Selected quad for the lemma: reason_n
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A52332
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A sermon preach'd in the Cathedral of Lincoln, July XVIII, 1681 being the Assize-Monday / by Daniel Nicols ...
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Nicols, Daniel.
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1681
(1681)
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Wing N1142; ESTC R36617
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18,222
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41
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Atheism Thus this beautiful Virgin is every minute in danger to be destroyed by the beasts of Ephesus the latter sort and defloured by the former tho pretended Lovers who by their abominable Separations have torn into pieces the seamless garment which Christ had beautified her with and have put upon her a Coat of divers colours and patches representing rather the spots and changes of the Moon than the lustre and beauty of the Sun she is become a stone of stumbling a rock of offence scarcely known so miserably disfigured that she is like that Stone which Pliny calls Achates tot variis inumbratus coloribus ut unum lapidem esse minimè credamus But thanks be to God that in this night of confusion some of us know what we Worship and what our Worship is and to satisfie men of unbiassed principles I need go no farther than the Text to fetch a true Description of both for it must necessarily follow from the nature of the promise and threatning that the Worship we offer is to the living God who made Heaven and Earth according to the Precepts of his revealed Will. This is our solemn and publick Sacrifice so defined by St. Austin in his Civitas Dei and thus it is distinguished from the private Devotions of a Religious Soul which tho it be very acceptable to the great God yet falls far short of that acceptance which the union of hearts and voices in publick Assemblies findeth with him He hath always loved the gates of Zion better than the dwelling-places of Jerusalem the reason of which the holy Prophet giveth Psal 122.4 Because thither went up the Tribes the Tribes of the Lord unto the Testimony of Israel to give thanks unto the Name of the Lord. When a multitude speak the same thing and conspire together to offer up their Sacrifices to the Lord then does the Glory of the Lord appear then does he manifest his gracious Presence as he did his Glory in the days of Solomon 2 Chron. 5.13 14. It came to pass when the Trumpets and Singers were as one to make one sound to be heard in praising and thanking the Lord and when they lift up their voice with the Cymbals and Trumpets and Instruments of Musick and praised the Lord saying For he is good for his mercy endureth for ever that then the house was filled with a cloud even the house of the Lord so that the Priests could not stand to minister by reason of the Cloud for the glory of the Lord had filled the house of God The want of this sweet harmony and consent of Souls in the Worship of God is the reason why our Church mourns at this day her visible Members speak not the same things but divers and contrary one to another Babel is found in Bethel confusion in the house of God as if we would force that to be the true and genuine meaning of our Saviour when he brought the Everlasting Gospel into the World I come not to send Peace but a Sword How unlike are we to those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who came up thither to Worship and tho of divers Nations and Languages yet wâ—â—e they of the same Religion from whence undoubtedly they were called Jews We tho we use no other but our Mother-tongue in the Service of God yet have we more Religions than they were Nations Can any good come out of this Galilee Is it likely that a fire should be quenched with Oyl or a healing plaister be made of Corrosives Let us fear rather lest a Church divided against it self should not stand Rome rides faster and gets more ground upon the speckled horse of our own divisions than upon the prancing Genet of her own worship she cunningly does her work and sits still whilst we by our Separations are perfecting her designs in our own ruines and lest any should wonder why so magisterially I seem to obtrude my own Sentiments upon the World let him but impartially consider how the old Axiom is again revived in Rome divide impera and then let him tell me whether the reason of our present impotency and weakness and of their hopes and expectations does not proceed principally from those cursed and sinful Divisions amongst Protestants My humble Address therefore to this Right Honourable and Noble Assembly is That in your respective places as Judges as Magistrates as Nobles as Gentlemen you would glorifie your God save if possible your Country from that destruction which as a dark Cloud hangs over her head that you would imbellish and perfume your names to all generations by honouring Religion by vindicating her innocent beauty from the vile assaults and bruitish rapes of prophane and dissolute men Assert the solemnity of our Worship by your publick constant and reverential attendance against all Detractors who set up Altar against Altar Church against Church and make it the greatest part of their Religion to defame ours Defend the purity and simplicity of it from the superstitious and corrupt mixtures of the Church of Rome by a generous and rational observance of decency and order in the Worship of God Religion takes no pleasure either in a nasty slovenly behaviour or delight in a Pharisaical gaudery Our Ceremonies are few in number easily told as easily understood not like those of the other Church a load insupportable scarcely inferior to the Bondage of the Jewish State Again Let me beseech you to show your Zeal for it in the Presence of Atheists Let not Hell tho it be broken loose in our days make you ashamed of your Crucified Saviour and his Royal Laws It argueth a poor sneaking ingentile spirit when men shall be hectored out of their Religion by a company of Sots that have no God but their Belly and understand no other pleasure but what Bruits do find Hand ulla Numina expavescunt Coelitum Ventri offerent Deos ignorant caeteros as Euripides expresseth them These are the Antichrists which endeavour publickly and privately the ruine of our Religion a Jewel too precious to be lost if you please to consider the second particular the healing and cementing nature of it It 's the Balsome of the Creation the Pandora of all excellent Virtues which undoubtedly will heal all wounds in Church and State may they be applied But that which does not a little advance the Excellency of it is that the perfection which she challengeth as her own does not proceed meerly from the abstracted blessing of the great God but in part from the curious composure of that Spirit which God has endued her with which her very Name as St. Austin and Propertius testifie does sufficiently demonstrate this being that which fasteneth the Soul and Conscience to God and Goodness The Greeks translate it by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and those that joyned themselves as Proselytes to the Jewish Church were called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and sometimes waiters for the Kingdom of God longing for the Revelation of the Messias
tender regard had the children of Israel for David by no means must he endanger his Person in the battel for in their eye he was more worth than ten thousand of them Good Josiah did better deserve the name of Delicium humani generis than Caesar observe how the people lament him by the lips and eyes of the weeping Prophet Lament 4.20 The breath of our nostrils the anointed of the Lord was token in their nets of whom we said Under his shadow we shall be preserved alive among the heathen Secondly There is imprinted upon the Nature of man a special reverence for Holiness and Religion which you may easily perceive in the common people who tho they seldom understand what true Religion is yet how do they hug and embrace the very rumour and report of it Let Religion beat up a drum and you cannot allay the heat of their spirits they must follow the noise of it This makes Satan in our days put on the appearance of an Angel of light and every jugling Enthusiast will pretend Sanctity and Religion when he designeth to obtrude his own blasphemies upon the World How many miserable Souls are trepan'd into the thraldom of the Romish Church by a Religious blush which sits upon the face of her Worship It was no hard matter for the Scribes and Pharisees to swallow down whole houses under the pretence of Devotion Plutarch in his Politicks gives this advice to Trajâ—â—â—â— the Emperor Venerare Deos per pietatem in coâ—â—m honorem opibus tuis utare magnopere enim multitudo affici solâ—t dum pietatem coram conspiciunt quos maximi ducunt This got Numa Pompilius such an excellent name Quod plurima fana lucosque Deorum dedicavit Thirdly The great design of Christian Religion especially the publick and solemn Worship of God is to render men alike one to another of one heart mind way and life Our prayers are the same that all of us as one man may consent to say Amen Our Discourses either are or should be the same differing in phrase and manner of utterance yet bearing proportion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to the wholesome form of sound words We are initiated after the same manner by Baptism into one and the same Church at the Eucharist fed at the same table with the same bread refreshed with the same wine by all incorporated that being one body all the members may have a mutual respect and care one of another St. Paul upon this consideration magnifieth the Christian Religion Eph. 4.3 as keeping the unity of the spirit and commends it in the next words for the power that it carrieth to secure the common interest of love which he calleth the bond of peace the reasonableness of which he evinceth v. 4. There is one body as there is one spirit as likewise ye are called into one hope of your calling One Lord one faith one baptisme one God and Father of all who is above all and through all and in all things The whole body of Religion is comprized in this word Love and we may judge of the sincere professors of it by their conformity to it Thus have I done with the second particular the cementing nature of true Religion The third and last Enquiry is What priviledge the Text alloweth to a Nation or People whilst they are zealous and devout in Religious Worship thus expressed Then shall ye and the King which reigneth over you continue to follow the Lord. In the Original there is nothing at all found for following all that is there expressed is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which Translators have rendered as you read the Septuagint does not much differ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 walking behind or after the Lord the meaning of which must be that as God when they had no King was their Captain leading forth their Armies and giving them success and victory for this was the great reason they urged for alteration of Government that they might have a King to go out before them and so fight their battels so also upon due observation of Religious Worship by him appointed he would still be their General and under his Banner they should sight victoriously over their Adversaries Now that this blessing is not meerly temporary belonging only to that people but entailed upon Piety and Religion to all generations is evident from the constant care and tender respect he hath continued to his Church to this day for according to his promise that the gates of Hell shall never prevail against it so it is and so it shall be so long as the world endureth And lest it should be objected that Promises of this nature are peculiar to the Church Universal and have no reference to particular Churches or Nations although true Religion be therein professed and incouraged let it be remembered that what belongs to the whole belongs also to the part and though many particular Churches formerly renowned are now utterly extinct as the seven Churches of Asia and many more yet before their ruine they had a charge of notorious crimes drawn up against them and notice of those exterminating Judgments which without repentance would follow God does very rarely if ever deal with Churches or Societies of men as with Individuals these he oftentimes leaveth under dismal and sore afflictions not so much for the demerit of their Sins as the probation of their Graces This was the case of Abraham of Lot in Sodom of holy Job who had this excellent character from God at the very instant when he sealed a Commission to Satan to afflict him that he was an upright and perfect man But who can tell of a Righteous Nation which hath kept inviolate the Judgments and Statutes of Heaven that was ever forsaken by God If you please to look home you will find the never failing Providences of the Almighty to watch over this Kingdom for good so long as we kept our Garments clean so long as Religion flourished and the Corruptions thereof were discountenanced Prosperity attended the long Reign of Queen Elizabeth although the Enemies of our Church were more numerous then and as busie and active as they are now The peaceable bringing in of King James almost to a Miracle was a demonstration of the kindness which God had for a people unanimous for then neither Popery nor Phanaticism were tolerated All the time he reigned both Church and State were in a prosperous condition but as soon as ever extravagant spirits began to break the unity of the spirit by Faction then did God righteously begin to break the bond of peace And it is farther observable that when the Inhabitants of England waxed wanton in their Religion then also did they become immoral loose and debauched in their lives for Superstition Heresie Schism Factions in the Church and Adulteries Fornication Drunkenness Prophaneness in the State are but gemini fratres which come into the world at one and the same time If we look for a reason