Selected quad for the lemma: world_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
world_n	father_n	holy_a	redeemer_n	2,205	5	10.6683	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A27065	The vain religion of the formal hypocrite, and the mischief of an unbridled tongue (as against religion, rulers, or dissenters) described, in several sermons, preached at the Abby in Westminster, before many members of the Honourable House of Commons, 1660 ; and The fools prosperity, the occasion of his destruction : a sermon preached at Covent-Garden / by Richard Baxter.	Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.; Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691. Fools prosperity.	1660 (1660)	Wing B1448; ESTC R13757	102,825	412

discover or but justly suspect your selves of hypocrisie and self-deceit you would stick there no longer but presently change your vain Religion your seemings and formalities for the power of godliness and sincerity of heart But I suppose that some of you will say There lies the difficulty O that we could do it But how should it be done I answer If thou be really willing to be above Hypocrisie and a vain Religion the cure is half wrought at least And I will not tire thee now with many but help and try thee by these few directions In general Be but what thou hast promised and vowed to be in thy Baptism and what thou still dost profess to be as a Christian and it will serve the turn what that is I have told you before More particularly Direct 1. Deliberately renew thy Covenant with God and with a grieved heart bewailing that thou hast been a Covenant-breaker give up thy self presently to God the Father Son and Holy Ghost as thy Creatour Redeemer and Sanctifier thy Owner thy Ruler and thy Father 2. Renounce sincerely the Devil the World and the Flesh and be at a point with all below and quit all conceits and hopes of felicity or rest on earth And absolutely devote and resign thy self and all thou hast to the will and service of thy Lord without any secret exceptions or reserves This is the property and plague of Hypocrites that secretly they have exceptions and reserves in giving up themselves to God They will follow him except it would disgrace them or undo them in the world he shall have all provided the flesh may not be too much pinched that is in plain English they take him not for God but for a second to themselves and the world and will give him but what the flesh can spare 3. Fix the eye of a lively faith upon God and upon the everlasting joyes and there take up thy whole reward and look for no other Quit all expectations of a reward from men Let it seem a small thing to thee what any mortal man shall think or speak of thee unless as Gods honour or interest is concerned in thine I have told you before that he is an Hypocrite that will not be godly without the Hypocrites reward and that can sail no further then he is moved by the wind of mans applause or of some other worldly end 4. Stick not in any externals of Religion nor in notions and barren uneffectual opinions So far art thou Religious as thy soul is engaged unto God and thy life imployed for him And so far thou dost truly worship him as thy heart is drawn up to him in love and as thou dost fear him admire him trust him and take thy pleasure in him Think not that it is a saving Religiousness to be of such or such an opinion or such a party or such a Church or to say over so many words of prayer or to keep a task of outward duties or to be of a ready voluble tongue in Preaching Prayer or Discourse Religion lyeth in the Heart and Life 5. Indulge not thy self in one known sin Retain no gross or willfull sin Plead for no Infirmity but make it the business of thy life to extirpate the relicts of the body of death Be willing of the most searching Word and of the plainest reproof and of all the help thou canst get against so dangerous an enemy 6. Stint not thy self in any low degrees of holiness but love and long and strive after the highest If thou bear a secret core of distast against those that outgo thee it is a mortal sign Thou must be perfect in desire or thou art not sincere 7. Walk alwaies as in the presence of the holy dreadful heart-searching God Remember that he seeth thy ends thine affections and all thy thoughts Be the same therefore in secret as thou art in publike sincerely search the Word of God and know what it is that he would have and that resolve on if all the world should be against it Unresolvedness is hypocrisie and temporizing or following the greater side for the security of the flesh is no better Never think thou canst be too holy or too obedient But make it thy study to do God all the service that thou canst whatever suffering or cost it put thee to Be not ashamed openly to own the cause of Christ In the presence of the greatest remember that thy master is so much greater that they are worms and vanity to him Take heed of culling out the easie and cheap part of Religion and laying by the difficult and dear Thy Religion must be as the heart in thy breast which is alwaies working and by which thou livest which cannot stop long but thou wilt die But the Hypocrites Religion is like the H●t upon his head for ornament and shelter from the weather and not for life in the night when none seeth him he can lye without it and in the day he can put it off for the sake of a friend and perhaps stand bare in the presence of a greater person that expecteth it So can the Hypocrite too oft dispense with his Religion 8. Be hearty and serious in all thou dost Hear and read and pray as for thy life Sincerity consisteth much in seriousness Remember thou art almost at another world while I am speaking and thou art hearing we are both hasting to our endless state O how should men live on earth that must live here for so short a time and must live for ever in heaven or hell These things are true and past all question and therefore for your fouls sake lose not heaven by trifling Pray not in jeast and serve not God in jeast and resist not sin in jeast least you be damned in good sadness When you are at work for eternity its time to do it with all your might O what unconceivable mercies are now offered you O what an excellent price is in your hands and nothing is so likely to deprive you of the benefit as dreaming and dallying when you should be up and doing as if this were not your business but your play and salvation and damnation were matters of sport O do but set your selves to the pleasing of God and the saving of your souls with all your might and ply it with diligence as your chiefest work and then you are out of the danger of the Hypocrite But if still you will give the world the preheminence and your flesh must be pleased and your prosperity secured and God must have but complements or the leavings your misery is at hand and vengeance shall undeceive those hearts that would not be undeceived by the Word And you shall remember to the increase of your anguish that you were told this day that your seeming trifling Religion would prove vain But I beseech you as you are men as you love your souls dismiss us with some better hopes and now resolve to be downright

themselves the more easily that they are as good as those opinions and that company doth import and that they are truely such as those they joyn with As men are taken by others for such as those they correspond with so hypocrites take themselves for such As if it would prove that a man is sound because he dwelleth with them that are so Or as if it would prove a man rich or honourable that he converseth with such As God will not save any Nations on earth because they are such Nations nor will he save men because they are of such or such a trade or because they are skilled in this or that art or science no more will he save men for being of this or that party or Sect in matters of Religion One thinks when he hath lived a fleshly life that he shall be saved for hearing or saying the Common-prayer or because he is for Prelacy and Ceremonies another thinks he shall be saved because he can pray without a book or form of words or because he frequenteth the private meetings of those that more diligently redeem their time for spiritual advantages then others do another thinks he shall be saved because he is mocked as a Puritan or as too strict as others are that are serious believers and diligent in the things of God and another thinks that he shall be saved because he is rebaptized or because he joyneth with some separating Congregation which pretendeth to be more strict then others But none shall be saved on any such account as these Cain could not be saved for being the first born in the family of Adam Cham could not be saved for being in the Ark and family of Noah Nor Esau for being in the house of Isaac Nor Absalom for being the son of David Nor Judas for being a Disciple in the family of Christ Even Mary that brought him forth could not have been saved by him if she had not had a better title and had not bore him in her heart Mark 3. 34 35. when they talk to him of his Mother and his brethren Christ looked upon those that sate about him and told them that Whosoever shall do the will of God the same is his Brother his Sister and his Mother It is no outward badge and livery but a heart-title that must prove you the heirs of heaven You may be snatcht out of the purest Church on earth and from the purest ordinances and out of the arms of the most upright Christians and cast into hell if you have no better evidences then such to shew for your salvation If ever you be saved it must not be because you are Papists or Protestants Lutherans or Calvinists Arminians Antinomians Anabaptists Independents Presbyterian or Prelatical formally and meerly as such But because you are true Christians that have the Spirit of Christ Rom. 8. 9. and are conformed to him in his sufferings death and resurrection and live in sincere obedience to his will But Hypocrites that want the inward life and power of Religion and are conscious of their willfull sins would fain borrow something from the parties which they joyn with or the opinions which they take up or the formal outward worship which they perform or the alms which they give to make up the want and cheat their souls with a self-created confidence that they shall be saved But more specially you may hence observe the reason that Popery hath so many followers and that it is so easie a thing to make an Infidel or whoremonger or drunkard to turn a Papist when yet it is not easie to bring them to faith and chastity and temperance much less to the unfeigned love of God and to a holy heavenly life Though I doubt not but there are many sincere-hearted Christians among the Papists yet Popery it self is of an hypocritical strain and is notably suited to the Hypocrites disposition It is revived Pharisaisme I marvel that they tremble not when they read themselves so lively characterized by Christ with the addition of so many terrible woes as in Matth. 23. and other places frequently they are Woe to you Scribes Pharisees Hypocrites They bind heavy burdens of external observances to lay upon the consciences of their Proselytes They make broad their Phylacteries and in variety of holy vestures they make ostentation of such a Religion as a Peacock may have when he spreads his tail They contend for superiority and titles to be called Rabbi Pope Cardinal Patriarck Primate Metropolitane Archbishop Diocesane Abbot Prior Father c. to the great disturbance of all the Nations of the Christian world They must needs be the Fathers and Masters of our faith They shut up the Kingdom of heaven against the people forbidding all to read the Scriptures in their vulgar tongue without a special license from their Ordinary and commanding them to worship God in a strange tongue which they do not understand By the numbers of their Masses and prayers for the dead they delude the souls and devour the Patrimony of the living In Temples and Altars and Images and Ornaments consisteth no small part of their Religion They make more of tything mint anise and cummin then of judgement mercy and faith the weightier matters of the Law The outside they make clean and appear as beautiful to men as ceremonies and outward pompe can make them They make it a part of their Religion to murder the living Saints and keep holy dayes for the dead They build the Tombs of the Prophets and garnish the Sepulchres of the righteous and say If we had lived in the dayes of our Fathers we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the Prophets Thus Matth. 23. is their description They have their Touch not ●aste not handle not after the commandements and doctrines of men their voluntary humility and worshipping of Angels and other rudiments of the world and things that have a shew of wisdom in will-worship and humility and neglecting of the body not in any honour to the satisfying of the flesh Col. 2. 19 20 21 22 23. How easie a thing is it to bring an ungodly man to be of a Religion that consisteth in such things as these in eating fish on certain dayes in stead of flesh in saying over so many Pater Nosters and Ave Maries and naming so oft the name of Jesu in worshipping a piece of consecrated bread with divine worship in bowing and praying before an Image in praying to the souls of such as the Pope tells them are Saints in heaven in crossing themselves and being sprinkled with holy water and using agnus dei's and consecrated grains and amulets in dropping of beads in saying such words as a prayer at such a canonical hour and such words at the next canonical hour in hearing a Masse in Latine and saying a Latine prayer in being anointed with hallowed oyl burning hallowed candles on the Altars by day-light in going so many miles to

proudest and securest of them all For God shall wound the head of his enemies and the hairy scalp of such a one as goeth on still in his trespasses Psal 68. 21. He is not a God that hath pleasure in wickedness neither shall evil dwell with him The foolish shall not stand in his sight he hateth all the workers of iniquity Psal 5. 3 4. The ungodly that delight not in the Law of the Lord are like the chaffe that the wind driveth away They shall not stand in judgement nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous Psal 1. The wicked shall be turned into hell and all the Nations that forget God Psal 9. 17. Cannot you endure to hear and consider of these things How then will you endure to feel them God will not flatter you If all your greatness enable you not to repulse the assaults of death nor to chide away the gout or stone and all your honour or wealth will not cure a feaver or ease you of the tooth-ake how little will it do to save you from the everlasting wrath of God or to avert his sentence which must shortly pass on all that are impenitent And yet prosperity so befooleth sensual men that they must hear of none of this at least not with any close and personal application If you speak as Christ did to the Pharises Mat. 21. 45. that they perceived that he spake of them they take you for their enemy for telling them the truth Gal. 4. 16. and meet our doctrine as Ahab did Elijah 2 King 21. 20. Hast thou found me O mine enemy and 1 King 18. 17. Art thou he that troubleth Israel or as the same Ahab of Micaiah 1 King 22. 8. There is one man Micaiah of whom we may enquire of the Lord but I hate him for he doth not prophesie good concerning me but evil Or as Amaziah the Priest said of Amos to King Jeroboam He hath conspired against thee the land is not able to bear all his words Amos 7. 10. And ver 13. Prophesie not again any more at Bethel for it is the Kings Chappel and it is the Kings Court They behave themselves to faithful Ministers as if it were a part of their inviolable honour and priviledge to be mortally sick without the trouble of a Physician and to have no body tell them that they are out of their way till it be too late or that they are in misery till there be no remedy and that none should remember them of heaven till they have lost it nor trouble them in the way to hell nor seek to save them lest he should but torment them before the time And thus prosperity makes them willingly deaf and blind and turn away their ears from the hearing of the Law and then their prayers for mercy in their distress are rejected as abominable by the Lord Prov. 1. 24. to 33. and 28 9. 7. Yea if there be any persecution raised against the Church of Christ who are the chief acters in it but the prosperous blinded sensual great ones of the world The Princes make it their petition against Jeremy to the King We beseech thee let this man be put to death for thus he weakeneth the hands of the men of war and the hands of all the people in speaking such words unto them for this man seeketh not the welfare of his people but the hurt Jer. 38. 4. It was the Presidents and Princes that said of Daniel We shall not find any occasion against this Daniel except we find it against him concerning the Law of his God Dan. 6. 5. Were it not lest some malicious hearer should misapply it and think I sought to diminish the reputation of Magistrates while I shew the effects of the prosperity of fools I should give you abundance of such lamentable instances and tell you how commonly the great ones of the world have in all ages set themselves and taken counsel against the Lord and against his Christ Psal 2. and stumbled upon the corner-stone and taken no warning by those that have been thus broken in pieces before them How ready is Herod to gratifie a wanton dancer with a Prophets head In a word as Satan is called the Prince of this world no wonder if he rule the men of the world that have their portion in this life Psal 17. 14. and can command his armies and engage them and enrage them against the servants of the Most High that run not with them to the same excess of ryot 1 Pet. 4. 4. And as James saith as aforecited Do not the rich oppress you and draw you before the judgement seats Do they not blaspheme that worthy name by which you are called Jam. 2. 6 7. 8. And in all this sin and misery how senseless and secure are these prosperous fools as merry within a year or month or week of hell as if no harm were near How wonderful hard is it to convince them of their misery The most learned wise or godly man or the dearest friend they have in the world shall not perswade them that their case is such as to need a conversion and supernatural change They cannot abide to take off their minds from their sensual delights and vanities and to trouble themselves about the things of life eternal come on 't what will they are resolv'd to venture and please their flesh and enjoy what the world will afford them while they may till suddenly God surprizeth them with his dreadful call Thou fool this night shall thy soul be required of thee then whose shall those things be which thou hast provided Luke 12. 20. So is he that layeth up riches for himself and is not rich towards God ver 21. II. I Should next shew you how it is that prosperity thus destroyeth fools Briefly 1. By the pleasing of their sensitive appetite and fancy and so overcoming the power of reason Perit omne judicium cum res transit in affectum Violent affections hearken not to reason The beast is made too headstrong for the rider Deut. 32 15. Jesurun waxed fat and kicked then he forsook God that made him and lightly esteemed the rock of his salvation 2. The friendship of the world is enmity to God and if any man love the world the love of the Father is not in him Jam. 4. 4. 1 Joh. 2. 15. And undoubtedly the more amiable the world appears the more strongly it doth allure the soul to love it And to the prosperous it appeareth in the most entising dress 3. And hereby it taketh off the soul from God We cannot love and serve God and Mammon The heart is gone another way when God should have it It is so full of love and desire and care and pleasure about the creatures that there is no room for God How can they love him with all their hearts that have let out those hearts to vanity before 4. And the very noise and busle of these worldly things diverts their minds