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	holy_a	work_n	15,741	5	6.0955	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A44431	The almost Christian discovered, in some sermons on Acts 26, 28 with a blow at profaneness / by the R.R. Ezekiel Hopkins, late Lord Bishop of London-Derry ; to which is added the upright Christian discovered, gathered out of the judicious treatises of William Bates, D.D.	Hopkins, Ezekiel, 1634-1690.; Bates, William, 1625-1699.	1693 (1693)	Wing H2728; ESTC R13653	54,869	143

this day And that whether in Publick Private or Secret The Day is not done when the Church dissolves The whole of it is holy to the Lord. Walks and Visits are not to be the Evening-Work of the Sabbath but holy and spiritual Conferences Those who have Families to look after be best employed in seeing them spend the vacant time of the Sabbath in Holy Exercises sc Reading the Scripture giving an account what Truths they have been taught joining with them in Praises and Prayer unto God In all of these in their Courses and Order till Night calls for Repose Fifthly The Ordinances of Jesus Christ Which we profane when we neglect or are remiss in our attendance upon them Some particular Characters of a profane Person here follow First He is a profane Person that thinks and speaks but slighly of Religion Religion our chiefest Excellency the Crown of our Beings But have we not many who deride Piety and make a scoff of Religion Who take up their Religion by chance never examining it Thinking that any may suffice whatever it be Secretly despising the holiness and strictness of others thinking they make more ado to get to Heaven than needs But indeed they are not too precise but these are too profane who contemn Religion as unnecessary and superfluous Secondly He is a prafane Person who neglects the Publick Worship of God when he hath opportunity and ability to attend it God's special Presence is in two places Heaven and the Church Thirdly He is a profane Person who neglects the performance of religious Duties in private Every House ought to be a Temple dedicated to God And every Master ought to be a Priest to offer to God the daily Sacrifice of Prayers and Praises Such profane Families as those which are without them God ranks with Infidels and Heathens and devotes them to the same common Destruction In the Morning Prayer is the Key that opens to us the Treasury of God's Mercies and Blessings In the Evening it is the Key that shuts us up safe under his Protection and Safeguard Excuses are vain and cannot take off your Obligation Are you ignorant Many are the helps that God hath provided you Are you incumbred with your Worldly Affairs The weightier they are the more need you have to ask Counsel and Direction of God Are you bashful and modest Alas be ashamed to sin be ashamed to talk loosly be ashamed to neglect thy Duty before thy Family but be not ashamed to pray and do thy Duty Our Saviour hath told us Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of me and 〈◊〉 my words in this adulterous and sinful Generation of him also shall the Son of Man be ashamed when he cometh in the Glory of his Father with the Holy Angels Mark 8.38 What will become of them who are ashamed of their Duty Fourthly He is a profane Person that performs Holy Duties slightly and superficially Our whole Hearts must go into our Holy Duties And the strength and vigor of our Spirits must diffuse themselves into every part of them to animate and quicken them Sacrifices of old were commanded to be offered up with Fire And no other Fire could sanctifie them but that which shot it self down from Heaven The which was ever after to be kept burning for that use Our Christian Sacrifices of Praise and Prayer must be offered with Fire and that Fire must be d●rted down from Heaven The Celestial Flame of Zeal and Love which comes from Heaven and hath a natural Tendency to carry up our Hearts and Souls thither But indeed commonly our Duties are either offered up with strange unhallowed Fire some unruly Passion of Hatred Self-love and Pride Or else they are very cold and heartless Our Prayers are dull and yawning and drop over our Lips without any Spirit or Life in them Fifthly He is a prosane Person that performs Holy D●ties for Worldly Ends and Advantages For what greater contempt of God can there be than to make his service truckle under base Designs A Hypocri●e is the most profane Wretch that lives He entitles the Holy God unto the Wickedness he commits and makes God the Patron of his Sin And the Wound that Religion receives from Hypocrites is far more dangerous than that which open 〈…〉 upon it When he that speaks 〈…〉 ●●●● this tempts Men to think that all Religion is but Mockery Sixthly He is a prosane Person who makes what God hath sanctified common and unhallowed And have we not many such prosane Persons Many that abuse the Holy and Reverend Name of God about ●ous Matters Who make mention of him in their ●dle Chat. but are mute and dumb when any thing should be spoke to his Praise There are but two Ends that can warrant and justifie the use of any of God's Names Titles and Attributes And they 〈◊〉 1. God's Glory and 2. The Edisication of our ●es and others God's terrible Name is so full of Glo●● and Majesty that it should never be uttered but where the Discourse is serious and weighty Those who rend it with Oaths and Blasphemies ought to be punished by the Judges And would to God Laws 〈◊〉 put in severe Execution to cramp the 〈…〉 Wretches Others ●ill up their fan●har Tattles with the Name of GOD and LORD making them to express some 〈…〉 and fill 〈…〉 their Discour●s These God will not hold guiltless He holds 〈◊〉 contemned and will revenge the Dishonour 〈◊〉 they do him by it What! Will you dare to 〈…〉 the great Name of God without considering 〈…〉 it a Name to be sported with To be tost to and fro upon every light and vain Tongue Whenever we ●●ntion it we ought to how our hearts in the dee●est pr●stration before it to which all the Powers an● Heaven and Earth bow down with most humble Veneration Canst thou in Duty easily compose thy self to reverence the holy and dreadful Name when thou hast accustomed thy self to name him without any respect in thy common Discourses Let me beseech you O Christians as you tender his Glory of which He is jealous whensoever you speak of God or but mention his Name do it with an holy Awe and Dread of his Divine Majesty And you who are Masters of Families and have Children beware that you stop in them the growing Sin of profaning God's Name To attest any thing by their Faith or by their Truth is a wicked Oath more impious in effect than louder ones The By word Marry is no less than swearing by the Virgin Mary It is a notable Device of the Devil to bring foolish masked words into common use 1. That they may swear who use them though they know it not And 2. That by using unknown Oaths they may be brought in time to take up known ones Vehement Asseverations be also dangerous beginnings of Oaths By the customary use of them we shall insensibly be tripping upon an Oath This and more see p. 163. and up and down on the third Commandment To return Many profane God's Sabbaths invade impiously the Time that be hath set apart for himself his own Worship and Service Many make the Bible their Jest-Book prostituting those Expressions which God hath sanctified to convey to us the knowledge of Himself and of Eternal Life unto the Laughter and Mirth of their loose Companions Those very words which the Holy Ghost inspired for the Edification of the Church the Devil inspires into these prosane Wretches for their own Dammation and the Damnation of those that have pleasure in such horrid Profaneness Seventhly He is a profane Person who despiseth Spiritual Privileges and E●ments Upon this very account the Scripture sets a black an● li●le Brand upon Esau Left there be any For●●●or or profane Person as Esau who for one morsel of Meat sold his Birthright Heb. 12.16 They are profane who vilifie the Ministry in Themselves and in Others Who dishonour God's Ambassadors And who despise his Children whom God so highly honours as to adopt them into his Family He who despiseth him that is begotten despiseth him likewise that begetteth Contempt of Children and Servants argues secret contempt of the Master and Father Now lay these things to your own Hearts and bring them home to your own Consciences and see whether you are in none of these particulars guilty of Profaneness Do none of you think slightly of Religion accounting it a politick Design or a needless Preciseness Are none of you negligent in the Publick Worship of God Nor in Private and Family-Duties Or if you perform them is it not very carelesly and perfunctorily Or if you seem zealous in them is not your Zeal excited by some Temporal Advantages and Worldly Designs Do you not make that Common and Vnholy which God hath made Holy Either by abusing his Name polluting his Sabbaths or vilifying his Word in your ordinary Raillery Lastly Do none of you despise Spiritual Privileges and the Persons who are invested with them If you do how fair soever your Lives and Actions may be although you may think the rude debauched Sinner at a vast distance from your selves and account him the only profane Person yet certainly this black stile belongs as properly to you And you are prosane Violaters of the First Commandment Which requires you to take the Lord for your God and accordingly to honour and reverence Him and whatsoever appertains unto Him FINIS

a little longer give some space try us yet once more and O Lord we will reform we will amend our sinful Lives we will perform neglected Duties and never more again return to folly Are not these Resolutions an evident Conviction Certainly you thought you had a power so to do and therefore if you do not endeavour to perform you are altogether inexcusable Secondly Did you never in your whole Lives perform a Duty unto God Did you never pray Is there any here so desperately prophane so lost to all shew of goodness that hath not done this And to what end have you prayed For what did you perform your Duty Was it not for Salvation And did you work for Salvation and yet think you had no power to work for it It is impossible Mens very Works do plainly shew that they do think that they have a power something still must be done though it be but formally slightly and coldly a mere Lord have mercy upon me a customary Lord forgive me yet something Conscience will require which men reckon upon and make account to be working out their Salvation Thirdly Wherefore is it that you trust unto and relie upon your good Works if you think you have no power to work out your Salvation Would it be so hard and difficult a matter to take men off from leaning so much upon their Works if they did not think that they had power to work out their own Salvation Men do apprehend a worth and sufficiency in what themselves do in order to Eternity and bid them forgo their Works and renounce their own Righteousness and this is a hard Saying you may almost perswade them assoon to renounce all their hopes of Heaven This is an evident Conviction whatever Notions men may entertain to stop the mouth of a clamorous Conscience when it calls on them for working and labouring yet they do not believe what they themselves speak concerning their Impotence Fourthly Did you never when the Spirit of God was dealing with your Hearts perswading you to enter upon a course of Duty and Obedience Did you never procrastinate and use delays Did you never stifle the Breathings nor quench the Motions of the Holy Spirit by thinking it was time enough to do it hereafter What need I begin so soon or vex my flesh or deny my self the Joys and Pleasures of this Life even as soon as I am come to relish them When Sickness or grey Hairs admonish me and tell me I am near unto Eternity when old Age promiseth me that the Severities of Religion shall be no long trouble then will I look after the Concernments of my Soul then it will be time enough then I will repent believe obey and work out that Salvation that will be then hastening upon me Tell me truly Have not these been the foolish Reasonings of your Hearts Have you not thus often promised God and your own Consciences And doth not this plainly imply you thought you had power to do it Wherefore thou art inexcusable O Man whoever thou art it is in vain to plead want of Power God will confute thee by thy very thoughts Hadst thou no Power Although thou hadst not yet thou thoughtest thou hadst yet wouldest not endeavour to work therefore thy Ruine is as wilful and thy Condemnation as just as if thou hadst a power and wouldst not work for thou perishest merely thro' the default of thine own Will Answ 3. Whether wicked men have this power or no to work out their own Salvation I shall not now stand to enquire but if they had it yet they would not work with it and therefore it is a most vain and insufficient Plea to pretend they wanted power Now this appears evidently because there is no wicked man that ever did so much as he was able to do by the mere strength of Nature without the assistance of supernatural Grace and therefore it is not their Inability but their wilfull Sloth that doth destroy them Do but answer your own Consciences Was there not one Duty more which you could have performed nor one Temptation nor one Corruption more which you could have resisted Could not you have prayed read or meditated upon heavenly things then when your Hearts and Thoughts have been vain worldly and sinful and devilish Might not that Time have been spent in holy Converse which you trifled away in idle impertinent Discourse or in doing nothing or that which was much worse than nothing What force what constraint is laid upon you Can you think And if you can Cannot you think of God as well as of the World as well concerning fulfilling God's Will and working out your Salvation as fulfilling your Lusts Can you not speak And if you can Can you not speak to God in holy Prayer and of the things of God in holy Discourse as well as of your Trades and Bargains those low and trivial Matters that are not worthy of Men much less of Christians What force is there upon you Doth the Devil screw open the Drunkard's Mouth and poure down his excessive and intemperate Cups whether he will or no Doth the Devil violently move the Tongue of the Swearer and Blasphemer to revile the holy and reverend Name of God Doth he strike men dumb when they should pray or deaf when they should hear or senseless when they should understand Is there any such force or constraint laid upon you May you not avoid the one and do the other if you your selves please Yes you can but you will not therefore neither would you work out your own Salvation if you could Is there any hope that you that will not do the less that God requires from you that you should ever be induced to perform the greater Let your Weakness and Impotence be what it will yet your Condemnation will lie upon you so long as your Wilfulness is much greater than your Weakness No Sinners your precious and immortal Souls will eternally perish now for want of Will to save them Pity your selves will you lose your selves for ever only out of Sloth Will you sleep your selves into Hell and go drowzily into destruction Shall one end of your Souls lie already burning as a Brand of Hell-fire and you not put forth a hand to snatch it out Is it more painful to work the Works of God than it is to perish for ever under insupportable Torments Therefore do you what you possibly can labour and sweat at Salvation rather than fail of it Let this never grate nor fret your Consciences in Hell that they lie there burning for ever merely for your wilfull Neglects SERMON VI. VVHen a man is gone far towards Christianity there are several things that make him neglect a further progress As First His groundless fancying of Difficulties and hard Encounters in the Ways of God Oh were it but as easie to be holy as sinful he were wretched that would refuse to be a Christian or were Christianity but one

at last you be plunged irrecoverably into that Lake which burns with Fire and Brimstone And this is the fourth consideration discovering the folly and misery of those that go far towards Christianity and yet fall short Fifthly Though these Professors may hover between Heaven and Earth in their lives yet they shall not hover between Heaven and Hell in their Deaths No the half Christian shall be as infallibly and as certainly cast into Hell as those who were altogether wicked Here it may be thou art neither Godly nor Profane but hereafter thou must be either saved or damned There is none as the Papists Picture Erasmus that hang between Heaven and Hell Whoever thou art thou must be either in a State of Nature or of Grace and accordingly shall thy estate then be for ever either a state of Salvation among the Saints or else a state of Damnation with the unregenerate Though thou art never so lofty and sublime a Professor yet the same Hell that holds the profane must eternally hereafter hold thee too if through thine own wilfull negligence thou stop any where short of true Grace If the Almost Christians could by their glittering Profession gain a cooler Hell if they could get I say but a cooler place in Hell if their Profession could gain you this if it could procure you Purgatory for venial Sins or the moderate punishment which the Papists call Limbus Patrum then you had some shew of Reason to rest where you are but when the same Hell and the same everlasting Fire must be the Portion of these who have proceeded so far and yet 〈◊〉 short as well as the portion of the vilest Wretch whom they have now as far exceeded in goodness as the holiest Saint alive exceeds them it is the very height of folly and madness to sit down any where short of true Grace unless they are fully resolved to sit down no where short of Hell 6thly and Lastly Consider It will be the insupportable aggravation of these Men's just and everlasting condemnation for them to lye grating upon this sad reflection in Hell that once they were near to Heaven but lost it through their own wilfull default It will he the aggravation I say of these Men's just and everlasting condemn●t●● to make this doleful and furious reflection upon themselves in Hell that once they were in a very hopeful State that they were once near to Heaven but lost it through their own wilfull default O when they shall lie in Hell and from thence give a sad and ghastly look up to the Glory of the Saints in Heaven O how will it pierce their Souls to think that they were once near to that blessed Estate though now there be an infinite and unpassable gulph between them and that blessed Inheritance which the Saints enjoy in Heaven Thus will they reflect upon themselves though now there be an unpassable gulph between me and Heaven yet once there was but a step or two that parted us Had I mortified but one lust more had I opposed one temptation more had I put up but one fervent Prayer more possibly I might now have been in Heaven But O my cursed cursed folly when I was at the very Gate and Threshold of Heaven that even then I should stop and after the relinquishment of my Lusts and after all my Progress in the ways of Holiness to return again to the commission of those Sins in which I had formerly lived when I had already gone through the hardest and most difficult part of Religion then to break off my course What is this but procuring for my self this damnation which I now suffer and must suffer for ever O that Light that once I enjoyed how it thickens this everlasting darkness O those tasts I once had of the Powers of the World to come and relished so much sweetness in how do they now imbitter this Cup of fury and trembling that I must for ever drink of O those Heavenly Gifts that once I had do but now increase these Hellish torments and the sight of Heaven which I have had now discovers to me what I have lost nay what I have willfully thrown away through mine own sloth and negligence O how strange is mine Apostacy after I had gone so great a way towards Christianity rather than I would move one step further I chose to lie here in this Hell for ever burning and consuming Oh what sad and tormenting thoughts will these be how will they fret and gnaw the Souls of those Wretches with Eternal anguish and insupportable Torments Thus you have seen in these Particulars somewhat discovered to you of the desperate folly and madness and misery also that Men are guilty of that do proceed so far as to be Almost and yet will not be perswaded to be Altogether Christians A Blow at Profaneness taken out of Bishop Hopkins 's Exposition of the Ten Commandments PR●faneness is the slighting and neglecting of things Holy and Sacred Whosoever is guilty of this let his outward Demeanor in the World be as sair and as plausible as Morality and 〈◊〉 can adorn it yet he is a profane Person The Spirit●al Sacred things are First God in his Nature and Essence Whom we profane when we entertain any blasphemous or unworthy Thoughts of Him Secondly God in his Name Which we profane when we rashly in our trivial Discourses boult out that great and terrible Name at which all the Powers of Heaven and Hell tremble It doth sadly fore-bode the growing Profaneness of the next Age that Children be 〈◊〉 or Suffered to call upon God in their 〈◊〉 before they be taught to call on him in their 〈◊〉 ●●●dly God in his Attributes Which we pro 〈◊〉 when our Affections or Actions are opposite or 〈◊〉 e.g. Our Vni●liness prosaneth his Ho 〈◊〉 Our Despondence prosaneth his Ommpo● Our Hypocrisie pros●neth his Ommscience Our Despair prosaneth his Mercy Our Presumption 〈…〉 his Justice Our sins●● Po●●● prosaneth his 〈◊〉 Our Security notwithstanding his Threat 〈◊〉 and our S●●th●ulness notwithstanding his Pro●es do prosane 〈◊〉 Truth Every Sin is a kind of 〈…〉 a Contempt of 〈◊〉 Ev●●encies of God 〈…〉 that which is ●ed for nothing and defieth his Wrath and Justice without a Temptation What should tempt the impious Buffoon to deride Religion Travest the Holy Scriptures And turn whatsoever is Sacred and Venerable into Burlesque and Drollery And Fourthly The Time God hath set apart and consecrated for his Service Unto the holy observance whereof God hath condescended to use three cogent Arguments viz. 1. His own Example in resting on it 2. The liberal portion of Time that He hath allowed us for the Affairs of this present Life 3. The Ded●eation of this day unto his immediate Service Vid. p. 207. But we profane it when we do not rest from the common works of our ordinary Callings And do not diligently and conscientiously attend upon all God's Ordinances appointed to be performed on