Selected quad for the lemma: religion_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
religion_n	king_n	kingdom_n	parliament_n	5,178	5	6.3666	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A57982	The tryal & triumph of faith: or, An exposition of the history of Christs dispossessing of the daughter of the woman of Canaan Delivered in sermons; in which are opened, the victory of faith; the condition of those that are tempted; the excellency of Jesus Christ and free-grace; and some speciall grounds and principles of libertinisme and antinomian errors, discovered by Samuel Rutherfurd, professor of divinity in the University of St. Andrews. Published by authority.	Rutherford, Samuel, 1600?-1661.	1652 (1652)	Wing R2397A; ESTC R203460	278,378	498

oppressour and delivered them from pressures of conscience under Episcopacy a Masse-service and burdensome ceremonies and for the sins of the King Queen Court Prelats and Prophets the persecuting and killing the witnesses of Christ in Queen Maries days and in the late Prelats time and the present unjustice carelesse and remisse minding Religion and their labouring to spoile the Kingdome of Christ of that power that Christ hath given to his people of Church-discipline and translating it to their Parliament to make Church-discipline Parliament-discipline confounding so the two kingdoms their tolerating of blasphemous sects some denying the Godhead of Christ some his Kingly Office to sanctifie govern his people some his Priestly some his Propheticall Office and many other sins of Prophets and people not repented of and most of these sins and many others and especially the breach of the Covenant in Scotland these two Kingdomes are to fear heavy judgements and that their calamity is not yet at an end But rather one wo is passed but another cometh Except these lands be humbled and lie in the dust before the Lord Yet in all this the dispensation of God though bloody is but the Lord saying as of old so now to Britain Isa. 1.25 And I will turn my hand upon thee and purely purge away thy drosse and take away all thy tin 26. And I will restore thy Judges as at the first and thy counsellors as at the beginning afterward thou shalt be called the city of righteousnes the faithfull city 27. Zion shall be redeemed with judgement and her converts with righteousnesse 2. A rough dispensation of Christ cannot abide long rough to the Saints he must answer and ease the pain of the womans broken spirit it s a nights pain to Christ to cause the tears run down the cheeks of his Church all the night he cannot but bring a day light of joy before the Suns ordinary time to rise Ps. 30.5 Christ smiteth and weepeth for compassion both at once Tender mercy in Christ moveth as much if not more within then without The mothers bowels are as much on work within when the childe is but upon her breasts and he is not capable to know a mother as a mother and love as love as ever when the deserted is but new and hot come out of the second womb and a babe born over again yet in a spirituall Feaver he is as much as ever in the bowels of Christ though he be not in that case capable of the sense and actuall apprehension of Christ as Christ and of the sense of Christs love as his love Ier. 31.20 Since the time that I sufficiently talked with him in correcting him or since the time of my sufficiency of speaking against him in remembring him I do remember him I spake much in mine anger against him and half against my will I did chide him and scourge him but my moved bowels the stirrings of a compassionating heart did contradict in a manner my rough correcting my heart came out of me with every rough word and stroke The Sun and nature worketh long and many years under earth in the generation of Gold and Silver ere we see gold and silver God and his servant nature did us a pleasure a great favour in that kind in secret down in the bowels of the earth to make unseen and concealed provision for our purses this secret love to us acted down in the dark is no love to us while we find it and see it yet is nature in a mystery under a vail sweating under earth to bring forth for us Mettals Trees Herbs Flowers corn for our service but we see no harvest at that time Christs bowels are sweating and as much labouring in childe-birth paine of compassion and love and tender mercy toward us when we are in an Ague and a fit of desertion as at any time but we are loved of Christ and pittied and we know no such thing All Christs answers and words to this woman till now were but interpretations and Proclamations of wrath and rejecting of her as not one of the lost sheep of the house of Israel a Dog under the Table not a child of the house love came never above ground till now yet did Christs affection and love yern upon her all the time Out of all this we collect Christ may love persons yet his dispensation may be so rough as that to their sense there is no ground of being assured that Christ loveth them til he shall be pleased to manifest it Hence we may gather these Propositions considerable for the Times 1. Propos. Gods free and unhired love is the cause of our Redemption Vocation Sanctification and eternall salvation he loved us in our blood and while we were polluted in our blood Ezech. 16.6.8 When we were the lost world Joh. 3.16 ungodly Rom. 5.6 Enemies ver 10. He quickned us called us when dead in sinnes Eph. 2.1 Without works 2 Tim. 1.9 The bil of Grace is Christs welcome and pay nothing 2. Our Divines say God loveth the persons of the Elect but hateth their sins M. Denne offendeth at this and so doth the Arminians with the same reason if God hate the works of iniquity he cannot but hate the persons and workers of iniquity also It s true the Lord hateth so the persons of the Elect for their sins as he taketh vengeance of their sins on their Surety Christ but this consisteth with the Lords loving of their persons to eternall salvation The truth is Gods affection ad intra of hatred and displeasure never so passeth on the persons of the Elect as on the persons of the Reprobate he had thoughts of love and peace in secret from eternity to his own Elect he did frame a Heaven a Saviour for them before all time 3. Propos. Our Divines do rightly teach that there is a twofold love in God Amor benevolentiae A love of wel willing which he did bear to them before the world was it is called the love of Election Of this love Rom. 9.13 Paul speaketh I have loved Jacob and hated Esau this is fountain love the wel-head of all our salvation There is another love called Amor complacentiae A love of complacency a love of justification so M. Denne termeth it which presupposeth faith Without which its unpossible to please God Heb. 11.6 of this Christ speaketh Joh. 14.21 He that loveth me shall be loved of my Father and I will love him and will manifest my self to him ver 23. If a man love me he will keep my words and my Father will love him and we will come unto him and make our abode with him so Christ the wisdom of God saith I love them that love me Pro. 8.17 And so Christ speaketh of his love to his redeemed and sanctified Spouse Can. 4.9 Thou hast ravished my heart my sister my Spouse thou hast ravished my heart with one of thy eyes with one

measure of grace Phil. 1.29 required in Faith men naturally imagine that faith is a work of nature hence that speech of a multitude of Atheists I believe all my dayes I believe night and day But they never believe at all who think and say they believe alwayes The Jewes asserted that they believed Moses alwayes and so oppose themselves to the man altogether born in sin Joh. 9. ver 28 29. compared with v. 34. But Christ told them they neither believed the Messiah nor Moses chap. 5. ver 35 36 37. Nature worketh alwayes alike and without intermission or freedome The Floods alwayes move the Fountain alwayes cast out streams the fire alwayes burneth the Lamb alwayes fleeth from the Wolf but the winde of the spirit doth not alwayes enact the soul to believe they are not in an ill case who wrestle with unbelief and find the heart and take it in the wayes of doubting and terrours as feeling that believing is a motion up the mount and somewhat violent facill and connaturall acts cannot be supernaturall acts of Faith It s no bad sign to complain of a low ebbe Sea and of neither Moon light nor starre light 2. It s unpossible they can submit to give the glory of believing to God in whose heart there 's a rotten principle destructive of Faith and that is an ambitious humour of seeking glory from men Joh. 5.44 Little Faith there 's in Kings Courts Faith dwelleth not in a high Spirit 3. Such as take Religion by the hand upon false and bastard motives as the Summer of the Gospel and fame ease gain honour cannot believe A thorny Faith is no Faith Matth. 13.22 A Carnall mans Faith must be true to its own principles and must lye levell with externalls so as Court ease the world and its sweet adjuncts are a measuring line to a rotten rooted Faith neither longer nor broader then time it goeth not one span length within the lists of Eternity 4. Phancy cannot be Faith such as have not Gospel knowledge of Christ cannot believe but must do as the Traveller who unaware setteth his foot on a Serpent in the way and suddenly starteth backward six steps for one 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Joh. 6.66 So do they that phancy all the Gospel to be a carnal or a Morall discourse 5. Those cannot have Faith in whose heart the Gospel lyeth above ground Devils and sin having made the heart hard like the Summer streets Mat. 13.19 with daily treading and walking on them A stony Faith or a Faith that groweth out of a stone cannot be a saving Faith There●s a heart that is a daily walk in which the Devil as it were aireth himself 6. If Christ have given the last knock at the door and all in-passages be closed up and heart-inspirations gone there can be no more any sort of faith there Eph. 4.19 2 Tim. 4.2 The heart is like a dried up arm in some all the oil in the bones are spent 7. Loose walking with greedinesse argues that hell hath taken fire on the out-works of the soul. Hell in the hands and tongue as in the out-wheels must argue hell and unbelief in the heart and the in-wheels 1. Loose believers go to Heaven by miracles I dare go to Hell for a man if such an one go to Heaven who liveth prophanely and saith he hath a good heart within 2. The going in waies of blood Extortion Covetous Idolatrie belyeth the decree of election to Glory Grace leadeth no man to the East with his face and motion close to the West 3. This way of working by contraries is not Gods way God can work by contraries but he will not have us to work by contraries There 's some heaven of holinesse in the court-gate to the Heaven of happinesse 8. Faith over-looketh time Heb. 11.10 Abraham looked for another City Faith in Moses was great with childe of heaven v. 25 He had an eye to the recompence of reward Eternity of Glory is the birth of Faith Oh! we look not to the declining of our sun its high afternoon of our peece of day eleven houres is gone and the twelfth hour is on the wheels I see not my own gray haires It s upon the margin and borders of night and I know not where to lodge We are like the man swimming through broad waters and he knoweth not what is before him he swimmeth thorow deeper and deeper parts of the river and at length a cramp and a stitch cometh on arms and leggs and he sinketh to the bottom and drowns We swim through dayes weeks moneths yeers winters and are daily deeper in time while at length death bereave us of strength of leggs arms and we sin● over head and ears in Eternitie Oh! Who like the sleepy man is loosing his clothes and putting off the garments of darknesse and would gladly sleep with Christ Men are close buttoned and like day-men when its dark night It s fearfull to ly down with our day clothes Job 20.11 Sin is a sad winding sheet Oh! what believer faith I would have a suit of clothes for the high Court and Thron to be an Essay to see how a suit of glorie would become me Thus much for Faith SERMON XXII NOw a word of a strong and great Faith and withall of a weak and fainting Faith For the most I go not from the Text to find out the ingredients of a great Faith 1. A strong praying and a crying a Faith is a great Faith So must Christs Faith have been who prayed with strong cries and tears Strong Faith maketh sore sides in praying as this woman prayed with good will there 's an efficacious desire to be rid of a sinfull temptation as Paul prayed thrice to be freed of the prick in the flesh Their Faith is weak who dare not pray against some Idoll sins Or 2. If they pray it s but gently with a wish not to be heard 2. The womans crying her instant pleading in Faith yea 1. Above the Disciples care for her yea above Christs seeming glowmes who denied her to be his who reproached her as a dog argueth great grace great humility with strong adherence and so great faith 2. For Faith ●aileth sometimes with a strong tide and a fair wind according as the Moone hath an aspect on the Sun so is it ful or not ful when the wheels are set right to the Sun the clock moveth and goeth right The fairer and more clear sight that Faith hath of Christ the stronger are the acts of Faith it cannot bee denied but Faith hath a good and an ill day because grace is various it s no strong proof that it s not grace 3. To put Faith in all its parts in light in staying on Christ in affiance in adherance in self-diffidence in submissive assenting forth in all its acts and to lift the soul all off the earth requireth Christs high Spring-tide it s not easie to put all the powers that

for Zach. 4.6 Not by might nor by power but by my Spirit saith the Lord When Babylon is to be destroyed as the work is even now on the wheels in Britain Rev. 18.21 A mighty Angel took up the great milstone and threw it in the sea though it be a Vision by comparison yet it holdeth forth an immediate work of God in the ruine of Babylon and Angels powre their vials on the Sea on the Sun on the River Euphrates to make for the destruction of Babylon and in delivering of Lot Angels did work God himself spake to Noah for making an Ark although Angels be creatures yet the Lords action by them is more immediate then when he worketh by naturall causes when the Judges scourge and imprison the Apostles no man will speak for them the immediate power of God doth it the chains fall off legs and armes immediate providence is a key also to open the prison doors and they are saved There is a bloody war at the taking of the Ark and thirty thousand footmen of Israel killed 1 Sam. 4.10 11. But there is not a sword drawen when it s rescued The Ark cometh home its alone Gods immediate providence driveth and acteth upon two milk kine to bring it home again 1 Sam. 6.12 13 14. Who knoweth but when our strength of two Kingdoms hath failed us the Lord shall make Kine to bring home his Kingdom and Reformation to our doors were it possible that creatures could work salvation for us and freedome from the sword and sure peace in Scotland England and Ireland without God or any subordination to him let it be a deliverance from the creature only it should be no deliverance but a curse that which maketh salvation to be salvation is that God hath a finger of power and an influence of Free-grace in it O but this putteth the lustre sweetnesse and smell of Heaven on it that it is the salvation of the Lord Ex. 14.13 In regard of irresistable efficacy and successe under causes though chained to the influence of God are but Idoll-causes they lie as Cyphers and do nothing no more then a lame arm can master a sword The Lord worketh all our works for us and he is daily marring and shal further mar our Armies Parliaments Counsels undertakings to the end that more of Christ may appear in these wars then in other wars some immediate power must close and crown this glorious work in Britain God must be his alone and appear his alone and only Jehovah must be visible in the Mount to the end that bleeding England long afflicted Scotland and wasted Ireland may with one shout cry Not unto us O Lord Not unto us but unto thy name be the glory This discovereth the deceit of our confidence for when the Lord and the creature worketh together for our good Asa though his heart was perfect possibly seeth not whether he trust on the Lord or on the Physitian and yet the Scripture saith When he was diseased in his feet there was a worse disease about his heart for because he sought to the physitians he is blamed yet to seek to Physitians is lawfull but the spirit of God blameth his seeking to the Physitians and saith 2 Chron. 16.12 He sought not the Lord in his sicknesse and the reason is given 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Because he was in the Physitians So the Hebrew readeth it he is said not to seek the Lord not because he sought to the Physitians for that had not been a sin but because he was wholly the whole man soul and all in or on the Physitians 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his care paines and heart was all on the Physitians so also the Greek expresse great care and diligence by the like Phrase 1 Tim. 4.15 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Give thy self to these things Seldome do we seek to God and trust in him when God and the creature are yoked together in a work that we are much bent upon as in Wars in a Reformation yea in a journey that the spirit is intent upon but in trusting on God we interpose a folding and a ply of the creature between our soul confidence and the Lord just as a pillow is put between the mans shoulder a pressing burden for fear the burden crush a bone we are afraid we give God too much to do or more then he is able to bear When we sail we seem to betrust our selves to the Lord and the Sea but the truth is often we trust more to the strong Ship then to the Sea or the Lord. Our confidence shifteth it self from under the Lord on upon the creature and the Arm of flesh so we walk often in the strength of the Lord as some walk upon Ice they walk softly and timorously upon it fearing it should break under them they put no faith upon cracking and weak Ice we are not daring and venturous in casting our selves and our burdens on the Lord. So in judgements Davids choice fell upon the Pestilence rather then the Sword Why Gods hand is sweeter and softer then the devils then the Malignants hard hand Samuel is one of the best children because he is given of God and is a child of many prayers Isaac the joyfull childe Why No thanks to nature or to Sarahs dead womb for him he is the son of an immediate promise Free-grace is rather Isaacs Father and Mother then Abraham and Sarah in ordinances a man speaketh but if Christ himself would speak O his Spikenard O his own Perfume O his own lips drop honey O his own Lebanon-like countenance Alas we think Christ is not Christ except the King help him Religion is not Religion except worldly throns bear it up the Gospel is a very immediate thing the Lilly amongst the thorns is Christs Lilly the Church stands more immediatly by Christ then any worldly thing doth God maketh the earth to bud and bring forth her fruits but the Son the soil the season of the year and nature are his under-servants God watereth the earth but by clouds Kings are indigent and very mediat and dependent creatures they need Armies Multitudes Navies Prelats Babylon Ireland France Spain Denmark Holland Moneys Friends Parliaments But Grace and the Gospel are more immediate and lesse needy The Gospel can live without all these SERMON XXVI BE it unto thee as thou wilt We see what power Christ hath over the devils Christ sent him invisible summons Let Satan be gone and he must be gone It is a proper work of Christ to oppose Satan Heb. 2.14 He took part of flesh and blood 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that he might make Satan unprofitable and idle and fruitless as the word is used Luke 13.7 Why doth this fruitlesse tree keep the ground saplesse and barren So is the word taken to make a thing of no effect Romanes 3.3 Things that make sport to children as nuts feathers toyes are called things of infants to be