A77999:75
A sermon preached before the Right Honourable the House of Peers, in the Abbey…A sermon preached before the Right Honourable the House of Peeres, in the Abbey…
A sermon preached before the Right Honourable the House of Peers, in the Abbey at Westminster, the 26. of Novemb. 1645. Being the day appointed for solemn and public humiliation. / By Jer: Burroughs. Published by order of the said House.A sermon preached before the Right Honourable the House of Peeres, in the Abbey at Westminster, the 26. of Novemb. 1645. Being the day appointed for solemne and publique humiliation. / By Jer: Burroughes. Published by order of the said House.
London: printed for R. Dawlman, 1645
No title page in the transcription: set from the catalogue record.
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.
2. The difficulty of this lesson.
Men think it is hard to be brought down under afflictions, but verily to know how to abound is much harder. You who live in this place, think your conditions to be far better then of those who live under the rage of the enemy; you yet enjoy so much, as if you be not unthankful, you must needs acknowledge, that in comparison of them, you abound in mercies. You think their lesson, how to bear patiently such great afflictions as are upon them; is very hard; but the truth is, of both, you have the hardest lesson to learn. It is harder to know how to abound, then to know how to want. This may seem a paradox; but before we have done, I hope I shall make the truth of it out fully to you.
Men think it is hard to be brought down under afflictions, but verily to know how to abound is much harder. You who live in this place, think your cōditions to be far better then of those who live under the rage of the enemy; you yet enjoy so much, as if you be not unthankfull, you must needs acknowledge, that in comparison of them, you abound in mercies. You think their lesson, how to beare patiently such great afflictions as are upon them; is very hard; but the truth is, of both, you have the hardest lesson to learne. It is harder to know how to abound, then to know how to want. This may seem a paradox; but before we have done, I hope I shall make the truth of it out fully to you.
Mariners use to say, if they have sea-room enough, they care not; but your greatest danger is in your sea-room. It is a saying of Augustine, and a very true one,1 It is a harder thing to fight with a mans lusts, then to fight with the cross: And of Cyprian, There is no evil but is easier overcome then pleasure. There is more skill required to manage an East-Indy Ship, then a Boat in the Thames. The warm beams of the Sun gets the Travellers cloak sooner from him, then the wind and storms can do. Many who fled for Religion in