Selected quad for the lemma: life_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
life_n	drink_v	flesh_n	meat_n	7,615	5	9.1083	5	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A93724	The wels of salvation opened or, a treatise discovering the nature, preciousnesse, usefulness of Gospel-promises, and rules for the right application of them. By William Spurstowe, D.D. pastor of Hackney near London. Imprimatur, Edm. Calamy.	Spurstowe, William, 1605?-1666.	1655 (1655)	Wing S5100; Thomason E1463_3; ESTC R203641	126,003	320

on the Word and promises of God For as faith is truly the life and guide of the soul so the Word is the ground life and guide of our faith Now the Arguments that I shall set down are briefly three First The life of faith is that life which above all others God would have Believers to live And this appears by the distance that God hath put between his promises and his performances making their whole life to be rather a life of hopes then of enjoyments and the good things that he gives to relate more to the future then to the present time God was graciously pleased to open a door of hope to fallen man in that first Gospel-promise which he himself proclaimed Gen. 3. 15. that the seed of the woman should break the Serpents head But how many generations passed away before the fulnesse of time came in which he sent forth his Sonne made of a woman He hath promised to Believers that they shall tread down the wicked and that they shall be ashes under the soles of their feet Mal. 4. 3. But yet he hath made their warfare to be as long as their life He hath promised a glorious resurrection of their bodies out of the grave And yet for how many thousand years have his Saints lain dissolved in their dust as if they did seeme to be altogether forgotten by him Now to what end hath God set such long periods of time between the making and the accomplishing of his promises but only that he would have the heirs of them to live by faith yea and to die in faith by resting on the truth of his Word for the fulfilling of every mercy which he hath undertaken for in his promises And indeed this glory which Believers give to God in the exercise of their faith upon his Word is farre greater and more noble then all that glory which the whole universe of creatures do yeeld unto him They give him the glory of his goodnesse in their being and in the comforts of it derived unto them by him But who gives him the glory of his faithfulnesse in his promises but a Believer Who is it that rejoyceth in hope of the glory of God Rom. 5. 2. but a Believer Who glories in tribulations but a Believer Who is it that lets not his confidence die when his life expires but a Believer My flesh and my heart faileth saith David but God is the rock of my heart and my portion for ever Psal 73. 26. Secondly The life of faith is of all estates the most contented and of all lives the fullest of real sweetnesse and delight First It is the most contented life True contentment is the inseparable companion of true faith 1 Tim. 6. 6. A Believer is the onely person that is instructed in this sacred mystery Phil. 4. 13. The things that others want he desires not Riches which others covet with the straining of their consciences he throws away as snares Pleasures which others drink down with a thirst unsatisfied he out of choise sparingly sips of or else refuseth so much as to taste Honours that others value themselves by he looks upon as fancies and not realities As Plato told the Musicians that a Philosopher could dine and eate his meat without them So a Believer can live happily without the having of any of these things And the ground of all this is because by faith he lives above them and enjoyes more high and noble delights in the very expectation and hope of that blessednesse which God hath promised then any other can have from the fruition of an earthly Paradise or of the whole world it self if turned and changed into an Eden Secondly Of all lives the life of faith is the sweetest The delicacies that faith feeds upon doth not arise from any stagnant and impure pits or cisterns but from the fountain and well of life It sucks the breasts of consolation Isay 66. 11. It lives upon the free favour of God which is better then life it self Psal 63. 3. It hath Christ himself for nutriment whose flesh is meat indeed whose blood is drink indeed John 6. 55. All which are food the world knows not of it never understood their preciousnesse or tasted their sweetnesse There is a greater difference between the repasts of faith and the refreshments of the world then there is between the Physick of the Galenists Paracelsians the one giving it in the drug and the other as they boast in the quintessence and spirits extracted from that flegme and earthymatter that deads allaies their efficacy All the comforts of faith have in them a native purity and spiritualnesse and need not the help of Artists to refine them Such they are as that Angels themselves have neither better nor higher to live upon How injurious then are Believers to their own happinesse while they neglect the living by faith and gaze rather upon these dainties with their eyes then feed upon them with their mouths How greatly do they live below themselves while they take up with the things of this world and put not forth this divine grace of faith which can fetch every good thing out of heaven What dishonour do they cast on the precious promises while like the lustful Israelites they slight this Manna of the Gospel as dry food O therefore if there be any consolation in Christ if any comfort of love if any fellowship of the Spirit if any excellency in the promises be perswaded you that are the beloved ones of God to live the life of faith and to exercise it in an improvement of the promises the use of which makes you more rich and blessed then the having of them Thirdly to move Believers to act faith upon the promises I shall adde this Argument that their labour and expectation will not be in vaine Faith in the promise is like the bowe of Jonathan and the sword of Saul which never returned empty 2 Sam. 1. 22. It alwayes findes what it seeks and enjoyes what it desires He that beleeveth shall never be confounded 1 Pet. 2. 6. that is he shall not be disappointed or broken in his purposes or hopes If the promise be not good security to rest and build upon What is What bond can be so firme as his Word who cannot lie Tit. 1. 9. What pledge can be more certain then the earnest of the Spirit by which the inheritance of Believers is sealed unto them Ephes 1. 14. If these foundations fail then we may well say with the Prophet What can the righteous do But sooner shall the rocks be broken into bits and thrown as pibbles and cockle-shels upon the shoar by the violence of the waves sooner shall the mountains that God hath set fast by his strength Psal 65. 6. be over-turned by the breath of tempestuous windes then the promises which are founded upon the immutable power of God and the never-failing goodnesse of Christ be in the least iota made void

believers that look unto it and seek an establishment of their wayes from it The promise is written in faire and capitall letters which those that are of the lowest rank in knowledge and wisdome may easily read and discerne It makes wise the simple and being pure enlighteneth the eyes Psal 19. 7 8. But the providences of God are written in darke and unlegible characters which though they may soone be discerned to be his hand yet to decipher the sense and meaning of them is a task that oft times exceedeth the line of humane wisdome They are like the hand-writing upon the wal Dan. 5. 5. where part of the hand that wrote it Belshazzar saw but the meaning of it neither he nor the most learned of his Caldeans could finde out To interpret the mind of God in his providences requires the skill and wisdome of a Daniel who was filled with an excellent spirit of knowledge and understanding but to know his will in his promise it is enough if a man be a Nathanael an Israelite in whom there is no guile the path of them is plaine and wayfaring men though fools shall not erre therein Isa 35. 8. Providences God useth as his Ciphers many times to hide his secret and his counsells from the eyes of men but the promises are alwayes as his Letters of love in which he reveales himself unto believers and acquaints them both of his peculiar love and care to them and of their dutie and obligation unto himself Secondly the promises do exceed in certainty the most constant dispensations of providence The tenure by which any blessings are given and to which we are intitled only by providence is not so firme and sure as that which is derived unto us by the promise By the one we are made no better then tenants at will and at the discretion of their Lord who though he let them enjoy rich possessions and revenues may yet at his own pleasure resume them and take all into his own hands by the other we are made heirs of all the good things that are given unto us and so may plead the promise of God as our right they being a part of that portion which he as a Father is pleased to bestow upon us for our more comfortable subsisstance in our present pilgrimage Oh! how slippery then is the foundation of those mens comforts which is only built upon the dispensations of providence and not upon the stability of the promise How unsound are their evidences which altogether stand in the successe of their atchievements in the prosperity that hath followed them in all their paths which may in one moment be turned into a sad change having the same hand of providence which was wide opened in its bounty to them lifted up in its displeasure against them 3ly The promise exceeds providence in the purity and sweetnesse that it derives and conveyes to every externall mercie which without it are not freed from that vexation and vanity which sinne hath subjected every creature unto Providence dispenseth blessings but the promise only sanctifies them the one gives the possession of them the other the true fruition of them This is that which makes a wide difference between the temporal mercies which believers enjoy and those which wicked men do oft-times partake of in greater abundance from the hand of God A little that a righteous man hath is better then the riches of many wicked Psal 37. 16. His drie morsels are sweeter then their dainties his small pittance is more satisfactorie then their plentie For the wicked have all these outward and inferiour things only ex largitate donantis from the meere generall bounty of God which doth not remove the incumbrances the vacuity and vexation that are entailed upon them by sinne But the righteous hath the same things given unto him virtute promiss● by the right of a promise which sanctifieth the gifts of common providence and taketh away from the creature that curse wherin it was wrapped through the sin of the first Adam While therefore men please themselves in the single interest and right of providence to their earthly comforts look not unto the conveyance of them by the promise it is no wonder if they become snares toiles and thornes unto them and that they complain that the streams of their abundance are like the waters of Marah Exod. 15. 23. so bitter as that they cannot drink of them seeing that they want Christ who is the onely tree of life for to heale them and to change their unpleasing bitternesse into a delicious sweetnesse by the power of his Word Secondly Believers are to be cautious that they weaken not the expectation of faith in the performance of any good which the promise doth hold forth unto them by making the providences of God that seeme to crosse the fulfilling of it to be moving arguments to incline them to doubting or diffidence about the truth of it When Jacob understood that his brother Esau was coming against him with four hundred men Gen. 32 6. he doth not distrust the promise that God had made unto him Gen. 28. 15. but he strongly pleades it as a ground for his deliverance Thou saidst I will surely do thee good and make thy seed as the sand of the sea which cannot be numbred for multitude Gen. 32. 12. When God by a dreame that was doubled on purpose to confirme the certainty of the thing had revealed unto Joseph the future honour and greatnesse which he would exalt him unto above his brethren causing their sheaves to bow to his sheaf and the sunne moon and the eleven starres to make obeysance unto him Gen. 37. 7 9. The meanes that God useth for the effecting and bringing to passe his decree not the concurrence of successefull and smiling providences but of such onely which to the eye of reason seeme rather to destroy the promise then to accomplish it Who could ever have conceived that the casting of him into a dry pit the selling of him to the Ishmaelite merchants the putting of him into prison and fetters by Potiphar as a shameful offendor should lead to the advancement of Joseph not to his ruine Can light spring out of darkness glory out of ignomie liberty out of thraldome And yet by such stops as these doth God rais up Joseph into the throne of honour Untill the time that his word came the word of the Lord tried him saith David Psal 105. 19. That is until the very accomplishment of the promise he was tried in the expectation of it by many and sore afflictions in all which he exercised such a measure of faith and patience as not to murmur or repine at the dispensations of God towards him or faint in his waiting quietly for the fulfilling of the word which the Lord had spoken unto him The archers sorely grieved him and shot at him and hated him but his bowe abode in strength and the armes of his hands were

whole discourse concerning the excellency and the use of the promises of the Gospel which hath hitherto been dilated and insisted on in the several particulars And yet methinks I had need to wish new sides new lungs and an hour new turned up that I might begin all again or else to sit down and complaine with the Prophet Isay 49 4. I have laboured in vaine I have spent my strength for nought O where are those affectionate expressions acclamations and rejoycings of heart which I expected would have echoed from every mouth and have appeared in every face that had heard and been acquainted with such glad tydings of peace and mercy as the promises do declare and testifie from heaven towards sinners I had thought that some as full of heavenly admiration would have stood like the Cherubims with bowed heads and faces looking towards the mercy-seat as being desirous to pry and search more into these divine mysteries which are the delightful study of Angels That others like Peter in the mount of transfiguration having had some glimpses of the glory of heaven would have cried out It is good being here Or wish as David Psal 27. 4. O that I might all the dayes of my life behold the beauty of the Lord I had thought that others at the opening of these Wells of salvation and a free invitation to drink of these waters which whosoever drinketh of shall never thirst againe would like the woman of Samaria John 4. 15. have said Lord give me this water that I thirst not neither come hither to draw That others at the gathering of this Manna which hath been plentifully rained downe upon them and gives life beyond death would with most sincere hearts have made that prayer which the Jewes did in hypocrisie John 6. 34. Lord evermore give us this bread But alas Who hath beleeved our report and to whom is the arme of the Lord revealed Methinks still men stand altogether unaffected as if this day salvation had not been brought either to their houses or to their hearts as if nothing had been spoken that concerned their everlasting happinesse They are like Pauls auditory that heard him preach of the resurrection of Christ Acts 17. Some scorne others doubt and few beleeve Brethren from whence is it I beseech you that there is so little change and alteration made either in your countenances or in your affections Is it because I have shewed you the glory and preciousnesse of the promises only through a crevice which you would willingly have beheld with open face Alas who is it that can see these things in their lustre and live You can never understand their worth till you come to enjoy them in heaven Or is it because this treasure is brought unto you in an earthen vessel that you set so low a value upon it God it is who hath so ordered the dispensation that the excellency of the power may be of God and not of us 2 Cor. 4. 7. Or do you expect that I should heap up more arguments that might farther commend the promises unto you O how easily as well as gladly could I undertake this taske if that I might be but sure to endeare the promises to you thereby Diodorus tells of a Citie in Sicilia that was called Triocala because it had springs of water of a superlative sweetnesse Vine-yards of the choysest wines and rocks of most impregnable strength But how much more truly may the Promises of the Gospel be stiled not Triocala but Pancala which are not only as overflowing well-springs of living water nor as pleasant Vineyards that abound with wine that makes glad the heart nor as insuperable rocks against which the gates of hell are never able to prevaile but are also a celestial Eden in which as Bernard pithily there is totum quod velis nihil quod nolis every thing that you would desire and nothing that you would dislike But I may not forget my self and instead of casting anchor in the haven spread the canvase and put forth to sea again I shall therefore cease from speaking to you and shall turne all my expostulations with you into prayers to God for you Beseeching him who in Paul's planting and Apollo's watering doth alone give the increase that he would by the mighty working of his holy Spirit make what hath been spoken to be a word of effectual grace unto you that have heard it that it may build you up and give you an inheritance among all them that are sanctified And that he would vouchsafe the same blessing to all those that by his providence may now read what others have heard that so his Name to whom alone all is due may have the whole praise and the glory FINIS Books newly printed by Ralph Smith Viz. Mr. Dicksons Exposition on the whole Book of the Psalmes in three Books The Christans Charter shewing the priviledge of Believers in this life and in the life to come by Mr. Watson Minister of Stephen Walbroke the third Edition much enlarged Also Mr. Watsons Art of Divine contentment the second Edition Mr. Hutchinsons Exposition on the six small Prophets viz. Obadiah Jonah Micah Nahum Habakkuk and Zephaniah Second Edition Corrected Mr. Hutchinsons Exposition on ●he three last Prophets viz Haggai Zechariah Malachi An Exposition on the whole Book of Ecclesiastes by that late learned and pious Divine Mr. John Cotton Pastor of Bostock in New-England