Selected quad for the lemma: christian_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
christian_n	day_n	great_a	sabbath_n	1,394	5	9.4960	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A77983	Four books on the eleventh of Matthew: viz: I. Christ inviting sinners to come to him for rest. II. Christ the great teacher of souls that come to him. To which is added a treatise of meekness and of anger. III. Christ the humble teacher of those that come to him. IIII. The only easie way to heaven. By Jeremiah Burroughs, preacher of the Gospel at Stepny and Cripple-Gate, London.	Burroughs, Jeremiah, 1599-1646.; Goodwin, Thomas, 1600-1680.	1659 (1659)	Wing B6072_pt3-4; Wing B6116_PART; Thomason E965_1; ESTC R207640	203,123	309

of ease As now it is a great deale of toyl for one that neglects his accounts he is not ready but his accounts are intangled if he be called to give a perfect account it is a great deal of toyl to him but now let a man get over the difficulty and make all his accounts cleer now for him every day to keep his Books streight and cleer this wil not be so great a trouble This is the difference between one Christian and another for all the world one that shall take his pleasure all the week long and ride this way and the other way and neglects his Books and but one day in the week will look them over he wil have a great deal of trouble and it wil break his head somtimes when he hath multitude of business But now the other Merchant looks into his Books every day spends half an hour or a quarter of an hour every day and he goes on with a great deal of cheerfulness So it is with many Christians they think on the Lords day they must have their hearts in a good frame and temper but all the week they have no thoughts of God and of the word and now when the Sabbath comes or Sacrament and holy duties come they are burdensome to them whereas another that keeps his heart in a holy frame he rejoyceth in the Sabbath for he hath had a Sabbath day frame of heart all the week long Luther saith a Christians life should be a perpetuall Sabbath And that is the second means to facilitate every good work 3. Another is this Labor to inflame your hearts with love unto the Duty Do not do duties because you must do them but use all the means that you can for to kindle in you a love unto the duty never satisfie your selves with this I see I must do duty Conscience puts me upon duty therefore I must do it so it may be burdensom but labor to use all arguments you can to make you in love with the duty A Schollar that is in love with his Book will not cry when he goes to the School and especially if he delight in it and be in love with his Master there is many that are put to go to School that dare not go Oh their Father will be angry and their Master wil be severe if they should not learn and so they learn but with much ado they had rather do any thing in the world than go to School neither love their Books nor love their Master and so seldom come to any eminence of learning Love takes away all difficulty love is ashamed to complain of difficulty at any time as now take a man that loves recreation that loves that kind of sport of hunting or hawking if he love it he wil be running in the dirt all the day long though it be a hot day run over hedg and ditch whereas now if such a man had not a love to such a thing but were injoyned to such a thing that you must all the day from morning to night eate not a bit of bread but all the day long run after doggs over hedg and ditch and through waters it would take away the love that such a one should have in his sports and what a miserable bondage would this be so it is in the waies of God let there be love to the waies of God then whatever difficulty there may seem to be in them it is taken away presently love to the person of Jesus Christ will take away the difficulty of the waies of Christ you know when Jacob loved Rachel he cared not how long he served for her the hard nights were not hard to him Love God and love Christ and then his waies will not be difficult 4. Another rule is this do not loose your incouragements that that you have had from what good God doth bestow upon you and inable you to do take heed of loosing that incouragement many Christians are altogether looking upon what they ought to do what God requires of them to do and because they have had not yet attained unto what they ought to do and what is required of them to do therefore they find no incouragement from what the Lord hath already bestowed upon them what the Lord hath already inabled them to do they wholly neglect that and never think of it they think of what they want and what they should have and what they should do and so they are labouring to get what they should have and to do what they should do but for what God hath inabled them to do already or what God hath given them already that they do not think of and for want of those incouragements they make their endeavours for the getting of more to be burdensome to them but now when we are endeavouring to do more we should go on in the strength of this incouragement Oh blessed be God for any little You shal have Christians thinking of what they should do and therefore they think all the grace they have is nothing Oh! say they that which I have done what is it It is true if we were looked upon in the way of the Covenant of works it is nothing but in the way of the Covenant of Grace it is a great deal now that wil be a great ease to your souls labour to get more and do more for God but stil carry along with you the incouragement of what God hath done for you when you pray for any grace bless God for any grace you have Take notice of al the incouragement that God doth give you and that will help you to go on in any further work that God calls you unto and the want of this makes the lives of many Christians to be very greivous and burdensome unto them because they neglect those incouragements they might have from what God hath inabled them to do and from what God hath done already for them 5. Take heed of lying in the guilt of any sin I meane though in respect of God the guilt is taken away from beleevers but of lying so in any sin as not to cleer up all between God and your soul for the discharge of it of having any thing not cleered up in your own consciences take heed of lying in any sin unrepented of that is my meaning every sin that a man commits excepting those daily incursions and infirmities of the Saints which they cannot while they are here in the flesh be altogether without but every other sin it is as a thorne at least a thorn ●n the foot every sin that a man hath committed by strength of temptation it is a thorn in the foot and if it be a greater sin it is a gash in his flesh Now a man that hath a thorn in his foot he cannot go very fast but especially if he have a gash in his flesh when thou hast been overcome with a great sin thou hast given a great gash unto

humbled for our sins in an evangelical way as wel as performe duty in an evangelical way Now evangelical humiliation it is a sorrow for sin not that we might purchase p●●don for that sorrow as we must not perform a duty to think to purchase Heaven neither must we sorrow for sin to think to satisfie for sin and to purchase pardon for our sin but our very sorrow for sin must have a sweetness from Christ in it it must be out of love our very mourning must be a fruit of love and not come from the fear of being destroyed eternally for such sins that is legal sorrow I have sinned against God and therefore am afraid that God will destroy me eternally and therefore I am sorry No but I have sinned against the Lord a gracious and a merciful Father and the Lord yet hath made a Covenant with me that he will not take advantage of my sin that he will not destroy me and therefore my soul mourns and laments the rather for my sin that I have sinned so much against the grace of the Gospel as I have done Sorrow evangelically and then your sorrow wil have more sweetness in it then all the joy that the men of the world have when all their Corn and Wine and Oyl is encreased not only when God lifts up the light of his countenance but even the very sorrow of your heart for sin may have more sweetness in it then all the men of the world have when their Corn and Wine and Oyl encreaseth Many Christians have much bitterness in their sorrow but certainly Evangelical sorow the tears of it is Rose water that hath a great deal of sweetness it is sweet both unto God and sweet unto the soul even while the soul is sorrowing there is sweetness in the heart and this is the difference between legal terror and Evangelical sorrow the one hath nothing but bitterness and gal in it and the other nothing but sweetness That is the first thing Secondly Another way to facilitate and make easie that we do is this Labor to keep our hearts in a constant readiness and preparation to every duty Duties are very hard because we fall upon them unprepared we are not in a readiness continually unto every good work you know when you are set about any work and if you have many things to prepare and to look for when you should go about your work it will go off but heavily and it will be more troublesom but now when every thing is prepared in a readiness then how soon and how easie doth the work go on when you are going to Sea there is making a great deal of preparation aforehand now when the Ship is rigged and trimmed every thing ready then you are at an instant able to put off and set saii and go away when al things are ready you go off with ease If you would entertain Guests if they come upon you suddenly and you have nothing ready what a deal of stir is in the house what running up and down this way and that way but now if things be ready when they come they are entertained with a great deal of delight and all things in the house are in order and things go off very easily and there is no trouble in it Truly thus it should be with a Christian he should not only perform duties now and then but his life should be a constant walking with God so that he should be alwaies in readiness for every duty that God requires of him so it comes to be easie As now for the duty of Prayer you should keep your hearts in a praying frame continually and then prayer would be easie it would be an easie thing for you to pour forth your souls to God when you keep your hearts in a praying frame all the day long It may be when you go to prayer you find a great deal of trouble within you your thoughts wander and your affections are dead and dul and you rise up discouraged But what is the reason you do not keep your heart all the day long in a praying frame in a heavenly temper and frame in the day time and therefore when you come to pray at night there is no readiness in your hearts to the duty but you are altogether indisposed to it And so to come unto the Sacrament you find it a great labor and toyl to prepare for the Sacrament as you should I speak of those that make conscience of preparation many times they find it a mighty toyl a hard work I but Christians should keep themselves alwaies in a Sacramental disposition a Sacramental frame alwaies having their spirits savoring of the meditation of the death of Jesus Christ that nothing should be more familiar to a Christians Soul than the meditation of the death of Christ and of discerning the Lords Body and the Covenant of grace and giving it self likewise to God in a Covenant of grace this should be continually and then if you should receive the Sacrament every day you might be fit for it or every week you would be fit for it Now People think it a great matter and make a great deal of do about receiving of it often whereas the truth is the Saints of God they should be in as great a readiness to receive the Sacrament as to hear the word or to pray and that would be a mighty ease unto them therefore if things were as they should certainly it would be more convenient to have it more ordinary and constant every Lords day the Sacrament The Christians in the primitive times would receive it every day in the year and they kept their heart in readiness to such kind of duties let it be what work it wil be You should be patient in affliction if affliction come upon you and your heart is not in a readiness to alter your condition Oh! it wil be a grievous burden to exercise patience it wil be a hard thing for you now you should keep your hearts ready for every condition that is the true work of grace in the Soul to keep the soul in a constant bent Godward and that Soul wil do things very easily Somtimes you have much ado with your children when strangers come to keep them in good order the reason is you neglect them at other times and that is the reason that they trouble you when strangers come but keep them in a good order at all times and then you wil have them right at those times So it is with the heart keep the heart prepared and ready to every good work and then every work wil be easie Object But you wil say That is a great deal of toyl and labor to keep our hearts alwaies bent and ready to good works To that I answer at first it may be some labor and toyl but those that have once got their hearts into a readiness find it not so hard but have a great deal

will prove to be a snare to you God requires it not it may be that day that you would observe for one duty God may require it for another duty may be you will keep a day of fast for such a great deliverance for such a great mercy certainly it may prove a snare unto you God may call you to another duty on that day to the duty of thanksgiving Many will vow to keep such a day and when they have vowed it they know not how to go back And so many will vow they will do so much every morning and so much that day this may bring a snare upon you labor to do all what you can for Christ all the day long consider your duties and lay the word upon you but to put upon your selves that which Christ puts you not upon it is that that makes the duties of Religion very tedious and many have done it that way not foreseeing the inconveniences that may come upon it and yet they dare not go back Therefore I would rather advise Christians to take heed of such things as those are but to walk in the way of Christ according to that the Lord requires for the present and not to bring themselves into a snare and so they shal make the way of God more easie 9. Another Rule is this Take all advantages take all opportunities and advantages all the gales of Gods Spirit do not neglect the opportunities you have the neglect of opportunities may bring us to woful difficulties As in voyages if a ●arriner neglect the opportunity of the gale of wind it is a difficult voyage and then he cries out I may thank my self for all this had I taken such an opportunity such a wind then I had been freed from this hardship that now I meet withall So it is with a Christian many times the spirit of God comes with a gracious gale and gives them opportunity to go on with cheerfulness in the waies of God hadst thou taken the opportunity the gale of the spirit Oh what a deal of trouble mightest thou have avoided Those that are watchful for al opportunities find the waies of God easie It was the speech of Alexander because he carried things so easie as he did in a little time conquered al the world when it was asked him how he could do so great things and carry on things with so great ease his answer was by neglecting nothing he meant by neglecting no advantage There are many men that when God helps them a little they carry the work on with ease but then they do not follow on their work and so they bring themselves into streights As now we cry out of these wars what a great deal of trouble they put the Nation to and one main thing is for want of taking advantages and following advantages We say somtimes Oh if such a victory had been followed such a victory that we had at Brainford and York and other places we might have delivered our selves from abundance of trouble and tediousness of war but when God gives advantages and we do not follow them no marvel that we find trouble So it is with many Christians you find many troubles in Religion Oh it is because you do not follow your advantages if you had ever since you were young and ever since God revealed himself to you followed the gale of Gods spirit your old age might have been spent in nothing but gales of joy comfort and the like but now no marvel you act with so much difficulty in the waies of God 10. Another Rule is this Preserve all your experiences that you have had of the goodness of Gods waies when your hearts have been most enlarged and you have walked most close with God and God hath come in to your soul Preserve those experiences keep them by that they may help you against an il day it may there be may be a time a coming that you may be in spirituall desertion and that may be grievous to you but if you had kept the experiences you had of God when your heart kept close to God it would much help you sweeten your hearts to think of the daies of old As David when he was in desertion he would many times be thinking of the daies of old So if Christians would be very careful to observe and lay up all the experiences that they have of God and his waies the sweet and good of them it would mightily facilitate them in holy duties and be a continuall Cordial to them and put spirits into them to make them go on with ease in any duty God requires of them 11. Another Rule is this Take heed in any duty of disturbing passion the disturbance of passion puts people ou● of frame that they are fit for nothing when they are passionate passionate with God passionate with men because they cannot have what they would have fling up all As Children that when they cannot have their desires fling a way all this makes every thing hard but if you could but keep your selves in a constant quietness you should have every condition and every duty delightful but I have spoken of that you know of the evil effects of it and of meekness the gracious effects of that but I bring it only now as a rule that you may present all these rules together As now suppose a company that are in a Boat and there cometh a strong wind and tosseth the Boat you shall have some silly people that wil be shriking out and mightily troubled and through their passion will be rising up in the Boat and be ready to tumble down all through their passionate carriage in the Boat whereas those that have skil wil sit stil and be quiet and give up themselves to the stream and that is the best way to come with the greatest ease you make the Boatmans labor so much the more d●fficult by your unquietness in the Boat So certainly you make the work of God more difficult when your hearts are unquiet Let the thing be what it wil you wil say Oh no bodies condition is so as mine Certainly your unquietness will not help you you wil not come the sooner to your landing place if people toss from one side of the Boat to the other and be unruly in their carriage they wil not come the sooner to their landing place the quieter they sit in the Boat the sooner they will come to land So it is in a Christians course he must not think to come to have his desires satisfied by his froward carriage to be angry with God or man or the means that they do not work as they would have them but the quieter they sit and give up themselves to God the sooner they come to their desires 12. Another Rule is this Communion with the Saints spirituall Communion Heavenly Communion not frothy Communion but a spiritual holy gracious communion with the Saints wil facilitate the waies