Selected quad for the lemma: soul_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
soul_n	according_a	body_n	life_n	5,604	5	4.5482	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A65982	A sermon preached before the King and Queen at White-hall, on Sunday, Jan. 8, 1692/3 by William Wigan ...	Wigan, William, d. 1700.	1693 (1693)	Wing W2099; ESTC R39394	11,810	30

But we are forbid that pining care which neither acquiesces in any tho' large provision already made nor in God's Providence Christ doth not forbid Industry nor laying up any store for another day For he himself had a bag though Judas carried it But Christ forbids that distraction and unsatisfiable distrust which never believes there can be enough heaped up nor that there is any wiser care than its own employed and watching over us For our Holy Faith requires Christians to Work that they may have wherewith to supply themselves and give Ephes iv 28. to them that need It forbids us not to sowe or reap or gather into barns as L. de Opere Monachorum c. 1. some vagabond Monks in S. Augustin's time interpreted the 26. ver imitating the Fowles of the Air But it requires us to believe that having done what lies in us we should expect the increase from God knowing that we live not by bread alone however multiplyed but by every word Matt. iv 4 that proceedeth out of his mouth and therefore we ought not to be thoughtful for the Morrow otherwise than we see Servants are who work for Masters whom they have found just and bountiful They question not their Wages and are therefore chearfully industrious Much more then ought Christians to banish all carking gnawing despairing Fears since they have already had such experience of God's goodness who hath so often filled their hearts with food and gladness This being premis'd We may consider that we ought I. To take no thought for the morrow for the morrow will take thought for the things of it self By the Morrow here our Saviour doth not strictly mean the following day but that time to come in which we may be concern'd And when he saith that to Morrow shall take thought for the things of it self He by a figurative expression as is observ'd supposeth the time or day to have a personal knowledge of what belongs to it Intimating that as certainly as the days come on and succeed each other regular in their varieties and true to their fix'd lengths in their several seasons So certainly there shall appear the same general steddy care that hath hitherto watch'd over the works of the Creation and more especially over the Church of Christ and we can have no more reason to doubt of the continuance of the same Providence in governing the World than we doubt of the return of Darkness or Light each Day or each Night If the Day it self were as the Heathens imagined the Sun to be a Deity or God it could not more orderly arise then during its revolution will be visible here an over-ruling Soveraign Power and Wisdom And therefore as we expecting the goings out of the Morning and Evening perform or design at least all the acts that our occasions may require as we do not in the least question that Summer and Winter seed-time and harvest Gen. viii 22. will be according to God's Promise Though all these Seasons may be sometimes longer or shorter more favourable or more unkind than other while As we see periods of Life and Governments continue So we ought not to doubt but that the things of to Morrow whether they concern our Bodies or our Souls our Families or our Countries will succeed as is appointed They will not happen as an unsteady blind fortune shall confusedly throw them together But as hath from everlasting been decreed by a much wiser Mind than any we can substitute in its place Some Poets fancy that when Man first saw the Sun he was mightily pleased at the sight of so glorious an Object and at its Light so charming But that when he beheld the Sun setting he followed looking after him as long as was possible and at the disappearing of the Light despair'd of day again Though this be but a fiction it too truly represents the practice of too many The beauty of Order and the blessings of Peace are so pleasing and desirable that some Christians can no sooner see them overcast or withdrawn but they believe them gone for ever and lament as if they could never be restored But as the first Man to his unspeakable Joy saw the Sun rising again where he did not look for him and afterwards perceiv'd that after darkness he would return after Eclipses he would Shine out again So Christians who submit their wills to the Will of God will to their comfort find that Joy will come after Sadness and that as all the inanimate Beings and Creatures move and act according to the simple Eternal Laws which God at first set down So Men with all their folly and Devils with all their rage can go no farther than was foreseen and is permitted are acted by their own malice yet execute God's decree and reign but for a fix'd time Generations shall go and Generations shall come Trouble and Sorrow shall be very great disorder shall seem to have got the full power over the World But though the Earth be never so unquiet the Lord ruleth over all And the fiercer and violenter confusions are the sooner they waste themselves Storms may arise so furious that young Mariners who never saw the like may imagine Heaven and Earth are quite lost and nothing be lookt for but another Chaos But when He that sits above the Antient of Days speaks the Word Let there be Light there shall be Light Let there be Peace there shall be Peace They therefore whose Faith is founded on this perswasion are best secured against fears and anxieties about the future Since they are sure that he who orders the present hath the same care of that which is to come and the same power over it in which belief they are confirmed by having been disappointed in former amazements God having by ways unthought of by Man restor'd safety when all humane help was despair'd of Therefore they cast their burdens upon him committing their Souls to him in well doing not doubting but he who fram'd them will watch over the work of his hands He who preserved them during their helpless infancy and heedless youth if they keep in his ways will be merciful to them when their strength fails and when the dayes come in which they have no pleasure Moreover God hath so ordered it that the Day may be said in an especial manner to take thought for the things of it self For the Day brings with it a disposition of mind suitable to its occasions Men need not distract themselves with thoughts of what they shall do if such or such Calamities befal them for time and place and immediate distress often suggest properer Counsels than any could otherwhile have been conceived Sickness of it self inclines the Spirit to a temper fit for that Tryal it makes it affect that privacy and silence which conduce to recovery and it causeth that seriousness and submissiveness to advice which is agreeable to the dangers that attend it So Necessity infuseth into

A SERMON PREACHED Before the King and Queen AT WHITE-HALL On Sunday Jan. 8. 1692 3. By WILLIAM WIGAN Chaplain to Their MAJESTIES Published by Their Majesties Special Command LONDON Printed by R. Norton for Walter Kettilby at the Bishop's Head in St. Paul's Church-Yard 1693. A SERMON Preached before the King and Queen MATTHEW vi 34. latter part The morrow shall take thought for the things of it self sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof OUR Blessed Saviour who knew that inordinate thoughtfulness for the things of this Life was a very common and great hindrance of our Salvation in this Chapter useth many and powerful Arguments against it He shews ver 25. That his Disciples ought not to take thought for their Life what they shall eat or what they shall drink nor yet for the body what they shall put on because the life is more than meat and the body than rayment That is He who before we had knowledge of wants gave to Man Being Sense and Understanding which are of greater value and shew more power in Him and goodness towards Us will not deny us the means of Food and Clothing which are more easie for him to grant as He knows they are necessary for us to obtain Which we may the rather believe because He hath taken care as our Lord teacheth 26 27 to the 30th of the Fowl of the air and the Grass of the field and therefore will surely be more mindful of them whom he hath made after his own Image Christ in the 32. v. shews how fruitless also this thoughtfulness will prove which cannot add an inch to our Stature or a minute to our Age. And in the 32. v. that the Gentiles They who have no hope but in this Life and who are concern'd there should be no other They place all their happiness in making provision for their stay here But this sollicitousness ill becomes them who believe they have a Father in Heaven who knows their wants and who if They seek first the Kingdom of God and his Righteousness hath assured them that All these things shall be added unto them Since then all Christians have a higher object of their care the Eternal state of their Souls of which if they are chiefly mindful God is ingaged to supply what their bodies truly require No Christian can justly complain that the necessities of his Life are not supplyed unless he have first practis'd all that which Christ commands and if any one hath not first sought the Kingdom of God he hath not yet a title to this Promise But there is little cause to fear any such complaints They that have first serv'd God uprightly have not wanted leisure for their just occasions and also have had a special blessing on their labours Godliness hath been profitable for this life and as it hath ingaged men more conscientiously and steadily to follow their callings so it hath produc'd excellent fruits to the industrious Christian For the honesty and fidelity which our Holy Faith teacheth us to observe in our duty towards man in our respective professions as part of our Religion are virtues of such importance that they seldom fail to earn more than daily Bread For if as the Gospel enjoyns we are sober and temperate meek and inoffensive just and charitable If we are not as Eye-servants in our Callings but servants of the Living All-seeing God if we possess our vessels in Sanctification and our Souls in patience waiting for the coming of our Lord Can we believe that we shall want either Bread or esteem or protection in this Life Are these so cheap Virtues that there is no need of them in any Family or Country Are the opposite practices of Vice of Sloth of Treachery and Injustice so valued and so truly profitable to Mankind that they will procure if universally followed a far surer livelihood than the duties which Christ enjoyns his followers to observe Or doth it appear that Epicures and sensual Persons such as have made their belly their God and have valued neither Right nor Wrong Faith nor Promise Heaven nor Hell have generally speaking been better regarded and their actions and examples been recommended by Parents and Law-givers rather than theirs who looking for a Life to come have chiefly strove to have a Conscience void of offence towards God and towards Man God indeed is pleased to suffer some wicked persons to prosper by their sins but how few are they in respect of the vast numbers of such as laying aside all care of their Souls abandoning themselves to voluptuousness and idleness to rapine and iniquity have fallen into poverty and come to miserable untimely Deaths And how few are they who by Prayer recommending their virtuous endeavours to God have not found his Providence a sufficient Inheritance Therefore in order to a more ready dependance on his Promise As God hath appointed us an uncertain and it may be a very short stay here so he hath not made it necessary to have abundance That we may be the better at leisure for his Worship and our preparation for Eternity He hath so ordered it that our Natures do not require such vast provisions as Covetousness or the fashion of the World provoke us to seek after Therefore Food and Rayment convenient are to be had of the growth of all Countries But they who will fare deliciously and sumptuously and be cloathed to the heighth of their own or their neighbours Vanity They who set not their hearts upon what their health requires but what others do or wear They are pierc'd through with many cares They must run great dangers must make shipwreck of their Consciences must be slaves to other mens Vices in order to content their own And after all find that Luxury and Pride and an Evil Eye are never to be satisfied And these are the Men who when their expectation is not answered rave against God's Providence and question his Love to Mankind for not giving what they neither truly wanted nor He ever promised to bestow upon them Therefore since the Health of the Body and the Content of the Mind are best promoted by Simplicity of Diet and Moderation in our Desires And since the observation of Christ's Precepts tends to the advancement of Peace Charity and mutual support of Christians in lawful Vocations justly may our Saviour require all who believe in him after they have doen their duty to Take no thought for the morrow And yet after all these Motives he useth Two farther Arguments I. The morrow shall take thought for the things of it self II. Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof By these Two Considerations our Lord strengthens his Prohibition given 25 and 31 verses and repeated in this verse whereby we are not to understand that we are to be wholly unconcern'd for the future as resolved Beggars are or they who take upon them the Vow of Poverty and Laziness the pests of Commonwealths and burthens of other Christians