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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A91893	The birth of a day: being a treatise theologicall, morall and historicall, representing (as in a scene) the vicissitudes of all humane things, with their severall causes and sacred uses. Compos'd for the establishing mans soul unchangeable in the faith, amidst the various changes of the world. / By J. Robinson Mr of Arts and preacher of Gods Word.	Robinson, John, Preacher at East-Thorpe.	1654 (1654)	Wing R1698; Thomason E1493_4; ESTC R203378	52,211	117

erit Horat. lib. 2. ode 10. we ly under is not of a continuant but of a changeable nature And to this end we have the sure staff of Gods promise unto his children to lean upon as in the tenth chapter to the Hebrews where he sayes thus Yet a little while or rather as it runs in the Greek yet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Heb. 10. 37. how very very little while with a double diminutive and he that shall come will come and will not tarry And in the precedent verse he tells them they have need of patience that they may receive this promise And in the twelfth chapter to the Hebrews the Apostle takes up an exhortation to it from the Wise man and Prov. 3. 11. makes a consolatory use of it to his Hebrews withall taking them to taske for their forgetfulnesse of it And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaks unto Heb. 12. 5. you as unto children My sonne despise not thou the chastening of the Lord nor faint or be not broken in mind Ne animo frangitor 〈◊〉 sic B●z● as others translate it when thou art rebuked of him For we had sayes he the fathers of our flesh who verily chastened us a few dayes after their own pleasure and we were patient under their rod and gave See the 9. and 10. verses them reverence but God a few dayes only for our profit Shall we not then be much rather in subjection to him who is the father of spirits and live Thus when Boetius that Christian Co●sul and Martyr at Rome was wrongfully deprived by Theodoricus of his Honours Estate and Liberty Philosophy brings in what we call Gods providence comforting him in these words I turn about my wheel continually and delight to tumble things Rotam meam volubili orbe semper verso in●●is 〈◊〉 summisque infima mutare gaudens Quid igitur animo contabescis c. Boet. de Consol lib. 2. Pros 2. upside down why then doth thy heart shrink within thee when as this changeablenesse of mine is cause enough for thee to hope for better things And so also when many of our brethren were heretofore in exile for their Religion in Queen Marie's dayes what I pray did that Jewell of our Church comfort them In Juelli vits with but only this Haec non durabunt aetatem These will not endure an Age as indeed you know they did not her reign being not full out six years time And with the same consideration also should we cheare up our selves now under that black cloud that hangs over the Church that it will Non semper imbres nubibus bispid●s manane in agros Hor. lib. 2. ode 9. not endure an Age but be as Ephraim's righteousnesse was even Hos 6. 4. like the morning cloud or as the early dew that passes away To this end it will not be amisse to note how the afflictions of Gods people in the Scripture are run out not by any long tract of time as by an Age Year Moneth Week or the like but by the shortest measures that can be as by a Day now a Day you know holds not long but is quickly gone even as a flying bird or a poast that runneth by And this good Hezekiah calls the time of Sennacheribs rage against Judah a Day of trouble Isa 37. vers 3. Or if this be not enough you have them then contracted within a lesser room and measur'd only by a Night which is no more but the dark side of a naturall day and therefore is a great deal shorter And this made the Prophet David say Psal 30. vers 5. That heav●nesse may endure for a night but joy cometh in the morning The time then that heavinesse shall endure to the Godly can be but a Night at the longest but whether it shall be so long or no the Prophet is very uncertain and unsatisfied for which cause he expresses it here with a May be Heavinesse may endure for a night But if this expression be not full enough to set forth the brevity of them our Saviour doth it then by an Hour which is shorter yet and but the four and twentieth part of a naturall Day for so he calls the time of his persecution by the High Priests and Elders of the people Their hour and the power of Darknesse Luk. 22. 53. Or if this be yet too long a space to set forth the brevity of their afflictions and to give a through Comfort to Gods people their little continuance is then express'd by a Moment which I am sure is short enough so you have it Isa 54. vers 7. For a small moment sayes God to his Church have I forsaken thee but with great mercy will I gather thee And again vers 8. In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment but with everlasting kindnesse will I have mercy upon thee Or last of all if any time can be shorter then this it must then be the present time yet such are the sufferings of Gods children in Saint Pauls account but the Sufferings of the present time Rom. 8. 18. and a shorter time then this there cannot be For as the French our Howell in the life of Lewis the thirteenth neighbours are said to be for their inconsideratenesse Animalia sine praeterito futuro Creatures that have respect neither to time past nor time to come so may we say of the present time That it is as short a measure as can possibly be imagined having in it nothing either of time past or future the first of the two being dead already and the later of them being not yet born unto us And yet we see here for all this that Saint Paul when he had cast up the account of all which he suffered in the cause of Christ how he reckons and concludes it to be only the suffering of the present time and not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed He that observes the wind sayes Solomon shall never sow and he that observes Ecclesiast c. 11. v. 4. the clouds shall never reap Such are our Troubles such our Afflictions which although they blow strong against us yet like some high and mighty wind they will not hold yea though they fall upon us as thick as hail yet are they not so fix'd for ever but a change shall come which should make us in any temptation to despair and distrust of Gods providence check and chide our spirits as the prophet David did his with that objurgation which for the remarkablenesse of it is thrice repeated in the two and fourtieth and three and fourtieth Psalms Why art thou cast Psal 42. vers 5. and 11. Again Psal 43. last verse down O my soul and why art thou disquieted within me Still hope in God for I shall yet praise him who is the health of my countenance and my God Scaliger tells us of one Palavicine

turn about most of those Alterations that are in the world It is true that health and sicknesse peace and warre plenty and scarcity riches and poverty proceed from God as the principall Efficient cause but yet for all this we deny not but that God makes use both of our selves and others as to the means of bringing them about The life of Joseph was checquer'd with variety of accidents for he is now a Slave to the Ismaelites and by and by a Prince in Aegypt Now these although they proceeded from God as the Authour yet was the will of his Brethren as the will of Reuben and Judah the instruments of Gen. c. 37. preserving his life and the wills of his other Brethren the meanes of selling him into Aegypt Now because it is the Nature of Instruments Instrumentum nisi à principali Agente motum non operatur Aquin. 3. part Summae quaest 62. Art 4. to be subservient to the Principall Agent and to be determin'd by it therefore give me leave here by the way to fasten this exhortation upon you That in all Changes whatsoever you will look beyond the Instruments of them unto God the Principall Agent For so did Job in his losses beyond the plundring Chaldeans and Sabeans unto Dominus abstulit The Lord hath given and the Lord hath taken away looking Job 1. 21. upon them as we use to do upon an Index tantum in ordine ad Librum only in order to the Book it self et in transitu ad Deum in his passage unto God who sets them awork as to their naturall powers and faculties though to the evill of them no otherwise then by ordering and over-ruling it to the good of his Children And hence it is that the wicked are call'd Gods Sword as in the 17 Psalm verse 13. Deliver my soul saies David from the wicked which is thy Sword And so must we in all those Losses that befall us here have in our eye not so much the Sword as the Hand that holds it which will be one means and a good one too to bring us to Davids calm temper in the 39. Psal 19. who saies in the like condition That he was dumb and did not open his mouth nor let fall an impatient word in it because it was Gods doing And therefore when Abisha● would have taken a way Shime●'s life for cursing of David No sayes he Let him alone Juss● enim Dominus for the Lord hath bidden him curse who then 2 Sam. 16. 11. shall say Wherefore hast thou done so q. d. Who then dare expostulate with God or call him to account about it as if he were unrighteous in it since evill men are but Swords in Gods hand who when he hath once done his work by them will either put them up again into his Scabbard and lay them by or else so blunt the edge of their power that it shall not cut or else break them a pieces and throw them quite away And so much for the Efficient Causes of Vicissitudes Next I shall speak to the Ends or Finall Causes of them 4 And these are either Ex parte Dei or Nostri In respect of God or our selves First In respect of God and so the Principall End why God rings such Changes upon all earthly things and will have them disposed of after so various a manner is to make them by it the more tunable to his own Glory which by this meanes is exceedingly magnify'd and advanc'd but especially in the Attributes of his Power Truth Wisdome and Goodnesse 1. In his Power and Omnipotency that so he may let the world know that the Finger of his Power is in all transactions and that he can do whatsoever he will both in heaven and earth and yet changes not For why else did God work so many miraculous Changes in Aegypt by the hand of Moses Why turn'd he Moses Rod into a Serpent and the Aegyptian Waters into Bloud Why their Dust into Lice and Flies and their Light into Darknesse for the space of three dayes together Why else created he a new generation of Frogs and Locusts among them Why unheard of diseases upon themselves and upon their cattell Why destroyed he their Herbs and Fruit-trees with Hail and their First-born with untimely death In a word Why caus'd he the Red-sea to go out of its naturall course and chanell whereby it became a wall to the Israelites and a grave to the Aegyptians Did not God all this to make known the glory of his power in the preservation of the one and destruction of the other Yes For this Exod. 9. 16. cause sayes God to Moses I have raised thee up to shew in thee my power and that my name may be declared in all the earth 2. He advances also his Glory this way by manifesting his Truth and Faithfulness in that those things which are accidentall in regard of us and seem as impossible yet are they exactly brought to passe in their due times and seasons As in the bringing of the Israelites out of Aegypt wherein God was full as good as his word and kept touch with them to a day in their Deliverance as you may see Exod. 12. 41. where we read That it came to passe in the end of four hundred and thirty years even the self-same day it came to passe that all the hosts of the Lord went out of the land of Aegypt All Pharaoh's oppositions and tergiversations could not prorogue their Bondage so much as one day beyond the time prefix'd of God but serv'd only to fill up that Interim or void space of time betwixt Gods Promise made to Abraham Gen. 15. 13. and his performance of it And if you ask by what intervalls of time the truth of this promise came about so punctually Vide nuperrimas Annotationes in Gen. 15. 13. Divines will tell you That from Abraham's receiving of the promise unto the birth of Isaac were five and twenty years sixty from thence to Jacobs birth and to his death which fell out presently upon their entrance into Aegypt a hundred and thirty yeares After which unto the death of Levi who was Ultimus Patriarcharum the last of the Patriarchs that survived and in which space the Israelites were kindly entreated for Joseph's sake were ninety four years and a hundred and one and twenty more of cruell Bondage untill Moses came to deliver them from it in the reign of Pharaoh Cencres All which particulars being gathered up together do make up the complete summe of four hundred and thirty yeares and may serve to justify God in all his sayings and to clear his truth in the least circumstance and punctilio of time when it shall come to be judged For when once Gods appointed time is come to introduce a change either for better or worse among any people then shall every breath of wind how crosse soever it seems to blow at the present yet be so farre

from hindering Gods work in it as that one way or other you shall find it in the sequel to contribute its help and assistance to it 3. God advances also his Glory this way in the manifestation of his Wisdome and Goodnesse in that he makes a sweet harmony of so many different cords and changes and frames a most admirable Order out of a seeming Disorder and Confusion Many and diverse are the qualities of Herbs yet if a skilfull Simpler hath the mixing of them he knows how to make of them a well-relish'd and wholsome Sallade So many were the interchangeable passages that happen'd to Joseph and had we the same it may be we should think them very confused ones but yet let the Wisdome and Goodnesse of God but lay them together and we shall presently find as Joseph did the close of them all in a sweet diapason For though all things as to us are floating up and down to and again by chance as it were and accident 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 G. Nazian in Invect in Julianum sayes Gregory Nazianzen yet if we look to the order and appointment of Gods Providence which doth alwayes most wisely contrive all events for the good of his Children they are fixt and stable howbeit they may seem to go contrary at the present And of Gods dealing in this kind we have Job an eminent example who is to day the greatest man for Wealth and Honour in all the East and a tablet of this his Greatnesse you may see in his nine and twentieth chapter which I desire you to read over at your leisure wherein you shall find a whole series of worldly Prosperity to wait upon him yet to morrow he is poor even to a by-word and proverb As poor as Job insomuch as he spends all the next chapter in Chap. 30. bemoaning his suddain change beginning it with a But which though a small monosyllable yet as the Helme of a Ship turns about the vessel any way so doth this But turn about Job and all his former Honour and Prosperity into the extremest contempt and adversity But now sayes he they that are younger then I have me in derision whose Job 30. verse 1. fathers I would have disdained to have set with the dogs of my Flock and ending it with this dolefull accent verse last versa est cithara mea in luctum organum in vocem flentium My harp is turned into mourning and my organ into the voice of those that weep Yet all is well we say that ends well and so it was with Job which makes Saint James say by way of support unto Gods people in their afflictions Ye have heard of James 5. 11. the patience of Job and have seen the end of the Lord i. e. what good end God gave him in it for the next day God brings a great deal of Light out of this Darknesse by a wise and gracious disposing of all that evill to him for the best in giving him twice Job last verse 12. as much as he had at the first and blessing his later end more then his beginning So that although for a time all those sad Changes that befell Job seem'd even to crosse the ordinary course of Gods care and Providence to him yet in the conclusion you see how his Wisedome and Goodnesse cut them all out and made them serve to his greater Honour and Abundance And so much for the Ends or Finall Causes in respect of God They follow now in respect of ourselves And these are two first to confirm our Faith secondly to reform our lives and to work out by them good to his servants First to confirm our Faith And so God brings many times great Changes into the world to try if amidst those shakings of outward things among us we will be shaken in our Faith or not That as the Apostle speakes of heresies 1 Cor. 11. 19. Oportet esse Hoereses There must be Heresies among you that they which are approved may be made manifest so say I Oportet esse mutationes There must be Changes and these not so much in respect of the things themselves which are in their own natures liable to alteration and dissolution as in respect of Gods end in it that they which are approved and sincere in the faith may be manifested to be so by their constancy and perseverance in it That as there is a necessity of Fire to try Gold whether it be true or else counterfeit so also is there a necessity of Changes for by these it will appear whether we will measure our Religion by outward things and in the losse or enjoyment of them be lost in our Protestant Faith yea or no. There is nothing Beloved more discovers the Hypocrite then his Ingenium versatile as Livy said of Cato then his turning humour in Religion for which I do not say he shall be plagued in Plutarch seigns Thespesius returning from Hell and telling among other things he saw there inflicted on evill men that hypocrites were there punished by turning up and down continually Plut. Do his qui sero puniuntur pag. 203. Hell by being wheel'd about there continually without any relaxation though that may seem a punishment somewhat suitable to his Weathercock-disposition here upon earth no Hoc nimis Ethnicum This is too heathenish but rather with the Prophet David That he shall turn into Hell with all those that forget God Psal 9. 17. which is that portion of Hypocrites mention'd by our Saviour Mat. 24. last For if an Apple be rotten at the coare it will not hold long upon the Tree but upon the least Wind will fall from it And so it is with the rotten-hearted Hypocrite if a little crosse wind do but blow upon him oh how soon doth he fall off from the tree of Life and become a wind-fall in his Religion for the Devil that old Serpent to prey upon Every Cock-boat you know will bear up well enough in a calm sea but that is a stout Vessell that can live in the most troubled water And Vid. Cyprian de lapsis Fox Martyr p. 1362. too too many there were in the Primitive times that like Dr Pendleton in Queen Maries dayes boasted much of their Constancy in the Orthodox Faith during Constantines dayes so long as God hedg'd about his Vineyard with Peace and Prosperity but so soon as that Hedge was broken down and erroneous yea hereticall Doctrines were let in Psalm 80. 12. and 13 verses like so many Beasts of prey to devoure then how quickly did these prove Turncoats and Apostates from the Faith But as for the true Christian he is like a Rock mediis immo●us● in undis That although the waves are alwaies swelling against Vi●gil him yet is he the same man still in his Reformed Religion and wavers not or else like that House built upon the Rock against Mat 25. 7. which the Flouds came and