Selected quad for the lemma: lord_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
lord_n	honourable_a	majesty_n	privy_a	10,396	5	9.6495	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A41456	A sermon preached at Bishops-Stratford, August 29, MDCLXXVII, before the Right Reverend Father in God, Henry, Lord Bishop of London, &c at his Lordships primary visitation / by Jo. Goodman ...	Goodman, John, 1625 or 6-1690.; Goodman, Godfrey, 1583-1656.	1678 (1678)	Wing G1124; ESTC R48	18,196	42

A SERMON PREACHED at BISHOPS-STORTFORD August 29. MDCLXXVII BEFORE The Right Reverend Father in God HENRY Lord Bishop of LONDON c. At his Lordships primary Visitation By JO. GOODMAN D. D. Rector of Hadham LONDON Printed for R. Royston Bookseller to His most Sacred Majesty at the Angel in Amen-Corner 1678. TO The Right Reverend Father in God HENRY Lord Bishop of LONDON One of the Lords of His MAJESTIE' 's most Honourable Privy Council My LORD WHen I composed the following Sermon at your Lordship's command I propounded no other thing to my self but the doing service to the Souls of men by inviting them into the Communion of the Church of Christ and the animating and encouraging my Brethren of the Clergy that labour in the same good and holy Work Than which two things I knew nothing more seasonable and necessary for the Age we live in or more compliant with your Lordship's Design in your Visitation And therefore though I had a just Reverence of the Auditory and a due sense of my own Imperfections yet the aforesaid Consideration together with that of your Lordship's Candour would not suffer me much to doubt but that the Sermon would be approved by your Lordship and accepted by all good and wise men that heard it For I called to mind that as the Greeks say of their Goddess 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Dea Bona valetudo placatur quâcunque re quis velit ei litare so however weak and sickly Minds like cachectick Bodies may be nice phantastick and captious yet those that are sound and strong are benign and generous and with such every thing that is sober and well-intended is well taken Nevertheless I must acknowledge that when afterwards your Lordship declared your pleasure that I should print my Sermon methought the case was altered for being sensible before how difficult a matter it was to contrive so copious a Subject as I had before me within the limits of an hour's Discourse I was easily aware how much harder it would be in so narrow a compass to satisfie all the scruples and curiosities of those that should not onely have a transient glimpse but a leisurely perusal And besides I was not ignorant how different the condition of a Sermon was when presented in dead letters from it self when inlivened by the voice and passion of a very mean Oratour But after all I considered it was my duty not to dispute but to obey and that your Lordship's Judgment was sufficient for my security And therefore all excuses set aside I here humbly present to your hand what before I preached in your hearing And now my Lord having this opportunity I crave leave not onely to make acknowledgment of my own peculiar Obligations to your Lordship which I doe with a just sense of Duty and Gratitude but to report the Apprehensions of your Clergy in these parts of your Diocese and the great Contentment they take under your Lordship's Government They are greatly comforted by your Zeal for the Protestant Religiom incouraged by your Lordship's vigilant Care of their Interests and Concerns directed in their Studies Ministry and Conversation by your prudent Counsels animated by so great an Example and especially obliged by the Benignity of your Presence and Condescension to them at your Visitation All which they cannot forbear to express such a sense of that they look upon it as a great Blessing of Almighty God in committing this part of his Church to your Lordship's Care and Government For my Lord we cannot doubt but Piety and Devotion will commend it self to all that are serious that Paternal Mildness and Clemency will work upon the ingenuous that well-tempered Severity is the way to reclaim the vicious and that Charity and Generosity will oblige all humane Nature And therefore where there is such a conjunction of real and powerfull Causes we are able easily to calculate happy and signal Effects as that the Church shall recover its native and ancient Glory and the Genius of this great People be marvellously improved Which Successes that it will please the Great and True Oecumenical Bishop to crown your Lordship's Endeavours with is the ardent desire of My LORD Your Lordships most dutifull and obedient Servant J. Goodman Hadham Sept. 7. 1677. A SERMON PREACHED At Bishops-Stortford August 29. 1677. BEFORE The Right Reverend Father in GOD HENRY Lord Bishop of LONDON S. MATTHEW XVI 18. Thou art Peter and upon this Rock I will build my Church and the Gates of Hell shall not prevail against it AMongst the manifold infirmities of humane Nature there is scarcely any either more Epidemical and common in Experience or more mischievous in its Effects and Consequences than that which the Greeks very elegantly express by the name of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and which I know not how more fitly to render than by calling it an Humour of running from one Extreme to another when men apprehending the evil and unreasonableness of some Opinion or Practice are so far transported with zeal in detestation of it as that passing by the Mean of Truth and Sobriety they rest not till they have fixed upon something else quite contrary thereto though it be every whit as bad as that which they studiously seek to decline As if the utmost distance from what they are confident is false were the onely security that what they embrace is true And perhaps if we well observe we shall find that most of those Evils which have deformed Religion and troubled the Peace of the Church of God have entred at this door For evidence of which amongst very many observations which I have at hand to this purpose I will specifie these two or three which I perswade my self will neither be unacceptable to this Learned Auditory nor remote from the business in hand The first Instance shall be the rise of Arrianism touching which it hath been the opinion of sundry wise men and of the Learned Lord Bacon in particular that that most unhappy Controversie sprang at first from an Antipathy to the Polytheism of the Pagans Some men it seems being highly sensible of the intolerable prostitution of the Divine Majesty when the Honours peculiar to him were communicated with and shared amongst so many petty pretended Deities out of zeal against this evil out-ran the mark and that they might be sure to worship but one God acknowledged but one Person and so whilest they went about to subvert Idolatry denyed the Trinity My second Instance shall be the observation of our Learned Hooker to this effect When some German Divines had strained their form of Presbyterian Government Hooker in Pref. to Eccl. Polit. to a mighty height had railed in the Communion with such strict Cautions and Conditions that the most part of Christians being secluded from it it became more like a private Mass than the solemn Worship of the Church and to carry on this design the better had brought in Lay-elders as a new kind of

leave to press the Consequences of this Doctrine upon your Practice suitably to the present occasion and I will conclude I will confine my self to these three Inferences First Since our Saviour took care to found a Church let us be of this Society and value the Priviledge of being of Christ's Church Secondly Since there is such a mighty Usefulness of this Foundation and Society let us especially that are Officers thereof endeavour to uphold it and do it all the Honour and Service we can Lastly Since our Saviour hath prophesied that all the Gates of Hell shall not prevail against it let us all that love God's Church bear up our selves against all Discouragements and Despondencies on the truth and infallibility of his Prediction I. APPLIC Touching the first To be of the Christian Church is to be of the most honourable Society in the whole world It is to be of an Order whereof the Lord Christ is Founder and Protectour and whereof all the holy Angels are admirers to be incorporate into the Fellowship of Apostles Prophets Martyrs and all holy men to be of that mystical Body of which the Son of God is Head to be Citizens of the new Jerusalem Fellow-citizens with the Saints and of the Houshold of God Observe what glorious things the Apostle speaks Hebr. 12. 22 23 24. Ye are come to mount Sion to the City of the living God to the heavenly Jerusalem to an innumerable company of Angels to the general Assembly and Church of the First-born whose names are written in Heaven to God the Judge of all to Jesus the Mediatour of the new Covenant and to the spirits of just men made perfect And all this means nothing else but You Jews are translated from Moses to Christ from your old Synagogue to the Christian Church God's Church is his Family which he especially takes care of and provides for He that is of it is under the Shechinah the wing of the Divine Majesty and his special Providence His Church is his Vineyard and he not only sets a hedge about it but builds a watch-tower in it No Nation under heaven had such signal instances of God's presence and blessing as the people of the Jews whilst they continued to be his Church but when they ceased to be a Church they ceased to be a People were the most abject and contemptible rabble upon earth Above all to be of God's Church is to be under the means of Grace the Dew of Heaven the motions of the good Spirit and the hopes of Glory For to the Church hath he promised his presence and assistance there are dispensed the lively Oracles of God there hath he provided a constant succession of Dispensers of the bread of life to fit it to all needs and all Capacities Is it a small security to our minds or satisfaction to our Consciences that we are not left to the deceits and whispers of a private spirit to personal conjectures or secret insinuations but have the publick Doctrine of the Church Is it not a great encouragement of our Prayers when we are fortified against the just reflexions upon our own meanness and demerits by the concurrent Prayers of all God's people and mingle our devotions with theirs that so they may together come up a sweet odour before God Is it a small advantage to joyn in that holy Leaguer and besiege Heaven by conjoyned and ardent importunities Coïmus in coetum saith Tertullian ut ad Deum quasi manu factâ precationibus ambiamus orantes Can it chuse but be a great animation and incouragement to us to have before our eyes all the great Examples in God's Church Is it not a mighty matter to have our Faith strengthened and enlivened our Love inflamed our Comforts raised by the holy Communion Will not the flame of others kindle our Zeal and Affections And shall it not put us into an ecstasie of Devotion to see as it were Christ crucified before our eyes opening his Arms to us and pouring out his Blood for us Socrates is said to have given solemn thanks to God amongst other things that by his Providence he was a Philosopher and not a Barbarian and shall the twilight or dawnings of naturallight be more ravishing than the bright beams of the Sun of righteousness Shall Tully break out in a kind of ecstasie O philosophia unus dies ex praeceptis tuis actus peccanti immortalitati est anteponendus and shall not we much rather break out with the Psalmist A day in thy courts is better than a thousand and I had rather be a door-keeper in the House of God than dwell in the tents of wickedness The Chief Captain Acts 22. 28. gloried that he was a free Citizen of Rome and thought it worth the purchase of a great summe of money But saith S. Paul I was free-born and is it a small thing to us that we are born and brought up in the Church of God The Romans generally had such an opinion of the Augustness of their City that to be proscribed or banished was counted a capital punishment and a civil death thought equal to a natural The Pythagoreans when any one forsook their School were wont to carry out a Coffin for him attended with a funeral pomp And shall we esteem those alive that forsake the Church the School of Christ The Primitive Christians had such an esteem of the dignity and Priviledge of the Church that Coetu arceri to be Excommunicate was so dreadfull a doom as that those that pronounced the Sentence were wont to doe it with weeping and lamentation Ye ought to have mourned saith the Apostle 1 Cor. 5. 2. and 2 Cor. 12. 21. I shall bewail many And to be cast out of the Church and to be delivered up to Satan were accounted equivalent Nam judicatur magno cum pondere ut apud certos de Dei conspectu summúmque futuri Judicii praejudicium est si quis it à deliquerit ut à communione or ationis omnis sacri commercii relegetur saith Tertullian in his Apology for Christianity And who is there that hath been conversant in Church-Antiquity that hath not observed what repentance and tears what solicitations and intercessions what humble prostration of themselves were used by those that were fallen under the Censures of the Church to obtain restitution to Peace and Pardon And who that remembers this would ever have thought there should have come a time when it should be esteemed a matter of glory and a point of Saintship to cut off one's self voluntarily and become a Separatist from the Church The Church of Christ is the same it was and the blessings and advantages of it are still the same let us endeavour therefore to raise up its Glory to recover the ancient Zeal and to restore its Veneration And let us all say with those in the Psalm Come let us go up to the House of the Lord Our feet shall stand within thy Gates O