Selected quad for the lemma: peace_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
peace_n	bring_v	good_a	tiding_n	2,863	5	11.4428	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A85510	A modest vindication of the doctrine of conditions in the Covenant of Grace, and the defenders thereof, from the aspersions of arminianism & popery, which Mr. W. E. cast on them. By the late faithful and godly minister Mr. John Graile, minister of the gospel at Tidworth in the county of Wilts. Published with a preface concerning the nature of the Covenant of Grace, wherein is a discovery of the judgment of Dr. Twisse in the point of justification, clearing him from antinomianism therein. By Constant Jessop, minister of the Gospel at Wimborn minister in the county of Dorset. Whereunto is added, a sermon, preached at the funeral of the said Mr. John Grail. By Humphrey Chambers, D.D. and pastor of the church at Pewsie.	Graile, John.; Chambers, Humphrey, 1598 or 9-1662.; Jessop, Constantine, 1601 or 2-1658. Pauls sad farewel to his Ephesians.	1654 (1654)	Wing G1477; Thomason E817_1; Thomason E817_2; ESTC R207370	97,971	125

even as Christ Jesus It is not possible to make a higher expression of enlarged love then this is whereby the Apostle set forth the affection which the believing Galatians bare towards him as a Minister of the Gospel who loved him and welcomed him upon this account as they would have done an Angel from Heaven or the Lord Jesus Christ himselfe if he had personally appeared and spoken to them The Grounds of this enlarged love of true Believers towards the faithful Ministers of the Gospel are amongst others which it would be too large exactly to treat of these which follow 1. First Believers look upon the faithful Ministers of the Gospel as a special gift of Christ unto his Church What thoughts soever others have of faithful Ministers yet true Believers know that they are in much love given by the Lord Christ for the edifying of his body till all the Members thereof come in the unity of the Faith and Knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man to the measure of the stature of the fulnesse of Christ And therefore Believers cannot but love such a guift of love proceeding from their beloved Lord and Saviour 2. Secondly True Believers look upon the faithful Ministers of the Gospel as Ambassadors for Christ in whome hee negotiateth with them in much mercy for the accomplishing their reconciliation to God and eternal happinesse 2 Corinth 5. 19 20. And therefore beholding Christ in them they cannot but greatly love them in Christ and very highly esteem them in love for their works sake 3. Thirdly True Believers are experimentally assured that the faithful Ministers of the Gospel are Ministerial Fathers to some and Nurses to all Gods people who hear the Gospel from their mouthes To such as are brought out of a state of ignorance and wickednesse unto the faith and obedience of Jesus Christ by the Gospel which they preach they are ministerial Fathers as we learne from what the Apostle wrote to the Corinthians Though ye have ten thousand Instructors in Christ yet have ye not many Fathers for in Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the Gospel The Lord of his own will originally begetteth his children by the word of Truth dispensed in the mouthes of the Preachers of the Gospel for How shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard How shall they hear without a Preacher and how shall they preach except they be sent As it is written How beautiful upon the mountaines are the feet of them that preach the Gospel of peace and bring glad tidings of good things The faithful Ministers of the Gospel of peace given by our Lord Christ for the work of the Ministry are therefore Ministerial Fathers too and so as spiritual parents acknowledged and beloved by those who through their Ministry are brought to the faith of the Gospel To others who have formerly entertained the truth of the Gospel in a regenerating power the faithful Ministers of the Gospel are as Nurses cherishing and strengthening them by the Word of God which they preach For the same Word of the Gospel which begetteth nourisheth and buildeth up the people of God unto eternal life And in this second cherishing work the Ministers of the Gospel are and are acknowledged by believers for spiritual Nurses according to the Apostles expression to the Thessaloniuns We were gentle amongst you even as a nurse cherisheth her own children Now Nurses we know sometimes get away the love of children from their true parents and in the case before us it is often seen that though true believers cannot forget their ministerial Fathers yet they are apt to fall much in love with their spiritual Nurses who at present feed and refresh them with the word of Truth The sum is that as Fathers or Nurses or both all those that truly believe the Gospel are ready to love the faithful Ministers of the Gospel whilst they enjoy them Now this Truth being acknowledged the last point I am to speak to in the Doctrine becometh evident of it selfe namely That a faithful Minister is finally parted from with much sorrow by those who truly believe the Gospel for love is a strong bond knitting the soul so fast to that which is beloved that it cannot lose it or be loosed and parted from it without much sorrow We read that Jacob loved Joseph more then all his brethren and when he thought that Joseph was finally taken from him He rent his cloathes and put sackcloath upon his loynes and mourned for his son many dayes And all his sons and daughters rose up to comfort him and he refused to be comforted and he said For I will go down into the grave unto my son mourning And even thus it is betweene true Believers and faithful Ministers of the Gospel the true and great love which such Believers bear unto such Ministers makes their presence sweet and therefore necessarily their final parting very grievous unto them To this I will briefly add two further grounds of much sorrow in those who truly believe the Gospel for the final removal of faithful Ministers by death from them 1. First When faithful Ministers are taken away by death Believers are at an utter losse as to the enjoyment of any comfort or benefit from the person or personal Ministry of them that are so removed from them If they could have the least hope of re-enjoying a faithful Minister after death there would be yet some string of comfort to hold by at their departing but Believers know that this is a final parting from a faithful Minister they must never seek counsel or comfort or instruction more from his mouth death unavoydably putteth the servants of Christ to silence and taketh them off from being in their persons useful in the work of the Ministry unto the living for ever The Apostle Paul wrote to the Philippians that his abiding in the flesh would be needful for them for their furtherance and joy of Faith Philip. 1. v. 24 25. and thereby intimated that when he was by death removed from them they neither could expect nor should receive any farther benefit from his person or personal Ministry Herein our blessed Saviour happily differeth from and hath a transcendent preheminence above his servants in the Ministry that whereas their final parting from their people in the flesh maketh them personally unuseful to others for the time to come it was not so with our Lord Jesus Christ His parting from his people in the flesh caused a greater imparting of himself unto them in spiritual benefits as is testified by our Saviour himselfe saying to his Disciples Neverthelesse I tell you the truth it is expedient for you that I go away for if I go not away the Comforter will not come unto you but if I depart I will send him unto you Our Saviour went away as a Mediatour and Advocate between God and Man and not as a bare Minister of the Gospel and

in the end for troubling of the Church her peace they were some of the chief of them cut off and banished May not my dear brother the like use be made of your present Doctrine Yea is it not think you already made by divers Are not the hearts of many taken off thereby from their faithful Ministers and Pastors whom before they loved prized hearkened to received good from yea haply received their conversion by if they be indeed converted are not I say their hearts taken off from these their spiritual Fathers so that they neglect their Sermons contemne their counsels call them nick-name them Legal Teachers and Ministers of the Old Testament when yet I hope you your selfe cannot in your conscience but acknowledg them for the true Ambassadors of the Lord Jesus May not this ill issue of your Doctrine lye heavy on your spirits Again may not the Writings of Pemble Preston Perkins and other our Worthies now with God for their holding of Conditions and professing the conditions of Faith and Repentance as without which we cannot have life be laid aside and neglected Nay are not these Authors themselves contemned as men of darker times and not acquainted with such cleare light as now shineth though you know there is more of the power and marrow of Christianity in one of their pages then in ten leaves of your new lighted Meteors Beside are not many of the godly who love you and were hearers of you driven from your Lectures or at least cannot come to them without fear and jealousie others thereby amazed not knowing whom to follow and most called away from the practice of Religion to that needlesse disquisition of a curious speculation When he builders clash the Building must needs be interrupted and when the Witnesses disagree the Jurors can bring in little better then an Ignoramus in their Bill I do beseech you Sir to consider how by this your Tenent the names and Doctrine of Gods faithful Ministers dead and living are aspersed the minds of the godly troubled the peace of the Church disquieted the hands of the wicked strengthened the mouthes of the Adversaryes opened and the hearts of your friends exceedingly sadded and to draw back your foot before you are gone too far By the wicket of an interpretative absolutenesse I should hope that you might yet recover your self in safety however by the door of retractation I am sure you may and though that work be an unpleasing businesse to flesh and blood yet is it one of the noblest Offices of a Christian souldier in which spiritual warfare as well as in temporal as much honour may be gained by a good Retreat as by a couragious Incounter or prosperous Victory FINIS PAULS SAD FAREVVEL TO HIS EPHESIANS OPENED IN A SERMON At the FUNERAL of Mr. JOHN GRAILE Minister of TIDWORTH in the Country of WILTS By HUMPHREY CHAMBERS D. D. And Minister of the Gospel at Peusie in the same County Praelucendo periit He was a burning and a shining light John 5. 35. The Righteous perish and no man layeth it to heart and merciful men are taken away none considering that the righteous is taken away from the evil to come Isai 57. 1. London Printed for Math. Keinton at the Fountain in Pauls Church Yard 1655 A Funeral Sermon COncerning the very sad occasion of our present meeting there is no need that I speak unto you seeing it is or may be knowne unto you all that we have at this time accompanied though not a very aged yet an able faithful painful and godly Minister of Jesus Christ unto his grave that house prepared for all the living where as to his body he is to rest until that great day when all that are in their graves shall hear the voice of the Son of God and shall come forth they that have done good to the Resurrection of life they that have done evil to the Resurrection of damnation at what time the faithful Ministers of Jesus Christ how much soever contemned clouded and cloathed with reproach in this world who have fed the stock of God taking the oversight thereof not by constraint but willingly not for filthy lucre but of a ready mind neither as being Lords over Gods heritage but being example to the flock when the chief Shepherd shall appear they also shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away Yea they shall then together with all other Gods servants enter in all fulnesse into the joy of their Lord and be possessed of an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled that fadeth not away reserved in heaven for them The Holy Ghost tels us in Eccl. 7. 11. That a good name is better then precious ointment with that rich Embalming is our dear Brother gone unto his grave which will make his memory sweet and precious enough to all that knew him and love God And of such a one who is buryed with this sweet Odour the Holy Ghost witnesseth in the end of that verse That the day of death is better then the day of birth The day of Birth brings every one to an afflicted dying life but the day of death bringeth every such one yea every child of God to an everlasting life of never dying glory Whether you that are the Inhabitants of this place were sensible of your blessing in the enjoying the Ministry of this our deceased Brother or are apprehensive of your losse in his departure from you I cannot say for you are all strangers unto me but this I am sure of concerning very many who have occasionally enjoyed the fruit of his Labours that they sadly bewail the removing of one so furnished with skil and will to declare the truth of God and to oppose the old Superstitious and new or rather renewed Errors which on the right and left hand do oppose the Progress of a blessed Reformation amongst us And upon this Account my heart greatly mourneth over this brother of ours whom God hath taken away from us by whose death a great breach is made amongst us of the Ministry in these parts at this time wherein open profanenesse and pernicious Errours do so much abound When wee consider our Brothers Ministerial Qualifications and Graces his Ability and Humility embracing and beautifying each other his conscionable and Christian circumspection over himselfe and his Doctrine it is very doubtful whether he were more ripe for life or fit for death Questionlesse this our Brother after he had notice of deaths approach towards him could not but be sensible of the Apostle Pauls strait between a desire of living to do good to others and dying to receive good for himselfe of serving the Lord Christ in life and possessing the Lord Christ more fully in death yet I am confident that in this case he did prostrate himself obedientially at the feet of the will of God And seeing the Lord hath now declared his purpose to make this our dear Brothers gain our losse we must

to g●ve warning of such pernicious Errors and Practices as he seeth breaking in upon such as are committed to his oversight such a one however he speed in his own judgment and the judgment of others shall not fail before the Judgment Seat of God to stand in the rank and passe in the account of the faithful servants and Ministers of Jesus Christ Having thus shewed when a man may be said to bee a faithful Minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ I come in the next place to consider who are they who truly believe the Gospel to whom such faithful Ministers are precious who enjoy them in love and part from them in sorrow There is hardly any thing as I conceive in our unsettled times more pernicious then the mistake which many are subject to about the nature of believing Much talk there is of faith and the Gospel whilst few consider what is indeed the faith of the Gospel I shal therefore indeavour in few and plain words to clear unto you from the Scriptures who are the truly faithful the true Believers of the Gospel 1. First They truly believe the Gospel who glorifie the Word of the Lord as it is testifyed of the believing Gentiles to whom Paul preached the Gospel at Antioch When the Gentiles heard this they were glad and glorified the Word of the Lord and as many as were ordained to eternal life believed Every true Believer glorifieth the Word of the Gospel by yeilding a firme assent unto it as a word of Truth setting a high price upon it as the only saving Truth holding it fast as a stable everlasting Truth and still desiring of it and delighting in it as an edifying and perfecting Truth which is able to build men up and give them an inheritance amongst those that are sanctified If men boast never so much of believing because they are confident that Christ is theirs and that all the benefits which flow from the Lord Christ are theirs yet if they do not glorifie the Word of the Lord the Word of the Gospel making an high account of it as a Word of Truth a saving everlasting edifying perfecting Word they shall never make it out before the presence of God that they have the true faith of the Gospel in them 2. Secondly True Believers of the Gospel are such as receive the Word of the Gospel with spiritual gladnesse as we read of that flock of faithful Converts brought in at one Sermon Then they that gladly received the word were baptized The Word of the Gospel cannot by faith enter into the soul but it bringeth in spiritual gladness with it Temporal believing hath a sleight and suddain joy accompanying it as our Saviour testified in the interpretation of the Parable of the Sower as to the stony ground He that received the seed in stony places the same is he that heareth the word and anon with joy receiveth it yet hath he not root in himself but dureth for a while An unrooted faith yeildeth an unsettled joy but when the Word is with a stedfast sound and saving faith received it usually out of the state of strong temptation and spiritual disertion filleth the soul with joy and peace in believing Now this receiving the Word by faith importeth a taking of it into all the faculties of the soul to new mould and transform them according to the holiness of the Gospel The Apostle James calleth it the receiving of the engrafted word because the word of the Gospel thus received as the graft set into the stock causeth all the sap of the inward faculties of the soul to bring forth such fruit as is sutable to the holy Word of the Gospel It is a very unworthy and ungrounded Opinion that a man can believingly receive the word of the Gospel and not be new moulded by it unto holines If any think that the Word of the Gospel shall be mighty to save them when it is not effectual to sanctifie them they deceive themselves and should attend to the Apostle James his Doctrine for right information in this point who sheweth that the Word of the Gospel is received as an ingrafted new moulding word in all those towards whom it is effectual to save their souls 3 Thirdly They that believingly receive the Word of the Gospel are brought off from trusting upon their own works and righteousnesse to trust and rest their souls upon the Lord Jesus Christ as the one which in Scripture dialect imports the only Mediatour between God and man for forgivenesse of sins peace with God righteousnesse and eternal life The Apostle Paul called believing in Christ hoping or trusting in Christ Ephes 1. 12 13 because all that truly believe cast away the thought of acceptance with God unto life in the merit of their own Righteousnesse and as worthlesse sinners build their hope of righteousness to life fully and wholly upon the Lord Jesus as the Mediator of the New Testament through whom they finally bottom their faith and hope on God 1 Pet. 1. 21. 4 Fourthly They truly believe the Gospel who trusting on Christ for Righteousnesse and life have their hearts brought on by believing to the love and high prizing of the Lord Jesus as most precious and desirable 1 Pet. 2. 7. Faith looking and resting upon Christs love inflameth the heart with the love of Christ according to the Apostles words In Christ neither Circumcision availeth any thing nor uncircumcision but faith which worketh by love And this true love of Christ the necessary and inseparable product of Gospel faith in all true Believers is obediential causing the faithful heart to stoop to the yoak and work of the Lord Christ as we learne from our Saviours own mouth If ye love me keep my Commandments And again He that hath my Commandments and keepeth them he it is that loveth me And yet further If any man love me he wil keep my words By all this it is manifest That they who truly believe the Gospel are such as glorifie the Gospel by embracing it as a saving everlasting edifying and perfecting Word of Truth who with gladnesse receive this word into all the faculties of the soul to mould them into a frame of Gospel holinesse who rest themselves upon the Lord Christ for Righteousnesse and life according to the Gospel and in the strength of that faith have their hearts knit to the Lord Christ in high prizing obediential love of him These two Points being dispatched viz. Who is a faithful Minister and Who are the true Believers of the Gospel I proceed in the next place to shew that such a Minister is enjoyed with much love by such a people This we have fully ascertained by the Apostles testimony which hee bare unto the Galatians when the faith of the Gospel at first prevailed amongst them My temptation saith he which was in my flesh ye despised not nor rejected but received me even as an Angel of God