Selected quad for the lemma: world_n

Word A Word B Word C Word D Occurrence Frequency Band MI MI Band Prominent
world_n pomp_n renounce_v vanity_n 3,174 5 10.1762 5 true
View all documents for the selected quad

Text snippets containing the quad

ID Title Author Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) STC Words Pages
A61424 A caveat against flattery, and profanation of sacred things to secular ends upon sight of the order of the convention for the thanksgiving, and consideration of the misgovernment and misfortunes of the last race of kings of this nation. Stephens, Edward, d. 1706. 1689 (1689) Wing S5424; ESTC R184625 23,049 37

There is 1 snippet containing the selected quad. | View lemmatised text

otherwise well qualified besides that it is a great Errour in Government in other respects as to this present purpose it gives great incouragement to such to seek to get them by indirect means and the evil Example of Men in seeking after Preferments and in their behaviour in them tends very much to the corrupting of the rest of the people and infecting them with these Vices But no Examples of this kind are so pernicious as those of the Clergy It is a great truth that when Vertue fails in them Faith will fail in the people If they who in their Baptismal Vows have renounced the World the Pomps and Vanities and Superfluities of the World and are moreover consecrated to the special Service of God and obliged by their Profession to teach as well by Example as by Doctrine Heavenly-mindedness and Contempt of the World shall so forsake that and follow this World as to turn that Sacred Profession into a Trade as a means to get Riches and Honours and live plentifully and even outdo the men of the World in unsatiable prosecution of these things what a Temptation must this be to all others to do the like in their way Nothing can be more absurd and inconsistent than Coveteousness Ambition Pride and Indulgence to the Enjoyments of the World with the Profession of a Minister of the Gospel of Christ Even Riches and Wealth in a Clergyman unless he be as rich in Good Works is in my apprehension a Scandalous and Nauscious thing And such usually prove mischievous Instruments both in Church and State if favoured or suffered to grow too great in either King Charles II. by his Prodigality which was increased by the Prodigality of his Parliament and by suffering himself to be cheated and abused being often in want of money for supply of that was forced after some time to corrupt by Pensions and Perferments the members of Parliament to betray their trust and feed his Prodigality with the Peoples Money These Examples of those who notoriously cheated him and of himself in corrupting those Publick Trustees and other such abuses were no less effectual to the Corrupting the Manners of the Nation in respect of Justice and Honesty than were his other Debaucheries in respect of Temperance and Sobriety And yet it may be a question Whether the greedy Pursuite of Preferments by our Clergy-men and their ill and irregular Use of them either hourding up Riches or misemploying them in a secular or luxurious way of living have not been as mischievous Examples to infect peoples minds with Over-valuation of the World and the Pomps and Vanities thereof as any of those other with other Vices This is more notorious than that I need either to scruple the mention or use many words to convince others of the truth of it and doth much incline me to think it very necessary that some effectual course be taken to reduce our Clergy to a more Philosophical way of living or that none but who are so disposed may be admitted to any great Preferments This may possibly offend some but no good Christian I am confident and therefore to stop the Mouths of all such I will give one instance of so notorious a defect of good Employment of the large Revenues of our Church as shall make the best and greatest of our Clergymen lay their hands upon their Mouths It is now one hundred and forty years since the Reformed Religion which had received some interruption by Queen Mary was restored and established by Queen Elizabeth about the beginning of that Age Almighty God by his Special Providence had produced two things of great Consequence in the World the Restauration of Learning facilitated by a new and admirable Invention of Printing and a Discovery of a new World of Barbarous Ignorant People by the help of another late Invention and Improvement of Navigation We have had as great advantages of access thither and to all parts of the World as any People but what use have we made of this and of all our great Learning and large Revenues What sense have we expressed of the wonderful Goodness of God to Mankind of the Labours of our Saviour and his Apostles of the Zeal of the primitive Christians and of the Obligation of all these Examples What Devotion to God What charity to the Souls of Men So far have we been from that that the very Pharizaical Zeal of the Jesuites and other Romish Emissaries could not move us to the least degred of Emulation which hath not been wanting upon other occasions But what wonder is all this when our Devotion and Zeal for the Service of God and good of Souls hath scarce extended so sar as Ireland The truth is it is no wonder if such Abundance of the World choak and stifle all Motions and Activity of this kind Our very Liturgy doth reproach us with Laziness and Coldness and is a publick Monument to condemn us The very Defects in our Reformation which could not be remedied at the first composure of that Book but are there noted that it might be done in due time remain unreformed as they were to this very time notwithstanding the various conditions we have since been in and the many other Alterations we could easily make We have not restored any thing of the true Christian and Ancient Discipline of the Church but opposed and suppressed those who have desired it and instead thereof retained only a Popish Relict and Abuse of it have by secular Laws forced such into the Church as according to the true Christian Discipline ought to have been cast out and instead of preserving the Honour of Christianity helped the Serpent to cast out a Flood of Scandals to eclipse it We have not restored the peculiar Solemnity of the Christian Worship without which our Service in the judgment of Bishop Andrews is imperfect and defective to its proper and frequent use but instead thereof set up such a kind of Form to be read with great formality at the Altar as was heretofore introduced and presently after exploded in France as a dry and barren Novelty And for our Preaching in which we glory how much hath it been abused to please Princes and to please and maintain Parties to perswade people out of their natural rights under pretence of Loyalty and into Slavery under the notion of Passive Obedience that thereby they might preach themselves into Preferments And for those great Christian Virtues of Humility contempt of the World Heavenly-mindedness Frequent and Earnest Prayers and Fasting and Zeal and Industry for the Service of God and Salvation of Souls so much recommended in the Gospel not only by Word but by the Example also of our Saviour his Apostles and the primitive Christians and which are noted by a Heathen Historian to have made the Country Clergy in his time venerable in the sight of God and Man how little thereof is there now to be met with among our Clergy So little that I