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A45190 The contemplations upon the history of the New Testament. The second tome now complete : together with divers treatises reduced to the greater volume / by Jos. Exon. Hall, Joseph, 1574-1656. 1661 (1661) Wing H375; ESTC R27410 712,741 526

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this Jesus a power to apply his merits and obedience we are no whit the safer no whit the better only we are so much the wiser to understand who shall condemn us This piece of the clause was spoken like a Saint Jesus the Son of the most high God the other piece like a Devil What have I to doe with thee If the disclamation were universall the latter words would impugne the former for whiles he confesses Jesus to be the Son of the most high God he withall confesses his own inevitable subjection Wherefore would he beseech if he were not obnoxious He cannot he dare not say What hast thou to doe with me but What have I to doe with thee Others indeed I have vexed thee I fear In respect then of any violence of any personal provocation What have I to doe with thee And dost thou ask O thou evil spirit what hast thou to doe with Christ whiles thou vexest a servant of Christ Hast thou thy name from knowledge and yet so mistakest him whom thou confessest as if nothing could be done to him but what immediately concerns his own person Hear that great and just Judge sentencing upon his dreadfull Tribunal Inasmuch as thou didst it unto one of these little ones thou didst it unto me It is an idle misprision to sever the sense of an injury done to any of the Members from the Head He that had humility enough to kneel to the Son of God hath boldnesse enough to expostulate Art thou come to torment us before our time Whether it were that Satan who useth to enjoy the torment of sinners whose musick it is to hear our shrieks and gnashings held it no small piece of his torment to be restrained in the exercise of his tyranny or whether the very presence of Christ were his rack for the guilty spirit projecteth terrible things and cannot behold the Judge or the executioner without a renovation of horrour or whether that as himself professeth he were now in a fearfull expectation of being commanded down into the deep for a further degree of actual torment which he thus deprecates There are tortures appointed to the very spiritual natures of evil Angels Men that are led by Sense have easily granted the body subject to torment who yet have not so readily conceived this incident to a spiritual substance The Holy Ghost hath not thought it fit to acquaint us with the particular manner of these invisible acts rather willing that we should herein fear then enquire But as all matters of Faith though they cannot be proved by Reason for that they are in a higher sphere yet afford an answer able to stop the mouth of all Reason that dares bark against them since truth cannot be opposite to it self so this of the sufferings of Spirits There is therefore both an intentional torment incident to Spirits and a reall For as in Blessedness the good Spirits finde themselves joyned unto the chief good and hereupon feel a perfect love of God and unspeakable joy in him and rest in themselves so contrarily the evil Spirits perceive themselves eternally excluded from the presence of God and see themselves setled in a wofull darkness and from the sense of this separation arises an horrour not to be expressed not to be conceived How many men have we known to torment themselves with their own thoughts There needs no other gibbet then that which their troubled spirit hath erected in their own heart And if some pains begin at the Body and from thence afflict the Soul in a copartnership of grief yet others arise immediately from the Soul and draw the Body into a participation of misery Why may we not therefore conceive mere and separate Spirits capable of such an inward excruciation Besides which I hear the Judge of men and Angels say Goe ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the Devil and his Angels I hear the Prophet say Tophet is prepared of old If with fear and without curiosity we may look upon those flames why may we not attribute a spiritual nature to that more then natural fire In the end of the world the Elements shall be dissolved by fire and if the pure quintessential matter of the skie and the element of fire it self shall be dissolved by fire then that last fire shall be of another nature then that which it consumeth What hinders then but that the Omnipotent God hath from eternity created a fire of another nature proportionable even to Spiritual essences Or why may we not distinguish of fire as it is it self a bodily creature and as it is an instrument of Gods justice so working not by any material virtue or power of its own but by a certain height of supernatural efficacy to which it is exalted by the Omnipotence of that supreme and righteous Judge Or lastly why may we not conceive that though Spirits have nothing material in their nature which that fire should work upon yet by the judgement of the Almighty Arbiter of the world justly willing their torment they may be made most sensible of pain and by the obedible submission of their created nature wrought upon immediately by their appointed tortures besides the very horrour which ariseth from the place whereto they are everlastingly confined For if the incorporeal Spirits of living men may be held in a lothed or painful body and conceive sorrow to be so imprisoned why may we not as easily yield that the evil spirits of Angels or men may be held in those direfull flames and much more abhor therein to continue for ever Tremble rather O my Soul at the thought of this wofull condition of the evil Angels who for one onely act of Apostasie from God are thus perpetually tormented whereas we sinfull wretches multiply many and presumptuous offences against the Majesty of our God And withall admire and magnifie that infinite Mercy to the miserable generation of man which after this holy severity of justice to the revolted Angels so graciously forbears our hainous iniquities and both suffers us to be free for the time from these hellish torments and gives us opportunity of a perfect freedome from them for ever Praise the Lord O my Soul and all that is within me praise his holy Name who forgiveth all thy sins and healeth all thine infirmities who redeemeth thy life from destruction and crowneth thee with mercy and compassions There is no time wherein the evil spirits are not tormented there is a time wherein they exspect to be tormented yet more Art thou come to torment us before our time They knew that the last Assises are the prefixed terme of their full execution which they also understood to be not yet come For though they knew not when the Day of Judgement should be a point concealed from the glorious Angels of Heaven yet they knew when it should not be and therefore they say Before the time Even the very evil spirits confesse and fearfully attend a set
corruption she receives and restores her charge I can no more withhold my body from the earth then the earth can withhold it from my Maker O God this is thy Cabinet or Shrine wherein thou pleasest to lay up the precious relicks of thy dear Saints untill the Jubilee of Glory With what confidence should I commit my self to this sure reposition whiles I know thy word just thy Power infinite IX Upon the sight of Gold melted THis Gold is both the fairest and most solid of all Metals yet is the soonest melted with the fire others as they are courser so more churlish and hard to be wrought upon by a dissolution Thus a sound and good heart is most easily melted into sorrow and fear by the sense of Gods Judgments whereas the carnal minde is stubborn and remorslesse All Metals are but earth yet some are of finer temper then others all hearts are of flesh yet some are through the power of Grace more capable of Spirituall apprehensions O God we are such as thou wilt be pleased to make us Give me a heart that may be sound for the truth of Grace and melting at the terrors of thy Law I can be for no other then thy Sanctuary on earth or thy Treasury of Heaven X. Upon the sight of a Pitcher carried THus those that are great and weak are carried by the eares up and down of Flatterers and Parasites Thus ignorant and simple hearers are carried by false and mis-zealous Teachers Yet to be carried by both eares is more safe then to be carried by one It argues an empty Pitcher to be carried by one a●one Such are they that upon the hearing of one part rashly passe their sentence whether of acquitall or censure In all disquisitions of hidden Truths a wise man will be led by the eares not carried that implies a violence of Passion over-swaying Judgement but in matter of civill occurrence and unconcerning rumor it is good to use the Eare not to trust to it XI Upon the sight of a Tree full blossomed HEre is a Tree over-laid with blossomes it is not possible that all these should prosper one of them must needs rob the other of moisture and growth I do not love to see an Infancy over-hopefull in these pregnant beginnings one Faculty starves another and at last leaves the Minde saplesse and barren As therefore we are wont to pull off some of the too-frequent blossomes that the rest may thrive so it is good wisdome to moderate the early excesse of the parts or progresse of over-forward Childhood Neither is it otherwise in our Christian profession a sudden and lavish ostentation of Grace may fill the eye with wonder and the mouth with talk but will not at the last fill the lap with fruit Let me not promise too much nor raise too high expectations of my undertakings I had rather men should complain of my small hopes then of my short performances XII Upon the report of a man suddenly struck dead in his Sin I Cannot but magnifie the Justice of God but withall I must praise his Mercy It were woe with any of us all if God should take us at advantages Alas which of us hath not committed sins worthy of a present revenge had we been also surprized in those acts where had we been O God it is more then thou owest us that thou hast waited for our Repentance it is no more then thou owest us that thou plaguest our offences The wages of Sin is Death and it is but Justice to pay due wages Blessed be thy Justice that hast made others Examples to me blessed be thy Mercy that hast not made me an Example unto others XIII Upon the view of the Heaven and the Earth WHat a strange contrariety is here The Heaven is in continuall motion and yet there is the onely place of Rest the Earth ever stands still and yet here is nothing but Unrest and unquietnesse Surely the end of that Heavenly motion is for the benefit of the Earth and the end of all these Earthly turmoils is our reposall in Heaven Those that have imagined the Earth to turn about and the Heavens to stand still have yet supposed that we may stand or sit still on that whirling Globe of earth how much more may we be perswased of our perfect Rest above those moving Sphears It matters not O God how I am vexed here below a while if ere long I may repose with thee above for ever XIV Upon occasion of a Red-brest coming into his Chamber PRetty Bird how chearfully dost thou sit and sing and yet knowest not where thou art nor where thou shalt make thy next meal and at night must shrowd thy self in a Bush for lodging What a shame is it for me that see before me so liberal provisions of my God and finde my self set warm under my own roof yet am ready to droop under a distrustfull and unthankfull dulnesse Had I so little certainty of my harbour and purveyance how heartlesse should I be how carefull how little list should I have to ●●ke musick to thee or my self Surely thou camest not hither without a Providence God sent thee not so much to delight as to shame me but all in a conviction of my s●llen unbelief who under more apparent means am lesse chearfull and confident Reason and Faith have not done so much in me as in thee mere instinct of Nature Want of fore-sight makes thee more merry if not more happy here then the foresight of better things maketh me O God thy Providence is not impaired by those Powers thou hast given me above these Brute things let not my greater helps hinder me from an holy security and comfortable reliance upon thee XV. Upon occasion of a Spider in his Window THere is no vice in man whereof there is not some Analogie in the brute Creatures As amongst us men there are Thieves by Land and Pirats by Sea that live by spoil and blood so is there in every kinde amongst them variety of natural Sharkers the Hawk in the Aire the Pike in the River the Whale in the Sea the Lion and Tiger and Wolf in the Desart the Wasp in the Hive the Spider in our Window Amongst the rest see how cunningly this little Arabian hath spred out his tent for a prey how heedfully he watches for a Passenger So soon as ever he hears the noise of a Flie afar off how he hastens to his door and if that silly heedlesse Traveller do but touch upon the verge of that unsuspected walk how suddenly doth he seize upon the miserable booty and after some strife binding him fast with those subtile cords drags the helplesse Captive after him into his cave What is this but an Embleme of those Spiritual Free-booters that lie in wait for our Souls They are the Spiders we the Flies they have spred their nets of Sin if we be once caught they binde us fast and hale us into Hell O Lord