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A03966 Lot's little one. Or Meditations on Gen. 19. vers. 20 Being the substance of severall sermons sometimes delivered by William Ince Mr in Arts, late senior fellow of Trinitie Colledge Dublin. Published since his death, by R.I. Ince, William, d. 1635. 1640 (1640) STC 14073; ESTC S119304 53,982 176

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neere him or hurt him Psa 91.7 c. and after a glorious victory of all miseries here Luk. 10.19 Rom. 2.7.10 he shall be crowned with glory and eternity hereafter Let us not then in a good cause be ever deterred by the vaine affrights of feare or danger The goodnesse of the cause ought to animate us in the evilnesse and hardnesse of the way to accomplish it If God be the author the devill cannot be the hinderer Honesty and goodnesse shoot in stright lines at the last and best end Gods glory and God will as certainly prosper the meanes as he doth propose the end Verum bonum convertuntur say the Schooles Truth and goodnesse are reciprocates there is no goodnesse without truth no truth without goodnesse Magna est veritas vincet great is truth and shall prevaile so all goodnesse in the strength of truth shall at last overcome The winds may blow the raine fall Matt. 7.24.25 the floods beat upon thee but thou shalt not fall for thou art grounded upon a rocke Hast thou begun then a noble a glorious action which redounds to Gods glory the Churches and Common-weal's good Incapisti benè quis impedivit Thou bast begun well Gal. 5.7 who hath hindred thee that thou continuest not If the action was evill why did you undertake it if the action was good why do you not hold on What if slanderers back-bite you and traduce you What if authority frowne what if envy maligne what if the multitude rage Psal 2.2 and the people imagine a vaine thing thou hast Gods commission say not then I cannot 't is but nè fortè malum capiat moriar but a lest some evill take me and I dye Thine owne cowardize thine owne weaknesse may conquer thee Psal 2 3. but all these though they take counsell together shall not be able to withstand thee If God set thee on worke he 'le beare thee through maugre the opposing fury of the devill and all his agents Go on then in the strength of the Lord and be victorious Psa 71.16 I tell thee if for the fortè there be an evill reall that threat thee Sicapiat if it take thee si moriare if thou die Rom. 14 8. yet know whether thou live or die Rom. 8.37 thou art more than conquerer It 's better fall in a good cause than prosper in an evill one Onely let not thy feare betray Gods cause to miscarriage If death it selfe be threatned to thee die Canst thou ever have a better end than to die for that end for which thou and all things were made Gods glory which grant O Lord that we may propose unto our selves in all our thoughts words and works that glorifying thee in this life we may receive eternall glory and felicity from and with thee in the life to come and that not for any merits ●four own but for his sake who hath dearly bought us to whom with the father and the holy Spirit be ascribed all honour praise and glory now and forever Amen GENES 19. VERS 20. Behold now this City is neere to flee unto and it is a little one O let me escape thither is it not a little one and my soule shall live IT is a property of Divinity not to erre Perfection is a White at which all of us ought to aime none may hope to hit The best men have their errours and imperfections Optimus ille est qui minimis urgetur he 's the best man that hath least he 's no man that hath no faults Let him be excepted that was without exception him that being man was more then man too CHRIST JESUS God and man in whom there was no fault neither was guile found in his lips All others are comprehended under the condition of sin which they shall never put off while they are clad in these robes of flesh The best of Gods Saints have had their slips and fals and to make them flye forth from themselves to a better and surer hold they have had often remembrances of their owne weakenesse in many grievous wounds and bitter derelictions have often fallen been wounded with the weak reed of their owne strength Wonder not then if you behold a David defiling his hands and heart with innocent blood 2 Sam. 12.9 and unlawfull pleasures David 2 Sam. 11.5 though a man after Gods owne heart 1 Sam. 13.14 was but a man Wonder not to behold a Solomon 1 Kin. 3.12 the wisest among the sonnes of men committing a double whoredome 1 Kin. 11.1.4 Spirituall and Corporall Solomon though so wise was but a man Wonder not that Peter so foully denyed and abjur'd his master Mar 14.66 67 c. unlesse you wonder that Peter was a man We receive with our birth and nature two inevitable conditions peccare mori to sin and to dye And though it hath beseemed the piety of the Churches children to justifie the Patriarkes against the bitter taunts of scaffing I shmaelites and uncircumcised Philistines and like the good sons of Noah to go backward with the vail of charity in their hands Gen. 9.23 and cover the nakednesse of their fathers yet must not that vaile of charity blindfold our judgement so that we altogether deny those faults to be which we would have concealed from the scorne of irreligious men Diminuit culpam excusatio non tollit God would have the errours and faults of his Saints as well to stand upon record as their vertues and therefore Seneca Nat. quaest lib. 6. cap. 23 as Seneca sayes of Alexander his murther of Calisthenes hoc est Alexand. crimen aeternum quod nulla virtus nulla bellorum faelicitas redim●t This is a blemish that shall eternally sticke on his faire name which no vertue of his nor the glory of all his victories shall redeeme quoties enim quis dixerit occidit Persarum multa millia opponetur Calisthenem quoties dictum erit occidit Darium opponetur Calisthenem quoties omnia Oceano tenus vicit ipsum quoque tentavit imperium c. opponetur sed occidit Calisthenem As often as it shall be said he slew many thousands of Persians yea but it shall be said againe he slew Calisthenes As oft as it shall be said he conquered Darius yea but he kill'd Calisthenes As often as it shall be reported to the renowne of his name he subdued all to the very Ocean and it too and removed his Kingdome from a corner of Thrace till it knew no other bounds but the same with the whole earth but as a check to all his glory it shall be said yea but he kill'd Calisthenes Thus it is in the blessed Scripture with many of the Lords worthies whose religious life and integrity deservedly cals upon our wonder to behold them but then againe lest they of themselves should entertaine too high an opinion or we of them desinit in
trust in him or arme us with undaunted confidence against an appearance of danger but as if there were no God or as if that God slumbered and slept Psal 121.4 and intermedled not in the government of the world as the Stoicks fondly dreamed we shrinke and tremble at sight of every danger and to secure our selves thinke it a surer way to run to unlawfull shifts then relye on the assureance of Gods providence And as if Gods hand were too short to reach from Heaven we thinke it a farre safer way to catch hold of that which is next us even any poore unlawfull and therefore helpes shift which our owne reasons shewes unto us So wanting that eye of faith which is the evidence of things not seene and looking onely with the eye of sence Heb. 11.1 we judge that God nor sees nor regards because we see not him Each new danger awakes a new distrust What testimonies had God given to the captive Jewes of Egypt of an especiall love to them that for their sakes had shewed the strength of his mighty arme Exod. 13.14.16 in so many unheard of wonders Is it in the belief of man that any danger could beget their distrust Yet see Exod. 12.29 they are no sooner redeemed by the death of so many soules as that night of horrour caused that might indeed be red for them and blush at their so fowle so monstrous distrust but they on the first occasion are ready to undervalue their deliverance and wish rather to have served the Egyptians Exod 14.10.11.12 then to dye as they feared in the Wildernesse A deliverance may yeild us comfort for the present but as if of a transeunt nature it ends there and seldome doe we improve it to arme us in the future so relying on transitory and vaine helpes every assault of danger looses the joynts and shakes the strongest of our weak built resolutions If God should say to us in our misery as he did unto the two blind men Matt. 9.29 According to your faith be it unto you it would be ill with us each affliction would overcome us and the shrinking of our faith soone call on us misery enough to overwhelme us our owne despaire would open us a gulfe a grave wherein we should bury together both our selves and hopes Matth. 27.60.60 upon which like that great stone rowled upon Christs Sepulcher our miseries should lye with so great weight as would crush and at last shrinke us into the lowest pit of hell If God should not finde a better motive in his owne infinite goodnesse a better cause in his own Sonne to deliver us when we are oppressed alasse what danger what misery so poore that is not too strong for the weakenesse of man What could our knowledge foresee What could our wisedome prevent of those evils we did foresee What could our vaine and transitory helpes overcome Nay the Eye of our knowledge being disturbed by our feare would present evils with more horrour nay should not our knowledge hurt not help us whiles it lookes through the false perspectives of confidence and feare it so making evils greater or lesse then indeed they are Yea and should not our wisedome rather hurt then helpe us while relying on the opinion of it own abilities it rather makes us secure when it could not make us safe Yea and should not the best meanes our owne wisedome could supply us with rather hurt then helpe us when they should prove onely like broken reeds to which when we should leane Isa 36 6 they breake and so runne into our hands Pessimus in dubiis augur timor Statius lib. 1. Thebaid Feare is the worst Counsellor Yet these transitory helpes are the forts of our greatest strength and they to which we owe both the most of our trust and thanks We deifie nature and relye on selfe-unable meanes as if a redeemed captive should reverence the sword and not the man that used it to his rescue Alas these things we trust to they are but agent of the first and prime cause things which in themselves carry an equall indifference to be as well the Ministers of his vengeance as mercy Heat the greatest comfort of sublunary things so that it is called the Father of generation yet how often hath that father like Saturne eaten his owne children Moysture the mother of generation yet often hath her wombe proved a tombe and swallowed up her owne issue There is nothing in the world proved either by more frequent or more demonstration then providence yet nothing in our practise more questioned Who beleeves God further then he sees him Where is the faith of those ancient worthies that beleeved above against hope Heb 11. against the evidence of sence Rom. 4.18 and beyond the possibility of nature when naturall reasons might call their faith absurd foolish impossible If God come Luk. 18.8 shall be finde faith upon the earth shall he not finde it is vanished into its object and become a thing not seene Heb. 11.1 Or if we have any faith 't is but all sensitive and must take information from our eye our eare our senses Ioh. 4.48 Give the Jewes a signe and then perhaps they will beleeve Ioh. 20.25.27.28 Give Thomas an ocular demonstration Let him see the print of the Nailes in our Saviours hands let him thrust his fingers into his side and then he will acknowledge my Lord and my God Give me some ground for my faith to walke on otherwise I must needs be at the brink of despaire I cannot like Peter walke upon the water Matth. 14.29.30 or if I doe the rising of a wave shall dash my confidence into despaire and as if every hollow of the waves were to become my grave my faith and I must both sinke and I cry out with him in despaire Lord save me I perish But O Lord doe not thou make good our feares to us O be not in so remote a distance as our diffidence would set thee nor yet as a judgement of our distrustfull fears withdraw thy protecting favours What use shall I make of that hath beene said but even that of the Psalmist I will go unto the mountaine Psa 121.1 2. from whence my help cometh Learne to looke with the eye of faith more than reason or sense and then shall we see a guard of innumerable Angels incircling us pitching their Tents about our T●bernacles 2 Kin. 6.17 Psal 34.7 and let the miseries of wanting it increase our desire to get it one graine of which even no bigger than a graine of Mustard-seed Matt. 17.20 if we were owners of we might remove a mountaine but wanting faith a danger that is but as a graine of Mustard-seed is able to move us But be that trusteth in the Lord shall be as Mount Sion Psa 125.1 that shall never be moved but standeth fast for ever No evill shall come