Selected quad for the lemma: honour_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
honour_n	abundant_a	body_n	member_n	1,662	5	10.0159	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A70394	Lacrymæ ecclesiæ Anglicanæ, or, A serious and passionate address of the Church of England, to her sons especially those of the clergy.	Ken, Thomas, 1637-1711.; Kerr, Thomas.	1689 (1689)	Wing K264C; ESTC R1553	49,273	65

discouraged they divert their studies another way I know your Grace heareth not of these matters and I hope God will work in your gracious heart some remedies against them for otherwise the Schools will be forsaken the Church desolate the People wild and dismayed the Gospel discredited and this noble Realm which ever was famous for the name of Learning likely to come to such ignorance and barbary as hath not been heard of many memory before our time Poor souls are destitute without a Guide the afflicted in conscience have none to quiet them they grow wild and savage as a people that hath no God they are commanded to change their Religion and for lack of instruction they know not whither to turn them Oh if the Kingdom of God be not worthy to be promoted yet the Kingdom of Satan is worthy to be overthrown Oh our Posterity shall rue that ever such Fathers went before them and Chronicles will report this miscarriage they shall leave it written in whose time and in whose reign this was done Or if we grow so barbarous that we consider not this or be not able to draw it into Chronicle yet forreign Nations will not spare to write this and publish it to our everlasting reproach and shame By these means forreign power which by Gods mercy this Realm is delivered from shall be brought upon us the truth of God shall be taken away the holy Scripture burnt and consumed in fire a marvellous darkness and calamity must néeds ensue Oh that your Grace might behold the miserable disorder of Gods Church or that you might see the calamities that will ensue It is a part of your Kingdom and such a part as is a prop and stay to the rest I will say to your Majesty as Cyrillus sometimes said to the godly Emperours Theodorus and Valentinian Ab ea quae erg● Deum est pietate reip vestrae status pendet You are our Governour you are the Nurse of Gods Church We must open this grief before you and God knoweth whether it may be redressed it is let grown so long it is gone so far but if it may be redressed there is no other but your Highness that can redress it The Definition of Simonie SYmonie is an intentive desire or purpose to buy or sell a spiritual Living or any Corporal thing annexed to the Church Grat. dist 1. p. 2. 91. Zanch. de inter cultu Concil compl Sect. 43. dec cont Nic. can 8. 96. CHAP. V. The Church of Englands Complaint against Encroaching Pluralities IS your portion oh my Sons in this life or is it in another Is the satisfaction your immortal souls look for in the emptie vain low and perishing contents of this world or in the full high and everlasting enjoyments of the other world If in this life you have hope only you are of all men the most miserable the most contemptible and most deceitful if in another why so many Imperial Laws so many Ecclesiastical Canons so many Decrees of Councils so mans severe Reproofs from Fathers and Casuists so many Complaints and Reproaches so many Laws and Injunctions so many Attempts and Endeavours in Parliament these sixtie years against your Monopolie of Livings and Pluralities of Benefices Why do you heap upon your selves this envie why do you provoke these Reproaches I provided for you liberally I checked those that opposed your maintenance seasonablie I encouraged your Industrie and Merit carefully beyond any reformed Church in the world I restored you to your Rights handsomly I secured your Rights legallie will not this satisfie you will not this content you 1. It 's but lately that you were thought uncapable of one Living and now three four five cannot suffice you It 's not long since you wanted necessaries and do you now heap up superfluities Lately you could not provide for your Families Wants and do you now provide for their Excess and Pride have you forgot how lately you grasped all and you lost all Alas Alas 2. And will you eat bread out of your Brethrens mouths and will you starve your fellow-servants Are you Ministers so are they Are you Orthodox so are they Are you Loyal so are they Have you been constant so have they Are you serviceable to the Church they more in labours more abundant Oh how many excellent men who out-lived the late miseries Articles Committees Sequestrations Protestations Covenants Engagements lingring out their lives laden and almost oppressed worn out and quite tired with the burthen of years cares fears labours necessities and afflictions are now fain to die in obscurity want and contempt as if the Sons of the Church of England wanted only this to make up the measure of their sufferings That they should be undone when the Church is restored How many hundreds sober and able men are laid aside and contemned by some as Orthodox and despised by others as poor whom the people would relieve but that they are faithful to me whom I would relieve but that I am swallowed up by you When you look big with your abundance and superfluity and glory in your preferments how many hundred able and sober men are ashamed of their Order and Function are wrapped up in poverty and discontent and lost in poor employments whose faithful labours I want whose sober conversations might honour me whose diligence and care might restore me whose reason and learning might uphold me whose powerful preaching might establish me whose self-denial and devotedness to publick good might save me Alas Sirs let none of you think of himself more highly then he ought to think but to think soberly according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith for as you have many members in one body and all members have not the same Office so I being made of many am one body in Christ and every one in me is a member one of another You my Sons having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given you whether Prophesie c. why shall not they that prophesie be encouraged according to the proportion of Faith or Ministrie why should not all be encouraged that wait on the Ministrie or they that teach on teaching or they that exhort on exhortation The body is not one member but many now hath God set the members in the bodie as it pleaseth him and if they were all one member where were the bodie the eye cannot say to the head I have no need of thee nor again the head to the feet I have no need of you Nay much more those members of the body which seem to be more feeble are necessarie and those less honourable upon these we ought to bestow more abundant honour And our uncomely parts have a more abundant comeliness for our comely parts have no need but God hath tempered the body together having given more abundant honour to that part which lacked that there should be no schism in the body but that the members should have the

same care one for another Now ye my Sons are the body of Christ and members in particular and God hath set some in the Church first Apostles secondarily Prophets thirdly Teachers Are all Apostles are all Prophets are all Teachers are all provided for Oh covet earnestly the best Gifts not the best Livings And yet I could shew you a more excellent way Why is that Preferment engrossed by one which might maintain Twenty Why are those Revenues lost upon the folly vanity and superfluitie of one family which might provide for the honest occasions of five Oh Justice the equal Distributer of Affairs whither art thou fled Oh Equity whither art thou retired 3. If you consider not the sin do you consider the consequences of these miscarriages the envie that you already sink under the occasion given unto them that seek occasion which hath already disgraced you the great discontent that alreadie endangereth you Have not you enemies to your Order Calling and Judgement and must you incense your friends Must you provoke that God that hath hitherto upheld your Order and Function by abusing the maintenance he allows for his service and servants to your own advantage Must you displease his sacred Majesty by appropriating to a few ill beloved persons for whose sake his Majesty is thought the worse of that encouragement which might be equally bestowed upon well-deserving and well-beloved who might in each Parish teach his subjects their duty faithfully perswade them to obedience successfully and settle them in the Doctrine of Government according to the great Principles of Christianity most happily Must you provoke your Brethren of the Clergy to discontent by taking up all the encouragements of their Studies all their employments and hopes How many hopeful young men in City and Country are forced either to want or which is worse to live upon your small Pensions and scant allowance and what is natural for parts and ingenuity in want to dispair their fortunes and envy yours How readily do they now hopeless of any regular favour apply themselves to popular applause that their compliance may gain that among the people which their merit could not among you Do not you see how the people forsake you as Self-Seekers how the Gentry censure you as Unconscionable how the Clergy abhor you as invaders of their places and preferments Do you not see that the Law can hardly secure you that authority can scarcely defend you from all the affronts and baffles that Malice do suggest to an incensed people the adversaries triumph the many friends I have weep the Sober and Serious are amazed to see fourscore or an hundred odious men filling up a whole Church Do you imagine those many active men will rest in a dispirited poor mendicant decayed dejected and vexatious condition Do not you fear their melancholy thought their retired contrivance their forlorn meetings You know there are none so dangerous as the Discontented Scholars Monopolie is the Ruine of the State Pluralities are the ruine of the Church the one necessitates the indigent Subject to dangerous courses and practises the other the poor Scholar to as dangerous discourses and thoughts Is it not enough that mens late malice and insolencie against the Ministry reduced them to want and contempt but that to my shame who am blessed of God with abundance and honour one small part of the Ministry should reduce the other to smal Contributions poor Dependencies so uncertain and so base that men of ingenious spirits and learning must detest them who cannot endure when they do their work to beg for their wages not without forbid compliances and flatteries with vile men in their vilest humours Oh look upon the poor Curates and their Families what is their portion of the prosperity we now enjoy Alas they live by Gods mercy and mens charity How despicable is their Calling How little their Authority how inconsiderable their Instructions How successless their Doctrine how uncreditable their Lives Do not you see that your fellow-Ministers under these necessities will not long be able to assert the honour of their Calling and that no after-Generation will succeed to inherit their poverty and pains unless such as will further debase the Dignity of the Function What must all the ingenious Ministers be Stipendaries The Faction threatned no more Must they have only their allowances Anarchie could have done no more Are you restored to reduce your fellow-servants to that penurie by Law which Fanaticks would have brought them to without Law they wanted only this misery to be undone by their Brethren and perish by them of their own profession Obsect These poor men you will say are provided for answerable to their Parts Answ Have they Parts for the Calling of Ministers and have they not Parts for the Maintenance of Ministers Can they preach the Gospel and can they not live by the Gospel Are they worthy to discharge your Cures and are they not worthy to enjoy them 5. Do you desire the advantage of so many Benefices or do you desire the charge if the advantage then the poor Separatist was in the right when he called you Hirelings then indeed you make merchandise of Souls then you are the greatest Juglers and Deceivers in the world and you laugh among your selves as the Tuscan Sooth-sayers and confer Notes as that Pope with his Cardinal saying How much gain doth this fable of Christ bring us and poor souls should avoid you as the shadow of death What shall I hear him whose godliness is gain whose God is his belly whose faith is his advantage whose hope is only in this world His watchmen are blind they are ignorant they are all dumb dogs they cannot bark sleeping lying down loving to slumber yea they are greedy dogs which can Never have enough and they are shepherds that cannot understand they all look for their own way every one for his gain from his quarter Come ye say they I will fetch wine and we will fill our selves with strong drink and to morrow shall be as this day and much more abundantly Fsai 56. 9 10 11 12. If the Charge do you know what you do do you know that you must watch over the Congregation as they that must give an account so many Benefices so many more hundreds of souls that you must answer for Do you know what it is to answer the great God for an immortal soul do you know what it is to give an account of the purchase of Christs bloud do you know what is the work what is the charge of a Minister Oh poor souls you consider not whether some have not accused you to God whom you never saw whether souls under your charge are not daily going to another world with doleful complaints against you whom you never knew whether any in Hell do not cry out against you whom you never saw thousands have appeared before the Judgement-seat of God excusing themselves with your faults though you lay it not