Selected quad for the lemma: master_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
master_n	lord_n	servant_n	service_n	5,597	5	7.0128	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A95348	Theophosoi [sic] theophiloi: God's fearers are God's favourites, or, An encouragement to fear God in the worst times delivered in several sermons / by ... Nath. Tucker ...	Tucker, Nath.; Kentish, Richard.; Whitfield, Thomas.	1662 (1662)	Wing T3209A; ESTC R42917	82,402	157

one main cause why a man cannot take care for the things of the Lord as he ought to do such a man such a woman cannot attend upon the Lord in any duty without distraction Mat. 6.24 saith our Saviour there No man can serve two masters i. e. two masters of contrary interests and who issue forth contrary commands Every wicked man serves more masters then two he is a servant to lust yea he serves divers lusts and pleasures Tit. 3.3 but yet he serves not that One who is infinitely better and more deserving our service then all and serving Mammon he cannot serve God as he ought in any service and therefore not in that which I am now speaking of Col. 3.2 Set your affections on things above not on things on the earth q. d. If your thoughts run upon the things of the earth they wo'n't carry you out after things above And thus much of the Negative means or rather the hinderances of this holy meditation I come in the next place to speak of the Positive helps and with them I shall conclude this days publick Exercise 1. If you desire to think upon the Name of God then begin the day with the thoughts of him and of his mercies renewed upon you not onely every morning but every moment This seems to be Davids constant course from such texts as these are Psal 5.3 Psal 59.16 Psal 88.13 and the like you may finde in many other places that to begin with the thoughts of God in the morning is the way to put the soul into an heavenly frame and temper the whole day following We have a saying amongst us that the morning is a friend to the Muses Aurora Musis amica i. e. the morning is a good studying time I am sure the morning is a great friend to the Graces 't is the best time to begin our thoughts and meditations it will dispose the heart to and for communion with God all the day after And withal remember to close up the heart with God when you go to bed at night and if possibly you can fall asleep out of some heavenly meditation So will your heart be in a better plight when you awake He that thus raketh up fire over-night as one saith shall finde fire again in the morning That is the first Means to the Duty in hand 2. Guard and watch over your hearts all the day long that they be not drawn from God or from the thoughts of him either by any corruption from within or temptation from without Prov 4.23 Keep thy heart with all diligence defend it from all inroads and incursions from the flesh world and devil Keep but the heart well in tune and then it will not so easily go out from God Beloved if you suffer your hearts to be scattered up and down upon earthly vanities it will be far to seek when you should wait upon God either in Prayer or Meditation as a wilde horse turn'd to range up and down into a wilde Common that can hardly be taken when he should be sadled As you should be in the fear of the Lord all the day long so should you be raising elevating and winding up your hearts to God all the day long You should hold communion with God even in the duties of your particular callings and civil employments Phil. 3.20 saith the Apostle there Our conversation is in heaven The word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 conversation in the Greek is properly rendred thus Our civil life or our civil conversation is in heaven q. d. we exercise our general callings in our particular we go about earthly businesses with heavenly mindes extracting by a Divine Alchymie heavenly medi●●●ion● out of earthly objects and occasions And I conceive there is something to this purpose in that of the Apostle 1 Cor. 7.39 where he saith Brethren let every man wherein he is earth abide with God How doth a man abide with God in his particular calling not onely by keeping within the bounds and limits of that calling wherein God hath placed him but also executing the duties of it as in the sight of God by minding God in the several passages and occurrences of it This also is to abide with God in our calling and this we must do if we will be conscionable to the duty enjoyned 3. Would you have your thoughts to be set upon the right object upon God and goodness with these godly ones here in my text Then hold a strict hand over your thoughts be often in and upon the examination of them Evils you must know begin first in the thoughts Mat. 15.19 For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts murders adulteries fornications thefts false witness blasphemies First evil thoughts and what then murders adulteries fornications thefts false witness blasphemies Evil thoughts are set in the front of this black Roll. When God would express the wickedness of the old world he saith Gen. 6.5 That every imagination of the thoughts of their heart was onely evil continually The imagination gives shape to every thing that the minde works upon The reason of Atheism is Blasphemy in the thoughts the reason of worldliness is some wicked thought that lies hid in the bosome and therefore saith God Isa 55.7 Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts You must not onely mark your way but your thoughts trace every corrupt desire every inclination every affection every transient motion whatever passeth thorow your hearts in the whole day call it to an audit set upon the tryal of it Our thoughts are even infinite nimble slippery and therefore we had the more need to watch them and to set upon the search of them and having found of what nature they are and of what tendencie they are cherish the good and check the bad One evil thought one sinful cogitation being uncontrolled and given way to O how may it vex and disquiet our hearts when we come to lie upon our death-beds As David dealt with his wayes so do you with your thoughts I considered my wayes saith he so do you your thoughts 4. If you would think of God and the things of God then heighten your love to God and the things of God Strong affections make strong impressions and cause great thoughts of heart A man cannot but think much of that which he loves much and therefore saith David in Psalm 119. verse 97. O how I love thy law it is my meditation all the day q. d. I do abundantly love thy law I do love it so greatly as that I cannot well express how greatly I love it O how I love thy law and therefore 't is that I am so much in the meditation of it Be sure of it that our infinite wandrings and woful trifling away of our golden hours in idle and evil thoughts is caused very much by our coldness and luke-warmness in our love to God and the things that are of divine concernment Would we but

end 'T is said of Dioclesian that bloudy persecutor Imperium deposuit quodam mentis stupore consternatione post quam singularem Christianorum in morte constantiam perspexisset i. e. That he laid down his Empire with terrour and consternation of minde after he had observed that height of spirit resolution and constancie which was in the Christians How did Steven being full of faith and courage astonish his adversaries The text saith Acts 6.15 All that sate in the council looking stedfastly on him saw his face as it had been the face of an angel So true is that of Solomon Prov. 28.4 They that forsake the law praise the wicked but such as keep the law contend with them A godly man I say that is unmoveable not like a troubled fountain or a corrupt spring though he may for a time receive evil words from the wicked yet their hearts are afraid of him and their consciences do admire him And thus Beloved you have heard the several Grounds and Reasons of the Point as far forth as time will permit I shall make some Improvement of it unto our selves This Point I shall apply two ways 1. for Increpation and then 2. for Exhortation 1. For Increpation or Reproof This Doctrine casts a severe aspect upon two sorts 1. Upon all formal and luke-warm Laodiceans upon all temporizing and corrupt time-serving Gospellers 2. Upon all timerous fearful and faint-hearted Christians For the first of these Is it so That the servants of God must labour to shew themselves best in the worst times that they should shine most in the greatest darkness and then with those fearers of God here in my text shew themselves most zealous for the Lord when others are most audacious in sinning against the Lord Tuis then doth most sharply reprehend all formal and temporizing professors who contrary to the rules of Gods most holy Word contrary to the practice of so many of his renowned servants in former ages and contrary to the irrefragable truth of the point in hand hold it best and safest to swim with the common current to keep themselves on the warm side of the hedge as we use to say to do as the most do though in and by so doing they be utterly undone for ever nay and that they may not seem sine ratione insanire to be mad without reason they plead Scripture or rather wrest and pervert Scripture for the defence of their wicked purpose as that of the Preacher Eccles 4.10 Wo to him that is alone when he falleth for he hath not another to help him up That Eccles 7.16 Be not righteous over-much neither make thy self over-wise why shouldst thou destroy thy self I and that of the Apostle Paul too 1 Cor. 9.22 where he saith To the weak I became as weak that I might gain the weak I am made all things to all men that I might by all means save some Hence it is that they think themselves secuted and shrowded from the dint of any such reproof as this is pleasing themselves in a cold and careless mediocrity in spiritual matters How many have taken up that cursed Maxime which was all the Latine that Lewis 11. King of France would have his son to learn Qui nescit aissimulare nescit vivere he that cannot sycophantize and dissemble is not in case to live in a Commonwealth They can Camelconlike turn themselves into any colonr accommodate themselves to any mans humour they can as the Planet Mercury be good when in conjunction with good and bad when in the company of bad Weathercock like comply with the times let them be what they will and shift sail to the setting of every winde like the Ebionites of whom Eusebius tells us that they would keep the Sabbath with the Jews and the Lords day with the Christians like men that would seem to be of all Religions when in truth they were of none like those Israelites Neh. 13. that spake both Hebrew and Ashdod or to Balaam that could both bless and curse those double-minded men of whom the Apostle James speaks who are instable in all their ways imprisoning the truth in unrighteousness These are the men who come under this first Reprehension Beloved all that I shall say concerning these profligate professors that can tune their Fiddles to the Base of the times resolving to play nothing but what the company calls for The Lord will spue such Parasites out of his mouth as too loathsome a morsel for his stomack to brook or bear Rev. 3.16 saith Jesus Christ there called the Amen the faithful and true Witness the beginning of the creation of God Because thou a●t luke-warm and neither cold nor hot I will spue thee out of my mouth When a man rids his stomack he gets him into a corner so will Almighty God rid his stomack of such in the dark corner of hell To the same purpose I may apply that Isai 1.24 Ah I will ease me of mine adversaries and avenge me of mine enemies q. d. I will cast up this loathsom stuff that lies so hard upon and is so offensive to my stomack Which done the devil as a dog stands ready waiting to lick up Gods vomit Everlasting wo will be the portion of all those who are neither hot nor cold in nothing so constant as in their Unconstancie And thus briefly of the first sort that come under the lash of this Reproof The second sort to be here reproved are timorous and faint-hearted Christians who with the Snail pull in their horns for every pile of grass who are ashamed of Jesus Christ their Masters Cognizance for every light counterblast either of disgrace or danger I am to tell you that the Lord holds all such white-liver'd souldiers in such special detestation that he will not employ them so far as to break a pitcher or to bear a torch in his service Judg. 7.3 There are three texts amongst others which I thought good to commend unto the consideration of such The one is Mark 8.38 Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation of him also shall the Son of man be ashamed when he cometh in the glory of his Father with the holy angels Christ our Lord foresaw that as many would take up the profession of the Gospel for their credit advantage and other sinister and collateral respects so many would withdraw from it for fear of shame I but saith he Those who are now so shie of me so shie to own me my Truths my Service before men I will one day be every whit as shie of them and ashamed to own or acknowledge them before my Father and the blessed angels at that day when I shall make most ample relation before God angels and men yea all honourable mention of such as were not ashamed of me in this world then will I be ashamed of them who are loth to be seen forward in my service The