Selected quad for the lemma: land_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
land_n	day_n	lord_n	neighbour_n	3,034	5	10.2969	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A65249	Lamentation over England from a true sight, and suffering sense, of the lamentable wickedness of such rulers, priests, and people, that are erred, and strayed from the way of God, and follow too much the devices and desires of their own hearts, offending against his holy laws ... : whereby all persecutors may (in pity to their souls) truly consider what way they are in, and whether it leads, and whose work they are doing, and what the Scripture saith will be the reward of oppression and cruelty / by M.W.	Watkins, Morgan, fl. 1653-1670.	1664 (1664)	Wing W1066; ESTC R38958	45,267	54

to worship his golden Image but after he came to know them be loved them and honoured them in the sight of his Nobles Princes Dukes and Counsellors confessing them to be the servants of the high God commending their faithfulnesse in yielding their bodies to the flames rather then they would serve or worship any God save their own God Then he saw his vain labour in forcing the servants of the most high God contrary to the commands of their God And will you shew your selves more unreasonable then a Heathen more blinder then those that knew not God and yet call your selves Christians and the Scriptures your Rule When Nebuchadnezzar had once tryed the three children of God to the laying down of their lives and found them faithful he was satisfied How many times have you tryed us by Imprisonment till death and spoyling of our goods by breaking up our Meetings beating innocent harmlesse people to death How many Cruel Barbarous Unhumane dealings have been used against us both before your Government and also since by you which we have walked through and in the furnace of affliction with the patience of the Son of God who hath kept our precious lives unhurt and brings us forth to his praise and yet cannot you see the Son of God with us whom you fight against Can you not see neither how little you do prevail against him and his spiritual work in us Though some of you can say We are a very confident people but if you could but see him that leads us who is the Captain of our salvation you would say We had good cause to be bold and valiant knowing our leader is not to be overcome nor those that follow him who are called and chosen and faithful which faithfulnesse Nebuchadnezzar did commend and honour And did he not do well in 〈◊〉 Yes you cannot deny Then as you have followed his example by indeavouring to compel us to fall down to your imaginary worship which I believe you will not justifie in him follow his example also in justifying the faithful children of God that would not obey his Commands to the dishonouring of the most high God who having tryed them blessed God for their faithfulnesse In this will Nebuchadnezzar stand in Judgment against all those who make unrighteous Decrees to compel men to disobey the commands of Christ except they follow his example in this that is to say the change of their minds and altering of their Decrees in Justifying the faithful servants of God in their pure obedience to him Objection But if it be said If we knew you to be the servants of the high God as well as Nebuchadnezzar knew the three children we would not make Laws nor Decrees to compel you to our worship being sure it would be but lost labour Answer Then all our sufferings and persecutions and hard usages from you is because you do not know us and whose fault is that ours or yours that you do not know us to be the children of God Whose fault was it that Saul the persecutor knew not the Church of God but made havock of the true worshippers were they to be blamed or he If he then you when he hearkened to the High Priests he persecuted the Disciples of Jesus but when he obeyed the voice of Christ he saw their deceit and believed the truth then he preached him and suffered with those he persecuted Now if you that persecute knew the truth you would know us that walk in it And have not we laboured even to the laying down of our lives that you might know it and be saved by it What could we have done more for you then we have to bring you to the knowledg of it Have we not suffered to the death in obedience to it that it might preach to you that we have found the kingdom of heaven and the righteousness thereof which is better then our lives for which righteousness sake we suffer and are blessed if we continue faithful to the end And this is the only true way that can be used as to you to convince your understandings that we are in the truth when we lay down our lives for it If we were unfaithful to our God and disobedient to his Spirit in obeying your commands that are contrary to the truth you had no reason to judge or think we were in the truth for had the three children been deceitful and obeyed the Kings command he had never knew them to be the servants of the high God that was able to deliver out of his hand And the deliverance that he saw was of their bodies from the flames that made him blesse the God of their lives but the deliverance that we witnesse is of our souls from etenel death which is far greater and more glorious yet you cannot see it but if your spiritual eyes were open as his fleshly eyes was then you might see a greater deliverance in the spirit then he saw in the flesh and would have as great or greater cause to blesse the God of those you in scorn call Quakers as the King Nebuchadnezzar had to blesse the God of Shadrach Meshach and Abednego though he be the same God over all blessed for ever Yet his appearance in this the great and notable day of the Spirit is that in which the riches of his love is and shall be made manifest which was promised to the ages to come which now is come of which the Apostles and Disciples of Christ were the first-fruits but now is the day of the whole Harvest of the earth begun in which the Lord is gathering in unto himself his Elect seed in all Nations Lands and Countries even from the one end of the earth unto the other that they may worship in spirit and in truth and be established in righteousnesse and the Mountain of the house of the Lord be prepared in the top of the mountains and be exalted above the hills where all Nations shall flow unto it out of which shall go forth the Law and the word of the Lord from this Jerusalem and they shall break their Swords into Plough-shares Mark the day of the breaking of Swords is begun and their Spears into Pruning-books and Nation shall not lift up sword against Nation neither learn to fight any more And this is the day that is dawned and blessed are they that walk in it but wretched and miserable are all those that despise it and persecute those that walk in the light of it casting them into Prisons Holes and Dungeons because they cannot submit to their corrupt wils nor worship the Imaginations of their Wise men which they teach for Doctrine and give forth for a Prescription of a Religious Worship contrary to the practice of Christ and his Apostles whose Worship stood in the Spirit But I believe if all you that resist us knew in what our Worship did stand you durst not oppose that power that hath gathered us and made our

I cannot believe this record saith the blind guide and his followers then saith Christ for if ye believe not that I am be what he the true light ye shall dye in your sins then saith Jesus again unto them I go my way and ye shall seek me and shall dye in your sins whither I go ye cannot come Mark that ye despisers and haters of the light ye despise and hate Christ and ye that will not follow him the light here in this world shall not follow him hereafter into the glory of the world to come but shall dye in your sin and perish eternally Consider this ye despisers of truth there is but a breath betwixt you and eternal destruction ye haters of the light the eternal word by which you breath move and have a being who plead for sin and the deeds of darkness to live in them for tearm of life read your portion that live and die in sin and consider what he hath said that cannot lye if you will not live the life of the righteous being manifested unto you in the day of visitation you cannot dye the death of the righteous nor shall your last end be like unto his because he hath called and you refused he hath stretched out his hand of mercy and you will not regard ye have set at naught all his counsel by his messengers he hath sent unto you and would none of his reproof by his light in your consciences the spirit of truth that he hath sent to reprove the world of sin therefore saith he that cannot lye I will laugh at your calamity I will mock when your fear cometh and when distress and anguish cometh upon you then shall you call but I will not answer you shall seek him early but shall not find him Pro. 1.24 25 26 27. therefore because the spirit of truth hath said it you that are in that capacity cannot dye the death of the righteous who shall in Gods peace that he hath laboured after with all men lye down and in his everlasting habitation dwell safely and shall be quiet from fear of evil for the upright shall dwell in the land that the envy of Cains spirit shall not nor cannot banish them out of and the perfect shall remain in it These be a people whose life the blind guides could never yet see in all ages because they dwelt not in their land which is the land of darkness where Cain said he should be hid from the face of God therefore all his generation loves this land of darkness naturally to this day it being the land of their nativity where their fathers City is built out from the presence of the Lord and the blessing of the light of his countenance in that land of the valley of the shadow of death where the sitting down is in darknesse and the Prince of the power of darknesse bears rule there teaching his children and subjects to plead for his kingdome of liberty in the flesh which natural desires and lusts of the flesh being brought forth is the life after the flesh that cannot please God the old mans life in the curse in whom the seed of the serpent the subtilest beast is head and makes war in the old enmity against the seed of the woman of which is the spiritual or the birth after the spirit that the birth after the flesh persecutes and hates as Cain did who was of that wicked one and slew his brother and wherefore slew he him because his own works were evil and his brothers righteous 1 John 3.12 therefore it is no marvel that the children of light are hated of the world that lyeth in wickednesse and pleads for it and hates the light and pleads against it for he that hateth the light abides in darknesse and loveth not his brother and it s written whosoever hateth his brother is a murtherer and ye know that no murtherer hath eternal life abiding in him and where eternal life is not abiding there is Cains nature dwelling and from that nature ariseth the persecutor that doth not well in doing the things he ought not to do and so fin lyeth at his door And woe unto the wicked it shall be ill with him saith the spirit of the Lord for the reward of his hands shall he given him Isaiah 3.11 For the wicked shall be cut off from the earth and the transgressors shall be rooted out of it Proverbs 2.22 Therefore let all that have yet a day prize it and make your calling and election sure in this the day of Gods love and tender visitation to your souls and think not to say in your hearts did not the thief upon the Crosse dye the death of the righteous yes and did he not live the life of the righteous yes he lived by faith though it might be but the last hour he being then called at the last hour to believe in Christ the light of the world he followed him by faith in him and bore a glorious testimony for him when most of his Disciples had forsook him and the blind guides laugh'd him to scorn and wagged their heads at him then he who was faithful reproved his fellow that was as blind as his guides and chief priests so the priests and the thief and the elders were all in one spirit of envy mocking and despising the truth and chose the murtherer and the thief of which spirit they were of before the truth the son of God which spirit he that believed did rebuke and that was a good work in that hour when few durst own him but yet more then all this he confessed him to be a king and that a heavenly one too before the face of his enemies and before the whole world justified the righteous son of God and said he had done nothing amisse which proved his enemies the chief priests murtherers and in such a time when he was in his lowest estate when he said My God my God why hast thou for saken me then did he honour him by his faith which preached God had not forsaken him but had given him an everlasting kingdome and did not doubt but he was able to bring his soul that believed into his kingdome therefore said Lord remember me when thou comest into thy kingdome and so received him before the face of the world as a faithful witnesse to the death who entred into the glorious paradice of God that his precious faith had fitted him for in that short time And if in so short a time faith in the power of God can bring forth such a glorious work what wretched wicked miserable unbelieving sinners are they who say they be in Christ the son of God yet do not expect to be saved from their sin and set free from their iniquity all the dayes of their life these make but a bad confession of the work of faith which is not to the glory of God the Father that hath sent his son to take away the

souls subject knowing thereby you should reap Condemnation But we know the power that is able to deliver us out of your hands and will deliver us in his time which is not earthly but heavenly into the hands of which power we have given up our selves and therefore are not careful what shall become of our mortal bodies that the will of God may be done and the trial of our faith appear to his glory who hath called us out of darkness into his marvellous light in which we are to stand and bear all things and suffer all things that we may overcome all things that oppose themselves against the truth for that which is against the truth is against God and God is against it and all that are acted by it and in it I am sure they cannot prosper And friends this is my lamentation over you Oh! that you had not chosen that which cannot prosper Can I do any less than mourn over you and can I do any more for you than warn you in the tender bowels of love to your souls and walk out of that which I warn you to depart from and so stand a witness for God against it for the which I and many others suffer and are persecuted and hated because we tell you the truth even that which God hath manifested to us and brought us into which comes contrary to your wills therefore you cannot hear us but if your wills were subjected to the truth in your selves then the single eye would be open in you and the whole body would be full of Light then you would see that in your selves which is contrary to God and also that which is one with him and that which is contrary being cast out in your selves you could not own it in others wherever you saw it and this is it that constrains us to declare against that in others out of love to their souls which God hath condemned and cast out of us whereby we come to be witnesses of his power and that he is come that doth destroy the works of the Devil and brings forth his own work in us and daily perfects it through sufferings and trials notwithstanding all the opposition of the Devil for the more it is opposed the more it shall prosper and the more it is persecuted the more it shall increase because it is the work of God and for the glory of his great and powerful name he is engaged to vindicate his own work he hath begun in and among us and we know he will do it and never leave us nor forsake us For he hath been better to us already than our natural lives who hath raised up in us a measure of his own spiritual life which we cannot but give obedience to though it be to the loss of the natural but alas for you can nothing satisfie you but our destruction because our lives are not squared by your wisdome must we therefore lose them because we cannot run with others into the same excess of riot must we not therefore live in the moderation because our liberty stands not in the flesh must we therefore be imprisoned because we cannot meet in Taverns and Alehouses to be drunk whore and blaspheme the name of God must we not therefore meet to speak good of his name because we cannot maintain and uphold a changeable time serving Priesthood with our estates must we therefore lose them because we cannot disobey the Lord to obey man therefore must we be banished out of the land of our Nativity Alas for you Is this your Justice and Judgment to your own Country men and Neighbours what will it be to strangers is this your liberty for tender Consciences or is this to do as you would be done by is this your learned Bishops and Doctors Medicine for a soul cure to imprison and kill the body be not these the weapons of your Lords spiritual or your spiritual weapons in what do they differ from the instruments of a foolish shepherd it is clear as the Scriptures of truth do testifie these are not the Instruments of the true and wise Bishop and shepherd of our souls these weapons and instruments the Apostles and Bishops of our Lord Christ did never use but on the contrary these were used against them by the unbelieving high Priests and persecuting Rulers of the Jews and by the wicked heathen Magistrates that knew not God Alas poor blind men how do you shew your nakedness and yet are not ashamed Do you think the old covering will hide you now no it is worn too thin and too narrow a thin covering would serve in the night but now the day is dawned in our hearts the light is risen and your covering is seen through the children of the light see you therefore you hate and persecute them and so shew forth your Wolvish nature which is to destroy and not to save for the way of salvation you persecute and are strangers to the meek nature and the sheep of Christ will not hear nor follow strangers because they alone know them that they cannot lead in the way they are ignorant of and strangers to and therefore we turn from you and that Church which is not in God but are as you say a company of miserable sinners all polluted and spotted with the Leprosie of fin and transgression and as you say there is no health in you and have we not good cause to deny that Church in which there is no saving health but have erred and are strayed from the way of God like lost sheep and so your Members are found living in swearing and cursing and lying drunkenness and whoredom and all manner of notorious wickedness for the which many are yearly put to death as Milefactors and what a great matter you make of it for to proceed against us to excommunication when you know that we have denied and separated from your Church of miserable finners long ago for the sheep of Christ cannot follow strangers that are erred and strayed from the way in whom there is health but the blessed and glorious Father of life hath revealed in us his saving health and we witness his living power and blessed presence that hath and doth save us to the uttermost and there is health and soundness among us blessed be his glorious name for ever who hath gathered us according to his promise out of the mouths of the false shepherds and from among those that are erred and strayed from the good shepherd and Bishop of their souls who being from the way are lost and without they return must perish so knowing that as you are strangers to the life and the way so also are you to the weapons of the Christian warfare which are spiritual so are not yours and mighty to the pulling down the strong holds of the Devil so are not yours which many thousands are witnesses of glory be to the great shepherd and bishop of our souls for ever and