Sermon Preached before Thomas Foot, Title page – Dedication
A SERMON, PREACHED Before the Right Honourable, Thomas Foote, Lord Maior, and the Right Worſhipfull the Aldermen, Sheriffs, and ſeverall Companies of the City of LONDON.
VponUpon the Generall day of Thankſgiving, October the 8. 1650. at Chriſt-Church, London.
By Doctor NATHANAEL HOMES, Teacher of the Church at Mary Staynings, London.
LONDON, Printed by Thomas Roycroft, and are to be ſold by William Raybould, at the Unicorne, neer the little North doore in Pauls Church-Yard, 1650.
To the Right honourable, Thomas Foote, Lord Maior of LONDON, the right worſhipfull the Aldermen; together with the Worſhipfull Company of the Grocers of the ſayd City.
Right Honourable, and highly Reſpected;
ACcording to your deſires, I have Printed this Sermon; which for your deſert (much obliging me) I preſent to you, as in ſpeciall yours. Not to be accepted by all men, is common to al. If ſome diſlike, my comfort and recompence is, all do not; you are witneſſes. If others be diſpleaſed with what is common to man (foreign.*) they forget they are men. If with the ſubſtance and its relation to the ſolemnity; they may review, and remember,And the Prophetin a paſſion (ſay the Learned) ſpake incongruous Hebrew. Rom. …. I ſpeak againſt ſinne, not men; I advance in my judgment and conſcience (which they ſo plead) the very truth of God: And REGARDED THAT DAY TO THE LORD, as they obſerving it not, ſay, To the Lord they regarded it not. And of common equity they owe me this freedom, that I may be as zealous for mine own Nation, as they are for another. They have their liberty in what is eſſentiall to it (if they pleaſe ſo to keep it) without coſt or labour. Wee purchaſe ours (next under God, ſought by prayer) at a great rate in neceſſitated warrs. We are not willing to diſturb their injoyment, whiles quietly they aquieſce there. If they doe ours, whence theirs doth ſpring, they wrong themſelves, as wel as us. 'Twere happy ſo as to end theſe dividings, if we did enquire into their cauſes. Whether they be not inſufficient, and rather to be removed from our mindes then our mindes to bee moved by them? As whether it be not want of practiſe of what wee profeſſe; Viz. to be Saints, and love Saints, becauſe we be ſuch, and they be ſuch? Or whether it be not a ſuppoſed ty to a part of an obligation, that is now non-ens; or to us impoſſible which is much at one (voluntas non fertur ad impoſſibilia?) The remainder: ACCORDING TO THE WORD OF GOD (put firſt, as the Baſis of all) we may ſtill endevour to the utmoſt, and welcome. Or whether it be not an unwillingneſſe to promiſe what all Chriſtians do, and would in foreine Nations of Turks, Papiſts, &c. to ſubmitt quietly to the preſent civill Government? Or whether it be not an hoped content in deſired future Governours and Government (of which we have no good experience) rather then in the preſent; preſerved and approved of God by the teſtimony of many glorious wonders? Or whether it be not ſuch an Intereſt of ſome men as is inconſiſtent with the Government of the State, and is a Partition Wall between Chriſtian Brethren? Or it be not a great miſtake; ſuppoſing a violence hindering ſome Members going to ſit in Councill ſhould null the ſeſſion of the reſt that are the quorum, contrary to the courſe of all inferiour Courts? Or laſtly, it be not our Non-conſideration of the Propheſies and Promiſes of the great change of things God is now about to make in our times, and downward, to the advancement of Chriſts Intereſt and Kingdome, whiles we expect things to be as they were? Put in vaine; as this inſuing Treatiſe hints; and may perhaps be ſeconded in other larger Treatiſes, if God permit. The meane whiles, be pleaſed to weigh this well; and the Lord bleſſe it to your Honour, and Worſhips, and to all candid Men, who had never ſeen it but for your ſakes, whoſe humble Servant in Chriſt Jeſus, is,
Nath: Homes. From my Study at Mary Staynings, London, Octob. 21. 1650.