Selected quad for the lemma: hand_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
hand_n	great_a	king_n	put_v	5,841	5	4.9400	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A30450	A sermon preach'd before the King in the chappel at Whitehall on the third Sunday in Lent, being the 7th day of March, 1696/7 by the Right Reverend Father in God, Gilbert, Lord Bishop of Sarum.	Burnet, Gilbert, 1643-1715.	1697 (1697)	Wing B5906; ESTC R21494	14,772	38

deceiving them to pretend to lead them further before these are well understood by them so Truth is of so ●ndispensable a Nature both with Relation to Religion and Humane Life that without it we can neither be Happy nor secure in this Life nor have any Hope in the next Since Liars are reckoned in almost in every Catalogue that is given us of those who are adjudged to endless Miseries Next Truth is Goodness and in this we find that Nature has also made very deep Impressions on us We feel Dispositions to Kindness and Compassion to Acts of Mercy and Pity and to Love and Friendship laid in our Natures We feel that the more these are shut up and restrained in us the feebler their Influence and the fain●er their Power is that we are thereby the lower the meaner and the deader in every thing that is either Great or Generous whereas the more we awaken and open these Seeds in us the greater Compass they take and the stronger that they work upon us we become thereby a nobler Sort of Creatures We have greater Thoughts better Designs with a more generous Exaltation of Nature and a further enlargment of our Faculties Goodness is not meer Pity much less a feeble Disposition to pardon too easily or to carry Compassion beyond all Rules or Measures such a Goodness as this would too much encourage the wickedest Race of Men they would presume too much upon it If Princes were too easie in this way Society would become an impracticable Thing The worst Sort of Men would be too bold if the best were too merciful The chief Acts of Goodness are the endeavouring to make others truly Good He who feels in himself the Power and Excellence of the Principles of Religion and Virtue endeavours to spread and communicate these all he can He is so sensible of his Happiness in being under their Influence that he takes all the Methods he can to infuse the like Sense into all others Love and Compassion are the Root of this Disposition in him all the other Offices and Acts of Charity are Acts only of a Lower Order though they are all necessary in their Kind those which tend to make Men truly Good are of the Nobler Sort. This we find in the Manifestations of the Divine Goodness God is perfect in himself and from that fulness there is a perpetual emunation to all Rational Beings while they are capable of being made truly Good In Order to that End even the Pardon of Sin is offered but as an Encouragement to our becoming truly Good our Faculties are made capable of it all Knowledge is set before us in Order to that End and the Blessings of Life are given us like so many Largesses which make it easie and convenient to give us the more freedom of Thought and the better to dispose us to enter upon wise and good Methods So the whole Design of God in all his Dealings with us is to make us really Good Other Things are only collateral and are directed to this end Here then is the true Idea of perfect Goodness a real Desire and hearty Endeavour to make Men good by all the Means and Methods that we can think on HAPPY THEY who have their Power to do much Good who ought to consider this as the Noblest Character of Divinity by which they do shine with a Glory that is much Brighter than all the Attire of Majesty They are born to be publick Blessings to Mankind not only as they protect and defend them as they rescue them from Oppression and Tyrany and as they do Justice and spread their Royal Bounty among their People This is no small Degree of Honour but it is not all their Dignity They can make the World not only the safer and the happier but the better by their Means They can set such an Example that will bring many to endeavour to imitate it What they do is much observed they are ever in view and always narrowly lookt to Many for Interest and others for Decency will follow the Patterns that they set especially if all is Uniform and of a Piece and if they join with it the Influences of their Favour and the Force of their Authority to encourage and promote Virtue and Religion and to discourage and disgrace Vice and Impiety The bare Practice of Virtue and giving good Examples is all that the lower sort of Men are capable of doing in order to the reforming the World But for those who are fortified with Power and Authority who have Rewards and Punishments in their Hands besides that which in other Persons is of little Force but has in them a mighty Influence their good or ill Looks which carry Life or give Death or at least a Damp that will put boldest to a stand For them I say to be silent Observers of the Vices of others is to give them Impunity if not Protection When these are of the side of Nature and give it scope then they are very successful little Labour with bad Examples in those set on high will soon corrupt a Nation But when they work against the Current tho' the Foundation of all that they can hope to effect must be laid in their own good Example yet this will work slowly and feebly if not follow'd with a mighty Influence Practices that have got possession when they have Nature on their side will be stubborn and are not easily conquered But Rewards and Encouragements with some few Severities when extorted will turn the Tide at last Are not those then born for the Noblest Ends and exalted to the best Purposes who live and govern so that the World grows the better by their means But as this is the Top of their Honour and a high one it is indeed so they must remember that they must give an Account of it to him by whom Kings reign The greater Opportunities and Advantages that are put in their Hands they have so much the more to answer for since to whom much is given of them much will also be required Here then is our Pattern and this is our Lesson we must be the followers of God and shew forth the vertues of him who hath called us from darkness to his marvellous light But if we think this is too far out of sight let us view it a little as it is brought nearer us and set before us in more sensible Idea's In the Person of our Blessed Saviour we see those Characters of the Divinity in a Light that is more accommodated to our Faculties If we view him with relation to the Particulars that have been hitherto insisted on we find that tho' he was clothed with our Nature together with all its innocent Infirmities yet he not only kept at a perfect distance from all the Defilements of Sense but he despised Wealth and Greatness Ease and Pleasure and fled even from the Offers of a Crown He neglected his Person and spent many Days in Fasting and

PRINTED By His Majesty's Special Command A SERMON Preach'd before the KING In the Chappel at Whitehall On the Third Sunday in Lent Being the 7th day of MARCH 1696 7. By the Right Reverend Father in God GILBERT Lord Bishop of SARUM LONDON Printed for Ri. Chiswell at the Rose and Crown in St. Paul's Church-Yard MDCXC VII THE BISHOP of SALISBVRY's Sermon before the KING ON The Third Sunday in LENT 1697. A SERMON Preach'd before the KING EPHES. V. VER 2. Be ye therefore followers of God as dear children THERE is nothing more natural than for every Man to form himself upon some Pattern or other Few have the strength of Thought and the correctness of Judgment that is necessary for framing a Scheme to themselves It is much easier as well as much surer to work after some Oaiginal in which we may be better able to find out what may be Corrected or Improved than to form an entire Design to our selves This is the simplest and surest way of Instruction Great attention to observe well and some reflection to judge aright will carry us far But when we view Patterns given us in History we are apt to mistrust it both because we flatter our selves and so do not believe any thing that is too high above us and because we see Friendship or Interest dispose men to flatter others both living and dead we do not believe the Heroes of former Times had so much Good and that with so few Mixtures as their Lives represent them so that dead Patterns and written Examples move us but feebly As for those whom we have known we find after much Practice such Defects and Abatements in them as will much sink the high Thoughts that a slighter knowledge of them might at first raise in us And though Charity is willing to shade them yet still they are Foils which weaken the Lustre of the Piece If we follow any too closely we may insensibly enter into the Imitation of their Weaknesses as well as of their Virtues and by too servile a forming our selves according to such Originals we may run into Singularity and Affectations which are always disagreeable For some Native or bolder airs that lookt nobly in the Original shew but poorly when Copied by a weak and unskilful Hand After all since a Copy must needs sink below the force and grace of the Original for Copy imports weakness If we take our Patterns from those who are too near our own size they will raise us but very little and if we take them too far out of our reach they will make us despair of rising up to them But what mistakes soever we may commit in Copying out men like our selves we cannot err in endeavouring to become as like God as is possible The word in my Text rendred Followers is Imitators and is the same word from which the Abusive Ones of Mimick and Mimichry are drawn God made man after his own image or to be an image and resemblance of himself He had no other Pattern to Copy from but his own Infinite and Eternal Mind he made us from that Pattern and has obliged us to imitate it But is there not a boldness that seems to border on Blasphemy in this for a Mortal man to pretend to be like God It seems too high an aim A flight above our reach and beyond our prospect The very Idea of God carrying Infinite Perfection in it declares him to be Incomprehensible Can we then pretend to imitate that which we cannot look at No eye hath seen or can see him and though all is light about him yet it is a Light to which we cannot approach for clouds and darkness are round about him with relation to us Yet if this Light is too strong for us to behold God has so tempered it and has brought it so near us by dwelling in Flesh that while we look at him in that express image of his person we see in his face the light of the knowledge of the glory of God and in him with open face as in a glass we behold the glory of the Lord. The brightness that would otherwise dazzle is here so softned as yet to lose none of its Beauty or its Glory it is both more Instructive and more agreeable as well as less vehement and awful Upon the whole matter it is certain that this is the Great and Fundamental Truth of all Religion That its main Design is to raise and exalt the Nature of man all that is possible into a Conformity to the Divine Nature This is the standing difference between True and False Religion between Idolatry or Superstition on the one hand and Pure Religion and Undefiled on the other That whatsoever proposes any Forms or Practices Opinions or Interests to be espoused that have no real tendency in them to the reforming or exalting our Natures but that rest in these as things in which the Divinity will be pleased as in such Acts of Homage and Submission that are offered to it with which the Deity is appeased or bribed so as to dispense with or forgive greater matters This is Superstition and is the practice of those who study to corrupt Religion in its vital and most important parts and who would bring men into Parties and under Conceits of which they may have the conduct and by which they may manage other Ends that may pass under solemn Names but are really the effects of Passion and Ambition and are directed to serve the Interests of Carnal and Designing Men. On the other hand The right view of True Religion is when a Set of such Principles and Practices is set before us which gives us great and noble thoughts of God and of another Life just and humble ones of our selves with a tender regard to other men and a generous contempt of this World with every thing in it and even of Life it self And when this set of Mind breaks out into a course of vertuous and generous Actions When we shew that our Religion is the best of all others because we are made much the better by it and all others feel such an influence in our Religion and such effects from it that thereby they are both disposed to enquire after it and prepared to believe well of it For the World will always think this to be as true an Argument as it is a short and an easy one That that must be the best Religion which makes the best Men. All the Rules Forms Practices and Institutions in Religions must be such as have a tendency to raise to feed and to maintain those great and noble Ideas which True Religion gives When they are so practised they contribute towards it and so become a part of True Religion For instance If one prays only as a custom in which so much Time must be spent so many Forms gone through so many Words repeated and so many Acts drawn out of the Mind which being done if