Selected quad for the lemma: lord_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
lord_n	bishop_n	thomas_n	william_n	34,611	5	9.2936	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A47239	A sermon preached at the funeral of the Right Honourable the Lady Margaret Mainard, at Little Easton in Essex, on the 30th of June, 1682 by ... Thomas, Lord Bishop of Bath and Wells.	Ken, Thomas, 1637-1711.	1688 (1688)	Wing K280; ESTC R14039	19,003	38

A SERMON Preached at the FUNERAL OF THE RIGHT HONOURABLE THE Lady Margaret Mainard AT Little EASTON in ESSEX On the 30th of June 1682. By the Right Reverend Father in God Thomas Lord Bishop of Bath and Wells The Third Edition LONDON Printed for Charles Brome at the Gun at the West-end of St. Paul's Church-yard and William Clarke Bookseller in Winchester MDCLXXXVIII TO The Right Honourable WILLIAM Lord Mainard BARON of EASTAINS My LORD THough I am unwilling to decline any Service which Your Lordship expects from me yet when you enjoyn'd me the Printing of this Sermon I could not obey Your Command without disputing it For I consider'd that in such an Age as this where an Exemplary Holiness is very rare I shall be thought guilty of most gross Flattery in the Character I have given of Your Incomparable Lady now in Heaven But knowing I have so many unexceptionable Witnesses to attest every line I have said especially Your Self who best understood her value and are most sensible of her loss and being Conscious to my self that I have spoken no other throughout than the words of Truth I soon broke through all the discouragements I had either from the just Censures the World would fix on the meanness of the Discourse or from the unjust ones it might pass on my Insincerity and resolv'd to do all that little Honour I could to her Memory and to give God the glory of her Example And I humbly beseech the Divine Goodness that what I now offer to the Publick may not be wholly unprofitable to those who read it However I am sure it will not be unacceptable to Your Lordship or to those who were so happy to know her which will be satisfaction enough to My Good LORD Your Lordships most Humble and Faithful Servant Thomas Bath and Wells A SERMON Preached at the FUNERAL Of the Right Honourable The LADY MARGARET MAINARD On Prov. II. XVI A gracious Woman retaineth honour THE World was never yet so bad but the good Man though his life was a continued Satyr to the Age he lived in did always either find or extort a Veneration from it So true is it of both Sexes which Solomon here affirms of Woman only that gracious Persons they who are in the Grace and Favour of God and are strengthned by his gracious assistances they who by the covenant of Grace are enrolled in his service and in whose hearts there is a conspiration of all the Graces of his Holy Spirit all which particulars are included in the word Grace and do all concur to make up a gracious Soul Such persons I say as these shall from the generality of Men gain an inward esteem and a great Opinion and for the most part an outward and a suitable respect or as the Wise man words it shall retain honour I must confess that there are many instances even in our own perverse generation wherein Vertue has rather been contemn'd and ridicul'd than Honour'd but I will mention no other than the most signal of all God Incarnate whose example though it was as perfect and unblameable as the fulness of the Godhead could render it yet his most divine Person was so far from being honoured by many of the Jews that he lay under the utmost imputations of Slander and Blasphemy which words could express and as glorious as all his Miracles were they were ascribed to no other than Beelzebub the Prince of the very Devils But though it be true that our blessed Lord in regard to his state of Humiliation seemed to have no form no comeliness in him yet all his Conversation had so many irradiations of Divinity in it which did abundantly evince his heavenly Extraction and it is no wonder he should suffer such contradictions of sinners it being usual for an Heroick Virtue which is singly to encounter whole Legions to contend with inveterate Errours or reigning Vices to reprove and reform the World as our Saviour was to be loaded with most diabolical reproaches But Goodness has an inseparable splendour which can never suffer a total eclipse and when it is most revil'd and persecuted it then shines brightest out of Cloud So that all who are not wilfully blind who will but make use of their eyes to see must acknowledge the force of its Rays This did the very Jews themselves as many as had any relicks of common ingenuity left The Multitude own'd our Saviour for a great Prophet wonder'd at his gracious words confest he had done all things well insomuch that they would have exalted him to the throne and have made him their King Pilate could find no fault in him at all and the Centurion a Heathen even when he saw him hanging on the Cross as a Malefactour cried out Certainly this was a Righteous Man. So that a gracious Person under the most extreme degree of Infamy and Slander shall yet retain honour shall from all that are in their right minds have at least an inward Veneration If this be verifi'd of a publique Vertue there can be less doubt of it in a private one which not being on such a stage as may provoke and affront the angry World by openly contradicting or upbraiding or chastising it passes along with a less assaulted and less envied reputation and more undisturb'dly retains honour than the former There is I know an honour which is due to all men as they are God's workmanship and have some lines of his Image in them but especially to Kings and to Magistrates whom it is our duty to honour whether they be gracious Persons or no this we are to render to the Froward and Pagan as well as to gentle and believing Masters to Princes that are Infidels and Persecutors as well as to Christian and nursing Fathers But then this honour is not paid them out of respect to any real Goodness in them but only to their Authority as they are God's ordinance as we depend on their Protection and as our Obedience is enforc'd by Laws and Penalties But the honour we give to a gracious Person is purely in reference to his moral excellencies which are legible in the whole conduct of his life The former is merely civil the latter may in some sort be styl'd Religious Empire is honour'd as it resembles God's power abstracted from his Holiness and therefore it is compatible with an ungracious Person it is confin'd only to this World and reaches no farther But Graciousness is honour'd as a participation of the divine Nature appropriate to no other than Saints and which has its prospect only on Heaven The former is like Thunder and Lightning and works on our Fear the latter is like the appearance of a good Angel arraid in Beams awful but kind which do not afflict but chear the sight and raise in us a mixt passion of Love and Veneration together and in this sense it is that the gracious Person for the venerable