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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
heaven_n	earth_n	good_a	lord_n	9,702	5	3.6330	3	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A42831	Some discourses, sermons, and remains of the Reverend Mr. Jos. Glanvil ... collected into one volume, and published by Ant. Horneck ... ; together with a sermon preached at his funeral, by Joseph Pleydell ...	Glanvill, Joseph, 1636-1680.; Horneck, Anthony, 1641-1697.; Pleydell, Josiah, d. 1707.	1681 (1681)	Wing G831; ESTC R23396	193,219	458

the Father And 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Kings are from God says the Heathen And a greater than both acknowledgeth Pilate's power to be from above The Scripture intitles God to all the Royal adjuncts and both Christian and Heathen Antiquity agree in this with the sacred Oracles 1. The Kings person is said to be God's Great deliverance giveth He to HIS King 2 Sam. xxii 51. and He shall give strength unto HIS King 1 Sam. ii 10. Yea I have said ye are Gods saith the Text and consonantly Plato calls the King 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a kind of God among men And as the name of God is called upon his person so also is it 2. upon his Throne Then Solomon sate upon the Throne of the Lord as King instead of DAVID his Father 1 Chron. xxix 23. And saith the Queen of Sheba Blessed be the Lord thy God which delighteth in thee to set thee on HIS Throne 2 Chron. ix 8. To a like sense also is that of Nestor to Agamemnon in Homer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Jove lent thee thy Scepter and Jurisdiction 3. The Kings Titles also relate him to God viz. those of Gods Anointed and his Servant The former given even to Saul 1 Sam. xii 3. and Cyrus Isa xlv 1. and the later to Nebuchadnezzar Jer. xxv 9. The same also Athanasius gives to Constantius the great Favourer of the Arrians 4. The Kings power likewise is from God There is no power but of God and the powers that are are ordained of God saith the Apostle And the Pythagorean 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God hath given him Dominion Upon which account also Themistius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God sent Regal Power from Heaven And that a Kingdom is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Divine Good is the assertion of Plato and the confession of Cyrus All the Kingdoms of the Earth hath the Lord of Heaven given me 2 Chron. xxxvi Yea and Tiberius acknowledgeth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 our Kingdom is from God And Daniel minds Nebuchadnezzar The God of Heaven hath given thee a Kingdom Power and Strength and Glory Dan. ii 27. And Athanasius in his Prayer for Constantius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thou hast given this Kingdom to Constantius thy servant These I think are testimonies enough to prove that Kings wear Gods Image and Authority And therefore Menander calls the King 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God's living Image and the Pythagorean 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The King is the Figure of God among Men. But besides all this there is evidence enough in the nature of the thing to prove that Kings have their Power and Authority from God and are no Substitutes of the People which I thus inferr God made the World and consequently the World is his and his alone is the Right to Govern it But he being of such immense perfections that our Frailty cannot bear his immediate converses 't is necessary that he rule us by men like our selves and put the Sword into the hands of Creatures of our own make This he doth and hence it follows that they that Rule are Gods Substitutes and no Creatures of the People For the People have no power to Govern themselves and consequently cannot devolve any upon another Upon the whole I conclude that the same Commands and Authority that oblige us to obey God bind us to revere those that so signally wear his Image and he that disobeys the Vice-Roy affronts the Soveraign He that resists resists the Ordinance of God saith the Apostle and who can lift up himself against the Lords Anointed and be guiltless saith David in the case of Saul And thus I have dispatched the first viz. Resistance affronts the authority of God with which Kings are invested as I think I have made evident from testimony and the nature of the thing Secondly RESISTANCE is opposite to the Spirit of RELIGION Religion is of a calm and pacifick temper like that of its Author whose voice was not heard in the street It subdues our passions and governs our appetites it destroys our pride and sordid selfishness it allays the tempests and speaks down the storms of our natures it sweetens our Humours and polisheth the roughness of our tempers it makes men gentle and peaceable meek and compliant This was the Spirit of the great exemplar of our Religion this was the genius of his Doctrine and his Practice He commands the payment of all Duties to Caesar He acknowledgeth Pilates Power to be from above He commands his Disciples to pray for their Persecutors He permits them to flie not to oppose He rebukes Peters violence to the High Priests servant and the revenge of the Disciples when they called for Fire from Heaven He paid Tribute submitted to the Laws of the Sanhedrim and to that unjust sentence against his life This was his temper and the Apostles who lived among his enemies and theirs and met with severity enough to have sowred their Spirits and exasperated their Pens to contrary resolutions and instructions Yet as true Followers of their dear Lord they faithfully transmit to us what they had learnt from him viz. That we should obey those that have the rule over us submit to every ordinance of man pray for Kings and all in authority submit to Principalities and Powers and to obey Magistrates And those Noble Spirits of the first Ages after who began to be Martyrs as soon as to be Christians who lived in the Fire and went to Heaven wrapt in those Flames that had less ardor than their love These I say amidst the greatest and fiercest Fires that Cruelty and Barbarism had kindled paid the Tribute of a peaceable and quiet subjection to their Murderers and made unforced acknowledgements of the right they had to their obedience Nor do we ever read of any attempts they made to free themselves by resistance though as Tertullian saith they were in powerful numbers mingled in their Villages and in their Cities yea in their Castles and in their Armies Yea there is an illustrious instance of passive obedience in the Thebaean Legion whose tenth man being executed for not offering Sacrifice to Idols they quietly submitted to the cruelty And a second Decimation being commanded by Maximiniam the Author of the first one of their great Commanders an excellent Christian perswades them to suffer it with the same patience because it was not with their Swords they could make their way to the Kingdom of Heaven but by another kind of Warfare And now if after all this and infinitely more that might be said on this subject for men to pretend Religion and plead Scripture for Rebellion is impudent and shameless an affront to Religion and a Lie in the face of Conscience And those that cannot discern those great lines of their Duty which are set upon the High places and shone upon with a full beam and yet can find sin in little harmless circumstances which nothing hath forbidden but

us We may indeed be confident and we ought that he will save all those that so believe as to obey him but may not trust that he will save us except we are some of those To rely upon Christ for our Salvation must follow our sincere and obedient striving and not go before it The mistake of this is exceeding dangerous and I doubt hath been fatal to many The sum is to rely on Christ without a resolute and steady endeavour to overcome every sin and temptation will gain us nothing in the end but shame and disappointment For 't is not every one that saith unto him Lord Lord shall enter into Heaven but he that doth the will of his Father which is in Heaven Mat. 7. 21. The foolish Virgins relyed upon him and expected he should open to them Lord Lord open to us Mat. 25. 11. but he kept them out and would not know them v. 11. Thus of the First imperfect Mark of Godliness A man may upon the account of meer Nature arrive to all the mentioned degrees of Faith and yet if his endeavours in the practice of Christian vertues be not suitable he will certainly come short at last II. A man may be very devout given much to Prayer and be very frequent and earnest in it He may have the gift of expressing himself fluently without the help of Form or Meditation yea and so intent and taken up in these exercises that he may as it were be ravish't out of himself by the fervours of his Spirit so that he really kindles very high Affections as well in others as in himself And yet if he rests in this and such like things as Religion and reckons that he is accepted of God for it if he allow himself in any unmortified lusts and thinks to compound for them by his Prayers he is an evil man notwithstanding and one of those seekers that shall not be able to enter The Pharisees we know were much given to Prayer They were long in those Devotions and very earnest in them often repeating the same expressions out of vehemence Ignatius Loyola founder of the Jesuites was a man almost ecstatical in his Prayers and Hacket the Blasphemer executed in the days of Queen Elizabeth was a person of Seraphical Devotion and would pray those that heard him even into transports Basilides the cruel Duke of Mosco is said to have his hands almost continually lifted up in Prayer except when they were imployed in some barbarous and bloody Execution And we have known and felt one not much unlike him There are infinite instances in our days of this dangerous sort of evil men And we may learn hence that the greatest gift of Prayer and earnestness and frequency in it is no good mark of Godliness except it be attended with sincere constant and vertuous endeavours For some men have a natural spice of Devotion in a Religious Melancholy which is their temper and such have commonly strong Imaginations and zealous affections which when they are heated flame forth into great heights and expressions of Devotion The warm Fancy furnisheth words and matter readily and unexpectedly which many times begets in the man a conceit that he is inspired and that his Prayers are the breathings of the Holy Ghost or at least that he is extraordinarily assisted by it which belief kindles his affections yet more and he is carried beyond himself even into the third Heavens and Suburbs of Glory as he fancies and so he makes no doubt but that he is a Saint of the first rank and special favourite of Heaven when all this while he may be really a bad man full of Envy and Malice Pride and Covetousness Scorn and ill Nature contempt of his Betters and disobedience to his Governours And while it is so notwithstanding those glorious things he is no further than the Pharisee Hearty and humble desire though imperfectly exprest and without this pomp and those wonders is far more acceptable to God who delights not in the exercises of meer Nature Psal 147. 10. but is well pleased with the expressions of Grace in those that fear him So that a sincere and lowly-minded Christian that talks of no immediate incomes or communications and perhaps durst not out of reverence trust to his own present conceptions in a work so solemn but useth the help of some pious form of words sutable to his desire and wants who is duly sensible of his sins and the necessity of overcoming them and is truly and earnestly desirous of the Divine aids in order to it such a one as this prays by the Spirit and will be assisted by it while the other doth all by meer Nature and Imitation and shall not have those spiritual aids which he never heartily desires nor intends to use This I think I may truly and safely say But for the Controversie between Forms and Conceived Prayers which of them is absolutely best I determine nothing of it here And indeed I suppose that in their own nature they are alike indifferent and are more or less accepted as they partake more or less of the Spirit of Prayer viz. of Faith Humility and holy desire of the good things we pray for and a man may have these that prays by a Form and he may want them that takes the other way and thinks himself in a dispensation much above it So that my business is not to set up one of these ways of Devotion against the other but to shew that the heights and vehemencies of many warm people in their unpremeditated Prayers have nothing in them supernatural or Divine and consequently of themselves they are no marks of Godliness which I hope no one thinks I speak to discredit those pious ardours that are felt by really devout Souls when a vigorous sense of God and Divine things doth even sometimes transport them Far be it from me to design any thing so impious my aim is only to note that there are complexional heats raised many times by fancy and self-admiration that look like these in persons who really have little of God in them and we should take care that we are not deceived by them Thus far also those may go that shall not enter I add III. A man may endeavour somewhat and strive in some degree and yet his work may miscarry and himself with it 1. There is no doubt but that an evil man may be convinced of his sin and vileness and that even to anguish and torment The Gentiles saith the Apostle Rom. 2. 14. which have not the Law shew the works of the Law written in their Hearts their thoughts in the mean time accusing or excusing one another Conscience often stings and disquiets the vilest sinners and sometimes extorts from them lamentable confession of their sins and earnest declamations against them They may weep bitterly at their remembrance and be under great heaviness and dejection upon their occasion They may speak vehemently against sin themselves and

from whom we are so called And that consists not in demure Looks and affected Phrases in melting Tones and mimick Gestures in Heats and Vehemence in Rapture and Ecstasie in systems of Opinion and scrupulosity about Nothing But in Faith and Patience Innocence and Integrity in Love to God and Charity to all the World in a modest sweetness and humble Deportment in a peaceable Spirit and readiness to obey God and Those He hath set over Us Where-ever These are there is the Image of our Lord and There ought to be our Love though the persons thus affected are Ignorant of many things and err in many though they differ from us in some Opinions we count Orthodox and walk not in the particular ways or Circumstances which We esteem Best And thus briefly of the Extent of the Duty we ought to Love ALL MEN but especially ALL Christians I descend to the Third general viz. III. The Excellency of Christian Love which I represent in the following particulars I. IT is the Image of God and of all the graces renders us most like our Maker For God is love and the Lover of men and his tender Mercies are over all his Works And the most sutable apprehension we can form of his Being is to look on him as an Omnipotent Omniscient Immutable Goodness And is it not a glorious Excellency that makes Men like the fountain of all perfection Our unhappy first Parents lost Paradise by aspiring to be like God in Knowledge and if we endeavour to be like him in Love we shall be in the way of gaining a better Paradise than they lost II. LOVE is the Spirit of Angels Glorified Souls and the best of Men. There is nothing by which the Angelical nature is so much distinguish'd from the Diabolical as Love and Goodness for the Devils have Spiritual and Immortal natures and great degrees of Power and Knowledge and those perhaps not much inferiour to what is to be found in some of the better Spirits so that the great difference is not in the excess of natural perfections which the Angels of Light have above those of Darkness but in this that the former abound in Love Sweetness and Benignity and the latter in Malice Cruelty and Revenge these are the very Image of Satan and Spirit of Hell Whereas all the Celestial Inhabitants live in the joyful exercise of uninterrupted Love and endearments Nor is that Love confined to the blessed and glorified Company but it sheds it self abroad upon the nether world and they are Ministring Spirits for our good Heb. 1. 14. They so far Love us that they can stoop from Heaven to serve us There is Joy there at the Conversion of a Sinner and no doubt there is Love to converted Saints and care and pity for all the rest of Men. For the spirits of the just made perfect are freed from their froward humours and pettish natures their mistaken Zeal and fondness of Opinions which straitned their Affections while they were on Earth and now they are inlarged by the vast improvements of their Knowledge and accomplishment of their Vertue by a fuller sense of Divine Love and of their Duty by the genius of their company and the imployment of the happy Place So that in Heaven all are truly Catholick in their Affections And the better any man is the more he is so upon Earth The good man makes not himself his center nor are his thoughts wholly engrost about his own concernments but he is carefully solicitous for the general benefit and never so much pleased as when he is made an instrument of Divine Goodness to promote the interests of his Christian brethren 'T was an high strain of Love in Moses exprest towards the Transgressing Israelites when he was content to be blotted out of Gods Book rather than that their Sin should not be blotted out Exod. 32. 32. And St. Paul was no less Zealously affectionate towards the Jews when he said he could wish himself accursed from Christ viz. separated from Christian communion as a most vile and abject person for their sakes Rom. 9. 3. These were spirits whom Religion and Divine Love had enlarged and the more any man advanceth in Christianity the nearer he approacheth to this generous heroick temper III. LOVE is an eminent branch of the Divine Life and Nature Love is of God and every one that Loveth is born of God saith the Apostle 1 John 4. 7 8. The Divine Nature in us is the Image of God Pourtray'd and lively drawn upon the regenerated Soul and I noted before that Love is the vital Image of our Maker 't is His spirit infused into us and growing in us and upon that account to be preferred before all Gifts and natural Perfections as St. Paul hath done it in the mentioned 1 Cor. 13. And the common Gifts of the Spirit differ from this special Grace as the Painters Picture doth from his Son His Counterfeit may indeed in a superficial appearance to the Eye resemble him more than his Child but yet it is but an empty shadow destitute and incapable of his Life and Nature So there are a sort of Gifts that have a spiritual appearance and may to those that see things at distance or have not their senses exercised seem more like the divine nature than this modest vertue But those that come near them and are better able to discern perceive that in themselves they are without the Divine Life and Motion and are meer Lifeless Pictures And here I dare say that the happiest faculty to Preach Plausibly and Pray with Fluency and Eloquence to Discourse Devoutly and readily to Interpret Scripture if it be not joyned with a benign and charitable spirit is no participation of the God-like life and nature nor indeed any more Divine than those common gifts and natural parts which those that think highly of themselves upon these accounts despise For very Evil men have been eminent in these accomplishments and Wicked Spirits are without question endowed with them and they are of themselves arguments of nothing but a faculty of Imitation a devotional Complexion and warm Imagination Whereas on the other hand Charity and Christian Love are good Evidence of a Renewed state and nature Our Saviour made it a Character Joh. 13. and the Apostle concludes from it 1 John 3. 14. By this we know that we are passed from death to life because we love the Brethren And if this be a Mark and St. John be not mistaken I doubt that some who are very gracious by many Signs of their own will want one of Christs to prove their comfortable presumption IV. LOVE is the bond and tye of Christian Communion How can two walk together except they are agreed The Church is a Body consisting of many Members which unless they Unite and send their mutual supplies one to another the whole is distempered and in the ready way to Death and Dissolution Now Charity is that vital Cement whereby they

Doctrines both Christ and his Apostles continually appealed Here is the firm reasonable Foundation of the Christian certainty The truths we believed are confirmed by Miracles than which there can be no greater evidence But now the Roman Church destroys this ground of certainty by a multitude of lying wonders which they impudently obtrude upon the belief of the people for proof and confirmation of their false and corrupt Religion the immediate consequence of which is a suspicion thereby brought upon the true Miracles and here is way made for Scepticism and uncertainty in the greatest and most Sacred Christian Doctrines And besides the Church of Rome having introduced among these many doubtful uncertain and many certainly false opinions and imposed them upon the faith of its votaries under the same obligations as it doth the most fundamental Articles what can be the consequence but that those who discover the errour or uncertainty of some of those pretended propositions of Faith should doubt all the rest And indeed since the main assurance is placed in the Infallibility of that Church for which there is so no reason and so much plain evidence to the contrary Since themselves cannot tell where that boasted Infallibility is whether in Pope or Council if we should allow them any such it follows that their Faith is precarious and hath no foundation at all In like manner the Sects among us resolve all their assurance either into a bare belief or the testimony of a private Spirit for their ground of crediting the Scriptures is but this Testimony and consequently whatever they receive from hence bottoms here The Papists believe the Scripture on the Testimony of the Church and these believe them on the Testimony of the Spirit that is in earnest the suggestions and resolutions of their own viz. they believe because they will believe and they find themselves inclin'd unto it And upon the same reason when the imagination and humour alters they may cease to believe or believe the contrary And there is not any thing in the world more various and uncertain than the suggestions and impulses of a private Spirit Besides the Sects also have vastly multiplied Articles of Faith and made all their private opinions sacred calling them Gospel truths precious truths saving truths and the like when they are but uncertainties at the best and usually false and sensless imaginations by which way also they expose the whole body of Christian Principles to suspicion and so weaken the Faith of some and destroy the Faith of others But the Church of England secures the certainty of our Faith by resolving it into the Scriptures the true seats of Infallibility and the belief of that into the Testimony of the Spirit in the true sense viz. that Testimony that God gave by his Spirit to Christ and his Apostles in those miraculous works he enabled them to perform They did not only bear witness of themselves that as our Saviour argues with the Jews Luk. 11. 48. would not have signified much The Father bore witness with them John 15. 8. and the works they performed by his power were the sure testimony Believe me for the works sake saith our Saviour Here is the ground of certainty And the Church of England entertains no Articles of Faith but those principles that have been so confirm'd that is none but what are evidently contain'd in the Holy Scriptures Whereas the Roman Church to mention no other have made the absurd Doctrine of Transubstantiation sacred though it is not only not contained in Scripture but contrary to the reason and even to the sound senses of mankind And if neither reason nor so much as our senses may be believ'd what assurance can we have of any thing A ground is here laid for everlasting Scepticism and uncertainty And the Sects have laid the same in their numerous silly tenents that are contrary to some of the most fundamental principles of Reason Nothing of which can with any shew be objected against this Church 6. The Faith delivered to the Saints was Catholick 'T was deliver'd to all the Saints entertain'd by all and was not only the opinion and belief of a prevailing Faction or of particular men in Corners The Commission given the Disciples was to go and teach all Nations and to preach the Gospel to every creature and accordingly it was widely diffused and all that profest the name of Christ were instructed in his Faith and Religion in all the articles and duties of it that were essential and necessary In these they joyn'd in holy love and communion till Sects came among them that introduced damnable Heresies contrary to the doctrine they had received These divided from the Unity of the pure Catholick Church and separated themselves from it gathering into select companies of their own under pretence of more Truth and Holiness After this manner the Church of Rome which had for some ages been eminent in the Catholick Church did at last corrupt and introduce divers unsound doctrines and usages unknown to the Ancient Catholicks and being great and powerful it assumed the name of the Catholick Church to it self and condemn'd all other Christians as Hereticks when it was it self but a grand Sect against whose depraved doctrines and ways there was a Church in all ages that did protest For the Greek Churches which are of as large extent as theirs never assented to them and divers other Christians in all times bore Testimony against those errours and depravations This Sect was large and numerous indeed but 't is not the number but the principles make the Catholick Principles conformable to those that were deliver'd to the Saints From these they have departed And the lesser Sects among us have done the same by the many vain additions that they have made to the Faith and their unjust Separation from that Church which retains the whole body of Catholick Doctrines and main Practices without the mixture of any thing Heretical or unlawful A Church that doth not damn all the world besides her own members as the Roman Church and divers of the Sects do but extends her Charity to all Christians though many of them are under great mistakes and so is truly Catholick both in her Principles and Affections I mean the Church of England as now established by Law which God preserve in its purity Amen FINIS A SERMON Preached at the FUNERAL OF M r. Jos Glanvil Late Rector of BATH and Chaplain in Ordinary to His Majesty Who dyed at his Rectory of Bath the fourth of November 1680. and was Buried there the Ninth of the same Month. By Jos Pleydell Arch-Deacon of Chichester LONDON Printed for Henry Mortlock at the Sign of the Phoenix in St. Pauls Church-yard and the White Hart in Westminster-Hall 1681. REVEL XIV Ver. 13. And I heard a voice from Heaven saying unto me Write Blessed are the dead which dye in the Lord from henceforth yea saith the Spirit that they may rest from their