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
A84659	Theion enōtikon, A discourse of holy love, by which the soul is united unto God Containing the various acts of love, the proper motives, and the exercise of it in order to duty and perfection. Written in Spanish by the learned Christopher de Fonseca, done into English with some variation and much addition, by Sr George Strode, Knight.; Tratado del amor de Dios. English	Fonseca, Cristóbal de, 1550?-1621.; Strode, George, Sir, 1583-1663.	1652 (1652)	Wing F1405B; Thomason E1382_1; ESTC R772	166,624	277

testimony and sign of the favour of man For this kind of honour makes not a man more excellent or truly glorious but shewes him to be such if he be in himself truly vertuous and excellent In the Greeke Latine and English 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 honestus and honest some derive from honour intimating that the honest and the honourable are or should be all one and that he only should he honourable That is as I before said honest and vertuous and such an honour as this should by every man be desired as being that which God himself hath promised to give to all such as honour or glorifie his holy name for so God himself speaks 1. Sam. 2.30 Those who honour me I will honour yea more in the same chapter the Lord oft-times rayseth up the poor out of the dust V. 8. to set them among Princes and to make them inherite the throne of glory and to this honour of Gods giving every one ought to aspire and not simply to the honour of the worlds giving For the honour of the world for the most part is such as the world it self is and the world saith S. John 1 Jo. 5.19 is set and lyeth in wickedness And so and by the same meanes is the honour of the world gained either by serving the wicked turns of men Acts 5.9 or by mony Simon Magus desirous to be accounted some great one and to that end that he might as the Apostles did work miracles he presently took the course of the world V. 18. and offered the Apostles money money thought he and millions more think and have practised the like is the first step and readiest way to be great in honour Therefore to get wealth first and then by it a gilded coate a Knighthood a Baronie an Earledome to be a favorite as Haman though after all as he to the gallows is the worlds simonie or sorcery What the chief Captain spake of his freedome in Rome Acts 22.38 may a Mercer a Draper an Usurer or Grasier say with a great summe of mony obteyned I this honour And if a few can say as S. Paul I was so born yet not the tenth man that his honour was the reward of his vertue And yet would this were the worst for as we read when the Heathen people saw Mordecai and Esther who were Jews honoured by the King Esther 8.17 then most of the Heathen became Jewes for saith the text the fear of the Jewes came upon them for favour and honour these as thousands and millions more have changed their Religion And would it held so only with the Heathen who changed from the worse to the better and that it were not too frequent with Christians and those not only the Laytie but such as would be ranked in the holy order that these would not only preach for honour but that they would not as the Gnostick hereticks side with Jews or any religion rather then suffer for their first faith and profession yea with Jews or any other to prove seditious rebellious murderers that they may live happily and sit in the chair of honour Sauls word is become most mens desire 1 Sam. 15 Honour me before the people and to purchase this at what iniquity villany or actions to be abominated have they stuck Jud. 9. for honour Abimelech the son of a whore will kill seventy of his brethren the legitimate sons of his father and Absalom will rebell against the crown and life of his own father 2 Sam. 15 Athalia will destroy all the royall seed for honour the Romans often did so 2 King 17. and before them to get the highest throne of honour it became frequent and customary as it were with the Kings of Israel to do the like witness among the rest Jehu who slew not only seventy of the royall seed of Israel but as many as he could lay hands on of the other kingdome of Judah to which he could pretend no title So true and generall is that saying of the Poet Honour and the crown cannot be bought at too deare a rate And the Devil was so well acquainted with mans disposition in this case that being foiled in his former temptations of our Saviour yet he kept this as his last card or engine to set him up aloft and to shew and promise him all the glory of the world For he was well assured that it this failed nothing would make him to fall down and worship him for the Devil had found it hold as in those before mentioned and that it did take and seldome faile In the Idoll set up by Nebuchadnezzar Dan. 3. find you of millions any more then three who refused to fall down and worship the Devil in the idoll and all for the favour alone of the King from whom as generally all this honour flowes and so in the book of Esther is five times related whom the King shall please to honour so for the most part it is oftner given to an Aegyptian then to a Joseph to an Haman an Agagite then to Mordecai the Jew to an Herod then to a John Baptist and the commission shall be to Saul the bloody persecutor and not to Paul the Apostle of Christ So that of the worlds honour we may speak as S. Paul doth of members in mans body 1 Cor. 12 23. Those members which we think least worthy of honour upon these we bestow more abundant honour And as in Jothams parable among the trees Jud. 9. so it mostly fares with the honour and dominion in this world where the Vine and the Olive which honour and benefit God and man they refuse to be King over the trees But what the Italian hath in his proverb what Christ refused at the Devils hand the glory of the world this the Pope readily and thankfully accepted so it falls out in the civil government that what the mercifull gracious and good refuse this the Bramble the Exactor the oppressor the tyrant imbraces whose language is as there you that put not your trust under my shadow let fire come out of me to devoure the very Cedars the greatest on the mountaines And this honour and dominion hath been so much observed to be generally given to the worst of men that it caused not only Philosophers and the Heathen to think that the Devil reigned and ruled in this world but even men well read in Gods school as Job David and other Prophets it moved them to scruple and take offence at this course But he that looks upon God as unequall or unjust in this cannot see perfectly and aright into Gods ways For though God advance these men to high places yet it is not truly so much to blazon their honour as to publish their shame both to the now living and to those that shall come after them For to set an Ass or a Beare to rule over the rest of the Beasts were to

ridiculous thing to declaim against riches or rich men And indeed simply to declaim against either riches or rich men were a thing ridiculous but to say that it is hard for a rich man to enter heaven is to say no more then Christ in express terms hath spoken and hard it was that Christ who cured all other corporall and spirituall infirmities yet this of covetousness he cured not in the man who had great possessions Luk. 10. who though Christ who spake as never man did preached and earnestly perswaded this man to sell all yet he was so far from obeying this command of Christ who profest that he had kept all the rest of the Decalogue that without any civility or good manners tendered unto Christ his Master he rudely and unthankfully departs and never that we heare of returns again to heare him for which no other reason can be given then that which is exprest in the text which saith for he had great possessions And indeed when Christ took Matthew the Publican from the profitable trade of gathering custome or to cure recover the withered that is the covetous hand and these cannot be done but by the great power of God to whom alone all things are possible And yet for all this as you tell me many Godly men have been rich so I tell you that so you may be rich and yet continue god 〈…〉 as you get and use your riches in God 〈…〉 and in Gods name you may use and get them so you get keep and use them in a moderate and ordinate manner by lawfull means and to the right end Now the moderate and ordinate manner considers the action and the time whereas to the action we may seek and seek with care so that this seeking be not with a setling your hearts upon them which the Prophet forbids or with a trusting in them reproved by our Saviour or with such a care as distracts or divides the thoughts and desires of the soul betwixt God and Mammon For this is to serve two different discordant Masters saith Christ which God never will like And the time for this action of your moderate seeking worldly things must be as not before so neither joyned with the seeking of God but after so Christ hath taught Mat. 6.33 Seek ye first the Kingdome of God Then for the manner which must be moderate and ordinate and the means of prosecuting must be answerable that is the means must not be by injustice of fraud or force not by violence or oppression nor by circumvention of wit or tricks in law but by just lawfull faire and cleer dealing and this will so cleer the means as to make them lawfull and just And the end of all your seeking and getting and keeping together worldly things must be not to grow proud to be able to oppress and stifle justice nor to spend them on your lusts of the flesh or purchasing honour but that God the Donor and giver of every good gift may thereby be glorified by raising and propagating the more immediate means of his service and s●●uants in the Church and by relieving the 〈…〉 stressed and oppressed members of our head Christ Thus by these means and to this end seek riches and in Gods name be rich whereas if you faile in these or any of these you neither love God nor your neighbour no nor your selves as you ought but you love the world which is enmilie with God who with the world will first or last destroy all his enemies CHAP. XXXI The brevity frailty mutability uncertainty and misery of mans life Abate the love thereof THe Philosopher hath said it and dayly experience confirms it that of all things dreadfull to nature Death is the most feared and on the other side we speak it as a proverb life is sweet And the Devil knowing this to be most desired by man as most agreeing to his nature when he would provoke God to put the utmost of all trialls upon Job thereby to prove his sincerity Job 2.4 5. he perswades God but to touch his bone and his flesh for then he will curse thee to thy face and the Devil gives his reason for this saying V. 6. skin for skin and all that a man hath will he give for his life yea God himself when he gave the Devil leave to touch 〈…〉 and his flesh yet as though he were not wining to put Job to the utmost triall he enjoyned the Devil to save his life And that you may not think this speech of the Devil proceeded more out of malice to Job then from the grounds of truth heare the Preacher speaking by the Spirit of God who saith A living dog is better then a dead Lion Eccle. 9.4 and he gives his reason for this assertion for saith he the Dead have no more a portion for ever in any thing that is done under the Sun so that as this wise min prefers a merry life before a sad for this saith he dryes the bones and hastens death so he prefers as the wisest Philosophers have done a sad yea a tortured life before an easie death in as much as while there is a being there is hope but the not being at all deprives us of all that can be wished and this is the generall dictate or vote of nature in the best of men Now that some have as the Apostle speaks dared to dye for a friend for God or for honour or the like this proceeded from a higher cause then bare nature either it is from grace as in the Christian or their desire was urged and heightned by some sting of ambition propounding to it self an immortality of name and honour whereby they thought to recompense the mortality of their body by a never dying glory in the world Yet notwithstanding this inbred desire of life did man consider and rightly weigh the brevity and shortness of his life take it at the longest 2 The uncertainty thereof caused through the frailty and brickleness of the materials and the many casualties cutting off and shortning this appointed brevity 3 And then lay 〈◊〉 the ballance to these the infinite daily miseries with which this short fraile mutable uncertain time of life is surcharged he would find little or no cause to settle his love and delight on this present life but to fix it wholly on that better life which may be full of joy for ever with God in heaven Now the term or bounds of mans life we find in Scriptures to be divers for before the flood we read that many lived above nine hundred years Gen. 6.3 In the next generation after the flood the Patriarchs and others exceeded not much one hundred twenty years for God saith his days shall be a hundred twenty years And in the third generation we find this term shortned seventy Ps 90.70 for so speaks that Psalme penned by David The days of our age are threescore years and ten this