cannot no not by the strongest and noblest Flame After all your Attempts all your Experiments for any thing that Man can doe He that is Ungratefull will be Ungratefull still And the reason is manifest for you may remember that I told you that Ingratitude sprang from a Principle of Ill-nature Which being a thing founded in such a certain Constitution of Blood and Spirits as being born with a Man into the World and upon that account called Nature shall prevent all Remedies that can be applied by Education and leaves such a Byass upon the Mind as is before-hand with all Instruction So that you shall seldom or never meet with an Ungratefull person but if you look backward and trace him up to his Original you will find that he was born so and if you could look forward enough it is a Thousand to One but you will find that he also dies so for you shall never light upon an ill-natur'd Man who was not also an ill-natur'd Child and gave several Testimonies of his being so to discerning Persons long before the Use of his Reason The thread that Nature spins is seldom broken off by any thing but Death I do not by this limit the Operation of God's Grace for that may do Wonders But humanly speaking and according to the method of the World and the little Correctives supplied by Art and Discipline it seldom fails but an ill Principle has its Course and Nature makes good its Blow And therefore where Ingratitude begins remarkably to shew it self he surely judges most wisely who takes the Alarm betimes and arguing the Fountain from the Stream concludes that there is Ill-nature at the bottom and so reducing his Judgment into Practice timely withdraws his frustraneous baffled Kindnesses and sees the folly of Endeavouring to stroke a Tyger into a Lamb or to court an AEthiopian out of his Colour 3 dly In the Third and Last place Wheresoever you see a Man notoriously Ungratefull rest assured that there is no true Sense of Religion in that Person You know the Apostle's argument in 1 Iohn 4.20 He who loveth not his Brother whom he hath seen how can he love God whom he hath not seen So by an exact parity of Reason we may argue If a man has no Sense of those Kindnesses that pass upon him from One like himself whom he sees and knows and converses with sensibly how much less shall his Heart be affected with the gratefull Sense of his Favours whom he converses with only by imperfect Speculations by the Discourses of Reason or the Discoveries of Faith neither of which equal the quick and lively Impressions of Sense If the Apostles reasoning was Good and Concluding I am sure this must be Unavoidable But the thing is too evident to need any proof For shall that man pass for a Proficient in Christ's School who would have been Exploded in the School of Zeno or Epictetus Or shall he pretend to Religious Attainments who is defective and short in Moral Which yet are but the Rudiments the Beginnings and first Draught of Religion as Religion is the Perfection the Refinement and the Sublimation of Morality so that it still pre-supposes it it builds upon it and Grace never adds the Superstructure where Vertue has not laid the Foundation There may be Vertue indeed and yet no Grace but Grace is never without Vertue And therefore though Gratitude does not inferr Grace it is certain that Ingratitude does exclude it Think not to put God off by frequenting Prayers and Sermons and Sacraments while thy Brother has an Action against thee in the Court of Heaven an Action of Debt of that Clamorous and Great Debt of Gratitude Rather as our Saviour Commands Leave thy Gift upon the Altar and first go and clear accompts with thy Brother God scorns a Gift from him who has not paid his Debts Every Ungratefull person in the sight of God and Man is a Thief and let him not make the Altar his Receiver Where there is no Charity it is certain there can be no Religion and can that man be Charitable who is not so much as Just In every Benefaction between Man and Man Man is only the Dispencer but God the Benfactour and therefore let all Ungratefull Ones know that where Gratitude is the Debt God himself is the chief Creditor Who though he causes his Sun to shine and his Rain to fall upon the Evil and Unthankfull in this World has another kind of Reward for their Unthankfulness in the next To which God the great Searcher and Iudge of Hearts and Rewarder of Men according to their Deeds be rendred and ascribed as is most due all Praise Might Majesty and Dominion both now and for evermore Amen A SERMON Preached at CHRIST-CHURCH Oxon. Before the University Octob. 14. 1688. PROV XII 22 Lying Lips are abomination to the Lord. I Am very sensible that by discoursing of Lyes and Falshood which I have pitched upon for my present Subject I must needs fall into a very large Common Place though yet not by half so large and Common as the Practice Nothing in Nature being so Universally decryed and withall so Universally practised as Falshood So that most of those things that have the mightiest and most controlling Influence upon the Affairs and Course of the World are neither better nor worse than down-right Lyes For what is common Fame which sounds from all Quarters of the World and re-sounds back to them again but generally a Loud Ratling Impudent Overbearing Lye What are most of the Histories of the World but Lyes Lyes immortalized and consigned over as a perpetual Abuse and Flam upon Posterity What are most of the Promises of the World but Lyes Of which we need no other Proof but our own Experience And what are most of the Oaths in the World but Lyes And such as need rather a Pardon for being took than a Dispensation from being kept And lastly what are all the Religions of the World except Judaism and Christianity but Lyes And even in Christianity it self are there not those who teach warrant and defend Lying And scarce use the Bible for any other Purpose but to swear upon it and to lye against it Thus a mighty governing Lye goes round the World and has almost banish'd Truth out of it and so reigning Triumphantly in its stead is the True Source of most of those Confusions and dire Calamities that