Selected quad for the lemma: enemy_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
enemy_n	field_n	good_a	sow_v	1,310	5	10.0524	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A93781	Spiritual infatuation, the principal cause of our past and present distempers. Or a serious caveate to the many seducers and seduced who under the specious pretences of reformation and conscience endeavour the subversion of Church and State. In several sermons on Isa. 9,10,11,12. By W. Stamp D.D. late minister of the Word at Stepn[e]y near London.	Stampe, William, 1611-1653?	1662 (1662)	Wing S5195; ESTC R229850	116,158	268

wound our friends and their designs at any distance would be seriously thought on by all that wish us good luck and that we may prosper in the name of Lord. That as we are hungry and greedy enquirers after news and transactions so we would be as zealous in abstaining from that which will certainly render our intelligence more welcom and desired That after a long and sad experience of the severe hand of God against us God may at last have the ●onou● and our selves the comfort of a final victory over our selves and sinful enormities as well as Enemies 2. Somtimes God suffers the hearts of such as hate to be reformed to be hardned and infatuated per●inisterium Diaboli by the service and ministry of our grand enemy the Divel For the Angels which kept not their first estate are not so reserved in chains under darkness but that they have leave to walk the world to promote the Kingdom of darkness S. John tells us The great dragon was cast out of heaven that old serpent called the Devil and Satan which deceiveth the whole world he was cast out into the earth and his angels were cast out with him Rev. 12. 9. And our Saviour compares the Kingdom of heaven to a man who sowed good seed in his fi●ld but while men slept his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went his way Mat. 13. 24. 25. Almighty God hath four principal fields Heaven Paradise the Church and mans heart In heaven Lucifer sowed pride In Paradise Satan sowed disobedience In the Church he soweth Schismes and Heresies and in mans heart he sows all manner of unlawful sects And for the great harvest he gains by his unw●aried industry in sowing he is called the God of this world the Eph. 2. 2. prince of the ayr who ruleth in the hearts of the children of disobedience It is said of Judas Iscariot that after he had rec●ived the sop from his masters hand which was the signal discovery which of the twelve should prove the Traitor that Satan entr●d into him Ioh. 13. 27. What advis● this infernal tutor dictated unto him is s●t down V. 2. He put into his heart to betray his master which was prophesied long besore that Satan should stand at his right hand Psal 109. 6. It was very proper and natural that the Divel should have the sole conduct of Iudas who was to be the guide unto them who were to take Jesus All Tr●ason though never so ●peciously guilded and disguised we know from whence it comes it is neither be●ter nor worse then the Divels whisper And indeed there is no reconciling Christ and Belial no middle path between o●edience and disobedience no neutrality between God and his enemies They that will not have the one of raign over them do ipso facto subscribe unto the others Gove●nment Saul is no sooner deserted by a good Spirit but immediatly possessed of an evil one And this is most agreeable to the Iustice of God that 1. Sam 16. 14. such as will not be led by the saving conduct of his good Spirit should be left to the mercy of a Spirit so full of malice that when he cannot have his full blow a● man receives some satisfaction in the destruction of an herd of swine Mar. 3. 12. We read of Ahab that being designed by the Iustice of God to fall at Ramoth Gilead a lying Spirit comes and offers his service to be the instrument of his destruction and propounding a very plausible way to effect his designe namely by being a lying Spirit in the mouth of all his Prophers he gains a Commission or rather a Permission to go and act accordingly Where we may pause a little and enquire what was the reason the Divel was so active and officious in this service Was it to befriend the Syrian army with a glorious victory 'T is not likely he should be friend to any party who is the irreconciliable enemy of all mankind Or was it for the accomplishment of Eliahs Prophecy concerning Ahabs fall Doubtlesse the promoting and accomplishing Gods Truth quatenus his Truth is no very pleasing employment to a lying Spirit He that was a Lyar from the beginning and the arch Patron of all imposture would certainly change Gods Truth into a lye if the thing were possible and his power proportionable to his malice No his malice strikes at the King of Israel that in that one blow he m●ght ●ound all the thousands of Is●ael He knew well that if the sheperd were once but smitten the sheep would immediatly b● scattered into misery and confusion enough Which as Micaiah saw in a vision so the Divel by the advantage of long experience knew would be the certain consequent of the Kings fall And therefore for this grand purpose he wher 's all his endeavours for this he Councels the King of Assiri● to issue out a Command saying Fight 1. King 22. 31. neither with small nor great save only with the King of Israel For this he sends his Emissaries among all the Prophets For this he raiseth persecution against single but faithful Micaiah because he would not follow his false suggestions And at the accomplishment of this designe how do the hellish and infernal suries cl●p their black hands in a tryumphant acclamation saying There there so would we have it I have insisted the longer on this story for the near affinitie and correspondence it hath with these times For let us but set a good King in the place of a bad and sure we have much of Micaiahs vision accomplished in our Israel Sure I am we are scattered on all hands as sheep that have no shepherd at least no shepherd where he should be and in this our sad confusion we are not without good store of Foxes and Tygers and wolves in sheeps clothing preying upon us And no wonder for was the lying Spirit so active and busie in Ahabs time and hath he been lesse active and busie in ours Was he so active and busie in cutting of an Ahab from the Throne of Israel and hath he been lesse active and busie in cutting of an Hezechiah from the Throne of England Was it the language of the lying Spirit in th● Prophets of those times Go up and pr●sper and is it not the language of the same Spirit in the b'ack mouthes of our Prophets Go on and prosper in the most prodigious ways that ever ●he Sun beheld Was Michaiah smitten and imprisoned and reduced to bread and water for speaking in the name of the Lord And are not our Micaiahs our Prophets as vilely and villanously intreated by our Pashurs and Zedechias among the Prophets and by our Ammons and Governours among the people I would to God that many of us the Lords Prophets had but so much as bread and water that we could call our own till our Soveraign Lord the King were setled in his Throne in peace But alas what can either Priest or