Selected quad for the lemma: fire_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
fire_n	bring_v	fruit_n	tree_n	11,470	5	9.5299	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A77480	Satan the leader in chief to all who resist the reparation of Sion. As it was cleared in a sermon to the Honourable House of Commons at their late solemn fast, Febr. 28. 1643. By Robert Baylie, minister at Glasgow. Published by order of the House of Commons.	Baillie, Robert, 1599-1662.	1643 (1643)	Wing B468; Thomason E35_17; ESTC R209954	47,169	63

holinesse none can see his face such of our selves we are not we are like to our Father old Adam till we become ingraffed in a new stock till Christ become to us a head it is he that sends down into us as living members the influence of his Spirit which begins continues and increaseth in us that life that light that love which makes us like our heavenly Father partakers of the divine nature 2. Pet. 1.4 Phil. 2.14 Iohn 15.5 Of our selves we cannot think a good thought It is he that works in us to will and to do without him we can do nothing out of him we are but lifelesse saplesse withered branches fit for nothing but the fire but in him we are the trees of righteousnesse bringing forth all manner of fruit in due season The use of this doctrine is The first use first for our information of the true cause why much of our devotion is fruitles oft times we draw neer to God but have no accesse we cry and call at the door of heaven but there is no hearing no opening no answer The reason is we have mistaken our way we have gone to the wrong door we have run ever alone in the vehemencie of our owne spirit in the fervour of our naturall desires we have forgotten our Mediator and gone to the Father without the Son or if we have begun to take him with us at once as foolish children we have run before our guide No wonder then we be disciplined for that error that Christ permitting us to assay how much we can do of our selves without him we feel our labours lost our prayers in vain no marvell there commeth no voice no message no fire from heaven on our sacrifice to give us any assurance of our acceptation Matth. 3.17 God will not shew himself well pleased with us for any thing we do when we come without the Son in whom alone he is well pleased A second use A second Use is for direction Hold fast to Christ in all thy wayes especially in thy approaches to God most of all in thy solemne Prayers on such a day as this Set Christ betwixt thee and God let all be offered up by his hand he is thy only Priest no man was permitted under the Law to offer his own sacrifice all was put in the Priests hand who laid all upon the Altar Christ is the true Altar which sanctifieth and maketh acceptable all that is laid on him When we draw neere to God by him he covereth all our infirmities he supplyeth all our defects he enableth all who seek their life in him to do every duty in such a way as is well-pleasing in the sight of God he taketh all our desires and prayers in his hand put teth them in his golden censer he kindleth them with his own fire Revel 8.3 and perfumeth them with the incense of his own merits that so dressed they may have a sweet savour in the nostrils of the Father A third use is for caution in our magnifying of Christ A third use for caution against the Antinomians beware of an old trick of the devill which of late he hath resumed and by it done more mischiefe then ever Grace and wantounesse in themselvs are most opposite yet Satan striveth to conjoyn them To turn the grace of God into wantonnesse Iude 4. Mat. 27.29 It is no new thing to adore Christ in shew while you buffet him in truth There is a generation of people who under the colour of magnifying the free grace of God of setting Christ in his Throne of advancing a Gospel way of crying down nature and legall righteousnesse with these glorious shows and pleasant words they are misled by a spirit of delusion to patronize profanity to grieve and extinguish the Spirit of grace to scoffe at repentance and sorrow for sinne to foster the fruits of the flesh to bring in the highest degree of all wickednesse a dedolence of minde a reprobation of spirit when a man has committed all wickednesse with greedinesse to be nothing grieved for it as if the Spirit of the just Lord were nothing offended with it Among the many devils who very boldly this day are walking up and down the land this is one of the worst albeit masked with the fairest shews of piety and reason Who magnifies not the Lord Iesus let him be Anathema maranatha let Iesus be all in all to thy soule make him alone thy Righteousnesse thy Sanctification thy Redemption 1 Cor. 1.30 but for all that beware to divide Christ from his Spirit his death from his life his blood from his grace Separate not faith from repentance dash out none of thy Lords commandements so long as thou livest wert thou never so holy thou hast need from thy heart to beg pardon for thy sins whosoever will neglect repentance must perish who ever will have true comfort must be a mourner Christ eurseth them that laugh now and no laughter more devillish then in the act of sin he blesseth them that mourn now and no mourning in a child of God more pious then for the offending of God and grieving of his Spirit by sinne I thought to have laid open other stratagems of Satan by occasion of the words in hand and pointed at some other very dangerous errors wher with lately this land was overgrown and which to this day are not altogether evanished First that Idolatry of the Papists in their standing before Angels and Saints for intercession before images for adoration further no Papist ever went and thus far Court-Divines here were wont to preach and print 2. Against the Arminians That wickednes of Arminius denying the commerce of the Israelites with the Angel of the Covenant taking away the knowledg of Christ from the very Patriarchs and Prophets that however Christ speak expresly of Abrahams seeing of his day reioicing therin yet the Lord must have the open lie and Abrahams both sight and joy must go no further then to his son Isaac the type of Christ they must be terminate in the shadow and not go through to the substance It is the lesse wonder that this man and his followers should steal Christ out of the Law since under the Gospel they really remove him from the hearts of the people putting free-will in the place of grace and in stead of our justification by Christ would teach us that old fundamental error of the Papists justification by works and inherent righteousness to wit by faith as a worke in us Strange that any Protestant Divines should yet stumble upon that infamous stone 3. Against the Socinians That horrible wickednesse of the Socinians denying the Angel of our Text to be Christ because he had no being before his conception denying his Incarnation abolishing his divine nature blaspheming the Trinity A wonder that so foul a spirit should ever have gotten entrance in any famous Divine or other man

whereof the Father is the first the Son the second This Person alone is incarnate uniting in the fulnesse of time to his Divine Person the nature of Man The holy Ghost is the third and yet all three are equall in Glory in Eternitie and every Divine attribute Hold fast in thy minde these plain Catechetick Scripturall Notions of God Beware to make to thy self an Idoll in thy brain to frame a false erroneous and unwritten conception of the true God If thou worship the Trinity as three divers Gods thou becomest a Pagan abolishing by the multitude of Gods the Unity of the divine Nature If thou apprehend God so much one as not three Persons thou turnest Turk a Jew an old Arian and Macedonian Heretike and which is all these in one a Socinian a reall Atheist for it is Christs own Conclusion Who honoureth not the Son Ioh. 5 23. honoureth not the Father which hath sent him The neglect the contempt the denyall of any one Person reflecteth alike on all the three and the whole God-head A third Observation upon the Reproof if time did permit A fourth Observation would be the holy and gracious practice of Christ in his hotest zeal he bringeth no false 2 Pet 1.11 no railing accusation against the devill himself the farthest he goeth against this arch-enemy is to commit him to God to be rebuked Lyes calumnies railings agianst the devill are inexcusable and would not be countenanced It is a foolish policy and a profane zeal to advance the Cause of God by the arts of the devill Lying calumnies malicious bitternesse are hellish weapons a gracious hand must not take them up were it against their very author The Arsenall of God is not so unprovided of lawfull Arms his Quiver not so disfurnished of his own Arrows that we need go borrow from Askelon or Gath from hell it self these poysoned Darts dipped in the venome of Asps in the blood of that old Serpent the father of Lyes the great Calumniator from the beginning A fourth Observation A fifth Observation God rebuketh Satan before his finall destruction his children in this are heirs to their father After a little time death will put all the wicked in a full possession of their inheritance their souls first and after the Resurrection their bodies also shall be placed in these lakes of fire but before they are to be infeoffed and seized they are to have the earnest of their fathers portion they are to be rebuked of God their secret wickednesse is to be brought to light their well-covered villanies to be proclaimed on the house tops shame and confusion to be poured on their faces their malice and violence is to be restrained their pushing horns to be hammered off by the Carpenters Satan and they will bee coopt up within so narrow a circle and bee bound with so short a chain that all may understand they are rebuked of God Also it would be a comfortable consideration to meditate on the zeal of Christ for Sion A sixth Observation against all her enemies He speaketh here as a man in a passion repeating and ingeminating his angry words The Lord rebuke thee even the Lord rebuke thee The Lord proclaimeth the sounding of his Bowels before he got Flesh the tendernesse of his compassion towards the Church before his Incarnation Certainly the sympathie of his heart and his fellow feeling with us in all our afflictions is not now diminished but rather if possible increased after his experimentall knowledge on the earth in his own person of these evils which Satan and wicked men inflict upon the godly From the Reasons which the Lord useth for Satans reproof A seventh we may behold the Devill his end and intention in molesting of Joshua the thing he seeketh is the overthrow of Jerusalem Satan driveth most at the eversion of the publike Phil. 2 21. Therefore the preservation of the publike ought to go neerest our heart Many seek their own things and not those of Jesus Christ They minde themselves much more then either Church or State This self-wisedom is foolish for if the Ship wherein thou sailest be drowned what will become of thy Goods if the house wherein thou art locked be burnt how shall thy life be saved From the first Reason the choosing of Jerusalem observe An eighth That Election is a principall ground of comfort against all Satans tentations True the difference is wide betwixt a nationall and personall Election betwixt the choice of Jerusalem or any other place to be the seat and habitation of the Church and betwixt the Election of persons to grace and glory This I may not stand to cleer onely strive to make our personall Election sure for upon the grounded assurance thereof we come to a glorious confidence that no creature neither Satan nor the World nor conscience nor any other shall ever be able to confound us Rom 8.33 Who shall lay any thing to the charge of Gods Elect It is God that justifieth Who is he that condemneth It is Christ that dyed One of the sweetest private fruits of such a dayes exercise is to get our calling and our Election sealed Verily a penitent soul who throughly hath mourned for sin and fled to Christ for mercy who hath gotten of his spirit for a reall and sincere beginning of a through Sanctification and amendment in every thing which either within or without hath been amisse A soul this farre proceeded in Grace useth to receive the stamp of the Spirit The inward unction and witnesse that they are the Sons of God Elect and called who shall be glorified Rom 8.17 2 Pet. 1.11 after they have suffered a while to such an entrance useth to be ministred aboundantly into the everlasting Kingdom of Christ From the last Reason take but some few brief notes An ninth Jerusalem the Church of God and Joshua the chief Member of it for the time were like a Stick half burnt in the fire of the Babylonish Captivitie Out of that fire they were pulled in Gods mercy to be preserved against all the malicious assaults of Satan and his instruments From hence you see the best beloved people of God by the Devill and wicked men may be brought exceeding low and so neer to utter destruction as a stick burning in the fire is to Ashes So it was with Israel in Egypt in Babel and oft elsewhere We therefore in our most desperate cases must not despair Exod 3 2. Isai 43 2. Dan. 3.25 The burning Bush will not be consumed God hath promised to be with us in fire and water One like the Son of man walketh in the fiery Furnace with the three Children When to the eye of the World our condition is most desperate when sence maketh us cry out Lam. 3.48 ●3 My strength and my hope is perished from the Lord They have cut of my life in the dungeon and cast a stone upon me yet

faith will quickly correct sence and make us subjoyn it is good for a man to have hope and quietly to wait for salvation of the Lord Psal 68.13 and when we are lying among the Pots to wait for the time when we shall be as the Wings of the Dove covered with silver and her Feathers with yellow gold Secondly The tenth Consider the exceeding great terrour of God when he is angry his wrath burneth like fire It maketh the green tree to be like a burnt stick what will it do to the dry It maketh the most godly to become like a bottle in the smoak Psal 119.83 Psal 22.15 Psal 32 4. It dryeth up their strength like a Potsheard It turneth their moisture into the draught of Summer knowing the terrour of the Lord be perswaded to make peace with him in time venture not on his hot displeasure The tasting of the forbidden Aple will cost thee wonderfull dear Though which yet in the act of sin without madnesse cannot be supposed thou should be certain to escape Hell Thirdly The eleventh The Church here is a Brand pulled out of the fire a fire-brand to burn her enemies to Ashes it is exceeding unhappy to be an instrument of the Churches trouble Though God be angry with his people and he be very just in casting them in the fiery Furnace of his wrath yet woe to all these who are Bellows or Fewell to that fire who do vex the Church in any way Our Prophet Zachary in his twelfth Chapter sheweth That to all these who had taken up Jerusalem and the people of God to cast them away from their habitation as a stone out of a sling To all these Joh. 12.3 I say Jerusalem became a heavy and a burdensome stone to cut and to crush them in pieces Her Neighbours thought to have swallowed her down quick and to have drunk her off as a potion of sweet Wine but she becometh to them a Cup of trembling Zach. 12.2 a draught of poyson which maketh them tremble stagger and fall without rising and which is the Metaphor of our Text The people of God become a torch of fire in a Sheaff Zach. 12.6 to devour all their enemies round about on the right hand and on the left Nebuchad-nezzars Image when the little stone did fall upon its feet was not onely broken all to pieces Dan. 2.25 but also made like the chaff and was carryed away so violently by the winde that no place was found for any part thereof All the persecuters of the Saints have miscarryed for this cause above any other The greatest Monarchies and Kingdoms that have been upon the earth are vanished and no re-likes of them appear this day None who are wise will touch the people of the Lord for they are the apple of Gods eye the hurt whereof he cannot but avenge It is extreme dangerous to be employed by God himself in the chastising of his children for usually when the Lord returneth in mercy to embrace his chastised childe the rods of his anger and staves of his indignation are cast in the fire Isai 10.5.16 17. till they be burnt to ashes Lastly consider the mercifull reasoning of the Angel The last Jerusalem is a brand well-near consumed in the fire of Gods wrath and therefore ought to be pitied and freed from further trouble How extremely contrary is this to Satans logick and his instruments conclusions they adde affliction to the most afflicted they presse most the godly when they finde them weakest and on the brink of ruine we have their language in the 71 Psa 11. God hath forsaken him persecute and take him for there is none to deliver him Psal 83 4. It is then when they say Come and let us eut them off from being a Nation that the name of Israel be no more in remembrance Long sufferings and extreme misery are to Satan and wicked men provocations of further persecution but to God they be arguments of favour and deliverance Hence it is that the godly lay out before the face of God in their mourning their sufferings to the full as most pregnant incitements to compassion Behold and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow which is done unto me Lam. 1.12 wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger Dan 9.12 under the whole heaven hath not been done as hath been done upon Jerusalem The Lord alloweth us to spread out before him all the matter of our present grief and of our future fears hereby as it were to stir up the compassionate bowells of his mercy We would be crying to him not onely to pull the tree of our Church and State out of that fire which hath already burnt up very many Branches and is like if not quickly quenched to go to the very Root but further we would be earnest for that burnt stick when it is pull'd out of the flame that the dews of heaven and the Sun-shine of divine favour may fall so plentifully upon it that it may yet again flourish and bring forth fruits better and more aboundant then ever and it may become a pleasant and fruitfull Vine under whose shadow we all may lie down in peace enjoying the blessings of God and singing with a loud voyce his praises for our deliverance from all our present afflictions FINIS