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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
work_n	believe_v	faith_n	good_a	22,604	5	4.7923	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A85798	A sermon appointed for Saint Pauls Crosse, but preached in Saint Pauls Church, on the day of His Maiesties happy inavgvration. March 27. 1642. By Richard Gardyner, D.D. and Canon of Christ-Church, Oxon.	Gardiner, Richard, 1591-1670.	1642 (1642)	Wing G231; Thomason E141_29; ESTC R16286	13,868	41

booke that the piety of such holy persons and sacred acts which are expressed by those visible objects ought to be imitated in their lives and deaths But such a fober construction hits not the scope of their meaning for they instruct the people downe-right to Idolize them Bellarmine the Atlas of their predominant Hierarchy doth not tremble terminis terminantibus in expresse termes to averre that the Images of Christ De Imagin Sancto l. 2. c. 21. and the Saints are to be worshipped not onely improperly but properly and by themselves so that they terminate the worship presented to them For my owne part as I will not contend with shadowes so I shall never any way strive for shadowes being resolved to approve no further these externall decorements and other circumstantials in Gods house then the Policy of the Land wherein I live shall thinke good to support And this I suppose is to keepe within the compasse of leading a quiet and peaceable life in all godlinesse and honesty which is the close of my Text and the totall summe of Christianity The heathen Orator could say Tull. l. 1. de Offic Inter bonos benè agere oportet among good and honest men must be good and honest dealing much more they who professe themselves Christians should be thus affected For since man is a sociable Creature every one owes that naturally to another by which humane society is conserved But men cannot live and converse if they may not beleeve and trust one another in godlinesse and honesty For this seeming zeale this formall honesty is like the Trojan horse in Virgil which was pretended the gift of Minerva but proved the ruine of Troy So that godlinesse and honesty faith and good workes must not be set at oddes but connexed and linked in our peaceable life as the cause and the effect the Sunne and the light For peace without godlinesse is a prophane unhallowed peace and peace without honesty is an adulterate a counterfeit peace it turnes the grace of God into wantonnes In godlinesse otherwise our peaceable life is no better then consenting in a faction in a combination for there 's Concors Odium unity in hatred when men make a league against a common good Jn honesty that you doe not by holy pretenses swallow widowes houses and by colour of distributing to pious uses scrape together what is not your owne build an Hospitall for a few and purloyne from many Such a liberality being no better then bountifull cruelty But our lives must be lead in all godlinesse and honesty squaring our drifts by our religion and not our religion by our drifts as the Ephesians did who cry'd up Diana Diana but gaine was in it they had learn'd to varnish their filthy lucre with devotion and to make their godlinesse yea their goddesse the handmaid the Stalking horse to their owne private Interest We are to pray for such a peace as Christ gave to his Disciples a peace knit together in all godlinesse and honesty I will follow my Apostle and end as I beganne exhorting all in their supplications prayers Intercessions and thanksgivings to magnify the Almighty by the providence of whose goodnesse we have a renowned King who is an indulgent carefull Father of the Church and Common-wealth a constant Exemplary Encourager and Advancer of all godlinesse and honesty Some Kings have beene so compos'd that Jngentes Virtutes ingentia vitia eminent vices no lesse then eminent vertues held a joynt concurrence in them as we see the drosse runnes with the metall but his gratious Majesty is of so refin'd so sanctified a temper that envy it selfe cannot find the least tracke of a raigning vice in him Who see 's not hee is Rex Mitioris Jngenij His clemency and moderation Proclaime him a King of his passions as well as of Nations And therefore Continue him O Lord long long continue him unto us Protect him against inbred and forraine Adversaries against the Foxe at home and ravening wolves abroad Let his enemies bescattered and those slaine that hate him Make his seed to endure for ever and his throne as the dayes of heaven Establish so firme an unity with the Head and the whole Body of the Kingdome that there ever be an happy entercourse of Love and Protection obedience and service Let no cunning of Satan nor any machination of his adherents be able to withdraw them from leading quiet and peaceable lives in all godlinesse and honesty through Jesus Christ our Lord Amen FINIS

the principall Subject of our Devotion It 's so with our Prayers as with our Almesaeedes by the one we doe good to all but especially to the houshold of Faith by the other we are to solicite God for every Man though in a peculiar and more fervent relation for the chiefe of men There be some who will have none comprehended within the list of their prayers but such as are sure of the benefit Will you have their reason It 's farre fetch'd even from the close● of the Almighty and grounded upon his eternall purpose There is no reason say they to pray for their salvation which God hath never promised or to wish them eternall blisse whom he hath assured us he will condemne By way of answer I must confesse I should be ready to joyn hands with them could they but show me who these were But where is the Counsellor of the Lord that dares say this Man is a vessell of wrath that other is the childe of Beliall and of a third that he is infallibly allotted to eternall perdition Since the reprobation of any is locked up in Gods owne bosome and that he who is a wilde Olive to day to morrow may be grafted into a better stocke I see no pretence why this Catholique duty of praying for all should not be enlarged to high and low good or bad What if they dwell in darkenesse and the shadow of death What if their religion be Idolatry and a meere contradiction to piety The more misery and infidelity we see them plunged in the more doth Christian affection bind us to pity their estate and study their conversion Charity which hopes all things prayes also for all men and it becomes not us altogether to condemne any man whose repentance is not yet cut off by death There is a distinction and God that knowes it made it but we must doe our owne work and let God alone with his Now if any shall yet question how the Almighty can accept those prayers which are sometimes against his will though not with our knowledge Let him know saith Saint Austin Enchir. that a man may with a will that is good will that which God will not so he submits to Gods will and rest when it appeares For the generall revealed will of God which is here expressed to pray for all men being the rule of our actions and not that which remaines secret our requests for things opposite to this secret will are not the lesse gratious in his sight Wherefore 't is a Calumny to object wee pray to God to save those men whom hee determines not to save whereas our prayers abstracting from the reprobation of any private person desire no more than in possibility may be and that also not peremptorily but meekely prostrating our wils and requests to his pleasure and gratious interpretation But can we doubt to pray for all men when Christ himselfe hath enjoyn'd us by Command and commanded us by example Looke upon him on the Crosse and behold when the whole man was batter'd and every part besieg'd with a distinct death when the tongue only enjoy'd a short truce he us'd it not to empty his owne sorrow but to begge his Enemies pardon Now if this duty includes so large a prospect as that it eyes all mankind universally even the Begger that lyes by the wall hath an interest in our prayers how ought they to bee multiplyed for Kings by whom we have recourse to our Oratories these Offertories of praise and thanksgiving For although it be the Lord which originally dat esse escam gives us our life and living yet it is the Lords Anointed who orders the distribution and metes out every one 's dimensum his just share and thriving portion It is by him that we move in our proper sphere and are not justled out of it The poore mans fragments and the rich mans basketfuls are preserv'd by his restraining power Every crum we put into our mouthes every drop wherwith we coole our tongues the very ayre wee continually breathe in and out we enjoy by the wise government of the King Were it not for the binding force of Soveraignty who durst raise a damme against the Torrent of Corruption Our meetings would be mutinies our Pulpits Cockpits authority would lose its authority no subordination no subjection the honourable would be level'd with the base the prudent with the childe all would be amass'd and hudled up in an uniust parity and the Land over-runne with inflexible generations Before the Deluge we reade of no Kings and therefore we find those times to be the worst of all times the inundation of vice being a greater plague than that other of the Flood Turne to the Annals of Israel in the booke of Judges Chap. 17.19.21 and there Micah's Idolatry the defiling of the Levites wife after an insatiable and brutish manner the bloody destruction of Jabes Gilead the rape of Virgins by fraud and violence these and much more may serve as a sad story how it is farre better to live under an evill King than no King In those dayes mischiefe did raigne and knew no bounds all villanies were let loose and armed standing like theeves by the high-way side at noone day because saith the Spirit of God there was no King in Israel And therefore though the Lord complaines in Hosea Chap. 8. they had set up a King but not by him yet this doth not inferre that Majesty is not Jure divino God being displeased not as if the authority of Kings was unlawfull but because their infidelity and distrust in his loving goodnesse the lust of their owne liberties their crooked and sinister meanes in purchasing it were strangers to him For of all formes of Government the Regall is the best Tacitus observes in the first of his Annals how certaine wise men discoursing of the life of Augustus after his death affirmed rightly that there was no other meanes to appease the disorders of a State but by reducing it under the Principality of one A glimpse whereof appeares through the whole course of nature For as God is one who ruleth all so he hath created one chiefest Light to be Master of the day and the Moone at night You cannot take a turne in some Gardens but you may behold among the little Bees one like a Monarch leading the swarme and the residue attending Among the Cranes one flies before and one is Sentinell for the whole Company in brute beasts one guides the flocke and is as it were Herds-man to all the rest And may it not hence be gathered that man as far as may be should likewise be conform'd to Nature How dare then the Anabaptists deduce their Anarchy from the Law of God that so they may outlaw the Law of man Saint Paul in the fifth Chapter to the Galatians bids us stand fast in the Liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free they therefore will spurne at humane authority as if Christianity