Selected quad for the lemma: rest_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
rest_n	day_n	lord_n	sabbath_n	28,734	5	10.5734	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A39288	A sermon preach'd before the King and Queen, upon Ephes. 5.16. Redeeming the time, because the days are evil. By the Reverend Father Philip Ellis monk of the H. Order of St. Benedict, and of the English Congr. chaplain and preacher in ordinary to their Majesties. Published by His Majesties command	Ellis, Philip, 1652-1726.	1687 (1687)	Wing E600; ESTC R214602	15,277	36

which is but standing Error has prepossess'd our Minds stupifi'd and immersed in Flesh and Blood that to do nothing is easie when indeed it is the greatest pain the reasonable Creature can endure arguing either a childish Weakness that we cannot act or a shameful Ignorance that we know not what to do And I believe the Man of Reason will grant me that Ignorance as it is a punishment upon us for doing what we ought not so is it the greatest torment to a Soul which is perpetually thirsting after Knowledge And as for the more unthinking and grosser part of Mankind they cannot deny but all Pain comes from Weakness Our own Notions therefore bear testimony against us and if what we call a gentile life speaks either our Weakness or Ignorance the gentile Liver is the most unhappy Creature in the World For Happiness is so far from consisting in either of these that both are essentially destructive to it and whosoever hopes to compass this end by contrary means will find himself at last in the other Extremity To be plain whosoever promises Happiness to himself without much labor sets it at too high a price at which no wise Man would buy it if it be not to be purchas'd but by living idly for at this rate one must be Miserable to become Happy But how unnatural a thing is it for that Creature to be idle Ambr. Praef. in Luc. Basil ap Mel. 89. who alone of all Creatures stands condemn'd to labor as St. Ambrose observes Upon which consideration St. Basil doubts not to brand this Vice of so great reputation in the World with the infamous Character of a sin against Nature because there is nothing in the whole Frame of Nature idle or unactive Our Blessed Saviour testifies of the Godhead it self My Father saith he John 5.17 still works and I work Pater meus usque modo operatur All the Hierarches of Angels as one assures us who had been in the third Heaven are Administring Spirits The Prophet declares they have no rest day nor night but incessantly pour forth their harmonious Acclamation Holy Holy Holy Lord God of Sabbath And what I should have mention'd before The sacred Humanity of Christ came not to be serv'd but to serve Non venit ut Ministraretur sed ut Ministraret The Celestial Orbs have never had any respite from their perpetual motion all things below are in a continual Tide a regular Succession of Causes and Effects Every Creature groans and brings forth even till now saith the Apostle And if the invisible things of God are understood by those things which are made The Operations of Nature are so many Emblems of the Diligence he requires at our hands towards the working out our Salvation God having made them not only for our use but also for our instruction In fine the whole World is a large Volum as St. S. Athanas in Vit. S. Ant. Anthony calls it where we may read our Duty and meet with it in every line Nay if Man would but take the measure of his Moral Actions from the observation of his Natural the continual working of the Heart circulation of the Blood respiration of the Lungs pulse of the Arteries and activity of the Fancy will teach him Assiduity in the exercise of those nobler Faculties whose Actions depend upon the liberty of his Will how constant and regular his Motion ought to be in the Service of God And that his Soul is as much dead when it is idle and surceases from doing well as the Body will be when all these Vital Operations are at an end I know not any one who would not esteem it a horrible Execration to wish he had neither Hands nor Feet yet such is our misery that while we make no more use of them in order to our own good or that of our Neighbor than if they were quite disabled even in that respect we count our selves happy For take away from the Lady the Gentleman the Courtier c. the power and convenience of doing nothing and being not in the labors of Men the subtilest Logician can scarce explain in what formality their Happiness i. e. the advantage of their Condition consists Their priviledge seems to lie in an exemption from the general Malediction inflicted upon the rest of Mankind In the sweat of their brows they shall eat their Bread But then they must draw their Pedegree from some other Line than that of Adam for no more is any Child of his free of this Obligation than he is from the cause of it and if we Inherit the one we must necessarily be partakers of the other For as Holy Job expounds this Sentence Man is born to labor Labor being not only a necessary means to preserve his life but one of the ends why it was given him And our Blessed Saviour revives and inforces this Doctrin in the Parable of the Master entrusting his Servants with so many Talents with a Negotiamini Manage and improve them and this not for a spirt when the fit takes you but donec veniam without intermission till he calls them in and you to give an account of your Stewardship by which Servants every body understands the whole Mass of Human Nature without excepting any State or Condition and by the Talents a necessity of working according to the Abilities this great Master has dispensed to every particular Now if a Man who had well consider'd the weight and strictness of this Obligation without knowing the Follies of Mankind and their vain amusements should look out into the World he would tell me I make a Discourse in the Air and to the Walls for every one is active in his respective Station and employ'd in his Duty when he should see their earnestness at such a distance as not to discern the matter they are so intent upon How People hast along the Streets and press one another like Waves which are broken and sever'd with a contrary Tide When he should behold some warmly disputing at a Table others walking musing and solitary some Reading others discoursing with abundance of Gravity others sitting in crowds in recollection and silence he would certainly bid me hold my peace and not disturb these serious Men with advising them to begin what they are already doing But if I should lead him nearer to them within ken of their Actions and hearing of their Discourse when he should discover their Lives and their Talk to be all of a piece Atheistical in good earnest When he should see these People running to a Shew or to a Riot to circumvent their Neighbor or to oppress the Innocent or coursing about the Streets meerly to shew their Equipage or themselves When he should find those silent and recollected People at the Theater whom he thought at a Sermon That Lady at her Glass and in a profound contemplation of her self whom he thought at her Oratory that Gallant reading a Romance or a Novel

an account of them in an Evening Recollection shall you be pass'd by as Extralineary who may perform that almost every hour of the day which the rest cannot but at set intervals and borrowing Time from their Rest If that complaint which is so common in every bodies mouth That they have not Time to say their Prayers be injurious to God and an implicite accusation of his Providence as if it had not furnish'd us means to perform the Duty it enjoyns What name shall we find for those false pretexts and fond excuses which you make for whom that Precept seems to be more particularly calculated sine intermissione orate pray without ceasing If a sick Man complain of want of health or a poor Man of want of Necessaries he becomes an object of Compassion and it would be the highest Barbarity to revile him for what is not in his power to avoid But if a Man in perfect Health should complain of a Distemper or one sitting at a good Table should cry he is almost famish'd risum teneatis amici Nobody would refrain from laughter and yet it is incomparably more absurd for any one to complain he has not Time to pray which he ought to be doing while he is complaining But for those who have nothing else to do or at the most only incident and casual avocations it is a subject of Tears and a folly to which one would think Men of good sense of all people in the World should be the least subject You have not time to Pray but you have time to be Drunk You have not time to Pray but you have time to spend in idle discourse in scandalous and uncharitable Reflections in chambering and wantonness You have not time to Pray but how many hours do you wast in Gaming when the loss of your Mony is the least expence and what you gain cannot redeem is not the price of a moment of the Time you lose O Heavens how glad will ye be one day of half an hour out of so many thousands which dance over your heads unregarded what would not a Damn'd soul give for those scraps of Time which you cast away as superfluous But certainly the man of business has not Time to be devout yet he has Time but it seems not to that end or if to that end yet Affairs of a greater importance intervene and challenge it to themselves If it be so the Man of business is by necessity the most Irreligious person in the world For if you prefer any thing to your Prayers it is an evident sign you judge it of greater importance which is a Spiritual Idolatry postponing the Creator to the Creature But if you acknowledg those things you prefer to your Prayers to be of an Inferior order you are highly unjust No wonder then if at those few broken moments and ends of Time which are the Refuse of your pleasure or what you miscal your business when you vouchsafe to come before the Divine Majesty with defil'd Hands and a Mind painted all over with the imagery of of Creatures and a Heart totally immersed in sensual if not criminal affections no wonder I say if your Prayers are not heard which drop from you with as ill a Grace as Alms from the Miser which are huddled over with as much precipitation as if you were making an escape from God Almighty which are accompanied with so many indignities that you bid fair with Jacob for a Curse rather than a Blessing and fall upon your Knees not to obtain pardon but to receive sentence or rather to increase your Judgment such as the Royal Prophet wishes the counterfeit Repentant Oratio ejus fiat in peccatum your very Prayer becomes an additional sin I know some will be apt to think surely this Man mistakes his Auditory and fancies himself preaching in a Cloyster or reading Ascetick Lectures to People wholly estrang'd and secluded from the World. But they may spare that thought I know the place I fill I know and revere my August and noble Audience I am sensible I am speaking as in the most Awful so to the most discerning ingenious letter'd and judicious Assembly of the World. I speak to a Court to Men of Business and whose Time is much taken up with weighty imployments I speak to the Flower of both Sexes I speak to Ladies Souldiers Philosophers and Divines but that is not all I speak to Christians and if any appear not in that Quality I speak not to them But all who own that Character must at the same time render to my Doctrin I do not perswade you to relinquish but to sanctify your state and certainly Piety which is profitable to all things is more than ordinarily necessary to them who are surrounded with more than ordinary dangers which renders Prayer more requisite in a Court than in a Convent Because as St. Bernard observes Temptations there are more serpentine and wily more rife and alluring the Pavement more slippery where one stands the Bruise greater when one falls and the Rise more difficult when one is down The same I affirm respectivly of every state which admits of many distractions and very much engages and takes up the mind as those Distempers need the frequenter Antidotes which recur the oftnest and lye heaviest at the heart which renders this Verity clear and beyond dispute That a Monk in his Cell is not half so criminal in omitting the solemn obligations of his Order as a Courtier who dispenses with himself in the constant observance of Piety how plausible and specious soever his pretences may be Tell me not of the contrary Judgment of the World which is all plac'd in iniquity no Man chuses his enemy to be his Judg. We are not to bend our Rule to the Practice or opinions of Men but we reduce them to the Rule and by that pronounce of their Rectitude or Obliquity ad Legem magis et Prophetas We decide not matters of Right by matters of Fact but the contrary we judg of the Lawfulness of the Action by comparing it with the Law. To conclude The Time is pretious therefore we are commanded to be watchful how every moment of it goes away vigilate itaque omni tempore It is short and what follows says the Apostle but that those who use this world be as if they us'd it not that is even they who have most to do in the World are to be so intent upon the managing their Time that the World should rather steal from them than their Time. It is the only thing we can call our own therefore let us preserve it Fili conserva tempus but it is swift therefore let us work while we have it dum habemus operemur but it is evil therefore let us sanctify it operemur bonum but much of it is already wasted therefore let us redeem it before our Glass be out Revel 10. for he that has sworn by him who lives for ever that Time shall be no more hath warn'd us that fatal Period is very neer Tempus prope est Revel 1. This life is the time of Labor and the service of God the chief business of Man from which no one is exempted and they the least as I have shewn who think they have the best Plea. It is in the power but of a few to consecrate themselves entirly to the service of God but to admit Temporal affairs in their Order and range them in a secondary place is the Duty of every one It is impossible to debar our selves all Recreations and Pastimes but very possible and even necessary to chuse those which are innocent The Heathen Philosopher will not allow you others than such as are commendable and beneficial No one for his recreation is to descend from good Actions to bad no one to spend his Time has leave to mispend it Let us sum up all that has been said in the wise Mans advice directed to every state and condition Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do Eccl. 9.10 do it with thy might Instanter with diligence and speed for their is no work nor device nor knowledg nor wisdom in the Grave whither thou art hastning Quo tu properas Dulg And to which I beseech God of his infinite mercy to prepare Us all by a speedy Repentance for having mispent so much of our time and an earnest endeavour to Redeem it In the name of the Father and of the Son and the Holy Ghost Amen FINIS