Selected quad for the lemma: rest_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A27595
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A discourse of the judgments of God composed for the present times against atheism and prophaneness.
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Beverley, Thomas.
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1668
(1668)
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Wing B2137; ESTC R14172
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93,326
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282
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that sin which ruines Kingdoms and for that piety that exalts them is most earnest When perswasions of Reformation find freest entertainment with those who have most power to promote it and Princes are not only Philosophers but Divines publishing Repentance and Amendment of life by those Soveraign Documents the face of their Authority and Example shining upon Holiness how orderly doth this Reformation descend from the Superior Regions without that tumult and suspition of Design that usually accompanies Popular Attempts therein and with greatest Honour For such being nearer God the Original of all we accept from them recommendations of goodness as Acts of Bounty with thankfulness but not without disdain and regret from them below us There being ever an exprobration in that inversion of Order and Nature when we receive the light or dew of Heaven from beneath that should come down from above to us It must needs be a Rebuke from Heaven upon the upper world when in the silence of Religion Judgment and Equity there God opens the vulgar mouths to call for them and yet if these should hold their peace there is so great a constraint for the want that even the stones would cry out The Reason that forsakes men transmigrates as it were into insensible things Vniversal Wisdom having so contrived that as the neglect goes down lower and lower things lowest should be moved to convince them above till the nethermost foundations of the Earth are stirred to reprove disobedient man though at the other higher end of it When the Seats of Dignity are empty that is not filled with good Government who is not ready to press into them and when the Prophets Chairs are unfurnished by persons of graver investiture naked Sauls crowd into them as they say Nature swells out of its place to prevent vacuity Or rather the plenitude of wisdom that flows from God the Fountain is so immense that being excluded its proper place as a full stream forced out of its own Channel it bursts into another or overflows all or like the Apostles Doctrine which driven from the Jews expatiated upon the Gentiles But these extravasations are ever in themselves dangerous if not deadly this Wisdom never shewing it self out of the residences it hath chosen as fittest for it but in wrath when it speaks by men of lower rank what it would do by Superiors or by the Creatures what men should understand themselves It is in Judgment to forbid their madness May it then be the Happiness of our Times and Nation to be rescued from the further pursuits of the Divine displeasure by the mediation of personages of place and lawful suffrages that have not taken their Honour to themselves or by the Indignation of God thrust into it To whom to present these two Generals of Reformation that are not of any private Interpretation or Opinion but of the sense of all sober understanding will not be accounted presumption though they know and do the things already 1. An efficacious Interposal against Licentiousness of Practices which grows speedily to a height when those whose honour and gravâ—â—â— forbids them to stoop to those mâ—â—â—nesses of vice which others fall down to have not yet that zeal against it but either draw too nigh the Circus or Ring of the Disorders beholding them with pleasure or entertain the Actors of them with familiarity Any of which give a boldness to wickedness that soon espies its own advantages and grows insolent upon them ready not only to rise with violence against common opposition but to dismount Authority it self which hath no greater security then its own virtue enstamped upon those under it Solomons advice not to be over-much wicked hath not only equal but larger place upon States then upon persons for besides that Justice makes more haste to punish a Combination in evil the f … of contrary passions and lusts 〈◊〉 so outragious that they violate all things in their mutual encounters and the inundation grows so strong through the meeting of so great a Body of Evil that the destructive force runs into suddenner confusions and is more impatient of those abatements a single wickedness must admit and so more leisurely brings forth death There are possibly few Instances of any such who have been the notorious Debauches of their time but have been exemplary for the Fate attending them except prevented by sudden returns to a sober mind but not any of an extreamly corrupted Age but unhappiness if not ruine have trodden along with it But could it be that a stream of wickedness had run like Oyl smooth and untroubled yet doth that time wherein it so ran look black to Posterity not Chance but some unchangeable Law giving the Character always alike which is ever derived from those of Eminency as when Pictures are taken the Head and parts of the Body nearest to it are generally thought enough to represent the whole thus when the Portraicture of any Time is given the Aspect of Majesty the Seat of Authority and Vnderstanding are the life and the rest added to make the Grace of them the greater and more impressive from the beauty of a full proportion 2. A potent opposition to Atheism and scornful neglect of the Solemnities of Christianity which when it is professed hath the weight of prosperity or ruine resting upon it for as God often hung the Glory or Desolation of the Princes people of Judah upon the observation of their Sabbath though an extern Rite of Religion because it carried so much of the Reverence of Divine Worship and the Acknowledgments of God so he still suspends the Greatness or Depression of Nations to whom the notices of himself and Jesus Christ are given upon their subjection to those Sacred Principles and the Institutions wherein they are conserved And because we have fallen into the mention of a Sabbath and these Institutions have their full room in it it is not out of the way of this Address to observe That our Christian Sabbath is slipped out of the shell of a Jewish Ceremony into the Spirituality of the Lords Day and the Morality of a Rest for the publick and private Exercises of Religion on which accounts our Obligations to it still continue with those advantages wherein it was made for man All contemptful disenclosures or unworthy prostitutions of it must needs therefore imply not only a great senselessness of God and his Glory whom we would dispute into the narrowest rooms but too much of an irreverence of him if not defiance to him Were it possible there could be a severe suppression of Vice and inclination to Virtue without Piety yet would it be dishonourable without the Illustration of Religions Glories The highest care of those that truly understand Honour is the paying all due Observances to God the Fountain of Honour who honours them that honour him but delivers to in … or contempt those that lightly â—â—gâ—rd him â—s some States that have enactâ—â— vâ—â—tuous Laws and been