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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	church_n	doctrine_n	time_n	4,041	5	3.7132	3	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A43254	A call to a general reformation of manners and manifesting in several particulars the great lets and hinderances thereunto / preached at the arch-deacon of Sudbury's visitation, holden at Kentford in Suffolk in April last, 1700, by Clement Heigham, Esq., now rector of Barrow in Suffolk.	Heigham, Clement, d. 1714.	1700 (1700)	Wing H1370A; ESTC R36595	13,878	32

A CALL To a General Reformation of Manners AND Manifesting in several Particulars the great Lets and Hinderances thereunto Preached at the Arch-Deacon of Sudbury's Visitation holden at Kentford in Suffolk in April last 1700. By CLEMENT HEIGHAM Esq now Rector of Barrow in Suffolk Prov. XXVIII 4. They that forsake the Law praise the Wicked but such as keep the Law contend with them LONDON Printed by John Darby for Richard Thurlbourn Bookseller in Cambridg 1700. To the Right Honourable and truly Noble CHARLES Lord Viscount Townshend Much Honoured and Noble Lord HIS Majesty's Proclamation against Immoralities and the Honourable Houses of Parliament piously concurring by some good Laws to assist and strengthen the Ministry in the suppressing of Vice as it gave me a secret Pleasure so it did encourage me to frame and preach this following Discourse and for exposing this Sermon in print to a more publick View I am not without hopes it may do some good upon such as shall cast their Eye upon it the Discourse being on an Argument wherein all good Men do agree but more especially it may let some that are in great Authority see that there are great Lets and Hinderances amongst us as to an universal Reformation of Manners and some of them are such Lets and Hinderances as only the Wisdom of the Nation in Parliament can remove And I am the more emboldned to make use of Your Lordship's Name and to crave Your Patronage not only upon the account of Your great Honour eminent Parts and most agreeable Virtue whereby You shine amongst our Nobility and do attract the Affections of all Good Men but because great Examples are powerful and have a mighty Influence to bear down Vice and to encourage Goodness And I am fully persuaded Your Lordship will in Your High Place endeavour to promote that Great Design which this Discourse points at which is to promote the true and lasting Happiness of our Church and State and which can be effected by no other means than by making the Almighty God our Patron and Friend which can only be by depressing Wickedness and encouraging Piety and universal Goodness And upon these accounts it is that I pray for Your Lordship's Health and Happiness in this Life and Your endless Glory hereafter and shall always approve my self Your Lordship's most honouring most Faithful and most Obedient Kinsman and Humble Servant CLEMENT HEIGHAM MATTHEW V. 16. Let your Light so shine before Men that they may see your Good VVorks and glorify your Father which is in Heaven THESE words have a reference to the three foregoing Verses in which our Saviour applies himself to his Disciples and all sorts of true Christians and requires them to set forth the Purity of their Doctrine and the Purity and Exactness of their Lives to that advantage that by the authority and soundness of their Doctrine and goodness of their Conversation the Nation or the World might be kept from putrefying or stinking And he compares the Christian Church to a City set upon a high illustrious place which is easily seen by all that travel near it which City if it be kept clean and beautiful will attract and draw Travellers to it but if otherwise it will make them shun and abhor it Wherefore our Saviour requires them all to set forth such an eminent Light to the World both by their Doctrine and sutable Life that by their bright shining Lustre the thick Mists of Ignorance and the grosser Darkness of Sin and Wickedness might be dispelled and that others seeing and beholding this Glorious State of the Christian Church might be invited thereby to glorify their Father which is in Heaven These words then of our Saviour with respect to their Connexion with the former Verses do contain First A Precept or Command to all sorts of Christians to preserve pure and sound Doctrine and to lead exemplary Lives sutable to their holy Faith and Doctrine Secondly The words contain a powerful Argument to enforce good Christian Practice that others seeing your good Lives may glorify your Heavenly Father or that the ignorant sinful part of the World may receive saving Influences by virtue derived from the Purity of your Doctrine and Goodness of your Lives and so Glory may redound to God First For the Precept or Command in general to all sorts of Christians to preserve pure and sound Doctrine to see that their Copy be pure and fair and good and this is of great import for if our Faith or any allowed Doctrines of our Christian Society be stained or corrupted especially if ill Practice in any kind be the natural consequence of such allowed Doctrines or matters of Faith this tends to destroy the great end of all Religion But God be thanked our Articles of Faith and the allowed Doctrines of our Church are sound and good neither is our Publick Worship of God corrupted so that the publick Assemblies are become Schools of Idolatry and Wickedness as perhaps may be with great truth said concerning some other Church that exalts it self and looks big in the eye of the World Here now if time would permit me I might take a very fair occasion to represent the Faith and Doctrine and Government of our Church which we all own our selves Members of and to set forth the Purity and Soundness of it and shew the agreement of it to all that was owned by the Primitive Church in its best estate to convince how full it is to all the purposes of a good Christian Life and to manifest plainly that neither our Holy Worship and Services are corrupted nor doth the Church of England give any one License to Sin But this is a large Field to enter into and our Faith and Doctrine and way of Worship and Government hath been sufficiently set forth and justified by many Learned Men of our own Communion and sealed and confirmed by the Blood of Holy Martyrs And therefore I shall say no more of the Copy but I shall insist upon that which our Faith and Doctrine and Discipline points at which is to influence all Christians so to live as our Faith and Doctrine and Government enjoins them to do and thereby to manifest to the eye of the World the Excellency and Goodness of their Faith and Doctrine by their regular and holy Practices For what will a good Copy signify to them whose Lives do not write after it and so adorn it What doth it signify to talk of a good Way of Worship if we do not frequent it and join in it as devout Worshippers too What doth it signify to commend our holy Religion which requires strict Sobriety Chastity and Modesty of Life and a due Fear and Veneration of God and yet at the same time to lie wallowing in the Sins that are contrary to all this What doth it signify to commend the Government of the Church and yet at the same time to despise and disobey it At the rate that most Christians live

Oaths you are by no means to spare any tho never so great but if after gentle and neighbourly Admonitions they still persist in ill you are to present them for your Obligations to God and your own Souls are above any temporal Tie any worldly Respects Do well and right and let the World sink And indeed unless Parish-Officers will be watchful to discover Offenders and then perform their Oaths all hopes of a General Reformation of Manners must be at an end and the Land must still groan under the burden of Wickedness Fifth Complaint Is concerning the great want of Family-Religion among the Generality of Christians and the not imploying the Lords-day profitably in our Houses as well as in the Church Next to the sacred Ministry there is nothing would conduce more to the reforming a corrupt World and to the keeping up a due sense of God and serious Religion than the due care of Masters and Mistresses and Parents to discharge all that Duty which both Nature and Grace teacheth them that is to pray in and with their Families and to instruct them and to restrain and govern those Children and Servants that are under their care and charge And if those Housholders whose daily necessities will not allow them much time for these Imployments upon the other days of the week would imploy the Lords-day carefully both in the publick Assemblies and in their private Houses to benefit themselves and those that belong to their care we might then hope to see Sin restrained and Goodness universally planted But until Families shall become Nurseries of Religion and Good-manners and shall become like little Churches and sacred places both for good Instruction and holy Worship no great Reformation is to be expected Some may perhaps call this Puritanism but call it what they will I take it to be an infallible truth that it is exemplary Godliness that can only restore and preserve the Church Sixth Complaint Is of the Sacrilegious Inclinations of Persons in our Communion and that which unavoidably follows the making the Church poor is the contempt of the Sacred Function But this may seem to some a very remote Hinderance as to the reforming the World but it is not so for what great things can be expected where the Ministers Maintenance is either wholly precarious or if it be settled by Law it is very strait poor and necessitous And a mean or precarious Livelihood too often cramps the Tongue of the Preacher and makes it afraid to speak plain and what is worse it hinders study and begets servile and base Compliances And in plain English scandalous Livings too often make scandalous Priests and where it is so what Reformation can there be hoped for Our greatest and best Men saw this Mishief long ago and that not only Churchmen but some others of Great Name And here I cannot but mention one a great Light and Prelate of our Church the famous Bishop Jewel In a Sermon of his before the then Queen we have these words What may be guessed at their Intent who decay the Provisions of the House of God and so basely esteem the Ministers of the Gospel altho in other things they do well altho they seem to rejoice at the Prosperity of Sion and to seek the safety of the Lord 's Anointed yet needs must it be that by these means foreign Power shall again be brought in upon us such things shall be done unto us as we before suffered in the times of Popery And saith the same Bishop Jewel the Parsonages and Vicarages are the very Castles and Towers of defence for the Lord's Temple and if they be not better furnished with a due Maintenance and made more secure against Contempt we must expect God's Judgment upon us and this noble Realm shall be subject to foreign Nations These words to me are very remarkable as falling from so great a Man I wish they were not prophetical but yet when all is said 't is not to be expected that the contempt of the Ministry should wholly cease For the Sacred Order by their Office being bound to cry down the ways of Sin which corrupt Nature cries up the work of the Ministry being to promote Sobriety Righteousness and Holiness and to plant those Graces in the Hearts and Lives of Men which corrupt Nature and the Devil strive against This is so unthankful a work to irritate and disturb Mens Consciences as close and sound Preaching must needs do to press against the bent of Mens strong Inclinations and to commend to them what they most hate this is a work which will not procure to him much Honour and Esteem that is imployed in it in this irreligious Age. And our Saviour hath told us long ago what we must expect from a wicked World if we will be faithful in our places The World cannot hate you but me it hateth because I testify of it that the Works thereof are evil I confess it may seem very strange to a thinking Man that in a civilized Nation a Man of God should be despised a Man of God by his sacred Character and Message and whose Office it is to guide and conduct Souls to Heaven Little do Christians consider how much they owe to the main body of the despised Clergy By them you are baptized by them you are instructed in all saving Knowledg by their Prayers your Souls do receive aid and assistance from Heaven by their Prayers Judgments are kept off from a People at their hands you often receive the Bread of Life and by them your departing Souls are commended to God and if there were any Magistrates here I would tell them and justify it too that the Peace and Prosperity of the Kingdom is more owing to the Pulpit and an orthodox regular Clergy than to all the Courts of Judicature 'T is not the Magistrates Sword alone that would preserve you if the daily and weekly Labours of the Ministry did not instil good Principles and keep the Consciences of men awake and make men more afraid of Sin than all your Axes and Rods can do It is the Ministers Labours that dispel that Ignorance so far as it is dispelled amongst us It is the Ministers faithful Labours that break the force of mens Corruptions and make them more dutiful to God and submissive to their Governours And therefore if the Parsonages and Vicarages be the very Castles and Towers of defence for the Lord's Temple and the greatest security for the State too sure then it highly concerns all Orders of Men to assist and protect them and to contribute all they can to secure them from contempt and to strengthen them in their great work of promoting Religion and depressing Vice and all manner of Wickedness I have now done with the great Lets and Hinderances of an universal Reformation of Manners and it is no difficult thing to point out what must be the Cure 1. A devout faithful and laborious Ministry supported with a due