Selected quad for the lemma: enemy_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
enemy_n	hand_n	lord_n	stretch_v	1,025	5	9.8952	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A62629	Sermons preach'd upon several occasions By John Tillotson, D.D. Dean of Canterbury, preacher to the Honourable Society of Lincolns-Inn, and one of His Majesties chaplains in ordinary. The second volume.	Tillotson, John, 1630-1694.	1678 (1678)	Wing T1260BA; ESTC R222222	128,450	338

Imprimatur Guil. Sill R. P. D. Henr. Episc Lond. à Sac. Dom. Novemb. 2. 1677. SERMONS PREACH'D Upon several Occasions By JOHN TILLOTSON D.D. Dean of Canterbury Preacher to the Honourable Society of Lincolns-Inn and one of His Majesties Chaplains in Ordinary The 〈…〉 Printed 〈…〉 at t●● 〈…〉 SERMONS Preach'd upon Several OCCASIONS By JOHN TILLOTSON D. D. Dean of Canterbury Preacher to the Honourable Society of Lincolns-Inn and one of His Majestie 's Chaplains in Ordinary The Second Volume LONDON Printed for Edw. Gellibrand and are to be Sold by Henry Bonwicke at the Red-Lyon in St. Paul's-Church-Yard 1678. SERMON I. ISaiah IX 12 13 For all this his anger is not turned away but his hand is stretched out still For the people turneth not to him that smiteth them neither do they seek the Lord of Hosts SERMON II. Heb. III. 13 Exhort one another daily while it is called to day lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin SERMON III. 1 Cor. III. 15 But he himself shall be saved yet so as by fire SERMON IV. Psal CXIX 156 Great peace have they that love thy Law and nothing shall offend them SERMON V. Psal CXIX 59 I thought on my ways and turned my feet unto thy testimonies SERMON VI. Psal CXIX 60 I made haste and delayed not to keep thy Commandments SERMON VII 1 John III. 10 In this the children of God are manifest and the children of the Devil whosoever doth not righteousness is not of God SERMON VIII Luke XV. 7 I say unto you that likewise joy shall be in Heaven over one sinner that repenteth more than over ninety and nine just persons which need no repentance SERMON IX Matth. IX 31 32 Wherefore I say unto you all manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man it shall be forgiven him But whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost it shall not be forgiven him neither in this world neither in the world to come SERMON X. Acts X. 38 Who went about doing good A SERMON Preached before the KING June 30 th 1667. Isa IX 12 13. For all this his anger is not turned away but his hand is stretched out still For the people turneth not unto him that smiteth them neither do they seek the Lord of Hosts IN the former part of this 12th verse the Prophet threatens that Israel should be brought into great distress and set upon by Enemies on every side the Syrians before and the Philistines behind and that they should devour Israel with open mouth And though this was like to be a very sore and dreadful Judgment yet he foretells that this would not stay Gods hand nor satisfie his anger because he foresaw that they would still grow worse and continue impenitent For all this his anger is not turned away but his hand is stretched out still For the people turneth not unto him that smiteth them neither do they seek the Lord of Hosts In which words there are these two things very useful at all times but at this time especially most proper and seasonable for our consideration 1. The design and intention of God in sending Judgments upon a People and that is to reclaim them from their sins imply'd in these words For the people turneth not to him that smiteth them which intimate to us that this is the end which God aims at in his Judgments to take us off from our sins and to bring us to himself 2. The reason of the continuance of Gods Judgments because the people were not reclaimed by them And this is fully express'd in the Text that therefore Gods anger is not turned away but his hand is stretched out still because the people turneth not unto him that smiteth them c. Of these Two I crave leave to speak as plainly and briefly as I can I. The design and intention of God in sending Judgments upon a people And that is to reclaim them from their sins This indeed is the intention of all Gods dispensations towards us in this World The end of all his mercies and benefits is to take us off from sin and to oblige and win us to our duty So the Apostle tells us Rom. 2.4 That the design of Gods goodness and long-suffering and forbearance towards us is to lead us to Repentance And this is the way wherein God delights to deal with us The way of Judgment and severity is that which he is more averse from a course which he unwillingly takes with us and not without some difficulty and reluctancy He doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men And were it not that we are such perverse Creatures as not to be wrought upon by kindness so wild as not to be tamed by gentle usage God would not handle us in any other way It is our obstinacy and intractableness to the methods of his goodness which constraineth and almost forceth him against his inclination to take the Rod into his hand and to chastise us with it He would draw us with the cords of love and the bands of a man as he expresseth himself in the Prophet but we will not follow him And therefore we provoke him to turn these Cords into whips and to change the gentle methods of his kindness into ways of harshness and severity And yet when he comes to take this course with us he still like a kind and tender-hearted Father aims at our benefit and advantage He designs kindness to the sons of men by all those judgments which do not kill them and cut them off from the opportunity and possibility of improving them If he send Evils upon us it is that thereby he may do us some greater good If he afflict us it is not because it is pleasant to him to deal harshly with us but because it is profitable and necessary for us to be so dealt withall And if at any time he imbitter our lives by miseries and sufferings it is because he is loth to see us perish in pleasant ways and chuseth rather to be somewhat severe towards us than suffer us to be utterly undone This Moses declares to have been the great end of all the severe Providences of God towards the People of Israel in their long wandring in the Wilderness and all the difficulties and hardships they were there exercised withall for the space of forty years Deut. 8.15 16 Who led thee through that great and terrible Wilderness wherein were fiery Serpents and Scorpions c. That he might humble thee and that he might prove thee to do thee good at thy latter end So that the afflicting providences of God are not only apt in their own nature to do us good but which is a more express argument of the Divine goodness God intends and aims at this end by them He does not send Judgments upon this Theatre of

and grant that we may hereafter live godly righteous and sober lives Do not we seek the Lord of Hosts when we continually beg of him to save and deliver us from the hand of our enemies Indeed we do thus seek him but we should first turn to him otherwise if we hope our prayers will prevail with God to do us good we do but trust in lying words If we go on in our sins our very prayers will become sin and encrease our guilt For the prayer of the wicked that is of one that is resolv'd to continue so is an abomination to the Lord. Can we think it reasonable for men to address themselves to God after this manner Lord though we have no mind to turn to thee yet we pray thee turn away thine anger from us though we are resolv'd not to forsake our sins yet we make no doubt but that thy mercy will forgive them Give peace in our time O Lord that we may pursue our lusts securely and without disturbance Deliver us we pray thee from the hands of our Enemies that we may sin against thee without fear all the days of our lives Would it not be horrible impudence and impiety to put up any such petitions to God And yet this I fear is the most genuine interpretation of our prayers and lives compar'd together And if this be our case what can we expect God may give us peace with our Enemies but then he will find out some other way to punish us For if we still persist in our Atheism and Prophaneness in our contempt of God and of his holy Worship in our scorn and derision of Religion in our abominable lusts and horrid impieties what can we look for but that God should be angry with us until he have consum'd us and there be no escaping Nothing can be a sadder presage of our ruin than not to be reform'd by those dreadful judgments of God which have been upon us This was that which brought final destruction upon the Egyptians in the Red Sea that they had held out so obstinately against so many Judgments and had been hardned under ten Plagues To be impenitent after such severe corrections is to poyson our selves with that which is intended for our Physick and by a miraculous kind of obstinacy to turn the Rods of God into Serpents And now perhaps some will be apt to say That these are things fit for men of our Profession because it is our Trade and we live by it Indeed they are so things very fit to be said and withall very fit for every one to consider who professeth himself a Christian and who owns the belief of a God and a Providence and another World And if they be so where is the fault Is it that there is a peculiar Profession of men whose proper work it is to tell men of their faults and to perswade them to reform No there is no harm in that neither Is it then that they live by their Profession and yet would be believed Yes there lies the force of the objection To which I shall only at present return this answer That men do not argue thus in other cases where yet the reason seems to be the very same In matters that concern their Bodies and Estates the Physitian and the Lawyer are believ'd though it is verily thought that they live by their Professions as well as we why then should men deal so partially and unequally only with their Souls Were we not mov'd by better principles and sway'd by the arguments and considerations of another World we might for ought we know with every whit as much advantage to our selves suffer men to be quiet and to sleep on securely in their sins If we did not believe our selves in these matters what should hinder but that we might with as much gravity and confidence cry Peace Peace when there is no Peace and flatter men with as much art and with as good a grace as any of those can do who live delicately and wear soft clothing But we believe the threatnings of God and therefore do we speak We know the terrour of the Lord and therefore we endeavour to perswade men And O! that we could perswade them to break off their sins by righteousness and to turn every one from the evil of his way and from the violence that is in his hands And then who can tell but God may turn and repent and turn away from his fierce anger that we perish not The good God make us all wise to know in this our day the things that belong to our peace before they be hid from our eyes and grant that we may all turn to him that hath smitten us by Repentance and real Reformation of our lives that God may be pleas'd to turn away his Anger from us and to stretch out his hand for our Deliverance which we humbly beg of him for the sake of Christ To whom with the Father c. A SERMON Preached before the KING IN LENT 1671. Heb. III. 13 Exhort one another daily while it is called to day lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin AMong the many considerations which the Word of God and our own Reason offer to us to discourage us from sin this is none of the least considerable that he that once engages in a vicious course is in danger to proceed in it being insensibly trained on from one degree of wickedness to another so that the farther he advanceth his retreat grows more difficult because he is still pushed on with a greater violence All errour as well of practise as of judgment is endless and when a man is once out of the way the farther he shall go on the harder he will find it to return into the right way Therefore there is great reason why men should be often cautioned against the beginnings of sin or if they have been so unhappy as to be engaged in a bad course why they should be warned to break it off presently and without delay lest by degrees they be hardened in their wickedness till their case grow desperate and past remedy And to this purpose is the Apostles advice here in the Text Exhort one another daily while it is called to day lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin From which words I shall 1. Endeavour to represent to you the growing danger of sin and by what steps and degrees bad habits do insensibly gain upon men and harden them in an evil course 2. I shall from this consideration take occasion to shew what great reason and need there is to warn men of this danger and to endeavour to rescue them out of it And then 3. I shall apply my self to the duty here in the Text of exhorting men with all earnestness and importunity to resist the beginnings of sin or if they be already entred upon a wicked course to make haste out of this dangerous state lest

to deal with us as Absalom did with Joab he sent one civil message to him after another but he would not come at last he sets on fire his Corn-field to try whether that would bring him This course God hath taken with us we would not be perswaded by messages of kindness by his many blessings and favours to return to him and therefore hath he sent amongst us the terrible messengers of his wrath First we were engag'd in a Foreign War and though God was pleas'd to give us some considerable success in it yet it seems our provocations were so great that he was resolv'd to punish us He was loth to let us fall into the hands of men and therefore he took the work into his own hand and punish'd us himself by sending a Pestilence amongst us the sorest and most destructive that hath befallen this Nation for many Ages But we did not upon this return to him and therefore his fierce anger kindled a fearful Fire amongst us which hath laid the honour of our Nation one of the greatest and richest Cities in the World in the dust and that by so sudden and irresistible so dismal and amazing a devastation as in all the circumstances of it is scarce to be parallel'd in any History I doubt not but most of us were mightily affected with this Judgment whilst it was upon us So astonishing a calamity could not but make us open our eyes a little and awaken us to consideration Even the rich-man in the Gospel though he had all his life-time been immers'd in sensuality yet could not but lift up his eyes when he was in Flames And surely God expects that such Judgments as these should not only rouze us a little for the present but that they should have a permanent operation and effect upon us and work a thorough and lasting reformation amongst us but yet I am afraid that this dreadful Fire hath had no other influence upon us but what it uses to have upon Metals which are only melted by it for the present but when the Fire is removed they suddenly cool and return to their former hardness One would have thought that the sense of such a calamity as this should have remain'd longer upon us Methinks God seem'd to say to us after this Judgment as he did once to Jerusalem Zeph. 3.7 Surely thou wilt fear me thou wilt receive instruction but we like them have been but the more forward to provoke him they rose early and corrupted their doings we have after all this harden'd our hearts from his fear and refused to return And therefore God is now come to one of his last Judgments Our Enemy distresseth us in our Gates God hath begun to let us fall into the hands of men and by giving our Enemies a sudden and fatal advantage upon us hath smitten us with a Breach great as the Sea These were terrible calamities indeed to come so thick and so swiftly upon us like desolation and as a whirlwind Such a quick succession of Judgments treading almost upon one anothers heels does but too plainly declare that God is highly incens'd against us For surely these are not the wounds of a Friend but the terrible assaults of an Enemy They do not look like the displeasure of a Father but the severity of a Judg not like visitation but like vengeance And besides these more visible Judgments upon the Nation we are by a secret curse of God insensibly decayed in our riches and strength We are I know not how strangely impoverisht in the midst of plenty and almost undone by victories And which adds to our misery few among us seem to be sufficiently sensible of it or to take any notice by what silent steps and imperceptible degrees like gray hairs and the infirmities of old age poverty and weakness are stealing in upon us so that we may fitly apply to our selves what the Prophet says of Ephraim Hos 7.9 Strangers have devoured his strength and he knoweth it not yea gray hairs are here and there upon him and yet he knoweth it not And our condition as we are a Church is not much better How is this famous Protestant Church of ours which was once the admiration of her Friends and the envy of her Enemies sunk and declin'd in her glory and reduc'd into a very narrow compass So that she is left like the Daughter of Sion Isa 1.8 as a Cottage in a Vineyard as a Lodge in a garden of Cucumbers as a besieged City straitned and hem'd in on all parts by the impudence of Atheism the insolencies of Popery and the turbulency of Faction all which do every day visibly and apace gain ground upon her and distress her on every side just as the condition of the Jewish Church is describ'd before my Text The Syrians before and the Philistines behind both ready to devour Israel with open mouth And surely it is not for nothing that God hath brought us thus low that he hath sent all these Judgments upon us and that he doth still threaten us with more The reason is plain because we are still impenitent the people turneth not to him that smiteth them There hath been almost an universal degeneracy amongst us and there is still I fear a general impenitency the people turneth not c. Notwithstanding all those dismal Calamities which our eyes have seen wickedness doth still prevail in the Nation and overflows it like a mighty Deluge so as to overspread all Ranks and Orders of men And not only so but is grown impudent and appears with a whores forehead all kind of modesty seems to have forsaken the sinners of this Age. And is this Repentance to live in filthy and abominable lusts to teare the Name of God by horrid Oaths and Imprecations to be Atheistical and prophane and by an unexampled boldness to turn the Word of God it self and the gravest and most serious matters of Religion into Raillery This is not to turn to him that smiteth us but to turn upon him and smite him again And yet such crying and clamorous sins as these are almost come to be the garb and fashion of the Nation and to be aecounted the wit and gallantry of the Age. And Shall not God visit for these things shall not his soul be aveng'd on such a Nation as this Yes he hath visited and 't is for these things that the wrath of God hath been so manifestly revealed from Heaven against us For this cause misery and destruction have been in our ways and the way of peace have we not known because there hath been no fear of God before our eyes Hence it is that God's anger is not turned away but his hand is stretched out still because the people turneth not to him that smiteth them neither do they seek the Lord of Hosts But do not we seek God Do we not every day acknowledg our sins to him and pray that he would have mercy upon us miserable offenders