Selected quad for the lemma: lord_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
lord_n	day_n	observe_v	sabbath_n	17,846	5	10.0492	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A57939	A looking-glass for England wherein is shewn God's mercies and judgments on this sinful nation; with an earnest invitation to poor sinners to repentance: wherein is set forth the great folly and madness of forsaking Christ their redeemer, and neglecting the care of their immortal souls, and setting their cares upon the vanities of this world; ... with some hints of the present judgments that now hangs over our heads, which will suddenly fall on us, if we neglect to return our thanks to almighty God for our late deliverances, and the speedy reforming of our lives. To which is added, the great joy and comfort of the godly that have harkened to the voice of the Lord, and have fasted and prayed to God for his blessings, and given thanks for all mercies received. By Robert Russel, in Sussex.	Russel, Robert, fl. 1692.	1696 (1696)	Wing R2347H; ESTC R219970	10,107	25

Day than they do any other Day in the Week and now I must take occasion to write something against a great Evil that has of late years been done in the Land whether it be occasioned by the Bishops or whoever they be that are the occasion of it I cannot but think it to be a very great Evil and therefore I must venter to write something against it and it is this that after a delivering or preserving Mercy vouchsafe to the King and Kingdom and our Rulers has been pleased to appoint a Day of publick Thanksgiving to return Praise to Almighty God for his Mercies this Day of Thansgiving of late Years has been cellebrated on the Lord's Day Now I take this to be a great Evil provoking to God and that in these two respects First Because in so doing we change God's Institution for the Sabbath was instituted and ordained by God to be a Day of Thanksgiving upon a higher Account and we are required to spend it in Prayers and Thanksgiving for a greater deliverance than any temporal deliverance even our deliverance from Sin Hell and Damnation by the Resurrection of Jesus Christ now for us to make use of the Lord 's own Day to return Thanks and Praise only for a Temporal-deliverance this is to change God's Institution and to dishonour his own Day by using of it to a lower end than God instituted it for sure there are Days enough in the Week for us to Praise God for National-deliverance but ptay mistake me not I grant that we ought to praise Almighty God on the sabbath-Sabbath-days and on the Week-days and at all times for National-mercy but that which I write against is the setting of the Lord's Day apart and instituting of it to be a Day of publick Thanksgiving whith was instituted by God for a more high and nobler end Friends consider that the Sabhath is the Lord's Day and if we cannot afford to set apart a Day in the Week one of our own Days to render Thanks and Prayers to God for national Mercies we shew ourselves to be ill diserving of those Mercies and Deliverances which God has bestowed upon us and may justly expect him to leave us and withdraw himself from us Secondly For us to institute the Lord's Day to be a Day of publick Thanksgiving is a great Evil also upon this Account because it occasions a most dreadful prosanation of the Lord's Day by Drinking Ringing and making of Burnfires this is a vain way of rejoycing at any time but it is much ●●re abominable on the Lord's Day and when a publick Thansgiving is appointed on a week Day how many there be that go to Church to hear God's Word and to praise him for the first part of the Day and then when publick Exercises is ended away they go to Ringing and then to the Ale-house to Drinking and the Boys they must run from House to House begging for for Faggots to make a Burnfires when as many poor People are ready to ●…arve so a cold Winter because they cannot get wood to burn and I verily think that there is as many Faggots wasted away on a publick Thanksgiving-day in England as would suffice many hundreds of poor People for a whole Winter and then there must be Shooting and slinging of Squibs and Fire-brands one at another and many times there is some mischief done to one another before they have done Pray Friends consider what a provoking thing this must needs be for People thus to play the Hypocrite with God they will go to Church on a shanksgiving-day in the forenoon to bless and praise God for his Mercies and then in the afternoon they will abuse him to his face with his own Mercies this is just as if a Friend of yours should do you some great Kindness and then you to gratifie him for his Kindness should pretend to give him many hearty Thanks and use many kind Speeches to him and then as soon as you have done take a lump of durt and sling in his face Why Friends thus many of you deal wich God in your way of giving of him thank for your Mercies and Deliverances the Apostle tells us Rom 14. 〈◊〉 that regardeth the day regardeth it to the Lord and he that regardeth not the day to the Lord he doth not regard it So he that observeth a Day of Thanksgiving to the Lord he spends it in holy Meditation Hearing and Reading Prayer and Praises and singing of Psalms but he that observes a Day of Thanksgiving only to Drink and Sing and Rlog and make Burnfires he doth not observe it to the Lord but to his Lust and the Apostle bids-us rejoyce in the Lord Pill 4.4 but to rejoyce by Drinking Singing and making of Burnfires this is not to rejoyce in the Lord but in your flesh-pleasing Lust Beloved Friends when a Day of publick Thanksgiving comes to be prevailed with to spend the whole Day both in publick exercises of Religion in Meditation Prayer and Praises and singing of Psalms and after publick Exercises are ended if it be on a Week-day and you have a desire to ring a peal in token of joy for the the safe deliverance from your Enemies you may do it so it be in a civil sober way without going to the Ale-house to drinking pray keep yourselves from the Ale-house at such a time as that is but besides all this whatever you do pray don't let no more Bunrfires be made in England there is no way of rejoycing can be worse than to rejoyce by Fire this is the Papist way of rejoycing they triumph and rejoyce by Burnfires and I know you profess yourselves to hate Popery and if you do why do you imitate the Papist so much as to follow their Actions Beloved Friends If you have such a delight to make Bunrfires it may please God to give your Enemies the upper-hand and then they will make you Burnfires even such Burnfires as they made for the Protestants in the Days of Queen Mary and now in the close of all let me write a few words to the Rich and to such as use to give Fagots towards making of Burnfires let me prevail with you that when publick Exercises is done on a Thanksgiving-day that you would invite all your Neighbours that are poor and needy home to your Houses to dinner with you and spend the afternoon with them in discourse about the Sermon you heard and of God's miraculous deliverance of his People in ancient Times and spend some time in Reading and Praying with them and then when they are a returning to their homes so many Faggots as you use to give towards making of Burnfires be perswaded to bestow upon them to carry home with them to warm and comfort them in a cold Winter and do not let them be burn●… and consumed in waste in Burnfires to 〈◊〉 no body no good but to please young Peoples foolish fancy and Wood is so dear that many poor People are like to starve in a cold Winter because they cannot get Wood to Burn therefore let me desire you to bestow your Faggots upon those who are poor and needy to warm and comfort them and in so doing you will offer up such a Thanks-offering to the Lord as will ascend up a sweet Savour unto him whereby he will turn to us in Mercy and will bless this Nation and us all with a lasting Peace and Happiness Now consider on these things and the Lord give you Understanding FINIS

A Looking-glass for England Wherein is shewn God's Mercies and Judgments on this sinful Nation with an earnest Invitation to poor Sinners to Repentance wherein is set forth the great folly and madness of forsaking Christ their Redeemer and neglecting the care of their immortal Souls and setting their Cares upon the Vanities of this World with some serious Perswasions for Sinners to forsake Sin and to close with Christ Jesus that they may avoid God's Wrath that will be poured forth against them at the last Day with some Hints of the present Judgments that now hangs over our Heads which will suddenly fall on us if we neglect to return our Thanks to Almighty God for our late Deliverances and the speedy reforming of our Lives To which is added The great Joy and Comfort of the Godly that have harkened to the voice of the Lord and have Fasted and Prayed to God for his Blessings and given Thanks for all Mercies received By Robert Russel in Sussex The Childred of Issachar which were men that had understanding of the times 1 Chron. 12.32 Behold now is the accepted time c. 2 Cor. 6.2 London Printed for the Author and sold by J. Blare at the Sign of the Looking-glass on London-bridge All the small Books of this Author bound together Price 1 s. A LOOKING-GLASS FOR ENGLAND c. Jeremiah V. XXV Your Iniquities have turned away these things and your sins have witholden good things from you MY last Book I made which is intitul'd A Warning to England this Book has been so well excepted of that I have been perswaded by some of my Friends to make an Addition to it which accordingly I am about to do and through the Assistance of God I will make a short Addition and add a Second Part to England's Warning considering how the Judgments of God are abroad still among us how near we have been of late to Ruine and Destruction how our Enemies of late has been plotting the Destruction of our gracious King and His Nobles and with them the whole Nation and how wonderfully God has delivered us and brought to light all their wicked Plots and Contrivances and to consider how little Reformation there is yet wrought amongst us and how few mind the hand of God's Providence herein these Considerations hath moved me to make an Addition to my former Works and that from the same Subject which my last Book run upon Your iniquities have turned away these things and your sins have withholden good things from you The Doctrine which I have observed from these Words has been this That it is the Sins of a People or Nation that keeps back Mercy and hinders good Things from coming upon it from whence I shewed you First What are those good Things that Sin doth withhold from a People or Nation and they are First Spiritual good Things Secondly Temporal good Things Thirdly Natural good Things Secondly I shewed you what are those Sins that withholds good Things from us and amongst the many Sins which the Inhabitance of this Nation are guilty of I named these few which are the chief as Cursing Swearing Oppression Deceit Treachery and unjust Dealing Pride Drunkenness and neglect of Family-Duties and the Unfruitfulness under the means of Grace together with a sad profaning of the Lord's Day and not regarding those days of Fasting and Humiliation which our King and Govern●rs have been pleased to set apart for us to joyn together in wrasling with God by our Prayers and Humiliations that God might remove his Judgments from us and turn away from the fierceness of his Wrath that we perish not These things I have sufficiently wrought about and made some little Application of it and exhorted us all to repent amend and reform our Ways and Doings for the Lord's and for the King and Nation 's sake that the Lord do not break forth in Wrath against us Now what I have to write more in addition to the former Book shall be by making some further Application and there are only these two particular Uses that I shall make of it First Of Reproof Secondly Of Exhortation First I shall speak by way of Reproof these may justly come under Reproof who slight or profane those Days of Humiliation and of Thanksgiving which are published by Authority our Governers have been graciously pleased to set apart Days of Humiliation that by our earnest Prayers and humbling of ourselves we might stand in the gap and stop God's Wrath from coming forth against us and indeed it is a very great Mercy that it has pleased Almighty God to put it into the Hearts of our King and Rulers to set apart Days of Fasting and Humiliation whereby we might beseech God to remove his Judgments from us but alas how is this great Mercy slighted and contemned especially among the poorer sort many poor People I myself have seen on a Fasting-day in the Fields at work and if they are told of it they will say Why it is not Sunday and I have a Family to maintain they must have Bread to eat and I hope I may pray to God with as good a Heart that he might make the King succesful in his undertaking that God would Bless and Protect him and deliver us from our Enemies I hope I may do it with as good a Heart at my Work and God will except it as well as if I went to joyn with others in publique such Replies as these some will make just like unto those who were invited to the great Gospel-Feast Luke 14.18 19 20. Every one had his Excuse to make one had bought a peice of Ground and I must go and see that another had bought a yoke of Oxen and he must prove them and another had Married a Wife and therefore he could not come now see how the Lord was wrath against them ver 24. he resolved that none of those which were bidden should taste of his Supper so Friends it may be with you if you slight and contemn that great Good and precious Mercy that God has made our Rulers Instruments of setting apart Days of Fasting and Humiliation as a means that God may be pleased with to remove his Judgments from us I say if you thus slight and contemn this great Good and will plead Poverty and Necessity and will not spare so much time as to joyn with the Assembly of God's People and spend one Day with them in pleading with the Lord in the behalf of this sinful Nation you must not expect that God should hide you under the shadow of his Wings in times of calamity and if it please God to bless this Nation with a lasting Peace and Plenty which the Lord grant yet in respect of your own particular cases the Lord may in his Wrath justly Swear against you that you shall never be made Partakers of those Blessings and Benefits which he is pleased to bestow upon the Nation nor yet to partake of those eternal Blessings

which he hath prepared for his true Worshippers and Followers in the World to come and for ever shat out of his comfortable and blessed presence into that place of Darkness where is weeping and gnashing of Teeth Beloved Friends if when a Fasting-day comes you do sot a part yourselves from the World and from all your worldly Business on that Day and spend that one Day in waiting on the Lord in publick and also in private to humble yourselves and to plead with the Lord for Mercy both to youselves and the Nation I will asure you that you shall be no loser by it but rather a great gainer for God will prosper your Labour the better on other days and will bless you in all your Undertakings God has past his Word for it that there shall be no Lake to such that fear him that serve and worship him Psa 34.9.10 and tho' the Lions do want and suffer Hunger yet they that seek the Lord shall not want any good thing and godliness hath the Promise of the Life that now is as well as of that to come 1 Tim. 4.8 and yet will you mistrust God's Promise but if you will not on a publick Fasting-day or Thanksgiving-day set apart yourselves from the World and your worldly Affairs to joyn with the Congregation of God's People you cannot expect God should prosper your Labour on other Days and then you will have Losses Crosses Vexations and Disappointments and if you have you must thank yourselves for it because you grudge to give any part of your time to God when you are called to it by Authority tho' it be for your own and the Nation 's Good Beloved Friends our King and Rulers will be pleased to set apart Days of Humiliation and Fasting this Summer as I hope they will for I think never was there more need then now for the Lord's sake don't slight and contemn them lest God should slight and contemn you in times of Judgment and Calamity Friends many of you when there comes any Holyday-time as Christmass and Easter many of you then can spare time to indulge your Flesh and to enjoy your selves and yet cannot spare a Day to worship God and to seek to him for Mercy for yourselves and the Nation when your called off from your Imployments to do it by Authority O! what cause have you to lay Shame upon your selves for so doing that you should prefer your own Prosit nay your own Pleasure before the Honour of God and the Publick Good Friends as for Saints Days and for Christmass-holydays Easter-holydays and Whitsund holydays only Christmass Day excepted as for all other Holydays and Saints Days if you have a mind to improve your time to the best advantage for the getting a Livelyhood in this World why then follow your worldly Imployments then and welcome but for the Lord's sake and for your own sakes and for the sake of the Nation dont be so eager after the World as to slight God's Mercies and to grutch to keep holy to God such Days as our King and Governors are pleased to sot apart for Days of Fasting Humiliation and Thanksgiving O be not such a Dispiser of God's Laws nor such a Rebeler against the King and Country but I have heard some People say on a Fast-day that they had thought to have gone to Church and to have joyned in the publick Congregation but that they saw so many go to Work and some to that have not so much need to Work as them●●l●es and therefore they think that they may safely Work too and do as they do This I have heard some say or to the like effect why Friends this is just the course of the Country some will go to the Alehouse to be drunk because they see others go to the Alehouse some will take liberty to live loose lacivious debauch'd Lives because they see others do the like many will walk the broad way to Hell and Distruction because they see Multitudes besides them walk in that broad way just like unto a flock of Sheep because one leaps into the River and is drownded therefore all the rest will follow after but Friends it is our duty to walk by Rule and by Example if we see many others sin against God rebel against their Prince and transgress the good and sacred Laws of the Nation does this make that we do so too My Friends if we will do as others do we must look in time of Desolation and Calamity to speed as they speed And now my Friends if our gracious King and Rulers will be pleased to set apart Days of Fasting and Humiliation this Summer let us thankfully except of them and observe them to those precious ends for which they are set apart O for shame for shame be not in the Fields or in the Woods or in the Barns or in your Shops at work when you should be at Church among the Congregation of God's People a confessing and bewailing your Sins and the Sins of the Nation a begging pardon for them a hearing God's Word and interceeding and pleading at the Throne of Grace for Mercy for yourselves and for the whole Nation but I am afraid that there are many that would presume to Work in there Callings on the Sabbath-days if the Laws of Man did not restrain them and if so no wonder then if they so little regard those days of Humiliation appointed by Authority But in the second place there are yet another sort that must come under reproof that is some that are not of the poorer sort but those that are rich Men and Farmers though they observe to keep a Fast-day themselves when it comes yet herein they are very much to be blamed in that they will let their poor Day-labourers alone and will give them their liberty to do what they please they may work or not which thou please but as for themselves they go to Church and will cause their Servants both Men and Maidens to go to Church with them Now my Friends in doing this so far you do well but then you ought to compel your Day-labourers to go to Church with you and not give them leave to Work if they will but compel them to go along with you to Church and to joyn with you in publick to plead with you at the throne of Grace for publick Mercies and Deliverances Friends let me prevail with you to compel not only your Servants but also your Labourers to go with you to the throne of Grace in publick as ever you would desire that they partake of publick Mercies with youselves and as you desire they should be in times of Calamity as well as you But then Thirdly there are another sort may justly come under Reproof that is there are some that when a Fast-day comes they will go to Church and joyn themselves in publick Prayers and Exereises and whilst they are there they seem very devout in Prayer and diligent in attending on