Selected quad for the lemma: friend_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
friend_n	world_n	worldly_a	worst_a	15	3	7.5880	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A65073	The saints nearness to God being a discourse upon part of the CXLVIII Psalm / written at the request of a friend by Richard Vines ...	Vines, Richard, 1600?-1656.; Drury, William.	1662 (1662)	Wing V567; ESTC R3254	27,474	152

the Parable of those that were bidden to the Marriage Supper Luk. 14. 18. God there offered his Sonne if they would have him But they liked him not so well as the world else would they have taken him when God made them the motion of Marriage If thou then art Married to Jesus Christ thou likest him and his love better than all the world Therefore Cant. Cant. 1. 2. 1. 2. 'T is said His love is better than Wine that is than all the excellency of the creature that there is not any other Grape that yields such sweetnesse and comfort as his love no Grape of pleasure or credit or profit in all the Vyneard of the world that is like it to her Spouse-like-taste but Jesus Christ is better than all even as Wine exceeds all other liquors whatsoever What then is it that fills up thy heart that takes up the chiefest place and room there What is it sits highest and possesses the first room of thy liking the top of thy love Is it the world or is it Jesus Christ Is every pleasure or profit a thing that takes thee up from Jesus Christ that shuts him out of doores or makes him stand at the doore when they have easie entrance Does the world stay and lodge and walk in thy heart when Christ can have no room there or if he get in is he not admitted onely into some common outward room when the world hath the Parlour or chief room Does he not stay a while only when the world is intreated and forced to stay Is not the world as the chief of the house when Christ comes only as a servant for thy own good and safety If the world gets thus all away from Jesus Christ art not thou Married to it and not to him And therefore if thou pretendest never so much love to him and yet preferrest any thing before him thou art much mistaken if thou thinkest Christ thy Husband But Secondly If thou art 2. Sign of a Spouse near unto Christ as the Wife to the Husband then thou takest him for better for worse and thou keepest him for better for worse every Spouse does so if a right Spouse 1. Thou takest Christ for better for worse that is not only for his Crown but also for his Crosse not only for health and wealth and good report but for sicknesse and poverty and evil report not onely for what he hath but for what he wants to share with him alike in all conditions That which our Saviour Christ required of his Disciples to Take Matth. 10. 38. up his Crosse he requires also of every soul that espouses it self to him to take his Crosse is to take him with afflictions and not only so but with persecutions and death too And herein he deals as a man coming a Suiter to a woman tells her this I am worth and such and such like benefits you shall enjoy by me but withall you must take me with such an imperfection want of a legge or limbe with such a weaknesse and the like So God deals with men tells them of a Mark 10. 29 30. Kingdom and the Prerogatives of his Crown if they espouse themselves to him but withall they must take him with afflictions sicknesse poverty losses and crosses yea with persecution and death to take all into the bargain and so the match is made up not otherwise Every one is willing to take Christ as a Saviour to take him with peace and riches and a Kingdome But art thou willing to take him if he should not prove worth a Groate of worldly content If thou shouldest never see any thing but a rough Sea of troubles storm after storm poverty after sicknesse disgrace after poverty imprisonment and banishment after them and so as to faile all thy life time in this Sea that all Gods waves should passe over thee Art thou willing to take him though as many tempests of wrath should fall upon thee as did upon patient Job and keep thee to him It may be thou couldst take him with some one affliction but canst not endure to hear of another But canst thou take him or hast thou taken him with a willingnesse to loose that which is most dear to thee In thy wealth it may be thou likest such a match as Jesus Christ to have him with house and land with a full stock a gainfull trade But what doest thou or wouldst thou do to think on Cattle stolne or dying thy House spoiled thy Seed buried and rotten in the ground all cast away thy Trade decayed and worth nothing Couldst thou now keep thee to thy Husband when these things come by him and not seek to raise thy self by unlawfull courses of deceiving and stealing Or if these were not so much canst thou take him with losse of friends most endeared to thee losse of Parents Children yea the Wife of thy bosome Couldst thou be willing to have Job's boyles and to scrape thee with a Potsheard to loose all thy credit and good opinion of near friends and others and so to be left without any staffe of worldly comfort to rest on But this is not all canst thou take Christ with persecutions to be mockt and scorn'd for righteousnesse sake willingly bearing the worst of reproaches which the men of the world so warily avoid and to bear the utmost the malice and wit of men can impose If thou art rightly espoused to Jesus Christ thou takest him for this and more to endure the utmost rigour of torture that makes men by the only thought of it to tremble Thou wilt take Christ with this willingnesse to endure any thing and not make any exception Even as a Wife which takes a man for love takes him to endure any thing with him And as thou takest 2. Hold Christ him for better for worse so thou holdest him for better for worse A Wife that takes a man out of love to him she is not only willing to endure with him but she does it indeed She forsakes him not because he proves poor or sickly which are no causes of forsaking or that men speak against him but she holds against all such storms Many go so far as to take Christ for better for worse till the evill comes but in the time of affliction or persecution because their match proves full of crosses and because men speak against the match because they revile and slander the wayes of God they break away and divorce themselves from their Husband Christ Which is for a Wife because her Husband and she find crosses in their match to forsake her Husband whereas if the knot were tyed in a right choice and affection it would work of on such grounds all thought of forsaking So if the knot be rightly tyed between the soul and Jesus Christ it would hold against all the crosses and evils persecutions and deaths in the world And therefore in the Cant. 8. 7. 8th of the