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A67828 A sermon preached before the Right Honourable the Lord Mayor and aldermen at Guild-Hall Chappel, February 4, 1682 by Edward Young ... Young, Edward, 1641 or 2-1705. 1683 (1683) Wing Y67; ESTC R34113 12,981 31

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Pritchard Mayor Martis vi die Februarii 1682. Annoque Regis Caroli Secund. Angl. c. xxxvi THis Court doth desire Mr. Young to Print his Sermon Preached before the Lord Mayor and Aldermen at the Guild-Hall Chappel on Sunday Morning last Wagstaffe A SERMON PREACHED Before the Right Honourable THE Lord Mayor AND ALDERMEN AT Guild-Hall Chappel February 4. 1682. By Edward Young Fellow of the College near Winchester LONDON Printed by I. Wallis for Walter Kettilby at the Bishops-Head in S. Pauls Church-Yard 1683. A SERMON Preach'd before the LORD MAYOR ON S. Matthew Chap. v. vers 3. Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven THE Christian State that is a Holy Life is frequently exprest in the Scriptures by the Metaphor of a Building and the Metaphor may suggest thus much unto us That there is a certain Order to be observed in raising the Moral Structure as well as the Mechanical There are some Virtues proper for the Foundation upon which all the rest must be built and without which they cannot stand such are all those that tend to the humbling of our minds as a true knowledge of our selves and a conviction of our unworthiness and a just abhorrency of our natural corrupt desires There are others proper for the superstructure and finishing of the work such are all those that tend to the raising of our Affections as Love Joy Hope and Confidence in God Now whosoever in his Building shall neglect this Order and intend the raising of his Affections before the humbling of his Mind he that shall affect the Love of God before the Mortification of Nature a Zeal for Religion before the condescentions of Charity a sort of spiritual Saintship before a moral Change such a one is like that foolish builder mentioned by our Saviour in the close of this his Sermon on the Mount he may make a fair shew of a house but he bottoms it upon the sand and when wind and storm and flood that is when any searching temptation shall come and assault it it will certainly fall It was not therefore casually or without a particular design that our Saviour began his holy institution with this Duty of the Text and recommended Poverty of Spirit to his Disciples before all other The very Order it bears imports no less than this That Poverty of Spirit is a Duty that requires the beginning of our care and the first of our applications because that so long as we are without it it is impossible for us to make any holding progress into the state of Christianity Which truth will farther appear from the explication of the words In order to which I shall determine these two Questions First Who are meant by the poor in Spirit Secondly What is meant by the Kingdom of Heaven to which the poor in Spirit are here intitled As to the First I take these words Blessed are the poor in Spirit to bear a parallel sense to those we meet with Psal. 15. where the Psalmist having put the question Lord who shall dwell in thy Tabernacle and who shall rest upon thy holy Hill He answers ver 4. He that is lowly in his own eyes In which expression we know that by Eyes is meant the inward sight of Imagination that faculty of the Soul wherein we form our Images and conceptions of Things and value them accordingly So that by Lowly in his own Eyes is meant a Man little in his own Conceit and esteem Now the word Spirit as it relates to Man is taken indifferently to signifie either the whole Soul or any of its faculties and I presume that in the Text it is taken to signifie this particular faculty of Imagination and so Poor in Spirit and Lowly in his own Eyes appear to be expressions of the same importance they carry in them the same notion and thought and denote a person that is Little in his own conceit or esteem that is in a word an Humble Man I confess that the word Spirit is most frequently used to signifie the Irascible or passionate part of the Soul and so Poor in Spirit might naturally be interpreted of such a one as is little in Passion calm in Resenting slow to Anger but then this Beatitude would fall to be the same with that at the 5th v. viz. Blessed are the Meek which as we cannot easily guess to have been intended so we must reasonably conclude that by Poor in Spirit in the Text is meant no other than the Humble Man I come to the second Question viz. What is meant by the Kingdom of Heaven to which the poor in Spirit are intitled It is evident from many passages in Scripture that this Phrase The Kingdom of Heaven does signifie not only the Future blessed State where the Faithful are said to reign with Christ in a full participation of Immortality and Glory but it likewise signifies the present Christian state where Christ is said to reign over the Faithful by the influences of his Grace and the discipline of his Gospel Thus the holy Spirit hath thought fit to signifie Man's Happiness and his Duty by the very same expression Whether First To suggest one principal point of Wisdom that is That we should never think of our Happiness but we should at the same time think of our Duty too and the necessary dependance that the one hath upon the other Or Secondly To intimate that the Kingdom of Heaven both here and hereafter that is the two states of a Christian in this Life and in the next though they differ in Circumstances yet in the main Essential they are but one and the same For Example It is but an accidental Circumstance to a Christian that he be either a Traveller or a Citizen that he be either Militant or Triumphant but it is an everlasting Essential to him that he be Holy and in this both states must agree As therefore the Kingdom of Heaven may justly ravish our thoughts with the notion it bears of the Beatifick presence of God of the Company of Angels of Glory Pleafures and Joys that are unmixt and eternal so it may as justly serve to awaken our Care and diligence and strict Inspection of our selves to consider that this very Kingdom must be begun within us we must Here lead the Heavenly Life we must Here conform in Saintship to the Blessed that are above and all the Graces that they have in Perfection we must here have in Degrees and all aspiring towards perfection 'T is the Kingdom so begun that shall have its consummation in bliss But if the Spirit of this Kingdom do not work in us and change us Here if our corrupt inclinations do not dye before us but we continue Filthy the Future State can never change us By subduction of the Means by incapacity of the Subject by irreversible Doom we must be Filthy still The Kingdom of Heaven bearing these two different significations of Grace and Glory the Question