Selected quad for the lemma: friend_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
friend_n	abraham_n	call_v	faith_n	883	5	5.7042	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A23769	A sermon preached before the King at White-hall, October the 12th 1662 by Richard Allestrey ...	Allestree, Richard, 1619-1681.	1663 (1663)	Wing A1165; ESTC R15228	15,707	44

and it was imputed to him for righteousness and he was called the friend of God James ii 23. and then is Christ more inaccessible and harder to be made a friend Why truly God and Christ both are so much friends to all true believers that the life of Christ was given for them for God so loved the world that he gave his onely begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life John iii. 16. nor are there any qualities more signally peculiar to friendship more engaging then confidence and trust dependance and relying embosoming my self in him now these are but the exercise of Faith and t is most certain if we heartily endeavour to do what he commands there is employment then for all this work of Faith place for its applications and assurances My Text does make this good But when his friendship is made over on conditions as t is not onely in these words but every where in Scriptures there being not one promise absolute that does concern Gods favour justification and eternal life he does not once offer remission of sins but to those that amend their lives nay does express as if he could not give it otherwise peradventure they will repent that I may forgive them Jeremy xxxvi 3 The promises therefore being conditional Faith must be answerable to the promises that it does rest on and apply and at the most can be but an assurance that you shall be partaker of what 's promised that is to say partaker of the favour and the life of Christ if ye do his commands But then if I perform not this condition to trust upon his friendship which I am not qualified for to think by faith to receive a pardon which in that case I am was never offered me to apply to my self promises which were never made me for none were ever made to them that do not do and to assure my self Christ will transgress his everlasting Covenant for my Vices sake meerly to give me leave to enjoy my sins will do that which God may not do forgive one that will not repent If I believe thus against promise and against decree am confident whether Christ will or no and will rely upon him in despite of him if such a faith will make us friends affronts do reconcile This is indeed to lay violent hands on his favour and to invade his friendship and without metaphor take Heaven by force But sure I am that this is not the faith made Abraham be called the friend of God in that place of Saint James but a faith that was perfected by doing v. 22. of that Chapter a faith that made him offer up his onely Son upon the Altar v. 21. 'T is true he did in hope believe against all hope Rom iv 18. So that his faith was stronger then a contradiction but yet his resolutions of obedience seem stronger then his faith for he did that even to the cutting off the grounds of all his Faith and hope He trusted God would make his promise good to him make all the Nations of the Earth be blessed in the seed of Isaac though Isaac had no seed nor could have if he should be slain And he resolved at Gods command himself to slay that Isaac so to make him have no seed His Faith indeed did no dispute the great impossibility but his obedience caused it He did not question how can God perform with me when I have offered up my son I cannot look that a large Progeny should rise out of the Ashes on the Altar nor will those Flames that devour all my seed at once may my seed numerous lasting and glorious as the Stars in Heaven which he promised me but much less did he question why should I obey in this He that does his commands can but expect what he hath promis'd but if I should do this command and slay my Son I make his promise void and detroy my own expectations and if I disobey I can but suffer what he bids me do my own obedience will execute all that his indignation would threaten to my Disobedience Though Abraham had three daies time and journy to the Altar that Nature might have leisure the mean while to reason with the precept thus and his affection might struggle with his duty yet he goes on resolves to tear out his own bowels and cut of his hopes will Sacrifice his onely Son and Sacrifice God's promise to his commands And then He that will trust to Abraham's example of believing yet will not follow him at all in doing will obey no commands that is so far from offering up an onely Son he will not slay an onely evil custome nor part with one out of the herd of all his vicious habits will not give up the satisfaction to any of his carnal worldly or ambitious appetites not Sacrifice a passion or a lust to all the Obligations that God and Christ can urge him with he hath nor faith nor friendship no nor fore-head 'T is true indeed he that hath Abraham's faith may well assure himself he is Christ's friend but t is onely on this account because he that believes as Abraham believed he will not stick to do whatever Christ commands which is that universality of obedience that is the next condition that entitles to Christ's friendship and my last part Ye are my friends if ye do whatsoever I command you There is no quality so necessary to a friend or so appropriate to friendship as sincerity They that have but one soul they can have no reserves from one another But disobedience to one precept is inconsistent with sincerity that hath respect unto all the commandments and he that will not do whatever Christ prescribes hath reserves of affection for some darling sin and is false to his Saviour He is an enemy indeed so that there is no friendship on either side Saint Paul says so of any of one kind the minding of the flesh saith he whether it be providing for the belly or any other of the organs of carnality is desperate incurable rebellion Now such a rebel is we know the worst of enemies Saint James does say as much of any of those vicious affections that are set on the world Whosoever will be a friend of the world is an enemy of God James iv 4. and he calls them adultereses and adulterers who think to joyn great strict Religion to some little by-love of an honour or a profit of this world Such men are like a wife that not contented with the partner of her takes in another now and then she must not count her self her husbands friend though she give him the greatest share in her affections no she is but a bosom enemy and so any one vice allow'd is a paramour sin is whoredome against Christ and our pretended friendship to him in all other obediences is but the kindness and the caresses of an adulteress the meer hypocrisie and

present words Greater love hath no man then this that a man lay down his life for his friend Ye are my friends if ye do what I command you When Christ is boasting of his love making comparisons and vying friendships with mankind nay more contriving heights and depths of mercy such as man hath no comprehension nor Fathom for when he was preparing to do an act of compassion on almost equal to his Divinity when he had resolutions of so much kindness as to give his life that he might shew kindness Yet could he not then find in his heart to offer or declare one jot of kindness to the men that will not do what he commands but in the midst of such agonies of compassion he thought of nothing but infinite indignation and eternal vengeance to the disobedient I have but now given my body and my blood even to the Traitour Judas to one who is a Devil I am going to give my life even for my enemies for the world but I will give no love to any have no friendship with any but the virtuous no though they be my own Disciples ye are my friends ye my companions and Apostles are my friends onely on this condition if ye do what I command you And then is it not matter of Astonishment to see men fancy they have a right in all Christ's actions and sufferings presume upon his favour and their own happy condition though they do nothing or but very little towards this and the maine of their life be disobedience as if all Christs commands appointed them to do no commands and Christianity were but a liberty from virtue To pass by those that do nothing but evil that which the Devil does suggest or their flesh dictate and to consider the demurer sort of Christians that pretend a respect to Christ and to Religion and see what they will doe Why sometimes you may find them troubled at their Vices and themselves and those troubles breath out in Sighs and in warme-wishes that they could do that which Christ prescribes to will is sometimes strongly present with them but to performe they know not how Alas Christ does not tell you that you are his friends if you wish well to him and his commands but he requires that you shall do them These are but vapours of a troubled soul which howsoever they may chance rise warm cath a strong suddain heat breath up in flashing thoughts They are but meteors little shooting flames that onely do catch fire and fall and dy shew fair but they warme nothing and so these thoughts do never heat the heart into devotions and holy resolutions the fire is not strong nor does it live enough to melt and worke away the filthynesses of the soul No though they grow to aversations for you may find such men when wearied with the pursuite of their sins hating their customes and the engagements to the practice of them complayning thus I know 't is ill and 't is against my heart that I obey the motions of my passions or lusts The incitations of my appetite the usance of the world the obligations of civility or mistaken honour do indeed prevaile upon me but 't is with great reluctancy of minde that I yeild to them but I cannot avoid it There are not few that satisfie themselves with this condition Now sure Christ does not say Ye cannot be my friends except you sin against me and against your Knowledge and your Conscience too 'T is strange that men should think the Heathen instance of a Witch that cryed Video meliora proboque Deteriora sequor I know and do approve of better things but cannot choose but follow these that are the worser strange that this fury that had the Devil for familiar should make Christ a friend that this should be the state of Gospel Saints and of God's favourites 'T is possible some therefore go yet further to good purposes towards Obedience and have holy intentions but this is not sufficient neither if to do his commands be necessary for to purpose and intend to do them is not certainly to do them Yet where are any that do aim at doing any more and there is none of these but does presume upon his interest in Christ and satisfies himself and is secure Yet is it hard to find a ground of this their confidence unless it rise from the unhappy use they make of God's preserving mercies and his kindness to them in the concernments of this life They see without their cares and upon very weak entreaties indeed against all provocations both of God and danger yet his protections secure them all though they neither minde the asking them nor minde the walking worthy of them The man whose sins not p●ayers prepare him for his bed he sleeps well perhaps more soundly then he who at his bed-side throws himself on his face into God's arms and there bequeaths himselfe to the securities of the Almighty And he whose Sleeps onely refresh him for returns to sin does often live as long as safely and as merrily as he that dayly most religiously does begg protections from above And others that affoord the Lord some little homages themselves some prayers when their pleasures or occasions permit God hath a care of them and their desires flow into them all does succeed well with them Now they take confidence hence to conclude these are the tokens of Gods friendship and all his mercies will come in at the like easie rates that such a short petition as committed them to the refreshments of the night and after which they wak't into renewed strengths and pleasures such another shall lay them down in safety to the sleeps of that long night that afterwards will break in happy resurrection for why God will not sure fail his own mercies but be as friendly to their souls as he is to their bodies And thus God's preservations here in meer defiance of our provocations which are the arts of his long suffering his strivings of Compassion meerly to give us opportunities of being reconciled to him and to invite us to be so while we make them occasions of carelesness and security they are so far from being pledges of his friendship that they have all the aggravations of affronted goodness become temptations and degrees of ruin 'T were fine indeed if Christ's eternal preparations for his friends would come in to us without care or doing any thing as an accession to our pleasures if when we had lived many years in a Garden our days all Flower'd with delight we might expire into Paradise and in soft aires of Musick breath into Hallelujah's But alas the smooth easy way leads down the Hill and he must strive and pant that will get up into the Mansions and the Bosom of his Saviour and whosoever will be his friend must do what he commands But is there nothing less indeed will qualify The Scripture saith that Abraham believed God