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A61731
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A sermon preached at the assizes held at Dorchestor in the county of Dorset, upon the fourth day of March in the year of our Lord 1669 by John Straight ...
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Straight, John, 1605?-1680.
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1670
(1670)
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Wing S5808A; ESTC R9809
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21,640
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33
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lost us many already and will lose us more yet if it be not looked to in time Gentlemen In the name of God therefore let me implore your helps O men of Israel help Be you I beseech you Priscilla's and Aquila's helpers in Christ Jesus So shall ye be Rom. 16. 3. Epinetusses too even praise worthy for it So shall ye be Portae introitus aliorum as Saint Chrysostome well observes on Rom. 16. 5. so shall ye be Ports Gates good passages and safety inlets to many poor souls that else might perish through peevish self-willedness Oh beloved that you would be of good Josiahs temper to take away the abomination of stubborn separation from all that are under your several jurisdictions That you would do as he did Even compel them to serve the Lord their God in the 2 Chron. 34. 33. Prov. 19. 25. unity and uniformity of his divine worship Smite a scorner and the simple will beware saith Solomon And that man that will do presumptuously not hearkning unto the Preist that standeth before the Lord thy God to minister there or Deut. 17. 12 13. unto the Judge that man shall dye and thou shall take away evil from Israel So all the people shall hear and fear and do no more presumptuously Hoc hominum genus saith Learned Paraeus commenting on the first Chapter of the second Epistle to the Corinthians Authoritate potius compescendum quam longis disputationibus refellendum And thus right Worshipful having as breifly as I conveniently could shewn you how you may and ought to be by your actings instrumental to prevent the future Floods of Gods anger from flowing in upon us and in particular of that Flood of Anarchical confusion impending over us I shall Luk. 14. 23 shut up my exhortation to you in the words and charge of that Master of the feast in Saint Lukes Gospel Go out into the highwayes and hedges and compel nhem to come in that the houses of God may be filled To the Lawyers A word likewise to you Lawyers next if at least any of you have leisure from your Chamber to hear a word of Church-struction let me intreat your helps also to anticipate the future floods of Gods anger from falling on us and to this purpose be pleased I pray to ruminate upon the end of your profession 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is not you know to sow diffension It is not to widen differences neither is it to fill your own coffers nor yet to shew your ready wits and voluble tongues in speaking probably of every subject good or bad no no the end of your profession is to help every man to his right to cut off strife and contention and to restore peace and unity in the Common-wealth Let not your mouthes therefore be corrupted let them not prove like the Oracle of Delphos of which Demosthenes complained in his time that it did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 speak nothing but what Philip who gave it a great fee would have it say Be not I beseech you of the number of Protagorasses Scholars whose profession as Gellius tells us was to teach Quanam verborum industria causa infirmior fieret fortior How to make the worse cause seem the better To the witnesses and Juries I must next direct my speech to you that are to be Witnesses and to you also that are to be Juries for your concurrance also to prevent the future floods of Gods anger from falling on us For this cause let me admonish you to take heed of your several oathes consider what you do beware of bribery deal uprightly in every case between Jer. 22. 13 Deut. 17 11. man and man with every man without declining to the right hand or to the left So shall ye sanctifie the name of God by whom ye do swear to speak truely and so shall ye sanctifie the name of God by whom ye swear to deal truely and uprightly Lastly a word unto all in general and so an end let us all as we tender the good of our precious souls be perswaded to sanctifie the Lord God in in our hearts let us every day sum up our accounts with God and as Hierome saith Ita aedificemus quasi semper victuri ita vivimus quasi cras morituri Let us so build as if we were to live ever and let us so live as if we were to dye to morrow And in so doing though the waters do arise and swell horribly yea and though the floods do exalt themselves and beat upon our buildings yet they shall not shake them which is the fifth particular by which a sincere Christian is in my text described namely by the invalidity of all perils and dangers in that they could not shake it which should now come in order to be spoken of but I fear I have trespassed too far already upon your patience Let us now therefore beg at the hands of God that he would be pleased to work in the heart of every one of us a holy desire and a conscionable care to discharge our several duties in those places which God hath put us And to this end Lord grant that the words which we have heard with our outward eares may take deep impression in our hearts that they may bring forth in us the fruits of such Christian care and providence The fruits of such sanctified pains and industry and the fruits of such saving wisdom and discretion that when the waters do arise and when the floods do beat upon our buildings they may not shake them and this Lord we most humbly beg at thy merciful hands for the merits of thy most dear Son and our most loving Saviour the Lord Jesus Christ To whom with thee O Father and thy blessed Spirit be ascribed as is most due all Honour and Glory Power and Dominion Might and Majesty the rest of this day and for evermore Amen FINIS
A SERMON Preached at the ASSIZES Held at Dorchestor in the County of Dorset upon the fourth day of March in the year of our Lord 1669. By JOHN STRAIGHT Master of Arts sometimes a Member of Queens Colledge in Cambridge now Vicar of Stourepain in the County of Dorset and Chaplain to the right Reverend Father in God John late Lord Bishop of Sarum CONTAINING The Metaphorical description of a sincere Christan 1. By his care and providence 2. By his pains and industry 3. By his wisdome and discretion 4. By the ensuing perils and dangers 5. By the invalidity of all perills and dangers 6. By the cause and reason of this firm validity Non dormientibus provenit Regnum coelorum nec otio desidia torpentibus Beatitudo aeternitatis repromittitur Leo. For we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works which God hath ordained that we should walk in them Eph. 2. 10. London Printed for Edward Thomas at the Adam and Eve in Little Brittain 1670. TO THE Right Worshipful ROBERT BARKER Esq High Sheriffe of the County of Dorset SIR ALthough I have often experimented the infallibility of that Adagie veritas odium parit yet I cannot account it fit that truth should be concealed nor clanculary crowded up into a corner The truth therefore is this you know it Sir and I am willing that others should be made acquainted with it also that I was very unwilling to undertake to Preach at the Assizes for you You must needs acknowledge the many arguments I used to excuse my self from it As First my age being now past my Ninth and great Climaterical Secondly the crasiness of my body Thirdly my frequent distempers both of the vellicating Stone and torturing Gout all which were not only great impediments to my due preparation for such a service but might have taken me off and utterly disinabled me to do it at the destined time for it But none of these to make use of Terence his phrase could causam dicere with you No nor could all these together prevail to pass by me and perswade you to pitch upon another more fit for that imployment And now since that is past you have proceeded to another postulate viz. to request and that not barely petere but expetere the publication of those my poor and weak indeavours you continue pressing of me to be in the press again Give me leave Sir to expostulate with you a little with the Poet Proper Quid mescribendi tam vastum mittis in equor Non sunt apta mâ—ae grandia vela rati I must also tell you further Sir that I had even almost Protested against Printing in such times as these are in which that ingenious invention is so much abused with contentious and useless I might add pernicious and seditious Pamphlets But seeing your importunity will not receive a modest denyal I have now therefore thus farre yielded to your request that after a serious scanning of these my rude notes if they happen to gain the favour of an Imprimantur they then should be published to the perusal of others And then Sir if after their pass they chance to meet with the whip of some censorious dispositions of which sort of people the world is now too full who will perhaps say that these thing are too mean for this ripe and exquisite Age I for my part shall acknowledge them to be so and you must bare the blame who have forced them from me Yet withal let me desire such to consider that at the building of Solomons Temple there was room as well for the burden bearers as for other more curious Artificers and at the making of the Tabernacle not only the bringers of blew Silk and Purple and Scarlet Exod. 25. 4 5. but even the poorest which brought but Goats hair and Rambs Skins were accepted However it happen this is my comfort that they that know my reservedness will acquit me from popularity and seeking my self abroad and will not brand me with that busie humour by which too many in this scribling age have even made the times to surfeit with their needless papers Sir I have now but two things more to say The one of which is to you and the other is for you That which I have to say to you is this That if this my Sermon shall afford any good either to your self or to any other truely fearing God I shall not then repent my giving way to the granting of your desires by my thus imparting it to pulick view The other thing is a Supplication for you that the God of goodness would perpetuate your present happiness here in this world and crown you with everlasting happiness hereafter in the World to come and this is the hearty prayers of him who is SIR Your nearly related and humbly devoted Servant John Straight To the Indulgent READERS BEnevolent friends it were but lost labour to tell you why I gave way to the Printing of this Sermon I have said enough of that before and shall not now nauseate you with a crambe You see what importunity can do even with those of the most private and retired dispositions I must now acquaint you that I expect not to escape the lash of censure as having had some experience thereof by the printing of a former Sermon upon a just occasion mentioned in the Epistle to the Reader When I was by some malevolent spirits stigmatized with the title of a vain-glorious person for it As if an affectation of publick notice had only put me upon the publication of those mean conceptions when as the Lord knows how conscious I was and yet am of my own weakness and defects But there is I see a spirit of pride and bitterness in too many Saint Aug. qui vel non intelligendo reprehendunt vel reprehendendo non intelligunt as Saint Austin speaks And to such ignorant uncharitable censurers I wish either a more sound judgment or a more sober affection The desire to disgrace another certainly cannot spring from a good root Seneca Cupio si fieri potest propitiis auribus quid sentiam dicere sin minus dicam iratis as somtime Seneca said I am contented to receive a scarre from Zoilus so as some others may escape a wound having learned in some measure from the blessed Apostle to go through all reports Seneca Male autem de te opinantur homines sed Mali saith Seneca Moverer side me Marius si Cato si Lesius sapiens si alter Cato si Scipiones duo ista loquerentur moverer si hoc judicio facerent quod nunc morbo faciunt I only add Martials quirp to such kind of carping back-biters and Procustean Tyrants and so dismiss them Mar. Epigr. l. 11. Epigr. 93. Mentitur qui te vitiosum Zoile dixit non vitiosus homo es Zoile sed Vitium And thus returning to the moderate unprejudiced and candid Readers hereof to whose considerate