Selected quad for the lemma: religion_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
religion_n	church_n	great_a	rome_n	5,301	5	6.4962	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A30594	Moses his self-denyall delivered in a treatise upon Hebrewes 11, the 24. verse, by Ieremy Burroughs.	Burroughs, Jeremiah, 1599-1646.	1641 (1641)	Wing B6097; ESTC R4358	105,177	285

meanest workes of it is a greater honour to you then you can bee to it It is the unhappinesse of many who are of birth and quality they lose much spirituall good that they might have in communion with Gods servants in their gifts and graces because of that distance that is betweene them and although some duties of religion are taken up by them which may in their owne thoughts stand with their honours and correspond with their friends of quality yet other duties are looked at as too low as praying in their families when other helpe is wanting instructing servants leaving unnecessary occasions and sports to attend upon the preaching of the word calling over what of Gods minde hath beene made knowne to them The Holy Ghost sets it out as an addition to the honour of those noble men of Berea Acts 17. 11. that they received the word with all readinesse of minde and searched the Scriptures after they had heard Paul preach to examin what had beene delivered to them After Oswald King of Northumberland was converted by one Aidan a Bishop it is reported of him that he disdained not to preach and expound to his subjects and nobles in the English tongue that which Aidan preached to the Saxons in the Scottish tongue It still remaines the glory and renown of that young truly noble Lord Harrington in the blessed memory of him that he was so diligent so constant in those duties of religion which now are accounted so meane and low by many great ones It is recorded in his life that he prayed not onely twice a day in secret but twice with his servants likewise in his chamber besides the joyning at the appointed times of prayer in the family he meditated of three or foure sermons that hee had lately heard every day every Lords day morning hee would repeate the sermons that hee had heard the Lords day before and at night those he heard that day There is no disproportion betweene such exercises as those and the dignity of nobility if things be judged according to righteous judgement there is in truth no denial of the honour of true noblenesse in these but because of the perverse judgement of the world there is neede of much selfe-deniall to submit to them The conclusion of this point is this if you would be indeede honorable as your famous and religious ancestors have beene be as they were Religion sayes to us as God to Eli 1 Sam. 2. 30. them who honour me I will honour I have read of the Lacedaemonians that for the stirring up of the spirits of yong men to noble and heroicall enterprises they used to have the Statues in marble or brasse of their most famous worthies set up in their Senate house with this Epigramme graven in golden characters underneath si fueritis sicut hi if you will bee like these that is in vertue and famous actions eritis sicut illi you shall bee like them in glory and renowne Thus the memory of the succeeding generations after worthy ancestors hath lifted them up in their due honour and their deserved high esteeme with this Motto upon them si fueritis sicut hi eritis sicut illi be we like them in holy desires for the honour of religion and the good of our countrey and wee shall be now and in the succeeding generations like them in a blessed and glorious memoriall of us Honour likewise and all pleasures and delights that we enjoy are to bee denyed for Christ It is true they are the blessings of God in themselves many of Gods servants have enjoyed them and made much use of them for God and his people as Joseph Ester Mordecai Obadiah Ezra Nehemiah Daniel the Lord deputy of Cyprus Acts 13. 2. the great Lord Treasurer of the Queene of the Ethiopians Acts 8. 27. So it is said that he had the charge of all her treasure and those that were of Caesars houshold Phil. 4. 22. And so in after times Church Histories relate unto us many worthyes of the Lord who lived in the Courts of the greatest persecuters of Christian religion and yet they kept their faith intire and their consciences unspotted As Flavianus in Vespasianus his Court Dorotheus in Dioclesians Terentius in Valentinians and multitude of others might be named in all succeeding generations Court-honours are to bee denied for Christ for they are his it is hee that hath raised us in these higher then others And though they be blessings yet not so great that wee should grudge Iesus Christ the having the honour of them the least of his honour hath more excellency in it then all these in the heigth of them and ten thousand times more then these for there is a vanity in them all we know Solomon who had the highest of them that ever were yet hee saw and had the experience of vanity yea exceeding vanity and vexation of spirit to be in them observe his expression First vanity not vaine only but vanity it self Secondly excessive vanity for it is vanity of vanitie Thirdly a heape of vanities for it is in the plural number vanitie of vanities Fourthly all is vanity Fifthly hee addes his name to that he saith saies the Preacher Choeleth the word signifies the soule that hath gathered wisedome or the soule that is gathered to the Church as some When Daniel chap. 4. had the vision of the estate of the foure great Mornarchies of the world the Persian Chaldaean Graecian and Romane it was set out unto him by the foure windes what are all the Empires all the dignities of the world but as winde There is no reality in these brave Court things which are so admired and magnified by the most When Agrippa and Bernice came in great pompe to the judgement seate Acts 25. 23. it was all but a meere phancy for so the words are in the originall they came with much phansie Honour is but a shaddow and when it comes from these outward things it hath not the dignity to be so much as the shaddow of a substance for all these outward things are as shaddowes Prov. 8. 20. 21. wisedome there saies that shee leades in the pathes of righteousnesse and in the midst of the pathes of judgement that shee may cause those that love her to inherite substance the word substance is translated by some id quod est that which is that which hath a being as if nothing had a being as if nothing could bee called a substance but that which wisedome that is grace and godlinesse gives to inherite The fashion of this world passeth away saies the Holy Ghost the word in the originall signifies the surface the outside as if all the things of the world were a meere surface avaine outside The shadow of a man may be longer or shorter but the man remaines the same still it adds nothing to the man honours preferments may be more or lesse but the man remaines the same he did before

and cloathed beautifully I indeede desired that I might bee baptized and to give my selfe to the service of your God but now I am farre of another mind when I see the servants of your God so ill entertained and provided for This offence daily keepes off many but the conversion of great ones would bring on not onely multitudes of other people but other great ones also It is reported of Lucius King of England who was the first King that ever by his authority established Christian religion in his Kingdome which is the honour of our countrey it was the first Kingdome that ever had Christian Religion established by the supreme magistrate In the first entrance into the Kingdome he favovored Christian Religion as an ancient historian Gildas Albanius reports but yet the Religion hee was brought up in stucke so fast in him that hee could not bee brought off wholly to embrace Christian Religion And a great thing that hindered him was the offence he tooke at the outward meannesse and povertie of Christians and especially hee looked at the Romanes who were a glorious and victorious people and the Emperour there who lived in so great glorie and prosperitie and hee considered with himselfe that they did not embrace Christian Religion and wherefore then should hee But after hee learned from the Embassadours of Caesar that some of the noble and chiefe of Rome as by name Trebellius and Pertinax and others embraced the Religion of Christians that the Emperour himselfe was moved with that miraculous Raine that was caused by the prayers of the Christians then Lucius attended more fully to understand what Christian Religion was and was taken off from that which formerly hindered him Whereupon he sent to Eleutherius then Bishop of Rome Elvanus and Medinus his Embassadours to send him some to instruct the Brittaines in the Doctrine of Christ that hee might establish Christian Religion in his Kingdome and abolish Heathenisme this was in the yeere of Christ 179. Thus you see what a power Religion hath when it is in great ones And on the contrarie the more eminent you are in Honours and in Greatnesse if your examples be evill they doe the more mischiefe Sinne dressed up with a diamond or covered with a scarlet robe carries a brave shew with it Desinunt esse probri loco purpurata flagitia If your waies bee never so base and unworthy the generall course of people will follow after you as Christ said if the sonne of man bee lifted up all men will follow him so if the most base wickednesse in the world bee lifted up in the examples of great ones all men will follow after it that way that they see to be a way of preferment and to get the countenance of those that are great men generally they will chuse yea how doe wee see many that they may bee like great ones in their way and get a little petty preferment by them they will subject themselves to most sordid things that otherwise common humanity would loath and abhorre There is a notable example for this in a relation that Contzen hath in his booke that he intitles Aulae speculum in the 156. page of one Eutropius an Eunuch hee was the governour of the Court and had in exceeding honour but favoured and preferred onely such which either were already or were willing to make themselves Eunuches like himselfe whereupon sayes my Authour multitudes of men made themselves and their children Eunuches that they might obtaine the favour of Eutropius and be raised to preferment by him and many of them dyed of the wounds that were made in their body Thus you see what the power of the countenance and favour of great ones is which men seeke by being like them in any base wayes And have we not many still that would bee content to prostitute themselves their soules and their bodies in the most shamefull wayes that can be to obtaine the favour of those who are great to get preferment by them willing to let humanity Religion God conscience soules and all goe so they may be countenanced in the World Lastly remember the great and solemne account that you are to give before the Lord another day of all the mercies you have received from God above others which have beene abundant which cannot be reckoned and if your receipts be so great as you know not how to reckon them how shall you be able then to reckon for them Surely when you come to give an account of all you enjoy you will have other manner of thoughts of all your outward glory then you had when you conceived there was so much happinesse in it Consider now what will be peace to your soules when you must bid an everlasting farewell to all those things which are so glorious in your eyes Doe you thinke that now you doe improve all those mercies that God hath given you so as when you come upon your death beds and before the Lord you shall be able to look backe to your former time and rejoyce in it The Lord will not regard how you have beene magnified by men but how you have magnified his great and glorious Name Riches will not availe in the day of wrath the remembrance of all sinfull delights will be bitterer then gall to you when the accounts of all your honours riches and pleasures shall be called for how they have been improved for God If you cannot then make your accounts even either by shewing how you have imployed these talents or by bringing in an acquittance and pardon bought with Christs precious bloud and sealed to you by his holy Spirit you are undone for ever so that now those things will prove your burdens that here were your delights and honours what will it then profit you to have beene honorable and rich in the World have nothing left but guilt in your consciences and Gods vile esteeme of you what good shall your passed pleasures bring to you when they have abandoned you and nothing remaines but pollution and filth upon your soules and the just wrath of God whom you have displeased by pleasing your selves in those pleasures or what will it profit you to have gained the whole world and to have lost your owne soules I have read of one Francisus Xaverius who writing to John the third King of Portugal gave this wholsome counsell to him that every day for a quarter of an houre he would meditate of that divine sentence What shall it profit a man to win the whole world and to lose his owne soule and that he would seeke of God the right understanding of this that hee might be sensible of it and that he would make it the close of all his prayers the repetition of those words What shall it profit a man c. How happy counsell would this be for all our Courtiers and great men if it might be followed when you have spent all your estates and