Selected quad for the lemma: world_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
world_n	pure_a	religion_n	undefiled_a	1,985	5	11.7434	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A31997	The Godly mans ark, or, City of refuge, in the day of his distresse discovered in divers sermons, the first of which was preached at the funerall of Mistresse Elizabeth Moore : the other four were afterwards preached, and are all of them now made publick, for the supportation and consolation of the saints of God in the hour of tribulation : hereunto are annexed Mris. [sic] Moores evidences for heaven, composed and collected by her in the time of her health, for her comfort in the time of sickness / by Ed. Calamy ...	Calamy, Edmund, 1600-1666.	1658 (1658)	Wing C248; ESTC R22111	99,589	306

perdition Hee that seeks things below shall have his Heaven below The Apostle saith expresly that they who minde earthly things their end is damnation Therefore let mee once again repeat it Take heed lest you bee like the Thorny ground Let not the cares riches and pleasures of the World choak the good seed that is weekly sown in your hearts 8 Let it bee your morning and evening thought what shall become of you to all eternity and labour so to use things temporal as not to lose the things that are eternal Remember that this life is a moment upon which eternity depends and according as you spend this moment so you shall bee for ever happy or for ever miserable Remember that the pleasures of sin are but for a moment but the punishments of sin are everlasting 9 Look upon Sin as the greatest 〈◊〉 evils greater than poverty imprisonment banishment or death it selfe chuse the greatest Affliction rathe● than commit the least sin If Hel● were on the one side and Sin on the other chuse rather to go into Hell than to sin against God For Sin is a greater evill than Hell because it is the cause o● Hell and more opposite to God who is the chiefest good than Hell is For God is the Author of Hell which hee hath provided for all unbeleevers and impenitent persons But it is blasphemy in the highest degree to say That he is the Author of Sin Look upon Christ as the greatest good greater than health wealth liberty or life Love Christ more than you love your estates or lives Hee that loves Christ more than the world will not forsake Christ to imbrace the world Hee that fears sin more than affliction will not sin to avoid affliction 10 Rest not contented with that measure of grace you have attained unto but labour to grow in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. Remember that the Scripture doth not only perswade you to get into Christ but to grow up into Christ not only to bee Righteous but to bee filled with the fruits of Righteousness c. Remember that saying of Christ To whom much is given of them much is required God hath given you much you have plentiful means of salvation and you have had them for many yeares hee expects from you not onely good fruit but much good fruit not only thirty-fold and sixty fold but an hundred-fold Where the Husbandman bestows most cost hee expects most fruit The more a Merchant adventures by Sea the greater return hee looks for God hath done more for you than for many others and therefore hee expect that you should do some singular thing for him Hee looks you should be more humble more heavenly more knowing than others If the Sun should give no more light than a little Candle to what purpose hath God given it so much light If you that have Sun-like abilities do no more good than those who have but half your abilities to what purpose have you them It is a true saying As our gifts increase so must our account increase You shall answer at the great day not only for your gifts but for the measure of them Remember that God doth not only require service from you but service proportionable to the means and mercies you injoy Hee that hath but one Talent shall answer but for one but you that have five or ten Talents must bee answerable according to the quantity as well as the quality of them 11 Labour to diffuse those graces which God hath given you and to communicate them to those with whom you converse True grace is of a spreading nature and therefore compared to leaven which diffuseth it self into the whole lump and to Salt that seasoneth all those things with which it is mingled Assoon as the woman of Samaria had found out the Messias shee leaves her water-pet and goeth into the City to tell others what God had done for her Assoon as Cornelius had received the Message from the Angel to send for Peter hee calls together his kinsmen and neer friends that they together with him might bee made partakers of Gospel-grace A true Christian is like a Needle touched with the Loadstone A Needle truly touched draweth another and that will draw another and that another Whosoever hath his heart truly touched by effectual grace will labour to convert others and they others Philip will draw Nathaniel Andrew will draw Peter And Peter being converted will labour to strengthen his Brethren There is a natural instinct in all creatures to make others like themselves as fire will turn all things that come neer it into fire and there is a spiritual instinct in all converted Christians to convert others It is as natural to a true Christian to make others true Christians as it is for a man to beget a man True grace is not only of a communicative but of an assimilating nature See then that you labour by seasonable and religious admonitions and exhortations by communicating of experiences and especially by the shining pattern of a holy life and conversation to bring all those with whom you converse unto Iesus Christ. That man hath not grace in truth who puts it in a dark Lanthorne 12 Labour to bee good in your Relations good Husbands and good Wives good Parents and good Children good Masters and good Servants Remember that that man cannot bee a good man who is not good in his Relation Hee cannot bee a good Christian who is not a good Husband or a good Child or a good Father c. Shee cannot bee a good Christian who is not a good Wife and so of the rest and the reason is Because the same God who commands the Husband to love God commands him to love his Wife the same God who commands the Woman to obey God commands her to obey her Husband There is the same stamp of Authority upon our duties towards our Relations as upon our duties towards God therefore bee sure to make conscience of relative duties 13 Ioyn works of mercy and charity together with your profession of piety and holiness For God hates a penurious niggardly and covetous professor of Religion Let that saying of David abide upon your hearts God forbid I should serve the Lord with that which cost mee nothing God hates your obedience to the first Table if it bee not joyned with obedience to 〈◊〉 second Works of mercy and charity ar● made in Seripture the touchstones 〈◊〉 the truth of our piety and holiness This is pure Religion saith the Apostle and undefiled before God and the Father to visit the Fatherless and Widows in their affliction and to keep himself unspotted from the world If any man say saith St. John I love God and hateth his Brother hee is a liar for hee that loveth not his Brother whom hee hath seen how can hee love God whom hee hath not seen An

and comforts under soul-troubles There is no Monarch can furnish his table with such variety of delicates as God hath furnished his Word with variety of comforts 2 The Word of God is not only the Magazine of all true comfort but the Fountain from whence it is derived All the comfort that you receive by reading of good books is fetched out of this Book All the refreshings that the Ambassadors of Christ administer to you are borrowed from this Fountain As the King of Israel answered the woman that cried out saying Help my Lord O King If the Lord do not help thee whence shall I help thee So will all the true Ministers of Christ say to any distressed soul that cries out for comfort How can wee comfort you if the Word of God doth not comfort you All our comforts must bee fetcht from thence 3 It will comfort us at such a time when no outward thing can comfort us And that is when wee are under soul-agonies and when our soul sits upon our lips ready to depart when wee are sailing into the Ocean of Eternity then even then the promises of the Word will comfort us When gold and silver Father and Mother Friends and Physitians are miserable comforters then will one promise out of the Word fill us full of joy unspeakable and glorious 4 The Comforts of the Word exceed all other Comforts for they are pure and purifying sure and satisfying they are soul-supporting soul-comforting and soul-ravishing they are durable and everlasting The comforts of the world are not worthy to bee named that day in which wee speak of the comforts of the Word They are not consolationes but consolatiunculae At best they are but bodily unsatisfying and transitory Many times they are sinful and soul-damning 5 The Word of God is not onely a Magazine and a Fountain of comfort but also a touchstone by which wee must try all our comforts whether they bee true and real or no. All joyes hopes and assurances must bee tryed by the Word and if not rightly grounded thereupon are false and soul-delusions 6 It is as an Apothecaries shop or a Physitians dispensatory out of which wee may fetch all manner of Medicines to cure all the diseases of our souls Art thou spiritually lame blinde or dumb c. The Word will open blinde eyes make the dumb to speak and the lame to walk If dead in sins and trespasses the Word when it is the sword of the Spirit will quicken thee It is as a corrasive to eat sin out of thy heart therefore David saith I have hid thy Word in mine heart that I might not sin against thee 7 It is a spiritual Armory out of which wee may fetch all manner of Weapons to conquer the Devil and his temptations 2 Corint 10. 4. It is that little Brook out of which every David may fetch five smooth stones to destroy the Devil These five smooth stones are five texts of Scripture three of these Christ took out of the brook of the Word by which he subdued the Devil Mat. 4. 4. 7 10. 8 It is the Sun of the Christian VVorld As the Sun is the light of the Natural VVorld and without it the World is but a Chaos and a Dungeon full of darkness So is the VVord of God the light of the spiritual world without which a Christian is under an eternal night Therefore David saith Thy VVord is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path Psal. 119. 105. What would all the World avail if no Sun to illighten it and what comfort would all the wealth of it afford us if no word to instruct and counsel us For this is the Christians compass to sail to Heaven by his staffe to walk withall to Heaven his spiritual bladders to keep his soul from drowning The Cork to keep up the net of his soul from sinking Afflictions are like the lead of the Net which weigheth it down but the Word is as the Cork which keeps it up that it sinks not So saith David in the Text Unless thy Law had been my delights c. Vse If the Word of God bee of such invaluable excellency absolute necessity and of such admirable use 1 Let us bless God exceedingly for revealing his will unto us in the Word It was a great honour and priviledge to the Iews that to them were committed the Oracles of God Rom. 3. 2. And it is our great happiness that wee have not only the same Oracles of God which they have but an addition of the New Testament for the clearer discoverie of the mysteries of salvation unto us If God be to bee praised for every crum of bread we eat much more for giving us his VVord which is the bread of life and the only food of our souls Blessed bee God who hath not only given us the book of the Creatures and the book of Nature to know himself and his will by but also and especially the Book of the Scriptures whereby wee come to know those things of God and of Christ which neither the Book of Nature nor of the creatures can reveal unto us Let us bless God not only for revealing his will in his VVord but for revealing it by writing Before the time of Moses God discovered his Will by immediate revelations from Heaven But wee have a surer word of Prophecy a Pet. 1. 19. surer to us than a voyce from Heaven For the Devil saith the Apostle transforms himself into an Angel of light Hee hath his apparitions and revelations hee is Gods ape and in imitation of God he appears to his Disciples and makes them beleeve it is God that appears and not the Devil Thus hee appeared to Saul in the likenesse of Samuel And if God should now at this day discover his way of worship and his Divine Will by Revelations how easily would men bee deceived and mistake Diabolical delusions for Divine Revelations and therefore let us blesse God for the written word which is surer and safer as to us than an immediate Revelation There are some that are apt to think that if an Angel should come from Heaven and reveal Gods Will to them it would work more upon them than the written word but I would have these men study the conference between Abraham and Dives Luke 16. 27 28 29 30 31. Habent Mosen Prophetas c. They have Moses and the Prophets if they will not profit by them neither would they profit by any that should come out of Hell or down from Heaven to them For it is the same God that speaks by his written Word and by a voyce from Heaven The difference is only in the outward cloathing and therefore if Gods speaking by writing will not amend us No more will Gods speaking by a voyce O bless God exceedingly for the written Word Let us cleave close to it and not expect any Revelations from Heaven of new truths but say with the Apostle