Selected quad for the lemma: power_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
power_n	body_n	raise_v	sow_v	6,220	5	12.4203	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A70803	A decad of caveats to the people of England of general use in all times, but most seasonable in these, as having a tendency to the satisfying such as are not content with the present government as it is by law establish'd, an aptitude to the setling the minds of such as are but seekers and erraticks in religion an aim at the uniting of our Protestant-dissenters in church and state : whereby the worst of all conspiracies lately rais'd against both, may be the greatest blessing, which could have happen'd to either of them : to which is added an appendix in order to the conviction of those three enemies to the deity, the atheist, the infidel and the setter up of science to the prejudice of religion / by Thomas Pierce ...	Pierce, Thomas, 1622-1691.	1679 (1679)	Wing P2176; Wing P2196; ESTC R18054	221,635	492

and that indeed is one Sense of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nor can we say they are Possessors but onely Personators of Holiness I am not willing to be so rigid and do heartily wish it were false to say That they are really nothing else but the Apes of Satan who is Then at his worst the Prince of Darkness when he transforms himself the most into an Angel of Light So said our Saviour and so S. Paul And from both we may infer That of all the Hypocrites in the world the Devil himself is the most Demure and by being such indeed is the more a Devil Thus we see what is meant by the Relative Which in this Place and what use we are to make of its Antecedent § 13. But what may last of all be meant by seeing the Lord in this Text that our Apostle should set it down as the greatest Recompence of Reward to such as are Followers of Peace and Holiness When Moses desired to see the Lord and therefore earnestly pray'd that God would shew him his Glory The very Mercy of God's Answer did consist in the Reason of his Denial Thou canst not see my Face for there is no man shall see me and live And therefore Gideon himself although a mighty man of Valour as God himself is pleas'd to call him a man as stout as the steel with which his Proverbial Sword was temper'd was yet exceedingly afraid as soon as he perceiv'd he had seen an Angel of the Lord. And so it was with good reason that Manoah said unto his Wife We shall surely Die because we have seen God And if these things are so that we cannot see God without the danger of sudden Death It may seem a sad thing for a man to be a Follower of Peace and Holiness because by that means he shall see the Lord. But § 14. The Answer to this is extreamly obvious It being no more than to distinguish betwixt the Eyes of our vile and of our glorified Bodies If we behold him with the first we shall find him indeed a consuming Fire But when we shall see him with the second we shall find him nothing less than a quickening Light Here our Eyes are so carnal that it very much hurts us to see the Sun unless we see him in his Reflexion or at least through the veil of some Diaphanous Body And if the Brightness of the Sun is enough to strike the Beholder Blind How can we safely gaze on Him to whom the Sun is but a Shadow Yet after the Time of Restitution when what is sown in weakness shall be raised again in power Then our Life will consist in the sight of God We then shall see him as he is no longer darkly as in a Glass but face to face and that with infinite Pleasure as well as Ease And this alone is that Vision which is alluded to in the Text. Without an earnest Prosecution of Peace and Holiness in conjunction no one shall be qualified to live by seeing what here he cannot see and live None shall enter within the Veil or be made a partaker of the Beatifick Vision None shall wait on his Throne in whose presence is Life and where there are Pleasures for evermore § 15. Thus in the Suit of the Explication we have before we are aware a full Division of the Text. And not so only but also practical Reflections on all its parts First We have seen a single Act of great Moment And Secondly How 't is fixt on a double Object The double Object is Peace and Holiness which according to the Scope of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 shewing the Energie and the Force of the single Act are to be Prosecuted and follow'd with Zeal and Fervour Next to the Act and the Object which are sufficiently express'd we have their absolute Necessity very significantly imply'd For these are set as the Condition on which alone we arrive at Bliss It is for none to see God but the pure in heart And therefore this is a cogent Reason for the fastening of the Act on the Double Object For the Intensiveness of the one and the Extensiveness of the other § 16. But now because it is impossible that men should eagerly pursue their Christian Duties whilst they believe them to be needless or gainless Things Things which rob them of their happiness in this present World and without which they may be happy in That to come We must possess our selves more fully than we have hitherto done not onely with the Nature of Peace and Holiness but more especially and in the first place with their absolute Necessity to life aeternal whereof unless we throughly convince our selves we cannot hope with any reason to ingage our Resolutions to follow Both. § 17. First For the word Peace it is that that comprehends our whole Duty towards our Neighbour and as well to our Enemies as to our Friends For how can we follow Peace with All men in so earnest a manner as the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 does import unless we labour by forgiveness to overcome evil with good Rom. 12. ult much more must we render unto every man his Due Tribute to whom Tribute Custom to whom Custom Honour to whom Honour Fear to whom Fear Rom. 13. 7. and so by analogy of Proportion Service to vvhom Service Love to vvhom Love no injury to vvhom no injury is due For every Injury is breach of Peace We must owe no man any thing but to love one another Rom. 13. 8. And therefore injure him vve must not no not so much as in desire This is to follow Peace indeed when we do not onely not give a Cause but not so much as an occasion of just offence When we keep not onely our Hands but even our Heads and our Hearts from picking and stealing When we do not commit Adultery no not so much as with our Eyes When we do no Murther no not so much as in our wishes When we dishonour not our Parents whether private or publick Ecclesiastical or Civil not not so much as in our Wills This is as much as in us lies to make an eager Prosecution of Peace with all men Which comprehends our whole Obedience to the Second Table of the Law § 18. Secondly As Peace does grasp the whole Duty of Man to Man so we may say also of Holiness that 't is the whole immediate Duty of Man to God Which more especially consisteth in these three Things In preserving our Loyalty in exhibiting our Reverence and lastly in rendring our Active Service The first hath respect unto our Thoughts the second unto our Words the third unto our Actions First for Loyalty That we know is a vertue by which a Servant does acknowledge no Master but his own holds no Intelligence with his Enemies admits no Rival in his Affections but ever honours him and owns him and adheres to him alone

persons so imbued want Power to break it § 13. Take we heed then in the next place of such Deceivers as sow the seeds of Discontent in their credulous Congregations by feeding the People with Apprehensions fears and jealousies of Superstition and Popery and impositions upon Religion by the Commandments of Men. This has been a sore Evil under the Sun ever since the Days of Queen Elizabeth by fictitious and pretended to make a Broad way for real Popery When a Protestant resolves to espouse a Schism a Separation from the most perfect of Protestant Churches in the World He must accuse her either of Popery or of Papistical Inclinations for fear of being found out by all to drive a Trade of Animosities either for Revenge or for filthy Lucre or for fear of being known to be Satan's chief Journy-man in being passionately amorous of breeding Hatreds and a Lover of Schism as it is Schism Neither Christ nor his Apostles were used otherwise or worse than the Church of England whose Accusations were adapted to their Enemies Ends which were onely to make them odious and thorowly fitted for Destruction as far from Truth or Probability as Truth can possibly be from Falshood Nor could it sure be more impossible that Christ himself blessed for ever should be a Conjurer or a Glutton who yet was accused of being Both than that His Spouse the Church of England should be Popishly affected whose first Reformers were put to Death for resisting Popery and whose Sons at this day are the Sole Persons that keep it out and whose Communion is detested by none so much as the Popish Party who are not wont to hate men for their kind affections A man would think that all Protestants should unite themselves with us because the Romanists will not A man would think that no Protestant should separate from us because the Romanists all do A man would think our common Enemies should make us Friends But when the Primitive Christians were to be baited and torn in pieces 't was but suitable for them to be put in Bears Skins too And 't is as suitable for our Church to be very well cloath'd with the worst of Calumnies by such as aim at her Ruin and are resolv'd on her Condemnation The many Divisions and Subdivisions of our Sectaries in England cannot be easily reckon'd up they are so numerous for there are hardly more Divisions amongst the Romanists themselves Every Sect is desirous to have the new-modelling or new-moulding of our Church and there is not one of them but has as much pretense for it as any other if not an equal right yet an equal want of right to be our Reformers They being equally void of and as equally Dissenters from all Authority abounding All equally in a preference of their own to Superiour Judgments equal Admirers of Themselves and as equally contemptuous of other men There is not an Anabaptist or Quaker not an Adamite or a Behemist no nor any other Sectary of whatsoever Denomination but thinks it hard and takes it ill we are not All of Their Opinion and do not conform to Their way of Worship Now what a Monster would our Church be if every one of these Sects had the shaping of her and how much worse would our Babel be than That which they call The Whore of Babylon What then is to be done or to be said in this case of our present Breaches They that are over us in Authority must tell us what is to be done But what is fittest to be said I suppose is This That such of our Englishmen as own themselves Protestants and yet divide from the Church of England do contribute a great deal more towards the bringing in of Popery than all the Emissaries of Rome could have done without them And if ever we live to see the Abomination of Desolation standing as heretofore in our holy Places it will enter in at That and at no other Door than what our Schisms and Separations have open'd to it Nothing but our Divisions can bring in Popery and I had almost said too that Nothing but our Vnion can keep it out But united we cannot be whilst they that have divided from us are so strangely subdivided among themselves unless it be by All Parties from every part of the Circumference concentring themselves in the Church of England And this the proudest of them may do not onely without a Blush but with the greatest honour and reputation to be imagin'd For what I pray is the Church of England but a most Renowned and National Church A National Church the most peaceably and the most regularly reformed of All the Churches The chief Reformed Church of Christendom which has publickly been Establish'd by Law and Canon The onely Protestant Church in Europe which has been able as well as willing to protect other Churches in their Distresses In a word The Church of England has ever conquer'd and confuted and if her fugitive Children do not unnaturally betray her will ever keep us all safe from the Church of Rome § 14. Take we heed in the Third place of such Deceivers as would have it thought a mark of the most reform'd to preach up an Exemption from human Laws such especially as relate to the externals of Religion and so a Licentiousness of Life for Christian Liberty ever pressing their Hearers to stand fast in it that is to be obstinate and sturdy Rebells As if the Liberty of a Christian wherein the Galatians were bid to stand fast were not at all a Manumission from the Bondage of Sin and from the Empire of Satan and from the Rigor of the Law as 't was given by Moses But a freedom from Christ and Christianity it self Not onely from the positive but from the Moral Law of Moses which is as well the Law of Nature and the Law of Christ too and which he tells us most expresly He came not to abrogate but on the contrary to fulfill and also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to fill it up As if the Liberty of a Christian extended it self even to Libertinism it self rendring every man free to judge the Laws and Legislators and with a greater force of reason the learned Judges of the Land free to regulate the Laws by their several Humours which by the way is a thing impossible and flatly implies a Contradiction rather than to regulate their several Humours by the Laws which is not onely possible but so absolutely necessary that He who will not do this conform his private humour to publick Laws is fit to live in a Desert in the Company of Creatures which have no Law at all not in a Kingdom or Commonwealth not in a City or a Church where Human Laws under God's are the Life of Liberty and Propriety nor onely of Livelihood but Life it self Whosoever has been protected from any injuries of men by the Laws in force must needs confirm by his Experience the Truth of what I now