Selected quad for the lemma: life_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
life_n	believe_v	live_v	resurrection_n	4,221	5	9.2871	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A27065	The vain religion of the formal hypocrite, and the mischief of an unbridled tongue (as against religion, rulers, or dissenters) described, in several sermons, preached at the Abby in Westminster, before many members of the Honourable House of Commons, 1660 ; and The fools prosperity, the occasion of his destruction : a sermon preached at Covent-Garden / by Richard Baxter.	Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.; Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691. Fools prosperity.	1660 (1660)	Wing B1448; ESTC R13757	102,825	412

world that are sanctified by his Spirit and made a holy peculiar people whom he loveth as his Spouse and as his own Body of which number you must be if you will be saved And yet at the same time the members of this Church you contemn the holiness of it you secretly hate and the faithfull Pastors in it you despise and disobey Is not this Hypocrisie 5. You all profess to Believe the Communion of Saints that is that the true members of the Catholike Church are all Saints that have one and the same Spirit and walk by the same holy Law or Rule and in holiness must converse together and joyn in Church order for the publick worshipping of God according to his own institution and must purely and fervently love each other with such a charity as shall make one as ready to relieve another when God calls for it as if our riches did belong in Common to the Saints This is the meaning of this Article of your Creed And do I then need to ask you Whether those that profess this are not Hypocrites if they hate the Saints and their inward spiritual Communion and if they love them but with that lifeless charity that James describeth Jam. 2. 14 15 c. Or if they despise or hate the Discipline Ordinances and Holy Communion of the Church And if they live in Communion with drunkards with harlots with worldlings or sensual vain or ambitious men and fly from the Communion of Saints what dost thou when thou sayst I believe the Communion of Saints but say I am a dissembling Hypocrite if it he thus with thee 6. You all profess to Believe the forgiveness of sins that is that through the blood of Christ all true repenting and believing sinners shall be forgiven and are not shut up under remediless despair And also I think you all profess that you do Repent your selves that Forgiveness may be yours And yet you love your sin you love not to be told of it you will not believe it to be sin as long as you can strive against conviction and when you must needs confess it you will not forsake it but while you seem to reform by parting with so much as you can spare your dearer sins which pleasure and honour and profit are much engaged in you will not forsake though repentance do consist in turning from sin to God and Christ hath assured you that except you repent you shall all perish Luk. 13. 3 5. Is not this therefore palpable hypocrisie to profess repentance for remission of sin and still keep the sin which you say you repent of as if you thought to mock God with names and shews 7. You all profess to Believe the Resurrection of the body and that Christ shall come again to judge the quick and dead But do you live as men that believe indeed that they are passing unto such a judgement If you seriously expected to be judged for your lives for the words you speak the deeds you do the time you spend the means of grace which you neglect or use and for all that you receive and do is it possible you could so waste your time and neglect the means of your salvation and sin so boldly and obstinately as you do 8. You all profess that you Believe the life everlasting that the Righteous shall go into their masters joy and the rest into everlasting punishment in hell Matth. 25. and 13. But do you not play the Hypocrites Can you heartily believe that you stand so near to heaven or hell to everlasting joy or torments and make no greater a matter of it nor make no better preparation for it nor bestir your selves no more in a case of such unspeakable weight If you believe sincerely the glory of heaven you set your hearts on it more then upon earth and take it for your portion and most desireable felicity But do I need to tell the worldly fleshly Hypocrite how far he is from this 9. You profess as the summ of the ten Commandements that you Love God above all and your neighbours as your selves But doth not your selfishness and quarreling with your neighbours when they do but stand in the way of your honour or commodity convince you of hypocrisie in this profession 10. In the use of the Lords prayer what word do you speak that is not in hypocrisie Do you first and principally desire the hallowing of Gods name the coming of his Kingdom and the doing of his will when you are far more tender of your own names then of Gods and more regardful of your own honour And when you care more for your own prosperity then for the prosperity of the Church and Gospel and do your selves become the hinderers of his Kingdom and Government in the Church and in the souls of men And when you cannot abide to do his Will when it crosseth the interest of your flesh but dislike it as too strict and had rather the Word and Will of God were agreeable to yours then you will conform your own to his Do you only desire Your daily bread and that in subordination to the honour and Kingdom and will of God Or rather do you not play the Hypocrites in saying so when it is not daily bread that will content you but plenty and prosperity is sweeter to you then holiness When you pray for The forgiveness of your sins as you forgive others you intimate that you are weary of your sins and hate them and would forsake them and that you forgive all that have wronged you out of the sense of your own transgressions and of the love of Christ but is all this so or is it meer dissembling when you forsake not your sin nor are willing to forsake it and when your consciences know that there be some that you forgive not You pray against being led into temptation and yet you love it and cast your selves into it Into tempting company and tempting talk and tempting employments And for recreation meat drink apparel houses attendants estate reputation and almost all things else you love and choose that which is most tempting You pray to be delivered from evil when the evil of your pride flesh pleasing and worldliness you so love that indeed you would not be delivered from them What can you say to excuse all this from palpable Hypocrisie To conclude you pretend to all that necessary to salvation but have you that in reality which you pretend to 1. You think your selves wise enough to be saved But is it not folly that goes under the name of wisedom When you should be converted and lead a holy life you are wise enough to give reasons for the contrary and wise enough to confute the Preacher and prove him a fool instead of obeying the call of God You are wise enough to prove the Physician to be ignorant and to cast away the medicine that should heale you And what if no body could deal with you

in subtilty of argument but you could say that against the necessary means of your own salvation that none can answer when you die by your wisdom and have disputed your selves out of the reach of mercy will you not bewail it then as folly Is he wiser that being hungry eats his meat or he that gives such reasons for his refusing it and pleadeth so learnedly against eating and drinking that none can answer him Is the condemned man wiser that makes friends for a pardon or he that with unanswerable subtilty reasoneth against it till the ladder be turned such is your vain and seeming wisdom You are not wise enough to be cured but to give reasons why you should continue sick In the issue it will prove that you were not wise enough to be saved but notably wise to resist salvation and plead your selves into hell 2. You pretend that you have a saving faith when your hearts refuse that salvation from sin and that rule of Christ which is the object of faith and when you will not believe the doctrines precepts or threatnings that cross your own conceits and when your belief of heaven will not carry your hearts from earth nor work you to a holy heavenly life 3. You pretend to Repentance as I said before while you hold fast the sin and give not up your selves to God when as if your neighbour or Master or Husband should but beat one of you and tell you when he hath done that he repenteth and do this as oft as you commit your willful sins and say you repent I am confident you would not take it for true repentance You repent but will not confess when it is to your disgrace as long as you can hide your sin You repent but will not make restitution or reparation of injuries to your power You repent but your heart riseth against him that reproveth you You repent but you had rather keep your sins then leave them What 's this but to deceive your own hearts and to mock your selves with a seeming vain and mock-repentance 4. You pretend to love God above all as was before said when you love not his Image waies or communion but love that which he hateth and still prefer the world before him 5. You pretend that you have true desires to be godly and what God would have you be But they are such desires as the sluggard hath to rise and as the slothful hath to work that is if it could be done with ease and without labour you lie still and use not the means with diligence for all your desires When you can fit and have your work done with wishes and your families maintained and your necessities all supplied with wishes you may think to come to heaven with wishes The good desires that the poor may be warmed and cloathed that James speaks of Jam. 2. 15. did neither relieve the poor nor save the wisher The desire of the slothful killeth him because his hands refuse to labour Prov. 21. 15. Up and be doing according to thy desires or else confess that thy wishes are hypocritical and that thou deceivest thy own heart by Vain desires 6. You also pretend to be sincere worshippers of God You pray and you read the Scripture and good books and you hear the Word and receive the Lords Supper But I have before shewed you your hypocrisie in these you pray against the sin that you love and would not leave you pray for holiness when you hate it or desire it not in any degree to cross your flesh you serve God with meer words whether of your own conceiving or of others prescribing with some forced acknowledgement of that God that hath not your hearts or lives Let Christ pass the sentence on you and not I Matth. 15. 7 8 9. Ye hypocrites well did Esaias Prophesie of you saying This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth and honoureth me with their lips but their heart is far from me But in vain they do worship me teaching for doctrines the commandements of men You like that teaching that sooths you in your own opinions and galleth not your consciences in the guilty place A Ministry you would have that should stand like an adorned Idol that hurts no body and toucheth not your sores or that is but instead of a pair of Organs or a tinckling Cymbal to tickle your fancy and make Church-worship to be as a kind of religious stage-play to you But a true Minister of Christ to open to you the doctrine of the Kingdom and roundly to awake you from security in sin and to call you up to the most serious holy heavenly life and follow you and let you take no rest till you yeild and practise it and to call you to open confession of your open scandalous sins that you may make such reparation to the wronged honour of God and souls of men as you are capable of and accordingly to absolve you or to bind you over to answer it at the bar of God and charge the Church to avoid communion with you if you are impenitent and incorrigible such a Ministry as this which is the Ministry of Christs appointment you abhor at least when they come to touch your sores Then you are too proud to be taught and ruled by such as these though you hypocritically profess to be ruled by Christ who ruleth his Church by his Spirit Word and Ministers conjunct Then you say who gave you authority to do thus and thus by me As if you knew not that Christ in Scripture hath described confirmed and limited the Ministerial office Like condemned Traytors that should say to him that ●●●ngeth them a pardon Who 〈◊〉 you authority to make so 〈…〉 me or like a man that hath the plague or leprosie that asketh the Physician Who gave you authority to tell me that I am sick and put me on such medicines as these or as the Israelite to Moses Exod. 2. 14. Who made thee a Prince and a Judge over us not understanding that God by his hand would deliver them saith Stephen Act. 7. 25. Or as the Jews to Christ when he was teaching men the way to heaven Matth. 21. 23. By what authority dost thou these things and who gave thee this authority so because you hate the way of your recovery you will not be saved without authority nor be satisfied of their authority that would save you but are like a beggar that should proudly refuse a piece of gold and ask By what authority do you give it me A Ministry that agreeth with Gods d●scription you cannot abide Act. 20. 〈…〉 36. Heb. 13. 7 17. 1 Cor. 4. 〈◊〉 1 Thes 5. 12 13. 1 Tim. 5● 17. 20. and 2 Tim. 4. 1. So that indeed it is but a mock-minister a mock-sacrament a mock-prayer and so a seeming vain Religion which you desire 7. Lastly you pretend also to sincere obedience If we ask you whether you are willing to obey God you will

when matters come out and their dealings are discovered when it comes to the tryal indeed or to a matter of commodity c. Are not they proud are not they malicious are not they hard-hearted and covetous as well as others c. When by the mercies of God in their sense they are neither so nor so but such censures as these are very often the meer evaporations of pure malice and the bitter ebullitions and overflowings of their gall c. And p. 164. The ordinary conceit which unregenerate men entertain of these experimental Ministers is that they are troublers of Israel Preachers of terrour transgressors of policy unfit to Prophesie at Court or in the Kings Chappel pestilent fellows Seditioners Factionists born only to disquiet the world and vex mens consciences In these dayes of ours especially which are strangely prophane and desperately naught in what man soever the power of grace undaunted zeal resolute sincerity are more working eminent and remarkable ordinarily the more and more implacable outragious and inflamed Opposites shall that man find wheresoever he lives And p. 10. The formal Hypocrite is moved to think his state good and the way of his life to be right from a prejudice which he conceives from the imputations which the world layeth upon the children of God such as are Pride Hypocrisie singularity melancholy simplicity c. Page 38. His form of godliness in his conceit is the only true state of Salvation Whatsoever is short of him is prophaness whatsoever is above him is preciseness But when upon his death-bed he awaketh And Direct for Walk p. 131. The more forward he is in the narrow way the more furiously is he persecuted by the spite of tongues The most resolute for Gods glory and in good causes is ordinarily most railed against and reviled The foul spirit of good fellowship as they call it is still foaming out against Gods chiefest favourites the foulest censures that they are Hypocrites Humorists Factionists Traitors Pestilent fellows and all that 's naught There is no creature that ever God made not Satan himself excepted which is more maliciously set against and censured then good men Neither should any have so bad a name as they could the hellish mists of virulent tongues obscure and stain the glory of their reputation And p. 43. At this day professors of the gracious way be in greatest disgrace with the most and a drunkard and swaggering good fellow an Vsurer a son or daughter of Belial shall find more favour applause and approbation with the world then a man which makes conscience of his waies c. Page 350. They cry These forward Professors will all turn phantastical Familists Anabaptists Arrians any thing which cry awakes the eye of State jealousie and so by an unworthy consequent draws upon those who are true of heart even Gods best servants and the Kings best subjects discountenance suspicions if not molestations unnecessarily causelesly And p. 351 352. out of Austins Epist 137. he shews that it was so in his time They every way and infinitely labour that when some Professors of holiness have foully fallen indeed or be only so slandered the world would believe that they are all such Do you not think in his time the world did thus exult and exclaim or in the like manner upon Lots fall Here now you see Puritane Lot who could not endure the good fellowship of the Sodomites he is now himself seized on by incest They are all such I warrant you citing du Bartas translat by Silvester p. 412. Base busie stranger comest thou hither thus Controler-like to prate and preach to us No Puritan thou shalt not here do so c Thus you hear from a conformable Divine how men calling themselves Christians and being some of them Formally Religious do prove themselves self-deceiving Hypocrites by their unbridled tongues in reviling at those as Puritans and too precise that will not be self-deceiving Formalists as well as they I shall only add some of Bishop Halls characters of an Hypocrite that you may see what Formality is in the judgement of knowing men Page 169. Walking early up into the City he turns into the great Church and salutes one of the pillars on one knee worshipping that God which at home he cares nor for while his eye is fixed on some window or some passenger and his heart knows not whither his lips go He rises and looking about with admiration complains on our frozen charity commends the ancient with the superfluity of his usury he builds an Hospital and harbours them whom his extortion hath spoiled so while he makes many beggars he keeps some He turneth all gnats into Camels and cares not to undo the world for a circumstance Flesh on a Friday is more abomination to him then his neighbours bed He abhors more not to uncover at the name of Jesus then to swear by the name of God c. So Bishop Hall But perhaps you 'l say These persons whom you describe that will make a mock of godliness it self are not to be numbred with Hypocrites but with the openly prophane To which I answer 1. Even these profess themselves to be Christians and therefore are Hypocrites when they are not what they do profess 2. They perswade themselves that they are as truly godly as those that they reproach and do not think that it is godliness indeed for which they do reproach them But for engrossing the name or reputation of Godliness to themselves and for some differing manner or way of worship For this is one of the most notable cheats by which the devil undoes the empty Formal Hypocrite Finding that this man doth own Christianity in his Opinion but is void of the true Spirit and power and life of Christian Religion he raiseth some controversies between the serious Christian and the Hypocrite about some controvertible points of doctrine or about some modes or circumstances of Discipline and external worship and when they fall into two sides the Hypocrite thinks that it is but in these controversies that the difference lyes The question thinks he is not whether men should be regenerate godly and Religious But whether my way of Religion or the Puritans and Precisians be better And presently he hence concludes that indeed it is he that is the more truly Religious For saith he my judgement is sound and the Puritans is erroneous I am of the judgement of the Church which he is against The Reverend Prelates or Doctors are more of my side then on his I am for order and he is for confusion and unreverence and followeth the humours and fancies of his own brain And thus the Devil turneth his eye from the main difference and makes him believe that it is these controversies that are all that sets them at a distance But alas man thou overlookest the point that thy life and soul lyeth on Agree first in the serious hearty entertainment and practice of the substance of