Selected quad for the lemma: city_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
city_n	day_n	great_a	town_n	4,664	4	6.2812	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A57939	A looking-glass for England wherein is shewn God's mercies and judgments on this sinful nation; with an earnest invitation to poor sinners to repentance: wherein is set forth the great folly and madness of forsaking Christ their redeemer, and neglecting the care of their immortal souls, and setting their cares upon the vanities of this world; ... with some hints of the present judgments that now hangs over our heads, which will suddenly fall on us, if we neglect to return our thanks to almighty God for our late deliverances, and the speedy reforming of our lives. To which is added, the great joy and comfort of the godly that have harkened to the voice of the Lord, and have fasted and prayed to God for his blessings, and given thanks for all mercies received. By Robert Russel, in Sussex.	Russel, Robert, fl. 1692.	1696 (1696)	Wing R2347H; ESTC R219970	10,107	25

the Word and then afterwards the rest of the Day they spend in the Ale-house among their sinful Companions and perhaps at night they come home more then half Drunk from the Ale-house and so they sin to keep a Fast but it is but a mook Fast and so instead of standing in the Gap to stop God's Judgments from coming upon themselves and the Nation they by their hypocricy and dissimulation and wicked doings provoke God to hasten his Judgments upon them and these sort of People are as bad or worse then those that Work all day and keep no Fast at all these Men are like unto those the Peophet Amos complains of Amos 6.6 That drink wine in bowls and anoint themselves with the chief oyntments but they are not grieved for the affliction of Joseph Thus many Men will drink and sing and indolge the Flesh but don't consider what a distressed and afflicted condition poor England is in but perhaps some may be ready to say How shall we do to keep a true and excepted Fast to the Lord. I answer A true Fast doth not consist in fasting from corporal Food but it consisteth chiefly in mourning for Sin in crucising and mortifying Sin and fleshly Lust and turning from it and forsaking it but if you desire indeed to keep a true and acceptable Fast I shall be willing to give you di ections how to do it in a few word when a publick Fast-day comes resolve with yourselves to set apart yourselves from the World for that Day as on a Sabbath-day and in the morning as soon as you awake consider with yourselves what a worthy Work you are a going about that Day and lift up your heart to God in Prayer that he would inable you to go through with it and this done then look back upon your Life past search and examine diligently your Hearts and Lives to find out your Sins together with the time place circumstances and manner how they were committed and then spread them all before the Lord by a hearty and sincere Confession search diligently to find out all your hypocracy and rottenness of Heart all your beloved and flesh-pleasing Sins and then labour to bring them close to your Consicience and then confess them with as much contrition and brokenness of Heart as you can and then be earnest with God at the throne of Grace that he would give you a full discharge that he would pardon them and wash them away in the Blood of Christ and then likewise be earnest with the Lord for strength and power to overcome them and then make a firm resolution with yourselves in the strength of Christ to forsake them and to endeavour to lead a new Life and this Work if done throughly will take up your Morning time and then when this is done go to Church amongst God's People in publick in confessing and bewailing your Sins and the Sins of the Nation and pleading with them at the Throne of Grace that God would look in mercy upon this sinful Nation and that he would remove his Judgments from us and also that God would prosper the King in his Undertaking and shield and defend him from all Plots and Conspiracies of his blood-thirsty Enemies and then when publick Exercise is ended let not the evening of the Day be spent in vain Pleasures and sinful Delights but after you come home to refresh your Bodies with the good things of this Life for until that time it is convenient if you can bear it to fast from Food all the Day besides until you come home from publick Exercices so that you be not thereby disenabled to perform the Work of the Day that by fasting you might afflict your Bodies as well as your Souls but however after publick Exercises is ended and when you come home and recruited yourselyes with Food let not the evening of the Day be spent vainly and idlely but go every one in private and those pour out your Souls to God and wrestle with him for pardoning and renewing Grace and Mercy to your own Souls and for publick Mercies to this Nation and let the rest of the Evening be spent in Reading Prayer and such holy Exercises And now let me speak a word or two to the Rich and such as are blessed with the good things of this Life I desire you not to think that you have done enough when you have distributed something to the Poor in a way of Collection amongst the Congregation but let me beseech every one of you that dayly imploy poor Labourers that when publick Exercises are ended that you would invite them home to your Houses and also their Wives and Children and others of your poor Neighbours that live near you be perswaded to invite them home to your Houses set them at your Tables and cause them to partake with you of those bodily Refreshments as God in his Mercy hath given unto you and then you will find that you will be no looser for this is the way to bring a Blessing upon your Heads and upon your Stores this is to keep unto the Lord a true Fast indeed this is that Fast which the Lord hath chosen as the Lord spake by the Prophit Isa 58.4 5 6 7. It is not to take our own pleasure and to smite with the fist of wickedness But faith the Lord This is the fast that I have chosen to loose the bands of wickedness to undo the heavy burdens and to let the opprissed go 〈◊〉 and that you break every yoke 〈◊〉 It is not to deal thy bread to the hungry and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house when thou seest the naked that thou cover him and that thou bide not thyself from thine own flesh Now this is the Fast which the Lord will except and he 'll reward you abundantly both in this World and the World to come you have a faithful Promise for it in Scripture Prov. 19.17 He that hath pity on the poor lendeth unto the Lord and that which he hath given will he pay him again And now as I have spoken by way of Reproof and Exhortation to such as prophane Days of publick Fasting and Humiliation so also I must speak or write a few words by way of Reproof and Exhortation to such as profane Days of publick Thanksgiving for Mercies and Deliverances but you may say How are Dayes of publick Thanksgiving profaned Now to answer this Objection It is a general course amongst us here in England that when there is a Day of Thanksgiving appointed by Authority to return Prayers and Thanks to God for publick Deliverance or publick Preservation it is I say a general custom among us especially in Cities and great Towns after publick Exercise is ended to prophane the Day by Drinking Ringing Shooting and making of Burnfires and if a Day of Thanksgiving be appointed to be on a sabbath-Sabbath-day it is all one with most People they regard no more God's own

Day than they do any other Day in the Week and now I must take occasion to write something against a great Evil that has of late years been done in the Land whether it be occasioned by the Bishops or whoever they be that are the occasion of it I cannot but think it to be a very great Evil and therefore I must venter to write something against it and it is this that after a delivering or preserving Mercy vouchsafe to the King and Kingdom and our Rulers has been pleased to appoint a Day of publick Thanksgiving to return Praise to Almighty God for his Mercies this Day of Thansgiving of late Years has been cellebrated on the Lord's Day Now I take this to be a great Evil provoking to God and that in these two respects First Because in so doing we change God's Institution for the Sabbath was instituted and ordained by God to be a Day of Thanksgiving upon a higher Account and we are required to spend it in Prayers and Thanksgiving for a greater deliverance than any temporal deliverance even our deliverance from Sin Hell and Damnation by the Resurrection of Jesus Christ now for us to make use of the Lord 's own Day to return Thanks and Praise only for a Temporal-deliverance this is to change God's Institution and to dishonour his own Day by using of it to a lower end than God instituted it for sure there are Days enough in the Week for us to Praise God for National-deliverance but ptay mistake me not I grant that we ought to praise Almighty God on the Sabbath-days and on the Week-days and at all times for National-mercy but that which I write against is the setting of the Lord's Day apart and instituting of it to be a Day of publick Thanksgiving whith was instituted by God for a more high and nobler end Friends consider that the Sabhath is the Lord's Day and if we cannot afford to set apart a Day in the Week one of our own Days to render Thanks and Prayers to God for national Mercies we shew ourselves to be ill diserving of those Mercies and Deliverances which God has bestowed upon us and may justly expect him to leave us and withdraw himself from us Secondly For us to institute the Lord's Day to be a Day of publick Thanksgiving is a great Evil also upon this Account because it occasions a most dreadful prosanation of the Lord's Day by Drinking Ringing and making of Burnfires this is a vain way of rejoycing at any time but it is much ●●re abominable on the Lord's Day and when a publick Thansgiving is appointed on a week Day how many there be that go to Church to hear God's Word and to praise him for the first part of the Day and then when publick Exercises is ended away they go to Ringing and then to the Ale-house to Drinking and the Boys they must run from House to House begging for for Faggots to make a Burnfires when as many poor People are ready to ●…arve so a cold Winter because they cannot get wood to burn and I verily think that there is as many Faggots wasted away on a publick Thanksgiving-day in England as would suffice many hundreds of poor People for a whole Winter and then there must be Shooting and slinging of Squibs and Fire-brands one at another and many times there is some mischief done to one another before they have done Pray Friends consider what a provoking thing this must needs be for People thus to play the Hypocrite with God they will go to Church on a shanksgiving-day in the forenoon to bless and praise God for his Mercies and then in the afternoon they will abuse him to his face with his own Mercies this is just as if a Friend of yours should do you some great Kindness and then you to gratifie him for his Kindness should pretend to give him many hearty Thanks and use many kind Speeches to him and then as soon as you have done take a lump of durt and sling in his face Why Friends thus many of you deal wich God in your way of giving of him thank for your Mercies and Deliverances the Apostle tells us Rom 14. 〈◊〉 that regardeth the day regardeth it to the Lord and he that regardeth not the day to the Lord he doth not regard it So he that observeth a Day of Thanksgiving to the Lord he spends it in holy Meditation Hearing and Reading Prayer and Praises and singing of Psalms but he that observes a Day of Thanksgiving only to Drink and Sing and Rlog and make Burnfires he doth not observe it to the Lord but to his Lust and the Apostle bids-us rejoyce in the Lord Pill 4.4 but to rejoyce by Drinking Singing and making of Burnfires this is not to rejoyce in the Lord but in your flesh-pleasing Lust Beloved Friends when a Day of publick Thanksgiving comes to be prevailed with to spend the whole Day both in publick exercises of Religion in Meditation Prayer and Praises and singing of Psalms and after publick Exercises are ended if it be on a Week-day and you have a desire to ring a peal in token of joy for the the safe deliverance from your Enemies you may do it so it be in a civil sober way without going to the Ale-house to drinking pray keep yourselves from the Ale-house at such a time as that is but besides all this whatever you do pray don't let no more Bunrfires be made in England there is no way of rejoycing can be worse than to rejoyce by Fire this is the Papist way of rejoycing they triumph and rejoyce by Burnfires and I know you profess yourselves to hate Popery and if you do why do you imitate the Papist so much as to follow their Actions Beloved Friends If you have such a delight to make Bunrfires it may please God to give your Enemies the upper-hand and then they will make you Burnfires even such Burnfires as they made for the Protestants in the Days of Queen Mary and now in the close of all let me write a few words to the Rich and to such as use to give Fagots towards making of Burnfires let me prevail with you that when publick Exercises is done on a Thanksgiving-day that you would invite all your Neighbours that are poor and needy home to your Houses to dinner with you and spend the afternoon with them in discourse about the Sermon you heard and of God's miraculous deliverance of his People in ancient Times and spend some time in Reading and Praying with them and then when they are a returning to their homes so many Faggots as you use to give towards making of Burnfires be perswaded to bestow upon them to carry home with them to warm and comfort them in a cold Winter and do not let them be burn●… and consumed in waste in Burnfires to 〈◊〉 no body no good but to please young Peoples foolish fancy and Wood is so dear that many poor People are like to starve in a cold Winter because they cannot get Wood to Burn therefore let me desire you to bestow your Faggots upon those who are poor and needy to warm and comfort them and in so doing you will offer up such a Thanks-offering to the Lord as will ascend up a sweet Savour unto him whereby he will turn to us in Mercy and will bless this Nation and us all with a lasting Peace and Happiness Now consider on these things and the Lord give you Understanding FINIS