of Salvation vers 17. which in the 1 Thess v. 8. is called the Hope of Salvation This he compares to a Helmet which you know is the Armor of the head because the blessed hope of immortal Glory hereafter and of Gods special favour love and protection here makes a Man erect himself and lift up his head as we say with confidence and boldness in the midst of the greatest terrors and dangers knowing they shall not hurt him but rather bring Salvation to him With this Hope therefore we must fill our hearts which is the fruit of Faith when Faith works by love and makes us faithful unto God Then we may have a lively hope in him and this Hope will make us not only strong and so full of courage that we shall not quail or be cast down by any dreadful appearance of dangers but inable us to rejoyce in Hope of the Glory of God VI. To which he adds The Sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God or the Holy Scriptures For they are the Treasury of those Sacred Promises which are the great support of our Souls the Repository or Magazine as I may call them wherein are laid up those Truths spoken of in the beginning which we must oppose to all the temptations which either assault our Faith and Hope or would seduce us from our Obedience And therefore our business must be to study the Holy Scriptures diligently till we be well skill'd in them and have learnt to wield this weapon aright and thereby cut in sunder all objections as our Blessed Saviour did when the Devil tempted him in the Wilderness And by no means suffer any body to wrest this Sword out of our hand for if they do they have so effectually disarmed us that we may in time yield to any thing They may make us believe what they please having our Faith in their keeping and likewise do what they please perswading us the best service we can do to God is to be the greatest Enemies disturbers and destroyers of mankind VII Lastly All these will be the more effectual if by ardent Prayer as the Apostle advises vers 18. we call in the assistance of Heaven Praying alway with all Prayer and supplication in the spirit watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all Saints For as it is not enough to be thus armed and appointed for the combate unless God be present with us which we ought to believe He will as I told you at first because he hath said He will so it is not sufficient to rely upon his word and stedfastly believe it but He expects to be solicited for his aid by our earnest Prayers and Supplications This He hath commanded as much as for the other we have his promise And our very Prayers make us strong by giving us a more lively sense of God if they be not cold and careless and a more vigorous apprehension of his love and of our Heavenly Country to which they lift up our minds And besides they derive more strength from Him when we faithfully importune Him that he will inable us to discharge all the duties of good Christians in every condition And they intitle us also to his powerful protection when we commend our selves intirely to His Providence and trust all we have with Him Which likewise mightily raises our spirits and gives us a higher degree of strength confidence and courage when we think we have made Him our friend by thus intrusting Him and relying wholly upon Him to make us happy in what way He himself pleases And if all Christians made a Conscience also to Pray one for another it might still be of greater force and avail more toward our Salvation For so the Apostle would have us make supplication for all saints that is Christians that they also may be indued with the power of Christ and get the victory over their spiritual Enemies And these Prayers would be still more prevalent did we all persevere as he says in our Supplications and Pray always at all times of prayer and that in the spirit very ardently and with such fervent desires for spiritual aid from Heaven as we feel for those things we most need for this mortal life And this also with so great care and solicitude that we watch for opportunities of Prayer and when great dangers press us take some time from our sleep or other occasion for this Heavenly converse with God our Saviour This is a thing wherein we are too defective and so find our selves faint and weak in the performance of the rest of the duties of Christian life because we languish in our Devotion especially in our COMMON PRAYER when we meet together to Pray not only for our selves but for one another for the King particularly the Royal Family the great Council of the Kingdom the Clergy and all People of whatsoever order or condition they be Whom if we did commend to God with greater earnestness and true fervour of affection we should find I am confident as happy effects of our Prayer as we our selves desire We should either for instance prevail with God to turn from us all those evils which we most righteously have deserved or to enable us so to put our full trust and confidence in his mercy as notwithstanding any troubles to serve him evermore in holiness and pureness of living to his honour and glory To summe up all that hath been said The Apostle in this Discourse compares Christians unto Souldiers who being to conflict with their Enemies took care as not to want weapons themselves so not to leave any part of their bodies uncovered and exposed to the weapons of their Adversaries The middle of their body they girt about with a Belt upon their Brest they wore a Brest-plate upon their Head a Helmet Greaves as they are called in the story of Goliath upon their legs a shield they carried in their left hand and a sword in their right and being thus appointed they called upon their Gods for help and succour Such a complete Armour must we Christians put on if we will conflict successfully with our spiritual Enemies who are of little force to do us any harm if they always find us armed with Truth in our mind with Integrity to our heart with Purity and peaceableness in our affections with Faith in Gods promises and hope of his Salvation working both in mind and heart and affections with the word of God often in our hand and with devout Prayers and Supplications in our mouth proceeding from our very heart and most intimate desires whereby we constantly implore both for our selves and our fellow Christians the gracious assistance of Him who is the Captain of our Salvation and by these means got the victory and won the Crown which He now wears at God's right hand And be you well assured that in this way by being trained up in Christian knowledg and sincere love to what you know to be
WARD MAYOR Cur. prima tent die Jovis quarto die Novemb. Annoque Regis CAROLI Secundi Angl. c. xxxij THis COURT doth desire Master Dean of Peterburgh to Print his SERMON preached at the Guild-hall Chappel on Sunday morning last WAGSTAFFE A SERMON Preached before the Right Honourable THE LORD MAYOR AND THE ALDERMEN OF THE City of LONDON At Guild-Hall Chappel Octob. 31. 1680. Being the XXI Sunday after TRINITY By SYMON PATRICK D. D. DEAN of PETERBVRGH and Chaplain in Ordinary to His MAJESTY LONDON Printed by I. M. for R. Royston Bookseller to His most Sacred Majesty 1680. To the RIGHT HONOURABLE Sir PATIENCE WARD Lord Mayor Of the CITY of LONDON Right Honourable IT is so hard on some occasions to be a thoroughly good Christian and much more to be such a Magistrate that some have given over the endeavour of it out of a perswasion that it is impossible Which as it proceeds from great ignorance of the Christian Religion so would be a great disparagement to it if our blessed Saviour and his Apostles had not taken special care not only to breed in us a quite contrary opinion but also to raise our minds to the highest degree of confidence that we shall be able by the Divine assistance to surmount the greatest difficulties This I have endeavoured in as plain a manner as I could devise to press in this Sermon which by the desire of that Honourable Court where Your Lordship presides I now humbly present to Your and the publick view Which will do the more good I hope not only because Your Lordship judged it very seasonable at Your entrance upon Your Office but because I was directed to this subject not so much by my own Prudence as by a kind of Divine Providence which I have oft observed on the like occasions For having in the common course of my Sermons this year at my own Parish Preached upon some part of the Epistle for the Day I found there was no need to go out of my way to meet with a fitting Argument upon that Sunday when I was appointed to preach to Your Lordship And therefore I sought no further but applyed my self to prosecute the first words which occurred there and that not with such matter as humane invention might have furnished me withall but such as the Apostle himself suggested in the rest of the Epistle for that day And indeed they are matters of great and weighty importance which though there be many of them I have both comprehended in a little room and also made them not hard to be remembred because I have considered them as relating all to one and the same end and as having not only the same scope but such a dependance also one upon another that they cannot well be separated I am sure where they are all united there the Divine Blessing will be for they are the compleat Armour of God that heavenly defence which will certainly secure us in our station if we will but make use of it with a mind to be and to do what soever Christ would have us The first step toward which is rightly to understand our duty as should have been pressed more largely if I had had room enough from those words be girt about with Truth In which if we be defective we shall miscarry do what we can and the more Zealous we are the more we shall be out of the way But it is not likely we shall be defective in any material part of Christian Knowledge if to our serious study of a right understanding and judgment in all things we add according to the last Advice in this discourse most earnest prayer to God for his direction guidance and assistance and can appeal to Him in such words as those of David which are full of sincere affection that we are heartily resolved to do whatsoever we know to be our duty and that there is nothing we long for so much in this world as to know it intirely CXIX Psal 34 35. Give me understanding and I shall keep thy law yea I shall observe it with my whole heart Make me to go in the path of thy Commandments for therein do I delight Which that Your Lordship may alwayes do and thereby acquit your self in your difficult charge to the general satisfaction of all good men is the hearty prayer of My LORD Your most humble Servant S. PATRICK A SERMON Preached before the RIGHT HONOURABLE THE LORD MAYOR and ALDERMEN Of the CITY of LONDON EPHES. vi 10. Finally my Brethren be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might I Have chosen you see for your present instruction Right Honourable and well beloved the beginning of the Epistle for this Day In the first word of which the Apostle signifies that he was drawing to a conclusion of this Letter to the Christian Church at Ephesus Finally my Brethren I have nothing more to add but this all that remains is to exhort you to be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might He had made his most earnest Prayer to God in the middle of this Epistle iii. 14 c. that he would grant them according to the riches of his glory to be strengthned with might by his spirit in the inner man that so they might be able to perform all their Christian duty which follows in the insuing part of the Epistle till you come to my Text. In which he puts them in mind that it was not sufficient to receive strength from Heaven in their inner man but they must also be strong or strengthen themselves not indeed in themselves but in the Lord in that heavenly strength which our blessed Saviour gives us and in the power of his might wherewith He will always assist our weakness There lyes the security of Christians from whom our Saviour expects a faithful obedience both in their single and in their relative capacity either as Men or Women or as Husbands or Wives as Parents or Children as Masters or Servants all whose duties the Apostle had just before most punctually set down because He requires no impossible thing but such an obedience as he strengthens us with might by his spirit to perform if we will but be careful and diligent to strengthen our selves in him and in the power of his might In which words we cannot but observe these two things First A Christian duty incumbent upon them which was to be strong or to strengthen themselves For it is an Exhortation of the Apostle to the Ephesians whom he charges with this as the very upshort of his foregoing discourse Secondly The ability they had to perform this duty which is in or by the Lord For there he tells them their strength lyes in him and in the power of his might that is in his mighty insuperable power The first of which supposes that they would need a great deal of courage and resolution for that is to be strong in the
Apostles language to be able to do their duty in all relations in all times and in all conditions and circumstances of life The second supposes that their own natural courage or mere Philosophical Resolution called Fortitude would not be sufficient to carry them through all difficulties but upon some occasions their spirit would quail unless they were supported by a diviner sort of Vertue which he calls being strong in the Lord. By the Lord meaning our Blessed Saviour who bred in his Disciples souls a new kind of valour which men were not acquainted withal before or of which we read nothing in the Books of mere Philosophers For as they do say little or nothing of that trust and confidence which all good men ought to repose in God and of a vigorous application of their mind to Him for strength and resolution to be truly vertuous so they could say nothing of such devoute addresses to our Lord for it Who sending his Apostles into the world to propagate his Religion which was sure to meet with mighty opposition furnished them with a suitable courage which they indeavoured to infuse into all others who by entertaining their Doctrine might have need of the like vertue Which is this here in my text of a quite different sort from those now named For it arises not from natural heat or from the mere soundness of our natural principles of reason and the honest resolution which we have firmly built thereupon but from a far higher original the mighty invincible power of the Lord Jesus which was always in their eye and on which they stedfastly relyed As there was very great need having other kind of enemies to grapple withal than mere natural men thought of not meerly with flesh and blood as it follows after my text that is with humane powers and their savage malice and cruelty but with the Devil and his Angels who did all they could to dishearten them and hinder their spreading of this Religion For which end they instigated both the Jewiâ—â— Rulers and Heathen Kings and Princes to persecute them with the greatest rage and the most Diabolical fury And the very same powers of Hell we have reason to think are now at work to confound us and our Religion The Reformation of which was little less wonderful in one regard than the first publication of the Gospel For it flew like lightning and on a sudden all these northern Countries purged themselves from the Romish pollutions with a marvellous consent as swiftly and in as short a space of time as the Gospel at its first Preaching ran among the Gentiles and excited them to free themselves from Pagan Idolatries And immediately the Devil set his Agents at work to disgrace and spoil the Reformation by Sects and Heresies and to deter men from embracing it by the most dreadful punishments just as when the Gospel broke out he laboured to uphold his Authority by the like arts and instruments of deceit and cruelty And now the powers of darkness seem to be making their very last attempt in these Countries to overthrow that which was so happily and by such an extraordinary hand of God established And who knows but their fury may proceed to such violence as without an extraordinary courage we shall not be able to stand fast in the Faith to quit our selves like men and to be strong as the Apostle exhorts in the 1 Cor. xvi 13 We had best therefore fortifie our selves beforehand with a good stock of this Divine Vertue which we shall have great use of upon other occasions though by the merciful Providence of God that trial of it should be prevented for which we humbly pray and hope to inable us to do as well as to suffer all things that would hinder our doing the will of God I am not able to say to which of these my Text most relates whether to the words foregoing or to those that follow But which way soever we take them there will be little or no difference and it will be best to refer them to both Because the power of Christ is as necessary for us to enable us to discharge those Christian duties before mentioned as to withstand those trials which he tells the Ephesians in the Verses following would discourage and dishearten them in their obedience Now to the end that we may be furnished with a sufficient strength for both I shall do these two things First Shew you wherein this duty consists of being strong or strengthening our selves in the Lord and in his mighty power Secondly What our work is or what we have to do that we may be indued with this mighty Vertue I. For the first of these by the LORD being meant as I said our blessed Saviour who laying down his life for us is raised again and made the Lord of all all power in Heaven and in Earth being given to him as he himself told his Apostles and afterward was proved by sensible effects to be strong in him consists in these three things 1. First To be possessed with a lively faith of the Power and Glory which our Lord now hath at Gods right hand 2. Secondly To keep this Faith alive in our hearts that it may make us on all occasions repair to Him representing Him always as actually present to us by the Power of his might to aid and succour us 3. Thirdly In this Faith to be stedfastly resolved to stick to him and not to stir from the duty He enjoins us notwithstanding any thing that may oppose us to discourage nay indanger us in the doing of it Of these we have such frequent occasion to treat at some time or other that it may be sufficient now only to repeat them 1. We must represent the Majesty and Power wherein our Lord reigns at Gods right hand so strongly to our souls that they be possessed with a pregnant and lively sense of it and be disposed thereby to depend upon him continually as an Almighty Saviour 2. And then this Faith when it is settled in our hearts we must actuate and excite that it may make us look upon Him as present with us at all times by his Almighty Power to aid and assist us to support and comfort us as well as able at last Eternally to reward us 3. And lastly This Faith must settle in us a firm resolution and purpose to adhere to his service and resist all temptations to the contrary till by his Power we overcome them and remain faithful to the very death expecting from him the Crown of Life This He expects from us and this we must charge our selves withal and be faithful to it and stedfast in it For if we doubt not of His Power why should we not depend upon it and by the force of it do that for which He communicates it unto us Hath He not made us many pretious Promises that by them we may be partakers of a Divine Nature Hath He not said He will be