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
A67184	A sermon at the funeral of the right honourable Henry, Earl of Warrington, Baron Delamer of Dunham-Massy, Lord Lieutenant of the County-Palatine of Chester, and one of the Lords of their Majesties most honourable Privy Council preached at Bowden in Cheshire / by Richard Wroe ...	Wroe, Richard, 1641-1717.	1694 (1694)	Wing W3728; ESTC R12138	16,713	33

A SERMON AT THE FUNERAL OF HENRY EARL of WARRINGTON Lord DELAMER c. Imprimatur RA. BARKER Martii 15. 1693 4. A SERMON AT THE FUNERAL Of the Right Honourable HENRY Earl of Warrington Baron DELAMER of Dunham-Massy Lord Lieutenant of the County-Palatine of Chester and one of the Lords of Their Majesties most Honourable Privy Council Preached at BOWDEN in CHESHIRE By RICHARD WROE D. D. and Warden of Christ's Colledge in Manchester LONDON Printed for A. and J. Churchill at the Black Swan in Pater-Noster-Row M DC XC IV. To the Right Honourable GEORGE Earl of Warrington Baron Delamer c. My LORD WHAT I now present to Your Lordship is wholly in Obedience to Your Desires which are so far a Command to me as to prevail against mine own Inclinations rather than seem backward to comply with any request wherein You are pleased to judge my slender Abilities serviceable to Your Lordship and chuse rather to expose my Self and Performances than be thought wanting in any instance of Obedience and Deference wherein I may express my Obligations to Your Self and Noble Family I should be glad of a more welcome Opportunity of giving publick Testimony of my Respects than such as administers occasion of Sadness and revives the afflicting Sense of Your Grief and Loss and am sorry it falls again to my Lot at once to Address and Condole Yet withal shall reckon my self happy if my Endeavours may prove satisfactory especially in doing Right to the Memory of that Great Man who I am sensible wanted a better Orator and deserved a more ample Character But if what I have said of him may contribute to the Honour of his Memory and make his Name survive among the Worthies of his Age or the Influence of his Example may create emulation in any to write after his Copy and more especially if what I have discoursed on this Subject may tend to the instruction of others and promote the designs of Piety and Regular Conversation I have my design and let God have the glory But I will not be troublesome to Your Lordship in tendring an Apology when I have resolved to submit the Performances entirely to Your disposal and hope Your Honour will pardon my prefixing Your Name to what you have so great a right and interest in and which has no other design than to let the World know how much I am My LORD Your LORDSHIP' 's very much Obliged and most Humble Servant RIC. WROE A SERMON Preached at the Earl of WARRINGTON'S Funeral January the 14th 1693 4. ECCLES 11. 3. If the tree fall toward the South or toward the North in the place where the tree falleth there it shall be THAT man is arbor inversa that the parts of human bodies carry some proportion and resemblance to an inverted tree is a known Saying and bears the reflection of sundry natural and moral Truths That the Proverb is as old as Solomon I dare not attest though it may seem not unbecoming his Wisdom nor is unlike his sententious Sayings and his knowledge in that kind who spake of trees as Scripture tells us from the Cedar-tree that is 1 Kings 4. 33. in Lebanon even unto the hyssop that springeth out of the wall and wrote of their several Natures Qualities and Virtues is th● Jewish Rabbins comment might administer fair occasion to the similitude however that be yet we have here in his own words some important Truths couch'd under a like Metaphor or Resemblance if not to a growing yet to a falling tree And as Trees have been made vocal by way of Parable and brought in as speaking not only amongst prophane but Sacred Authors witness that of Jotham so shall we hear this Judges 9. tree speak the instructions of wisdom when we have unfolded the import of the Similitude in a short Paraphrase and plain Interpretation The words are part of the Wise Man's exhortation to Charity and Liberality which Argument is the Subject of the six first verses of this Chapter and is enforced in this verse from a twofold Similitude 1. Of clouds If the clouds be full of rain they empty themselves upon the Earth an imperfect Argument and to be supplied with such a like inference as this so they that do abound are to dispense their liberality equally and freely A second resemblance is from the fall of a tree which some thus paraphrase agreeably to the Argument As the tree which way so e're it falls remains to the use and benefit of the owner so a good Man's charity howsoever dispens'd turns to his good and benefit But this seems not to reach the import of the Similitude and therefore othe●s extend it further and thus gloss it As the tree whilst it stands may be moved this way or the other yet when 't is once fall'n it keeps the same place and posture such is the state and condition of man at his death his works follow him and suitable to them shall he receive his reward whether he has done good or not he shall receive according to the things done in his body whether they be good or bad and thus they contain a forcible perswasive to Charity and doing good whilst we live since death deprives us of all capacity and opportunity of doing it afterwards so that the duty here inculcated runs parallel with that of St. Paul As we have opportunity Gal. 6. 10. let us do good unto all men and the reason to enforce it couch'd in the Similitude is drawn from the consideration of our unalterable state and condition after death thus express'd in the words If the tree fall towards the South or toward the North where the tree falleth there it shall be This being the common and obvious sense of the words I shall discourse of them in that Notion in which they speak the same in general with that known truth that as Death leaves us so Judgment will find us as the course of our lives hath been and concludes to be such will be our future condition without hopes of change or possibility of alteration Which general Truth will appear at once more useful and obvious in the particular Assertions that are contain'd in it and result from the Text which I take to be these I. That there are two different and opposite states allotted to men after death The tree may fall toward the South or toward the North. II. That the righteousness of mens lives hath a natural tendency to happiness as their wickedness hath to misery 't is from a principle of nature that the tree lies where it falls and virtue and vice have no less natural inclination and direct tendency to happiness or misery to rewards or punishments III. There is no middle state after death no change of condition or altering it for the better the tree must fall South or North and where it falls it mst lie there it shall be There are two different and opposite states allotted to men after

state of the dead we are informed that there is no wisdom nor work nor device nor knowledge Chap. 9. 10. in the grave and if there be no work nor knowledge how to act there can be no change or alteration and the Text adds to this the assurance of two opposite states allotted to the Souls of men suitable to their different temper and disposition here wherein they shall remain without fear of losing the one or hopes to escape out of the other Besides since the Church of Christ has never been represented under other Titles than these two of Militant and Triumphant they do necessarily exclude this third subterraneous Church which is neither Militant because ascertain'd of Salvation and freed from the conflicts and oppositions of this world nor Triumphant because scorched and afflicted with the most exquisite Pains and Torments Leave we then that imaginary Church to its Vtopian Mansions the sooty region of Purgatory a place no where described in Scripture never mentioned in the discoveries of Divine Revelation but created by the heat of Fancy and abused Imagination and its flames when once kindled kept up out of design and by deluding Arts the Dreams of waking men and feign'd Relations of Spectres and Apparitions But let us to the Law and to the Testimony firmly believe what he has there discovered of a future state not seek to be wise beyond what he has revealed for we can know no more than he will let us of what is future and we cannot be more certain of any thing than what he hath told us Certain it is that there is a place of rest provided for holy Souls and that there are winged Messengers appointed to attend their dissolution and transport them as they did that of Lazarus into Abraham's bosom And were we but allowed to behold the Transactions of that invisible Polity the intercourse between Angels and the spirits of just men made perfect could we but discern the glorious entrance and admission of a departed Soul into the Church Triumphant it would exhibit to us a Scene of the most Ravishing Glory far outvying the greatness of Solomon or that united prospect of Worldly Glory wherewith the Devil tempted the Son of God But what we are not permitted to behold with our bodily Organs we may discern with the eye of faith and therewith follow them as high as the great Apostle was wrapt and with St. Stephen see Heaven opened and its blessed Inhabitants rejoycing at the arrival of the Faithful and welcoming them into those glorious Mansions But I leave these delightful Raptures to the enlargement of your private Meditations and having rais'd them where Faith carries them call back your present thoughts to more pensive reflections since Providence has administred an Occasion of sorrowful remembrance For alas the Tree is fall'n as indeed what can withstand Death's inevitable stroak a Tree which had God so pleased might have stood and flourished much longer but now like that in Nebuchadnezzar's Dream has received the Sentence of the Watcher and of the Holy One from Heaven who cried Hew down the tree and cut off his branches shake off his leaves and scatter his fruit Trees however durable in themselves are yet liable to the stroak of the Axe and oft-times the tallest Cedar or strong-built Oak is cut down sooner than the useless Shrub We have it frequently exemplified and see them tumble down who whilst they stood not only graced the Forest but gave shade and shelter to others Would to God we had not had the Occasion of meeting here to day to bewail the fall of the most flourishing Plant that enriched our Soyl. It were easy to pursue the Metaphor did I design to detain you with a Narrative of what might be said and is justly due to the Memory of this Noble and Right Honourable Person who though now the Spoils of Mortality yet is not to be laid in the dust like common Mold nor deposited in the shades with silence For the part he acted on the Stage was so eminent as would not allow him to be unknown and unobserved or pass off unregarded and the Scene of his Life was attended with such variety as made his Name well known and his Person remarkable But for his publick Actions and Behaviour under the various turns and successions of Government I shall chuse rather to leave them to be recorded by Fame or read in our Annals and Chronicles than attempt an imperfect account of them or make my self liable to the Censures of Detraction and Envy True worth is or ought to be most valued where it is best known and they that were most intimately acquainted with him had the truest estimate of his worth and doubtless have the greatest share as well as most passionate sense of his loss give me leave to say without suspicion of flattery that he adorn'd that high Station which he had merited and graced that Honour which he had advanced his Family to For his Honour was the Jewel he most highly prized and could not be tempted to forfeit or prostitute it and I doubt not to affirm that his Conscience was the rule and measure of it which two when join'd together render a man truly great honourable and noble For men to pretend Honour without Conscience is to sacrifice to an Idol of their own setting up but when Honour is guided by Conscience it becomes sacred and venerable Such I am confident was this Noble Lord's sense and estimate of his Honour which spirited him with that freedom of endeavouring Equity and Justice as well in matters of Lesser concern among Equals and Inferiors as in that Higher Station where Persons of Noble Rank give Counsel and Sentence in matters of moment and cases of grand importance It is well known how he acted in such Capacities not as a careless Spectator not as one indifferent which way the Scales of Justice were turn'd but as one actuated with a sense of Honour and Justice not afraid to declare his Opinion not willing to conceal his Sentiments which he seldom found reason to alter after he had given his judgment having founded it upon the best reason and most certain information And in this he was so sedulous and curious that if it was not his it was our unhappiness that his over-earnest diligence this way is reckoned the Occasion of his last fatal Distemper which is judged to be brought upon him by a Cold contracted in the Middle-Temple Hall where he thought it necessary to be present at a Case between two Honourable Lords there argued by Learned Counsel before the Lord Keeper that he might be better able to judge of the Merits of the Cause when brought before the Great Judicature of the most Honourable Peers Nor did this first Item of his Ilness discourage his Endeavours to serve the Publick or prevent his attendance on the House some days after being the hearing of another business of moment wherein as he said