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A07451
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A sermon of nobilitie· Preached at VVhite-hall, before the King in February 1606. By George Meriton Doctor of Diuinity, one of his Maiesties chaplaines in ordinary; and parson of Hadleigh in Suffolke.
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Meriton, George, d. 1624.
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1607
(1607)
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STC 17838; ESTC S112666
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13,872
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40
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A SERMON OF NOBILITIE Preached at White-hall be fore the King in February 1606. By GEORGE MERITON Doctor of Diuinity one of his Maiesties Chaplaines in Or dinary and Parson of Hadleigh in Suffolke Thus saith the Lord God of Israel Them that honour mee I will honour but they which dispise mee shall bee despised 1. Sam. 2. 30. Imprinted at London for Thomas Clarke and are to be sold at the signe of the Angell in Saint Paules Church-yard 1607. To the Right Noble Thomas Earle of Suffolke Barron of Walden Lord Chamberlaine to his Maiesty One of the most Honourable Priuy-Counsell and Knight of the Noble Order of the Garter c increase of true honour and euerlasting happinesse NOble Earle vouchsafe I beseech you to accept of that Printed which was not long since Preached It is a Sermon of Nobility and vnto none may it more iustly bee offered then vnto your selfe whome Nature Vertue King and God adornes with eminent Honours It is also a small testimony of my vnfayned duty who am the Son of him that was once your L poore Tenant borne vnder the roofe of your Honors house and in my youth esteeming my selfe as one of yours First affections makes deepe impressions and therfore I shall euer remaine Your Honors to be commanded GEORGE MERITON TO THE CHRISTIAN REAders all Christian Graces NOble or Gentle Readers I haue here published a short Sermon of Nobility It is published and perhaps I was drawne herevnto by some authority or else prouoked by much intreaty if by neyther of these yet know that it is now a fashion to preach and then to print And though I bee but merum rus a Countrey Minister I would not bee thought to bee worne out of fashion It is a short Sermon For it was preachea not at the Crosse but at the Court The one place requiring length the other expecting breuity It is a Sermon of Nobility Before Nobles of a noble Argument Wordes of good worth if vnseasonably vttered sustaine that reproch which Iudas receiued from the Priests and Rulers in Ierusalem quid haec ad nos what are these to vs but that which is fitly spoken in his time and place is saith the Wise-man Like Apples of Gold and pictures of Siluer Prouerb 25. 11. Pretious in it selfe yet as Iohn sayd of CHRIST Iohn the first Chapter and 15. verse He that commeth after me is preferred before me so must wee thinke of these two how socuer the account of the world be otherwise that the latter is farre the better Martha did well in making prouision for the foode of the body but Mary did much better who receiued from Christs mouth the foode of her soule The one it is but the staffe of life mortall Leuit. the 26. the other the seed of immortalisty the first of Peter and the first Chapter and powerfull to saluation vnto all belecuers Rom. the 1. Chapter and 16. verse From the former vpon a fullnesse we ought to forbeare for the fullnesse of bread was a sinne of Sodom Ezek. the 16. Chapter but of the latter there is neuer ynough thy belly shall eate it sayeth GOD and thy bowels shall be filled with it Ezek. the third Chapter and third verse In this Chapter I meete with two sorts of men The first are certaine troublesome Iewes of Thessalonica which like worldly men sauour bread the things of this world more then the things of GOD. The second are a company of honorable men of Berea more honorable then those of Thessalonica who iudge rightly of the word of GOD and shew their loue vnto it by a ready receiuing and dayly searching The meeting of these noble Gentlemen is profitable vnto vs yeelding by their presence and practise a threefold instruction First that there are Nobles These were noble men Secondly that there are differences or degrees of nobility These were more noble men then those of Thessalonica Thirdly that they haue and are knowne by their fruites They receiued the word readily they searched it dayly c. A Treatise of Nobility if I erre not in conceipt will not be vnprofitable to such as are yong Nobles who may hereby be more stirred vp to propagate and inlarge the same will not be distastfull to old Nobles who seeing the seed and true forme of Nobility shining in themselues may behold with a glad heart the fruit of it in their posterity neither will it be vnfitting ingenuous men for Nobility and the condition of all such kind of persons are by a happy knot conioyned together Heare therefore with patience most honorable and ingenuous Deus faxit argumentum hoc tam sit commodum quam est accommodum and GOD make this argument as profitable vnto you as it is fit and sutable for you There be Nobles These were Noble men Stoicks the old brokers of parity and their successors the English Switzers of these our dayes supposing Nobility to be but a meere fiction or deuice of men in higher place haue made a foolish doubt whether there be such a thing in the world or no Let vs indure awhile to heare them to speake Nature say they is an equal parent vnto all a stepmother vnto none God made but one Adam not one of siluer to be the father of Nobles and another of earth to beget the common sort none are barred of their way to vertue or hindered of their course to true felicity Not Scythia or any other region vnder heauen doth hurt the minde neither is one kindred to be accounted more auncient then another God tooke his first King from seeking of Asses and his second from following the Sheepe great with young to set vp pictures in Galeries and the names of Famelies in a long row with Coates and Crests Notos magis facit quam nobiles doth giue knowledge of men but no honour vnto them the flower and the branne comes both out of the same roote and euery man in himselfe is but as a figure of 1. giue him riches there is a cipher 0. then may he stand for tenne giue him riches and authority there be two ciphers 00. then may he stand for a hundred adde sauour of his Prince there is a third cipher 0 then may he stand for a thousand Thus euery man in himselfe is but as a figure of 1 distinguished only by empty ciphers No more for shame Me thinks I heare either the prophecy of Esay fulfilled in his third Chapter and 5. verse That the vile should presume against the Honorable Or else as Esdras speaketh in his first booke and 3. Chapter that they be the words of men in wine who neither remember their King nor their Gouernours Did but reason instruct or common experience rule these sellowes they would abhorre their tongues as blabbs of their owne basenesse In mettals of the same kinde which Plato resembleth vnto the soules of men some are found to be purer then others In Plants there is a great difference of seeds and
his and formed in him with greater difficultie The second kind is an externall shape of Nobility shining in the goods of Fortune which doth dazle and deceiue the eyes of common men whence it was that Simonides accounted those to be Noble which were descended in a long course of time from wealthy Progenitors This is not opposite vnto vice as the truest Nobility is for diuites in arca may be pauperes in conseientia rich men in cofers poore men in conscience and though Diues seculi was Discipulus Christi Ioscph of Arimathea a disciple of Christ yet corpulent birds cannot flye high Hee that is superfluously rich currit ad libitum corruit ad illicitum sayth Bernard wealth and wickednes are seldome while at oddes whereupon it was not sayd amisse That the riches of Midas were not more noble then the pouerty of Aristides and yet are riches also reckoned a part of Nobility First because they make it popular Secondly for that they be the instruments by which vertues are or may be attayned Lastly because beeing attayned they likewise serue as meanes whereby those vertues by actions do manifest themselues The third kind is morall which is nothing else but a composition of manners confirmed by the habits of vertues which also may be called the nobility of the mind This dependeth on our owne industry and indeuours being most propper vnto those which haue it because they be the first founders or authors of the same and it is not so ioyned to that by birth but that it may be seperated In the eight Chapter of Iohn Christ calleth the wicked Iewes the sonnes of the Deuill there was in them then no morall noblenes and yet by nature were they descended from honorable Abraham the worst of them could say we haue Abraham to our father With this kind haue there been some so farre in loue as that more out of affection then iudgement they haue pronounced Nobilitas sola est animum quae moribus ornat that the Morall is the Totall the Soule the Sole Nobility I know it little benefits a Riuer to come from a cleare Spring if it selfe be muddy that Esops Iay did boast of other birds feathers that it smally profiteth a blind man to say that his Parents could see or a feeble man that his Auncestors did wrastle for the Garland in Olympus Such as couet to excell in Honour must labour to exceed in Vertue Magna haec est great surely is this kind sed non sola but not the onely kinde in the opinion of many like Abishai amongst Dauids Worthies who had the name amongst three the second of Samuel the 23. Chapter and let it for me beare the bell amongst the former yet must it yeeld to the fourth which is the last Diuine or Christian Noblenesse in comparison of this that other is at the most but as Ioseph to l'harao the second in the kingdome Diuine Nobility It is an eleuation of our degree or nature vnto GOD a comming vnto him a conformity with him the top of this kindred is GOD himselfe and then doth it most appeare in vs when neglecting mortall things we aspire vnto heauenly imitating herein our holy predecessors the spirits and soules of the righteous striuing to liue as they do fearing to degenerate from them and euer remembring with S. Paul Philippians the 3. Chapter and 20. verse that our 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 our conuersation be in heauen There are then you see foure kinds of Nobility first externall by riches secondly internall by vertue thirdly naturall by birth fourthly supernaturall by grace Externall or purse Nobility though it glittereth in the face of the world yet is it but seated in the hands of Fortune quae vitrea est sayth Seneca a very brittle Shee-friend sitting vpon an vnconstant wheele and pictured by the Poets with a double face white before but black behind her riches are runnagates vncertaine sayth the Apostle Paul in the first to Timothie the sixt Chapter and 17. verse like euill Seruants who loue often to shift their Masters Iob that could say Dominus dedit the LORD hath giuen in the same verse also sayd Dominus abstulit the LORD hath taken away The whole world is alwayes in motion and delighteth in change the heauen hath not one face long the earth hath foure coates in the yeare and the estates of the richest are very sickle as a blasing starre to night apearing to morrow gonne as an Actor on the stage sometimes a great personage sometimes a poore pesant as swans neasts in the water errantes insule wandering Islands yea the mighty potentats of the world are but Ludibria fortunae Fortunes scorne Haman to day highly honored in the Court at Shushan the next day hanged vpoÌ„ as high a gibbet Geliner a puissant Prince of the Vandalls but brought so low within a while as he was inforced to request a loafe of bread to slake his hunger a Procopius sponge to drye vp his teares and a harpe to solace him in his exceeding misery Bellisarius in his time the only man liuing but hauing his eyes put out he was at last led in a string to begg crying Date obolum Bellisario Henry the fourth a ritch and victorious Emperour who had fought 52. pitched feilds yet in his old age driuen to that exigent as he became a suter for a poore prebend in the church of Spire to maintaine him-selfe Thus do men totter as it were vpon the ridge of a waue and are turned as we say vpon Fortunes wheele And therefore such as onely strive thus to Ennoble them-selues doe fitly resemble those Arcadians Romans who as Phutarch saieth did weare the Picture of the Moone vpon there shooes to tell them that as there Nobility did increase so would it decrease againe and soone be ecclipsed Nobility internall so much applauded as if Noblenes were nothing els but a famely beautified with the best vertues is but a habite gotten by vse powerfull in some measure to performe morall actions study care diligence Bona â—â—irps bona propago right consultation fit pre-election are the best fountaines from whence it doeth spring the beauty of it consisteth in Action and the testimony of it is but out ward Honour Nobility by birth that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Grecians called it hath but a weake foundation the temperature right constitution of Mortal bodyes whereby Some menne are made Onely procliue to honorable actions and haue a facullty to procreate others with sparkes of honour like to them-selues And such are the ruins of time as there remaynes not so much as foote-stepps of many auncient famelies To omit hom-bread examples The Iulij Fabij Metelli are so buried as he that now should but say hee descended of them would be mockt and hooted at as if he had told a dreame of Pythagoras Onely Christian Nobility is best which admits of noe exception in regarde whereof all the rest are but shadowes