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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
end_n	job_n	lord_n	patience_n	2,472	5	9.2343	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A38451	Propugnaculum pietatis, the saints Ebenezer and pillar of hope in God when they have none left in the creature, or, The godly mans crutch or staffe in times of sadning disappointments, sinking discouragements, shaking desolations wherein is largely shewed, the transcendent excellency of God, his peoples help and hope : with the unparallel'd happiness of the saints in their confidence in him, overballancing the worldlings carnal dependance both as to sweetness and safety : pourtray'd in a discourse on Psal. 146:5 / by F.E.	F. E. (Francis English)	1667 (1667)	Wing E3076; ESTC R2623	160,282	286

promise All shall work together for good to them who love God Rom. 8.28 And Gods performances are answerable to his promises Out of the eater God brings meat and out of the strong sweetness The wise Physician of Heaven makes the purest Treacle out of the most dangerous poison The sharpest ●edged sword of an enemy he anoints with balm so that even while it cuts it heals and while he thinks to let out the precious life he only takes away the corrupt and superfluous blood and in stead of killing the person only cures the impostume dum pungit ungit as Bernard speaks The hottest fires of humane wrath do but refine the Saint into a more spiritual temper they burn up indeed the dross and rust of corruption but perish never a golden grace but rather make it shine with a more radiant lustre and though the Sun of persecution looks upon them yea the furnace be seven times hotter than usually yet th● trial of their faith comes off with advantage and is found for praise honour and glory The deepest and highest swelling waters of mens mo● boisterous rage do but scour them into th● greater w●iteness of purity and holiness The flail of humane violence serves only to beat them the cleaner out of their husk God is a wis● Chymist that extracts gold out of the courses● metal and grace a divine limbeck that make● sweet waters of the sowrest herbs The oppressions of the world conduce to Gods peoples spiritual advantage They do their souls good Their Chains are more beneficial than their Crowns and their Crosses more wholesome though it 's like not so toothsome than their Comforts As the collision of stones occasions the sparklings forth of light so the knocks they meet with abroad in the world the shine of their graces and as he said schola crucis lucis they never meet with more light than in the darkest dungeons o● worldly disconsolation They alwaies taste when● the bitterness of mans wrath also the sweetness of Gods love And also to their outward good in the end As wicked mens violence alwaies determines in their own ruine In the net they prepare for others is their own foot taken and in the very same pit they dig for the righteous do they fall themselves So the sufferings of the Saints alwaies end in their rise and advantageous recovery evil slaies them not as it does the wicked but if God in his wise providence indulgeth them not a total immunity and exemption he grants them at least a sanctified use and a fair come-off yea a glorious issue a clear instance whereof we have in Joseph out of his own mouth Gen. 50.20 Where speaking in reference to his Brethrens sale of him he thus bespeaks them As for you ye thought evil against me but God meant it unto good to bring to pass as it is this day to save much people alive Their purposes of destroying his single person were issued with the salvation of the whole family if not the whole Land And likewise in Job with whom the Devil made a sad and black beginning but God made a fair a comfortable and blessed end As the Apostle speaks James 5.11 Ye have heard of the patience of Job and seen the end of the Lord That he is very pitiful and of tender mercy So effectually doth God work all for the good of his people as he reconciles all the seeming contradictions of his providence to his promise Though Isaac was once nigh being no child yet God makes him the Father of many Nations Jacob's hard usage by his Uncle Laban ends in great respect and kindness as appears by his profession and affectionate desire of his stay and company Gen. 30.27 If a man meets his enemy will he not slay him and yet God so overcomes the heart of Esau inclines him towards his Brother Jacob as instead of killing he kisseth and embraceth him Gen. 33.4 Such is the power and efficacy of divine operation as turns foes into friends opposers into familiars envy into admiration curses into blessings malice into benevolence execrations into applause and acclamations wrathful resolutions into kin● salutes and bland compellations imprecation into apprecations the utmost indignations conceived into the fullest satisfactions and highe● benedictions So that if enemies will not commend they shall have no power or will to condemn if they will do them no good they shal● have no heart to do them any hurt We ma● think all things are against us as Jacob once tol● his Sons Gen. 42.36 upon the parting with his Son Benjamin but the letting go his Son wa● the only way of saving himself When Davi● seemed nearest the grave then was he nighest the Crown The Israelites wilderness though somewhat about was a direct road and line to Canaan whither they were journeying We bring oft-times the greatest evil out of the greatest good ● such is our corruption but God brings the greatest good out of the greatest evil such is his goodness Let the Apostle conclude this in his general conclusion of comfort both as to sin and affliction Rom. 8.31 If God be for us who● can be against us none assuredly so as to hurt o● prejudice us Seventhly By running and overturning their adversaries making the arrows they shoot at his people rebound back on themselves and their darts to stick in their own breasts Psal 81.14 15. I should soon saith God have subdued their enemies and turned my hand against their adversaries The haters of the Lord should have submited themselves to him The Psalmist breathes out their destruction by the spirit of Prophecy throughout the 83. Psalm in most elegant metaphors of a wheel turning a fire burning a storm ●asting all which note the suddenness and irre●stibleness of their destruction Thus God ruined ●e Egyptians when they pursued Israel Exod. 14.7 28. He destroyed Pharaoh Sisera and his Host ●udg 5.21 Swept them away by the River ●ishon as a besome sweeps away the filth of an ●ouse or as a stream carries away the durt of a ●ity and Haman who conspired the Jews fatal ●estruction Esth 7. And Senacherib 2 Chron. 32.21 ●n Angel overturns his Host and as that was de●royed by these Sons of God his person was ●estroyed by the Sons of his own loins Thus God destroyed Herod For trampling on the worms of Jacob and so on their God he turns ●gain and causeth worms to eat him up Thus ●e destroyed Judas who betrayed Christ and Ju●an who blasphemed him dying with a vicisti Galilee in his mouth God does sooner or later wound the head of the Dragon the hoary scalp of his enemies pours out his wrath on the Heathen ●hat devour Jacob and lay waste his dwelling place Though they gather themselves against his people yet they shall not escape by their iniquity but he will cut them off in their wickedness when once their sin be at the full and ●aving filled up their measure they become ripe for destruction

a descant on all creature-enjoyments even a differing note ●●om the worlds votaries Whom have I in Hea●en but thee and there is none on Earth that I ●●sire in comparison of thee And the Church se●●nds him in this pleasant ditty Lam. 3.24 ●he Lord is my portion saith my soul therefore will 〈◊〉 hope in him Nunquam bene sine te nunquam male ●●m te saith Bernard sweetly The gracious soul ●●ndes it self never ill in his presence never well 〈◊〉 his absence The Sun of Righteousness makes ●ay in the souls of the Saints though all the ●tars of creature-consolation withdraw their light ●nd influence when notwithstanding the brightst and most glorious shine of these earthly glo●●orms under its fatal eclipse a perpetual night ●f darkness invelops the soul and covers its whole ●eavens Worldly evils may render a carnal ●●an miserable but worldly goods can never ●nake an holy man happy And as a Saints choicest ●appiness lies in God in a good day much more ●ave they sens'd their felicity to be concerned in ●im in an evil day when all other happinesses ●ail and felicities vanish and fade as a gourd of ●he night or the morning dew before the ●corchings of the rising Sun When God comes ●o blow upon our comforts and by the ireful ●ooks of his severer providence to frown on ●ur spirits neither the friends nor things of ●he world can add one cubit to the stature or ●ontribute one mite to the measure of our blessed●ess but in the saddest hour that befalls a Christian of loss cross trial and temptation when ●he barrel of meal is exhausted and the cruse of ●yl spent all secondary causes are at an end all creature-comforts at a pose and loss all worldly relations and fruitions prove dry brooks and barren wildernesses disappointing the expecting Traveller or like so many Lotteries to which a men goes with an head full of hopes but returns away with an heart full of blanks utterly void of his expectation then and then alone true and sure consolation is to be fetched from the experience of God and acquaintance with him who is the over and ever-flowing fountain of living waters And therefore the Prophet here in this Psalm setting before us the vanity and emptiness of all created helps and sufficiencies in competition with and comparison of the divine fulness and alsufficiency condemns all confidence in the creature to the very Hell and advances with the highest Encomiums and most heavenly Elogies adherence to God and dependance upon him alone He dehorts on the one hand from confidence in man or any arm of flesh by Arguments drawn from their infirmity and vanity the mutability of their tempers and also the fragility yea mortality of their state All created things have in them an utter incompetency to administer help to a soul under any strait or affliction being finite and fading For that must be eternal and immutable that must afford succour and relief under all vicissitudes of providence all mutations and interchanges of life To pass creatures moving in a lower orb and take Princes elevated to the highest sphear of dignity and excellency here below the best and highest of men yea so many representative Gods the Viceroys and Vicegerents of that infinite and eternal Majesty of Heaven and Earth exalted to the ●itch of deputed by God and reputed Deities by ●en yet even they are under the same predi●ament of changeable affections and dispositions ●nd eke of a mortal condition with other men Though gods while living th●y die as men and 〈◊〉 as Diogenes once told Alexander the great of ●hilip his Father their ashes are not distinguish●ble from the ashes of the common sort so that ●arivs's memento te esse hominem wherewith he ●ommanded his Chamberlain thrice a day to ●ound him wil fit them as wel as the common sort Men though never so able and potent often●●mes have neither power nor yet will to help ●heir expectants their minds are uncertain and ●heir opinions unstable as water so as with Reu●en they cannot excell Inconstant they are to ●heir principles professions resolutions and start ●side upon the least diversion from their promises ●urposes and intendments like a deceitful Bow And should they hold even and fixed either their ●●fe or state may admit a change the wheel now ●●p as Bajazet told him may soon go down They may fall so far from the pinacle of power ●nd turret of honour as they may not be able to ●ave themselves much less their adherents and de●endants such is their inconstancy and uncer●ainty How soon can God clip the wings of their ●omp and bravery and stain the beauty and pride ●f their glory so as their excellency which ●eacht up to the Heavens and toucht the clouds ●nay become as their own dung Job 20.6 Their ●reath may soon be upon the wing and take its ●ight to eternity and when they die all their thoughts endeavours counsels all their dignity and fame power and majesty dies with them and there 's an end of all their perfection And therefore he concludes this with the Prophets counsel to cease from man whose breath is in his nostrils And all this he expresseth to the life vers 3 4. Put not your trust in Princes nor in the Son of man in whom there is no help Hi● breath goeth forth he returneth to his earth in that very day hi● thoughts perish But on the other side he highly commends confidence in God shewing their blessedness that depend on him they shall be sure never to mee● with a disappointment Though men die God ever lives though they change he changeth not with him is no varial leness nor shadow of turning The eternity of Israel cannot lye or repent He is the great Almighty Jehovah in whom is everlasting strength the immutable Rock of Ages and sure dwelling-place of his people throughout all generations A God who abides ever the same to day yesterday and for evermore the true and ever-living God righteous in his judgements faithful in his promises beneficent in his providence and providential dispensations which is daily exhibited towards all sorts of persons calamitous and oppressed sustaining defending governing and helping them in a most eminent and divine manner and that not in this particular o● that other age of the world but for ever throughout all ages in former present and succeeding generations And therefore it s both far safer and sweeter to trust to the Creatour than to repose in any creature all which the Prophet evidenceth in the sequel of the Psalm from vers 6 ●o the end And so to come to a close of his ●nain Proposition he positively affirmeth to all ●he world That though there be nothing but misery and unhappiness to be found in the creature ●ll fulness and blessedness dwells in the ever-living ●nd ever-loving God In consideration whereof ●he Psalmist breaks out by way of Antithesis in●o this most pathetical acclamation and peremp●orily

on the Promise the fuller and sweeter shall it be when it comes once to fall into his lap and drop into his mouth The prosperous gales of faith and hope shall send home the ship of his soul richly laden at last to the shore of Heaven where he shall have a full satiety of that happiness of which he had here but a slender repast and be inebriated with those rivers of pleasure that bubble up from the well head of eternity whereof here he had a more imperfect taste and of whose sweetness and sulness he was a longing and languishing expectant To conclude with David with whom we began he shall then behold Gods face in righteousness and be abundantly and eternally satisfied with his likeness And so much for the opening the leases of the Text in its several doctrinal conclusions Now what remains but to come and see and taste the fruit of this happiness in its proper and particular branches of Application And the Text is not a barren and dry Tree but like the Tree of life bearing all manner of fruit yea its leaves good for the healing of souls Though we must but top the outmost branches ipsa anal cia sunt pretiosa the filings of this gold are precious And in the first place by way of Inference we may deduce from the consideration of the promised Truths these three Corolaries First It presents us with the different character and transcendent priviledge of the godly above all the world besides Here 's a discovery First Of their different frame temper and disposition of spirit They have not received the spirit of the world but are men of another spirit they hope in the Lord their God As for the ungodly it is not so they are men without hope either as 't is a mercy or a duty they have no God to hope in neither do they hope in the God they pretend to have They trust in their wealth and boast themselves in the multitude of their uncertain riches instead of trusting in the alsufficient and ever-living God When they increase and he grows full-handed he sets his heart on them As in a day of fulness he blesseth himself in them instead of the God of Truth rejoycing in the flesh of his own arm and concluding he hath gotten his wealth by his own hand and power so in a day of want and emptiness he placeth all his strength and confidence in them He goes not to God but creatures for his help not to the Lord but to the Physitians if he be sick not to the store-house of divine Promises but to the bag and granary if he be in want not to the great and soveraign Creator but to his fellow-creatures friends relations acqu●intance when once he comes to be forsaken He leans on his house as the prop of his security As in time of prosperity he offers sacrifice to creature-enjoyments saying These are the gods that have gone before us so in time of affliction he bows down to them and does them homage crying out Arise and save us Is he under trouble of conscience it may be with Cain he goes to his musick his sports and recreations hop●ng to dill the obstreperous noise of his own conscience in the croud of outward enjoyments or to smother its clamorous voice in the tumult of his own disordered affections In time of outward perplexity he flies to means instruments and second causes it may be to unlawful and indirect courses as Saul to a Witch and Judas to a rope because there is not a God in Israel he goes to Baalzebub the God of Ekron Ashur he saies shall save us and we will go down to Egypt and ride on horses Like those desperate and distracted wretches Isa 8.19 21. They went to their Arts of Necromancy instead of the Living God to Wizzards Peepers Mutterers and such as had familiar spirits And being hardly bested and hungry fretted themselves and cursed their King and their God and lookt upward When reduced to a state of necessity or distress they grew so impatient that like men in a phrensie or in shipwrack or people starved in a siege or a woman in the sore pangs of her travel they make hideous out-cries and in this forlorn distressed and distracted condition are like people desperate and at their wits ends knowing not whither to run or what to do or what course in the world to take and instead of an holy silence and gracious possession of their souls in patience under the load of their afflictions like a boiling-pot they send forth nothing but scum and filth or a burning mountain evaporate continually the flames of their passion and flashes of their indignation in cursed and direful blasphemies both against God and instruments Heaven and Earth together So desperate a case is every wicked man in in a distressed condition And when death once comes and looks him in the face then either he pleases himself with a false hope and blind presumption which ends in death founded on Gods mercy Christs sufferings common grace outward calling and profession immunity from some gross sins performance of some external duties of the first or second Table or some such like grounds all too rotten and sandy a foundation to build the stress of an immortal soul on for eternity or else he becomes desperate and hopeless This is the genuine temper of every ungodly person But now on the contrary what is the genius of a true Christian He trusts and hopes in God and in God alone God is his song and his salvation Isa 12.2 He trusts in Gods mercy and his heart rejoyceth in his salvation Psal 13.5 In a good day when he receives most from God he attributes and ascribes most nay all to him The hand of our God is upon us for good Thou hast given me power to get wealth Yea when he enjoyes most of God he still depends most on God when he is surrounded with creature-comforts and compassed with outward mercies even on every side Gods Candle shines on his Tabernacle his Mountain made most strong the lines fallen to him in pleasant places he washeth his garments in Wine and his cloaths in the blood of Grapes yet he looks over and above all creatures as insignificant cyphers empty cysterns insufficient supports and comforts to the Rock of Jacob and hope of Israel trusting and confiding in him alone in his utmost weal as well as in his greatest want and woe which is the most high generous and refined act of faith Thus we finde holy David when he had taken a survey of the graspings gripings and hoardings of the factors of this world and of all their heaps and banks he turns from them with an holy scorn or rather zealous indignation in the due ascent of his heart to God and anhelations after him Psal 39.7 And now Lord what wait I for my hope is in thee And so in an evil day a day of adversity when though a child of light