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A18025 Chorazin and Bethsaida's vvoe, or warning peece A judicious and learned sermon on Math. II. vers. 21. Preached at St. Maries in Oxford, by tha[t] renowned and famous divine, Mr. Nathanael Carpenter, Batchellor in Divinity, sometime Fellow of Exceter Colledge; late chaplaine to my Lords Grace of Armah in Ireland. Carpenter, Nathanael, 1589-1628?; N. H., fl. 1633. 1633 (1633) STC 4673; ESTC S107660 26,403 96

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are layd open yet vouchsafes he first to threaten ere he inflicts his vengeance as one who in his wisedome thought it most convenient as to approve the righteous so to make the wicked inexcusable that eyther the word preached outwardly to their eares or written inwardly in their hearts should eyther correct or condemne speake their comfort or confusion Betwixt mans transgression Gods Iustice a space is wide open for Repentance to make attonement Ere the Lord rained downe fire and Brimstone on Sinfull Sodome Abraham had his turne to play the Advocate and the Sodomites a time of mercy Ere the Ninivites expected their just destruction a truce of 40. dayes was granted for Repentance to gather forces Hence might every true Christian draw a doctrine for Gods mercy and judgement in that he usually threatens before he strikes and sends his Comminations as the Heralds to proclaime his vengeance The sharpest curbe to head-strong affections is the feare of censure farre too predominant should we finde the swinge of our carnall desires were there not a sharpe whip at their owne girdles Where transgression ends there judgement accoumpt begins and there of necessity must arraignement commence the first action where guilt left his last Impression But yet the greatest prerogative of a Iudg is mercy he strikes not ever where hee ought to spare nor spares alwayes where hee ought to strike at least he lightens where he thunders he displaies his red flagge of defiance ere hee gives the onset hee speaks at least unto the conscience of every wretched sinner ere hee seale his blacke warrant of death and destruction So that not without good cause might our Saviour in this Chapter take up the complaint of little children sitting in the Market place and crying We have piped unto you and yee have not danced wee have mourned unto you and yee have not wept At least might God speake unto them as Iob in another sense unto God Once have I spoken but I will speake no more yet twice but I will proceede no further Spake not God to the conscience of prophane Esau through his fathers neglected blessing the childish losse of his owne birthrigh Spake he not to the sinfull Sodomites through the month of Lot a carefull and religious Preacher Spake he not to Iosephs brethren through the remorse of a guilty conscience and their owne Confession Spake hee not to the idolatrous Israelites through sundry punishments and the fiery indignation of his servant Moses Who more proud and contemptuous than Nebuchadnezzer the founder of admired Babel yet was his courage suddenly cast downe at the sight of his owne vision and Daniels propheticke comment Who more stately than Royall Blashaser sitting at a costly banquet and crowned with a troope of Princes yet was hee taught in the fatall inscription on the wall to reade the Lords Iudgements and the subversion of his stately Empire Who more perverse and tyrannous than Pharaoh to the servile Israelites yet might hee heare the Almighty speaking through Moses unexpected Message prodigious miracles Who more frozen to piety than the furious Philistims in Davids admired victories and Goliahs shamefull overthrow Who more senceles than the old worldlings before the deluge yet might they understand Gods holy Majesty in Noahs unregarded Ambassage who more stubborne than the hard hearted and stiffnecked Iewes yet heard they daily in their streets and temples as it were the prostituted voyce of many Prophets and to descend a little lower in this streame of sacred History wherein all changes and actions give testimony Iudas that Epitome of all impiety never wanted a master to forewarne him of his sinne and a worme of conscience as it were to prepare him to eternall torments And what Pagan so drowned in the ditch of ignorance and so nusled up in the schoole of impiety to whose soule and secret apprehension God himselfe dictates not a law of nature grounded on certaine and undoubted Principles This might teach every true Christian not to spurne at Gods judgements or wilfully to kicke at his Invitations It is the Almighty who threatens a grievous punishment and shall wee not tremble at his displeasure He sends out his summons for our appearance and shall wee not provide against the time of our arraignement By his Ministers he daily cites us to the barre of justice by his workes by his word by his wonders he is wont to awaken us from security and rouze up our attention and shall we as the deafe adder stop our eares against so wise a charmer or returne backe his messengers with a sleevelesse answer What other can we expect but that the Lord at length finding all his shafts of judgment and commination eyther slightly lodged in their breasts or contemptuously reflected backe will be enforced at the length to draw home to the head and enforce our stiff-necks to acknowledge his power or stand it out to their owne destruction A wronged pacience among men soone degenerates into furious indignation and in the couse of ordinary conversation what greater motives of unkindenes than contempt or ingratitude But with one who in the precise scale of justice waighes all unrighteousnesse what greater motive can happen to stirre his indignation or hasten our destruction than to neglect his threats and carelesly to slight his judgements Two sorts of men are here found subjected to reprehension the first are such as carelesly neglect the other are such as contemptuously reject the soveraigne meanes of their salvation In the former ranke are numbred all such carnall Christians who too boldly trespasse on Gods pacience and like those unworthy guests whom our Saviour invited to his great Supper never want excuses One hath bought a farme and must goe see it the other a Yoake of Oxen and must goe try them the third hath married a wife and therefore cannot come as if Repentance were alwaies at hand to serve their humours and the Holy Spirit of God obliged to prostitute his graces to each howers importunity In these mens hearts is the Word of God sowen as seede amongst Tares which the cares of this world are ready to choak up in the first growth to prevent all hope of fruit or mature perfection Speakes the holy Spirit of God to the soule of the swinish drunkard and shewes him the shame of his lavish expences his riotous reyeling and lewd conversation A cup of wine is neare at hand to quench and extinguish his ungratefull melancholy Speakes he to the lustfull leacher presents unto his conscience his lustfull and wanton behaviour and Goatish fornication Some bewitching Lais is not farre off to ransome his soule from pensivenesse and drowne his sences in delicious and voluptuous pleasures Speakes he to the covetous Cormorant and discovers to his secret thoughts his griping Vsury his base Lucre and tyrannous oppression The very sight of his golden Coffers proves as strong as one of Circes charmes to bewitch his sences and inchant his Iudgment
Saviour and his miracles every where opening to your conversion Those coozening impostures of Sathan alwayes prest to their perdition those divine Oracles of Truth whose mouths are daily open to your Salvation What cunning advocate can step in to excuse your sinnes or slacke my sentence I oppose not the examples of the worthiest to surmount you but of the weakest to shame you A nation which hath not knowne me shall serve me and a people which you have beheld with scorne yee shall record with envy The slaves of my contempt shall become the subject of your admiration and where you sought the glory of precedence shall you scarce finde the grace of Imitation A path shall be broken open even from the Gates of Barbarisme to Abrahams bosome and those whom you have barred from your communion shall you finde the sweet children of my adoption From the East and from the West a faire rode way lies open to the Citty of the Saints and the doore of repentance which your perverse stubbornnesse hath shut up shall the light of nature discover unto the Gentiles The greatest shame of a generous temper is to stoope to the subject of his owne misprision and who but a coward without great reluctance can strike saile when hee hoped a conquest In the very browes of those opposites which faile of your advantages yet are ready to out strip you in proficiency may you reade my just sentence and your deserved condemnation My impartiall Iustice gives no hope of better nor your transgression leaves roome for worse Woe unto thee Chorazin woe unto thee Bethsaida c. Hitherto have we rivell'd out that line which wee finde twisted together in my Text as in one clue whilst I by Gods assistance descend to each particular my weakenesse I hope shall purchase your indulgence or at least the matters excellence deserve your best attention 4. The first part in this generall division proposed to our discourse is a Commination wherein you may be pleased to observe with mee these two circumstances first the manner secondly the matter The manner of our Saviours speech in his commination shewes it selfe in his Rhetoricall expression consisting both in an apt Trope and an elegant figure the one Metonymicall wherein the places are taken for the inhabitants the other an elegant doubling or repetition of the same word which the Rhetoritians call Anaphora Hence might we draw a doctrine for the profitable and good use of eloquence in publique exercises as that which is commended to us by Christ himselfe as the handmaid of religious policy and mother of perswasion But to venture my discouse upon so large a subject as the sacred Oracles of the Prophets might suggest I should shew my selfe like S. Austins childe who laboured with a little spoone to exhaust the boundlesse Ocean Who so list to transport the eye of his observance through the wise writings of Moyses the Lawgiver the stately and high dialogues betwixt Iob and his friends the passionate raptures of Esay and Ieremy the harmonious straines of David the sweet Psalmist shall finde the gravitie of matter the variety of invention the Majesty of phrase as so many strings meeting in one consort and tuned to the hearers admiration No marvaile then if wisedome taught the Preacher the wisest amongst men to seeke out acceptable words as the directest meanes to propagate the bounds of his glorious Empire Neither had Moses with some other of the Prophets excused their backeward disposition out of the slownesse and defect of language had not the gift of eloquence stood highest in their estimation Was it ever taxed in Apollos as a crime that hee was reputed a man eloquent in the Scriptures or were the tongues of the Apostles dipt in the sacred fountaine to any other end than artificially to worke upon mens affections and stirre up their Successours to imitation The Nerves of perswasion I confesse are hid in the strength of reason and fruitlesse is that eloquence which is not grounded on sufficient matter That vessell must needs suffer shipwrack whose sailes carry more wind than the Bulke hath ballast to countermaund And what other shall we esteeme of such elegance but as of a Curtizan trimmed up in royall garments But where these ornamēts are fitted to their true owner where Art Eloquence as two handmaids serve their Mistresse Divinity what can they expect lesse than the best observance or promise herselfe more than the greatest admiration Faire and comely I confesse was the Spouse in the Canticles as the Tents of Kedar as the Curtains of Salomon yet discovered by her lover in her gorgeous attire of state and majesty her lookes challenged a more lovely grace her presence found greater acceptance Religion as a faire Damosell how soever cloathed never wants her comely feature and the face of Truth howsoever masked never wants her true lustre yet when seemes shee more amiable than when she comes ushered in by her best servants and attended by her proper Equipage There Art and Eloquence moove in their proper spheare here seasonable and acceptable words challenge their true grace and hang like Apples of gold in pictures of Silver I speake not this beloved to ascribe overmuch to humane faculties or preferre the inticing words of mans wisedome before Gods holy grace and Spirit Where Gods Spirit sanctifies not the speaker and his divine grace assists not the hearer little shall the one deserve or the other purchase Where the light is wanting little can the fairest object present or the most curious eye discover And what availes the cheefest seede cast into the ground where the God of nature denies his blessings to the sower or encrease unto the Harvest At his almighty hand then must the most exactest Artist seeke that Vrim and Thummim that light and perfection in his garden the holy Scriptures shall we onely crop those flowers of true Eloquence sufficient to puzzle the happiest Invention and stagger mans greatest Industry Well might I loose my selfe in this Labyrinth whereto Nature never taught an entrance in nor Art ever discovered a passage out But the sight of this Assembly seemes to challenge the greatest interest in my discourse and diverts my meditations to a more seasonable subject Wherefore passing by the manner of our Saviours Commination wee will next descend unto the matter discovered unto us in these selfe same words Woe unto thee Chorazin woe unto thee Bethsaida The first branch of doctrine which offers it selfe to our Examination is the Regular and just processe observed by Almighty God in Bethsaida and Chorazins punishment Plainely wee see that the Lord as an Ingenious Combatant vouchafed a Parly ere hee drew his sword or rather as an indulgent Father over his disobedient childe shakes his rod ere he inflicts his sharpe correction Iustly might hee have inflicted punishment who from all eternity foresaw their guilt what greater hope of future evidence could that Iudge expect to whom all hearts secrets