Selected quad for the lemma: enemy_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
enemy_n	david_n	deliver_v	saul_n	1,226	5	9.5281	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A91526	Jewish hypocrisie, a caveat to the present generation. Wherein is shewn both the false and the true way to a nations or persons compleat happiness, from the sickness and recovery of the Jewish state. Unto which is added a discourse upon Micah 6.8. belonging to the same matter. / By Symon Patrick B.D. minister of the word of God at Batersea in Surrey.	Patrick, Simon, 1626-1707.	1660 (1660)	Wing P817; Thomason E1751_1; Thomason E1751_2; ESTC R203168	156,691	423

And indeed it is very strange if God should be so free and liberall as to give a way all his own rights and let his creatures do even as they list If men swallow once this conceit they will not be so kind as to give him any thing back again Witness the Manichees and the Borborites of old who thought that sin did not hurt Gods elect but as gold thrust into the dirt still retained its nature and lustre so they thought they rolled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in any kind of filthy and fleshly actions Irenaeus yet were not hurt at all nor did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 lose their spiritual nature or subsistence And witness the ranting crew among us whom we may call as the Jews do us sometimes in spite not Kedoshim but Kedishim not Sancti but Cinaedi not Saints but Sinners in the worst use of the word I cannot tell how true it is but I have read it as a speech of some amongst us That God oftimes saves his people even contrary to his own rules I am sure the actions of many are so conformable to it as if they fed upon nothing but such poisonous doctrine And either God must act contrary to himself as they do and break his word in favour of base pretenders or else such unrighteous covetous persons such extortioners lyars c. shall never enter into heaven 9. But yet as if heaven were full of none but such as they I have known some have the impudence to justifie bad actions by the Examples of the Saints miscarriages which are recorded in Holy Writ Who methinks are just like to bad painters who as Plutarch observes because they are not able by their skill to represent in their colours a beautifull face De discrim Adul am 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they draw the likeness of things in wrinkles and scars and wounds When men cannot imitate the good that is in those Examples they will pick out all the bad and draw the copy of it in their lives It is the fault of the world that they carp at the failings of good men when they are alive and take no notice of their piety and holiness and yet they will imitate those failings when they are dead and think to crust over all their sins by those Examples which they would have railed at before If Vice be ugly then it is most ill favoured in those who are good and if these men were good they would be of that judgement And as the Lacedemonians brought their children to behold their slaves when they were drunk not that they might learn of them but that they might abhor that dirty and sottish sin so would these men look upon the sins of others not to be like them and do the same but the more to abominate and detest them which leave such a foul blemish upon them that commit them And at the day of judgement they will be condemned not only for sinning but for falling into those sins which they had fair warning to watch against by the Examples of others before them 10. You must come near therefore to those that make a fair shew and examine their actions before you believe all their excellent speeches and pious discourses about some matters in Religion If you stand at a distance from them you would take them to be very glorious Saints they do so glitter in an outward profession and perform such splendid works of devotion but if you come near to them and handle them you will find them hot without and cold within full of fierceness and violence in their external motions but void of all true love and goodness in their hearts I have sometimes compared them in my own thoughts unto those Indian Calicoes which when we behold afarr off seem to be a rare needlework of all sorts of silk but when we come close to them are only thin painted stuff that hath neitheir substance nor cost in it These men look like the Kings daughter whose garments were of needle work and wrought gold whereby you would imagine that they were all glorious within also but if you come to deal with them you shall see by many of their actions that this outward bravery is a meer varnish and gloss that they set upon themselves some painted raiment to hide their nakedness but which an observant eye may easily look thorough it is so thin and beggerly 11. Especially observe how many of them change with times and occasions and say that they must follow Providence If you follow them close you will soon find that as their profit leads them so they cry up particular pieces of godliness Just like Alcibiades who as Plutarch saith of a flatterer at Athens was a gallant De discrim adul amic and at Sparta wore a thred-bare cloak in Thracia was a warrier and at Tissapherne gave himself to pride and luxury So do these men vary according as several humours stir within them Sometimes they would have all Gods people be no less then Kings and at other times they must be as poor as beggars Sometimes they pine and macerate themselves with fasting and again they think that none but they may make a free use of the creature Many of them there are that will sail with every wind if it blow them any profit and all of them are carried as the fierce gusts of their various passions do make a zealous bluster in them But a good man who directs his life not by his worldly interest or mutable fancies but by the word of God he alwayes steers the same course and remains constantly the same man as that word doth whose righteousness is everlasting We may say of him as the same Plutarch doth of those brave men Epimanondas and Agesilaus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They had every where a becoming deportment and as he saith of Plato who was the same at Syracuse that he was in his Academy and before Dionysius such an one as he was before Dion He changes not his behaviour with places and persons for he walks before God who is alwayes the same and changes not 12. And if any of these men we have been treating of be so hardy as to suffer for their Opinion for I can call it nothing else and not alway cast to be on the thriving side yet it is with a full bad will And they are so far from bearing it meekly and patiently that they struggle by all means to throw the cross from off their shoulders If there be any way to ease themselves they inquire not much whether it be good or bad but are easily inclined to think that Providence makes an offer to them for their deliverance though it be by unlawfull means Such as they would not have spared Saul if they had been in Davids case when he had him at his mercy but they would have applauded Abishai for a Saint who said God hath delivered thine enemy into thy hand and