Selected quad for the lemma: hand_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
hand_n	david_n	king_n	saul_n	6,232	5	10.0779	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A61626	Sermons preached on several occasions to which a discourse is annexed concerning the true reason of the sufferings of Christ : wherein Crellius his answer to Grotius is considered / by Edward Stillingfleet ...; Sermons. Selections	Stillingfleet, Edward, 1635-1699.	1673 (1673)	Wing S5666; ESTC R14142	389,972	404

Priesthood any pretence for Rebellion But all these pretences would not serve to make them escape the severe hand of divine justice for in an extraordinary and remarkable manner he made them suffer the just desert of their sin for they perished in their contradiction which is the next thing to be considered viz. 2. The Iudgement which was inflicted upon them for it They had provoked Heaven by their sin and disturbed the earth by their Faction and the earth as if it were moved with indignation against them trembled and shook as Iosephus saith like waves that are tossed with a mighty wind and then with a horrid noise it rends asunder and opens its mouth to swallow those in its bowels who were unfit to live upon the face of it They had been dividing the people and the earth to their amazement and ruine divides it self under their feet as though it had been designed on purpose that in their punishment themselves might feel and others see the mischief of their sin Their seditious principles seemed to have infected the ground they stood upon the earth of a sudden proves as unquiet and troublesome as they but to rebuke their madness it was only in obedience to him who made it the executioner of his wrath against them and when it had done its office it is said that the earth closed upon them and they perished from among the Congregation Thus the earth having revenged it self against the disturbers of its peace Heaven presently appears with a flaming fire taking vengeance upon the 250. men who in opposition to Aaron had usurped the Priestl office in offering incense before the Lord. Such a Fire if we believe the same Historian which far outwent the most dreadful eruptions of Aetna or Vesuvius which neither the art of man nor the power of the wind could raise which neither the burning of Woods nor Cities could parallel but such a Fire which the wrath of God alone could kindle whose light could be outdone by nothing but the heat of it Thus Heaven and Earth agree in the punishment of such disturbers of Government and God by this remarkable judgement upon them hath left it upon record to all ages that all the world may be convinced how displeasing to him the sin of faction and sedition is For God takes all this that was done against Moses and Aaron as done against himself For they are said to be gathered together against the Lord v. 11. to provoke the Lord v. 30. And the fire is said to come out from the Lord v. 35. And afterwards it is said of them This is that Dathan and Abiram who strove against Moses and against Aaron in the company of Corah when they strove against the Lord. By which we see God interprets striving against the Authority appointed by him to be a striving against himself God looks upon himself as immediately concerned in the Government of the world for by him Princes raign and they are his Vicegerents upon earth and they who resist resist not a meer appointment of the people but an Ordinance of God and they who do so shall in the mildest sense receive a severe punishment from him Let the pretences be never so popular the persons never so great and famous nay though they were of the great Council of the Nation yet we see God doth not abate of his severity upon any of these considerations This was the first formed sedition that we read of against Moses the people had been murmuring before but they wanted heads to manage them Now all things concur to a most dangerous Rebellion upon the most popular pretences of Religion and Liberty and now God takes the first opportunity of declaring his hatred of such actions that others might hear and fear and do no more so presumptuously This hath been the usual method of divine Judgements the first of the kind hath been most remarkably punished in this life that by it they may see how hateful such things are to God but if men will venture upon them notwithstanding God doth not always punish them so much in this world though he sometimes doth but reserves them without repentance to his Justice in the world to come The first man that sinned was made an example of Gods Justice The first world the first publick attempt against Heaven at Babel after the plantation of the world again the first Cities which were so generally corrupted after the flood the first breaker of the Sabbath after the Law the first offerers with strange fire the first lookers into the Ark and here the first popular Rebellion and Usurpers of the office of Priesthood God doth hereby intend to preserve the honour of his Laws he gives men warning enough by one examplary punishment and if notwithstanding that they will commit the same sin they may thank themselves if they suffer for it if not in this life yet in that to come And that good effect this Judgement had upon that people that although the next day 14000. suffered for murmuring at the destruction of these men yet we do not find that any Rebellion was raised among them afterwards upon these popular pretences of Religion and the Power of the People While their Judges continued who were Kings without the state and title of Kings they were observed with reverence and obeyed with diligence When afterwards they desired a King with all the Pomp and Grandeur which other Nations had which Samuel acquaints them with viz. the officers and Souldiers the large Revenues he must have though their King was disowned by God yet the people held firm in their obedience to him and David himself though anointed to be King persecuted by Saul and though he might have pleaded Necessity and Providence as much any ever could when Saul was strangely delivered into his hands yet we see what an opinion he had of the person of a bad King The Lord forbid that I should do this thing against my Master the Lords Anointed to stretch forth my hand against him seeing he is the Anointed of the Lord. And lest we should think it was only his Modesty or his Policy which kept him from doing it he afterwards upon a like occasion declares it was only the sin of doing it which kept him from it For who can stretch forth his hand against the Lords Anointed and be guiltless Not as though David could not do it without the power of the Sanhedrin as it hath been pretended by the Sons of Corah in our age for he excepts none he never seizes upon him to carry him prisoner to be tryed by the Sanhedrin nor is there any foundation for any such power in the Sanhedrin over the persons of their Soveraigns It neither being contained in the grounds of its institution nor any precedent occurring in the whole story of the Bible which gives the least countenance to it Nay

several passages of Scripture utterly overthrow it for how could Solomon have said Where the word of a King is there is power and who may say unto him what dost thou If by the constitution of their Government the Sanhedrin might have controlled him in what he said or did But have not several of the modern Iews said so Granting that some have yet so they have spoken many unreasonable and foolish things besides but yet none of these have said that it was in the power of the Sanhedrin to depose their Kings or put them to death all that they say is that in the cases expressed by the Law if the Kings do transgress the Sanhedrin had the power of inflicting the penalty of scourging which yet they deny to have had any infamy in it among them But did not David transgress the Law in his murder and adultery did not Solomon in the multitude of his wives and Idolatry yet where do we read that the Sanhedrin ever took cognisance of these things And the more ancient Iews do say that the King was not to be judged as is plain in the Text of the Misna however the Expositors have taken a liberty to contradict it but as far as we can find without any foundation of reason and R. Ieremiah in Nachmanides saith expresly That no creature may judge the King but the holy and blessed God alone But we have an Authority far greater than his viz. of Davids in this case who after he hath denied that any man can stretch forth his hand against the Lords Anointed and be guiltless In the very next words he submits the judgement of him only to God himself saying As the Lord liveth the Lord shall smite him or his day shall come to die or he shall descend into battel and perish He thought it sufficient to leave the judgement of those things to God whose power over Princes he knew was enough if well considered by them to keep them in awe We have now dispatched the first consideration of the words of the Text as they relate to the fact of Corah and his company 2. We ought now to enquire whether the Christian Doctrine hath made any alteration in these things or whether that gives any greater encouragement to faction and sedition than the Law did when it is masked under a pretence of zeal for Religion and Liberty But it is so far from it that what God then declared to be displeasing to him by such remarkable judgements hath been now more fully manifested by frequent precepts and vehement exhortations by the most weighty arguments and the constant practice of the first and the best of Christians and by the black character which is set upon those who under a pretence of Christian Liberty did despise dominion and speak evil of dignities and follow Corah in his Rebellion however they may please themselves with greater light than former ages had in this matter they are said to be such for whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever It would take up too much time to examine the frivolous evasions and ridiculous distinctions by which they would make the case of the Primitive Christians in not resisting Authority so much different from theirs who have not only done it but in spight of Christianity have pleaded for it Either they said they wanted strength or courage or the countenance of the Senate or did not understand their own Liberty when all their obedience was only due to those precepts of the Gospel which make it so great a part of Christianity to be subject to Principalities and Powers and which the Teachers of the Gospel had particularly given them in charge to put the people in mind of And happy had it been for us if this Doctrine had been more sincerely preached and duly practised in this Nation for we should then never have seen those sad times which we can now no otherwise think of than of the devouring Fire and raging Pestilence i. e. of such dreadful judgements which we have smarted so much by that we heartily pray we may never feel them again For then fears and jealousies began our miseries and the curse so often denounced against Meroz fell upon the whole Nation When the Sons of Corah managed their own ambitious designs against Moses and Aaron the King and the Church under the same pretences of Religion and Liberty And when the pretence of Religion was broken into Schisms and Liberty into oppression of the people it pleased God out of his secret and unsearchable judgements to suffer the Sons of Violence to prevail against the Lords Anointed and then they would know no difference between his being conquered and guilty They could find no way to justifie their former wickedness but by adding more The consciousness of their own guilt and the fears of the punishment due to it made them unquiet and thoughtful as long as his life and presence did upbraid them with the one and made them fearful of the other And when they found the greatness and constancy of his mind the firmness of his Piety the zeal he had for the true interest of the people would not suffer him to betray his Trust for the saving of his life they charge him with their own guilt and make him suffer because they had deserved to do it And as if it had not been enough to have abused the names of Religion and Liberty before they resolve to make the very name of Iustice to suffer together with their King by calling that infamous company who condemned their Soveraign A High Court of Iustice which trampled under foot the Laws both of God and men But lest the world should imagine they had any shame left in their sins they make the people witnesses of his Murther and pretend the Power of the People for doing that which they did detest and abhor Thus fell our Royal Martyr a sacrifice to the fury of unreasonable men who either were so blind as not to see his worth or rather so bad as to hate him for it And as God gave once to the people of the Iews a King in his Anger being provoked to it by their sins we have cause to say that upon the same account he took away one of the best of Kings from us in his wrath But blessed be that God who in the midst of judgement was pleased to remember mercy in the miraculous preservation and glorious restauration of our Gratious Soveraign let us have a care then of abusing the mercies of so great a deliverance to quite other ends than God intended it for lest he be provoked to say to us as he did of old to the Iews But if ye shall still do wickedly ye shall be consumed both ye and your King And if we look on this as a dreadful judgement let us endeavour to prevent it by a timely and sincere reformation of