Selected quad for the lemma: church_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
church_n	according_a	faith_n	rule_n	3,567	5	6.8625	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A44864	David's labour and rest, or, A discourse on Acts XIII, v. 36 preached at the funeral of Mr. Richard Shute, the late Most Reverend Pastor of the congregation of Stow-Market in Suffolk : together with some memorable remarques upon the deceased, for the benefit and use of that parish / by Samuel Hudson ...	Hudson, Samuel, 17th cent.	1689 (1689)	Wing H3264; ESTC R4246	15,092	32

revealed to us Things revealed belong to us We must not guide our selves by our unruly Fancies or make our own blind turbulent passions our Rule Or that which some call Conscience thô never so misguided or a Light within them for this is to be regulated by the Rule of God's Word and Will else there will be so many Rules as there are misguided Consciences in the World. David did not make God's secret Will the Rule of his Agency For how could that be a rule for him which was kept secret from him nor did he run to any infallible Judge or the determinations of the Church to make that his rule of Faith or Life But what God had clearly manifested to him and to us his Sacred Oracles are our Rule so many as walk according to this Rule Peace be on them Gal. 6.16 If every Market-Town had a divers Standard for weights and measures who could know what were the Standard of the Nation Doubtless the Word of God is a certain infallible and sufficient Rule else Christ was not faithful in his Prophetick Office. May this be our practice in all matters of Faith and Life Take we a right rule and if in matters ritual and circumstantial and what not forbidden we quietly submit to the prudence of our Superiours we shall not easily erre And had this method been observed God knows it had ended many of our unchristian and uncharitable dissentions But when Men make their own will good meaning private opinion good intention or prejudiced education the rule of their Agency and judge that their hands can only stay the tottering Ark no wonder that the Church falls into endless rents and miserable fractions Activity without understanding like mettle in a blind Horse exposes the Rider to greater hazards or like mettle in a restife Jade apt to run away with the Rider Be we careful then not to mistake our rule nor be seduced by those who pretend to be infallible Rule-makers or guided only by a light within Thirdly Which leads me to the last considerable the Issue and Event David c. fell asleep And they who walk by David's Rule may expect the like issue Sad news doubtless to all Israel when holy David who had fought Israels Battels brought back the Ark settled them in peace and guided them by the skilfulness of his hand shall fall asleep which must not be understood of perishing but as elsewhere was gathered to his Fathers or Reversus in paradisum returned home to God. I read not that he staid at Limbo in the way until prayed out by the Charity of surviving Friends But here observe with me First That death to a good Man is but a Sleep and as sleep Rev. 13. 1. Gives rest and a cessation from labours and toils it is requies et medicina laborum So those who sleep in Jesus Eccles 5.12 rest from their labours Again 2. It gives Refreshment especially after hard labours The sleep of the labouring man is sweet The more serviceable in Life the more refreshing the Sleep of Death Not like the affrighting sleep of condemned Malefactors or a Man in a Frenzy who start in their sleep And 3. As they who sleep awake again so those who sleep in Jesus when they hear the sound of the Trumpet and the voice of the Son of Man shall awake and be raised up again as to their bodies 1 Cor. 15. And this corruptible shall put on incorruption God will be no mans Debtor nor unfaithful to forget our work and labour of Love. Those very bodies which have been the Souls Instrument in faithful Services to God shall not be unrewarded in another World. But 2. No serviceableness to God in our Generation here can exempt from Death For David fell asleep This is the common lot of the Faithful as well as slothful Some wear out with Work others moulder in Rust and inactivity Moses who received the Tables from the Mouth of God gave Statutes and Judgments to Israel and brought them to the borders of the Land of Canaan the next news we hear of him is Moses my Servant is dead Joh. 7. Elsewhere saith sacred writ Our Fathers are dead and the Prophets do they live for ever From which Premises let us Inferr Infer How Scripture dresseth up Death to a good Man which thô to Nature it be the King of Terrours yet to a Believer is but an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a pulling down the Cords of our Earthy Tabernacle Repatrizare to return home and in the Text a Sleep And may not this remove all Dread and Consternation from our Spirits who would not be willing to put off his cloaths to go to rest God intends thee no harm when he puts thee to Bed. 2. And may it not stay the impetuous Torrent of immoderate Grief for deceased Friends He is not Dead but sleepeth And have not you known the Husband go to bed a few hours before the Wife The Father before the Child And there is no readier way to provoke God to snatch them from us than by too much doting upon them We should be careful not to turn our golden Ear-rings into a golden Calf or lean too hard upon our Crutches For then God often cuts off the Pipes that we may live more upon the Fountain Advice To conclude by way of Advice that we may sleep in Jesus Be careful 1. That we live in no Sin unrepented of It 's the Childs miscarriage in the day that makes it loth to go to Bed at Night lest it's Father should reckon with it then Live we then that as Job speaks our Hearts may not reproach us whilst we live And 2. In an intire Resignation and surrender to the Will of God. Gen. 38. v. 6. How much did Potiphar provide for his own ease and quiet when he left all in Joseph's hand Could we leave all our Concernments to God let God do what he will How might we possess our Souls in all Times and Conditions of Life and without Consternation and Amazement of Spirit look Death in the Face But when we tenaciously hold all we can from God have our Affections set upon things beneath live unsuitably to the designs of the Holy Gospel and Religion we profess No wonder if the Thoughts of Death prove uneasie With what Confidence can we commit our selves to God when Dying when Enemies to God when Living For a man to live in open defiance to the Laws of God when Living and to Bequeath his Soul to God at Death is an Incongruous thing We do not make our Enemies but our Friends our Executors To conclude 3. Let 's live with our Hearts more inflamed with love to God and in a Sence of our Mortality and the latter will be Influential upon the former Fire is best preserved in its own Ashes In short let us imitate holy David in serviceableness to God in our Generation and this by the Will of God