Selected quad for the lemma: rest_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
rest_n	day_n	holy_a	sanctify_v	4,193	5	10.2830	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A96973	Five sermons, in five several styles; or Waies of preaching. The [brace] first in Bp Andrews his way; before the late King upon the first day of Lent. Second in Bp Hall's way; before the clergie at the author's own ordination in Christ-Church, Oxford. Third in Dr Maine's and Mr Cartwright's way; before the Universitie at St Maries, Oxford. Fourth in the Presbyterian way; before the citie at Saint Paul's London. Fifth in the Independent way; never preached. With an epistle rendring an account of the author's designe in printing these his sermons, as also of the sermons themselves. / By Ab. Wright, sometimes Fellow of St John Baptist Coll. in Oxford.	Wright, Abraham, 1611-1690.	1656 (1656)	Wing W3685; Thomason E1670_1; ESTC R208406	99,151	247

day or as the Moon that gives light to the night and that the time will come that God himselfe will be the light of men without creature-helps or meanes and these teachings of God shall never cease Then secondly as we are to deny the Ordinance of Preaching so likewise of Praying and Fasting and all ordinances whatsoever so as I said before to rest upon them to lay our faith upon them And the reason is cause that Ordinances are nothing without the Lord. Every one will confesse that the letter is a dead letter without the Spirit and the Ordinances are meer formes without God's appearance in them and therefore our designe is to couple the Lord and Ordinances together and we cannot endure to heare of the parting of them though many now adayes do who crie so we have Ordinances we are well Now this is that we must deny or else it will appear that we promise to our selves something from the bare outward form of an Ordinance and so like the Israelites we are hankering after the flesh-pots of Egypt though they had better meat in the wildernesse yet their flesh-pots run in their minds So though God offer himselfe and though the Saints tell you they cannot find God in such and such formes but find him abundantly good in the spirit and they find that he recompences the want of all formes in the spirit and presses you to wait till God appeares to you in the spirit O! say you I can never believe that God should do it without an Ordinance or that God should strengthen you without an Ordinance God thinke you with an Ordinance can strengthen me and deliver me and save me out of temptation not otherwise This is to say that the Ordinance or fleshly form doth add something to God If you confesse God to be all in an Ordinance you must confesse him to be all without an Ordinance to be sufficient of himselfe I desire not to be mistaken I judge not those that find God in Ordinances and outward formes Let them wait upon God and let them receive and partake of the benefit of the Ordinance and let them blesse God for it and be faithfull to their own principles and let them be sweet to others But when we do find God in a Forme and in an Ordinance to say he is not to bee found and enjoyed any other way this is not a right spirit and this is to be resigned up and denied by us A maine and principall reason of the point is that God alone may be exalted For as civil formes are accompanied with many corrupt yet cleaving interests so spirituall administrations are attended in their Proselites with flesh forme selfe which doe many times deprave and corrupt the Administration and render it ineffectuall to the end for which it was appointed And as it is the designe of God to purge the civil administration from its dregs and filth so the Lord carries on the same designes in paring away all humane interests from the spiritual that so he alone may bee exalted besides as civill formes are not the substance but the out-side onely and appearanee of that equity and reason which they ought to represent So is it with the spiritual as being onely supplemental to our wants absence weaknes until such time as we come to live in the very life or substance its selfe So that spiritual administrations being of an inferior and entervening notion cannot possibly hold forth the most compleat and glorious way of enjoyment which in the Scripture is said to bee by sight and not by faith and such a sight as is not in forme or glasse but face to face The sight which Moses had of God as it did transcend the ordinary discovery to common Saints so it was farr inferiour to this vision for Moses saw but the backpa●t of God And yet as their sacrifices did t●●e out the true sacrifices which we enjoy so this vision in regard of the immediateness of it beares some proportion with that glorious discovery in the Saints where God shall be seen as he is but this discovery is darkned and vail'd in the outward forme even in the designe of God himselfe for the weake understanding being not able to behold the brightnesse of this presence as the Israelites fled from the sight of God it is the pleasure of the Father to cast a vaile over his glory which vail is the forme that so the discoveries thereof may bee born by us Our enjoy ments will be then most sublime when this vail is rent a sunder and way made to the Holy of Holies or the naked glory by the power and purity of the spirit In the mean time the forme is proportioned to the darknesse of the fleshly understanding and therefore it is that the glory is limited and confined therein and given out according to the measure of our stature by degrees this justifies the design and wisedom of God in choosing these waies and methods in the manifestation of himself For the occasion of spiritual administrations is the darknesse and weaknesse of the creature all which make up a bundle of necessities which are thus summ'd up Man beeing clouded with a dark and mistie understanding stands at a great distance from the clear light of God by reason wheros hee apprehends nothing but what is suitable to himself and his enjoiment is answerable to his light that is weak and glimmering But God stoops down to humane frailtie and gives out himself in weak appearances Mosaical forms which are as mediums between God and us But when this darknesse and distance is removed by the power of God man becomes near and his enjoiments immediate which must needs be the best because nearest the fountain For the appearances of God like the beams of the Sun the farther they passe the more weak and imperfect are they as to us Hence it is that God in spirit beeing the most immediate appearance is therefore strongest God in flesh the next to that but of an inferiour cognisance and operation And the deeper God descends into flesh as into the sacrifices of old the more is his glory cloath'd upon and by consequence the more dark and obscure is his presence and our enjoiment So that still while we are within the compasse of appearances they may afford us a good but not the most excellent life For the highest life is above all appearances even in the substance it self For which is better to live in the appearance of a thing or in the thing it self in the branch or in the tree in the root or in the rinde To live in the substance is a life fuller of heavenly contemplation and rest For as the daies of God's labour were common and ordinarie but the day of his rest sanctified and holy so it is with the Saints The life of a Christian under administrations and forms is the day of his labour and he meets with many uncertainties disappointments and

troubles in the outward form as the experience of Saints can witnesse But the life above is the day of his rest wherein hee studies all things and sees them to be very good yea and ceaseth from his works as God did from his But did not God himself ordain Form and where did he abrogate it you will say I answer As there was a time to plant so there is a time to pluck up what was planted For Form was never created as a standing rule but as a temporarie help to serve a turn which when it is once accomplished the means cease as having usher'd in the end Neither is the abrogation of Form onely in the letter but in the discovery of an higher glory which darkens the first as the Sun darkens the starrs So that the discovery of Gospel-forms is the abrogation of Legal and the Gospel administration in external rites gives way to an higher glory And yet there are some hints in the letter of this glorious state as Isa 25. and Rev. 21. 2 Pet. 3. 13. Nevertheless we according to his promise look for new heavens and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness Though the glorie of the mysteries contained in it are to be experimented in us You 'l say Christ and his Apostles submitted to the outward Form 'T is true Christ in the flesh was made under the Law and submitted to Circumcision as well as Baptisme he under-went the state of death or sorrow and the state of flesh or form Heb. 5. 7. Who in the daies of his flesh when he had offered up praiers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death and was heard in that he feared Wherein he praied and at the last was raised up to the state of mirth or immediate discovery wherein he did rejoice So that Christ in the flesh is the figure of several administrations and every Christian is an embleme in one stage or another of his life Some live in a crucified some in a glorified Jesus some live in his life some in his death some live in Christ after the flesh others in Christ after the spirit And amongst these the highest pitch of a Christian is Christ risen or rather sitting at God's right hand for here is immediatenesse of favour and enjoiment But in the mean time Ordinances and Administrations take place after one sort or other till this state come For as the appearances of God are stronger or weaker so administrations are of several sorts the most eminent are Paradifical Legal and Evangelical Paradifical administrations then took place when the angelical nature being clothed upon with a humane appearance did contemplate its Maker in things below himself the clear stream of the whole creation and the heavenly spirit being likewise clothed upon was a proportionated subject to entertain that discovery This administration did not contein the most compleat enjoiment For here the vail was first set up and man of necessitie must have ceased to his being or form though he had never sinn'd that so he might bee raised up to an higher enjoiment This administration was but for a season for when flesh and self had defiled the stream the glory crept inward and was withdrawn from our view and in came a multitude of helps to usher in but a review of the same glory this was the original of legal sacrifices and administrations But as the fountain was clear'd by degrees and the imagerendred more perspicuous so Gospel administrations succeeded in the place of the Legal as differing onely from them in degrees of light These administrations are not distinguish'd by fleshly Epoches or Periods of time but are interchangeably managed within the Saints according to their degrees of light as being partly bond and partly free partly in the flesh form and letter partly in the spirit and power Which state is a state of confusion and mixture not of puritie The death of Christ himself did not straitwaies determine the Legal administration for the Apostles and Believers did continue to observe them until such time as an higher discovery was made known within them and even then when an higher discovery was made known unto them when they were perfectly under a Gospel state yet had they but the first fruits of the spirit and were in the dark in many things Yea Saint Paul holds forth a state atteinable by the Saints which he himself came short of Phil. 4. which John saw by the spirit of prophesie Rev. 21. And if any shall deny this new state let us reason a little from concessions and grants and see what the enjoiment of a Christian may amount to It is granted by all and cannot be denied that the letter of the word holds forth more glory then is yet attain'd and that many prophesies are to be fulfilled relating to that glory of the Saints among which that in the Revelations is one as likewise that perfection is to be press'd after Heb. 6. which certainly is more then uprightnesse for the Apostle speaks to upright Saints Now what this glory these new heavens this state of perfection is the dispute and question of these daies which to me is resolved thus That there is a glorious state of the Saints to be discovered in the last daies consisting not in a fleshly paradise or material enjoiment but in the true vision of God in the spirit and high light of heavenly glory This state was the hope and joy of the Prophets Apostles and other Christians who foresaw the day thereof And well might it bee so considering the many mysteries contein'd therein which no other state can attein unto For here the Christian sees all things in the light of God Here is opened unchangeable glory and essential will perfect freedom restitution of all things heavenly rest There man ceaseth questions are resolved union clear'd and all expectations satisfied And thus have you seen the first particular wherein wee must deny our Religion it is in relation to Ordinances and Forms and administrations Secondly in the second place we must deny our religion in respect of the Scriptures so as to rest upon the letter and to prefer it above the teaching of the spirit in it Heare this all you that idolize Scripture so much as to prefer those writings before the God of the Apostles and Prophets it is very possible that a man may attain to the litteral knowledge of the Scriptures and may speak largely of the history thereof and draw conclusions and raise many uses for the present support of a troubled soul or for the restraining of lewd practises and direction of a civil conversation and yet they that speake and they that heare may be not only unacquainted with but enemies to that spirit of truth by which those Prophets and Apostles write For it is not the Apostles writings but the spirit that dwelleth in them that did inspire their hearts that gives life and peace to us all And