Selected quad for the lemma: world_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
world_n	day_n	rest_n	rest_v	2,554	5	9.3487	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A61638	Shecinah, or, A demonstration of the divine presence in the places of religious worship being an essay, tending to promote piety, prevent apostacy, and to reduce grosly deluded souls, first to their right wits, then to the right waies, of Gods publick instituted worship / by John Stillingfleete ...	Stillingfleet, John, 1630 or 1-1687.	1663 (1663)	Wing S5680; ESTC R9466	109,230	256

hath pleased our Soveraign and Creator to set apart some portion of our time for his Worship and to indulge the rest to us to be employed according to the necessity of our natures § 8. Thus God taking a pattern from his own Creation employing six daies in the production of the world and resting the seventh Hee hath freely indulged six daies for common and ordinary work and a seventh hee set apart for his more solemn Worship and Service And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it Gen. 2.3 because that in it hee had rested from all his work which God created and made Gods sanctifying of the day was setting of it apart for an holy use that is designing it to his Publick Worship and Service It is true the word Sanctifie is variously used in Scriptures but here it must be one of these two waies taken Either 1. By infusion of Holiness and Sanctity into it as holy men are said to be sanctified or else 2. By separation of it from common use and dedication of it to holy use as the Temple and the Altar are said to be sanctified The first cannot be meant here because the circumstance of a seventh part of time is not capable of being made holy by the infusion of Habitual Holiness whereof onely intelligent creatures men and Angels are it must therefore be said to be sanctified in regard of its separation from common use and dedication to holy use as the Temple was which had no inherent holiness Being thus dedicated for an holy use it must be either for Gods use or mans that is that either God should keep this holy day or that man might observe it as an holy day unto God The dishonour that the observation of such an holy day would bring upon God must needs by asse us to beleeve that it was dedicated and consecrated for mans use for him to observe it as holy unto God This day is therefore said to be sanctified of God that man might sanctifie it and dedicate it unto God And hence it follows that as man could never have lawfully dedicated it unto God without a fore-going institution from God so the institution of God implies a known command given by God unto man So that if any desire to know where God commanded the observation of the Sabbath before Moses his time they may see it here necessarily implied in Gods sanctifying of it And that God doth here declare his mind by Moses by way of Prolepsis and Anticipation concerning the sanctification of the Sabbath because his intention was to sanctifie it two thousand five hundred years after Is but a meer shifting evasion of prejudiced minds the vanity of which hath been sufficiently discovered by many worthy and learned Divines Onely this may suffice to evidence that God himself hath interposed in the determination of a portion of time for his Service in that hee hath set apart a seventh part of mans time for his Worship And herein we may observe Gods infinite goodness and condiscention of love If God had asked man how much time hee would willingly allow for the worship of his Maker who had given him his Being and furnished the world with necessaries for the use of man Hee could not for shame have denyed God the one half of his time considering his frame and making that hee is half Spirit when as the holy Angels which are wholly spiritual in their Beings are continually employed in Gods Worship and Service and yet wee see God requires but a seventh part of our time They then must needs act very dis-ingenuously not to say highly dishonourably against God who would rob God of this too Shepheard Pref. to the Moral of Sab. Especially if that hold good which one hath observed That it is easie to demonstrate by Scripture and Argument as well as by experience That Religion is just as the Sabbath is and decaies and grows as the Sabbath is esteemed The immediate Honour and Worship of God which is brought forth and swadled in the three first Commands is nursed up and suckled in the bosome of the Sabbath If Popery will have grosse ignorance and blind devotion continued among its miserable captives let it then be made like the other Festivals a merry and a sporting Sabbath If any State would reduce the people under it to Romish Faith and blinde obedience again let them erect again for lawful sports and pastimes a dancing Sabbath If the God of this world would have all Professors enjoy a total immunity from the Law of God and all manner of licentiousness allowed without check of conscience let him then make an every day Sabbath § 9. 2. That some place also is necessary for man to worship God in is evident by the very light of Nature For every Body such as man hath must by the natural necessity of its Being be contained in some real place in the world and indeed to be in a place is so proper to a Body that wee may as well suppose it not to have a Being as not to admit of a local circumscription If a Body cannot be or exist then neither can it operate or perform any action unless it be in some place now therefore the Worship of God being an external action when publickly performed with others it not onely requires a place but necessarily requires a place capacious of many that must joyn in the same Worship Because Publick Worship speaks a joynt concurrence of several Worshippers for the performance of the same action of Religious Worship So that the very light of Nature gives its clear suffrage for the necessity of convenient places of meeting for the performance of the Publick Worship and Service of God Is it not a shame now not to live closely up to such clear dictates of the Light within must the convenient places of Publick meeting for Gods Worship be forsaken because the necessity of them is thus evident and apparent by Natural Light is not this to cry up inward Light and yet plainly to live in Darknesse voluntarily closing their eyes against the sparkling beams of it And if popular consent and the Christian Magistrates Civil Sanction have interposed in the designation of such places separating them from common and dedicating them to a Religious use and if prevailing Custome hath stiled the meeting places CHURCHES probably according to the languag of Saint Paul himself 1 Cor. 11.18.20 22. 34. verses compared See Mr. Modes Treatise of Churches Is it not meerly sottishness and ignorance to withdraw from these because they are so called and so set apart for Religious Worship How much better did the very Heathens improve their natural dictates than these pretended Patrons of the Light within who from the sight of a necessity of some Publick place for Worship invented their Groves Oratories and Temples for the service of their Idol Gods But I proceed § 10. Propos 5. God by his instituted Law did particularize

knowledge into practice John 13.17 If ye know these things happy are yee if yee do them If the Spirit should teach us knowledge without practice he would leave us lame if practice without knowledge hee would leave us blind but teaching profitably he teaches both that leads us unto happiness There are many obstructions 'twixt the head and the heart which hinder our knowledg from having a kindly influence upon practice which the Spirit by his teaching doth remove So that what enters into the head in the notion comes down to the heart for operation True Christians are of another make than to resemble the Toad which hath a Pearl in the head but the whole body full of poyson They have not the Pearl of knowledge onely but the Jewel of practice also and this makes them truly precious in Gods eyes Alas what will all the notions in the world do good for the mortifying our sins and cleansing the soul from sinful affections without practice If wee have a receipt onely for a disease that troubles us and not take the physick prescribed wee may languish away by the violence of the disease bee the receipt never so rare and admirable Application works cures both as to spiritual and bodily diseases 'T was practice of the Law of God that made St. Paul differ from himself a proud and knowing Pharisee by becoming an humble practical Christian Hee knew much but practised little that left him in Hypocrisie If I have all knowledge and want Charity I am sayes Paul but as sounding Brasse and a tinkling Cymball 'T is not much knowledge but practice according to what they know speaks men thriving Christians indeed Davids Prayer is made for both as knowing that knowledge without practice is but vain Psal 119.66 Teach mee good judgement and knowledge For I have beleeved thy command For good judgement 't is in the Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 bonitatem sensus goodnesse of sense and feeling Hee prayes for an inward sense a Spiritual feeling a practical taste of the commands of God His eyes were enlightned before now he desires to have his heart exercised in the Law of God as to the practice of it § 7 Secondly The Spirit teaches profitably in that hee teaches particularly Gods Spirit teaches a true Christian to apply all that he hears and reads unto himself Hee thinks the Commands belongs to him the Threatnings to him and all that is written or preached that speaks matter of obedience or reformation that he is concerned in it hee sees all concerns his souls welfare as if it had been written on very purpose for him Observe here the carriage of ungodly hearts When they hear particular sins reproved they put it off to others such an one say they had his lesson to day hee was met withal in such a Sermon and by such expressions Well but a true Christian in any such close expressions that meet with the conscience is taught by the Spirit to say Numquid ego talis Am not I the man Is not this my sin Is it not my very case He hears hypocrisie condemned in attending upon the service of God Well am not I che Hypocrite that is lashed by those cutting reproofs Hee hears a Christian may obtain assurance young men may overcome the world Have I had these things or no Am not I far short from what a true Christian may bee and ought to bee Thus ungodly men rest onely in the generals but the true Christian brings the generals down to his particular case well knowing that Dolus latet in universalibus That grossest soul-deceit lyes in resting only in universals § 8. 7. The Spirit of God teaches souls Gradually God deals with particular souls as hee hath done with the Church in general clears up truth by degrees The Church at first and when lowest had truth enough discovered to constitute it a true Church but by degrees little and little truths in particular were made more clear Is Casaubonus Ex. con Baron Ex. 1. ss 2. mihi p. 14. Thus every soul when hee becomes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 taught of God hath necessary truths for salvation made known So that suppose him to dye presently after conversion hee hath knowledge enough to carry him to Heaven But the longer hee lives the more he grows an increase is made in his Grace in knowledge as well as in the rest of his Graces Wee have no foundation for such gradual teaching as to expect the Spirit should teach more truths afterwards than are written in the Word of God No but that which I speak of is that the Spirit clears up the same truths with greater evidence of light then the Soul had before if they were truths absolutely necessary And as for other truths which contribute to the well being and not absolutely to the being of a true Christian the Spirit teaches these by degrees some after others none of which perhaps were known to the soul at first conversion But still in revealing New Truths to the soul the Spirit doth not add New Truths to the Word but sets home the Old Truths with New Lights New Light in the faculty wee acknowledge Now lights as to the Object wee reject as that which if once admitted proves the uncontroulable Guide to the grossest delusions For when once the mind is pre-possessed with an expectation of such New Lights then every suggestion of the Devil is presently embraced in it self and propounded unto others as Divine Raptures and Heavenly Visions and Revelations See c. 14. ● 11 And then how miserably forlorn are such deluded creatures when they by such courses tempt God to work miracles for their recovery or they are for ever undone For the pretence of the Spirit in its dictates of Truths besides and above the Word will fetch Arguments from the same Spirit to maintain them though the grossest delusions and so the Word and all ordinary means of reducing such souls to their right wits again become wholly useless and unprofitable Wee have had too many years experience of the dismal sad effects of this grand principle of Enthusiasme and Delusions Affrica was never more fruitful and productive of Monsters of nature than England hath been of Monsters in Morality and Divinity since such New Lights and Revelations have been owned and greedily entertained Instances of this nature are as obvious as for their nature horrid and blasphemous But that the Reader may see these are not meer declamations but great realities let him consider that remarkable one of the five Lights of Walton in Surrey See this as large in the History of Independency 2. part p. 152. Six Souldiers came to the Parish-Church there one of them told the people that hee had a Vision and received a command from God to deliver his Will to them which hee was to deliver and they to receive upon pain of damnation It consisted of five Lights 1. That the Sabbath was abolished as