Selected quad for the lemma: mind_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
mind_n	day_n	lord_n	regard_v	1,544	5	10.9411	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A43768	Conjugall counsell, or, Seasonable advice, both to unmarried, and married persons directing the first how to enter into marriage estate, and the other how to demeane themselves in the Christian discharge of all such duties as that estate of life blads them to, that God may have glory, the church edification, and themselves and families, present and future comfort, tending much (by the blessing of God) to a through reformation of all the enormities of these evil times / by T.H. ...	Hilder, Thomas.	1653 (1653)	Wing H1974; ESTC R20660	113,375	218

selfe Yet God can make this foresaid Babe a fruitfull Mother of many Children in this our Israel who may both blesse the Lord for it and for your selfe worthy Madam for accepting and to your power Patronizing the same Now our Lord Jesus Christ himselfe and God even our Father which hath loved us and hath given us everlasting Consolation and good hope through Grace comfort your heart and establish you in every good word and worke Thus prayeth he who is Madam Your Ladiships humble most affectionate and much more obliged servant till death THOMAS HILDER TO THE Impartiall and Judicious READER Christian Friend OF all the Creatures which Almighty God hath Created in this nethermost World he hath been pleased in the riches of his mercy to deale most liberally with man for God hath not only given him a being as he hath to all other Creatures but also hath provided all things to sweeten and make his being here very comfortable And amongst variety of choice enjoyments he hath Created for Man a meet helper which is the most precious piece of all others And indeed the Quintiscence Creame and Crowne of all Temporall felicity Which blessing God hath united to Man and made one with him by Matrimoniall Conjunction And hath appointed and sanctified meanes for his entring into and enjoying of this happy and also honourable Estate But by reason of that blindnesse and ignorance that is in man since the Fall and by reason of the corruption and pravity of his nature he doth by indirect waies and meanes seeke the enjoyment of this happinesse yet fals not only short of it but implungeth himselfe into a dead sea and Gulph of all Crosses Discomforts troubles vexations Turbulent cares distractions and griefes of all kinds And passeth through this his Pilgrimage with plenty of teares sighs sobs and extreame dolorous complaints With wearings wastings and pinings away finding life it self a burden untill he come to be dissolved into the dust of death Now deare Christian the meanes before hinted at to enjoy the happiness first mentioned and to avoid the miseries last exprest these poore weake and perhaps contemptible Lines ensuing will point out though with a palsie hand But thou must not despise the day of small things Zach. 4.10 The lesse of the Creature the more of God Gods strength is made perfect in our weaknesse 2 Cor. 12.9 The excellency of power is still in God and not in us 2 Cor. 4.7 This Treatise was at first intended next the glory of God wholly for the generall good But now in my promulgating of it I do in a speciall manner reflect upon my Children they being in their non-age But they must not nor can they monopolize it to themselves but it will present it self to thy view and tender some service to thee if thou please to accept of it Courteous Reader I can easily believe there will be divers circumstantiall if not some substantiall Errata's in it and some persons of dainty palats will seek to multiplie them be they more or lesse I know where the pricking thorne puts out but it must not be pull'd in for it will disturbe none but the gauled conscience Truly I can averre and God doth know it true that during almost all the time I was writing this out from a former Copy I could neither stand sit or lye but in very great paine which caused much distraction of mind But gentle Reader my Request to thee is that what thou findest good in these lines following blesse the Lord for Secondly live up to the life of it in thy practice But what resembles thy worthlesse Author and speakes him indigent not only in the Concrete but almost in the Abstract and yet no Hyperbole that I beseech thee to make as candid a construction of as thou canst and so to cast the mantle of thy love upon it and censure not but pitty and pray for him who desires to pray for thee and should rejoice to blesse God for any benefit that may accrew unto thee by these ensuing Lines Farewell Thine in the Lord Jesus THOMAS HILDER IF thou desire good daies to see Here in this life of Ceare Then seeke a Wife that doth with thee The Lord desire to feare For she 'l endeavour all her daies That here she doth remaine To quicken thee in holy waies That Heaven thou maiest attaine And she will still ambitious be That thou maiest comfort find And in this life good daies maiest see According to thy mind But such a Wife as will regard Thy good still as she ought For to be found is very hard And seldome is she sought Wouldst thou this Jewell then obtaine Worth more than worldly Treasure And it enjoy as thy great gaine And therein take much pleasure Then unto God pray thou alone Who good Wives doth bestow Desiring him to give thee one That doth him truly know For therein comfort thou maiest have In midst of many losses As thou goest marching to thy grave Loaded with outward Crosses And if the Lord this gift thee give Then highly prize the same So long as thou one day dost live And ever praise his Name Conjugall Counsell OR Seasonable advice both to unmarried and married persons directing the first how to enter into the Marriage estate and the other how to demeane themselves in the Christian discharge of all such duties as that estate of life binds them to That God may have glory the Church edification and themselves and Families present and future comfort WHen the Omnipotent Immense All-powerfull and All-glorious Jehovah had made and perfected that super eminent structure of the Celestiall and Terrestriall world and all Creatures in generall contained in them Man only excepted the Lord did then consult with himselfe as we may say about making Man in his own Image and likenesse Gen. 1.26 which he accordingly did and therein stood the compleate felicity of man in a speciall and peculiar manner But in a second place man was made glorious though in a way of much subordination to his foresaid felicity in that God made him to be a Microcosmus viz. a little world or a lively Embleme of what was before created his body being Terrestriall and his soule the better part Celestiall Oh happy man had he continued in his Originall perfection Wherein we may observe the singular benevolence and beneficence of God to man But though these were transcendent degrees of mans happinesse yet this was not all for God provides a place for mans residence on Earth which was the most pleasant and fertile of the whole Creation here below and therefore might well be called Paradise whereinto God put the man not only to dresse the Garden but to enjoy all the fruit thereof only the Tree of the knowledge of good and evill excepted Gen. 2.15 16.17 But to consummate and compleate mans outward full and sweet enjoyments the Lord God resolves to make man a meet help because he saw it not good for

to love and good works She will be a meanes to help thee in the growth of grace here and so a meanes of thy happinesse hereafter Here are more flowers to adde to thy begun-Nosegay in the last end of Marriage bind them together and they will be very Odoriferous to please thy senses Thirdly thou hast need to make grace the Object of thy love in chusing a Wife as thou desirest thy love should hold out to the end For if thou make Riches the Object of thy love they may be lost they are subject to many casualties Riches have wings like an Eagle and may flye away Prov. 23.5 and when they are gone thy love will flye after If thou make beauty the Object of thy love that may vanish away for favour is deceitfull and beauty is vanity Prov. 31.30 Beauty may be taken away by sicknesse or by some accidentall blow in the face by losse of an Eye by a Canker in the Nose or some other meanes and if once gone love will go too If thou make Person the Object of thy love that may suffer much detriment crookednesse may grow in a body formerly straight such a comely body may come to want a Leg or an Arme which will be a blemish to it Now Person being defective love will be the same If thou make hope of Honour the Object of thy love Thy wives great Kindred may faile of power to advance thee nay of power to hold up themselves we want not plentifull experience of this Or they may be prejudiced against thee and frustrate thy expectations and make thee see too late that thou hast but built Castles in the Aire to depend on them so all hopes that way being lost thy love will be lost too Now when thy love hath fetcht its last gaspe it may be happy were it for thee in some sense if thou and thy love might be buried both in one grave for after love is once departed what will or can thy life be but a condition of griefe and heart-sorrow and great discontentment that thou shouldst have a wife whom thou canst take no pleasure in and wouldst with all thy heart part with and yet it may be thou shalt not part with her untill death cut thee off first But if thou make Grace the Object of thy love and withall art no whit mistaken but thou findest it to be in the heart of thy wife in deed and in truth Then as grace doth encrease so thy love will abound but grace cannot but encrease continually therefore love will multiply in thy heart exceedingly Now as thou desirest to be kept from Apostacy or falling from God and the waies of his grace And as thou desirest to be helped forward in all Christian Counsels and good waies And as thou dost desire to keep life in thy love and to encrease therein to thy own comfort and the comfort of thy wife so let it be thy care in the feare of God to looke to thy own heart that it deceive thee not but that thou dost indeed make Grace the Object of thy love in the choice of thy wife then thou maiest certainly expect by the blessing of God much comfort in such a Yoak-fellow in all thy wants of wealth or health of soule or body and mayest whilest thou enjoyest her begin to write encomiums of her and when she is dead Gen 35.19 20. then with Jacob set up a pillar upon her Grave and perhaps maiest truly say Many Daughters have done vertuously but thou excellest them all for favour is deceitfull and beauty is vaine but a woman that feareth the Lord she shall be praised Give her of the fruit of her hands and let her own works praise her in the Gates Here we shall turne in and proceed no further in the amplification of the first inward qualification of a good wife The second qualification of a good wife In the second place the chiefe qualification of a good wife next saving Grace is sweet disposition of Nature that she be of a quiet and peaceable spirit for it is much to be bewailed that in divers men and women that we doubt not in the least measure but that they are very gracious and desire to prove their soules to God in all waies of holinesse yet are of bad Natures and themselves cannot but see it and I doubt not but they desire to bewaile it before God in secret and yet cannot attaine to have their Corruptions in this kind mortified in any comfortable way yet it must be granted that such persons are not many times comfortable Consorts And therefore thou that art to make choice of a wife hast cause enough to endeavour to avoid laying a Conjugall tye upon thy selfe to live and dye with such a woman though otherwise one of good parts If a woman be of churlish nature of cross dispositons in the abstract she will cast such a coole damp on her Husbands love as may not only chill but kill it whereby though she may be a sad sufferer her selfe she will abundantly prejudice her Husband in his comforts and may shorten his daies For a man cannot live that cannot love the love of any thing gives contentment to the mind to enjoy the same A crosse and tarte nature in a wife un-wifes her as I may say for she that is not a meet helper is either not a wife or else a very imperfect one for how can she be said to be a wife that is not a meet helper who is unfit for comfortable society but such a wife is as sharp and bitter touchy and tangue by nature will not ordinarily be sociable loving kind and amiable in her carriages and deportments to her Husband and doth it not concerne thee to avoid her in thy choice of a wife for such a woman as we speake of will not make a good Wife nor good Mother nor good Dame or Mistris she will not be good in any relation I meane in the latter part of this discourse where an untoward nature is predominant in a woman Solomon saith It is is better to dwell in a corner of the house top than with a brawling woman in a wide house Prov. 21.9 He also saith The contentions of a wife are a continuall dropping Pro. 19.13 A continuall dropping will weare wast and consume stone as observation will prove And truly this dropping from a contentious wife will weare waste and consume not only all the comforts that her Husband otherwise might have in her but his skin flesh bone marrow and vitall spirits and all in time The Apostle tels us that a meeke and quiet spirit in a woman is of great price with God 1 Pet. 3.4 And so it is doubtlesse with every rationall man therefore as thou wouldst avoid many inconveniences in the Marriage Estate and wear the comforts of it as a Crown of all temporall felicity So labour to gaine a woman of sweet naturall dispositions of a very Amiable and

he then shall deny this Cohabitation there is a headlesse body behind and what is that short in some sense of a Monster It had been infinitely better as we may say that they had never been man and wife than being such not to live together This truth being so generally acknowledged and rarely if at all denied we shall use much brevity in handling of it but by the way notoriously abominable are such persons as falter in the performance of this duty Whether it be Husband or Wife The third duty of the Husband to the Wife In the third place the Husbands duty to his Wife is to labour to edifie and build her up more and more in the saving knowledge of God and in the waies of his Grace and to seeke especially the happinesse of her soule to help her forward to glorifie God here that she may be everlastingly glorified in Heaven hereafter hence it is that the Apostle in the place quoted before in 1 Pet. 3.7 requires the Husband to dwell with his wife as a man of knowledge If the Wife will learne saith Paul let her aske her Husband at home 1 Cor. 14.35 which implies two things First that the Husband ought himselfe to labour for Illumination and abundance of the knowledge of God Then secondly that it is his duty to informe and to instruct his wife As the head of a Naturall body carries the Eyes so it sees not only for it selfe but for all the members of the body so it should be in this case The Husband is the Candlestick and Divine knowledge in him is the Light Now our Saviour saith Luk. 8.16 No man lighteth a Candle and covereth it with a vessell or putteth it under a bed but setteth it on a Candlestick that they that come in may see the light The knowledge that is in the Husband should be communicative to all in the Family in generall and to his Wife in particular Now the Husband must labour to edifie and build up his Wife and to further her in the way of holinesse by his performance of these particular duties viz. By Dehortations Exhortations Reprehensions and as occasion is by labouring to give her Consolations So also by praying for her and with her by reading the Word of God to her and by holy Conference as frequently as may be For by praying for her he may find the Lord graciously intreated to confer and bestow Grace into her heart and to give her a daily encrease thereof Secondly By praying with her he may be a meanes to put life and quickning into her spirit in all duties Thirdly By reading the Word of God to her he may instruct her Fourthly By using holy Conference with her he may stir up in her ardent desires and Heavenly Affections in minding things of a more sublime Nature than any thing in this transitory life And if she be ignorant of the waies of God and the duties she doth owe unto God and man it must be the care of her Husband to informe her to teach and instruct her in those things But if she know them then he must labour to rub them afresh upon her Memory as the Apostle Peter did on them to whom he wrote 2 Pet. 1.12 that she may set her selfe the more seriously to the practice of them Beloved a man is no way able to shew his love more unto his Wife than by labouring that she may be everlastingly happy as well as himselfe And happy is that woman who doth enjoy such a Husband as is very tender of her soules health and who doth labour to further her in the discharging of all her duties in her generall and particular Calling even in doing the Will of God and insuffering his pleasure We might have been larger in this particular and doubtlesse should but that in the next head we shall have occasion to mention some of the forementioned directions againe as very proper to the next duty of the Husband to the Wife and so desist here The fourth duty of the Husband to his Wife In the fourth place the duty of the Husband to the Wife is to labour to reclaime her from any sin and sinfull course she doth live in for sin is of a deceitfull nature and will deceive the soules of the choicest Christians in the world if not rooted out betimes before the heart be hardened therein And therefore the Holy Ghost bids us exhort one another to day to prevent the same Heb. 3.13 Therefore if a man see his wife nourish any sin in her heart or life he had need to bestir himselfe to make opposition against it * Note for mind it well if sin be not mortified early we may feare that in time it will mortifie Grace They cannot be both fruitfull in one poore heart and if Grace die an exceeding sad Funerall will follow But if it be demanded what be the meanes the Husband must use to reclaime his Wife from any sin I answer First Earnest Prayer and Supplication to God in her behalfe this way When the Church had gone astray from God and had run themselves into many miseries the Prophet Jeremy seekes unto God in their behalfe thus Turne thou unto us O Lord and we shall be turned renew our daies as of old Lam. 5.21 Gen. 25.21 As God heard Isaac praying for his Wife for a fruitfull wombe that she might conceive and beare so how knowest thou but that thou maiest by Prayer prevaile with God in thy Wives behalfe that she may conceive the seed of saving Grace in her heart and bring forth the fruit of it in her life even the Mortification of that sin or sins that are most predominant in her and with much comfort maiest thou expect such a blessing on thy Prayers if they be fervent Iam. 5.16 God hath the hearts of all men and women in his hands and can turne them at his own pleasure he can make a proud heart humble a hard heart soft an Earthly heart Heavenly a crooked heart straight he can help the perversenesse of the Will and the disorder of the Affections God hath a Plaister for every sore and a proper remedy for every disease God can help the blindnesse of the Mind the Errour of the Judgement the irregularity of the whole man Then I say go unto God in the first place and importune him for mercy for and for cure of thy Wives soule-sicknesse and distempers In the second place thou must kindly and with all possible sweetnesse admonish her of the danger of sin and of the fearefull fruits and sad effects of it as that thereby she dishonoureth a good God she woundeth her owne Conscience she bringeth discredit to the Gospell she provokes the Lords indignation and wrath against her to her confusion if she persevere in sin labour to perswade her that sin hath a long taile of judgements at the heeles of it Externall Internall and Eternall Inchoated on Earth Consummated in Hell