Selected quad for the lemma: earth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
earth_n	call_v	day_n	lord_n	5,716	5	4.1722	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A58850	The method and means to a true spiritual life consisting of three parts, agreeable to the auncient [sic] way / by the late Reverend Matthew Scrivener ... ; cleared from modern abuses, and render'd more easie and practicall.	Scrivener, Matthew.	1688 (1688)	Wing S2118; ESTC R32133	179,257	416

before him and the world 6. Now from this foundation laid this principle granted this fountain of all spirituall wisdome and understanding opened doe issue all particular branches of our faith illuminating us some few of which articles reduced into the three eminent Creeds of all Christian Churches viz. The Apostolicall the Nicene and Athanasian which may yet be more plainly and vulgarly thus ordered to easie capacities 1. First that there is a God and this God but one in nature and substance of an infinite eternal immutable Being and there is or can possibly be no more number herein destroying all perfection proper to the divine Being which article though some of the wise Naturalists did give their cold assent unto yet scarce ever so but they tolerated such opinions and religions of others as maintained the contrary feeling rather as the Apostles phrase is after God than finding him or holding him fast by such a strong faith as Christians are and must be indued with knowing assuredly that Religion and our Salvation receive by no one superstition so deadly a blow and destructive to all sound Christianity as to erre about this first principle by acknowledging directly or indirectly more than one God that is either in the Proposition professing more than one which totally subverts Christianity or in Practice worshipping that for God which is not God though under a strong perswasion that what we worship is that one true God and though in mind and intention we design to worship only the true God. For such a fact upon involuntarie errour and all errour is said by wise men to be involuntarie may mitigate the offence before God and man but it cannot at all change the thing it selfe making that to be no idolatrie which is Idolatrie or that no heresie which is heresie in it selfe but only by certain circumstance may alleviate and yet we know not how little or much the crime of the offender which crime is in it selfe directly damnable and so by the doctrine of our Christian faith to be reputed and even with the losse of our lives to be avoided 2. And the same faith likewise teacheth us as necessary to salvation to believe aright of the severall and distinct wayes of the subsistence of the Deitie in the Trinity of the persons which we commonly call Father Son and Holy Ghost which as we must believe to be three and not one Person so must we believe to be one in nature and substance and not three so that the Father begetteth the Son and is not begotten of any and the Son is begotten of the Father by an Eternall and incorrupt generation not to be parallel'd in any other productions though dimly represented unto us And the Holy Ghost proceedeth from the Father and the Son by such a divine emanation as is not imitable by any created procession And in this article of our Faith Christians being wholly destitute of all naturall assistance to believe the whole must redound to the power and pleasure of God revealing these things and rendering them credible our faith upon that ground receiving them 3. And a third point of our Faith proceedeth to reunite as it were in our mindes and perswasions those persons we acknowledge to stand so distinguished by their intrinsecall Relations mentioned in their outward operations such as are acts of Creation Preservation and Governing by a most wise and just providence all things which are in this visible world and in that or those worlds which are to us invisible called Celestiall 4. And hence it is that by the same faith we are taught more expressely and particularly that the One God Father Son and Holy Ghost gave a being to all the world and out of nothing produced what we see and what we understand and more than we can behold and apprehend determining that knottie controversie which the Philosophers could make no work with concerning the Creation of the world which some would have never to have been but subsisting from eternitie of it selfe and not only so but we understand by divine Revelation and Illumination how the world was made and that not by the contriving of the brain or a modell laid before the eyes or by the labour of the hand the sweat of the face and tedious but necessarie toyl of many dayes years or ages but by the lightest and easiest way we could possibly understand any thing to be wrought For thus we read Heb. 11. 2. Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear And so we read Psalm 33. 6. By the word of the Lord were the heavens made and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth And yet not so by the word or mouth of God as that any such part is to be admitted in God or that properly God so spake vocally For to what or whom should God speak so when there was no bodie yea nothing to hear but it was a mere simple pure velleity or willing of him so effectuall as to produce the Universe without the labour of his hands or of any other Agent or Instrument under him as some have vainlie imagined contrary to our divine Faith. For by the same power that God could create a worme he could create an Elephant and with the same ease that he could create a Mite he might create the hugest Monster that ever the earth bare yea the earth it selfe and that without delaies or distances of times though to shew his libertie and not necessity of working and to teach us advisednesse in all our Actions of importance he vouchsafed to distribute his acts into severall orders and spaces of duration called Dayes For as 't is said in six dayes the Lord made heaven and earth and all that is therein c. 5. And from this generall working or acting of God we are lead to an higher degree more nearly concerning our selves For it must necessarily follow from hence that as the Psalmist affirmeth He hath made us and not we our selves Psalm 95. And that as he made all things very good so the more noble in rank such things were the more perfect and unblameable they must needs be as they came out of Gods hands For God doth not work or proceed after the manner of nature from imperfect to perfect as all naturall productions are ill formed and defective at first and in tract of time arise to their ordained perfection but God made all things and especially Man at once most perfect both as to inward endowments and outward forme stature and parts so that nothing was wanting either to the ornament of his minde or the perfection of his bodie Crowning both with holinesse and happinesse immortal wherein his own Image and likenesse principally consisted adding unto them here in this life power and dominion under him over all earthly things 6 Furhermore the same faith teacheth us the Original

capable and many times sensible is the minde so erected to God separated from businesses of the world of the sweetnesse of abstractions of that nature And the Trances of Daniel Peter and most probably of Paul befell them in such retirements without the concurrence of a Congregation or the Mediation though not Ministration of Holy Spirits which we never read in Scripture to be Intercessours in any kinde to God in behalfe of the Saints here labouring but onely Ministers and Delegates of God to perfourme his pleasure to such as so wait for him and call upon him And as for Saints in Heaven we never so much as read in Holy Scripture that they were sent at any time by God to minister unto his Servants here on Earth as Angells have been neither are we directed by the Word of God to have any communication with them visible or sensible It must needs therefore be a third Oeconomie of God as yet unrevealed besides that of Moses or Christ which assignes us new intermediate Objects or Vehicles of our Prayers to God no wayes made known by God but devised by humane ratiocinations intruding into things not seen and founded on presumptions not known nor demonstrable but by such instances and examples of miraculous Apparitions which may more than suffice to turne the stomach from swallowing them 4. But presumption it is not to goe directly in Scripturall Road prescribed us to Allmighty God but to goe out of it neither is it modesty but rather a double impudence to alter the course of our Devotion to God in importuning them to sollicite for us who never gave us the least intimation or encouragement so to doe and in not following the direct Precept given by Christ as our Great Mediatour and by God himselfe as our heavenly Lord and Father Whence doth it appear that God is of more difficult accesse since the coming of Christ than he was before Or when and how became the priviledges of Gods faithfull Children under Christ inferiour to them under Moses Did the souls of the faithfull then make immediate approaches unto God and claspe him and may we not or in trueth ought we not much rather so to doe as well for the glorie of God some of which must needs fall short of God and stick to the hands that should so offer our worship to God and that whether those holy Spirits will or not we failing in the puritie of our intention and modestie and innocencie of our expressions so applying our selves as allso for our comfort and satisfaction which must needs be more full the more immediate and strict our conjunction is with God our fellowship as Saint John tells us being with the Father and the Son and that surely will bear us out in all immediate approaches to God but scarce allow application to others which are onely commendable where the bond of civill Charitie in this life the ground of the exercise of spirituall Offices to one another is not dissolved as it is when we are separated by Death So that we can onely in Christ exclusively come with that boldnesse and accesse with confidence by the faith of him as the Apostle speakes Ephes 3. 12. but with suspicions fears and doubtings untill customarinesse hath blinded the minde so far that it cannot see afar off And then if it fares with us as it happens to poor Suppliants suing to an earthly King surrounded with his Guards and Nobles that they cannot come at his Majestie no wonder unlesse it could appear that it was any ones appointed Office or Office of all to be Masters of request to God on our behalfe SECT VI. Of the defects incident to the Act of Prayer and their Remedies 1. AS there are Guards of Princes whose Office it is to push off with Pikes and Staffs such as would presse into their presence so Evill Spirits are allwayes at hand making it their Office to hinder devout Soules coming to God by their temptations and obstructions and either by wholly putting us off that we approach not at all or by pulling us off engaged so that we cease in spirit when we proceede in words and outward appearance so that we may be said to draw nigh unto him with our Lips while our Hearts are far from him a thing much disallowed by God yet not in all alike For the spirit and minde of Man are naturally fickle light vain various musing on many things and Dinah-like gadding abroad to see the Daughters of the Land and visiting strange Objects while they should keep home and minde their Fathers businesse And of the heart it may be said what was said of Ruben Vnstable as waters thou shalt not excell For what powerfullnesse may be expected in that Prayer which is prepared for God and designed but falls short of him as an Arrow shot from an unbent or halfe broken Bow. And how unreasonable as well as unlikely is it that God should heare us when we scarce heare our selves For as when the outward Eye seemes to be fixed stedfastly on an Object the minde in the mean time carried strongly after another Object doth not see what is before it many times so though in appearance outward a man seems wholly bent to Godward yet his heart being drawn off him to private Objects which it more phansies he speaketh in Prayer not to God but to men or the open Air. And it must needs be no small derogation from the greatnesse of God to be thus mocked by the world catching up that by the way which is passing towards him and the Sacrifice maimed or blemished by the fingring of Evill Spirits which was devoted wholly to God and at the same time that we have warme affections towards the world to set cold Meat before God. So that in this manner supinely and slothfully to request any thing at Gods hands must needs be a provocation to God to denie us rather than to gratifie us It is little better than an Idoll which is set up in the heart which drawes the current of Devotion to it selfe intended for God and such God threatens in Ezechiel to answere by himselfe but not in Mercie but in Justice And it was the opinion of an Auncient and devout Scholar in the School of Christ that if God should judge a man for no other thing but his wandring and vain thoughts in praying to him he were not able to stand before him 2. This in trueth is the Law of Prayer and this is the end of praying that we should have and keep our mindes erected unto God and to attain this should be the endeavour of all good Christians But if not onely God should be so extreme to mark what is thus done amisse but man should be so rigorous to himselfe to judge himselfe according to his demerits he might fear and despair to undertake this sacred Dutie For who can say on this side of Heaven I am clean from this common Contagion So vigilant and active is