Selected quad for the lemma: land_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
land_n	father_n	jacob_n	joseph_n	2,306	5	9.7122	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A45315	Select thoughts, or, Choice helps for a pious spirit a century of divine breathings for a ravished soule, beholding the excellencies of her Lord Jesus / by J. Hall ...	Hall, Joseph, 1574-1656.; Hall, Joseph, 1574-1656. Breathings of a devout soul.	1654 (1654)	Wing H413; ESTC R19204	93,604	402

freely enjoy his presence but of those straglers who care not to live without God so they may be befriended by Mammon How ill a match these poor men make for themselves I send them to their Saviour to learn What is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul God forbid I should give their souls for lost but I must say they are hazarded for herein doubtless they tempt God who hath not promised to keep them in any other then their just wayes and they do in a sort tempt and challenge Satan to draw them on either to a love of error and impiety or at least to a cooling of their care and love of truth How unlike are these men to that wise merchant in the Gospel He sold all that he had to buy the pearl of great price they sell the pearl to buy a little worthless merchandize As the greatest part of their trafick stands upon exchange so I heartily wish they would make this one exchange more of less care of their wealth for more care of their souls LXXXVIII Even when Joseph was a great lord in Egypt second to none but Pharaoh and had the command of that richest countrey of the world yet then his old Father Jacob thought his poor parcel of Shechem worthy to be bequeathed to him and embraced of him as a noble patrimony because it was in the promised land and the legacy of a dying Father How justly do I admire the faith both of the father and son in this donation Jacob was now in Goshen Shechem was in Canaan neither was the father now in the present possession nor were the sons in some ages to enjoy it It was four hundred and thirty years that Israel must be a sojourner in a strange countrey ere they shall enter into the promised Land yet now as foreseeing the future possession which his posterity should take of this spot of earth so long after Jacob gives Shechem to Joseph and Joseph apprehends it as a rich blessing as the double portion of the divided primogeniture Infidelity is purblinde and can see nothing but that which is hard at hand Faith is quick-sighted and discerns the events of many centuries of years yea of ages to come Abraham saw his Saviours day and rejoyced to see it a thousand nine hundred and fourty years off and Adam before him almost four thousand years As to God all things are present even future so to those that by a lively faith partake of him Why do I not by that faith see my Saviour returning in his Heavenly magnificence as truly as now I see the Heaven whence he shall come and my body as verily raised from the dust and become glorious as now I see it weak and decrepit and falling into the dust LXXXIX True knowledg causeth appetite and desire For the will follows the understanding whatsoever that apprehends to be good for us the affective part inclines to it No man can have any regard to an unknown good If an hungry man did not know that food would refresh and nourish him or the thirsty that drink would satisfie him or the naked that fire would warm him or the sick that Physick would recover him none of these would affect these succors And according to our apprehension of the goodness and use of these helps so is our appetite towards them For the object of the will is a known good either true or appearing so And if our experience can tell us of some that can say with her in the Poet I see and approve better things but follow the worse It is not for that evil as evil much less as worse can fall into the will but that their appetite over-carries them to a misconceit of a particular good so as howsoever in a generality they do confusedly assent to the goodness of some holy act or object yet upon the present occasion here and now as the School speaketh their sensitive appetite hath prevailed to draw them to a perswasion that this pleasure or that profit is worthy to be imbraced Like as our first parents had a general apprehension that it was good to obey all the commands of their Creator but when it came to the forbidden fruit now their eye and their ear and their heart tell them it is good for them both for pleasure and for the gain of knowledg to taste of that forbidden tree So then the miscarriage is not in that they affect that which they think not to be good but in that they think that to be good which is not for alass for one true good there are many seeming which delude the soul with a fair semblance As a man in a generality esteems silver above brass but when he meets with a rusty piece of silver and a cleer piece of brass he chooses rather the clear brass then the silver defaced with rust Surely it is our ignorance that is guilty of our cool neglect of our spiritual good if we did know how sweet the Lord is in his sure promises in his unfailing mercies we could not but long after him and remain unsatisfied till we finde him ours would God be pleased to shine in our hearts by the light of the true knowledg of himself we could not have cause to complain of want of heat in our affections towards his infinite goodness Did we but know how sweet and delectable Christ the Heavenly Manna is we could not but hunger after him and we could not hunger and not be satisfied and in being satisfied blessed XC Those which we mis-cal goods are but in their nature indifferent and are either good or evil as they are affected as they are used Indeed all their malignity or vertue is in the minde in the hand of the possessor Riches ill got ill kept ill spent are but the Mammon of iniquity but if well The Crown of the wise is their riches How can it be amiss to have much when he that was the richest man of the East was the holiest Yea when God himself is justly stiled the possessor of Heaven and Earth How can it be amiss to have little when our Saviour sayes Blessed are ye poor And if from that divine mouth we hear a wo to the rich himself interprets it of them that trust in riches If our riches possess us in stead of our possessing them we have changed our God and lost our selves but if we have learnt to use our wealth and not enjoy it we may be no less gracious then rich If a rich man have a large and humble heart and a just hand he inherits the blessing of the poor If a poor man have a proud heart and a theevish hand he carryes away the wo from the rich Riches saith wise Solomon make themselves wings they fly away as an Eagle towards Heaven So as we may use

far better XXVI There is no earthly pleasure whereof we shall not soon grow weary and be as willing to intermit as ever we were to entertain it and if the use of it continue the very frequency makes it disregarded so as that which at first we esteemed rare and precious is now looked upon as common and despicable and if it be such as that our impetuous affection is too much transported with a present fruition we are so much the more distempered in the loss on the contrary those painful yokes which at the first imposing seemed insupportable grow tolerable by custom and long acquaintance so as I know not how it comes to pass that time hath a contrary power both to aggravate and lighten evils those pleasures are onely worthy to carry our hearts which are measured by no less then eternity and those pains most justly formidable which know neither end nor remission XXVII The nearer our Saviour drew to his glory the more humility he expressed His followers were first his servants and he their Master then his disciples and he their Teacher soon after they were his friends and he theirs straightways after his resurrection and entrance into an immortal condition they were his brethren Go to my brethren and say unto them I ascend to my Father and your Father Lastly they are incorporated into him and made partakers of his glory That they also may be one with us saith he I in them and thou in me that they may be made perfect in one and the glory which thou gavest me I have given them O Saviour was this done for the depressing of thy self or for the exaltation of us or rather for both how couldst thou more depress thy self then thus to match thy self with us poor wretched creatures how couldst thou more exalt us then to raise us unto this entireness with thee the All-glorious and eternal Son of God how should we learn of thee to improve our highest advancement to our deepest humility and so to regard each other that when we are greatest we should be least XXVIII How apt we are to misconstrue the Spirit of God to our own disadvantage whiles the blessed Apostle bids us to work out our salvation with fear and trembling he doth not bid us to work it out with doubt and distrust It is the Psalmists charge that we should serve the Lord with fear and rejoyce in him with trembling so as there is a fear without diffidence and a trembling that may consist with joy trembling is an effect of fear but this fear which we must affect is reverential not slavish not distrustful Indeed when we look upon our selves and consider our own frailties and corruptions and Gods infinite justice we have too just cause of doubt and dejection yea were it not for better helps of utter despair but when we cast up our eyes to the power of him that hath undertaken for us and the faithfulness of him that hath promised and the sure mercies of him that hath begun his good work in us we can fear with confidence and rejoyce in our trembling For what are our sins to his mercies our unworthiness to his infinite merits our weaknesses to his omnipotence I will therefore so distrust my self that I will be stedfastly confident in the God of my salvation I will so tremble before the glorious Majesty of my God that I may not abate of the joy of his never-failing mercy XXIX What a large and open hand hath our God how infinitely doth his bounty transcend not the practise onely but the admiration of man We think it well if upon often asking we can receive small favors if after long delay we can be gratified with a condescent and if we have received one curtesie that is a bar to a second whereas our munificent God gives us not onely what we ask but what we ask not and therefore before we ask yea it is he that gives us to ask neither could we so much as crave good things if he did not put into us those holy desires yea he not onely gives us blessings before we ask but he gives us the best things a right to eternal glory before we are at all yea before the world was and as he prevents us in time so he exceeds our thoughts in measure giving us more then we ask Rachel would have a Son God gives her two Abraham sues that Ishmael may live God gives him to prosper and to be the father of many Princes Yet more he gives us what we cannot ask The dumb Demoniack could not sue for himself his very silence was vocal and receives what he would and could not request yea lastly which is the great improvement of his mercy he gives us against our asking our ignorance sues against our selves requiring hurtful things he will not suffer our hearts and tongues to wrong us but withholds what we unfitly crave and gives us what we should and do not crave as the fond childe cryes to his father for a knife he reaches him a spoon that may feed and not hurt him O the Ocean of divine bounty boundless bottomless O our wretched unworthiness if we be either niggardly to our selves in not asking blessings or unthankful to our God in not acknowledging them XXX Infidelity and faith look both through the same perspective glass but at contrary ends Infidelity looks through the wrong end of the glass and therefore sees those objects which are neer a far off and makes great things little diminishing the greatest spiritual blessings and removing far from us threatned evils Faith looks at the right end and brings the blessings that are far off in time close to our eye and multiplies Gods mercies which in a distance lost their greatness Thus the Father of the faithful saw his seed possessed of the promised land when as yet he had no seed nor was likely to have any when the seed which he should have should not enjoy it till after four hundred years thus that good Patriark saw Christs day and rejoyced Thus our first parent comforted himself after his ejection out of paradise with the foresight of that blessed seed of the woman which should be exhibited almost four thousand years after still and ever faith is like it self what use were there of that grace if it did not fetch home to my eye things future and invisible That this dissolved body shall be raised out of the dust and enlived with this very soul wherewith it is now animated and both of them put into a condition eternally glorious is as clearly represented to my soul in this glass as if it were already done Faithful is he that hath promised which will also do it XXXI Who can think other then with scorn of that base and unworthy conceit which hath been entertained by some that our Saviour lived here on earth upon alms He that vouchsafed to take upon him the shape of a