Selected quad for the lemma: law_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
law_n	incline_v	keep_v	lord_n	16,137	5	7.3706	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A26871	Cain and Abel malignity that is, enmity to serious godliness, that is, to an holy and heavenly state of heart and life : lamented, described, detected, and unananswerably [sic] proved to be the devilish nature, and the militia of the devil against God and Christ and the church and kingdoms, and the surest sign of a state of damnation / by Richard Baxter, or, Gildas Salvianus ...	Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.	1689 (1689)	Wing B1195; ESTC R2643	73,886	164

endeavour it When you say or hear all the ten Commandments you pray Lord have mercy upon us and incline our hearts to keep this Law And do you hate men for endeavouring to keep it If you come to the Lords Table you confess your sins and bind your selves in Covenant to forsake them and to live a holy life and you take the Sacrament upon it And the Liturgy warneth you to take heed that you dissemble not nor be hinderers of Gods holy word lest the Devil enter into you as he did into Judas and fill you with all unrighteousness And if you hate or oppose that holy obedience to God which you profess after all this what must be the portion of such hypocrites And in your Creed you profess to believe in God the Father Son and Holy-Ghost and to hold a Holy Catholick Church and the Communion of Saints And yet do you hate Saints that obey the Father Son and Holy-Ghost and hate their Communion 10. Hath not God printed on mans nature such a sense of the difference between Good and Evil as that all Laws and Government are founded in that sense And no man loveth to be counted or called a bad or ungodly or unconscionable man A Lyar a Knave a Perjured man or a wicked man And yet do you hate men for avoiding wickedness 11. Do not you use to accuse Religious men of some sin or other Truly or falsly and think by that to make them odious And yet do you accuse them and hate them most for not sinning To be Sober Just and Godly is but to avoid sins of Omission and Commission And do you at once accuse them as sinners and hate them for obeying God and sinning no more 12. Doth it never affright you to find the Devils nature in you as hating the Divine or holy nature which is in faithful Godly men And to think how openly you serve the Devil and do his work No man that believeth there are Devils can doubt but that the hatred of God as holy and the hatred of his holy Word and Work and Servants is the Devils malignity and the opposing of them his work If he were to write you his Commandments they would be contrary to Gods and the chief of them should be Thou shalt not Love God nor serve him with all thy Heart and Soul and Might nor Love those that do so but hate deride oppose and persecute them And is it honourable openly to serve the Devil Christ tells such men Ioh. 8. That the Devil is their Father because they have his nature and that his work they do for he was from the beginning a Lyar and a Malignant Murderer and turned man from obeying God. And can you think that he loveth you or that his Service against God is better than Gods or his reward better 13. Doth it never touch your Consciences to consider that you are the Children and followers of cursed Cain and how punctually his case against Abel and yours against Gods Servants is the same By faith Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain by which he obtained witness that he was righteous God testifying of his Gifts and by it he being dead yet speaketh Heb. 11. 4. Cain hated him because God more accepted him and his offering 1 Ioh. 3. 10 11 12. In this the Children of God are manifest and the Children of the Devil Whoever doth not righteousness is not of God nor he that loveth not his Brother For this is the message that ye heard from the beginning that we should love one another Not as Cain 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 14. Is it possible that any man can unfeignedly believe a Heaven as the reward of holy obedience and yet think we can do too much to obtain it or be too careful to make it sure Is not everlasting glory worth the cost of a holy life Or can it be too dearly bought 15. Or is it possible to believe Gods Judgment and Hells Punishment and yet to hate those that do their best according to Gods own Counsel to escape it 16. What monstrous cruelty is it in you to wish poor Souls to do that which God hath told us they shall be damned for God saith Without holiness none shall see God Heb. 12. 14. Except your righteousness exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees you shall in no wise enter into the Kingdom of Heaven Mat. 5. 20. Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God Mat. 5. If ye live after the Flesh ye shall die but if by the Spirit you mortify the deeds of the Body ye shall live Rom. 8. 7 8. 13. What manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy Conversation and Godliness 2 Pet. 3. 11. We receiving a Kingdom which cannot be moved let us serve God acceptably with Reverence and Godly fear for our God is a Consuming Fire Heb. 12. 28 29. Be stedfast unmoveable always abounding in the work of the Lord for asmuch as you know that your Labour is not in vain in the Lord 1 Cor. 15. 58. This is the very tenor of the Gospel And would you wish men to damn their Souls for nothing To lose Heaven and suffer Hell for ever and all to avoid a pure and holy life What a bloody motion is this Worse than if you intreated us all to cut our own throats Let us try first whether you will do far less at our request Will you give the poor all your Lands and Estates Will you run into Fire or Water or set your own houses on fire when any will but desire it It 's like you have heard of the Woman who being tempted to adultery desired the tempter first to hold his Finger in the Fire for her Which when he refused she told him it was less reason she should burn in Hell to Satisfy his lust If you will not part with your Life or Estate when another desires you why should we part with Heaven for ever and choose Hell at your desire Yea we see that you will not leave an ill-gotten gain or a Sport or a Whore or a Drunken Cup for all the Love of God the blood of Christ and the hope of Heaven And shall we part with God and Heaven and Christ to humour you And what is it that you offer us instead of all that we must part with And to ease the pain which we must undergo Nothing or worse than nothing If we should renounce God and our hope of Heaven you cannot give us health or wealth for it Much less can you secure these or life to us till to morrow And will any thing that you can give us be better than Heaven to us Or will it make Hell tollerable Will you undertake to answer for it at the bar of God if we are charged with an ungodly fleshly life or

Christs Apostles did If this be their horrid wickedness that makes them unworthy to live out of Prison say so and pretend no other But if it be Heresie false Doctrine Perjury Fornication Robbing Treason Sedition or any other crime why are they not accused of these before the Judges And why are those charged with them that never were so accused and proved guilty Will not all wise men take those persons for malicious Liars who by their published accusations thus odiously charge multitudes and never offer to prove it against them at the Judicatures Their accusation shews they want not will therefore their not prosecuting them for any such sort of crimes shews that it is truth that is wanting 13. And if they be such wicked persons whence is it that they are charged meerly with Hypocrisy by such as say that they live soberly and justly and demurely but they are at the heart as bad as others Their accusers commonly confess that they are most free from all immoralities and have an outward shew of righteousness but these heart-searchers see that their hearts are bad And do they not by this confute their own accusations 14. And why is it that they that know them best can see none of the wickedness which you accuse them of beyond those humane infirmities of which they most accuse themselves As I have oft done I again solemnly profess as one that cannot be far from my account before the judge of all the the World that having now lived to the 68th year of my age and been most familiar since the age of sixteen or seventeen with that sort of men whom the Vulgar then called Puritans described by Mr. Bolton and such other Conformists though I have met with many that had their mistakes and frailties and troublesome differences in lesser things and some Hypocrites intruded among them yet I never knew any other sort of men comparable to them in Christian Knowledge Faith Obedience to God Hatred of sin Care of their duty to God and man Sobriety Temperance Chastity Truth Heavenly desires endeavours and hopes And that they so far excelled the rest of my acquaintance as made their grace amiable to me and confirmed my belief of the Sacred Scripture Yea more if I had not had the happiness of knowing such a sort of men that in holiness Justice and Love excelled the rest of my acquaintance or at least credibly heard of such I could not have believed in Christ as a Saviour of men whom he made no better than Turks and Infidels Nor could I have believed a Heaven for men no better prepared for it And that now near my end I see so great a difference in Holiness Justice and Charity between those commonly reviled for worshiping God but as the Apostles did and those that hate and persecute them as greatly helps me in believing that there is a Saviour and Sanctifier and Heaven for the faithful and a Devil that deceives the rest and a hell that will receive them which is even visibly begun on Earth Accus But say they it is not for their Godliness or Sobriety that we accuse them but for their sin and wickedness Ans. Still this is but General and signifieth nothing But 1. What is that odious sin 2. It 's Gods merciful Providence that keeps sin in general under such shame as that the actors of it speak against it even in their slanders 3. But if this be the true cause why do you cull out those that have least sin to fasten your accusations of sin upon If there be a conformable Minister that is more Holy Charitable and Zealous against sin than the rest he is one of those that is called a Puritan and accused of sin Why do we hear none of your furious charges against the common Drunkards Revellers Gamesters Whoremongers Persecutors Profane Blasphemers Lyars and the Families that call not upon God shew no serious regard of any Religion at all You can live among these and Swear and Drink and Play with them and never cry out against them as bad men Accus But religion being the best thing the Corrupters of that are worse than Drunkards and Swearers and Adulterers Ans. Such corrupters there may be as are worse indeed But what is it that they corrupt Religion in They subscribe to all the Bible and the ancient Creeds And if need be to the English Articles of Religion Is not all that enough Their many large published writings tell the world their Judgment in Religion Such as Mr. Arthur Hildershams Mr. Perkins Mr. Greenhams Dods Anthony Burges Richard Alleins and abundance such What errors are in these 2. Why are they not these twenty years accused of Preaching false Doctrine and proved guilty and punisht for it if they are such 3. If it be not in Doctrine what is it Accus They worship God contrary to the Law in not using the Common-Prayer book Ans. 1. Those that constantly joyn in the Parish Churches in the Common-Prayer are as much hated Reviled and Prosecuted as the rest Therefore this charge is but hypocrisy 2. What do they that for matter or manner is positively contrary to Law in Gods worship They read Scripture Pray Preach Praise God with Psalms Communicate in the Lords Supper Doth the Law forbid any of this 3. Not using the rest of the Liturgy is a Negation and no Act at all and therefore no act of worship and therefore no unlawful act no more than silence is He that is silent and he that omits the rest of the Liturgy worships not God by using it but he doth nothing contrary to it or forbidden by it 4. If Peter and Paul were unknown in England and worshipt God but as they did on Earth would you therefore call them Rogues or Rebels or lay them in the jail Did they worship God in an odious intolerable manner Did the Holy-Ghost by them write an infallible Rule for all things necessary in Religion and yet are they unsufferable rogues that worship God but according to that rule 5. Are they wiser men than they that have made us another rule or worship or have they more of Gods Spirit and more authority in religion 6. Do not the Imposers say that all which they add is no part of Religion but things indifferent And are they odious corrupters of Religion who omit no part of Religion but only humane indifferent things 7. Do you not reverence the Church for some hundred years after Christ which imposed no Liturgies but left every Pastor to use his own Prayers 8. Do you not harden the Papists that call our Religion new and ask where it was two hundred years ago if you make the Liturgy as now formed and imposed our Religion when it is not two hundred years old 9. The Godly Bishops of England have ever owned the other Protestant Churches and their Communion who have none of our Liturgies nor any like it 10. If this be the odious crime why do you