Selected quad for the lemma: blood_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
blood_n	body_n	flesh_n	soul_n	13,044	5	5.6631	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A93329	A mission of consolation. Usefull for all afflicted persons. / By W.S.	Slingsby, William, fl. 1653.	1653 (1653)	Wing S3997; Thomason E1552_1; ESTC R209477	20,370	163

any oppression Heb. 12. 2. But Looking up upon the author and finisher of out faith Christ Jesus may not see him bearing the same cross with joy despising the confusion of it Whither you sweat under your burthens or whither you bleed under the edg of these times you shall finde your persecution both civil and sanguinary patternd to you in the person even of God man Christ Jesus who hath not left so much as your fears and terrours out of the exemplar of his passions his Mark 14. 33. He began to be heavy and to fear Was designed purposely as a cordial in your fits of fainting and if there were any point in your afflictions which were not exemplified to you in Christs passions that circumstance ought to prove to you a sufficient consolation in that you had some suffering to offer to Christ of your own besides the coppy and portraicture of his But alas all that we can imagine in our own pains wherein there is no imitation of his is that which we may better blush at than boast of for it is onely the guilt of deserving more than we can endure in this life this is simply ours in our afflictions wherein we finde no resemblance in the figure of Christs sufferings which part of our cases may make us offer up to Christ a thankfull alacrity in all temporal penalties infflicted on us for having taken off from us the burthen we could not remove by any sufferings and having left us onely such pressures as may aleviate the weight of that intolerable gravation which is the guilt of sin for our crosses in this life by the virtue of the cross of Christ whereof our heaviest are but chips or shaveings do not onely keep our sins lower but also weigh against the temporal penalty of those which are in the scale It may admit a question whither it be a more precious Christian exercise to do good or to endure evils that state is certainly the best in which both are conjoyned when suffering many grievances we act as much good as we are able Let them then who have nothing left to give to God by way of actions rejoyce in the facultie of sorrows When King David extols the dignity of man he raiseth it upon this ground that God had made him a little lower Psal. 8. Then Angels but in this respect we may say that God hath advantaged him above them by furnishing him with more instruments of attaining heaven than they have by having coupled a body to this spirit in which he may suffer for Christ when many other capacities of expressing his gratitude are suspended for man hath not onely all the several powers of his minde but also the senses of his body given him as Organs of working out salvation by carrying the Cross upon them with this corporeal furniture man is enriched above Angels so as man may even out of the greatest infirmities of his constitution extract matter of glorification This virtue hath been imparted to the vility of flesh bloud since God vouchsafed to be invested in it Our flesh received this priviledg not onely of being admitted into heaven but of contributing to the souls degrees of glory by the proportions of the bodies suffering Rom 8. 13. S. Paul saith It is no wonder that God having giving his own Son to humane nature should have given all these other prerogatives with him Out of this state of our mortality the Saints shall rise as high as they should have done from the state of innocence and immortality which shews that they are equally sanctified in the brevity and shortness of their life now to what they should have attained in many ages if they had remained immortal The similitude of sorrows and crosses by the grace of Christ countervaileth and compensateth the numerousness of the years of our service Our redeemer hath left us this compendious way of approaching heaven by the necessities and molestations of our flesh the which he would not expunge in it that he might present his Father the children of his most pretious passions as much purified in a little time as they should have been in the efflux of many ages He who raised above the highest heaven the heaviest of our earth upon this engine of the Cross hath left it us to winde up the easilyer our terrestrial qualities upon the same Machine This was the means which S. Paul made use of in all his elevations up to the third heaven Gal 2. 20. With Christ I am nailed to the Cross carried him up to that sublimity and he kept himself so close nailed to the Cross all his life as when he was weak he was strongest and never esteemed his raptures so much as his revilings and ignominies He professeth to glory willingly in nothing but in his humiliations 2 Cor. 12. Gladly will I glory in my infirmities in contumelies in necessities in distresses for Christ c. because he found power was perfected in infirmity whereby we are convinced that those who are called to Christianity are assigned to all sorts of crucifyings All the iniquity of a Christian consists either in doing what Christ did not or in refusing to do what he did and none can excuse themselves by an in capacity of imitating Christ in that wherein he hath been pleased to state Christian profession for every one may be poor and patient and mortified but every one is not qualified to attain to Riches Honour or Learning This is the wisdom and love of God to have those things made the best contributions to our eternal felicity which may not onely be reached by every one but can even scarce be missed by any which are the afflictions and adversities of this life wherefore those who it may be would not have had the Zeal to affect a similitude to Christ in these hard touches of Gods hand must not be so ungratefull as to repugne this operation of God upon them or be ashamed and confused to see this figure of deformity in the worlds eye impressed upon them in poverty infamy destitutinos of friends reproaches of enemies and all other assimillations to Christ but rather acknowledg a mercy of God who having called them to these trialls as Christians whereunto they have answered but ill in other times that now he vouchsafeth himself to place them in the society of the passions of Christ remembring what the great Doctor in this worlds miseries and the others felicities remonstrates to us 2 Cor. 1. 7. That in the same measure you are partakers of the passions you shall be of the consolation of Christ Perfect Patience defined imperfect consolated and directed NOw I set up to your patience as a kinde of brazen Serpent to cure all the stings you are exposed unto I must desire you to understand clearly the integral constitution of this virtue for I ascribe so much efficacy to it supposing the patience I handle to be an habit or disposition inherent in our