Selected quad for the lemma: earth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
earth_n	body_n	heaven_n	soul_n	16,244	5	5.2792	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A89567	Gods master-piece. A sermon tending to manifest Gods glorious appearing in the building up of Zion: preached to the Right Honourable the House of Peers, in the Abbey Church of Westminster, March 26. 1645. Being the day of the monthly publike fast, / by Stephen Marshall, B.D. minister of Gods Word, at Finching-field in Essex. Published by order of the House of Peeres.	Marshall, Stephen, 1594?-1655.	1645 (1645)	Wing M756; Thomason E279_2; ESTC R200025	37,316	57

the hands of Princes thus did Jehoshaphat thus did Hezekiah thus did Josiah thus did Ezra and Nehemiah all the good Kings of old they all made it their care to command the people to make them enter into an Oath and a Curse and none might live under their priviledge and protection who would not returne to the God of their Fathers I confesse I think it is not in the power of Magistrates to compell a people unto whom God can lay no claime by Covenant to alter from a heathenish Religion to be the Lords people yet they should be carefull to send Ministers to preach unto them and try if by any meanes they may be brought to receive the truth in love yea and to punish them severely if they blaspheme or seek to draw away Gods people to Idolatry c. When the Jewes David or Solomon or any of their Kings conquered the Nations round about them they never compelled any of them to forsake their false Gods and to turne Proselytes because those people never had chosen God to be their God but a people who once had in Covenant made themselves the Lords and so the Lord by virtue of the Covenant could lay claim to them and their posterity his Princes and servants have ever according to his will compelled these to stand to their Covenant or else they should not enjoy their protection and therefore Josiah and those good Kings put them all to death who followed Baal and returned not unto the Lord their God For our selves our Plantations ought never to endevour to convert Infidels by violence Christs people must be a willing people we leave such conversions to the Spaniards who worried the Indians to death with dogges and drove them into the river like cattell and compelled them to be baptized but for a people who have received Christianity and have been seduced to Anti-christianity to whom still the Lord continues his claime by the same right that Jehu destroyed Baal and other good Kings Jeroboams Calves and the rest of their Idols and compelled them to stand to the Lords Covenant and Oath by the same warrant and rule may you root out Popery and Heresie and proceed against incorrigible Papists Hereticks Blasphemers and such as have apostatized from the Lord and refuse to returne This power the Lord hath given you for the purgation of Religion to remove and cast out the things that are abominable You have power also and it is your duty to set up all Gods Ordinances Ordinances for Worship Ordinances for Government thus did all the good Kings you shall read of You are also to finde out fit Ministers for the house of God to see that they be regularly called tried and ordained and sent forth in the way of the Gospel all this the Lord hath put into your hands This for the Reformation and when you have set the house of God in a good state the Lord calls you further to take care for the preservation of it by providing Seminaries of learning and piety that the Sons of the Prophets may be bred that there may never want a seed to furnish the house of God with able faithfull and skilfull Work-men and to provide and continue sufficient maintenance to them And so likewise to convocate Synods Assemblies and to encourage Ministers with putting them upon their duties quickning them up to it c. providing that the mouth of the Oxe be not muzled that treads out the Corne that the Levites be not compelled to leave their Cities All these things for the preservation of Religion hath the Lord put into your hands and these things God requires at your hands yea I say further the Lord would have you look to it that as none shall rob Gods people of the liberties Christ hath given them nor take away any of their priviledges from them yea and that the weak both in knowledge faith and practice be born with so far as the Apostles Canons doe require so on the other side to provide that Hereticks and false Teachers who would withdraw the people from their God who would steale them away from the knowledge and worship and service of God to licenciousnesse to profanesse to ungodlinesse to idolatry to blasphemy and to such things as overthrow Religion the Lord requires it at your hands not to permit such Wolves to live amongst them surely such are no more to be born with who thus murther soules then they who murther mens bodies Now my Lords these are admirable duties and dignities these are such things to be employed in that there is not an Angel in heaven not an Apostle now with God nor a Minister on earth but would as willingly be employed in this work as to be in the glory of heaven it selfe and seeing God himselfe appears in his glory when he builds up Zion my humble suit is that your Lordships would count it your glory and think with David you never are so gallant and glorious as when you are dancing before the Ark of God And to stirre you up to it I shall use two sorts of Motives one taken from your selves from your owne present standing and condition the other from the consequence and benefit of the work it self First your owne standing and condition affords you many notable arguments such as might even compell you to make it your glory to help forward this great building of the Church of God You are great men lifted up above your Brethren God hath done that for you which he hath denied to millions in the Kingdome you know your states bloud birth dignities priviledges so well that I need not reckon them Now God having made you greater then others he expects and certainly it would be a very comely thing that you should be the forwardest of all to help forward this work that God is so well pleased with And secondly God hath also put into your hands more talents and abilities and opportunities to doe this work then into the hands of others many willing men who would lay downe all would doe all and give all they have to further it yet are not able to doe so much as one Vote of yours may doe one I or one No given by you may more forward the building of this work then the lives and states of many thousands Now when such an opportunity is in your hands when you are so furnished and enabled to doe it how sad a thing would it prove if you should not improve it Nay thirdly my Lords you are Noble-men and therefore you cannot out of true Nobility but desire to have your hands in noble and honourable imploiments sure I am since you were borne or since this generation begun never was it in the hand or opportunity of men to be laid out more honourably then you may in cordially helping forward this great work never can you be so glorious in the eyes of God