Selected quad for the lemma: state_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
state_n	advice_n	free_a	great_a	43	3	2.0785	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A37256	A sermon preached at the funeral of that incomparable lady the Honourable the Lady Mary Armyne by J.D., M.A. With an epistle and elegy by two grave divines.	J. D.	1676 (1676)	Wing D43; ESTC R27883	22,659	48

Infidels while they profess the Christian Faith 2. They that by false accusations would make the best men seem the worst and make serious Religion suspected to be but humorous singularity and hypocrisie and who upon lying fame will vend any calumny against the innocent and that upon worldly interest and the advantage of civil discords will injuriously make good men odious to their Superiours and the Rulers of the World 3. Yea and those that while they pretend to the strictest religiousness do maculate that profession with scandalous practices with pride and self-conceit with perverse opinions and with such miscarriages and follies as tend to perswade the unbelieving world that Christians are as bad and contemptible as any other men Christ himself teacheth men as to know the thorns and thistles by their pricks and rending property and the wolves in sheeps cloathing by their devouring of his Flocks for those are the fruits to which he doth refer us so to know the Vine and the Fig-tree also by their fruits and his Disciples by their extraordinary love to one another and to all men And to tell unbelievers that Christians are holy self-denying loving humble heavenly persons when they see no such thing appearing in their converse yea when they commonly see the contrary will seem more incredible to them than to tell them of Saints in the unseen world where such persons may be for ought they know though they take invisible things to be uncertain And if Christianity made no greater a change upon mans soul than to bring men to a lifeless uneffectual formality and to paint over a fleshly worldly life with a few good words and to differ from Philosophers no further than some Learned Divines themselves do that is not in their holy Love obedience humility patience hope and joy but in their opinions and words in going to Church and saying their Prayers and keeping up their several forms and orders and contending fiercely for their several Sects I could not my self be heartily a Christian The Kingdom of God is not in Word but in Power and it is not meats and daies and ceremonies but Righteousness and Peace and joy in the Holy Ghost And he that in these things serveth Christ is acceptable to God and approved of men except they be Tyrants Sectaries or malignant Vpon these accounts I take it to be a real part of his Masters service which this Reverend Brother hath here performed in transmitting to posterity so much of the exemplary Life of this excellent Lady in her deserved praise And as it is said of Antonine that it is the top of all his Praises that while a multitude of Writers Heathen and Christian described his great virtues no one was found that contradicted them and spake against him So I think our Brothers work here undertaken is such as is like to meet with no gainsayers nor need he fear least any should cast any blots upon the pourtraiture which he hath drawn Those of us who are called publickly to militate against the errors and wickedness of the world must expect to have as many defame calumniate and reproach us as to praise us But such persons as are placed in a calmer Region and are called to serve God in a less-militant way and that with the advantage of Wealth and Honour do use more to escape the scourge of tongues Indeed the Life of this Lady was such as of it self without any such advantage might have silenced or shamed obtrectation I remember not that ever I heard any person speak a word to her reproach And though I was seldom with her my self yet these last fifteen years I lived so near her as that I might easily hear the voice of fame and that little converse which I had with her was such as gave me opportunity to know her more intimately than many that saw but her blameless and pious Conversation For her business with me was no other than to open the state of her soul and confess her infirmities and produce her evidences for Heaven and to desire my judgement of them with my Counsel for her further strength and comfort and to ask my advise concerning such works of publick good which she Charitably intended and liberally as I am well informed did perform By which I perceived that she had a safe and well setled state of soul not free from all degrees of fear and lesser doubtings of her self and far from a presumptuous unhumbled self-justifying But her evidences were sound and her discerning of them was so clear and sure as enabled her to conclude her Right to Life and with the greater peace to think of Death which as she had opened to me not long before so did she over again at large in her sickness not many dayes before her death when after her complaints for such imperfections of grace as were her trouble she professed the full dedication of her self to God her firm consent to the terms of his Covenant and her longings after perfect holiness and her trust in the merits and mediation of her Redeemer After this we were in hope for a day or two that she was like to be recovered But hearing of my troubles she sent her servant to me to enquire of my Case and was dead before he returned home But as she lived to God so God gave her a long life and full of mercies Though she had long been troubled with a sore and dangerous disease which had painful and perillous paroxysmes or critical fits * Stones voided by the intestines supposed to be from the Gall. God had in her later years given her great ease from it though it is not unlike that it was the root of that fainting aguishness which took her hence So that to near fourscore years of age she served God in competent health and serenity of mind Though she sprang from an Honourable Family enclined to the Roman Sect God was her Teacher and did confirm her not only in the Protestant Reformation but also in the true Love of Practice and seriousness in the Religion which she professed she was not like those deluded formalists who contend most furiously for this Religion against that or for that against this while indeed they are of none and that will be zealous Papists or zealous Protestants or zealous in more singular Sects but will never be perswaded to be zealous Christians who will furiously persecute or at least reproach those that are not of their Church or side or way as erroneous irreligious persons while nothing can prevail with them to be themselves on Christs side against the flesh the world and the Devil who are implacably hot for their several parties and opinions but as to a heavenly mind and life and Love and good works and humility and self-denyal they are mortally cold who fiercely contend for the Baptismal water and the Christian vestments ornaments and name while they inwardly fight against the word and spirit of Christ or