Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n
Text snippets containing the quad
|
ID |
Title |
Author |
Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) |
STC |
Words |
Pages |
|
A43065
|
A sermon preach'd before the Honourable House of Commons, at St. Margaret's Westminster, January the 30th, 1695/6 by Gregory Hascard.
|
Hascard, Gregory.
|
1696
(1696)
|
Wing H1117; ESTC R25418
|
14,412
|
31
|
is apt and fit to gain upon all And therefore Men of Contrivance and Policy if themselves had no real Persuasion of Religion yet ever thought it necessary to infuse the belief of it into those they had to manage supposing that all other Methods to rule the World were only Formalities and Entreaties And t is plain what they acted upon the account of State-craft is really so A Land without Religion is a World without a Sun producing Horror and Confusion and the Prophets Wo. And the belief of a God Without real Goodness is to say there is no God at all 3. What particular Reasons may move us to bewail the want of real Goodness 1. The want of it is the principal Cause of our Distractions about Religion Men of Wisdom and Sobriety cannot but be pleas'd to have the methods of Salvation plain and the Characters easy whereby they may judge whether they shall be saved or no but it sometimes happens that good Men live and walk where different ways are chalk'd out and several Voices are heard to say Lo here and lo there lies the road to Jerusalem their Opinions are numerous their Arguings warm their Censures severe every one pretending Heaven and true Religion is only with them How must the good Man carry himself here when his Birth Privacy Imployment and other Circumstances of Life will not permit him to consider and conclude who hath the greatest truth on his side The only Gound among these Quicksands Waves and Winds variety of Opinions as ill as they to anchor on is real Goodness This being the best evidence that our Faith is true our Spirit Divine Decrers irreversible the great preparative to Heaven to which all other parts in Religion do minister in which most Persuasions tho sometimes they mistake the means to it do agree most suitable to natural Reason the design of Christ's coming and the solemn end of all Religion If this good Man mistakes yet so long as his Error toucheth not upon the great Article of Faith nor Goodness he hath a merciful High-Priest at God's right hand who will accept his Sacrifice and pardon the blemish of it He is safe and secure and is a Israclite indeed tho he hath not the Phylacteries and Fringes of a nicer Rabbi tho he cannot call over all the Points of the Compass and understand all the Sailer's terms yet he is in the Channel to Sion not having made Shipwrack of Faith and a good Conscience And tho this Church of England which our Martyr so heartily defended with his Pen and his Blood be charg'd by some with Heresy and others with Superstition and Secular Interest yet being sure that her Faith is Primitive her Discipline Ceremonies Collects Homilles and whole Constitution are model'd for and directly lead to a good Conversation we may fix in her and not grow giddy by turning round in all Religions Nothing giving more satisfaction to the Mind in a divided Age that we shall not miscarry in our hopes of Heaven that when our purposes in Religion are honest to make us better Men than the common Lump and Mass of Mankind that we are now designing only to be good and to have our Conversation as becomes the Gospel of Christ 2 Real Goodness is the best way to unite us among our selves Religion upon any other account than the hopes of Heaven above and real Goodness below is changeable being only Fashion Interest or Humour which will dwindle into as many Divisions as there are in the World Religion that aims not at Goodness is nice and clamorous worldly and uncertain which naturally produce Factions and Dissentions Religion or Wisdom from above is gentle and easy to be entreated plain and substantial which easily beget Unity and Charity great parts of Christianity and as great Blessings of Mankind Real Goodness purges our Judgment removes our Prejudices then we easily discern what is Notion and Opinion and Speculation and what is solid and practical Truth what is probable and what is plain what may be parred with for peace-sake and what is to be retain'd what is Soul and and Heaven and what is Flesh and Blood The great occasion of Differences that have vext the Christian World and been its Scandal hath sprung from the Ambition and Peevishness idle Disputes Contests of Power and Gain For tho must in their religious Heats pretend Faith and Goodness and entitle other things with those excellent Naâ—es yet they confute themselves in the Prosecution of them being guily of Cruelty Hypocrisy and falshood things directly contrary to the Christian faith They kill Jesus to save Christ disgrace Religion in so maintaining of it And would Men be in earnest in this pretence the great Contentions would draw to an end For let us but leave things controverted and dark to the Schools for Discipline Order and things of indifferency submit to the Wisdom of our Governors and let not Factories and Changes mix with our Churches and call Interest Christianity and strip our selves of Passion and hopes of Victory there would be only left Faith and a good Life necessary to Salvation such as Christ and his Apostles taught the Primitive Christians practised and were saved by plain and manifest to all And then the only Contention would be Honest and truly Christian who should be the best Men and some mens Zeal would therefore cool the flaming Bigot not always having this good design to receive the Kingdom of God as a little Child in simplicity and goodness to grow thereby It being easy to observe that an Age full of Contention about Religion was not always the best and when the Church as in the first Three hundred years was truly good it had most Unity within its Pale Vice directly stirring up Wars and Feuds and Virtue Peace and Love and to reform mens Lives is the best method to bring them into truth and if our Conversation be in Heaven we shall be exercising and singing Peace of Earth Duty to our King Good will to all men the short and easy Method to bring us to the place where the Sould of our Blessed Martyr dwells that with him and the Spirits of Just Men made perfect we may sing Praises and Hallelujahs to the Lamb and him that sits upon the Throne blessed for evermore Amen FINIS ADVERTISEMENT A Sermon preach'd before the King at His Majesty's Chappel in Windso-Castle November 10. 1695. By Gregory Hascard D. D. Dean of Windsor and Chaplain in Ordinary to His Majesty Published by his Majesty's Speciâ—l Command Printed for Daniel Brown at the Bible and Swan without Temple-Bar
in the latter days That men should be lovers of themselves proud boasters traytors unthankful false accusers and a strange rabble of sinners are reckon'd up having the form of godliness but denying the power of it 2 Tim. 3.2 3 4. but what availeth all that form so long as Mordecai the Jew lives what signifies a good Religion in a bad Man's breast But I am not here besure to libel Christianity or any of its Disciples who are truly Penitent 't is a great part of that Religion to be Charitable and cover Errors But thus much I may venture to say let our Religion be never so Primitive and Apostolical let it be English or Italian Reform'd or Popish except it makes us really good 't is but wrangling Hypocrisy and Noise not being serviceable to the great Design the saving of our Souls That we may not therefore again be deceiv'd by Names and Pretences 't will be prudent to consider wherein true Goodness doth consist and omitting other particulars I shall insist upon only these four for which our Martyr was very Eminent and the Authors of this Murder were so notoriously guilty of the contrary Vices 1. True Goodness doth express it self in plainness and sincerity in all our respective Dealings with Men. When the Primitive Christian did advise or treat answer or determine he did it with uprightness or simplicity being mindful of his Master's command bidding him be as gentle and harmless as a Dove and allowed him the prudence but not the false and speckled Skin of the Serpent to conceal his Sting and Poyson But the Modern Christian leaving his King and Master's Highway of Truth and Plainness and leaping common Bounds of Truth and Justice by windings and turnings and indirect Courses thinks to arrive at his Journeys end Ask him counsel he directs to your Temper and Inclination to scratch and please and tells you your House is strong when 't is on Fire about your ears If you deal and contract with him plain Sense is wrackt words are perverted and Shrugs Looks Silence Postures and Signs must all carry on his Intriegue and End and Lying and Hypocrisy Equivocation and Reserves and perjuryat a pinch must be sanctified to the same purpose and you treat with an Apparition parition one that is not what he seems to appear Falshood he calls Prudence Treachery is good management his own Contrivance is Discovery and Trains and Schemes of Tricks and Frauds are good Foresight and excellent Judgment this is to lie in wait to hunt spread nets with all sly Arts of deceit and fraud to catch the simple and plain And had its Apostles and early Christians either in their civil Conversation or in their Propagation of their Religion been insincere and false it had been confin'd to a narrower compass than now it is and they whipt for Vagrants and marke for Cheats and Impostors Such are but the little Spirits and low Souls who wanting solid Judgment and true Prudence which are generous and brave fly to Tricks and Falshood like other small Animals because weak Nature hath supply'd with craft As tho God had so order'd all Humane Affairs that our just Interests could not be carried on by the Rules of Honesty Plainness and Uprightness except we call in Deceit and Fraud to our assistance 'T is only fit for a bad Cause to be managed by suitable methods which as often miss the desired end as attain it in being as easy to discover and countermine as to contrive the Design which often concludes in Scorn and Disappointment all not being Fools as the man of Tricks intends they should be This Temper is most destructive to the ease and quiet of Humane Societies which will always be in fits of Jealousies and Suspicions having heen so often trick'd they are afraid they embrace a shadow or anchor upon Quicksands and whereas before they were credulous and believ'd everything they now believe nothing Words have lost their use Oaths are made common Air we know not when our business is at an end Niceties are infinite there are still some sly Quirks Fetches and Distinctions behind which melt the Glew and Cement of Conversation and the sacred Bonds of Friendship Frauds and Flatteries spring from fear and a servile temper and many times end ingloriously The Punick Faith is more a Brand then Valour the Renown of that Ancient Nation And poor Regulus's Honesty carries more Fame with it than Caesar's Consulship And many times the Doom of an Achitophel and Herod that Fox and other Men of tricks hath been very severe Like Boniface the 8th who came in like a Fox rul'd like a Lyon and dy'd like a Dog Yet notwhichstanding all this fince our martyr is perished may we not justly complain it becoming this mournful Day that Faith and Truth are departed from Men May we not suspect when our great Master comes again whether in this sense he will find Faith and Uprightness on Earth I with King David's times be not our own if they be I am sure we ought to use his Prayer Psal 12. 1 2. Help Lord for the good man ceaseth and the faithful fail from among the children of men 2. Goodness expresseth it self in the exercise of good Nature and Charitable Allowances for the Errors of other Such is the State and Condition of the Christian World that her publick Soeieties and private Persons her Saints in some degree as well as common Mortals may be guilty sometimes of a wilful Offence often of Frailties Errors Surprizes and Miscarriages The good Man like his gentle Master knowing the sad Circumstances of Humane Life our Mold Frame and Company sometimes conceals always judges candidly interprets fairly and by soft and easy Methods endeavours a cure The Man of cesure of greater Vices and more ill Nature spreads and inflames wrests and aggravates and pours in Vinegar instead of Oyl to make the Wound easily curable desperate and mortal and advances himself upon the dead Body Such Men do not heartily mourn for the want of Virtue and Religion but are in wardly pleased that there are mistakes and errors in the World which afford them the pleasure of Murmuring and Complaining and like Belzebub that Prince of Flies delight in and feasts upon Wounds and Sores and are made serviceable to their Hypocrisy and Steps to their Interest and Ambition Disorders and Abuses which might have been redrest by gentle Treatments and moderate Prosecuitions turn into Confusion and Ruin by utmost Rigors and Severities which makes Men desperate and that makes them formidable and sometimes prevailing as tho Justice and Peace Laws and Liberties might not be secur'd but by Extremity and Cruelty The good Man knows how to reform but not to extirpate to pardon Crimes that are past yet to prevent them in time to come who is just in the use of Law and Right but not severe and vexatious and like that God above who by Mercy and Reprieves preserves the Reputation of his Justice and