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	rest_n	sabbath_n	28,545	5	10.4626	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A39288	A sermon preach'd before the King and Queen, upon Ephes. 5.16. Redeeming the time, because the days are evil. By the Reverend Father Philip Ellis monk of the H. Order of St. Benedict, and of the English Congr. chaplain and preacher in ordinary to their Majesties. Published by His Majesties command	Ellis, Philip, 1652-1726.	1687 (1687)	Wing E600; ESTC R214602	15,277	36

which is but standing Error has prepossess'd our Minds stupifi'd and immersed in Flesh and Blood that to do nothing is easie when indeed it is the greatest pain the reasonable Creature can endure arguing either a childish Weakness that we cannot act or a shameful Ignorance that we know not what to do And I believe the Man of Reason will grant me that Ignorance as it is a punishment upon us for doing what we ought not so is it the greatest torment to a Soul which is perpetually thirsting after Knowledge And as for the more unthinking and grosser part of Mankind they cannot deny but all Pain comes from Weakness Our own Notions therefore bear testimony against us and if what we call a gentile life speaks either our Weakness or Ignorance the gentile Liver is the most unhappy Creature in the World For Happiness is so far from consisting in either of these that both are essentially destructive to it and whosoever hopes to compass this end by contrary means will find himself at last in the other Extremity To be plain whosoever promises Happiness to himself without much labor sets it at too high a price at which no wise Man would buy it if it be not to be purchas'd but by living idly for at this rate one must be Miserable to become Happy But how unnatural a thing is it for that Creature to be idle Ambr. Praef. in Luc. Basil ap Mel. 89. who alone of all Creatures stands condemn'd to labor as St. Ambrose observes Upon which consideration St. Basil doubts not to brand this Vice of so great reputation in the World with the infamous Character of a sin against Nature because there is nothing in the whole Frame of Nature idle or unactive Our Blessed Saviour testifies of the Godhead it self My Father saith he John 5.17 still works and I work Pater meus usque modo operatur All the Hierarches of Angels as one assures us who had been in the third Heaven are Administring Spirits The Prophet declares they have no rest day nor night but incessantly pour forth their harmonious Acclamation Holy Holy Holy Lord God of Sabbath And what I should have mention'd before The sacred Humanity of Christ came not to be serv'd but to serve Non venit ut Ministraretur sed ut Ministraret The Celestial Orbs have never had any respite from their perpetual motion all things below are in a continual Tide a regular Succession of Causes and Effects Every Creature groans and brings forth even till now saith the Apostle And if the invisible things of God are understood by those things which are made The Operations of Nature are so many Emblems of the Diligence he requires at our hands towards the working out our Salvation God having made them not only for our use but also for our instruction In fine the whole World is a large Volum as St. S. Athanas in Vit. S. Ant. Anthony calls it where we may read our Duty and meet with it in every line Nay if Man would but take the measure of his Moral Actions from the observation of his Natural the continual working of the Heart circulation of the Blood respiration of the Lungs pulse of the Arteries and activity of the Fancy will teach him Assiduity in the exercise of those nobler Faculties whose Actions depend upon the liberty of his Will how constant and regular his Motion ought to be in the Service of God And that his Soul is as much dead when it is idle and surceases from doing well as the Body will be when all these Vital Operations are at an end I know not any one who would not esteem it a horrible Execration to wish he had neither Hands nor Feet yet such is our misery that while we make no more use of them in order to our own good or that of our Neighbor than if they were quite disabled even in that respect we count our selves happy For take away from the Lady the Gentleman the Courtier c. the power and convenience of doing nothing and being not in the labors of Men the subtilest Logician can scarce explain in what formality their Happiness i. e. the advantage of their Condition consists Their priviledge seems to lie in an exemption from the general Malediction inflicted upon the rest of Mankind In the sweat of their brows they shall eat their Bread But then they must draw their Pedegree from some other Line than that of Adam for no more is any Child of his free of this Obligation than he is from the cause of it and if we Inherit the one we must necessarily be partakers of the other For as Holy Job expounds this Sentence Man is born to labor Labor being not only a necessary means to preserve his life but one of the ends why it was given him And our Blessed Saviour revives and inforces this Doctrin in the Parable of the Master entrusting his Servants with so many Talents with a Negotiamini Manage and improve them and this not for a spirt when the fit takes you but donec veniam without intermission till he calls them in and you to give an account of your Stewardship by which Servants every body understands the whole Mass of Human Nature without excepting any State or Condition and by the Talents a necessity of working according to the Abilities this great Master has dispensed to every particular Now if a Man who had well consider'd the weight and strictness of this Obligation without knowing the Follies of Mankind and their vain amusements should look out into the World he would tell me I make a Discourse in the Air and to the Walls for every one is active in his respective Station and employ'd in his Duty when he should see their earnestness at such a distance as not to discern the matter they are so intent upon How People hast along the Streets and press one another like Waves which are broken and sever'd with a contrary Tide When he should behold some warmly disputing at a Table others walking musing and solitary some Reading others discoursing with abundance of Gravity others sitting in crowds in recollection and silence he would certainly bid me hold my peace and not disturb these serious Men with advising them to begin what they are already doing But if I should lead him nearer to them within ken of their Actions and hearing of their Discourse when he should discover their Lives and their Talk to be all of a piece Atheistical in good earnest When he should see these People running to a Shew or to a Riot to circumvent their Neighbor or to oppress the Innocent or coursing about the Streets meerly to shew their Equipage or themselves When he should find those silent and recollected People at the Theater whom he thought at a Sermon That Lady at her Glass and in a profound contemplation of her self whom he thought at her Oratory that Gallant reading a Romance or a Novel

A SERMON Preach'd before the King and Queen Upon Ephes 5.16 Redeeming the Time because the days are evil By the Reverend Father Philip Ellis Monk of the H. Order of St. Benedict and of the English Congr Chaplain and Preacher in Ordinary to their Majesties Published by His Majesties Command LONDON Printed by Henry Hills Printer to the King 's most Excellent Majesty for His Houshold and Chapel 1687. Ephes 5.16 Redimentes tempus quoniam dies mali sunt Redeeming the Time because the days are evil IF this great Apostle Sacred Majesty command all who were to succeed him in the Apostolical Office and in the care of Souls to Preach the Word in season out of season certainly this which I have chosen or rather which is recommended this day by the Church to your particular consideration and is delivered by Him as a Compendium of Morality is ever in Season and ever in the Crisis The management of our Time being like the Dictates of our Conscience in no circumstance to be neglected being in the number of those Precepts which admit of no dispensation For Time being in a continual Flux and Motion every particle of it which is not improv'd is lost but blessed be God not lost beyond Redemption for what is impossible to Nature is possible to Grace what all the industry of Man cannot retrieve nor the Wealth of both the Indies recover the poorest and weakest Christian is taught how to Redeem Redeem the Time. Should a Merchant see that Vessel sink before his Eyes which was laden with all his Hopes and almost all his Wealth where he had treasur'd up the labors of his past life the comforts of his present and the unknown joys of his future happiness yet admist his Agonies should hear one promising to repair his loss with the small remainder of his Fortune how greedily would he embrace the offer and hearken to the expedient Should an Eminent Lawyer whisper a young Spend-thrift in the ear that he will put him into a method how to redeem a morgag'd and imbesled Estate and this without any cost or charges and even any advantage to himself Would not he look upon this Man as his better Genius not only as the most charitable but also the most friendly Person in the World and follow his counsel in despite of all their reasonings and dissuasives who encourage his profuseness and lend a helping hand to his ruin Should the Captive be taught how to recover his Liberty the Conquered his Honor the Stigmatiz'd and Scandalous his Reputation or the Malefactor how to gain his Judge and compound for the greatest Crimes with the smallest Punishment I presume much Rhetoric would not be necessary to win their attention Now this is what I come to offer you and what the Apostle exhorts you to But methinks Exhortation should be needless where Self-interest pleads so strong and I should have nothing to do but to shew you the practical Part were all Men agreed in the Thesis But most People know not the true price of Time know not how to spend it when they have it or how to go about to redeem it when it is mis-spent Wherefore the true value of Time the great abuse of it and the most excellent manner of redeeming it I beg leave may be the Subject of the two following Parts of my Discourse after we have implor'd the Divine Assistance by the Intercession of the Virgin Mother Ave Maria. Redeem the Time because the days are evil St. Aug. in his 24th Sermon upon the words of the Apostle observes there are two things which render our days evil the misery and the wickedness of Men. But since misery is only the punishment of wickedness and wickedness the cause of misery it is the mis-spending and not redeeming our Time which denominate the days evil Mis-spending relates to the present and to the future when it becomes present not redeeming regards what is past so that both together infect the whole Stream and render our days guilty of a double iniquity For it is no small aggravation of every sin tho so little reflected on and made so light of by People now a-days that in the perpetration of evil is included the omission of doing well that the same parcels of Time we dedicate to Vice ought to be consecrated to the exercise of Vertue that the contrary practice besides its proper and specifick wickedness is guilty of Injustice and Robbery In fine That in the day of Judgment a separate account will be demanded of what we have and what we have not done This is evident from the Bill which shall be brought in and found against the Delinquent and is already declar'd by our Blessed Lord Mat. 25. where every Article of the Inditement is Negative You did not feed me you did not cloath me you did not visit me and the rest But here is not alledg'd so much as the breach of a Commandment then Irreligion Luxury Detraction and Extortion are smaller Crimes which will bear no Action But since lesser Articles cannot supersede the greater it follows These are upon another Rule unless such gross offenders shall be ranged with Infidels who are already judg'd and carry their Sentence in their Faces jam judicati sunt But for the rest of Christians who think themselves innocent because they abstain from these blacker Crimes it is necessary another Inditement should be prepar'd setting forth the Omission of good Works and convicting them of mispending their Time which as appears from our Saviours words is alone sufficient to plunge them into everlasting Flames Quia non fecistis Therefore because you did not for no other reason go you cursed into everlasting Fire And after all this amidst so much knowledge in a Point which concerns us so highly and which we firmly believe is it not a Subject rather of Tears than of Expostulation and Discourse that nothing is so little consider'd by Man as the true value of Time I know the Divine the Philosopher the Lawyer the Trades-man and even the Libertine unanimously agree that Time is the most pretious thing in the World but all of them upon different Motives The Philosopher prizes it in order to Science the Lawyer manages it to improve his Fortune the Trades-man to procure a Subsistence the Libertine to indulge his Appetites but the Divine teaches it to be only valuable as leading to an happy Eternity To value Time upon the account of Speculation is meerly Heathenish to value it for a Temporal advantage is meerly Human haec Gentes requirunt to value it for the abuse of it is diabolical but to value it for the true end is the estimate of a Christian Wherefore all the manegery of Time or rather the applying of it otherwise than to the true end for which it was given and to which it naturally tends i. e. to Eternity is an unjust alienation because it turns the Means into the end and frustrates the Design of