A32047:39
The noble-mans pattern of true and real thankfulness presented in a sermon preached before…The noble-mans patterne of true and reall thankfulnesse presented in a sermon preached before…
The noble-mans pattern of true and real thankfulness presented in a sermon preached before the Right Honourable House of Lords, at their late solemn day of Thanksgiving, June 15, 1643 : for the discovery of a dangerous, desperate and bloody design tending to the utter subversion of the Parliament and of the famous city of London / by Edmund Calamy ...The noble-mans patterne of true and reall thankfulnesse presented in a sermon preached before the Right Honourable House of Lords, at their late solemne day of Thanksgiving, June 15, 1643 : for the discovery of a dangerous, desperate and bloody designe tending to the utter subversion of the Parliament and of the famous city of London / by Edmund Calamy ...
London: printed by G.M. for Christopher Meredith, 1643
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
For this you must know that the service of God is not a natural action, wherein the doing of the work is all that is required. As nothing is required of the fire, but to burn, because it is a natural action. But it is an action of Religion, wherein the manner of doing is the chief half of the duty, and that which makes our serving of God to be a sweet perfume is not the serving, but the right serving of God. Now the right serving of God is to serve him according to his own Direction, both for the matter and the manner of his service. It is a maxim in nature, Every master is to be served according as himself commands, and if the servant prescribe to his master, how he will serve ⟨p. 6⟩him, he becomes his Masters Master. In the civill Law a servant is said to be [Greek or Hebrew], such a one that sustains no person, but is a dependant and adjunct to his Master, to accommodate his will to the will of his Master. It is a saying of Socrates, If there be a God he must be worshipped, and if he be worshipped, he must be worshipped according to his own will, or else we do not worship him at all. Moses built the Tabernacle according to the pattern in the Mount.1 And David when he built the Temple, received a pattern of it from the Spirit of God in writing. The nature of man is prone to worship God by Crucifixes and Images, and by ways of our own devising. But this is not to serve God, but to go a whoring after our own inventions, as the phrase is, Psalm. 106. 37.2 For indeed it is spiritual whoredom, and it is an exalting of our wisdom above Gods. It is vain-service, and therefore cannot please God.3 It is will-worship and of no account with God. It is a service that is so far from bringing us to Heaven, that it will beguile us of Heaven. 4This then is to serve God, to serve him according to his own way, both for matter and manner.
For this you must know that the service of God is not a naturall action, wherein the doing of the worke is all that is required. As nothing is required of the fire, but to burn, because it is a naturall action. But it is an action of Religion, wherein the manner of doing is the chiefe halfe of the duty, and that which makes our serving of God to be a sweet perfume is not the serving, but the right serving of God. Now the right serving of God is to serve him according to his owne Direction, both for the matter and the manner of his service. It is a maxime in nature, Every master is to be served according as himselfe commands, and if the servant prescribe to his master, how he will serve