Selected quad for the lemma: reason_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
reason_n	believe_v	divine_a	revelation_n	3,320	5	9.6030	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A40091	A sermon preached at the general meeting of Gloucestershire-men, for the most part inhabitants of the City of London in the Church of St. Mary le-Bow, December the 9th, 1684 / by Edward Fowler.	Fowler, Edward, 1632-1714.	1685 (1685)	Wing F1718; ESTC R10668	14,518	40

A SERMON PREACHED at the General Meeting OF Gloucestershire-MEN For the most part INHABITANTS OF THE City of London In the Church of St. Mary Le-Bow December the 9th 1684. By Edward Fowler D. D. LONDON Printed by T. B. for Braybazon Aylmer at the Sign of the Three Pidgeons in Cornhill M DC LXXXV TO MY Honoured COUNTRYMEN Mr. John Haynes Mr. Aaron Pengry Mr. Richard Bishop Mr. Gwynnet Freeman Mr. Edward Sandys Mr. Edward Davis Mr. Anthony Partridge Mr. Stephen Rose Mr. John Ferrers Mr. William Till The STEWARDS of the late Gloucestershire-FEAST Gentlemen THE Sermon which in complyance with your desire I Preached to a very Numerous Meeting of our Country-men and the Publishing of which you since Requested I here present you with And God grant that this plain Discourse Composed in a hurry of other Business may in some Measure Contribute to the better observance of the great Praecepts of Fearing God Honouring the King and Loving one another therein recommended and inforced Then shall I have great cause to be thankful as to Almighty God for His Blessing on this endeavour so to your selves for putting into my Hands this opportunity of doing good I am Gentlemen Your Affectionate Countryman and Humble Servant EDWARD FOWLER A SERMON PREACHED at the Gloucestershire-feast 1 Pet. 2. 17. Love the Brotherhood Fear God Honour the King THat the Religion of which our Lord Jesus is the Founder is most admirably fitted for the making Mankind as happy as they are capable of being in this world as well as in the world to come is a no less certainly true than common observation As also that it tends as much to the happiness of Societies and Bodies Politick as of single Persons And were I to give a Demonstration of this I should need to do more than propose to your consideration this one short Verse Honour all Men Love the Brotherhood Fear God Honour the King If Christians generally practised the four duties which our Blessed Lord by his Apostle St. Peter here enjoyneth if they gave all Men the respect due to Human Nature to the Relations they stand in to each other and the Rank and Circumstances God hath placed them in if they loved one another as Brethren the Children of the same Father indued with one common Nature and Redeemed by one Saviour if they Revered the Divine Majesty and dreaded the wilful Transgression of any one of his Laws and under God Honoured their Kings as his immediate Representatives and Vicegerents If I say Christians were generally as willing to put these Duties in Practice as they are to acknowledg their Obligation to them I need not tell you that to live in Christendom would be to live in a Heaven upon Earth and in all likelyhood in a short time the whole World would be taken into Christendom In the handling of this Text I shall begin with the duties of Fearing God and Honouring the King and spend the rest of my Discourse upon that of Loving the Brotherhood each of which three Arguments doth well suit with the occasion of this Meeting but more especially the Last In the Prosecution of these Words Fear God ' Honour the King I will endeavour to shew these three things First What it is to Fear God Secondly What to Honour the King Thirdly That there is a necessary Connexion between these two Fearing God and Honouring the King First We will shew and that very briefly what is implyed in this Precept Fear God 1. To Fear God is to be possessed with an holy Awe and Reverence of his Infinite Majesty of his Glorions Attributes and Perfections Particularly of His irresistible Boundless Power of his Absolute Dominion over us and the whole World of His infinite Wisdom and Knowledg of His unspotted Purity and Holiness of His uncorrupted Justice and His inexhaustible Goodness The Fear of God doth presuppose an hearty belief and acknowledgment that all these Perfections are in the Divine Nature and implyeth in the first Place the being affected with Awe and Reverence towards God upon the account of all these He who understandingly believes the Existence of God must necessarily believe Him to be a Being Absolutely Perfect and Consequently must believe that He hath all these Perfections Of this Natural Light assures men no less than Divine Revelation And therefore the Philosophers who were hearty Asserters of the Deity which the Epicuraeans were not as Tully confidently and with great reason affirms have abundantly Preached this Doctrine as well as the Prophets and Apostles concerning God And he I say that Fears God doth so believe this Doctrine hath so lively and vigorous a Sense of the Truth thereof as to have an holy Awe and Dread of the Divine Majesty upon his Spirit upon the account of the foresaid Perfections of His Nature Each of which singly and much more altogether do make Him an Object of the Greatest Reverence Awe and Fear and each of them doth necessarily attract Fear from him who Considers it You may Object that the last of these Perfections viz. the Divine Goodness doth not seem to be attractive of Fear but of Love and Gratitude I Answer That it is no less attractive of Fear than of Love and Gratitude Not of a Slavish but of a Fillial Fear which is founded on Love and Gratitude and necessarily results from them And therefore the Prophet Hosea ch 3. 5. praedicts concerning the Children of Israel that They shall fear the Lord and his Goodness in the latter days 2. The Fear of God implyeth also the Expressing of this inward Fear and Reverence in our Outward Conversations in all the Actions of our Lives And it is impossible where there is an holy Awe of God in the Heart but it must express it self in the Life In short This is in the general the true Character of the man that Feareth God He is one who escheweth Evil. It was part of Job's Character that He feared God and eschewed Evil which are two Phrases to express the same thing and so are departing from evil and fearing God Prov. 3. 7. Fear the Lord and depart from evil He that Fearetb God is one that though he may happen to transgress a Law of God before he is aware and may be surprized into a sin yet dares not sin deliberately nor allow himself in the doing of any thing which God hath forbidden nor in the neglecting of any thing God hath commanded And therefore he endeavours sincerely to acquaint himself with his whole Duty He is one who dreads more to offend the great God than to provoke the greatest of Men As knowing that these have done their worst when they have killed the Body whereas Almighty God is able to destroy both Soul and Body in Hell Which is our Saviours Motive to the making of God the object of our greatest Fear Mat 10. 28. The Man that feareth God is so affected with those words as to be incomparably most afraid of the evil of