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 become 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 probable 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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