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
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
A67829 A sermon preached at Lambeth January the 25th at the consecration of the Right Reverend Father in God, Thomas Lord Bishop of Bath and Wells / by Edward Young ... Young, Edward, 1641 or 2-1705. 1685 (1685) Wing Y68; ESTC R34114 12,744 33

There are 2 snippets containing the selected quad. | View lemmatised text

A SERMON Preached at LAMBETH Ianuary the 25 th At the Consecration of the Right Reverend Father in GOD THOMAS Lord Bishop of Bath and Wells By EDWARD YOUNG Fellow of Winchester College LONDON Printed for William Grantham at the Crown and Pearl over against Exeter-Change in the Strand 1685. TO THE Most Reverend Father in GOD WILLIAM Lord Arch-Bishop of Canterbury AND Primate of All ENGLAND May it please your GRACE THE Commands of Your Grace as well as of Those other Honourable Assistants at the Consecration having encouraged this Sermon to appear in publick I have presumed farther to set Your Venerable name before it in order to give it Countenance and Commendation to all Good Men. The world will judge what abatements the Argument may have possibly received from the weakness of the Manager but abstracting from these I am sure that Religion has no Subject wherein the Interests of Piety are more nearly concerned than they are in that here treated of And therefore I cannot doubt but that Your Grace will be easie to forgive the Confidence of the Address in contemplation of that advantage the Argument may thereby get to serve those ends of Piety to which it is designed And yet I have one end more in this Address and that is That it may withal testifie to the World the just veneration I have for those mighty Accomplishments both of Nature and Grace wherewith God hath Blessed You in order to bless his Church with the fruits and benefits of them London Feb. 2. 1685. Your GRACE's Most humbly Devoted in all Duty and Obedience EDWARD YOUNG A SERMON ON 2 Tim. 1. 6. Wherefore I put thee in remembrance that thou stir up the Gift of God which is in thee by the laying on of my hands THEY are the words of St. Paul the Apostle for whose Doctrine and Example we this day peculiarly give God thanks They are his words to Timothy whom after he had planted the Church of Ephesus he did by the Laying on of his Hands Consecrate and appoint Bishop of that Church Of which St. Paul Theodoret tells us That he likewise planted this Church of Ours And if so Most Reverend Fathers You bear a Relation to the very Hands in the Text from which through a long and venerable Succession you derive your Authority However you bear an equal Relation to the Advice of the Text and Favour me therefore I beseech you while I make some Reflections upon it with an Humility as great as is my Unworthiness for such an Undertaking The words do 1. Offer to our Consideration The Solemnity of Laying on of Hands that Ancient Rite of Blessing by Prayer and thence accommodated by Divine Authority to the Designing of Men to any peculiar Charge in the Service of God 2. They offer to our Consideration the Charge or Office confer'd by this Solemnity and that is the Office Episcopal St. Paul Consecrating a Bishop and Investing Him with such Rights and Powers as we never find committed to a Simple Priest 3. The Person on whom hands were layd Timothy whose Character is given in the foregoing Verse That He was a Man of unfeigned Faith But these are Heads I shall not insist on I shall only take occasion from them to bless God for the great Happiness and Glory of our Church in the Legitimate Mission of Her Clergy The Due Distinction of Her Orders and the Virtue and Worthiness of Her Governours And in that which under Providence is the great occasion of all this the Pious care of Her Sovereign Guardian the King Whose eyes are upon such as are Faithful Who as God made choice of Ioshuah to lead the Israelites into Canaan because he had dar'd against the wishes of the People to give a True Report of that Good Land So He by whom Providence has designed to make us Happy if we will be Happy chooseth such to lead us as by Their ardent Love and Zealous Contention towards Heaven have given a True Report of the Desirableness of that Good Land A Truth which were it not for some few such Reports the World lies always under a propension to distrust I shall pass over these several Heads and insist only on the remaining matter of the words and that is the Gift confer'd on Timothy at his Consecration Stir up the Gift of God that is in thee by the laying on of my Hands The word here render'd Gift does in its General sense signifie any thing that God does graciously bestow upon Men But in this place it signifies that which we more peculiarly call Grace i. e. the Sanctifying Gift of God and so the Fathers interpret it or rather so our Apostle interprets himself in the following words where he specifies the Gift he means to be The Spirit of Might o● Love and of a sound Mind Grace then is the Subject concerning which I propose these Three things 1. To shew the Importance of it to Christian Practice 2. It s Distribution to Men and the Measures thereof And 3. Mans Relative Duty towards it in stirring of it up I begin with the Importance of Grace to Christian Practice All that I shall say thereon being designed to confirm this Proposition viz. That the Grace of God is absolutely necessary towards the discharge of every mans Christian Duty That there is a Sanctifying Principle communicated from Christ unto Believers preparing and assisting them to the fruits of Holiness and therefore called the seed of God That this Principle is mo●e than all Natural Endowments or any Improvements of Nature that are meerly Human and therefore called the Gift That it is more than the Objective Influence of all Revealed Truths or of all the outward Actings of Providence and therefore called the Gift within Us That this Principle is wrought in us by the Operation of the Holy Spirit and therefore all Virtues are called the Works of the Spirit and Christians the Temples of the Holy Ghost are Truths that will appear to any indifferent Enquirer as evident as any that are written in the Book of God And it being the manner of the Holy Spirit in the Scriptures to bring down sublime Truths to our Understanding by familiar resemblances and to convey them more strongly to our minds by the Images of sensible things Our Apostle has in Two several places of his Epistles represented this Communication from Christ to Believers by the resemblance of those Spirits and Animal Iuyces that are communicated from the the Head to the several Members of our natural Body from which Spirits every Member derives its vigour and sensation and power to execute those functions which are due to the common service insomuch that if this influence from the head to any Member be casually obstructed that Member must necessarily languish and grow useless and retain no more than the Figure of a part And thus it is in the Mystical body of Christ the Visible Church There is a like variety and subordination
of Members some Eyes some Hands some Feet c. some of more curious contexture and more noble Offices than others but the Grace from the Head is the common Soul and animation of them all insomuch that whosoever is any way obstructed from the participation of this Divine Influence he must in the same proportion languish and fall off from his Duty and degenerate into the bare figure of a Member of Christ. Thus the Holy Scriptures do instruct us in the Existence of Grace as they do 2. In the necessity of it And the necessity of Grace is founded in the Scriptures upon Mans weakness and insufficiency to do his own Duty So our Saviour has laid down this Truth as the first step to Practical Wisdom viz. That without Him we can do nothing For although it may undoubtedly appear from the lives both of Heathens and Hypocrites That Man is not without a considerable Talent of Natural power to do Good though it may be demonstrated to the Reproach of Christian Professours That All men may advance farther into the state of Goodness by the bare conduct of Civil Prudence and the force of such Resolutions as are meerly Human than most Christians do arrive amidst the great but neglected advantages of Divine Grace Yet when we consider that in Religion it is not enough to do Good unless it be done well in its Circumstances and Uniformly in its parts when we consider that Religion is not satisfyed with many good Acts no nor many Good Habits but only with an Integrity of Goodness and equal respect to all that is commanded when we consider that our Partial Understandings are never well reconciled to the Principal duties of Christianity I mean the Duties of the Cross but are apt to look upon them sometimes ●s Needless sometimes as Indiscreet sometimes as Cruel and so are always ready to shift their Obligation when we consider how ha●d it is for weak unsteady Souls to refine themselves to such a pitch as to Love God above all those Idols after which we naturally go astray from the Womb and yet if we do not Love God so we have no Principle in us that can either support or recommend our services When we consider all these difficulties the great Task before us the great indispositions within us and the Avocations seductions sna●es and violences that are alway ready to divert us from our work we must confess that they are Difficulties purely insuperable by our own strength Nature must start aside from their Level like a Bow broken with too strong intention we must confess that in Equivalence to our Duty and in proportion to Acceptance We can do nothing 'T is true indeed that there are other Graces of God beside this inward Operation we now treat of There is soundness of faculties Happiness of Temper a sober Education Choice of Imployments and Friends the light of the Holy Scriptures the prospect of future Punishments and Rewards the opportunities of Religious Advices and the Monitions of Providential Events all these are mighty Graces of God in their kinds and we speak of Men as living under the possible advantages of all these and yet nevertheless when we consider in ballance to these How the Tempers even of the Best Men are not exempt from treacherous propensions to ill How the Presence of things does work much more forcibly upon our Affections than any Reasonings about things distant can How strong and delusive the Injections of Satan are and how stupifying and deliriative every Act of Sin How great a distance there is between keeping our selves from scandalous sins and Raising our selves to the height of a fervent Piety and Resigned Will When we consider how our Saviour amidst all his Preaching and Miracles crys our None can come to Me except the Father draw him that is He himself could not draw men as a Prophet but only as a God we must still conclude that without this Inward Principle of Sanctification supernaturally aiding us we can do nothing 'T is true indeed and we readily acknowledge that there is an Obscurity fitting upon the face of this Dispensation of Grace For we cannot feel the Impressions nor trace the footsteps of its distinct working in us The Measures of our Proficiency in Goodness seem to depend entirely upon those of our Own Diligence And God requires as much Diligence as if he gave no Grace at all All this we acknowledge and that it renders the Dispensation obscure But then on the other side it is as plain That there is the same obscurity upon every dispensation of Gods Temporal Providence and so there is no more Reason for doubting of the one than of the other They that will not allow that God does by any inward efficacy confer a sound Mind allow nevertheless that he gives Temporal good things but how in the mean time does this Dispensation appear more than the former For when God intends to bless a Man with Riches he does not open Windows in Heaven and pour them into his Treasure he does not enrich him with such distinguishable Providences as that wherewith he water'd Gideon's Fleece when the Earth about it was dry but he endows such a Man with Diligence and frugality or else adorns him with such acceptable qualifications as may recommend him to the opportunities of advancement and thus his Rise to Fortunes is made purely Natural and the distinct working of God in it does not appear When God intends to deliver or enlarge a people he does not thereupon destroy their Enemies as he did once the Assyrians by an Angel or the Moabites by their own Sword but he inspires such a people with a Couragious Virtue and raises up among them Spirits fit to command and abandons their Enemies to luxury and softness and so the method of their Raising becomes absolutely Natural and the distinct work of God in it does not appear And in the same manner when God does by the inward Operation of his Grace promote a Man to Spiritual Good and bring him to the state of undefiled Religion he does not thereupon suddenly change the whole frame of his Temper and chain up all the movements of his natural affections and infuse into him such a System of Virtuous habits as may make him Good without application and pains but he works his Spiritual work by a gradual process and human methods instilling into such a Man first a considering mind and then a sober Resolution and then a diligent use of all such moral means as conduce to the forming and perfecting of every particular virtue And now while God in all these Instances does work in a human and ordinary way and never supersedes the power of Nature but requires her utmost Actings and only moves and directs and assists her where she is weak and incompetent for her work both his Grace and his Providence are like a little spring covered with a great Wheel though they do all they are not