Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n
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A56628
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Christs counsel to his church in two sermons preached at the two last fasts : one April xi. MDCLXXX, the other December xxi. MDCLXXX / by Symon Patrick ...
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Patrick, Simon, 1626-1707.
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1681
(1681)
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Wing P770; ESTC R22417
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50,470
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126
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in humane reason they can by no other means be remedied than by the special hand of Heaven Which we come therefore here to implore in a particular blessing upon the consultations and endeavours of the great Council of the Kingdom and in defeating the wicked counsels and devices of our enemies and uniting the hearts of all his Majesties loyal Protestant Subjects But these great Blessings we cannot reasonably hope to obtain no not by our Fasting and Humiliation and Prayers unless we endeavour a true reconciliation with God by being unfeignedly penitent and resolving to forsake those sins which we our selves confess have brought us into such distresses and perplexities as nothing else can remedy Now in order unto this As I excited you on the last Day of solemn Fasting and Prayer to a serious and speedy Repentance by such Arguments as I found in those words of our Saviour to another of the seven Churches of Asia ii 16. Repent or else I will come unto thee quickly and fight against thee with the sword of my mouth so at this time I shall direct you a little in the way and method of repentance and point at some things of which you are to repent from these words which I have read out of our Saviour's Letter to the Church of Sardis with whom we of this Church have too manifest a resemblance For as our blessed Lord complains ver 1. we have a name that we live i. e. are good Christians but alas in deed and truth are dead for we produce not the fruits of Christian vertue There is a great deal of bustle and stir about Religion for which we seem to be mightily concerned but the inward life and power of it is generally wanting which we do not love to be troubled withal Nay we can scarce say so much of our people as God doth of Judah in the first Lesson for Evening Prayer lviii Isai 2. They seek me daily and delight to know my ways as a Nation that did righteousness and forsook not the Ordinances of their God c. which alas we have most openly deserted though this was far short we find in that Chapter of making them an acceptable Nation to him At the best we must confess we are fallen asleep and grown very slothful as our Saviour here supposes ver 2. them of Sardis to have been and there is so great and universal a decay of true piety and goodness among us that we are in apparent danger to lose the small remainders of it Something good there is still left in this Church as there was in that but far from that intire and compleat obedience which our Lord expects from us as will appear by considering what is to be done by us for our recovery to a better condition And there are three things which our Lord here requires of them in my Text and are incumbent upon every one of us as our necessary Duty if we would be saved from our present danger First To remember what they had received and heard Secondly To hold it fast Thirdly To repent of their forgetfulness I suppose their looseness and indifferency in their Religion I shall treat of them all in the order wherein they stand and consider them both with respect to the condition of that Church to whom they were first delivered and then with respect to ours who have no less need of such admonitions I. The first of them supposes That they had been taught some Doctrin which they had received and entertained with belief and had heard it also often since inculcated and pressed so I understand the words by those Pastors who were set over them by the Apostle or those who first delivered the Truth unto them Which was nothing else but the Christian Religion of which I must not here speak at large but only tell you It is that way of serving God which is prescribed by Christ and his Apostles in the Books of the New Testament Wherein we now read what they then received by word of mouth from the Apostles and understand fully what we must believe and do to be saved Now as there is no cause to which God more frequently ascribes the sins and particularly the Idolatry of the Children of Israel than their forgetfulness of Him and of his Law and of what He had done for them so this very thing stupid forgetfulness and neglect of what Christ and his Apostles delivered by Signs and wonders and mighty deeds introduced that deadness in Religion of which our Saviour complains in the beginning of this Chapter and He foresaw would bring in all the corruptions which afterwards followed in the Church and began very early to appear in the Christian World For there arose false Apostles and false Prophets nay direct Antichrists as this very Apostle Sr John tells us men who denied the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ that brought in damnable Heresies sleighted the authority of the Apostles turned the Grace of God into lasciviousness nay brought back the old Idolatry as you read in the foregoing Chapter of this Book vers 14.20 And though this Church of Sardis is not charged with so deep a degree of Apostasie as those of Pergamus and Thyatira yet there was great danger of falling into it unless they took this advice of our Saviour to remember better than they had done what they had received and heard Which is the very same with that which God himself had given of old to the Israelites to prevent their defection from Him in many places of the Book of Deuteronomy viii 1 2 18 c. and which his Prophets were wont to give in after times as the first step to their recovery when they had revolted from God their Saviour xlvi Isai 8 9. vi Mic. 5. Who here calls upon his Church in like manner to bring to remembrance and think again and again till they had fixed it in their mind what they had received and with what affection also they had embraced the Gospel of God's Grace for that may be implied in the Particle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 how you have received and heard as the only means to preserve them from lapsing farther into a worse condition and losing that good which was still remaining but ready to dye among them This the Apostles afterward endeavoured with great care and diligence and promised as we read in St. Peter 2. i. 12 13 15. to endeavour that after their decease they might have those things in remembrance always which they had been taught But for want of the like diligence and watchfulness in the people who did not take such heed as they ought to have done to these admonitions the Christian Religion in process of time was so adulterated that a great part of the Church fell into that lamentable apostasie which is foretold and described in this Book of the Revelation and which we see now fulfilled too plainly in the Church of Rome and those of its
Communion Which have so far degenerated from the primitive Christianity such is the mischief of not reflecting perpetually upon what was first delivered and received that their Religion looks more like the old Paganism revived in a new shape than that good old way of worshipping God which our Saviour taught when He came to destroy the works of the Devil And they were still plunging themselves further into such gross Superstitions as endangered the very Being of Christianity by magnifying the Blessed Virgin and St. Francis to such a degree that they were regarded more than Christ himself that a Reformation became absolutely necessary and was generally desired as it were easie to shew by men of the greatest note in these parts of Christendome for choise learning and piety Nay in that very Council which they themselves packt to hinder the Reformation that of Trent I mean Ten several Kingdomes and States desired both by their Ambassadors and Prelates That the Cup in the holy Communion might be restored to the people from whom it had been sacrilegiously taken to the manifest violation of the Christian Religion which had instituted it in both kinds And many pressed for Divine Service in a known tongue the want of which was another palpable corruption and shameless abuse in the Roman Church Which many desired might be reformed in other Particulars but nothing could be obtained from them who were resolved to baffle all these pious endeavours In order to which they took such a course that there were more Italian Bishops in that Council who would vote as they were directed sometime more by twenty sometime by an hundred than there was of all the World beside So that in effect all these Parts of Christendom would have reformed had not Italy opposed it and craftily combined by all manner of artifices to hinder these honest intentions Which blessed be God prevailed notwithstanding in this Church and were so zealously and yet so prudently prosecuted that we were happily purged by the singular Grace of God to us from all those corruptions which had infected the Body of Religion without the loss of any part of that Truth which was anciently and at first received For when we reformed we did not set up a new Religion as they falsely and foolishly accuse us but only cast out their novel errours and reduced all things to the ancient Standard or Rule of Faith and Worship which was once delivered to the Saints that is to the Church of Christ As will appear by applying all this to our selves and remembring you as briefly as I can what it is that we received and have often since heard to be the true Doctrine of Christianity as it stands reformed from the corruptions and abuses of the Roman Church 1. Which is no other than that which the Church of Sardis and all the rest at first received The fundamental Principle of our Religion being this That all things necessary to be believed and done for the obtaining salvation are contained and plainly enough expressed in the holy Scriptures A Compendium of which as to matters of Faith is drawn up in the Apostles Creed as it is explained by the famous Council of Nice which comprehends all things that are necessary to be believed in order to eternal life 2. Yet we acknowledge that it is not sufficient as you have often heard to believe but though our sincere profession of Faith according to what is revealed in the holy Scriptures and comprehended in the Creed do enter us into the state of Justification yet the fruits of Faith in a godly life are absolutely necessary to continue us in it For that very Faith which justifies us doth imply and include in it a purpose and is accompanied with a promise of holy obedience Which if it be not performed we cannot be accepted with God nor claim the promise of eternal life This is another Principle which we have received 3. And among the rest of the duties which are required of us by our Faith the holy Scriptures teach us this as plainly as any whatsoever That Christian People ought to have a great regard to their Pastors the Guides and Conductors of their Souls in the way to Heaven whose spiritual authority over them is to be reverenced though not as infallible yet as most valuable not to be followed blindfold but fit to be consulted on all occasions and most to be relied on in dubious cases There is no principle of the Reformation more undoubted than this That a Pilot is not more necessary in a Ship or a Shepherd to watch over the Flock than such spiritual Shepherds and Guides are to teach direct and govern Christ's Church and that among other means and helps which Christian people should use to understand the Scriptures the direction of their Guides is the chief To whom it belongs as to receive men into the Church by Baptism so after they are thus born again to breed them up in their Religion as their spiritual Parents to expound and interpret to them the holy Writings and out of them to instruct the ignorant convince Gainsayers correct the peoples mistakes reprove their sins stir them up to all the Duties of a holy life satisfie the scrupulous censure the contumacious absolve the penitent and administer comfort to dejected Spirits The people indeed ought to examine whether the things they deliver out of the Scripture be so or no as the Beroeans did and are commended for it xvii Acts and conscientiously to discern between truth and falshood between the right faith and rule of life propounded to them by their Pastors and the poysoned Doctrine of Hereticks and Deceivers But they must not judge alone without their direction and guidance nor hastily conclude their Teachers to be in the wrong nor rashly dissent from them and refuse to follow their direction but rather suspect themselves and enquire further when they think they ought not to assent to them and in the issue if the things they deliver be not plainly against the holy Scriptures to suspect their own judgments rather than contradict those whom God without all doubt hath appointed to be their Instructors and Guides By which principle we have quite shut out the Roman tyranny on one hand who would lead the people blindfold whereas we endeavour to make them see and require them to open their eyes and show them that we do not mislead them and avoided also on the other hand the wild frantick liberty of those who will not be led at all but go alone and guide themselves by their own private judgment As by the other principle also of sticking to the Scriptures in all things necessary to salvation we have cut off all the fond Traditions of the Roman Church which they have equalled with the Scriptures and yet have retained many things of ancient observation which were not absolutely necessary but not sinful for peace and decency sake Because we would not seem to have undertaken