Selected quad for the lemma: friend_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
friend_n	heart_n	zeal_n	zealous_a	15	3	9.7417	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A43818	An olive branch of peace and accommodation budding in a sermon preached at Basingshaw Church, to the Lord Mayor Alderman Atkin, together with the representative city, Anno Dom. 1645, on a day of humiliation, appointed on purpose to seek the Lord for the repairing of breaches, and the preventing of further differences growing in the city / by Thomas Hill ...	Hill, Thomas, d. 1653.	1648 (1648)	Wing H2025; ESTC R25713	39,441	50

a worm as never dyes In Mark 9. 44. you hear there of a worm that dyeth not and a fire that never will be extinguished I believe some of you know what the head-ake or the Tooth-ake or the Gout or a fit of the stone means suppose Eternity should be added to one of these if you should have an eternal Tooth-ake or an everlasting fit of the Stone would not this be a sad thing Adde eternity to an evil and it makes it infinitely evil What will it be to have an everlasting stinging Conscience a fire flaming in you that never will be extinguished Oh! this will be the woful fruit of such a bad Conscience and therefore take heed of such a self-condemning heart If our heart condemn us not then have we considence towards God To have a self-approving a self-absolving heart before God is a pledge of our acceptation from God When thou shalt come to read over the story of thy life and finde that God hath wrought this grace in thee and that God hath likewise taught thee to walk conscionably before him and to love the Brethren and to love them in deed and in truth Oh! here is a pledge of Gods acceptation of thee for that argues indeed That God is thy God if he have given thee a self-approving heart a self-absolving heart He hath made some impression upon thy heart something of himself there given something that is an evidence of thy sincerity and of his accepting of thee in Christ and that he owns thee in him who by his blood hath satisfied Divine Justice for thy sin and then hast thou grounded confidence towards him Why confidence towards him He is thy God For doubtless as I intimated before if God hath given thee a self-absolving a self-approving heart a heart approving thy self to him according to the rule of the Word God is thy God and God being thy God thou hast confidence in him and mayest go and pray to him as to the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ and in him thy Father and doubt not but God will hear thy Prayers I must forbear the further Confirmation and Explication of this this being the third Exercise and the season hot and divers ancient Citizens present whose chearful patience should not be discouraged And the first Use that I will make of it is this You may please to look back to the former Observation because we shall have occasion they having so great affinity to link them both together a little in the Application A self-condemning heart that argues undoubted condemnation from God A self-absolving heart does intitle us to acceptation with God 1. Take heed then in the first place that you do not rest in such a condition wherein you have not your own hearts to approve you and to absolve you And not to instance in any other particular or to return to those generals we mentioned before I will keep to that that seems to be the Apostles intention here principally speaking of their heart condemning of them for want of love to the Brethren As you profess your selves Christians take heed that you be not found such that your heart does not condemn you as indeed not loving one another in truth not loving one another in reality This day it is an Uniting day as well as a Praying day so far as I understood the intent of it it was in part as to seek God so to prevent and remove all Jealousies and all Obstructions or whatever might hinder a happy Union betwixt the Court of Aldermen and Common-Councel that you might preserve Love and Peace in the City Oh! therefore I beseech you Take heed of any thing that may give occasion to your own hearts to condemn you I have some Arguments to prove I should be glad if you will be well able to answer them that some are in a guilty condition and that however you may complement and bear it out that your hearts are full of self-condemning even in this particular that there is no more true love among you My two Reverend Brethren and Fellow-Laborers have commended Stedfastness Activity and Unity Give me leave now to adde a plain Emphasis to all that to endeavor as God shall enable me to drive this Nail to the head that it may be fastened in every one of your hearts and to put you upon a self-examining and self-considering whether you are able now to approve your selves thus to God That you have Spirits settled and composed and effectually combined in this happy Unity that this might be the glory of London to be a City compact within it self which was the beauty of Jerusalem You have had Zeal for the Publique and have let go your Money blessed be God that hath put it into your hearts to be so zealous yea have lost much Money and many of your Friends and God forbid now you should lose your selves for want of love A great Politician saith That England is a huge mighty Animal he tells you also what he thinks of France and Spain but he gives this Character of England That England is such an Animal that will never dye unless it kill it self Truly I hope the same of London that it will never dye to speak as men unless it kill it self And I know no more compendious method to stifle and undo your selves then for want of love Oh! what a victory would this be to the Blood-thirsty Adversaries when all their plots could not break you you should break one another through your Divisions What a triumph would there be at Oxford how would they insult if that when they could not reach you you should bite and tear one another Blessed be the Lord that hath put it into your hearts to extinguish what sparks there are before they come to flame Too many Citizens I doubt herein do over much resemble their Gardens which are full of goodly Tulyps beautiful to the eye but neither good for pot or smell so they have a pompous love a specious kindeness in exchanging some Visits and Invitations but little or no conference to the good of one anothers souls little or no usefulness to one another in reference to the Publike This appears 1. Because there is so much Envy in the City Now certainly Envy proceeds from want of love for if you did love one another indeed you would heartily rejoyce in one anothers good But alas that such a one should have a Place rather then I and such a one should have more Power and more Influence then I have Oh! many men cannot bear it What call you that truly it is want of love such a man wants love to his Neighbor that he envies and he wants also love to the Publique if he envies another man that is abler to do the Service of the Publique then he is were there love to the Publique if there were any man in the City more active

of thy self and thy own actions that thou canst either condemn or absolve thy self If your heart if your Consciences have a power of self-condemning and self-absolving Then it is good to observe your Consciences and be sure to make your Conscience your friend and minde likewise as carefully what conscience says to you As you in your City Transactions I make no question but you preserve Records and what Acts pass or Orders or Decrees or whatsoever you call them at your meetings at your Common-Councel with the Court of Aldermen because you would be able to read over the Story to know how justly things were done and what may be a Rule for the time to come c. Let us be as careful to keep the Records of Conscience and to observe upon every occasion what your hearts say what conscience says For be you sure of this that Conscience hath a self-absolving and a self-condemning power and though it may be now thou little mindest it hereafter when thou comest to dye then Conscience will rub up thy Memory surely you lived under such a Minister and such Items you had given you and thus Conscience did work and sometimes you were almost perswaded with Agrippa and looked Heaven-ward and saw your errors and were almost perswaded to turn over a new leaf but still thou smotherest Conscience O this will be a sad thing if thy Conscience comes in against thee another day it will not onely be a thousand Witnesses but a thousand Armies to destroy thee over and over look to it now how you approve your selves even to your own Conscience And let me here by the way suggest but this to you Suppose you make a few Quaeries to Conscience now and allow Conscience likewise to make some Quaeries to you 1. Quaere What stewards have you been of all the Talents that God hath committed to your hands A steward say the Lawyers is a servant which is wont to set forth his Masters good for advantage What says Conscience Many of you are crowned with gray hairs and have been advanced to Places of great Power in the City and you have lived upon the goodness of your God it may be some of you fifty sixty years or more and a great stock of Talents hath gone through thy hands and thou shouldst have been trading faithfully for thy God all this while what account now can you give to Conscience Suppose you were now to keep conscience counting house for you will allow the word to speak it in your own language I would it were more frequent to keep a Soulcounting house as well as for your Estates a Closet for your consciences and enter in there Thus long I have lived in the world how much have I lived to my God we live indeed so much as we act for God and no more what says Conscience There have many men been in the world a great while and yet lived but a little while and it may be scarce begun to live yet but lived to themselves and to their lusts and to the service of sin and to the drudgery of Satan all this while Give an account of thy stewardship suppose that were thy word in Luke 16. 2. What says conscience now I doubt it would almost strike some of you dead while you were alive if you had but a real Summons indeed that this were your last day O! then Conscience would work strongly and make you tremble as Felix and look pale if you did believe that God would break the threed of thy life suddenly Suppose thou wert a dying man what says Conscience Hast thou been a faithful steward Canst thou give a good and sincere account of those Talents that God hath betrusted thee with 2. Quaere Let me put this as a second Quaere what wilt thou say to thy conscience How hast thou answered all thy Vows and Protestations and Covenants and all the Purposes and Promises that you have made And canst thou say resolutely with him Psal. 56. 12. Thy Vows are upon me I will render praises unto thee Or that thou hast done so Many of you might say not onely with the Psalmist Thy Vows are upon me but thy Protestations and thy Covenants yea it may be have entred into a curse to walk in Gods Law as they in Nehemiah Chap. 10. 29. The Lord knows that very great Obligations lie upon many of you How many Publike Fasting-days have you had not a day but you did or should renew your Covenant with God How many Communion-days have you had not a Communion day but you either did or should renew your Covenant with your God Some of you are under some Obligation or other and under the Obligation of the Solemn League and Covenant How have you answered all these in advancing the glory of God and the Publike good and the carrying on the work of a Scripture-Reformation what says conscience 3. Quaere Further if this Quaere should be proposed How can you wash your hands of the guilt of other mens sins What would you that are the Representative City say to that now Suppose that all the Drunkenness and all the Sabbath-breaking and the uncleanness and the prodigious wickedness that hath been committed in the City and in the Suburbs up and down upon the Sabbath-day and in other places where the Government of the City hath had or may have influence Suppose this should all now be laid at your door this day I say the Lord Major the Court of Aldermen the Common-Councel-men and they that had the Government of the City they are accountable to God for all the Oathes and Uncleannesses and wickednesses that they have known of and have not punished according to the Acts and Ordinances and Statutes that are to this purpose Give me leave to propound this in the Name of the great God to your Consciences What can you say to this Can you wash your hands in innocency I doubt besides all your by-Oathes that you may be guilty of personally and besides all your secret uncleanness that others may be guilty of and besides the Injustice and Prophaneness that your own hearts accuse you of Do you not think that many of the City-abominations I mean those common abominations that are committed by divers in the City may be charged upon the remiss Government of the City even in a great measure It is good for you now to ask conscience when you come to humble your souls before God and to deal more seriously with him and I hope you will now allow your Ministers to deal faithfully and plainly with you as in the sight of the Lord who will judge both Minister and people at the great Day Had you not need pray with the good old Father Lord forgive me my other mens sins 4. Quae. Let me adde this Quaere what says Conscience of this Many of you I think I may say if I should be mistaken in