Selected quad for the lemma: heart_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
heart_n	aaron_n	bell_n	ring_v	17	3	10.7617	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A36889	The great efficacy and necessity of good example especially in the clergy recommended in a visitation sermon preached at Guilford / by Tho. Duncumb ...	Duncumb, Thomas, d. 1714?	1671 (1671)	Wing D2610; ESTC R22681	23,511	37

weighed in the ballance of the sanctuary we should be found too light in this great Duty of being thus Exemplary many of us seeming to be very Angels in the Doctrine whilst I fear scarce men in the use and Application we make our selves of our Sermons I have heard some where That Philip of Macedon displac't a Judge because he colour'd his beard he was jealous it seems he might colour a Cause too I know not how true that was but I think it an unquestionable assertion that many of our Coat have their Consciences telling them they deserve the same censure and severity not more for colouring their own Sermons than others sins making thereby their sacred Calling more to serve themselves than endeavouring themselves really to serve their Calling I come not hither to accuse or discourage any But tell me My Brethren think you not that there are some amongst us though I hope none here whose Consciences may be their doleful accusers for being their people's dangerous deluders Tell me I say are there not those to be found in the Nation whose own Consciences ring them many a sad peal out of the hearing of the world for making Aaron's bells to go so ill insomuch that they have now liv'd to hear their own knells gone for being as I may say quite dead and gone in the hearts of the people Others there are too I doubt not but you have heard of who have made so ill use of the keys of the Church that it had been much better for both had they quietly laid them under the door and then withdrawn out of sight and hearing For the open discovery and detection of some of their ill and unwarrantable practises hath not only made the guilty to be almost irrecoverably despis'd but the innocent too to be the more suspected Pardon great God! these sins of thy servants But My Brethren since thus it is and it may be much worse too with many of our weaker Brethren since I say even the best of us have not been so good examples as we might have been and with Austin have reason to bespeak the Majesty of heaven as he Libera me Domine a peccatis meis alienis From my other men's sins or those I have by my ill example tempted others too Good Lord deliver me is not then the voice of our Conscience within the more pressing and importunate for our being the more lively examples of Believers to those that are without Oh then Let us not turn the deaf ear to this Charmer least the voice of it which would be our friendly Monitor in time prove our fatal fearful Tormentor when we are lanch't forth into the boundless ocean of Eternity Fifthly I am come now to the voice or Monitor being vox Populi the voice of the people a voice indeed in many cases not valuable in this I think very considerable Now if we shall but sit down and listen a while to the declamatory language of some and those too it may be not so contemptible as we are apt to conclude them I cannot but think all those nails drove in already will be the better clinch't in your spirits e're we part Indeed time was when the world had a better opinion of us than I fear now it hath Time hath been when the world hath counted us worthy of double Treasure as well as double Honour Nay we all read that the very Heathen had an high esteem for their Idol-priests Plato tells us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 There was still a Reverence shew'd the Priest and that not in this or that particular Nation but in Gentibus omnibus c. saith Figurius There is no Nation under heaven sayes he where their Priests are not had in honour He tells us too that neglect and disrespect to the Priest was a sin Vitium Judaeis peculiare peculiar to the Jews only I have been told the people of England once said of us as I have read the old Caldees did of their Priests viz. Homo quidam ex Judaeis venit Sacerdos neutiquam decipiet nos There 's a Priest come to Town he we are sure will not deceive us But alas my Brethren how many of us may complain that this our honesty is turned into Gall That this softer voice of our people is turned into dreadful claps of thunder in many of our Parishes For indeed he must needs be very thick of hearing that cannot hear Rabshekah railing against the Episcopal Robe He must I say wink very hard tha● cannot see Hymeneus and Philetus Alexander and Demetrius contriving mischief You cannot be ignorant how these Iron-moles daily deface our Lawns and Surplices you cannot but know how these Mothes have fretted our Cassocks and Girdles with all the other decent garments of our Mothers appointing I need not tell you too how for the better impairing our interest in the hearts of the people many of our daring Adversaries have maliciously branded us sometimes calling us the Black Guard The Leaches of the Land Priests of Belial The useless Tribe Lazy Levites and the like confirming us who hear and consider all this in nothing more than that they would quickly make us objects of their merciless rage and vengeance were it not for the life-guard of Royal prudence acted by a gracious and over-ruling Providence Now My Brethren if these sharp Razors shave Aaron's beard so close what may we the meaner servants of the Altar look for but that they would soon slip into our Throats Making us as it were miserable sacrifices at those very Altars where we are devoted servants And can we see all these acts of Enmity and Hostility and not conclude it high time for us all to put on the whole armour of God and resolve to live more piously and exemplarily in the eye and observation of men Certainly Sirs 't is high time for Sampson then to look about him when the Philistines are upon him And thus 't is high time for Timothy too to become an example of Believers in word in conversation and charity when he is ready to be voted down by the people for an example of their displeasure scorn and fury And now for the timely prevention of this so sore an evil which I have seen under the Sun I shall humbly crave your further attention to one voice more importunate if possible than all the rest with us all and that is in the Sixth and Ult. place The loud voice of our own most sacred calling and profession which I fear meets not with the half of that Reverence and regard from us we owe it as men but infinitely less more as such who have with so much seriousness and solemnity taken upon us to discharge all the respective duties of it I am not so vain as to think I can nor dare I pretend to offer any thing exactly answerable and commensurate either to the heights of our callings dignity and deserts or the parts and expectations of so judicious an