Selected quad for the lemma: lord_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
lord_n	baron_n	earl_n	king_n	15,398	5	3.8090	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A43566	A sermon preached at Market Harborow in the county of Leicester, on the 17th day of February, 1684/85 being the day on which our Sovereign Lord James II was there proclaimed king, &c. / by Thomas Heyricke.	Heyrick, Thomas, d. 1694.	1685 (1685)	Wing H1755; ESTC R10744	14,600	41

A SERMON Preached at Market Harborow In the County of LEICESTER On the 17th day of February 1684 5. Being the day On which our Sovereign Lord JAMES II. Was there Proclaimed KING c. By THOMAS HEYRICKE Minister of Market Harborow LONDON Printed for Samuel Heyrick at Grays-Inn-gate in Holborne 1685. To the Right Honourable JOHN Earl of Rutland Baron of Haddon Lord Roos of Hamelake Trusbut and Belvoyr and Lord Lieutenant of the County of Leicester My Lord IF we consider what pains Men will take to be exquisitely wicked what diligence they will use to serve the worst Masters in the worst of Causes and as if the way to Hell was not broad and steep enough with the sweat of their Brows loss of their Estate Rest and Ease procure to themselves Infamy Death and Damnation It not onely shews us the Malignity and Poyson of their Natures that can never rest but is still throwing them sometimes into the Fire and sometimes into the Water but it reminds us of that indispensable Obligation and Duty every Vertuous and Loyal Soul lies under with his utmost Power Integrity and Sincerity to serve his God and his King and purchase Heaven and Happiness And since there is not the most contemptible Instrument but by our Enemies is made use of and hath his task allotted him some to revile the Government some to invent some to spread Rumours and Fears some to assist with their Heads some with their Hands and those with their Purses every little wheel helping to move on the ill modelled Fabrick and since every Loyal Person hath an interest and share in his Prince every one is concerned in the safety of the Father of his Country in such times when he is visibly aim'd at by ill-designing Men I thought I might claim the priviledge of Craesus Son and cry God save the King And I am the more emboldned to shelter my self under your Lordships Protection because though my unfitness for so great an Attempt as this might deter me yet I am assured the design cannot be unacceptable to your Lordship who have shewed so steady and unbyassed a Loyalty even in the worst of times all your Actions having carried that Spirit of Loyalty Worth and Grandeur that as they are the glory of this Age so they may be a Pattern for succeeding Times How needful it is that every one in his several Station should countermine that restless Party and quench those Fires they incessantly kindle Your Honours Prudence must needs be sensible of who not onely are placed in Birth and Authority eminently above and have a true Prospect of those occurrences which we but darkly apprehend but having in your own Person set the Tumultuous rage of that Seditious Band which yet hath given a luster to all your glories the Rabble having no sense of Vertue but to hate it and there being no more a pregnant sign of true worth and Excellency than their Malice as Christianity was honour'd by being Persecuted by a Nero. Vouchsafe Great Sir to accept this small Testimony of that boundless honour and service I have for your Lordship and may the Honesty and Integrity of the Design Attone for the other Faults since it comes from an heart full of Gratitude for former Favours and from him whose highest Ambition next to serving his God and his King is to shew how much he is My Lord Your Lordships most Humble and Most Obliged Servant THO. HEYRICKE Proverbs 21 1. The Kings heart is in the hand of the Lord as the Rivers of Water he turneth it whithersoever he will THere is nothing more unworthy the Prudence of Man nothing more dangerous to a Prince or a Nation nothing more unbeseeming a Christian and derogating from the honour of God than for men to entertain and nourish unreasonable Fears unaccountable Jealousies and torment themselves and others with Chimaera's of their own brain and fires of their own hot heads Yet is this sin no less common than destructive it seems to be the complexional sin of the Zealots of our present Age who have no better way to prove themselves to be Israelites indeed but by inheriting that hereditary disease of the Jews murmuring against Moses and against God Sure if Content be the Top and Aim of happiness and all our Sweat and Toyle our weary days and wakeful nights are spent to procure it if Riches Honour and Glory and all other worldly Goods are therefore desired because they are supposed to be the way to Content so many handmaids to that mighty Queen And if there be nothing that is a greater canker to Content than Fears and Jealousies if there is no misery equal to living in continual fears which sets the mind upon the wildest Attempts and most dangerous Projects to rid it self of that intolerable load if these are such mortal enemies to Content that they can never meet in one subject but bear an irreconcilable hatred one towards another that man must needs be concluded to have forfeited all his Prudence that will entertain such a nest of Hydras in his breast studiously and industriously cherish and nourish them till they have shed that incurable venome into his Soul which will for ever blast all the Comforts and Joys of his life Nor doth this evil terminate as it might have been hoped in the Authors for then the sin would have been but the punishment of the sinner but it is a contagious Disease a spreading Leprosie it seizes on the Neighbourhood and involves them in the common ruine It is safer conversing with a man that hath a Plague-sore on him than with one that is thus infected The one is said to have a burning desire that every one should catch the contagion and this shews his by his unwearied diligence to infuse his venome into others which if he cannot or dare not by discourse vent that Adders poyson that is under his lips he hath yet a way of conveying it by signs by down looks dejected countenance broken and interrupted sighs shaking of the head or holding up the hand and other such mischievous gesticulations so that like the Basiliske he can kill with the very sight It hath not seldom been found that by fears and jealousies artificially raised and fomented by ill-designing men people have been frighted out of their Wits and their Loyalty For when the thoughts are once set on the wing who knows where they will stop and what bounds can be set them especially in an object of fear infus'd into weak credulous and cowardly spirits then what Magnifying-glasses do they look through every mole-hill becomes a mountain and every shadow a formidable monster till their heads being fill'd with frightful apprehensions and their hearts with Pannick fears they dream of nothing but Slavery Chains and Death till like Orestes or Judas lash'd with their own furies they have run upon Death for fear of meeting it as that Souldier that kill'd himself for fear of the Enemy How many men

have been frighted and shouted into War as though some invisible Daemon took delight to hiss us into Quarrels How many forced on by their own fears have wilfully plunged themselves into greater miseries than ever they could have endur'd had all they themselves dreaded fallen upon them Indeed from seditious talk to seditious acting is but one step they seem to be brothers of the same womb one a little more grown than the other When the heart is once inflam'd with talk 't is hard to keep the hand still so that from unreasonable fears once infused there is a natural chain of Evils linked one upon another till it terminates in the bottom of Hell Fear procures hatred and discontent that is the assured mother of Murmuring for fire cannot be hid Murmuring is naturally the seed of Sedition as that is Rebellion inchoate and begun and Rebellion as it was the first cause of so it is the precipitous passage to Hell So that mischievous fears and jealousies as they are commonly infused by the Devil or some wicked men his Agents so they terminate in Hell they run but round the circle and meet again But that which ought to be dearest to us our Christian Religion is dishonoured by these discontents and murmurings nothing being so contrary to the precepts intent and life of Christianity to the custom of the Primitive times to Love the characteristical note of a Christian Jo. 13.35 and the command of being content in all estates nothing so derogatory from the Honour of God as distrust of the Providence of God and discontent at the dispensations of it This is the Land and ours are the Times and I need not tell you who are the men that are most guilty of this Vice There are a sort of volatile spirits that can never rest men that love confusion and would sure have been good inhabitants of the Chaos men whose souls are too fierce and active for their bodies and pent up in too narrow a room with their incessant motion wear them to nothing They have the food and look of Envy they feed on crude and noxious humours in a Commonwealth and they have the meager looks and snakes of Envy onely she wears them on her head and they in their bosomes They thirst for Innovations and Changes and grow sick with ease like some fish that live and delight in the Cataracts and falls of water and die in still streams They suck in ill news as the sweetest repast and relate it and add to it with such visible satisfaction that no Epicure takes more in his choicest Dainties Whether this Sin proceeds from Pride and Conceit as there is no Rebellion but hath a tincture of that for every Rebel thinks he is fit to govern or from disappointed Counsels for Ambition in the mind is like Choler in the body once stop'd turns to poison or whether from cowardize and fear as it generally doth From an ill habit of Body or an ill turn'd Soul or whether which is most likely they are really possessed for the Devil ever since he fell never found any delight in any thing but mischief I shall not now pretend to determine This is sure they are like spiders that will spin out their bowels to make thin webs that every fly will break through They are deservedly their own Tormentors undeservedly the Torments of the Nation and wickedly and profanely the Scandals of Religion So that this being so spreading and contagious a Disease it may seem needful to search what Remedies are most suitable to stop the further growth of it The Kings Heart c. These are the words of Solomon to whom God imparted the greatest share of Wisdom that any meer man was possessor of and as Proverbs are short sentences wherein there is much Wisdom lap'd up in few words so of all that ever were writ those of Solomon that was inlightned by the Spirit of God are most excellent and as if when he wrote this he had had a Prophetick view of future times this seems design'd for such an Age as ours and like a well-drawn Picture seems to look upon all in the room and hath a peculiar prospect to our days This Text seems to have reference both to the Prince and the Subject and the scope of it is on one hand to re-mind the Prince of that Moderation Justice Clemency and other Kingly Vertues whereby he should enoble his Reign since his Actions must n●eds be peculiarly known to God in whose hand even his Heart his Thoughts Designs and Intentions are On the other hand it teaches the Subject that Quietness and Peace that Obedience and Trust they ought to have in their Princes since not onely by God Princes Reign but by him they are guided and govern'd and their heart turn'd whithersoever he pleases The Text seems divided into three parts First a Proposition laid down that the Kings heart is in the hand of the Lord in his power Secondly an Illustration of it by a simile as the Rivers of water Thirdly the Exertion of this Power he turneth it withersoever c. Every word hath its Emphasis the Kings heart not onely his Words which are heard his Actions which are seen but this Heart an Abyss that no one can search a depth no one can fathom his very thoughts which no ear hears no eye sees nor can any reason or understanding follow the unaccountable wandrings of them all these are in the hand of God Prudence or Modesty or other considerations can set bounds to our words fear honour or interest to our deeds but who ever yet could set bounds to the thoughts of another or what invisible and inexplicable setters must they be that can bind up the imagination But such care doth God take of his Viceroys here on earth that not onely their words and thoughts of which cognizance may be took but even their heart their thoughts the shop where all actions are forged even this is in the hand of God and he models it and turns it which way ever he will Among the many ways wherein it may be said to be in the hand of God I shall mention two 1. By way of direction God vouchsafeth to Kings a more immediate influx of his Spirit this was seen in Saul whom when Samuel had Anointed King he told him the Spirit of God would come upon him 1 Sam. 10. 6. and it was made good 1 Sam. 11.6 for when Saul heard the tidings of the men of Jabeth Gilead it is said the Spirit of God came upon him So when God had cast off Saul from being King and David was Anointed in his stead 1 Sam. 16. 13. the Spirit of God came upon David from that day forward and an evil Spirit from God upon Saul God stamps something great and excellent on the Souls of Princes above those of common men he sets his own Seal upon them allays them nearly to himself and calls them Gods Psal. 82.6 And since Angels are