Selected quad for the lemma: woman_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
woman_n	put_v	seed_n	serpent_n	4,832	5	9.9632	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A88141	Elias redivivus: a sermon preached before the honorable House of Commons, in the parish of Saint Margarets West minster, at the publike fast, March 29, 1643. By John Lightfoote, preacher of the Gospel at Bartholomew Exchange, London.	Lightfoot, John, 1602-1675.	1643 (1643)	Wing L2053; Thomason E99_11; ESTC R20324	33,230	56

the great thing in Religion As his Counsell was to agree to Gregories Austen if he were humble so be it our holy policy to tie to that man in friendship that is religious and as Jehu to Jonadab 2 King 10. 15. If we light on a man whose heart is right towards the Lord as we desire a friends heart should be to us let us fixe on that friend and give him the hand Secondly this also may shew us who cannot be our friend and with whom it is impossible to have unity and amity namely with the Church of Rome which is cleane Antipodes to us in Religion Is there peace Jehu saith Joram to him No there is no peace where whoredomes and witchcrafts are so many No communion can be betwixt Christ and Belial or betwixt Religion and Idolatry for so I conceive the word Belial signifieth throughout the Scripture The enmity that God himselfe fixed at the very beginning betwixt the seed of the Serpent and the seed of the Woman must continue unreconciled to the very end and as quos Deus conjunxit whom God hath joyned together no man whatsoever must put asunder so what God hath parted and put asunder no man must offer to joyne together Who are the seed of the Woman and the seed of the Serpent so plaine to be seene as Christ and Antichrist and he that will seeke to make conjunction of Rome and us will marry light and darknesse God and the Devill Christ and Antichrist together and make a friendship betwixt those betwixt whom God himselfe hath doomed an enmity while the world endureth We blesse God that hath brought us out of her familiarity and friendship to be now her haters and hated of her and we blesse the time when we first fell from the society and converse of Egypt to be her enemies and at distance with her And we blesse you and your endeavours that strive so much and so constantly to keepe us cleare of re-ingagements And may the worke prosper in your hands and you in the worke to hold us still at our proper distance to the feed of the Serpent and to keepe us at enmity where God hath set it but for turning the hearts of the fathers to the children and the reducing of the disobedient to the wisedome of the just it is our prayer still and still as it was before that you may have the power of Elias or the Baptist as you have the spirit and so I come to the last part of the text and the second part of Johns worke in his Ministration To turne the disobedient to the wisdome of the just These words as they lie in our English Translation doe shew no great difficulties but being examined in the Originall they are not so very easie A man scruple that appears in both is this That the Angel undertaking to quote the Prophet should so far now decline from his text In the former part that we have newly handled he followeth him punctually and verbatim He shall turne the hearts of the fathers to the children so saith the Prophet and so the Angel but now that he should have taken up the other part in these words And the hearts of the children to the fathers he changeth them into this clause And the disobedient to the wisdome of the just But to this may be answered 1. That the Angel is not so punctuall to cite the very letter of the Prophet as to give the sense And so we may observe it to be usuall in the new Testament in its allegations from the old And that he giveth the same sense or a true interpretation of the Prophet we shall see as we goe 2. It was not very long after the Baptizing and Preaching of John that the Jews ceased to be a Church and Nation nay even in the time of him himselfe they shewed themselves enemies to the Gospel and to the Professors of the same for the generall or greatest part of them therefore he saith not that the hearts of the children the Gentiles should be turned to their fathers the Jewes which should cease to be fathers and to be a people but to the wisedome of the just And thus in the first part of his speech about turning the hearts of the fathers to the children he intimateth the Jewes that should be reconciled and united to the Gentiles in imbracing the Gospel and in this latter by omitting to call them Fathers he giveth a touch of the hostility and evill minde that the others of the Jewes should beare both to it and to the Gentiles that imbraced it And now that we see the reason and difference in the allegation let us take up the words that thus differ every one single and one after another as they lie in order and would the time permit every word would afford us matter profitably to insist upon but I will onely hint it as we goe along for I feare to offend in transgressing the time 1. As in this clause he refuseth to use the terme of fathers for the reason mentioned so doth he also of the correlative children because of his refusing of that And yet he coucheth the sense of that title under the word disobedient which in its most proper and naturall signification reflecteth upon untowardly children disobedient to their parents For though there be a disobedience to any Superiour whatsoever as to Kings Magistrates Masters and the like yet is the obedience of children to Parents the Originall from whence it receiveth denomination and that appeareth in that those Superiours are called Fathers As therefore the Angel omitting to call the Jewes Fathers insinuateth their opposition against the Gospel so by terming the Gentiles Disobedient in stead of Children he sheweth what they were before they imbraced it The vulgar Latine in stead of Disobedient readeth Incredulous or unbeleeving which though the Greek word doth sometime signifie as might be evidenced in divers instances yet that it doth not so in this place may be collected from these considerations First that the speech is concerning children and fathers as is apparent in the clause preceding and betweene them disobedience is a more proper terme and notion then Inoredulity Secondly that he saith not He shall turne them to the faith which were the most proper if he spake of the unbeleeving but to the wisdom of the righteous And thirdly that the preaching of the Baptist was more especially the doctrine of repentance as his Baptisme was the Baptisme of repentance but the preaching of Christ was the doctrine of faith Therefore John saith onely Repent Matth. 3. 2. but our Saviour Repent and beleeve Mar. 1. 15. Now from this double signification of the Originall word and indeed also from the proper cause of the Heathens disobedience we might observe that a chiefe and maine cause of disobedience is unbeliefe It is a saying of the Jewes in their Talmud in the Treatise Maccoth

men of Nazareth though but plaine and rusticke simple men yet did they quickly understand it of preaching to the Gentiles which put them into an anger and our Saviour into a danger Nor can we thinke that the holy and zealous Prophet residing in that Heathen City two or three yeares together as appeareth by the text would live there idlely and doing nothing but that he preached there as well as he had done to Israel whilest he was among them for he was every where jealous for the Lord of Hosts I would this were but seriously thought on in mens expounding the prophesie about the two witnesses in the Revelation which we touched before For if they would but see Elias there which is so plainely emblemed and pictured out and withall but consider that Elias was the first Prophet of the Gentiles it would helpe to settle an interpretation to that place which now hangs exceeding loose in diversity of opinions This being then the proper and onely meaning of the words in hand that John by his preaching should turne the hearts of the Jewes to the Gentiles and of the Gentiles to the Jewes and by his Baptisme should as it were tie them up together the observation or collection that we may take up from hence is this That true Religion is the truest reconciler There is no peace-maker like the Gospel but it is among them that are true professors of the Gospel Nor is there any breed-bate like the Gospel neither And so saith our Savioar Suppose you that I am come to give peace on earth I tell yee nay but rather division Luke 12. 51. which he speaketh out more plainely by another Evangelist I came not to send peace but a sword Matth. 10. 34. But this is betweene the two seeds betwixt whom God hath set enmity and there can be no reconciliation the seed of the Woman and the seed of the Serpent but to the children of the same father God and of the same mother the Church the Gospel is the sweet messenger of peace and the sweete peace maker A deadlier hate could not be betwixt man and man then was of the Jew toward the Gentile They reputed them as Dogs and so our Saviour useth their common phrase It is not good to take the childrens bread and give it to Dogs they reputed them as swine and accordingly they render that verse of the eighteenth Psalme the Boare out of the Wood doth waste it and the wild beast of field doth devoure it they abhorred their society nay they abhorred the very mention of their conversion Luke 4. 28. Act. 22. 22. And yet when true Religion commeth in seiseth both the Jew Gentile the hate is forgotten the feud is gone and the deadly enemies are the nearest friends Much like as it is reported concerning Cairo in Egypt that if the Plague rage never so much over night that they die by thousands yet if the River Nilus come flowing in the next day the mortality is ceased and there dieth not one Even so is it with Religion Be there never so much bitternesse and heart-burning betwixt man and man never so much contention and contestation betwixt neighbour and neighbour if the power of Religion doe but once flow in and seise them both the Plague is ceased the malignity gone This is that that cries downe the partition wals of all divisions this is the great tie of mens affections yea it is the greatest this is the matrimony of soules making two men to be of one spirit as the other doth a man and a woman to be one flesh It is Christ which is the truest cause of making men offended to be reconciled in a good sense as he was the occasion of Herods and Pilates being so in a bad With what spleene and rancour did Saul set for Damascus against the professors there yet when Christ comes into him by the way no greater friend then Paul to them when he comes neare them For 1. Religion is a speciall and soveraine meanes to calme tame and cicurate those exorbitant affections and extravagant humours that breed division and maintaine it The Prophet Esay describing the power of the Gospel in the Christian Church saith that it shall bring the Wolfe to dwell with the Lambe the Leopard to lie downe with the Kid the Calfe and the young Lion to feed together and the Cow and the Beare to goe in company His allusion is to the carriage of the beasts in the Arke of Noah before they came in thither the Lion was ravenous and the Lambe his prey the Leopard and the Beare devouring and the Kid and the Calfe afraid to come neare them but when they were come within the Arke there was no such thing all bloodinesse and rapine was laid aside and the Lambe and Lion couch together and the Lion now as harmelesse as the Lambe So is it in the Church and so is it by the power of Religion those humours and passions of men which before have beene bloudy cruell proud selfe-willed dissentious and rebellious if once the powerfull operation of Religion get in among them it quels these Rebels quenches these firebrands reduces these extravagants and like the dispossessed in the Gospel makes him to sit calmely and quietly and in his right mind whom none might come within the compasse of before without a danger 2. Religion doth center mens affections in the center of unity God himself and those things that concerne God that they cannot separate It is an old saying Quae conveniunt in uno tertio conveniunt inter se Those things that agree in a third thing agree among themselves Then how many third things are there in which true Christians meete as lines in a Center that must needs hold them together and make them agree S. Paul hath reckoned them to our hands in the fourth to the Ephesians the fourth fifth and sixth verses They meet in one body in one spirit in one hope of their calling in one Lord one faith one Baptisme in one God and Father of all 3. Religion maketh conscience of living in division and giving offence It dares not offer its gift at the Altar till it and the offended be reconciled It dares not suffer the Sunne to goe downe upon its wrath nor will eate that meate that shall offend a weake brother And as the Father in another sense accounts it as desperate to sleepe in malice as to goe to bed in a den of lions The use that we may make of this may be double and briefly thus because I know not your houres and occasions and I feare to offend First this may direct us very well in the choosing of a friend Would we have one that shall be true to us let us look out such a one as is true to God Would we have one that shall be faithfull in our little things in our affaires let us seeke out such a one as is faithfull in