Selected quad for the lemma: friend_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
friend_n	answer_v	good_a	time_n	779	5	3.3369	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A50609	Vindiciæ fœderis, or, A vindication of the interest that the children of believers as such have in the covenant of grace with their parents under the Gospel-dispensation being the substance of two sermons, with additions preached to a congregation in Wapping : also some seasonable reflections upon various unsound and cruel passages taken forth of two furious books of Mr. H. Collins printed against infant-baptism / by Fran. Mence.	Mence, Francis, 1639?-1696?	1694 (1694)	Wing M1703; ESTC R27509	104,587	170

say that what I have here put into your Hands to read in the following Sermons is wrote and designed for the Honour of God the Grace of his Covenant to interpose a little between our poor Children and Little Ones and that Soul-amazing Doom that is pronounced against them to reprove the rash and furious Zeal of our Adversary to Answer the vehement Importunities and longing Expectations of many of my good Friends to commode all that hear me in instructing them in this great and comfortable Truth of the Gospel that I contend for to give a check to that Lying Spirit that is got loose among us to satisfie any that are stumbling and doubting about Baptism and to reduce if the God of Peace shall see good this poor troubled Place to a peaceable tranquil Composure Oh! cry to God that this my Vndertaking sincerely prostituted to the good of Souls may meet with some suitable Blessing thereunto and that all my poor Labours in the Work of the Gospel may obtain good success The Lord be with you and bless you and cause his gracious Face to shine upon you guiding you into the Way of Truth and conducting you to his Eternal Glory My Hearts desire and prayer for you all is that you may be saved I am Your Affectionate Servant in Christ Fran. Mence A Vindication of the Interest of the Children of Believers in the Covenant of Grace c. ACTS ii 39. For the promise is to you and to your children IN this Chapter we have one of the first Sermons that was preached after the Ascension of Christ The very first that we read of unless we take Peter his divine Oration in the Chapter before concerning the apostacy of Judas and the choosing of another in his room to fill up the Number of the Disciples to be the first This indeed is a most excellent Sermon and of divine inspiration in which the holy Scriptures refering to that case were elegantly and opportunely explicated and applyed and the Auditory that he directed himself unto sweetly composed and instructed in the Election of another Apostle to fill up the room of him that betrayed his Lord and Master who through the insufferable anguish of his own Conscience was a most execrable Executioner of himself and by the just judgment of God had his bowels burst out Acts 1.15 c. We come unto the Chapter which my Text is part of in which we may observe four general parts First The Mission of the Holy Ghost upon the Apostles who according to the promise and command of Christ were to wait at Jerusalem for the accomplishment of that rare and necessary blessing to fit them for that great and difficult undertaking of preaching and planting the Gospel they were commissionated unto who were to go together and not enter upon this great work until the Spirit did rest upon them Ver. 1 c. we have their obedience to their Lords command chap. 1.13 14. There is one thing very observable that when the Apostles and those that were with them were with one accord waiting for the fulfilling of the promise they did not sit dumb and silent together but they did pour out prayer and supplications to God they did not keep such a silent meeting waiting for the Spirit as the Quakers pretend to do They were not only waiting but praying it may be well supposed that they were making supplications to God for the obtaining that promised mercy they were under the expectation of Secondly The Sermon that Peter by divine assistance did deliver to the Congregation that was about him His Auditory was very great no wonder it was so partly because of the time of it Here was a great Season that might contract a numerous Assembly it was in the time of Penlecost when there was a great resort of people from many places and also because of that wonder that was then wrought in the descent of the Holy Ghost upon the Apostles which enabled them to speak in various languages ver 4 5. When this extraordinary thing was noised abroad it brought the Multitude together some were confounded others were amazed and there were those that mocked they thought the Apostles were full of New Wine as if their speaking through the Gift of the holy Spirit so miraculously poured upon them was only the fruit and effect of their excessive drinking Thus we may observe how Satan doth instigate those that be under his conduct and influence to blaspheme the most wonderful and obvious Works of God ver 6 7 8 c. In this Sermon the Apostle Peter undertakes two things 1. To wipe off that foul Aspersion that was cast upon them of being filled with New Wine It was very needful for him so to do otherwise this might be a means to obstruct the good success of his Sermon We may see in many Verses the way the Apostle takes to clear them of this Diabolical Accusation from ver 14 to 22. 2. He comes to the peculiar Subject the Spirit of Christ did lead him unto viz. To set home upon the Consciences of the Jews their great and sanguinary Sin in their cruel and malicious crucifying and murdering the Lord Jesus the Prince of life the only Messiah and Saviour of the World Many of those that heard him were guilty of it as we may see by the round and positive charge he draws up against and fastens upon them verse 22 23. Here we may apprehend how fully and emphatically the Apostle doth fix this Crime upon his Hearers as to him that was barbarously murdered and crucified therefore he called him Jesus of Nazareth to shew that he was the true Messiah promised by all the Prophets and that they might readily understand that he spake of that very Jesus whom they in scorn and contempt called Jesus of Nazareth and upon whose Cross they fixed that Title the Apostle to make the charge the more full he adds that it was that Jesus of Nazareth that was a Man approved of God among them by Miracles Wonders and Signs which God did by him and that in the midst of them as they themselves well knew It was him that they did take and by wicked hands did crucifie and slay It is to be observed that this terrible Accusation is exhibited against all the Auditory of Peter when he saith unto all that heard him Ye have taken and by wicked hands have crucified and slain he might deliver himself thus unto them all because in so great a company many were present that actually poured out the blood of Christ Moreover the whole People cried out at the Tribunal crucifie him crucifie him and imprecated that his blood might be upon them and their posterity viz. the guilt of his blood and the direful fruits of it What a wonderful Spirit of Zeal and Courage was the Lord pleased to fill this Apostle withal Even him who out of fear sometime before had denied his Lord and Master he was now full of

the Apostle should here mention the Children if children here the Seed of the faithful that be in Covenant should not be meant of the Gentiles Those two Members of the distinction you that are nigh and those that are afar off would take in all persons in the world and frustra sit per plura c. the Children of these would be found either afar off or nigh one of those terms would have involved them all the mentioning of the Children must be an impertinency if it were not for some other reason There are some I know for a shift this bearing hard upon them will urge that imprecation Mat. 27.25 but it is improbable that all that were the hearers of this Sermon did joyn in that dreadful wish for many of them were strangers and lived remote from Jerusalem However the Apostle presseth them all alike to repent and to yeild subjection to Christ by an argument from the Covenant which carries weight enough with it though they had never been guilty of that horrid imprecation This argument of the Covenant hath been pressed at another time to prevail upon the Jews to the same duty of repentance Acts 3.19 20 25. Repent ye therefore and be converted that your sins may be blotted out when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord and he shall send Jesus Christ which before was preached unto you In this verse he doth incourage them from a promise and observe the rare Motive ye are the children of the Prophets and of the Covenant which God made with our fathers saying unto Abraham and in thy seed shall all the kindred of the earth be blessed This extends to them that were afar off not only the kindred of the Jews but also the kindred of the Gentiles should partake of the blessing of Abraham viz. of the Covenant made with Abraham Gal. 3.14 That the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles the blessing of Abrahams Covenant through Jesus Christ whose blood was the blood of the Covenant 3. The Apostle doth here fix his argument in the benefit that will redound unto them and to their posterity by their submission to the Gospel Administration by this he doth Emphatically press them to it Oh! what an incouraging and cogent Argument doth this Apostle by a divine instinct urge them withall such a one that poor awakened souls ready to sink into desperation could not tell how to reject or withstand This seems to be the genuine sense of it you are greatly troubled for sin in general and some of you have been guilty of that dreadful sin of a malicious pouring out of the incorruptible and sacred blood of the Son of God and crucifying the Lord of Glory therefore have highly deserved that his blood should be upon your heads and upon the heads of your Children for ever and since you have instead of reverencing killed the Lord of the Vineyard you have dreadfully provoked God to turn you out of it for ever but if after all you will but submit to him that you have crucified it shall not be so your deserts though never so great and crying shall never be given unto you but you shall still be to the Lord a chosen and a peculiar People the Church and the People of God to you and your Children the Promise shall still continue and all under a better Administration than ever because there is now abundance more of grace and of the Spirit to be poured out you and your Children shall have the first experience of it Oh how sweetly doth the Apostle here entice and allure them to accept of the Seasonable offer made unto them 4. That interpretation certainly that renders this Argument of the Apostle to the Jews to prevail upon them to the duty exhorted unto to be a discouragement unto them and to dishearten them in their submitting to the Gospel-Administration rather than an incouragement is not to be admitted That which doth contradict or at leastwise greatly impede and obstruct the design of the Apostle must not be entertained What was the design of the Apostle but to perswade these poor lost creatures to accept of Christ and his Administration that was taking place Therefore that he might obtain his end said he the Promise is to you and your Children for both were concerned in the blood of Christ and we may rationally suppose these weeping bleeding sinners were not only concerned for themselves but for their Children also They might well deliberate in themselves thus what will become of us I and of our miserable off-spring too Why saith the Apostle here is that that may allay all the amazing and confounding tumult of your self-condemning hearts the Promise is to you and your Children The Apostle did see that their Soul-disease had so sunk their Spirits and they were so ready to faint that they wanted the highest Cordial that could be poured into them and without this ingredient of their Children it could never have revived them This was the opening of a comfortable door of hope in their pinching and affrighting valley of Achor I have wondered sometimes how our Friends the Anabaptists can support their minds when they behold their dear dying Infants ready to expire and to give up the ghost to restrain the interest of the Children of these Jews in the Promise to the time of their calling could not but be a considerable discouragement unto them from coming under this Administration rather than an encouragement That it would have been so I shall give two Reasons to prove it 1 This would make their exchange to be for the worse and not the better for the Covenant under which they were before did run to them and their Seed but this runs otherwise to the great disadvantages of the Children and the great discouragement of the Parents Children by this way of Interpretation are excluded and dismist the Covenant till their call This could not but have a deep regret upon the hearts of these Parents that were well instructed into their Childrens Covenant-right with them and did so strongly depend upon it as they did 2. This would put their Children into the same condition with those afar off the restriction equally taking hold of the Children of the Jews with the Gentiles and Heathens yet afar off which would sound harshly in the Ears of the Jews If it were so of what import must the Argument be but of this Viz. If ye will now ye awakened trembling Jews believe in Christ and come under his Administration the Promise shall continue unto you but your Children shall be cut off and turned out of this priviledge they shall be in the same condition of the rest of the Pagan world when they hereafter and any of the Heathen shall be called then they may have a part in the same Promise too and not till then This being contained in that Interpretation whether it would not in the nature of the Argument rather drive