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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
lord_n	work_n	work_v	worship_v	67	3	7.2848	4	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A88141	Elias redivivus: a sermon preached before the honorable House of Commons, in the parish of Saint Margarets West minster, at the publike fast, March 29, 1643. By John Lightfoote, preacher of the Gospel at Bartholomew Exchange, London.	Lightfoot, John, 1602-1675.	1643 (1643)	Wing L2053; Thomason E99_11; ESTC R20324	33,230	56

And how farre were they from intertaining such a Christ as this when they expected one of a quality so infinitely different Who could beleeve that the title over our Saviours head upon his Crosse should be a stumbling blocke unto the Jewes feete And yet was it so at that very time when they fixt it there and so it hath beene ever since and so it is at this very day Jesus of Nazareth King of the Jewes They looked for the Messiah to come from Bethlehem and they knew him but for Jesus of Nazareth And they expected a pompous King of the Jewes and how farre was he from such a King And thus they knew not him when he came from Galilee nor the voices of the Prophets what they meant by his Kingdome and thus were they very farre unlikely to receive him when he came These three things then being thus considered and notice taken how farre this people of the Jewes were gone away both in life and doctrine what corruption they had contracted in their manners what doting upon their ancient Customes and what misprision concerning Christ it is no wonder if he that came to reforme these things that were so farre amisse had need of a spirited and a powerfull forerunner to make some way for him against he came And as it was at our Saviours comming in the flesh so also is it at his comming in the spirit Whensoever Christ is to be brought in among a corrupt and irregular people in the power and purity of his Word Gospel great hinderances doe ever offer themselves to stop the way and they had need of great forerunners to cleare them thence A Jerusalem is never built street and wall but those times are troublous a Reformation in a corrupted State is never wrought but with these opposals The very same things doe make the waies rough and unpassable for Christs comming now in his worke and power that made it then when he came in the flesh These three are as the net upon Mispah and the snare upon Tabor Hos. 5. 1. as the ambushes that the Idolatrous Priests laid upon those Mountaines to catch up all the passengers that should go to Jerusalem to worship the true God these catch up men that they come not at Christ These are the Korah Dathan and Abiram that are ever ready to oppose the Moses and Aaron that seeke to work good in the Congregation and the Jannes Jambres and Egyptians that affront them in the worke of the Lord And hence is it no wonder that that worke of the same nature that you have had so long in hand hath gone so slowly and so heavily on For 1. How truly is the morall of that Story concerning Anomon in 2 Sam. 12. come to passe in these dayes of ours First he was sicke for love of his sister Tamar and having used her at his pleasure he was then as sicke for hate So hath it beene with us of this Land we were sicke but a while agoe for a Parliament and nothing would cure us if we had not that like David we longed and longed againe for this water of Bethlehem that is beside the gate and could not rest till we had got it and yet when we have obtained it and that not without the hazard of your lives we now cast it upon the ground and care not for it We are now as weary of this Manna which God hath sent us as we were desirous of it before it came What should be the reason of mens such crossenesse and contrariety in their affections as to will and to loath to desire and to detest the same thing with the same earnestnesse in so short a time Why that in the Prophet You would have healed Babel and she will not be healed Men are affrighted I know not how at the rumor of a Reformation because they are afraid to be stripped off their carnalities and corruptions Like a simple Patient that in an eating and corroding sore if the Surgeon can abate his paine he likes it well but to cut out any proud dangerous and corrupting flesh that he will not endure Just so hath it been with us Whilest you eased us of the paines of those pressures that did pinch and took off the yoke from off our neck that glad so sore it pleas'd us well and you had our liking but to be restrained any whit from our former beloved sensualities to be straitned any thing of the extravagancies of our former wayes by the reines of a Reformation oh this goes to the quicke and we cannot indure it Durus sermo a hard businesse who can abide it Our Saviour hath told us long agoe that parting with an old acquaintance bosome sinne is as pinching to flesh and blouds as to pluck out an eye and to cut off a hand and we see it true by too wofull experience by mens unseparablenesse from their delights they carrying them and they them and will not be parted to perdition The Vine Olive and Figtree in Jothams Parable will not leave their wine fatnesse and sweetnesse to gaine a Kingdome Herod his Herodias to save his soule nor men of corrupt manners the corruption of their manners for a blessed Reformation This is the first adversary that you have in your way that seeketh to crosse the glorious work that you have in hand And there is a second which is like to this as a twinne of the same wombe and as bad as it and that is corruption in opinion concerning ancient Customes and a fixednesse to what our forefathers have used before 2. Custome as it is commonly said is a second nature and men cannot easily leave that which they have long used themselves and they will not easily leave that which they have seene and knowne to be used by their Predecessors The Ephraimites in the booke of Judges that had beene brought up to say Sibboleth all their life cannot say Shibboleth to save their life but they perish two and forty thousand Famous and fearfull is the story of Rabodus some call him by another name who when he was so farre perswaded from his Heathenisme into Christianity that he had one foote in the water towards being baptized and there asking whither his forefathers were gone that were not Christians nor baptized whether to Heaven or Hell and it being answered to Hell he puls his foote back againe out of the water with words to this purpose That he would goe whither his ancestors were gone and so he resolved to be what his Ancestors had beene This the more is the pity is the ultima Analysis of the Religion of too many thousands in this Land and time men and women are too commonly and generally pinned in opinion and in practice of religious things upon the customes and usage of ancient times and they are loth to be parted from them The woman of Sychar was zealous for the Temple upon Mount Gerizim but

was a man as may be guessed by his writings of a very shallow wit Yet was he the Author of the like error to most Ecclesiasticall men who cited this mans antiquity for the defence of their part as Irenaeus and whosoever else is of the same opinion with him I will not censure nor condemne the opinion but referre it to superiour examination onely this I cannot but say of it that I doe not remember that ever I heard or read of an opinion of so extreame and monstrous strangenesse that in so short a time hath gotten so great a beliefe and so large an entertainment and neither tongue or pen hath stirred against it It is our hope and prayer that once you may have liberty and leisure from the great rent in the whole peece of the State to looke upon the rippings in the seames of the Church that such opinions as this and others may be taken either by you or by your authority into examination before like Joab and Abishai the sons of Zerviah they grow too strong and defie a tryall The Spirit and power of Elias is held by some to meane but one and the same thing his powerfull Spirit So indeed sometime runneth the sense of the Hebrew stile As in that answer of our Saviour Joh. 14. 6. I am the way the truth and the life the scope of the question that occasioned it seemeth to call it to such a sense I am the true and the living way Others distinguish the meaning with the words and by the Spirit of Elias understand patience and tolerancy of persecution and by the power the prevalent and efficacious virtue of his ministration But we need not to goe farre for interpretations when either the words are of no great difficulty or what they be of will easily be explained by the Scripture it selfe By Elias his Spirit then are we to understand not his owne within him but the Spirit of the Lord or of Prophecy upon him And so his spirit is said to be upon John as Moses his spirit was upon the Elders and the spirit of the same Elias upon Elisha By the power of Elias upon the Baptist is not meant the power of miracles for John wrought none wheras Elias did many but his power of preaching for the conversion of many unto God So that whereas the ancient Prophets of the Law and among them Elias had a double power of the Spirit upon them To foretell things to come and to worke miracles so had John the first Prophet of the Gospell a double power but of another nature and a better He foretold not things to come but he explained those that had him foretold and he wrought not miracles upon bodies but he was miraculously powerfull upon soules Now should we come to compare Elias the Baptist ther we should finde them agree in many parallels as that they both came in very corrupt times that they both restored religion very much in that corruption that they were both persecuted exceedingly for that restoring Elias by Ahab and Jezabell and John by Herod and Herodias and divers other agreements upon which not to insist because they bee obvious to every eye this collection may we take up from the words in hand That Elias is a proper and pregnant patterne for Reformers As when Moses was making the Sanctuary and the appurtenances God often cals upon him to make all things according to the patterne which was shewed him in the mount So in this like worke of yours which you have in hand can you platforme out a reformation by a better patterne then by Elias since you will not doe it but by some patterne from the Mount A man that in the text is a copy to John the Baptist in his reforming And a man that in his owne time restored all things as our Saviour saith of him Mat. 17. 11. And fitly then may he be a patterne for these times of ours He restored perishing religion the decaying law he restored forgotten Prophecy and as the Jews hold forsaken Circumcision for of Circumcision doe they understand those words of Elias himselfe They have forsaken thy Covenant 1 King 19. 14. And of Elias the restorer of Circumcision they misunderstand those words of the Prophet The Angell or Messenger of the Covenant Mal. 3. 1. But I stand not here as a Surgeon over his Anatomy to reade unto you a Lecture of reforming upon the Sceleton of Elias it were beyond good manners as it is beyond my skill Let me addresse my selfe to you that sit by and are spectators of these Worthies as they labour in their worke in a word or two of application and that according to the two words that are before us the Spirit of Elias and his power 1. By the Spirit of Elias I told you is understood the Spirit of God that was upon him Now as the Apostle saith x Cor. 12. 4. the Spirit was but one but the gifts were diverse For looke in the fourth of the Acts and the thirty first it is said of the Apostles there that when they had prayed the place was shaken and they were filled with the Holy Ghost And so they had beene some dayes before namely on Pentecost day Act. 2. 4. Now they having beene filled then how can they be said to be filled againe Why then with the gift of tongues and now with the gift of holy boldnesse for for that it was they prayed ver. 29. Among the diverse gifts then of the holy Spirit that Elias had this is not the last nor the least that made him renowned His extraordinary zeale for the Lord of Hostes So much expresseth he concerning himselfe 1 King 19. 10. 14. And so much seemeth our Saviour to aime at in his answer to his two disciples that would have fire fetched from heaven as Elias had done Ye know not saith he what manner of spirit ye are of Luk. 9. 55. of a zeale beyond your warrant and you would be forward you know not how The thing that you may take notice of from hence is this That no true reformation can be expected which is not carried on with a spirit of zeale The workes of God must be wrought with his Spirit they that desire to forward his glory must do it with a holy forwardnesse It is the honour of Levi Deut. 33. 9. that when he was about the imployment of the Lord he was so zealous in it that he forgot all civill relations and said unto his father and to his mother I have not seene him neither did he acknowledge his brethren nor knew his owne children And so our Saviour in the third of Marke when his mother and kindred would have taken him off from preaching for they said he will faint or he is beside himselfe be it whether it will for the originall word will beare both he was so zealous in the worke in hand that he would not owne