Selected quad for the lemma: nature_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
nature_n	fire_n	set_v	tongue_n	3,652	5	9.4006	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A49492	Six sermons preached before His Majesty at White-Hall Published by command. Tending all to give satisfaction in certain points to such who have thereupon endeavoured to unsettle the state, and government of the church. By the Right Reverend Father in God, Benjamin Laney, Late Lord Bishop of Ely.	Laney, Benjamin, 1591-1675.	1675 (1675)	Wing L351A; ESTC R216387	93,670	230

be when the vertue of it is gone Psal 107.34 Afruitful land is made barren by the sins of them that dwell therein The same cause will make our Prayers as fruitless as our fields To honour God with our lips and dishonour him with our lives to be strict at Prayers and loose to all disorders The Presbyterian pretensions cannot make our Sacrifice so abominable as our sins can They make God complain of that which he himself commanded Isai 1.11 To what purpose is the multitude of your Sacrifices unto me saith the Lord I am full with the burnt offerings of Rams and the fat of fed Beasts And again Bring no more vain Oblations Incense is an abomination unto me So it was with the Jews Sacrifice and the Christians will fare no better ver 15. When ye spread forth your hands I will hide mine eyes from you yea and when ye make many Prayers I will not hear Whence grows the displeasure that God takes against his own Service but from this Your hands are full of blood He will accept no Sacrifice from polluted hands And therefore to reconcile him to his own Service he puts us into this course verse 16. VVash ye make ye clean put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes cease to do evil learn to do well seek Judgement relieve the oppressed plead for the widow If we come thus minded and prepared to Gods Altar and offer the Sacrifice of Praise to the honour of his Name we may with confidence expect what God in the same case promised 1 Sam. 2.30 Them that honour me I will honour To conclude All that I have said hitherto is only to vindicate Gods Service from contempt and to restore it to some of the respect due to it And this though the froward times did not need cannot I hope be thought an ill office for a Sermon once to be an Advocate for Prayer seeing Prayers will always do as much for the Sermon be an Advocate to God to bring down a blessing upon it As the Church teacheth us to do so let us pray That the words which we have heard with our outward ears may c. A SERMON Preached before His Majesty at Whitehall March 27.1664 St MARK 4.24 Take heed what you hear TO take heed is always good but most necessary when danger is least suspected we have therefore more need to look to our hearing because of all other things we may think that hath least need of it If it had been a Caveat upon the Tongue Take heed what you say there is reason enough for that for the tongue is a world of iniquity Jam. 3.6 it defileth the whole body and setteth on fire the course of Nature But for hearing that seems a harmless innocent thing meerly passive no man the worse for it And this makes us sit down securely to hear any thing But take heed Hearing is no such harmless thing Though hearing ill be not doing ill yet at length it may bring us to it it is a door to let it in upon us We are all set in the midst of Temptations and Enemies and cannot be safe unless we have a watch and guard upon the passages As David considering the mischiefs that came by intemperate and unadvis'd speaking wisely resolv'd to set a watch at the door of his lips Dixi Custodiam I said I will take heed to my ways that I offend not with my tongue So another guard will be as necessary at the ear that nothing go in or out in at the ear or out at the mouth that may betray us to our Enemies If we look not to our ears they will soon become guilty of the corruptions of the heart as when we hear the slatterer it corrupts our judgment of our selves the tale-bearer or slanderer it corrupts our judgment of others If we hearken to prosane silthy atheistical communication it poisons the whole man for evil words corrupt good manners Thus the ear by letting in may prove as ill as the tongue by letting out a world of iniquity too A little care here will prevent a great deal of mischief take it at large for it is good for a●… Persons for all Places for all Times But the Caveat of the Text comes nearer to us it follows us to Church where we think our selves out of all danger and yet nearer to the very business we come about the hearing of Gods Word an imployment so safe from danger that we think no care is to be taken unless it be to get a place to hear in For concerning this hearing is the advice given upon occasion of the Parable of the Sower that went before wherein our Saviour himself interprets the Seed to be God's Word and the Soil in which it was sown to be the Hearers Of four several sorts but one came to good It is a great odds and yet I wish it were not often greater three to one of the Hearers miscarried and the fault was only in the hearing It is therefore very seasonable for us that are come to hear and especially at this time of Lent when there is more of this Seed sown than at any other time of the year Where the loss will be more the care should be greater Take heed what you hear This is the Argument whereof with Gods blessing we are now to treat COncerning our care about hearing it will not be amiss to bestow the first part of it about the meaning of the Words St. Luke relates the same passage with some difference Tade heed how your hear That which is quid here is quomodo there The difficulty will be Whether St. Mark should expound St. Luke or St. Luke St. Mark for in relating matter of fact the truth must be one though the words differ And yet the words do not so differ but that in Scripture the one is sometimes taken for the other quid for quomodo and quomodo for quid Gen. 2.19 God brought all the beasts of the field and fouls of the air to Adam to see what he would call them What that is How there is quid for quomodo On the other side Luke 10.26 we have quomodo for quid VVhat is written in the Law how readest thou How that is VVhat readest thou Though this promiscuous use of the phrases will serve to reconcile the Evangelists that they might mean the same thing in different words yet will it not serve to find out which that meaning should be It will be a safe course therefore to take both in for though vi verborum we can not yet which is lawful in a Preacher vi consequentiae we may for they are so close woven together that one cannot well go without the other It will be to no purpose how we hear unless we hear what we should and it will be to as little to hear what we should if we care not how we hear it If we take them both in they will compleat our