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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	life_n	word_n	write_v	5,673	5	5.6270	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A42498	Three sermons preached upon severall publike occasions by John Gauden.	Gauden, John, 1605-1662.	1642 (1642)	Wing G373; ESTC R8318	68,770	144

perfection of happinesse which is the sight of God which what it is we shall best tell when we come to it I must now leave it to the worke of Gods Spirit in your devouter hearts to consider more largely and sublimely of this point Onely give me leave by way of conclusion to appeale to your piety wisedome and experience Whether the waies of holinesse be not worth the following which end in such happinesse as is beyond expressing Whether it be not a vanity folly and extreame madnesse for men and women that are built for eternity and capable of the highest good so much to neglect their soules their God and their happinesse by following their sins the worldly pleasures profits and honours with the neglect of holinesse The Devill the evill world and a mans owne corrupt heart will allow him to bee any thing so he be not holy let him bee rich and faire and strong and great and honourable and witty and eloquent and civill and politicke and knowing even in divine mysteries any thing so as hee bee not holy All these things as the Devill said to Christ will I give thee if thou wilt be unholy still and like my selfe Holinesse is that alone the Devill wants and despaires of himselfe and that he most envies us the sons of men because hee knowes it sets us in a way of happinesse so infinitely above him But what our Saviour said Matth. 8.22 to the young man that desired respite to bury his dead Father Let the dead bury the dead but follow thou me This give me leave to say to all you that heare me this day let dead hearts bury themselves in dead comforts dead honours dead pleasures dead hopes c. but follow thou Christ follow Holinesse I further appeale to the justice of your piety and goodnesse Whether the waies of holinesse and the followers of them deserve to be derided despised discountenanced discouraged so much as they are by the proud prophane sensuall and superstitious mindes of the world whether they which despise holinesse doe not withall despise their owne soules their God and Saviour whether they forsake not their owne mercies who follow lying vanities whether this be not to glory in our shame to be ashamed of that which is the glory of God and the reasonable creature Lastly I appeale to your royall wisedome and the rest of your Noble and Christian Prudence Piety Whether those that follow peace and Holinesse and are fitted to a capacity of seeing the great God and King of Heaven in his Glory be not also the worthiest and fittest to see the face and enjoy the favours of Christian Kings on earth These these are they that best know the duty honour and fidelity they owe to Majesty and make a conscience to pay it because it is a point of Holinesse so to doe These are the propugnacula munimenta regni Ecclesiae as was said of Saint Ambrose the strength honour and security of the Church and State under God and his Majesties care and pious providence These are in some sort the tutelares Genii protectors of his Majesties person health life Crowne Queene and posterity while they daily lift up pure hands and holy hearts to the God of Heaven for his Majesties safety honour and happinesse These are like Moses and Elias the Horsemen and Chariots of Israel these have power with God by their prayers counsells and good examples they stand in the gap and hinder the inundation of sin and judgements To these we owe under God the enjoyment of our peace plenty safety and Religion and of the blessing of blessings temporall a pious and gratious Prince O then let not Holinesse I beseech you bee banished as I beleeve it is not from your hearts your words your houses your lives from your favour and good opinion from your service nor from your Court Let there not be wanting in this place Iosephs and Mordecays and Nehemiahs and Daniels men in whom is the Spirit of the holy God as that Heathen Prince said of Daniel There is a Booke called The holy Court which might be usefull to Courtiers if it were not unsafe being larded with many false and frivolous opinions and superstitious practises It will bee your honour and happinesse to act what he sought to write O follow not sinne and vanity or strife and contention or lubricity and impurity or vaine-glory c. these will cast you out from the presence of God and betray you to utter darknesse And what considerate minde can with patience thinke of being ever separated from the fountaine of its being life and happinesse O what infinite darknesse necessity and horror must for ever oppresse that soule Holinesse only is that divine magnetick power which drawes the soule to God and God to the soule never quiet till it be united to the fountaine its vertue I know your piety cannot but consider oft and seriously That the greatest of you will be one day like Sampson when his fatall haire was cut weak and impotent and like other men your eyes blinded your great strength departed the chaines of darknesse will involve you the wormes will be your fetters and the grave your prison O while you live follow holinesse that when you die as Sampson did you may quite destroy those enimies which living you could not that death may be an end of your sinne and mortality but the beginning and consummation of your endlesse happinesse in the sight of God That when the eyes of your bodies shall be shut to this world and all things desirable here the eye of your soule that rationall and eternall eye may be opened to see and enjoy God and reigne with Christ for ever That you and we though in different degrees may then receive that Crowne of immortall glory which is free from cares and crosses from feares and jealousies from sleep and soule-breaking distractions but full of a divine and constant glory serenity joy and eternall security Amen A SERMON PREACHED BEFORE THE IVDGES AT CHELMSFORD ZECH. 8.16 These are the things yee shall doe speake yee every man the truth to his Neighbour execute the judgement of truth and peace in your Gates THE Customary solemnity of publike Assise and administration of Justice hath not more of state and policy than of safety and piety in this That not only the gentry and commons but your wisedome and gravity Right Honourable and Reverend disdaine not to receive advice from the Pulpit before you goe to the Bench and hear Gods charge to you before you give your charge to others Hereby not so much to conciliate a greater reverence and authority to your persons and proceedings by amusing the minds of the populacy and awing their consciences with the pompe and formality of religion as those Heathen Law-givers Solon Lycurgus Numa and others are said to have done but seriously and in the feare of God to ascend with Moses first to the Mount and talke

of peace David in his prayer and blessing to his son King Solomon joynes these two Give the King thy judgements O Lord and thy righteousnesse to the Kings Son and that Hee shall rule the people with equity and the poore with judgement Then the Mountaines subordinate Magistrates and Judges and the little Hils inferiour Officers shall bring peace to the people by righteousnesse Hee must bee Melchisedec King of righteousnesse that will bee Melchisalem King of peace 3 There is a third Peace that results from the judgement of Truth as the crowne and greatest reward of the Iudge That is the inward peace and serenity of his owne conscience witnessing to him that as hee is in the stead of God so hee judgeth as God would judge according to his will and law which is the rule of Truth and Justice and the way of peace and happinesse This Peace is so pretious to a good man that hee will choose to lose all rather than this which is the soules immediate and inward enjoyment of it selfe and God The fruition of which as it passeth all understanding so the losse of it passeth all the skill and favour of the world to repaire or recompence it An Vnjust Iudge cannot but condemne himselfe Prima est haec ultio quod se Iudice nemo nocens absolvitur Hee becomes his owne Accuser Witnesse Judge and Executioner For where Astraea Justice dwels not in the conscience Nemesis Revenge will Occultum quatiente animo tortore flagellum His soule must needs be filled with a fearfull expectation of vengeance and the judgement to come 3 Execute it when you have judiciously considered what is Truth and tending to Peace Declare it pronounce it publikely Magistratus est lex loquens Judges are ora linguae publicae Plebis Regis Legis Dei the publike Oracles to declare the will of the State the Law the King and God To what purpose is finding out of true judgement if you doe not dare not speake out or speak otherwise than you judge in your selves Procaciùs peccant qui maturiùs quasi ex consilio Knowing and not declaring and doing justice is the aggravation of injustice It is a calamitous time as Hezekiah said When children are come to the birth and there is not strength to bring them forth There must not bee only a Conception of what is true and just and then {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} an abortive judgement smothered and stifled in the breast of the Judge by silencing or suspending the sentence nor yet must it bee strangled and oppressed unnaturally as the Egyptian Tyrant did the Israelites infants after it is pronounced by diverting or perverting the sentence but there must bee an execution of it which is the soule and life of Justice and gives a quickening and animation to the Lawes Law as our learned Hooker tels us is a directive rule to the goodnesse of operation both in nature polity and religion What are Lawes in your books or brests if not put in execution The not executing the penalty of the Lawes upon offenders is the execution of the Lawes themselves and renders them cadaverosae Leges dead and breathlesse carcases It is the breath of the Iudge in a right and powerfull sentence which must blast the wicked and unjust and revive and renew the face and force of the Lawes of Justice and of good men Potentia est legis asylum Law and Justice hath its last recourse to Power for the executing Forcibly as Ioh and David pulling the prey out of the teeth of the lyon and breaking the jawes of the oppressor Restoring the oppressed and molested to his liberty right and quiet Commanding and inflicting condigne punishment on the purse or person of offenders If need bee and the publike good require it not only pruning and lopping off the branches and armes of luxuriant and spreading wickednesse by restraining the liberty by withdrawing the sap and nutriment of estate and meanes but cutting off those noxious weeds and thornes from the land of the living and utter extirpation of those that are Telluris inutile pondus Why cumber they the ground And this ne pars sincera trabatur not with more justice than mercy and gentlenesse lest connivence remissenesse and impunity spread the contagion to parts as yet found and untainted Quid enim tam iniquum quàm ut desertori boni bene sit What is more unjust than that it should bee well with him who hath left off to doe well What more just than that evill of suffering should light on evill doers But how must it bee executed 1 Couragiously and resolutely Iethro in the character of a Judge requires this in the first place That hee bee a man of Truth and Courage That feares God and none besides Not the face of man whose breath is in his nostrils The feare of man is a snare Qui fortis non est facilè ad injustè faciendum vincitur qui justus non est facilè ad imbecillitatem cogitur Iustice and fortitude as Twins grow together A weak and timorous man will easily bee unjust and like a Kite scared from the prey which the law hath justly seised on A just generous minded Judge will no more remit his judgement and the execution of it where the Law hath laid hold on a malefactor than the Lyon which the Prophet speaks of will quit his prey or abase himselfe for the multitude of shepherds gathered against him For this would bee as fatall to him as Ahabs letting Benhadad goe in peace or the Prophet not smiting when hee was commanded by the word of the Lord The blow and judgement as well as the crime and offense will light on himselfe for hee becomes guilty of what hee leaves unpunished The malefactor escapes lives continues to sin at the charge and hazard of the Judges soule 2 Freely For love of justice truth God and the publike good Parum est justitiam facere nisi diligas The motions of Justice must bee like the Heavens {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} by inward principles not like mils and mechanick Engines that stir not but by force of winds waters and weight and hands by hopes promises or gifts In execution of justice it must not bee as in scenes of masques and pageants where things seeme of themselves gently to slide from heaven when indeed there are secret devices and inventions of Art that violently though cunningly move them The light of the Sun the liberty of heaven the day and ayre should not bee more cheap and free than justice Though an Advocate may sell his pleading and a Counsellor his counsell yet a Judge may not the execution of Iudgement Justice is a debt they owe to men Hee cannot bee just that must bee hired to pay his debts A purchased sentence though just is unjustly sold Gifts doe blinde the eyes of the wise Hee that