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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	life_n	name_n	write_v	18,504	5	6.4426	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A30364	Spiritual bondage and freedom, or, A treatise containing the substance of several sermons preached on that subject from John VIII, 36 by the late Reverend Mr. Nathanael Ball ...	Ball, Nathanael, 1623-1681.	1683 (1683)	Wing B581; ESTC R20020	203,915	466

Why I will cast it up for you and the whole sum amounts to this You have got that that you must lose all this getting 't is in order to losing you have it but you cannot hold it when you have got the World you have got Vanity you have got vexation of spirit Eccl. 1. 2. and will you spend your whole time and thoughts for this I will throw some Scripture-Water upon the Fire of this Love to the World to see if it will put it out Consider seriously these three Text 1 Joh. 2. 15. Jam. 4. 4. Luk. 12. 20 21. Again this imforms us 3. That this Freedom by Christ is highly worth the pains that any Soul which hath it hath taken to obtain it or that any Soul is now taking to get it oh it will quit the cost and bear the charges for 't is excellent Freedom It is a great encouragement to a man to lay out his labour upon a thing when he is sure he shall not lose his labour convince him that he shall be a gainer and a great gainer and you have done enough to set him a work If you had but told him of a probability and a hope of advantage you should have seen him stir but if he can be sure that it will be a profitable business he thinks long ere he is at it Now I assure you from the sure word of God That take what pains you will to get this Freedom it shall be like that seed that was sown in the ground it will be encreased thirty sixty yea an hundredfold you 'l find it the best employment that ever you were about there never was any Child of God that wished Would I had not medled with this Freedom by Christ nor ever will Christ scorns that any that trade with him should be losers As they shall not want for work so they shall not want for wages 'T is true he doth expect that they who will have his Freedom should take great pains for it but he will graciously reward their great pains with great gains If they will fell all that they have to get the Pearl they shall find that the Pearl when they have it is a Pearl of great price I would put you in mind here of some Verses in the 2. and 3. chapters of Rev. which I would allude to read cap. 2. 7. To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life which is in the midst of the paradice of God Vers 11. He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death Vers 17. To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hiden manna and will give him a white-stone and in the stone a new name written which no man knoweth saving be that receiveth it And chap. 3. v. 5. He that overcometh the same shall be cloathed in white raiment and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life but I will confess his name before my Father and before his angels Vers 12. Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God and he shall go no more out and I will write upon him the name of God and the name of the city of my God which is new Jerusalem which cometh down out of heaven from my God and I will write upon him my new name Vers 21. To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne even as I also overcame and am set down with my Father in his throne That which I say to you from hence is this There are difficulties and great difficulties in the way of obtaining this Freedom but will you not be daunted at them but labour so as to overcome will you resolve through the help of God let there be what pain there will I 'll overcome them Why then you see how every verse that I have read to you carries its gains with it Again this informs us 4. That the people of God are an excellent people they must needs be so for they are gotten into this excellent Freedom This is the company that no company in the World can compare with I know that the people of God don't desire to commend or speak honourably of themselves But beloved I have here a very fair occasion to commend them to you very like some of you may have low and mean thoughts of them and the rather because you see them so contemptible in their outward appearance it may be some of your cloathes are better than theirs and some of your estates are greater than theirs and some of your food is finer than theirs and some of your kindred may be richer than theirs Well I grant this may be true one way but I am sure if you be out of Christ 't is false another way Be you what you will in wordly respects upon the account of the condition that this excellent Freedom hath brought them into you that are out of Christ never wore such cloathes as they do for they have put on the new man the Lord Jesus Christ and they go every day of the week in robes see Rev. 7. 9 13 14 15. And for Estate that which you have in the World is nothing to what they have in Christ for they are heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ Rom. 8. 17. and the Promises are theirs and the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs and all things are theirs and for food you never in all your lives tasted any thing so sweet as that which they feed upon they eat of the bread which came down from God they eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son of man whose flesh is meat indeed and whose blood is drink indeed and for hindred why all your carnal Relations are no better than beggars in comparison of them that they are a kin to Christ is not ashamed to call them brethren Heb. 2. 11. And God is not ashamed to be called their God cap. 11. 16. Obj. Why then sure if they have all this excellency by their Freedom their Freedom will make them proud Ans No beloved for all this they were never so humble and never had such mean thoughts of themselves as since they got into this Freedom they never loathed themselves till now they were more lifted up in their misery than now they are in their excellency Now they desire to give God all the Glory and to take nothing to themselves but shame tho God hath made them great yet they do not count themselves good Rom. 7. 18. Vse 2. Of Admiration That ever such an excellent Freedom should be bestowed upon the Sons of men There are two things in this that may raise our Admiration 1. That ever it should be given to men that the Lord should pass by Angels with a purpose never to recover them when they were fallen and that we should be those to whom he would send redemption He might have let us all alone Angels to perish and

reason of deadness and backwardness to such a good work as edifying of one another in love when they are together and for want of making it as sometimes they should the very design and end of their coming together to build up one another in their most holy faith c. But I say if they can but once get into it and especially if they be not only true Christians but fervent Oh what comfortable profitable Communion will there be sometimes between them that their very hearts will be knit together by it as it was between Jonathan and David when they had had Communion together The soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David and they loved one another as their own Souls Now the having of this living Communion together is a thing which the Lord sets a very high esteem upon I speak this to encourage Gods people to be more frequent and forward in it then many of us are See Mal. 3. 16. Then they that feared the Lord spake often one to another and the Lord hearkned and heard it and a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the Lord and that thought upon his name This is a Scripture that one would think should make you even long to be more at this work for mark what encouragement it carries in it 1. The Lord hearkned as it were by way of Attention and 2. Heard it as it were by way of Acceptation And then 3. This must not only be accepted but it must be written 4. Not in some loose little Paper or Scroll but in a Book And 5. This Book must be called a Book of Remembrance Remembrance must be the very name of it And 6. That it might be remembred it must not be laid away but be before him 4. This Freedom by Christ we being interested in it puts Life into our Hopes If we have not this all our Hopes of Mercy and Salvation are but dead Hopes and you 'l have no more benefit by them then you will have of a man that you had great hopes in that he would be a mighty Friend to you in your distress and you count upon it before your distress comes upon you that certainly you shall have such a Friend as passes of that man and thus you go on and when your great distress comes upon you then you begin to look out for this Friend that he may now do for you according to what he put you in hope he would do and when you have enquired after him and now have such great need of help you find the man is dead So if you are not partakers of this Freedom by Christ hope what you will it will come to nothing and therefore what the Apostle tells the people of God they should not do I tell you that are not the people of God that you should do it Heb. 10. 35. He saith they must by no means cast away their confidence But oh Sirs you that are out of Christ must by all means cast away yours you must throw it out for a cast-away and if you don't make that a cast-away that will help to cast away you What a slave to sin and yet hope to enjoy the Priviledges and Happiness of them that are made Free by Christ Away with it In this Sense I pray with all my heart that God Almighty would bring you to final desperation What sinner dost thou think to live by a dead Hope Obj. But how do you prove that my Hope is a dead Hope Answ I will tell thee but even in three words 1. Because the Scripture calls it no Hope Eph. 2. 12. As a dead man is as good as no man so a dead Hope is no Hope 2. Because 't is not a Hope to which God hath begotten thee thou hast given thy self this Hope but the living Hope is that which God hath given to his people by begetting of them to himself by causing them to be born again 1 Pet. 1. 3. 3. Because it doth not bring forth any purifying fruits thou keepest thy Hope and keepest thy sins too thy Hope and Holiness do not go together thou canst allow thy self in ways of wickedness and mindest not a being like to God Whereas 't is otherwise with them that have the living Hope they purifie themselves as he is pure 1 Joh. 3. 3. 8. One thing more briefly about this Freedom by Christ as to another name by which 't is called serving to set out the excellency of it and that is 't is called the Blessing of God Now that 's a precious things indeed What 's all that we have if we have not Gods Blessing with it Why 't is his Blessing that keeps us from his curse when God intended the greatest good to Abraham he summed it up in this I will bless thee Gen. 12. 2. And so when you wish the greatest mercy to others you pray that God would bless them his blessing is the comfort of every Calling of every Relation of every Condition Why now this Freedom by Christ is Gods blessing See Acts 3. ult Vnto you first God having raised up his Son Jesus sent him to bless you in turning away every one of you from his iniquities And therefore all that I shall say upon it is this That if you have not this Freedom by Christ you 'l never have Gods blessing and therefore you 'l have Gods curse that will be your Portion I grant that in some sense you may be said to have his blessings that is you may have outward mercies in which respect God said he would bless Ishmael himself tho he were the Son of the Bondwoman Gen. 17. 20. But he may bless you thus and yet you may be cursed for ever and so you will be if Christ doth not make you Free And oh Sirs what a dreadful thing will it be to lye under the curse of God to eternity Do you think you are strong enough to bear such a load as this is World without end You may see some inkling of it now what a dreadful thing this curse is if God doth but let fall a drop of it upon a great Estate how it moulders or upon any person for his wickedness what a forlorn Creature he becomes as Cain Why this is a thing that will dry one up to the roots as the Fig-tree when Christ cursed it immediatly it whithered away But what then will it be in Hell where it shall be in its full force But as for them who are interested in this Freedom by Christ I may say to them as in Psal 115. 15. You are blessed of the Lord which made heaven and earth CHAP. VI. Concerning the Excellency of the person by whom this Freedom was performed TO the Second The excellency of this Freedom will appear if we consider the excellent person by whom it was performed You have already heard that this Freedom comes by Christ and Christ is an excellent person indeed he is