Selected quad for the lemma: authority_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
authority_n	church_n	know_v	scripture_n	12,921	5	7.0300	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A42552	The mount of holy meditation: or a treatise shewing the nature and kinds of meditation the subject matter and ends of it; the necessity of meditation; together with the excellency and usefulnesse thereof. By William Gearing minister of the gospel at Lymington in the county of Southampton.	Gearing, William.	1662 (1662)	Wing G436B; ESTC R222671	88,628	217

of our Saviour Luk. 9.61 No man having put his hand to the Plough and looking back is fit for the Kingdome of God remember Lot's wife the son of Syrach after Iuniu● his translation puts a grave question concerning him who holds the Plough and such persons who maintain the state of the world Ecclus 28.26 Junius ad loc the question is Whereby shall a man he made wise At the last Verse of the Chapter in the Latin translation he answereth By nothing unlesse he be such a one who will apply his mind and meditation on the Law of the most High Woodw child's ●atrimony The Husbandman in that place may seem to have as he reads and s● pleads his case a dispensation for his grosse ignorance but it is nothing so That Scripture saith that the holding the Plough shews him the constancy of a holy profession as before I hinted that his plowing up the ground shews him as in a glasse the sorenesse of afflictions Psal 129.3 Jer. 4.3 how the wicked plow upon the backs of the righteous and make long their furrows and what pains he should take also with his own heart so preparing it for the true seed the Word of life and when he casteth in the seed in the season he might understand his own season and look that the seed of the Word sown in his heart rise up with great increase and as that which thou sowest is not quickned except it die so the body of man after it dies and rots in the earth shall rise again and he that seeth not so much in the sowing and reaping his grain 1 Cor. 15.36 is a fool in the Apostles sense he that thus meditates at the Plough shall never be without a Sermon before him every furrow being a line or sentence and every grain of Corn that he soweth a lesson whence he may learn something of God Furthermore art thou a Vine-dresser meditate on that Parable Luk. 13.7 8. of a certain man that had a Fig-tree planted in his Vine-yard and he came and sought fruit thereon and found none By this certain man we must understand God himself who in many places of Scripture for our capacity and comfort is compared to a man to draw them with the cords of a man and the bands of love Hos 11.4 whereby he signified that he used his people not like beasts or slaves Genevens ad loc but lovingly and kindly as men do or should do one to another Had a Fig-tree planted in his Vine-yard that is had a people whom he had chosen to himself and both planted pruned and watered by his Word and Sacraments by the Vine-yard was meant the Church of the Jews Iacob de valentia in Cant. 8. or the Land of Iury and by the Fig-tree the inhabitants thereof and people contained therein and this is no new thing either for the Church in the whole world or more particularly for the Church of the Jews to be compared to a Vine-yard Cant. 8.11 Isa 5.1 7. Yea of God's particular dealing with this people and planting this Vine we read Psal 80.2 where the Lord saith that God brought a Vine out of Aegypt cast out the Heathen planted it prepared room for it and caused it to take deep root so that it filled the Land the hills were covered with the shadow of it and the boughes thereof were like the goodly Cedars therefore whensoever thou walkest like Adam among the trees of the garden and beholdest the Vine think of that mysticall union that is between Christ and his Church that he is the Vine his people the branches Ioh. 15.5 and that whosoever abideth in him and he in him the same bringeth forth much fruit that the Church of God also is a Vine-yard of red wine Isa 27.2 3. that the Lord doth keep it and water it every moment and lest any hurt it he will keep it night and day And as the Church is compared to a Vine-yard so also men be compared to trees as in Iotham's parable who compareth Abimelech to the bramble a base plant usurping authority when the more noble trees the Fig-tree the Olive and the Vine refuse it Iudg. 9.7 16. men in Scripture are compared to trees All the trees of the field shall know that I the Lord have brought down the high tree i. e. all the people of the world shall know Sometime you shall find him compared to the Olive-tree and his children to the Olive-branches round about his table Psal 128. sometime to the lofty Cedars of Lebanon sometime to the Oaks of Basan sometime to the low shrubs in the valley of Suecoth in a word the good man is compared to the green tree and the wicked unto the dry tree Again art thou a traveller in this world meditate with thy self how the world is like a forlorn wildernesse 1. Because it is a strange Land a solitary place a forsaken Countrey disertus so that Christ saith He is not of this world nor prayes he for it Joh. 17.9 Si recogitemus ●psum magis mundum carcerem esse ●xiisse nos è carcere intelligemus Tertul. ad Marcion 2. It is a Land of darknesse This gave Tertullian occasion to compare the world to a prison a prison is the receptacle of darknesse the Sun darteth no beams there the world lyes in ignorance all men are born blind and if the glorious Sun of righteousnesse enlighten them not they live and die in grosse darknesse 3. It is like a wildernesse a place full of dangers full of enemies the people of Zion cry out Our persecutors have laid wait for us in the wildernesse Lam. 4.19 The world is full of stinging Serpents of lying vanities a filthy deceiver Christ hath foretold that in the world we shall have tribulation Joh. 16.33 How should the meditation hereof make us to say with Abraham I am a stranger and with David I am a stranger with thee as all my fathers were and not to look for delights in a roaring wildernesse nor for meat where no Corn grows nor a dwelling house or an abiding City where no building is and though we groan sometimes under the weight of our travels yet to acknowledge that the persecutions of the world are not so tragicall as its caresses are Chap. 7. Of set and solemn meditation the definition and branches of it Sect. 1. Having spoken of rapt and occasionall meditation I shall in the next place treat of set and solemn meditation and shall thus define it Meditation is a holy retirement of the soul Definit and a fixed exercise of the heart upon spirituall objects that the heart may be affected with them and bettered by them 1. I say it is a holy retirement of the soul A retirement from the world A retirement from our own passions Mens nostra ●d contem●anda inter●a nòn perdu●itur nisi ab ●is quae exte●ùs implica●ur studiosè ●ubtrahatur Greg. Moral ●