Selected quad for the lemma: lord_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
lord_n	day_n	heart_n	time_n	10,224	5	3.5191	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A43254	A call to a general reformation of manners and manifesting in several particulars the great lets and hinderances thereunto / preached at the arch-deacon of Sudbury's visitation, holden at Kentford in Suffolk in April last, 1700, by Clement Heigham, Esq., now rector of Barrow in Suffolk.	Heigham, Clement, d. 1714.	1700 (1700)	Wing H1370A; ESTC R36595	13,878	32

blesseth or chastiseth a Nation according as they either fear or dishonour him we must then believe that all our private and publick Happiness and Safety will depend upon our holy living and discountenancing Vice Your very Safety and Prosperity in any kind rests move upon this Basis than upon all our wisest Counsels or the force of Arms and the very Safety and Reputation of our Church both at home and abroad depends upon a thorow Reformation of Manners yea the Peace and Honour and Prosperity of your Families depends upon it and what is much more valuable I am sure your inward Peace and comfortable hopes of another Life rests upon your regular good Christian Practice In a word your Baptism requires it and the care of your Childrens Souls and others of your Family exacts this Duty of you to live well your selves and to discourage Sin in others And for many of you that hear me I must plainly tell you that your very Offices and solemn Oaths do bind you to prosecute the wicked Doers and to all of you I say your Allegiance to God and the King exacts all this at your hands Wherefore let the sum of our Thoughts bend this way let this be the chief end of all our Study Learning and Reading Let this be the end of all our Preaching and Praying and counselling and reproving and correcting to save our own Souls and the Souls of others Then will the Almighty shine upon us and give us his Blessing and all Europe shall behold and see that we are not only mighty in Battel but mighty in Prayer too and shall be forced to confess that God is with us and on our side because by due fearing and serving him we are become a wise and understanding People But to conclude Since so august and puissant a Prince leads the way since a Prince mighty in Battel to defend and protect us is neither afraid nor ashamed to engage himself resolutely under the despised Banner of the Cross and to fight Christ's Battels against the Corruptions of a wicked World and commands us all not only to live well but to attend and assist him in our several Offices and Places to discourage and suppress the Corruptions of the Age we live in I do take it to be a special and signal Call from Heaven to you all to join unanimously in this great work of endeavouring to amend a corrupt World And if any Magistrates or inferior Officers shall neglect to prosecute his Majesty's pious Intentions they will have a great deal to answer for not only to the King but to the Great God the King of Kings and they will bring the Guilt of others Sins upon themselves and the whole Nation For the Connivance of Governours makes the Sins of private Persons the Sins of the Community and altho the Punishment of private persons or particular men may be deferred to a future State yet Communities as such as one well expresseth it having no Resurrection in the World to come they may justly expect the fruits of their Delinquencies in this present Life But because it cannot be hoped or expected that so great a work as the Reforming a polluted Age can be brought to any great effect unless all that have the least stamp of Authority upon them shall put their helping hand to this great Work unless Parents and Masters of Families shall begin at home unless Ministers and Magistrates and all inferior Parish-Officers shall conspire and conjoin in this glorious Work Let us therefore pray to Almighty God that he would inspire the Hearts of all Orders and Estates of Men in this our holy Church that every Member of the same in his Place and Office Spiritual or Civil may gird themselves with a true Christian Zeal and Courage to countenance Goodness and to bring all Wickedness into a just shame and contempt that so God may be glorified and many Souls saved and that God may delight to dwell amongst us and that we may all rejoice and be glad in the Peace and Prosperity of our Church and State DEO GLORIA Now the God of Peace that brought again from the Dead our Lord Jesus Christ that great Shepherd of the Sheep through the Blood of the everlasting Covenant make you perfect in every good Work to do his Will working in you that which is well pleasing in his sight through Jesus Christ to whom be Glory for ever and ever Amen Grant we beseech thee Almighty God that the Words we have heard this day with our outward Ears may through thy Grace be so grafted inwardly in our Hearts that they may bring forth in us the fruit of Good Living to the Honour and Praise of thy Name through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen The Peace of God which passeth all Vnderstanding keep your Hearts and Minds in the Knowledg and Love of God and of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord And the Blessing of God Almighty the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost be amongst you and remain with you always Amen FINIS

Oaths you are by no means to spare any tho never so great but if after gentle and neighbourly Admonitions they still persist in ill you are to present them for your Obligations to God and your own Souls are above any temporal Tie any worldly Respects Do well and right and let the World sink And indeed unless Parish-Officers will be watchful to discover Offenders and then perform their Oaths all hopes of a General Reformation of Manners must be at an end and the Land must still groan under the burden of Wickedness Fifth Complaint Is concerning the great want of Family-Religion among the Generality of Christians and the not imploying the Lords-day profitably in our Houses as well as in the Church Next to the sacred Ministry there is nothing would conduce more to the reforming a corrupt World and to the keeping up a due sense of God and serious Religion than the due care of Masters and Mistresses and Parents to discharge all that Duty which both Nature and Grace teacheth them that is to pray in and with their Families and to instruct them and to restrain and govern those Children and Servants that are under their care and charge And if those Housholders whose daily necessities will not allow them much time for these Imployments upon the other days of the week would imploy the Lords-day carefully both in the publick Assemblies and in their private Houses to benefit themselves and those that belong to their care we might then hope to see Sin restrained and Goodness universally planted But until Families shall become Nurseries of Religion and Good-manners and shall become like little Churches and sacred places both for good Instruction and holy Worship no great Reformation is to be expected Some may perhaps call this Puritanism but call it what they will I take it to be an infallible truth that it is exemplary Godliness that can only restore and preserve the Church Sixth Complaint Is of the Sacrilegious Inclinations of Persons in our Communion and that which unavoidably follows the making the Church poor is the contempt of the Sacred Function But this may seem to some a very remote Hinderance as to the reforming the World but it is not so for what great things can be expected where the Ministers Maintenance is either wholly precarious or if it be settled by Law it is very strait poor and necessitous And a mean or precarious Livelihood too often cramps the Tongue of the Preacher and makes it afraid to speak plain and what is worse it hinders study and begets servile and base Compliances And in plain English scandalous Livings too often make scandalous Priests and where it is so what Reformation can there be hoped for Our greatest and best Men saw this Mishief long ago and that not only Churchmen but some others of Great Name And here I cannot but mention one a great Light and Prelate of our Church the famous Bishop Jewel In a Sermon of his before the then Queen we have these words What may be guessed at their Intent who decay the Provisions of the House of God and so basely esteem the Ministers of the Gospel altho in other things they do well altho they seem to rejoice at the Prosperity of Sion and to seek the safety of the Lord 's Anointed yet needs must it be that by these means foreign Power shall again be brought in upon us such things shall be done unto us as we before suffered in the times of Popery And saith the same Bishop Jewel the Parsonages and Vicarages are the very Castles and Towers of defence for the Lord's Temple and if they be not better furnished with a due Maintenance and made more secure against Contempt we must expect God's Judgment upon us and this noble Realm shall be subject to foreign Nations These words to me are very remarkable as falling from so great a Man I wish they were not prophetical but yet when all is said 't is not to be expected that the contempt of the Ministry should wholly cease For the Sacred Order by their Office being bound to cry down the ways of Sin which corrupt Nature cries up the work of the Ministry being to promote Sobriety Righteousness and Holiness and to plant those Graces in the Hearts and Lives of Men which corrupt Nature and the Devil strive against This is so unthankful a work to irritate and disturb Mens Consciences as close and sound Preaching must needs do to press against the bent of Mens strong Inclinations and to commend to them what they most hate this is a work which will not procure to him much Honour and Esteem that is imployed in it in this irreligious Age. And our Saviour hath told us long ago what we must expect from a wicked World if we will be faithful in our places The World cannot hate you but me it hateth because I testify of it that the Works thereof are evil I confess it may seem very strange to a thinking Man that in a civilized Nation a Man of God should be despised a Man of God by his sacred Character and Message and whose Office it is to guide and conduct Souls to Heaven Little do Christians consider how much they owe to the main body of the despised Clergy By them you are baptized by them you are instructed in all saving Knowledg by their Prayers your Souls do receive aid and assistance from Heaven by their Prayers Judgments are kept off from a People at their hands you often receive the Bread of Life and by them your departing Souls are commended to God and if there were any Magistrates here I would tell them and justify it too that the Peace and Prosperity of the Kingdom is more owing to the Pulpit and an orthodox regular Clergy than to all the Courts of Judicature 'T is not the Magistrates Sword alone that would preserve you if the daily and weekly Labours of the Ministry did not instil good Principles and keep the Consciences of men awake and make men more afraid of Sin than all your Axes and Rods can do It is the Ministers Labours that dispel that Ignorance so far as it is dispelled amongst us It is the Ministers faithful Labours that break the force of mens Corruptions and make them more dutiful to God and submissive to their Governours And therefore if the Parsonages and Vicarages be the very Castles and Towers of defence for the Lord's Temple and the greatest security for the State too sure then it highly concerns all Orders of Men to assist and protect them and to contribute all they can to secure them from contempt and to strengthen them in their great work of promoting Religion and depressing Vice and all manner of Wickedness I have now done with the great Lets and Hinderances of an universal Reformation of Manners and it is no difficult thing to point out what must be the Cure 1. A devout faithful and laborious Ministry supported with a due