Selected quad for the lemma: book_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	great_a	life_n	write_v	5,211	5	5.2860	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A92862	The leaves of the tree of life: for the healing of the nations. Opening all the wounds of this kingdome, and of every party, and applying a remedy to them: by which we come to a right understanding between King and Parliament. A universal agreement and peace on all sides, and the kingdom restored and setled upon a sure and unmoveable foundation: by the light of God shining upon William Sedgwick.	Sedgwick, William, 1609 or 10-1669?	1648 (1648)	Wing S2386; Thomason E460_40; ESTC R204719	74,614	130

quarters which threatens famine upon you Squeesd by taxes wrack'd with war the anvill indeed of misery upon which all the stroakes of vengeance fall A wofull Nation once the freest people in the world now the veriest slaves slaves not to one but to many Masters and those many of various and different tempers by whom you are forced to be sometimes one way sometimes another And the Church which is the joy of Saints strangely confounded that none almost knows his owne or his Neighbours Religion in such a mist of darknesse are you Chap. VIII Shewing the wickednesse of the Ministry or Clergy and their judgement THe Clergy so called have a great hand in the evills of these times and require an especiall discovery But I purpose more fully herafter to open the state of the Church and to shew the particular evils and good of every sect with their defects the reason of their difference and so reduce them all to their proper place and order which is the true vniformity And therefore shall only at this time take notice of them briefly and as respecting these evill distractions The Clergy are deeply concernd and especially eyed by Divine justice a corrupt generation and horribly departed from their Lord and Rule Christ The Son of God the Prophet the Prest the Bishop is the life original and true patterne of al Ministry And there is no true office that Christ doth not constitute by his owne presence nor no right dispensation of that office if Christ himselfe do not administer and be the thing administred and therefore all others are Antichristian and Babylonian In whom the Spirit and power of the Holy Anointing lives not It s true that the Clergy of England all sorts of them that have appeared upon this preset stage Episcopacy Presbytery and Independency have their particular excellencies from particular Angels assisting them The Bishops grave Magisteriall Authoratative Honourable and having imprinted upon them a dark and earthly form of Christ The great Bishop and of him in his Lordly or Royall priest-hood as he is exalted The Presbyters being laborious painfull zealous earnest affectionate carrying an image of the Elders and Apostles of the Church The Independent delighting in a more particular and intire union with his people of greater strictnesse and exactnesse and personal care of his flock is more truely in the Pastors or Teachers place But they are all earthly and carnall darkning the true light of Christ in their ministry and holding forth the name of Christ but not the power but their owne parts opinions readings humane and weak affections yea have wickedly departed from their Master and do not worship in the Temple in Heaven in the new Jerusalem but in Aegypt and Babylon of this world where the Lord is crucified and stand at a distance from and enmity to the Spirit of Christ They professe Christ in their way that is in enmity to him they professe they are not with him nor he with them glory in their shame which is a Worldly and a Devillish life They are ignorant of heaven came not from heaven are not in heaven neither returne they to heaven they judge not things in the light of heaven nor know things as they are in the booke of life the Scriptures of truth as they are in the Spirit of God but as they are written and spoken of in the world and so are blinde guides and have led the blinde people of this Nation into a ditch of destruction on all sides Their great unlikenes to Christ appeares in these things First Christ is Anointed with the Spirit of God he is sent of God he comes from the Father Hath all power given him in Heaven and Earth But these men all of them derive not their ministry but from men at best according to the outward fashion of the letter of the Word and so from Paul c. and that they follow most lamely and so far only as serves their turne taking indeed their ministry themselves from their earthly Fathers according to the customes and traditions of men therefore have no power at all but the power of their own reason which being weaknes it self they presently run to the power of the Magistrate and strengthen themselves with that whithout which they are most contemptible and despisable things The Bishops take away the King and what becomes of them The Presbyters if the Parliament fail they fall into the ditch Secondly Christ emptied himself and became of no reputation took upon him the form of a servant but these men are one all sides stickling for worldly greatnesse contending by all waies of cunning and policy to raise themselves to the highest point of preferment in their severall spheres pleading for their honour from the People urging and forcing from the People respect to the Ministers each party in their seasons labouring might and main with blood to uphold that interest in the Nation that they have gotten and pressing upon mens consciences to fight for Religion which is their means places honours and safeguards Thirdly Christ fore-told and desired his sufferings The Baptisme that he was to be baptized with But these men never knew their own or the Kingdomes sufferings to give or take warning but fild with the visions of their own hearts prophesie pleasing things in their seasons The glory of the Church blessed times great and wonderfull things And if their sufferings hath been declared to them by God they would not hear it but as Peter in his satanicall pride Master be it far from thee and when they had gotten into the mount of Court and Parliament favour then they cry It s good to be heer abhorring the thoughts of suffering And would be reigning upon the Throne before they touch upon the Crosse These carnall Gospellers are in all their thoughts enemies to the Crosse of Christ 4. Christs Ministry was glory to God on high on Earth Peace c. But these mens is glory to themselves and to their King and their Parliament and for want of this a sword fighting like Satans Priests Preaching and speaking the fire of their rage Pulpit incendiaries pronouncing curses and judgements upon their brethren and so giving them up to the sword of one another Priests indeed not to offer up their honours places preferments and lives to purchase peace a Christ did and they should But have offered up the Kingdome a Sacrifice to their own blinde zeale and carnall lusts together In stead of standing in the gap have made a gap and increased the divisions of the times casting not water to quench but Oyle to inflame the differences of the Nation not laying down their lives but seeking the lives of others to serve their ends Fifthly Your bitter and violent persecuting each other when you have gotten power into your hands You have been in your severall seasons the ruine of each other denying each other subsistance or the exercise of each others gifts Far from the love