Selected quad for the lemma: head_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
head_n	church_n	member_n	mystical_a	3,558	5	10.4248	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A59749	Ta proz eirenen, the things that belong unto peace, or, A seasonable discourse for these factious times delivered lately in a sermon before the judges at St. Maries in Nottingham at the assizes there, and now printed at the command of some persons of honour ; to which is annexed A short and modest apology for the author and book of the several weighty considerations, humbly recommended to the serious perusal of all, but more especially to the Roman Catholicks of England, by Thomas Sheppey ...	Sheppey, Thomas.	1682 (1682)	Wing S3221; ESTC R33738	21,949	42

God's and Man's Nature together which were before at such vast distance and by Grace he re-unites the Will of God and the Wills of Men which were so contrary And now you see what reason there is we should study to be Quiet since Peace and Quietness are the very end for which the Son of God came into the World did and suffer'd so much and at his last Departure bequeath'd it to his Church for his richest Legacy And therefore he that doth not make this his study doth as much as in him lies to frustrate the whole Course that God hath taken with us and to render the Bloud of the Son of God of no effect And yet for all this wicked and Turbulent Men will not be quiet with any like Ishmael their hand is against every man and every mans hand against them They are at War with themselves by the disorder of their Passions at War with their Neighbour by quarrels and discord at War with God by disobedience They are uneasy and unquiet on all hands From God they are troubled with the dreadful threats of his Justice from Man they meet with a thousand disturbances and contradictions and from themselves with infinite disquietudes But good Men Gods Children are at perfect Peace with all with themselves by due curbing in their Passions with their Neighbours by perfect Love and Amity and with God by an Universal Obedience to his Commandments They are at quiet with themselves by submitting the Flesh to the Spirit Lust to Reason the Inferiour part to the Superiour For as in a Consort of Musicians the Harmony proceeds from this that every Voice keeps its own part so in Man when the flesh is kept under and the Soul permitted to reign from this due Order and observance as from a Consort of Voices proceeds the sweet harmony of interiour Quietness And as a Musick-Master is continually attentive to keep every Voice in its due rank to elevate those that are too low and depress those that are too shrill thus Reason in Man must keep a strict eye over the Body and keep it from mounting too high and disturbing the Harmony And this was our Apostle's great secret when he found the flesh rebell against the Spirit Castigo corpus meum in servitutem redigo Thus by captivating our flesh and subduing our Passions Reason will command the Soul will reign and maintain the Microcosm in perfect Peace and Unity But man being in the Philosophers phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Creature shaped out for Converse and Society he can no ways keep peace with himself if he be not at quiet with his Neighbour As one member of the body ruines its self if it attempt to loosen that which fastens it to the rest of the Members And de facto there are no persons so uneasy and unquiet as envious Persons Riotous Debauch'd Seditious Men who make it their study to sow Dissentions 'T is true they are a trouble and vexation to their Neighbour but a far greater torment to their own Souls and while they scatter abroad the seeds of War and Tumult they reap the first fruits of it in themselves And thus both Nature and Reason teach us that if we desire to be happy and injoy Repose and Tranquillity in our selves we must study to be quiet with our Neighbour But especially we are obliged to this Duty since the Son of God who so dearly purchased this Peace for us hath so earnestly commended it to our practice by his own Doctrine which breaths nothing but Peace and by his own example who truly acted as the Prince of Peace and in his commands by the mouth of his Apostle that we should keep the Unity of the Spirit in the Bond of Peace and from the Nature of the Church it self which is but one Body whereof the Holy Ghost is the Soul and Jesus Christ the Head and the faithful are the Members Love is the life of this Body and Peace and Quietness that band that ties one Member to another and all to the Head Who ever yet saw in one and the same Body one Member war against another And yet both in the mystical Body of the Church and the Political Body of the State what more ordinary than for Christians who are all Members of this Body to bite and devour one another It belongs to none but Madmen and Desperadoes to tear their own flesh and rend out their own Bowels And yet every day presents us with Christians snarling at each other nay man becomes a Wolf to his Neighbour one member devours another and what would be accounted a prodigy in Nature is become a familiar spectacle in Religion But let such Persons flatter themselves with what specious pretences they please we are assured they cannot be Members of Jesus Christ the Prince of Peace but limbs of Satan the Father of Dissention no Children of God whom they hypocritically profess but of the Devil whom they so exactly imitate They belong not to the Heavenly Jerusalem the Temple of Peace but to Hell the Mansion of Tumult and Theatre of Confusion God in the old Law commanded us to love our Neighbour as our selves and Jesus Christ renewed it in the Gospel A new Commandment I give unto you that you Love one another And he hath extended this Love even to our Enemies themselves But I say unto you love your Enemies Desiring to establish a firm Peace among Men as he had done between God and Man But alas May we not complain with Linacer Aut hoc non est Evangelium aut nos non sumus Christiani Either this is not Gospel or we are not Christians We are at this time so far from studying to be Quiet from minding the Things that belong to Peace that we seem to want that Love that is between Beast and Beast If one Sheep faint the rest will stand betwixt it and the Sun to shelter it If a Swine be injured the whole Herd will muster together to revenge the Jujury Natural Historians are full of examples of grateful Lyons kind Eagles and trusty Dogs ready to dy both for and with their Masters In holy Writ we read of Elijah fed by Ravens and of Daniel not hurt among Lyons Sed O detestandam Humanae Malitiae Crudelitatem Aves pascunt ferae parcunt Homines saeviunt as the blessed Martyr St. Cyprian complain'd in his time Or as holy David in his Ill minded Men imagining mischief in their heart and stirring up strife all the day long Their throat is an open Sepulchre the poyson of Asps is under their Lips Their mouth is full of Cursing and bitterness c. their teeth are Spears and Arrows and their tongue a sharp Sword Psalm 20. More sharp saies S. Bernard de Tripl Custod than the Spear which pierc'd our Saviour's side for it doth not onely wound Christs mystical Body but even rent it in pieces making as Many factions in the Kingdom as there are Offices and

in the Church as many Creeds as Heads Destruction and Unhappiness is in all their ways and the way of Peace they have not known In their bed appointed for rest they study how to be Turbulent and travel with mischief and bring forth Ungodliness These these are the Troublers of our Israel the Thorns in our Eyes and the Goads in our sides the very Firebrands and Bellows of Sedition But we hope better things of You and things that accompany Salvation though we thus speak And though for the Divisions of Reuben there are great thoughts of heart Yet we will leave this Point and these wicked Men who are like the troubled Sea when it cannot rest whose waters cast up Mire and Dirt and proceed to something that may prove an expedient to these growing mischiefs and that shall make up the last part of this Discourse and it is this The best way to maintain Quiet between God and Man between Man and Man and in a Man 's own Breast is to put in execution the Apostles advice here that we every one do our own Business Wherein the Apostle recommends to us Diligence in our Calling thereby excluding Idleness and that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or intermedling with other Mens Affairs We must be busy but in our own Concerns And then withal by the near Connexion of this with what went before Studying to be quiet is intimated that the more busy we are at home the more quiet we are like to be abroad Man saith the Scripture is born to Labour as the sparks flye upward And though every good and perfect gift be from above yet we must not neglect Industry in our Station and Calling The Husbandman must rise up early and sit up late and eat the bread of carefulness and then he may prudently expect that his Gainers may be filled with all manner of store that his Sheep may bring forth thousands and ten thousands in his Fields that his Oxen may be strong to labour and that there may be no decay in his Cattle Every man must attend his Office the Seaman must look to his Ship and the Tradesman to his Shop that so he may eat the Labours of his hands The Glorious Angels themselves though Spirits yet are Ministring Spirits ordained for the Praise of God and the Service of his Church Even in the state of Innocency Man was placed in the Garden of Eden to dress it as well as to keep and injoy it And this Diligence is to be used says Solomon Prov. 6.11 Lest Poverty come on thee as one that travelleth and necessity like an armed Man That is to say If thou mind not thy business Beggery will assault thee so suddenly so violently that thou canst not resist it All that belong to Gods Vineyard must be Labourers All are Stewards in his Family And as for the Magistrate in particular his business is so great that it made St. Chrysostom exclaim Miror si quis Rectorum salvari possit Nay it is Observable that Gods way of proceeding with his own People the Israelites puts every man in mind of his doing his business For though he could very easily have rained down on them loaves ready baked and fit to eat yet he rain'd down Manna which being scattered about the fields was with no small labour to be gathered together to be bruised in a Mortar or some other way and so formed into Loaves and baked that so at the same time he might supply their wants and teach them Diligence But if to the Temporal Concerns of a Man you adjoyn the spiritual necessities and Eternal Interests of a Christian you will ex abundanti as we say be convinced of the great Reason St. Paul had to press this Duty of looking to our Business I will instance but in that one business of Repentance wherein a Man must unravel his whole Life it is the leading a new Life a putting off the old Man and putting on the New an utter extirpation of all superfluity of Naughtyness and an Address to and a finall passage through all the Passages of Holy Living We have all our accounts to make even between God and our own Souls The Duty of Repentance without which we shall All perish consists of many Parts and so much imployment that it requires much Time and leaves a Man in the same degree of hope of Pardon as is his Restitution to the state of Righteousness and holy Living And who ever hath made the experiment will find that it is not so easy a business to root out the habits of many inveterate Sins which a Man hath contracted through the whole Course of his Life We find it work enough to mortify one beloved Lust in our very best advantages of strength and Time In so much that we read in the lives of the Antient Hermits of a famous Ascetick who having spent many years in that one Verse of the Psalmist I said I will look to my ways that I offend not with my Tongue yet acknowledged he was far from having attained that very Lesson And yet a defect in that very business is able to evaporate all our Religion for he that bridles not his Tongue that Mans Religion is in Vain To which we may annex the Command of the Apostle that we use all Diligence to add to our Faith Vertue and to our Vertue Knowledg and to Knowledg Temperance and to Temperance Patience and to Patience Godliness and to Godliness Brotherly Kindness and to Brotherly Kindness Charity Now certainly Sirs who ever seriously weighs these things will presently cry out who is sufficient for these things Life is short Art is Long the mystery of Godliness is no such easy Trade as many dream of And therefore the Apostles Counsel is most reasonable here To study to do our own Business and onely our own Business for I think we have enough to do However one Caution must necessarily be here interposed and it is not mine but that of a late Excellent Prelate of the Church of England It may be a fault and a great one too so to do our own Business as not to regard what becomes of others So our own turn be served and we get by it no matter who loses This is deservedly prohibited by our Apostle himself Philip. 2.4 Look not every man on his own things but every man also on the things of others and v. 24. he complains that All seek their own and not the things that are Jesus Christs And therefore our own here and our own there are two different Things That which he blames there is our Own of Interest there may be too much of our own in that But what he commands here is our Own of Duty and Office In this we must do so much our Own that we must not meddle with anothers Now how well this is observed especially at this time we need but appeal to our own eyes and Ears I have not time to Anatomize these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉