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mercy_n good_a grace_n work_n 6,662 5 5.6625 4 true
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ID Title Author Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) STC Words Pages
A51230 A sermon preach'd before the House of Lords in the abby-church at Westminster, upon Monday January 31, 1697 / by John Lord Bishop of Norwich. Moore, John, 1646-1714. 1697 (1697) Wing M2555; ESTC R26202 18,373 42

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Titus by him constituted Bishop of Crete he presses him to put the Churches in mind to be subject to Principalities and Powers to obey Magistrates to be ready to every good Insomuch as Timothy is required That in his Office of Publick Prayer Kings should have a principal part and Titus hath order in his Sermons to put the Hearers in mind of their Duty to the Supreme and Subordinate Powers Whatever therefore is declared a Duty of our Holy Religion and is contained among the Apostolical Precepts must not only be a Subject proper but very necessary for Christian Ministers to explain and seriously recommend unto the People There was more cause for making this Observation which arises directly from our Text because it hath been often objected to the Clergy when they preach Loyalty and Submission to the Government that they exceed the Bounds of their Office and meddle with Matters which do not belong to them As if a Christian Minister could go beyond his Commission while he contained himself within the compass of his Bible and only published those Doctrines unto the Congregation which our Lord Christ and his Holy Apostles had taught before him If any therefore have been worthy of blame for their Discourses on these Arguments it must proceed from want either of Judgment or Sincerity in their Performance We do not therefore pretend to excuse either those who have taught the People to speak Evil of Dignities and would have disposed them to Mutiny and take Arms against their Sovereign Lords or those who would persuade Governors to Rule by Arbitrary Power and not to have respect to the Laws and the general Good in their Administration Such Men indeed transgress their Commission and Act without Integrity or Skill in both the Extremes and ought not to be esteemed Friends either to the Prerogative of Princes or to the Liberty of the People For neither the one nor the other can be stretched beyond the Measures of Law and Justice without hazard of being broken But then this is not the only Case in which Men may betray the defects of their Understanding or of their Honesty seeing other Religious Matters have likewise their Extremes and we need not seek much or go far for a pertinent Instance For in the same Verse that St. Paul does bid Titus to put them in mind to be subject to Principalities he also requires him to exhort them to be ready to every Good Work Now Good Works are a most noble and necessary Subject for Preachers to treat of in the Pulpit and they hardly can compose a Sermon without having occasion to make mention of them And yet some have set too high a rate even upon Good Works and others have as much undervalued them The Romanists over-rate them while they contend they are meritorious and that God is bound to reward those who do them making that a Debt of his Justice which is the effect alone of his free Grace and Mercy On the other hand the Antinomians and Solifidians as they are called do put too low a Value on Good Works by not allowing them according to the ordinary Laws of the Gospel to be necessary Ingredients of the Condition upon which the Christian man shall be justified When yet our Saviour hath declared that the truest Test we can give of our love of him and the way to enter into Life is to keep his Commandments and St. James does pronounce That faith without works cannot save us Wherefore to conclude this matter Accusations and Clamour should never divert us from our Duty but they ought to make us more diligent and exact in the manner of doing it We proceed therefore to shew 2. That the People are bound by the Laws of God and Nature to pray for those in Authority and to live in due Obedience to them The Obligation upon Men to be Subject to Kings and Princes hath been made appear from the Holy Scripture in part already But before I fetch further Proof from thence it may be of advantage to this Point to enquire what Evidence there may be for it from Reason and natural Light The Evidence from the Light of Nature and Reason will be strong if it can be proved that the Original of Society is from God and that he hath made Government necessary to Mankind and consequently hath obliged every Man to comply with and submit to all things necessary to uphold Rule and Discipline in Bodies Politick In order to make which out I shall shew 1. That God hath qualified and fitted the Nature of Man for Society 2. That Man has a great Love Appetite and Desire to Society 3. That the Wants and Deficiencies unavoidable in the present State cannot be supplied without Society and other Mens Assistance 4. That unless Men submit to the Authority establish'd in every Society for the Government of it no Society or Community can subsist or continue 1. That God hath fitted and qualified the Nature of Man for Society is manifest both from the Faculties of the Mind and the Powers of the Body wherewith he hath endowed him Man is furnisht with Reason and Memory and Speech and Bodily Strength which are so many Qualifications for the making him a sociable Creature since they are all contrived and may be used as well for the benefit of others as of our selves and Speech seems for no other end designed than Conversation and the furtherance of Mutual Good Man by the Exercise of his Reason does discover a difference between things that some are Good and others Evil those things he judges Good which will preserve and improve the Faculties and Powers of his Being and those Evil which have a tendency to corrupt and destroy them Next by comparing his own Nature with other Mens and observing the respects they have one to another he concludes that what is Good or Evil for him will be so for other Men that what contributes to his own Safety or Destruction in the same Circumstances will do so to theirs who have the like Intellectual Faculties and Corporeal Powers with himself Hence he advances to find out the different degrees of goodness in things and to compute how much one Good exceeds another and he cannot but determine that the Good which is durable is to be preferr'd to that of short continuance that what causes Peace and Tranquility of Mind is more to be esteemed than what procures freedom from Pain and Ease of the Body and that Goods of every kind are so much more valuable as they are more diffusive And therefore what is good for him and for others also is a greater good than what is so for himself alone and that in proportion every Good is still the greater by how much the more have benefit by it and consequently his Reason will engage him constantly to pursue and promote the most Universal and Publick Good in which his own will ever be involved before and above all others Moreover Men