Selected quad for the lemma: lord_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
lord_n	christian_a	good_a	great_a	1,688	4	2.1264	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A44134	The peoples happinesse a sermon preached in St. Maries in Cambridge, upon Sunday the 27 of March, being the day of His Majesties happy inauguration / by Ri. Holdsworth ...	Holdsworth, Richard, 1590-1649.	1642 (1642)	Wing H2396; ESTC R22516	27,766	54

is principall Blessed be the Lord he fixeth his second thoughts upon the subordinate Blessed or happy are the people He could not proceed in a better order he first looks up to Gods kingdome then reflects upon his own as not meaning to take blessednesse before he had given it There is no man can think but this is the best method It is the method of Saints as we see 1. Sam. 25.32 33. and 2. Chron. 31.8 First Blessed be the God of Israel then Blessed be the people of Israel Nay it is the method of Angels Luke 2.14 they first sing Glorie to God then Good will towards men It must also be the method of every Christian whensoever we are about the wishing of blessednesse either to our selves or others to begin from heaven and ascribe it first to the LORD That we may receive we must give give what we have and give what we mean to have To give is the way to get both to get the thing and to get the greater degree It is an undeniable consequence If beatitude be the ultimate end of man and the glorie of God the ultimate end of our very beatification then it followes necessarily That by giving more glorie to God we gain more of beatitude to our selves because more of the supreme and beatificall end So that he who will attain to the Psalmist's comfort must observe also the Psalmist's order that he may end assuredly with BEATUS he must learn to begin with BENEDICTUS That 's the first considerable thing in the order as touching the essence of true happinesse The other is concerning the splendour which flowes from the other part of the variation in that the Psalmist doth end this psalme as he begins divers of the rest with Happy or Blessed to represent as it were unto us utramquesplendor is paginam the two great excellencies of blessednesse by the double situation of it Happinesse is both the bonum Primum and the bonum Vltimum of a Christian the spring of all good things and the crown the spire and the basis the first and the last of things to be desired the first for eminence the last for fruition In the descents of Christianitie the first because we move from it to inferiour ends happinesse giveth law to all our actions we move from it that we may in time come to the possession of it In the order of ascent it is the last for having climbed once thither we go no further but set up our rest It hath this resemblance with God himself who is the Donour of it That it is both the beginning and the end before which nothing should be loved and after which nothing can be desired Answerable to these two respects are the positures of happinesse in the Psalmes As in military affairs it is the custome of Emperours to promise the Donative to their souldiers when they go forth to warre that they may encourage them but not to give it till the warre be ended that they may reward them for their service In like manner saith S. Ambrose doth the Psalmist velut praeco magni Imperatoris he disposeth of beatitude both wayes he prefixeth it to the beginning of some Psalmes that thereby we might be invited to pietie he annexeth it to the end of others to teach us not to look for it before our work be done So even by this we may learn how to order and dispose of our selves to happinesse Since it hath the double reference it must have also the double honour and the double esteem yea and our double endeavours for the attaining of it Then we give it the double when we set it in both places make it both our first and our last the prime of our life and the perseverance We must look through all things upon happinesse and through happinesse upon all through all upon it as not resting in any thing else and through it upon all as seasoning every act of our life with the thought of happinesse Otherwise if we think to give it our last respects without our first pretend what we will there is no hope to overtake it Thus farre even worldly men will go they are willing enough to heare that they must make it their last work and they fulfill it in a sort to the letter but not to the meaning The love the hope the care of their own happinesse they put them off all to the last A very preposterous course for a man to begin where and when he should have ended and to defer his first of motion to his last of rest It is too late for the foolish Virgins to cry Matth. 25.10 11. Lord open when the doore is shut and a vain thing to expect happinesse as our end unlesse we make it our beginning and give it the same place in our hearts and actions which holy David affords it in his meditations the first place in other Psalmes as the best introduction to all other discourses the last in this as a delightfull farwell to be alwayes fresh in remembrance That shall serve for the first step of the Gradation the generall part of the argument handled It is De FELICITATE The second is more speciall it is defelicitate Populi HAPPY or BLESSED ARE THE PEOPLE In the former part of the Psalme he speaks of such things as concern his own happinesse Blessed be the Lord MY strength vers 1. Send down from above and save ME out of the great waters vers 7. Rid ME and deliver ME from the hand of strange children vers 11. And he might as easily have continued the same strain in the clauses following That MY sonnes may grow up as the young plants MY daughters may be as the polished corners of the temple MY sheep fruitfull MY oxen strong MY garners full and plenteous and accordingly he might have concluded it also Happy shall I be if I be in such a case This I say he might have done nay this he would have done if his desires had reflected onely upon himself But being of a diffusive heart and knowing what belonged to the neighbourhoods of pietie as loth to enjoy this happinesse alone he alters his style and being in the height of well-wishes to himself he turns the singular into a plurall Our sheep Our oxen Our garners Our sonnes and daughters that he might compendiate all in this Happy are the people Here 's a true testimonie both of a religious and generous mind who knew in his most retired thoughts to look out of himself and to be mindfull of the publick welfare in his privatest meditations S. Ambrose observes it as a clear character of a noble spirit to do what tends to the publick good though to his own disadvantage And Salvian in his first Deprovidentia doth recon this as the principall thing which made the Fabii and the Fabricii and other Romane Worthies so renowned in their times That they were content to expose themselves to want and danger for the

us in the face and mediation of Jesus Christ In our selves we are vile and unlovely but in the beholding of him alone there is aboundant to make us amiable in thine eyes Aboundant in the purity of his incarnation aboundant in his death and passion aboundant in his victorious resurrection and ascention Through these we intreat thee to look upon us through the veil of our nature which he took through the merits of that precious bloud which he shed through the sweet odor of the satisfaction of obedience which he performed through the attonement which he purchased the reconciliation which he wrought and the intercession which he makes at thy right hand And having thus looked upon him look upon us give us grace to look upon our selves to examine our own wayes to try and to search our own hearts to leave no sin unrepented of open our eyes that we may see them open our hearts that we may mourn for them strengthen our endeavours to strive against them Make us truely to consider with our selves and to understand what we have done what adventurous courses we have taken how holy a name it is we have profaned how righteous a law that we have broken how happy a state that we have lost how blessed a recovery that we have neglected how good a spirit that we have grieved how righteous a father that we have provoked And by these considerations weary us and shame us out of our sins into the true trade of piety and love of thy holy name that loving thee we may seek thee and seeking thee find thee and in finding thee hold thee and in holding thee we may apply our selves to walk in those wayes that are approvable in thy sight For the time past of our lives it may suffice for it is enough O Lord it is enough and too too much that we have spent the prime of our years and the first fruits of our time in the vanities of this world and the lusts of the flesh hitherto O give us grace so to order our steps that we may consecrate whatsoever of our future age remains wholly unto thy service hereafter that we growing on forward from grace to grace from virtue to virtue from one degree of righteousnesse to another in the end of our dayes we may enjoy likewise the end of our hopes the salvation of our sinfull souls in Jesus Christ In whose name we are bold to continue these our weak prayers unto thee not onely for our selves but for the estate of thy holy Catholick Church wheresoever dispersed over the face of the whole earth that thine eyes may be alwayes open towards thine inheritance to enlarge her borders to water her growth to gather her dispersions together to make up her breaches to fulfill her moneths of travell to establish her station that howsoever the winds blow and the rain fall and the flouds lift up their voice the house which is built upon thy self may stand and the gates of hell may not prevail against it In this universalitie we humbly beseech thee to pour down thy blessings upon that part of thy fold in this land O let the light of thy countenance still shine upon us in the pardoning our many backslidings in the continuing our peace and plenty and all other benefits we do enjoy by thy Gospel that as thou hast fixed more eminent tokens of thy love among us then among other nations so thou wouldest give us grace also to bring forth fruit proportionable to so plentifull means even worthy amendment of life that thou mayest continue to be unto us a good and a gracious God and we may continue to be also unto thee a chosen Generation a royall priesthood a holy nation a peculiar people even thine own pleasant plant Blesse all estates and conditions herein from the highest to the lowest and more particularly we intreat thee for our gracious sovereign Lord the King's Majesty Charles by thy grace King of Great Britain France and Ireland Defender of the true ancient Catholick and Apostolick faith and over all persons and in all Causes as well Ecclesiasticall as Temporall within these his Majesties Realms and Dominions next and immediately under Christ supream Lord Governour Bless him in his Royall Person establish his Throne in Righteousnesse unto himself set him as a seal upon thy heart and as a signet upon thine arme that as thou hast made him unto us precious as the light of our eyes so let him be tender unto thee as the apple of thine that he may prove an incomparable instrument of thy glory here and a vessel of glory hereafter Blesse him as in his Royall Person so in the comfort of his beloved Consort the fruitfull Vine the most excellent Lady our Gracious Queen Mary and in the hopefull growth of his Royall Posterity the precious Pledges of thy love unto this Land the Noble Prince Charles the Duke of York and the Lady Mary And in the happy reestablishment of those other illustrious Branches of the same Royall Stock beyond the seas the most renounced Lady the Lady Elizabeth and her Princely Issue For the better effecting whereof be pleased to be assistant to all their allies and confederates to prosper their designes to fight their battels to go in and out before their armies to crown thy servants with new victories that yet at length thy poor distressed people may returne with joy to their ancient habitations that peace may be planted upon earth for the further propagating of thy Gospel the advancement of thy truth and the consummation of thy Kingdome Be pleased likewise to be gracious to all the people of this land from the Cedar of Lebanon to the Hysop upon the wall let thy severall graces distill down upon their heads for the discharge of those particular places wherin thou hast set them The spirit of knowledge and piety upon the head of Aaron the Prelacy of the Church the most reverend Arch-bishops and Bishops and from thence to the skirts of his cloathing the inferiour ministers The spirit of wisdome and understanding upon the Lords of His Majesties most Honourable Privy Councell and all the true hearted Nobility The spirit of Justice and integrity upon the Judges and Magistrates of this land The spirit of increase and fructification upon all Schools of learning especially upon those two famous Universities Cambridge and Oxford and in Cambridge upon the good estate of S. Johns Colledge The spirit of obedience and fear of the Lord upon all the commonalty in particular upon the condition of this great and populous City The spirit of patience and consolation upon all thy poor afflicted members especially those commended to thee in our prayers at this time be pleased to compasse them about with thy blessings to establish thy mercies to replenish them with the graces of thy holy spirit to make the light of thy countenance to shine in their hearts to fill them full of heavenly comfort to support