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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	great_a	king_n	think_v	3,194	5	4.2887	3	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A40091	A sermon preached at the general meeting of Gloucestershire-men, for the most part inhabitants of the City of London in the Church of St. Mary le-Bow, December the 9th, 1684 / by Edward Fowler.	Fowler, Edward, 1632-1714.	1685 (1685)	Wing F1718; ESTC R10668	14,518	40

A SERMON PREACHED at the General Meeting OF Gloucestershire-MEN For the most part INHABITANTS OF THE City of London In the Church of St. Mary Le-Bow December the 9th 1684. By Edward Fowler D. D. LONDON Printed by T. B. for Braybazon Aylmer at the Sign of the Three Pidgeons in Cornhill M DC LXXXV TO MY Honoured COUNTRYMEN Mr. John Haynes Mr. Aaron Pengry Mr. Richard Bishop Mr. Gwynnet Freeman Mr. Edward Sandys Mr. Edward Davis Mr. Anthony Partridge Mr. Stephen Rose Mr. John Ferrers Mr. William Till The STEWARDS of the late Gloucestershire-FEAST Gentlemen THE Sermon which in complyance with your desire I Preached to a very Numerous Meeting of our Country-men and the Publishing of which you since Requested I here present you with And God grant that this plain Discourse Composed in a hurry of other Business may in some Measure Contribute to the better observance of the great Praecepts of Fearing God Honouring the King and Loving one another therein recommended and inforced Then shall I have great cause to be thankful as to Almighty God for His Blessing on this endeavour so to your selves for putting into my Hands this opportunity of doing good I am Gentlemen Your Affectionate Countryman and Humble Servant EDWARD FOWLER A SERMON PREACHED at the Gloucestershire-feast 1 Pet. 2. 17. Love the Brotherhood Fear God Honour the King THat the Religion of which our Lord Jesus is the Founder is most admirably fitted for the making Mankind as happy as they are capable of being in this world as well as in the world to come is a no less certainly true than common observation As also that it tends as much to the happiness of Societies and Bodies Politick as of single Persons And were I to give a Demonstration of this I should need to do more than propose to your consideration this one short Verse Honour all Men Love the Brotherhood Fear God Honour the King If Christians generally practised the four duties which our Blessed Lord by his Apostle St. Peter here enjoyneth if they gave all Men the respect due to Human Nature to the Relations they stand in to each other and the Rank and Circumstances God hath placed them in if they loved one another as Brethren the Children of the same Father indued with one common Nature and Redeemed by one Saviour if they Revered the Divine Majesty and dreaded the wilful Transgression of any one of his Laws and under God Honoured their Kings as his immediate Representatives and Vicegerents If I say Christians were generally as willing to put these Duties in Practice as they are to acknowledg their Obligation to them I need not tell you that to live in Christendom would be to live in a Heaven upon Earth and in all likelyhood in a short time the whole World would be taken into Christendom In the handling of this Text I shall begin with the duties of Fearing God and Honouring the King and spend the rest of my Discourse upon that of Loving the Brotherhood each of which three Arguments doth well suit with the occasion of this Meeting but more especially the Last In the Prosecution of these Words Fear God ' Honour the King I will endeavour to shew these three things First What it is to Fear God Secondly What to Honour the King Thirdly That there is a necessary Connexion between these two Fearing God and Honouring the King First We will shew and that very briefly what is implyed in this Precept Fear God 1. To Fear God is to be possessed with an holy Awe and Reverence of his Infinite Majesty of his Glorions Attributes and Perfections Particularly of His irresistible Boundless Power of his Absolute Dominion over us and the whole World of His infinite Wisdom and Knowledg of His unspotted Purity and Holiness of His uncorrupted Justice and His inexhaustible Goodness The Fear of God doth presuppose an hearty belief and acknowledgment that all these Perfections are in the Divine Nature and implyeth in the first Place the being affected with Awe and Reverence towards God upon the account of all these He who understandingly believes the Existence of God must necessarily believe Him to be a Being Absolutely Perfect and Consequently must believe that He hath all these Perfections Of this Natural Light assures men no less than Divine Revelation And therefore the Philosophers who were hearty Asserters of the Deity which the Epicuraeans were not as Tully confidently and with great reason affirms have abundantly Preached this Doctrine as well as the Prophets and Apostles concerning God And he I say that Fears God doth so believe this Doctrine hath so lively and vigorous a Sense of the Truth thereof as to have an holy Awe and Dread of the Divine Majesty upon his Spirit upon the account of the foresaid Perfections of His Nature Each of which singly and much more altogether do make Him an Object of the Greatest Reverence Awe and Fear and each of them doth necessarily attract Fear from him who Considers it You may Object that the last of these Perfections viz. the Divine Goodness doth not seem to be attractive of Fear but of Love and Gratitude I Answer That it is no less attractive of Fear than of Love and Gratitude Not of a Slavish but of a Fillial Fear which is founded on Love and Gratitude and necessarily results from them And therefore the Prophet Hosea ch 3. 5. praedicts concerning the Children of Israel that They shall fear the Lord and his Goodness in the latter days 2. The Fear of God implyeth also the Expressing of this inward Fear and Reverence in our Outward Conversations in all the Actions of our Lives And it is impossible where there is an holy Awe of God in the Heart but it must express it self in the Life In short This is in the general the true Character of the man that Feareth God He is one who escheweth Evil. It was part of Job's Character that He feared God and eschewed Evil which are two Phrases to express the same thing and so are departing from evil and fearing God Prov. 3. 7. Fear the Lord and depart from evil He that Fearetb God is one that though he may happen to transgress a Law of God before he is aware and may be surprized into a sin yet dares not sin deliberately nor allow himself in the doing of any thing which God hath forbidden nor in the neglecting of any thing God hath commanded And therefore he endeavours sincerely to acquaint himself with his whole Duty He is one who dreads more to offend the great God than to provoke the greatest of Men As knowing that these have done their worst when they have killed the Body whereas Almighty God is able to destroy both Soul and Body in Hell Which is our Saviours Motive to the making of God the object of our greatest Fear Mat 10. 28. The Man that feareth God is so affected with those words as to be incomparably most afraid of the evil of

Stock and have one Common-Nature In a more strict sence all Christians are Brethren All that prosess Faith in Christ and are Members of the Catholick Church These St. John calls the Brethren And all the Members of a Particular Church are Brethren in a stricter sense than that and in a stricter sense than this to descend no lower those Christians are called Brethren whose places of Birth and Habitation are so near together as to stand in need of one anothers more immediate Assistance and to be combined in all the same interests For instance those of the same Town City or County Now though by the Brotherhood which in this place we are required to Love beonly to be understood Christians because Brotherhood is here distinguisht from all Men Honour all Men Love the Brotherhood Yet nothing is more evident from the Praecepts of our Saviour and His Holy Apostles than that 't is our duty to love that is to be concerned for the Welfare and Happiness of all Men without exception And 't is as evident that we are obliged to love our Fellow-Christians in an higher degree than the rest of the World and that according as Christians are more or less like to Christ as also according to the more or fewer Relations they stand in to us 't is no less evident they ought to be sharers in the degrees of our Love And what Duty is so often inculcated so vigorously urged so passionately pressed by our Blessed Lord and his Apostles as this of Loving each other Our Lord hath told us That a new Commandment he hath given us That we love one another even as He hath loved us That is at least that we love all Universally as He did and that in such a degree as to tast Death the most ignominious and torturing Death for every Man And he makes this the great Mark and Character of His true Disciples By this shall all Men know that ye are my Disciples if you have love one to another And so desirous was He that they should not be defective in his Grace of Love that among all the excellent Petitions He put up for them when He was upon leaving the World John 17th this is the only Grace He particularly prays for in their behalf v. 21st He prays That they may be one even as He and his Father are one That they all may be one as thou Father art in me and I in thee That they may be United in Love and Affection have one Heart and one Soul And the reason for which he desires this doth mightily recommend this Grace That they also may be one in us that the World may believe that thou hast sent me In which words is implied that Christians loving one another would be a great Conviction to the World of the truth and excellency of the Christian Religion And so it was in the first Ages of Christianity when as Tertullian reporteth it was a common saying among the Pagans Ecce quam se diligunt Christiani Behold how these Christians love one another Though almost ever since the three first Centuries to our horrible reproach be it spoken we have given them cause to cry out Ecce quàm se odio prosequuntur Christiani Behold how these Christians hate one another But to proceed our Lord 's Beloved Disciple thought he could never speak highly enough of this Grace of Love For he makes it the very Definition of God himself He tells us That Love is of God and every one that loveth is born of God and knoweth God And we know saith he that we are passed from Death to Life because we love the Brethren And that He that loveth not his Brother abideth in Death Or he is a wicked Wretch and that He who hateth his Brother is a Murtherer Nor is St. Paul wanting in pressing this duty of Love Owe saith he no Man any thing but to love one another For he that loveth another hath fulfilled the Law Or this is that Perfection of the Law which Christ requires And he shews in the following words that the whole second Table is herein implyed And in short the same Apostle preferreth Charity to all Accomplishments and Endowments whatsoever To the speaking with the Tongues of Men and Angels To gifts of Prophecy and Understanding all Mysteries To all Faith even the Faith of Miracles nay to the greatest Zeal such a Zeal as will carry a Man evcn to the Stake And he sheweth that Charity is so much to be esteemed above all these that they are none of them worth any thing or will avail in the least without Charity 1 Cor. 13th Chap. Much more might be added to shew what mighty weight is laid upon this duty of loving one another But it sufficiently appears by this little that hath been said I have told you what our Blessed Saviour the stupendious example and pattern of love and what two of His Apostles say of it I might add that there is no one thing wherein Mankind do more Universally agree than in the beneficialness of Love and Friendship both to single Persons and Communities That excellent Heathen Cicero in his Laelius tells us That although many do contemn Vertue it self and others despise Riches and Honours yet de Amicitia omnes ad unum idem sentiunt the whole World to a Man hath the self same opinion of Love and Friendship That is of the excellency and the necessity thereof to the happiness of Mankind And before these words he saith That they seem to pluck the Sun out of the Firmament who rob humane Life of Love and Friendship than which we receive nothing from the Immortal Gods that 's more excellent or more pleasant And he makes it in the same Book his request to his Friends That they would prefer Friendship before all humane things So that what ought to be so coveted so earnestly pursued I say so earnestly pursued for this Love of each other accompanied with the Love of God is that which mainly constitutes the Heavenly State All that we know saith the Poet the Blessed do above Is that they Sing and that they Love But it being an old Maxim Contraria juxta se posita mag is elucescunt I cannot more Endear Love and Friendship to you than by presenting you with some of the most mischievous Effects and Consequents of the contrary Vices ill Will and Malice Strife and Emulation c. 1. I will mind you of some of those by which the Community must needs greatly Suffer One is Wicked Partiality What Moses saith of a Gift or Bribe is every whit as true of ill-will emulation c. viz. It blindeth the Eyes of the Wise and perverteth the Judgment of the Righteous Nothing is more natural to men that are at variance and strife than to Saint all on their own side and to Reprobate their Adversaries and when they have so done no wonder if they see no Sin in those and deal with these in this