Selected quad for the lemma: authority_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
authority_n	church_n	power_n	synod_n	3,603	5	9.6685	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A62961	Mans extremity, Gods opportunity, or, A display of Gods sovereign grace in saving a people whose recovery as to men and means is next to desperate as it was delivered in a sermon preached before the Honourable Lieutenant governour ... of the province of the Massachusetts Bay in New England on May 29, 1695 which was the day for election of counsellors for that province / by the reverend Mr. Samuel Torrey.	Torrey, Samuel, 1632-1707.	1695 (1695)	Wing T1917; ESTC R30168	29,972	66

way proving and trying of us and that with much patience and long-suffering waiting upon us to see how we would approve our selves unto him it may be said of this or that time and of this or that State and Condition then and therein God tried and proved them as Exod. 15.25 there he proved them he proved them at Massah Deut. 33.6 and he proved them at Meribah Psal 81.7 truly so hath God been trying and proving New-England It is very easie to Instance when and how But alas we have not understood it we do not we will not understand it and therefore it is that we have so wofully miscarried and misapproved our selves under all Divine Probations so that all those merciful Probations slighted neglected and abused have only made further discoveries of our Stubbornness and utter averseness to turn to God and so our Probations have issued in nothing but the further Aggravation of our Sin and Provocation of Gods Wrath by tempting of him All the while God was proving of them in the Wilderness they were trying and proving of him to provoke him as Psal 95.8 Harden not your hearts as in the provocation and as in the day of temptation in the Wilderness when your fathers tempted me and proved me and saw my works All these things considered what can we expect that God should do more in an ordinary way of working for our Salvation and what hope of Salvation but by the Lord our God himself in Sovereign Grace 2. To make us yet more sensible of our need of such Salvation We may consider Whether we our selves shall be able to do any more for our selves to Reform and Save our selves than we have done We are convinced there is no hope of Salvation without Reformation and accordingly we have been stirred to labour it in that way by the visible improvement of all means which we have had all External helps advantages incouragements unto it both from Civil Authority at lest by making all kind of Reforming Laws as also and more especially by the Power and Authority of Christ and that in the highest way of Ministerial Exercise thereof by the Churches in Synods declaring and testifying in the Name of Christ against all those evils which are the radical and are likely to prove the fatal causes of our defection laying open the whole way and work of Reformation and proposing Expedients together with Solemn Admonitions to the People and Churches to Repent and Reform and that upon Peril of destruction if we do not In pursuance of which we have with Extraordinary visible Solemnity transacted with God and one with another and therein laid our selves under most Sacred very awful Obligations by renewed Covenant ingagments to God in Solemn manner with Fasting Prayer and Humiliation wherein we have promised vowed professed and protested unto him our most sincere purposes and resolutions by his Grace to forsake our sins and to turn unto him with all our hearts and with all our Souls unfeignedly and this we have been doing until we may fear that we have wearyed our God as well as our selves by our gross Formalities for so God speaks of their highest formal performances Isa 1.13 14 Incense is an Abomination to me Your New Mens and appointed feasts my Soul hateth they de a trouble to me I am weary to bear them It remains then a fearful question Whether we have not by all this Aggravated our sins and further accumulated Divine wrath upon our selves for when a People Flatter him with their lips and ly unto him with their tongues heir hearts being not right with him It provokes him to Jealousy and to Abhorrency Psal 78.3659 God seems to Express himself as more grieved and provoked with the Formality Hypocisy and Treachery of Judah in their highest Reformations even that in Josiahs time than with the Idolatry of Israel it hastned destruction upon them Jer. 3.10 11. And yet for all his her treacherous Sister Judah hath not turnes to me with her whole heart but feignedly or in falsehood saith the Lord and the Lord said unto me backsliding Israel hath justifyed her self more than treacherous Judah What real hope is there then left that we shall be able to doe any thing nore for our selves to accomplish our own Reformation and Salvation Have we not caise then to bemoan our selves before and uno God as the Church Jer. 3.23.25 Truly in vain is Salvation hoped for from the Hills c. Truly in the Lord our God is the Salvation of Israel Shame hath devoured the Labours of our Fathers We ly down in our Shame that our Confusion may cover us and as Jer. 31.19 I have surely heard Ephaim bemoaning himself thus Turn thou me and I shall be turned for thou art the Lord my God Thus we have heard how it doth appear that we stand in present extream need of such Salvation by God himself in Sovereign Mecy I Proceed 2 To shew how we ought so to approve our selves to God as that we may be prepared to be the Subjects of such Salvation as this And to this end 1. We must Labour unto a right and full understanding and an humbling heart breaking sense of our own State and Condition that we may lay it deeply to heart It was the ruine of Gods People that would never be made to understand nor lay to heart of which God complains Isa 1.3 Israel doth not know my People doth not consider and yet it was at such a time wherein the whole head was sick and the whole heart faint from the sole of the foot to the head there was nothing but wounds and bruises and putrifying sores which had not been closed nor bound up nor mollified with Oyntment Yet even then they did not Know nor Consider what their Condition was so Isa 42.25 It set him on fire round about yet he knew not it consumed him yet he laid it not to heart therefore they could not be Saved because they would not lay it to heart Jer. 12.11 The whole Land is Desolate because no man layeth to heart Surely there is very little sign of any laying to heart in New-England but the quite contrary as it was with them Isa 22.12 13. In that day did the Lord God of Hosts call to weeping and mourning and baldness and girding with Sackcloth and behold joy and gladness slaying of Oxen and killing of Sheep eating flesh and drinking Wine It was revealed in mine ear by the Lord of Host ●…urely this Iniquity shall not be purged yrom you till ye die God grant that New-England may never incur this dreadful Sentence We are much in the Laodicean State and Frame conceited that we are rich and increased with Goods and know not that we are poor and blind wretched miserable naked Rev. 3.17 It is the great thing that God is labouring to bring us to that we may understand and lay to heart Deut. 32.29 O that they were wise that

MANS Extremity GODS OPPORTUNITY OR A Display of GODS Sovereign Grace in Saving a PEOPLE whose Recovery as to Men and Means is next to desperate As it was delivered in A SERMON Preached before the Honourable Lieutenant Governour Counsellors and the Assembly of Representatives of the Province of the Massachusetts Bay in New England On MAY 29. 1695. Which was the Day for ELECTION of Counsellors for that Province By the Reverend Mr. SAMVEL TORREY Pastor of the Church in Weymouth Isa 57.18 I have seen his ways will heal him BOSTON Printed by Bartholomew Green for Michael Perry under the West end of the. Town-house 1695. Published by Order of Authority To the READER Christian Reader HOW Seasonable the following Discourse was and how well accommodated to the Occasion for which it was Levelled and Audience before whom it was Delivered may possibly be questioned by such as either are possessed with an overweening O pinion of a Negative Commendation given us that we are not so bad or so far gone as many other People who make a Profession or are little concerned in observing either Men or Providences and comparing them with Scripture Rules But he that shall seriously ponder how far we are declined from what we sometimes were how many things are Dead among us and how those that Remain are ready to dy how much God hath done for us more than for many others and how we have Requited him how long he hath been dealing with us in a way of Judgments and what means have been used to Reclaim us all which notwithstanding neither are we returned to God nor is his Anger turned away from us cannot but Subscribe to it and say it was a Word upon it's Wheels And truly when we are cast in Common Law what have we to hope in but Prerogative Mercy When Good Men in all Orders find all attempts to recover a Backslidden People awfully to be frustrated needs must they sink in dispondency and lose their Faith and Hope did they not encourage them by this consideration that as God can so he frequently doth take such an Opportunity to make himself known and so have the whole Glory of such a Peoples Salvation ascribed to him The Author of this Sermon is one whose Works Praise him in the Gates and cannot be added to by any commendation of mine He hath lived to see many changes in this Land and being awfully sensible of the decays of Practical Holiness and the solemn Tokens of Divine displeasure at a People who were sometimes highly favoured by their God hath on all Occasions been ready to thrust into the Gap and endeavour the preventing of Ruin by promoting a thorow Reformation but finding how little Success such Essays have had hath thereupon with Eli Sat trembling for the Ark of the God of Israel had fainted but that he believed to see the Salvation of God He hath here told us where he found relief against his sinking and overwhelming thoughts even in him who works for his Great Name when it hath been Profaned by a People of his Covenant and hath recommended it for an excellent help to encourage the Faith and animate the Prayers of the truly Godly unto perseverance in waiting to See Gods Salvations assuring us that neither our Sins nor our present Impenitence can obstruct Gods Grace or prevent his appearing for our help in Subduing our Iniquities and restoring us to his favour that when times are never so black second causes afford little or no relief and there is none shut up or left yet Caelo restat iter and there is THEOS APO MECHANES That the Publication of this Sermon may answer the desires of these who earnestly sought for it and be made profitable as to show us more of our own State so to put us upon greater industry in all present necessary duties and because there is yet hope in Israel to set upon the work so often solemnly pressed upon us hitherto so little pursued shall be the Prayer of One that waits for the Consolation of Israel S. WILLARD MANS EXTREMITY GODS OPPORTVNITY Hosea I. 7. But I will have mercy upon the House of Judah and will Save them by the Lord their God WE find in the Context that the House of Israel that is the ten Tribes having by their Spiritual Whoredoms given not only Conception but Birth both unto Loruham●h and Loammi God in his Holy Jealousie and Righteous Judgment had resolved to cast them off for their Apostacy unto Idolatry as a Reprobate People Wherefore he raised up and sent this Prophet to give them the sad and certain intelligence of that his most dreadful Resolve against them the Prophet having received his doleful Message in a grievous Vision he delivers it in a most direful Threatning at once denouncing the utmost Extremity of all kind of Calamity and Misery in their being given up totally both unto Sin and Judgment this we have in the latter part of the sixth verse I will no more have mercy upon the House of Israel but I will utterly take them away And further to Accumulate and Exaggerate this heavy Threathing in the burthen of it upon the House of Israel God doth at the same time and in the very next words propose and proclaim a very gracious and glorious Promise of Mercy and Salvation to the House of Judah verse 7. But I will have mercy upon the House of Judah and will save them by the Lord their God Judah was at this time a very Sinful Backsliding People sinking into a depth of gross Apostacy to Idolatry also which God upbraids them with judging and condemning them as more vile and inexcusable than Israel Jer. 3.11 Yet God in his Sovereign Grace makes a sure Promise of Mercy and Salvation to Judah Buts I will have mercy upon the House of Judah and ingageth himself to perform it by Saving of them in a more immediate and extraordinary way of working by himself and will save them by the Lord their God intimating thereby that Judah also was past hope of Salvation in any ordinary way Whence we have this DOCTRINE That at some times and in some cases God doth in Sovereign Mercy Save his Churches and People both from Sin and Judgment in a more immediate and extraordinary way of working by himself I will have mercy upon the House of Judah and will save them by the Lord their God This great comprehensive Promise contains the Summe of all Promises of Temporal Salvation to the Church both from Sin and Judgment which God hath made or doth accomplish in this world and therefore it hath been and doth remain the foundation of Faith Hope Confidence Comfort to the Church in all Ages in their greatest depths when they have been most ready to perish in their Apostacy Calamity and Misery The Promises of God the Prayers of the Church and all the most Notable Instances of such glorious Salvations which we find recorded in the