Selected quad for the lemma: master_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
master_n	father_n	servant_n	son_n	8,066	5	5.7600	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A61618	A sermon preached at White-Hall, February the 19th, 1685/6 being the first Friday in Lent / by Edw. Stillingfleet ...	Stillingfleet, Edward, 1635-1699.	1681 (1681)	Wing S5658; ESTC R18636	15,433	36

Thanksgiving but a solemn owning his Paternal Care and Bounty towards us And in these two the main Duties of Natural Religion consist The Neglect whereof is such a disrespect to our Heavenly Father as is not consistent with our believing him to be so For as God himself argues in the Prophet A Son honoureth his Father and a Servant his Master If then I be a Father where is mine honour And if I be a Master where is my Fear God was a Father by the Right of Creation and Providence but he was a Master to the Jews in respect of the Bondage of the Law and as there was a Spirit of Bondage on that account in them which inclined them to a more servile Fear so there ought to have been a natural Spirit of Adoption toward God as their Supreme Creatour and Father which should excite all men to such a dutifull Love such a Reverential Esteem such a mixture of Awe and Kindness as is in Children towards their Parents Yea it ought to be much greater than that can be supposed because the Distance is Infinite between God and us and our Dependence more immediate and necessary and there is in him a Concurrence of all Perfections which may cause in us the highest Esteem and the humblest Adoration There is an unquestionable Duty owing by Children to their earthly Parents but how much rather saith the Apostle ought we to be in subjection to the Father of Spirits The Fathers of our Flesh may be very Kind but not Wise in their Love or Wise and not so Kind or they may be both Wise and Kind but not Able to help their Children They may love and pity and pray for them when they are in Misery or Sickness and Pain but after all they are unable to relieve them For the most indulgent Father when his bowels yearn and his heart is ready to break at the sight of a Child lying under the Agonies of Death is not able to give a Moments Respite to the terrible Pangs which he can neither behold nor abate But our heavenly Father hath not onely Infinite Wisdom but Infinite Kindness and Power and where all these are joined together what Honour what Love what Fear is due unto him Although there be defects in their Parents yet Children are still bound to obey them and to shew a mighty regard and Reverence towards them but here it is so much otherwise that if we could conceive our selves without this Relation to God yet his Perfections are so many so great so infinite as to deserve and require our utmost Veneration The Prodigal Son could then have no Reason to complain of the Duty which he owed to his Father And was it not fit for him to appoint the Orders of his Family and to expect that his Children should behave themselves therein as became the Relation they stood in to himself and to one another That they should have a decent regard to themselves in Sobriety Temperance Command of their Passions and care of their Words That they should behave themselves towards their Brethren with Sincerity Kindness and Justice which comprehend all the Duties we owe to one another And what now was there in all this that the Prodigal could have any Cause to complain of or that should make his Father's House so uneasie to him But his Father had just Cause to be provoked when his Wise Counsels and Prudent Care and Constant Kindness and Righteous Government were so much slighted and despised by a disobedient and ungratefull Son who had so little Sense of his Duty or his Interest as to be weary of being so well at home and therefore impatiently desiring to find out new methods of Living well as he then thought when the best Orders of his Father's Family were become so displeasing to him 2. But what were these new and fine Contrivances for his own happiness He began to suspect his Wife Father did not allow his Children Liberty enough at home and that he concealed from him the great Mystery of the Happiness of Life and therefore concluded that if he did give way to those Desires which he found to be Natural but his Father thought Unreasonable he should enjoy much more Pleasure and Satisfaction than he did at home And being resolved upon this he gives way to those Inclinations he found strongest in himself denies himself no Pleasures of Life accounts Vertue but a Name which sowre and morose Persons put upon their own humours and Religion but a Device for Fools to deceive themselves and Knaves to deceive others by And so he throws off all checks and restraints upon himself and never regards the Good or Evil of what he doeth for his Lusts are his Laws and the satisfaction of them he now looks upon as the onely real Happiness of Mankind And could any thing be supposed more provoking to his Heavenly Father than such a wicked and dissolute way of Living So contrary to his Father's Will to his own Reason Conscience Interest Reputation and which soon brought him to Shame and Misery 3. But that which added yet more to the height of the Provocation was that he did not think of Returning home to his Father upon the first apprehension of his own Folly But he resolved to undergo any difficulty and submit to any hardship rather than doe what was necessary in order to Reconciliation with his Father How hard a Matter then is it to bring an habitual Sinner to Repentance It is not Easie to bring him to any due and serious Conviction of the Evil of his doings but it is far more difficult to change the inward Disposition of the Mind and to alter all the great Designs and Pleasures of Life It is but a mean Notion of Repentance which is apt to prevail in the World as though it implied no more than some Acts of Contrition for greater Sins when the Habit and Disposition remain the same But true Repentance is the turn of the whole Soul from the Love as well as the Practice of Sin and this is not a thing to be done easily or suddenly A Sinner will bear a great many Checks and Reproofs of Conscience before he will part with his beloved Sins he will struggle a great while with himself and endure many Conflicts between an awaken'd Conscience and rooted lnclinations before the Penitent Sinner can assure himself that his Repentance hath had its due and effectual operation upon him For we see here nothing but extremity brought the Prodigal to himself and made him at last to resolve to arise and go to his Father c. As Themistocles said of the People of Athens they did by him as Men commonly doe by a great Tree they run to it for shelter in a Storm but care not how they use it another Time that is too true of Sinners with Respect to God when they can make a shift for themselves any other Way they despise Religion and make God

A SERMON Preached at White-Hall February the 19 th 1685 6. Being the First FRIDAY in LENT BY EDW. STILLINGFLEET D.D. Dean of St. Paul's And Chaplain in Ordinary to His MAJESTY LONDON Printed for Henry Mortlock at the Phoenix in St. Paul's Church-yard MDCLXXXVI St. Luke xv 18. I will arise and go to my Father and will say to him Father I have sinned against heaven and before thee IN the foregoing Verse we find the Prodigal Son so far awakened and come to himself as to be sensible of the Miserable Condition he had brought himself into by his own folly and wickedness But before he came to this there is a Remarkable Turn in the course of his Life set down by our Saviour in the beginning of this Excellent Parable For He was first very Impatient of being under the Wise Conduct of his Father and thought he could manage his own affairs far more to his Contentment and Satisfaction if he were but permitted to use his Liberty and were not so strictly tyed up to the Grave and Formal Methods of Living observed and required in his Father's House Which might pass for Wisdom in Age and be agreeable enough to such whose Life and Vigour were decayed and who were now to maintain their Authority over their Children by seeming to be so much wiser than they But it is a rare thing for Youth and Age to agree in the opinion of Wisedom For it is not the Care the Experience the Judgment of a wise and tender Father that can allay the Heats or calm the Passions or over-rule the Violent Inclinations of Youth but whatever is cost them afterwards some will be still trying the Experiment whether it doth not more conduce to the happiness of Life to pursue their own Fancies and Designs than to hearken to another's Directions though a Father's whose Circumstances are so much different from their own Thus our Blessed Saviour represents in the Parable this young Prodigal as weary of being rich and easie at Home and fond of seeing the Pleasures of the World and therefore nothing would satisfie him unless he were Intrusted with the Stock which was Intended for him that he might shew the difference between his Father's Conduct and his own And this very soon appeared for this hopefull Manager had not been long abroad but he wasted his substance with riotous living And to make him the more sensible of his Folly there happened a more than ordinary scarcity which made his low and exhausted Condition more uneasie to him But the Sense of Shame was yet greater with him than that of his Folly and whatever shifts he underwent he would by no means yet think of returning home but rather chose to submit to the meanest and basest employment in hopes to avoid the Necessity of it But at last Reason and Consideration began to work upon him which is called his coming to himself and then he takes up a Resolution to go home to his Father and to throw himself at his Feet to confess his fault ingenuously and freely and to beg pardon for his former Folly in hopes of Forgiveness and Reconciliation I will arise and go to my Father and say to him Father I have sinned against heaven and before thee Under this Parable our Saviour sets forth the state of a Sinner 1. In his wilfull degeneracy from God his Father both by Creation and Providence his uneasiness under his just and holy Laws his impatience of being restrained by them his casting off the Bonds of Duty to him and running into all kind of Disorders without regard to God or his own Soul 2. In the dissatisfaction he found in his evil Courses being very much disappointed in the great Expectations he had in the Pleasures of Sin wasting his health interest reputation estate and above all the Peace and Tranquillity of his Mind which was more valuable than any other Delight whatsoever and he now found impossible to be enjoy'd in a course of Rebellion against his heavenly Father 3. In the Conviction of his Folly upon due Consideration of what he had done which is Emphatically called Coming to himself having before acted so much below himself and against himself unworthy of the Relation he stands in to God of those Faculties he had bestow'd upon him and of those hopes and expectations he might have had from him either as to this or another World 4. In the Resolution he takes upon this Conviction no longer to delay his purpose of Repenting and Returning home but to embrace the present opportunity of doing it freely heartily and ingenuously I will arise and go to my Father c. Having formerly in this Place and on a like Occasion considered the Prodigal Son 's coming to himself I shall now pursue the Method of his Repentance in the Resolution he here takes to arise and go to his Father c. And therein I shall enquire into these things I. What Grounds a Sinner hath to incourage him to Repent or to form such a Resolution in his Mind that he will arise and go to his Father when he knows he hath so much provoked and offended him II. How necessary it is in order to true Repentance to form a fixed and steady Resolution to go through with it I will arise and go c. First What Grounds a Sinner hath to incourage him to Repent or to make Application to his Father in order to Forgiveness since he is convinced he hath so justly offended him For if we consider the Circumstances here mention'd he had no such Reason to hope to be receiv'd into Favour upon such easie Terms as are here expressed For 1. He had wilfully forsaken his Father's House without any just Cause of Complaint of and hard usage there 2. He had embraced such a Course of Life which he knew was displeasing to him living riotously and disorderly in a way contrary to his Will 3. He never thought of Returning home till mere necessity forced him till Hunger and Poverty made him come to himself And what could be more disobliging to a Father than such Circumstances as these 1. His Father never forced him from home nor made his Condition uneasie there Our Saviour here represents Almighty God as dealing with Mankind like a tender and indulgent Father and not like a severe and hard Master his Laws being intended for our Good and not for his own Advantage There is no Duty of ours towards God or our selves or others but is founded on this Relation to God as a Father to Mankind Nothing can be more reasonable in general than that the Father should order and direct his Children and give such Rules which are fitting for them to observe And if we examine the particular Laws of Nature or the Dictates of Reason as to Good and Evil we shall find them very agreeable to God's Paternal Government What is the Duty of Prayer to God but asking daily Blessing of our heavenly Father What is our