Selected quad for the lemma: child_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
child_n	year_n	young_a	youth_n	706	4	8.2392	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A49757	Christ's power over bodily diseases Preached in several sermons on Mat. 8. 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13. And published for the instruction especially of the more ignorant people in the great dutie of preparation for sickness and death. By Edward Lawrence, M.A. minister of the gospel at Baschurch in the county of Salop.	Lawrence, Edward, 1623-1695.; Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.	1672 (1672)	Wing L653; ESTC R223651	140,079	330

Argument to press his following exhortation And now behold I know that you all among whom I have gone preaching the kindom of God shall see my face no more Oh people honour your Ministers children be instructed by your Parents whilst you have them for shortly you must see their faces no more Christians exhort one another daily whilst it is called to day For yet a little while and you shall see one anothers faces no more We finde that Saint Paul having exhorted Timothy to those great and necessary duties mentioned 2 Tim. 4.1 2 5. he presseth all with this melting motive vers 6. For I am now ready to be offered and the time of my departure is at hand as if he had said My dear son Timothy I am not like to counsel and instruct thee long therefore hearken to the counsel of thy dying father Paul Preach the word be instant in season out of season c. Sirs look upon your Ministers as dying Ministers and your Friends as dying Friends and labour to draw from these wells of life whilst they live for you little know what a loss you will have of them when they dye Fifthly believe and improve those precious Promises which God hath made for the preservation of your health and lives and in the use of means live by faith and prayer upon those gracious promises See Prov. 3.1 2 7 8. My son forget not my law but let thy heart keep my commandments For length of days and long life and peace shall they add unto thee vers 7 8. Fear the Lord and depart from evil It shall ●e health to thy navel and marrow to thy bones See also Prov. 4.20 21 22. Job 33.25 His flesh shall be fresher then a childes he shall return to the days of his youth Hence we often see that when a mans body is withered by sickness and baked like a potsherd he is restored by the blessing of God to such a good constitution and temper that his body becomes fresh like the flesh of a childe This is elegantly expressed by David Psal 103.5 Who satisfieth thy mouth with good things so that thy youth is renewed like the Eagles Some say that the Eagles at every ten years end cast off their old Feathers and are quickly cloathed again with new as if they began to be young again and so live till they be an hundred years old Some also write of this property in the Eagles that when by reason of old age they have the upper part of their Bills bending down so far below the lower that they are scarce able to feed and so languish with hunger that then they break their beaks upon a rock whereby being able to feed they grow to their former strength to which the translation in the singing Psalms seems to allude Like as the Eagle casts her bill Whereby her age renew'th Whether these and many other such relations of the wonderful properties of the Eagles be true is uncertain yet it 's generally received that they are Birds long-lived and for many years continue so healthful that they seem to grow young again And thus God often blesseth men with health and strength and long life that their strength is renewed like the Eagles and although that which we read of Moses was extraordinary that when he was an hundred and twenty years old his eye was not dim nor his natural force abated yet we often see many live to a great age with their health and strength and parts through Gods mercie continued youthful and fresh to them Now Sirs lay up these promises in your hearts and improve them by faith and prayer so they may be the better to you then the wholesomest dyet or best physick in the world Lastly use the means of health and life so as that the God of life may bless you in the use of them for this purpose make conscience of these four things First Of your food It is God that gives a blessing to this Exod. 23.25 He shall bless thy bread and thy water and I will take away sickness from the midst of thee Therefore pulse and water with Gods blessing made those conscientious Saints look and like better then others that were fed with royal dainties Dan. 1.15 Take then your food as it were out of the hands of God who openeth his hand and satisfieth the desire of every living thing Psal 145.16 and eat and drink as those that see a presence of God at your table Deut. 12.7 Ye shall eat before the Lord your God eat as those that therein seek to please and honour God Rom. 14.6 He that eateth eateth to the Lord and giveth God thanks I know these Scriptures intend particular occasions of eating yet they hold out upon the same reason our duty to eat and drink so as to do the will of God and to bring glory to him according to that 1 Cor. 10.31 Whether ye eat or drink or whatsoever ye do do all to the glory of God as God turns all to a Christians good so it 's the admirable property of grace to turn all to Gods glory A gracious heart can feed upon the goodness of God in and bring glory to God out of every morsel of meat that comes into his mouth Tertullian gives a very savoury relation of the Feasts of the primitive Christians Before saith he they sit down to taste their meat they first taste of prayer to God they eat so much as hunger requires and drink no more then is profitable for chaste and sober persons they are so filled as thereby fitted to worship God in the night they discourse at meat as those that know that God hears them and as they began so they conclude the meal with prayer and so they depart not as if they fed onely upon meat but also upon discipline and instruction I refer the learned Reader to his own words Apolog cap. 39. here is a most gracious example worthy of the imitation of all Christians Secondly make Conscience of your apparel let it be such as becomes a holy chaste humble member of Christ and not a proud vain wanton limb of the Devil let your garments be both wholesome and comely neither so immodest as to dishonour the Gospel of Christ nor sordid as to disgrace the Body of a Christian Thirdly make Conscience of lawful and seasonable recreations These are healthful for our bodies and when used in the fear and according to the Will of God do very much fit us for the most inward communion with him What Solomon saith of one kinde of labour is true of others that it is a weakness and weariness to the flesh Eccles 12.12 For as it weakens a bow to keep it always bent and mars the strings of an instrument to keep them always stretcht so it weakens the body to keep it too long bent to one imployment therefore it is Gods will that it should be remitted to its harmless inoffensive and honest

Christ So saith he 1 Cor. 15.32 I protest by your rejoycing which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord I die daily He was so acquainted with death that he made it his daily practice to put himself into a frame and posture to die and so many a Christian hath got such acquaintance with death by sickness that he lives in a continual frame and readiness to die besides his sickness makes him less fearful of men for he knows when they have killed the body they have no more that they can do they have done their worst which is no more then an ordinary disease can do and therefore as the Philosopher told the Tyrant when he threatned to kill him that a Fly could do that so Believers need not fear what men can do because they can do no more then a Fever Dropsie Consumption or any other disease can do and thus he is prepared by sickness for other afflictions End 16. To prepare them for great mercy Beloved sometimes mercies are more dangerous for Gods people then afflictions they are often worse in plenty then in poverty in credit then in disgrace more secure in health and ease then in pains and sickness This happens when our mercies are too big for our graces as when we have great credit and little humility or else when our outward mercies do most feed our inward corruptions as when riches do meet with a heart much inclined to covetousness and health and ease are given to a Christian who is apt to be idle and secure now therefore God melts his people in the Furnace of Affliction to prepare them to be vessels of mercy Hence we read Hebr. 12.11 That no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous but grievous nevertheless afterwards it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby As whilst a Childe is under the discipline of the Rod he receives the fruit of his dulness and idleness in the smarting of the Rod but afterwards he receives the fruit of his learning and education in honours and preferments So whilst Gods children are corrected with sickness and other afflictions they receive the bitter fruit of their sins of their pride frowardness security and creature-confidence c. and this is not for the present joyous but grievous but afterwards they reap the fruit of righteousness and holiness of faith fear love prayer c. and this is sweet and peaceable fruit we have a pertinent proof of this Psal 126.5 6. They that sow in tears shall reap in joy He that goeth forth and weepeth bearing precious seed shall doubtless come again with rejoycing bringing his sheaves with him As the Husbandman in a year of famine when corn is dear and seed scarce he sows he ventures it in the ground but he sows in tears he goes out with his seed weeping Ah thinks he this corn would have made so much bread for my poor wife and children or would have given so much money towards paying my rent Thus with a sad heart he sows his seed but when harvest comes and brings forth a plentiful crop then he reaps in joy and brings home his sheaves with singing shouting and rejoycing Thus it is with Gods childe in affliction as suppose in sickness his grief is great and his pains grievous yet he sows though it be in sorrow he believes in tears and hopes in tears and prays in tears well after comes the harvest of health and he reaps the fruit of faith hope and prayer and he goes about rejoycing and praising God and carrying his sheaves of mercy and comfort about with him Our Saviour speaks fully to this case Joh. 16.20 21. Ye shall be sorrowful but your sorrow shall be turned into joy A woman when she is in travel hath sorrow because her hour is come but as soon as she is delivered of the childe she remembreth no more the anguish for joy that a man is born into the world As a woman with childe when the hour of her travel is come is full of sorrow with the throws and pains of her travel but when she is delivered she forgets her sorrow and with a joyful heart falls a kissing and imbracing her childe So my Brethren when the hour of sickness or other affliction comes upon us we are full of sorrow with the pains and travels of our affliction but when we are delivered and see what mercy our affliction hath brought forth the joy and comfort of our graces and experiences and deliverances doth swallow up the sorrow of our affliction We have a special instance of the glorious chain of Gods wonderful Providence towards Joseph to confirm the truth in hand his afflictions lasted about thirteen years for he was seventeen years old when he visited his Brethren Gen. 37.2 and thirty years old when he was preferred in Pharaohs Court Gen. 41.46 Now in all this time his afflictions were sad he was parted from his tender father he was bought and sold after this unjustly defamed and imprisoned he was put like a Rogue in irons Psal 105.18 his afflictions were so great that the afflictions of Gods people were long after and ever will be to the end of the world called the afflictions of Joseph Amos 6.6 yet he was after all this raised up in great mercie and was made a blessed instrument to save the Church and Israel of God from perishing with famine We have another instance in Job I shall say no more of him but onely apply to his afflictions what the Apostle saith of his patience Ye have heard of the afflictions of Job and have seen the end of the Lord for as we read Job 42.12 The Lord blessed the latter end of Job David upon this ground incouraged himself in his afflictions because he believed a good issue out of them Psal 71.20 21. Thou which hast shewed me great and sore troubles shalt quicken me again and shalt bring me up again from the depths of the earth Thou shalt increase my greatness and comfort me on every side Consider further that sickness when sanctified exceedingly fits a man both for Spiritual and Temporal mercies for then a man comes out of sickness as one who is raised from the grave and so he is filled with the thoughts of death and eternity and this is a frame of heart which gives a kindly relish to all spiritual mercies this makes him taste God and Christ to be exceeding gracious in the likeness and enjoyment of whom he sees himself blessed and satisfied through all eternity And this also fits him for Temporal mercies for it teacheth him to use friends lands food and all his temporal injoyments for eternity he hereby learns to turn his treasures in earth into treasures in heaven This makes him at the will of God to leave father and mother and lands and life knowing that he shall receive the comfort of all in another world so he cheerfully gives to Christ in his members