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A30290
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The way to peace A funeral sermon on Job 22.21. Preached upon the decease of the right honourable Elizabeth, Countess of Ranalagh. By Daniel Burgess.
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Burgess, Daniel, 1645-1713.
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1695
(1695)
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Wing B5719; ESTC R224017
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30,595
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82
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flagrant in the desire of them so panting after them as the Hart after the Water-brooks The Apostle's Assertion is thus to be taken If any Man thus love the World the Love of the Father is not in him 1 Joh. 2.15 The Throne and the Bed admit but one To subject us to the World is to depose God To take the World into our Hearts is to put him far from them How much less saith another Apostle The Friendship of the World is Enmity with God whosoever will be a Friend of the World is an Enemy of God! Jam. 4.4 When the Earth is interposed between the Sun and us it must needs be Night and when earthly things get between God and our Hearts there as necessarily follows an Estrangement and Darkness The Psalmist's Word speaks it in short The Covetous the Lord abhorreth Psal 10.3 Be it added lastly They err not knowing the Scriptures and the Grace of God who imagine Sins of unavoidable Infirmity inconsistent with his Acquaintance and Amity The Penitent who resists them is not alienated by them And as the innumerable Moats in the Air hinder not the descent of the Sun 's bright and benign Beams upon us neither do the numberless Failings of good Men deprive them of the rich Consolations of God Sins of meer VVeakness do rather excite Pity than kindle VVrath so far they be from interrupting Acquaintance Which is not broken neither by the moderate Employments or Comforts of this Life The Shop and the Plow are not only lawful but necessary Let there be just Care that the lean Kine eat not up the Fat that the Kingdom of Heaven be sought and first sought then do civil Callings subserve and not prejudice our higher Sacred One. So for the Comforts foresaid they are more than Innocent when Temperate If we take them by the Rules of God's Word we shall find them both harmless and useful to his Frindship We do so take them when we chuse none but what are of good Report for he that breaks the Hedg thereof a Serpent shall bite him and when we use not any to the wounding of Piety Charity and Chastity for by marrying of a Wife as well as by dallying with a Harlot a Man breaks the Peace of God if his Use of Liberty degenerates into Licentiousness and if he suffers it to make him break the Precepts of God Pleasure regularly chosen and used is Health to the Navel and Marrow to the Bones a Servant to Life and Godliness The Heart of the Wise is therefore in the House of such Mirth And may I not say it Look as God first created Man in a Garden of Delight He mostly new creates him also where the Voice of Joy and Gladness Sensual as well as Spiritual is heard The innocent Mirth of a Christian casteth a Lustre on his Religion and maketh it attractive Removeth from it the Reproach of Sowrness and Asperity Forth-shews its Sweetness and Alacrity whereof Men that try it not think it to be destitute Yea and as Cyprian and Justin of old because they think it to be destitute they are unpersuadable to try it Insomuch that Stoical and Monkish Austerity gives Occasion of Reproach and makes the Way of God to be blasphemed So far it is from adorning the Gospel from making it appear Amiable and from winning Men to the Love of it It was then when they that believed did eat their Meat with Gladness that the Lord added daily to the Church such as should be saved Morosity was never other than a back Friend to Christianity The Scruples of some others do require that this be added sc that Acquaintance with God is not inconsistent with Darkness and Doubts of his Love The Life of it consists not in Raptures and Extacies of Joy which God gives as in absolute Soveraignty and infinite Wisdom he sees fit and pleases How often do Children of Light sit in Darkness and see no Light Clouds of Witnesses are every where to be found yea the whole Sky of the Church is full of them Wherefore in a word the natural Sun maketh Gold and Silver where it doth not shine with any Lustre And the Sun of Righteousness riseth on many with Healing in his Wings to whom he doth not of a long time give rapturous Sensations of the same Neither know they well what Spirit they are of who think the holy One to be no Sanctifier where He is not at the same time a Comforter §. 2. Of the Peace and Good following Acquaintance with God The Hebrew Dialect takes Peace for the whole Element of Goodness For no less than all that is desirable Nor can the Gain of God's Acquaintance be supposed to be less Omnia habet qi habet habentem omnia To enjoy Him who is all Good is to enjoy no less than all of it Uncreated Goodness giving us its Acquaintance how shall it not with the same freely give us all things All that is necessary of created Goodness God is Faithful and his Acquaintance is thus Gainful His Friends are Kings as well as Priests and richer than the Persian Kings who went a begging to Projectors to invent them more Pleasures These are blest with more than they can ask or think But because Particulars are most affective that we may be provoked in the Faith and Love hereof to pursue it with becoming Zeal and Vigour attend we but these two Positions Yet sufficient one would think to reform the most Obstinate in evil VVays and to encourage the least Resolute in good Ones The Lord clothe them with a Power which none may be able to resist Posit 1 The Properties which commend this Peace are many e. gr 1. It is Vniversal One which contains all sc Peace with God with Conscience with Creatures and with Death Peace with God with God whose Wrath is Hell and whose Peace is Heaven A Peace which the Apostle saith passes all Vnderstanding Phil. 4.7 This follows Acquaintance with God When Adam sinned Enmity was made Enmity that is a Reciprocation of Hatred Christ Jesus maketh Friendship which is a Reciprocation of Love And how Partly by his Blood satisfying God's Justice and meriting his Mercy for us Partly by his Spirit mortifying our Malice and reviving all Grace in us Propitiating God to us and qualifying us for God's Love and Acquaintance Without the first God would be a consuming Fire to us and without the other we should never conquer our Fear or quench our Malice against him But by means of both there 's mutual Peace The Peace whence do spring the sweet Ones following Peace with Conscience one less known by the most accurate Description than by the least Fruition It can be but darkly shadowed forth by the liveliest Colours of Language but faintly represented by Metaphors What Calmness is to the Sea what Serenity is to a Day what Health is to a Body that Peace of Conscience is unto a Man That and much more But to such as have