Selected quad for the lemma: lord_n
Text snippets containing the quad
|
ID |
Title |
Author |
Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) |
STC |
Words |
Pages |
|
A30375
|
A letter to a lord upon his happy conversion from popery to the Protestant religion by G. Burnett ...
|
Burnet, Gilbert, 1643-1715.
|
1688
(1688)
|
Wing B5820; ESTC R36042
|
5,359
|
5
|
A LETTER to a LORD upon his happy Conversion from Popery to the Protestant Religion By G. Burnett D. D. Right Noble Lord WHen I consider seriously these words of St. Paul Brethren you see your calling that not many noble not many wise according to the flesh not many mighty are called but hath chosen the foolish things of this world to confound the wise and weak things to confound the mighty and base things in the world and things not accounted of and things that are not to bring to nought things that are When I say I consider of these words so often I admire at that rare blessing of God which he hath vouchsafed to you a Noble and mighty Man namely that he should grace you with that true and incomparable Nobility which is attained by true Faith in Christ Jesus and a holy life As much greater as this blessing is so much the more holy and sincere ought your life to be and so much the more upright are you to walk with your God less that your thorns that is Riches Pleasures and Honour should choke the seed of the Gospel which is sown in you For this I am sure of that God hath begun some great work in you which he will finish to the glory of his own name and will bring to pass that as heretofore you had care so to live a Noble-man amongst Noble-men that you might observe the decorum and maintain the dignity of Nobility so hereafter that you may imploy your whole self in this that you may defend and uphold the honour and dignity of the Protestant Religion and in this life upon the earth to resemble that holy and heavenly life which you shall lead in the world to come Call to mind continually my Lord in all your words and deeds that we are graced with this honour to be made the sons of God by Jesus Christ for that meditation will by the help of the holy Ghost work this care in us that we never commit any thing unworthy of that holy name of Christ by which we are called And yet alas such is our estate as that if we endeavour to please Christ we are sure to displease men and must be content to contemn the vain-glory of the world that we may enjoy heavenly and eternal glory with God for it is impossible as Christ saith for him to believe in God which seeks the honour and praise of men I mean of the men of the world which as the Kingly Prophet saith are lighter and vainer than vanity itself And therefore their judgment is little worth and less to be esteemed but rather the iudgment of God who seeth not all our actions only but even our most hidden thoughts and purposes Which being so were it not folly and madness to displease such a God to please so fond a world It were a shameful thing if a wife should endeavour to please other men rather than her Husband How much more then unworthy is it if our souls should rather aim to please the vain world than their most holy Spouse Christ Jesus If the only Son of God was content not only to be reviled yea and scourged but even to die upon the Cross as a cursed malefactor and all for us why should not we much more bear patiently the taunts and mocks yea even the slanders of Gods enemies Let us therefore arm our selves as it were with a holy pride and in a sort scorn and laugh at the mocks of the Roman Catholicks and putting upon us mercy and pity as the feeling members of Christ let us bewail so great blindness in them and let us intreat the Lord for them to pull them out of that palpable darkness into his true and marvellous light lest Satan bind them to himself in his everlasting Apprentiship and so being his bond-slaves and hired sworn servants of his black-guard do send them out to prosecute Jesus Christ in his members Which when they have done all they can and all that the Devil their Master can teach them though the Devil himself should burst with malice and they for anger grind their teeth yet shall it all tend to the magnifying of Gods glory which they labour to obscure and to the furtherance of their salvation whom they so disdained yea to the increase of their glory in a better world whom in this world they thought worthy of nothing but disgrace and surely my most honorable Lord he that is possessed with the certainty of this faith will without doubt make open War with the corrupt affections of his own nature and with all the world yea even with the Devil himself and will not doubt but in time to overcome them all Therefore let us humble our selves to our God and Father everlasting that he would increase that faith in us and bring forth in us those most blessed and sweet fruits of faith in our hearts and lives which he useth to work in them whom he hath elected that so our faith may appear not a fained but a true faith not a dead but a living faith not a humane but a divine work in us that so it may be to us an infallible pledg of our salvation to come Let us labour to shew our selves the legitimate and undoubted children of God in seeking above all things that his most holy Name may be sanctified in our selves and others and in imitating his admirable love and gentleness which makes his Sun to shine on good and bad Let us worship his heavenly Majesty in spirit and truth and let us yield up the temple of our hearts to Christ Jesus as an acceptable sacrifice unto him yea let us shew our selves members of the heavenly High Priest Christ Jesus in sacrificing to God our bodies and in crucifying the flesh with the Affection and Lusts thereof that sin being dead God may create in us a spiritual life whereby Christ Jesus may live in us Let us dye to sin and dye to our selves and to the world that we may live blessedly to God and Christ Jesus yea let us acknowledg and shew by our lives that we were once dead but now are raised to the life of grace by the power of Christ Jesus Let our conversation be heavenly though we live on the earth let us begin that life here which we hope to lead in heaven let the Image of God shine bright in us let us disgrace and wear out the old Image of Sin and Satan and labour to renew the Image of Christ Jesus that all that see us may acknowledg Gods Image in us Which holy Image of grace as it is beautiful and glorious in all Gods Saints so in you my good Lord it shall be so much more glorious in as much as you go before others in Birth Nobility Honour and high Place O what a pleasant sight is it to all true Christian men yea to the Angels yea how acceptable to the Lord himself to behold a man of your place and