Selected quad for the lemma: earth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
earth_n	lord_n	see_v	world_n	5,471	5	4.4220	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A65319	A lawyer's advice to the devil's agents: or, Some strokes at the unfruitful works of darkness, tending to their destruction made with a weapon taken out of the armory of the Most High. By William Watson, student in law.	Watson, William, student in law.	1693 (1693)	Wing W1150A; ESTC R220895	26,435	71

hast given me And now what a strange pass are the people of this Impious Generation come to that they 'll rather obey the Devil that never did any thing for them but always acts against them as in their first Parents so ever since and continually endeavours their ruine than they will God who created them and redeemed them from that dreadful and everlasting Punishment they were rendered obnoxious to by the Fall by the most ignominious Death of his dear Son and continually protects them with his preserving mercy without which they would long ago have been consumed and swallowed up in the Gulph of Destruction Psal 124.1 2 3. If it had not been the Lord who was on our side now may Israel say If it had not been the Lord who was on our side when Men rose up against us Then they had swallowed us up quick when their wrath was kindled against us And yet the Alinrements of a Woman that makes Profession of Obscenity or the Incitement of a Companion in wickedness shall sooner draw a man into Adultery Drunkenness prophaning of the Lord's Day and other horrid Vices than the most tender and bleeding Disswasives of a Crucisied Jesus shall keep him from them and with their foolish Mirth and vain Discourses they drown the Voice of God crying Oh that there were such an hearth in them that they would fear me and keep all my Commandments always that it might be well with them and with their Children for ever Deut. 5.29 But if this calm soft and requesting Language from God will not prevail with them to turn them from their Iniquities they must expect to hear him speaking to them in another strain and that very terrible Mal. 3.5 And I 'll come near to you to Judgment and I 'll be a swift witness against the Sorcerers and against the Adulterers and against false Swearers and against those that oppress or defraud the Hireling in his wages the Widow and the Fatherless and that turn aside the Stranger from his right and fear not me says the Lord of Hosts God will not always wait though he does with many obstinate Sinners a long time with the offers of Mercy if they will not accept it in that time and manner that he thinks fit to bestow it upon them for a Man may defer making his Reconciliation to God so long 'till he may withdraw his assisting Grace from him and let angry Justice take place of abused Mercy and then it can never be done but he must be content to be amongst those whose end is Destruction and may sadly apply that Saying of our Saviour Luk. 19.42 to his own particular case If thou hadst known even thou at least in this thy Day the things which belong unto thy Peace But now they are his from thine eyes And you may see an Example of it in wicked Esau who could find no place of Repentance though he sought it carefully with Tears Heb. 12.17 And if a Man did but seriously consider to what a prodigious height of wickedness the World 〈◊〉 now grown he may have just cause to admire at the great patience of the Almighty in bearing with such gross Impieties and no drawing the Sword of his Justice and cutting the prophane Committers of them from the Face of the Earth for they are grown more impious than the Idolatrous Ancient of the House of Israel for they did their wickedness in the dark every Man in the Chambers of his Imagery for they say The Lord sees us not the Lord has forsaken the Earth and so endeavoured to conceal it at least they fansied it would not be take so much notice of by the Almighty Ez 8.12 but these are more impudent and commit the most heinous sins in the face of the whole World and are so far from being ashamed that they glory in it and think it an addition to their Reputation which they foolishly imagine is highly increased by approving themselves men of greater Abilities in Acts of Debauchery than other men Otherwise why do our immoderate Drinkers take such pleasure and so applaud themselves in that they are able to drink down others of more infirm Bodies and weaker Brains and not only triumph over them for the present but frequently report it afterwards as if it tended to their credit with a kind of rejoycing But let them know themselves to be wicked in so doing and that the rejoycing of the wicked is not good and sure I am that when Men thus rejoyce and glory in their sin they glory in their shame as the Apostle says Philip. 3.19 And as they thus deal with God in wickedness so must they expect he will deal with them in fury Ez. 8. at the last Verse Therefore will I also deal in fury mine eye shall not spare neither will I have pity and though they cry in mine Ears with a loud voice yet will I not hear them But have not those whose profession obliges them to be the most earnest and careful Reprovers of Sin been defective in it and so permitted this Flood of Wickedness to flow in upon us with greater violence than otherwise it would We will see what their Office is and how they discharge it and we shall soon be resolved They are set as Watchmen to the People and are to cry aloud and spare not and to lift up their voice like Trumpets and shew the people their Transgressions and the House of Jacob that is the whole Family of Believers their sins Isa 58.1 And this they do in alarming Sinners though with too much coldness and indifferency some of them from the Pulpit but this is not all they ought to do for if they find that sin grows so strong amongst their Auditors that publick Preaching will not suppress it they might do well to speak unto them by dissuasive Letters if they are capable of reading and understanding of them but if they are of so perverse and reprobate a mind that they will not do then let them try the last Remedy and have frequent personal conference with them and not suffer sin the Devil's Standard bearer to display his triumphant Banners in the hearts of their people without controul But ease and idleness will soon frame excuses for them and tell them this is the ready way to be accounted busie impertinent persons and become the common objects of contempt and derision amongst their hearers and what is this but under colour of being afraid of offending their Hearers being unwilling to be too buhe for God and the good of their Souls and disobeying the command of the Apostle who bids them be instant in season out of season reprove rebuke exhort with all long suffering and doctrine 2 Tim. 4.2 For I would fain know how that Minister keeps a diligent watch over the Souls of his Congregation as he that must give an Account when he knows any one of them to live in a continual course of Swearing Drunkenness and other

damnable sins and does not follow him earnestly with private reproof when he may better state his case to him than in a publick Discourse although I think Divines might descend more to particular Cases in their publick Preachings than many of them do if they did not aim more at a learned and exact Method than a plain edifying Discourse For why should not a Minister that is preaching against any particular sin that he knows one Man in his Congregation to be more addicted to than any of the rest speak plainly to him as the Prophet Nathan did to David and say Thouart the Man for some must be reproved openly that others may fear 1 Tim. 5. 20. Them that sin rebuke before all that others also may fear But what if he should take offence at this and grow more obstinate in his sinful Practices Then take a convenient opportunity of discoursing with him in private about it and calmly shew him the reasonableness and necessity of it and try whether Arguments drawn from the Mercies of God which he thus shamefully abuses will work him into a Reformation and if that will not do make forcible application of the Threats of God against obstinate Sinners and raise an Epitome of Hell in his Breast wound his Conscience to the quick and dress the Wounds with Fire and Brimstone and never suffer him to be at rest 'till he reforms ye that make mention of the Lord keep not silence and give him no rest till he establish and 'till he make Jerusalem this Nation every one's particular Congregation a praise in the Earth You have Instruments put into your hands for the doing of it if you would make good use of them The Word of God which is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged Sword piercing even to the dividing asunder of Soul and Spirit and of the Joynts and Marrow and is a dncerner of the Thoughts and Intents of the Heart and would soon separate if it were well applied between sin and the sinner But many Pastors now-a-days are too much like those blind Watchmen the Prophet Isaiah inveighs against Chap. the 56th at the three last Verses to do this His Watchmen are blind they are all ignorant they are all dumb Dogs they cannot bark sleeping lying down loving to slumber Yea they are greedy Dogs which can never have enough and they are Shepheards that cannot understand they all look to their own way every one for his gain from his Quarter Come ye say they I will fetch drink and to morrow shall be as this day and much more abundant And these are they against whose evil Example the Apostle forewarns us when he bids us feed the Flock of God not for filthy lucre but of a ready mind 1 Pet. 5.2 3. Feed the Flock of God which is among you taking the oversight thereof not by constraint but willingly not for filthy lucre but of a ready mind Neither as being Lords over God's Heritage but being Exampes to the Flock But now Men seem to endeavour rather to feed themselves of the flock than to feed it else why should any one desire two or three Benefices when through infirmity of Body weakness of mind or both he is not able to serve one as he ought And I doubt the very end in taking to the Ministery in some is not good that 't is rather to get wherewithal to live after the Lusts of their corrupt Flesh than to do God Service by instructing the people otherwise I cannot see how they should be so exemplary in Wickedness instead of Righteousness and live such loose and debauched Lives as they do and not regard God complaining of their spoiling his Tabernacle and destroying his Church and telling them for their punishment they shall not prosper and their Flocks shall be as they are already too much scattered Jer. 10. 20 21. My Tabernacle is spotled and all my Cords are broken my Children are gone forth of me and they are not there is none to stretch forth my Tent any more and to set up my Curtains For the Pastors are become brutish and have not sought the Lord therefore they shall not prosper and all their flocks shall be scattered Others there are who seem to be a little more conscious of their ways and abstain from these publick and scandalous Enormities and are apt to complain of their Congregations scattering and going from them and running into Errours but they don't take a right Method to prevent it For if they know that those Assemblies to which they adjoyn themselves are erroneous either in their Doctrine or their Practices why don't they go to them or send for them and shew them their Errours No 't is beneath them to enter into a Disputation with an ignorant Mechanick he is not capable of judging of the strength of an Argument Sure he must be a very ignorant person that is not capable of judging when he is shewed to be in an errour from plain Scripture-proof which is the only Fountain from whence a Divine ought to draw his Arguments for convincing of Gain-sayers And in truth 't is a lamentable thing for a Minister to suffer any one in his Parish to live in Superstition and Errour and not shew him it and endeavour by frequent conversing with him and advising of him to work him out of it because he would be accounted a meek and quiet Man Meekness indeed is a very excellent Vertue and our blessed Saviour was very meek in suffering and when he was reviled he reviled not again yet he was as fierce as a Lyon against sin and errour and in defending his People from the Snates of the Devil and his Emissaries and therefore called the Lyon of the Tribe of Judah Rev. 5.5 A Minister may do his Duty in this particular as well as in any other without losing the Character of a meek and peaceable person and shall be better esteemed of by all good Men if he does it than if he omits it and be so accounted of as the Minister of Christ and Steward of the Mysteries of God when they see that he is faithful in the business whereunto he was called and as an obedient Servant to his Master Christ is careful and exact in the discharge of his Duty But I suppose I may give a more probable reason of their neglect in this point for ought I know they may be afraid that these ignorant Mechanicks as they call them that seek instruction elsewhere though they are not so well skilled in Languages and have not read so many old Moth-eaten Authors yet they may be almost as well acquainted with the Scriptures by making them their daily Study as they themselves are and if they cannot free themselves from thence from the errours and mistakes that are alledged against them yet they may be able to prove that they to their great shame and reproach do frequently contradict their Doctrine by their Practices and lead Lives disagreeable to