Selected quad for the lemma: earth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
earth_n	let_v	people_n	praise_v	12,053	5	10.9906	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A33971	Par nobile two treatises, the one concerning the excellent woman, evincing a person fearing the Lord to be the most excellent person, discoursed more privately upon occasion of the death of the Right Honourable the Lady Frances Hobart late of Norwich, from Pro. 31, 29, 30, 31 : the other discovering a fountain of comfort and satisfaction to persons walking with God, yet living and dying without sensible consolations , discovered from Psal. 17, 15 at the funerals of the Right Honourable the Lady Katherine Courten, preached at Blicklin in the county of Norfolk, March 27, 1652 : with the narratives of the holy lives and deaths of those two noble sisters / by J.C.	Collinges, John, 1623-1690.; Collinges, John, 1623-1690. Excellent woman.; Collinges, John, 1623-1690. Light in darkness.	1669 (1669)	Wing C5329; ESTC R26441	164,919	320

betraies your intellectuals as want of judgement in things that differ and your judgement cannot but be erroneous where it is contrary to the judgement of God and of holy men who spake in Scripture as they were inspired by God 2. Let what you have heard bespeak a due value in you both of the fear of the Lord as the best thing● and persons fearing the Lord as the most excellent persons Certainly it is but reasonable that we should judge of persons and things as God judgeth of them as Solomon and David and those great Worthies we find recorded in Scripture have judged David Psal 16. calleth the people of God The excellent of the Earth Solomon tells you here that Favour is deceitful and Beauty is vain but a woman fearing the Lord she shall be praised Though many Daughters have done vertuously yet she hath ascended above them all Oh let us thus iudge Regard not what vain men talk of people fearing God they speak after their Father whose works they do they do but disgorge the prophaneness filth and malice of their own hearts They have hated Christ and no wonder if they hate all those who bear any thing of the Image and superscription Let not the railings of these men let not their hard speeches and bitter censures and more bitter dealings guide your judgement You will one day find that the men whom they thus abuse are no Reprobates Men in power and authority one day will know that these are not these evil doers to whom they should be a terrour Ministers will know that they have abused their texts to turn the drift of them against persons fearing the Lord under the disguise of Schismaticks Fanaticks c. terms which many use in these daies not understanding what they mean If it be some mens worldly interest to do these things yet my Brethren take you heed of treading their steps Let who will revile and curse and blaspheme God hath blessed the persons that fear him and you shall one day see they shall be blessed Behold the Lord cometh saith the Apostle Jude with ten thousand Jude v. 13. of his Saints to execute Judgement upon all and to convince all that are ungodly amongst them of all their ungodly deeds which they have committed and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him Lastly Are persons fearing the Lord the most excellent persons give them then the fruit of their hands and let their own works praise them in the gates It is Solomons improvement of this notion in the words following my text Certainly there is nothing more reasonable than this is if it were give such persons as these the fruit of your hands it were but according to the manner of men who use to give Presents to Princes Favourites It were but to make friends of your Mammon of unrighteousness that when these things fail you may be received into everlasting habitations But I say no more than give them the fruit of their hands do not defraud abuse them give them that honour that room in the world which they deserve which they labour for and let their own works praise them in the gates Envy them not the praise of their own labours the honour which their own works purchase for them This brings me ●o my last part of my work that I may fulfil my text upon this Noble person for whom we are all mourners But I shall reserve that to a more full and particular discourse LIGHT IN DARKNESS OR A twofold Fountain of Comfort and Satisfaction to those who walking with God yet live and may die unsatisfied as to the sensible manifestations of DIVINE LOVE Discovered In a Discourse first Preached at the Funerals of the Right Honourable the Lady Catharine Courten late Wife to William Courten Esq and since inlarged for more publick profit By John Collinges late Preacher of the Gospel in Norwich Isaiah 50. 20. Who is amongst you that feareth the Lord and obeyeth the voice of his servant that walketh in darkness and seeth no light let him trust in the Name of the Lord and stay upon his God LONDON Printed in the year 1669. To His Worthy and Honoured Friend WILLIAM COURTEN Esq Sir WHen I had once resolved to joyn these Sheets long since drawn up and in the hands of some of your noble friends in one Book with those relating to your Noble Aunt I had no great dispute with my self to whom according to the usual custom I should inscribe them You are the only Male Branch of this excellent Root the Heir of her Religion Vertue and Honour you were while she lived next to your dear Father the great object of her Love Care and Pious Sollitude For you it was that she so often so passionately even in her greatest Agonies begg'd our prayers she had you only and your sister to pour out sighs and tears to God for that you might be found constant and walking in the truth You alone can lay a just claim to her picture and these other Papers devoted to a memorial of her You are fittest to undertake the Patronage of her Honourable and Precious Name against such as to justifie others would fasten a Debauchery in Religion upon her Urn after fifteen or sixteen years rest in which since her death it might prescribe for the Faith in which she not only truly died but in so eminent a Profession and such particular Declarations of it as are not ordinary Alas Dear Sir for the sad occasion of this so late an impudent a slander but the judgements of God are a great deep You Sir since her death have been visiting the seat of iniquity the Country of the great Whore which hath made so many drunk and is yet by parcels intoxicating souls with her superstitious and idolatrous abominations you went not out of curiosity but upon a just call and to pay a duty to your Fathers Sepulchre Had your rare Mother lived till you took that Journey she would have cryed out with another kind of Devotion than Horace for his friend Virgil. Sic te cunctipotens Dues Sic pelagi Dominus Ventorumque regat Pater Obstrictis aliis praeter Naves quae tibi creditum Debes finibus Italis Reddas incolumem precor Et serves animae dimidium meae But it pleased God by death seven years before to deliver her from those fears in which your two years absence would have kept her and though she lived not so long as to attend you with her fervent prayers yet Sir I can tell you she had treasured up a large stock of prayers for you and she had begg'd a moving stock which was working for you when she ceased to be and by the infinite goodness of God hearing those prayers you were preserved both in your going and coming in the perils you ran by Land and by Sea Yea and preserved also free from those sensual and superstitious tinctures which too too many bring home with

infallible truth whether the Proposition be dogmatical or promisory c. And indeed if you so believe you cannot but judge your selves reasonably engaged to labour for this fear of the Lord which shall most certainly have such a train of blessings waiting upon it 5. I will add one thing more There is no such preservative from all evil both of sin and punishment Evil of punishment is sensible evil Evil of sin is the greater evil but not so obvious to sense while the poor creature liveth here As to the former the evil of sin there 's no such preservative against that Prov. 16. 6. By the fear of the Lord men depart from evil It is of the nature of fear well rooted in the heart to lay a restraint upon us from provoking the person of whose power we are afraid And 't is impossible that a soul should truly fear God and yet boldly knowingly and deliberately provoke him to vengeance There is no such preservative from the evil of sin as the fear of the Lord is Nor is there any such preservative from evils of punishment This indeed followeth upon the other for all punishment is the fruit of sin Prov. 28. 14. Happy is the man that feareth alway but be that hardneth his heart shall fall into mischief It is not he that feareth alway but he that bardneth his heart that falleth into mischief I shall add but one thing more 6. Lastly There is no such remedy against the slavish fear of the creature as this filial and reverential fear of God Isa 7. You shall find v. 3. That God sent the Prophet to meet Ahaz His business was to incourage him a●d to del●ver him from the fear of the two potent adversaries Rezin and Pekah chap. 8● v. 13. saith he Sanctifie the Lord of Hosts So out Saviour Ma● 10. 10. and let him be your fear and let him be your dread And indeed it is but a reasonable thing A greater fear doth as naturally swallow up a lesser as a greater pain of the Stone or the like drowneth the lesser and causeth it hardly to be discerned Now this is no small advantage The bondage of fear which in this life we are subject to is no small bondage and it is no small blessing to be delivered from it But let this be enough to have spoken by way of motive to perswade people to this fear of Jehovah I have spoken so much concerning the excellent habit that me thinks I cannot but in charity judge there is by this time kindled in your hearts some desires after it and hear you whispering How should I get this fear of the Lord In order to it let me commend to you something of Meditation Observation Caution Faith Prayer 1. The first thing is Meditation as to which in this case let me commend to you a double Object The Word of God The Works of God The Word of God Deut. 4. 10. I will make them to hear my words that they may learn to Deut. 4. 10. fear me all the daies they shall live The holy Scriptures as to the matter of them have much in them which hath a natural tendency to affect the hearts of men and women with this dread of God 1. They tell you what God is what a great and glorious Majesly what a pure and holy God he is what a just and severe God he is How infinite his Power is that he killeth and saveth alive whomsoever he pleaseth throws to Hell and brings to Heaven whom he pleaseth from whence every rational soul must necessarily conclude the subjection of his poor feeble nature unto him and this apprehension as to any thing is the foundation of fear in us I mean of all reverential and servile fear They likewise tell you what God is in his Goodness and Mercy and the apprehension of this is the foundation of all filial fear 2. They tell you what God hath revealed that he will be and shew himself to be both to all impenitent and presumptuous sinners and to all those who are his children And 3. They tell you much what God hath been towards all sorts in the ancient issues of his Providence Now I would have you not only to read these but to meditate on them Meditation is the souls stand upon its object it s weighing of matter proposed and attention to it The want of this is one great cause there is so little dread of God in the world Have not men the Scriptures What house is there amongst us in which are not many Bibles Do they not read them many do but they do it in a vain formality without a due digestion and meditation so as the notions of holy Writ leave no impression upon their hearts Would men but allow the Word to have a place in their hearts did the Word of God dwell in them it were impossible one would think but this savour of it should be left behind men could not talk and walk as they do 2. Let the Works of God be also the matter of your meditation Come and see saith the Psalmist what desolations he hath wrought in the earth The truth is the wheel of Providence hath turned so strangely in the world since the world had an existence that if men could give themselves leisure to think of its motions to consider them in their causes in the manner of their revolution in the things brought to pass by them one would think it impossible but that it should affect their hearts with a dread of the Divine Majesty But of this more by and by 2. The second thing which I shall commend to you is Observation Observation of the motions of Providence I remember it is reported of Waldus the Father of those famous Christians the Waldenses that he was converted by seeing the sudden death of one of his companion● in the daies of his vanity Would we but obs●rve how Providence is every day ratifying the Promises cutting of blood-thirsty and deceitful me● who he hath said shall not live out half their daies bringing the Councils of Ahitophels to folly striking sinners dead in their full career of sin and sending them down in a moment to the pit and many other waies men could not but fear that great and glorious Name but we see and do not see These and such like examples are daily before our eyes and we observe them not and therefore we fear not God Christians if you would fear God observe the workings of his Providence much how in his great works he is daily confirming his Promises to his people and his threatnings to his enemies If the Word of God will not make you fear him yet surely his works must his works by which you see him justifying and giving a Being to his Word 3. If you would get this fear of God take heed of those things which have a direct tendency to harden your hearts from his fear 1. Take heed first of Atheistical Principles