be perform'd and for what reason In every thing give thanks for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you Thirdly We have a Negative Precept not to quench the Spirit which includes this Affirmative in it viz. that we reverence the real gifts of good Ministers Sound and Orthodox Divines Fourthly and lastly We are obliged not to despise Prophecyings which is a negative precept also and contains this affirmative that we set an especial value on Genuine Interpretations of the Word of God the Holy Scriptures meant here by Prophecyings and consequently on those that make them 1. We are here positively enjoyn'd the great Duty of Prayer and the constancy thereof Pray without ceasing We have many Enemies to contend with in this Vale of Misery and Temptations to Sin and those very potent subtle and ensnaring Such is First the Prince of Darkness the Devil with other his accursed Accomplices and Eternally condemned Retinue partly by that Sublime Angelical Nature they are of and partly by that shrewd Experience they have gain'd by the indefatigable diligence they have us'd for some Thousands of Years together Egged on and Exasperated by an inveterate hatred to Mankind in general For these being desperate Apostates themselves and seeing a second Creation ordain'd as it were in direct opposition to them to supply the places in Heaven by these Rebels Eternally lost a keen and endless Malice inflames them to do all they can to bring us also into the place of Torments where they will not pity us no that will be as far from them as Heaven is 〈◊〉 hell but cruelly Tyrannise and Insult over us when they have done And also much Animated they have been to persist in these their Diabolical Attempts by that victory obtained over Primitive Innocence whereby their Stratagems have gone on with a more fatal success over the infirm Posterity of our Lapsed first Parents 2. Besides these fierce and implacable Foes which will always be endeavouring to draw us into Sin and ruine all our hopes of Eternal Salvation the World is another Enemy that hath a thousand Gins to intangle us in such as Pride Ambition Covetousness Profaneness Irreligion Voluptuousness Intemperance and the like which if compli'd with will draw Men into Destruction and Perdition 3. Our own corrupt Flesh is apt to concur with these to hinder us from doing good and incline us to evil Hence arise inordinate Affections and evil Concupiscencies of the Mind So that we must needs miscarry if we rely on our own Strength and seek not out for some Assistance more powerful than our selves and how is this to be sought but from our gracious Father in Heaven who has promis'd to be found of them that seek Him if they seek him with all their Heart and with all their Soul This must be done by Prayer at the Throne of Grace and to this end the Apostle tells us that we must pray always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit and watch thereunto with all perseverance Eph. 6.18 This he had from our Saviour who commands us to watch and pray lest we enter into temptation Mat. 26.41 and always to pray and not to faint Luke 18.1 We must pray every where saith St. Paul lifting up holy hands without wrath and doubting 1 Tim. 2.8 By this Prayer to God's Majesty as we are taught to use it w◠distinguish our selves from Atheists and Heathens T is true the Heathens themselves by the Dictates of natural Reason and Religion held themselves obliged to one sort of Adoration or another but here was the mischief their Gods were no Gods Mentis ludicras omnia Picti ludibriae trunci Autebur in varias aut saxa incisa figuras they Worshipped the Fond Imaginations of their own Hearts and many times the work of their own Hands They carved themselves Gods out of some senseless Stone or hewed them out of some inanimate Tree of part whereof they made them a Fire to warm their Hands at of the other part they fashioned them Gods to invoke and hold up their Hands unto To this Horace alludes Serm. Lib. 1. Sat. 8. Olim Truncus eram ficulnus inutile lignum Cum faber incertis scamnum faceret ne Priapum Maluit esse Deum But our Addresses are to the right Object and Owner God alone A God that can hear our Prayers and not only can but will a God that takes pleasure in our Applications to him and hath commanded us not to neglect it to our own hurt We continually stand in need of God's Forgiveness and Pardon when we have Sinned as alas who is there that Sins not we must pray for the averting God's Wrath and Indignation we cannot be penitent if we pray not if we confess not our Sins we must not expect an Absolution of them Neither is the whole Duty of Prayer consisting of Confession alone to expiate for the past Offences of our Lives but t is also necessary to be used as a Method of Prevention for the time to come This is the Antidote to keep off the infection of all Spiritual Maladies the omission whereof is like going out fasting in a time of Epedimical Pestilence whereby a free Passage lies open for the Contagious Air to insinuate it self and corrupt the whole Mass of Blood The holy Father and great Penitent St. Austin confessed it as a just Judgment of God once upon him in giving him over to the mischeif of a prevailing temptation for having gone out that day without making his Prayer to God as he ought to have done and as he used to do It always behoves us therefore e're we enter on our several Employments to beseech the favourable Influences and Assistances of Heaven else what good Success can we look for when we are out of God's Protection But with his help what shall be able to annoy us what may we not obtain at his hands by Prayer that is really for our Good It is a thing that is almost Omnipotent like the God that hears it and whom it is made unto Nay it binds the Hands of the Almighty himself the effectual fervent Prayer of the righteous availeth so much Thus for instance when the Israelites in the absence of Moses had made them a Golden Calf and God was angry thereat he doth as it were ask leave of Moses as if he could do nothing without his consent Now therefore let me alone that my wrath may consume them it is a stiff-necked People yet when Moses meekly besought the Lord he repented of the evil that he thought to do unto his People and he did it not in the Psalmist words God said that he would destroy them had not Moses his chosen stood before him in the breach to turn away his wrath least he should destroy them Thus Nineveh was threatned Yet fourty Days and Niniveh shall be overthrown This determination seems absolute and irreversible yet it was not so for when the Ninevites fasted and
THE Clergyman's Office AND THE Clergyman's Due A SERMON Preach'd at the Triennial Visitation of the Right Reverend Father in GOD EDWARD Lord Bishop of GLOVCESTER AT CAMPDEN Octob. 7. 1698. By ROBERT MORSE A. M. Rector of Willersy in the County of Gloucester and Master of the Free-School in Campden Fortis est falsam infamiam contemnere Sunt qui quod sentiunt etiamsi optimum sit tamen invidiae metu non audent dicere Tul. Of. l. 1. p. 37. LONDON Printed for Tho. Bennet at the Half Moon in St. Paul's Church-Yard and Henry Clements Bookseller in Oxford 1699. To the Right Reverend Father in God Edward by Divine Providence Lord Bishop of Gloucester My Lord HAving receiv'd your Lordship's Letter to Preach the Visitation-Sermon at Campden I was not long in resolving what Points of Doctrine to insist upon The Duty of Prayer took up my Thoughts in the first place one of the principal Duties of sinful Men though now accounted if we may guess by their general Practice the least of Christian Obligations I am much afraid that they who are negligent in coming to the Publick Divine Service are not more forward in the performance of this indispensible part of Religion elsewhere Though Common Prayer is now become a scandalous thing in the Opinion of some wo unto them by whom the offence cometh yet I am persuaded the more frequent use good and wise Men make of it the higher esteem they must have for it Discoursing once about the Excellency of our Service-Book as some Men call it by way of contempt as if Book-Prayer was altogether Antichristian with a Minister of the Presbyterian Communion upon his Accusations of it in General I desir'd him to instance in some Particular After some pause he at last pitch'd upon these Words Give Peace in our Time O Lord because there is none other c. God be praised by the Courage and Conduct of His Present Majesty King William we have the Blessing pray'd for but as the Learned Bishop Stillingfleet says to Mr. Baxter in his excellent Book of the Unreasonableness of Separation on a like occasion at this rate some Men may want Causes to defend but they can never want Arguments That I take occasion in the second place to Discourse upon the Duty of Thanksgiving Gratitude at this time more particularly obliges me and all of us of the Reform'd Persuasion For I take it to be past all doubt that we of the Church of England and Protestant Religion were not long since in imminent danger of losing the publick Exercise of it In my third and fourth Particulars I aim at the Honour due to the Clergy upon the account of their Office and shew that they ought to preserve themselves from Contempt by a Demeanour suitable to their Sacred Office That this of ours is a despicable Deanery of Clergy-Men we dare challenge our greatest Adversaries to prove Bishop Nicholson us'd to call it his Beloved Deanery and I hope we shall all deport our selves so as to find the like Approbation in your Lordship our Diocesan That Sober Religious and Learned Ministers should be any where despis'd must proceed from a gross and barbarous rudeness of Men mixt with an Atheistical Genius Wherever Men have been truly well Bred sincerely Virtuous and Pious they have paid their due respects to God's Ministers That your Lordship may long enjoy that Happiness where-ever you are concern'd as you justly merit it by your Love to the Church of England which among sundry other Instances you have signally demonstrated in your late Encouragement of the Minister of Cirencester is the very hearty wish of My Lord Your Lordships most Dutiful And Humble Servant ROBERT MORSE 1 Thessal Chap. V. 17 18 19 and 20 Verses Pray without ceasing In every thing give thanks for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you Quench not the Spirit Despise not Prophecyings THE Occasion of St. Paul's Writing this Excellent Epistle to the Thessalonians was the ill usage those among them who had embraced the Christian Faith received together with their Apostle who had Preach'd it into their Ears and by those Instruments of Conveyance God Blessing the Seed sown by the best of Demonstrations and most Infallible Arguments rooted it in their Hearts The hard Treatment they underwent was from the Unbelieving Jews or their Adherents who liv'd in Thessalonica or were Inhabitants of some part or other of Macedonia They were none of them at that distance but their Malice and Revenge would bring them quickly together to Consult and effect if possible the Extirpation of the Christian Religion The Good Apostle had dealt very fairly with these Believing Thessalonians and the other Macedonian Christians he had told them plainly what they must trust to if they were Christians in reality 'T was not a Life of Ease or Luxury they were to lead but such as his own a Life of Labour and hard Travel yet withal alleviated by a chearful Spirit and a thankful Commemoration of the Disciple being like unto his Master and the Servant as his Lord Mat. 10.25 With an Assurance That Sufferings for Christs sake would not last for ever but the recompence of the reward would which God the Father through the Merits of his Son Christ Jesus would bestow upon them The Persecutors of the Church St. Paul knew would flourish like a Green Bay Tree for a while but their end he foresaw without timely Repentance which he most earnestly desired would be Infernal Flames and that it would not be long e'er the Christians as 't was reveal'd to him from Heaven should have a glorious Deliverance and after the Storms and Tempests of Persecution quiet Halcyon Days as they had The danger was least in the interim upon a timorous prospect of the Trouble that should intervene they should be drawn away from the Profession of the Faith turning aside like a deceitful bow Psal 78.57 As to this Affair St. Paul was very sollicitous lest his labour in the Gospel should prove in vain upon their accounts tho not his own as appears from the Third Chap. of this Epistle ver 5. Wherefore he saw it necessary frequently to put in mind what they were and what to do To this end may be read what is antecedent and consequent in this Epistle to the Chapter where my Text is Pray without ceasing In every thing give thanks c. Quench not the Spirit Despise not Prophecyings Which Words are several short and pithy Sentences of Exhortation to Believers how to behave themselves in this World in order to their being happy in another not limited wholly to the Thessalonians particular circumstances but very extensive and reaching all Christians of all times and places whatsoever In the Words we have these Particulars First We are positively enjoyn'd the great Duty of Prayer and the Constancy of it Pray withont ceasing Secondly The Duty of Thanksgiving in the like positive manner and how universally to
prayed and repented upon the preaching of Jonas this made God himself repent Jonah 3.10 O the wonderful Efficacy of Devout Praying So the Zealous Breath of Hezekiah's mouth scatter'd like Chaff before the Wind the Numerous Host of a Blasphemous Sennaoherib 2 Kings chap. 19. ver 15. c. and blew them into ruine and destruction Thus his earnest Entreaties and Tears disanull'd the sad message Set thy house in order for thou shalt surely dye and not live for we read that God heard him and added to his Days 15 Years Isa 38.5 So True and infallible is the Word of him that saith Whatever ye ask in prayer believing ye shall receive Mat. 21.22 We read in Eusebius of St. James the Just how that his custom was to enter Daily into the Temple by himself and there with bended Knees to entreat for Grace and Remission of Sins unto his People 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Euseb Lib. 2. c. 23. Insomuch that his Knees were hardned like a Camels into a callous substance by his constant using to Pray Kneeling Which I mention not only as an Example of constant Prayer but also as to the Posture of it Kneeling miserably neglected by the Majority even of our own Communion Thus much for the Usefulness and Necessity of Prayer which is of Three Kinds 1. Private in our Closets 2. Domestick with our Families 3. Common with the Church 1. As for Private Prayer it cannot be imagined that any good Christian can live a Day nor scarce an Hour without it so many are his Necessities so great his Infirmities and so violent his Temptations And it is not to be expressed what good a short Ejaculation will produce to a Pious Christian when for want of Time he can use no longer Address what Comfort it brings to an humble Penitent though he say no more but with the Poor Publican in the Gospel smiting his Breast God be Merciful to me a Sinner Morning and Evening we should implore God's Pardon for our Iniquities his Grace to Support us and Enable us to serve Him but as for Ejaculations they should be as frequent I had almost said as our Pulse beats as the Minutes of our dying Breath 2. Family-Devotions should not unless upon very extraordinary Occasions be passed by Morning and Evening that so we may make a neat Epitome of the Church of GOD in our several Habitations Then 3. As for Common-Prayers or the Prayers of the Church they are the best of all especially as we have them and we should be present at them without ceasing as my Text says 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without leaving off not forsaking the Assembling of our selves together for this purpose They are the Publick Prayers of the Church as Expositors tells us that St. Paul chiefly means in this place 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Words are St. Luke Chap. 21. and Ver. 26. Always that is upon all Opportunities especially upon the Lord's Day and other Feasts and Fasts of the Church And however it may be allowed us at home to use a greater and more unconfin'd Freedom of Expression by our selves or with our Families in some particular cases though there I think Forms generally speaking most proper to be observ'd yet for the Church of God I esteem Forms of Prayer and an Established Liturgy so far from Stinting of the Spirit as some Men would have it who know not what they mean or else would not have other poor ignorant Wretches understand that nothing but wild Disorder and Confusion would arise amongst us if every one who only fancies himself sufficient for the Work was to be his own and the Congregations Prayer-Maker upon every Return of Divine Worship who knows not how to Pray with the Spirit and to Pray with the Understanding also 1 Cor. chap. 14. ver 15. And this may suffice for the Duty of Prayer Only let me add this with all humble Submission to you my Reverend and Learned Brethren of the Clergy to beseech you still to use the Prayers of the Church with such Decency and Devotion as may shew you to have truly Pious and well-affected Souls and that you Love and Admire the Unparallel'd Prayers of the Church beyond any other Compositions whatsoever And as for the Crude Extempore Effusions of Enthusiasts that you esteem them to admit of no Comparison but what is odious with them Secondly I pass on now to the Duty of Thanksgiving and the Universality thereof and for what reason of which more briefly The Apostle tells us We must in every thing give thanks because this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning us Which is as much as to say That we must look unto God as the great Disposer of all the things of this World and that what He allots is best for us in General and in Particular If He ordains us Adversities Troubles and Sicknesses Patience and Submission will carry us through them when Murmuring and Discontent will not ease our Load here but aggravate that and our Guilt together and Repining and Reluctance under our present Infelicities will but consign us to a more irreversible State of Dissatisfaction hereafter The Apostle tells his Thessalonians That this is the will of God that they should in every thing give Thanks even in Tribulations and Afflictions for the sake of Christ Jesus whose Disciples they were Rejoice evermore says he ver 16. of this Chapter Now this is the Life of our Religion in all Occurrences to be of a Thankful Temper to our good God and to Adore him for his unspeakable Gifts the Gifts of Food and Rayment Health Relations Friends and Benefactors all the Necessaries and Conveniencies of this Life but above all for the means of Grace and hopes of Glory for the Purity of the Reformed Religion and the Benefits of the Gospel Light which we enjoy in this our Goshen That we are not overwhelmed by the Darkness of Popish Superstition by those sundry and late Attempts that have been made to bereave us of this Happiness that we are not deprived of the Inestimable Priviledge of serving God in such consecrated Places as this after the best and most Primitive Modes of Worship that the unjustifiable Paradoxes either of Rome or Geneva are not Transplanted hither We ought to render thanks both Ministers and People not only with our Lips but in our Lives And that will induce God when he sees us thus greateful to him to continue us in the state we are now Objects of his Divine Favour in the preservation of our Church as it is now amongst us Established blessed be his wonderful and most Glorious Goodness for it All you of our Communion ought in particular to consider your Felicity in being within the Pale of the Church and that you have not blind Guides to lead you astray you know not whither till you fall into the Bottomless Pit that you have such for your Pastors as are able to confute all Gainsayers able and willing
to instruct you in all the necessary Points of Salvation rightly dividing the word of God and not rending it asunder as the manner of some is such as Pray for you without ceasing at home and in the Church such as instruct your Children in the Fundamentals of Christianity the Excellent Church Catechism and your selves as well as them in the Exposition of it such as visit you in all your Distresses and Trials councel comfort succour you For these Blessings we ought all to give Thanks and for the enjoyments of the Gospel without the cruelties of an Inquisition or the barbarities of an Oliverian sequestration For if the Thessalonians were in every thing to give thanks and rejoyce in the Lord always tho' surrounded with Persecutions much more we who have no disturbance in our Religion as the poor Afflicted Protestants now in France and Savoy and other places have whom God of his All-sufficient Grace support God of his Infinite Goodness in his due time deliver 3. I proceed now after these two foregoing positive precepts to one that is negative which is this Quench not the Spirit including as I intimated this affirmative viz. That we reverence the real Gifts of Good and Faithful Ministers Sound and Orthodox Divines The Spirit of God does not now adays Operate in an extraordinary manner as in the Primitive Times so as to ennable Men otherwise Illiterate as most of the Apostles were to speak divers Languages not taught them the common way The Apostles were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Inspired by the Holy Ghost and in a more peculiar manner 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Taught Immediately by God The holy Ghost descended visibly in Cloven Tongues like as of Fire as appears from Acts Second and Third from whence this passage of not Quenching the Spirit seems to be deriv'd And to Give them their due tho' many Enthusiasts boast of Inspiration Extraordinary Call and Apostolical Endowments to qualify them for the Work of the Ministery they pretend not to the Gift of Tongues here they will grant that the Spirit is stinted to them and that they are not absolutely so good Linguists as the Apostles were They have had those among them indeed who have made a vain Ostentation of this gift also but they have been Subtile Popish Priests in Masquerade who in Mechanical Dresses have endeavoured to make men believe that they never had any learned Education and yet that they did not want it as having no less a Person than the Holy Ghost himself for their Tutor who has taught them the Learned Tongues but these have been detected for Impostors by trying them in such Languages as they have not understood And so for the gift of Healing Curing the Deaf Blind Dumb Lunatick and Paralytick and Ejecting of Devils they do not lay claim to them and yet one thing observe by the way they assume to themselves which is the Gift of Unpremeditated Prayer and yet that is not mentioned amongst any of the Gifts of the Holy Ghost described at large in 1 Cor. 12. nor in any other place of Holy Scripture beside It may be asked then here What is the Quenching of the Spirit now adays Doth not the Spirit of God work still on the Children of Obedience as well as the Evil Spirit on the Children of Disobedience Eph. 2.2 I Answer Yes without doubt so as to assist all those that use honest Endeavours and proper Means to fit themselves for the Ministerial Function But how can we once think that God will work Miracles upon some to save them the Pains of Study and the Charges of Education and forsake others that by all possible care have made it their Business and been at great Expence both of Time and upon other accounts to qualifie themselves for the Embassadors of Christ Jesus 2 Cor. 5.20 For my part and I doubt not the concurrent Sentiments of all unprejudic'd and considerate Persons I give no credit to any that arrogate to themselves a Supernatural Call to the Ministry With great and profound Humility we Sons of the Church of England are ready to acknowledge That the best Men of us all are unable to act any good thing as of our selves alone but our Sufficiency is of God We owe all we can say or do well to the Aid of God's good and gracious Spirit Co-operating with our earnest tho' weak Endeavours But how unlikely is it and indeed absurd to imagine That God should deny us the Blessings of his Holy Spirit who are always praying for its Sanctifying Influences kind and benign Assistances and by incessant Studies striving to improve our Talents of Grace Learning and Knowledge for the Edification of our Brethren and bestow it in a Super-eminent degree upon Persons who never had any extraordinary Parts or common Ingenious Education so as to enable them to do more without any precious Pains than those who have always been diligent to supply themselves with necessary Sciences of all sorts in order to the great Work of the Ministry Certainly our Heavenly Father hath always been more propitious to the sedulous Endeavours of his Pious Servant joyning the help of his Spirit with ordinary means such as Learning Study Meditation comparing of Passages of Holy Scripture one with another Consulting Original Languages and the like This undoubtedly is the way to a true Gospel-Ministry to have such for the Guide of Souls as have had good Education have been such Studious Preparers of themselves for their Sacred Office that as it would be presumption in them in the highest degree to expect Miracles in these Days to make them Learned Rabbins extempore of Illiterate Men so God be praised it is no wise necessary for them to plead any such thing as being qualify'd for the Work in the usual Method as the Nature of our Establish'd Church requires viz. by being taught the Learned Tongues in their youthful Days Philosophical Insititutions in their fresher Academick Gowns which Philosophy is justly Stiled the Hand-maid to Divinity and afterward in the Maturity of their Judgments have searched into the great Truths of the Christian Religion Perused the Councils Fathers and Primitive Writers and the Defences and Apologies of our Church against all sorts of Opposers Which by the Grace of God will still be done against Atheists and Theists which I look upon to be as near in their Notions as they are in their Names if not many of them though dissembled altogether the same Against Socinians who deny the Lord that bought them and put him to an open shame who as far as in them lies make Him suffer in his Divinity as he did once in his Humanity Against Jesuited Romanists and Bigotted Separatists and Schismaticks of what Denomination whatsoever in the mean time shewing a Spirit of Moderation and of some having Compassion making a difference as St. Jude speaks ver 22. endeavouring to win them together with the Strength of Arguments by all the Sweetness of Temper imaginable