Selected quad for the lemma: lord_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
lord_n	commandment_n	day_n	sabbath_n	21,308	5	10.2371	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A89447	A box of spikenard newly broken not so much for the preparation of the burial; as for the clearer illustration, and exornation of the birth and nativity of our blessed Lord and Saviour Christ Jesus. Contained in a short and sweet discourse which was at first hinted, and occasioned through a question propounded by R.B.P. de K. Which is now answered and resloved by T.M. P. de P.	Malpas, Thomas.	1659 (1659)	Wing M340; Thomason E2140_2; ESTC R208367	46,250	128

serveth his Servant The onely true freedom is to serve the Lord For Godliness with Contentment is great Gain saith the Apostle 1 Tim. 6.6 yea it is profitable unto all things saith he having promise of the life which now is of that which is to come 1 Tim. 4.8 How then can you justify or affirm it to be a vain needless thing to spend this time in the publick Worship and Service of God namely in the duties of Piety and exercises of Religion in hearing of the Word in offering up Prayers Praises to God celebrating it lauding his holy and glorious Name with Psalms and Hymns and spiritual Songs singing and making melody in our hearts to the Lord Eph. 5.19 20. giving thanks alwaies for all things unto God and the Father in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ And especially and above all things giving thanks for this one thing I mean that inestimable benefit and unspeakable gift which God bestowed upon the World at this time And me thinks to this end and purpose we may very well encourage and stirr up our selves with the words of David and say as he doth Psal 69.31 32. I will praise the name of God with a Song and magnify it with thanksgiving this also shall please the Lord better than a Bullock which hath horns and hoofs yea this shall be as precious and odoriferous in his Nostrils and no less pleasing and acceptable in his sight than that right costly Spikenard which was spent to anoint our Saviour's feet withall although it be said of that That the whole House wherein our Saviour was at that time was filled and perfumed with the odour of the Oyntment Joh. 12.3 But the Reasons you alledge to prove it to be a vain and needless thing to observe this day are in the next place to be examined and considered the first whereof is this as you affirm it because God hath set apart a Sabbath the Lord's-day for this purpose to meditate upon God's Love in redeeming the World and this seems to be an indifferent good one yet you know or at the least cannot but know that the Sabbath or the Seventh day was at the first ordained sanctified and set apart onely in remembrance of the World's Creation as it appears in that passage or Conclusion of the fourth Commandment Exod. 20. For in six daies the Lord made Heaven and Earth the Sea and all that in them is Wherefore the Lord blessed the Seventh day and hallowed it For this Commandment is hedged in on every side lest we should break out from observing it with a Caveat and speciall Memorandum before it Remember c. and with two Reasons after one drawn from the Equity of the Law and the other taken from the Law-giver's or the Law-maker's own Example Six daies shalt thou labour As if God should speak thus If I permit thee six whole daies to follow thine own business thou mayest well afford me one onely for my own Service but six daies shalt thou labour and do all thine own work therefore hallow the Seventh in doing my work Six daies shalt thou labour whereupon both Reverend Calvin and that learned Gentleman B. Babington who was once Bishop of this Diocesse a man of no mean Note but of good Report both for Life and Learning do observe That these Words Six daies shalt thou labour c. are a permission or a remission of God's right who might challenge all rather than an absolute Commandment For as Judicious Perkins hath also delivered it in his Golden Chaine for a sound Orthodoxal and undeniable Thesis Catenâ aureâ cap. 13 The Church upon just occasion may separate some week daies also to the Service of the Lord and rest from Labour Joel 2.15 Blow the Trumpet in Zion sanctify a Fast call a solemn Assembly And as daies of publick Fasting for some great Judgment so daies of publick Rejoycing for some great Benefit are not unlawfull but exceeding commendable yea necessary And you cannot in Modesty and I hope you will not for Shame deny this to be the Truth for besides the ordinary Sabbath among the Jews they had their Sabbaths and their new Moons and appointed Feasts yea Almighty God himself ordained in the old Testament divers and sundry Feasts to put his People in mind of his great Benefits bestowed upon them Amongst the rest there were three solemn Festivals every year namely the Passover the Pentecost and the Feast of Tabernacles as we read in the 16th of Deuteronomy The Passover was instituted in remembrance of the deliverance from Egypt's bondage Pentecost in remembrance of the Law given in Mount Sinui The Feast of Tabernacles in remembrance of Israel's dwelling in Tents forty years in the Wilderness Now as Hemingius observes in his Postil dom 1. post Epiph. instead of those three Jewish Feasts our Christian Church which may challenge as much Liberty as the Jewish if not more hath substituted Christmas in honour of Christ's Incarnation Easter in honour of Christ's Resurrection and Whitsuntide in honour of Christ's confirmation of the Gospel by sending unto us the Holy Ghost at that time So that we say according as St. Austin saith in his 108 Epist. cap. 1 Celebrantes Anniversariâ solemnitate Pascha reliquasque Christianas diêrum Festivitutes non observamus tempora sed quae illis significantur temporibiu i.e. In celebrating Easter and other Christian Feasts we do not so much observe the times as the things that are represented and signified unto us at those times If then it be granted as it cannot be denied according to your words that God hath set apart a Sabbath which is our Christian Sabbath and is called the Lord's Day because the Lord rose from death to life on that Day and that on this day in that respect we are to meditate on God's Love in redeeming the World if we must do this once every week in an ordinary course how much more may the Church and Spouse of Christ appoint and set apart one day in the year after an extraordinary manner to meditate and muse and think on his Love in redeeming her from the hands of all her Enemies for so indeed the holy Priest Zacharias tells us in his Song called Benedictus That this was the main End of our Redemption Luk. 1.74 that we being delivered out of the hands of our Enemies might serve him without fear in holiness and righteousness all the daies of our Life Whereupon I infer That if we must serve him all the daies of our life as he may justly challenge and require it at our hands in regard he hath redeemed us How much more ought we to meditate on his Love not onely once a week but also once in every year praise his most Holy Name after a more speciall and singular manner For at this time especially and particularly it may be said of Him as the Psalmist doth Psal 111.9 He sent Redemption unto his People He

of yours I mean the Fable and story you tell us of in your Saints Rest touching the raining down of Manna on the Leads of the Church at Bridgnorth when you preached there For some Gentlemen of worth in those parts have credibly reported it to be nothing else then the seeds of Hips and Hawes being the excrements of Rooks and Jack-dawes which they there had voyded Answer to the Twelfth Argument The twelfth Argument is this In all doubtfull Cases a Wise man ought to go on the surest side and I am sure it is no Sin not to keep it c. I Answer in this Allegation you seem to play the part of a Wise man but in my Opinion you are onely wise in your own conceit for my part this I am sure of First in respect that Christmas day being the day of our Lords Nativity is the Lords day Cant. 4.9 and by his spouse the Church is set a part to Gods publick worship and our Souls edification therefore it ought clearly to be esteemed above any other of the common Week dayes And for people on this day willfully and contemptuously to follow their ordinary though at other times lawfull vocations or Callings is in the first place a breach of the fourth Commandement for the day of Christs Nativity is a Sabboth or Rest to the Lord and God will have us to keep holy the Sabboth or rest-Rest-day Next it is a despising Perk. cases of Consc l. 1. c. 5. Sect. 5. and dishonouring of their Mother the Church which whosoever are guilty of not onely sin against the fifth Commandment but by our Saviour himself we are Injoyned to account all such as Revolters from the Christian faith Heathen men and Publicans Matth. 18.17 Lastly it is a ground and inlet to the violation of all order and decency in Gods Service which is expressely condemned in Holy Scripture and if to break Gods Commandements 1 Cor. 14.40 to contemn his Churches Authority to become Heathens and Publicans and to overthrow all order and decency in Gods Services be sins and Offences to God Then must we conclude that not to keep this day must needs be a sin and that to work or follow our vocations on Christmas day is a great and high offence or indignity offered unto God and his Church And how then are you sure it is no sin not to keep it but that your erronious Conscience tells you so and yet is it so nice and tender on the other side you are not sure it is no sin to keep it this is the other part of your Dilemma for this is called in the Schools Syllogismus cornutus or Syllogismus Crocodilinus Well sat verbum Sapienti If a word to the Wise may serve the turn then will I answer you in a word for although you are perswaded and sure in your strong Conscience that it is no sin not to keep it yet we on the other side in our weak Consciences are perswaded that it is a sin if we keep it not And therefore if you remember the Apostle's rule is Let not the stronger Christian despise the weaker Rom. 13.3 4. especially in such a Case as this Let not him that eateth despise him that eateth not and let not him that eateth not judge him that eateth for God hath received him Who art thou then that judgest another man's Servant to his own Master he standeth or falleth yea he shall be holden up for God is able to make him stand One man esteemeth one day above another another esteemeth every day alike Let every man be fully perswaded in his own mind he that regardeth a day regardeth it unto the Lord and he that regardeth not the day to the Lord he doth not regard it He that eateth eateth to the Lord for he giveth God thanks and he that eateth not to the Lord he eateth not and giveth God thanks For none of us liveth to himself and no man dyeth to himself for the Kingdom of God is not Meat and Drink but Righteousness and Peace and Joy in the Holy Ghost and he that in these things serveth Christ is acceptable to God and approved of Men. Let us therefore follow after the the things which make for peace and things wherewith we may edify another for meat destroy not the work of God all things indeed are pure but it is evil for that man who eateth with Offence It is good neither to eat Flesh nor to drink Wine nor any thing whereby thy Brother stumbleth or is offended or is made weak You see how wary the Apostle is to advise us in and for things indifferent not to be offended one with another but to use all good Christian moderation and discretion not to abuse our Christian Liberty to the Scandal and Offence of our weak Brethren Answer to the thirteenth Argument The thirteenth Argument is That this day ought not to be celebrated because there is more Sin committed in these 12 dayes than is in all the year following viz. in Drunkenness c. Oh Sir This Argument and your last are the least and the weakest of them all therefore I shal more easily answer them briefly conclude To this 13th I say as I did before The Abuse of a thing that in it self is lawful and good cannot justly abolish or take away the lawful Use of it For the best things that ever God created have been abused through Man's Corruption even the whole Creature is subject unto Vanity that is to Destruction because of Man's sin Rom. 8.20 The holy Temple of our God hath been prophaned and defiled and made a den of Theeves and a Cage of unclean Birds and a very Stable for Barbarous Souldiers Horses to Lodge in in these late uncivil Warrs the holy Sabbath of our Lord hath been polluted his Word and Sacraments abused Yea because the Scriptures are in some places somewhat hard to be under●●ood therefore those that are unlearned and unstable do wrest them and perven them to their own Destruction 〈…〉 P●● 3.16 And because of this must the Scriptures be rejected and not perused Because the good Creatures of God are abuse 〈◊〉 some ungodly and wicked Miscreants therefore must the Creatures be refused seeing every Creature of God is good and nothing ought to be refused 1 Tim. 4.4 especially if it be received with thankfulness for i● is land ●●ed unto us by the Word of God 〈◊〉 prayer The like may be said of 〈◊〉 Sanctuary of our God of the Sab●●… 〈◊〉 the Sacraments for unto the 〈…〉 things are pure but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure but even their minds and consciences are defiled Titus 1.15 But you affirm and that peremptorily that there is more sinne committed in these Twelve Days than in all the year after in Drunkenness and Gluttony And how are you sure of this for it is impossible that you should prove this to be true Can God be more dishonoured