Selected quad for the lemma: friend_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
friend_n	affair_n	great_a	king_n	867	5	3.6064	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A47519	The true interest of families, or, Directions how parents may be happy in their children, and children in their parents to which is annexed a discourse about the right way of improving our time / by a divine of the Church of England ; with a preface by A. Horneck.	Kirkwood, James, 1650?-1709.	1692 (1692)	Wing K651; ESTC R24423	91,974	261

your selves to a fiery Temper you become fierce barbarous and savage thereby you turn one of your great Temporal Comforts into a grievous Cross and heavy Burden Thirdly you hereby likewise teach your Children thorough your Example to be of a passionate and violent Spirit and so you do them more hurt than all your Corrections and Instructions can do them good Never think to cure them of their Faults by your committing as bad your selves You must not do evil that good may come of it The wrath of man worketh not the Righteousness of God Fourthly When it pleaseth God to visit them with sickness 4. They must carefully improve the Time of their Childrens Sickness or of any other afflictions they meet with towards the making of them wiser and better or any other adversity be sure to do all that you can to bear in upon their minds a sense of those things you are most desirous to have them touched with and which in time of their health they made but very little account of Affliction is the time in which God useth to work upon the hearts of people most powerfully and effectually Then he awakeneth them and convinceth them of their sad and dangerous state He casts them down that being made sensible of their sin and danger he may again raise them up and speak comfortably to them I will allure her and bring her into the wilderness and speak comfortably to her Hos 2.4 Therefore all they who sincerely desire to reclaim their Children or others from their bad and foolish courses ought to take the opportunity of their sickness their pain and grief their losses and disappointments and of any other sorts of troubles and afflictions wherein they are that then they may suggest to them such Counsels and Advices as are proper for their Instruction their Conviction and Amendment At other times there are a great many things which are apt to hinder good Counsel from entring into the mind or from making any deep impression thereon pleasures and vanities are apt to choak the good seed But when they are afflicted and humbled a little by some outward pressure or bodily distemper they are thereby somewhat better disposed to hear friendly Admonitions and Counsels and to think a little more seriously of their ways and doings It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his Youth He sitteth alone and keepeth silence c. Lam. 3.27 28. Fifthly Be earnest in your Prayers to God daily for them 5. They must daily pray to God for them that he would make them what he requires them to be his dutiful and obedient Children and Servants That he would season their hearts with his Fear and Love That he would turn them from Sin and Folly and incline their hearts to keep his Precepts always even unto the end That he would hold up their goings in his paths that their footsteps may not slide That he would be their God and guide their Sun and shield and their portion for ever and that he would give every one of them those things which be best and most needful for them You have great encouragement to do this because you are assured that God heareth Prayer He hath said Every one that asketh receiveth So that either he will grant your Children what you beg for them or if they render themselves unworthy of the mercy and kindness of God by their perverseness and stubbornness yet you are sure of one thing that your Prayers are not lost they shall return into your bosom God will plentifully reward your Piety your Charity and Zeal with more Grace here and Glory hereafter Some Motives to excite Parents to do these things Now to stir you up to perform these things 1. Motive from the Divine Command Consider first It is the Will of God that you bring up your Children in his Fear and acquaint them with his holy Laws and Commandments He who made you requires you to do this he who preserves you and keeps you alive he who is your King and Lord who has a Right to your service to all that you are able to do who is your Father in Heaven who daily takes care of you and loads you with his benefits who is the God of your Salvation who hath sent his Son into the World to die for you It is even he who saith Eph. 6.4 And ye Fathers provoke not your Children to wrath but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. If you then be the Subjects the Servants and the Children of the great God If you love and fear him as you ought to do you will be sure to make it your business to train up your Children in true Virtue and Piety to make them what God requires them to be holy as he who hath called them is holy in all manner of Conversation you will excite them to strive to enter in at the strait gate To work out their Salvation with fear and trembling To remember their Creator in the days of their youth To seek God while he may be found and to call upon him while he is near To love the Lord with all their heart and their Neighbours as themselves Secondly 2. Motive from its being a work worthy of the utmost care and pains of Parents Is not this a work worthy of all your care and pains to save the Souls of those who are parts of your selves who derive their Being from you You are the Instruments not only of their Being but the means of conveying unto them natural defilement and corruption And therefore you ought with a great deal of Zeal to endeavour to have their pollutions washed off by true unfeigned Repentance and a hearty turning from Sin unto God by their putting off the works of darkness and putting on the Armour of light by their putting on the Lord Jesus Christ and walking as he walked Are you ready to do all that you can to make your Children rich and wealthy great and honourable in the World And yet are you at so little pains to do that for them which tends to make them rich in Faith and Heirs of a glorious Inheritance You endeavor to acquaint them with those who may be useful to them in their worldly Affairs and Concerns And why do you not strive to acquaint them with God their greatest and best Friend Who is sure to stand by them to take them up and to take care of them when all forsake them and turn their backs upon them Why do you not with greater earnestness endeavour to procure unto them his Friendship and Love who is infinitely Powerful and infinitely Good and Kind and therefore not only can but will do for them exceeding abundantly above all that either you or they can think or ask Thirdly The doing of this is attended with great Rewards 3 Motive from the Rewards which attend those who faithfully do these things not only in another World

how Have not some dyed through an excess of joy and others through immoderate grief some by excessive laughter and others by too much mourning and weeping Some have dyed with a fright or sudden fear some by the violence of their anger and wrath and others by an excess of love How many have been killed with over much care and too great watching and others have occasioned their own death by idleness and too much sleep Some have killed themselves with eating and drinking and others have done it by too great abstinence and fasting Have not some dyed while they have been at Meals by a Crumb or a little Bone or some such very small matter When they were thinking to repair their strength and to fit themselves for going on with their business and work that which they did to save and lengthen out their lives did shorten them and put an end to them May not this instance alone shew you the great uncertainty of your time and how necessary it is to redeem it But besides all this consider that when you go abroad you are in danger from innumerable accidents You may be killed by the noisom steams of the Earth by some infectious quality in the Air by the Beasts of the field by the teeth of Dogs by the horns of mad Oxen or by the heels of wild Horses You are likewise in danger from the winged Creatures the least of whom have Weapons sufficient to destroy you if God by his Power and Justice arm them against you How remarkable was the manner of the death of Aeschylus Valer. Max. lib. 9. cap. 12. an ancient Poet in Sicily who as he sate in a Sunny place without the Walls of the City was killed by a Tortoise which an Eagle let fall on his head And no less memorable is the Story which is mentioned in the Book of Martyrs of one Burton Bailiff of Crowland in Lincolnshire who pretending to be a Friend to the Reformation in King Edward's time after the King's death began to set up the Popish Mass again and would have beaten the Curate if he had not complied with his design But see how the Lord's hand overtook him as he came riding from Fenbank one day a Crow flying over his head let fall her excrements upon his face the noisom scent whereof so annoyed his stomach that he never ceased vomiting till he came home And after falling deadly sick would never receive any meat but vomited still and complained of that stink cursing the Crow that had poisoned him and in a few days he died without giving any sign of his repentance for his former wicked life Besides the danger you are in from unreasonable Creatures are you not also sometimes in hazard from men who are mad either through the distemper of their Brain or through their violent Malice and Envy Let a Bear robbed of her Whelps saith Solomon meet a man rather than a fool in his folly Prov. 17.12 And not only are your Lives in danger from unreasonable Creatures and from Men but likewise from the Spirits of Darkness unless restrained by the mighty Power of God These are Enemies of great Power and of as great Malice But your heavenly Father keeps them as it were in chains and sets bounds to their rage and fury that they cannot hurt you so much as in a hair of your head without the Divine permission But further so uncertain is your time that there is not a stone nor a block in your way but it may be an occasion of your stumbling and falling into the snares of Death And sometimes when there is no such block in your way you are not secure from danger One foot may prove a stumbling-block to the other and an occasion of your falling into the hands of Death And more than all this in how great danger are your Lives from Fire and from Water from Heat and Cold from Storms and Tempests from Thunder and Lightning and many other things the stroke whereof you cannot prevent nor foresee God hath in store the Sword the Famine and Pestilence and innumerable Judgments and Plagues whereby he can cut you off and shorten your Lives When you are in your houses and think your selves in safety you know not but that Death is even there and that your Grave is ready for you By a sudden Wind by an Earthquake or by a decay in the Foundation or some other part of the Building the house may fall down about your ears and prove your burying place From all which you may conclude that your time is the most uncertain thing in the World Ought you not therefore to make good use of it while it lasts not knowing how soon and suddenly it may be at an end Thirdly Consider how great and difficult a work you have to do 3. Motive from the greatness and difficulty of the work you have to do a work that requires a great part of your time and worthy of all your time How hard is it to work out your Salvation to make your Calling and Election sure to strive to enter in at the strait gate to be born again to be made new Creatures to be renewed in the Spirit of your mind to put off the works of darkness and to put on the armour of light to add to your faith virtue and to virtue knowledge and to knowledge temperance and to temperance patience and to patience godliness and to godliness brotherly kindness and to brotherly kindness charity To have the image of God renewed in your Souls to be made partakers of the Divine Nature to escape the corruptions which are in the World through lust to be comformed to the Example of your Blessed Lord and Master in those Virtues wherein you ought to imitate him to learn of him who was meek and lowly to go about as he did doing good to the Souls and Bodies of men to be zealous for God and holy as he who called you is holy in all manner of conversation How great a work is it to overcome your selves To become vile and base in your own eyes to think meanly of your selves and to be willing that others should think so of you too to be content with every state and condition of life wherein God does by his Providence place you to bear wrongs and injuries with meekness and patience not to be overcome with evil but to overcome evil with good to mortifie your sinful desires and sensual appetites to crucifie the flesh with the affections and lusts to purifie your selves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit to cleanse your hearts from all manner of wickedness that they may be fit Temples for the Spirit of God to dwell in to govern your eyes that you may not thereby betray your souls into the hands of your enemies to govern your lips to take heed to your ways that you offend not with your tongue to put away from you all lying flattery and dissimulation all