The gainefull cost. As it was delivered in a sermon preached before the Right Honourable House of Lords, in the Abbey Church of Westminster, on VVednesday the 27. of November, being the day appointed for solemn and publike humiliation. By Henry Wilkinson, B.D. Pastor of Faiths under Pauls.

To the Right Honourable House of LORDS assembled in PARLIAMENT.

Right Honourable,

PErsons of highest rank and eminent qualifica∣tions, are satis amplum alter alteri thea∣trum; but persons so qualified, when they are employed in matters of greatest and most publike concernment (as your Lordships are) become a spectacle to the world, and to angels, and to men, 1 Cor. 4. 9. Look well how you behave your selves, for you now act either to the greatest prejudice or profit of the Kingdome, and the Church of God. If the great wheel stands still, the wheel within the wheel cannot move; and they had need move very cautiously, who if they move irregularly, prove fatall. Crosse motions in the superiour orbs of a State, doe as much trouble wise men to reconcile them to the principles of peace and government, as the Astronomers are troubled to save the Phoenomena, by ••a••ning of Epicycles, and Concen∣tricks, and Eccentricks: God forbid that any should be put to the labour of coyning distinctions to salve the counter-passa∣ges or planetary motions in those spheres in which the brigh∣test flarres of our State doe move.

It was a pious as well as politick inscription in the Court at Ratisbon, Quisquis Senator curiam officii causa ingrede∣ris, ante hoc ostium privatos affectus omnes abjicito:

iram, vim, odium, amicitiam, adulationem, Reip. perso∣nam, & curam subjicito: nam ut aliis aequus, aut iniquus fueris, ita quoque Dei judicium expectabis aut sustinebis. It is an inscription not so fit to bee written on a Parliament house doore, as on every Parliament mans heart.

Your Lordships are not ignorant how much there is, not of weak man, but of wicked man in the great transactions of the Church and State. And I doubt not but you see and loath that generation (and there be many of them) who betake themselves to a side meerly for hopes, interests, and engagements sake; these are their summa credendorum & agendorum, by these they act, and beleeve no further then these doe reach, these to them are the Law and Prophets. It is well enough known, that the interrogatory that Saul made to the Benjamites, is a most concluding topick to mercenaries; Will the son of Jesse give every one of you fields and vineyards, and make you all Captaines of thousands, and Captaines of hundreds? These be they whose Cynosura and polestar is profit, and the Kingdom their prey, and gold their god. We hope that your Lordships will take care, that such as these are, shall never be great, and that great men shall never be such.

I shall not trouble your Honours any further, nor will I in the least kinde anticipate the book by giving so much as a taste of the heads before hand; only thus much I could heartily wish, that as it is a Sermon of cost, so it were a costly Sermon, every line of which were worthy to be written in letters of gold; the Authour would never think it too good to be thus dedicated since to be employed for your Lordships good, is the crown and happinesse of

Your Honours most devoted Servant in Christ, HENRY WILKINSON.

Notes

• 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉.
• Camer. Cent. 1. c. 33.
• 1 Sam. 22. 7.