Selected quad for the lemma: heaven_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
heaven_n	pharisee_n	righteousness_n	scribe_n	3,209	5	11.4035	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A61378	Sober singularity, or, An antidote against infection by the example of a multitude being practical meditations on Exod. 23, vers. 2 : wherein is opened the influence of the practise of a multitude, to draw men to sin, the special cases, wherein it concerns us to be most cautious, reasons why we must not follow them, together with the application of the whole : and therein, besides the general improvement of the point, an instance given of nineteen practises of the multitude to be avoided, seven of their grand principles to be rejc̈ted [sic] : sundry particulars concerning peace and unity, and the sanctification of the Lords Day, useful for these times / by R. Stedman ...	Stedman, Rowland, 1630?-1673.	1660 (1660)	Wing S5376; ESTC R38303	146,089	254

if not all my labour and industry will be unsuccesful No but he will buy and sell and trade and traffique he will look carefully to his shop and live frugally and look well to his business For saith he as the blessing of God maketh rich so it is the diligent hand which he hath appointed as the means conducing thereunto And pray mind it Sirs is it an equitable thing thus to plead in the case of eternal salvation when as you will not be so sottish in the case of worldly accommodations Methinks if sinners had a mind to make experiments they should begin with their bodies and temporal estate rather than with their Souls which are of value infinitely beyond them Let me speak unto you in allusion to the words of the Apostle James cap. 5.7 8. Be patient therefore brethren unto the coming of the Lord. Behold the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth and hath long patience for it The like argument may I use in this particular of Gods decrees Do not reason your selves inso slothfulness and impieties from the fore-appointment of God Behold the Husbandman will not be so senseless as to reason in that sort He will not say if God hath decreed I shall have a good crop and a plentiful harvest it shall be so though I sleep and be careless though I neither plow nor sow And if he hath decreed otherwise all my travel is in vain No but he will plow all day to sow he will open and break the clods of the ground Doth not he manure the soile and make plain the face of the earth And ●ast in the principal wheat and the appointed barley and the rie in their season For his God doth instruct him to discretion and doth teach him He knoweth that drowsiness will clothe a man with rags And that if he would attain the end he must give diligence in the use of the means Be ye diligent also in working out your salvation and that with fear and trembling 4. As we must endeavour to walk by the rule of the gospel so we must carry on the business of eternity in the order and method of the gospel And this is the order not firstly to enquire into the counsels of God whether you be elected or not but in the first place to be earnest with God for the grace of conversion and to press after purity of heart and holiness of conversation that from thence you may be able to prove your election 2 Pet. 1.10 Give diligence to make your calling and election sure Mark it first your calling or conversion unto God and your election thereby Else you begin at the wrong end Thus I have largely insisted on the fourth Direction If you would not be led aside by the multitude's practise Take heed that you entertain not their principles Dir. 5. If you will not conform to the practise of the multitude make them not the men of your society and fellowship Hold no familiar correspondency with them But make the people of God the men of your counsel If you familiarly converse with infected persons you will be sure to catch the plague of them If you have intimacy with them you will learn their wayes and bring a snare to your souls Prov. 22.24 25. You have many professours think they have writ of exemption from contracting defilement by the society of the ungodly And therefore they make no bones of familiar correspondency with sinners Only they are resolved not to comply with them in any thing sinful but will hold fast their integrity Alas Christians this is but to cheat and cozen your own souls Can a man carry fire in his bosom and his clothes not be burnt Can he intimately converse with the ungodly and not receive a tincture at least of their spirits Be assured of this if you do not some way or other defile your selves but deal truly and faithfully with the Lord they will either leave their ungodliness or quickly be weary of and loath your society The resolution of David is an excellent pattern Psal 119.115 Depart from me ye evil doers for I will keep the commandments of my God As if he had said I shall be sure to deal falsly in the covenant of my God and not keep his commandments unless I break off society with evil doers And v. 63. I am a companion of all them that fear thee and of them that keep thy statutes Dir. 6. Lastly if you would not be infected by the multitude learn the great gospel lesson of self-denial Self-seeking will expose you to be caught in every snare Luk. 9.23 Thus I have done with the second head by way of direction SECT IX 3. TO provoke and stir you up to be watchful over your selves that you do not follow the multitudes example I shall only put you in mind of three moving considerations Mot. 1. If you be led by the example of the generality and walk in their steps It will be a sure evidence that you are still the children of the Devil and under his government For this is one of the properties of such as are dead in sins and trespasses and are acted by the prince of the power of the aire being children of disobedience That they walk according to the course of the world Eph. 2.1 2. Mot. 2. If you live no otherwise than the multitude live you will fall short of many that fall short of heaven Sundry hypocrites have out-gone you This the unjustified Pharisee could boast of that he was not as other men Luke 18.11 And if your righteousness be less than that of the Scribes and Pharisees who are excluded from the kingdom of Heaven how will you be able to escape the damnation of Hell Mot. 3. This argument from the multitude is commonly of no validity in respect of outward evils and why should it prevail as to spiritual evils which are the sorest and whereby all outward judgments are pulled down upon our heads The covetous worldling will not cast away his riches though all his neighbours are poor and indigent But he labours to outstrip them in worldly goods Take a man that hath his health when all about him are sick impotent or diseased and he will not destroy his health because he would be like unto others Why then should you murder your souls because others walk in the path of destruction should we not be more stiffe and resolute in laying up treasures in heaven than earth-wormes are to get honour and profits in the earth They seek after but a corruptible crown but we an incorruptible 1 Cor. 9.25 4. Let me subjoyn a few things by way of Retortion and so shut up this discourse Q1 What use ought we to make of the practise of the multitude in doing evil seeing we must not follow them nor conform to their example Answ There is a fourfold special use to be made of their example when a multitude combine in a course of sin

God created and made And our Saviour in his sermons when he was upon the earth endeavoured to reduce the people unto the Institutions of God as they were established from the beginning Mat. 19.8 The argument indeed is pressed as to the ordinance of marriage but the reason holds the same in relation unto the Sabbath 2. It was not delivered by way of appendix or additament to another precept but it is in it self one entire precept of the Decalogue One of those ten words which were wrote in tables of stone by the Lord of hosts Deut. 10.4 If the law of the Sabbath be abrogated it will from thence follow that there are but nine commandments whereas the Holy Ghost expresly mentioneth them to be ten Exod. 3● 28. Deut. 10.4 And this precept is written as one of them Exod. 20.8 Deut. 5.12 13 14. When Christ was entring upon his discourse concerning the T●n Commandments in vindicating several of them from the false glosses and interpretations of the Scribes and Pharisees he delivered before hand this doctrine of the perpetuity of the obligatory vertue of the Law Mat. 5.17 18. Think not that I am come to destroy the Law or the Prophets I am not come to destroy but to fulfil For vertly I say unto you till heaven and earth pass one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law till all be fulfilled And the Apostle James treating of some of the Ten Commandments bottometh his argument upon this as an undoubted axiome that one of those c●mmandments hath the same perpetual obligation upon us to obedience as another So that the reason is strong for the Sabbath upon the Apostles foundation For he that said honour thy Father and thy Mother said also Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy Now if thou obey thy parents yet if thou prophane the Sabbath day thou art become a transgressour of the law Jam. 2.10 11. 3. Let such as plead for the reversing or repealing of the law of the Sabbath now under the Gospel shew us cut of the Gospel where it is repealed which they are in no wise able to perform for though there be made an alteration of the day yet there is not to be found any abrogation of the commandment And therefore it is observable that even in the pub like liturgy this prayer is added at the close of the 4. Commandment as well as of the other Lord have mercy upon us and inclene our hearts to keep this law 2. Be well setled in the grounds of the chang and alteration of the day from the Jewish sabbath to the first day of the week Clear convictions in the judgment of the divine institntion of the Lords day will help to ingage the heart unto the solemn devoting thereof to the Lord. Many considerations might be insisted on to this end 1 The name and title which is attributed unto it of the Holy Ghost The Lords day Rev. 1.10 I was in the Spirit on the Lords day What better reason can be given of that appellation than that it was constituted and ordamed of the Lord in memory of his resurrect on and our redemption compleated thereupon Even as the Sacrament of the Eucharist is called the Lords supper because of the Lord Christs appointment and in remembrance of his passion 2 The appearance of Christ to his disciples after he was risen from the dead several times on the first day of the week Jo. 20.19 26. Why should our Saviour pass by the Jewish sabbaths and make choice of the first day of the week and the Holy Ghost set such an emphatical note * Then the same day at evening being the first day of the week came Jesus c. Jo. 20.19 upon it that it was indeed upon that day but that he intended to intimate that this was the day establshed for Christian-sacred-assemblies 3 The practise of the Apostles and the Church after Christs ascension in observing the Lords day for their coming together to partake of the ordinances of the gospel When they were met together on that day with one accord the Holy Ghost came down upon the Apostles Act. 2.1 2 3 4. And the disciples assembling on that day is not spoken of as a practise newly taken up but in such a manner as may intimate it was their usual course and custom Act. 20.7 4 The ordination of Paul in the churches of Galatia and Corinth that their collections should be made every first day of the week which plainly 〈…〉 the believers 〈…〉 ●ssem●●ies A●d you know S. Paul professeth he received of the Lord what he delivered to his people and that his established 〈◊〉 were the same in all the churches of Christ 1. Cor. 16.1 2. Mark it I say every first day of the week for so the words are to ●e rendred 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Every first day of the week one after another as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 every month qu. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in singulis verbis Aristop● 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 oppidatim 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vicatim 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 viritim Many things might be added for the e●ucidation and vindic●ting of these scripture considerations But I shall chuse rather to open three other texts which are not so commonly dwelt upon to this end wherein yet I have several of eminence both for piety and learning to go before me The first is that of the counsel of our Saviour to his disciples in re●erence to the destruction of Jerusalem and the sore calamities that were to 〈◊〉 the land of Judaea It is in the gospel written by S. Matthew cap. 24.20 But pray ye that yo●r flight be not in the winter neither on the Sabbath day Not in the winter because it would be troublesom to their bodies to be then driven away from their habitations It would expose them to manifold inconveniences Tum ob frigoris rigorem tum ob dierum lucisque brevitatem Not on the sabbath day because it would be matter of grief and perplexity in their spiries to be then forced to shift away for their lives when they should have their hearts ingaged in solemn attendance upon the Lord and communion with him So that 1 Here is full proof of the continuance of a sabbath to be celebrated by believers in the dayes of the gospel That the law of the Sabbath was not to expire and be annulled upon the death of the Messiah b but to be still observed and kept by Christs disciples Those sad times where in our Savi●ur speaks of their flying were to fall out neer upon forty years after his cracifixion and suffering and still there was to be a Sabbath 2 The disciples of Christ unto whom he gave this counsel privately and apart by themselves Mat. 24.3 before this time of their flight kept their assemblies wholly apart from the Jewes and kept the Lords day the first day of the week having altogether cost off the Jewish sabbath