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A49848
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A sermon preached at the anniversary meeting of the Eaton-scholars at St. Mary le Bow, on Nov. 22d, 1683 by Joseph Layton.
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Layton, Joseph.
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1684
(1684)
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Wing L760; ESTC R25797
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12,974
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34
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perfect all Mankind is at a loss in a Maze still and the Apostles did not as they said Declare the whole Truth of God and it would disparage the Divine Providence and affront the Spirit of God which is a Spirit of Wisdom and Knowledge of Order and Regular Dispensations And this in brief may be sufficient to let you see the folly and mischief of all other Methods and Institutions save those that Minister to a Reasonable Service Which brings me to the third and last Particular The Reasonableness of this present Service concerning which so much has been already said by my Predecessors that I may be allowed to be the shorter 1. Nothing is so Reasonable so Spiritual and acceptable to God as these Eucharistical Oblations As for other Services by way of Petition or Deprecation they are peculiar to this Life only and so of a lower Allay and are in some sort common to Beasts for even they lift up their Eyes to God and the whole Creation groaneth when it is in pain or want Only Intellectual Beings can return Thanks and Converse with God by Reciprocal intercourses It argues a deep sence of favours received and a thorough understanding of their worth and a Soul not only fram'd and moulded by the Holy Spirit to this Noble Work but Crown'd with Joy and Raptures and the unspeakable satisfactions of the Holy Ghost It was God's Command Deut. 16 That the Males should appear Three times a year before him and that not empty but bringing their returns of Gratitude with them Among Christians this is our 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and as at the Primitive Eucharists they us'd to offer Thanks for all the Patriarchs and Confessors the Founders and Benefactors of the Church so we do for all our particular Favours and Blessings And as in the Law every one was to give as he was able so we are to present him with our Souls and Bodies and the several proportions of Goodness Wisdom Wealth Honour we have attain'd to If the Souls of departed Saints have any Sence of what is done here below no doubt but all your glorious friends above will rejoyce and applaud themselves in their work and reap the abundant fruits of their labour in seeing their Pupils their Charge advanc't by the benefit of their Education to a work so like their own For I conceive Love and Learning to be the employment of Angels and glorified Spirits too as well as yours who after they have taken out their Lesson from the face of God the Beatifick Vision betake themselves to Laud and Thansgivings to Feasts such as Angels make and mutual Embracements If not if they be laid up in their secret Repositories till the day of Judgment God shall be a sufficient reward and recompence who will fill your hearts with more grace and your minds with more light and your Families with more Blessings and your Names both Living a Dead with the Perfume of good and faithful Servants 2. It is an act highly Reasonable and infinitely Commendable to declare your Gratitude in this publick Assembly to those worthy Persons the Instructors of your Youth your Guides your Teachers your Angel-Guardians here below when you were little Ones Among the other degeneracies of the Age there is this common one of Ingratitude to Teachers And the first act our Gallants do when they write Man is this piece of Inhumanity of despising and villifying their Education So that this Assembly may in some measure Atone for many others and your Charity cover a multitude of faults It is much that the regular Method and the Indefatigable Industry and the rich Stock of Learning in our Schools and Academies should so soon be out-stript by a Clubb and a Coffee-house but Vice abhors all Learning and Sloth invents Compendiums and a great deal of Conceit and a little of Mr. Hobbs sets up a raw young Man for a Philosopher and a Statesman and a Man of the World I shall not stand to reckon up the Honours that Emperors and Cities in all Nations have given to the Instructors of their Youth Of how great importance it is to Season wisely the growing hopes the Futurus Populus of a Nation it is sufficient that our Blessed Saviour in whom the Fulness of the Godhead dwelt bodily and in Whom all the Treasures of Wisdom were laid up yet in his Minority he went among the Doctors if I may so say to School and he honour'd and Authoris'd their Profession by his Conversing with them I will in your Names therefore return to as many as are living and capable of receiving them your unfeigned and acknowledgments thanks and pray that God would return an 100 fold into their Bosom all that Love and Care they have bestowed upon us 3. This Publick Legal Assembly is a suitable return for the mercy of our Publick Legal Education A Blessing no ways to be pretermitted since it brings so many considerable Advantages with it It is a common Question Which is the readier way to Learning Private or Publick Teaching For the former there is urg'd A constant Care and Attendance upon one or a few Persons a particular and exact observation of their Natural Inclinations Intellectual Abilities and acquired Improvements and so a just apportionating his Task to his Capacity On the other side There is the light of Example and the heat of Emulation and the joy of Society and a vivacity of Spirit thence resulting necessary to all the Parts and Duties of a Scholar and a very probable security of Success and it is better to know how to secure Harvest then how to hasten Fruits But if the Question be Which is the best way to make him an useful honest sound Scholar For a few Criticisms and Speculations or to teach the Greek Grammer a year before others hold no Comparison with Concord and Unity here without doubt the Advantage lyes on the Publick side For here are no unsound Documents no private poisonous Intermixtures no preparatory Doses for Schism and Faction but all things are Administred according to the setled Dispensatory of Laws and Statutes And the Domus Doctrinae joyns to the Synagogue and Men of Fame and Integrity teach in Solomon's Porch in the view and observation of the whole World Experience teaches us the mischief of Foreign Seminaries and unlicens'd Academies at home And as from the remote Corners of Scythia from Dens and Marshes the barbarous Goths and Vandals brake in upon and destroyed fair and Learned Italy so from these private Holes it was that our Locusts overspread the face of our Church and Nation But that which I would recommend to your observation and so I have done is That a private secret Education does not only expose a Youth to the Malignant Influences of evil Men but Secrecy and Solitariness it self does naturally poison the Candour and Ingenuity of his Nature For as soon as they are seated in their places they look upon themselves in a state of Opposition and Hostility with other Schools and so they catch at Paradoxes and Novelties and study Cavils and Quirks and Evasions and hunt after Slanders and Stories to advance their Party and illustrate the obscurity of their Education It is almost necessary they should grow either Proud or Splenatick or Sad and Gloomy or Sullen and Morose or Envious and Wrathful and with these accomplishments they come into the World and are exactly qualified at least to become the Author 's in Characters and your Julians and your Growth of Popery and all that Spawn of Pamphlets that have of late disturb'd and infected the Nation Solitude is a thing so dangerous that our Lord himself speaking of him as a Man would not venture into the Wilderness but under the Guidance and Protection of the Spirit In Sum The several Forms of Angels in gladsom Troops and Lightsom Places celebrate the Divine Praise and study the good of Mankind Only Furies in dark and desolate Caves and Witches in Melancholly midnight Meetings and Traytors at Secret Consults and Cabals Complot their Mischiefs and Destruction I have now done with your Patience And it remains only to pray That God would Inspire us with a due Sence and Acknowledgments of the many Blessings he has bestowed upon us That we may live like the Children of Light and Knowledge and shew our Gratitude by our right use and improvement of them to his Honour and Glory That God would showre down his Blessings upon the Head of our most Gracious Sovereign Lord King Charles the Heir of our Royal Founder's Piety and Patrimony and the Protector of our Fortunes and the Encourager and if I may say it with Reverence in some sort the Companion of our present Meetings and that he would Accumulate upon his Head all the Blessings due to the constant Defender of the Faith and the Munificent Nursing Father of the Church And that the Prayers of all the Poor and the Orphan and all that have received Life and Warmth or any benefit from the Charity of this Royal Foundation may descend upon Himself and his Posterity to all Generations Lastly May Love and Unity and all the good natur'd Vertues dwell amongst your selves and preserve you ever till you meet together again and Feast in the Kingdom of Heaven Now to God the Father Son and Holy Ghost Three Persons and One God be all Honour Power Praise and Glory attributed for these and all his other Mercies now and for ever more Amen FINIS
of serving God reasonably and acceptably 2. To excite your Gratitude the more I shall compare your Condition with that of most others whom we may rank under Three Heads 1. The Formal bred and born Christian that makes no use of his Reason 2. The Papist That enslaves it trusting to his implicit Faith 3. The Enthusiast That despises and renounces it 3. Shew that this particular Meeting is a Reasonable Service and that we are to thank him because he has enabled us to be thankful That is to say 1. A Learned Education by refining a Mans Parts elevating his Mind ennobling his Faculties and filling them with rich and worthy Ideas does thereby enable him to have Just and Honourable apprehension of God And this is the first and most important Principle of Religion for such as we suppose God to be such a course shall we take to please him Some have fancied God to be an unactive Being in the World enjoying himself in an Eternal Rest and Retiredness accordingly they abandon themselves to Luxury and Sensuality for how should they dread that Providence that cares for nothing Or that Omnipotence that does Nothing Others confine him to too narrow a Sphear providing but for a little Flock and a small Remnant wronging all his other Attributes to exalt his Sovereignty And they seek private and unaccountable ways to assure themselves of an ungrounded unaccountable favour The Papists that they might give their People a Notion of God dress him up in the similitude of a Man and though they pretend not to paint Essences yet they expose him to every vulgar Eye and every vulgar Conception in such resemblances which he was only pleased for secret Reasons and in Mystical ways to Communicate to his chosen Prophets And they Transcribe Ovid and Propertius to find a style for the loves of Angels and Glorified Spirits above And not a few fancying God to be adorned as they best like seek after a strange and personal Union with him And in this Scene of their Imaginations they pursue him with Effeminate Passions with Longings and Languishments with Extravagant Joys and sudden Despairs as their sick and distemper'd Fancies lead them These are Gross and Carnal Conceptions changing the Glory of the Incorruptible God into the Similitude of a Corruptible Creature Rom. 1.3 But to make him vindicative and Sanguinary and with a Turkish Tyranny to fling away Souls into Eternal Perdition is next to Blasphemy But your Predecessor Abraham 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being a Man addicted to Study and Contemplation when he consider'd the Creation God's Work and consulted with his Reason which is a Beam of God himself He found That to be God is to be most Holy Wise Just Good Merciful In short That which we can conceive to be most Perfect that and infinitely more so is God He Judged of him by reasonable Collections not fanciful Ideas And such an advantage have ye Brethren who having your minds purged from all drossy and low thoughts are enabled by the benefit of your Education to attain to this first and fundamental Principle of Eternal Life Namely To know Thee the Only True God and so to offer him a Worthy Reasonable Service 2. Hereby we come to know the true Nature Excellency and Perfection of Religion For since God is such such also must be the way to Honour and Worship him And if in any of his Commands there be any doubtful Expressions and variety of Interpretations that is to be esteemed most agreeable to God's Will which is most consonant to Reason God Governs us as he has made us so that being neither Engins nor Angels we act not by Instinct nor Intuition but by discourse and rational Progressions If you consider the Articles the Mysteries of our most Holy Faith none but a considering Man will be induc'd to receive them And for the practical Points of our Obedience none but a Brute will reject them There must be wise Consideration and serious Pondering The Beraean Generosity and a full Conviction of the Understanding to make a Man a Christian for Faith is not the Milk of the Nurse nor the Credulity of the Simple nor a point of Honour among Sword-men nor the Sence of the House among Politicians nor a blind Subjection to the Infallible Chair But it is the deliberate Choice of a Prudent Rational Man that without contending for rigorous Demonstrations and Scientifical Surefootings is content to submit to every degree of Truth and entertain every Beam of Light is ready to comply when the motives to belief preponderate tho the things themselves be incomprehensible But Oh the loss the misery of those whose Talent it is to hold the Plough How should they comprehend with all illuminated Saints Eph. 3.18 What is the Breadth and Length and Heigth and Depth and observe the Lines of the Great Mystery of Godliness from so many Points of so vast a Circumference beautifully centring in the Messias How should they with the Wisemen follow his Star or trace the Great Birth the Promised Seed from its first quick'ning in Eve through the long-liv'd Patriarchs through the Sacrifices and Ceremonies of the Law through all the Prophets down to the Midwifry of the Baptist when in the fulness of time it ripned into the Stature of a Man in Christ Jesus What a Glorious Knowledge is this to discourse out of the Scriptures and from them to be able to give a reason of our Faith To Summon in the Antiquities of Nations the Histories of Times the Rites and Religious Solemnities of Priests the Fables of Poets the Results of Philosophers In short to press the whole Creation to make bare every Shoulder for this Service of attesting to the Truth of our Religion and Illustrating the Glory of Jesus These things Brethren ye are called to know that is ye have been put into the way to know them your Fleece like Gideon's has been moist'ned with this Heavenly Dew when so many others has been left dry So that having your hearts filled with these Sacred Truths and your whole Man Transported with Raptures of Love Joy and Admiration ye will find fresh cause to bless God for the benefit of being able to offer him this Reasonable Service 3. It is a great help towards discerning the Spirits that so we may better hold fast the Truth It is a difficult matter among the many Cries Lo here is Christ and there is Christ to distinguish the Voice of God so that 't is necessary to our other Graces to add Knowledge and to have our Sences exercised in Spiritual Matters Is it likely and reasonable that God should entrust one Man with a Spirit of Infallibility for the benefit of his Church and yet no where declare so much Or that it should never be put in Practice or that so Divine a gift should be lodged in a vicious Man and God should liken his Vicegerent to the fallen Angels who with Perfection of Knowledge abound in