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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A75725	The heavenly trade, or the best merchandizing the only way to live well in impoverishing times. A discourse occasioned from the decay of earthly trades, and visible wastes of practical piety in the day we live in, offering arguments and counsels to all, towards a speedy revival of dying godliness and timely prevention of the dangerous issues thereof impending on us. By Bartholomew Ashwood Minister of the Gospel.	Ashwood, Bartholomew, 1622-1680.	1678 (1678)	Wing A3999A; ESTC R204336	280,447	512

work Christians be careful of your ends in all you do 'T is not enough to do things that are right if you are not upright in them That 's unsanctified work which hath not holy aims and God for its last end To follow your callings that you might live honestly in the sight of men that you might provide for your own and have a competency in the world to carry you comfortably through it is lawful as subordinate secondary ends but not as your chief and last end to which all your actions must be directed that must be singly and supremely the pleasing and honouring of God as your highest end Fifthly Another part of this Heavenly Trade is driven on maintain'd in heavenly thoughts Thoughts are the embrio and conception of actions which also come under the cognisance and government of Religion 'T is a common but carnal principle and false assertion that thoughts are free They are free indeed from the inspection of men but not from the eye and judgment of God who searcheth the hearts and weigheth the spirits Jer. 17. 10. and will bring every secret thing into judgment Eccles 12. 14. Solomon tells us The thoughts of foolishness is sin Prov. 16. 2. Prov. 24. 9. And Peter tells us that the thoughts of the heart need forgiveness Acts 8. 22. not onely sinful actions but sinful thoughts are forbidden Deut. 15. 9. and the very thoughts as well as words and lives of Christians are to be brought under the obedience of Christ 2 Cor. 10. 5. The Idea and platform of every considerate action is first drawn in the mind and inward thoughts No work is rightly done that wants praevious thoughts and consideration Prov. 16. 9. A man's heart deviseth his way he weighs considers and deliberates about the way he is to go in and the course of life he is to drive he counts the time cost and every thing that must go to his work Prov. 31. 16. She considereth a field and buyeth it So 't is in this Heavenly Trade there must be devising of the way serious thoughts and considerations how to manage it to best advantage how to get in and put off wisdom's goods how to strengthen grace to dispatch duty to obtain the favour of God and dwell in his presence how to improve mercy and how to ensure glory The Heavenly Trade can never be carried on without heavenly thoughts Inward working thoughts about God and godliness are of wonderful use to further a holy life They warm and chear the heart under troubles Psal 94. 19. engage and fix it on God and render his presence desirable Heavenly thoughts fire the heart and inflame it to holy actions Psal 139. 17. Psal 39. 3. and are a choice preservative against sin Psal 4. 4. 'T is greatly useful to encrease knowledge and attain to deep wisdom and understanding Dan. 14. 4. Many shall run to and fro and knowledge shall encrease That is their thoughts shall be working on truth busily employed to find out the meaning of the word looking on one side and on the other side saith Mr. Fenner and by this means shall come to a great thriving in knowledge Men will never be religious to purpose or be their crafts-masters in this Heavenly Trade till they be more spiritual and heavenly in their thoughts Christians make conscience of your thoughts they must come to judgment wash your hearts from whence they come Jer. 4. 14. and watch your thoughts whither they go check your thoughts when they begin to wander quicken your thoughts when flat fix your thoughts when floating spiritualize them when carnal exercise them when slothful set them on their proper and profitable objects and hold them to their work in divine and heavenly meditation every day which is part of your Heavenly Trade and hath a mighty tendency to soul-enriching Psal 4. 4. Psal 63. 4. Psal 104. 34. Gen. 24. 63. Psal 1. 2. Psal 77. 12. Psal 139. 8. Meditation is a calling in the thoughts from its straglings and undue employments fixing them on and holding them to their peculiar work 'T is the travel of the mind in the search of some spiritual good from such things as duty and providence lay before it it weighs things and actions in the ballance of truth it turns things up-side down and looks on both sides and through them that it may take a right estimate of them 'T is the running to and fro of the cogitations to encrease knowledge Dan. 12. 4. Meditation sifts things and truths to divide the flower from the bran and truth from errours it helps to a clearer and more sensible view of truth and excellency with the Chymist it extracts the spirits and quintessence of things it warms the heart and fires the affections raises desires engages the will enlightens and enlivens the conscience and helps to feed the soul on divine truths to feast it with divine love it draws nourishment from ordinances sweetness from promises instructions from the creature and good from providences Without Meditation a person cannot receive the good that 's offer'd to him or do the good that is required of him The Word preached doth not profit hearers for want of Meditation to digest it threatnings promises counsels encouragements don't affect the soul or effect their errand and message for want of a serious and settled consideration of them O what profit might Christians get to their souls were more time spent every day in right Meditation Believer charge thy heart with this duty of daily Meditation which is as needful as Prayer Reading and any acts of holiness and allow some time constantly each day for this holy exercise of thy serious thoughts and contemplations To meditate on God his Word and Works on the Soul its being immortality duties evils and interests on the the World its vanity and emptiness on Sin its nature and issues on Holiness its excellency and blessed advantages on Death Judgment and Eternity with whatever might yield instruction and profit Urge thy conscience with the command of God the practice of the Saints the great necessity and many advantages of this duty consider the great and usual aversness of thy heart to it which doth manifestly bespeak its spirituality and excellency for the more nature is indisposed to a duty the more of God is usually in such a duty think also of thy manifold losses and disadvantages thou hast sustained by thy neglect of it and pray hard for the spirit to help thy soul in the due performance of it which hints I can only leave with thee without further enlargement lest it should swell this Volume beyond its designed bounds Sixthly If you would drive on this heavenly Trade you must be keeping up heavenly converses every day and upon every occasion much of earthly Trades is carried on by earthly discourses this way they drive bargains and barter away goods a great many words oft-times go to chaffering buying and selling and so is it

signification his judgment may see the evidence of the argument and force of reason in them and yet the Commentary on Christ's last Prayer reality and spiritualness of that Divine good never apprehended The world by wisdom knew not God 1 Cor. 1. 21. There 's no proportion between a spiritual object and a caanal eye The carnal mind cannot discern the things of the Spirit of God neither can they know them for they are spiritually discerned 1 Cor. 2. 14. Labour to see the beauty and amiableness of Truth to see your propriety in Truth to taste an inward sweetness and ravishing pleasure in Truth to feel the sense of special love to your souls in discovery of light and to find a mightiness going out in every Truth on your souls changing you into the very Spirit and Image of Truth To grow in knowledge extensively into all Truth and intensively in deeper and more sensible spiritual powerful apprehensions of truth the want of which right knowledge makes so many cold dead hypocrites and barren professours in this day of light and parts Get also your Consciences stor'd with the Peace of God which passeth understanding This is the salt that seasons every thing condition and duty Mark 9. 50. This will shoe your feet to travel through the rough and tiresome waies of affliction temptation and persecution you must meet with in the pursuit of your Heavenly Trade Ephes 6. 15. This will calm your hearts in storms and maintain a Summer within when 't is Winter without and nothing but tempests and troubles in the world John 16. 33. This will preserve you when all is going and keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus Phil. 4. 7. This will guard your hearts from those slavish fears darksom doubts and dreadful troubles that many are filled with this day and make you triumph over sin trample upon the world and smile in the midst of all the frowns of men and Devils O get and keep this rare Jewel of inward Peace which will help you to draw near to God with boldness and chearful serenity in every duty Heb. 10. 22. Get your consciences bath'd in the blood of Christ and the evidences of your sincerity cleared up every day this will help to maintain a feast of inward peace under the temptations of Satan and the view of your daily failings and stumblings Get your hearts warm'd and affections quicken'd with the sense of divine love to your Souls this is a choice part of heavenly treasures and will abundantly conduce to the lively carrying on of this divine Trade affections raised by the application of redemption-grace will be to your Souls as spread sails to the Ship to carry you strongly along against wind and storm and fill you with pleasant gales within and give you a speedy and comfortable passage through the waves of this World 2 Cor. 5. 12. 'T is the Soul's wing that mounts it up towards God and carries it aloft above the entanglements of sin the world and flesh in the warm pursuit of God's commandments 2 Cor. 5. 14. His commands will not be thought grievous or his yoke heavy where this love of God hath left a savour on the heart Psal 119. 32. Rom. 13. 10. It will exceedingly sweeten the bitter waters of Marah to you and make the paths of God's Providences as well as his Precepts pleasantness and peace Take in also the consolations of the Spirit and the joys of the Holy Ghost these will be useful to chear your hearts under tribulation and strengthen and cordial you under heart-faintings and qualms you may meet with from those ill vapours of this lower World and want of creature-comforts 2 Cor. 7. 4. Rom. 15. 4. This spiriturl comfort will also help to drown your carnal joys and to prevent a surfeit with the pleasures of this World another danger that Wisdom's Merchants are sometimes liable to Acts 2. 28. Make me full of joy with the light of thy countenance Spiritual joy where it is fills the heart and leaves no room for carnal delights as the heat of the Sun puts out the fire so will spiritual consolation extinguish carnal joy 'T was the comfort which Moses by Faith fetch'd in from the views of an invisible God that made him choose reproaches with the people of God before the pleasures of sin that were but for a season Heb. 11. 21. 25. This spiritual comfort is a notable way to stability in every good work 2 Thes 2. 16 17. to help on your Souls edification and growth in grace and holiness Acts 9. 31. O! what work have Christians to do besides the World and minding their own things were Religion followed to the purpose persons would have no leisure for sin and vanity O! what need have gracious Souls of a diligent hand to make them rich and to be taking in spiritual goods every day Quest But how should I do to get my Soul furnish'd with these heavenly goods If my heart deceive me not I would fain be enriched with every grace capacity and accomplishment for the discharge of my duty the pleasing honouring and enjoying of God and for the welfare of my immortal Soul But how to attain this longed for mercy I know not Sol. 1. If you would be enriched with heavenly treasures and get in those goods Then 1. First maintain a constant sense of your own wants and emptiness That which is wanting cannot be numbred Eccles 1. 15. Look over your souls every day and see your poverty look into your understandings and see how little light is there into your minds and consider how little spirituality lies there how little warmth and heavenly heat in your affections little truth and sincerity in your spirits little tenderness in your consciences little flexibleness in your wills to divine things little faith love humility meekness fear zeal life strength faithfulness stedfastness in your souls were this really seen and felt and the excellency of these spiritual perfections discern'd and the soul 's great concern and interest that lies wrapt up in them with the absolute necessity of having every grace in order to duty peace comfort prosperity and salvation persons that had any life at all could not lie still or be content till utmost means were us'd to obtain supplies 't was a false conceit of a self-fulness that kept back Laodicea from seeking after Christ's treasures Rev. 3. 17 18. And that blind opinion the Pharisees had of their good estate that so prejudic'd them against the convictions and counsels of Christ towards their cure Joh. 8. 33. 39. 41. 48. Had not the Corinthian Saints been so full and rich in their apprehensions they would not have had such sleighty thoughts of instituted means towards their Souls good 1 Cor. 1. 12. And have been contentious with one another when they should have been contending for higher measures of grace and godliness vers 11. 'T is the poor are the labourers in God's Vineyard Zech. 11. 11.

world Rule 7. Seventhly Follow your duty but cast your care on God abide in your callings but live above them 1 Pet. 5. 17. Casting all your care on God for he careth for you Depend not on your wisdom labour or success in your employments but upon the promise love and care of God for you If the Lord blesseth your substance don't you bless your selves in it See an emptiness in all your abundance and shortness in these to answer your many wants God can soon make a hole in your money-bags blow on your encrease turn your prosperity into contempt and make your expected comforts as the dream of a night vision Live not on large barns but on the full breasts of promises for the good of what you do enjoy or for the supply of what you want The poor Christian hath the keeping of his purse in his Father's hand the rich in his own hand If sight fail live by faith Faith assures you of the good issue of all difficulties in your way and gets advantage from the worst condition and sweetness to mingle with every bitter providence you meet with It may be thou hast a great family and little to live on lyest in debt and hast nothing to pay it hadst a little th' other day but the Caterpiller and the Cankerworm hath devour'd it this loss and th' other stroak hath wasted it In this case thy duty is to live on God by faith for a sanctified fruit of his hand upon thee and for making up this lack by his abundance When thou canst see no way out of thy perplexing trouble let thine eye be unto God for help 2 Chron. 20. 12. 2 Chron. 25. 8. Go not out of God's way for relief He that wounds must heal he onely that casteth down can raise up Deut. 32. 30. Neither faint thou in the day of adversity or way of thy duty Prov. 24. 10. Prov. 16. 3. but commit thy way to the Lord and he will bring it to pass Psal 37. 5. Mat. 6. v. 25. 1 Cor. 7. 32. Phil. 4. 6. Take heed of carking cares and fretful vexings these cannot lessen thy trouble but will greaten thy sins a provident care is thy duty but a distrustful vexing care both thy sin and affliction Rule 8. Eightly In all your labours pray for a blessing If you would live well you must beg as well as work add duty to thy diligence prayer to thy provident care calling on God to thy calling in the world As every creature so every condition and work is sanctified by the word and prayer 1 Tim. 4. 15. In every undertaking seek to God for counsel Prov. 3. 6. In all thy waies acknowledge him and he shall direct thy paths Christians should not set upon the smallest matters without enquiring the will of God not to go to this or that place to buy or sell to do this or that work without seeking to God for direction Jam. 4. 13 14 15. Our journeys saith one must not be undertaken without asking God's leave Dr. Mant. on Jam. This would evidence a life of dependance on God and bring all thy affairs under divine care and blessing Abraham's servant begins his journey with prayer Gen. 24. 12. 27. and concluded it with praise Gen. 28. 20. And so Jacob Israel's folly in concluding with the Gibeonites contrary to the command of God was laid on their not asking counsel of God Josh 9. 14. The men took of their victuals and asked not counsel at the mouth of the Lord. O the snares and disadvantages men are exposed to in their earthly concerns for not taking counsel from God and engaging his hand and blessing with them Prayer will further your work sweeten your pains and difficulties in it and secure the comfort and good of it When you want mercy seek God for it when you receive mercy see God in it and return praise to God for it Rule 9. Ninthly Though you live in the World yet be dead to the World Heaven-born souls though in the World yet are not of the World but chosen out of it Joh. 15. 19. and crucified to it Gal. 6. 14. God forbid that I should glory save in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ by whom the World is crucified to me and I unto the World This crucifiedness to the World * Se mundum cum omni suo fastu pompa gloria aspernari contemnere quasi rem nihili vanam mortuam saith Paraeus signifies the contempt and despising of this World he intimates hereby that the World with all its scorn pride pomp and glory are despised by him as a nothing empty dead thing A soul crucified to the World sees nothing lovely and desirable in this World but God his Word and Works there 's nothing in earthly things that can be taking with spiritual hearts if God be not enjoyed in them all the glory of the World is no more to them than a dead carkass if the love of God breath not through it on their hearts nay the very Garden of the Lord is a Wilderness to them if the Rose of Sharon be not in it A mortified Saint wonders that a rational immortal Soul can see such worth in riches pleasures honours and poor perishing things of this life which to him are nothing he can easily part with all at the Lord's bidding And he feels no such evil neither in the bad things of this World as to make men startle at them wants losses reproaches torments for Christ lose their frightfulness to them whose hearts love to the Lord Jesus hath reconciled unto the bitterest affliction that can befall them for his sake If Christ stand and do not perish saith Luther what matter is it if Wife and Children perish If liberty estate life and all go so he stay Such should thy heart be in pursuit of these things as one that is dead to the World and sits loose from all its glory and above all its threatnings content to have or not to have to use or want to enjoy or be denied or deprived of it as God pleaseth Rule 10. Lastly Do all your work within the view of death judgment and eternity transact the employments of every day as dying persons who are leaving this World and liable to a remove every moment How would frequent and serious thoughts of a near approaching end wonderfully check mens greedy pursuits of this World and help to keep their actions in a consistency with their accounts King Philip would have it proclaim'd before him every morning Remember that thou art mortal And when falling upon the Sand he afterward saw the print of his body said O how litle a parcel of earth will hold us when we are dead who ambitiously seek after the World while we are living When Severus was old he called for an Urn or Pitcher in which the ashes of a dead person were put and looking a while on it said a Tu virum capies quem orbis

pruinas grandines tempestates ferre necessarium est antequam maturescat fructum ferat ita hominem fidelem intus extrinsecus multa pati mala oportet Stell The seed must lye long it may may be under ground and when 't is come up be nipt up with frosts and covered with snow and hail and bear many a storm before it ripens and brings forth fruit and this calls for Patience yea many times long-suffering The husbandman waiteth for the precious fruits of the earth and hath long Patience for it untill he receive the early and latter rain James 5. 7. Patience is needful to suffer as well as do the Will of God Rev. 13. 10. Here is the Patience and Faith of the Saints To endure captivity and cruell Death for the sake of Christ Patience to wait for the promise Rom. 8. 25. and Patience to receive it Heb. 10. 36. Patience saith Seneca is a salve for every sore that onely which alleviates our burdens without it we cannot be men or Christians saith another ' t is the grace that makes a compleat and well accomplish'd Christian Manton James 1. 4. When reason is at a stand and hope almost at an end and all refuge fails Patience steps in bears the burden and calms the soul Hope is a necessary grace to this great undertaking reckoned among the three Cardinal virtues that wonderfully adorn a Christian's spirit and conversation 1 Cor. 13. 13. Now abideth Faith and Hope and Charity Hope is the off-spring and refreshment of Faith 't is begotten by Faith and saies one As a good child relieves its father Faith in time of need Hope is an expectation Faith a perswasion Faith eyes the promise hope the thing promised as sure though future which comforts the soul under the present want of desired mercy and this is needful to cheer the soul under its exigencies and disappointments in the way of its Christian conversation Hope keeps in the fire and keeps up the house Heb. 3. 6. Whose house are we if we hold fast the confidence and rejoycing of our hope firm to the end Were it not for Hope the house would fall asunder Hope keeps it together till the Lord new build it in Heaven Hope anchors the soul in a storm and makes it steady under shaking tempests Heb. 6. 19. Hope maintains a Christian in a hard winter while the seed is under clods and till the corn come to the barn 1 Cor. 9. 10. He that ploweth ploweth in Hope that is of a good harvest that will compensate all his labours Hope secures the soul from shame and disappointment under temporary forbearance Psal 34. 22. It helps it to rejoyce in tribulation Rom. 5. 2. and compasseth him about with mercy Psal 32. 10. Humility Self-denial Goodness Temperance Gentleness Love Zeal Holy Fear are all good goods that will off well and turn to the Trader's profit if well improved Get your souls well stor'd with these graces of the Spirit also if you ever think to drive a good Trade of godliness Get your minds filled with knowledge as well as your hearts with grace that 's part of the Christian's Treasure 2 Cor. 4. 6. We have this Treasure that is of the knowledge of God in the face of Christ in earthen vessels In whom are hid all the Treasures of Wisdom Col. 2. 3. Saving knowledge is a Treasure laid up in Christ for Believers and to be fetched out for their use and comfort The riches of the full assurance of understanding and acknowledgement of the mystery of God and of the Father and of Christ Col. 2. 2. The Gospel is a mystery a secret hid from the natural eye and cannot be known but by the revelation of the Spirit To have an inward clear sensible experimental and certain apprehension of the glorious truths of the Gospel opened and confirmed to the eye of Faith is a high attainment beyond what any reach to but those that have the anointings of the Spirit and to whom 't is given by the Spirit as the fruit of prayer and faithful attendance on his teachings in the Gospel and Ordinances of Christ This is called a rooting and establishment in the Faith Col. 2. 7. and growing in knowledge 2 Pet. 3. 18. alluding to trees that being well planted do take deeper root in the earth and in time come to greater settlement and strength against shakings And as children that gradually grow and encrease to higher statures so this spiritual knowledge is gradually encreased 't is not the priviledge of new-born babes of persons at their first conversion to have this deep fathoming of Gospel-mysteries But of stronger Christians who by constant attendances on the Means of Grace and in progress of time by Faith Humility Prayer and Attention to the Spirit do at length come to higher measures of this illumination and full assurance of truth As Gerson reports of a godly man he knew who at first was exercised with many doubts and fears and shakings of Faith but at last through humiliation of soul and a captivating of his understanding to Divine Truth together with the illumination of the Spirit came to a wonderful clearness in the matters of Faith and of his soul-estate with such a settlement of spirit and certainty about his salvation as to have no more doubts remaining in him Christians content not your selves with some notions of truth and shallow cold apprehensions of the great mysteries of salvation but labour to get in greater measures of spiritual understanding both objective as to the Truths to be known and subjective as to the discerning of them Alas we know as yet nothing as we ought there are deeps in the knowledge of Christ for Elephants as well as shallows for Lambs and there are greater beamings on the souls eye to be obtained and more certain understanding and familiar acquaintance to be had with the same Truths we know Your business Christians in the Heavenly Trade is to get more Divine Wisdom to be led farther into all Truth and to enter into the Mysteries of the Gospel wading farther and farther into Sanctuary-deeps to know more of God of the way to him and the things freely given of him and to know better what you know Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent and revealed them to babes There 's a secret in Gospel-truths which the wisest men in the world can never by their greatest Wisdom come to see without the special revelation of the Spirit As none can come to see the spirits salts and occult virtues in herbs and minerals till by Chymistry they are exstracted Others may discern and receive the things themselves in the gross and bulk of them and yet never see or taste those choice spirits hid in them So 't is with such as are strangers to a spiritual knowledge they apprehend Truths in the bulk and letter of them A A carnal man saith Hooker may hear the sound of the Word understand the