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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
world_n	line_n	page_n	read_v	2,076	5	9.0614	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A46730	True religion makes the best loyalty discovered and recommended in a sermon, prepar'd for that Assembly which intended to meet at St. Michael's Cornhil, April 21, 1682, and afterwards preach'd at the New Church in Westminster, May 29, being the happy day of His Majesty's birth and return, and now published, at the earnest request of the gentlemen of that vestry / by Thomas Jekyll ...	Jekyll, Thomas, 1646-1698.	1682 (1682)	Wing J539; ESTC R3602	17,947	38

of God as it doth of Loyalty to the King and good Affection to the Government we live under which hath provided so excellently for our Defence and Security for tho' we may pretend a very great veneration for the King and his Government yet if we use his Name and Authority to undermine or overthrow the Fundamentals of it in any kind we set the King against himself as well as his Subjects we lessen his Power by dividing his Interest we stain his Honour by making him give the lie to so many gracious Declarations of his Will to make the known Laws of the Land the only Rule and measure of his Actions and we let in Popery with all its mischievous Effects and Consequences by the very same means we profess to keep it out For every thing that brings Confusion and Disorder amongst us either by Force or Fraud by open Rebellion and an ill-gotten Power or by a treacherous management of what we come more honestly by is as meritorious a piece of Service to that bloody Religion as any we can do it since it hastens that which it most desires and delights in to wit our own Ruin and Destruction Which now that we may prevent in the third and last place 3. Let us resolve to persevere in the practice of this Duty whatever befal us And 1. For the Fear of God a Duty or rather a Fundamental Principle so essential to us that we must cease to be Men before we can be void of it so universally useful that we must resolve to become our own Enemies before we can decline it so rivited into that Religion which we profess that we must fly in the face of our own Consciences whenever we act against it and yet alas a Duty so much neglected and despised in this Atheistical Heaven-daring and God-damming Age wherein we live as if it were a part of our Religion to bid defiance unto God and all that is good And yet if it were indeed a part of it I am apt to think it would not be so much in fashion as it is for we seem to glory in nothing more than in running counter to every thing which some Men place Religion in without considering whether the thing be really so or no As if because we have been sometimes abus'd by Hypocrisy and Pretences we must necessarily throw off that which we know to be sincere and true And that which makes it more to be lamented is the sanction that is put upon this untoward Humour by making it a note of our Loyalty to the King and our good Affection to the Church as if drinking his Health till we lose our own were a greater piece of Service to him than praying for his Life and Safety submitting to his Government or chearfully offering up our Lives and Fortunes to the defence and support of it as if no conformity to the Church tho' never so exact and canonical no means to perswade others to the like tho' never so successful could make a Man so true a Son of it as drinking the confusion of all that dissent from it and Damming and Hectoring every thing that is not of the same furious and violent temper with our selves Certainly my Beloved these things are as far from our Duty and Religion as they are from our Peace and Safety and therefore the allowing them so considerable a share therein must needs be very dangerous and destructive Which that we may prevent or avoid let us have recourse unto those things which the Spirit of God who best understands the nature of it hath wisely and with great plainness and simplicity placed True Religion in even as Solomon here expresseth it in the true Fear of God which is very well explain'd by St. James who calls it not only a pure and undefiled thing but tells us too That it is peaceable gentle and easy to be entreated James 3.17 full of Mercy and good Fruits 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without partiality as it 's very fitly translated as it were on purpose to fit the Humour of our Times or as it is in the Margent too very properly rendred without wrangling and without hypocrisie and deceit all which if we would but rightly and seriously consider we should certainly avoid those dangerous Evils which threaten us both from abroad and at home And therefore well doth the wise Man make it the foundation of True Loyalty since it 's not only supported by it but it will prove deceitful and vanish into Air and Nothing without it for those Men are always most given to change the Principles of whose Religion are most fickle and inconstant and always adapted to Times and Occasions or else who have none at all to fix them to any certain Measures that may be confided in but now the true Fear of God is a fix'd and certain Thing a sure Guide to us and a constant and powerful Security to the Government we live under and disposeth us every way for the practice of the other Duty of the Text which is the only thing that now remains to be exhorted to Therefore 2. Let us be always loyal and true to the King and his Government You see how much the Principles of that Religion which we profess do oblige us to it and methinks there needs no other Argument or Motive to enforce it and yet it may not be amiss a little further to explain it for as Religion in general is an ambiguous Term and oftentimes made use of only to serve a Turn and therefore applied then to all those things that are proper for it so is Loyalty too And the King's Honour and Interest may be pretended when both of them are it may be undermined and betrayed True Loyalty therefore consists in a cordial Veneration for the King's Person as Sacred and in a dutiful Submission to his Laws and Government at all times Not that every Man who breaks any of the Laws is ipso facto an Enemy to the Government for then there would be no true Friends to it in the Nation Jam. 3.2 since as St. James says in another case In many things we offend all But then do we become Enemies to it when we undermine or oppose those Laws upon which the Government doth subsist and which it is maintained and supported by let them be never so uneasy to us which if they should at any time be and grind either upon our Estates or Consciences we must not presently flie in the Face of that Authority which God hath set over us and by Force of Arms endeavour to relieve our selves but must with all cheerfulness submit even to the spoiling of our Goods and the loss of our Lives till God shall find out a way for our Deliverance and fully reward and crown our Patience And tho' this be an hard Lesson yet it 's a good one and such as the Primitive Christians overcame their Persecutors by and the English Martyrs founded that happy Reformation of Religion amongst us upon and such as if we throughly learn will provide the best for us against all Accidents whatsoever But I trust in God we shall never have any such great occasion for it but that he will still go on to protect and defend the Sacred Person of the King that he may outlive even the treacherous Hopes and Expectations as well as the undeserved and implacable malice of his Enemies who promise themselves any Benefit or Advantage by his Death and therefore wish and long for it that he may be always a Nursing Father unto this our Israel a powerful Defender of that Faith which as it enriches his present Crown so it will entitle him to a better that his Government may be for many and many Years the Glory and Blessing of these Nations as his Person hath been hitherto the Darling of God's Providence which as it is the avowed Design of this Meeting to bless God for so let it be the Business of our Lives to contribute all we can unto And thus I have given you a Sermon which was indeed intended for another Occasion which because I have been so severely reflected upon for what I undertook therein I was resolv'd to take this Opportunity to submit it unto your Judgment that so you may see that the Person whom you have so unanimpusly desir'd and receiv'd for your Minister is not a Man of those dangerous Anti-monarchical Principles as some Men would endeavour to make the World believe and if now you are but satisfied therein I shall have the less reason to care whether any Body else be or no. FINIS In Page 15 line 21 read Principles P. 19 l. 4. read been for he ADVERTISEMENT POpery a great Mystery of Iniquity proved in a Sermon on 2 Thess 2.7 recommended in such secure Protestants that will not believe there is a Popish Plot c. Righteousness and Peace the best Means to prevent Ruin Recommended in a Sermon preached at Guild-Hall Chappel Sept. 25. 1681. before the Lord-Mayor c. By the same Author Both sold by Jonathan Robinson