A81220:107
A sermon pressing to, and directing in, that great duty of praising God. Preached…
A sermon pressing to, and directing in, that great duty of praising God. Preached to the Parliament at Westminster, Octob: 8. 1656. Being the day of their solemn thanksgiving to God for that late success given to some part of the fleet of this Common-wealth against the Spanish fleet in its return from the West Indies. / By Joseph Caryl, minister of the Gospel at Magnus near London Bridge.A sermon pressing to, and directing in, that great duty of praising God. Preached to the Parliament at Westminster, Octob: 8. 1656. Being the day of their solemn thanksgiving to God for that late successe given to some part of the fleet of this Common-wealth against the Spanish fleet in its return from the West Indies. / By Joseph Caryl, minister of the Gospel at Magnus near London Bridge.
London: printed by M. Simmons, 1657
Title page typeset from the transcription.
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.
24) There's much also to be done for the promoting of truth and holiness, which (in consort with justice and righteousness) are at once the beauty and stability, the honour and the safety of Nations: Let both evil deeds and damnable doctrines be witnessed against, let no error find encouragement, let no faith-devouring and conscience wasting error appear with open face in our borders, without a rebuke from Magistratical power. God hath been tender of the honour of the Nation abroad, let not the honour of God suffer or be eclipsed at home, through any defect in the exercise of that great power wherewith you are entrusted.
24) There's much also to be done for the promoting of truth and holinesse, which (in consort with justice and righteousnesse) are at once the beauty and stability, the honour and the safety of Nations: Let both evill deeds and damnable doctrines be witnessed against, let no errour find encouragement, let no faith-devouring and consciencewasting errour appear with open face in our borders, without a rebuke from Magistraticall power. God hath been tender of the honour of the Nation abroad, let not the honour of God suffer or be ecclipsed at home, through any defect in the exercise of that great power wherewith you are entrusted.
That fear of the Lord with which I have been pressing you to Praise the Lord, will surely guide you in all your counsels to the doing and accomplishing of all these things. For so saith this Psalmist (v. 10) The sear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; The word which we render beginning signifies also the head or top, the perfection and highest pinnacle of wisdom. Indeed the holy fear of the Lord is the beginning and ending, the first and last, the Alpha and Omega of all true wisdom; and therefore the Psalmist adds in the close of the same verse, A good understanding have all they that do his commandement•. Understanding and doing are two things, yet they ⟨p. 38⟩only understand the commandments of God who do his commandments; and they only do his commandments who fear him. Solomon puts both these together, and makes them the sum of all the duty of man, and therefore, surely, the sum of all the wisdom of man, (