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A40520
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Sermons concerning grace and temptations by ... Thomas Froysel.
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Froysell, Thomas, d. ca. 1672.
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1678
(1678)
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Wing F2251; ESTC R1406
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217,249
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284
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at If you mean to shine as Angels do the Work of God with Angels if you would be where Christ is be at the work that Christ was And let me tell you your time is but short and you have done but little work none at all to purpose and 't is not long till your Crown shall be put upon your head and will you not be ashamed then to wear so rich a Crown for so poor a Service To have God pay you so great wages for so little work done Certainly if ever it come to your share to be saved you will when the Crown is putting upon your head blush for shame to think of your cowardise and your laziness that you should wear a Crown that have done so little work Fifthly The Lord will do thy work do thou but his work and he will do thine The Lord will take the care and charge of thee to bring about thy ends for thee many of you are sparing in Christs work because of so many distractions of your own others of you wave Christs work out of love to your own I mean the World What will become of my Family Wife and Children Oh unbelieving wretches set your hearts to do Gods Work and he 'l take the care of your Families and Children upon himself set thy face to the Sun and these shadows will follow you The Lord is a sun and a shield the Psal 84. 11. Lord will give grace and glory the Lord will give grace i. e. honour and esteem among men the favour of men and glory too in the World No good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly Set thy face then toward this glorious Sun serve him and these shadows will follow thee Solomon you know askt for Wisdom that he might discern between good and bad and judg the people and God tells him because thou hast asked this thing and hast not asked riohes and honours therefore I will give thee riches and honours Solomon his great care and work was to rule a State well and the Lord gave him all the rest he set his face to the Sun and the shadows followed him Oh then Sirs Act for God up and be doing do his work and he 'l do yours There are these three Things attend the man that gives himself to do work for God 1. There shall not any evil hurt thee The three children were in the fire and yet the fire did not could not hurt them In the fire and in the water saith God I will be with thee there shall not any evil hurt thee Whereas if thou dost not thy good things shall they shall hurt thee Thy riches and thine honours they shall lift thee up and there make thy head giddy upon the top of thy glory and then thou comest tumbling down like a drunken fool into shame and hell it self Tolluntur in altum ut lapsa graviore ruant 2. All creatures in Heaven and Earth shall serve the man that serves his God The Whale shall serve Jonah to carry him to the shore Indeed the poor man at that time ran from Gods work yet because he was his Servant the fish shall swallow him that it might save him The Ravens shall feed Elijah I will hear the heavens saith God and they shall Hos 2. 21. 22 hear the earth and the earth shall hear the corn and the wine and the oyl and they shall hear Jezreel Thus all creatures in Heaven and Earth shall serve that man that serves his God Whereas else they all groan under thee and above thee The Heavens above groan over the sinner and cry out How long Lord how long shall we bestow our influence upon this Enemy of thine The Earth groans under the unprofitable servant and crys out How long Lord how long shall I bear this useless burden Nay Christ himself is weary of this fruitless Tree how long shall we stand Cut it down why cumbers it the ground 3. Thou that art at thy Lords work the Angels shall come out of Heaven to guard thee thou art a greater man than the greatest General under the Sun thou hast the Angels to be thy Life-guard Are they not all ministring spirits Heb. 1. 14. sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation And therefore let 's see who dare touch thee Take heed Matth. 18. 10. saith Christ that ye despise or hurt not one of these little ones For I say unto you that in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven Jacob saw a ladder reaching from Earth to Heaven and Angels descending and ascending Vse 10. The last Vse shall shew you how God makes Additions to his Saints graces And herein his Methods are various if not unsearchable yet by fathoming we may sound some of them though not the bottom As grace it self is a Mystery so the increase of grace especially being carried on by such Mysteries And therefore the contrivement whereby God increaseth grace is excellent worth the knowing that we may know what he is doing with us in his Providences and may read the Mind of God in many of his proceedings In a word how shall we help on the work if we know not Gods Method in working 1. The Lord increaseth grace in his People by their Faith Faith is one of the Graces and therefore needs support her self but she is the mouth of all the rest that speaks for them to God in Prayer and sucks nutriment for them out of the Breasts of the Promises Sirs The case is this Faith lives upon Christ and all the Graces live upon Faith When there is a famine in the Land of the soul Faith goeth up to our Brother Joseph in Egypt and brngs home Corn Faith is the Mother-grace and as the old bird the Dam flyeth abroad and fetcheth in food to her young ones and distributes it to them all in the nest So Faith takes Wing when the graces sit hungry and in want at home I say then Faith takes Wing and flyeth to Christ in the promise she comes home with her mouth full and serves all the graces they are fed by her And therefore the Scripture saith That the just lives by faith Which expression the Apostle Paul makes use of in two of his Epistles First in Rom. 1. 17 The just shall live by faith that is in respect of forgiveness of sin and in respect of Righteousness or Justification before God But in Heb. 10. 38 where he useth this same phrase The just shall live by faith The Apostle speaks of the Saints perseverance and standing fast in all their troubles and temptations Now Faith is the prime grace that helps and succours all the rest Hope lives upon Faith for the hope of a Christian is but poor in fruition we can hope no longer than we believe He that hopes and expects the things promised must by Faith live upon the certainty of the promise
Mysteries of Heaven to you there may be a great deal of Riches wrapped up in a Treasury but this opens and unlocks the Treasury The Ministry of the Word is ordained to lay open the Treasure to Gods People that they may know what Riches they have by Jesus Christ There be rich Mines in the Scripture but they must be digged up The Ministry serves to dig up those Mines and lay them open above-ground that the Saints may see them and be in love with them 2. The Preaching of the Gospel casts the sweet savour of the Mysteries of Heaven abroad the World and renders them lovely As the Woman that brought her Box of Oyntment to anoint the Lord Jesus with it when she opened the Box the room was filled with the Odour of the Oyntment were not the Box opened the Oyntment would not smell so the preaching of the Word is the opening of the Box. The Gospel which is a rich compound made up of the Fragrant spices and Mysteries of Heaven I say the Gospel is a Box of sweet Oyntment and the Preaching of it is the opening of the Box if it be not opened it casts not its sweet savour abroad the World The publishing of the Word is the opening of the Box and the casting of the perfume of it abroad the World Hence saith the Apostle Now thanks be unto God 1 Cor. 2. 14. which always causeth us to triumph in Christ and maketh manifest the SAVOVR of his Knowledg by us in every place 3. The preaching of the Gospel applies the Mysteries of Heaven to mens Souls in particular It distributes the portion to every Child of God The Ministers of God are the Stewards of God to distribute the Mystery of comfort and the Mystery of pardon and peace to whom they belong Now where there is an equal and convenient distribution of the portion to every one this makes the Ordinance of God so beautiful and the Mysteries of Heaven so delicious this makes the people taste them taste the Mystery of comfort and the Mystery of peace and pardon when the Waters of Life are derived from the spring of the Scriptures to every mans particular use they taste them and relish them And 't is this that makes the Word in the Application of it so sweet a thing I say the Word in the Application of it is a sweet thing for good things the nearer they are brought home the more delightful they are as a Rose on the Tree is a sweet thing whether you smell it or smell it not 't is sweet but if it be brought home to you and put into your bosom then you smell it sweet So the Mystery of peace and pardon as it grows upon the Tree of the Promise is a sweet thing but if the Hand of Application bring it home to you and put in thy bosom there thou art sweetned with it Vse 2. England See thy priviledg God hath revealed to thee the Mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven Ah London See thy priviledg Thy Fleece is wet with the dew of the Mysteries of Heaven Thou art Goshen when the greatest part of the Kingdom is Egypt dark Egypt And the rather oh England see and prize thy priviledg The Mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven lest God remove them lest God depart from us The Glory of God departed out of the Temple before the Destruction of Jerusalem so the Glory of God departs from a Church the Beauties and Excellencies of God remove when we esteem them not And if any thing in the World make God to leave a Church as he left the Jews and as he may leave any particular Church it is because there is not a prizing of the Heavenly Mysteries we have For however we esteem these things God sets an high price upon them and if we do not God will deprive us of them and of the Power and Beauty of them Vse 3. Oh the love of God that will communicate the Knowledg of himself unto us that is not content we should know any thing unless we know him 1. He knows himself to be our chiefest good and therefore knows that the Knowledg of all other things would do us no good without the Knowledg of himself All the Creatures are but his Servants the Sun Moon and Stars are but the Creatures and Servants of the High God and to know them and all their motions would not advantage us unless we know their Master As a man that is ambitious of Honour and high places he useth acquaintance with a Kings Servants but as an Introduction to acquaintance with their Lord and Master He knows that the Donation of Honours and Collation of places and offices is in the hand of the King and therefore to know his Servants will do him no good only the Knowledg of the King himself So God is the Fountain of Honour and Glory all the Creatures have but a Glory Derivative from God they can confer no Glory on their fellow-Creatures and they will part with none of their own There 's no Creature will part with its Glory or lose its Glory to confer it on thee The Sun will not lose its Light and Place in the Heavens to translate it to thee if they would it is not their own to dispose of Besides the Sun may shine upon thee but cannot shine Peace of Conscience into thee The earth may afford thee Wine and Oyl but cannot yield thee the grapes of saving joy and the Oyl of gladness to anoint thy soul with To know any thing the Knowledg of Jesus Christ would be of greatest worth unto thee and yet to know Christ would not advantage thee but as a means and door to let thee in to acquaintance with God himself The Knowledg of Christ would not save thee did not the Knowledg of him lead thee into the Knowledg of and acquaintance with God himself And therefore saith Christ I am the way not the end no man John 14. 6. comes unto the Father but by me Thou must not terminate the Knowledg of Christ in Christ himself but use it as a Medium and Way to bring thee to the Father Therefore saith the Text Who by him do believe in God that raised him up from 1 Pet. 1. 21. the dead and gave him Glory THAT YOVR FAITH AND HOPE MIGHT BE IN GOD. 2. It is a wondrous priviledg that any man affords us to let us know him and to be intimate with him What can he do more than to unvail himself to us and let us see his inside and let us peep into the Cabinet of his secrets and make us acquainted with all his Excellencies It is the greatest love that can be A man may invite us often to his Table and make us sit down with him and yet not let us know himself nay you may live with him all your days and converse with him and yet he not let you know his inward self nor what is in himself Hee