Selected quad for the lemma: england_n

Word A Word B Word C Word D Occurrence Frequency Band MI MI Band Prominent
england_n council_n lord_n privy_a 4,231 5 10.1951 5 true
View all documents for the selected quad

Text snippets containing the quad

ID Title Author Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) STC Words Pages
A61281 Sermons preach'd upon several occasions never before published / by George Stanhope ... Stanhope, George, 1660-1728. 1700 (1700) Wing S5233; ESTC R15305 178,532 482

There is 1 snippet containing the selected quad. | View lemmatised text

SERMONS PREACH'D UPON Several Occasions BY GEORGE STANHOPE D.D. Chaplain in Ordinary to his Majesty Never before Published LONDON Printed for Dan. Midwinter and Tho. Leigh at the Rose and Crown Ri. Wilkin at the King's Head and Rob. Knaplock at the Angel and Crown all in St. Paul's Church-Yard MDCC TO THE MOST REVEREND Father in GOD THOMAS By Divine Providence Lord Arch-Bishop of Canterbury Primate of all England and Metropolitan and One of the Lords of his Majesty's most Honourable Privy Council May it Please Your Grace THAT the few following Discourses may have the Privilege of recommending themselves to the World by the Honour of your Grace's Protection Of which how undeserving soever the Quality of the Performance may be yet the Design I assure my self is every way worthy a Patron of your Grace's Goodness and Character For this is purely to enforce a serious and active Application of Mind to those Practical Duties of Religion wherein the very Life and true Excellence of Christianity consists In order hereunto I have endeavoured to remove some of those false Pretences whereby Men olther suffer themselves to be diverted from the most necessary and useful parts of Religion or are supported in a Wicked Course or are apt to be discouraged in a Good One. And I hope these Matter● are I am sure I intended they should be stated in perfect Agreement with the Sense of that Church which Your Grace while in an inferiour Station did adorn with so conspicuous a Piety Vigilance and every Pastoral Vertue and whereof the Good Providence of God hath now so deservedly advanced You to be the Common Spiritual Father But Besides the Right Your Grace hath to the Work it self You have also a very particular one to the Author Whose Labours have been all along favoured with your Countenance and Encouragement and Who ever since your Promotion to the Episcopal Order hath had the Happiness to live under Your Grace's Inspection formerly in Your Diocesan and now in Your Metropolitical Capacity These my Lord are sufficient Inducements for my offering this Tribute of Gratitude and Filial Obedience and will not suffer me to doubt the favorable Acceptance of a Publick Acknowledgment upon so many Accounts your Due In which I shall detain Your Grace no longer than while I beg you to believe that I esteem my self in a peculiar manner obliged not only by my hearty Prayers to Almighty God for his constant Blessing and extraordinary Assistance upon all Your Grace's Designs for the Good of his Church committed to your Charge but by every Instance of Reverence and Duty in my Power to approve my self My LORD Your Grace's most Obedient Son and Servant Geo. Stanhope PREFACE MY Reader had been spared the Trouble of a Preface were it not that I think he may receive some Advantage towards profiting by the following Sermons from having a short Scheme laid before him of my general Design and of that Dependence which these Discourses though composed at several times and upon very different Occasions yet as now connected in one Volume have upon each other The End I proposed to my self was the the perswading Men to the diligent and constant Practice of Religion by endeavouring to draw them off from such Courses and Opinions as seem more especially to obstruct or discourage it Serm. I. And therefore the First Step I make is to shew the Necessity and Vsefulness of attending to the plain Preceptive Parts of the Scripture in Opposition to that wrangling and speculative Humour so predominant in this Age As if the Perfection of a Wise and Good Man were to be placed only in exalted Notions deep Enquiries and skill in dark and controverted Points Which indeed are so far from making the generality of those who attend to them the better that one would almost be tempted to think by the modern way of managing these Matters they scarce leave them the Spirit of Christians Serm. II. Hence I proceed in the Second Sermon to explain the Measures of that Purity which the Gospel requires in the Conversation of every one who would abandon a wicked Course in good earnest Serm. III. For an Encouragement to which difficult Vndertaking my Third treats of the Justice and Mercy of God in distributing the Advantages of the Evangelical Dispensation as our Lord hath represented them in the Parable of those Labourers who were hired into the Vineyard at the Eleventh Hour Serm. IV. But being well aware withal how perverse a Vse might be made of that Parable I esteem'd it my Duty from the Instance of the Thief upon the Cross to lay open those Cheats Men too frequently put upon themselves by a false Application of such Encouragements as the Scripture is supposed to allow a Late or Death-Bed Repentance Hoping that these Considerations might be effectual for bringing my Reader to a Sight and serious Sense of the Necessity of a speedy Reformation Ser. V VI. I thought the Frailty of Humane Nature and an Account of those Ingredients which make up a true Repentance might follow very seasonably which St. Peter's Fall and Recovery may serve for a convenient Illustration of Moreover in regard the Scriptures speak of a very remarkable Change effected by the Spirit of God in our Hearts which by Reason of its Agent and Operation being invisible hath been by Some exploded and denyed as a Fanciful Notion by Others misinterpreted to the great hazard of Souls for an Almighty Necessary and Instantaneous Act Serm. VII VIII The Next Thing that seem'd requisite was to maintain the Certainty to illustrate the Manner and to shew the Priviledges and Conditions of this spiritual Regeneration In all which Argument the Truth ows so much to the accurate Labours of a late learned and excellent Person of our own Church Dr. Clag Operations of the Spirit that it is hard for any Man who treats of this Subject after him not to tread more closely in his Steps than such as read more for Entertainment than Edification are like to be very well contented with Having thus led my Reader gradually to the Change from an Vnregenerate to the truly Christian State I thought it reasonable to consider some of those Difficulties which might check his vigorous Advances in it Ser. IX X. Among these the First are those erroneous Principles which I have endeavoured to refute by shewing the true Importance of the Parable of the Marriage Feast and what Inferences may fairly be drawn from thence for setting the Ordinary Methods of a Christian's Calling and Election in their true Light Serm. XI And then from another Passage of the like Parable in St. Luke I proceed to urge the Necessity of Religion and a strict and constant Regard to it upon the Men who plead Worldly Business and Lawful Cares in excuse for their Neglect of Spiritual Duties But some there are of a Complexion so different from those last mentioned that they think they