Selected quad for the lemma: glory_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
glory_n	face_n	moses_n	shine_v	2,681	5	9.0852	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A50489	The good of early obedience, or, The advantage of bearing the yoke of Christ betimes discovered in part, in two anniversary sermons, one whereof was preached on May-day, 1681, and the other on the same day in the year 1682, and afterwards inlarged, and now published for common benefit / by Matthew Mead.	Mead, Matthew, 1630?-1699.	1683 (1683)	Wing M1555; ESTC R19143	252,739	482

he tastes in it So it is with a regenerate man sweetness becomes a motive to obedience and duty is drawn forth by delight I delight to do thy will O my God And mark whence this delight springs Thy Law is within my heart Psal 40.8 The Law was not only his Command but his nature God writes his Law in the Word and so it becomes our rule but when he writes it in our hearts then it becomes our nature And this is it that makes obedience sweet and pleasant because it is now natural There is an inward Principle suited to the outward Precept Thirdly Consider the pleasures with which this service is attended It is not more natural for sin to bring forth sorrow and trouble than for Religion to afford pleasure and sweetness It denies no lawful pleasure which others injoy It affords pleasures which others cannot injoy First It denies no lawful pleasures which others injoy doth the sinner take pleasure in the creature So doth the good man more truly for Religion moderates the affections and teaches the right use of the creature and thereby heightens the pleasure of the injoyment it curbs and restrains our excesses and moderated affections make our fruition the more sweet because hereby sin is excluded which imbitters the injoyment There is no pleasure which a wicked man sins in injoying but a good man may injoy without sin and where there is least sin there is most sweetness Nay farther Religion spiritualizeth the injoyment and thereby a good man hath more sweetness in the creature than any other can have as the Bee hath more delight in the flower than other creatures can because they have only the sweetness of the scent but the Bee hath the sweetness of the honey with the scent Natural man hath only a natural sweetness but the spiritual man hath a spiritual sweetness with the natural and so injoys a higher pleasure in the creature than any natural man can Secondly Religion hath its peculiar pleasures which none but good men can partake of It gives pleasure and delight in God when the creature affords none The sensual man is beholden to the Fig-tree and the Vine and the Olive to the Field the Fold and the Stall if these fail his comfort fails But the good man hath a never-sailing Spring of delight when all these streams are cut off Although the fig-tree shall not blossom neither shall fruit be in the vines the labour of the olive shall sail and the fields shall yield no meat the flock shall be cut off from the fold and there shall be no herd in the stalls Here are all his streams cut off now where is his never-failing Spring why it is in God Yet I will rejoyce in the Lord I will joy in the God of my salvation Habak 3.17 18. No delight so sweet as delight in God The dim light of Moon and Stars are a comfortable ministry in a dark night and we are glad to walk by the light of them but when once the light of the Sun breaks out who regards the Moon or Stars then Creature-comforts are pleasant things to a sensual Spirit that knows no better injoyment but when once God discovers himself to the Soul and sheds abroad his love in the heart Rom. 5.5 what poor things are these then The pleasure of walking with God and the pleasure of a witnessing Conscience without naming any more outvie all the pleasures in the World for sweetness and delight And these are peculiar to Religion and a life of godliness Prov. 14.10 no stranger intermeddles with this joy 1. In Religion and the practice of Godliness a good man walks with God There is a twofold walking with God and both exceeding sweet In Holiness and Obedience In Comfort and Experience First There is a walking with God in Comfort and Experience and this consists in sensible communion and fellowship with God This is that our Lord Christ injoyed much of John 16.32 I am not alone because the Father is with me He had much of it in that Voice from Heaven Mat. 3.17 This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased He had much of it in the Transfiguration Mat. 17.2 He was transfigured before them this imports a wonderful letting forth of the glory of God upon him and so speaks an high degree of communion Exod. 34.29 Moses had a great measure of this transfiguring communion in the Mount when his face shone and Paul when he says he cannot tell whether he was in the body or out of the body 2 Cor. 12.3 4. but speaks as though he had been really in Heaven These are extraordinary manifestations of God which are fitted only to special seasons and though they are exceeding sweet and fill the Soul with great transports of joy yet they are not designed for continuance nor alotted to many But there is a more ordinary communion with God which every good man may lay claim to The Apostle John speaks of it as the undoubted priviledge of every Believer 1 Joh. 1.3 Truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ And Christ promises it to all that obey his Commands John 14.21 He that hath my commandments and keepeth them loveth me and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father and I will love him and will manifest my self to him And v. 23. We will come unto him and make our abode with him These expressions import a special presence of God and peculiar emanations of his love filling the Soul with such a sweetness and delight as none else can experience Hence that of Judas not Iscariot to Christ in v. 22. Lord how is it that thou wilt manifest thy self to us and not to the world This is a comfort the world knows nothing of Indeed a Believer himself hath no security of injoying it always As one Believer injoys it more than another and the same Believer injoys it more at one time than another so sometimes he injoys it not God never promised to any man such a vouchsafement of his comsorting presence as should know no interruption for if so then God would leave himself without a liberty to shew his dislike of sin That promise Heb. 13.5 I will never leave thee nor forsake thee secures to a Believer the duration of his union but not of his communion it intitles him to the certainty of his presence and care of his Providence but not to the light of his countenance It makes over to him the constant supports of his Power and Grace but not always the actual possession of joy and comfort Secondly There is a walking with God in Holiness and Obedience Thus it is said Enoch walked with God three hundred years Gen. 5.22 that is by an holy conformity to his will * To live to the will of God loving what God loves hating what God hates doing what God commands this is the highest kind of walking and communion with God

convictions Secondly It may respect the earliness of being And that seems rather to be the sense of the place Vatablus renders it from his Youth taking 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 early impressions upon the conscience by the convictions of the Spirit are a great good to the soul It is good to bear this Yoke betimes for three reasons 1. Because the sooner it is done the easier it is done the longer we are before we come under it the harder it will be to bear it The longer thou continuest in sin the harder it will be to bear repentance If thy conscience be so charged with guilt that thou darest not look into it at ten or twenty years old what will it come to if thou lettest it run on till fifty or sixty The longer the Debt stands in the Book the heavier the account when we come to reckon for all the arrears of so many years actual sins added to the grand Debt of original sin Therefore it is good to bear this Yoke in your Youth Strength to bear it is then greatest and the burden to be born is then lightest Guilt of s●n encreases by lying and new guilt daily added to the old makes the burden still the heavier therefore it is good to comply with the spirit of God betimes Reas 2. The sooner it is begun the sooner it will be done the sooner this Yoke is put on the sooner it will be put off For it is but for a time that the soul bears it but how long or how little while is uncertain Paul lay under it three days and nights Acts 9.9 Acts 16.33 the Goaler for ought I can find not above an hour the three thousand in Acts 2. not above the length of one Sermon But some now adays are held days and months and years according as the Case requires But the sooner we come under this Yoke the less while it is like to lye Reas 3. How rich do such grow in Grace that by early conviction pass through the new Birth betimes He that sets up soonest is like to get the fairest estate if be improve his opportunities Ford of Bondage p. 75. If one go to be an Apprentice when he is a man there is a double inconvenience in it First His service will be much more irksome and tedious Secondly The prime of his days will be gone wherein he should have been trading for himself had he been his own man Though the work of the Spirit be better late than never yet it is an unknown loss the soul sustains by a late work He loses much joy and peace the thought of his living so long without God becomes many times a new wound when the old is healed the after pains of the new birth do abide upon some to their dying day And in this Case there is but little comfort though the work be real He loses much sweet communion with God He loses many rich experiences He loses a great accession of Grace Growth in Grace is a work of time and he that hath but little time can make but little improvement He loses many opportunities of service Nay he loses much in the degrees of Glory Hadst thou had more time to sow thy Harvest would have been ●●●ater for as a man sows so shall he reap 〈◊〉 ●●●refore he that spends the best of his time in the service of the flesh if he should be converted at last which yet few are he is like to prove but a feeble Christian The more our opportunities of service are if improved and the more our seasons of communion are if used aright the richer must we needs be both in grace experience and comfort therefore it is the most thrifty course to be an early Convert to bear the Spirits Yoke in our Youth CHAP. IV. Containing some useful counsel and directions to persons of several denominations with respect to the Yoke of the Spirit THere are three sorts of persons I would speak somewhat to by way of counsel and direction in this matter First To such as have born the Yoke of the Spirit with good success to whom the Spirit of bondage hath at last become the Spirit of adoption who are passed from a state of fear and terrour into a condition of hope and comfort Your Duty lyes chiefly in these three things be thankful be humble be fruitful First Study thankfulness and give the Glory of this work to the Spirit of God We are very apt to ascribe too much to means to this or that Minister alas they are but poor Instruments Who is Paul and who is Apollo but Ministers by whom ye believed 1 Cor. 3.5 even as the Lord gave to every man They have but the place of Instruments God is the great Agent and therefore all supernatural effects are to be ascribed to him alone Neither is he that planteth any thing neither he that watereth but God that giveth the encrease And therefore the Apostle Paul having called the Church of Corinth his Epistle in 2 Cor. 3.2 he doth in v. 3. call them the Epistle of Christ ministred by us written not with Pen and Ink but with the Spirit of the living God Ministers are but as Pens it is the Spirit of the living God that writes his Law in the heart by them and thus they become the Epistle of Christ and therefore let him that glorieth glory in the Lord. 1 Cor. 1.31 Is there not a cause Especially if it he considered 1. What a heart thine was when the Spirit of the Lord first took it in hand how hard how stubborn how dead how obstinate how long was the light opposed that shined in darkness and the attempts of the Spirit frustrated how great were the resistances made by it against Grace and how many the strong holds of Satan which were pulled down to bring about the Conquest Think how often the Spirits motions were slighted his counsels set at nought his strivings resisted Think how often he knocked how loud he called before he could be heard think how much unbelief how many confederacies with corruption what strong lusts what enmity to God and holiness lay in the way to obstruct the Spirits design O what a mighty power did he put forth to make sin a burthen and to fasten his Fetters upon the soul without which thy resistances had never been conquered nor thy thoughts brought into captivity to the obedience of Christ 2 Cor. 10.5 And hast thou not cause to be thankful 2. How many miscarry under the same convictions which have issued in a sincere conversion to thy soul Many by their sights of sin and Hell have been driven into utter despair as Cain and Spira Many have laid violent hands on their own lives as Judas many have stifled and sinned away their convictions and thereby have provoked the Spirit finally to withdraw and give them up to hardness of heart many have mistaken their convictions for

the end The call begins in conversion it is carried on in sanctification and obedience it is compleated in glory and blessedness Whom he called them he justified Rom. 8. ●● whom he justified them he also glorified It is not said whom he justified them he also sanctified which the order of things would seem to require I conceive the reason is because sanctification is included in glorification for it is the beginning of glory and therefore is so called in Scripture We all with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord are changed into the same image from glory to glory 2 Cor. 3.18 i. e. from one degree of grace to another till grace be at last compleated in glory The eternal dignifying the soul with the glory of God is the ultimate end of the call of God So that to consider who it is that calls and what this call is adds a great force to the reason why every one should take up the Yoke of Christ in his youth Reas 2. Because of the nature of sin which gets great advantage by its continuance and uncontrouled possession It insinuates it self into the affections by its inticing pleasures and deceiving delights and when the affections are ingaged it is hard to disintangle them What shall reduce that Soul from compliance with sin which is linked to it by love and delight The power and strength which sin hath in us is by its interest in the affections hereby it steals into the Throne insensibly and so gives Law to the whole man And how shall a man stoop to the Yoke of Christ who is under the power and dominion of lust Mat. 6.24 No man can serve these two masters Therefore it is good to shake off the Yoke of sin betimes because of its incroaching nature it goes on by little and little and by repeated and multiplied acts it becomes a habit in the Soul and it is a very difficult thing to remove a habit as it is with a disease which taken at first may be easily cured but when by a long tract of time it hath corrupted the blood and setled it self in the body it is then turned to an ill habit and then the remedies which might have done at first come too late Bernard tells us of several steps and gradations by which a man comes to the highest degree of sin first sin is heavy then less heavy then light then sweet at length natural and unavoidable so that what at first was difficult to be done is at last impossible to be left undone The carnal heart is the seat of lust lust works to sinful acts Jam. 1.13 sinful acts repeated make a custom and out of custom not resisted issues necessity Hence that of the Apostle 2 Pet. 2.14 Having eyes full of adultery and that cannot cease from sin Thus sin incroaches by degrees and by multiplied acts gathers more strength till at last it becomes unconquerable Like many waters which meeting in one stream swell to that greatness that they overflow the banks and bear down all before them There are three sorts of Sinners which rarely become true Converts Such as have long injoyed the means of Grace and are Sermon-proof Such as have made a profession of Religion and are fallen off And such as have long accustomed themselves to sin And therefore how blind were the Heathens in their reasonings who advised that young ones might have their fill of pleasure as the best way to wean them from it Alas they knew nothing of the corruption of nature and of indwelling sin of which this is a bait rather than a cure Sensual things are so suited to brutish appetite that you may as well go about to drown a fish by throwing it into the Sea as to extinguish carnal desires by sensual delights they may be cloyed but never satisfied they may be wearied in injoying but never weaned from lusting Besides these things interposing between God and the Soul do render it so sottish and sensual that it is wholly listless to any good and how can it then take up the Yoke of Christ Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the Leopard his spots then may you that are accustomed to do evil learn to do well Jer. 13.23 Reas 3. The earlier the Yoke of Christ is taken up the easier it will be Any thing is the more easily compassed by the earliness of the undertaking A plant that is newly set is more easily removed than one that hath taken root Of all that were possessed with evil Spirits in Christ's time it is observed that none were so hardly cured as they that had been possessed from their child-hood Mark 9.21 29. Satan will not easily quit his hold especially where he hath had a long and quiet possession How seldom doth grace graft upon a withered stock That question of Nicodemus is not improper here Can a man be born when he is old Joh. 3.4 An old sinner is nearer to the second death than he is to the second birth If you break a Horse to the harness or a bullock to the Yoke it is while they are young if you teach one to write or play on the Musick ye don't defer it till the fingers are grown stiff but do it while they are more agil and nimble It is a thrifty course to be an early Convert delays make the work exceeding difficult For Hereby the mind is more blinded the will more stubborn the affections more soaked in sensual fruitions and thereby more alienated from God The Conscience more stupid and benummed till by custom in sinning it comes to be past feeling Eph. 4 19. like the hand that is hardned by much labour And how hard must the conversion of such an one be If it be a work of great difficulty to convert a hard heart which is in every man by nature what a difficulty is it then to convert a heart hardned by custom and continuance in sin Of all Sinners there is least hope of doing good upon those who by constant evil usages have contracted such a hardness that they can sin without fear or regret of Conscience Pliny says of the Tortoise that she floats so long upon the water till the beams of the Sun have so hardned her shell that she cannot sink so going on in sin under the Sun-shine of the Gospel doth so harden the heart that it cannot repent And this is the reason the Devil is for delaying repentance and a holy life that so sin may take its advantages by deeper rooting and firmer habits For these are the arms of the strong man whereby he makes the greater resistances against Christ rooted prejudices against Religion are very hardly extirpated Reas 4. Early obedience finds the kindest acceptance with God I remember the kindness of thy youth Jer. 2.2 God takes notice of the earliness of the work as well as of the work it self and hath a peculiar kindness for the kindness of our youth