Selected quad for the lemma: hand_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
hand_n	call_v	great_a	lord_n	4,634	5	3.5073	3	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A42366	A sermon preach'd at St. Michael Crooked-Lane September the 8th. 1700 Upon occasion of the death of His Illustrious Highness the Duke of Gloucester· By James Gardiner, M.A. rector of the said parish.	Gardiner, James, 1637-1705.	1700 (1700)	Wing G227A; ESTC R202270	13,434	29

us not only that there are the Abjects † Ps 35.15 the Lowest of the People * 1 Kings 12.31 Children of base Men viler then the Earth † Job 30.8 and on the other side that there are the Mighty of the Land * 2 Kings 24.15 the Honourable Person † Isa 9.15 Men of high Degree * 1 Chr. 17.13 the Shields of the Earth ‖ Ps 47.9 So Great that they are called Mountains of Israel † Ezek. 36.1 and so high that their Height is like the Height of Cedars * Amos 2.9 And brand them for Hereticks who speak Evil of Dignities ‖ Jude 8. or Blaspheme Glories as the Greek Words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifie But moreover they declare unto us how that these Distinctions are Instituted by God By Me Kings Reign and Princes decree Justice by me Princes Rule and Nobles even all the Judges of the Earth † Prov. 8.15 16. Again Let every Soul be Subject to the Higher Powers for there is no Power but of God the Powers that be are Ordain'd of God * Rom. 13.1 If there were not a Distin guishing Dignity to be ascribed to Persons of Sublime Place but all Men must be alike and brought down to a Par Why is Joseph called the Second Man in the Kingdom Joseph of Arimathea an Honourable Councellour Festus spoken of by the way of Noble And the dear Jesus himself compar'd to a Nobleman WAS there ever any Nation heard of that allow'd not Degrees and Terms of Distance That cannot give most clear Images and Impressions of them to very good Advantage AND well it is for the Children of Men that Providence hath so order'd it since it is impossible in the Nature of the Thing that any Civil Society should subsist or Nation support it self where there is neither Government nor Order neither Managery Guidance nor Superiority And therefore They that would thus Democratically argue and turn the World into a Dividend are pernicious Neighbours wherever they are and this Determination is both Just and plain upon them viz. That He that cannot be content to have less or be less then another is altogether unfit not only to be as Great or to injoy as much as another but to be or to have any thing at all LET none therefore dare to wrest from you your Titles ye Men of Honour or the Distinctions of your Qualities ye Men of Renown maintain your Crests and your Rights for ye are Cedars and not the vile Crabstock nor the Brier and Thorn which cannot be taken with Hands but the Man that will touch them must be fenced with Iron and the Staff of a Spear 1. ONELY thus much may be insinuated we humbly presume that this Priviledge ought to teach the Nobleman Gratitude to say with Jacob I am less then the least of all thy Mercies with David Who am I O Lord and what is my Father's House that thou hast brought me hitherto A Cedar you are you say Look to the Rock our of which you were hewn and let the Praises of God be ever in your Mouth that hath caused your Lott to fall in such a good Place be thankful unto him and speak good of his Name for Waters of a full Cup for Silver Wings and Feathers of Gold for riding upon the high Places of the Earth Ascribe you Greatness to the Lord who hath set you among Princes and made you to Inherit the Throne of Glory If a Poor Man ought to bring a Turtle and Two young Pigeons the Great and Mighty cannot any way be excused under an Whole Burnt Offering an Heacatomb the Altar should Flame with Sacrifices to that God who hath made Him thus to differ 2. AGAIN thus much without Offence may be said that it ought to be Pious Greatness As Cedars they ought to be Trees of Righteousness * Isa 61.3 and full of Sap † Psal 104.16 They are called Fools to their Faces that have a Price in their Hands and yet will not permit Religious Practise to correspond with Ability How is God Almighty offended when He had planted a Noble Vine and it turned into a degenerate Plant It was dismal when Jeremy * Isa 61.3 went unto the Great Men thinking that they had known the Way of the Lord and the Judgments of their God and yet these altogether had broken the Yoke and burst the Bonds in sunder Bring unto the Lord O ye Sons of the Mighty Be ye Presidents of Religion let who will be Neglictive of their Duty For such Personages to degenerate is a Reproach and a shame not to be forgotten tho' They were born of a better Father then ever was Jupiter to use the Words of Menander 3. LASTLY Thus much from the Premises may be Suggested without offending against the Rules of Decency viz. That they ought to be as really servisable as their Order and Rank in the World bespeaks and justly demands That they be of a ductile Temper benign and placid in their Expressions the Cedar you know is not rough and knotty but smooth and pleasant sweet and obliging in deportment not swell'd with Conceit not strutting and looking down with Contempt upon the Creation but free and easie to be intreated making use of the soft still Voice like Great Moses who was the Meekest Man upon Earth and Mordecai who spake Peace to all his Seed Not Humoursome or supercilious not designing or reserved for themselves but useful as Cedars for the building of the Common-wealth not keeping their Timber within it's own Bark but ready and willing to have Pieces quarter'd out of it to rear up Structures of Honour to a Kingdom and to Repair the Breaches and the Old wast Places of their Native Soyl. If a Man's Country be like another God as Hierocles said then should a Man the Man of Splendour and Capacity especially be ever Sacrificing to this Numen always contriving how to be serviceable in his Circle before that Time comes when he shall be laid aside as Vseless amongst the other Rubbish of the World for Die he must as well as others Which naturally leads me to the consideration of the Second Proposition viz. 2. THAT Great Men must fall by the Stroak of Death and retire into their Graves as well as others The Loftiest Cedars in Lebanon and the Goodliest Oakes in Bashan must down as sure as the Sycamors in the Valley or Willows by the Water-brooks This Truth that God accepts not the Persons of Princes nor regards the Rich more then the Poor is Written indelebly in their very Dust and the One must be content to mingle Ashes with the Other It is to their Persons as it is to their Habitations Destruction takes hold upon Castles and Abbies as well as the Mud wall and Thatch of the Cottager Neither is it any more trouble for Death to pull the strongest Prince out of his Palace and that it will come to at

it were Mortify those Irregular and Deformed Excrescencies And the same shame would happen to Vs upon the Reflection that doth to the Bird upon the sight of the black Foot after it hath been spreading and perusing its gaudy Train of Feathers If indeed the Body which was from the Earth was to return to it no more it would be another matter and Pride would admit of a very fair Apology But the Law of Death runs thus c. All Honours Titles c. to the contrary in Any-wise notwithstanding Nor co'd all the Vain-gloriousness of an Haughty Herod exempt him from the stroak of the Destroyer or make him other than a louzy God * Acts 12. HEAR this all ye Guilded Potsheards of the Earth ye Great Ones that wo'd fain nestle in the Clouds and in your soaring Thoughts with that proud Persian Sapor write Brother to the Sun and Moon that have deify'd your selves in your own Imaginations of your Heaven upon Earth hear this and rouze your selves from your bewitching Dreams submit to what Sense and Reason and Experience and Scriptures speak so loud and disdain not to make it a Peice of Religion seeing the Grave expects you and bids its other Corps make Room to provide against that Hour when your Names shall be written in the Shell and you taken away by a kind of Ostracisme 2. IT is to Vs It speaks that we repose not our Confidence in any Son of Man let him appear never so big and lofty Because this will be to make Falshood our Refuge and to hide our selves under Vanity The Duty that we owe to those in Eminency is Faithfulness and Obedience not Considence and Trust Alas What can Dust do for Dust If the weak trust in the weak how shall it be made strong Affiance is an Act due from the Creature onely unto God whose is the Power and whose is the Dominion and an high Affront we offer his Majesty if when He lends us any of these Precious Jewels we deal as the Israelites did in the Wilderness and turn our Golden Ear-rings into an Idol And most certainly true it will be found in the Conclusion That never any Persons smarted more under the Disappointment of their towering Expectations than those very Men that made Flesh their Arm. The Troops of Tema looked the Companies of Sheba waited for them they were confounded because they had hoped they came thither and were ashamed † Job 6.19 20. CEASE we therefore from Man whose Breath is in his Nostrils for wherein is he to be accounted of * Isa 2.22 And let us follow that Advice which is given us by a great Prince from God † Psal 146.3 4. Put not your Trust in Princes nor in the Son of Man in whom there is no Help it is not tanti not worth the while His Breath goeth forth he returneth to his Earth in that day all his Thoughts perish * There is nothing in these words of an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Pope John 22d would gather out of them as tho' after Death his Soul should Sleep and think of Nothing What they express is that all his great glistering thoughts when alive at Death come to Nothing Happy is the Man that hath the God of Jacob for his Help whose hope is in the Lord his God which made Heaven and Earth the Sea and all that therein is which keepeth Truth for ever whose Name is from Everlasting † Isa 63.16 But altho' we are not to rely or stay upon them yet know this too that it is a Sin against all Conscience and Equity not to make doleful Resentments upon not to eye the hand of God in the Death of the Princes of the People which calls to mind the Third and last Proposition viz. 3. THAT the Death of Great and Public Persons sho'd be signally remarked and deeply lamented especially where it is precipitated and has not in it the Unavoidable reason of Old Age and the fulness of days It 's fit when such are taken away that their Death should be solemniz'd by a Tribute of Tears levied upon the Whole Kingdom Our Souls ought then to be Elemented as it were of nothing but Sadness and Sorrow and the Misfortune should command a Brinish Shower Can any Man forbid or fault this Holy Water Who would not be Baptiz'd in such a Fountain If that Tyrant John Basiliwic of Muscovy exacted Phialas sudore plenas the Sweat wiped off his Subjects Brows to be preserv'd in Glasses purely for Him to look upon Certainly it may be justly expected when a Vertuous Prince is taken away not onely that the Eye-lids should gush out and that the Publick Face of the Nation sho'd be bedew'd with Tears but that a Subsidy also sho'd be bottled up and kept in store in Remembrance of the Loss and the Severe Infliction THE Hearses of such Magnificent Persons have in all Ages been thus Mournfully Attended not onely of such who have dropt away with Age but theirs who have been blasted in the Tenderness of Youth * 2 Chron. 35.24 All Judah and Jerusalem Mourned for Josiah HOWL then Fir-Tree for the Cedar is fallen Doth it not grieve you all ye that pass by to see such a Goodly Plant lye on the Ground which but now stood with Admiration Can you go unconcernedly on the other side of the Way as the Priest and the Levite did by the Wounded Man and have no Sense or Impression of the Blow What! no more than That which Dies e'en let it Dye and that which falleth let it fall Nay which is worse can you be pleased at the stroak and express your Odious Joys at the Breach Like the Inhabitants of the Earth who rejoyced when the Two Witnesses were Kill'd and sent Gifts one to another † Rev. 11.10 O Cursed Insensibility O bitter Spirit O Ominous Presage of further Calamity When we were in the Dregs of Misery and Church and Nation lay as it were gasping under the Bitterness of Death Heaven took pity upon us and recover'd us by the Hand of our now Dread Sovereign and we all saw the Great things were done for Vs whereof we were Scandalously unthankful For which Iniquity we received of the Lord a just Punishment in the Death of the Late QVEEN But yet in the midst of that Judgment he remembred Mercy and as if we were a Land that the Lord our God careth for He extended Peace to it like a River and like a flowing Stream * Isa 66.12 But instead of a Religious Improvement of it the Land abounds in Transgressions and the City is full of Perverseness Insomuch that Death is come up again into our Windows and enter'd into our Palaces † Isa 4.11 and God hath taken away a Prince in his Anger So that our Condition too much resembles that of Jerusalem which the Mournful Prophet bewails in the 55th Chapter v. 18. There is none to guide her of all the Sons she hath brought forth neither is there any to take her by the hand of all the Sons she hath brought up And loth I am to say that this was the very Method God took when he Threatn'd to Stretch out the Line of Confusion and the Stones of Emptiness upon it The Nobles shall be called to the Kingdom and there sho'd be none there and all her Princes sho'd be nothing i. e. there sho'd be no Princes or Nobles left that shou'd be fit to take the Rule and Government upon them and then he tells them not Sarim but Sirin not Princes but Thorns s●o'd come up in her Palaces not Chorim but Chochim not Nobles but Brambles in the Fortresses thereof and it sho'd be an Habitation for Dragons and a Court for Owles God forbid that ever our Island sho●●d be made a Spectacle to Men and Angels in this respect Well! the Power is lodg'd in our own Hands by a Repentance in common happily to Prevent it O Repentance it is thou alone canst save us Help us Thou Joy of Angels and Crown of Nations Turn in unto us and let England take Shelter under thy Wings I will plant the Cedar and the Shittah-tree and the Myrtle and the Oyl-tree the Fir the Pine and the Box-tree together that ye may know and consider and understand that the Hand of the Lord hath done it * Isa 41.19 What tho' we be ranged under Contrary Perswasions and a Diversity of Judgments and Opinions is amongst us yet were our Hearts Vnited in the Fear of God could we Walk by the same Rule in turning to the Lord even this heavy Loss of the DVKE wo●●d soon be made up and God wo'd Continue to be Gracious to the Land thro' the Blood of Jesus which is Sprinkled upon Nations as well as Particular Persons And then let the Priests of Rome build Seven Altars and add Seven more to them and let them Offer upon Every One Seventy Times seven Bullocks and as many Rams Masses Reliques Candles Hosts and what they please let them Continue to Shake our Foundations with the Engine of their Brain and their Subtilty and call in all the Devils in Hell to their Consultation and Gather together the Kings of the Earth against us Tush it 's in vain and the Evil they Devise they shall not be able to perform for the Lord s with us and the God of Jacob is our Refuge To which God and Lord be Ascrib'd all Honour Power and Praise by both Worlds now and over Amen FINIS