Selected quad for the lemma: earth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
earth_n	king_n	lord_n	prince_n	9,482	5	6.1097	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
B03334	A sermon preach'd August the 4th 1700. On Psalm cxlvi. vers. 3, 4, 5 ... / by W. Fleetwood ...	Fleetwood, William, 1656-1723.	1700 (1700)	Wing F1257A; ESTC R177124	11,165	16

A SERMON Preach'd August the 4th 1700. On Psalm cxlvi vers 3 4 5. O put not your trust in Princes nor in any Child of Man for there is no help in them For when the breath of man goeth forth he shall turn again to his earth and then all his thoughts perish Blessed is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help and whose hope is in the Lord his God By W. Fleetwood Chaplain in Ordinary to His Majesty LONDON Printed and Sold by Henry Hills in Black-fryars near the Water-side For the Benefit of the Poor On PSALM cxlvi Verse 3 4 5. O put not your trust in Princes nor in any Child of Man for there is no help in them For when the breath of Man goeth forth he shall turn again to his Earth and then all his thoughts perish Blessed is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help and whose hope is in the Lord his God WE know not who it was that compos'd this Psalm nor what it was that occasion'd it But the Providence of God furnisheth all People with occasions more than enough of applying these words to themselves but too too pertinently It hath furnished us with one not many years ago so very proper that it it gives fresh and lively pain to every one that remembers it with half the Consideration it deserves It furnishes us now with another of which no living Man perhaps can see the Consequence at full but every one can see enough to drive him to Sorrow and Amazement and cause him to say with the Psalmist The Lord is King the Earth may be glad thereof yea the multitude of the Isles may be glad thereof glad that their Affairs are in the hands of him who has all Power and is all Wisdom and all Goodness who bringeth Light out of Darkness Good out of Evil and can turn every thing to their Advantage who serve him truly Whether it were that the Psalmist here directs himself against the common inclination of Men which is to build great hopes upon the Promises of Princes and Great Men and rather to depend on them than on God above who keepeth his Promise for ever or whether the Death of some Great Prince had given the Jews in their Captivity some mighty disappointment whatever it was that occasion'd the composing of this Psalm 't is plain the words of the Text advise us First Not to put our trust in Princes nor any Child of Man And that for this Reason There is no help in them because when the breath of Man goeth forth he shall turn again to his Earth and all his thoughts perish Secondly they direct us where we are to place our Trust and Confidence and that is in God Blessed is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help and whose hope is in the Lord his God 1. Of the Persons in whom we are not to place our trust and confidence and they are Princes Put not your Trust in Princes i. e. in no body no Child of Man for if you might in any body you might in them because they have most power and more opportunities of answering to your Confidence than any Men besides I see no reason to think that any thing is here said to the Disparagement of Princes as tho' they were to be trusted less than other Men for Falshood or Forgetfulness of Promises And therefore to trust is not here put for believing But they are rather here consider'd as the faithfullest as well as the most powerful managers of human Affairs of the best intentions as well as greatest abilities both to design and execute great matters and yet not to be entirely depended on for other Reasons 'T is much the same that is express'd in Ps cxviii 8 9. It is better to trust in the Lord than to put any confidence in Man It is better to trust in the Lord than to put any confidence in Princes i. e. the chiefest and the best of Men And the reason here assign'd why they are not so to be trusted and depended on namely because they are so subject to Death delivers them from all suspicion of blame to put our trust therefore in Princes does in this place signifie to think the settlement of their Affairs so strong and sure that nothing can disturb them to trust so to the Wisdom of their Management their Valour and their might their good Intentions and their great Abilities as to be quite secure and to suspect no Change can happen it either signifies this Confidence which is innocent tho' inconsiderate or this Confidence with Impiety trusting in the Arm of Flesh alone and vaunting with the foolish Man who saith in his Heart tush I shall never be moved no harm shall happen to me If the Trust that is here dissuaded from be contrary to or exclusive of that Trust we always ought to put in God then to be sure it is condemn'd and sinful but if it be only a weak and groundless Trust then there is less Offence than Folly in it and the heavy Disappointments it must needs meet will punish it sufficiently Sometimes we see a Prince truly noble just and merciful wise and brave a Father of his Country a lover of his People careful of all their Interests and their Honour and born as it were to the good of Mankind It would be impossible not to put great Confidence in such a Prince and to hope a Nation will be happy under such Administration whilst he lives this sort of Trust is reasonable because 't is built upon so good ground Another time we see a Prince of beauteous Aspect lovely Disposition inclin'd to Learning Virtue Piety and full of all good Qualities it would be stupidity not to hope well of him and to promise our selves a Harvest answerable to a Field of so fair a shew such Hope and Confidence as this becomes us as we are reasonable and considering Creatures and it would be a kind of Ingratitude to God from whom we acknowledge all these Gifts and Geaces come not to conceive such hopes as such excellent Endowments promise A Man must shut his Eyes on Providence that will not make his Observations on what passes and collect what is most reasonable and likely For since God acts by reasonable Causes and procures our Peace and Happiness by Instruments that are in Nature proper for that purpose we owe it to him to expect it from them where they are so promising This is properly to trust in God for to look for Grapes from Thorns or Figs from Thistles is to hope against Nature and against Reason and not to be excused by any Reverence we pretend to God or dependance on his Power tho' he is truly able to produce those Fruits from those unnatural Stocks The Men of no Religion and no Thought are so intent upon these second Causes that they see no first nor will acknowledge any Supream Power that over-looks and governs our Affairs but

the Snare of the Hunter thou savedst him from Destruction and crownedst him with Mercy and Loving Kindness and mad'st him instrumental in procuring the desire of all our Hearts an honourable Peace the Opportunity of healing all our Wounds recovering all our Losses and making up the Breaches of an intestine Foes our foolish Discords and ill-grounded Animosities had occasion'd the opportunity of settling our Affairs and looking to the ground we stood upon of putting them in such a posture that neither Enemies abroad nor Enemies at home might give us any great Disturbance that the Religion of our Country and its most ancient properest and best tempered Government might be secur'd against the Attempts and Machinations of its old inveterate Enemies the Sons of Violence and Darkness and from the noisy Importunities of unexperienc'd raw new-fangled Schematists and Speculators But contrary to this the Spirit of Discord is gone out among us and the sweet hope of all the Kingdom is in a moment snatched away from us e'er we had time to try to move thee by our Prayers or time to apprehend a Stroke so painful and so mortal Thy former Favours did not promise such Conclusion But we will hold our Peace since 't is thy doing We are much surer that thou may'st in Justice thus chastise us for our Sins than we could be that thou hadst so much Mercy for such Sinners as we have all our Lives experienced from thee Permit us never so long to talk with thee of thy Judgments yet must we still conclude Righteous art thou O Lord when we plead with thee Such Losses and such heavy Disappointments needs must prove effectual Cures of all our Confidence in Princes Never were hopes more justly rais'd nor plac'd more reasonably than ours have been upon two Noble Objects and yet Six years have quite defeated them dried up our Springs and almost desolated a Royal Tribe one of the fairest and most fruitful in the World How short is our Prospect now in what a little Compass is our Kingly Family contain'd Two precious Lives make up our whole Treasure The People of the East we find in Scriptures addressed to their Princes with O King Live for ever 'T is a vain Complement to Men of Flesh and Blood whose Breath goeth forth so suddenly who die like other Men who return again to their Earth and whose Thoughts all perish in a moment but if 't were ever reasonable our Case would call for it and we would use it May God enlarge these Borders build to these Princes a sure House and bind up their Souls in the Bundle of Life a long one here for our sakes and for their own an Everlasting one in Heaven II. Let us now withdraw from this uncomfortable side The Lives of Princes are it seems like Lands of Darkness where every step we make is in Distrust and Fear They give us little but Alarms Defeats and Disappointments Let us seek a Country of more light and Safety where hope dwells and where we may abide with Confidence Blessed is he who hath the God of Jacob for his help and whose hope is in the Lord his God This is a Life and Will and Power we may depend upon Great is the Lord. and marvellous worthy to be praised there is no end of his Greatness The Lord is good to all and his tender mercies are over all his works His kingdom is an everlasting Kingdom and his dominion endureth throughout all ages These are foundations strong enough for all the trust confidence a Heart can hold He is of infinite Goodness to intend the happiness of all his Creatures of infinite Wisdom to know wherein it lies and of infinite Power to effect his wise and good designs towards us Here therefore we may place our Trust without any fears of Disappointment here we must fix our Hopes for here we can only find our Help Were there not such a Power above to overlook and govern Men and their Affairs what a place of Misery and Confusion would this World be what with the certainty of natural Causes working many sad effects tho' known before yet unavoidable what with the Multitude of fearful Accidents never to be prevented nor foreseen what with the Folly Ignorance Mistakes the Malice and perverseness and the Rage of one anothers Passions how wretched a thing would the Life of a Man be The ways of God I think are to permit natural Causes to work their natural Effects according to the the Powers he hath endued them with reserving to himself the Power of altering or suspending them as he sees fit and when he pleases and to suffer Men to act as free Agents having given them Reason and reveal'd his Will to them and laid down all sufficient Motives to restrain them from what they know is evil and to encourage them to what is truly good reserving to himself however the Power of changing their Inclinations directing them in their Designs and ifluencing them all as he sees fit By means neither the certainty of natural operations nor the freedom of Man's Will exclude his Government of Men and Nature nor hinder us from addressing to him by Prayer for what we want and Praise for what we have receiv'd both which would be in vain were Nature not to be diverted from her way nor the Will of man flexible by some Superior over-ruling Power Were Natures Course unalterably fixt and the Will of Men not to be moved Prayer would be insignificant and useless Were not Men at liberty in general they could not be accountable for what they did they could have neither Vice nor Vertue Were not the Laws of nature fixt we could not live in any sort of certainty we cou'd not undertake any thing nor could have any hope or expectation of succeeding But as it pleases God to govern by these two known Rules and to be still the Master of them both there is all the room that can be for our Endeavours Care and Vigilance our Vertue and our Studies and all the Reason and Grounds for our applying to him our trusting in him and dependence upon him Our hope and Trust in God must therefore be directed by these settled and established Rules of Providence These are the known and standing Laws of his Wise Government the rest is Dispensation Favour Grace and Favour we may innocently hope for pray for and expect from his indulgent Goodness where no establish'd Law of Nature is subverted but for a Miracle 't is much more reasonable to wish for than expect one in our Favour We know that nothing is impossible with God but yet our Hope is never equal to his Power nor do we ever trust in him for any thing uncommon without some Promise in particular We know it is as possible for God to restore again the Dead to Life as Health to a Diseased Man what is the Reason then that we do not importune him with our most earnest and united Prayers to