Selected quad for the lemma: glory_n
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A59579
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Tanḥumim, or, Divine comforts antidoting inward perplexities of mind in a discourse upon Psal. XCIV, ver. 19 / by T. Sharp ... ; with some short remarks upon the author.
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Sharp, Thomas, 1633-1693.
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Wing S3007; ESTC R15146
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256,568
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his Children such like Mercy was promised but three Psalms before viz. Psal 91. throughout so Psal 12.7 8. Psal 37. Is 26.20 21 c. and many other Places God reserves some in safety to behold the destruction of Persecutors has a Zoar for a Lot a Pella for the Christians c. If this were not so all Good Men might be extinct and the Gates of Hell prevail against the Church of Christ 'T is also upon good reason For the end of Affliction is Reformation If God meet with so good Proficients under his instructive Discipline as will and do learn every Lesson he teaches there will be no need of the Rod and he who does not afflict willingly will not bring into these Trials except need be 1 Pet. 1.6 But this I will no further insist upon Let the English Translation then obtain and it gives us this Point That in the sense of the Psalmist 't was a blessed thing to be under God's correcting Discipline or instructive Chastenings as a means to prepare for rest when Instruments of Divine Severity were to be destroyed Rest in this World when Judgment returns to Righteousness and the Vpright follow it and especially in the World to come when all the Wicked shall be lodged in the Pit of Hell For the days of Eternity are to the Wicked days of Adversity indeed and to enjoy Everlasting Rest then is a Blessing unutterable This good Man saw nothing in Affliction that could make a Man unhappy He entertain'd such a favourable opinion of God's rigours to his Children that beholding by Faith the good and happy fruit of them he admires the Blessedness of those to whom so great Evils issue so well and therefore we may justly suppose would not be discourag'd by the bitterness of the Cross nor driven by it to an unwillingness to consort himself with the suffering People of God Would not he put in for his share of that Blessedness which descended from Heaven though it cost him a participation of that wretchedness which was the product of the Rage and Fury of the World Chusing rather to suffer Affliction with the People of God than to enjoy the pleasures of Sin for a season as having respect to the Recompence of Reward everlasting Blessedness and Rest with Moses Heb. 11. And indeed this is an admirable Comfort in all Tribulations to consider that there is a reserve of eternal Joy and Peace the sweetest the fullest that there are Blessednesses the Blessedness of this Life the Blessedness of the Life to come laid up in store for the Servants of God though accursed by Men in this World If together with the Rod that we feel he administer a Word that we may hear Mic. 6.9 and under his Corrections seal our Instructions if by his Providences he subdue our Wills to his Precepts and by the sadness of our Countenances make our Hearts better if he discover to us the sunshine of his Favour and Love through the dark cloud of Affliction and bring down a Heaven of Happiness or Blessedness to alleviate the tormenting Purgatory of our Tribulations whether from Men or Devils this sure will bow our Hearts to such a degree of aequanimous submission and resignedness to God that we shall not only sit down in a patient and quiet Contentation but be able to rejoyce in the good pleasure of his Goodness although we smart under it and he that is replenished with Content and Joy is never destitute of Consolation Be not then displeased O my Soul that thy Father in Heaven brings thee under the discipline of his Family on Earth If thy Afflictions be light do not despise or make light of them if they be heavy and grievous do not faint under them Blessedness is a thing of so weighty Consideration so great Moment that 't is madness to forfeit it by slighting an evil of little moment folly to reject all support from it under a burthen more intolerable Let the gracious designs of Heaven reconcile thee to the very Antipathies of thy Nature and render all those divine Methods not only supportable but easie and amiable which have a tendency to endear God and Holiness although for the present they do not administer matter of Joy but Sorrow Heb. 12.11 The peaceable Fruits of Righteousness will abundantly compensate the grievousness of all Calamities wherefore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 lift up straight right the Hands that hang down and the feeble Knees Stretch out thy self Heaven-ward to apprehend and reach by Faith those unconceivable Pleasures and Joys wherein the Miseries of this Life will issue if thou makest not visible but invisible things thy scope in this World Thy Sin or Guilt which merits thy Sufferings is indeed sinful 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. beyond all bounds of Thought and Imagination that thy highest Conceptions cannot overshoot in their Notions of its real evil in it self Let it be to thee proportionably grievous But these Fruits of thy Sins viz. thy Sufferings if thou live by Faith upon Invisibles will work for thee an eternal weight of Glory 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from hyperbole even unto hyperbole that the glory in its superlative excellency does doubly transcend the unfathomable malignity that is in Sin and infinitely overshoot the bitterness in the Affliction the weight of Glory being commensurate to its Eternity 2 Cor. 4.17 The transient momentany lightness of our Affliction worketh out for us an above all expression conception comparison eternal weight of Glory Will not the reviews hereof engage thee O my Soul with a kind and dutiful resentment to accept of the punishment of thy Sin and exterminate all harsh and unbecoming Conceptions of that God whose hatred to thy Sin evidenced in his severe Providences is alway accompanied with a singular love to thy Person whose Eternal Salvation he would compass by the everlasting destruction of thy Sin Oh be thou ambitious to demonstrate thy self a good disposition'd Child under that nurture of Love wherein he evidences himself to be a tender hearted Father Is it only a gentle Correction not eternal Damnation the desert of thy Sin Is it only a profitable Medicine though it might have been Poyson thy final bane and ruin Is it only the scarifying a gangrenated Limb which might have been the scalding and burning for ever of both Body and Soul in unquenchable Fire unappeasable Wrath Oh love the Lord for the mitigation for the transmutation of thy Penance That thou art in a state where thy Sufferings may be sanctified therefore are in Mercy where they may be terminated therefore are no ground of Desperation where they may be recompenced and shall undoubtedly issue in endless Blessedness if thy stubbornness and non-improvement hinder not Take it well and kindly at those gracious Hands that draw the flaming Sword and turn it every way against thy Corruptions which shut thee out and this on purpose that thou mayst be received by the Lord Pure and Innocent into
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Just 'T is the Office of Justice to take notice in all its proceedings of Right and Wrong but if the Right approve its reality 't is no Work of Justice to take Cognizance how we came by it whether it be natural Inheritance or personal Acquisition whether our own indefeisible Possession or anothers free Donation these are things Foreign and out of the Circuit of Justice Right must carry it whatever be the Foundation of it whatever be the Nature of it whatever Title it proceeds upon For no Varieties in the Right alter the Justice of the Procedure nor convert Justice into Injustice or any other thing The very Essence and Formal Nature of Justice as Distributive consists in dispensing Right Whereever that is the Act is formally Justice and nothing else although some other Vertue may have an antecedent Influence in forming the Right So here No Man hath a Natural Personal Right to that everlasting Rest neither do the best Services of the most perfect Creatures Angel Archangel Cherubim Seraphim found a right to it able in the nature of the thing to command and necessarily over-rule strict Justice so as 't would be Injustice properly so called to withhold or deny it For Heavenly Glory in its full Latitude which I understand by that Rest is a thing boundlesly above the Proportion of any finite Qualities or Operations Those ever Blessed Spirits are doubtlesly incapable of exerting any Acts that in Arithmetical Proportion can be as considerable and valuable as the Reciprocal Actings of the Deity that are return'd upon them For instance those flaming Ardours of Love in Seraphims which denominate them cannot in the Estimate of Reason and Justice be conceiv'd equally valuable with those reactions of Love in the Deity to them Certainly God loves them better than they can possibly love him and his Love rays out to them in infinite more Varieties than theirs can to him and the least degree of his Love is more honourable and worthy than the highest of theirs So that in Commutative Justice they cannot expect his for theirs especially since theirs is this due and the Payment of a Debt cannot make the Creditor a Debtor I have a Conceit but will not impose it that the Devils sin was not an aspiring to a Coaequality or Superiority to his Creator which his Innocent nay even Corrupt Understanding could not but represent as impossible impracticable therefore not designable But rather a challenge and expectation of those Honours from his Maker as due in Commutative Justice to the Excellencies and Actions which he admired in himself and would have had his Inferiours to adore Whence in that Kingdom of the Beast which he established and upholds this is or has been a principal Pillar though now painted over a new and is indeed the Universal Sentiment of all in whose disobedient hearts he retains the Dominion which he usurpt upon the Fall Even good Souls have a difficult Work to disengage themselves from it However 't is madness to conceit that the imperfect Duties or Graces of the lapsed Sons of Adam can stand in a Parity with Coelestial Recompences Nay the Proportion cannot amount to the heighth of that call'd Geometrical proper to distributive Justice which consists in a likeness of Reason For can there be any comparison betwixt finite and infinite imperfect and perfect temporal and eternal Can any say as the Work to the Wage so is Duty to Heaven The Right then here stands upon another bottom than the reason of the thing and that is the free investiture and gift of Sovereign Love and Mercy by a voluntary Grant and Covenant 'T is not common Soccage but Copy hold only Yet on the other hand Hell and Sin stand more in a Parity or equal Proportion There is full as much evil in the Sin as in the Punishment though not as much good in the Duty as in the Reward The demerit of Sin is unlimitable the Treasures of Wrath and Woe comprehended in it are inexhaustible therefore eternal 'T is just then to recompence Tribulation to the wicked because their Works merit it Just to recompence Rest to the godly not because their Works merit it but because free Grace hath promised it Neh. 9.8 And hast performed thy Words for thou art Righteous God cannot be just to the Wicked if he reward not their Works he cannot be just to himself to his own Word and Covenant if he reward not the Works he hath wrought in the Righteous Now even Troubles and Afflictions are less grievous if recompence may be hoped for upon good and sure Grounds If our Miseries become Antidotes to greater Miseries it encourages our Patience if they Work out greater Mercies it increases our Courage and so our Comfort The gain sweetens the pain and we are not so much offended with our Crosses as pleased with the Compensation The World is as a Lottery for a while we must draw nothing but Blanks or what will more grievously vex disquiet or torment us but the last cast will pay for all to our fullest Contentation if we belong to God's Election For this light Affliction which is but for a moment works for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory 2 Cor. 4.17 The happiness of the recompence of Reward is a thing of so transcendent Nature that even the serious Thoughts of it may entertain us with more abundant Joy than there can be Grief in the feeling it self of the bitterest Sufferings The Antepasts or Foretasts of Heaven are incomparably a greater delight than the very sense of Misery can be a Torment Therefore sure these exceeding glorious Riches of Coelestial Satisfactions will be an all-sufficient Requital for all the labour of Love the patience of Hope and work of Faith that we exert in this Semibrief moment of our transitory Life And it is no small Comfort to consider that the Fidelity of God has made these Gratuities Justice by making them the subject Matter of so many gracious Promises that what otherwise was mere liberty is now necessity and God by vertue of these his Bonds is become a Debtor to God Oh rich Treasury of strong Consolations God's grace having so ordered it not only that he may but that he must give the penitently troubled Soul in his own way and time the sweetest Peace Comfort and Rest It may indeed be delay'd but never can be finally deny'd and this we owe chiefly to the Justice of God his sweetest Perfection through Christ and the Covenant to an humbled Soul But there are also external Administrations of Justice which are of a refreshing consideration and such did the Psalmist reflect upon and solace himself withal Vers 1 2 15 23. Vindictive Justice is a notable relief to the Oppressed and the sweetness of Revenge a potent Cordial To see those suffer from whom we suffer and the Wicked fall into the trap and snare they lay for us does not a little glad us especially if it