Selected quad for the lemma: death_n
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A42546
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The eye and wheel of providence, or, A treatise proving that there is a divine providence ... by W. Gearing ...
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Gearing, William.
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1662
(1662)
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Wing G435; ESTC R7567
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152,154
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376
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even in sinfull actions as he is Gods creature upheld and maintained by him In him we live move and have our being but he sinneth by reason of the corruption of his nature having no free-will to any thing that is good since the fall of Adam but free-will and full power to that which is evil 2. When God withholdeth or suspendeth that power from sinners by which they might avoid that which is evil Thus when God departeth from Saul withdrawing the common aid of his Spirit then an evil spirit vexeth him and he groweth worse and worse The degenerate nature of man which one termeth sins Coach doth then runne which way the Devil driveth Claphâ—m in Cantic as Wheels and Axel-tree till Jesus Christ free our Chariot-nature from the power of hell and withall joyn himself by his own spirit to our nature that so with Ezekiels Chariot it may go forth and return according to the conduct of his holy Spirit 3. When God permits and suffers men to go on long in a course of sin and doth not restrain them for if it pleased him he could hinder men from doing evil Now the will of God is two-fold An approving Will A permitting Will. 1. An approving Will whereby he decreeth the actions of all good men 2. A permitting Will whereby he decreeth not to worke any evil but onely permit it to be wrought The actions of men are either good or evil God willeth good actions by his approving will Evil actions may come under a double consideration 1. In regard of the entity and being of them so God decreeth them by his permitting will for no sinne could be without his permission Act. 17.18 2. In regard of the evil adjunct and vitiosity of them Et potentius melius est bonum ex malo elicere quam esse mala nòn sinere August Bonum est mala esse vel fieri alioquìn summè bonus nòn permitteret ea fieri Lombard Sent. lib. 1. distinct 46. and so they proceed not from God but from the corrupt will of man as a deficient cause We may consider the sins of men as they are evil and so God is not the authour of them but as they may be reduced to some good as the manifestation of his own glory c. and so he suffereth evil to be committed being able to bring good out of evil as water out of a flinty Rock for though evil be not good yet out of evil God can bring good It is better and more powerfull saith Austin to draw and bring good out of evil than not at all to suffer evil to be out of the greatest evil God can produce the greatest good So then God is the Author of every action but not of the deformity enormity and obliquity of the action as the Planets are moved by a direct motion by the primum mobile the obliquity of their motion is à suâ naturâ The Sunne maketh the Earth hard the Wax soft flowers to smell sweetly dead Carrion to stink noisomly so then the diversity of effects proceedeth not from the nature of the cause but of the things wrought upon and God moveth and ruleth things according to their natures Multa sine voluntate Dei geruntur nihil sine providentia providentia est quae dispensat providet voluntas quae vult nòn vult aliquid Origen To explain this point by an instance or two In the selling Joseph into Aegypt Josephs brethren were agents and God was an agent and had an hand in the businesse but their ends were divers they sold him to be rid of him because they thought their father loved him better than themselves and because they thought so to falsifie his dreams that he might not rule over them but God's end was to provide succour and shelter for their father and themselves and all their families Gen. 50.20 Item in the temptations and afflictions of Job the Devil was an agent the Chaldeans and the Sabeans agents God an agent and all these had their several ends The Devils end was to have made Job forsake God that so he might have fallen to his share the Sabeans and Chaldeans end were to impoverish him and enrich themselves and God's end was to prove the Devil a liar and to manifest and declare the faith and patience of Job and make him famous for the same to the whole world In the divers and sundry captivities of the children of Israel by the Caldeans Babylonians Assyrians and lastly in their finall ruine by the Romans their enemies had their ends and God had his The ends that the Caldeans Assyrians Babylonians and Romans aimed at was their own pride and ambition and the enlargement of their Territories and Dominions but Gods end was the punishment of them to admonish others and to fulfill the prophesies and predictions thereof To be brief in the death of Christ the Devil had his end Judas his end the Scribes and Pharisees their end the Jews theirs God his end the Devils end was to make so many murderers and guilty of shedding innocent bloud Judas his end was covetousness to get thirty pieces of silver the Scribes and Pharisees end was envy and malice because they thought he eclipsed their glory Pilates end was partly to please the people but principally not to displease the Emperour the Jews end was hatred and malice because he reproved their sins but Gods end was to fulfill the Prophesies and to bring to pass the salvation of mankind by that means which he had appointed Shimei by cursing would shew his hatred of David but God would make known the patience of David Deus homo idem faciunt Deus pro aequitate laudatur homo pro iniquitate damnatur Aug. Epist 48. ad Vincent Non fit absque Dei voluntate quod fit contra ejus voluntatem efficit bona permittit mala dirigit universa Res mala nòn habet causam efficientem sed deficientem Aug. de civit Dei l. 12. c. 7. which was good Austin sheweth how God and man may will the same thing and God in willing it doth well and yet man sinneth in willing the same thing The Father of an ungracious child is sick God will have him to die in his just judgement the Son desireth the death of his father that he may the sooner come to his inheritance God willeth it justly the son wickedly And saith he further God and man do the same thing God is praised for equity and man is condemned for his iniquity When God the Father delivered his Son and Christ delivered his own body and Judas his Master why in this delivery is God just and man sinfull but only in all one thing which they did there is not all one cause for which they did it Great are the works of the Lord being sought out according to all his wills insomuch that by a marvellous and unspeakable manner that is not beside his will which yet is done against
appeareth in preserving a Church to himself from several parts of the world Psal 110.2 He ruleth in the midst of his enemies like a King that is able to keep up his Court and royal Family in the midst of rebels though they may sometime prevail against yet they shall never be able to root up the Church of Christ Object But it may be objected That when the seventh Angel sounded there were great voices in Heaven saying The Kingdoms of this world are become the Kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ and he shall reign for ever And the four and twenty Elders fell upon their faces and worshipped God saying We give thee thanks O Lord God Allmighty which art and wast and art to come because thou hast taken to thee thy great power and hast reigned Revel 11.15 16 17. Divers circumstances shew this to be a new event and that God had not alwayes actual possession of all the Kingdoms of the world it happening at the sound of the seventh Trumpet and when be took this great power to himself and entered upon the government of all the Kingdomes of the world it was then entertained by the Church with praise and thankesgiving which seemeth to shew that God did not governe universally at all times and in all Ages of the World Resp. I answer that the Lord hath a two-fold Kingdom Regnum Potentiae Regnum Gratiae A Kingdom of Power A Kingdom of Grace In the exercise of his power he hath alwayes reigned over the world The Lord hath prepared his Throne in Heaven and his Kingdome ruleth over all Psal 103.19 God hath always ruled over all the world when the world hath reigned most in wickednesse but in respect of the exercise of his government in regard of the Kingdom of his Grace by the Spirit of his Son in the hearts and consciences of men he hath reigned over but a very few This therefore is meant of the Kingdom of his Grace that the Lord upon the sound of the seventh Trumpet would bring them in subjection to his Gospel causing men in all places to yield subjection to the golden Scepter of Christ held forth in the preaching of the Gospel CHAP. XXXIII Corol. 6. Corol. 7. Cor. 6. IF God govern the whole world then it must needs be that he cannot want Instruments to execute vengeance upon his Enemies he need not seek far for Instruments for there is not a creature in Heaven in Earth or in Hell but is at his command If he speak to the fire it burneth the Sodomites if to the water it destroyeth the wicked old world if to the Earth it openeth its mouth and swalloweth up Corah and his companions Two Bears at his command tear in pieces two and fourty children that mockt the Prophet Worms at his command devour Herod that persecuted the Apostles Act. 12. He plagueth a proud King by poor creatures as Frogs Lice Flies Ut per animalcula ostenderetur opitulatoris omnipotentia Theodoret Pompon Laetus Locusts or Grashoppers Exod. 8. that by those little animals the omnipotency of his peoples helper might be manifested as Theodoret speaketh Prophane Histories tell us also that Honoricus King of Vandals and Arnulphus the Emperour were fed upon alive and gnawn till they were dead by Worms and lice Fabius the proud Senator was suddenly taken away with an hair swallowed in milk And Pope Adrian the fourth after that he had accused Frederick the first was choked with a Flie in a draught of cold water Yea the Angels good and bad are pressed at his command to do what he pleaseth And should God make use of none of these Instruments yet his own immediate wrath were enough to confound his Enemies as Saul Judas Joseph Naucler Egesippus Atalus King of Pergamus and Aristobulus son of Hircanus who living in horrour of conscience died in fearfull sort which examples serve to shew that his means are as his power is infinite to chastise and scourge the proudest and greatest of his Adversaries And if God arm not the creatures against us yet he can make one man to devour another Such a judgment the Lord threatneth Jer. 13.13 14. viz. to fill the King of Judah the Priests Prophets and all the Inhabitants of the Land with drunkenness and dash them one against another As drunkenness depriveth men of the use of common sense and reason and worketh so upon some tempers as to fill them with rage and fury that like mad men they spare not those that are near and dear unto them Carion Chron. lib. 2. as is evident in Cambyses the second King of Persia notwithstanding he was well brought up and dealt valiantly during the life of his Father Cyrus who committed the Kingdom to him while he lived yet falling to drunkenness he slew his brother married his own sister and slew her afterwards being great with child for but lamenting the death of her brother So Alexander the Great being drunk slew his dearest friend Clitus Wit overcome with wine is like a Horse that hath cast his rider Even so such a spirit of drunkenness and madness did God threaten to give up the people of Jerusalem unto that like drunken men they should destroy and consume one another Yea God can cause sinners themselves to become their own Executioners and to lay violent hands upon themselves And as God hath all the hosts of Heaven and Earth and Sea ready prest at his command to perform his pleasure against his Enemies so likewise to do any good office for his children and friends the jaw-bone of an Ass is both a sword and a bottle to Sampson Judg. 15 15 19 And the Earth helpeth the woman by opening her mouth and swallowing up the floud which the Dragon cast out of his mouth Revel 12.15 16. Euseb Eccl. Hist l. 5. c. 15. Eusebius tells us That at the same time God sent rain to refresh the Souldiers of M. Aurelius his Army at the prayers of the Christian Legion Comment Relig. Reipubl Galliae and a tempest to affright their Enemies It 's likewise recorded that God provided wonderfully for the poor Protestants of Rochel sending them plenty of Fishes to feed upon during the siege which ceased also when the siege removed Whence was it that Stephen Brune that godly French Martyr could not be consumed with a fire of Faggots twice made about him so that the Executioner was compelled to thrust him thorow with a Sword Was it not from God's over-ruling Providence Cor. 7. If God govern the world by his Providence then it is in his power to deny us the use and benefit of any of his creatures and of any thing that is most dear unto us and can at his pleasure take them from us For the Earth is the Lords and the fullness thereof and as the original right and title to all things is the Lord's so he never parteth from the Fee-simple of any thing no he