Selected quad for the lemma: hand_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
hand_n	behold_v	lord_n	see_v	5,856	5	3.6061	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A54342	Helps to the assurance of God's love whereby a true believer may with the help of Gods good spirit know that he had a being in the love of God before he had a being in the world : to which is added a spiritual touch-stone for the tryal of the sincerity of our love to God / by Samuel Pack.	Pack, Samuel.	1673 (1673)	Wing P150; ESTC R26175	21,542	70

hatred of sin now my friends see if it be so with you doth your love to God thus manifest it self But if it be otherwise with thee instead of hateing sin you love it instead of making communion with God your end in duty you make self pride and vain glory your end If instead of letting your thoughts dwell upon God you are dwelling upon the world and vanity you can have but little well-grounded hopes that you love God and consequently that God loves you for saith the Apostle we love him because he first loved us in which words we have first an effect Secondly a cause the effect is our love to God we love him Secondly the cause God loves us and saith Jesus Christ the Wisedome of the father I love them that love me we must not think the meaning of the holy Ghost in that Scripture is to make our love to God the cause of Gods love to us but the evidence of it Now my friends I beseech you gather up all again and see whether you can experience in your own souls that you have a true knowledge of God and the gifts and graces of the Spirit of God and whether this love of God doth constrain thee to duty And whether thou art a fruit-baring Christian and doest in the place in which God hath put thee endeavour to bring others to God and examine thine unsatiable desires after more of this love of God and examine whither God doth sanctify afflictions unto thee and give thee communion with himself in duty and art thou made willing to suffer for God and art thou made to hate sin and hath God destroy'd thy enemies which are thy sins and see if thou hast received spiritual life from God and hast a Sincere love to God Now to conclude if thou findest none of these markes in thy soul of Gods love thy case is sad I would not be in thy Condition for ten thousand worlds yet though I would discourage thee from going on in thy Sin because a constant persisting in a course of Sin is a dreadful Sign of Gods hatred yet I dare not discourage thee in thy attendance on the means of grace because those are Gods lattices through which he does flourish himself Can. 2.9 Or as we have it translated shew himself unto poor souls therefore thou that canst experience nothing of the love of God I beseech thee as thou tendrest the good of thy precious and immortal soul be constant in attending on the means of grace thou knowest not how soon God may dart in such beams of his love to thy soul through the thick glass of Gospel ordinances as may make thee cry out with the spouse stay me with Flagons strew me a bed with Apples for I am sick of Love And for you that can say you have had experience of the love of God and can say of a truth that Christ hath kissed you with the kisses of his Lips and that his left Arm hath been under your neck and his right Arm hath imbraced you you that can say that the time was when You did sit under the banner of my beloved with great delight and his fruit was sweet to your tast you that can say that the time was when God did flourish himself unto your Souls through the Lattice and the Sun of Righteousness did shine upon your Tabernacle That God did so manifest himself unto your Souls in all or most of his Ordinances that it may be you did not know whether you were in the body or out of the body as Paul saith your hearts have been forewarned and affected with the presence of God by the influence of his Spirit Now it may be you walk in darkness and have no light instead of that sweet communion you had with God in duty it may be there may be nothing but deadness and dulness of heart and indisposition of Soul to duty It may be instead of that shining in of Gods love unto your Souls you may with Job apprehend God to be your Enemy and be ready to say that God doth set a print on your Heels and on your Feet and sew up your iniquities in a bag and seal up your sins Job 13.24 26 27. you that could formerly say with David come and see what God hath done for my Soul it may be are now ready to say with Job have pity upon as oh our friends for the hand of the Lord is upon us Job 19 21. and with the Church in the Lamentations Is it nothing to you all you that pass by Behold and see if there be any sorrow like my sorrow Lam. 1.12 which is done unto me wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce Wrath. Oh wo is 〈◊〉 us for the Day of Comfort and Consolation is passing away and the shadows of the evening and morning are stretched out Now poor souls you that are thu● in Hell upon Earth for want o● comfort and consolation from Heaven give me leave to speak two or three words to you in order to the reducing you to you former comfortable estate yo● that are thus afflicted and to●sed with Tempest and not comforted it will be your prudenc● and it doth highly concern you to take notice what wind hat● brought this Tempest which ha● filled your Souls with such clouds of despondencies for either the East Wind of sinful Security or the North Wind of pinching Adversity or the South Wind of unsanctified Prosperity has undoubtedly raised these storms in your Souls which for some time and in some measure make an interposition between the comfortable rayes of the Light of Gods Countenance and thy poor soul For the first see if the east wind of sinful security hath not raised this Tempest of dejection and despondency though God doeth greatly delight to secure his people from the God of this world yet his people will find but small comfort in their sinful security before God whilst they be in this World though God doeth so watch over a believer that he shall never be overcome by temptations yet for want of watchfulness in a believer God may suffer him to be exposed to Temptation though a true believer cannot lose the God of comfort and consolation yet he may for a time lose the comfort and consolation of his God if the blasting East wind of carnal security make the ears thin and empty no wonder if thou art not filled with the south wind of comfort and consolation if David and Peter think their mountain so strong that they shall not be moved to deny the Fountain of their Comfort and Consolation God will most certainly deny them for a time the Comforts from the Fountain Again in the next place see if the south wind of unsanctified prosperity have not blown up these storms of sanctifiing Adversity for Gods end in imbittering our beloved outward enjoyments by denying us his comforting presence is to make his consolations more sweet unto us and

us more earnestly to labour after the enjoyment of them when Gods beloved ones have too much delight in and too much love to the world so as to undervalue the heavenly manna of Gods love then the God of love will manifest his delight in and love to his people in leaveing them as to his comforting presence with the prodigal to seed upon the husks of outward injoyments till they are brought to see the incongruity that is between the empty inticeing transitory vanity of this World and their sublime and immortal Souls which can receive no real comfort from or any satisfactory delight or complacency in any thing but what is of its own nature For 〈◊〉 the soul of a believer meerly as it is a Creature is an immortal substance and the very breath of God and therefore no wonder though the creature find such an insufficiency of comfort in all outward injoyments they being so much below and unsuitable to its nature And that I take to be the reason why Solomon saith Prov. 14.13 that in the midst of laughter the heart may be sad the fading earthy mortal body may laugh in the injoyment of fading earthly momentany things and yet the heart and soul may be sad for want of something of its own nature for to take delight and complacency in Now let us draw to Conclusion in a word there must be an assimulation between the Object of delight and the Subject delighting it self in that object As for example a fish of a cold and moyst nature delights in the passive element of water being of its own nature But the Salamander being of a fiery nature delights in the active element of fire So a true believer being a new creature born of God by regeneration cannot but mourn in the bitterness of his soul when it does consider how the fleshy part has prevailed against his Spiritual part being off from his watch as with Michal to send away his blessed King David as to his comforting presence and have left nothing but an Image of outward Injoyments in the room thereof And if Gods beloved Sampsons will be solaceing of themselves in the laps of the deceitful Dalilahs you can expect nothing but that those sweet Syrene-like songs should end in the shipwrack of their spiritual Joys Having provoked God to deliver them up with Sampson to the Philistins to cut off the seven locks of their spiritual strength and leave them in the hands of their spiritual enemies that will by filling of their Souls with horror and vexation of Spirit do their utmost to keep those from heaven whilst they live which they see they cannot keep from heaven when they dye And now I come to the North wind of affliction which does often make Gods Davids cry out I have cleansed my heart in vain and with Gods Jobs to look upon outward afflictions to be signs of Gods anger and displeasure whereas indeed as well the North Wind of sanctified afflictions as the South Wind of sanctified prosperity blowing upon our gardens will make our spices flow forth will make us to be much in exercising the gifts and graces of the spirit of God in us Now soul see which of these winds it is that has blown up this dreadful storm in thy soul if it be the East Wind of sinful security or the South Wind of unsanctified prosperity or the North Wind of adversity And indeed as sin is the meritorious cause of affliction so affliction makes a soul apprehend it self to be a greater sinner than others when it is more afflicted than others And the Devil has a great hand in this for as he perswades the● that their prosperitis is a sign of Gods love so he perswades Gods people that afflictions are signs of Gods hatred If the people of God did but know the gracious end God has in afflicting them they would never look upon them to be signs of his displeasure For Gods ends in afflicting his people are to glorify his wisdom in their Direction and his holiness in their Sanctification and his power in their Supportation and Preservation and that they might be more conformable to Christ their head and that they may hate sin the more and contemn the world the more and long after heaven the more and that they may be in the better capacities to sympathize with Gods people in their suffering when they are under the like afflictions and to make heaven the sweeter to them by makeing the world bitter Now soul thou that art under these clouds and tossed with these tempests and not comforted be sure to look often into the waters of the sanctuary upon the bended knees of thy soul and there thou shall see the Comet that has made the interposition between the shineing rayes of Gods love and thy poor soul and when thou hast found out this Achan that troubles the camp that made thee flee before the men of Aie and after thou hast conquered Jericho and by Gods ministers sounding of the Gospel-Trumpet beat down the walls of the cursed Jericho of the Kingdom of darkness in thy soul when thou hast found out the Achan that would preserve any of the cursed thing be unpotant with thy blessed Joshuah which brings his true Israel into the land of promise that he would pass the sentence of death on this thee vish Achan that first stole thy heart from the God of comfort and consolation and then stole from thee the sweet consolations of thy God Oh soul let not the Silver or Gold of worldly-mindedness which lies hid in the midst of Achans tent let not any external profit that thy sin may bring thee in make Achan faire ever the better but seek diligently for it for it lyes hid in the midst of the tent where it might be the least suspected see if Achan has not been a troubler to thee by stealing something else besides the wedg of Gold see if he has not got a cloak of Shinar or a Babylonish garment of self-righteousness My meaning is this look diligently into thy heart see if thou art not ready to be prideing of thy self in thy dutys and having had great Inlargements in prayer art thou not ready to think that that duty as it comes from thee is more likely to find acceptance with God than those poor broken expressions of thy friend whom it may be thou contemnest as not having such abilities as thou hast Now soul if thou canst find this in thy heart then thou mayst say there is the Babylonish garment which the old man the unregenerate part the cursed Achan has stole and by which God was provoked against thee but if thou canst say of a truth upon serious self-examination that it is otherwise with thee and that thy heart doeth not condemn thee of stealing these wedges of gold that thou hast not an inordinate love to the world that thou hast not stole the Babylonish garment of spiritual pride in duty and