Selected quad for the lemma: church_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
church_n	apostle_n	believe_v	word_n	5,252	5	4.0580	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A43579	Israel's lamentation after the Lord, or, A discourse, wherein every well-wisher to Zion is excited, and directed how to lament after the Lord with prayers and tears, to maintain the ordinances of God, or God's presence with his ordinances amongst us being some meditations upon 1 Sam. 7.2.	Heywood, Oliver, 1629-1702.	1683 (1683)	Wing H1768; ESTC R22352	67,400	163

the Priest a kindness to find him work by new sinning to get pardons Yea some think strange at others that they are not as bad as themselves And is not this matter of lamenmentation to see the Earth thus for saken by a righteous God and possessed by so many Bears Lions Tygers and Goats that men are grown Wolves yea Devils to each other Is it not time to lament after that God that gives up men to such profligate and prodigious courses as hasten their own damnation and England's desolation Is it not time to seek God till he come and Rain Righteousness upon us Hos 10.12 2. Is not converting grace much withdrawn from the Ordinances of God And doth not this call sensible Souls to lament after the Lord Time hath been that our Lord hath mounted his white Horse and hath bent his Bow and shot his Arrows of Conviction and made them sharp in the hearts of the King's Enemies and caused people to fall under him going forth conquering hath had his Crown set upon his head by the Daughters of Jerusalem But alas now the Church hath a miscarrying Womb and dry Breasts Ministers cry out Who hath believed our Report I have laboured in vain God doth not go forth with his Word as formerly The Apostles were Fishers inclosed many at a draught present Ministers Hunters shout and run all day and catch but one or two and well too It 's worth a whole lifes pains Though it cannot be denied God's despised Servants have now and then seals of their Ministry to God's glory their incouragement and the stopping of the mouths of slanderers Jerusalem is built even in troublesom times The Gospel is not bound though Ministers be Men civilly dead may convey spiritual life God hath not left his Servants without some Testimonies in the Consciences and Conversations of their Hearers that God is in his Ordinances of a truth But alas how few gleanings hath our dear Lord compared with the full Vintage Satan gets among men We take these first fruits thankfully till the full Harvest come Let Ministers and People lament after the Lord that he would fill his House with glory hasten the day of his Power to make People chearful Volunteers in the Lord's Warfare Oh that more might knock at our doors with a What must I do to be saved Where is the Lord God of Elijah Lord cloath thine Ordinances with thy Power When shall Aaron's Rod bring forth ripe Almonds Lord let the Children of the Covenant own the God of their Fathers and be sprinkled with Covenant grace Lord break up that blessed Writ of Electing Love in converting grace Let Sermons be seconded with power Make thy Word the Arms of God unto Salvation 3. Doth not God much withdraw from the Societies of his Servants Is there to be sound that entireness singleness faithfulness amongst God's People to each other as in former daies Is there not much pride worldliness decay of love to God abating spiritual zeal for God such as was in the daies of old Alas we have reason to think the Spirit of Prayer is much withdrawn that close walking that distance from appearances of sin that entireness for God that endearedness and usefulness of Christians amongst themselves as is wont to be Yea hath not God seemed to take Peace from the Earth Is not Manasse● against Ephraim and Ephraim against Manasseh and they together against Judah Papists against Protestants and Protestants against Papists and they together against zealous Worshippers and exact walkers according to pure and Primitive Institutions Are not some Members of the same Church that desire to keep close to the Rule rendred black while the Sun hath looked upon them with some malignant aspects and reflections of displeasure Yea even the same Mothers Children are angry with them Yea their own Shepherds pity them not Nay some Watchmen are so rigid and censorious that they find them out wound them take away their vail from them expose the Members of the same Church as if they were factious traiterous or heretical and will hold no communion with them that have much charity for them and pursue them with intreaties to beg their consent to walk with them towards Heaven and joyn in God's work for winning of Souls and alas they brow-beat them and seem to deny them liberty to worship the same God own the same Bible or partake of the same common Saviour If this be not for a lamentation what is Methinks some deal with their Brethren as Saul's Courtiers with honest David 1 Sam. 26.19 They have driven me out this day from abiding in the Inheritance of the Lord saying Go serve other gods Or as it is Ezek. 11.15 Son of Man thy Brethren even thy Brethren the men of thy kinred all the house of Israel wholly are they unto whom the Inhabitants of Jerusalem have said Get ye far from the Lord unto us is this Land given in possession Monopolies are dangerous in Spirituals What envy hath excluding others begot in these cases Lamentable is the Story here in England of the haughty carriage of Austin the Monk and petulant behaviour of the Brittish Bishops who neglected to joyn with the other upon private animosities to Preach the Gospel to the Idolatrous Saxons Austin predicted and menaced that if they would not have Peace with their Brethren they should have Wars with their Enemies Shortly after Ethelbert King of Northumberland being a Pagan went with a great Army against the City of Chester whether animated by Austin God knows overcame the Brittans slew eleven hundred Monks i.e. persons religiously devoted to God for praying for the Brittans only fifty escaped with Brockmail Mayor of Chester A Spirit of Aemulation in so good a work hath alwaies bad Effects and Pride hath dreadful consequences Church-Divisions are much to be lamented and very rarely issue without Civil Dissentions For the Divisions of Reuben there ought to be sad searchings and heavy thoughts of heart Lord when shall Conscience-racking Oaths be broken How long shall intangling Orders for decency rend the bowels of thy Church When shall Subscription to Christ's Laws suffice It 's sure a matter of lamentation that the Devil casts the Bone among Professing Christians and they snarl at each other about it How long shall the pride and wrath of men make and blow up that spark into a flame that Satan the great make-bait casts among them When will men see the hand of Joab is in all this and discern at last that among all these contending Clients none is gainer but that common Barreter Lord open mens Eyes heal our bleeding wounds and bring back that antient Christian Spirit of Love and Peace Charity Humility 4. Once more Is there no cause for Gods Children to lament after the Lord for his return to their Spirits Is not God much withdrawn from the hearts of his People If a Child of God say

and preaching 2. God thinks good sometimes to abscond and hide these tokens of his presence from a professing people 3. This with drawing may be continued a long time 2 Chron. 13.3 so in Babylon Zoch 1.13 in latter days Hos 3.4 4. God takes particular notice of the duration of his Churches affliction in Egypt 400. years so Rev. 11.11 5. Peoples Priviledges may be long removed before they be kindly sensible of their loss long before they recover themselves 6. When Gods Ordinances are but privately dispensed it 's a great loss to the body of a People such as need them most have then least of them 7. Continuance in sin prolongs deliverance and absence of the Ark or Ordinances is an occasion of continuing in sin Men do withdraw their hearts from God that 's sinful God withdraws helps from them that 's poenal men repent not ordinarily without helps God denies helps and is just therein 8. Attendance on Ordinances raiseth the envy of wicked men this hath been the quarrel from the daies of Cain and Abel successively to this day Gen. 4.5 Exod. 9.1 Ezra 4.12 13. Gal. 4.29 Esther 3.8 Dan. 3.12 6.13 9. One stirring active Instrument for God may by God's blessing promote Repentance and Reformation amongst a people Oh what hurt may one sinner do So what good may one useful man do when God stirs up their hearts Samuel sets things a working so Ezra 5.1 2. Hag. 5.12 10. When God designs a Reformation and Restitution of his Ordinances he orders an harmonious concurrence of providences for that end The accomplishment of God's threats affright awaken Samuel comes in the nick of time speaks words upon the wheel God moves things go on apace 2 Chron. 29.36 31.21 These I pass briefly and pass on to the main Point from the last clause of the verse And all the House of Israel lamented after the Lord. They did not lament so much under their pressing burdens grievous oppressions by the Philistins but after the Lord i. e. for the Ark of the Lord and the Lord of the Ark for the recovery of God's gracious presence and the visible tokens thereof lachrymis deplorarunt summam miseriam Religionis Reipublicae they bitterly lamented the calamities of Church and State Religion and Polity This say Interpreters is an admirable place by reason of the general Conversion and Repentance of the whole People we have scarce the like in all the Scripture except Acts 2. From the words then results this Doctrine That when God's Ark is long obscured or Ordinances obstructed it becomes God's Israel or professing People to lament after the Lord. Serious lamenting after God is well becoming those whom God afflicts in the loss of Priviledges The Text presents to us 1. The Persons lamenting God's peculiar People these only love and mind God's presence when the Lords and Cities of the Philistins are weary of him and send him away yea and the Bethshemites though a city of the Levites belonging to the Church of God through their ill management of matters send to get a release yet Gods Israel will look after their God 2. Here 's the object they lament after not peace plenty victory over enemies but after the Lord Jehovah is the object of their affections 't is him they love and long for communion with Psal 63.1 2. O God thou art my God early will I seek thee my soul thirsteth for thee to see thy power and thy glory so as I have seen thee in the Sanctuary 3. Here 's the Universality of these all Israel the whole house of Israel come they that had wofully degenerated and were gone after their Idols what a wonderful act of Gods power and soveraignty was this upon their spirits by this he manifests that he is the true God and that Samuel was his Servant the like see in Elijahs prayer preaching Sacrifice and success of all 1. Kin. 18.21 37 39. 4. Here 's the manner and nature of the Peoples repentance they lamented after the Lord which is a very comprehensive word and I shall open it anon In prosecuting this point I shall proceed in this method 1. Shew how ordinances are obstructed obscured 2. What 's implyed in lamenting after the Lord. 3. How and why Gods Israel thus lament 4. Answer an objection So make application 1. What is it for ordinances to be either 1. Obstructed or 2. obscured both which may be a great affliction to Gods People and oft occasion a lamentation 1. For Ordinances to be obstructed is a prevention of the liberty of dispensation of them and suppression of its dispensers by imprisonment banishment inhibition or suspension as in Ahab's daies Jezabel cut off the prophets of the Lord the rest werehid by fifty in a Cave and fed with bread and water 1 Kin. 18.4 yea such scarcity was there at that day that Elijah thought he was left alone 1 Kin. 19.10 Such as were left were latent and had indeed their lives not liberties to proclaim the Word or to celebrate God's Ordinances openly It 's true Truth seeks not corners yet publishers of Truth may be driven into corners God's Candles may be put under a Bushel the Church's pleasant things may be taken away Sabbaths and solemn Assemblies may be forgotten in Zion and the waies of Zion mourn Lam. 1.4 7. The Church complains Psal 74.9 We see not our signs there is no more any Prophet The Church may flee into a wilderness of obscurity and persecution her witnesses may be slain by a natural or civil death some time or other these prophecies have an accomplishment Jeremah and Ezekiel may both have their mouths stopped by their brethren and God himself may be a little Sanctuary to such as want the open Sanctuary-priviledges Ezek. 11.15 16. Gospel-course may be stopped obstructed so that Paul is putting believers on to pray for him that the word of the Lord may have free course 2 Thes 3.1 intimating that it had met with a stop by what by mens rage or the Devils subtilty or both 1 Thes 2.16 forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles and v. 18. Satan hindred us Some times the Devil stirs up men to obstruct the course of the Gospel The histories of the Church in all ages will offer their Service to bear witness to this truth that liberty of Ordinances is sometimes infringed and so the Ark is retired into private for where God hath a people they must and will worship God and attend his Institutions if they cannot do it openly they act more privately as Christs Disciples frequently met in houses in the night the doors being shut and that for fear of the Jews Joh. 20.19 And it may be that word in Isa 8.16 refers to such a day Bind up the Testimony seal the Law among my Disciples 2. The Ark Ordinances may somtimes be obscured as well as obstructed this refers to the Purity as the former to the liberty of God's Appointments The light may