Selected quad for the lemma: world_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
world_n	fire_n	set_v	tongue_n	3,258	5	9.1898	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A93781	Spiritual infatuation, the principal cause of our past and present distempers. Or a serious caveate to the many seducers and seduced who under the specious pretences of reformation and conscience endeavour the subversion of Church and State. In several sermons on Isa. 9,10,11,12. By W. Stamp D.D. late minister of the Word at Stepn[e]y near London.	Stampe, William, 1611-1653?	1662 (1662)	Wing S5195; ESTC R229850	116,158	268

conversa●ion damnable doctrines ma● have a saint-like holinesse attending o● them The Prophet Zachary tels us ●… some Prophets not unlike the Romi●… Ecclesiasticks that wore a rough garment to dec●iv● and yet in th● day 〈◊〉 tryal every one of these Prophets shoul● be ashamed of their visions Zach 13. 4 The Scribes and ●harisees were n●toriously precise ●n their prayers and fastings and tything of mint annis cumm●n and yet our Saviour ●els his disciples that except their righteousnes● exceed the righteousness of the Scribe● Mat. 5. 20. and Pharisees they should not enter int● the kingdom of heaven T is no strang● thing for subtle merchants to put the fairest glosses upon their falsest wares● and if we shal take our aym at the outward conversation the greatest Artist i● hypocrisie may passe for the holiest man of God so that ye shall know them by th●ir fruits is not to be understood thus ye shall know them by their works or ye shal judge of their sayings by their doings but ye shall know them by their fruits that is by their doctrines ye shall know them by such fruits as their doctrines shall produce And indeed this was the infallible mark of a false Prophet under the Law as appears Deut. 13. 1 2. If there arise among you a Prophet or a dreamer of dreams and giveth thee a sign or a wonder and the sign and the ●onder cometh to pass whereof he spake unto thee saying let us go after other gods and let us serve them c. where the s●gn of the fals● Prophet is not in the s●gn or the wonder but in the perswasion to Idolatry So that whensoever we meet with a Prophet perswading and enclining a people unto any appa●e●t corruption in Religion or good manners or whensoever we meet with a doctrine the design or application wherof is the promoting of sedition and rebellion to the prejudice of the peace and safety of any Church or Kingdom we shall need no further witnesse to conclude the deceit and imposture of that false Prophet To come then to the touchstone do we meet with prophets that take away the touchstone from us whereby all doctrines should be tryed and concluded Do they cloyster up the Scripture the certain rule of faith and a good life put the salvation of our souls upon an implicite faith and a blind obedience Do they assure us that ignorance is the mother of devotion and so consequently open a gap to all sad consequences which commonly ensue upon the want of the knowledge of God in a land Do we meet with prophets that tell us that no faith is to be kept with hereticks and so apparently introduce that foul sin of perjury prevarication both with God and man Do they discharge children of the duty they ow unto their parents by vertue of some Corban or perhaps some monastick vow or Romish compliance Do they discharge subjects of their duty of allegiance to their Soveraigne by vertue of some popish dispensation making the fift commandment of God of none effect through their own Traditions Do we meet with prophets that dissolve Lawsul Matrimony in some persons and forbid it in others when the Scripture expresly concludes it honourable in all Heb. 13. 4. And do they in the mean time allow and tolerate abominable Stews and Brothels those sinks of uncleannesse not for conveniency or necessity as is pretended but in truth and reality for filthy lucre sake We know what those Prophets are by the accursed fruit th●t spring from these and the like doctrines it shall be no breach of charity in us to conclude them in the number of false prophets and of these Prophets we know where there are good store tha● walk the world in sheeps clothing with no small power and plausibility But to look nearer homewards Do we meet with Prophets highly honoured in their own Country that tell us we may do evil at some times that good may come thereon in order to a reformation and so by consequence resolve all christian practise into good intendment wherewith hell it self is said to be paved Do they tell us that God sees no sin in his el●ct and then by a ni●…ble dextrous way they have of Sainting themselves and their own prose●ytes conclude and infer their Fornications and Adulteries to have no uncleannesse in them their sacriledge and plunder to be without theft their jug●ing and dissembling pious fra●ds and ●heir horrid and bloody mu●…ers to have the sweet smelling savour of acceptable peace o●…erings Do we meet with Prophets th●t inform the people that Kings as well a● B●shops are antichristian that the kingdom of Iesus Christ is a spiritual Government and that no temporal monarch hath any thing ●o do with it That Kings insteed of being prayed for as Defenders of the faith and protectors of the publike peace may without being deposed by the Pop● be murdered by their own subjects That the design of the Gospel is divisio● and a sword That the best Patriots and preserves of the publike peace and liberty are those men who are dee●est perjured That treason and rebellion is good service to God the Comm●nwea●th That it ought to be acted upon the publike faith of the kingdo● and when it is acted that i● ought to be rewarded with publike thank● and acknowledgem●nt in print In a word do we meet with prophets that tell the people that the moral law is of no use or obligation under the Gospel that there is an Evangelical necessity of weed●ng up the Tares before the general harvest that themselves are the ●ood wheat and that all men else are ●ares and the seed of the divel that go about to hinder and obstruct so good a w●rk t●at the liberty of the Gospel may be stretched and extended to the acting of any dictate arising from any private perswasion of spirit how blind and abominable soever and that the banishment imprisonm●nt and murder of Christs own Ambassadors is the best way to promote his service By these and the like doctrines which I would not have exposed to publike view had not a necessity e●forced it we may guesse what these prophets are And that I do not injure them by traducing their doctrine their own sermons and discourses together with the peoples practise grounded thereupon is a clear and ample declaration of their preachers principles And now let all the world judge by the fruits we have reaped of late yeers from these mens Doctrines whether these are the servants of Iesus Christ and the way they have gone be agreeable to his Gospel or not Or rather whether these are not those wolves in sheeps clothing he hath forewarn'd us of whether these are not the peoples prophets nay the divels prophets whose tongues have been set on fire of hell t● set the world all in a conflagration And 't is very observable how God hath brought the way of ●hese juglers and dissemblers upon

thievs The one rayls on him as if he had been a murtherer the other adores and confesseth him to be the strong God of his Salvation It was the same body of ayr that was cleer and serene in Goshen and condensed into palpable darknesse over all the land of Egypt It was the same bulk of water that was a wall of protection and preservation unto the Israelites and a grave and destruction unto the Egyptians It was the same Identical fire that warmed Shadrach Meshak and Abednego and that burnt up those instruments of Cruelty that cast them into the furnace The Truth is the p●eaching of the word doth not only harden but declare discover the despisers of those Sacred messages to be already hardned For as it is the same glasse that shews deformities as well as good features the same touchstone that discernes the pure gold from what is false and counterfeit So it is the same peircing word of God that distinguisheth the sound and sincere christian from the hollow rotten and dissembling hypocrite Herodias might hav● passed all her life long for an Eminen● and glorious professor of the saith had not Iohn the Baptist declared her matching with Herod to be incestuous and abominable The Scribes and Pharisees what w●th their long prayers and what with their specious pretences might have devoured widows house● to the worlds end had not our Saviour by his doctrine detected their fine spun frauds an● Artifices We read Act. 13. that imm●diatly after the preaching of the word at Antioch the Iewes stirred up the devout and honourable women of that ●lace and raised persecution against Paul and Barnabas and expelled them o●… of their Coast Act. 13. 50. How Paul and Barnabas persecuted and expelled the ●…y by devout and honourable women It seems the women of those times were as unhappily busie in medling with Clergy matters as they have been in ours But sure it was not hono●… much lesse devotion to persecute and expel Christs own Ambassadours who ●ad no other businesse with them more then to make their peace and r●concili●tion with God And therefore let no man wonder if the world rave and rayl at us and our ministry if they make every blot in our lives every mistake in our words the matter of their mirth and an encouragement unto licentiousnesse nay if they slander and traduce us only to make us vile and contemptible in the eys of those we would preserve from the bottomlesse pit He that was without the least spot or defilement of sin in himself yet when he came to reprove the sins of the times was called 〈◊〉 Glutton a winebibber a friend of Publicans and sinners a Samaritan a Divel a Beelzebub Matt. 17. 19. and Prince of the Divels He that spake as never man spake his enemies themselves b●ing judges had a Iudas a Traytor a Divel trained up in his own school and family And he that from a poor fisherman was made a fisher of men and that thrived so well in that sacred employment that he gained 3000. souls to the Christian faith at Act. 2. 41 Act. 4. 4. one sermon and 5000. at another after all his pains had his thanks given him in a threatning and his payment made him in a prison Act. 4. 3. So that as it is the warmth and influence of the same sun that cherisheth and produceth the good fruits of the Earth and at the same time hatcheth the Cockatrices eggs and p●oduceth a generation of vipers as it is the same sun that at the same time melts the wax and hardens the clay So the same holy ordinance of preaching may at the same time be a coming together for the better unto some and to others a coming togethe● for the worse The same Sacramental bread a●d wine which is the spiritual nourishment of one man may be the bane and poyson of anothers soul and the same good word of God which is to one man the savour of life unto life may be unto another the savour of death unto death I know this is durus sermo an hard saying and may seem very strange to some mens apprehensions That the glorious light of the Gospel instead of being the medium of Illumination should become the fatal instrument of the grossest darknesse and those means of grace which by the wisdom and goodnesse of God are appointed for edification should becom the means of irreco●erable ruine and destruction and therefo●e in the third place we are to en●…e into the ground and reason os s● strange and dif●rent an operation arising from the sacred oracles It hath b●…n laid as a ground already that we cannot without apparent injury and blasphemy impute any noxious or offensive quality to the good word of God The fault is not in the word that 's most certain if it be any where it must be in the hearers And truly the Apostle Paul does very clearly set forth the ground of this doctrine 2 Cor. 4. 3. If our Gospel be hid saith he it is hid unto those that are lost In whom the God of this world hath blinded the minds of th●m which believe not lest the light of the glorious Gospel of Christ who is the image of God should shine unto them And this the Apostle knew by his own experience for having preach'd to a congregation in Rome from morning until evening it is said that some believed the things that were spoken and some believed them not Act. 28. 24. And therefore he there urgeth this very text of the prophe● Isaiah aga●nst the unbelievers of his Congregaon Well spake the holy Ghost by Isaiah the Act. 21. 26. Prophet unto our fathers saying Go unto this people and say Hearing ye shall hear and shall not understand c. So that the result is no more but this the want of faith excludes hearing and the God of this world being prepossessed of the heart excludes faith What the God of this world is S. John tels us in express 1 Iohn 2. 1● terms All that is in the world the lusts of the flesh and the lusts of the eys and the pride of life is not of the father but is of the world And how the God of this world may be overcom he tels us also Whatsoever is born of God overcometh 1 John 5. 4. the world and this is the victory that overcometh the world even our faith So that if fa●th be predominant the God of this world is excluded and if the God of this world be predominant in the soul● faith and all other saving grace● are excluded I have said before that corruption depravity in the p●oples hearts had very srequently an unwholsom influence upon the prophets tongues but such is the corruption and perversness of these times that were Moses and Samuel and Elijah and all the unerring prophets of God among us they would not work some mens hearts into any reasonable obedience What 's the reason because