Selected quad for the lemma: work_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
work_n	fruit_n	good_a	justification_n	4,396	5	9.1232	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A31658	A seasonable word and call to all those called ranters or libertines through-out the three nations, to come into the true faith and pure fear of the Lord ... written ... by John Chandler ...	Chandler, John, 17th cent.	1659 (1659)	Wing C1928; ESTC R19405	15,876	20

according as ye would have them to be understood whereby Christ the true light and those that were enlightned and enlivened sanctified by him were by some of you accounted even such as your selves who live in divers lusts so far hath the deceit entred into you But ye shall know in the day of the Lord 's righteous Judgment as I have truly known by turning to that which judged aright and made manifest Sin to be exceeding sinfull that Christ and the former Saints and holy men and women were sincere in their thoughts words and deeds haring no mental reservation in what they spake and that they lived according as their words hold forth being wise as Serpents yet not in the Serpent's wisdom and harmlesse as Doves yea fleeing from all sin and wickednesse as from a Serpent And now I will say How are the hidden things of Es au searched out by the light which is the Candle of the Lord even of prophane Esau who for a morsel of meat sold his birth-right And let me in God's wisdom and fear reason with you a little Are not some of you prophane Esaus who for a few momentary pleasures and unsatisfying Lusts have quite parted with and for ever bid Adieu to the sense and feeling of that which ye once counted better then life it self to wit a broken heart and contrite spirit and godly sorrow for sin which things wrought you to some Repentance whereof ye had never just cause to repent As also comfort and peace in your Spirits as your minds were kept in that which was pure open to the Lord and being afraid to offend him Such a step in the truth no doubt some of you have made but now your hearts are as hard as an Adamant so that ye find no more place for Repentance than Esau did nay not going so far as he for he sought the Blessing with tears though he obtained it not being still prophane but ye desire not to returne in any outward shew yea perhaps will laugh and scoff at any that shall exhort you thereunto Had it not been good for such if they had never been born And are you not all prophane ones from the greatest to the least that have left your first love to simplicity and sincerity purity holinesse sobriety temperance and other the good fruits of the Spirit and think your selvs to have attained the higher perfection the more freely ye can act contrary to these without check or controul in your selvs which ye count but the working of the Fancy over which to get victory that it should not at all trouble you ye count your perfection redemption justification sanctification and salvation So ye quench the Light which is God's faithful witnesse within you that in love often pleads with you for a return kill the Just one stop the cry of the innocent trample upon the holy Seed that should bruise the Serpent's head who is head in you call it your perfection redemption would if it were possible set God at variance against himself accounting that to be God's arme and power in you which slayeth his reproving witnesse which is his good Spirit which Spirit know ye shall not alwayes strive with you for good Therefore I charge you by the Lord to bethink your selves ye that are not past feeling of your former estates when ye were conscientious and tender for it was much better then with you than now and commune with your own hearts by turning in to the witnesse of God that calls for purity and holinesse in thought word and deed for sobriety and temperance and chastity and all godlinesse and honesty and that while ye have time lest your consciences be quite seared and the Lord God sware in his wrath Ye shall never enter into his pure and everlasting Rest for this is God's very and true day not an imaginary one which ye have conceited for some years past to your selvs and so no time to dally with the wicked and back slider for Woe saith the Lord God to him that in the land and time of uprightnesse will deal unjustly and will not behold the majesty of the Lord. And if any of you have or shall have stirrings and thoughts raised up in you of waiting upon God's witnesse and any true desires begotten to know by the light within you which makes manifest all things wherein ye have erred and done amisse I charge you flee it not though it begin to bring some terrour and shame upon the carnal part for as ye have made the pure seed to suffer by your sin and deceit so you must expect to suffer by the Seed when he comes to bruise the Serpents head to whom ye have been joyned and accept of the punishment of your iniquity and say It is all far lesse than we have deserved and let your uncircumcised hearts be humbled and wait low and humbly to know the Lord's mind and be willing to forsake all evill and cleave unto and do all good that the Lord by his Light shall lay open before you who will bring Judgment to the line and Equity to the plummet and be willing to come into Unity with the Holy men of God and Christ's words in the Scriptures which testify against all the fruits of the flesh let them be done under never so fair a pretence of liberty and above all things desire sincerity and uprightnesse of heart for so it was with me at my return and this was the word in me His countenance shall behold the upright and then will the Lord have compassion and by degrees heal your land I mean your poor Souls and ye shall see Faith in the truths of God and a good conscience and the pure fear of the Lord grow and spring up together in you for 't is Faith that purifies the heart But if you flee in Winter and will not bear the Judgment till the indignation be over-past or will be ashamed to be ashamed of your evill wayes and so let deceit prevail over the pure and make up a healing to your selvs by quenching the witnesse ye shall receive the fruit of your own doings even to lye down in perpetuall forrow in the end But I hear some of you asking What is Sin and Evill Do ever any of you find any of the Holy men of God from one end of the Scriptures to the other to have asked such a Question Nay For they believed the Lord's witnesse which he had placed in them without their own reasonings and disputings as finding twins in their womb two Seeds opposite each to other which brought forth contrary fruit and by the Holy Seed which is the true Light they saw the good Tree and the corrupt Tree the good fruit and the corrupt fruit for the Light reproved them for evill and corrupt motions and all words and actions proceeding there-from but it justified them and gave them peace in pure and holy motions and

Rayment c. which are pure to one whole conscience is not defiled with sin and they apply them to all thoughts actions and words which Paul himself often declares against in all Tell me also Oh ye Libertines is not willful murder something and Sodomy something and Men with Men something and Women with Women committing filthynesse something and Man to engender with a Beast something and for a Witch out of malice without just cause given to do mischief upon the Bodies of Men or the innocent Beast something or to curse ones Maker something And dare any of you say these things are pure to the pure do any of these bear any face or resemblance of or with purity I believe very few of you would have the face to affirme it Now if there be something in you that riseth up against these things why should it not also against other things which are declared by the Holy Men of God to be the fruits of the flesh and how if but one thing be judged filthy in it self can all things in your sense be pure to the pure That place in Isaiah is a Prophesie of Gospel Times the Jews had been long before those times came led by the Letter of the Law but then the Lord said He would lead them by a way they knew not even by the teachings of His Spirit they had before walked in darknesse but now darknesse should be made light before them not as a great Ranter once said that darknesse and its works should be then accounted by them that were taught of God for light and truly so for that is impossible they being of a direct contrary nature Now darknesse is truly said to be turned into light when the light and its works do expell the darknesse and its works because then these are not at all in being as the darkness of the night and works proper to the night are not in being in the day time so night is turned to day So John came to prepare a People for the Lord even Christ when the crooked perverse pature was destroyed and made a right and good nature and the rough nature destroyed and made a mild nature that all flesh might see the Salvation of God As for Solomon's expressions in some things take heed of stumbling and falling at a wise man's words He was once Captivated by Lust and Idolatry and Pride but consider him in all his Rayment or dresse of Wisdome and Knowledge as he was Solomon a greater than Solomon is here even Christ the true light of men who said If thy eye be single thy whole body is full of light The single eye is when a man looks singly to the Lord in all his thoughts words and actions keeping the watch that his mind run not out after other Lovers so long is the Body full of Light for the Light shineth out of the Darknesse therein but if the eye be dark if he looks or runs after any thing in his thoughts c. besides the Lord alone there is the double-minded man whose heart is to be purified for darknesse fills his Temple that he knoweth not what he doth in so doing So that the single eye is not to look on sin to be no sin for that is to see a lye but to look on the Lord singly that the soul may be preserved out of all sin and evil which is contrary to his pure nature in the ground and root But 't is said Amos 3.6 Is there any evil in the City and the Lord hath not done it Whence ye conclude all evil in thought word and deed which appears in Men or to the view of the World are of the Lords own doing and so good That Scripture is not rightly translated out of the Hebrew tongue for there it is Is there any evil in the City and shall not the Lord do somewhat And in the old translation it is Cometh any Plague in a City without it be the Lords doing So that this makes quite against you For shall any evil or sin be committed and the Lord who is pure and holy and just not do something in punishing or plaguing thereof for he in the second verse of the same Chapter had said to Israel by the Prophet Ye onely have I known of all the Families of the Earth Therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities and he saith in the seventh verse Surely the Lord will do nothing but He revealeth His secret to his Servants the Prophets So that he speaketh here of doing something or scourging the Isralites for their sin which he revealed before hand to his Prophets that they might declare it to the transgressours so that the sin and evil is from the evil nature in man but the punishment thereof is from the righteous God which punishment be it either Spiritual or Corporal is an evil indeed to him that is punished because it plagues him for his iniquity but in God it is good because it is justly inflicted by him upon the unrighteous Doer But had ye Libertines kept your first integrity and out of your own humane thoughts all which are but vain ye would never thus have run to the letter for counsel but would have kept to God's witnesse in your selves which reproveth for all sin and evil which is more to us than a thousand witnesses from without and which brings to a right understanding of the Scriptures But ye raise another great stumbling block from Isaiah 45. where 't is said I forme the Light and create darknesse I make Peace and create Evill I the Lord do all these things Whence ye gather that darknesse and Evill which is the fruit of darknesse is created by the Lord and done by him and therefore ye say That which we count darknesse and the works of darknesse is as good as that which we count Light and the works of Light Consider in the wisdom and fear of God what the Prophet speaketh of and to what end He speaketh of Cyrus whom the Lord would raise up to be an Instrument of delivering his people out of the Captivity of Babylon whom he had sirnamed and girded by his power for that purpose which was a great Work whereby the Nations from East to West who all had the Jewish People in their evil Eye should know that he was the Lord and that there was none besides him that could put it into the heart of such a proud Heathen as Cyrus was to let his People go free So the more to illustrate his own Power He moved his Prophet to utter those words above mentioned concerning the things of the Creation and the management thereof He forms the Light by his natural Sun which He hath created and the Darknesse or Night by the withdrawing of the Sun He maketh peace in the Earth by restrayning the Oppressors cruelty and inclining his heart to pitry towards the Oppressed as in this case of Cyrus towards the poor Jews and createth evil or