Selected quad for the lemma: soul_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
soul_n	believe_v	faith_n	save_v	4,850	5	7.0416	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A61699	New-Englands true interest not to lie, or, A treatise declaring from the word of truth the terms on which we stand, and the tenure by which we hold our hitherto-continued precious and pleasant things shewing what the blessing God expecteth from his people, and what they may rationally look for from him / delivered in a sermon preached in Boston in New-England, April 29, 1668, being the day of election there, by Mr. W. Stoughton ...	Stoughton, William, 1632-1701.	1670 (1670)	Wing S5765; ESTC R9808	34,209	43

matters I would seriously minde you of and that is a piece of seasonable and sound Advice which some-where I meet with unto this purpose for the substance That where differences of Apprehension and Opinion do happen amongst godly Reformers in their Enquiries after the Will and Way of God It be thorowly laboured that such Points of Difference be accurately stated and unto the utmost that may be possible narrowed and some Rules of Practice for the preservation of Order and Peace mu●ually fixed and a Probatum est set upon the Experience of them during the life time of th●se who have been first in such matters of Debate and Controversie for otherwise if this should be neglected and they being dead and gone others spring up after them to inherit a diversity of Names from them the business of Reconciliation and Composure would be in a farre more difficult posture and rather go backward then forward as sad Experience in the Christian world hath already Testified But I may not hold you longer upon these things In a word do all the Lords work in your publick Capacities faithfully and vigorously Execute Justice impartially Be a Terrour to evil doers Encourage all them that are faithful Put new life into all publick Work that languisheth Look to Out-scattered unformed places in your Jurisdiction and that enjoy not setled publick Worship and Teaching And as the sum of all Fall not off from any thing upon any pretence whatsoever which adhering unto God hath hitherto saved you and this People for this would be to Lie unto God yea to make him a Liar in the voice and testimony of all his former Providences I have but a few words of Direction in all plainness to leave with You also Honoured and much Esteemed and so shall finish this Use 1. Wait upon God in your Places for discovery of Light and Truth that you may understand the way of this people Prov. 14. 8. and the Lords way with us and in the world too at this day that so your Wisdome and Knowledge may be the stability of our Isa 33 6. times God will not be unwilling to communicate Light to you in his own way Eccles 8. 5. Every lesser Star as one speaketh hath light enough for it self but no less then a Sun can give light to the World Rulers had need to be full of light Let your eye upon all occasions be upward unto the Father of Psal 34. 5. 32. 8. Lights and so shall his eye be fix'd upon yours and this eye of his shall guide you 2. Secure your hearts and spirits as to sincerity before the Lord and for that end seek the honour that cometh from God J●h 5. 44. P●al 25. 21. 78. 72. Prov. 11. ● onely Integrity and uprightness shall preserve and guide you An unbya●●●d Magistracy shall never want Assistance Watch against private narrow Self-ends that if in an hour of trial and temptation some proffer of a private good or to save your own particular state should be strongly managed by Satan to draw you off from the Publick and Common Interest yet you may abide resolved and constant thereunto It was the Resolution of an Heathen N● Immortalitatem quidem contra Rempub●icam acciperem Moses his Refusal and the Apostle Paul's wish are Heb. 11. 24 2● Exod. ●2 10. 11. Rom. ● 3. known to you Say you should do much of Gods work but not with a sincere aim at Gods ends this would be to Lie unto him Thus Jehu was a Lie in all he did Let there be no variation of the Compass with you as to sincere and upright aims and ends God will make large allowance to weaknesses but then there must be sincerity 3. Study Vnity among your selves and in your own Counsels that our first wheels may move with the sweetness and undisturbedness of a Coelestial divine Harmony 4. Drink deep of the love of God in Christ who shed his Blood to save his Church that your love to the Wayes and Ordinances Eph. 5. 25. 1 Joh. 3 16. and Churches and People of God may have its rise and nourishment from this fountain It is such a love alone that will constrain you and remain unquench'd though in the midst of many waters 5. Arm your selves with Courage if you will be good Magistrates you must be such as dare to act your Consciences and Arm your selves also with Patience I will joyn them both together for the burthen of the people must be born Get from under the influence of carnal fears these will make you to lie Isa 57. 11. You have been taught by Experience to expect Oppositions Trials Exacerbations wickedness will procced from the wicked there will be a tumultuating of the passions and lusts of men yea and of the corruptions of good men too under the strict exercise of Government when the Reins of Authority are held straight Without a good measure of holy Patience and Courage you will not hold our You must have so much Courage as to seek out that labour which belongs to your Office and Honour so much Courage that it may not be dreadful to you to be so hemm'd in with duty on every side as to see no way of Retreat 6. Look upon Faith to be the way to Fidelity if 〈…〉 not believe you shall not be established Faith undertakes all upon the 〈…〉 9. engagement of God Faith bottoms the Soul upon the promise and builds it up in a way of supplications Know it that if you will be found faithful with God at this day in the work of Rulers you must be neither Lower nor Mi●dle but Vpper-R●gim men and there is nothing but Faith and the constant lively exercise thereof that can carry you so high Su●h as live upon futura contingentia they will be miserably uncertain up and down now here and now there but Faith the eye and design the hope and the heart of Faith fix wholly upon things that are ●●●hangeable Secure your hearts therefore in a single dependance up●n and sole trust in God Co●mit your way to the Lord at all times and do n●● consume away in your own fears and cares and contrivances 7 When you have behaved your selves with the greatest si●cerity and i●●●grity in your places and have been able to do most for God still look Gen. 6. 8 9. Neh. 13. 22. for your Acceptance with God and your Reward from him as of Free-grace only This is to be upright in the upshot of all Finally have you not often received encouragements from the promises hath not the Lord been present with you in difficulties have you not been oft refreshed with the testimony of a good Conscience that in si●pli●ity and godly si●cerity you have managed what hath been in your hand 2 Cor. 1. 12. have you not been a Government enquiring after the mind and will of God given to prayer and to advise with the Word of God and the faithful

Silver shall we now rise up to fill his House with meer Lumber worthless cumbersome sorry stuff that will by no one be look'd after in a day of burning nor by any one lamented though consumed in the fire Shall not we bid as much as any in the world for an Interest in the Lord God of our fathers for such an Interest in him as our fathers had in God Shall not this be more to us then this whole Wilderness yea then the whole World can give to us beside for the Lords sake let us not be of any other frame Let not the words of this Exhortation rise up as a Testimony against any of you And that they may not but that we may be found Children that will not lie there are these Directions omitting sundry others that might have been given 1. Make conscience not onely of being rightly informed in that cause of God which we are here wrapt up in and in adhering whereunto the Lord hath hitherto preserved and blessed his Churches and people but also of getting a sight and view of the divine beauty and glory thereof There is nothing short of true and real glory divine spiritual glory that can chain fast our Souls to the Cause of God so as to own and cleave to it in sincerity at this day When God carried out Abraham into another Land he appeared to him as a God of glory Acts 7. 2. so did God appear unto our fathers in the way wherein he led them hither and in the Cause for which Thus must he appear to us also if ever we abide stedfast with him in that Cause It is therefore a most sweet Petition that the Church makes Psal 90. 16 17. Let thy work appear unto thy servants and thy Glory unto their children Babylon paints her face anew at this day Antichrist hath varnished his Interest so that there are many who are allured and taken with the beauty of that Harlot O let us beg of God that we may behold the beauty and the glory of His Cause Interest amongst us And truly as to this Cause and Interest of God there can be no other foundations laid then those which have been laid N-Englands true main Interest the Cause of Christ in his Churches here It is a fixed unalterable thing It is not now to be found out by any New Light But alas how many of us grow up and never get one real view of the glory of it of whom that complaint may be taken up Deut. 29. 4. We have not unto this day had an heart to perceive or eyes to see or ears to hear no not unto this day Let us take heed of enquiring of or listning in this matter unto the determinations and glosses of such as have had no standing in the wayes of God here but have been grafted in upon By-Accounts or move in the Excentrick Orb of some Private Interest distinct from that of the whole And let us also lay down this as a Rule That whatsoever it is that hath been unanimously Rejected and Condemned in its claims by the Acknowledged Eminentest Reformers in each Age since the Apostacy of Antichrist prevailed This can never in these our dayes justifie its Title to that Cause of Christ that is to be maintained and contended for Jer. 6. 16. 2. Let us stand feelingly under the weight of all those Engagements that lye upon us to be an upright Generation unto God The Lord hath laid all manner of Engagements upon us By his Covenant into the bond whereof we are brought By all his Messengers and Servants whom he hath sent rising up early and sending them By his Providences from the beginning Ours are All the Salvations the Experiences the Miracles of Mercy and of Preservation that have been bestowed upon this people and the Cause of God here at any time yea though we were not then born Hos 12. 4 5. And we have laid Engagements upon our selves we have said that we would be the Lords and O what a God is it that we have engaged our selves so solemnly unto A God All sufficient Surely our Fathers have not inherited lies or vanity and things wherein there is no profit in inheriting that God for their portion unto whom we as their Children have Covenanted our selves 3. Take heed of thinking it an casie matter to serve the Lord God of our Fathers and to answer his Expectations of us To have such a vain thought lodging in us would be to us a foundation of Ruine The God of New-England the God of pure Ordinances and Churches and Worship is a Consuming fire The Angel of the Lords Presence with us will not pardon our iniquities Exod. 23. 21. Joshua puts the Rising generation in minde of this solemn truth Josh 24. 19 20. Those that have gone before us in the Cause of God here who and what were they Certainly choice and pick'd ones whom he eminently prepared and trained up and qualified for this Service They were Worthies men of singular Accomplishments and of long and great Experience yet did they walk with fear and trembling before the Lord in the sense of their own nothingness and insufficiency for the Work here to be done But we poor we alas what are we we want many seasonings which our Fathers had we are poor raw things we want those eminent Conversions those Schools of Experience those Opportunities and Advantages of gaining Knowledge c. which they had 4. Look after the Root of the matter in your Souls There are many empty outside Custom born Christians now adayes A day of temptation will discover what such as these will come to when they are catcht in Satans snares and become the Reproach of the Gospel and of a good Cause O let us get good sound Principles for want whereof the Profession of so many hath run it self out of breath and broke its neck in these dayes It hath been said that a loose Protestant is fit to become a strict Papist A formal ungrounded Professor he will be fit for Satans turn in these dayes O get to be sincere in your Principles that your Repentance may be thorow Repentance your Humiliation deep your Faith of the operation of God your Love to God and his wayes and people a fruit of Gods love in Christ unto your souls It must be such a generation that must save New-Englands All. Don't boast it of being Abrahams Children do not challenge Matth. 3. 9. lay claim to the distinguishing Priviledges of the House of God in the pride and unhumbledness of your hearts Take heed of moving on in the wayes of God upon the strength of bare convictions and external motives only whilest indeed such wayes are most unsuitable unto your unrenewed frame within and to your spirits as yet unsubdued to the yoke of Christ by any Gospel power making of them willing in the day thereof If you have a name only to live you will in the issue fall down