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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	certain_a	design_n	great_a	95	3	2.0704	3	false

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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

sin Lest any of you c. 1. The Danger men are in of being hardned through the deceitfulness of sin though they have the most powerful Motives and Engagements against it For never any Persons had greater arguments against returning to the practice of sin than these to whom this Epistle was written They had embraced among the first principles of the doctrine of Christ the foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith towards God of the doctrine of baptisms and of laying on of hands for the miraculous gifts of the Holy Ghost and of the resurrection of the dead and of eternal judgement And what can we suppose to have greater force and efficacy to restrain men from sin than what is contained in these fundamentals of Christianity But we shall find that no Motives have ever been great enough to restrain those from sin who have secretly loved it and only sought pretences for the practice of it Such is the frame and condition of humane nature considered in it self so great are the advantages of reason and consideration for the government of our actions so much stronger are the natural motives to vertue that to vice that they who look no farther would expect to find the world much better than it is For why should we suppose the generality of mankind to betray so much folly as to act unreasonably and against the common interest of their own kind as all those do that yield to the temptations of sin For if we set aside the consideration of a Divine Law to sin is nothing else but to act foolishly and inconsiderately But on the other side if men first look into the practice of the World and there observe the strange prevalency of Vice and how willing men are to defend as well as to commit it they would be apt to imagine that either there is no such thing as Reason among men or that it hath very little influence upon their actions and that the talk of Vertue was first found out by some great enemy to the Felicity of Mankind Such different apprehensions would men have from the different wayes of beholding the Picture of Humane nature either as it is in its own frame or as it is to be seen in the World They who have with the greatest judgement and care searched into the nature and first principles of humane Societies have all agreed that the chief end and design of men in joyning together was for the mutual benefit and advantage of each other and that in order to this certain Laws of Iustice Equity Mercy Truth Gratitude Temperance as well as of Subjection to Government ought to be inviolably observed by men And since these things have the universal consent of mankind to be for their general good how comes it to pass that men being joyned in these Societies for such ends make so little Conscience of the practice of them How come so many to live as it were in open defiance to these Fundamental Laws of Nature How come others only to make use of the pretence of vertue to deceive and of honesty and integrity to cover the deepest dissimulation If they be not good why are they pretended If they are good why are they not practised So that whether we consider mankind in it self or in Society we find the Motives to vertue to be much more weighty and considerable than those to sin and yet that the practice of men is directly contrary But it may be said that all this might happen in the world for want of wit and education to polish and improve the natural Faculties of mens minds and to direct and encourage the practice of vertue I wish the world had not so many instances that men of the greatest wit have not been men of the best Morals but if wit and education and Philosophy had been the most effectual means to reclaim men from sin where should we have looked more for the flourishing of vertue than in Greece and Rome And yet in those times when all the accomplishments of wit were at the highest in those places the manners of men were sunk into the greatest filth of debauchery It would make one astonished to read the admirable discourses of their Philosophers and to consider the strange height that eloquence and wit were arrived to among their Orators and Poets and then to compare the account given of the manners of the Gentile World not only by their own Satyrists but by the Apostles in their several Epistles What a monstrous Catalogue of sins do we meet with in the first Chapter to the Romans of sins of so deep a dye and of so horrid a nature and such an Inventory of all sorts of Wickedness that one might imagine the Apostle had been rather describing some vision of Hell than the seat of the Roman Empire To the same purpose he speaks of the Corinthians and Ephesians who thought themselves behind none of the Greeks of that Age in the breeding then most in Vogue but we need not instance in particulars when S. Peter calls it in general the will of the Gentiles to live in lasciviousness lusts excess of wine revellings and banquetings as well as abominable Idolatries and S. Iohn in short saith the whole world lyeth in wickedness It might be worth our while to consider how so universal a degeneracy of manners should happen in those ages when men pretended more to Wit and Learning than they had done in any time before And for this it were very unreasonable to assign any Cause that were equally common to all other Ages such as the corruption of human nature which how great soever it be is the same at all times neither do I think it reasonable to lay it wholly on the bad examples of the teachers of vertue knowing how malicious the worst of men are in endeavouring to make those who seem to be better to be as bad as themselves but there are some peculiar reasons for it and I wish they had been only proper to those times as 1. Separating Religion and Morality from each other When their Religion was placed in some solemn Rites and pompous Ceremonies and costly Sacrifices but all the matters of Morality were confined to their Schools there to be enquired after by those that had leisure and curiosity for them As though God were more concerned for the colour and age and pomp of their Sacrifices for the gestures and shews of their devotion than for the purity of their hearts the sincerity of their minds or the holiness of their lives When once the people had swallowed that pernicious principle that Morality was no part of their Religion they had no great regard to the good or evil of their actions as long as a little charge and four looks and going to their Temples at certain times were thought sufficient to expiate their sins And they were much more encouraged in Wickedness when the Gods they worshipped were represented on

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