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nature_n	divine_a	person_n	unite_v	6,435	5	9.4739	5	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A46825	A sermon preached at the funeral of the right honble the Lady Frances Paget, the religious consort of the right honble William Lord Paget, (eldest daughter to the right honourable Henry Earl of Holland, who was beheaded for his loyalty to this King) in the parish-church of West-Drayton in the county of Middlesex, on the 12th of Nevember, 1672. By Jehu Jenny, M.A. and Vicar of Harmondsworth.	Jenney, John, d. 1697.	1673 (1673)	Wing J673A; ESTC R220733	15,009	28

Do but lift up your eyes to the Heavens and as the Prince of the Philosophers affirms them to be in perpetual motion so he that was a Prince as well as a Philosopher observes that they move in that Sphere which their all-wise Framer fixt them in Psal 19.1 The Heavens declare the Glory of God And if we behold the Sun it confutes Copernicus Rejoyceth as a strong man to run his race v. 5. Should I take you up into the third Heaven the Heaven of Heavens the Angels there are ministring Spirits Heh 1. ult Angels and Arch-Angels and all the company of Heaven all the Orders of that Celestial Hierarchy they do God's Commandments and execute his pleasure Psal 103.20 21. If we look upon the creatures here below they bear a part in this service the Sea hath the boundary of God's decree for its ebbing and flowing hitherto shalt thou extend thy proud waves and no further the most inconsiderable inferiour particles of the universe the Snow and Vapour and Stormy-Wind are said to fulfil his Word Psal 148.8 So that this relation of Servants the Angels those heavenly Courtiers disdain not and the lower parts of the World are not too mean for an Interest in then certainly Man the Lord of this sublimary World can upon no account plead exemption he is a servant But as the Apostle uses the comparison touching the Resurrection 1 Cor. 15.42 One Star differeth from another Star in glory or as the same Apostle expresses it In a great house thee are not only vessels of gold and silver but also of wood and earth 2. Tim. 2.20 so t' is here in the large House-hold of the supernal and lower world each servant hath his province employment set him suitable to those capacities by which he is inabled to make a discharge of his duty which what Man 's is is a seasonable enquiry and II. The second part of the text As a Servant what is mans employment exprest in these words so doing Man hath a work to do but what it is you cannot imagine in that little scantling of time allotted for this exercise I should fully discourse to you the doing the particulars of which will take up our whole lives did they never so far exceed Davids summe of them It is to doe the work which God hath set us and sent us into the world to do briefly 't is doing the works of our general and particular calling 1. The works of our general calling as Christians And here the Christian is obliged to the observance of that divine precept Rom. 13.7 To render to all their dues And the duties of our general calling are reducible to these three heads which the Apostle gives us in charge Tit. 2.12 To live soberly righteously and godly in this present world 1. To begin with our duty to him who is the beginning of all things and Lord of the family And this we are early call'd upon by the wiseman to make a discharge of Eccles 12.1 Remember now thy Creator in the dayes of thy youth He that gave us our being provides for our well-being and hath contriv'd our being happy unless we our selves frustrate the design may upon all accounts challenge a gratefull service and homage there being nothing in the world more rational then Religion and the Worship of a Deity And here the Christian hath a large task of duty the performance of all internal and external acts of Piety and Devotion the maintaining alwaies a reverential dread and fear of the Divine Majesty to adore that incomprehensible Being to demean our selves so towards God as may best comport with those Divine attributes of his purity and power wisdome and goodness sincerely and conscientiously to perform all external acts of Religion all duties of divine worship and service to hear and pray meditate and receive and what else in the whole duty of man God requires of us as his immediate worship This is to live godly 2. Righteously towards our fellow-Servants To love my Neighbour as my self to observe that golden rule so much admired by the Heathen so little practised by the Christian so fully taught in the old and new Testament so frequently prest by Prophets and Apostles and inculcated by our Blessed Lord Whatsoever we would that men should do unto us we should do the same to them To do justice and to love mercy to make our selves friends of the Mammon of unrighteousness to distribute to the necessities of the poor to do good to all men by good counsel and a suitable conversation to perswade as many as we can to be holy and religious and to save their souls to reprove our offending Brother to bear with the infirmities of those that are weak to comfort those that mourn to exhort one another to day while it is called to day to do as our Blessed Lord did when he was upon the earth whose business it was to go about and seek all opportunities of doing good Acts. 10.38 3. Soberly To have so much regard to our selves as to do nothing unworthy of that place in Gods family he hath set us in To observe all rules and precepts of sobriety temperance and chastity Some of the heathen Philosophers have disswaded from some debaucheries as indecencies affronts offer'd to humane Nature but the Christian hath higher motives for all sobriety of conversation to reverence our humane nature as united to the Divine in the person of Christ and so to preserve it from all spot and defilement as he did when he was vested with our flesh here below to look upon our bodies as Temples of the Holy Ghost and so not to allow them to be sinks of sin and nests of all uncleanness and lastly to think what they shall be in their glorified estate after the resurrection that so when Christ shall come to work that mighty change upon them he may not find them in the worst sense vile that is sinful bodies To do all this and so to do it as to be saluted with an Euge for our well-doing may well be thought no easy task but that which will require all Christian diligence and circumspection so to redeem the time as to fill up every part of it with the proper duties of it and yet after all this one thing is still wanting which is 2. To be diligent in our particular Callings that state and condition of life to which God hath call'd each of us as some to be Magistrates some Ministers some Merchants some Artificers c. The Command of God to earn our bread in the sweat of our brows the prevention of idleness the obligation of providing for our families God's distribution of several gifts the benefit of humane society and the Weal-publick bespeak the necessity of some Calling or other for every man to employ and busie himself in Here perhaps there may be some will censure my discourse to be ungentile and that I maintain a paradox to affirm as I

A SERMON PREACHED At the FUNERAL of the Right honble the Lady Frances Paget The religious Consort of the right honble William Lord PAGET Eldest Daughter to the Right Honourable Henry Earl of Holland who was beheaded for his Loyalty to his King In the Parish-Church of West-Drayton in the County of Middlesex on the 12th of November 1672. By JEHU JENNY M. A. and Vicar of Harmondsworth LONDON Printed by J. D. for Nevil Simmons at the Princes Arms in St. Paul's Church-yard 1673. TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE William Lord PAGET Baron of Brandesert Knight of the Honourable Order of the Bath c. My Lord NOthing but your Lordships Commands could have forced into the Light this Discourse of so hasty conception and they give some countenance to the confidence of this Dedication otherwise I am too conscious that nothing of mine can deserve the Patronage of so great a Name or Title nor do I hope for Acceptance of this Service further than it is a Testimony of my Obedience and bears some though faint Characters of your late dear Consort That the Piety and Virtue of that excellent Lady may still live in your Noble Family of which there are visible hopes largely promising and consequently the Blessing of it on your Posterity reach the utmost extent of the Promise to such Obedience shall be a considerable part of the constant Devotions of My Lord Your Lordships most Obsequious Chaplain Jehu Jenny MATTH 24.46 Blessed is that Servant whom his Lord when he cometh shall find so doing FOR Man to know God and himself is the Comprehension of his whole Duty The Poet could tell us of the latter that it is that Wisdom which is from above from Heaven heavenly that which will trans-element us have that happy influence to sublimate us into that which is coelestial make us partakers or the Divine Nature and at length when we shall be ripen'd and sufficiently refin'd translate us to the enjoyments of that Kingdom Thus for Man to understand himself to know what he is will make him new create him what he is not and render him happy in that degree to which without this knowledge he could never attain And upon this notice this discovery who thirsts not after so much Goodness followed with so great Reward who is not impatiently eager on the study of this Philosophers Stone who will not judge it thrifty prodigality to lay out all to purchase this Pearl of so great price to any considerate man this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 must needs be matter of his highest satisfaction this acquirement is a recompence infinitly beyond all his labour and severity in the search after which there is no befooling darkness no discouraging difficulty no climbing the Clouds or crossing the Sea for it but this word of Wisdom is nigh thee Deut. 30.12 13 14. 't is plain and easie that which God hath sent down to us nay which the Son of God when for us men and for our Salvation he came down from Heaven himself hath delivered to us that which in the Text he preach'd to his Disciples and in them to us all in which he hath satisfied the Psalmist's question What is man what is man but a Servant to the great Lord and in this given a further resolve to the inquiry of those Publicans and Souldiers Luke 3. and who else shall come with the like case Master what must we do if Servants what 's our work our imployment He informs them to be deligent in their Office and to whet them to this he lets them know that he himself will have an eye over them and take an account of them and to encourage them to all this that as he findes them to be faithful so shall they be looked by him enjoy his favour the fullest blessedness Blessed c. And in this short account of the words I have given you the Parts of my Text which are these I. In what capacity man stands here he is a Servant That Servant II. As such what is his employment exprest in these words so doing III. The account will be taken of him the Lord of the family will come to take it himself though it be intimated that the time when he will come is very uncertain IV. The reward of that Servant that shall be found faithful and deligent Blessed is that Servant Of each of these with as much brevity as the Subject will allow I. In what capacity man stands here he is a Servant That Servant God made man but made him not for nought but to the excellency of his endowments in the design of Heaven was proportion'd an employment for him The Schools maintained this Axiome Quicquid agit agit propter finem that whatsoever moves in the nature of an Agent designs something as the end of its acting And certainly this perfection must be eminently in the Author of Nature and no end can we define worthy his proposal but his own Glory in the manifestations of his Power Wisdom and Goodness the most learned Philosopher and the greatest Divine that ever was in the World affirms this of the great work of Creation Pro. 16.4 The Lord hath made all things for himself yea even the Wicked for the day of evil That disorderly improfitable part of the Creation Telluris inutile pondus as the Poet speaks the wicked though God made them not so he made man upright and left him in the hands of his own counsel as the Son of Sirach Ecclus. 15.14 yet his over-ruling Wisdom makes them serve the designs of his inflexible Justice because they will not pay that homage they owe to their Maker but refuse to be happy and so defeat the purposes of enthroning his Mercy therefore he obliges them to wait on the triumph● of his Vengance as the just demerit of their obstinacy and rebellion In the 1st of Genesis last verse when the Ahnighty surveys the workmanship of his fix dayes creation he gives his approbation God saw every thing that he had made and behold it was very good Good in this respect among others in regard of that the God of order had placed in this large family of the Creation allotting each part its station and assigning them operations according to what powers and faculties he had implanted in them so that from the Seraphim to the Pismire there is no creature but what in a larger or less capacity is a Servant of its Creator The Philosopher could say that all things do serve in his notion the first Being and Cause of all things which is one of the meditations of the Royal Psalmist which he hath left us Psal 119.89 90 91. where he enumerates particulars For ever O Lord thy Word is setled in Heaven Thy Faithfulness is unto all Generations thou hast established the Earth and it abideth They continue this day according to thine Ordinances And then he concludes For all are thy Servants And upon enquiry we shall find his assertion true