MAY IT PLEASE YOUR MAJESTY,- THIS relict of the worthy
deceased author was long since intended, when you were at a greater distance,
to be sent abroad under the patronage of your great name. His own name indeed
hath long been, and still continues, so bright and fragrant in England that
your Majesty's condescending goodness will count it no indignity to yours to
impart some of its more diffused beams and odours to it. However, if what there
was of presumption in that first intention can be pardoned, no reason can be
apprehended of altering it upon your nearer and most happy approach unto
us.
The kind design and blessed effect whereof, compared with the scope and design
of this excellent work, do much the more urgently invite to it; for as you come
to us with the compassionate design of a deliverer, and the wonderful blessing
of heaven hath rendered you also a victor and a successful deliverer, the
design of this book is to represent that faith which is the peculiar and most
appropriate principle of what is (like your own) the most glorious of all
victories.
You have overcome, not by the power of your arms, but by the sound of your
name, and by your goodness and kindness, which so effectually first conquered
minds as to leave you no opportunity of using the other more harsh and rugged
means of conquest.
Yea, and your success is owing to a greater name than yours; our case, and the
truth of the thing, allow and oblige us in a low and humble subordination to
apply those sacred words, 'Blessed is he that cometh to us in the name of the
Lord,' the power of which glorious name is wont to be exerted according as a
trust is placed in it.
We acknowledge and adore a most conspicuous divine presence with you in this
undertaking of yours, which is not otherwise to be engaged than by that faith
of which the apostle and this author do here treat. This faith, we are
elsewhere told, overcomes this world; and are told here in what way - by
representing another, with the invisible Lord of both worlds, being the
substance of what we hope for, and the evidence of what we see not, and whereby
we see him who is invisible. This world is not otherwise to be conquered than
as it is an enemy; it is an enemy by the vanities, lusts, and impurities of it.
That faith which foresees the end of this world, which beholds it as a
vanishing thing, passing away with all the lusts of it, - which looks through
all time, and contemplates all the affairs and events of this temporary state
as under the conduct and management of an all-wise and almighty invisible
Ruler, - which penetrates into eternity, and discovers another world and state
of things which shall be unchangeable and of everlasting permanency, and
therein beholds the same invisible glorious Lord, as a most gracious and
bountiful rewarder of such as serve and obey him with sincere fidelity in this
state of trial and temptation here on earth, - such a faith cannot but be
victorious over all the lusts, vanities, impurities, and sensualities of this
present evil world. Such a faith, working by love to God and good men, and all
mankind, and being thereupon fruitful in the good works of piety, sobriety,
righteousness and charity, will be the great reformer of the world, conquer its
malignity, reduce its disorders, and infer a universal harmony and peace.
Even among us the noblest part of your Majesty's conquest is yet behind. It
cannot but have been observed, that for many years by-past a design hath been
industriously driven that we might be made papists, to make us slaves; and for
the enslaving us, to debauch us, and plunge us into all manner of sensuality,
from a true apprehension, that brute and slave are nearest akin, and that there
is a sort of men so vile and abject (as the ingenious expression of a great man
among the Romans once was) quos non decet esse nisi servos-to whom liberty were
an indecency, and who should be treated unbecomingly if they were not made
slaves, that we should be fit to serve the lusts and humours of any other man,
when once we were become servile to our own.
And next, that the religion might easily be wrested away from us which was
be-come so weak and impotent as not to be able to govern us; and that if
humanity were eradicated, the principles and privileges that belong to our
nature torn from us, easy work would be made with our chris-tianity and
religion. What hath been effected among us by so laboured a design, through a
long tract of time, is before you as the matter of your remaining victory,
which, as on our part, will be the more difficult, where the pernicious humour
is inveterate.
So your majesty's part herein will be most easy, your great example being,
under the supreme power, the mover, the potent engine which is to effect the
hoped redress, and your more principal contribution here-unto consisting but in
being yourself, in expressing the virtue, prudence, goodness, and piety, which
God hath wrought into your temper. The design of saying this is not flattery,
but excitation. Give me leave to lay before your Majesty somewhat that occurs
in a book written twenty-seven years ago, not by way of prophecy, but pro-bable
conjecture of the way wherein a blessed state of things in these parts of the
world is likely to be brought about: - 'God will stir up some happy king or
gover nor, in some country of Christendom, endued with wisdom and
consideration, who shall discern the true nature of godliness and christianity,
and the necessity and excellency of serious religion, and shall place his
honour and felicity in pleasing God and doing good, and attaining everlasting
happiness, and shall subject all worldly respects unto these high and glorious
ends; shall know that godliness and justice have the most precious name on
earth, and prepare for the most glorious reward in heaven,' &c.
With how great hopes and joy must it fill every upright heart daily (as they
do) to behold in your Majesty and in your Royal Consort, (whom a divine hand
hath so happily placed with you on the same throne) the same lively characters
of this exemplified idea! It can-not but inspire us with such pleasant thoughts
that winter is well-nigh gone, and the time of singing of birds approaches; the
night is far spent and the day is at hand, - a bright and glorious morning
triumphs over the darkness of a foul, tempestuous night. The sober, serious age
now commences, when sensuality, falsehood, cruelty, oppression, the contempt of
God and religion are going out of fashion; to be a noted debauchee of a vicious
life and dishonest mind, capable of being swayed to serve ill purposes without
hesitation, will no longer be thought a man's praise, or a qualification for
trusts. It shall be no disreputable thing to profess the fear of God and the
belief of a life to come. A scenical, unserious religion, a spurious,
adulterated chris-tianity, made up of doctrines repugnant to the sacred
oracles, to sound reason, and even to common sense, with idolatrous and
ludicrous for-malities, and which hates the light, shall vanish before it.
There shall be no more strife about unnecessary circumstances; grave decencies
in the worship of God that shall be self-recommending, and command a veneration
in every conscience, shall take place. There shall be no contention amongst
christians; but who shall most honour God and our Redeemer, do most good in the
world, and most entirely love and effectually befriend and serve one another,
which are all things most connatural to that vivid realising, victorious faith
here treated of.
Nor are other victories alien to it, over the armed powers of God's visible
enemies in the world, such as he may yet call your Majesty with glorious
success to encounter in his name, and for the sake of it. In some following
verses of this chapter (wherein the line of the apostle's discourse went beyond
that of this worthy author's life) this is represented as the powerful
instrument which those great heroes employed in their high achievements of
subduing kingdoms, working righteousness, or executing God's just revenges upon
his unyielding enemies, obtaining promises, stopping the mouths of lions,
quenching the violence of fire, escaping the edge of the sword, whereby out of
weakness they were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the
armies of the aliens. By this faith they (in the prophet's lofty style, Isa.
xxxiv. 5), as it were, bathed their sword in heaven, gave it a celestial
tincture, made it resistless and penetrating.
This is the true way, wherein, according to the divinest philosophy, the spirit
of a man may draw into consent with itself the universal almighty Spirit. And
if the glorious Lord of Hosts shall assign to your Majesty a further part in
the employments of this noble kind, may he gird you with might unto the battle;
may your bow abide in strength, and the aims of your hands be made strong by
the hands of the mighty God of Jacob, even by the God of your fathers, who
shall help you, and by the Almighty who shall bless you; and may he most
abundantly bless you with blessings of heaven above, blessings of the deep that
lieth under, blessings of the breasts and of the womb. May he cover your head
in fight, and crown it with victory and glory, and grant you to know, by use
and trial, the power of that faith, in all its operations, which unites God
with man, and can render, in a true and sober sense, and to all his own
purposes, an human arm omnipotent. Which is the serious prayer of
Your Majesty's most devoted and most humble servant and subject,
JOHN HOWE.
Hebrews
contents
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