Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n
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A47481
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The cause & cure of offences in a discourse on Matth. 18:7 / by R. Kingston ...
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Kingston, Richard, b. 1635?
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1682
(1682)
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Wing K610; ESTC R965
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56,152
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182
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Gods people may be merry within the limits of filial duty 't is the abuse onely that I declaim against who am of Aristippus's mind In libri Patris Sacris Mens quae pudica est nesciet corrumpier But these empty sounds vanish into Air and reach but to few we have found a way with the publication of obscene Pamphlets to make our offences Eternal and are become universal Bauds to the whole world Cupid is Crown'd a Laureat and that unchast license which hath been expung'd and hiss'd at in Heathen Poets is hug'd and applauded in Christian The Jews have a saying that when Scurrility is heard without the door rots the door nay the Audience rather for rotten communication is the quickest corrupter of good Manners Can we think Almighty God bestow'd our breath on us to no other purpose but to blast his Image Can we think our Creator intended us for nothing else but to be the Devils bellows Oh woful merriment that afflicts our God and grieves his Spirit and holy Angels to make sport for the Devil and his infernal Crew Let no evil commnication saith the holy Apostle proceed from you mouth and presently adds Grieve not the Spirit of God Go now unhappy drols and think to delight your fond admirers with an obscene Jest but remember that truly Religious hearts are griev'd nay the Spirit of God is griev'd with those that thus hazzard their souls to purchase the reputation of Facetious Blateroons Hath Christ pronounc'd weeping and woe to them that laugh now How then can they think to escape that do not only admit but cause and further this vain and frolick excess Oh lamentable and heedless folly to kindle a wanton delight in some loose heart to feed a lascivious ear and make our company merry we bring on our souls a sorrowful woe Voe turpiloqui woe to the scurrilous Tongue by whom the offence comes Ninthly Derision and Mockage is the last offence I shall arraign in the Tongue For O foolish Galatians who hath bewitched you saith the chosen Vessel As the grumbled Charm of a Witch some think will strike dead a little child so the goodness of a weak Christian with every breath of derision is almost blasted How little a thing staies a boat on the river and startles a horse by the way-side no less easily are we deter'd in a course of Goodness Some frail disordered man hath the symptomes of a growing Cure upon his Soul has mew'd off his sick feathers and now begins to startle at his former excess to forbear his brain-shaking Cups and hell-invented Oaths has ty'd up his Tongue to the good behaviour and imposed on his Conversation the strict Rules of Religion and now the fleering drunkards make Songs upon him the scorns and taunts of his old Mates lie in his way and he falls again upon the same rock of offence Another is mildly dispos'd and would wink at a wrong but hot-spurs are hissing his pusillanimity he shall be mark't out for a Coward and Milk-sop that dares not incur the guilt of a spontaneous Murder to gratifie some beastly humour Should a sort of poor Christians be redeem'd from the Turkish Gallyes what would we think of him that should endeavour to betray them again to their old servitudes Is a soul loosed from the power of Sin and Satan what a horrid villany is it to ensnare it again into that Captivity Whosoever he be that thus nips the buddings of Grace like the cruel Egyptians he does but strangle the Hebrew Babes that God would have preserved and like Tyrannous Herod put Christ to death when he is first conceived and born in a regenerate heart But the most degenerate sort of scoffers and dregs of mankind are those that scoff at Religion and deride our hopes of another Life as the Phantasms of a melancholy Priest or the Politick stratagems of some cunning Statesmen to keep people in awe We are cast into the very Dog-daies of Atheism and Ungodliness and live among those which scoff at such things that are most Sacred and to be trembled at Oh the frequent darings of Divine Vengeance that continually pierces our ears and wounds our hearts and those vented in such direful expressions that the most deeply damned in hell could never be guilty of worser Wonder not if this be the Cordolium of all that are religiously sensible in the land if it puts them into the weeping Prophets Iliaca passio My bowels my bowels I am pain'd at the very heart for 't is enough to raise a paroxysm of grief and indignation in the holy Apostle and make the hearts of good men sink and dye in them to see how prodigiously leud and impudent men are grown Yea those dull souls who are insipid and dreggy on all other arguments are by the Devils and the Leviathans help grown eloquent in abusing God and Religion to magnifie their abus'd Corpuscularean Philosophy Tell them of a God and they laugh aloud at your folly who are so tame and childish to believe what you never saw and pitty your ignorance for being deluded by the men in black into the melancholy thoughts of Religion Democritus and Epicurus are polite Authors and in better credit with such than Moses St. John or St. Paul and Hobs's borrowed Hypothesis than the sacred Volumes of the Old and New Testament Quis fando temperet à lachrimis They can solve the Phoenomena of Nature without the allowance of a Deity and derive the worlds Original from a Fortuitous concourse of Atomes Thus these imperious Atheistical Dictators boast themselves the only men of Learning and Discretion stigmatizing all others as ignorant Rusticks and illiterate Buffoon's that have nothing of generosity who dare not set their mouths against Heaven and defie the Authority of their Maker Now to blunt the edge of this scoffing Wit which boasts of so easie a Victory over despised Christianity Pray consider that their onely argument is taken from Sense unless they enforce them with Oaths the usual Graces and Ornaments and the only proof they have for such wild discourses and are to be pitied and pray'd for but not disputed with lest we spread the contagion having to do with such as had rather loose Heaven than live soberly and have no other reason why the say there is no God but because 't would be well for them there was none 'T is a strange delusion that hath infatuated these absurd Animals that they dare sport with the flames of Hell in scoffing at God and Goodness and the same moment startle at their own Shadow frighted with the noise of Thunder and are as fearful of being alone in the night as other vermine are of light and company O quam multos dominos habet qui unum non habet Every surprizing accident skares them from their Principles there being nothing more evident than that the greatest Atheist is alwaies the most notorious Coward Thus we read of Antiochus when he enjoyed the constant
religious Party but in so noble a Cause 't would be a sin to hold my peace Meam injuriam patienter tuli injuriam contra sponsam Christi ferre non potui 'T is a deplorable offence that men of excellent parts and improvements which might be eminently serviceable to the Church of God should abuse their learning to the maintenance of a Schism and instead of winning souls to Heaven with busie and ill-boding diligence compass sea and land to draw proselytes to a party How many Kilns and Barns the present threshing-sloors of discontented Jebusites are turned into Trojan horses from whence publick mischiefs proceed How many souls are heedlesly led by these stubborn and furious guides into a bitter distaste of their common Mother the Church how many into a Peevish disesteem of their able and pious Instructers yea which is most lamentable into a true loathing of their spiritual Food But to return to injurious offences cast your eyes I beseech you about you and every corner will afford you such as under a pretence of Purity root up the Vineyard of God affront Majesty scorn Laws and pursue their hateful designs with all the violence of disloyal and affrighting insinuations whose deadly Talons like the soaring Eagle are onely bowed in I fear for want of an opportunity to prey and ravin Another way of discerning the humour and malice of injurious Sectaries is in the bitter Colycinthos they shred into the pots of those profits they relish not Let some Reverend Divine but cross and discountenance Schismatical fancies let him but walk in the waies of Meek obedience and Humble concord he shall be defam'd in their Conventicles and called either a Tory a Papist or at best a Papist in Masquerade he shall be defrauded in their Contracts excluded their Houses deprived utterly of all their Contributions his heart shall be broken with dayly affronts and oppositions his intents cross'd and his desires hinder'd the Reverence due to his Function shall be detain'd and by telling the Vulgar he is a man of Arbitrary Principles he preacheth Obedience to Laws he is therefore of a persecuting spirit And by these arts having prejudiced the Factious many nothing but the salt scorn of a sour face shall be cast upon him His domestick necessities and painful maladies shall be so far from any share in their aid or pity that they shall rather become matter of mirth and mockage amongst them his grave shall be made for him and his knell rung in the votes of unmerciful people e're God takes him away Nay which is worst of all his holy Labours shall be despised his Rebukes slighted and his Doctrine tax'd his Church either quite forsaken or thinly resorted to And are not these offences enough to stumble one Nay to hinder the course of Christs Gospel to keep many good wits from entring upon a Function that in the conscientious discharge of it brings nothing but barrenness and vexation Truly if they can shew us no better fruit of their boasted holiness like the barren ground the Hebrews are told of they have a curse at their elbow Vae injurianti Wo be to that man by whose injurious dealing the Offence comes But injurious offences cannot be thought all that our Saviour meant for when he puts those cases of an offending Eye and Hand and Foot we understand it not of our own members as if they should offer us violence We proceed therefore to the last block the exemplary offence and this I will devide into three parts and in them shew you 1. That Offence may be given by the indiscreet management of a good work 2. By the unreasonable use of an indifferent thing And 3. By the foul example of a work in its own nature evil 1. In the performance of a good work commanded by God we are not to balk an offence but as much as in us lies to remove a misprision 'T is better an offence should be given than any of Gods sacred Truths should be betray'd Si aliqui sunt infirmi scentia destituuntur non oportet ut nos eorum causa Christiana libertate fraudemur Pet. Martyr what though some are weak and destitute of knowledge there is no reason that we for their cause should be cheated of our Christian liberty We must not regard their offence who refuse to be healed unless we our selves become sick In those works which fall not under a strict command we are to do that which we cannot omit without an offence and though 't is certain 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nothing can be so spoken or done but it may be spoken against yet when we consider that the Ceremonies of our Church about which Dissenters make their pretence to quarrel are but few in number are significant in their nature and advantageous to the grand designs of Religioâ—… in their use our Christian liberty consists in this That we have leave 〈◊〉 do them without the imputation of Sinâ— nay 't is so far from being a Sin or Offence to comply with our neighborâ— in such plainly innocent usages and harmless customes or with the wilâ— of our Governours when they command us such things that it would be both sin and scandal to refuse so to doâ— for our refusing to comply with eitheâ— of these can hardly proceed from any better principle than a proud affectation of Singularity or at best from a superstitious Scrupulosity St. Paâ—… would have us abstain from every appearance of evil but wills us not to think every thing evil which some men call so for in that good old way which the covenanting Consistorians blind Papists call Superstition Heresie we may truly worship the God of our Fathers for God judgeth not as man judgeth 2. In the use of indifferent things we have two lights to shew us our way Faith and Charity Faith pondering the nature of the thing it self to settle the wavering conscience Charity prescribing the time and manner lest we incur danger and our weak brother offence Truly a scandal taken from the use of indifferent things if it proceed meerly of weakness and ignorance is to be pitied and tender'd The Apostle is â—ull of warnings serious warnings that we lay not a stumbling-block before our weak brother that we cause him not to perish for whom Christ dyed and for his own part avers he would eat no flesh as long as he lived rather than it should stick in another mans stomach But doth he mean that his weak brother should keep him for ever thus cautelous Or doth he yield to their infirmity onely so long till the truth be taught him Yea verily for if our weak brother after a clear instruction will yet remain blind and stumble at every thing his weakness is no longer to be yielded unto but to be corrected Pertinacia potius quam imbecillitas saith a learned Divine you are mistaken my scrupulous brethren you are mistaken 't is rather Obstinacy than Infirmity 't is rather wilfulness