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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	know_v	name_n	write_v	5,306	5	5.6704	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A61115	The spirituall vvarfare a sermon preched in the parish church of St. Michael Crookedland in London : on the 30 of March being a fast day / by Mr. John Spencer sometime groom to a nobleman.	Spencer, John, Groom.	1642 (1642)	Wing S4955; ESTC R19817	15,816	16

it is you fight this is that which puts life into a souldier you that have money estates parts and gifts liberties and the like you may come and lay out all here to your great advantage Jesus Christ seems now to set up his glorious standard and make a Proclamation Who will be on my side who O I beseech you flock to Jesus Christ you that have the gift of prayer run in with that you that have honors run in with them you that have riches run in with them see if they will do any good Let that I beseech you stir you up to the work of the Lord Nay again consider what a glorious opportunity you have a man might have lived when he could not have told what to have done that would have appeared famous in the world for Jesus Christ Now God calleth upon you mercie calleth upon you to send in your ayde and help to fight in this great quarrell to fight with fasting with prayer with tears sighes and grones God now likewise calleth for the outward aswell as the inward mans estate he calleth for spirituall and temporall things Again consider the Lord hath made choice of you you onely that are his people to fight these combates God could have destroyed his enemies himself if not he could have called to his Angels to have helped him but the Lord hath made choice of you he will not overthrow his enemies without his people set up the Gospel without his people you must tell him of what he said long ago that Babylon shall fall Consider this that the Lord hath chosen you out before many others And then again consider what you get in this battel is for your selves let this pluck up your spirits If a Captain should come to his souldiers and tell them if you take the Town all shall be yours would not this put life in the souldiers God comes in and saith Be of good comfort my sons and daughters all you win shal be for your selves I have no need of these and these things those that have mourned with him shall rejoyce with him God saith he will pluck down his enemies and set up his people and tels us when it is so his people shall rejoyce And then lastly consider you shall be rewarded though you do not overcome the Lord will one day bring in his account shew thee how many dayes thou hast spent for him how many bitter complaints thou hast put up before him and will as certainly reward thee for it as if thou hadst the benefit of it already This should incourage you to go on though you should never live to see the accomplishment of what God hath promised you shall be rewarded as if you did overcome But in the next place a word or two to those that for present are not the souldiers of Jesus Christ I beseech you hearken you will finde it a sad thing that you are not the souldiers of Jesus Christ surely it had been better for you that you never had a being then to be a Rebell from birth to death to Christ First consider if thou be not Christs thou must of necessity be the devils souldier Oh that men and women would but sit down alone and seriously consider whose servant am I whose work do I of whom do I take pay Beloved I beseech you consider it you cannot serve two Masters The Lord Christ speaketh to them that said they had Abraham to their father you are of your father the devil for his works you do If we are the servants of Jesus Christ we will fight in the cause of Jesus Christ think upon it what a sad thing it is to be a souldier of the devil Secondly consider who it is you fight against if you be souldiers of the devil you fight against Jesus Christ and what a sad thing wil it be when God shall bring in a Bill of Indictment against you the Saints a Bill of Indictment against thee thy husband thy wife thy children Lord here is one that fought against me all my dayes did what lay in his power to take away my life liberty it were thousand times better thy hand should rot off then that thou shouldest do any thing against the Lord what will he say to thee such a time thou livedst when such and such a thing to my dishonour was put out against me and here is thy hand to it It were a thousand times better for thee that thy tongue should fall out of thy mouth then that ever thou 〈…〉 dest be knowne to speake a word against Christ and his cause take heed that thou beest not found a fighter against God Happily the wife may bring in sad bill of Indictment against the husband that he strive not only to keep himself but her out of heaven to keepe her from the places where she might edifie it will be a sad thing to thy soul that thou wilt neither go to heaven nor suffer others this Christ took notice of in the Scribes and Pharises that had the key of knowledge and would not enter themselves nor suffer those that would to enter Luke 11. 52. Thirdly consider what thou must have for thy worke thou that wilt not be broken off from thy prophaning of Gods day poluting his ordinances what doest thinke thou shalt have Jesus Christ hath a rich reward for those that serve him and so likewise for those that serve him not But Beloved them riches will make thy heart bleed to think of My freinds if you should come and look upon your tender hearted wife and see her upon the Rack but all about the place rejoycing it would make your hearts ake within you shall come to heaven and see happily a poor wife a poor husband a poor childe pulled one joynt from another God laughing and all the Saints and Angels laughing at it Beloved this will be an unspeakable torment to you the terrour of Almighty God will be upon those that fight against God In the last place I beseech you be exhorted to lay down your weapons Thou hast been a fighter against God this forty or fifty yeers O now be perswaded to lay down these weapons O my people saith God Micah 6. 4. what have I done to you wherein have I wearied thee testifie against me So saith God to many a man What have I done to thee that thou departest from mee and keepest company with such vile wretches Thus Jesus Christ also O why will you dye O house of Israel turn unto me my bloud shall make you clean So the Spirit saith Come and the Church of the living God saith Come the Embassadors of Christ wooe and beseech you to come in Never more be seen with a weapon against Christ These are glorious dayes that are a comming for the people of God but wo be to that man that Jesus Christ shall find persecuting his Church O the wretched estate of such a creature But to conclude what though thou canst not but confesse that thou hast been a fighter against God all thy dayes if now thou wilt come in and lay downe thy weapons thou shalt have as kind entertainment of God as those that have been his this forty years Abraham Isaack and Jacob shall not be more beloved of God than thou shalt be This often troubleth a poor child when it hath done that which is contrary to the parents will it will not come in their sight it is afraid of the frownes of the father O feare not the more polluted thou art the more will the Lord weep over thee he runs to meet a prodigall child you do not know what feasts the Lord will make in heaven at your conversion you shall see your name written in the book of life Me thinkes this should move you to come in and close with the Lord Jesus do not conceive that you shall not find entertainment for you shall be as welcome as any Nay and let me tell you the Lord will have a thousand times more glory by you than by the civil man Happily you have a neighbour that hath never bin known to swear an oath to tel a lye the Lord wil have twice more glory by you than by such a one if he should come in Consider also what good thou maist do to poor enemies Paul intimates so much I knew a man in Christ about 14. yeares ago he wil not name you who he is for feare of vain-glory yet he tels you by and by I Paul a persecutor O beloved how wil Gods people be encouraged yea the enemies of God when they shal see such a vile persecutor as Paul to come in to Jesus Christ Such a one as Mary Magdalen to come in to Christ this must needs be a mighty encouragement But to conclude all if thou dost not come and presently lay down thy weapons the time will be past And as the tree falleth so it lyeth the night commeth when man cannot work Therefore I beseech you lay down the weapons of your religion defer not I beseech you say not I will do it to morrow the next day or the third day no do it presently do not say I wil do it when I come home but now whilst you sit in your pews resolve to lay down your weapons come to Jesus Christ Many more instructions might have bin delivered but the time hath prevented FINIS

corruption if thou hast not a care will open the dore and let in abundance never give over untill thou seest the life and bloud of all thy sinnes run out before thee Thirdly you must reckon upon losing something in this fight no souldier that goeth forth to encounter with his enemies is sure to save his life happily thy name may be lost thy credit and estimation amongst the men of the world thy trading thy liberty and may be thy life too well it matters not thou canst never bestow it upon a better friend nor in a better service than that of Christ therefore resolve to lose something if ever thou lookest to be a souldier of Jesus Christ Did you ever reade in the Book of God that any of his souldiers returned from the battell but one time or other they lost something Many times they have lost their lives their friends their liberties their estates And he that is not willing to lose all that he hath for Jesus Christ is none of his souldier In the next place you must be sure to fight with patience happily thou hast been interceding at heaven gates many yeares that the Lord would discover himselfe to thee in his Son shew thee the way wherein thou shouldst walk it may be thou hast bin there a long time for a poor wife for a poor husband for a poor child for a poor servant and yet the Lord hath not answered thee what though yet still resolve with David to hearken what the Lord will say for surely he will doe it Lord I have called upon thee to avenge thy selfe upon thine adversaries Set up thy Gospell amongst us I have often cryed to thee for heart-breaking but thou delayest to answer the desires of my soule well wait still though I now lye under a hard heart the light of thy countenance is taken away from me I shall at length see surely the Lord will doe this for me Now we come to the Uses for want of time I shall name but three First an use of Instruction secondly an use of Examination and thirdly an use of Excitation First an use of Instruction it teacheth us these things first of all beloved that it is not so easie a thing to go to heaven as men suppose if you are Christs souldiers you must encounter with God with your selves with the world with wicked men and with the Divell himselfe yet a day will serve one mans turne an houre another mans if they can but say Lord have mercy upon us that will let them into heaven Surely such do not consider that they are souldiers and to fight with so many enemies Beloved the Lord tels us The righteous shall scarse be saved where then shall the wicked appear If after all their wrestlings they can scarce get into heaven what thinke you of them that have spent no day in performance of holy dutyes could you but come to the closet dores of the people of God and see how early they are up and how late they go to bed sure then you would be perswaded that it was not so easie a thing to go to heaven Secondly it teacheth us who is likeliest to doe the best service for God in evil times if you should see your selves compassed round about with enemies before you behinde you who do you think was likeliest to do you good a company of lame men blinde men are these fit to do you service Beloved there is none fit to do God service but these souldiers of Christ that have armour of proof upon them these are they that will do the greatest exploits for God there was a poor man in the City and he by his wisdom delivered it Hence we may give a guesse what will become of all the enemies of England Germany had but a few Ireland but a few praying people but the Lord hath thousand of thousands here amongst us souldiers expert in war that know how to encounter with God That is the reason that though we are beset with so many troubles yet they all flye before the face of Gods people for they are souldiers Thirdly it teacheth us whom to prize and love most the souldiers of Jesus Christ If you had a thing in your Cabinets which if sick could make you well if hungry could feed you c. how would you prize this Happily thou hast a beleeving wife a beleeving childe a beleeving servant though thy house were beset round about with enemies this man might deliver thee when you are in Taverns drinking carousing swearing committing many abominations this man is earnestly praying to God for thy conversion it may be the wife for the husband the husband for the wife the father weeping for the childe the childe for the father the master for the servant the servant for the master These you should most of all prize and love A second Use shall be a Use of Examination and Beloved here may we take up a sad complaint over England surely if we made a search into every Parish and family we should finde abundance of enemies and I am afraid but few fighting souldiers for Jesus Christ I will shew you who they be that are not Christs souldiers that you may weep over them happily you may finde them in the Congregation where you come in the houses where you dwell in the bed where you lye Lament over the sad estate of such poor souls First they that know not Christ are not his souldiers no man will binde himself Apprentice to another unlesse he knows him you cannot be souldiers unlesse you know your captain Christ Jesus and I am afraid there is but few knows him In the world there is a kinde of a Relative knowledge as one that hath never been in Spain by reading of Books may tell you of the situation of the place how many streets there be in it and where there is such and such a Noblemans house so that you would verily beleeve they had dwelt and lived there So many there be that can talk excellently of God have such admirable gifts and parts that you would think if there were a godly man in the Town he was one when alas he hath gotten nothing else but a Relative knowledge all this while First of all they that know Christ will fully depend upon him Dost thou say thou knowest Jesus Christ what is the reason then there is such amazements and troubles seize on thy spirit If thou knowest Christ thou knowest him to be wisdom righteousnesse sanctification and redemption thou wilt know him to be a God that maketh good all his promises What is the reason of those blasphemous thoughts which men have They think there is no mercie in heaven for them What wilt thou be saved by thy own righteousnesse Then thou art no servant of Jesus Christ You must know Jesus Christ is inlightning grace Jesus Christ is quickning grace Jesus Christ is comforting grace Jesus Christ is edifying grace And then again if you know