Selected quad for the lemma: ground_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
ground_n	earth_n	heaven_n	lord_n	1,504	5	3.7093	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A96467	A wonderful pleasant and profitable letter written by Mris Sarah Wight, to a friend, expressing the joy is to be had in God in great, deep, long, and sore afflictions. Occasioned by the death of her brother, the troubles of her mother; but especially the workings of God in her own heart. Published for the use of the afflicted.	Wight, Sarah.	1656 (1656)	Wing W2106; Thomason E1681_1; ESTC R209156	28,056	89

his way to doe as he hath done to suffer patiently and willingly without the least gainsaying or resistance such grievous things Christ was as a sheep before the slaughter David under afflictions was dumbe also because he saw the Lord did it and not man so Aaron when he lost his sons suddenly held his peace And good old Eli said It 's the Lord let him do as he pleaseth In this sweet spiritual frame was Job when he said it was the Lord that took from him in the flesh who could give him much more in the Spirit All that they suffered was not so much from an enemy as a Father for their good who seeing how apt the current of their affections was to run more to them then to him their heart being not so fixed upon him as he would have them but very apt to be divided and to wander from him like ours as we are creatures therefore he sends afflictions as messengers to fetch them home to his Sheepfold Once this word came in Power to me when I was very sad O soul grieve not grieve not for thy Brother precious in my sight is thy Brothers death though grievous to thee and others was not Christs sufferings much more terrible and think not strange your firy tryalls for what is befallen you is common to all in this life and the same afflictions are accompanied to your fellow-members in the world Think of Samsons death a good man who died among the Philistins and seemingly in anger to be revenged on them for his two eys Consider these things and lay them to heart and sorrow no more as one without hope but know all things shall worke togeather for good even this unto ye therefore be still and know I am God doing whatever I please in heaven and earth and all places his time was not in thy hands or friends or his own but in my hands A sparrow cannot fall to the ground nor a hair off the head without my knowledge When these things was spoken to me I was very restless in my spirit even resolving to spend my few days in silent sorrow not expecting any more Sun-shine days of joy and suddenly the glory of the Lord broke forth thorow some thick darkness bidding me lift up my head and the Lord was pleased to speak to me as sweet as ever telling me he would wipe all teares from my eyes and the rebuke or reproach of his people he would take from off all the earth he had spoken it who would do it Jehovah a fulfiller of Promises therefore let not thy troubled fearfull heart be disquieted or afraid Peace Peace be unto thee I found Christ reasoned with me as once he did with his disciples when they were sad Why are ye troubled and why do such fears and doubts arise in thy heart am not I and my favour more to thee then enjoyments or Relations or any thing thou canst desire though I chasten thee sharply to draw thee neer me yet my favour will I not take from you nor alter my love is not this O soul more then all to give thee my self Who am the Desire of Desires the Beauty of all Blessedness the top of all Royalties even the fulness that silleth all in all who hath made thee beautifull thorow my comlyness though black in thy self under the bondage of coruption yet Lovely as Redeemed Justified and Sanctified my soul was even melted with in me at this sweet and powerful manifestation of love that I cryed out None but a naked Christ and who would not sell all for this Precious Pearl and willingly resigne up all even life it self to Christ who became poor and despised in the worlds eye that we though his poverty might be dignified in the Spirit and made rich in Faith in grace in humility and goodness this is to be heavenly rich in God in love O who would not leave all to follow Chrst for his treasures of wisdom and knowledg and all good things which he gives to his close followers This was one word which was spoken to me also Lovest thou me more then these more then Gold Silver Lands Livings any relations Golden gifts and Graces men or meanes and love not the world nor the things of it love nothing I say equall or above me for he or she that loves any thing more then me is not worthy of me set not thy affections on things below on earthly sensitive things but on Heavenly things above invisible glories If riches encrease set not thy heart upon them My Deare brother was such riches to me that if I could have but enjoyed his life and him spiritually restored to a comfortable state in this life according to my earnest and constant souls desire and the desire of many precious Saints that our God might have been more glorifyed in his life on earth O what riches what a portion of great joy would this have been to my soul none knows but now seeing by this uncertainty and emptyness in all things below the Lord I am forced to say What is riches or the encrease or sweet enjoyment of any creature-comforts to the lifting up of Gods lovely countenance upon us I can say now more feelingly Whom have I in Heaven or in Earth to glory in or stay my self upon but God alone from whom flows all our fresh springs of comfort joy life love and sweetness The Lord I hope by our late chastisements will make us more holy humble thankfull and fruitfull in every good work of God and cause the sword not onely to pierce into our souls but even to divide and sever more between soul and body flesh and spirit Christ and the Creature That nothing may remaine in us but what loves admires and blesses our God alone above all Sir this is all my desire to know more and do and patiently submit to the holy will of our Dear God in all things and to have more single affections to him and his naked glory Christian friend I have written in these papers some poor stamerings or what the Lord hath communicated to me with comfort in weakness through which I have written this to you that you with me may bless the Lord for his precious loving kindness to his unworthy hand-maid I cannot tell whether I may be troublesom to you because so tedious at one time When I begin to write to a Christian friend in this kind I am always much enlarged the more because but slow of speech In these few lines you may perceive a little that many are the troubles of the Righteous and also that the Righteous Lord supports sweetly under them all and in his own best time graciously delivering them out of all These troubles of ours may well be compared to waters even a flood of waters as David said that hath wave upon wave which though it be our Fathers pleasure and our portion to wade thorow yet this is our comfort VVe shall not sink in them

the benefit comfort shall be mine so shall all the praises and glory be thine Not unto me nor unto any thing acted or done by me but to thee be the whole glory of all who art the author of every good and perfect gift we enjoy It 's an excellent thing to know own and love the Lord above all even in the time of adversity As prosperity should not lift up so adversity should not daunt a Christian When we finde our estate here like a web woven with interminglings of wants and favours crosses and blessings standings and fallings combats and victories and the like which hath and doth accompany a poor soul in its pilgrimage as it did the Israelites of old in theirs Every condition is beautiful in its season Christianity hath its several Offices at several seasons it hath a sorrowful mourning praying time and its rejoycing praising triumphing time when it 's warmed with the glorious sunshine of Gods favour in which consists our eternal life and joy The seasons varieties changes in the outward world lively represent the seasons varieties and changes that are in the inward world of mankinde I daily behold things here belowe true according to Solomon's description living and dying coming into the world and going out of it planting and plucking up killing and quickning wounding and healing breaking down and building up weeping laughing mourning and rejoycing I know you and many of the precious sons and daughters of Sion can experimentally witness the truth of this not onely outwardly but inwardly they by an enlightned eye behold mutability written in every thing of the first man Adams state even in the height of his first glory which glory must and shall dayly yea doth pass away and will till it shall cease to be what it is mixed and fading When this glory shall be abolished then will a more pure lasting glory disclose it self the decreasing of the one makes clear way for the increasing of the other The Lord suffers his poore creature for a season to take quite contrary ways and to fetch contrary steps to throw down all he builds up and another while build up all he throws down yea it s appointed to him to Run thorow so many degrees of death as he hath gone degrees of life and to run thorow so many passages in the dark world as he hath done in the light world one while to make himself an universall transgressor and anon to justifie himself in all his transgression shewing himself to be as he is in all he doth as man a fool an unwise one in all he doth in living dying planting plucking up in weeping and rejoycing a fool in making himself a sinner a Saint till God make him what he will have him to be this or that here and there when and what he pleaseth not what we will but what he will this our Potter may do with us for we are the clay he is our father and we his children at his dispose more his then our own we are his children I say though he may withdraw from us and because of our weakness hide from us for a season the true colour original of things and those various workings by which he doth those things the great Jehovah may put what paint he will upon things and what Dy he pleaseth into us and we with beholding the present colour subject to change with the present eye may be confident in what we see both in judging it and other things by it not rightly knowing him that judges it nor considering what various changes both the eye and colour are subject to undergo That which had a time to be born planted and built up hath a change accompanied to it it hath also a time to die to be plucked up and thrown down like the glory of old Jerusalem or the old first world and there is nothing so deaded or troden under foot plucked up or rased out but shall have a gladsome season a time of quickening glorifying and planting and writing in againe by the finger of God All things are at first brought forth in weakness in the inward world as well as in the outward world saith the Wiseman All things under the Sun are vanity or to have a vain course a while the Lord is perfect in every motion of his both in the inward outward world whatever he doth shall be for ever nothing can be added to it or taken from it but poor silly man like the wild Asses colt is weak and vain the outward and inward man vain yea every motion of his as he is onely man comes to nothing he may seem to be wonderous wise to have notions of great weight even of eternity upon him yet he cannot reach eternity as man being but a vain empty nothing the purposes he hath in him are but poor low shallow things yet he hath his season to take his pleasure in his vain inventions but when these seasons are blown over he is then stripped of all of inside and outside as I have often been and so made naked to divine purpose One breath of the Almighty blasts all the creaturely perfection which we have been acquainted with one appearance of love dissolves the soul to nothing as the Sun doth wax some boast I see of their selfish seeming glory Riches honour parts and abilities and such like which I poor empty nothing cannot do yet I am not troubled at it now I consider what a moth is in these garments and how subject these treasures are to be corrupted and creature-fulness exhausted one grain of that precious faith and one dram of love which the Lord gives his hidden ones is far beyond all other things that we can act or do it 's all of God without our mixtures The Lord having shewn me some of his glory in this particular I beseech him to shew me more for it doth content me and it will suffice my soul more then hid treasures the sensible and full enjoyment of thy Spirit will cause my soul to return satisfied to her rest praising the God of all our mercies not caring what others boast of when thou art become the Crown of my glory the top of all Royalties to me my spirit now breaths out this language says Holy God let who will treasure up to themselves yet will not I that which some love and store up besides thy self of their own excellency I cannot but abhor cast away as filthy raggs of no value every thing that is in me that springs up out of my dry ground that springs not from the sap of thy Holy Spirit If I know my own heart I would not glory in any thing below my Maker and what is of him and conveyed by his Spirit alone into me it rejoyceth my soul much to see the Lord at work gathering all as he hath given me as his own and saving me for his own Name sake and not for any worth or