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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
power_n	king_n	law_n	tyrant_n	3,396	5	9.9720	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A61608	A sermon preach'd before the King, Feb. 24, 1674/5 by Ed. Stillingfleet ...	Stillingfleet, Edward, 1635-1699.	1675 (1675)	Wing S5647; ESTC R5021	22,002	48

ever with it or that it is a thing so absolutely necessary to the comfort of mens lives that they cannot live one good day without it Whereas in truth the whole race of mankind hath suffered extreamly and continually by it and it is so far from being necessary to the comfort of mens lives that the greatest troubles and vexations of life have risen from it and men may enjoy far greater satisfaction and more real contentment and more noble and solid and lasting pleasures if they did utterly renounce and forsake it But this still makes the difficulty so much the greater how it should so far be witch and infatuate the far greatest part of mankind and of those who know how dearly they must suffer for it in another World And yet to assoil this difficulty we have only two Accounts to give how sin comes to deceive mankind so generally so fatally and those are 1. By subtle insinuations 2. By false reasonings 1. By subtle insinuations The great Masters of pleading in ancient times have told us that there are some Causes which are never to be managed by plain and downright reasonings because they are too weak to bear that method of handling and then they bid men have a care in their beginning of coming close to the business but they must fetch a compass about and by secret arts and degrees insinuate themselves into the good opinion of the Judges before they are aware of it This is the very method which is made use of by the deceitfulness of Sin it dares not stand the examination of any close reasoning for all its artifices would presently be discover'd then but it makes use of these arts of insinuation 1. It endeavours to raise a good opinion of it self by false colours and representations of things 2. When it hath done that it draws men on by degrees to the practice of it 3. When men are engaged in the practice of sin then it represents to them how much it is their own interest to defend it and so brings them from the counsel of the ungodly and the way of sinners to the seat of the scornful 1. It endeavours to raise a good opinion of it self by false colours and representations of things The first precept of insinuation is to remove prejudice for while that continues all that can be said will be of no force While men look on sin as vile and loathsome as mean and unworthy of a man as inconsistent with the peace and contentment of their minds so long temptations are easily resisted all arts must therefore be used to make it appear with all the address and flattery which is most apt to entice a poor deluded sinner Then the fetters and shackles which it brings to enslave men with must be looked on and admired as ornaments it s most sordid and filthy pleasures must be thought great and manly and a little present honour and advantage appear more valuable than an eternal state of Happiness and Glory These are things we should think it very hard for men to be deceived with and yet every day we find they are so and which is far more they are ready to take it very ill of those who go about to undeceive them In other cases if a man tells another that he is like to be deceived with a false and counterfeit Jewel instead of a true one or to buy a bad Title to an Estate instead of a good one he thinks himself very much obliged to him for his fidelity and kindness only in the case of mans beloved sins although they will prove the greatest cheats in the World to him yet he cannot well endure to be told so but his blood is apt to fire and enflame him into a passion against him that doth it and although it be meant with the greatest innocency and kindness it is ready to be interpreted to be only the effect of malice and ill will For now sin hath insinuated it self so far into him that no one can be thought a friend to the person who is not so to his sins and they are then come to that height of friendship and community of interests to have common friends and common enemies Now all the discourses of the freedom and pleasure and satisfaction of a mans mind in the practice of vertue appear very dull and insipid things and fit only for Learned Fools or Philosophers to talk of Nothing deserves the name of Liberty with them but a power of doing what they please What nonsense and contradiction doth it seem to them for those to be accounted free who are under any bonds or restraints No matter to them whether they be from God or Nature from Reason or Conscience as long as they are restraints they look on them as inconsistent with their notion of liberty And next to those who threaten men with punishments in another World for what they do amiss in this they account those the greatest Fools that first found out the distinction of good and evil and just and unjust in the actions of men What Fools say they were they to fasten dishonourable and reproachful names on some of the most pleasant and beneficial actions of life For thus a man is debarred that noble and manly Vice of Drunkenness for fear of losing the reputation of Sobriety and the extravagancies of Lust for fear of doing injury to his neighbours Bed and supposing a man hath never so much advantages in his hands to enrich himself by defrauding another yet he must not do it because although an estate be in the keeping of a Fool yet another must not be a Knave to get it from him Thus do these miserable Slaves to Vice pitty the weakness of those who have so little wit as they think not to understand the Liberty they enjoy But thus do mad men pitty the dulness of those that are in their wits that do not sing and rant and despise the World as they do and fancy themselves to be Kings and Princes while they are tyed fast in their chains and lye in Straw And upon such grounds as these the most rude and barbarous Indians did better understand the liberty of mankind than the most civilized Nations For all civility is a debarring men of some part of this natural liberty i. e. of those things which men have a power to do and upon this ground all antient Law-givers and Wise men who by degrees brought several Nations to Order and Government and to live by Laws ought to be hated as the greatest Tyrants and Usurpers upon the liberties of mankind and the natural consequence of this would be the overthrow of all Laws and Order and Government in the World But if there must be some restraints upon men then we are to consider what restraints are just and reasonable within whose bounds we are to contain our selves and whatever tends to the dishonour of God to the injury of others or to our own destruction it is

forget God lest he tear them in pieces and there be none to deliver 2. Men are hardned by the deceitfulness of sin from the hopes of their future repentance For that is one of the great cheats of sin that every one thinks he can repent and shake off his sins when he hath a mind to do it Sin doth not lye like a heavy weight upon their backs so that they feel the load of it and therefore they think it is easily removed if they would set themselves to it Most of those that believe a God and a judgement to come and yet continue in sin do it upon this presumption that one time or other they shall leave their sins and change the course of their lives before they go out of this world They have not only thoughts of repentance but general purposes of doing the acts of it at one time or other but that time is not come and God knows whether it ever will or no. For sin entices them and draws them on still and when any motions towards repentance come into their minds that presently suggests It is time enough yet why so much haste there will be trouble enough in it when you must do it what need you bring it so fast upon you Are not you likely to hold out a great many years yet what pitty it is to lose so much of the pleasure of life while you are capable of enjoying it There is old Age coming and when you will be good for nothing else then will be time enough to grow wise and to repent But O foolish sinner who hath bewitched thee to hearken to such unreasonable suggestions as these are For 3. In the last place it ought to be our present our constant our greatest care to prevent being hardned by the deceitfulness of sin For to this end it is not enough to consider of it at one time or other in our lives but we must be exhorting one another daily while it is called to day lest any of us be hardned through the witchcraft and deceitfulness of sin And if it be so much the duty of others to shew that regard to one anothers souls how much more doth it become us to do it who expect to be called to an account at the great day for the discharge of our trust in this matter It is a dreadful passage we read of in the Prophet Ezekiel and enough to make our ears to tingle at the repeating it When I say unto the wicked O wicked man thou shalt surely dye if thou dost not speak to warn the wicked from his way that wicked man shall dye in his iniquity but his blood will I require at thine hand We would fain believe this to have been some particular and extraordinary commission given to the Prophet by God himself which doth not concern us for what will become of us if not only our own faults which God knows are too many but other mens shall be charged upon us when either through neglect or flattery or fear of displeasing or for any mean and unworthy ends we betray our trust and instead of preventing prove the occasion of mens being too much hardned through the deceitfulness of sin But although we neither pretend to be Prophets nor Apostles yet it is our Office to take care of the Souls of men and can we discharge that as we ought to do if we do not with all faithfulness warn men of the danger they run into through the deceitfulness of sin It were happy for us if we could say that all the Lords people are holy for then we should have nothing to do but to praise and commend their Vertues which were an easie and a delightful task but what pleasure is it to rake into the sores or to reprove the Vices of a degenerate age to be thought troublesome and impertinent if we do our duty and men of no conscience if we do it not But our work is neither to libel our Auditors nor to flatter them neither to represent them as better nor worse than they are nor to charge them with more guilt than their own consciences do charge them with but our business is to beseech and exhort them by the mercies of God by the sufferings of Christ by the love and tenderness they have for their immortal souls that they would to day while it is called to day take heed lest they be hardned through the deceitfulness of sin And that will appear to be very reasonable on these considerations 1. That none are out of the danger of it while they live in this tempting World What need have we to take care of being deceived by that which hath been too hard for the best the wisest and the greatest of men Man in his best state even that of Innocency was deceived by the insinuations of sin when there was no matter within for the temptation to work upon no reason suggested that could move a common understanding no interest or advantage that could sway him no other moving cause appears to us of that fatal Apostasie of Adam but either the imagination of some unknown pleasure or the bare curiosity of trying an experiment what the effects would be of tasting the forbidden fruit And ever since so general hath the corruption of mankind been so successful have the artifices and deceits of sin been in the World that the best of men have not wholly escaped them but have sometimes fallen in those very Graces which have been most remarkable in them as Abraham in his trust in God Moses in his meekness Iob in his patience Peter in his zeal for Christ. What cause then have others to look to themselvs If wisdom and experience would have secured men we should have thought of all men in the World Solomon the least in danger of being deceived by the insinuations of sin who had given such excellent cautions against those very snares he fell into himself and that to such a degree that his case is left disputable to this day whether he ever recovered by repentance or no. What numbers are there upon record of those mighty men who have made the earth to tremble at the noise of their Armies who have led Kings in chains after their Triumphal Chariots and have been served by those whom others have adored yet have notwithstanding all this been enslaved themselves by some mean lust and destroyed by the power of an effeminate passion What can be strong enough to resist those charms which neither innocency nor wisdom nor power are sufficient security against Nothing but the Grace of God and continual care of our selves 2. The less men suspect their danger the more cause they have to be afraid of it None are more fatally deceived by sin than those who apprehend no danger in it or think they can escape it when they please How strangely infatuated are those through the deceitfulness of sin who think with themselves that after they