Remember, I beseech you, and consider how great things God hath done for you: it was Samuel's advice to Israel upon the coming in of their King. Consider, the better to stir you up to practice this duty of the Text, what a prevailing argument and engagement thereunto God hath laid upon you, by his late miraculous providences, and those wonderful changes and revolutions he hath wrought among you. What shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits towards me? now may England say, and now may London say ... Indeed, how shall we express our gratitude to God for his great and manifold mercies to this unworthy Nation! especially for this so remarkable, so extraordinary, so transcendent a mercy, the very top-stone, crown, and complement of all his other mercies and deliverances vouchsafed unto this Church and State; that mercy, I mean, never to be forgotten, the memorial whereof ye have so lately celebrated by your triumphant gratulations, and publick thanksgivings to God: that mercy wherein the Lord hath made you of this City, among others, so signally, and so successfully instrumental, even the plucking us out of the midst of our confusions, like so many brands out of the midst of the fire: the reestablishing and settling the Kingdom upon the good old foundations, even the sure foundations of truth and righteousness, by so seasonable, and so peaceable a restoring of our King to his throne, and us thereby to peace and happiness.
Likewise, he commended the Laudian vision of "order, and decency, and comeliness" after "the sad experience we have had of those manifold factions and divisions; distempers and disorders, distractions and confusions, which of late years have so miserably rent and torn the body, so fearfully blemished and defac'd the beauty of our Church":
For were we not rather in the other extreme? were we not run so far from the Scylla of superstition, that we were fallen into the Charybdis of Atheism and profaness? Did not ataxy and confusion, rudeness and irregularity, irreverence and irreligion, swell, and overflow, and break in upon us like a land-flood, or a mighty torrent? High time, I trow, to mend the banks, and put a stop to the inundation, if ever we look to have an orderly, decent, comely face of a Church, and such a publick worship, as becomes the Gospel: nay, if ever we look that holiness and righteousness, true religion and the fear of the Lord should get up, and grow, and spread, and flourish among us. And indeed this is that that I drive at in my discourse all this while: for to this purpose only it is, and for this reason and no other, that I commend order, and decency, and comeliness in a Christian Church, and a Gospel-worship, because I conceive, it really makes for the advancement of godliness, and hath a natural tendency to the increase of true piety and religion: so far am I from thinking it bears any antipathy or repugnancy to it, or any the least inconsistency with it. And therefore upon these grounds I shall once be bold to ask the banes; If any one can shew any just cause, why outward decencie, and inward devotion; bodily service and spiritual worship; due reverence without, and true religion within; the comely face of a Church, and the heavenly heart of a Saint, the beauty of holiness, and the power of godliness may not-be joined together, let him speak: for my part, I must needs profess and declare before God and man, that I know none: no reason in the world, that I know, why they may and ought not join hands, and be linked, as it were, together in the bond of wedlock, seeing they are such a mutual help and advantage one to another.
Did I think otherwise, far be it from me to further or favour the match, or to speak the least word in behalf of external reverence, order, and decency in the worship and service of God. But being verily persuaded, and clearly convinc'd of the truth hereof, viz. that outward comeliness doth very much conduce to inward holiness, and that order and decency in worship, is a great help and furtherance to religion and godliness, and a means to kindle and increase true piety, zeal, and devotion; upon this account, and upon this occasion, at this time, and in this place especially, I could not choose but set my seal to it, and give this fair testimony of it, and recommend it to you.
What is particularly significant about both sermons is the manner in which they very clearly illustrate the belief that the Restoration had a definitively Laudian character, echoing the words Laud himself had spoken at his trial:
But all that I laboured for in this particular was, that the external Worship of God in this Church, might be kept up in Uniformity and Decency, and in some Beauty of Holiness. And this the rather, because first I found that with the Contempt of the Outward Worship of God, the Inward fell away apace, and Profaneness began boldly to shew it self.
Comments
Post a Comment