Selected quad for the lemma: order_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
order_n	best_a	conceal_v	great_a	16	3	2.1187	3	false

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