SEVENTEEN SERMONS Preach'd upon Several Occasions Never before Printed By WILLIAM CLAGETT D. D. Late Preacher to the Honourable Society of Gray's Inn and one of His Majesty's Chaplains in Ordinary With the SUMM of a CONFERENCE On February 21 1686 between Dr. Clagett and Father Gooden about the Point of Transubstantiation LONDON Printed for W. Rogers at the Sun in Fleet-street over against St. Dunstan's Church 1689. THE PREFACE THere will need no more to recommend the following Discourses to the Reader than only to assure him he is not imposed upon by the Title Page but what is here presented to him as Dr. Claget's Sermons are really so being published from his own Papers and by his own Brother And indeed the Sermons themselves do sufficiently speak their Author for they every where express the Spirit the Judgment and the Reasoning of that Excellent Man tho' some of them perhaps want that Finishing which his Masterly Hand would have given them had he been to have published them himself The first of these Sermons he meant to have Printed if God had given him Life being prevailed upon by the Importunity of several of his Friends who then judged it very seasonable The last in this Collection was the last Sermon he Preached It was preached at St. Martins in the Fields on the day of his Lent-course there And that very Evening he fell into that Sickness which put a period to his Life twelve days after No Man perhaps in this Age of so private a Condition died more lamented For as he had all the amiable charming Qualities to procure the Esteem and Love of every one that knew him So God had bestowed upon him so many great and useful Talents for the doing Service to Religion to the Church to all about him And he so faithfully and industriously employed those Talents to those purposes that he was really a Publick Blessing and he had that Right done him as to be esteemed so He was born at St. Edmunds-Bury Sept. 24. 1646. being the Son of Mr. Nicholas Claget then Minister there His Vniversity-Education was at Emanuel Colledge in Cambridge His first Publick appearance in the World was at his own Native Town of Bury where he was chosen one of the Preachers Which Office he discharged for several years with so universal a Reputation that it might be truly said as to him That a Prophet had Honour in his own Country From thence at the Instance of some considerable Men of the Long Robe whose Business at the Assizes there gave them Opportunities of being acquainted with his great Worth and Abilities he was prevailed with to remove to Grays-Inn And indeed it was no small Testimony given to his Merits that he was thought worthy by that Honourable Society to succeed the Eminent Dr. Cradock as their Preacher In this Place he continued all the remainder of his Life and he behaved himself worthily in it and the Gentlemen of that House took all Occasions of declaring that he did so by the constant Kindness they expressed to him while he lived and the Respects they paid him at his Death He had indeed at the time of his Death two other Preferments besides that of Grays-Inn The Lord Keeper North his Wives Kinsman had given him a Living in Buckingham-shire but the other Place was that which he himself most valued next to Grays-Inn and that was the Lecture of Bassishaw to which he was chosen by that Parish about two years before his death It was the Lecture which Dr. Calamy had immediately held before him Never was there two greater Men successively Lecturers of one Parish nor ever was any Parish kinder to two Lecturers Dr. Claget dyed of the Small-Pox March 28th and was buried in the Church of St. Michael Bassishaw His Wife Mrs. Thomasin North a most Vertuous and Accomplish'd Woman dyed eighteen days after him of the same Disease and was buried in the same Grave with him There is this little Passage not unfit to be mentioned here The last Sermon Dr. Claget made tho' not the last he preached was that which is the sixteenth in this Collection upon this Text Shall we receive good at the hands of God and shall we not receive evil This Sermon he made upon occasion of the death of a Child of his that happened a little before And he had writ it fairly out I suppose for this end that his Wife might read it And accordingly she did so but upon a much sadder Occasion For it was after his death that she got this Sermon into her hands and then she made it her continual Entert ainment and a seasonable one it was as long as her strength would suffer her But to return to Dr. Claget We owe it to the Society of Grays-Inn that he was brought to this City But after he came hither his own Merits in a little time rendred him sufficiently conspicuous For so innocent and unblameable was his Life such an unaffected Honesty and Simplicity appear'd in all his Conversation so obliging he was in his Temper so sincere in all his Friendships so ready to do all sorts of good Offices that came in his way and withal so Prudent a Man so good a Preacher so dexterous in untying Knots and making hard things plain so happy in treating of common Subjects in an uncommon and yet useful way So able a Champion for the True Religion against all Opposers whatsoever and lastly so ready upon all occasions to Advise to Direct to Encourage any work that was undertaken for the promoting or defending the Cause of God. I say all these Qualities were so eminent in Dr. Claget that it was impossible they should be hid The Town soon took Notice of him and none that intimately knew him could forbear to love and admire him and scarce any that had heard of him to esteem and honour him If the Reader would know more of Doctor Claget let him peruse those Writings of his which he Published himself By them he will in some measure be able to make a Judgment of the Genius and Abilities of the Man. If a Friend can speak without partiality there doth in those Writings appear so strong a Judgment such an admirable Faculty of Reasoning so much Honesty and Candor of Temper so great plainness and perspicuity and withal so much spirit and quickness and in a word all the Qualities that can recommend an Author or render his Books Excellent in their kind That I should not scruple to give Dr. Claget a place among the most Eminent and Celebrated Writers of this Church And if he may be allowed that it is as great an Honour as can be done him For perhaps from the inspired Age to this the World did never see more Accurate and more Judicious Composures in matters of Religion than the Church of England has produced in our days The Discourses writ and published by Dr. Claget are these that follow A Discourse concerning the Operations of
resolve well and to fix their Resolution not upon a sudden heat only not meerly upon the general disposition of an Honest Mind but upon a deliberate Judgment what they must lose and what they should get by doing as became them Finally he would have them to maintain a constant sense of these things upon their minds that they might not be at a loss and be found unprovided on the sudden All this is implied in watching a Work which the Disciples were bidden more strictly to attend because the Lord had told them that the hour was at hand when a terrible Tryal would befall them and therefore upon their neglect to do accordingly he justly upbraided them afterward What could ye not watch with me one hour And all this was to be drawn into consequence for the Instruction of all his Disciples to the end of the World not only upon extraordinary Occasions but in the ordinary course of their Lives that is that we should be possessed with a sense of God and our Duty of the danger we are in by the Temptations of the World the Flesh and the Devil of the fearful consequence of yielding to these Temptations and that we should maintain a lively sense of these things upon our Minds by being conversant in the Word of God and by making the main Principles of Religion present to our Minds by a frequent consideration of them This I say is incumbent upon us all since our Saviour thought it needful for all for says he What I say unto you I say to all Watch Mark 13.37 But to Watchfulness our Lord Commands us to add Prayer Watch and Pray And Prayer implies these two things 1. A just sense of our own insufficiency that if God he absent from us our Purposes are uncertain our Resolutions wavering and inconstant and our wills and Affections alterable by every blast of Temptation though we may be provided with very good Reasons of Constancy in doing well God hath not left us meerly to depend upon the strength of Arguments and Motives though they are necessary but hath promised moreover the supernatural help of his Grace and we are not to depend meerly upon the former but knowing that we need farther assistance we should daily apply our selves to him by Prayer for it 2. It implies not only a consciousness of our inability to do the thing that God requires but moreover a steady belief of and trust in the grace of God which he hath promised that it is sufficient for us and that he will give the holy Spirit to them that ask him that he who is good to all will be ready to help them especially that call upon him in sincerity and will not suffer them to be tempted above what they are able Such is the meaning of that part of the Exhortation which concerns the means Watch and Pray Now 2. The end of Watchfulness and Prayer is that we may not enter into Temptation The meaning of which Phrase is plainly this that we may not fall by Temptation not as the words at first hearing seem to import that no Temptation may befall us for as to that Temptation which required the Vigilance and Devotion of our Lord's Disciples at this time he plainly told them it would happen and therefore by entring into temptation must be meant falling into that sin to which the Temptation is an inducement and so the Exhortation runs as if our Saviour had said You are very confident that you shall do as you ought as if it were one of the easiest things in the World but I tell you before-hand that this Confidence of yours is a dangerous Presumption and you will find your selves deceived when it comes to the Tryal if you take no more care than you are now disposed to take I Advise you therefore to consider what will happen better than you have done and to call together all those Instructions you have heard from me and make them present to your minds and be so affected with them as to betake your selves to Prayer that being thus armed not with an hasty but a prudent Resolution and with dependence upon God you may overcome the Temptation when it happens This seems to be the Natural meaning of the Exhortation Watch and pray that ye enter not into temptation I proceed next to explain the Reason which our Saviour adds to enforce the Exhortation The spirit indeed is willing but the flesh is weak And now I doubt when we hear or read these words we are too apt to interpret them as if Jesus had meant to excuse the sluggishness of his Disciples and had indeed spoken to them in this manner It were well if you would Watch and Pray that you may not fall by Temptation but the truth is though you are willing so to do yet you are not very much to be blamed but in some part to be excused if you do not and that because of the frailty and weakness of Humane Nature But I beseech you not to be fond of this way of expounding these words for it is by no means true nor in the least worthy of our Saviour's Wisdom nor agreeable to the scope of his Doctrine Let us not think so meanly of our Lord as if he gave his Disciples necessary Directions and in the same breath excused them whether they fulfilled his Directions or not These words I say do not contain an excuse of their neglect to watch and pray but a Reason why they should do both and such a Reason too as left them without all Excuse if they failed in either For thus they may be supposed to run Watch and Pray that ye enter not into Temptation for though the Spirit is willing yet the Flesh is weak and so it is absolutely necessary that ye Watch and Pray Which Interpretation as it holds forth a worthy and excellent meaning of it self so it is clearly warranted by the circumstances and scope of the place and by the condition of those Persons at present to whom these words were used and by what befel them afterwards And this will be very evident if we examine the meaning of the words by these Rules For then you will see 1. That by a willing spirit we are not to understand a forwardness to Watch and Pray but a present Resolution to overcome Temptations and that a sincere Resolution too such a Resolution as is accompanied with a strong persuasion that we shall do so and that was the case of the Disciples For if we look back in this Chapter we shall find that upon their Master's fore-warning them what occasion of Offence they would meet with that very Night St. Peter briskly steps forward in the Name of all the rest of the Apostles all agreeing to what he said v. 33. Though all men says he shall be offended because of thee yet will I never be offended Thus the willingness of the Spirit shewed it self that is a forwardness to do all that
was but meant all that he promised and at that time verily believed that he should be as good as his word whilest Judas was at that Minute bent to betray him But this honest Man wanted experience of himself and presumed too fast upon his own Ability and therefore our Lord took this Occasion to lay a Foundation in him of a better understanding of himself for he said unto him Wilt thou lay down thy life for my sake Verily I say unto thee the Cock shall not crow till thou hast denyed me thrice A seasonable intimation it was that his Master in the very heighth of his confidence should tell him That he would thrice deny him before the next day was well begun And this forewarning together with the experience of his own infirmity afterward no doubt served to make him ever after a more considerate and watchful man and tended to add modesty and humility to his other good qualities 2. If we go a little farther we find him sleeping with the rest of the Disciples though our Lord had left them to pray that they might not enter into temptation And that when Jesus came and found them asleep he said unto Peter who had undertaken so much before What could ye not watch with me one hour watch and pray that ye enter not into temptation the spirit indeed is willing but the flesh is weak By which words he gave him fully to understand that he was not acquainted with his own Infirmities and had not that sense of the necessity of watchfulness and prayer which he ought to have had at that time 3. It was but a little while after that Judas conducted the Officers and Soldiers that were sent by the High-Priest to take Jesus and when they had laid hands on him Peter's forward spirit led him into another mistake He drew his sword and struck a Servant of the High-Priest and smote off his ear Which though well meant in zeal for his Master was yet an undutiful resistance of Authority and betrayed a rash anger But neither did our Saviour leave him here without that admonition which was necessary to make him wiser and better Then said Jesus unto him Put up thy sword again into its place for all they that take the sword shall perish by the sword thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father and he shall presently give me more than twelve Legions of Angels But how then will the Scripture be fulfilled that thus it must be 4. That tryal of him that followed immediately almost at the High-Priest's Hall shewed him to be as yet a very imperfect man and one that wanted that resolution which he thought himself a Master of Indeed he shewed a little more courage than the rest of his Brethren inasmuch as they fled upon their Master's being apprehended but he followed at a distance to observe the event but this served only to entangle him in a more shameful fault than theirs that ran clear away even to the denying of his Lord thrice and the last time with imprecations he that had so forwardly confessed in the Name of the rest that Jesus was the Son of God he that but a few hours before had so vehemently declared that he would rather die with his Master than deny him when now he saw him brought like a Criminal into the High-Priest's Hall altered from what he was before and his Faith began to fail It is not improbable that he had some hope his Master would deliver himself out of their hands by some Miracle because he sat among the servants to see the end But yet the danger was so apparent that he wanted courage to own him till the end was come and so denyed him And while he spake his last words of denyal the Cock crew And the Lord turned and looked upon Peter Luke 22.61 Not throwing off all farther care of him notwithstanding so foul a miscarriage And Peter remembred the words of the Lord how he had said to him Before the Cock crow thou shalt deny me thrice And he went out and wept bitterly That which I have been driving at all this time is to shew a notable example of the weakness of the flesh in a man very apt to be confident of himself and withal of the watchful care of our Saviour to correct him and set him right and that because he had a willing spirit an honest and sincere disposition void of malice and falshood and was ever desirous to know the truth and to do his duty Therefore said our Saviour to him just before his last conflict Luk. 22.31 32. Simon Simon behold Satan hath desired to have you that he may fift you as wheat but I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not For the Tempter understood Peter's composition how much chaff was mingled with the wheat and what were the inconveniences of his temper and desired nothing more than full liberty to make use of them for the overturning of all his good qualities But said Jesus I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not and when thou art converted streng then thy brethren i. e. When thou art satisfied what a great many things are to be mended in thy self and that those infirmities of thine which at present thou art not aware of had like to have been thy utter ruin but withal that thou hast escaped through the Grace of God when thou art grown wiser and more established in all kind of goodness then do thou strengthen thy Brethren be careful of all sincere persons that labour under Infirmities as I have been of thee take care to improve that which is good in them and to secure them all thou canst against all their Infirmities Thus much concerning the great advantage of sincerity that it doth entitle a man to the special favour and protection of God and so what we are to learn by all is to lay this Foundation of well-doing which our Saviour acknowledged and commended in his Apostles that is a willing mind and an honest disposition for then we are in a condition to be watched over by the Divine Grace But having shewn how valuable in the sight of God is a willing spirit and an honest mind I proceed in the Second place to urge our Saviour's exhortation and that is notwithstanding this to watch and to pray that we enter not into temptation for though the spirit be willing yet the flesh is weak For if sincerity could of it self support a man without any farther care and help we had never heard of the drunkenness of Noah and Lot the murder and adultery of David and the fall of Peter we had never met with any instances of the weakness of human Nature in men very honestly disposed whose examples shew us the necessity of watchfulness and prayer the means we are directed by our Saviour to use and if we do use these means if we do set the advantage of care and prayer against the inconvenience of
shall be encountred with some or other prophetick passages concerning Christ All which was designed of God for the confirmation of our Faith that when he should come in whom not only the plainest and most unquestionable Prophecies but all other Types and the more obscure prefigurations of the Messias would be fulfilled we might without the least doubt believe and follow him 2. This word of Prophecy is said to be a light shining in a dark place the reason of which Expression is plain enough if we consider that the Prophecies were nothing so easie to be understood by themselves as they were afterwards made by the Events which they foretold and therefore till the Events made all plain the World was very much in the dark about the meaning of them as to most particulars but yet some of them were so express and full that they had raised an Expectation not only in the Jews but amongst the Gentiles also of that extraordinary Person whom God would send into the World for their relief And therefore they might very well be compared to a light shining in a dark place For such a Light though it doth not make a particular discovery of those things that lie round about it is yet apt to draw the Eyes of all towards it that are within distance and the Predictions concerning Christ were so remarkable that they awakened the Gentiles themselves to take notice of them and were therefore a light shining in a dark place to Jews and Gentiles not indeed clearly revealing the Truth to them at present but preparing them to receive it when it should be clearly revealed in the accomplishment of all that had been foretold And whereas this light was said to shine till the day dawned and the day-star arose in their hearts The plain meaning seems to be that from the beginning of the World to the appearance of Christ the Prophecies concerning him grew still more express clear and particular as the time drew on that they were to be accomplished The whole word of Prophecy was a light shining in a dark place but the latter Prophecies such as in Isaiah Daniel and Malachi were like the dawning of the day before the Sun of Righteousness himself appeared By such degrees did God prepare mankind for the belief of the Gospel every Age contributing something before-hand to undermine the Prejudices of the Natural Man against it That God should send his Son into the World to be a Sacrifice for Sin was a Mystery so far above the reach of worldly Wisdom and natural Reason that considering our weakness it would hardly have born being revealed all at once and therefore God chose to let mankind into the knowledge of it by degrees and by the growing Light of Types and Prophecies to prepare them for that stronger Light of the plain and clear Truth which in due time was to be revealed And by this way God also provided a sure foundation for their Faith who should afterwards believe only we must do what St. Peter commends the Christians of his time for doing we must 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we must give heed unto and bend our Minds to consider the word of Prophecy and we must attend to it as to a light shineing in a dark place till the day dawns that is we must not content our selves to try any one single Prediction only to compare it with the History of Jesus and then if that doth not give full satisfaction to try no more But as God by every new Prediction added more Light to the word of Prophecy so we should consider what Evidence is given to the Gospel by the Prophecies of the Old Testament taken altogether from the first to the last And this was the Method which our Saviour took to instruct the two Disciples going to Emmaus They were not unacquainted with the Prophecies of the Old Testament and yet they were mightily staggered at the shameful Death of their Master We trusted say they that this had been he which should have redeem'd Israel but now they know not what to think of it Then said Jesus unto them O fools and slow of heart to believe all that the Prophets have spoken Ought not Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into his Glory But what course did he take to convince them did he take some one notable Prediction by itself and lay all the stress upon that No but beginning at Moses and all the Prophets he expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself It was this that made the day-star arise in their hearts it was this that cleared all their doubts and enlightned their understandings so perfectly that they afterwards said one to another Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked with us by the way and while he opened to us the Scriptures Luke 24. 3. The word of Prophecy is said to be sure that is 't is a plain Testimony of God to make us sure that Jesus is the Christ For 1. It is absurd to ascribe the Prediction of these events to any cause less than Divine Omniscience or as St. Peter saith Prophecy came not by the will of man but holy men spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost and no Prophecy of the Scripture is of private interpretation i. e. Not as some would make us believe no Prophecy of Scripture is to be meditated upon and read by private men but the Prophets did not utter their Predictions by the private Spirit but by the Spirit of God therefore if at vast distances of time from the event it was foretold in several Ages that one in whom all the Nations of the Earth should be Blessed would come into the world of such a Nation of such a Family at such a Time and Place with several publick and notorious Characters by which he should be known Then certainly he in whom all these Predictions have been fulfilled is by the Testimony of God's Omniscience declared to be that great Prophet who was to come into the World. Or shall we say that these things were the effects of Policy or Combination or Chance Could the most politick Statesmen foresee the rise of Empires not yet begun how much less could they fix their periods as the Prophets did in their Predictions concerning Christ and his Kingdom And can we think that they could at the distance of many Ages with their utmost skill foresee so many particular events as were foretold by the Prophets and accomplished in Christ Jesus Or shall we say that there was a confederacy between Moses and Jesus between the Prophets and Jesus so many hundreds of years after they were dead and before he was born Or are these Predictions and their events to be imputed to Chance It is possible indeed that some one thing may be foretold and happen accordingly but that so vast a number of particulars should be foretold concerning one Person at all adventures and by strange luck