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	worth_a	14	3	7.3702	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A25835	The souls worth and danger, or A discourse exciting and directing to the due care of its eternal salvation upon the words of our blessed saviour	Armstrong, John, 1634 or 5-1698.	1677 (1677)	Wing A3708B; ESTC R214882	33,452	78

from brute beasts What is it but the Soul by which you are thinking reading or asking what a Soul is What is it but the Soul which is the fountain of precious life and therefore much more precious in it self Prov. 6. 26. The adulteress will hunt for the precious life The words are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the precious Soul What is the Soul but the rational nature containing the sensitive and vegetative The Principle or first Act by which we move perceive understand and freely will And how do these acts speak the excellency of the Powers from whence they flow and how do those Powers shew the worth of the Soul it self 2. Consider its Excellency in relation to Christ our Redeemer What can more clearly demonstrate the preciousness of it then the greatness of that price which he payd for it Being willing to lay down his life to deliver the Soul from eternal misery 1 S t Pet. 1. 18 19. The Apostle says we are not redeemed with gold or silver or any such corruptible things but with the precious blood of Jesus Christ The more noble the person taken captive the larger is the summe required for his ransome Our Saviour in all likelihood would not have done what he did to keep the whole frame of heaven and earth from being dissolved but to save those precious immortal Souls from perishing which were capable of enjoying so much good from God and bringing so much glory to him he was ready to take our nature to suffer his Fathers wrath to live a painful life and dye an accursed death by all which we may read in most fair and large Characters the worth of the Soul 3. Consider its excellency in relation to the Holy Ghost our Sanctifier Oh how precious must that needs be which is cleansed quickned and beautified with precious faith as 't is called 2 Pet. 1. 1. And so we may say with precious hope and charity with precious wisdome meekness temperance patience Oh the Excellent supernatural operations of such a Soul The mind is busie to know God in Christ and to understand his will revealed in his word The memory thinks of him the conscience stands in awe of him the Will chooseth and embraceth him the heart trusts in him and is set upon him The affections are taken up in loving him rejoycing in him fearing to offend him desiring to please and enjoy him These are the truly noble and worthy imployments of the Soul as redeemed and sanctified and renewed after the image of God 4. Consider further its excellency with relation to the heavenly Angels For why should they attend us as ministring spirits if our Spirits were not of an excellent angelical nature and fit to minister unto God Nay 5. may not the faln accursed angels and Satan himself tell us the worth of a Soul by his being so much the enemy of its Salvation when he compasseth the earth Job 1. 7. and goeth about night and day to devour and deceive them 1 Pet. 5. 8. 6. Why should God if it were not for our precious immortal Souls give us the Scriptures and an excellent religion to shew us the way to happiness Or why should he in the Scriptures dignifie us with such honourable titles as to be called his Friends his Children to be called the spouse and the members of Christ 7. Why too should Ministers be appointed by him to preach and pray and labour for us if we had not such precious Souls to save or lose Hebr. 13. 17. Obey them that have the rule over you for they watch for your Souls Why should they preach in season and out of season and be so reviled and suffer so much to perform their work but that they know That he that winneth Souls is wise Prov. 11. 30. And that he which converteth a sinner from the errour of his ways shall save a Soul from death and shall hide a multitude of sins 8. Moreover why should such store of other mercies be provided for us Why should a world of creatures whose corporeal substance seems as excellent as ours attend and serve us if we were but an ingenious sort of brutes and had not reasonable immortal Souls more worth then the world Other Creatures are made for man and man for God to glorifie him by them and for them And surely they have a right estimate of the Souls worth who measure by it the worth of all worldly things who reckon of their in-comes their friends estates preferments according as they help or hinder them in the service of God counting them more or less excellent as they are more or less subservient to his honour and their own or others Souls everlasting happiness 9. Consider the precious Soul in its tendency which is to an eternal enjoyment of God an infinite good and that as fully as humane nature is capable of and that in a state of absolute perfection Intellectus quaerit Deum The Soul reacheth after God and this speaks its excellency that he alone can satisfie it O Lord says S t Augustin thou hast made us for thy self and our heart is unquiet till it comes unto thy self Here O Christian thy weaknesses are thy grief and thy afflictions or meanness may render thee despicable in the eyes of the world but being sincerely converted thy Soul is in a tendency to that happiness where it shall be enlarged and perfected to partake the more of God Where it s best faculties shall be united to the best object in the best and fullest manner to eternal ages If sincerely converted to God thy Soul is in a tendency to that illustrious heavenly glory which is only sutable to it and which will render far more precious and illustrious both it and thy body too after the resurrection 10. Hence we adde one consideration more of the Souls excellency and that is in respect of the body here David speaking of the body Psa 139. 14 15. O Lord says he I will praise thee for I am fearfully and wonderfully made marvellous are thy works and that my Soul knoweth right well My substance was not hid from thee when I was made in secret and curiously wrought or imbroydered in the lowest parts of the earth Galen more atheistical before when he came to see the anatomy of mans body and considered the excellent frame thereof Now says he I adore the God of nature Yet we know the body is but the case or instrument of the Soul which so far exceeds it that in many things with God the willingness and pure intention of the mind is chiefly lookt at without which bodily exercise profiteth little Though a man give his body to be burnt if there be wanting the charity of the Soul it availeth nothing 1 Cor. 13. 3. Nay there are several actions of the Soul which are beyond that which concerns the body at all as the knowing of God and the life to come and many notions in mathematicks and other sciences