Selected quad for the lemma: lord_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
lord_n	beseech_v	good_a	please_v	23,628	5	8.8360	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A40092	A sermon preached before the Right Honourable the Lord Maior of London, and the Court of Aldermen, &c. on Wednesday in Easter week, in the Church of St. Andrew Holborn being one of the anniversary spittal sermons / by Edward Fowler.	Fowler, Edward, 1632-1714.	1688 (1688)	Wing F1719; ESTC R10667	20,353	37

to make them not truly Christian But I will say Two things in reference to this matter 1. It is true that self-Love ought not to be our onely Principle in doing Good. We ought to be constrained thereto by the Love of God and our Saviour and the wonderful Expressions of their Love to us We are obliged also to do Good Works from a sense of the Goodness of them and to be Charitable from the Love of Charity as such as it is a most lovely Thing an excellent Grace highly beneficial to the World and greatly ennobling and beautifying the Soul that 's therewith inspired And we ought likewise to shew pity to our Afflicted Brethren from a principle of Love to them But still since God and our Saviour have seen it necessary to lay before us the Motives of Promises and Threatnings 't is impossible it should be unworthy of Christians to be Acted by them in their Obedience And God knows that in this imperfect State the Best Christians find that they have need enough of these Motives But 2 d. 'T is a mighty Mistake to think that to be perswaded to the Obedience of the Precepts of the Gospel by it's Promises or Threats either is to obey from a meer selfish Principle For if we have a true Notion of that Happiness our Lord promiseth and of that Misery He threatneth we are no less acted by Love to God in that Obedience which our desire of obtaining the one and avoiding the other excites us to than by Love to Ourselves The Heavenly Happiness as hath been already observed principally consisting in a perfect Likeness to GOD and Enjoyment of Him viz. as Perfect as our Nature is Capable of and the Hellish Misery being a State of perfect Unlikeness to Him and Eternal Separation from Him. Thirdly We learn from what hath been said what a Folly it is for men of Estates to hope to be Received into the Everlasting Habitations in the Text without being Charitable with them without making to themselves Friends in our Saviour's sense of their Mammon of Vnrighteousness Let me Beg of such not to be offended if I take leave to be a little Free and Plain with them Do you really and indeed Hope to be saved To be sure you will say you do But for God's sake tell me why Hath GOD promised such as you these Habitations and will you expect them without a Promise I pray look into the Bible I can in the Name of GOD assure you that you shall not find one Syllable there of any Promise whatever and much less so exceeding great and precious a Promise as this made to such as you But you will there meet with Threatnings good store against you and such terrible ones too as would make a man even Tremble to read them though he should know himself to be unconcern'd in them You will no question say that you hope for Eternal Happiness through the alone merits of Iesus Christ. Very well But hath Christ promised to Save all by his Merits that Rely upon them for Salvation Hath he proposed no Terms to us without our Compliance with which He will not Save us Nay Have not He and His Holy Apostles most expresly and frequently told us that Obedience to His other Precepts is every whit as necessary to our Salvation as Obedience to that of Relying on his merits can be And is there any one Precept so often repeated so much inculcated as this of Charity As those of feeding the hungry and Cloathing the Naked of being Fathers to the Fatherless and Husbands to the Widows of being merciful and tender-hearted of being ready to distribute and willing to communicate c. Nay Is any one single Duty oftener made a Condition of Salvation than this of Charity There is scarcely any one made so so often Why then should not those who live in the open Transgression of the Laws of Temperance Sobriety and Chastity or of Iustice and Righteousness expect as well to be Saved by the Merits of Christ as you who live in the manifest Breach of those which oblige you to be Charitable There are many Promises of such Blessings as I know you desire with all your hearts and much more than you ought made to the Charitable Now what an unaccountable thing is it that those who cannot find in their Hearts to Trust in God for the fulfilling of his Promises by performing the Conditions of them should be able to Trust in Him without the Encouragement of any Promise nay against many solemn Declarations made by God and His Son Iesus on purpose to discourage us from expecting the least Favour from them while we persist in wilful disobedience to any of their Precepts Your are plainly told that Whosoever shall keep the whole Law and yet offend in one point is guilty of all Or if it were possible for a Man to observe all the Laws of God but one and live in the Breach of that one this will as certainly make him liable to the Divine Vengeance as living in the Breach of all though not to the same degrees of Punishment And you are assured by Him on whose Merits you so rely for Salvation and who will be your Iudge that the Covetous and Vncharitable shall be placed on his left hand at the Day of Judgment and receive that foresaid fearful Sentence from Him Depart from me ye Cursed c. And yet I say in spight of such Declarations as these those I now address my self to will hope not only to escape the Wrath to come but to be eternally Happy too At least those of them will that are not secret Infidels as I must confess 't is hard to think most of them should not be profess they what they will But who can express the Folly the Madness rather of such a Hope I know many of our Covetous Christians I can't call them but Professors of Christianity do lay no small Weight on their being Iust and Righteous in their Dealings and taking great Care to do no wrong But 1. Suppose you are strictly just can you expect a Reward for this Nay can you expect that the King of Heaven should bestow upon you no less a Reward than the Kingdom of Heaven merely because you do no wrong merely because you are pleased not to be Mischievous In good time in truth But this is all that a barely just man can commend himself for viz. that he does no Mischief And remember I beseech you that our Lord hath declared that The Vnprofitable and not only the Injurious Servant shall be bound hand and foot and cast into outer Darkness where shall be weeping and gnashing of Teeth And that The Tree which bears not Good fruit and not only that beareth bad shall be hewn down and cast into the fire But 2. 'T is more than an even Lay that those Misers who most boast of their Iustice are far from being strictly Iust. Nay I dare warrant