Selected quad for the lemma: scripture_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
scripture_n	church_n	word_n	write_a	3,648	5	10.7659	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A45280	The invisible world discovered to spirituall eyes and reduced to usefull meditation : in three books : also, the great mystery of godliness laid forth by way of affectuous and feeling meditation : with the apostolicall institution of imposition of hands for confirmation of children, setting forth the divine ground, end, and use of that too much neglected institution, and now published as an excellent expedient to truth and peace / by Jos. Hall.	Hall, Joseph, 1574-1656.	1659 (1659)	Wing H387; ESTC R25402	72,809	262

the Christian Church for which what good soul doth not mourn in secret the danger whereof ye shall happily avoid if ye shall keep close to the written word of our God which is only able to make you wise to salvation As our Saviour repelled the Devill so do ye the fanatick spirits of these brain-sick men with It is written Let those who would be wiser then God justly perish in their presumption My soul for yours if ye keep you to S. Pauls guard not to be wise above that which is written I could easily out of the exuberance of my Christian love overcharg you with multiplicity of holy coun●ses but I would not take a tedious farewell May the God of heaven bless these and all other wholesom admonitions to the furtherance of your souls in grace and may his good spirit ever lead guide us in all such wayes as may be pleasing to him till we happily meet in the participation of that incomprehensible glory which he hath prepared for all his Saints till when Farewel from your fellow-pilgrim in this vale of tears Jos. Hall HIGHAM neer NORWICH Nov. 3. 1651. THE INVISIBLE WORLD Discovered to spiritual Eyes AND Reduced to usefull Meditation In three Books By JOS. HALL D.D.B.N. London Printed by E. Cotes for John Place at Furnivals Inne-gate 1659 The PREFACE AS those that flit from their old home and betake themselves to dwell in another countrey where they are sure to settle are wont to forget the faces and fashions whereto they were formerly inured and to apply themselves to the knowledge and acquaintance of those with whom they shall afterwards converse So it is here with me being to remove from my earthly Tabernacle wherein I have worn out the few and evil dayes of my pilgrimage to an abiding City above I have desired to acquaint my self with that Invisible world to which I am going to enter-know my good God and his blessed Angels and Saints with whom I hope to passe an happy eternity And if by often and serious meditation I have attained through Gods mercy to any measure of lightsome apprehension of them and their blisseful condition I thought it could be no other then profitable to my fellow-pilgrims to have it imparted unto them And as knowing we can never be sensible enough of our happinesse unlesse we know our own dangers and the woful mis-carriages of others nor so fully blesse our eyes with the sight of heaven if we cast not some glances upon hell I have held it requisite to bestow some thoughts upon that dreadfull region of darknesse and confusion that by the former of these our desires may be whetted to the fruition of their blessednesse and by the other we may be stirred up to a care of avoiding those paths that lead down to that second death and to a continual thankfulnesse unto that mercifull God whose infinite goodnesse hath delivered us from that pit of horrour and perdition THE INVISIBLE WORLD The First BOOK SECT. I. That there is an invisible world WHo can think other but that the great God of heaven loseth much glory by our ignorance For how can we give him the honour due to his name whiles we conceive too narrowly of him and his works To know him as he is is past the capacity of our finite understanding we must have other eyes to discern that incomprehensible essence but to see him in his divine emanations and marvailous works which are the back parts of that glorious majesty is that whereof we may be capable and should be ambitious Neither is there any thing in this world that can so much import us For wherefore serves the eye of sense but to view the goodly frame and furniture of the Creation wherefore serves the eye of reason and faith but to see that lively and invisible power which governs and comprehends it Even this sensible and materiall world if we could conceive aright of it is enough to amaze the most inlightned reason for if this globe of earth in regard of the immense greatnesse of it is wont not unjustly to be accounted a World what shall we say of so many thousand stars that are for the most part bigger then it how can we but admire so many thousand worlds of light rolling continually over our heads all made by the omnipotent power all regularly guided by the infinite providence of the great God How poorly must that man needs think of the workmanship of the Almighty that looks upon all these but as so many Torches set up in the firmament every evening only so big as they seem and with what awfull respects must he needs be carried to his Creator that knowes the vastnesse and perpetually-constant movings of those lightsom bodies ruled and upheld only by the mighty word that made them There is store of wonders in the visible but the spirituall and intelligible world is that which is more worthy to take up our hearts both as we are men indued with reason and as regenerate inlightned by faith being so much more excellent then the other by how much more it is removed from all earthly means of apprehension Brute creatures may behold these visible things perhaps with sharper eyes then we but spirituall objects are so utterly out of their reach as if they had no being Nearest therefore to beasts are those men who suffer themselves to be so altogether led by their senses as to believe nothing but what is suggested by that purblind and unfaithfull informer Let such men doubt whether they have a soul in their body because their eye never met with it or that there are any stars in the firmament at noon-day because they appear not or that there is any air wherein they breath because nothing appears to them but an insensible vacuity Of all other the Sadduces had been the most dull and sottish hereticks that ever were if as some have construed them they had utterly denyed the very being of any Spirits Sure as learned Cameron pleads for them they could not be so senselesse for beleeving the books of Moses and being conscious of their own animation their bosomes must needs convince them of their spiritual inmate and what but a spirit could inable them to argue against spirits and how could they hold a God and no Spirit it was bad enough that they denyed the immortality and constant subsistence of those Angelical immaterial substances an opinion long since hissed out not of the School of Christianity only but of the very stalls and styes of the most brutish Paganisme although not very long since as is reported by Hosius and Prateolus that cursed Glazier of Gaunt David George durst wickedly rake it out of the dust and of late some Scepticks of our own have let fall some suspicious glances this way Surely all that know they have souls must needs beleeve a world of spirits which they see not if from no other grounds yet out of that analogy

of superstructure let us pity and rectifie his errour but not abandon his person The Communion of Saints is not so sleight that it should be violated by weak mistakings if any man through ignorance or simplicity shall strike at the foundation of faith let us labour by all gentle means and brotherly conviction in the spirit of meeknesse to reclaim him If after all powerfull indeavours he will needs remain obstinate in his evill way let us disclaim his fellowship and not think him worthy of a God-speed But if he shall not only wilfully undermine the ground-work of Christian faith by his own damnable opinions but diffuse his her●ticall blasphemies to the infection of others let him be cut off by spirituall censures and so dealt with by publick authority that the mischief of his contagion may be seasonably prevented and himselfe be made sensible of his hainous crime In all which proceedings just distinction must be made betwixt the seduced soul and the pestilent seducer the one calls for compassion the other for severity So then my brethren let us pity and pray for all that have erred and are deceived let us instruct the ignorant convince the gainsaying avoid the obstinate restrain the infectious and punish the self-convicted heresiarch In the fourth place let us I beseech you take heed of beeing swayed with self-interests in all our designs These have ever been the bane of the best undertakings as being not more plausibly insinnuative then pernicious For that partiall self-love that naturally ledges in every mans brest is ready to put us upon those projects which under fair pretences may be extreamly prejudiciall to the publique weal suggesting not how lawfull or expedient they may be for the common but how beneficiall to our selves drawing us by insensible degrees to sacrifice the publique welfare to our own advantage and to underwork and cross the better counsails of more faithfull patriots Whereupon many flourishing Churches Kingdomes States have been brought to miserable ruine Oh that we could remember that as all things are ours so we are not our own that we have the least interest in our selves being infinitely more considerable as parts of a community theras single persons that the main end of our beeing next to the glory of our maker is an universall serviceablenesse to others in the attaining whereof we shall far more eminently advance our own happiness then by the best of our private self-seeking indeavors But withall it will be meet for us to consider that as we are made to serve all so only in our own station There can be no hope of a continued wel being without order There can be no order without a due subordination of degrees and diversity of vocations and in vain shall divers vocations be ordained if all professions shall enterfere with each other It is the prudent and holy charge of the Apostle Let every man abide in the same calling wherein he is called We are all members of the same body every one whereof hath his proper employment The head is to direct and govern the feet to walk the eyes to see the ears to hear How mad would we think that man that should affect to walk on his head to hear with his eye to see with his ear Neither surely is it lesse incongruous for men in d●vine and civill administrations to offer to undertake and manage each others function in their nature and quality no lesse d●sperate So then let us indeavour to advance the common good as that a pious Zeal may not draw in confusion and that we may not mistakeingly rear up the walls of Babel whiles we intend Jerusalem Not religion only but policie cals us to encouragement of all usefull professions and of the sacred so much more as the soul is more precious then all the world beside Heed therefore must be taken to avoid all means whereby the study of learning and knowledge may be any way disheartned as without which the world would soon be over-run with ignorance barbarism All arts therefore as being in their kind excellent may justly challenge their own rights and if they shall want those respects which are due to them will suddenly languish But above all as Divinity is the Queen of Sciences so should it be our just shame that whiles her handmaids are mounted on horsback she should wait on them on foot Fifthly As it is our greatest honour that the name of Christ is called upon us so let it I beseech you be our care that our profession be not formal empty and barren like the Jewish fig-tree abounding with leaves void of fruit but reall active fruitfull of all good workes and exemplary in an universal obedien●e to the whole will of God For it is a scandall never to be enough lamented that any of those who are Saints by calling such we all are or should be should hug some dearling sin in their bosome which at last breaks forth to the shame of the Gospell and to the insultation of Gath and Ascalon Wo be to us if we shall thus cause the name of our God to be ●ill spoken of There are two many of those whom I am loath and sorry to style heathen-Christians Christians in name Heathens in conversation these as they come not within the compasse of my Dedication for alas how should they love the Lord Jesus when they know him not so I can heartily bewail their condition who like Gideons fleece continue altogether dry under so many sweet shewres of Grace wishing unto their souls even thus late a sense of the efficacy of that water which was once poured on their faces These if they run into all excesse of riot what can be other expected from them but for us that have learned to know the great Mysterie of Godlinesse and have given up our name to a strict covenant of obed●ence if we shall suffer our selves to be miscarried into any enormious wickedness we shall cause heaven to blush and hell to triumph Oh therefore let us be so much the more watchfull over our ways as our engagements to the name of our God are greater and the danger of our miscariages more deadly Lastly let me beseech and adjure you in the name of the Lord Jesu to be carefull in matter of Religion to keep within the due bounds of Gods revealed will A charge which I would to God were not too needfull in these last dayes wherein who sees not what Spirits of Errour are gone forth into the world for the seducing of simple and ungrounded souls Wo is me what throngs are carried to hell by these devillish impostures One pretends Visions and Revelations of new verities which the world was not hitherto worthy to know another boasts of newlights of uncouth interpretations hidden from all former eyes one despises the dead letter of the scriptures another distorts it to his own erroneous sense O the prodiges of damnable hereticall Atheous fancies which have hereupon infested