Selected quad for the lemma: honour_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
honour_n	due_a	fear_n	tribute_n	2,900	5	10.7895	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A60455	A sermon preached in St. Saviour's Church in Dartmouth, July 24th. anno Dom. 1698 Together with some refections on the opinion of those, who affirm, that the only difference between the Church and the meeting-house, is that of a few ceremonies. In a letter to a friend. By Humfry Smith, M.A.	Smith, Humphry, b. 1654 or 5.	1698 (1698)	Wing S4086; ESTC R224030	30,983	72

he is Merciful A thing which our blessed Saviour particularly requires from us in his Sermon on the Mount Love your enemies bless them that curse you do good to them that hate you and pray for them Mat. 5. 44 4● which dispitefully use you and persecute you That ye may be the Children of your Father which is in Heaven for he maketh his Sun to rise on the evil and on the good and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust And then a little after Be Ve●se 48. ye therefore perfect even as your Father which is in Heaven is perfect Some are of the Opinion too that Good here is to be taken for that perfect Exemplar or pattern of goodness Our Lord Christ Who came to propose to the imitation of mankind in his own person and actions the highest perfection of Vertue And to be followers of him is to walk by that pattern expressed in the Gospel as near as possibly we can to put on his patience his love his humility and all the rest of those Divine Graces which adorned his incomparable life as he exhorts us himself to learn of him who was meek and lowly in heart Mat. 11. 29. Again Good may be here taken for the Idea or Rule of goodness which the Law of God presents us with that Divine Rule which we are to settle in our minds and to have our eyes still at in all the circumstances of our Life The Revelations which God hath been pleas'd to make from Heaven have this great end namely to give us a true and full account of that Goodness which our great Creator Design'd us for This we are by a diligent Enquiry and Meditation to be familiarly acquainted with and to have a due regard unto in all our Actions In all those mazes and perplexities of affairs where profit seems to call us one way and safety or pleasure another In all those various Accidents and Changes to which we are liable Our Rule we must have ●ixt before our Eyes and by that resolve to be guided We are not to enquire what is advantagious or what is agreeable to us but what is just and what is good and that come what will come resolve to keep to And this last notion of Good seems best to correspond with the Apostles design in this place As for the regard we ought to have for this Good that of following it there is but little more necessary to be said than what hath been already intimated Only it may not be improper to note the different Reading of some very Ancient Copies For instead of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Imitators Cod. Alex. or Followers they have it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Zealots which makes a very agreeable Sense It is the Christians duty to be zealous for Good to pursue it at all times with warmth and affection and resolution of mind notwithstanding all the difficulties and discouragements that lie in the way He is to set up that Good which Gods Law requires of him above his hopes and above his fears above every carnal Interest or temporary Design and resolve that no consideration in the World shall either force or draw him to make shipwrack of a good Conscience In short then to be followers of Good is seriously and in good earnest to endeavour on all occasions to govern our selves according to the great Rule or Standard of Goodness the divine Law The meaning of the words being thus Explain'd I shall for the farther clearing of this duty endeavour briefly to do these three things 1. Point out some of the chief Branches of that Good we are to be followers of those especially which the Apostle recommendes in this Chapter 2. Consider some of the many Obligations which strongly engage us to it 3. Offer a motive or two to encourage your Zeal in it I begin with the First to point out some of I. the chief Branches of that Good we are to be followers of And now in this matter the Prophet Micah excellently directs us Mic. 6. 8. Saying He hath shewed thee O man what is good he hath given thee an Idea of Good a rule 〈◊〉 what is just and upright placing it in thine own mind or conscience And moreover a more exact and perfect standard of it in his own word which is profitable for Doctrine for reproof for Correction and Instruction in Righteousness And behold this is the sum of the good which he hath thus set before thee What doth the Lord require of thee but to do justice love mercy and walk humbly with thy God A●ptime branch therefore of the Good we are to be followers of is Justice A strict Justice towards all Mankind Superiours Equals inferiours Our selves A rendring to all their dues tribute to whom tribute is due Custom to Rom. 13. 7 8. whom Custom fear to whom fear honour to whom honour An owing to no man any thing A being harmless inoffensive upright and sober in our whole Conversion The thing which St. Peter adviseth as the means of Securing to our Selves the Divine Protection at the 10th and 11th Verses of this Chapter He that will love life and see good Days let him refrain his tongue from evil and his lips that they speak no guile Let him eschew evil and do good let him seek peace and ensue it Another great branch of the Good we are to follow is Mercy love kindness and good-will a being as Serviceable to our Brethren as we can and never violent against them upon any injury received willing to give and ready to forgive closing and Uniting with them in every lawful thing The subject of St. Peter's Exhortation at the 8th and 9th Verses of this Chapter Be ye all of one mind having compassion one of another love as Brethren be pitiful be courteous not rendring evil for evil or railing for railing but contrariwise Blessing And then the other great branch of Good mentioned by the Prophet and which we are to be zealous in is The walking humbly with God A being duly sensible of the infinite perfection of the Divine Nature of our dependence upon him as also of our Frailty and Unworthiness and so offering up unto him all the honour worship and adoration that we are able A being first well-grounded and then stedfastly persevering in those religious performances which he hath taught us are agreeable to his will notwithstanding all the opposition we shall meet with The thing which Our Apostle recommends at the 14th and 15th verses of this Chapter Be not afraid saith he of their terrour neither be troubled but sanctify the Lord God in your hearts And be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with weekness and fear In this evil World which is filled with Disorder and Corruption the Church of God is still militant and the business of all the true Members of it is

Piety of our first Reformers in retaining those ancient Forms in our Publick Service The late growth of Heresy amongst us makes us too sensible of what Consequence it is to keep up the fences against it In an Age so fruitful of Monstrous Opinions if the People know nothing before-hand of the Prayers and Praises they are to joyn in they cannot be certain whether they shall offer up a Service leven'd with Arrianism or Socinianism or some other Abomination destructive of the Common Principles of Christianity But as they appear in God's presence to speak unto him in the voice of his Church as they are sure to keep to the same Forms of sound Words which have been made use of to express the true Faith by the most Glorious Defenders of it in ancient time they are secure from the fear of offering an unholy thing before the Lord or blaspheming that Name which they pretend to glorify Another Difference between the Church and the Meeting-house is that one requires External Worship and the other hath but little regard for it And this I take to be as great a difference as that between Obedience to a Divine Precept and the neglect of it O come let us Psal 95. 6. worship and ●ow down let us kneel before the Lord our Maker Thus in the Jewish Church they encouraged one another to their Duty in that divine Song compos'd as a learned Father Theodorer thinks on purpose for the Reformation of Josiah And that this outward Reverence is a Branch of natural Religion to which we are equally obliged under the Gospel appears from St. Paul's Exhortation not only to glorify God in 1 Cor. 6. ●0 our Spirit but our Body too In Conformity to these and several other places of Scripture our Church having provided excellent Forms of Devotion directs and requires in the Use of them such external Acts as do properly express our inward Adoration But that the Dissenters have very little respect for these agreeable yea these necessary things is not to be denied I think by such as frequent their Assemblies Certainly when they are occasionally present with us as we serve the Lord they for the most part seem not at all concern'd to fall down on their Knees to Pray to him or to stand up to Praise him The Excuse perhaps is that if we Worship God in Spirit and in Truth there is no need of such inconsiderable things as the Gestures of the Body But so to assert is to seem wiser than the Church of God in all Ages yea then Christ himself the Head of it When the Devil offer'd him all the Kingdoms of the World and the Glory of them for a single act of external Adoration as that cunning Spirit did not certainly set so great a price upon a trifle so our blessed Saviour puts him in mind of the Value telling him it was a Holy thing somewhat which the Great King of Kings had claim'd as his Right and therefore was incommunicable to any Creature It is written Mat. 4. 10. thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve Were not bodily Adoration as well as spiritual intended by God where he commands us to worship him then this answer of our Saviour would have been nothing at all to the purpose The Devil we find was willing at any rate to purchase that external Veneration 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is paid by falling down to the Ground and would the words of our blessed Lord have stopp'd his Mouth and made him fly if he had said no more than this It is written the heart is the Lord's and with that we are to worship him Indeed Sir I have often thought that the Notion which some People have entertain'd about such external Acts of religious Worship would go a great way towards the justifying most of the Idolaters that have been in the World those I mean who have still preserv'd an awful sense of the supreme Being whilst they have bow'd down to Images If Bowing and Kneeling or the like external Expressions of our inward Devotion be not due to the Almighty How do People rob him of his Honour in bestowing them upon other things Such an Opinion as this could it have been depended on might have been of admirable Use to the Primitive Christians under the Rage of the Heathen For then according to the Temptations of some of their Persecutors when they appear'd in a good humour the Champions of the Faith might have escaped the Axes and the Gibbets the Gridirons and the Saws by doing a very small matter even the giving but a little of that sort of Honour to an Idol which God neither claims nor has any regard for I might give some other Instances of a greater disagreement than that of a few indifferent Ceremonies between Us and the Dissenters But as you Sir may justly think that a very few words would have been enough in so plain a Ca●e so some others will conclude that if the thing I have been attempting were even some new discovery I should deserve but little thanks for making it The distance it will be said is indeed too great and they are engaged in an ill Employment who instead of closing the wounds are for keeping them still open And now to this Objection I think it would be a sufficient answer to say that searching Wounds can certainly be no hinderance to their cure and that a different Method is so far from promising Success that it is likely in the Issue to expose them that shall be employed about it to such Correction as that in the Prophet They have healed the hurt Jer. 6. 14. of the Daughter of my People Slightly Saying peace peace when there is no peace Certainly a Solid and lasting Union can never be hoped for till People will be willing seriously and impartially to consider wherein the difference lies and who made it Notwithstanding the hard Censures which some have so liberally passed on the Stiffness of our Church It has not been backward to encourage any real advances 〈◊〉 towards a good agreement But it is doubtless able to distinguish between true Moderation or Peaceableness and such artifices as are made use of on purpose to betray it For my part as you know Sir that I was always very far from envying any favour which Our Governours think fit to shew to those Dissenters who approve themselves to be truly Conscientious so if ever they shall begin to shake off their Scruples and make approaches towards us I could heartily wish they might be received with all possible Expressions of Kindness and Condescention But then I must own that the Men of design and intrigue they that sometimes blow cold and sometimes hot that sometimes consider us as if we were Anti-Christ and Babylon and at other times are ready to say to us Be not affraid of us we are your near Friends yea Churchmen as well as you