Selected quad for the lemma: nature_n

Word A Word B Word C Word D Occurrence Frequency Band MI MI Band Prominent
nature_n esteem_v excellent_a great_a 158 3 2.0851 3 false
View all documents for the selected quad

Text snippets containing the quad

ID Title Author Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) STC Words Pages
A51702 An offer of farther help to suffering saints, or, The best work in the worst times wherein the necessity, excellency, and means of preparation for sufferings are clearly evinced, and prescribed : in which, as in a glass, the people of God may see how to dress themselves for death, or any other suffering to which the Lord shall call : added as an appendix to the Sufferers mirrour. Mall, Thomas, b. 1629 or 30. 1665 (1665) Wing M334A; ESTC R232064 84,072 143

There are 4 snippets containing the selected quad. | View lemmatised text

anothers right 1 Cor. 6.19 and that he must neither live nor act ultimately for himself but for Christ Rom. 14.7 Heb. 13.7 8. Phil. 1.20 He is no more as a Proprietor but a Steward of all he hath and so holds out upon these terms to lay it out or lay it down as may best serve his Masters ends and glory All that he is or hath is by Grace subordinated to Christ and if once subordinated then no more opposed to him subordinata non pugnant This is it that makes him say I care not what becomes of me or mine so Christ may be glorified Let Christ be m●gnifi●d in my body whether it be by life or by death Phil. 1.20 By Conversion Christ enters the soul 2 Cor. 10.5 as an Army doth an Enemies Garrison by Storm and when he is possest of it by Grace he presently divides the whole spoil of Self betwixt himself and his Church This is the first thing that evinces the necessity of a Work of Grace to prepare the heart for Sufferings 2. And then in the next place It is as evident that a man can never be fit to suffer hard Things for Christ until his Spirit be enlarged raised and ennobled so that he be able to despise Dangers and look Difficulties in the face That low and private Spirit must be removed and a publick Spirit must possess him If a man be of a feeble and effeminate Spirit every petty Danger will daunt and sink him Delicacy and Tenderness is as unsuitable to a Christian as to a Souldier 2 Tim. 2.3 They that mean to enter into the Kingdome of God must resolve to make their way through that brake of Troubles betwixt them and it 2 Tim. 3.12 They that will be crowned with Victory must stand to it and play the men as that word imports 1 Cor. 16.13 Look over all the Sacred and Humane Histories and see if you can find a man that ever honoured Christ by Suffering that was not of a raised and noble Spirit and in some measure able to contemn both the allurements and threats of men So those three noble Jews Dan. 3.16 17. so Moses Heb. 11.27 and so our Apostle Acts 20.24 and the same heroick and brave Spirit was found in the succeeding Ages amongst the Witnesses of Christ When Valence the Empercur endeavoured to draw Basil from the Faith by Offers of Preferment Offer these things said he to Children when he threatned him with torments Threaten these things said he to your Purple Gallauts that live delicately And the same Basil relating the Story of the fourty Martyrs saith That when great Honours and Preferments were offered them to draw them from Christ their answer was Why offer you these small things of the world to us O Emperour when you know the whole world is contemned by us So Luther Money could not tempt him nor the fear of man daunt him Let me said he in his Letter to Staupicius be accounted proud covetous a murtherer guilty of all vices rather then of wicked silence and cowardize in the Cause of Christ Thus you see to to what an height and holy greatness the Spirits of suffering Saints in all Ages have ●een raised But now it is Grace that thus raises the Spirits of men above all the smiles and honours frowns and fears of men and no other principle but Grace can do it There is indeed a natural stoutness and generosity in some which may carry them far as it 's said of Alexander that when any great danger approached him his courage would rise and he would say Jam periculum par animo Alexandri here is a danger fit for Alexander to encounter so Pompey when disswaded from a dangerous Voyage answered Necesse est ut eam non ut vivam It 's necessary that I go not that I live But this being fed onely by a natural Spring can carry a man no higher then Nature and will flag at last If applause and the observation of the world supply it not it quickly ebbs and fails But as Grace raises men much higher so it maintains it even when there is nothing to encourage without when forsaken of all Creatures and visible supports 2 Tim. 4.10 and this it doth three wayes 1 By guiding him that hath a view of far greater things which shrinks up all temporary things and makes them appear but trifles and small matters Rom. 8.18 2 Cor. 4.18 By Grace a man rises with Christ Col. 3.1 It sets him upon his high places and thence he looks down upon things below as very poor and inconsiderable The great Cities of Campania seem but little spots to them that stand on the top of the Alps. 2 By teaching him to value and measure all things by another Rule then he was wont to do He did once measure life liberty riches honours by sense and time and then they seemed great things and it was hard to deny them Or thus to slight them but now he values and measures all by Faith and Eternity and esteems nothing great and excellent but what hath a reference to the Glory of God and an influence into Eternity 3 Grace raises and ennobles the Spirit thus because it is the Divine nature 't is the Spirit of Christ infused into a poor Worm which makes a strange alteration on him transforms him into another manner of person as much difference betwixt hir Spirit now and what it was as betwixt the Spirit of a Child that is filled with small matters and taken up with toyes and of a grave States-man that is daily imployed about the grand affairs of a Kingdome 3. A man can never suffer as a Christian till his will be subjected to the Will of God He that suffers involuntarily and out of necessity not out of choice shall neither have acceptance nor reward from God Of necessity the will must be subjected a man can never say Thy will be done till he can first say Not my will But it is Grace onely that thus conquers and subjects the will of man to Gods Psal 110.3 This is it that exalts Gods Authority in the Soul and makes the heart to stoop and tremble at his Commands 'T is this which makes our will to write its fiat at the foot of every Command and its placet under every Order it receives from God No sooner was Grace entred into the soul of Paul but presently he cries out Lord what wilt thou have me to do Acts 9.6 The Will is to the Soul what the Wheels are to the Chariot and Grace to is the Will what Oyl is to those Wheels When we receive the Spirit of Grace we are said to receive an Unction from the holy One 1 John 2.20 and then the Soul is made as the Chariots of Aminadab Cant. 6.12 Non tardat uncta rota it runs freely after the Lord and chearfully addresseth it self to every Service 4. A man can never suffer as a Christian untill his heart be
composed fixed and determined to follow the Lord through all Hazards and Difficulties As long as a man is hesitating and unresolved what to do whether to go forward or turn back again to the prosperous World when a man is at such a pause and stand in his way he is very unfit for Sufferings All such Divisions do both we●ken the Soul and strengthen the Temptation The Devils work is more then half done to his hands in such a Soul and he is now as unfit to endure hardship for Christ as a Ship is to ride out a Storm that hath neither Cable Anchor nor Ballast to hold and settle it but lies at the mercy of every Wave James 1.8 The double-minded man is unstable in all his wayes But it 's Grace and nothing besides it that brings the heart to a fixed resolution and settlement to follow the Lord. 'T is Grace that establishes the heart He● 13.9 and unites it to fear the Name of God Ps●l 86.11 This gathers all the Streams into one Channel and then it runs with much strength and sweeps away all obstacles before it So that look as it is with a wicked man that hath sold himself to do wickedly if he be set upon any one design of sin he pours out his whole heart and strength in the prosecution of that Design which is the ground of that saying Liberet me Deus ab homine unius tantum negetii Let God deliver me from a man of one onely Design He will do it to purpose So is it also in Grace If the heart be composed fixed and fully resolved for God nothing shall then stand before him And herein lies much of a Christians habitual fitness and ability to suffer 5. The necessity of Saving-Grace in all Sufferers for Christ will farther appear from this consideration That he who will run all hazards for Christ had need of a continual supply of strength and refreshment from time to time He must not depend on any thing that is failable For what shall he do then when that stock is spent and he hath no Provision left to live upon Now all natural qualifications yea all the common gifts of the Spirit are failable and short-lived things they are like a sweet Flower in the bosome that is an ornament for a little while but withers presently Or like a Pond or Brook occasioned by a great fall of Rain which quickly sinks and dries up because it is not fed by Springs in the bottome as other Fountain-waters are and hence it is they cannot continue and hold out when Sufferings come Matt. 13.21 because there is no Root to nourish and support The Hypocrite will not alwayes call upon God Job 27.10 Though they may keep company with Christ a few miles in this dirty way yet they must turn back at last and shake hands eternally with him John 6.66 These Commets may seem to shine for a time among the Stars but when that earthly matter is spent they must fall and lose their glory But now Grace is an everlasting principle it hath Springs in the bottome that never fail It shall be in him saith Christ a Well of water springing up into eternal life John 4.14 The Spirit of God supplies it from time to time as need requires It hath daily incomes from Heaven 2 Cor. 1.5 Phil. 4.13 Col. Munimur quatenus unimur 1.11 So that it is our union with Christ the Fountain by Grace that is the true ground of our constancy and long-suffering 6. And then lastly It will appear by this also that there is an absolute necessity of a real change by Grace on all that will suffer for Christ because although we may engage our selves in sufferings without it yet we can never manage our sufferings like Christians without it They will neither be honourable or acceptable to God nor yet beneficial and comfortable to our selves or others except they be performed from this principle of Grace For upon what principle soever beside this any man is acted in Religion it will either cause him to decline Sufferings for Christ or if he be engaged in them yet he will little credit Religion by his Sufferings They will either be spoiled by an ill management or his own pride will devour the praise and glory of them I do not deny but a man that 's graceless may suffer many hard things upon the account of his profession and suffer them all in vain as these Scriptures manifest See 1 Cor. 13.3 Gal. 3.4 and although you find many sweet Promises made to those that suffer for Christ yet you must consider that those pure and spiritual Ends and Motives by which men ought to be acted in their sufferings are always supposed and implyed in all those Promises that are made to the external action And sometimes it is exprest 1 Pet. 4.16 to suffer as a Christian is to suffer from pure Christian Principles and in a Christian manner with Meekness Patience Self-denial c. and this onely Grace can enable you to do So that by all this I suppose what I have undertaken in this Chapter viz. to evince the necessity of a Work of Grace to pass upon you before Sufferings for Religion come is by all this performed to satisfaction CHAP. IV. Wherein the Nature of this Work of Grace in which our habitual fitness for suffering lies is briefly opened and an account given of the great advantage the gracious person hath for any even the hardest work thereby HAving in the former Chapter plainly evinced the necessity of saving Grace to fit a man for Sufferings it will be expected now that some account be given you of the nature of this Work and how it advantages a man for the discharge of the hardest services in Religion Both which I shall open in this Chapter by a distinct Explication of the parts of this description of it This work of Grace What saving Grace is of which I am here to speak consists in the reall change of the whole Man by the Spirit of God whereby he is prepared for every good work In which brief Description I shall open these four things to you 1. That it is a Change this is palpably evident both from Scripture and Experience 2 Cor. 5.17 Old things are past away behold all things are become new and it is so sensible a Change that it 's called a turning from darkness to light Act. 26.18 and a new Creature formed and brought forth But to be a little more distinct and particular there are several other Changes that pass upon men which must not be mistaken for this and therefore 1. It is not a meer change of the Judgment from Errour to Truth from Paganisme to Christianity Such a Change Simon Magus had yet still remained in the Gall of Bitterness and fast bound in the Bonds of Iniquity Act. 8.23 2. Nor onely of a mans practice from Prophaness to Civility this is common among such as live under
36.37 Jer. 29.11 12 13. All that comes from God to you or to you from God must come in this Channell Be convinced then of the need you have to improve your selves herein as ever you hope to stand in the evil day But how are these praying abilities capable of improvement in the people of God Quest Praying abilities are either externall and common or else internal and speciall Sol. The external and common ability is nothing else but that dexterity and skill men get to express themselves to God in Prayer which men have by nature or industry Thus many can put their meaning into apt and decent expressions to which the Spirit sometimes adds his common touches upon the affections And this Hypocrites rest and glory in Or else they are special and internal whereby men are enabled to pour out their souls to God in a saving manner And this may be considered either in the Habit or Act. The Habit is given by the Spirit when the principles of Grace are first infused into the soul Zech. 12.10 Acts 9.11 By being sanctified we are made near and by acting those principles in Prayer we are said to draw near Psal 10.17 Now in our actual drawing near to God the Spirit hath the chief and principal hand and his assistance therein is threefold 1. He excites the heart to the duty 't is he that whispers to the Soul to draw nigh to God Psal 27.8 2. He suggests the matter of our Prayers and furnisheth us with the Materials Rom. 8.26 guiding us as to the matter not onely to what is lawful but also to what is expedient for us 3. He stirreth up suitable Affections in Prayer Rom. 8.26 and hence those groans and tears those gaspings and vehement anhelations But notwithstanding all our Abilities both habitual and actual be from the Spirit and not from our selves yet are they capable of improvement by us For though in respect of acquirement there be a great difference betwixt natural and supernatural Habits yet their improvement is in the same way and manner and this improvement may be made divers wayes For First Though you have the Spirit and can pray yet you may learn to pray more humbly then before Though you rise no higher as to words yet you may learn to lay your selves lower before the Lord as Abraham and Ezra did Gen. 18.27 Ezra 9.6 Secondly You may learn to pray with more sincerity then formerly Ah! there is much Hypocrisie and Formality in our Prayers much of Custom c. Now you may learn to pour out more Cordial Prayers See Psal 17.1 Psal 119.10 Thirdly You may learn to pray with more zeal and earnestness then before Some Saints have excelled and been remarkable for this Dan. 9.19 Hos 12.4 James 5.16 Fourthly With more assiduity and readiness at all times for it Ephes 6.18 Praying alwayes with all Prayer Hence Christ gives that commendation to the Church Cant. 4.11 Thy Lips O my Spouse drop as the Honey Comb The Honey Comb often drops but always hangs full of Drops ready to fall Fifthly You may learn to pray with more Faith Oh the Qualms of Unbelief that go over our Hearts in a Duty Faith is the Soul of Prayer and according to the Faith God finds in them he accepts and values them Now in all these things you may improve your selves abundantly 1. By being more frequent in the Duty Job 22.21 acquaint thy self with the Almighty in the Hebrew it is accustom thy self Those that have been excellent have also been abundant in it Psal 55.17 2. By taking heed that you grieve not the Spirit on whose influences and assistances you so intirely depend Even as much as a Ship doth upon the Gales of Wind for its motion 3. By honouring the Spirit which enables you to pray and that especially two ways 1 By dependance on him go not forth in your own strength to the Duty trust not upon your own promptness or preparations 2 By returning and with thankfulness ascribing the praise of all to him Be humble under all Enlargements Say Not I but Grace 4. By searching your own Hearts and examining your Necessities and Wants when you draw nigh to God this will be a Fountain of Matter and give you a deep Resentment of the worth of Mercies pray'd for 5. Lastly By looking more at the exercise of Graces and less at the discovery of Parts by labouring for Impressions more and pumping for Expressions less And thus I have briefly shewed you how to furnish yourselves with this needfull Qualification also CHAP. XI Wherein is shewed the necessity of going out of our selves even when our habitual and actual Preparations are at the greatest height and depending as constantly and intirely upon the Spirit who is Lord of all gracious Influences as if we had done nothing Together with the means of working the Heart to such a frame THus you have seen your habitual and actuall readiness for Sufferings and blessed is the Soul that gives diligence to this work But now least all that I have said and you have wrought should be in vain I must let you know that all this will not secure you unless you can by Humility Faith and Self-denial go out of your selves to Christ and live upon him daily for supplies of Grace as much as if you had none of all this Furniture and Provision for Sufferings I confess Grace is a very beautiful and lovely Creature and it 's hard for a man to look upon his own Graces and not doat upon them But yet know that if you had all these excellent preparations that have been mentioned yea and all Angelical Perfections superadded yet are you not compleat without this dependance upon Christ Col. 2.10 When ever you go forth to suffer for Christ you should say in the Head of all your excellent Graces Duties and Preparations as Jehosaphat did when in the head of a puissant and mighty Army 2 Chron. 20.12 O Lord I have no might nor strength but my Eyes are unto thee This was one thing in which Paul excelled and was a special part of his readiness See 1 Cor. 15.10 What a poor Creature is the eminentest Saint left to himself in in hour of trial the Hop the Ivey and the Woodlind are taught by Nature to cling about stronger Props and Supporters What they do by Nature we should do by Grace The necessity and great advantage of this will appear upon divers Considerations 1. The Christians own imbecility and insufficiency even in the strength and beight of all his Acquirements and Preparations what are you to grapple with such an Adversary Certainly you are no Match for him that conquered Adam hand to hand in his state of integrity It is not your in●erent strength that enables you to stand but what ●ou receive and daily derive from Jesus Christ Joh. 15.5 Without me or never so little separated from me ye can do nothing all our sufficiency is of God 2 Cor. 3.5
ply your preparation-work close then 3. This will best answer the Grace of God in affording you such choice helps and advantages as you have enjoyed How long have you enjoyed the free liberty of the Gospel shining in its luster among you This Sun which to some other Nations hath not risen and to divers on whom it hath shined yet it is but as a Winters Sun remote and its Beams but feeble But you have lived as it were under the Line It hath been over your heads and shed its richest influences upon you Yea Gods Ministers who are not onely appointed to be Watchmen Ezek. 3.17 but Trumpeters to discover danger Numb 10.8 these have faithfully warned you of a day of trouble and given you their best assistance to make you ready for it And is not their joy yea life bound up in your stability in such a day of Tryal Doth not every one of them call upon you in the words of the Apostle Phil. 4.1 Therefore my Brethren dearly Beloved and longed for my joy and crown so stand fast in the Lord my dearly beloved Will it not cut them to the very heart if after all their spending labours among you they still leave you unready Enemies still to the Cross of Christ impossible to be reconciled and perswaded to suffering-work for Christ I remember I have read of the Athenian Codrus who being informed by the Oracle that the people whose King should be slain in battail should be Conquerours He thereupon disrobed himself and in a disguise went into the Enemies Quarters that he might steal a death to make his people victorious Oh! how glad would your Ministers be if you might conquer and overcome in the day of temptation whatever become of their lives and liberties Yea and if they be offered up upon the sacrifice and service of your Faith they can rejoyce and joy with you all Such is their zeal and longing after your security and welfare But if still you remain an unready people and do become a prey to temptation Oh how inexcusable will you be 4. Remember how ready the Lord Jesus was to suffer the hardest and vilest things for you He had a bitter cup put into his hands to drink for you into which the wrath both of God and man was squeezed out Dolor Christi fuit major omnibus doloribus Aquin. Never had man such sufferings to undergo as Christs Whether you consider 1 the dignity of his persou who was in the form of God and might have stood upon his peerage and equality with him he is the sparkling Diamond of Heaven Acts 7.56 The Darling of the Fathers Soul Isa 42.1 glorious as the onely begotten of the Father John 1.14 yea glory it self James 2.1 yea the very brightness of glory Heb. 1.3 He is the deliciae Christiani orbis fairer then the Sons of men And for him to be so debased below so many thousands of his own Creatures become a worm and no man this was a wonderful humiliation It was Jeremiah's lamentation that such as were brought up in Scarlet embraced Dunghills that Princes were hanged up by the hands and the faces of Elders were not reverenced But what was that to the humiliation of the Lord of glory Or 2 that he suffered in the prime and flower of his years when full of life and sense and more capable of exquisite sense of pain then others Aquinas For he was optimae complexionatus of a singular constitution and all the while he hanged on the Tree his sense of pain not at all blunted or decayed Mark 15.37 39. Or 3 the manner of his death It was the death of the Cross which was as a Rack to Christ for in reference to the distention of his members upon the Cross is that spoken Psal 22.17 I may tell all my bones Or 4 That all this while God hid his face from him When Stephen suffered he saw the Heavens opened The Martyrs you see here were many of them ravished and transported with extasies of joy in their sufferings but Christ in the dark He suffered in 〈◊〉 Soul as well as in his Body and the sufferings of his Soul were the very Soul of his sufferings It was the Fathers wrath that lay so heavy on him as to put him into such an agony that an instance was never given of the like in nature For he sweat 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 great drops or clodders of blood which fell from his Body to the ground Luke 22.44 It amazed him and made him very heavy See Mark 14.33 yea sorrowful even to death Matth. 26.38 And yet as bitter as the Cup was he freely and willingly drank it up John 18.11 prepared himself to be offered up a sacrifice Psal 40.6.7 gave his back to the Smiters Isa 50.6 yea longed exceedingly for the time till it came Luke 12.50 Now if Christ so cheerfully prepared and addrest himself to such sufferings as these for you should you not prepare your selves to encounter any difficulty or hardship for him O my Brethren Doth not this seem a just and fair inference to you from the sufferings of Christ for you 1 Pet. 4.1 Forasmuch then as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh arm your selves likewise with the same mind Oh trifle no longer feed not your selves with fancies and groundless presumptions of immunity and peace but foresee difficulties and fit your selves to bear them CHAP. XIV Containing the last use of the point by way of support and comfort to poor trembling souls who do take pains to make themselves ready for sufferings but yet finding such strength in Satans temptations and their own corruptions fear that all their labour is in vain and that they shall faint and utteriy Apostatize when theis Troubles and Tryals come to an height IN the last place If it be such a blessed thing to be ready for Bonds or Death for Christ this may minister much comfort to such souls who though they cannot say as Paul here did that they are ready yet are at work daily upon their own hearts to make them ready and strive in the use of all means to conquer those corruptions that hinder it and improve those Graces in which it mainly consisteth O poor soul what ever present unreadiness or indisposition thou findest and complainest of in thine own heart yet thy condition is safe Oh but I cannot be satisfied in that Ob. I fear I shall be over-borne by Temptations when they come to an height I have such experience of the Deceits and Treacherousness of my own heart that it seems impossible to me to do as these blessed souls did when I come to the like Tryals It s well thou suspectest thine own heart Sol. and tremblest in thy self this sear will keep thee waking when others are securely sleeping It was a good saying of a Reverend Minister Mr A.H. now with God He that fears to flinch shall never flinch for fear It 's true seeming grace