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A32726
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A treatise of divine providence I. In general, II. In particular, as relating to the church of God in the world / by ... Mr. Steph. Charnocke ...
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Charnock, Stephen, 1628-1680.
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1680
(1680)
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Wing C3712; ESTC R13224
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166,401
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418
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A TREATISE OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE I. In General II. In Particular AS Relating to the Church of God in the World By that late Eminent Minister of Christ Mr. STEPH CHARNOCKE B. D. and sometimes Fellow of New-Colledge in OXON Psalm 103. 19. His Kingdom Ruleth over all LONDON Printed for Tho. Cockeril at the Three Legs in the Poultrey near the Stocks-Market 1680. Advertisement WHat ever comes out in Print of this late Reverend Mr. Steph. Charnock's will be Attested by Mr. Edward Veal and Mr. Richard Adams which is more fully expressed in the Epistle TO THE READER Reader THou art here presented with a little piece of a Great Man Great indeed if great Piety great Parts great Learning and great Wisdom may be admitted to claim that Title And we verily believe that none well acquainted with him will deny him his right however malevolent Persons may grudge him the honour It hath been expected and desired by many that some account of his Life might be given to the World But we are not willing to offer violence to his ashes by making him so publick now he is Dead who so much affected privacy while he lived Thou art therefore desired to rest satisfied with this brief account of him That being very young he went to Cambridge where in Immanuel Colledge he was brought up under the Tuition of the present Arch-B of Canterbury What Gracious workings and Evidences of the New-Birth appeared in him while there hath already been spoken of by †Mr. Johnson in his Sermon on occasion of Mr. Charnocks death one who was at that time his Fellow Collegiate and Intimate Sometime he afterward spent in a private Family and a little more in the exercise of his Ministery in Southwark then removed to New-Colledge in Oxon where he was Fellow and spent several years being then taken notice of for his singular Gifts and had in Reputation by the most Learned and Godly in that University and upon that account the more frequently put upon Publick work Being thence the year after he had been Proctor called over into Ireland to a constant publick Employment he exercised his Ministery for about four or five years not with the approbation only but to the admiration of the most Wise and Judicious Christians and with the concurrent applause of such as were of very different sentiments from him in the things of Religion Nay even those that never loved his Piety yet would commend his Learning and Gifts as being beyond exception if not above compare About the year 1660. Being discharged from the publick exercise of his Ministery he returned back into England and in and about London spent the greatest part of fifteen years without any call to his old work in a setled way but for about these five years last past hath been more known by his constant Preaching of which we need not speak but let them that heard him speak for him or if they should be silent his works will do it He was a Person of excellent Parts strong Reason great Judgment and which do not often go together curious Phansie of high Improvements and general Learning as having been all his days a most diligent and methodical Student a great Redeemer of time rescuing not only his restless hours in the Night but his very walking time in the Streets from those impertinencies and fruitlels vanities which do so customarily fill up mens minds and steal away their hearts from those better and more Noble objects which do so justly challenge their greatest regards This he did by not only carefully watching as every good Christian should do but constantly writing down his Thoughts whereby he both govern'd them better and furnished himself with many materials for his most elaborate discourses His chief Talent was his Preaching Gift in which to speak modestly he had few equals To this therefore as that for which his Lord and Master had best fitted him neglecting the practice of Physick in which he had arrived at a considerable measure of knowledge he did especially addict himself and direct his Studies and even when Providence denyed him opportunities yet he was still laying in more Stock and preparing for work against he might be called to it When he was in Employment none that heard him could justly blame his retiredness he being even when most private continually at work for the Publick and had he been less in his Study he would have been less liked in the Pulpit His Library furnished though not with a numerous yet a curious collection of Books was his workhouse in which he laboured hard all the week and on the Lords day made it appear he had not been idle and that though he consulted his privacy yet he did not endulge his Sloth He was somewhat reserved where he was not well acquainted otherwise very free affable and communicative where he understood and liked his Company He affected not much acquaintance because he would escape visitants well knowing how much the ordinary sort of Friends were apt to take up of his time which he could ill spare from his beloved Studies meeting with few that could give him better entertainment with their company than he could give himself alone They had need be very good and very learned by whose converse he could gain more then by his own Thoughts and Books He was a true Son of the Church of England in that sound Doctrine laid down in the Articles of Religion and Taught by our most famous ancient Divines and Reformers and a real follower of their Piety as well as a strenuous maintainer of the Truth they professed His Preaching was mostly practical yet rational and argumentative to his Hearers understandings as well as affections and where controversies came in his way he shewed great Acuteness and Judgment in discussing and determining them and no less skill in applying them to practice So that he was indeed a workman that needed not to be ashamed being able by sound Doctrine both to exhort and convince gain-sayers Some have thought his Preaching too high for vulgar Hearers and it cannot be denyed but his Gifts were suited to the more intelligent sort of Christians yet it must withal be said that if he were sometimes deep he was never abstruse he handled the great Mysteries of the Gospel with much clearness and perspicuity so that if in his Preaching he were above most it was only because most were below him Several considerable Treatises on some of the most important points of Religion he finished in his ordinary Course which he hath left behind him in the same form he usually Writ them for the Pulpit This comes out first as a Prodromus to several others designed to be made publick as soon as they can be with conveniency transcribed which if the Lord will and spare life shall be attested with our hands and what ever any else shall publish can be but imperfect Notes his own Copies being under our revisal at the
of his intercession God over-reaches the Devil and makes him instrumental for good where he designs hurt and mischief 2. Wicked men All the wicked in the midst of the Church are for the good of it either for the exercise of their grace or security of their persons or interest Pro. 16.7 When a mans ways please the Lord He will make his enemies to be at peace with him Sometimes he will incline their hearts intentionally to favour or order even their actions against them to procure their peace contrary to their intentions Sometimes God makes them his Sword to cut his people sometimes Physick to purge them sometimes Fire to melt and refine them sometime Hedges to preserve them sometimes a ransom to redeem them * Pro. 21.18 A Traveller makes use of the mettle of a head-strong Horse to carry him to his journeys end That wind which would overturn a little Boat the skilful Pilot makes use of to drive his Ship into the Harbour and the Husbandman to cleanse his Corn from the Chaff Though the ends of the workers viz. God and wicked men are different yet the end of the work is but one which is ordered by Gods Soveraign pleasure It was promised in the promise of the Gospel to the Gentiles Gen. 9.27 God shall enlarge Japhet and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem and Canaan shall be his servant God shall allure Japhet the Gentiles of Europe to dwell in the tents of Shem and Canaan the head of the cursed posterity shall be Servants to the Church beside their will and sometimes against it by an over-ruling hand And Christ hath bought them to be his Servants 2 Pet. 2.1 denying the Lord that bought them and therefore hath the disposing of them whether they voluntarily give up themselves to him or no. He is a Lord by purchase over them who own him not as a Saviour The hatred of the Churches enemies sometimes conduceth more to her good then the affections of all her worldly Friends Now this appears Helvicus contra Judaeos 1. In furthering the Gospel The Jews who speak not of Christ among themselves but with opprobrious terms have been the exact preservers of the Old Testament even to the very number of the letters wherein Christians have sufficient to confirm them in the belief of Christs being the Messiah and unanswerable arguments against their adversaries Whereupon St. Austin terms them capsarios Ecclesiae such that carry the Books of the Children of great men after them to School When the Authority of the Revelation was antiently questioned the Church of Rome was instrumental to keep it in the number of the Canonical books not thinking they should find their own Church so plainly Deciphered in it to be the mother of abominations To this we may refer the action of Ptolemy Philadelphus King of Egypt in causing the Scripture to be translated about three hundred years before the coming of Christ through which the Nations * Jackson vol. 1. Fol. p. 62. might better discern as it were through a prospective glass the new star of Jacob which was shortly to arise No doubt but many of the Gentiles by comparing the old Scripture Prophecies which they now could read in the Greek language might be more easily induced to an embracing the Gospel and acknowledging Christ to be the Messiah when it came to be divulged among them Herod is the cause of the consultation about the place of Christs birth not for any good-will he had to him whom he intended to murther but God makes use of this to clear up the truth of the prophecy concerning Bethlehem the place of his birth Mat. 2.5 6. Out of thee shall come a Governour that shall rule my people Israel And they certainly were not very good who preached Christ out of envie and propagated the Gospel wherein Paul rejoyced not in their sin but in the providential fruit of it Phil. 1.15 18. Some indeed preach Christ even of envy and strife what then Notwithstanding every way whether in pretence or truth Christ is preached and I therein do rejoyce yea and will rejoyce 2. In furthering the temporal good of the Church 1. In its preservation Wicked men are often serviceable to the Church as the filthy Raven was to holy Elijah or as the Lyon which would have devoured Sampson is a store-house to provide him food for in his hunger he finds a table spread in the belly of his Eenemy Pharaoh's design was to destroy Israel and the Daughter of that irreconcilable Enemy is directed by God to preserve Moses who was to be the ruine of her family the destruction of the Egyptian glory and the Deliverer of the Church She saves him out of charity and God out of a wise design She by his Education in the Egyptian learning fits him for the Court and God for the deliverance of his Church Egypt had corn to relieve first Abraham * Gen. 12.10 afterward Jacob in a time of famine the family wherein the Church of God was only then bound up Herod lies in wait for Christs destruction and Egppt the most Idolatrous Country in the world and an ancient Enemy to Gods Church affords him shelter God makes Moab to hide his out-casts and be their covert from the face of the spoiler * Isa 16.3 4. Some think Gods design in sending Jonah to Nineveh to work so remarkable a change by repentance was to soften some of their hearts and the hearts of their posterity to deal more tenderly with those gracious Israelites who in the captivity of the ten Tribes some years after should be their guests God making thereby provision for his own people in that common judgment which should come upon the Nation This God doth sometimes by reviving the law of nature and the common sentiments of Religion in the hearts of natural men whereby their own consciences bearing witness to the innocency and excellency of the Church of God put them upon thoughts for its security Sometimes it is above their own Sphere and besides their own intentions The Whale which swallowed Jonah intended him as a morsel to quell his hunger but proves his security and disgorgeth him upon the shoar They understand their own aim but not the design of God The Leech that sucks the Patients blood knows not the Chirurgions design who useth it for the cure of a disease Sometimes their rage proves their own ruine and the Churches safety as the Leech bursts it self sometimes and saves the Patient The very Earth whereby is meant the carnal world is said to help the Woman the Church by swallowing up the flood which the Dragon casts out of his mouth against her * Revel 12.16 Just as the old rags were the instruments whereby Jeremiah was drawn out of the Dungeon 2. In the advancement of the Church or persons eminent Abner had a Plot for bringing Israel to David's Scepter which concurred both with Gods purâ—â—â— and promises but