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sin_n death_n hell_n victory_n 4,749 5 8.9860 5 false
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ID Title Author Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) STC Words Pages
A65926 A discourse of the duty of shewing forth a good example in our lives deliver'd in a sermon at St. Mary le Bow Church, March the 28th, 1698 / by William Whitfeld ... Whitfeld, William, 1658-1717. 1698 (1698) Wing W2013; ESTC R38611 15,687 32

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enters into the Ears of the Almighty Lord how long wilt thou look on How long Lord forever Arise O God in thy Righteousness and make bare thy Arm to Judgment Behold the Children of Men are all Backsliders They encourage themselves in their own Wickedness and say Tush God shall not see But arise O Lord in thy Fury and scatter them in thine indignation for there is none that dealeth righteously and Loveth Judgment No there is not one Godly Man left This is the Cry of a publick National Guilt that is of unpunish'd spreading and triumphing Vice and Atheism The Justice of God requires that the community should suffer and the Punishment become as general as the Offence His Wisdom Equity and Providence are then at stake and must be made good by a Visible and Publick Execution of Justice which comes down upon a Nation in Famines or Pestilences in the Sword in Earth-quakes and in other great desolations which are the usual Judgments of Heaven and Terrible Vials of God's Wrath pour'd out upon a Sinful Land and polluted People And let us not deceive our selves there are Family Sins as well as National and the same Rule holds with proportion in every private Houshold and lesser Company of Evil-Doers but the more populous the Society is the greater is the danger in permitting the Trangressions of the People to be seen in the Gates of the City and to walk our streets publickly for there is as certain a Contagion in some sorts of Sins which Men catch by looking on as there is in some diseases These therefore are to be suppress'd if they cannot be wholly extinguish'd that they may be like those subterranean Fires which burn slow and prey only upon their own Fewel whilest pent within the Bowels of the Earth but when they once take air break out into a Flame laying all things before them in Ruine And there is no great difficulty if we knew but our own strength to keep any Sin thus far at least under our Feet for there is a Natural shame which attends every dishonest Action Vice is conscious of its own deformity and loathsomness and by instinct requires darkness and a Vizor but it may be flatter'd by great Examples into a good Opinion of its own Excellencies it may be Cherish'd by Complaisance and and harden'd by Familarity into such an Impudence as to appear before the Sun and without its Mask However since God and Nature have stamp'd shame upon every Vice Let us know our own Right and Dominion over it and keep it within its Natural bounds of shame Let every honest and Vertuous Man set his Face directly and boldly against Atheism Prophaneness and Immorality assuring himself that there is no Sin so daring and hardy which a Man resolutely-good and pious may not dash out of Countenance and strike into Confusion I need not tell you Brethren that it is Lawful for you to do this and that it is Just to use all the power which the Laws have vested in you to restrain all such Immoralities for I hope I have prov'd it to be your Duty and believe me it behooves us all to consider seriously the several opportunities and advantages God hath put into our hands to discourage and prohibit Atheism Prophaneness and Debauchery and faithfully to discharge our Duty herein for this likewise is one way of making other Men's Vices our own when they thrive and propagate by our connivence for be we well assur'd that whosoever hath it in his Power to forbid and hinder a Sin and doth not when he can he invites and commands it And thus I have shew'd you how Powerful and Influential example is in most things we do how effectually that teaches and how addicted we are to learn and that therefore it doth concern us all very much to set forth ourselves Examples of Vertue and Holyness and that of consequence it is our Duty to restrain all Examples of Vice and Wickedness in other Men to the utmost of our Power When you shall do this Brethren ye are then what our Blessed Saviour requires his Disciples to be the Light of the World which Shines before Men and the Salt of the Earth which hath not lost its Savour I will conclude with some serious Considerations upon the whole 1. We must not expect from what hath been said that the ill Example of other Men should excuse the Followers though it will most certainly condemn the Authors of it The truth is we readily catch at the least Shadow of excuse for Sinning and so lay hold upon this Pretence The Woman says Adam whom thou gavest me gave one of the Tree and I did Eat But yet neither the Woman's Temptation exempted Adam from the Punishment nor the Serpent's Temptation the Woman And as long as we have a Judgment rightly inform'd to discern between Good and Evil and are constantly instructed from the Word of God what are the Bounds of the one and of the other what we are to do and what to avoid other Men's deviations can be no real excuse for our Transgressing When the Precepts of the Gospel have chalk'd me out the Paths of Vertue and Holyness which I am to walk in it is my own fault and the proneness of my own Vicious Inclinations if I follow him that shews me other ways By this God hath given me sufficient Light to secure me against errour and if I am mislead I seduce my self All Men would commiserate the sad fate of a Blind-Man to be led by others unknowingly to the edge of a Precipice and to break himself in pieces by his fall from thence but they will condemn it for Self-Murder in one that is not Blind Remember therefore young Men that whosoever hath Eyes leads himself to his own Ruine even when he follows another that tempts him to it 2. If we are convinc'd of the certainty of a future State and of the Rewards and Punishments after Death no Argument can be more forcible against our Tempting others to Wickedness than this Consideration that by the same act we encrease our own Guilt and mightily further our Brothers Damnation knowing the Judgment of God that they which commit these things are worthy of Death and yet not only do the same but have Pleasure in them that do them Those indeed who have gone so far beyond the Bounds of Shame know no measure 't is the less wonder therefore that their own and other mens Sins become their triumph and sport that they magnify themselves upon their Victories in the lists of some beastly Vice and make it their mirth to have been successful in tempting others in having compass'd Sea and Land to gain one Proselyte whom they make many-fold more the Child of Hell than themselves But the commonness of this Sin cannot exc●se it When seriously consider'd it is but a melancholy subject for Mirth and a most shameful one to boast of For it is not the part of an honest Man