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	hate_v	hatred_n	1,155	5	10.0548	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A27053	A treatise of self-denial. By Richard Baxter, pastor of the church at Kederminster	Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.	1675 (1675)	Wing B1431; ESTC R218685	325,551	530

Your own wills may be crost by every trifle Any man that is greater than you can cross them yea those that are under you can cross them The poorest beggar can rob you or scorn you or raise a slander of you or twenty ways can cross your self-wills A hundred accidents may cross them Your very Beast can cross you and almost any thing in the world can cross you much more can God at any time cross you and cross you certainly he will so that in your own wills there is no rest nor happiness But if you could bring your wills to Gods and take up your full content in this It is the Will of God then what a constant invincible content might you have Then all the world could not disturb you and rob you of your content because they cannot conquer the Will of God Hiswill shall be done and so you should alway have content CHAP. XVI Selfish Passions to be denied 5. ANother part of selfishness to be mortified and denied is selfish Passions The soul is furnished with Passions by God partly for the exciting of the will and other faculties that they do not sluggishly neglect their duties and partly to help them in the execution when they are at work So that they are but the wheels or the sails of the reasonable soul to speed our motion for God and our Salvation and not to be employed for carnal self When Passions and affections are sanctified and used for God they are called such and such particular Graces and the fervour of them is an holy Zeal But when they are used for carnal self they are our vices and the heat of them is but fury or carnal zeal and the height of vice But how rare is it to meet with men that are meek and patient in their own cause and passionate in a holy zeal for God I know many are passionate in disputes and other exercises about Religion and think that it 's purely zeal for God when self is at the bottom of the business and ruleth as well as kindleth the fire when they searce discern it and little know what spirit they are of But pure zeal for God conjoyned with self-denial is exceeding rare How few can say that their Love to God is greater and hotter than their Love to themselves The Desires of men are strong after those things that supply their own necessities and please their own corrupted wills but how cold are they after the honour of God How averse are men from that which hurteth the flesh as to go into a Pest-house or to take deadly poyson or to suffer any pain but few are so averse to the breaking of the Law of God A hard word or a little injury done to themselves will put them into a passion so that their anger is working out in reproach if not in more revenge but God may be abused from day to day and how patiently can they bear it There 's few carnal minds but can more patiently hear a man swear or curse or scorn at Scripture and a holy life than hear him call them Rogue or Knave or Thief or Lyar or any such disgraceful name It seems an intolerable dishonour with selfish persons that are advanced by Pride to be great in their own eyes for a man to give them the lye or to reproach their Parentage or make them seem base but they can hear twenty oaths and reproaches of the truths or ways of God as quietly and patiently as if there were no harm in them Their own enemies whom God commandeth them to love they hate at the heart but the enemies of God and holiness whom David hated with a perfect hatred Psal 139. 21 22. do little or nothing at all offend them It is not thus with self-denying gracious souls When David heard Shimei curle him he commanded his souldiers to let him alone for God had bidden him that is by that afflicting providence on David he had occasioned it and by the withdrawng of his restraint he had let out his malice for a trial to David Thus David could endure a man to go along by him cursing him and reviling him as a Traitor and a man of blood and throwing stones at him and he rebuked Abishai that would have taken off his head 2 Sam. 16. 7 8 9 13. But when the same David speaks of the wicked the froward the slanderer the proud the lyar and the deceitful he resolveth that he will not know them they shall not dwell in his house nor tarry in his sight he hateth them they shall depart from him he will cut them off and early destroy him from the Land and from the city of the Lord Psal 101. So was it with Moses when God was offended by the Idolatry of the Israelites he was so zealous that he threw down the Tables of Stone in which God had written the Law and broke them but when Miriam and Aaron spake against himself he let God alone with the cause and only prayed for them for saith the Text He was very meek above all the men that were on the face of the earth Numb 12. 3. Phinehas his zeal for God did stay the plague and was imputed to him for righteousness when the selfish zeal of Simeon and Levi was called but a cursed anger and brought a curse on them instead of a blessing from their dying Father that they should be divided in Jacob and scattered in Israel and left them the name of Instruments of cruelty Gen. 49. 5 6 7. Take warning then from the word of God use your passions for God that gave them you but when it is meerly the cause of self be dead to passion as if there were no such thing within you If the wrong be done to you think then with your selves alas I am such a silly wretched worm that a wrong done to me is a small matter in comparison of the least that 's done to God it is not great enough for indignation or passion Remember that it's Gods work to right your wrongs and your work to lament and hinder the abuse of God And therefore if men curse you or revile you or slander you if Gods interest in your reputation command you to seek the clearing of it then do it but not for your self but for God but otherwise be as a dead man that hath no eyes to see an injury nor no ears to hear it nor no heart to feel it nor no understanding to perceive it nor no hands to be revenged for it This is to be mortified and dead to self When Passion begins to stir within you ask What 's the matter who is it for and who is it that is wronged If it be God ask counsel of God what he would have you to do and let your passion be well guided and bounded and then it will be acceptable holy zeal but if it be but self that 's wronged remember that you are not your own and therefore

be most odious to you it is Dishonour and not Error or Schism that you are against Had you rather part with Truth and Religion or with the name Reputation of them If you set so much by self and so little by Truth as to let go Truth for fear of being thought to let it go for shame do not take on you to be Lovers of Truth but of your selves nor haters of Error but of Dishonour And consider further that you may lose the Reputation of being Orthodox and Catholick and of the right Religion without losing any of the favour of God nay it may be a suffering for his sake that may advance you in his favour and assure you of the Reward of Martyrs For saith Christ Mat. 5. 11 12. Blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute you and shall say all manner of evil against you falsly for my sake Rejoyce and be exceeding glad for great is your Reward in heaven for so persecuted they the Prophets that were before you So that you see the thing that you so abhor is matter of exceeding joy Even to be falsly counted an Heretick or Erroneous for the sake of Christ and Truth we are blessed when we are falsly reviled as Erroneous and have all these evil sayings against us But to be such indeed is to be accursed Though the name of Heresie will stand with the special Love of God yet Heresie it self he utterly abhors And whether do you think it is better to part with truth and the Favour of God with it or with the name and Reputation of Truth while we keep both Truth and the favour of God Deny your selves then even as to the Reputation of Faith and Orthodoxness For you will certainly deny the Faith if you cannot deny the name of it to preserve it CHAP. XLIX Reputation of Godliness and Honesty how far 9. ANother piece of Honour that self must be denied in is The Reputation of Godliness and Honesty Concerning both the former and this I must say by way of caution that the Reputation both of Faith and Godliness is a great Mercy and not to be despised nor prodigally cast away by our own negligence or miscarriages nor unthankfully to be received But yet 1. It is not to be desired for it self but for God that it may help and advantage us to serve him or as it is a Mercy that brings the report of his love 2. And the greater the Mercy is the greater is our temptation when it would deprive us of a far greater mercy than it self I have oft thought it was a very high passage for an Heathen to say as Seneca did that No man doth shew a higher esteem of goodness than he that can let go the Name or Reputation of being a good man rather than let go his goodness it self The world is so much unacquainted with goodness that they know it not when they see it but call it by those odious names that least agree with it Their Judgements follow their Natures dispositions and interests And therefore they cannot take that to be good which is contrary to these A feather-bed is no better to a swine than a mire-lake A banquet is not so good to a Cow as a green pasture As the person is himself so do all things seem good or evil to him The Toad or Snake hath no such odious apprehensions of it self as men have And hence it is that to ungodly men the best men and best actions seem to be the worst And hence also it is that in all Ages Godliness ha●h been matter of reproach and the best have been laden with the he aviest calumnies David had enemies that laid to his charge the things that he never thought of And it seems by the strain of Shimei in his railing that they took him to be but a Traitor because King Saul was against him and to be a bloody man because he had been engaged in the wars 2 Sam. 16. 7 8. Come out come out thou bloody man and thou man of Belial the Lord hath returned upon thee all the blood of the house of Saul in whose stead thou hast raigned See what a wicked person David was esteemed by such fellows as this And yet he so far denied himself here as that he would not hear of revenge upon the railer but makes it as a tryal sent from God And two special reasons moved him to bear it One was the remembrance of that sin against God and his Servant Uriah which he knew God was now chastising him for And therefore being under the rod of the Lord he durst not think of revenge upon the instrument and being sensible that he had brought all this upon himself he durst not let fly too much at others The other was that God had raised up by permissive providence the Son of his bowels against him and therefore he thought it an unseemly thing to be much offended with a stranger for less And such Reasons as these have we also to perswade us to Patience and Self-denial in the like Case The Lord Jesus himself who had no sin at all escaped not these censures of malicious men He was esteemed a friend or Companion of Publicans and Sinners yea a gluttonous person and a wine bibber yea a deceiver yea a conjurer that did his works by the help of the Devil Mat. 11. 19. Luk 7. 34. Mat. 27. 63. Job 7. 12. Mat. 12. 27. What usage the holy Apostles themselves had and how they behaved themselves under all you may conjecture by that one passage to mention no more 1 Cor. 4. 9 10 11 12 13. For I think God hath set forth us the Apostles last as it were men appointed to death For we are made a spectacle to the world and to Angels and to men we are fools for Christs sake but ye are wise in Christ we are weak but ye are strong ye are honourable but we are despised Even to this present hour we both hunger and thirst and are naked and are buffeted and have no certain dwelling place and labour working with our own hands being reviled we bless being persecuted we suffer it being defamed we intreat we are made as the filth of the world and the off-scouring of all things to this day The like usage had the Christians after the Apostles days They were slandered by the Pagans as if they sacrificed and eat their own children and putting out the lights had commonly been unclean together after their holy exercises And when they cast them to the Lions to be devoured and many wayes tormented them it was as ungodly men for preaching against the Heathen Gods and refusing to offer sacrifice to them And therefore the rabble was wont thus to cry for Judgement against them Tollite impios Tollite impios Away with the ungodly Christians The wicked multitude that were drowned in filthiness and ungodliness did think themselves Religious men and the Christians to be ungodly