Selected quad for the lemma: lord_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
lord_n	word_n	world_n	zion_n	484	4	9.0079	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A58146	Blessedness, or, God and the world weighted in the balances of the sanctuary and the world found too light preached in a sermon at Paule, before the Right Honourable the Lord Major, Aldermen, and commonalty of the city of London, on a thanksgiving-day, for the prosperity of our navy in a conflict with the Spaniard, October 17, 1656 / by Francis Raworth ...	Raworth, Francis, d. 1665.	1656 (1656)	Wing R372; ESTC R18645	28,408	72

condition he that loseth that he cares not to enjoy and enjoys that he can't lose And in a spiritual sense he onely is such a man whose God is the Lord Methinks the words are here represented as Antiphanys Dialogue-wise The world begins Happy is he whose Sons grow like Olive plants yea saith David whose God is the Lord the World succeeds Happy is he whose Oxen are strong to labor and that Nation whose streets knows no complaining yea saith David whose God is the Lord still that is the note of a gracious heart as he rescribed back nothing but King of France King of France King of France and why happy such a man above a worldling 1. He that hath outward happiness in the world may not have a title to the Lord but he that hath God to be his Lord hath a title a spiritual title to the World The Corinthians were ready to quarrel about their properties I am of one from Paul saith one I am from Apollo said another tush said a third I care neither for Paul nor Apollo give me Cephas I am for Cephas The Apostle rounds them in the ear what saith he Is Christ divided will you contend for a part All men are gain not onely Paul Apollo Cephas but all things life death things present and things to come But by what tenure Why Because Christ is gain When we lost our Title to God we lost our comfortable title to the Creatures and no wonder the Creature rebels against us since we have rebell'd against the Creator The Creatures may justly say to unregenerate men that hunt after and dig for happiness in them I say Honors Riches Pleasures may say to such as Samuel did to Saul Why come ye to us since God is departed from you He is a Rebel that harboreth him whom the King hath Proclaimed a Traytor And what comfort can that soul have to lay his head in the bosome of any Creature when God himself hath turned his back on him But he that hath a new title to God hath a better title to outward comforts he holds them in capite God hath provided for him a Kingdom and therefore doth not grudge him crums How sweet are those mo●sels of bread that by Faith are dipt in Christs blood not that property comes by Grace but it is cleared up by Grace Many a man hath an Estate and a childe of God enjoys the comfort of it The worldly man may say This house this childe is mine by Creature right a Saint saith These are also mine by Covenant right but you may have all worldly happiness and not be happy Therefore secondly Grace claims a title to all the Ordinances of God Preaching is thy Chariot to bring the Lord down to thee Prayer and Meditation are wings to carry thy soul up to God It is generally believed and without scruple among the judicious that the visible and not the invisible Church is the prime and proper subject for the dispensation of Gospel Seals but his title to them that hath a right to Christ is indisputable He that can say the body and blood of Christ is his may challenge and claim the Bread and Wine that signifie those as his He that hath right to the Pearl hath right to the Casket He that is marryed to the King of Glory ought not upon any pretences whatsoever to be kept out of the Presence Chamber and from prayer while others stand like strangers without doors knocking and speaking to God at a distance as slaves to a master you have freedom to enter into the Palace of Heaven and cry Abba Father The Ordinances are the glory of a Nation and where ever God goes his Ordinances go too and where ere they reside and abide he abides too My Beloved God and his Institutions go and come from and to a Nation together as it s the honor of a Nation to say Jehovah-Nissi The Lord is our Banner in a Military sense for God to fight for us so a greater for others to say of any Nation Jehovah-Shammah The Lord is there in an Ecclesiastical sense The Ordinances are the comfort of the soul they are not as some new Anti-scripturists calumniate the Grave wherein Christ lies but the Throne whereon he sits as King of the Church and we were better lose our evidences for our Lands then part with the seals of the Gospel Is it then a small matter to have liberty to tread in Gods courts to sit under the tree of Life and dew of Heaven to have commerce with Angels to have communion with the Lord of Glory when thou art hungry to have freedom to run to Gods House for Bread when thou art distracted and troubled with doubts of thy Faith thy salvation to have recourse with David to Gods Sanctuary for resolution and that by thy title to the Lord as thy Lord Thirdly Thou hast moreover a propriety in all his Providences his Providences are thine for thy satisfaction if thou wantest enlightning he is thy Sun if defending he is thy shield if a Nation be fearful he is a wall of fire without if fainting he is a well of water within They may be without many things but we have the Broad-Seal of Heaven for it that they shall want no good thing Thou art in trouble and if thy Friend could but see thee How happy God is therefore Omniscient Thou art weak if thy Friend could help thee God is therefore Omnipotent El Shaddai All-sufficient If thou art weak he hath a shoulder to carry thee if feeble a bosom to warm and cherish thee He that hath him that is all hath all Secondly For thy security and that 1. To sustain thee If thou goest into the water I will be with thee if into the fire I le be with thee said God q. d. If thou burn I le burn too if thou drown I le drown too Hence it was that Israel was safe in the Red-sea and the three children secure in the Furnace God may cast his childe down and so his Nation yet not cast them away he often breaks your hearts that he may not break your backs 2. To order all for thee The Devil may turn Cordials into poyson but providence turns those poysons into Cordials again God hath his fairest ends in our foulest ways when temptations have sucked our corrupt blood away those Leeches shall be taken off when you are provoked to storm at God and quarrel with the seeming inequality of his ways are ready to judge his present carriage to your souls inconsistent with the hopes of election past or future glory Let despair vail and murmuring be tongue-tyed and consider the Lord thinks it better rather to bring order out of these spiritual disorders then not to suffer those disorders to be at all It s easier for vain man to wrangle with the Almighty and to set up in his pride an Anti-Providence in the world then rightly to discern what God is a doing we neglect

childe to provide for in all the world besides The Lord hath a Book to write down your names and a bottle to put your tears in His power likewise is yours the Lord hath not so much need of your patience as you have of his power and as what the Lord is he is for you and as what the Lord hath he hath for you so what the Lord can do he will do for you Though the promise of God be the measure of your faith and therefore beware in times of tryal of charging your selves for unbelief when God himself possibly doth not in that particular command you to believe yet your faith is not the measure of his power The Lord usually doth for his Church more then they believe and we must believe he can do more for his Church then he doth nothing but contradiction to speak reverentially of God passeth omnipotency Gods people have a double guard one within them and that is The finger of God the Spirit another without them and that is The arm of God his Power a double hold also on God as he hath that double guard on them Promise what he will do experience what he hath done As Sions cause is good so she wants not as good a Champion to maintain it The name of the Lord is a strong Tower and though the righteous cannot rest in a name of Godliness yet they may in the name of God and therefore in times of trouble they run to it Prov. 16.10 Lord may Syon say Support under tryals and deliverance from danger is an Article of thy Covenant And will not the Lord be faithful Are our infirmities many the Lord our God hath mercy to pardon them Are our corruptions many he hath power to subdue them Are our sins great he hath love to cover them What a Constellation and Centre of Attributes are in God! Righteousness Holiness Wisdom Power Grace and mercy I every one of these Attributes is God and as when Mithridates espoused the daughter of a poor laboring man the General to testifie the approbation of his choice sent the old Father a Cap full of gold with which he being over-joyed runs up and down the streets shewing of it to all the people crying out All this is mine So may the people of God whose Promises Providences Ordinances Attributes Graces are theirs triumphantly signifie to the world All these are ours and that which is more then all this if more can be you whose God is the Lord Sixthly Have a propriety in God himself in Christ himself as the Lord when he could swear by no greater sware by himself so he having no greater thing to give gives himself Christ who is the beloved of the Father and the First-born of every Creature he likewise is yours your King to Rule you your Priest to satisfie for you your Prophet to Indoctrinate and teach you his Death and Resurrection and Intercession are yours not onely for signification but for efficacy His blood his precious and pearless blood is yours to pardon you His glorious and sweet Spirit is yours to purifie and purge you And for all things else in the World they are 1. But short and transitory Riches are well called Moveables and ere long they will either take their leave of us or we shall certainly take our leaves of them Honor is but brittle it is even like Glass of which they say when it shineth brightest its nighest melting And for the rest how uncertain are all things money for the Thieves Merchandizes for the Winds Cattel for the Rot Buildings for the Fire The glory of this World is in it self but the Scheme but the Picture of Happiness and it will not sit so long before your eyes as that you may draw its Picture it s gone before you can say 't is here But suppose Worldly happiness were long yet Secondly It s Insatisfactory Worldly comforts are even like drink to the Dropsie man encreasing thirst like Wood to the Fire enlarging its Flame The chest may be filled with gold but God onely can fill the heart These things cannot make you happy because they are desired not for themselves but for other things but the Lord is desirable not for something else beside himself but onely for himself Deus propter Deum If you have Riches you may look beyond them and see Honors to tempt your eye if you have Riches and Honors you may look beyond them and see moral Wisdom to tempt your head if you have all these you may yet look beyond and see health to tempt your heart And while these partial and imperfect happiness lay before you you may look beyond them all and see a necessity of something else that is God to be your God But let a man be made an heir of salvation let a man be adopted into the Family of God and be able to say The Lord is my God and I provoke that man to say its true God and Christ and Heaven and Grace are mine but I want something else besides these in the world to make me happy These things are not universally good clothes are but for the back meat for the belly musick for the ears flowers for the smell and eye c. but the Lord is a Catholick a viscerate and entire good he is Almighty or All-sufficient As a man that hath a minde to some particular dish can finde all dishes in that one dish as suppose Patridges Capons or Pheasants So a childe of God can finde all things in God riches honor pleasure The covetous man makes his gold his God but a gracious heart saith God is my Gold A man may have silver but silver shall never satisfie him without God but if a man love God he will satisfie him without silver When a poor Beggar is matched to a Royal Prince she views his Palace she surveys his gardens and pleaseth her self in a delightsome prospect of all his greatness and glory and can say These are mine for the Prince himself is mine So because you have a title to the Fountain the streams are yours Whatever happiness is scattered here and there abroad in the Creatures it is all virtually eminently and superlatively in God I read of a couple of Ambassadors the one a Spaniard the other a Venetian and they did both of them extol and prefer the Revenues of their particular Masters said the Venetian Ambassador My Master hath so many chests of Silver and Gold alass said the Spanish Ambassador Your Masters Treasures have a bottom but my Masters Treasures in the Indies have a Root a Spring So may a true Saint say to the World your riches and comforts have a leak or limitation but my Lord Jesus his comforts and riches his Treasures have neither Banks nor bottom God is mine and if he can make me happy I shall not be miserable This this my Beloved is your Inventory for Happiness that can say The Lord is our God I shall now

what is it to have Friends favor c. and to have a hard heart a reprobate minde for God to frown on me for to live like a Rebel and Runagate without Christ and the Covenant of Promise It is true you should have sought the Kingdom of Heaven first and then all things would have been added to you but yet since you have begun with the World for Gods sake for your souls sake end with God you are already in possession of temporal Blessings will it be any damage to have the accession of eternal happiness Are you jealous lest as you should gain Christ you should lose the world and that as Grace comes into your hearts that your Estates must needs go out of your hands Have there been many that in the midst of their outward pomp and splender that yet have cryed out Undone and that for want of Gods presence and will their riches impoverish you their wisdom make you fools and their Plaister wound you Can All-sufficiency it self undoe you Will security always bar out wrath Will your Opinion never alter concerning the World Will Jesus Christ never be precious Will there not come a time when the favor of God will be more necessary there then this mans favor is now What will you give for a Christ at the last day Will the sense of your past joys kill the then stinging worm of conscience Do but try what peace of conscience means after your troubles how much the Pearl of Price weighs after your worldly experience and if one smile after true possession of Gods favor if the least assurance of the pardoning sins do not out-weigh all things else return to the world and to your lusts again It s reported of Pyrrhus That one day he opened his minde to his friend Cyneas and told him If he were but Possessor of Italy what then said his friend Why then if he could but conquer Africa what then Pyrrhus O then if he could but subdue Asia he would be at rest and be merry with his friends so you may be now saith Cyn●as without all that trouble Sixthly and lastly By way of Satisfaction How shall I have evidence in the enjoyment of worldly happiness or goods that the Lord is my God A. 1. If thy Estate come to thee by descent Industry or the bounty of Providence it is one thing to have what we have be Covenant another to have it by Extortion Many can say This Estate this Land is mine because God is mine but others have occasion to say If God had been mine this had not been mine It is a currant but unhappy Proverb in England Happy is that childe whose Father goes to the Divel the meaning of it is The Son oft comes by a great Estate and the Father sells his soul to get it for him but better it were that the estate should never come to the children then that the father should go to the Divel for it Ah Lord How sollicitous are men to adorn the bodies of their children but how careless for their souls How many leave vast Estates to their children there 's no hurt in providing for their Families that 's a duty but this is their misery their Oppression and Extortion which procured them entail the curse of God on those Estates Wo be to them says the Prophet Isa 5.8 that joyn house to house and that lay field to field till there be no place c. Then wo be to me said a Landed Extortioner and to my children 2. Another evidence of our true enjoyment of this world upon a good ground is when we can see God in what we enjoy The Language of Esau is I have enough but Jacobs Dialect is otherwise The Lord hath given to me and that which is remarkable he saith of his children Which the Lord hath graciously given to me One would think Jacob were speaking of the pardon of sin of the hope of the Messias or of everlasting life Grace seems to be the language of the Gospel and proper onely to spiritual Blessings but a gracious heart sees not onely providence but Grace in what he hath he sees grace in his cat el grace in his children The rich fool in the Gospel talked at a great rate I will pull down my barns and I will bestow my fruits all belike was his own God was not in all in any of his thoughts Though we must not look on the Creatures with doting eyes so as too much to admire them yet we must not look away from them with shut eyes so as to neglect to see God in them How comfortable is it for the soul to see the love of God to him in the love of his children and the protection of God ratified to him in the obedience of his servants to him and the Image of the King of Glory in graven in all his Coyn on all his gold and silver 3. We may know the Lord is our God in the fruition of the world by the enjoyment of God in them It is nothing for a man to finde a piece of Parchment a Deed signed and sealed unless there be Land conveyed in it so the possession of a great Estate is no Argument of Gods love You have the Deeds the Conveyances the Honor and riches of Gods left hand but by what title Evidences my Beloved are Evidences to them that have a title If a man enjoy God in his Goods he hath a title with his Evidence a better title then that the worldling hath It is a suspitious thing to finde Goods in a mans house and for him not to be able to tell how he came by them My soul How camest thou by thy Estate is it given to thee as to a Son or as to a slave thou art advanced into high place but since thou art lifted up hast thou lifted up God in thy Honor Ah Lord How many are risen in honor but forgot that hand that lifted them up and the ground from whence they came Are your Estates as Looking-glasses to see God in to see his wisdom and care and load-stones to draw out your love by Are they wings to make you mount up to Heaven or no If they be not wings they will be weights to sink you down to Hell Do Riches make you charitable Doth Honor make you humble Doth your strength make you watchful Do you not cast away the Net now you have got the Fish Are you in satisfied when you have the cap full of gold till you have the kiss To allude to the competition of Cyrus his two Friends Chrysautus and Artabarus are your turns served of God and do you turn your backs on God Are you the better for your goods and the more in love with the Rose of Sharon for your beauty Can you bless God the more for your Blessings and say There was a time I was poor and passionate but as God hath given me riches so also a thankful heart as God hath encreased my store so he hath encreased my Faith and the higher I am the more holy the greater the better If so we are happy otherwise it were better we had had less of this World then that like the Moon at the full we should be more distant from the Sun then that with Jonathan we should follow the chase be exact Professors or Professors of exactness no longer then till we meet with honey It is a serious Observation of a great Traveller That notwithstanding all the Religious pretences of the Court of Rome That the Indians have brought more of the Spaniards to worship their gold then the Spaniards have brought of the Indians to worship their God that is The Indians have made more Infidels then the Spaniards have made Christians 4. When we imploy our Treasures for God then we spiritually enjoy our Treasures from God They are not Goods to us if we do not good to others with them We are too ready to receive the Token and to neglect the Contents of the Letter that God sends us We say such a man hath an happy Estate when he hath a great Estate but whatever the Estate be the man is unhappy if he be not charitable Wherefore David giving the Character of a blessed man tells us Blessed is the man What man not he that hath riches but he that considers the poor Consider how to bestow them Psalm 41.1 Oh that men would consider they are not masters of their Estates and it is well if their Estates be not master over them but Stewards And the Language of a gracious Steward is How shall I dispose of my Trust best for my Masters use where shall I finde a naked back that I may clothe it an empty belly that I may fill it an aged Christian or Minister of God past the labors of their special Callings that I may succor and supply them And it would be a noble enquiry of Magistrates whom God makes successful against Babylon how shall we consecrate the gain taken from them to the Lord for Sions good for the advancement of the Gospel and Ministerial Propagation of Christs Kingdom for the preservation of Gospel Ordinances amongst us from the Invasion of Prophaneness and the attempts of Heresie and Atheism But where are these ubies How many are loaden with Blessings and yet load God with Curses How do men employ their Estates rather against then for God like water putting out the fire and like clouds hindring the sight of the Sun But there is a time a caming when ye men of the World shall see that Charity was the best Usury that a good Estate was better then a great Estate when they shall take their leave of this World and the glory thereof when they shall by Death be summoned out of this life and lose their Estates and their Souls together how happy soever they have been accompted of by men on earth yet when they shall arrive to that Infelicity and ruine Who would be in their case whose God is not the Lord FINIS