Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n
Text snippets containing the quad
|
ID |
Title |
Author |
Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) |
STC |
Words |
Pages |
|
A59073
|
Moses and Aaron a sermon preached before the King at Saxham in the county of Suffolk, April 17, 1670 / by George Seignior ...
|
Seignior, George, d. 1678.
|
1670
(1670)
|
Wing S2418; ESTC R34232
|
21,727
|
36
|
God will secure a Blessing unto that which is his own appointment He will be with the Priest because his Mouth is no other then the Mouth of God He will be with the Prince because he hath made him to be as himself instead of God but still his Presence with Both is the result of Union because the God of Israel which is to be in subjection unto Both hath declared himself that he is but One God how can Moses be the Fear and the Dread of Pharaoh unless he be the Love the Choice and the Desire of Aaron How can Aaron be as he proved afterwards cap. x. 7. a Snare unto Pharaoh and his servants at the opening of whose Mouth Egypt was to be destroyed unless he hang upon the lips the words which he speaks be a faithful and distinct Eccho to the voice of Moses without Aaron's Mouth the meekness of Moses will be soon despised and without the Arm of Moses stretched out in defence the Voice of Aaron will be but beating of or speaking to the air Unless that Aaron be the Mouth of Moses what though his face shine the people will but the sooner turn away from him cum Jove Caesar God and the King as to Government have alike prerogatives Thunder from above bespeaks the Deity as terrible Thus the Highest doth give forth his Voice Boanerges a son of Thunder here below declares earthly Majesty to be also dreadful But unless Moses put words into the mouth of Aaron stands by him and stands up to him while he speaks stretches out his Rod whilst he lifts up his Voice the Mouth of Aaron without this will be Vox praeterea nihil a Voice indeed but nothing else the noise no sooner heard but no where to be found Whose Mouth is fittest to preserve knowledge and to proclaim Obedience but his who is the Messenger of God and of the King of the Lord of hosts and of him who like unto God himself is mighty in the battel and whose Arm should be made bare in strength but theirs who are the Anointed of the Lord Anointed in a great measure for this very thing that they should be a Guard and a Protection to all Gods Holy Ones since they are themselves not unfitly called Gods being all of them children of the Most Highest Shall I with all humility and due Reverence speak the words of truth and soberness it is in the Cause of God of the King and also of his Priests As the happiness is great to that People where this Union is most religiously observed no other then as the result of the Divine Institution so sad is the misery deplorable is the calamity both to King Priest and People upon the breach of it I need go no farther for an instance then the story that is before us Would Moses and Aaron bring the people from Egypt through a wilderness into Canaan This must be their March Regular and solemn Num. ii 3. compared with Num. iii. 38. Judah the Princely Tribe must set up his Standard Eastward Moses and Aaron Prince and Priest must keep the charge of the Sanctuary Eastward and hence not improbably the ancient Ceremony of worshipping with their faces thither-ward Judah sets up his Standard for the Laity Moses and Aaron theirs for the Clergy and yet the latter to go along with Judah the Prince who was to protect them when settled in the Land of Promise and upon the whole whosoever he was the stranger that came nigh to either of them was to be put to death This was their March unto that Rest which God had prepared for them And yet notwithstanding their Station and Procession thus fixed by the Almighty do Moses Aaron speak unadvisedly with their lips either one to another one of another or one against another at the waters of Massah and Meribah places that bore their names from those strivings and contentions the anger of the Lord is immediately kindled against them all and it was so inraged that it was by no means to be appeased Moses and Aaron must onely see that Land of Promise into which they are never like to come it shall be their punishment to behold what they never shall injoy in the view of but their foot shall not tread upon the goodly Mountain nor Lebanon and then as for the People their Carcases must fall in the wilderness this is a froward Generation it shall not enter into the Rest of God! When once there be Divisions many are the thoughts many are the searchings of heart I would not be mistaken as an evil-speaker or a fore-boder of evil tidings while I do thus mournfully and with all lowly submission crave leave to make out the Parallel Doth the Civil Magistrate either needlessly contend with or wilfully draw back the secular Arm from the Defence of the Ministry and does he think thus to still the murmurings of the people as the raging of the Sea so is their madness casting forth nothing but mire and dirt foaming out their own shame and is there no way to lay the storm but by mixing the waters with bloud hath the Pilot no means to secure the Ship but by throwing the Prophet into the waters especially such a Prophet as doth not fly from but is stedfastly bent on his Course to deliver and execute the Mesfage of his Master that sent him Again is the Spiritual Mouth either silent in the behalf of or clamorous and obstreperous against doth it either not speak at all as it should in the defence or is it froward malepert and peevish against the secular Arm do they who should consult the stars of Heaven for direction in the voyage either withhold their advice from or unreasonably quarrel with him that sits Steersman at the Helm This may be the dreadful consequence of such ill will between Both in Portu Naufragium certain ruine and destruction to the Ship and all that are in it yea and that in the Ken of the desired Haven as an aggravation to their Misery in the very sight of Land Virtutem videant intabescántque relictâ This is the sore calamity upon such sad animosities and dissatisfactions on either hand a strange kind of infatuation upon all manner of counsels and designs be they never so just and honourable they may see what is good and yet it doth escape them a price put into their hand and it falls away from them for want of a pious heart united to each other in Love and Duty and to God the maker of Both in Fear and Reverence mutually to be exercised in the using of it And here by the way let it be seriously considered that the first Rejection of Saul from being King over Israel was because he invaded the Priesthood let our new Leviathan suggest what he pleases that the Civil Magistrate may reserve the exercise of the Ministerial Function to himself yea though there might be some reasonable excuse for it as his enemies growing and
without any great stress upon the words set over the ordinary sort of men to tell them with Authority and with Power what is their duty either to God or his Vicegerent to the Lord of Lords or to those who are instead of God and they who do resist or despise either One or the Other do not despise or resist the Man in either of them but the God that is in them Both. And this brings me to the Second thing I observed from the Text which is the due Execution firm Establishment and sure Administration of both these Authorities together and that no otherwise then by a Divine Dispensation Whilst the Prince doth defend the Priests of the most High God he doth so stand by himself the Throne is thus established to him in Righteousness the Kingdom confirmed in the hands of Moses whilst he is unto Aaron and to his sons instead of God Instead of God in his quae ad Deum Vulg. That is in the letter of the Text in those things which pertain to God Tu eris illi in Principem quaerentem Doctrinam à facie Domini Targ. Jonath Thou shalt be a Prince to him a Prophet as well as he yea and somthing more then a Prophet he shall seek the Word which he is to speak from Thee and that as it were from the face of God Numb xii 6 9. If there be a Prophet among you I the Lord will make my self known to him in a Vision or I will speak to him in a dream but my servant Moses is not so this is the difference betwixt him and Aaron with him will I speak Mouth to Mouth even apparently not in dark speeches and the Similitude of the Lord that is of God-man to come in the flesh this Similitude of the Lord as praelusory to the reality of his Incarnation shall he behold So that what was Jethro's counsel betwixt Moses and the People seems here to be Gods institution betwixt him and Aaron cap. xviii 19. Moses was to be to Aaron to God-ward to bring the causes unto and to receive the Law from God and Aaron being to be his Oratour or his Herald was to make Proclamation of the Divine Law unto the People and upon all occasions to consult the Face of Moses the Face which did shine because of the Divine Glory on it and was therefore to be consulted as an oracle This Paraphrase though it may be true in the Letter of the Text yet to take in the scope of the whole Paragraph which is a Union fixed by God himself betwixt these two we must as to this expression further improve our search Instead of God that is to defend him that so he may speak boldly for thee as he ought to speak that his Mouth which is no longer his but Thine may be opened for Thee in confidence We find in this book of Exodus that Princes and the chief Ministers of justice amongst men are first called Gods cap. xxi 6. the servant that had a mind to continue with his Master for ever was to come unto the Judges that is unto the Gods 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Original and before them was the perpetual service to be ratified and again cap. xxii 8. The thief was to be brought to the Judges that is to the Gods the same word in the Original to see whether he had put his hands to his neighbour's goods and v. 28. such Magistrates are secured from all manner of slander that may be cast upon them by malice or evil speaking Thou shalt not revile the Gods nor speak evil of the Ruler of thy People They are called Gods upon several accounts I briefly instance but in two the Ubiquity of their Presence the Omniscience of their Knowledge 1. The Ubiquity of their Presence they are every where their influence is unlimited the fancy is not new ancienter then a modern Poet and I hope may now be better applied that Kings and Princes do in this resemble the Deity being like a Circle whose centre is every where and whose circumference is no where God and the King can do no harm the reason is that Diffusive influence that is from Both directing managing swaying and conveying all the good and all the happiness that is felt or enjoyed by the lower world or the inferiour sort of mankind all which is purely the product of Providence from the One and Government from the Other and if the Sun shining upon a Dunghil doth exhale vapours that are offensive it is not because there are spots in the Sun in Heaven but there is corruption in the Dunghil upon earth 2. The Omniscience of their Knowledge they do as it were know every thing Prov. xvi 10. A Divine sentence is in the lips of the King His Mouth erreth not in judgement Who could have thought that the way to find out the bowels of a Mother was to make the Child a sacrifice till King Solomon as the first effort of his Princely Spirit tried the experiment but says the Text 1 Kin. iii. 28. The wisdom of God was in the King to do judgement And this kind of Omniscience is a gift bestowed upon Judges and other Ministers of Justice when they execute the laws of God and the King upon Capital offenders the indictment against whom is that they have not the fear of God before their eyes our Law taking special notice of the malice of the heart and proving that by some Overt-act whilst many times the Judge upon the Bench to the admiration of the standers by through a little very little glimpse of a most improbable circumstance doth unravel a whole mystery of iniquity so that on a sudden the Prisoner stands self-condemned at the Bar he might spare both Judge and Jury the trouble of bringing in and pronouncing their Verdict since the sentence of Death is to be read in his countenance and his face gathers blackness what can all this be but an immediate assistance a special illumination from God himself in the moment of judgement Psal lxxxii 1. God standeth in the Congregation of the Mighty he judgeth among the Gods v. 6. I have said ye are Gods Grotius upon these and the like expressions in Scripture tells us that whereever the name of God is given unto men significat judiciariam potestatem jus vitae necis it implies a judiciary power and that no less then of life and death Our blessed Saviours Comment upon the compellation which certainly is the best runs thus Saint John x. 35. he called them Gods D. Ham. unto whom the Word of God came it is observed by a learned Paraphrast of our own that the coming of the Word of the Lord signifies Gods appointing a Man to some particular Office and giving him power and ability for the performance of that Office to which he is appointed and so it is constantly used in the writings of the Prophets who do most of them begin their Prophecies with this