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	king_n	majesty_n	10,823	5	5.9393	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A30432	A sermon preached before the King & Queen at White-Hall, on Christmas-Day, 1689 by the Right Reverend Father in God, Gilbert, Lord Bishop of Sarum.	Burnet, Gilbert, 1643-1715.	1690 (1690)	Wing B5890; ESTC R19736	17,332	42

PRINTED By Their Majesties Special Command A SERMON Preached before the KING QUEEN At WHITE-HALL ON christmas-CHRISTMAS-DAY 1689. By the Right Reverend Father in God GILBERT Lord Bishop of SARUM LONDON Printed for Richard Thiswell at the Rose and Crown in St. Paul's Church-Yard MDC ●XC THE BISHOP of SALISBURY's Sermon before the KING and QUEEN ON CHRISTMAS-DAY 1689. A SERMON Preached before the KING and QUEEN c. 1 TIM III. VER 16. And without controversie great is the mystery of godliness God was manifest in the flesh justified in the spirit seen of Angels preached unto the Gentiles believed on in the world and receive up into glory THE most venerable part of Religion consists in the Mysteries it contains and the more sacred and sublime that these are the Religion to which they belong becomes thereby so much the more August The minds of Men are subject to two extreams in the matter of Mysteries some have such a liking for every thing that pretends to Mystery that this alone serves to recommend all things to them and as if Religion were designed to give perpetual affronts to Reason they despise things that are intelligible and think it is a Character of a mean and contemptible Religion if it is not full of unaccountable things and they seem to be so taken with a sickness after Mystery that the more absurd that any Doctrines are they like them the better this serving to gild or sweeten the Pill and perhaps they think that a fond credulity will atone for all other faults as if an easiness of believing might serve to compound for the most hainous sins But on the other hand some have such thoughts of themselves and of the force and compass of their own Reasons that they think it an unreasonable imposing on them to expect that they should believe any thing which they cannot quite comprehend The Mean between these is to fix such sure measures in this matter as may preserve us both from a tameness that may expose us to be an easie Prey to every one that will force perswasions on us with this bugbear that they are Mysteries and that therefore they ought to be believed even before they are examined and also on the other hand from such a swelling of pride as to reject every thing how solemnly soever attested only because it does not agree with our Notions We have St. Paul here in my Text concluding a charge that he had given to Timothy and in him to all that should minister in holy things that he should from the Rules here set him learn how he ought to behave himself in the Church of God for since the World that is ever apt to be implicit in its thoughts of Religion will judge of that which they do not know nor understand I mean the Doctrine from that which they do see and know I mean the lives of those who do teach and profess it and since the Majesty that is in some Mysteries requires a suitable authority and gravity in those that handle and propose them therefore the obligation that lies on Church-men to a great exactness of deportment appears particularly from this That the Mystery of their Religion is without controversie great and that it is likewise a Mystery of godliness that leads to Right thoughts of God and to a way of worshipping him that is suitable to his Nature and Attributes both which considerations agree to point out this to us That the Bishops and Pastors of the Church ought to be Men of a sublime pitch of mind and of an unaffected strictness of holiness In speaking to these words I shall consider I. What is the true and strict Notion of a Mystery in general II. What reason there may be for us to believe such Mysteries as may be revealed to us by God III. How credible the Mysteries mentioned in my Text are in themselves IV. What reason we have offered to us that obliges us to believe them V. In what sense this is a Mystery of godliness I. Mystery in its common and general Notion is a Sacred Secret and it was chiefly applied by the Heathens who first used the word to those Rites and Ceremonies by which Men were either initiated into Religion or reconciled to the Deity and the performance of these things had in it many secrets which the Priests were careful enough to conceal and thereby to encrease their value Among the Romans it was one of the Methods by which the People were managed to make them believe that publick misfortunes rise from some error in the performance of the service that they paid their Gods A Deputation of fifteen Men who were of the most intire confidence was appointed on great occasions to examine the Rituals of their Religion and these either found or pretended they had found out both the error that had been committed and the proper Remedy upon which it was given out that the offended Deity was pacified and thereupon the People that were out of heart took new courage and this to be sure contributed not a little to the procuring them better Success From this common use of the Term Mystery it is applied in some places in the New Testament to some of the Rites and Doctrines of Christians Marriage is said to be a Mystery not as if there were any thing Mysterious in that Compact which is founded on the Laws of Nature and Society but St. Paul had been shewing the reciprocal tie that is between the Man and the Wife by which it appears that a Man can no more have two Wives than a Wife have two Husbands and upon that he says That in this lay a Mystery relating to Christ and the Church that is a mystical Argument to prove that the Gentiles were to be brought to equal priviledges in the Dispensation of the Messias with the Iews for the Prophecies having expressed the Union of God with Mankind in the Messias under the figure of a Marriage then it follows according to the Allegory of a Marriage that all must be called to him in an equality of priviledge and dignity and not as the Iews imagined that they were to have many Priviledges under the Messias above the Gentiles who were only to have a second share after them Now in the Mystical way of arguing which was in use among the Iews at that time it was no ill way to convince them to shew that the whole Church was to come as one Wife under the same Priviledges otherwise a disparity in that some having more and some fewer looked like the State of Polygamy or Concubinate and not of a single Marriage But to return from this digression The Sacraments of the Christian Religion came to be also called Mysteries because in these Men were initiated and confirmed in their Religion yet not by any secret methods that Priests only might know but in actions that were plain simple and significative This great Doctrine of the Christian Religion mentioned in