Selected quad for the lemma: virtue_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
virtue_n	brazen_a	look_v	serpent_n	839	5	9.9901	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A49757	Christ's power over bodily diseases Preached in several sermons on Mat. 8. 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13. And published for the instruction especially of the more ignorant people in the great dutie of preparation for sickness and death. By Edward Lawrence, M.A. minister of the gospel at Baschurch in the county of Salop.	Lawrence, Edward, 1623-1695.; Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.	1672 (1672)	Wing L653; ESTC R223651	140,079	330

according as the Word describes and presents it to him and surely this makes people so unprepared to dye because they want an understanding of things It cannot sink into their hearts that sin is so bad and Christ so good or the world so vain or grace so precious or hell so terrible or heaven so glorious but they are so confident that lust is sweet and riches are precious and death is far off and hell is but a bug bear and heaven is but a fansie And in this confidence they will live and dye and therefore the Apostle prayes that the Philippians may try things that differ that they may be fit for the day of Christ I shall therefore give you this Direction in these following particulars 1. Look upon God and the world together and you shall see the difference for this end I beseech you search and believe that Scripture Isa 40.15 -17. Behold the nations are as a drop of a bucket and are counted as the small dust of the balance Behold he taketh up the isles as a very little thing All nations before him are as nothing and they are counted to him less then nothing and vanity Now let thy heart judge of and act towards God and the world according to this difference Set all the world before thee give every creature its due see what a vast world of Kingdoms and Nations it is look upon the strong Islands which are fortified and moted about with the Seas which this great God takes up as a very little thing see a world of great and mighty men before thee see the rich world of gold and silver and precious stones lying on heaps before thee look upon the lands and buildings which make all the woods fields pastures medows orchards vineyards gardens towns cities and stately houses in the world O what a glorious world is this which made the very Angels shout for joy at the rearing of it Well take a full survey of the glory and beauty of this great world and then looking on a drop of water hanging on a bucket what a poor thing is this which is ready to break and fall on the ground and no body catcheth at it look also upon the small dust of the balance a thing of neither weight nor worth it doth not so much as turn the scales Now labour by faith to have such a clear insight into the greatness and goodness of God and Jesus Christ that thou mayst be able to judge all the world to be but as a drop of the bucket or as the small dust of the balance to thy Father and Saviour and let thy whole man act according to such a wise holy just judgement and this will exceedingly fit thee for sickness and death which come to loose thee from such a vain world into the presence and everlasting injoyment of such a glorious God 2. Look upon sin and upon the righteousness of Jesus Christ look upon these together Beloved faith hath a deep insight into the evil of sin for it sees the glory of God which sin is against wherein the evil of it appears and believes the dreadful curses of the law and what the wrath of God and what hell is and what an immortal being a man is that must suffer these Faith also hath a piercing insight into the excellencie of Christs righteousness it sees what an infinitely-glorious God Jesus Christ is which makes his righteousness so precious and meritorious and so savoury and satisfactory to the Father and for this reason so all-sufficient for faith to rest and live upon for this is the precious property of justifying faith that it receives Christs righteousness for salvation for the same reason which God receives it for satisfaction that is because it is the righteousness of God and indeed faith must see God satisfied before it can see the believer saved and seeing enough in Christ for the satisfaction of God it sees the same sufficiencie in him for the salvation of the Believer Now Christs righteousness never appears more precious then when the soul is filled with the deepest sight and sense of sin for then the soul believes him to be a great Saviour when he sees the great evil of sin which he saves him from and therefore it is observable that the Apostle demonstrates the direful guilt and filth of sin as a preface to that great Doctrine of Justification by faith in the righteousness of Christ Rom. 3. from vers 9. to the end of that Chapter And as you know it was a sad and fearful case for the poor Jews to be bitte● with the fiery Serpents and to lye groaning under the pain and anguish of those poisonous and deadly wounds yet then what a glorious sight was it to look upon the brazen Serpent and thereby to finde power and vertue to heal them presently So my Brethren it is a fearful case in it self for a man to stand in the very jaws of death and to look into the horrid nature of sin and see death and devils and hell and all the curses of the law ready to flee in his face and yet how glorious is it then to look upon the righteousness of Jesus Christ and see them all swallowed up and himself saved And thus as he sees the grace of God in Christ raigning and over-abounding all sin Rom. 5.20 21. so his faith and hope and joy grounded thereon doth rise above and over-abound and swallow up all his fears of death and hell which he was in because of his sins 3. Look upon all your sufferings on earth and upon the glory of heaven together The Apostle tells us Act. 14.22 We must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God Observe there is an entrance into the Kingdom of Heaven out of all our afflictions and our way to heaven lyes through much tribulation an hypocrite seems to go strongly in the way to heaven but oftentimes when he comes to trouble persecution c. there he is stopt and can go no farther but he that believes the goodness of duty and the glory of heaven if tribulation sickness poverty persecution seek to stop him he goes through them he knows duty is sweet and safe and therefore he will follow it till it bring him to heaven whatever it cost him Tertullian comforts the Martyrs in prison with this That in their close and dark prisons they might see illam viam quae ad Deum ducit that way which leads them to God There is a way to heaven out of prison sick-bed or any other affliction Hence those that come to heaven are said to come out of great tribulation Rev. 7.14 Sometimes a poor Saint comes hot as it were out of the furnace of affliction into heaven from chains and bolts in a prison he is loosed into heaven from gasping and groaning upon a sick-bed to heaven surely when he comes there he findes a strange alteration Well look upon thy self now as standing