Selected quad for the lemma: lord_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
lord_n	work_n	world_n	writer_n	38	3	7.4394	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A44395	Golden remains of the ever memorable Mr Iohn Hales of Eton College &c.	Hales, John, 1584-1656.; Hollar, Wenceslaus, 1607-1677, engraver.; Pearson, John, 1613-1686.; Gunning, Peter, 1614-1684.; Balcanquhall, Walter, 1586?-1645.	1659 (1659)	Wing H269; ESTC R202306	285,104	329

not like a Sack nor the Heavens as Brass unto him must we by his own command be like and whom then can we exclude that have a pattern of such courtesie proposed to us to follow we read in our books of a nice Athenian being entertain'd in a place by one given to hospitality finding anon that another was received with the like curtesie and then a third growing very angry I thought said he that I had found here 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but I have found 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I look't for a friends house but I am fallen into an Inne to entertain all Comers rather then a Lodging for some private especial friends Let it not offend any that I have made Christianity rather an Inne to receive all then a private house to receive some few For so both the precepts and examples I have brought teach us beneficia praestare non homini sed humano generi to extend our good not to this or that man but to mankind like the Sun that ariseth not on this or that nation but on the whole world Julian observes of the fig-tree that above all trees it is most capable of grafts Siences of other kinds so far as that all variety will be brought to take nourishment from one stock Beloved a Christian must be like unto Julians fig-tree so Universally compassionate that so all sorts of grafts by a kinde of Christian inoculation may be brought to draw life and nourishment from his root But I am all this while in a generality only and I must not forget that I have many particular sick Patients in my Text of whom every one must have his Recipe and I must visit them all ere I go But withal I must remember my Method which was still as I spake of Receiving the weak to speak likewise of excluding them from disputation So must I needs ere I pass away tax this our age for giving so general permission unto all to busie themselves in doubtful cases of Religion For nothing is there that hath more prejudiced the cause of Religion then this promiscuous and careless admission of all sorts to the hearing and handling of controversies whether we consider the private case of every man or the publick state of the Church I will touch but one inconvenience which much annoyes the Church by opening this gate so wide to all commers for by the great preass of people that come the work of the Lord is much hindred Not to speak of those who out of weakness of understanding fall into many errors and by reason of liberty of bequeathing their errors to the world by writing easily finde heirs for them There is a sort that do harm by being unnecessary and though they sowe not tares in the field yet fill the Lords floor with chaff For what need this great breed of writers with which in this age the world doth swarm how many of us might spare the pains in committing our Meditations to writing contenting our selves to teach the people vivâ voce and suffering our conceits quietly to die in their birth The teaching the people by voice is perpetually necessary should all of us every where speak but the same things For all cannot use Books and all that can have not the leisure To remedy therefore the want of skill in the one and of time in the other are we set in this Ministry of Preaching Our voices are confin'd to a certain compass and tied to the Individuating properties of Hic and Nunc our writings are unlimited Necessity therefore requires a multitude of speakers a multitude of writers not so G. Agricola writing de Animantibus subterraneis reports of a certain kinde of Spirits that converse in Minerals and much infest those that work in them and the manner of them when they come is to seem to busie themselves according to all the custom of workmen they will dig and cleanse and melt and sever mettals yet when they are gone the workmen do not finde that there is any thing done so fares it with a great part of the multitude who thrust themselves into the controversies of the times they write Books move questions frame distinctions give solutions and seem sedulously to do whatsoever the nature of the business requires yet if any skilful workman in the Lords Mines shall come and examine their work he shall finde them to be but Spirits in Minerals and that withal this labor and stir there is nothing done I acknowledge it to be very true which S. Austine spake in his first Book de Trinitate Utile est plures libros à pluribus fieri diverso stilo sed non diversâ fide etiam de quaestionibus iisdem ut ad plurimos res ipsa perveniat ad alios sic ad alios vero sic It is a thing very profitable that diverse Tracts be written by divers men after divers fashions but according to the same Analogy of Faith even of the same questions that some might come into the hands of all to some on this manner to another after that For this may we think to have been the counsel of the Holy Ghost himself who may seem even for this purpose to have registred the self same things of Christ by three of the Evangelists with little difference Yet notwithstanding if this speech of S. Austine admit of being qualified then was there no time which more then this age required it should be moderated which I note because of a noxious conceit spread in our Universities to the great hindering of true proficiency in Study springing out from this Root For many of the Learned themselves are fallen upon this preposterous conceit that learning consisteth rather in varieting of turning and quoting of sundry Authors then in soundly discovering and laying down the truth of things Out of which arises a greater charge unto the poor Student who now goes by number rather then weight and the Books of the learned themselves by ambitiously heaping up the conceits and authorities of other men increase much in the bulk but do as much imbase in true value Wherefore as Gedeons army of two and thirty thousand by prescript from God was brought unto three hundred So this huge army of disputes might without any hazard of the Lords battles be well contracted into a smaller number Justinian the Emporour when he found that the study of the Civil Law was surcharged and much confused by reason of the great heaps of unnecessary writings he calls an assembly of learned men caus'd them to search the books to cut of what was superfluous to gather into order and method the sum and substance of the whole Law were it possible that some Religious Justinian might after the same manner imploy the wits of some of the best Learned in examining the controversies and selecting out of the best writers what is necessary defaulting unnecessary and partial discourses and so digest into order and method and leave for the

it like the Prophets of God with quietness and moderation and not in the violence of passion as if we were possest rather then inspir'd Again what equity or indifferency can we look for in the carriage of that cause that falls into the handling of these men Quis conferre duces meminit qui pendere causas Quâ stetit inde favet what man overtaken with passion remembers impartially to compare cause with cause and right with right Quâ stetit inde favet on what cause he happens that is he resolute to maintain ut gladiator in arenam as a Fencer to the Stage so comes he to write not upon conscience of quarrel but because he proposes to contend yea so potently hath this humor prevail'd with men that have undertaken to maintain a faction that it hath broken out to the tempting of God and the dishonour of Martyrdom Two Fryers in Florence in the action of Savonoralla voluntarily in the open view of the City offer'd to enter the fire so to put an end to the controversie that he might be judged to have the right who like one of the three children in Babylon should pass untouch't through the fire But I hasten to visit one weak person more and so an end He whom we now are to visit is a man weak through heretical and erring Faith now whether or no we have any receit for him it may be doubtful For S. Paul advises us to avoid the man that is a maker of Sects knowing him to be damned yet if as we spake of not admitting to us the notorious sinner no not to eat so we teach of this that it is delivered respectively to the weaker sort as justly for the same reasons we may do we shall have a Recipe here for the man that erres in faith and rejoyceth in making of Sects which we shall the better do if we can but gently draw him on to a moderation to think of his conceits only as of opinions for it is not the variety of opinions but our own perverse wills who think it meet that all should be conceited as our selves are which hath so inconvenienced the Church were we not so ready to anathematize each other where we concur not in opinion we might in hearts be united though in our tongues we were divided and that with singular profit to all sides It is the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace and not Identitie of conceit which the Holy Ghost requires at the hands of Christians I will give you one instance in which at this day our Churches are at variance The will of God and his manner of proceeding in predestination is undiscernable and shall so remain until that day wherein all knowledge shall be made perfect yet some there are who with probability of Scripture teach that the true cause of the final miscarriage of them that perish is that original corruption that befell them at the beginning increased through the neglect or refusal of grace offered Others with no less favourable countenance of Scripture make the cause of reprobation only the will of God determining freely of his own work as himself pleases without respect to any second cause whatsoever Were we not ambitiously minded familiam ducere every one to be Lord of a Sect each of these tenents might be profitably taught and heard and matter of singular exhortation drawn from either for on the one part doubtless it is a pious and religious intent to endeavour to free God from all imputation of unnecessary rigour his justice from seeming unjustice incongruity on the other side it is a noble resolution so to humble our selves under the hand of Almighty God as that we can with patience hear yea think it an honour that so base creatures as our selves should become the instruments of the glory of so great a majesty whether it be by eternal life or by eternal death though for no other reason but for Gods good will and pleasure sake The authors of these conceits might both freely if peaceably speak their mindes and both singularly profit the Church for since it is impossible where Scripture is ambiguous that all conceits should run alike it remains that we seek out a way not so much to establish an unity of opinion in the mindes of all which I take to be a thing likewise impossible as to provide that multiplicity of conceit trouble not the Churches peace A better way my conceit cannot reach unto then that we would be willing to think that these things which with some shew of probability we deduce from Scripture are at the best but our opinions for this peremptory manner of setting down our own conclusions under this high commanding form of necessary truths is generally one of the greatest causes which keeps the Churches this day so far asunder when as a gracious receiving of each other by mutual forbearance in this kinde might peradventure in time bring them nearer together This peradventure may some man say may content us in case of opinion indifferent out of which no great inconvenience by necessary and evident proof is concluded but what Recipe have we for him that is fallen into some known and desperate Heresie Even the same with the former And therefore anciently Heretical and Orthodox Christians many times even in publick holy exercise converst together without offence It 's noted in the Ecclesiastick stories that the Arrians and Right believers so communicated together in holy prayers that you could not distinguish them till they came to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the gloria patri which the Arrians used with some difference from other Christians But those were times quorum lectionem habemus virtutem non habemus we read of them in our books but we have lost the practise of their patience Some prejudice was done unto the Church by those who first began to intermingle with publick Ecclesiastical duties things respective unto private conceits For those Christian offices in the Church ought as much as possibly they may be common unto all and not to descend to the differences of particular opinions Severity against and separation from heretical companies took its beginning from the Hereticks themselves and if we search the stories we shall finde that the Church did not at their first arising thrust them from her themselves went out and as for severity that which the Donatists sometimes spake in their own defence Illam esse veram Ecclesiam quae prosecutionem patitur non quae facit she was the true Church not which raised but which suffered persecution was de facto true for a great space For when heresies and schismes first arose in the Church all kind of violence were used by the erring factions but the Church seem'd not for a long time to have known any use of a sword but only of a buckler and when she began to use the sword some of her best and chiefest Captains much misliked it The first law