Selected quad for the lemma: water_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
water_n	fruit_n	year_n	yield_a	101	3	11.6639	5	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A26892	A Christian directory, or, A summ of practical theologie and cases of conscience directing Christians how to use their knowledge and faith, how to improve all helps and means, and to perform all duties, how to overcome temptations, and to escape or mortifie every sin : in four parts ... / by Richard Baxter.	Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.	1673 (1673)	Wing B1219; ESTC R21847	2,513,132	1,258

your excellency The soul of Religion is departing from you and it is dying and returning to the dust And if once Man get the preheminence of God and be preferred and set above him in your hearts or lives and feared trusted and obeyed before him you are then dead to God and alive to the world and as Men are taken for your Gods you must take up with such a salvation as they can give you If your Alms and Prayers are done to be seen of men and to procure their good thoughts and words if you get them make your best of them For verily your Judge hath said unto you You have your reward Matth. 6. 1 2 3. Not that man is absolutely to be contemned or disregarded No under God your Superiours must A●te 〈◊〉 s● voles a●● ha●e sed●m ae 〈…〉 am domum contu●●t re 〈…〉 Sermo●●b●s vu●g● dede●●s te nec in praevi●s humamanis ●pem posueris rerum tuarum suis te illecebr●s oportet ipsa vi●t●s trahat ad verum d●●u● Ci●r● som● S●●p Cael stia s●mper ●p●●tato ●●●●a humana contemnito Id. Ibid. be obeyed you must do wrong to none and do good to all as far as in you lyeth you must avoid offence and give good example and under God have so much regard to men as to become all things to all men for their salvation But if once you set them above their rank and turn your selves to an inordinate dependance on them and make too great a matter of their opinion or words concerning you you are losing your godliness or divine disposition and turning it into man-pleasing and hypocrisie When man stands in competition with God for your first and chief regard or in opposition to him or as a sharer in co-ordination with him and not purely in subordination to him he is to be numbred with things to be forsaken Even good men whom you must love and honour and whose communion and help you must highly value yet may be made the object of your sin and may become your snare Your honouring of them or love to them must not entice you to desire inordinately to be honoured by them nor cause you to set too much by their approbation If you do you will find that while you are too much eying man you are losing God and corrupting your Religion at the very heart And you may fall among those that how Holy soever may have great mistakes in matters of Religion tending to much sin and may be somewhat censorious against those that are not of their mind and so the retaining of their esteem and the avoiding of their censures may become one of the greatest temptations of your lives And you will find that man-pleasing is a very difficult and yet unprofitable task Love Christ as he appeareth in any of his servants and be followers of them as they are followers of Christ and regard their approbation as it agreeth with Christs But O see that you are able to Live upon the favour of God alone and to be quietted in his acceptance though man despise you and to be Pleased so far as God is pleased though man be displeased with you and to rejoyce in his Justification though men condemn you with the odiousest slanders and the greatest infamy and cast out your names as evil doers See that God be taken as Enough for you or else you take him not as your God Even as Enough without man and Enough against man That you may be able to say If God be for us who can be against us Who is he that condemneth it is God that justifieth Rom. 8. 31 33 34. Do I seek to please men For if I yet pleased men I should not be a servant of Christ Gal. 1. 10. Jer. 17. 5. Thus saith the Lord Cursed be the man that trusteth in man and maketh flesh his arm and whose heart departeth from the Lord For he shall be like the Heath in the Desert and shall not see when good cometh Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord and whose hope the Lord is for he shall be as a Tree planted by the waters and that spreadeth out her roots by the Rivers and shall not see when heat cometh but her leaf shall be green and shall not be careful in the year of drought neither shall cease from yielding fruit Cease ye from man whose breath is in his nostrils for wherein is be to be accounted of Isa. 2. 22. § 3. HAving given you these Directions I must tell you in the Conclusion that they are like foed that will not nourish you by standing on your Table or like Physick that will not cure you by standing in the Box They must be taken and digested or you will find none of the benefit It is not the Reading of them that will serve the turn to so great use as the safe proceeding and confirmation of beginners or No●ices in Religion It will require humility to perceive the need of them and labour to learn digest and practise them Those slothful souls that will refuse the labour must bear the sad effects of their negligence There is not one of all these Directions as to the Matter of them which can be spared Study them Understand them and Remember them as things that must be done If either a senselesness of your necessity or a conceit that the Spirit must do it without so much labour and diligence of your own do prevail with you to put off all these with a meer approbation the consequent may be sadder than you can yet foresee Though I suppose you to have some beginnings of Grace I must tell you that it will be comparatively a sad kind of life to be erroneous and scandalous and troublesome to the Church or full of doubts and fears and passions and to be burdensome to others and your selves Yea it is reason that you be very suspicious of your Sincerity if you desire not to increase in grace and be not willing to use the means which are necessary to your encrease He is not sincere that desireth not to be perfect And he desireth not sincerely who is not willing to be at the labour and cost which is necessary to the obtaining of the thing desired I beseech you therefore as you love the happiness of prudent strong and comfortable Christians and would escape the misery of those grievous diseases which would turn your lives into languishing unserviceableness and pain that you seriously study these Directions and get them into your minds and memories and hearts and let the faithful practice of them be your greatest care and the constant employment of your lives CHAP. III. The General Grand Directions for Walking with God in a Life of Faith and Holiness Containing the Essentials of Godliness and Christianity I Am next to Direct you in that Exercise of Grace which is common to all Christians Habits are for Use Grace is given you not only that you may have it

nothing to disturb you or carry you into sin § 7. Direct 3. Dwell in the delightful Love of God and in the sweet contemplation of his Love in Christ Direct 3. and ●owl over his tender mercies in your thoughts and let your conversation be with the Holy ones in Heaven and your work be Thanksgivings and Praise to God And this will habituate your souls to such a sweetness and mellowness and stability as will resist sinful passion even as heat resisteth cold § 8. Direct 4. Keep your Consciences continually tender and then they will check the first appearance Direct 4. of sinful passions and will smart more with the sin than your passionate natures do with the provocation A scared Conscience and a hardened senseless heart is to every sin as a man that 's fast asleep is to thieves They may come in and do what they will so they do not waken him But a tender Conscience is always awake § 9. Direct 5. Labour after wisdom strength of Reason and a solid judgement for Passion is cherished Direct 5. by folly Children are easily overthrown and leaves are easily shaken with every little wind when men keep their way and rocks and mountains are not shaken Women and children and old and weak and sick people are usually most passionate If a wise man should have a passionate nature he hath that which can do much to controle it When folly is a weathercock at the winds command § 10. Direct 6. See that the will be confirmed and resolute and then it will soon command down Direct 6. passion Men can do much against Passion if they will Nature hath set the will in the Throne of the soul It is the sinful connivance and negligence of the will which is the guilty cause of all the rebellion As the connivance of the commanders is the common cause of mutinies in an Army The will S●e 〈◊〉 of Tranquility of mind either consenteth or is remis● in its office and in forbidding and repressing the rage of passion When I say you can do it if you will you think this is not true because you are willing and yet passion yieldeth not to your wills command But I mean not that every kind of willingness will serve It is not a sluggish wish that will do it But if the will were resolute without any compliance or connivance or negligence in its proper office no sinful passion could remain For it is no further sin than it is voluntary either by the wills compliance or omission and neglect Therefore let most of your labour be to waken and confirm the will and then it will command down passion § 11. Direct 7. Labour after holy fortitude courage and magnanimity Great minds are above all Direct 7. troubles desires or commotions about little things A poor base low and childish mind is never quiet longer then it is rockt asleep or flattered § 12. Direct 8. Especially see that you want not self-denial and that worldliness and fleshly-mindedness Direct 8. be throughly mortified For sinful passion is the very breath and pulse of a selfish fleshly worldly mind It is not more natural for dogs to fight about a bone than for such to snarl and quarrel or be in some distempered Passion about their selfish carnal-interest Covetousness will not let the mind be quiet It s as natural for a selfish man to be under the power of sinful Passions as for a man to shake that hath an ague or to fear that is melancholy Fleshly men have a Canine appetite and feaverish thirst continually upon them after some flesh-pleasing toy or other § 13. Direct 9. Keep a Court of Iustice in your souls and call your selves daily to account and Direct 9. let no passion scape without such a censure as is due If Reason and Conscience thus exercise and maintain their authority and passion be every day soundly rebuked it will wither like a plant that is cropt as fast as it springeth § 14. Direct 10. Deliberate and foresee the end examine whether passion tend to that which will be Direct 10. approveable when its past Looking to the end doth shame all sinful passions They are blind and moved only by things present They cannot endure the sight of the time to come nor to be examined whether they go or where is their home § 15. Direct 11. Keep a continual apprehension of the danger and odiousness of sinful passions by Direct 11. knowing how full they are of the spawn of many other sins See the evil of them in the effects Mark what passion doth in others and your selves what abundance of evil thoughts and words and deeds do come from sinful passions § 16. Direct 12. Observe the immediate troublesome effects and the disorders of your soul and so Direct 12. turn the fruit of passions against themselves Mark how they discompose you and disturb your Reason and make your minds like muddyed waters and breed a diseased unquietness in you unfitting you for your work and breaking your peace so that you can neither know nor use nor enjoy your selves § 17. Direct 13. Let Death look your passions frequently in the face It hath a mortifying vertue Direct 13. and as it sheweth us the vanity of the creature so it taketh down those passions which creature-interest and deceit have caused It exciteth reason and restoreth it to its dominion and silenceth the rebellion of the senses A man that is to die to morrow and knoweth it would easilier repell to day a temptation to lust or covetousness or drunkenness or revenge than at another time he could have done One look into eternity will powerfully rebuke all carnal passions § 18. Direct 14. Remember still that God is present Will you behave your selves passionately before Direct 14. him When the presence of your Prince would calm you Shall God and his holy Angels see thee like a Bedlam lay by thy reason and mis-behave thy self § 19. Direct 15. Have still some pertinent scripture ready to rebuke thy passions That thou mayst Direct 15. say as Christ to Satan Thus it is written Speak to it in the name and word of God Though the bare words will not charm these evil spirits yet the authority will curb them For this word is quick 2 Cor. 10. 4 5. and powerful a discerner of the throughts Heb. 4. 12. mighty though God to the pulling down of stro●● holds casting down imaginations and every high thing that exalteth it self against the knowledge of God and bringeth into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. § 20. Direct 16. Set Christ continually before you as your pattern who calleth you to learn of him Direct 16. to be meek and lowly Matth. 11. 29. Who desired not the wealth or glory of the world who loved his own that were in the world but loved not the things of the world who never was lifted up or sinfully

Divine appointment But the Antecedent is true Therefore so is the Consequent For the parts of the Antecedent 1. That families are societies of Gods Institution needeth no proof 2. That they are furnished with special advantages and opportunities may appear by an enumeration of particulars 1. There is the advantage of Authority in the Ruler of the family whereby he may command all that are under him in God Worship yea and may inflict penalties on children and servants that refuse yea may cast some out of the family if they be obstinate 2. He hath the Advantage of a singular Interest in Wife and Children by which he may bring them to it willingly that so they may perform a right Evangelical Worship 3. He hath the Advantage of a singular dependance of all upon him for daily provisions and of his Children for their portions for livelihood in the world whereby he may yet further prevail with them for obedience He having a power to reward as well as to punish and command 4. They have the opportunity of cohabitation and so are still at hand and more together and so in readiness for such employments 5. Being nearest in Relation they are stronglier obliged to further each others salvation and help each other in serving God 6. They have hereby an Advantage against all prejudices and jealousies which strangeness and mistakes may raise and cherish among those that live at a greater distance and so may close more heartily in Gods Worship And their nearness of Relation and natural affections do singularly advantage them for a more affectionate conjunction and so for a more forcible and acceptable Worship of God when they are in it as of one heart and soul. 7. If any misunderstanding or other impediment arise they being still at hand have opportunity to remove them and to satisfie each other and if any distempers of understanding heart or life be in the family the Ruler by familiarity and daily converse is enabled more particularly to fit his reproofs and exhortations confessions and petitions accordingly which even Ministers in the Congregations cannot so well do So that I have made it evident in this enumeration that families have Advantages yea special and most excellent advantages and opportunities for the solemn Worship of God 3. The last part of the Antecedent was that they have no prohibition to use these advantages and opportunities to Gods solemn Worship I add this lest any should say Though they have such advantages yet God may restrain them for the avoiding some greater inconveniences another way as he hath restrained Women from speaking in the Assemblies But 1. God hath neither restrained them in the Law of Nature nor in the written Law Therefore not at all He that can shew it in either let him do it 2. I never yet read or heard any knowing Christian once affirm that God hath forbidden families solemnly to worship him and therefore I think it needless to prove a Negative when no man is known to hold the Affirmative Indeed for some kinds of Worship as preaching and expounding Scripture some have prohibited them but not reading catechizing all instructing praying praises singing Psalms much less all solemn Worship wholly So much for the Antecedent I now come to prove the Consequence 1. The foresaid Advantages and opportunities are Talents given by God which they that receive are obliged faithfully to improve for God Therefore Families having such Advantages and opportunities for Gods solemn Worship are bound to improve them faithfully for God in the solemn worshipping of him For the Antecedent 1. It is unquestionable that these are Talents that is Improvable Mercies given by God For as none dare deny them to be Mercies So none dare I hope say that God is not the giver of them And then 2. That such Talents must be improved faithfully for God from whom they are received is plain 1. From Matth. 25. throughout especially from verse 14. to verse 31. And Luke 20. 10. he requireth the fruits of his Vineyard And Matth. 10. 42. if he entrust us with a Cup of cold water he expecteth it for a Prophet when he calleth for it And if he entrust us with outward riches he expecteth that we give to him that asketh Matth. 5. 42. Luke 6. 30 38. 11. 41. 12. 33. His Stewards must give an account of their Stewardships Luke 16. 2. Luke 12. 48. Christ telleth us of all our Talents in general that Unto whomsoever much is given of him shall be much required and to whom men have committed much of him will they ask the more And of our words in particular Christs tells us Matth. 12. 36. that of every idle word men shall give an account at the day of judgement Much more for denying to use both our tongues and hearts in Gods Worship when he gives us such opportunities It is required in Stewards that a man be found faithful 1 Cor. 4. 2. As every man hath received the gift even so minister the same one to another as good Stewards of the manifold grace of God If any man speak let him speak as the Oracles of God c. 1 Pet. 4. 10 11. Many more of the like Scriptures prove the Antecedent of the Enthymeme and the Consequent needs no proof Argument 2. The solemn Worship of God in and by families as such is required by the very Law of Nature Therefore it is of Divine Institution The Consequence can be denyed by no man that renounceth not reason and Nature it self denying the Law of Nature to be Gods Law which is indeed partly presupposed in the Law supernatural and partly rehearsed in it but never subverted by it Positives are more mutable than Naturals are The Antecedent is thus manifested 1. Natural reason or the Law of Nature requireth that all men do faithfully improve all the Talents that God hath entrusted them with to his honour Therefore Natural reason or the Law of Nature doth require that God be solemnly worshipped in Families he having given them such advantages as aforesaid thereunto 2. The Law of Nature requireth that all societies that have God for their Founder or Institutor should to their utmost capacities be devoted to him that founded and instituted them but that God is the Founder and Institutor of families is known by the light of Nature it self Therefore the Law of Nature requireth that families be to the utmost of their capacities devoted to God and consequently that they solemnly worship him they being capable of so doing I need not prove the Major because I speak only to men that are possest of the Law of Nature mentioned in it and therefore they know it themselves to be true Yet let me so far stay on the Illustration as to to tell you the grounds of it And 1. God is the Alpha and Omega the first and the last the Principal efficient and ultimate end of all and therefore of Families And therefore they should be for him