Selected quad for the lemma: lord_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
lord_n	become_v	zeal_n	zealous_a	36	3	8.8593	4	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

his administrations so much less must we accuse God of negligence or injustice by stepping into his throne And though the Railers of these times excuse their sin with the name of Justice they must shew their Commissions for the executing of that Justice before it will pass in heaven for an excuse Is not God severe enough will not his judgement be terrible enough would you wish men to suffer more then he will inflict on the impenitent what more then hell and will it not be soon enough are you so hasty for so dreadful a revenge can you not stay when the Judge is at the door Mark both the usage and remedy of believers in Jam. 5. 5 6 7 8. To the rich and great ones of the world he saith Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth and been wanton ye have nourished your hearts as in a day of slaughter Ye have condemned and killed the just and he doth not resist you There 's your usage Be patient therefore brethren unto the coming of the Lord There 's the remedy But must we stay so long he thus repeateth his advice Be ye also patient stablish your hearts for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh Let your moderation be known to all men the Lord is at hand Phil. 4. 5. Shall not God avenge his own elect that cry day and night unto him though he bear long with them I tell you that he will avenge them speedily Luke 18. 7 8. There 's no contradiction between crying long and avenging speedily 5. Consider what compassion rather then reproach you owe to those by whom you suffer They do themselves much more hurt then they do you Are they great they have the more to answer for and their fall will be the greater Jam. 5. 1 2 3. If you are your selves believers go into the Sanctuary and ask the Scriptures what will be their end and then deny them compassion if you can Alas consider they are at the worst but such as you were formerly your selves as to the main Paul makes a sad confession of his own persecution of the Church when he was before Agrippa and doth not complain that he was himself so hardly used I verily thought saith he with my self that I ought to do many things contrary to the Name of Jesus 〈◊〉 of the Saints I shut up in prison little thinking that they were Saints I gave my voice against them I punished them oft in every Synagogue And being exceedingly mad against them I persecuted them Acts 26. 9 10 11 12. He would not tell Agrippa that he was mad but he might speak more freely of himself O sirs pitty poor men that have the temptations of worldly greatness and prosperity and must go through a Camels eye if they will come to heaven who stand so high that sun and wind have the greatest force upon them Who see so much vanity and little serious exemplary piety who hear so much flattery and falshood and so little necessary truth saith Seneca Divites cum omnia habeant unum illis deest scilicet qui verum dicat si enim in client●●am falicis hominis potentumque perveneris veneris aut veritas aut amicitia perdenda est If you were in their places you know not how far you might be prevailed against your selves If little temptations can make you miscarry in your places so oft and foully as you do what would you do if you had the strongest baits of the world and allurements of the flesh and the most dangerous temptations that Satan could assault you with Have you not seen of late before your eyes how low some have fallen from high professions and how shamefully the most promising persons have miscarried tha were lifted up and put to the tryal of such temptations of prosperity as they had never been used to before O pitty those that have such dangerous tryals to pass through and be thankful that you stand on safer ground and do not cruelty envy them their perils nor reproach them for their falls but pray and daily pray for their recovery 6. Consider this speaking evil of those by whom you suffer hath too much of selfishness and corrupted nature in it to be good If another suffered as you do and you were advanced as another is would you not speak more mildly then Or if not so yet the proneness of nature to break out into reviling words though it were for Religion and for God doth intimate to you that it hath a suspicious root Do you find it as easie to be meek and patient and forgive a wrong and love an enemy Take heed lest you serve Satan in vindicating the cause of God It s an unfit way of serving God to do it by breaking his Commands Read seriously the description of a contentious hurtful soul-tongued zeal in Jam. 3. and then tell me what thanks Christ will give you for it The two great Disciples James and John thought it would have notably honoured Christ and curbed the raging Spirit of the ungodly if he would have let them call for fire from heaven to consume a Town that refused to receive him But doth Christ encourage their destroying zeal No but he tells them Ye know not what spirit ye are of They little knew how unlike to the tender merciful healing Spirit of Christ that fiery hurting spirit was that provoked them to that desire nor how unpleasing their temper was to Christ This is the very case of many thousand Christians that are yet young and green and harsh and have not attained to that mellowness and sweetness and measure of charity that is in grown experienced Christians They think their passions and desires of some plagues on the contemners of the Gospel are acceptable to God and blame the charitable as too cold when they little know what spirit it is that raiseth that storm in them and how unlike and unacceptable it is to Christ Were you as zealous to serve all others in love and to stoop to their feet for their salvation and to become all things lawful to all men that you may win some this saving zeal would be pleasing to your Lord who comes to do the work of a Physician and not of the Souldier to save and not to destroy and therefore most approves of those that serve him most diligently in his saving work 7. Lastly consider your passions and evil speakings will but increase your suffering and make it seem just if otherwise it were unjust If you are not meek you have not the promise of inheriting the earth Matth. 5. 5 If you honour not your Parents or superiours you have not the promise that your daies shall be long in the land And your evil speaking will make men conclude that you would do evil if you could and durst As it s said to be Zoilus answer when he was askt why he spoke evil of Plato and such worthy men Quoniam malum facere cum velim non passum

the evil of vertiginous mutability in Religion and therefore he may be much resolved to continue what he is and may cast many a jeer at the weather-cocks of the times and the unconstancy and levity of ignorant or temporizing men and may stand to his party and profession against much opposition as glorying in his constancy and being ashamed to be thought a changling or such a turn-coat as others whom he merrily derideth 5. An Hypocrite that hath no other Religion but delusory and vain may observe the weaknesses of persons that are of lower education and parts and may loath their indiscretion in conference and behaviour and their unhansome expressions in prayer and other duties and shake the head at them as silly contemptible self-conceited fellows and his heart may rise against their disorder tautologies and affectations And its like enough that hereupon he will jeast at conceived prayer or extemporate as they call it and bless himself as safe in his Parrot-like devotions because the same spirit teacheth not fine words and rhetorical language to all that it teacheth to pray with unutterable sighs and groans Rom. 8. 26 27. though the searcher of hearts who is not delighted with complements and set speeches doth well understand the meaning of the spirit 5. The self-deceiving Hypocrite doth frequently pretend to be a man of moderation in matters of Religion as distasting the hair-braind zealots as he counteth them that cannot be content to have their faith and Religion to themselves before God and to live and talk as others do but must be singular and make a stir with their Religion and turn the world upside down The true zeal of the godly is usually distastefull to him and the corrupt zeal of Schismatical persons doth cause him to bless himself in his lukewarmness and to take his most odious indifferency and want of fervent love to God and his holy ways to be his vertue 6. This self-deceiving Hypocrite doth frequently pretend to an exceeding great Reverence in the managing of the outward part of worship and to an extraordinary zeal about the Circumstantials of Religion He accounts them all schismatical and prophane that place not as much of their Religion as he doth in gestures and forms and other accidents of worship acquainting us that the Pharisaical temper in religion is natural and will still continue in the world 7. If the temptation of the Hypocrite lie on the other side he can withdraw himself into some small or separating society and place his Religion in the singularity of his opinions or in the strictness of the way and party that he owneth and in his conceited ability in his conceived or ready expressions in prayer and can cry out as much upon the Formalist as the Formal Hypocrite upon him and glory in his zeal as the other in his moderation It is in the Heart that Hypocrisie hath its throne from whence it can command the outward acts into any shapes that are agreeable to its ends and can use materials of divers natures as the fewell and nutriment of its malignity And what ever party such are joined to and what ever way they have been trained up to whether Formality or schism or more regular sober equal wayes in all of them their Religion is but Vain and they do but deceive themselvs by all 8. The Religion that is but delusory and Vain may be accompanied with much Alms and works of seeming Justice and Charity Mat. 6. 1 2. Luke 18. 11 12. He may have many vertues called moral and be a man of much esteem with others even with the best and wisest for his seeming Wisdom and piety and justice He may be no extortioner unjust adulterer but as to gross sins seem blameless Luke 18. 11 12. Phil. 3. 6. and be much in reproaching the scandalous lives of others and thank God that he is none such Luke 18. 11. 9. He that hath but a vain Religion may in his judgement approve of saving grace and like the more zealous upright self-denying heavenly lives of others and wish that he might but die their death and wish himself as happy as they so it might be had on his own terms And he may have some counterseit of every grace and think that it is true Numb 23. 10. Jam. 2. 14 c. 1 Cor. 13. 1 2 3. Mark 6. 20. 10. None will be more forward to call another Hypocrite then the Hypocrite nor to extoll sincerity and uprightness of heart and life And thus you see what this Vain Religion is made up with 2. IF you marvell what the Hypocrite yet wants that makes his Religion delusory and Vain I shall now tell you I hope to your conviction and satisfaction 1. For all his forementioned Religion he wants the Spirit of Christ to dwell as his sanctifier within him And if any man have not the Spirit of Christ the same is none of his Rom. 8. 9. But because this is known by the effects I add 2. He wants that spiritual new birth by which he should be made spiritual as his first birth made him carnal John 3. 5 6. Rom. 8. 6 7 8. He is born of the will of the flesh and of man but not of God John 1. 13. Form the first man Adam he is become a living soul but by the second man Christ the Lord from heaven he is not yet quickned in the Spirit 1 Cor. 15. 45 46. He is not born again of the incorruptible seed the word of God that liveth and abideth for ever 1 Pet. 1. 23. He is not yet saved by the washing of Regeneration save only as to the outward baptism and by renewing of the Holy Ghost which is shed by Christ on all his members that being justified by his grace they should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life Tit. 3. 5 6. They are not new creatures old things being not past away and all things with them become new and therefore it is certain that they are not in Christ 2 Cor. 5. 17. They have not put off the old man with his deceitfull lusts and deeds nor have put on the new man which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness Eph. 3. 22 23 24. Col. 3. 9 10. They have but patcht up the old unsanctified hearts and smooth'd over their carnal conversations with civility and plausible deportment and so much Religion as may cheat themselves as well as blind the eyes of others But they are strangers to the life of God Ephes 4. 18. and never were made partakers of the Divine nature which all the children of God partake of 2 Pet. 1. 4. nor of that Holiness without which none shall see the Lord Heb. 12. 14. 3. Though he make a slight and customary confession of his sins unworthiness and misery yet is he not kindly humbled at the heart nor made truly vile in his own eyes nor contrite and broken-hearted nor emptyed of himself as seeing himself undone