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A30672 Not fear, but love a sermon preached before the governors of the Charity for Relief of Poor Widows and Orphans of Clergy-men, at St. Mary le Bow, on the 7th day of Decemb., 1682 / by Ar. Bury ... Bury, Arthur, 1624-1713. 1683 (1683) Wing B6203; ESTC R37172 30,572 54

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of those unhappy widows and orphans who have nothing left them by their deceased husbands and fathers but their merits to administer But oh the disappointment Our Apost'l after his so great boast of the Galatians love quickly complains Where is the blessedness you spoak of And well may we demand Where is this great beauty that so descends to the very feet Hath age withered it to a deformity equal to its youthful loveliness Our very eyes are as loathsom as the primitive Preachers very feet were beatiful and the deformity descends to our posterity as their only sure inheritance yea som are so impios as to make God a party with themselvs in the entayl pretending that Clergy-mens children are equally hated of God and Man seldom or never attaining either worth in themselvs or prosperity in the world God be blessed we are henceforth secured from that malicios slander This conspicuos and perhaps matchless assembly having for ever rooted that fals toung out of its dwelling Yet thogh the Toung be rooted out the Heart is still the same so void of Love so full of ' spite against this once so honored caling that we must think it a great bargain if we can compound for ordinary charity and depose my Text to this poor plea The Preachers of the Gospel bring no evil tidings therefor they deserv not to be hated And since it is better to Cure an evil than to Complain of it I conceve I cannot do better service to my Text the Gospel and its Preachers than by removing the cause of the hatred we sink under which indeed is no other than that Epidemical mistake the root of all misery the taking things by wrong handl The Gospel hath two handls Threats and Promises its threats are Few and its promises Many its Threats shew us our danger only that we may rejoyce in our escape its Promises immediately raise our joys Threats therefor both in quantity and design sit upon the face of the Gospel as beauty-spots do upon that of a fair Lady here one and there another to this only end that by their vanquished blackness they may set off the lustre of the beauty which is to adorn the very feet but by the unhappy officiosness of melancholy messengers those spots have been enlarged to a visor which so cover the face of Religion that we cannot see its Joys for its Fears and the very grace of God which bringeth salvation appeareth like the inhumane Nero saying Let them Hate me so they Fear me This ugly visor shall I endeavor to pull off as my Text directs me by two Propositions 1. The Gospel doth not design to bring us to God by Fear but by Love For it is a Gospel of Peace glad tidings of good things 2. The mistake of this is the cause that the Gospel and its Preachers are so hated by the world For if Glad tidings make the messenger beautiful Evil tidings must make him loathsom I. THE Gospel doth not draw men to God by Fear but by Love This as it is clearly exprest in my Text so is it almost in every page of the New Testament I shall instance but in one or two places more which expresly offer one handle and reject the other In this same Epistle ch 8 v. 15. our Apost'l declareth as clearly as possib'l You have not receved the spirit of bondage again fear but the spirit of Adoption whereby we cry Abba Father And no less clearly 2 Tim. 1.7 God hath not given us the spirit of Fear but of Power of Love and of a Sound mind In the former place he opposeth the spirit of the Gospel to That of the Law and in the later he vieth with the Philosophers who pretend to exalt the mind to the highest freedom and perfection If this can be yet more clear St John hath made it so for with pomp unmatched by any other pen he ushereth his first Epistl with This proclamation These things we write unto you that your joy may be full and throghout the whole body of the following Epistl exalteth Love as the only way to this fulness of Joy ch 4. v. 18. There is no fear in Love but Love when it is perfected casteth out fear bicaus Fear hath Torment It is impossib'l to find Plainer and therefor needless to seek for More declarations of this truth Nothing can remain but that we reconcile them with such other words of Scripture as seem to contradict them Two such especially there are One spoken by our Lord and another by our same Apostl to which may be reduced all others of the same air These two therefore if we can reconcile we shall both State and Clear the truth 1. Our Apostl himself seemeth to contradict this Phil. 2 12. Work out your salvation with fear and trembling Doth not this offer salvation by that handl which but now he rejected That we may now or at any other time reconcile appearances of contradiction we must carefully consider which of the two Propositions may best be broght to compliance It is plain that what we have heard declared a-against Fear cannot be bent to any other sence we must therefor try whether the fear and trembling which he recommendeth to the Philippians may agree both with his declaration in two other Epistl's that we have not receved the spirit of fear or with his exhortation in the same Epistl ch v. Rejoyce in the Lord evermore and again I say rejoice To find out this it is necessary we look about us and see how he useth the same phrase upon other occasions possibly it may be an Idiom Twice more we find him at the same phrase and in both places his meaning will very well comply with Love and Joy Eph 6.5 Servants obey your Masters with Fear and Trembling What doth not a Servant please both God and his Master better if he Obey him with Love and Chearfulness And what shall we say to the 9 th verse And you Masters do the same things to Them Must Masters also treat their Servants with Fear and Trembling Yes but such as may circulate between the best Masters and the best Servants even such as himself explaineth by good will v. 7. This possibly will be plainer by 2 Cor. 7.15 His inward affection is more abundant towards you while he remembreth the obedience of you all how with Fear and Trembling you receved him Titus came in kindness to visit them and they welcomed him with such endearing caresses as made his already great inward affection more abundant than before Here certainly the Fear and Trembling which so welcomed and heightned Love must be so far from excluding it and Joy that they import an extraordinary mesure of them Yea we need look no farther for a good light whereby to see the meaning of this phrase in That his exhortation to the Philippians than the encoragement wherewith he quickneth them in the words immediately following For it is God which worketh in you