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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	call_v	holy_a	word_n	2,845	5	3.9924	3	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A61862	A sermon preached at the assizes at Hertford, Jvly viii, 1689 by John Strype ...	Strype, John, 1643-1737.	1689 (1689)	Wing S6025; ESTC R685	13,242	36

VI and I am afraid those Complaints may more truly be taken up against them in these degenerate backsliding Daies of ours I appeal to your selves for the Truth of these things Thus good hath God been to us and thus froward and disingenuous have we been to him III. And now in the third Place let me expostulate and reason with you upon the whole matter Is it possible that the goodness of God hath had no better Success upon us Have we thus required the Lord foolish People and unwise What strange Stupidity possesseth us that we carry our selves so untowardly toward the best Friend we have in all the World Was ever more disingenuity or folly known Disingenuity to affront so good a God to be so base there where we have been so kindly dealt with and Folly too in exposing our selves to the Effects of that Fury that is begotten of Kindness abused Let us at last be persuaded to leave these Courses Oh! be not so weak to suffer so vile a thing as Sin to impose upon thee What Shall I dishonour my God Shall I displease him Shall I be guilty of so gross Ingratitude to my dearest Benefactor And all this only to gratifie a Lust Shall I sooner listen to a Passion to a Folly than to my God Hath Sin deserved better of me than God hath Oh! far be it from me And certainly this Expostulation will take hold of all Men that have any Spark of Ingenuity in them For these things that I am now discoursing touch upon the tenderest part of the Soul and make a very close Address unto the igenuous Part of it I shall propound one or two good Counsels to you with reference to the present Discourse and so make an end I. In reference to the Mercies of God in general endeavour to bear and keep up a quick Sense of them alwaies upon your Minds Oh! bear about with you these Marks of Divine Love and Favour The Remembrance of them will be of excellent Use for the checking us in our Careers of Sin and the forwarding us in the Course of Piety for a Man can scarcely think of God's Goodness to him and at the same time play the Villain and the Rebel against him But on the contrary God's Mercies will enkindle a Love of God in our Hearts and if we love him we shall obey him and do and suffer any thing for his sake And therefore I say let not the goodness of God depart out of your Minds but frequently call upon your Souls as David did upon his Bless the Lord O my soul and all that is within me bless his holy name Bless the Lord O my Soul and forget not all his Benefits II. and lastly as to the Mercy of the Protestant Religion in particular the Counsel I would give you in relation to this is that we walk answerably unto it and that our behaviour be such as may become it And there are two things that are great Ornaments unto it and that will set a mighty Lustre upon it and indeed are indispensably required by it The one is a Peaceable Spirit and the other a Holy Life Peace and Holiness which are both joyned together in one Verse Follow peace with all men and holiness and they are recommended unto us by the most prevalent Argument that can possibly be invented because without them no man shall see the Lord seeing the Lord in Heaven in Glory being made Partakers of the blisful Vision depends upon the pursuit of Peace and Holiness First Peace That venerable sacred inviolable thing Peace the great primary Law of our Holy Religion the truest distinguishing Character of a right Christian the best Prop and Pillar of Christianity Quid est Christianismus si Pax absit said Erasmus What is Christianity it self without Peace As though it could not subsist without Peace that there could scarce be Christianity without it Nay it is the Happiness of Heaven There is nothing there but a sweet union of Spirits and harmony of Souls and in a word it is the Name that GOD himself is called by viz. The God of Peace And therefore this is to be preserved sarta tecta by all the care and means possible And because our difference in Opinion is so apt to do violence to this Sacred Badg of Christianity let us take great care whatsoever our Judgments be that it have not that very bad influence upon any of us And to remedy this either let us sacrifice our private Opinions to Peace which is of far greater value than our Opinions can be or if we do not that yet by providing by all possible means against disturbances and clamour and all bitter zeal And that we may do partly by concealing our different Judgments and having our Faith to our selves as the Apostle adviseth partly by complying with and submirting to the Customs of the National Church as far as we can possibly that so far as lies in us we may live peaceably with all men partly by being modest in our Sentiments not confident or stiff in our own Conceits apt to think charitably of those that differ from us not fond of a Party nor crying I am for Paul and I for Apollos nor cherishing Prejudices against all that are not of our own way It is a thing of a very bad consequence and oftentimes falls out to the breach of Christian Peace and Love that we usually espouse a Side and then we are partial to our selves and very critical in espying faults in others and rigorous in censuring and condemning the Practices of all besides our own Party It brings to my mind a Passage that we read in our Books of a certain Bishop of Lendon in King Henry II. his Reign This man discoursing one day with a Friend of his concerning this temper saith he When I first entred into a Monastery I was wont to blame very much the sluggishness of my Governours When I became a Prior I would complain of Abbots Afterwards arising to the Honour of an Abbot I favoured my fellow-Abbots but ceased not to reprehend Bishops And lastly When I was a Bishop my self I began to see how much more easie a thing it is to find Faults than to mend them By which he did shew in himself the temper of most men how apt they are to favour their own side and how diligent to accuse their Superiors and how ready to be angry with all of a different Order Sect or Perswasion And withal upon maturity of Years and Judgment he gave us to see how unreasonable and childish this is and therefore that it is much better to be of a charitable modest Spirit to cover some defects that we espy in others and not to think our selves without fault alwaies remembring that There is nothing perfect under the Sun. And this would prove an excellent means for the composing and pacifying the Minds of Christians to one another and for the promoting of Peace Let us then labour after the things that make for peace Let us seek peace and ensue it and approve our selves the true Disciples and genuine Followers of the loving and peaceable JESUS by being peaceable and peace makers our selves He was of a peaceable Spirit and underwent much for Peace sake and was the great Pacificator between GOD and Man the infinite Benefits whereof such as the Pardon of our Sins and the blessed Hope of everlasting Peace we Christians feel to our great and endless Comfort the consideration of which Blessed things brought about by our great Peace-maker should make us Friends and Sons of Peace Secondly To Peace join Holiness and indeed the one is a proper Door and Entrance into the other The peaceable Christian is the only probable Man to make a truly holy Christian. When the Soul is calm and the storms of Passion and Contention are all lay'd and still then the Holy Spirit the Spirit of Peace and Love enters Let not the profession of Christianity serve thy turn without the Spirit and Life of it Be very conscientious in all the great and divine Laws of it Mortification and Self-denial Justice and Temperance Humility and Patience Meekness and Charity Love and Good-will subduing our Humours and bridling our Passions and bringing our Spirits under Discipline and framing our Minds more and more to a relish and delight in holy Exercises to a love of God to a contempt of the World to an ardent desire to be admitted into that Coelestial State above This is the true divine Life and Spirit that becomes all the Professors of the Gospel that should be their chief End and their great and earnest Care as they would walk worthy of that holy Name whereby they are called And when all is done after all our talk and dispute after all our heats and contests after all our Books and Writings there is nothing so effectual to make God our Friend nothing so much adorns our Excellent Protestant Religion and better secures it to us and our Posterity In a word nothing treasures up so much solid Peace and holy Assurance unto our Souls as the sincere honest application of our selves to the Practicals of RELIGION FINIS ERRATVM Pag. 23. in the Margin read Thom. Beacon 1 Sam. 7. 16. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ver. 8. Ver. 9. Ver. 10. Ver. 11. Ex. 1. 14. Ch. 2. 23. Tho. Deacon in his Preface to his Iewel of Ioy. Psal. 103. 2 3. Heb. 12. 14. Heb. 13. 20. Rom. 14. 22. Gilbert Foliot God. Caral of Bishops