Selected quad for the lemma: sin_n
Text snippets containing the quad
|
ID |
Title |
Author |
Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) |
STC |
Words |
Pages |
|
A87672
|
A sermon preached before the Commissioners of both kingdomes, the same day they delivered the propositions to the Kings Maiesty, for a safe and well-grounded peace. / By Samuel Kem, Batchelour in Divinity.
|
Kem, Samuel, 1604-1670.
|
1646
(1646)
|
Wing K255; Thomason E346_14; ESTC R201011
|
22,136
|
38
|
new Physick The Lord give skill also to discover all such if any before they too much retard the Churches cure The Lord make you all men of affections and bowels to lay to heart and pitty the Kingdoms wounds Nay thirdly men of diligence neglecting no opportunity the losse of time may be the losse of life Now if ever pray for good successe Indeed the condition of the three Kingdomes doth not onely require it but the distressed of the Land expect that you croud thorough all difficulties and carnall reasonings and by any means represent their condition to the Lord in the way of extraordinary duty I could wish we would at last leave mocking and deluding the poore Church of God and deale open-heartedly with them we promise and professe we will doe any thing for their ease and yet more then show nothing is done to this day we are like an idle servant alwayes going of an arrant but never goe and do it For shame now at last let us lessen weaken our sins that we may strengthen our prayers the life of three Kingdoms is at stake nay of the Church of God for ought you know pardon my importunity if I sollicite you to be active by a few Motives it being upon life and death of three famous Kingdoms 1. Motive Yours and everie one of our Relations to it it is the Church of God of which you are fellow-members it is the ship of which you are partowners in which your lives nay the lives of your precious Soules and all the provisions for your posterities are imbarked Since the storme began I confesse you have rowsed up many a lazie and shorting Jonah nay you have cast most of the unnecessary lumber that was more burthensome then serviceable to the ships use into the Sea shall I say nay somâ— part out of their seas and yet all is not well the poor ship drawes much blood yet swims very deepe in the Red Sea I beseech you rumedgy the ship once more and if you find any seeds men of Division S. Paul in the 16. of the Romans 17. intreats you to take notice of them as monsters and I have read it is prodigiously ominous to a ship to be haunted with monsters Raysing parties in a family ship or army is a thing of very sad consequence thirefore the Apostle dares give it under his hand that God is not the author of confusion but of peace as in all the Churches of the Saints 1 Cor. 14.33 Truly it is a sad thing to see the members of Jesus Christ out of joynt for Christ falls not off from his members why should the members fall off from one another There can be no such reason given why we should seperate one from another as there can be why Christ might seperate from us It is the glory of Christs body when every member is serviceable to 〈…〉 â—…ole in its right place These are also weighty luggedge and the Apostle adviseth such after admonition to be cast out for these extreamly prevent the exact performance of proportionable duty Lastly let every one search his owne Cabine whether he have not secretly brought no unwarrantable goods aboard for his own ends that may make the ship liable to forfeiture If so over with them what a shame is it to any man to forfeit a ship for his owne advantage or the Church should perish for concealed abhominations unpardoned sinners are dead men and dead men are prejudiciall to a ship and therefore to be cast over else God will say ere long as to Abimelech 〈◊〉 20.3 Behold thou art but a dead man for the woman thou hast taken so for the sin you have committed and are taken in Why should we joy in any thing whilst the Chruch may take hurt the Saints of God have ever been as tender of it as their selves and preferred its good before all injoyments If I forget Jerusalem let my right hand forget its cunning It was so deare and went so neere to old Ely the news of its losse when the Ark was taken that it is disputed whether his heart or neck brake first Wherefore I beseech you let your relation to it make you now in its misery to put forth and hazzard your selves to the utmost for relieving Mercy Mordecais Motive to Esther was it was her Nation it s mine to you they are your Nations it is your Church your Families your Houses your Estates your Children Wives Selves Souls your Gospell Ordinances are aimed at O pray pray Fast and pray cry mightily all 's at stake 2. Motive Because such duty if the Church be fick or Sentenced unto death under a decree Nay although with Ezekiah it hath received a message That it shall dye and not live yet it is of power to procure God to visit it and one of his visites is halfe the recovering of it 〈◊〉 â—8 14 It is some comfort to men that are labouring under hard undertakings that they labour not in vain be of good courage and of good comfort Your labour is not in vaine with the Lord for his decreed Church to ruine 3. Motive It is your last refuge it is that besides which you have hardly any thing left you If men have nothing left or have spent all but their fingers ends to maintaine them and their families they had need ply them diligently and cherish them carefully If a house stand but on one pillar it had need oft to be viewed for repaires and to see that be safe and well founded prayer is as it were the only Pillar of the Church it is as the fingers ends we had need imploy our fingers ends for our selves and our fellow-members in misery if we intend a livelihood 4. Motive You are all sentenced and by your Enemies appoynted to dye I hope no true member of the Church but will speake a word for himselfe I confesse our owne guilt might sow up our lips and we might bee left wordlesse but yet if God offer thee an opportunity ply him for thy life and the Churches safety with importunity for if thou speed not this way thou art undone for ever Your life is on it there is no trifling with life doe you not know what condemned men do in point of life for pardon Improve all their friends all their time all their skill all for a pardon so do you and prosper 5. Motive Because by this kinde of duty if you cannot prevaile with God and that for causes best known to himselfe for complete redemption out of misery Yet you shall for a mitigation of it and for a sanctified use of it and for strength of grace to undergo it and there is a great deale of difference in mens sufferings and deaths all men die but some men are kil'd by death It was the saying of a godly man he did aegrotare vitaliter so the godly doe mori vitaliter for nothing can arme death to hurt us but sin otherwise thou art hard sting-free
we never feare the noise of a Fly as the humming of a Bee because it hath no sting So that this kind of duty though it cannot keep thee and me from dying by the Sword it will keep us from dropping into hell and it is a sweet mercy for the members of the Church with Stephen at their death to see heaven opened and to die with the sense of Gods love though of mans cruell malice 6. Motive Your paines in duty for the Church of God in misery what ever it be shall be rewarded to you and yours unto many generations this will intitle you to the most sure inheritance and lasting legacie you can leave behinde you The Lord never forgets a cup of cold water given to quench the Saints thirst in their necessity how much sooner will it be ingraven upon his heart the providing of cordiall precious portions for his languishing people yea God will provide a compensation for you and yours in all your afflictions Nay you shall treasure up praises for your selves and prayers for your surviving families in the ages that are to come and know this also that God hath riches enough in his Cabinet to make you amends for all you can do or suffer in this way Indeed I have beheld you with such alacrity noble courage expediting your motion endeavouring by all meanes night and day to find out him whom your souls love and long after for the Churches good that the quaere of the Church in the third of the Canticles and the third was to any whom it might concerne your first salute Can you tell us of His Majesty Yea I have seen so much of your unalterable and prepared patience digesting the vulgar curses and affronts as your diet and content with any thing that you might do the Church service that I shall ever blesse God that he yet accommodates the Church with such Friends and the King and Kingdoms with such Worthies who will venture through an host of enemies if possible to fetch water to refresh the Church of God therfore I will spare my self the labour by any more Motives to put you in mind to go on who are ready to run for the Churches and Kingdomes peace All therefore that now remaines is but to hold out to your view some other Observations that I had thought to have handled to complete your preparation for this dayes great Action but in regard you have Summons for the action and but a small parcell of time before you attend His Majesty that I may no way be prejudiciall to your private practice of this preparation or any other becoming so great a work I will briefly shew you the jewels they are ready command me to place them in your ears at your pleasure and my obedience shall eccho to your order You have heard 1 That Nationall and Personall preparation is necessary for the undertaking any great action for the Church Gather all the Jewes in Shushan I also c. 2. That Representative persons interposing for the Church in a strait deserve representative prayer Fast pray forme 3 Extraordinary and great duty is necessary for the Church in great misery Fast pray night and day eat nor drink c. The fourth you would have heard and I handled is this 4 That Messengers of such prayers are ever Messengers of praise they are thriving prospering Messengers 5 That all self must he denied that the Church may be saved We must not thinke of our selves and the Church at one time if we do we shall never go thorough stitch with the worke If I perish I perish let me assure you this if you save the Church you cannot lose your selves and if the Church perish juggle and Hocus Pocus it as nearely as you can your sleights will be found out and you cannot save your selves It is no time to feather our nests and build to lay our young when so many stroakes have been given at the root of the tree seek we great things for our selves for shame no more of it what do we painting our cabines when so many leakes in the ship first stop the leakes get out the water there is a time to trim this cabine afterward Lastly The means must be used although our ends are not obtained If we perish we perish For although God can deliver his Church without us yet his usuall method hath been to make choice of some Moses some Ioshuahs Gideons Davids c. for the preservation of his Church nay of Jesus Christ for the salvation of it And now give me leave to wind up all with the practice of that duty for you which I have in this Sermon commended to you Go and the Lord be with you yea the God of heaven blesse you and cause the Kings face to shine upon you and make you glad that he speak nothing but good unto you this day the Lord avert all whispering flattering Dâ—egs this day and return you with a Message of hope at least if not of present help for these three bleeding Kingdomes yea the Lord make your interposing for the Church as prosperous as Abigails and let the Kings answer be as Davids 1 Sam. 25.31 33 34. Blessed be the Lord God of Israel which sent you this day to meet me and blessed be your advice and blessed be ye which have kept me this day from going on to shed any more of my Subjects innocent blood and from avenging my selfe with my own hand and that he may receive at your hands what you have brought him and say unto you Go up in peace to both my Houses of Parliament see I have hearkned to your voyces and accepted your persons give me but favour to add one word in prayer after the Apostles directory 2 Thes 3.16 Now the Lord of peace himselfe give you peace alwaies by all means yea now peace and let it be the Lords peace and the Lords free gift of peace let it be peace with him peace with our consciences peace one with another such a peace as all things may prosper with you yea that publike tranquillity and quiet in the Church may follow that it be not troubled with Schismes and Heresies within or without by persecuting Tyrants ruinating all by slaughters and cruell bloody warres O let every good heart pray for this peace for our Hierusalem that there may be tranquillity in the State and free from forraign and civill uncivill warres that in the peace thereof we may have peace that these distracted Kingdomes may be in security and void of dangers free from the noise of terrifying alarums and other dangers Yea the Lord give us such a peace that there may be an everlasting Covenant betwixt God and the King betwixt God the King and the people and let us and the whole Church of God heartily cry Amen Amen So be it And so the Lord be with you all to blesse you in the great worke of this day and all other your great imployments for his glory and the Churches good To whom with all our hearts be rendred and ascribed all Honour Glory Power and Praise now and evermore Amen FINIS