Choice and Practical Expositions on Four Select Psalms, Title page – Publishers note
CHOICE and PRACTICAL EXPOSITIONS ON FOUR SELECT PSALMS: VIZ.
The Fourth PSALM, in Eight SERMONS.
The Forty-second PSALM, in Ten SERMONS.
The Fifty-first PSALM, in Twenty SERMONS.
The Sixty-third PSALM, in Seven SERMONS.
PREACHED By the Reverend and Learned THOMAS HORTON, Doctor in Divinity, Late Minister of St. Hellens in LONDON.
Left perfected for the Press under his own hand.
LONDON, Printed by A. Maxwell for Tho. Parkhurst, and are to be sold at his Shop at the Bible and three Crowns in Cheapside near Mercers Chappel, and at the Bible on London-Bridg, 1675.
To the Reader.
Christian Reader,
THOU hast here presented to thy view a Second Volume of the Pious Labours of this Reverend and Learned Author; and it is hoped that this may prove as acceptable and profitable to the pious Readers, as the former hath in that short time of experiment which it hath hitherto had. And that which bespeaks the greater hopes concerning the profitableness of this, is the seasonableness of it, as to that part especially which is upon the One and fiftieth Psalm, wherein the sweet Singer of Israel sits like a Nightingale, with a thorn at his breast, sadly bewailing his hainous sin of Adultery, and the sequel of it; and hath therein left a record to the Church of God in all succeeding Ages, of his profound and hearty Repentance for that his sin; which cost him many a bitter sob, many a deep groan, and many a scalding sigh; that others beholding his sorrow, might beware the like sin; or having split against the same Rock, might betake themselves to the like Repentance, tanquam ad tabulam post naufragium, as to a plank to swim out upon. And it is heartily wished, that this so great an Example might have that effect upon all the concerned, by way of prevention or reformation of that which is the crying and raging sin of the Age and Nation wherein we live; which effects it would doubtless obtain, if men would but once awaken into a due consideration of the hainous nature and and dismal consequences of that sin.
In order whereunto, I shall briefly propound some few of many serious thoughts about it. And to let pass what is common to this, with other sins of a lower form, this is in a more especial manner a sin of Uncleanness, and thereby allied unto the unclean Spirit, and opposed to Gods unspotted Purity. Other sins provoke God, and pull down his Judgments on us; but this more than many others. Some sins do often draw on others after them; but this doth seldom go alone: No sin but dishonours God, and wounds the Soul; but this is a sin against the Body also. Every sin God will bring to judgment; but this is one of those which he singles out from the herd, as which he will have the punishing of with his own hand stretcht out from Heaven: Marriage is honourable, and the bed undefiled: but Whoremongers and Adulterers God will judg, Heb. 13.4. (which I could wish were written upon the Houses in Capital Letters, at the corner of every Street). Though it may perhaps escape punishment from men by reason of the secresie of the commission, or greatness of the Offender, or generality of the Infection; yet shall it not escape the impartial righteous judgment of God, which he very often executes even in this life, and that remarkably.
This one sin is like a Granado, which flings Death, and Wounds, and Ruin, on all that stand near it, round about where-ever it breaks. It wounds not only the person that commits it, but others also. It wounds his Soul and Conscience, breaks his peace with God, blows up his fidelity and faith to men in the most unworthy manner, being High-Treason against Human Society. It wounds his Body by exhausting his strength, impairing his health, and oft-times brings with it noisom and strange Diseases, stampt with the impress of God's singular Vengeance, which makes them anticipate the stench and rottenness of the Grave. It wrongs his good name, and makes that to rot also, having been by all sober Nations stigmatized and branded with greatest infamy and dishonour, and by many punished with shameful death, as our Church-Homily hath observed.
But the mischief flies further than the personal capacity, proving oft-times the ruin of many Families both as to Estate and Succession. For this is Solomon's deep ditch, Prov. 23.27, sufficient to exhaust the greatest Revenue; and as he saith, Chap. 6.26, oft brings a man to a piece of bread. And as for their Succession, that is hereby render'd oft-times dubious; and the Children being uncertain of their Parents, it is no wonder if they want natural affection, and prove regardless of their Parents honour, who have brought a blot on them and themselves; nor be much solicitous for their own Reputation, which hath been so stained in the Cradle.
And from particular Families, the Mischief flyes into the Commonwealth, which is hereby filled with publick broils, arising from the private feuds of particular Families, and thereby unable for its own defence. For alas! what can a Nation promise it self from a spurious Generation of men, in body morbid and infirm, in spirit cow'd and slavish, through the conscience of their base original? How can such afford their Countrey a just defence, or be much concerned in the welfare or reputation of it, for want of a zeal pro aris & focis, and a natural love to their private Families, which hath always been the Nurse of Valour, and the greatest spur to Noble Engagements for the Publick. These are but some few of those Political Evils which are the natural off-spring and issue of this single sin, besides the many other sad effects of Gods displeasure against whole Nations for this sin; to which, as a provoking-cause, the over-running of Spain by the Moors (who murthered, as some say,Vasaeus in Chron. ann. 794. Seven hundred thousand Christians, and lay heavy upon that Countrey for Seven hundred years after) is by the Religious of those times ascribed, and amongst the rest by Bonifacius (a Bishop of Mentz, but born in England) in his notable Epistle to one of the English Kings (viz. Ethelbald King of the Mercians, recorded by Baronius. But further, let me add, That this sin is not used to go alone; but as it hath a long train of sins at the heels of it, so hath it others to usher and go before it: Of the first sort is Murther (as the matter of Ʋriah, and the Monks Fish-ponds do sadly testifie): for concealment sake, and for Consanguinity, I shall instance in Idolatry; for, as our Church in her first Homily against peril of Idolatry, teacheth us, usually spiritual and carnal Fornication go together. Of the later sort we have three sins named, Zech. 16.49, as the Avantcoureurs and fore-runners of Sodoms special sin, for which God took them away as he thought good; and they are pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness. The two first are the fuel and bellows of Lust, and the last gives the opportunity.
I could wish these sins were strangers in England; but alas! they are too Epidemical to this Nation, as sad experience doth proclaim. For Pride and Vanity seem to have overspread both City and Countrey: and I have heard Luxury bewailed even in those whose stricter profession doth oblige them to greater temperance and sobriety; and the last of the three, Idleness, hath been long since observed to have too great a share in the English Complexion,Herbert. by a Divine Poet * of our own.
O England, full of sin, but most of Sloth;
Spit out thy phlegm, and fill thy breast with glory.
Thy Gentry bleats, as if thy Native Cloth
Transfus'd a sheepishness into thy story.
Not that they all are so; but that the most
Are gone to grass, and in the pasture lost.
Which might be thus render'd, perhaps not unfitly:
O Gens peccati plena, ut plenissima turpis
Anglia desidiae! pituitam fortiter istam
Expuito, & purum distendat gloria pectus.
En! ovium ritu balat generosa propago,
Ac si traxisset patriae contagia lanae.
Non omnes dico; at bona pars in pascua missi
Vescuntur loto, patriae{que} oblivia potant.
The naming of which Author puts me in mind of another sin, which makes up the Sett of those which draw the Chariot of this great Sin of Uncleanness; and that is the refractory perversness of man's corrupt nature, which is thus piously and elegantly noted by him in the same Work:
If God had laid all common, certainly
Man would have been th' Incloser: but since now
God hath impal'd us, on the contrary
Man breaks the Fence, and every ground will plow.
O what were Man, might he himself misplace!
Sure, to be cross, he would shift feet and face.
Which may be thus explain'd:
Si permisisset Deus ut discrimine nullo
In morem pecudum possent impune coire
Humanum genus, & late quacun{que} vagari:
Indubie rebus{que} ipsis usu{que} Magistro
Omni cavissent studio, legem{que} tulissent
Libertate vaga ne posset cuncta libido.
Nunc autem, postquam certis Deus Optimus undas
Ire jubet ripis, notos{que} habitare canales;
Aestuat infoelix, objecta repagula rumpit,
At{que} ferox vermis sibi vult quodcun{que} licere.
Monstrum homo quale foret, propriis permittere votis
Si Deus hunc vellet? certe perversa sequutus
Mutaret pedibus vultus usu{que} locoque.
Now then, let us drain this Lake, this Asphaltites, by cutting off those streams which feed it: for although perhaps we may hope here to escape such a Lake as that, because of the singularity of the Instance; yet is there another Lake no less bituminous, and much more scalding, which those who here burn in lust, shall not be able to escape, unless by their speedy repentance, and a merciful hand from Heaven, they be snatched out of it; and how difficult a matter that will prove, Solomon hath noted, Prov. 2.19. None that go unto her, return again, neither take they hold of the paths of life. The consideration whereof should caution us the more against so dangerous a snare. To which end and purpose, if what I have here written (suggested by the occasion of this Psalm) may be any thing conducing (as was intended), I hope neither the Writer nor Reader shall have cause to repent them of their pains. Farewell.
Thy faithful Monitor, WILLIAM DILLINGHAM.
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THERE is lately Published Forty-six Sermons upon the whole Eighth Chapter of the Epistle of the Apostle PAƲL to the ROMANS. Written by the same Author, and left perfected for the Press under his own hand a little before his death.