Selected quad for the lemma: city_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
city_n	bishop_n	church_n	rome_n	9,289	5	7.3911	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A67574	Seven sermons preached by the Right Reverend Father in God, Seth Lord Bishop of Sarum.	Ward, Seth, 1617-1689.	1674 (1674)	Wing W830; ESTC R38484	145,660	578

the Spirit to preach the Word in Asia II. And for the Conviction of the unbelieving World They had diversities of gifts and different Administrations To one was given the Word of Wisdom to another the Word of Knowledge to another Faith to another the gift of Healing to another Miracles Prophesies Discerning of Spirits The gift of Tongues As it is in the words which I quoted God bare them witness with gifts of the Holy Ghost and with Signs and Wonders and that he did so far that I shall be justified by Christ himself if I shall affirm that the Apostles after his death did greater miracles then he himself did in his life Of the same kind with our Saviours some they performed by means having an appearance of greater strangeness Christ healed by his touch his word his spittle Peter by his Shadow Paul by Handkerchiefs taken from his body But one great thing there was wherein they exceeded The Great and Manifest and frequent Effusions of the Spirit the Reception of it upon themselves the communication of it to others by Prayer Preaching Laying on of Hands By these it was that the unbelieving world was convinced and even Simon Magus himself It is by the power and Vertue of those effusions that we are here met together at this time that the World continues Christian at this day And these are some of those standing means and Arguments whereby the proneness of our hearts to infidelity may be overcome and faith may be begotten confirmed recovered at this day These are therefore to be revolved Exhort one another dayly To come therefore to a Conclusion My text it self is an Application by way of Exhortation Exhortations are enforced by Reasons of Duty and Concernment and these I have hitherto endeavoured to lay before you If indeed there were no Sinfulness in Infidelity Or if in such times as ours it were excusable If there were no danger of falling into it or no means left to remedy or prevent it it would then indeed be to little purpose to Exhort men to beware But if the state of all these things is otherwise if that be plain and evident agreeable to Scripture to Reason and to Experience if the Speaker hath not beaten the Air nor the heaters been careless and inattentive I know not what can be required to enforce and sharpen the exhortation If the time would suffer it and I were speaking to a Common or Injudicious Auditory I might think my self concerned after all that hath been spoken to the understanding to Apply my discourse to your affections I should take unto me the various forms of Application used in this Epistle I would Reprove Rebuke Exhort I would cry aloud and would not spare I would lift up my voice like a Watchmans trumpet warning you from the Lord concerning the Spirit of irreligion and infidelity which is said to have overspread the land I would take to my self a Lamentation yea it should be for a Lamentation for the Professors of Infidelity and the Infidelity of Professors every where But I may not now be permitted to enlarge upon these things I may only pray to God to give you understanding in all things and beseech you earnestly to consider what hath been spoken Concluding in the words of the Text Take heed brethren lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God Exhort one another dayly FINIS Die Jovis 11 o Octobris 1666. ORdered by the Lords Spiritual and Temporal in Parliament assembled That the thanks of this House be given to the Lord Bishop of Exon. for his Pains in the Service he performed in Preaching a Sermon before the Peers in the abby-Abby-Church at Westminster yesterday being the day appointed by His Majesty for Fasting and Humiliation in consideration of the late Dreadful Fire which wasted the greater part of the City of London And that his Lordship be and is hereby desired to Print and Publish his said Sermon John Browne Cler. Parliam A SERMON Preached before the PEERS IN THE abby-Abby-Church at Westminster October 10 th M. DC LXVI BY SETH then Lord Bishop of EXON LONDON Printed by A. C. for James Collins at the Kings Arms within Ludgate near St. Pauls 1672. A SERMON Preached before the House of Peers AT WEST MINISTER ECCLES xi 9. But know that for all these things God will bring thee to Judgment Rejoyce O young man c. THE great and general design of the Ministry and preaching of the Gospel is to bring men to Christianity not in the outward profession but in the true spirit and power thereof to the end they may be justified and sanctified and finally saved through Christ for ever The Particular design of this Dayes Observation is to humble our selves under the mighty hand of God in Consideration of his Judgments especially that late one in consuming with Fire the Ancient and noble Metropolis of this Nation and to endeavour to appease the wrath of God gone out against us To compass both these designs whereof the later is subordinate to the former I know no better expedient than to reason a while upon that important argument suggested in the Text. Who can think upon the Conflagration of our late Glorious City and not call to mind the great and terrible day of Judgment Who can think seriously of Judgment and not be compelled to come in driven to Christianity that he may be saved from the wrath to come The great Instructor and Example of Christian Preachers he who saith of himself that Christ sent him to preach and not to baptize found no means so powerful to perswade men to Christianity as to reason upon this argument as first to lay before them the terror of Judgment and then whilst that was warm upon their hearts to make them a tender of the Gospel This is the great advantage and use the Apostle makes of the Doctrine of the Text. We must all appear saith he before the Judgment-seat of Christ Knowing therefore the terrour of the Lord we perswade men Upon these Considerations I shall hope for the pardon of this Noble Auditory if without affectation of Science I shall in a practical and familiar way of reasoning indeavour to imitate our Apostle in this particular If in the mean time it will be irksome and unpleasant to hear of the Judgment to come we shall do well to consider what it will be to undergo it we shall do well to reflect upon our Souls and search out the ground of this aversness Is it because we do not believe a Judgment to come or that we our selves shall be brought to Judgment Is it because we never consider who it is before whom me must appear or what things will be charged on our account Is it because we are so far gone in our arrears that it is to no purpose to call these things into our remembrance What ever it be we may perhaps hear of that

seems to many very improbable and therefore they say that the words are a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and that the Apostle in saying that he was not ashamed of the Gospel intended to signifie that he exulted and gloried in it Indeed we finde our Apostle not only in his other Epistles and in his Apologies but in this Epistle to the Romans often magnifying his Office and glorying in the Ministry of the Gospel which he had received he styles it the light of the glorious Gospel a Ministration exceeding glorious and professes that if he should boast of his Authority he should not be ashamed Yet with submission to better Judgements I humbly conceive that he is not so to be understood in this place Though the Epistle was directed to those at Rome which were already Christians yet this passage was put in with reference to others to whom the Epistle was to be communicated persons not yet converted to Christianity To them who were already called to be Saints whose Faith was spoken of throughout the World to talk of not being ashamed of the Gospel had been a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 very incongruous But on the other side for him who by his original Commission was constituted the Apostle of all the Gentiles made a debtor to them all as he sayes to the Wise as well as unwise to the Greeks and Romans as well as the Barbarians That he who in pursuance of this Commission had already planted the Gospel amongst the more Barbarous Nations from Antioch in Syria as far as Lystra and Derbe Cities of Lycaonia and among the Greeks in all the chief Cities of Macedonia and Achaia from Jerusalem round about unto Illyricum so that nothing now remained but to Preach at Rome as he speaks Emphatically at Rome also That he whose Preaching was not in a way of Humane wisdom or excellency of speech in the way either of Rhetorical Harangue or Philosophical argumentation intending to preach at Rome the Seat of the Empire of the World the Resort of the Noble the Mighty and the Wise of all those who in the Phrase of our time are styled the Beaux esprits the Wits and Braveries of the World Briefly that St. Paul who knew the Prejudices which these men had against the Gospel and with what Contempt and Scorn they generally looked upon it as a Dispensation whereof a man ought to be ashamed That St. Paul who as it appears by all his Epistles and Orations well understood the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Congruity and decency of speaking or of writing intending before he should conclude after he should have evinced the Excellency of the Gospel to take strength and confidence and glory in his Ministration Being yet in his Prooemium only whose Office is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by a modest and smooth insinuation to make way for his Discourse which was to follow I say that in this place of his Epistle he should take notice of the Prejudices which lay against the Gospel and plainly and clearly without a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Anticipate and Obviate the imagination that he ought to be ashamed of it This I humbly conceive to be most agreeable to the design and Character of St. Paul and that according to this interpretation we ought here to consider I. A supposal in the Romans intimating the prejudices against ●●e Gospel And therein 1. A thing imagined that Paul would not adventure to Preach the Gospel at Rome 2. The reason of the imagination an Opinion that he would be ashamed II. A removal or Amolition of that supposal intimating the Iniquity of those Prejudices viz. A Removal of 1. The thing that was imagined I am ready to preach the Gospel even at Rome 2. And of the imaginary reason of the supposition For I am not afhamed of the Gospel III. The Grounds and Reasons of this Amolition And these are drawn from two heads and adjuncts of the Gospel 1. Necessarily implied and presupposed and that is Veritatis evidentia if the Gospel were not the truth of God it could not be the power of God 2. Explicitely and expresly proposed and that is Virtutis excellentia it is the Power of God to Salvation and that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to every one that believeth I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ for it is the power of God to Salvation to every one that believeth So that I am to speak of these two general Heads I. Of the Prejudices against the Gospel II. Of the Iniquity and unreasonableness of those Prejudices From whence it will follow that we ought to Preach the Gospel and not to be ashamed Concerning which things I shall not endeavour at a Rhetorical Harangue but crave leave that I may be admitted to speak in a plain and humble Analytical and Didactical way of discourse I. Then I am to speak of those Prejudices against the Gospel from whence it is by some persons imagined that the Ministers of the Gospel ought to be ashamed of it And herein I shall 1. Shew that there alwayes have been and alwayes will be such Prejudices against the Gospel 2. Enquire what it is in the Systeme of the Gospel which is the special object of these Prejudices 3. Then make a brief reflection upon the nature and symptomes of the Prejudices 4. And upon the Characters of the persons most obnoxious to them 1. First That there alwayes have been and alwayes will be Prejudices against the Gospel and an imagination in some persons that Ministers and Christians ought to be ashamed of it is so deplorably manifest that I need not insist upon either the proof or declaration of it That it is and hath been alwayes so it is not only the unhappy complaint of the present Age but hath been of every Age and Generation since the first Promulgation of the Gospel And that it will be so we have an infallible assurance from Christ and his Apostles That the latter dayes shall be times of Infidelity and departure from the Faith that there will be Scoffers at the Gospel and cruel Mockers we have the assurance of the Apostles St. Paul St. Peter and St. Jude That when the Son of man shall come to judge the World he shall hardly finde Faith on the Earth we have the Prediction of our Lord Christ himself Briefly and summarily our Lord Christ in several places of the Gospel declares and supposes that many will be offended at him that they will be ashamed of him and of his words both of his Person and of his Gospel Our Apostle declares that he himself is not ashamed exhorts Timothy not to be ashamed commends Epaphroditus that he was not ashamed St. Peter exhorts those that suffered for the Gospel not to be ashamed If there had not been an imagination in the world that they ought to have been ashamed to what end were all these