Selected quad for the lemma: justice_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
justice_n	court_n	knight_n	sir_n	7,614	5	7.2490	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A34954	Judah's purging in the melting pot a sermon preached in the cathedral at Sarum before the Reverend Sir Robert Foster, and Sir Thomas Tirrell, Knights, judges for the western circuit, at the Wiltshire Assizes, Sept. 6, 1660 / by W. Creede ...	Creed, William, 1614 or 15-1663.	1660 (1660)	Wing C6873; ESTC R37688	31,329	49

JUDAH'S PURGING IN THE MELTING POT A SERMON Preached in the Cathedrall at SARVM before the Reverend Sir Robert Foster and Sir Thomas Tirrell Knights Judges for the Western Circuit at the Wiltshire Assizes Sept. 6. 1660. By W. CREEDE D. D. Archdeacon of Wilts and Canon Resident of Sarum Published at the speciall request of their Lordships and divers eminent Gentlemen Justices of the Peace and others LONDON Printed for R. Royston and are to be sold by John Courtney Bookseller in SARUM To the Reverend Sir ROBERT FOSTER AND Sir THOMAS TIRRELL Knights His MAjESTIES Justices of the Court of Common Pleas at Westminster Judges for the Western Circuit AND To the Honourable and Right Worshipfull the Justices of the Peace for the County of WILTS My Lords and Gentlemen THat I presume to affix your Names to this Sermon is to let the World know that as by your Favour in not forsaking our Cathedrall I had the Opportunity to Preach it so by your desire and at the Instance of divers Honourable and Worshipfull Persons Justices of the Peace and others it was committed to the Press The truth is my Lords you and those worthy Gentlemen did more then desire it You assured me as a Motive for you to ask and me to grant that it would be very useful for the Publick And this had with me the Nature of a Command because I count it my duty as a Minister of Christ to promote by all lawfull wayes the true interest of Christianity exemplary Piety Repentance Purity and Peace And as these blessed Ends wherein the Happiness and Wellfare of a Church and Nation consist have been by Gods Grace though with much Frailty and Weakness the constant Objects of my Endeavours in the work of the Ministery so now more especially since God has been pleased so miraculously to be seen in our Deliverance and happy Restauration For though Gods Judgements allwayes signally call for Repentance yet me thinks his Mercies much more because he has promised that Christs People shall be willing in the day of his power Psalm 110. in the Beauty of holiness from the womb of the Morning when the lively fruitfull Dews of Grace fall that renew the face of the Earth and make it fresh and youthful And as these times are Times of Mercy so I thought that healing Discourses were the fittest But then that the Cure might be sound and reall not Palliative and false I thought it proper at this Season the Embleme of the great Assize to search the wound unto the bottome And therefore I made choice of a Scripture not so much to teach you your Duties which I had good Reason to hope you better understood than to need my Admonition as to make my Auditory sensible of those sins that had drawn down our heavy Judgements that so laying them to heart they might leave the Magistrate less work by a Cordial Repentance and more prise Gods Mercies so miraculously bestowed on us when we had least Reason to expect them because by his Corrections we had so little been prepared for them Yet because I saw God had drawn a wonderfull Veil of Mercy between our Sins and his Judgements and that the King and his great Council were so sollicitous and carefull in Preparing and Passing so unparallell'd an Act of Grace and perpetuall Oblivion I resolved not to meddle with any Persons or Parties concerned in that Act but with the crimes of the Text and the Vices of the Nation and stil to fix on such Motives as the Text naturally suggested to make us bury our Animosities and with all Humility to adore the Hand in the Clouds and not regard the rods and the Scourges wherewith we were beaten And where in the Application I was forced to speak of the sins that had made us like Jerusalem in the Punishment I industriously confined my self to those that had been in the Melting Pot. And I have reason to bless God that the great Sufferers and prime Objects of my Discourse were so sensible of my reproofs that they gave me hearty thanks As for the rest of the Audience they were so unconcerned in my Thoughts that I could not be so uncharitable to imagine they would so much own and countenance the sins of the Text as to conceive themselves aimed at in the Description of those sins And it must be their own unchristian Imprudence if by any sinister Construction they turned that into a Satyre which I delivered a Sermon And I wish them timely to consider whether such unjust Apprehensions may not deprive them of a right to our Mercies by entitling themselves as yet to those sins that have drawn down such Judgements Yet if any Sanballats and Tobiahs still maligning the happy restauration and Building our Jerusalem and Temple will think themselves concerned when the sins so sorely threatned and sharply punished in Gods People are but named and described this wil onely argue their guilt that still stares them in the Face and will not suffer them to forget what their Brethren have resolved to bury in perpetual oblivion and they are too much like the Roman Dame whose trembling at the noyse of the Lictors whip that was the Ensign of her Sisters Honour did palpably betray the meanness of her present condition But as I thought not of any such Self-libellers as these before the Sermon was Preached so I shall less think of them now when it comes from the Press I have better work at present to praise God for his Mercies in the removal of his judgements and humbly beseech him that by the power of his Grace he would put an end to our sins lest they make us unworthy of the continuance of his mercies And as he has restored us our Judges as at the first and our Counsellors as at the beginning so he would make you my Lords and Gentlemen very eminent among those whom he has designed to dress and polish us by Justice and Judgement that so being now delivered from the hands of our enemies we may all serve God without fear in holiness and righteousness before him all the dayes of our life and becom● a faithfull City a City of Righteousness And this shall be the Prayer of My Lords and Gentlemen Your most faithfull servant in Christ Jesus WILLIAM CREEDE JUDAH'S PURGING IN THE MELTING POT Isaiah I. vers 25 26. And I will turn my hand upon thee and purely purge away thy dross and take away all thy Tinne And I will restore thy Judges as at the first and thy Counsellors as at the beginning afterward thou shalt be called the City of Righteousness the faithfull City The Context runs thus Vers 21. How is the faithfull City become an Harlot it was full of judgement righteousness lodged in it but now murderers 22. Thy silver is become dross thy wine mixt with water 23. Thy Princes are rebellious and companions of thieves every one loveth gifts and followeth after rewards they judge not the

Crucible so we were in his account in the readiest way to honour And this hints unto us our next circumstance the manner how God refines his People it is by fire and melting And 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 LXX Excoquet omnes sordes ut separa to sta●no purum argentū remaneat quod absque igne fieri non potest per quod significat eos passuros esse tormenta Hier. in loc vid. Lyram in loc I will purge and take away And though the Method be sharp yet it is for all that necessary Dross and Tin will never be got out with all the washing and scouring in the world There is nothing but the Fire can do it Who sees not but that our Corn must pass under the flaile and the Mill before it can be cleansed from the Chaff and dressed from the Bran to be Shewbread for the Sanctuary The Grapes must be tred in the wine-press and boil and work in the Fatt the Juice must be racked and drawn and imprisoned in the Cask before the Wine will be fully purified from the stone and the Husk the Must and the Lees and fitted for our Saviours drinking in his Fathers kingdome Though Israel be Gods chosen vine a plant which his Esay 5. 2. Jer. 2. 21. own right hand hath planted yet the luxuriant Branches must come under the discipline and stroke of the Pruning hook before it will be fruitfull And therefore God in Scripture is compared to a Vine-dresser a Gardener that is nothing without Esay 5. 1. the Spade and the Hough and the Pruning-knife to a Husbandman that must tear the bowels of the Earth Joh. 15 1. 1 Cor. 3. 9. with the Plough and the Harrow before he can kill the weeds and fit the soyle for the seed to a Refiner as here in the Text that is nothing without his Aqua fortis and Melting pot his fire and waters of Separation And this as it serves to represent the Sharpness of the Affliction that God often brings upon his People so it shews the deepness of their sinne and Pollution God sends not Nationall Judgements for ordinary common sins Those he leaves to the Sword of the Magistrate It is for the dross and the Tin notorious debaucheries and grosse and scandalous sins and gilded Hypocrisies that have imbodyed themselves in the pretious Metal and have run through the whole substance and overspread the whole Nation and are too big for the Law If you read in the foregoing Part of the Chapter you shall find the Princes rebellious and companions of Esay 1. 23. Thieves the Courts of Justice made Exchanges and Mercates to sell the Causes of the Poor for the Briberies of the Rich nothing but following after gifts and rewards no Judging of the Fatherless nor the Cause of the Widdow regarded The faithfull City vers 21. was become an Harlot and instead of Judgement and Righteousness nothing now but Murderers to be found in it The hands full of blood the mouth full of blasphemies and cursing and lyes the head full of covetousness and projects to gain Estates and the heart full of hypocrisie and dissembling with God and Man For still they are for the outside and cheap forms of v. 11 12 13. 14 15. devotion Much treading Gods Courts and sanctifying the Sabbaths and calling solemn Assemblies and multitude of Sacrifices and spreading forth the hands and making many prayers Their silver as it is verse the 22. was now become so drossy and embased that no Lotion was sufficient though of Fullers sope or Nitre no scouring or cleansing though of Putty and Oyle will serve the turn The Laws and Punishments of the Nation are too weak and the Preachings of the Prophets not regarded None but such active Instruments as the fire and the flame that pierce into the very substance and dissolve the Metal is sufficient for the work And this should teach us not to repine at Gods Judgements but to be angry with our sins that force as it were the Almighty against his own gracious inclination to wound and chastise us Wherefore sayes the Prophet Jeremy Lament 3. 39 40. doth a living Lam. 3. 39. 40 man complain a man for the punishment of his sins Let us search and try our wayes and turn unto the Lord our God For to our Comfort it is God will not cast us off his mercies are not clean gone even in the very midst of our Afflictions Though as it is Lament 3. 32 33. he cause grief yet will he have compassion according Lam. 3. 32 33 to the multitude of his mercies For he doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men We Esay 1. 24. see he sighs and laments and cryes * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ah when he rouzes himself to ease him of his Adversaries and avenge Plangitautem clementissimus Pater Principes delinquentes c. Hieron in loc quem vid. Lyram him of his enemies and therefore when he turns his hand upon his People we may be well assured that his strokes are onely the disciplines of a Father and the launcings of a Surgeon not the wounds of an Executioner And though he kindle a Fire about us yet it is onely to melt and refine us from our dross and our Tin and not to destroy us Which hints unto us the end of Gods Judgements the next Circumstance It is I will purely purge away thy dross and take away 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 LXX secund M. S. Angl. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Symmach in Drusii Fragment Veter Interpr Grae. in Esai pag. 286. all thy Tin Though their sinful Condition requires this sharp Artifice yet is there mercy in this fiery tryal Though it purge out the dross and Tin yet the fire is a kind of Lambent flame to purifie the precious Metal not consume it The Gold like that of † Exod. 32. 24. Aaron is cast into the fornace that it come forth a statue but not like that which † vers 22. ● Moses cast there that by a strange * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Arist l. 3. Meteor c 6. unheard of Chymistry was calcined and ground to Powder for a final abolition I know O Lord sayes David Psal 119. 75. that thy Judgements are right and that thou in faithfullness hast afflicted me Whatsoever Carnal men may think it is a mercy to be in the Melting Pot. Afflictions make us know our selves our sins our God Before I was afflicted I Psal 119. 67. went wrong sayes David but now have I kept thy word And he observes it of Israel a whole Nation Psal Psal 78 34. 78. 34. When he slew them they sought him and returned and enquired early after God And therefore sayes Solomon the fining pot is for Prov. 17. 3. silver and the fornace for Gold and the Lord tryeth the heart And how is that Let Malachi tell you Mal. 3. 3● c. 3.