Selected quad for the lemma: book_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	lamb_n	life_n	write_v	5,499	5	6.5172	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A57979	A sermon preached to the Honourable House of Commons at their late solemne fast, Wednesday, Jan. 31, 1644 by Samuel Rutherfurd.	Rutherford, Samuel, 1600?-1661.	1644 (1644)	Wing R2392; ESTC R25109	55,797	70

Episcopacy Antichristian Ceremonies Superstition and Will-worship were injoyned by Law to pleasure an earthly King you willingly followed after the command against the direction of the King of Kings and now hath the Lord delivered the people of the Land into the hand of their KING And for this the Sword of the Lord hath gone through the Land 2. Vse From the perpetuity of the Lords Kingdome we may infer That this Cause of God shall prevail and that the Church though in the burning Bush cannot be consumed for JEHOVAH is in the Bush There be three grounds that there is hope that God will build his own Jerusalem 1. God never laid the foundation of so fair a building and then deserted the VVorke when he hath put it into the hearts of the Parliament and Land to enter into a Covenant with the Lord the Cause doth now in formall and direct termes become the Lords Cause And so the Lord is become surety for England 2. When did the Lord ever finally prosper his bloody-hearted enemies Babylons Womb and Bowels are swelled with blood they intend to root out the Protestant Religion Can God say Amen to this in Brittaine No he will not this end was sworne at the councell of Trent It was aimed at by Charles the fifth by Leo the tenth against Luther and the designe of the Actors of that bloody massacre of Paris yet hitherto all hath failed them 3. Gods Noble and stately acts of disappointing and discovering so many Plots give us hope for in them all God maketh true of England what is said Esai 66. 7. Before she travelled shee brought forth and before her paine came she was delivered of a man-Childe When she was sleeping ere the blow came the Childe was borne and the Woman delivered His Dominion shall be to the end Dominion is a power to use a thing as you please for such ends as you think good in the Creature our pleasure is supposed to be regulated by Law and Reason but men or Angels will or pleasure is not the rule of the use or lawfull exercise of Dominion but in God whose blessed will not being differenced from his holy reason and infinite wisedome it s the rule of the use of his Dominion and none may say to him What doest thou that but standeth still to the Creature as a binding Law Illud tantum possumus quod jure possumus we have no more lawfull morall power given to us of God then we can or do lawfully exercise according to the morall rule But Gods Dominion is to be discussed thus as it standeth in those following heads First in the manner of it its compleat Deus Dominatur in totum ens in totum entis God hath Dominion over every being of the Creature and over every part of the being God hath Dominion over his Creatures soule and his soules faculties his will minde conscience affections faith hope feare love joy over the body and all the powers and motions therof So God hath a compleat Lordship over the Creature One Creature hath not a compleat Lordship or Dominion over another yea a free reasonable Creature hath not a compleat Dominion over himself The reason is God made the Creature he made all and every being and part of the Creature He made the soule the body the faculties of both the actions and purposes of both Therefore he hath an absolute Dominion over both The potter hath a Dominion of art not a Dominion by creation over the Lame-pot he made the Lame-pot but he created not the Clay He hath therefore but a Dominion of art over the Clay not to annihilate the Clay as god can do His Dominion is of Art to frame of the Clay a Vessell of honour for a Kings Table or a Vessell of dishonour for the receiving of Urine The Master amongst the Jews might sell his man-servant and put him in his purse but the truth is when he sold him he sold but his bodily-service as hee was usefull to labour and work but he could not sell his servants soule nor his understanding nor his will nor his love nor his faith or Religion nor any of these Courtiers then and Cavaliers Prelates Atheists who professe they are of the Kings Religion and will dispose of their soules at the Kings pleasure to kill the innocent they make their soules bastards and unlawfull broods and they make the King the Creator of their soules and the absolute Lord of their Religion O foole the King did not make thy Soule there is an other Soule-Lord then the King Ezek. 18. 4. Behold all Soules are mine saith the Lord and there is another Soule-former then the King of Brittaine hear God speak himself Esai 57. 16. If I should contend for ever the spirits should faile before me and the soules that I have made O finde me an Earthly King that can forme Soules and then let the Cavaliers sweare that which many now practice I am the Kings wholly both soule and body faith and conscience But I pray you are not all in England the Kings Subjects yea trùly and all in Scotland also but not one soule not one conscience in all the three Kingdomes is the Kings Subject 2. Gods Dominion for the matter is universall he can presse an Army in the Clouds and in the Firmament Judg. 5. 20. The Stars in their course fought against Sisera he hath an host in Hell and raised an Army against the first-borne of Egypt Psal. 78. 49. Hee troubled them by sending Malokim ragnim evill Angels or Devils amongst them He can blow a Trumpet and cry to the dust of the Earth Arms Arms and there ariseth an host of Catter-pillers or Canker-wormes Joel 2. and vers. 6. before the faces of these Wormes the people is much pained and all faces gather blacknesse that is strange to see valient men of Warre tremble before a Worme and one man with a tramp of his foot may kill hundreds of them but this is the Dominion of JEHOVAH the Lord He hath an host of VVaters every wave of the Sea being a Souldier every fish receiving pay from JEHOVAH first to drown Pharoah and then to eat him and his Princes 3 He hath a Soveraigne Dominion over the salvation and damnation of men as Rom. 9. 21. The potter hath power over the Clay Arminians and Papists will have Freewil Lord and Carver of the white roll of election to glory but Gods own Pen from eternity did write in the Lambs Book of life so many and did book those from eternity whom he was of free grace to make Senators of heaven to walk with the Lamb in white nor doth freewill pen its own doome But God hateth Esau before he doth good or ill 4. God hath an absolute Dominion in all the operations of second Causes The Stars these five thousand yeers have marched so orderly and kept their Orbes Distance Line that not one of them ever transgressed the borders of another And Gods

carried to Nations without the borders of the visible Church As our text saith And Rachab saith Josh. 2. 10. We have heard how the Lord dryed up the red Sea c. But as children sport themselves and play with the pictures in a booke and with the gold on the covering of the booke and the ribbins not knowing the sense and meaning of this book so doe we sport our selves in looking on the outside of these three bookes not searching it to reade and understand the invisible things of God his eternall power and God-head Rom. 1. 20. 4. The booke of mans conscience Rom. 2. 14 15. doth speake of God to all Nations though now by reason of our sinfull blindnesse and dulnesse that book be uncorrected and dimme-printed written with white and watery Ink so that we see not God distinctly in it yet all these foure serve to make men without excuse because when they know God they glorifie him not as God neither are thankefull Rom. 1. 20. But this condemneth us to whom there is laid open a better and fairer and learneder piece Psal. 19. 7. Use The Law of the Lord is perfect converting the Soule Yea if Christ in the Gospel had not come to us we should have had no sinne no evangelick guilt of unbeleefe but now wee have {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} no shift of Law no cloake for our sinne Hence though this Island be in a more blessed condition by reason that the Sunne shineth in his strength and light in our Meridian God hath not done so to every Nation Psal. 147. 19 20. yet by reason of despising salvation in this day-light of the Gospel we are in a most dangerous condition 1. Because Sodomy is not so hainous a sinne as unbeleefe and the despising of the Gospel Matth. 10. 15. For Evangelick unbeleefe is against the flower and garland to speake so of the excellency of God not onely against a Creator but against a Saviour and against those most lovely and soul-ravishing attributes of God his mercy goodnesse free-grace longanimity patience bowels of compassion and therefore an unbeleeving Covenanter with God in England and Scotland is to looke for a hotter furnace in the lake of fire and brimstone then one of Sodome and Gomarrah 2. Because there is some exception against the Law-vengeance for the Gospel is a cleare exception against those who are under the Law-curse John 3. 16. But there is no exception against the Gospel-vengeance this is a year and age and Eternity-vengeance for the finall rejecter of the Gospel hath not a Sacrifice for sinne to looke to as the Law-breaker hath Heb. 2. 1 2. Heb. 10. 26 27. 3. The rejecting of the Gospel is a fighting against the Spirit of the Gospel whereas the Law is but a letter and unbeliefe is a sinne against the Holy Ghost though it be not alwayes the sinne against the Holy Ghost therefore are the despisers of the Gospel kept as desperate robbers are to the judgement of the great Court day and chained up and fettered to the last and terrible vengeance 2 Thes. 1. 8 9. Deut. 32. 22. Heb. 10. 26. O tremble and stand in awe of this high treason for your sinne is not like Sodomes nor like the despising of the religious decree of such an heathen King as Darius But ere I proceed it may be asked Is unbeliefe a greater sinne then Sodomy which hath a cry up to Heaven unbeliefe soundeth no such cry to Heaven I answer Hainous sinnes against the second Table are borne with a shout and a cry in their mouth and are very broad-faced and bloudy and have more of a naturall conscience in them because the duties of the second Table are written in our heart in fairer print and in a bigger Character then the duties of the first Table Therefore naturall men can heare the cry of these sinnes and that is our corruption that a man is more wounded in minde if he offend his earthly Father then if he blaspheme his heavenly Father the great and eternall Jehovah But the duties of the first Table are written in our heart by nature in a more dimme and obscure way and hath lesse of naturall conscience and the principles of the Gospel are not written in our heart at all at least as they are Evangelicke we know them not but by revelation Gal. 1. 15 16. Mat. 16. 17. and therefore sinnes against the Gospel are borne dumb and being more cleanely and spirituall sinnes they have no shout or cry against the conscience except in so farre as they are enlightened supernaturally in whom unbeliefe hath a stirring and a paine of Conscience Hence observe a considerable difference by the way betwixt the naturall and renewed soule A naturall man may be pained in conscience with parricide robberies acts of cruelty but never shall you heare him troubled in minde with unbeliefe and doubting of a God-head and the soules immortality as Judas was wakened in conscience for bloud and treachery against his innocent Master but not for unbeliefe and blasphemy whereof he was guilty in an high measure But the renewed are troubled with spirituall sinnes which are onely discerned by a spirituall and supernaturall light as with unbeliefe ignorance security wandring of heart in Prayer doubtings of a providence that ruleth all Also it may be questioned How it commeth to passe that God sendeth not sufficient helps to all Nations that they may come to the knowledge of the truth and be saved I answer shortly It is enough that he giveth sufficient meanes in this sense That Gods justice is cleared and men are without all excuse in that they wilfully lose themselves 1. Men are not formally guilty because they are not saved 2. Nor are all men guilty because the Gospel commeth not to them 3. Nor are they all guilty because they beleeve not For how shall they beleeve in him of whom they have not heard Romans 10. 14. But they are guilty because they doe not use that which is given them for God Object 1. But God gave me no more grace and what can I doe without grace Answ. This argument toucheth those who heare the Gospel as well as those who never heard of it And it is a chiding with the soveraigne Lord because he gave not efficacious grace to all And Patrons of nature and Arminians are no lesse straited with this incomprehensible dispensation of God then we are Object 2. But if I had had such grace as God gave to Peter I should have beleeved Answ. It is the carnall mans argument Rom. 9. 18 19. If he have mercy on whom he will He cannot be angry against me who do not beleeve for no man resisteth his will Yea but as the clay should not dispute with the Potter so the clay having a corrupted will doth wilfully refuse to beleeve and the creatures willing disobedience and Gods free decree of denying grace doth meet in one for which cause the creature is justly