Selected quad for the lemma: prayer_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
prayer_n	cast_v	devil_n	fast_v	3,166	5	10.2336	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A45200	Contemplations upon the remarkable passages in the life of the holy Jesus by Joseph Hall.	Hall, Joseph, 1574-1656.	1679 (1679)	Wing H376; ESTC R30722	360,687	516

the strength of that evil spirit This kind goes not out but by prayer and fasting Weaker spirits were wont to be ejected by a command this Devil was more sturdy and boisterous As there are degrees of statures in men so there are degrees of strength and rebellion in spirituall wickednesses Here bidding will not serve they must pray and praying will not serve without fasting They must pray to God that they may prevail they must fast to make their prayer more fervent more effectuall We cannot now command we can fast and pray How good is our God to us that whilst he hath not thought fit to continue to us those means which are less powerfull for the dispossessing of the powers of darkness yet he hath given us the greater Whilst we can fast and pray God will command for us Satan cannot prevail against us XXXVII The Widow's Mites THE sacred wealth of the Temple was either in stuff or in coin For the one the Jews had an house for the other a chest At the concourse of all the males to the Temple thrice a year upon occasion of the solemn Feasts the oblations of both kinds were liberall Our Saviour as taking pleasure in the prospect sets himself to view those Offerings whether for holy uses or charitable Those things we delight in we love to behold The eye and the heart will goe together And can we think O Saviour that thy Glory hath diminished ought of thy gracious respects to our beneficence or that thine acceptance of our Charity was confined to the earth Even now that thou sittest at the right hand of thy Father's glory thou seest every hand that is stretched out to the relief of thy poor Saints here below And if vanity have power to stir up our Liberality out of a conceit to be seen of men how shall Faith encourage our Bounty in knowing that we are seen of thee and accepted by thee Alas what are we the better for the notice of those perishing and impotent eyes which can onely view the outside of our actions or for that waste wind of applause which vanisheth in the lips of the speaker Thine eye O Lord is piercing and retributive As to see thee is perfect Happiness so to be seen of thee is true contentment and glory And dost thou O God see what we give thee and not see what we take away from thee Are our Offerings more noted then our Sacrileges Surely thy Mercy is not more quick-sighted then thy Justice In both kinds our actions are viewed our account is kept and we are sure to receive Rewards for what we have given and Vengeance for what we have defalked With thine eye of Knowledge thou seest all we doe but what we doe well thou seest with thine eye of Approbation So didst thou now behold these pious and charitable Oblations How well wert thou pleased with this variety Thou sawest many rich men give much and one poor Widow give more then they in lesser room The Jews were now under the Roman pressure they were all tributaries yet many of them rich and those rich men were liberal to the common chest Hadst thou seen those many rich give little we had heard of thy censure thou expectest a proportion betwixt the giver and the gift betwixt the gift and the receit where that fails the blame is just That Nation though otherwise faulty enough was in this commendable How bounteously open were their hands to the house of God Time was when their liberality was fain to be restrained by Proclamation and now it needed no incitement the rich gave much the poorest gave more He saw a poor Widow casting in two mites It was misery enough that she was a Widow The married woman is under the carefull provision of an Husband if she spend he earns in that estate four hands work for her in her viduity but two Poverty added to the sorrow of her widowhood The loss of some Husbands is supplied by a rich joynture it is some allay to the grief that the hand is left full though the bed be empty this woman was not more desolate then needy Yet this poor widow gives And what gives she An offering like her self two mites or in our language two half-farthing-tokens Alas good woman who was poorer then thy self wherefore was that Corban but for the relief of such as thou who should receive if such give Thy mites were something to thee nothing to the Treasury How ill is that gift bestowed which dis-furnisheth thee and adds nothing to the common stock Some thrifty neighbour might perhaps have suggested this probable discouragement Jesus publishes and applauds her bounty He called his Disciples and said unto them Verily I say unto you this woman hath cast in more then they all Whilst the rich put in their offerings I see no Disciples called it was enough that Christ noted their gifts alone but when the Widow comes with her two mites now the domesticks of Christ are summoned to assemble and taught to admire this munificence a solemn preface makes way to her praise and her Mites are made more precious then the others Talents She gave more then they all More not onely in respect of the Mind of the giver but of the proportion of the gift as hers A mite to her was more then pounds to them Pounds were little to them two mites were all to her They gave out of their abundance she out of her necessity That which they gave left the heap less yet an heap still she gives all at once and leaves her self nothing So as she gave not more then any but more then they all God doth not so much regard what is taken out as what is left O Father of mercies thou lookest at once into the bottom of her heart and the bottom of her purse and esteemest her gift according to both As thou seest not as man so thou valuest not as man Man judgeth by the worth of the gift thou judgest by the mind of the giver and the proportion of the remainder It were wide with us if thou shouldst goe by quantities Alas what have we but mites and those of thine own lending It is the comfort of our meanness that our affections are valued and not our presents neither hast thou said God loves a liberal giver but a chearfull If I had more O God thou shouldst have it had I less thou wouldst not despise it who acceptest the gift according to that a man hath and not according to that he hath not Yea Lord what have I but two mites a Soul and a Body mere mites yea not so much to thine Infiniteness Oh that I could perfectly offer them up unto thee according to thine own right in them and not according to mine How graciously wouldst thou be sure to accept them how happy shall I be in thine acceptation XXXVIII The Ambition of the two Sons Zebedee HE who had his own time and ours in his hand foreknew

to us in our first birth our new birth acquits us from him and cuts off all his claim How miserable are they that have nothing but Nature Better had it been to have been unborn then not to be born again And if this poor soul from an infant were thus miserably handled having done none actual evil how just cause have we to fear the like Judgments who by many foul offences have deserved to draw this executioner upon us O my Soul thou hast not room enough for thankfulness to that good God who hath not delivered thee up to that malignant Spirit The distressed Father sits not still neglects not means I brought him to thy Disciples Doubtless the man came first to seek for Christ himself finding him absent he makes suit to the Disciples To whom should we have recourse in all our spiritual complaints but to the agents and messengers of God The noise of the like cures had surely brought this man with much confidence to crave their succour and now how cold was he at the heart when he found that his hopes were frustrate They could not cast him out No doubt the Disciples tried their best they laid their wonted charge upon this dumb spirit but all in vain They that could come with joy and triumph to their Master and say The Devils are subject to us find now themselves matched with a stubborn and refractory spirit Their way was hitherto smooth and fair they met with no rub till now And now surely the father of the Demoniack was not more troubled at this event then themselves How could they chuse but fear lest their Master had with himself with-drawn that spiritual power which they had formerly exercised Needs must their heart fail them with their success The man complained not of their impotence it were fondly injurious to accuse them for that which they could not doe had the want been in their will they had well deserved a querulous language it was no fault to want power Onely he complains of the stubbornness and laments the invincibleness of that evil spirit I should wrong you O ye blessed Followers of Christ if I should say that as Israel when Moses was gone up into the Mount lost their belief with their guide so that ye missing your Master who was now ascended up to his Tabor were to seek for your Faith Rather the Wisedom of God saw reason to check your over-assured forwardness and both to pull down your hearts by a just humiliation in the sense of your own weakness and to raise up your hearts to new acts of dependence upon that sovereign power from which your limited virtue was derived What was more familiar to the Disciples then ejecting of Devils In this onely it is denied them Our good God sometimes finds it requisite to hold us short in those abilities whereof we make least doubt that we may feel whence we had them God will be no less glorified in what we cannot doe then in what we can doe If his Graces were alwaies at our command and ever alike they would seem naturall and soon run into contempt now we are justly held in an awfull dependence upon that gracious hand which so gives as not to cloy us and so denies as not to discourage us Who could now but expect that our Saviour should have pitied and bemoaned the condition of this sad father and miserable son and have let fall some words of comfort upon them In stead whereof I hear him chiding and complaining O faithless and perverse generation how long shall I be with you how long shall I suffer you Complaining not of that wofull father and more wofull son it was not his fashion to adde affliction to the distressed to break such bruised reeds but of those Scribes who upon the failing of the success of this suit had insulted upon the disability of the Followers of Christ and depraved his power although perhaps this impatient father seduced by their suggestion might slip into some thoughts of distrust There could not be a greater crimination then faithless and perverse faithless in not believing perverse in being obstinately set in their unbelief Doubtless these men were not free from other notorious crimes all were drowned in their Infidelity Morall uncleannesses or violences may seem more hainous to men none are so odious to God as these Intellectuall wickednesses What an happy change is here in one breath of Christ How long shall I suffer you Bring him hither to me The one is a word of anger the other of favour His just indignation doth not exceed or impeach his Goodness What a sweet mixture there is in the perfect simplicity of the Divine Nature In the midst of judgment he remembers mercy yea he acts it His Sun shines in the midst of this storm Whether he frown or whether he smile it is all to one purpose that he may win the incredulous and disobedient Whither should the rigour of all our censures tend but to edification and not to destruction We are Physicians we are not executioners we give purges to cure and not poisons to kill It is for the just Judge to say one day to reprobate Souls Depart from me in the mean time it is for us to invite all that are spiritually possessed to the participation of mercy Bring him hither to me O Saviour distance was no hindrance to thy work why should the Demoniack be brought to thee Was it that this deliverance might be the better evicted and that the beholders might see it was not for nothing that the Disciples were opposed with so refractory a spirit or was it that the Scribes might be witnesses of that strong hostility that was betwixt thee and that foul spirit and be ashamed of their blasphemous slander or was it that the father of the Demoniack might be quickened in that Faith which now through the suggestion of the Scribes begun to droop when he should hear and see Christ so chearfully to undertake and perform that whereof they had bidden him despair The possessed is brought the Devil is rebuked and ejected That stiffe spirit which stood out boldly against the commands of the Disciples cannot but stoop to the voice of the Master that power which did at first cast him out of Heaven easily dispossesses him of an house of clay The Lord rebuke thee Satan and then thou canst not but flee The Disciples who were not used to these affronts cannot but be troubled at their mis-success Master why could not we cast him out Had they been conscious of any defect in themselves they had never ask'd the question Little did they think to hear of their Unbelief Had they not had great Faith they could not have cast out any Devils had they not had some want of Faith they had cast out this It is possible for us to be defective in some Graces and not to feel it Although not so much their weakness is guilty of this unprevailing as