Selected quad for the lemma: scripture_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
scripture_n	faith_n	word_n	write_a	3,171	5	10.6412	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A94766	Four sermons, preach'd by the right reverend father in God, John Towers, D.D. L. Bishop of Peterburgh. 1. At the funerall of the right honorable, William Earl of Northampton. 2. At the baptism of the right honorable, James Earl of Northampton. 3. Before K. Charles at White-Hall in time of Lent.	Towers, John, d. 1649.	1660 (1660)	Wing T1958; Thomason E1861_2; ESTC R210178	89,836	224

not too long a time and that they should in his good and appointed time be changed up into the glory of Heaven and that all the Enemies of the Church should at length by the power of Christ their victorious Captain be thrown into the ever burning Lake of fire and brimstone We may divide the whole Booke briefly Partitio libri for I must not stand long upon this Discourse Divide it I may I come not to expound the whole Book and the Text it selfe affords matter enough for this short time though I eke it out with a borrowed part of another hour into a Preface Paraeus to the ninth verse of the first Chapter the Prophecy it self from thence to the sixteenth verse of the last Chapter and from thence to the end the Epilogue or Conclusion We are now in the midst of the Prophecy and the whole Prophecy may be distinguished into 7 several visions notoriously distinct asunder to them that read them with careful observation which Christ was pleased for the future good of his Church to shew to his beloved St. John whilst he lived a banisht man in the Isle of Pathmos I may not stand now to shew you these 7 Visions with the subject-matter of them I read not a Lecture upon them all nor upon any one intirely This Text is a small part of the fourth Vision which takes up three whole Chapters the twelfth thirteenth and fourteenth It is of the Woman travelling in birth and the Draggon gaping to devour the fruit of her womb of her flight into the Wildernesse and his pursuit after her resisted by Michael and his Angels then of the two Beasts one with seven heads and ten horns the other with two horns like a Lamb which spake as a Draggon both persecuting the Saints then of the victorious Lamb upon that Mount Sion and of the three Angels one preaching the Gospel another proclaiming the fall of Babylon a third denouncing punishment to them that worship the Beast Lastly of Christ upon the Cloud with a sharp sickle in his hand and the Angel proclaiming the last Harvest of the World and the Vintage and Wine-presse of the Wrath of God All this is the subject of the fourth Vision in which the future estate of Gods Church in this World even from the Infancy of it under the Ministry of Christs Apostles unto the end of the World is far more cleerly shaddowed out unto us than in the former Visions The third Angel begins at the 9. verse of this Chapter and continues to the end of the 11. Then in the 12. and 13. verses part of the last whereof I read unto you follows an Epiphonema of exhortation and consolation to the Saints of God that in all these vexations with which Antichrist shall grate them they persevere with patience and constancy in the faith of Christ and obedience to his Gospel that they faint not under their tribulations but hold out to the end being held up with the hope of eternal felicity in Heaven which is here propounded The Exhortation to perseverance is in the 12. verse the Argument for it is taken from that Tragical end that miserable and wofull event which must befall Antichrist and his unsound followers that seeing they shall at last drink of the Wine of the Wrath of God and drink it off the very dregs of it that they shall be tormented with fire and brimstone and shall have no rest day and night here is the patience of the Saints v. 12. Here is an Argument for their perseverance that the Holy ones of God who keep the Commandments of God and the saith of Jesus that they suffer manfully under the bitterest Tyranny of their Adversaries as knowing that it shall at last be guerdon'd to them with the fearfull endlesnesse of insufferable torments in Hell fire Then follows the Consolation in this verse of my Text And I heard a voice from Heaven saying Write blessed are the Dead that die in the Lord The Argument which the Holy Ghost here useth to strengthen and comfort them ready now to droop under the weight of their sufferings is drawn from the assurance of the most inestimable Reward eternal bessednesse in Heaven and that Death it selfe the last and greatest evil with which the faithfull can be afflicted by their most despiting enemies is no evil at all for it is the ready though straight and narrow and severe Way to the certain joy and glory of the Heavenly Kingdome I heard a voice from Heaven from thence we see though through a cloud through the water of that and the tears of our owne eyes our comfort comes 'T is most certain most true were it the voice of God himselfe or of one of his Angels at his command St. John sayes not whether but the voice of Christ himselfe his Sheep are sure it is they know his voice the same in effect which we have heard from him before in his holy Gospel more than once Joh. 5.24 Verily verily I say unto you he that hears my Words and believes on him that sent me hath everlasting life and shall not come into condemnation There is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Rom. 8.1 and there is no condemnation too to them in the ears of whose Souls are the words of Christ and in John 8.51 not without another and another a double Verily I say unto you to cast off all doubt If a man keep my saying he shall nevtr see death the eternall the cursed death The very same to all purposes that this Voice sayes here Write blessed are the dead c. There are three things observable in this Voice from Heaven Divisio Versus first the command to Write Christ will not put his Church to trust to the uncertainty the deceivableness of unwritten Traditions but as in the beginning there was a generall command for the writing of this whole Prophecy Write sayes Christ to the Prophet St. John chap. 1. v. 19. Write the things which thou hast seen and the things which are and the things which shall be hereafter so has he here again a special command for the writing of this heavenly voice concerning the blessednesse of them who die in the Lord he will have our comfort confirm'd to us here as the Divel 's several suggestions were rejected and confuted by himselfe Matt. 4. with a Scriptum est the Scripture the written Word of God shall be the ground as of our Faith so of our Hope our incouragement and consolation through that Faith Secondly the Argument the substance of what he is commanded to deliver to the Church by writing blessednesse And thirdly the assurance and proofe of this blessednesse by two strong Reasons one that they are now gotten to the end of their Race that they enjoy a perpetual rest from all the labours and sufferings which they have sustained under the Sun they rest from their labours and the other that they have so

FOUR SERMONS PREACH'D By the Right Reverend FATHER in GOD JOHN TOWERS D. D. L. Bishop of Peterburgh 1. At the Funerall of the Right Honorable William Earl of Northampton 2. At the Baptism of the Right Honorable James Earl of Northampton 3. Before King JAMES in Defence of The Material Church 4. Before K. CHARLES at White-Hall in time of Lent He that hath an ear let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the Churches Rev. 2.7 London Printed for Thomas Rooks and are to be sold at the sign of the Lamb at the East end of S. Pauls near the School 1660. TO THE RIGHT HONORABLE JAMES Earl of NORTHAMPTON And to his Excellent Lady ISABELLA The Right Honorable Countess of NORTHAMPTON Right Honorable my singular good Lord IT is now more than time that these holy Sermons should come to light into the light of this World to be themselves a Light to the World after so many years since the departure of the Reverend and Religious Author of them into the light of God When they first come abroad whom ought they earlier to greet than your noble Lordship that his Posthume Papers might crave protection from the same Family which gave Patronage to his living Person From the service of the Earldom he went up to wait upon the Throne and yet did never forget Your Castle-Ashby after his arrive to the Kings White-Hall though he was found to have merit enough to entitle his attendance upon the two best Peers in Chaplainry to your Grandfather who deserved to be in respect of the Earldom though there was a deserv'd and much more ancient rise of the noble name of the Comptons Ortus Domus suae a fairer commendation than which the quickest best-tongu'd Orator could not invent for himself and in Tutorage to your Father whose fall was so valiant that he chose to pay a magnanimous Death rather than to owe a bestowed Life though from thence the same merit carried him on to do yearly homage to the two choicest Kings James the wise and Charles the Religious yet he had also humble Gratitude enough to confesse aloud it was Northampton's Arm more than his own hand and Pen that rais'd him My good Lord you see already your just Title to the whole But you have still a more peculiar Interest in these selected four One of them was Preach'd at that Parish which was all your Ancestors and the Authors Nine parts yours and the Tithes his and Tither of duty it ought to return Another at your owne 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the second the Baptismall Birth of your Noble selfe A third at the third Birth of the most munificent your Fathers Father when he had pass'd over the life of Nature and the life of Grace and was receiv'd up into the life of Glory A fourth is added to expiate the delay in payment of the three former Nay my most noble Lord all this will not suffice that you should have title to these Composures from your Progenitors from your selfe from the Author unlesse I humbly acknowledge the right you have in my Transcription too from the claim which your Honour may lay to my very selfe also your interest in me your jurisdiction over me your purchase of me Your Honor had interest in me before I was so happy as to see your Lordship or so wise as to know my felf even whilst I was yet in Lumbis for sure our Birth is not so wholly wretched as to have nothing else entail'd upon us at our coming into the world besides original sin we are even born with respects and duties and devotions to originall Benefactors too Your jurisdiction over me shall never be disown'd by me whilst I have breath Dum spiritus hos regit Artus in that since I had breath your Lordship was the first Master I ever had Master and Father too by your purchase of me in that I did eat of your Lordships bread when by the common calamities of the Times and the deserv'd ones of my own I had no bread of my own to eat but went abroad to Preach the Gospel like the Gospels first Disciples without P●rse or Scrip. Luk. 22.35 And now my most excellently voriuous and meek Lady is not your right the same with my Noble Lords and has not your owne goodnesse bought a like interest in me I have nothing to return to either of your Honors but my prayers that You both may enjoy the whole benefit of this which is a dedication upon design that as you are regenerate by Baptism the discourse of one of these Homilies you may so love to serve God in his own House the subject of another that when your Bodies are interr'd in the Church the matter of a third your souls may be convey'd to that place which Christ is gone up to prepare for you the subject-matter of a fourth there to enjoy honour and bliss eternall 'T is really the Prayer of My Noble Lord and my Religious Lady Your Honors most Faithfull most obliged Servant William Towers A SERMON Preached at the FVNERALS of the Right Honorable WILLIAM EARL of Northampton Rev. 14.13 Beati Mortui qui in Domino moriuntur Blessed are the Dead that die in the Lord. FOR the Authority of this Book of the Revelation of S. John Occasio Operis I should not need to plead but that for the honorable memory of the Person of Honour whose Body we now interr and because of the morenesse of Time since his death it will mis-become such an obliged Chaplain of such a bountifull Patron not to take pains somewhat more than ordinary and to exceed the hour in this last Publick Service which he performs for the most liberal of Masters to the meanest of Gods Houshold Servants Let this short Apology bear me out in my prolixnesse after since by his own example I desire to do much of good at his Death to those who are come hither to remember him and to mourn their own losse though in his blessednesse the businesse of whose Life was to do all good to all The joynt consent of the Ancient and Modern Church Authoritus Libri hath with an easie refutation of some weak objections to the contrary and with a constant and unanimous submission of their Faith and Obedience to the Contents of it by the direction of the Holy Spirit received this Book into and by the special Providence of the same Spirit preserved it in the Canon of the Scripture That the blessed Apostle and Evangelist S. John was the Author of it by writing we doubt not and that being the Apostle of Christ he wrote this as he did his Gospels and Epistles being inspir'd by the Holy Ghost to remain in the Church of Christ as Apostolical Scripture for confirmation whereof Vers 1. He cals it also in the beginning The Revelation of Jesus Christ and tels us that God gave it unto him and that he sent and signifi'd it by his Angel