Selected quad for the lemma: act_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
act_n	faith_n	heart_n	purify_v	2,568	5	11.6551	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A67743	The cause and cure of ignorance, error, enmity, atheisme, prophanesse, &c., or, A most hopefull and speedy way to grace and salvation, by plucking up impediments by the roote reduced to explication, confirmation, application, tending to illumination, sanctification, devotion / by R. Younge ...	Younge, Richard.	1648 (1648)	Wing Y143; ESTC R16605	116,892	303

be argued in the Court of thy Conscience say whether thou art guilty or not guilty He that believes the promises of God to be true believes also the commands and threatnings and thereupon feares God and makes conscience of sin otherwise if thou beest as it were a dead man continuing under the burthen of notorious crimes without sorrow or fear or remorse or care of amendment Ephes. 2 1. If thou art of a reprobate judgement touching actions and persons esteeming good evil and evil good if the Devil hath so bewitched thee that thou preferrest Hell to Heaven and blamest those that do otherwise if Ishmael-like thou mockest or Cham-like thou scoffest at the religious or usest bitter jests against them Psal. 1.1 Ephes. 5.4 If thou raisest slanders of them or furtherest them being raised Psal. 4.2 31.18 35.20 As the Red Dragon Rev. 12. cast a floud of water out of his mouth after the Woman when he could not reach her with his clawes verse 15. Or any way opposest them for the opposition of goodnesse gives thee the title of wickednesse which alone is the enemy thereof and shewes that thou art a Souldier of the great Dragon who goes out to make War with that blessed Seed which keep the Commandments of God Rev. 12.17 These or any one of these shew that thou hast neither part nor fellowship in the Christian beliefe that thou art an Infidell yea an Atheist which is a higher degree of infidelity and that thou doest no way differ from an Heathen but onely in the saying of a Pater noster a Creed and it may be the ten Commandments neither hast thou any more of a conscience than fear which fear also arises more from the power of the Magistrate than from the Omnipotency of a God But to make thy selfe confesse this examine thy beliefe by thy life for infidelity is the bitter root of all wickednesse and a lively Faith the true Mother of all goodnesse Indeed if pride sw●aring prophaning of the Lords Day drunkennesse adultery contempt of Religion and all goodnesse were fruits of Faith then the World were full of Believers but Faith purifieth the Heart Acts 15.9 and worketh by love Gal 5.6 Consumes our natural unnatural corruptions and sanctifieth the whole man th●oughout 1 Thes. 5.23 Acts 26.18 So that our Faith to God is seen in our faithfulnesse to men Shew me thy faith by thy workes saith S. Iames that is thy invisible beliefe by thy visible life for the hand is the best Commentary of the heart What a man does I am sure he thinkes not alwayes what he speakes Men may say they believe the Word but certainly they would never speak as they speak thinke as they thinke do as they do if they thought that their thoughts words and deeds should ever come to judgement If men believed that Heaven were so sweet and Hell so intolerable as the word makes them they would be more obedient upon earth the voluptuous would not say with Esau Give me the pottage of pleasure take who will the Birth-right of grace here and glory hereafter the Covetous would not say Take you Heaven let us have money I le clear it by a similitude If a Physician should say unto his Patient here stands a Cordial which if you take will cure you but touch not this other Vial for that is deadly Poyson and he refuseth the Cordial to take the Poyson in this case who can chuse but conclude that either he believed not his Physician or preferred death before life But go on If men but believed that God alwayes beholds them they durst not sin No Thiefe was ever so impudent as to steale in the very face of the Judge O God let me see my selfe seen by thee and I shall not dare to offend thee Againe if men believed that there is a place of Darknesse they would fear the workes of Darknesse If Lot's sonnes-in-Law had believed their father when he told them the Citie should suddenly be destroyed with fire and brimstone and that by flying they might escape it they would have obeyed his counsel If the old World had believed that God would indeed and in good earnest bring such a Floud upon them as he threatned they would not have neglected the opportunity of entring the Arke before it was shut up and the windowes of Heaven opened much lesse would they have scofft and flouted at Noah while he was building it so if you did firmely believe what the Scripture speaks of Hell you would need no intreaties to avoid it yea cast but your eyes upon that fiery gulf with a full perswasion of it and sin if you dare You love your selves well enough to avoid a knowne paine wee know that there are Stocks and Bridewells and Goales and Dungeons and Racks and Gibbits for Malefactors and our very feare keeps us innocent were your hearts equally assured of those hellish torments ye could not yee durst not continue in those sinnes for which they are prepared yea if you did truly beleeve a hell there would bee more danger of your dispaire than of your security Yea had you but so much of an historicall faith as to beleeve the Scriptures touching what God hath already inflicted upon sinners as upon the Angells the old world Sod●me and Gomorrah Pharoah and the Egyptians Nadab and Abihu Chora D●than and Abyram with their 250 Captaines and many thousands of the Children of Israel together with the whole Nation of the Iewes Hammon and Balaam Saul and Doeg Absolon and Achytophell Ahab and Iesabell Senacherib and Nebuc●adnezar the two Captaines and their fifties Herod and Iudas Annanias and Saphirah with a world of others Much more if you did beleeve how severely he hath dealt with his owne Children when they sinned against him viz. with Moses Aaron and Eli which were in singular favour with him yea with David a man after his own heart and that after his sin was remitted it were impossible but you woulde feare to offend so Jealous a God for thus you woulde argue If God be so just and severe to his owne children who were so good and gracious how shall I a wicked and ungracious servant that never did him a peece of good service all my dayes looke to be dispensed withall If the godly suffer so many and grievous afflictions here what shall his adversaries suffer in hell If Sampson be thus punished shal the Philistims escape If the righteous shall scarcely be saved were shall the ungodly and sinner appeare as the Scripture speakes 1 Pet. 4.18 For thou canst not Imagine that he will deale after a new and extraordinary way with thee and so breake the Course of his so Just and so long continued proceedings SECT 72. WHerefore dally no longer with your owne soules Are ye Christians in earnest Doe yee beleeve the word or do you not if ye do not ye are worse than the Devill f●r the Devills bel●eve and

but in the Iewes Gods ow●e people who first moved those persecutions against Christ and his Members that having beheaded Iohn Baptist his Harbinger and crucified himselfe the Lord of life we read that of all the Twelve none dyed a naturall death save onely Saint Iohn and he also was banished by Domitian to Pathmos and at another time thrust into a Tun of seething Oyle at Rome as Tertullian and Saint Hierom do report See Acts 7.51 to 60. 12.1 to 5. Rom. 8.36 Iohn 21.18.19 Now all these besides many other of his Disciples suffered martyrdome meerely for professing the faith of Christ whereof some were stoned some crucified some beheaded some thrust thorow with Speares some burnt with fire with a multitude of other Beleevers for Ecclesiasticall History makes mention of two thousand which suffered the same day with Nicanor Acts and Monuments page 32. which makes Saint Paul cry out I think that God hath set forth us the last Apostles as men appointed to death 1 Corinth 4.9 SECT 18. 5. AFter the Apostles if we consider the residue of the ten Persecutions raysed by the Romans against the Christians which was for three hundred yeares till the comming of godly Constantine we find that under Dioclesian seaventeen thousand Christians were slaine in one month amongst whom also was Serena the Emperesse yea under him and nine other Emperors there was such an innumerable company of innocent Christians put to death and tormented that St. Hierome in his Epistle to Chromatius and Heliodorus saith There is no one day in the whole yeare unto which the number of five thousand Martyrs might not be ascribed except only the first day of Ianuary who were put to the most exquisite deaths and torments that ever the wit or malice of men or Devils could invent to inflict we read of no lesse then twenty nine severall deaths that they were put unto if no other be omitted SECT 19. 6 FRom the primitive times and infancy of the Church hitherto the Turk and the Pope have acted their parts in shedding the blood of the Saints as well as the Iewes and Roman Emperours touching which for brevities sake I referre you to the Book of Acts and Monuments Yet because a tast may please some I will insert what the Holy Ghost hath foretold in the Revelation touching the Pope who calls himselfe Christs Vicar and supreme Head of the Church the Angell speaking of the Whore of Babylon saith Shee was drunk with the blood of the Saints and with the blood of the Martyrs of Iesus Revell 17.6 Which in part was fulfilled in England under the raigne of Queene Mary when in one yeare a hundred seventy six persons of good quality were burnt for Religion with many of the Common sort and in France for before these late bloody Massacres there were more then two hundred thousand which suffered Martyrdome about Transubstantiation For the chiefe persecutors of Christ and his followers are not Atheists or Turks or Iewes but such as hold great place in the Church Antichristians and Pseudochristians which makes our Saviour say they shall excommunicate you that is they shall blot out your names from among Gods people or cast you out from the visible outward communion of the Saints And indeed vertue hath ever suffered most from those which should and seeme to uphold her and instruders upon other mens right can indure any man how bad soever rather to live by them then the servants of him whom they intrude upon as you may see Mat. 21.33 to 39. where those Farmers of the Vineyard killed the servants who came to receive their Masters rent they did not kill the Theeves and Robbers and spoylers of the Vineyard but the servants yea and the Son too and the end of all was that they might take the inheritance Yea the godly have ever suffered most from such as professe the same Faith and Religion with them It hath been the complaint almost of all the Fa●●ers and Saints of God which have written that the faithfull in their several times were hated traduced calumniated slandered reproached accused persecuted and condemne● of such as professe the same Religion with them ●hough under o●her pretences yet only fo their au●ier and holy lives that they stucke close to the truth made conscience of their wayes and would not rush so boldly into sin as others Ecclesiasticall History lib. 6. Chap. 4.5.16 SECT 20. 7 TO come unto these present times wherein wee live Is the World mended with age Yea I would to God we did not find that as it is in the little world the older it grows the more diseased so in the great world the older the more vicious that the consummation of times and sins were not met together upon us But as commonly in a diseased body all the humours fall down into the Legs or feet and make an Issue there so the corruption of all ages hath sliden downe into this of ours as into the feete Many saith the Apostle walke that are enemies to the Crosse of Christ Phil. 3.18 If many in Saint Paules time more now for Satan who was then bound is now loosed again out of his prison and hath great wrath because he knows he hath but a short time Revel 12.12 To speake onely of the entertainment which piety finds among such as would be counted not only Christians but Protestants which principally I intend Is it possible for a man to live a conscionable and unreprovable life abstaine from drunkennesse swearing prophaning the Lords day separate himselfe from evill yea wicked company be zealous for the glory of God c. Without being traduced calumlumniated hated slandered and persecuted for the same No it is not possible for if our righteousnesse doe but exceed the righteousnesse of a swearer or a drunkard we are sure to be persecuted for our righteousnesse as Abel was persecuted of Caine because his Sacrifice was better than his If a man walk with God he is too precise if he will be more than almost a Christian he is curious phantastical factious and shall be mocked with the Spirit as if the spirit of God were a spirit of dishonour and shame How common a thing is it to wound all holinesse under the name of Puritan a name so full of the Serpents enmity as the egge of a Cockatrice is full of poyson What should I say The world is growne so much knave that 't is now a vice to be honest O the deplorable condition of these times Even the Devill himself durst not have been so impudent as to have scoft at holinesse in those ancient and purer times but now I could even sinke downe with shame to see Christianity every where so discountenanced our very names come into few mouths out of which they returne but with reproaches Amongst the rest of our sins O God be mercifull to the contempt of thy Servants True blessed be God and good laws we