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A67829
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A sermon preached at Lambeth January the 25th at the consecration of the Right Reverend Father in God, Thomas Lord Bishop of Bath and Wells / by Edward Young ...
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Young, Edward, 1641 or 2-1705.
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1685
(1685)
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Wing Y68; ESTC R34114
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12,744
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33
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Difficulties upon his Duty and requires new measures of Grace to support him under it and accordingly such a person may safely depend upon God for such measures Or supposing a Man to want the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the happiness of Natural temper and to lay under complexional indispositions to Virtue this state brings unavoidable difficulties upon his Duty and requires greater Measures of Grace to be able to live well and accordingly such a person may safely depend upon God for such measures God Almighty taketh pleasure to manifest the strength of his Grace in such opportunities of humane weakness But on the other hand if a man shall affect such Difficulties and run himself by choice into such Indispositions such a one certainly brings a check upon the Divine assistance For in all the dispensations of Gods mercy the Wise Man's Rule is to be observed That God is found of those that tempt him not And so likewise in the Case of publick Charges which necessarily enlarge both the difficulty and the measures of human Duty the Conduct of Providence is always to be regarded We may safely follow Providence through any Difficulties for there God shall be with us and his right hand shall help us But if we advance to Difficulties as Ahab did to Ramoth Gilead onely directed by some false Prophet of our own Passions we Tempt God beyond a reasonable assurance of finding him in our Undertaking And this is the Reason why Pious Men of all Ages have trembled at the thoughts of seeking the Episcopal Charge lest by running officiously into the obligation of a mighty Duty they might tempt God and provoke him to withold that measure of Grace which was necessary for the due discharge of it I know that Our Apostle has said If a man desire the Office of a Bishop be desireth a Good Work Implying that it sometimes may lawfully be desired And without doubt it has sometimes been so and possibly may be so still It was so in those Times when Persecution raging against the Church fell always most severely upon her Bishops When the Office was accounted a Degree of Martyrdom when there were no splendid advantages annext to it which might tempt the carnal affections of Men to regard them more than they did the Duty At that time to desire it was to deserve it and a sufficient proof of an Inward Call or rather Animation to the Charge But as soon as it came to be baited with Honours and advantages then all Good Men became Iealous of themselves lest in desiring the Office of a Bishop they might not so much desire a Good Work as a Good Accommodation lest their Passions should draw them more prevalently than their Consciences which must necessarily have brought a check upon the Divine Blessing for the want whereof no Parts nor Wisdom nor Industry in their Administration could ever compensate From this pious Iealousie of theirs it followed that the Greatest Bishops have been not only Wisht and Nominated but Sought Woo'd and Commanded out of their Retirement to the Undertaking of their Charge Where after they had Undertaken it we find them bewailing themselves upon the Tremendous prospect of its duty and Crying that it was in punishment to their sins that God had committed the Helm of a Diocess into their hands Teaching the World what Caution is needful lest in a Charge of the most important service of God where it is impossible for a Man to acquit himself well without Gods particular Blessing and yet if he does not acquit himself well the miscarriage must needs be damnable any one should enter upon such a Charge with any other Motives than such as were conciliative of Gods Blessing and assistance For Who is sufficient for these things Says our Apostle and having left the Question undetermined he has left men under the obligation of a long suspense before they determine it in their own behalfs But when God who makes those whom he pleases sufficient shall determine it for any Man then Compliance is safe and the Blessing indubitable And thus it was in the Instance of our Bishop in the Text upon whom this discourse is grounded Of whom you may observe that he had a Providential designation to his Charge before Hands were laid upon him to Invest him in it He had his Designation from Prophecy Says the Text that is from the declaration of the Holy Ghost through the Mouth of some inspired Christians Now what was extraordinary in this Instance and proper only for an Age of Miracles we must not draw into Precedent but from what was Ordinary in it we must form our Rule and that Rule is this viz. That when the Authority to whom the outward care of the Church is committed by God shall from the good Report of a Person as of One of Unfeigned Faith call such a Person to the Charge this is a Providential designation and such a Person going in the Conscience of his Duty to the subsequent Rite of Laying on of Hands needs not doubt of such an Effusion of Grace as shall enable him to give a cheerful account of his Duty This only Caution being born in Remembrance That the Grace so given must be stirr'd up Which is my third and last Head The Original word signifies primitively the stirring up of Fire Grace being sometimes in the Scripture compared to Fire which by reason of its properties of Lighting Warming and Purging bears a just Analogy to those Aids that Grace brings in to reform the disorder of each faculty of our Souls But beside these Grace resembles Fire in another property and that is Unless it be stirr'd up and blow'd and Matter rightly apply'd it will go out The Natural Agency of the Fire and the Moral Agency of Grace agreeing in this That neither will serve our uses unless we work with them We may therefore receive the Heavenly gift in vain Nay the Negligent do always do so but if we stir it up by exercise and use we make it spread and improve and secure it's Aids to the full accomplishing of our Duty So that Grace and the Soul are like two Free Agents combining discâ—etionally to the same effect the one acting out of Duty and the other out of Compassion and both requiring mutual excitements and mutual endeavours Humane Diligence engages Grace because it is not consistent with the Laws of Mercy that they who are sincere should miscarry for want of assistance and Grace engages diligence because it is not consistent with the Laws of Virtue that they who are slothful should either succeed or be assisted I shall exemplifie the Doctrine in the Instance of the Text. Where we are inform'd that Timothy at his Consecration received a Gift or Effusion from the Holy Ghost and this Effusion our Apostle distributes in the following Verse into three particular Graces all necessary for the discharge of the Episcopal Office viz. Might Love and a sound mind
commonly seen to do any thing and Man when he pleases to be vain and ungrateful may impute all Events to his own power and application Now 't is certain that God leaves this obscurity upon his Dispensations on purpose to administer an advantage and commendation to our Faith not an opportunity or Argument to our Doubting but yet if we will Doubt the Case is plain that we may as well doubt of any act of his Ordinary Providence as of his Sanctifying Grace and so by this method of Reasoning God will have no share left him in the managment of the world We allow again that there is another Obscurity upon the face of this Dispensation we know not the Philosophy of Sanctifying Grace not unto what Class of Beings to reduce it nor under what Modes to conceive its Operations And this is a speculation that our Saviour himself argues us Ignorant of as much as we are of the Issues and Retreats of the wind and yet he thought fit to leave us so Whether the knowledge of it were too Excellent for us or whether it were too useless as no way conducing to the ends of Practical wisdom For we may observe of our Saviour that in all his Discourses he never entertained his Auditory with any Doctrine that was purely speculative because such kind of Knowledge is apt to make us more Vain than Wise Had he led our Understandings through the whole Theory of Grace we could not have accommodated it better to our uses than an honest heart now can without any farther insight No more than if he had stoopt to teach us the Philosophy of the Wind any Mariner could have gathered it more commodiously into his Sheet It is not then our Emulation to determine How the work of Sanctification is done our only care is that it be done We pretend not to declare but thankfully to admire By what Ray the Divine Grace opens and shines in upon our understanding clearing it from worldly prejudices and the impostures of Flesh and rendring it Teachable Considerative and Firm By what Motion it inspires Good thoughts excites good purposes and suggests wholesome Counsels and Expedients By what welcome violence it draws our Wills steers our Appetites and checks our Passions By what Heat it kindles Love and Resolution and Chearfulness of Endeavours By what Discipline it extinguishes sinful Imaginations and loose Desires By what Power it aws the Devil and foils Temptations and removes Impediments and strengthens and exhilarates amidst all difficulties And finally by what patient Art it turns moulds and transforms our stubborn Nature into new Notions new Savours new Powers new Acts new Aims new Ioys as if we were entirely new Creatures and descended from another Race All these effects do as well by their wonder as their Benefit render Grace as our Apostle calls it the Unspeakable Gift a Gift surmounting our Apprehensions as well as it does our Merit That these are all the Esfects of Gods Grace we know because he has declared them to be so That they are so we know because many of them are wrought beside our Thinking many without our Seeking and all beyond the reach of our too well Known and experienced infirmity That they are so we know because their being so comports best with the great end of all things that is the Glory of their Maker For it tends much more to the Glory of the Mercy of God to watch over and lead and assist Infirm Creatures than to have made them strong And so I pass to my Second Head the distribution of Grace unto Men and the Measures of it The Doctrine whereof I shall form into this Proposition Viz. That God distributes his Grace to every Man in proportion to the measures of his Necessary Duty God who has laid our burden upon us and commanded us to be strong mocks us not but so far as we are weak offers us strength out of his own treasure with this prospect that receiving it thence we might behave our selves more reverently and thankfully under the sense of the Obligation To every one therefore that considers his want and values the supply and applies himself for the Gift with a worthy affection and through appointed Means God gives it liberally and the measure of his giving to each is that Rule of the Friend St. Luke 11. As much as he needeth For as Gods Providence has ordered a diversity of States in human life producing a diversity of Duty so the same Good Providence has ordained divers Sanctifying Gifts and divers Measures of the same gifts to be distributed respectively among Men that no man might Necessarily be wanting to the Duty of his particular state The Prophet Isaiah Cap. 11. 2. Speaking of that fulness of the Spirit that was to rest upon our Saviour distributes the Holy Spirit according to its operations into the Spirit of Wisdom and Understanding the Spirit of Counsel and Might the Spirit of Knowledge and the Fear oâ— the Lord Which the Church looks upon as a proper Enumeration of the Sanctifying Gifts of the Holy Spirit which God does diversly distribute unto men in order to the Common Salvation There is Wisdom for those that Teach and Understanding for those that Learn and Counsel for such as are in Perplexity and Might for such as are in Difficulty and Knowledge for them that Err and the fear of the Lord or Piety as other Versions read it for all that will be Pious Now of these Gifts God giveth such Kinds and Measures to every Man as he has need of To every Private person so much as is necessary for a private Salvation and to every one of a publick Character so much as is necessary to promote Salvation in the publick Salvation of Souls and the Advancement of Christs Kingdom being the only scope of all his Distributions We may take an Instance of the whole from our Bishop in the Text He was a Good Man and endowed with Grace sufficient for a private Salvation before the laying on of Hands as the foregoing Verse implies but being now by that Sacramental Rite to enter upon a new Station of life where greater measures of the Divine assistance were but necessary for the discharge of his duty God confers greater measures of his Grace upon him through the same Rite God confers I say both Grace and Duty through the same Rite to put us in mind that they are Two things morally inseparable For he that does more Duty shall have more Grace and he that receives more Grace receives an Obligation to do more Duty But here it is of importance to observe the Restriction of the Proposition I say it is Necessary Duty to which God apportions the measures of his Grace Where by necessary Duty I mean the Duty of that State or those Circumstances which Gods Providence does assign us For instance If a man shall fall under an unavoidable perplexity of Wordly affairs such a state does bring new