Selected quad for the lemma: world_n
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A42830
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Seasonable reflections and discourses in order to the conviction & cure of the scoffing, & infidelity of a degenerate age by Jos. Glanvill ...
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Glanvill, Joseph, 1636-1680.
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1676
(1676)
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Wing G830; ESTC R23378
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24,921
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115
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and punishments with the same design of persuading men in order to the glory of God and the Salvation of their Souls as the Apostles and Primitive Preachers did C. All these were necessary to be Preach'd to men while they continued in Judaism or Heathenism but what need of them now when they are believ'd and entertained in the world A. There is still need and will be so to the worlds end There are young that must be initiated and adult that are to be confirmed there are weak to be strengthened and doubting to be resolved and setled there are Pious to be directed and Wicked to be reproved There are Hereticks and other Erroneous and many who at the bottom are Infidels that must be confuted and withstood These needs are and will be still and Preaching is the ordinary means that God hath appointed in his Church to minister to such occasions so that this was not a temporary ordinance to serve the first times only but is of perpetual necessity and use And therefore when our Saviour delivered the Commission to the Apostles to teach all Nations he gave it to them and their successors and annext a promise of his perpetual help which continues still and will always viz. that he would be with them to the end of the world C. Well well I think I know as much as the Preacher can tell me and therefore shall not trouble my self much with hearing Sermons A. No wise man will think you the more knowing for that opinion You have read what one that knew a great deal said Seest thou a man wise in his own conceit there is more hope of a fool than of him Prov. 26. 12. And another He that thinks he knows any thing knows nothing yet as he ought to know 1 Cor. 8. 2. For even Apostles and the greatest confest that they knew but in part and saw through a glass darkly 1 Cor. 13. 9. And Solomon you know hath pronounc'd roundly against opiniators saying That 't is the fool that rageth and is confident Prov. 14. 16. But if you did know so much that you were not to be taught yet since others do not and Preaching is necessary for their wants you ought to encourage their attendance by your example though you had no other reason to hear Sermons Yea you would have need however to hear on your own score For the design of Preaching is not to teach men new things not always to inform the understanding in matters before unknown but sometimes it gives order and method to our thoughts which perhaps were perplext and so sets things in their right place helping us to clearness of conception which is a great advantage It is design'd to bring known things to our minds to render them present to our thoughts to awaken confideration and by that to excite the affections and ingage the practice It is not so much our want that we do not know our duty as that we are dead and cold and averse to practise what we are acquainted with so that it is the business of Preaching to set before us the proper motives and considerations to move us to sutable action The grand cause of mens sins and neglects is inconsideration and Preaching is a means to cure that And let me ask you whether you do not sometimes find your self much moved by what is said and prest by another when you had had the same things in your mind before without effect C. I cannot deny that but I see but little good that Preaching doth in the world Men remain the same after all their hearing A. More good many times is done than appears and I doubt not but it is so in the present case There are seeds of Picty and Vertue sown in the Soul that shew themselves not a long while after till time further consideration and occasion bring them forth many convictions lodged in the consciences of wicked men that lie there like fire in a flint till they are excited and then they become means and instruments of repentance many hints of truths taken without present emotion that afterwards much influence the understanding and practice some habitual fear of God and love and esteem of religion planted insensibly in the mind that in their season work great effects and I doubt not but by these men that are very bad are in divers instances restrain'd and rendered less wicked than otherwise they would be And though I have as deep a sence of the vileness of the world as most men have yet I question not but that it would be very much worse were it not for Preaching many there are who publickly own and shew the benefit they receive from it and 't is fit the River should run on though but few men or beasts are refresh'd by it C. We have indeed read of great effects of Preaching heretofore as of Jonas on the Ninevites and St. Peter's on the three thousand converted at one Sermon and Orpheus and others among the Heathens have done strange things by the force of their Poetry and Eloquence but now we see no such things which is a plain indication that our Preaching is little worth A. 'T is an ill measure to judge of the worth of things by their success The instances you give are great but as considerable Preachers as those have not succeeded as they did You know how it was with Noah in reference to the old world to whom he preach'd many years without success on any besides some of his own family Lot no doubt exhorted and reproved the Sodomites but to how little purpose The Prophets were earnest and powerful in their Preaching and yet few believed their report but the people continued still a stubborn and perverse generation Our Saviour preacht to many that would neither receive him nor his doctrine notwithstanding the divinity of his person and the power of his miracles And St. Paul one of the most powerful of Preachers after great pains with the Thessalonians seems to fear that he had labour'd in vain with them 1 Thes 3. 5. and after much instruction bestowed on the Hebrews he complains that though for the time they ought to have been teachers they had still need to be taught again which were the Principles of the Oracles of God Hebrews 5. 12. So that the want of success is not always justly chargeable on the Preaching And ours certainly hath as great a subject as great ends as great motives and as great helps as ever any bating the immediate and extraordinary had C. Therefore doubtless the defect is in the Preaching and our Preachers have not the way or ability to use those advantages A. Our Preachers are men and have imperfections and I confess there are divers sorts of Preaching that have no persuasive force in them But yet many that have moved much have been in their persons knowledge and other natural talents as indifferent as generally our Divines are and some of our Preaching is as
A Seasonable DEFENCE OF Preaching AND THE Plain Way of it LONDON Printed by M. Clark for H. Brome at the Gun in St. Paul's Church-yard MDCLXXVIII A DIALOGUE A. MY Friends you are well met here I suppose your business now is walking and I am for a turn or two with you B. You may well guess so for you seldom meet us here in the Church upon any other occasion A. I wish you had spoken that Penitently So I am sure you ought to have done And if you had come a little sooner you had learnt that duty from a very good Sermon B. A Sermon 'T was never well with the world since we have had so much Preaching A. To the same purpose said the Idolatrous Jews to the Prophet Jeremiah that since they had left to burn Incense to the Queen of Heaven they had wanted all things and had never seen good days All times have afforded matter enough of complaint and I must confess there hath been a sort of Preaching that hath greatly contributed to the evils of ours but in this place and such like there is I hope no danger of hearing any of those pestilential Doctrines that once poysoned the publick Air. I am sure the true Primitive Christianity teacheth things that would cure all our maladies were they duly heeded and put in practice I need not tell you how earnestly it every where presseth Humility and Modesty Patience and Self-denyal Charity and Peace Mortification to the world and Conscientious submission to Governours These our Ministers preach and I suppose you will not say that such Preaching promotes the evils of the times if it do 't is very accidentally and so as the Grace of God is turn'd into lasciviousness and the strivings of his Spirit may contribute to mens greater hardness B. I speak not against Preaching but we have too much on 't A. We have more reason to thank God for the plenty than to quarrel at the abundance It would be very humorsome and foolish to complain that the Rivers run with more water than is necessary for our occasions and 't would have been absurd perversencss in the Israelites to have murmured because more Manna fell than they could use B. Do you not think then that there may be over-doing in this A. Yes doubtless when all religious offices are run into Preaching when that excludes the publick Prayers and Catechising when private Preaching days are set apart without Authority to humor the wantonness of vain people all these are over-doing B. But is not constant Preaching twice every Sunday besides occasional weekly Sermons too much A. It may be too much for the strength and health of the Minister it may be too much where the people will not frequent those afternoon Sermons or are prejudiced against them it may be so in Country Parishes and where no remarkable inconvenience ariseth from the omission of them But in Cities and great Towns as the times are they are in a manner necessary since without them people would idle more about and more would run to the Conventicles and 't would occasion the reproach of laziness on our Ministers and turn divers off from the Church that are kept in tolerable order by this double diligence There is not just so much Preaching set and stated by the Laws of Christ and the Church as must not be exceeded but so much is due as Edification Peace and Order require now this is more or less according as circumstances of times are and ours are such as make it very behooveful for Ministers to abound in this work what is grievous in it is to them who have much more labour imposed on them than former times expected and in stead of being advanced in proportionable maintenance and encouragement that is faln as much or more than their work is increast So that 't is indeed very hard upon them but wee the people have no reason to complain B. But Preaching being so frequent and common becomes contemptible by it and is so much the less heeded A. This is too true and 't is a great evil and discouragement to those that labour in the Word and Doctrine but what help fo rit To restrain and put a stop to the course of Preaching to cure this abuse would in likelyhood be followed with a train of greater Evils and as circumstances are it could not be done without manifest danger to the great Interests both of Church and State If the regular Clergy should leave frequent Preaching the Conventicle-meetings would swallow all and therefore upon the whole whatever is to be thought of the thing it self nakedly and abstractedly considered it is not I think any matter of just complaint that there is so much Preaching where the fault is not in the quality the plenty is no grievance C. For my part I must confess I seldom hear Sermons I love the Prayers of the Church and I care not much for Preaching A. It is a great unhappiness to mankind that we are so apt to run from one extreme into another In the late times and still among some Preaching and Hearing were in a manner all the Religion and the Prayers of the Church despised and excluded and now some on the quite contrary pretend to magnifie the publick prayers but vilifie Preaching and make Hearing nothing So that one duty and part of Religion is set up to conflict and destroy another And I observe that usually people of this pretence do in good earnest care for neither Preaching is an Evangelical Institution and the Commission given the Apostles was that they should go and teach all Nations and Saint Paul saith 't was necessary for him to Preach the Gospel and woe to him if he did it not and that he was not sent to Baptise but to Preach 1 Cor. 1. 17. viz. not to do the former chiefly Faith comes by hearing and how shall they hear without a Preacher This was the way whereby God conveyed his mind unto men in all times Noah was a Preacher of Righteousness and God spake unto them of old by the preaching of the Prophets I need not Preach more on this plain and well known Subject C. But ours I suppose is not like the Apostolical and Prophetical Preaching A. It is not indeed like theirs in respect of the immediate inspiration which the Prophets and Apostles had but our Ministers have not It is not like in respect of the Authority of an immediate mission assisted by the miracles they were inabled to perform it is not like in respect of the persons Preacht to who were chiefly Infidels or the circumstances of the action without the setled forms of decency which now are used but could not be then But as to the matter and the ends which are the main things our Preaching is as theirs was our Ministers Preach the same Jesus in the circumstances of his Birth Life Death Resurrection Ascension Mediation and all the rest the same doctrines duties incouragements rewards