Selected quad for the lemma: lord_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
lord_n	incline_v	keep_v	mercy_n	16,838	5	9.7242	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A95721	Church reformation, a discourse pointing at some vanities in divine service. Delivered in two sermons at Bridgnorth: Sept. 30. 1660. Being the Lords Day; and the time of the assizes held there for the county of Salop. By Mich: Thomas, rector of Stockton in the same county.	Thomas, Michael, rector of Stockton.	1661 (1661)	Wing T968; Thomason E1055_17; ESTC R203930	25,323	52

to the evidence of the Word of God to acknowledge that to be sin which the Word of God condemns for sin and to yield that to be a Duty which by the light of Scripture appears to be so When we come to the House of God we should be ready to say as the Prophet Samuel did Speak Lord for thy Servant heareth That is as Mendoza glosses that place Speak Lord what thou pleasest and I am ready not only to hear but to obey it Such a readiness appeared in St. Augustine Da Domine quod jubes jube quod vis O Lord give me grace to obey and command what thou wilt And now shall I be so bold as to inquire whether the Feet of your Souls be in that obediential posture as the Lord expects you should be Solomon speaks in general terms in the Text but it may be expedient for your better edification that I instance in some few particulars Lay the two Tables of the Law of God before you and examine your selves whether ye are henceforth resolved to conform your lives according to those sacred Rules First art thou resolved to have no other God but the God of Heaven Wilt thou no longer serve the God of this World Mammon for the wages of unrighteousness Secondly art thou resolved never more to dishonour God by worshipping him in or before some graven Image Wilt thou never hereafter disguise and palliate thy Idolatry by a nice distinction Thirdly Art thou resolved that henceforth thou wilt not take the Name of the Lord thy God in vain Wilt thou not swear rashly and customarily Wilt thou not make a false Oath in the Courts of Justice to take the righteousness of the Righteous from him Fourthly Wilt thou hereafter remember to Keep holy the Sabbath day never mo●e to profane it by idleness or drunkness or feasting or luxury or worldliness Fiftly Art thou resolved henceforth to Honour thy Parents To Honour the King as the common Parent of the Country To Honour the Ministers of God who have begotten thee in Christ To Honour thy natural Parents who have brought thee into this world and bred thee up in it in care and sorrow Sixtly Art thou resolved that henceforth thou wilt do no Murther That thou wilt not take up Arms against thy King and destroy thy fellow subjects upon the mistaken quarrel of Religion and Liberty Seventhly Art thou resolved henceforth never to commit Adultery never more to pollute thy body which is the Temple of the Holy Ghost by unclean thoughts or actions Eightly A●t thou resolved henceforth never to wrong thy neighbour in his goods neither violently nor fraudulently Wilt thou not hereafter use false Dice nor false Weights nor false Measures nor false words nor over-reach thy neighbour in any matter Ninethly Art thou resolved henceforth never to bear false witness against thy neighbor Wilt thou not for fear or favour nor for a bribe give a false testimony to blind the eyes of the Judge and to pervert the course of Judgement Lastly Art thou resolved never hereafter to covet any thing that is thy neighbours Wilt thou hereafter restrain thy self from all covetous practices and labour to be content with such things as the Lord in a gracious providence shall please to allow and assign to thee In this Glass in this perfect Mirror you may see whether the feet of your souls stand right whether they be wash'd and cleansed from all purposes and resolutions to sin For let me tell you Unless ye can say with David and say truly Oh Lord my heart is ready my heart is ready I will have respect unto all thy Commandments I am purposed that I will not offend Unless I say ye are in this ready posture for holy Obedience all your prayers and all your Fasts and all your days of humiliation are but the sacrifice of Fools they will avail nothing either to remove the guilt of sin or to appease the wrath of God Let me give you but one Note more in this Point This resolution which I have been speaking of will be best discovered by your constancy and fervency in prayer both in private and in publick for Mercy in regard ye have transgressed the Laws of God and for Grace that the Lord would incline your hearts to keep them And therefore it was a pious provision in our Church Liturgy that after the Minister hath repeated the several Commandments as from the mouth of God the whole Congregation are enjoyned to say Lord have mercy upon us in that we have broken those Commandments And incline our hearts to keep them that is give us grace to do so no more Bucolcerus tells us of Henricus Auceps one of the Emperours of Germany that when his City of Mersburg was assaulted by a vast Army of the Hungarians he slew and put them to flight his Souldiers crying out with a loud voice Lord have mercy upon us Lord have mercy upon us And truly I do not know a better defence against temptation to sin then to pray with David Oh Lord incline my heart to thy Testimonies nor a better remedy against the guilt of sin then to pray with the poor Publican in the Gospel Lord be merciful to me a sinner The Feet of our Souls are well kept when we have taken up a firm resolution of obeying the Commandements of God but yet we must take one step further We must keep the Kings Commandment also this is certainly a Duty however some men endeavour to distingu●sh themselves out of it I counsel thee says Solomon and surely the counsel of so wise a man is worthy to be heard and regarded as if he had said I Solomon who require obedience from mine own Subjects do counsel all Subjects to yield obedience to their Kings And St. Paul delivers the same Doctrine Let every Soul be subject to the Higher Powers not onely for wrath but for conscience sake But wherein are the Commands of Kings to be obeyed Must we yield up our selves in a blind obedience to observe and do whatsoever the Higher Powers shall impose upon us This is a busie question and there is a short answer to it We must either Obey or Suffer If the Commands of Kings are consistent with the Laws of God our Obedience is indisputable yea I may say that in that case we do not so much obey the King as God So that the Tryal of our obedience to Kings lyes for the most part in such matters which we call indifferent which are neither positively commanded nor forbidden by the Law of God Such as are matters of Decency and Order in Divine Worship and such as are of absolute necessity namely the payment of Tribute and Custome for the preservation of his Person and his Honour and his People and his Kingdome to boggle at such Commands as these is as I am informed from very learned and pious men a rejection of this counsel of Solomon and that exhortation of St.

Paul before-mentioned we may make our selves lyable to the wrath of the King which as Solomon says is as the roaring of a Lion yea we may make our selves lyable to that which St. Paul terms Damnation an heavy word and the Lord incline all our hearts to such a prudent and conscionable obedience both to his own Commands and the Kings that we may never feel the weight of it The second general Part. The Caution For they consider not that they do evil Have ye yet one minutes patience more I hope ye have and indeed there needs not much more for the discussion of this part Solomon here points at a palpable and very dangerous piece of Folly As indeed what can be more foolish then for a man when he doth evil to think he doth well And what can be more dangerous then to dishonour God while we think we serve him It is an heavy word that of Solomon Who so turneth away his ear from hearing the Law even his Prayer shall be an abomination Prov. 28. 9. and that is a fea●ful state Let but a sinner against Gods and the Kings Commandments retire into some private place and there sit down and bethink himself and say What shall I do to be saved Righteousness I have none my whole life hath been as it were one continued transgression I have in an Hypocritical way come often to the House of God and heard many Sermons and observed many Fasts but my heart was not right towards God it went after covetousness my pretended zeal was cruel and bloody and I served my self while I bore the world in hand that I was a servant of Christs All my Religion lay in hearing but I had no obedience My practice was not conformable to my pretences and now what will become of me Should I betake my self to prayer and pour out my guilty soul in supplications Solomon tells me That they would be but the Sacrifice of Fools that my prayer would be an abomination that the Lord would cast it out as a filthy thing So that I am in great danger to lye under the guilt of sin and the wrath of God for ever Let I say a sinner I mean one that hath been more ready to hear then to obey but argue his own case with his own soul and he will quickly see his folly and with tears acknowledge that he hath done evil that there hath been iniquity even in his holy things and there remaineth nothing for him but a fearful expectation of vengeance to come But I would not close my discourse with such a sad note as this neither dare I tell you that the yoak of the Christian Religion is easier then it is You have had the Nature of Divine Worship represented to you both for the Form and the Matter of it The Form I place in those Reverential postures and gestures of the outward Man The Matter in an obedience to divine Commands and to the Kings so far forth as they are not repugnant to the Laws of God nor injoin any thing which is unlawful for or unworthy of a Christian And I beseech you to think of it by a speedy resolution for new and better obedience secure and lay in a stock of comfort for your poor souls against the coming of the great Day of the Lord. If hereafter ye shall come rightly disposed and prepared to this House of Prayer the Lord according to his promise will meet you and bless you and make you joyful in it He will give you the comforts and the graces of his blessed Spirit to strengthen and guide you in the way wherein you should go and at your end receive you into that other House of his not made with hands which is eternal in the Heavens For which the Lord of his Mercy prepare us Amen Amen FINIS To the Honou●able Sir Christopher Turner Knight One of the BARONS OF HIS Majesties Exchequer My Lord AMong those many mercies which our good God in the happy Restoration of his sacred Majesty hath poured upon this unworthy Nation it is look'd upon by some pious and judicious persons as none of the least yea rather as one of the greatest that his Majesty hath placed such Iudges over us who understand both Law and Gospel and are able not only to administer Iustice and Iudgement to the people in their Civil Causes but to be guides and examples to them in their devotions and addresses to God It was no small comfort to me being by the Providence of God called to this service and directed to this argument that I found your Lordship such a practical Auditor recommending my mean discourse to the better consideration of the people by your exemplar reverence in the House of God And I have the sooner digested the Obloquy which was cast upon these weak pieces when I saw the duty which they pointed at Reverence in Divine Worship was so well known and so evidently performed beside your self by so many learned and pious and honourable persons Many and sore were the evils which lay upon this Church of England in our late troubles and although our chief cordolium arose that we see some of the fundamentals of our Religion undermin'd and shaken it could not but beget some sighs and sad thoughts in us to hear the circumstantials so decryed and despised as if Divine Worship consisted only in our hearts and spirits and it had been superstition in any respect to have glorified God with our bodies It was an ingenuous concession of Mr Calvin in the case of Ceremonies that if they were few in number easie to be observed and clear in their signification they might juvare rudiorum imperitiam assist the weakness of the ruder sort of people and that they would conduce Christum illustrare to make Christ better known to them And certainly the devout and reverend servants of God in the various and humble postures and gestures of their bodies in Divine Worship have no other design but to testifie that awful sence which they have of an extraordinary presence of God in Holy Assemblies by them to instruct and edifie the ignorant and to prepare them for their more solemn approaches to the Throne of grace It was judiciously said by a late learned man that reverence was the pale of Religion if that pale be broken down the Roes and the Hinds of the field as Solomon calls them weak and unstable souls will break out and wander into profaneness and Atheism and in a short time forget that God whom they see worship'd in such a sleight and homely manner Wherefore we have cause to bless the Lord that notwithstanding the Sectaries like wild Boars were so long foraging in his Vineyard which he had planted here amongst us and had well neer laid it waste by destroying the Dressers and rooting out those goodly plants of Order and Decency and Vniformity he hath yet preserved an holy seed who know him and fear him and come with hearts and bodies to sanctifie him at what time or in what places soever they draw neer to him It is the joy of our hearts notwithstanding we live so far remote from the Imperial City to hear of the signal reverence of his Sacred Majesty in holy Worship and it is our wish that his pious example may have such an influence upon the Nation that this Church of England which was so lately blackned by her own intestine troubles may recover her former comeliness and become once more a praise on the Earth Our expectations of this happiness are somewhat raised since we see the Episcopal Chairs and the Seats of Iudicature fill'd with such eminent persons who have given so ample testimony of their Loyalty to their King and their constancy to their Religion My Lord I am a poor stranger to you I had not the happiness to my best remembrance ever to see your face till I met you in the House of God and afterward received from your Lordship that more then sufficient reward a very candid signification of your acceptance of my well-meant labours And I humbly and heartily congratulate to you your Honour that by the favour of your Prince you shine in the Orb of Iustice and are such an illustrious and yet benevolent star in that Now glittering Constellation Good luck have you with your Honor and may you ride on prosperously as you have begun judging the Tribes of England in Truth and Meekness and Righteousness and may he whose name is The Councellour be continually assistant to you may you grow old honourable in the service of your Country and your King and your God and then when your Change shall come your comfort and assurance will be so much the greater that you shall be translated and adscited into the number of those who shall sit upon Thrones judging the Tribes of Israel These hopes and wishes shall be constantly and fervently seconded by the prayers of My Lord your most humbly devoted servant Mich. Thomas