Selected quad for the lemma: friend_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
friend_n	david_n	jonathan_n	saul_n	1,059	5	10.1589	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A61882	Fourteen sermons heretofore preached IIII. Ad clervm, III. Ad magistratvm, VII. Ad popvlvm / by Robert Sanderson ...; Sermons. Selections	Sanderson, Robert, 1587-1663.	1657 (1657)	Wing S605; ESTC R13890	499,470	466

Novembers fifth forgotten or the solemnity of that day silenced A fourth Degree of unthankfulnesse is in undervaluing Gods blessings and lessening the worth of them A fault whereof the murmuring Israelites were often guilty who although they were brought into a e good Land flowing with milk and honey and abounding in all good things both for necessity and delight yet as it is in Psal. 106. They thought scorn of that pleasant Land and were ever and anon and upon every light occasion repining against God and against Moses alwayes receiving good things from GOD and yet alwayes discontent at something or other And where is there a man among us that can wash his hands in innocency and discharge himself altogether from the guilt of unthankfulnesse in this kind Where is there a man so constantly and equally content with his portion that he hath not sometimes or other either grudged at the leannesse of his own or envied at the fatnesse of anothers lot We deal with our God herein as Hiram did with Salomon Salomon gave him twenty Cities in the land of Galilee but because the Country was low and deep and so in all likelihood the more fertile for that they pleased him not and he said to Salomon What Cities are these thou hast given me and he called them Cabul that is to say dirty So we are witty to cavil and to quarrel at Gods gifts if they be not in every respect such as we in our vain hopes or fancies have ideated unto our selves This is dirty that barren this too solitary that too populous this ill-wooded that ill-watered a third ill-ayred a fourth ill-neighboured This grudging and repining at our portions and faulting of Gods gifts so frequent among us argueth but too much the unthankfulnesse of our hearts The last thing required unto Thankfulnesse after a faithfull Acknowledgement of the receipt and a just Valuation of the thing received is Retribution and Requitall And that must be real if it be possible but at the least it must be votal in the Desire and Endeavour And herein also as in both the former there may be a double-fail if having received a benefit we requite it either not at all or ill Not to have any care at all of Requital is the fifth degree of Unthankfulnesse To a Requital as you heard Iustice bindeth us either to the party himself that did us the good turn if it may be and be either expedient or needfull or at the least to his David retained such a gratefull memory of Ionathans true friendship and constant affection to him that after he was dead and gone he hearkened after some of his friends that he might requite Ionathans love by some kindnesse to them Is there yet any left of the house of Saul that I may shew him kindnesse for Jonathans sake and surely he were a very unthankfull wretch that having been beholden to the Father as much as his life and livelyhood is worth would suffer the Son of so well-deserving a Father to perish for want of his help and would not strain himself a little even beyond his power if need were to succour him Indeed to God as we heard we can render nothing that is worthy the name of Requital we must not so much as think of that But yet somewhat we must do to expresse the true and unfeigned thankfulnesse of our hearts which though it be nothing lesse yet it pleaseth him for Christs sake to interpret as a Requital And that to Him and His To Him by seeking his glory to His by the fruits of our Christian Charity We adventure our states and lives to maintain the honour and safety of our Kings in their just warrs from whom perhaps we never received particular favour or benefit other than the common benefit and protection of subjects And are we not then foulely ingratefull to God to whose goodnesse we owe all that we have or are if for the advancement of his glory and the maintenance of his truth we make dainty to spend the best and most precious things we have yea though it be the dearest heart-bloud in our bodies But how much more ungratefull if we think much for his sake to forgoe liberty lands livings houses goods offices honours or any of these smaller and inferiour things Can there be greater unthankfulnesse than to grudge him a small who hath given us all In these yet peaceable times of our Church and state God be thanked we are not much put to it but who knoweth how soon a heavy day of trial may come we all know it cannot come sooner or heavier than our sinnes have deserved wherein woe woe to our unthankfulnesse if we do not freely and cheerfully render unto GOD of those things he hath given us whatsoever he shall require of us But yet even in these peaceable times there want not opportunities whereon to exercise our Thankfulnesse and to manifest our desires of requital though not to him yet to his To his servants and children in their afflictions to his poor distressed members in their manifold necessities These opportunities we never did we never shall want according to our Saviours prediction or rather promise Pauperes semper habebitis The poor you shall alwaies have with you as my Deputy-receivers but me in person ye shall not have alwaies And what we do or not do to these whom he thus constituted his Deputies he taketh it as done or not done unto himself If when God hath given us prosperity we suffer these to be distressed and comfort them not or victuals to perish and feed them not or cloathing to starve and cover them not or power to be oppressed and rescue them not or ability in any kind to want it and relieve them not Let us make what shewes we will let us make what profession we will of our thankfulnesse to God what we deny to these we deny to him and as we deal with these if his case were theirs as he is pleased to make their case his we would so deal with him And what is to be unthankfull if this be not And yet behold unthankfulnesse more and greater than this unthankfulnesse in the sixth and last and highest and worst degree We requite him evil for good In that other we were unjust not to requite him at all but injurious also in this to requite him with ill It sticketh upon King Ioash as a brand of infamy for ever that he slew Zachary the son of Iehoiada the High Priest who had been true and faithfull to him both in the getting of the kingdom and in the administration of it recorded to all posterity 2 Chron. 24. Thus Ioash the King remembred not the kindnesse which Iehoiada the Father had done him but slew his sonne and when he died he said The Lord look upon it and require it And it was not long before the Lord did indeed look upon it and require it

decree He spake the word and they were made he commanded and they were Created So in all their operations in actu secundo when they do at any time exercise those natural faculties and doe those Offices for which they were created all this is still done by the same powerfull word and decree of God He upholdeth all things by the word of his power As we read of bread so we often read in the Scriptures of the staff of bread God sometimes threatneth he will break the staff of bread What is that Bread indeed is the staff of our strength it is the very stay and prop of our lives if God break this staff and deny us bread we are gone But that is not all bread is our staff but what is the staff of bread Verily the Word of God blessing our bread and commanding it to feed us is the staff of this staff sustaining that vertue in the bread whereby it sustaineth us If God break this staff of bread if he withdraw his blessing from the bread if by his countermaund he inhibit or restrain the vertue of the bread we are as far to seek with bread as without it If sanctified with Gods word of blessing a little pulse and water hard and homely fare shall feed Daniel as fresh and fat and fair as the Kings dainties shall his Companions a cake and a cruse of water shall suffice Eliah nourishment enough to walk in the strength thereof forty daies and nights a few barly loaves and small fishes shall multiply to the satisfying of many thousands eat while they will But if Gods Word and Blessing be wanting the lean Kine may eat up the Fat and be as thin and hollow and ill-liking as before and we may as the Prophet Haggai speaketh eat much and not have enough drink our fills and not be filled This first degree of the Creatures sanctification by the word of God is a common and ordinary blessing upon the Creatures whereof as of the light and dew of Heaven the wicked partake as well as the godly and the thankless as the thankfull But there is a second degree also beyond this which is proper and peculiar to the Godly And that is when God not only by the word of his Power bestoweth a blessing upon the Creature but also causeth the Echo of that word to sound in our hearts by the voyce of his Holy spirit and giveth us a sensible taste of his goodness to us therein filling our hearts not only with that joy and gladness which ariseth from the experience of the effect viz. the refreshing of our natural strength but also joy and gladness more spiritual and sublime than that arising from the contemplation of the prime cause viz. the favour of God towards us in the face of his Son that which David calleth the light of his countenance For as it is the kind welcome at a Friends Table that maketh the chear good rather than the quaintness or variety of the dishes Super omnia vultus Accessere boni so as that a dinner of green herbs with love and kindness is better entertainment than a stalled Oxe with bad looks so the light of Gods favourable countenance shining upon us through these things is it which putteth more true gladness into our hearts than doth the corn and the wine and the oyle themselves or any other outward thing that we do or can partake Now this sanctified and holy and comfortable use of the Creatures ariseth also from the word of Gods decree even as the former degree did but not from the same decree That former issued from the decree of common providence and so belonged unto all as that Providence is common to all But this later degree proceedeth from that special word of Gods decree whereby for the merits of Christ Jesus the second Adam he removeth from the Creature that curse wherin it was wrapped through the sin of the first Adam And in this the wicked have no portion as being out of Christ so as they cannot partake of Gods Creatures with any solid or sound comfort and so the Creatures remain in this degree unsanctified unto them For this reason the Scriptures stile the Faithfull Primogenitos the first born as to whom belongeth a double portion and Haeredes mundi heirs of the world as if none but they had any good right thereunto And S. Paul deriveth our Title to the Creatures from God but by Christ All things are yours and you are Christs and Christ is Gods As if these things were none of theirs who are none of Christs And in the verse before my Text he saith of meats that God hath created them to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth as if those that wanted faith and saving knowledge did but usurp the bread they eat And indeed it is certain the wicked have not right to the Creatures of God in such ample sort as the Godly have A kind of Right they have and we may not deny it them given them by Gods unchangeable ordinance at the Creation which being a branch of that part of Gods Image in man which was of natural and not of supernatural grace might be and was foulely defaced by sin but was not neither could be wholly lost as hath been already in part declared A Right then they have but such a right as reaching barely to the use cannot afford unto the user true comfort or found peace of Conscience in such use of the Creatures For though nothing be in and of it self unclean for Every Creature of God is good yet to them that are unclean ex accidenti every Creature is unclean and polluted because it is not thus sanctified unto them by the Word of God And the very true cause of all this is the impurity of their hearts by reason of unbelief The Holy Ghost expresly assigneth this cause To the pure all things are pure but to them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure but even their mind and Conscience is defiled As a nasty Vessel sowreth all that is put into it so a Conscience not purified by faith casteth pollution upon the best of Gods Creatures But what is all this to the Text may some say or what to the point What is all this to the Duty of Thanksgiving Much every manner of way or else blame Saint Paul of impertinency whose discourse should be incoherent and unjoynted if what I have now last said were beside the Text. For since the sanctification of the Creature to our use dependeth upon the powerfull and good word of God blessing it unto us that duty must needs be necessary to a sanctified use of the Creature without which we can have no fair assurance unto our consciences that that word of blessing is proceeded out of the mouth of God