Selected quad for the lemma: book_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	time_n	world_n	write_v	2,689	5	5.2806	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A88141	Elias redivivus: a sermon preached before the honorable House of Commons, in the parish of Saint Margarets West minster, at the publike fast, March 29, 1643. By John Lightfoote, preacher of the Gospel at Bartholomew Exchange, London.	Lightfoot, John, 1602-1675.	1643 (1643)	Wing L2053; Thomason E99_11; ESTC R20324	33,230	56

pray on the Lords day and to pray on other dayes and it is to be a maine petition on this solemne day of humiliation that as the Lord hath put the Spirit of Elias into your hearts so that he would put the Power of Elias into your hands that as he hath made you willing so would he also make you able to turne the hearts of the Fathers to the children and the disobedient to the wisedome of the Righteous The words of the text are the last words of the old Testament there uttered by a Prophet here expounded by an Angell there concluding the Law and here beginning the Gospell Behold saith Malachi Mal. 4. 5. I will send you Eliah the Prophet And hee saith the Angell shall goe before him in the Spirit and power of Elias And hee shall turne the hearts of the Fathers to the children saith the one And to turne the hearts of the fathers to the children saith the other Thus sweetly and neerely should the two Testaments joyne together and thus divinely would they kisse each other but that the wretched Apocrypha doth thrust in betweene Like the two * Cherubims in the Temple Oracle as with their outer-wings they touch the two sides of the house from In the beginning to Come Lord Jesus so with their inner they would touch each other the end of the law with the beginning of the Gospell did not this patchery of humane invention divorce them a funder It is a thing not a little to be admired how this Apocrypha could ever get such place in the hearts and in the Bibles of the Primitive times as to come to sit in the very Center of them both But to this wonderment there may be some satisfaction given namely because that these bookes came to them from among the Jewes as well as the old Testament and the new And because that the Jewes alone and alone so long had had the knowledge of Divinity and Religion among them the converted Gentiles could not but give their writings extraordinary esteeme And because the Talmud not being yet written the world was not acquainted with the vanity and straine of Jewish learning those insuspecting times did swallow these bookes as not tasting as yet how unsavoury that was nor distinguishing these to be of the same tast It is therefore more to be admired that when the Talmud was written and the impious and ridiculous doctrines and fables of the Jewish schooles laid open to the world that then these bookes which shew themselves to be of the very same stampe in many things should not onely not be refused out the Bibles and out mens good conceit but also get better and further footing in the same but to this wonderment some satisfaction also may be given namely that superstition begun then to grow in the Church every day more and more and it became a Religion to doe as their forefathers had done before and to retaine what they had retained be it whatsoever it would and of what ungroundlesnesse soever But it is a wonder to which I could never yet receive satisfaction that in Churches that are reformed that have shaken off the yoke of superstition and unpinned themselves from off the sleeve of former customes or doing as their ancestors have done yet in such a thing as this and of so great import should doe as first ignorance and then superstition hath done before them It is true indeed that they have refused these bookes out of the Canon but they have reserved them still in the Bible as if God should have cast Adam out of the state of happinesse and yet have continued him in the place of happinesse Not to insist upon this which is some digression you know the Counsell of Sarah concerning Ismael and in that she outstripped Abraham in the Spirit of Prophecy Cast out the bond-woman and her sonne for the sonne of the bond-woman may not be heire with the sonne of the free In the words of the text you may see your owne worke and taske and those two things that you have so long laboured under and that we have so long longed after Reconciliation and Reformation You may behold in a part of the text Reconciliation in these words To turne the hearts of the fathers to the Children and Reformation in the other and the disobedient to the wisedome of the just These are the two hands of our master which is in heaven or rather the two good things in his hands after which we his servants have looked so long and doe looke this day and cannot be taken off till he give them to us These are the hands of your two Houses or rather the two great gifts which we wait till God put into your hands to conveigh them towards us These are the two pillars Jachin Boaz Firmenesse and Strength that we long to see set up at the doore of that Temple that you are in building And these are the two twins for which the Tamar of our England is in travaile and is pained to be delivered if there be but strength to bring them forth These two things contained in the latter part of the text are set forth and illustrated by two circumstances in the former First by the party and the function of that party that must performe so great a worke those included in these words He shall goe before him Secondly the qualifications and indowments of that party for the function and for the worke that expressed in these In the Spirit and power of Elias The party rare the function honourable his indowments singular his worke divine He shall goe before him c. We will take up the words according to this Division but not according to this order for as in nature the agent is before the action and as in the text the workeman is named before the worke so are they fit to be considered and so will we take them into our handling and so shall we take them as they lie in the text and first of the first He shall goe before him Who are meant by the He and the him in this part of the text the dimmest eye that is will easily judge and discerne upon its owne reading namely John the Baptist and our Saviour Christ Two that were in a very neere relation one to another by nature for they were kinsmen according to the flesh but of a neerer and of a higher relation in regard of their function for they were they that began the Gospell or the one begun the other perfected they were they that were the two great Prophets of the new Testament or the one greater then a Prophet and the other greater then a man I cannot omit that which is not nor cannot be omitted by any expositor it is so plaine upon the him in this part namely that in the verse next before he is called the God of Israel He shall turne many of the Children to

the Lord their God and in this verse and in this whole passage hee is shewed to be Christ of whom is spoken which giveth a pregnant and undeniable proofe that Christ is God against the wicked Arius that held him for a Creature The Baptist went before our Saviour in divers particulars in his conception in his birth in his preaching in his death For the miraculous conception and birth of John went before the more miraculous conception and birth of Christ his powerfull Preaching before the others more powerfull and his renowned death before the others more renowned But the words doe not meane so much his going before him in time as his going before him in Ministery nor his appearing before him in the world as his appearing before him to do him service as a servant doth before his Master to provide for his entertainement and so the words following doe explaine it He shall goe before him To make ready a people prepared for the Lord And so the seventy Disciples are said to be sent before our Saviour two and two before his face that is to prepare men for his receiving against that he himselfe should come All the Prophets went before our Saviour in their Ministery in their divers generations but John in a more speciall manner above them all They like Balaam in the foure and twentyeth of Numbers did behold him but not now did foretell him but not neere but he beheld him face to face and he told of him standing by And hence it is that our Saviour cals him more then a Prophet Mat. 11. 9. nay as much or more then any meere man that was naturally borne of a woman More then a Prophet because he went before Christ as his forerunner and as great as any that was ever borne because he was the beginner of the Gospell The Ministery of John the Baptist and the publishing of the Gospell like time and the motion of the heavens began together and in one and the same instant So hath Marke conjoyned them in the very beginning of the Gospell Mark 1. 1. The beginning of the Gospell of Jesus Christ As it is written in the Prophets Behold I send my messenger before thee So likewise in the first of the Acts and the two and twenty Peter proposing a Disciple to be chosen in stead of Judaas Of these men saith he which have companyed with us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us beginning from the Baptisme of John And so in the tenth chapter of the same booke of the Acts and the thirtie seventh The word you know which was published throughout all Judea and began from Galilee after the Baptisme which John preached And one place for all Mat. 11. 13. All the Prophets and the Law Prophesied untill John and from him began the Gospell So that what some of the Fathers say concerning Malachi That he was Limes Judeismi Christianismi we may not unfitly say concerning him that he was the bounds of Judaisme and Christianity the limits from whence the Law and the Prophets tooke their conclusion and the Gospell and the kingdome of Heaven their beginning Now as the ministery of John consisted of two distinct and considerable parts Preaching and Baptizing like as the gift of Prophecy had consisted in times before of a double spirit or to speake more properly of a double power of one and the same spirit to foretell things to come and to worke miracles so by both these did he begin the Gospell and by both these did he goe before our Saviour These were as it were the two hands with which he laid the foundation and began to build up the Fabricke of the Evangelicall Temple And these two hath Marke joyned together in his relation as John did in the exercise of his function Mar. 1. 4. John did Baptize in the Wildernesse and preach the Baptisme of Repentance By both these he began the Gospell and first by his Baptisme for First Baptisme was used in the times before and under the Law but it was to admit Proselytes to the religion of the Jewes But the Baptist now commeth with a Baptisme to admit the Jewes to another Religion besides their owne Jacob in Gen. 35. when he is to enter and admit the remnant of Sichem that escaped the sword into his family and Religion he doth it by Baptisme Put away saith he the strange Gods that are among you and be cleane and change your garments where by the second injunction Be cleane Aben Ezra well observeth is meant the washing of their bodies in water and indeed nothing else can so properly be meant which what was it else but a Baptizing And so Rambam or Maimonides in his Epitome of the Talmud relateth from thence that in the times of David and Solomon when Heathens came into the Jewes religion by thousands for a hundred three and fifty thousand of them helped to build the Temple they were admitted thereinto by Baptisme or by being washed and not by circumcision Thus was Baptisme used in * those ancient times and used to induct the Gentiles into the Church and Religion of the Jewes But now comes John with a baptisme of another ●nd namely to enter the Jewes into another Church and religion then their owne and so by his baptisme doth he begin the Gospell Secondly And so also did he by his preaching For whereas the law called for absolute and exact performance and cryed a curse on him that confirmed not all the words of the Law to doe them Deut. 27. 26. John commeth in another tenor like God in the still voyce and instead of challenging the strict performance of works he Preacheth the gentle doctrine of Repentance that whereas they could not do what the Law required they should repent for that they had broke the law and thus is the rigorous and terrible tenor of the law changed into the sweete and comfortable doctrine of Repentance and thus both by Baptizing and Preaching doth John begin the Gospell And so by both also did he goe before our Saviour By baptisme to admit men into Christ against he should come and by his Preaching to let Christ into men when as he came By his baptizing to make way for Christ his comming among men and by his Preaching to make way for men their comming unto Christ And so much is intimated by the words that next and immediately doe follow the text To make ready a people prepared for the Lord This might be taken onely for an elegancy such as the Scripture useth to quicken expressions by repetitions but it hath its proper vigour and significancy and in the two severall words denoteth the two distinct fruits of the ministery of the Baptist in her two parts His Baptisme to make men ready to looke for Christ that was now in comming and his Preaching to have them prepared for his receiving when hee came The observation that