Selected quad for the lemma: justice_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
justice_n	punish_v	punishment_n	sin_n	7,494	5	5.5732	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A44456	A sermon preached before the Right Honourable the Lord Mayor, aldermen and citizens of the city of London, in the parish church of S. Mary le Bow, September 3, 1683 being the day of humiliation for the late dreadfull fire / by William Hopkins ...	Hopkins, William, 1647-1700.	1683 (1683)	Wing H2754; ESTC R17537	23,331	39

Natural whether they be good or bad yet those Societies themselves will cease with this world and cannot be punished in the next Now there concur two very different causes to the punishment of Sinners viz. The Righteousness of God and their own Unrighteousness The latter justly meriting those calamities which the former inflicts So that in every sad Providence we must acknowledge the just hand of God lifted up against us and recompensing the evil works of our own hands upon us 1. In all our Sufferings we must behold the righteous hand of God by whose Providence afflictions befall sinfull men For as Eliphaz saith Job V. 6. Affliction cometh not forth out of the dust nor doth trouble spring out of the ground The most inconsiderable and seemingly contingent events Matt. XI 29. Prov. XVI 33. such as the fall of a Sparrow or the turn of a die are under the government of Divine Providence And therefore it must needs be much more interessed in what befalls so noble a creature as Man nay great Societies of men The Calamities of Cities and Kingdoms must not be imputed to mere chance nor may we think that God is no farther concerned with them than by his general concourse with the immediate and second causes of them If we suffer by Fire or by Sea by immoderate Rain or Drought we must behold these as scourges in God's hand If we are punished either by War or Pestilence we must esteem both our Enemies and the destroying Angel God's Ministers and the Executioners of his just though fierce 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 wrath He makes the creatures his weapons for vengeance on his enemies Wisd V. 18. If the Sea overflow its banks and drown a Countrey it 's by God's commission that the Ocean enlarges its Territories and swallows up a sinfull Land If Famine afflict a Nation whether the immediate causes be excessive drought or rains know that it is the Lord who breaks the staff of bread Ezek. V. 16. who sendeth unseasonable rain and withholdeth it in its season If the Pestilence rage in a City and consume its Inhabitants this evil also is of the Lord. If we undergo the miseries of War and our Enemies prevail over us we must remember Isa XXXIV 6. that it is the sword of the Lord that is in their hands and fills it self with our bloud They shall know that I am the LORD when I put MY SWORD into the hand of the King of Babylon Ezek. XXX 25. It is the Lord of hosts that pleads with us by the Sword and sells us into the hands of our enemies because we have sold our selves to work wickedness If the Fire consume our dwellings and lay our Cities in Ashes the Prophet tells us that God pleads with sinfull flesh by fire as well as by the sword Isai LXVI 16. Hos VIII 14. He sendeth fire upon our Cities and flames to devour our Palaces In short by whatever hands we suffer by whatever instruments he pleases to afflict us we must hear the rod and consider who hath appointed it Mich. VI. 9. We must acknowledge our sufferings to be from God and the chastisement of our sins 2. Whilst we behold God as the Authour of our calamities we must ascribe them to his Justice A Deo quidem punimur sed ipsi facimus ut puniamur Salvian de Gub. Dei l. 8. and not forget that the cause of our sufferings is in our selves For God would not inflict them did not we both need and deserve them The wrath of God is never revealed but against the ungodliness and unrighteousness of men And even when his hand is heaviest upon us Ezra IX 13. Job XI 6. Psal CIII 10. our punishments are much lighter than our iniquities deserve There had been no such thing as Vengeance belonging to God but for the Wickedness of his Rebellious creatures Sin and Punishment are as nearly related as the Cause and Effect and the latter in the very notion of it implies the former For no suffering is properly a punishment unless inflicted for Sin Hence in the language of the Holy Scriptures to bear sin or iniquity signifies to be punished or put to death for it Exod. xxviij 43. Levit. XXIV 15 16. And Christ is said to bear the sins of many i. e. in their punishment Isa LIII 11 12. When a man is punished for his Sins he is said to eat the fruit of his ways Prov. I. 31. to be recompensed according to his deeds and the works of his own hands Jer. XXV 14. and to possess his iniquity Job XIII 26. All which forms of speech import our sins to be the meritorious and impulsive cause of our calamities And as we must acknowledge the Justice of God in our sufferings so must we likewise own his goodness his wisedom and fatherly care of us In our present lapsed condition in this state of Sin and Frailty Rev. III. 19. Heb. XII 5. he would not truly love us should he not when he sees it necessary rebuke and chasten us Should he not visit our transgressions with the rod Psal Lxxxix 32 33 34. and our iniquity with stripes we might have just ground to fear that he had utterly taken his loving-kindness from us and was about to break his Covenant It will neither consist with the Honour of his Justice and Wisedom nor yet with his Love to us that we should be permitted to sin without punishment I know some men refer all to irrespective Decrees or tell us that vindictive Justice is natural to God and that he must sacrifice some of his creatures in Hell fire to the honour of that Attribute Nay that he hath foredamned the greatest part of mankind by mere Prerogative and purely for the exercise of his Sovereign Power But this account of God differs infinitely from that he gives us of himself in the Holy Scriptures They represent him mercifull and gracious long-suffering and abundant in goodness and truth Exod. xxxiv 6 7. keeping mercy for thousands forgiving iniquity transgression and sin They tell us that Psal CXLV 9. Ezek. xxxiij 11. 2 Pet. III. 9. He is good to all and that his tender mercies are over all his works That he hath no pleasure in the Death of a sinner That he is not willing that any should perish but that all should come unto repentance He never goes about to get himself glory in the death of a sinner till he sees the sinner will die that he is desperate and incorrigible that he hardens his heart to that degree that neither gentleness nor severity can work upon him He seeks no advantages against his wretched creatures Though to punish be his work Isai XXVIII 21. it is his strange work He never sets about it but with reluctance and when we compell him to it for the vindication of Justice and Providence He doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men Lam. III. 33.

We have no reason to arraign his Justice or murmur at the severity of his Judgments since we suffer but the punishment and less than the desert of our Sins Especially if we add this consideration That the chastisements we bear are for our profit and though for the present while we feel the smart of them Heb. XII 11. afflictions are not joyous but grievous yet if we improve them duly and with patience wait their issue they will bring forth to us the peaceable fruits of Righteousness As they were intended by our Heavenly Father so will they in the event work for our good If his judgments teach us Righteousness and we learn obedience by the things which we have suffered Isa XXVII 9. Heb. XII 10. all their fruit will be to take away our sin and to make us partakers of his Holiness But whatever the effect of our calamities may prove whether they operate thus kindly or no we must needs justifie God amidst our sufferings and take to our selves shame confessing with Azarias Thou art righteous O Lord Song of the 3 Children v. 3 4 5. in all the things thou hast done unto us according to truth and Judgment didst thou bring all these things upon us because of our sins We have sinned we have committed iniquity departing from thee II. That when God is pleased to remove such Calamities we are obliged to forsake those Sins for which they were inflicted Behold thou art made whole Sin no more What Sin no more This is an hard saying who can hear it Doth our Saviour oblige us to impossibilities Doth not Solomon assure us that there is not a just man upon the Earth that doeth righteousness and sinneth not Eccles VII 20. Doth not the Apostle say that In many things we offend all James III. 2. How saith our Saviour then Sin no more But after all our Saviour's sense is obvious he doth not oblige the impotent man to perfect and sinless obedience He too well understood our frame and was too well acquainted with the strength of Tentation and the weakness of frail flesh and bloud to make spotless innocence necessary to his continuance in that state of health to which he was miraculously restored But this is the sum and importance of his advice that upon his recovery he should break off his sinfull course of life that he should live no longer in habitual and wilfull disobedience that he should abstain from all crying Sins and such as pull down vengeance on mens heads especially that he should beware of those sins whatever they were for which God had afflicted him with eight and thirty years weakness This was our Saviour's meaning and in this sense our Apostle must be understood 1 John V. 18. where he saith he that is born of God sinneth not i. e. not habitually not deliberately not presumptuously Decepti aut lubrico aetatis aut nubilo erroris aut vitio ignorantiae aut postremò lapsu fragilitatis humanae Salvian contra Avarit l. 1. God doth not use to follow men with heavy plagues for light offences It is not every transgression that is recompensed in the Earth Such sins as are in a sort the unavoidable effects of humane frailty and ignorance and are incident to the best of men in this state of imperfection and tentation do not provoke his severe resentments No they are Sins of a deeper die of a more enormous and scandalous nature for which God is wont to visit Such as have a mixture of presumption and malice or at least proceed from the gross neglect if not from the direct contempt of God and Religion Such Sins as are highly injurious to our Brethren and pernicious to humane Society These are the Sins whose punishment God will not turn away And when at any time he hath punished a people for them and afterwards remembring mercy laies aside his rod he expects that such a people should remove those abominations out of the midst of them For God prosecutes the same design both in the severe and in the more gentle dispensations of his Providence He labours to reclaim a perverse and crooked generation and omits no kind of method proper to effect it When he threatens us he admonishes us of our duty and danger when he chastens us he calls our Sins to remembrance he admonisheth us to amend our ways and put away the evil of our doings when he removes his rod and again exercises patience and longsuffering towards us he vouchsafes to make a farther experiment what effect goodness will have upon us and whether it will at least after severity lead us to repentance Though in their prosperity Sinners are too apt to despise the Riches of God's goodness yet after they have been humbled by his heavy Judgments Mercy will be likely to have a more kind and successfull operation In War we commonly see that the Sword onely begins the Conquest which is finished and crowned by the Victour's clemency The stubborn enemy who valued not his friendship when subdued by his victorious arms will gladly submit to the Conquerour's Mercy Nay even wild beasts that are fierce and mischievous are onely brought under by chains blows and hunger and prepared to be throughly tamed and made serviceable by their Keeper's kindness So that unless we are more savage and brutish than they after afflictions we must needs yield to the irresistible force of God's goodness and loving-kindness Though we had no sense of our deep obligations to his infinite goodness whilst his blessings flowed in a continual and uninterrupted stream from that fountain yet since our pipes have been cut off and bitter waters have flowed instead of sweet and refreshing streams certainly if God please to remember his old loving-kindness Psal CVII 10. it will relish the sweeter After we have been bound in affliction and iron for our Rebellion against God if we be once released surely the cords of a man Hos XI 4. and the soft bands of love will hold us faster than ever This good success God seems to expect when his mercy heals those wounds which he made for our Sins He seems to make tryal whether the good effects which appear to have been wrought on us by our Afflictions are real and durable For whilst we are under the lash the success cannot be so well and certainly observed The Dog must recover his sickness before he will return to his vomit Whilst we feel the smart of the rod we are apt to call those Sins to remembrance for which we think our selves to suffer we are apt to take up good Resolutions against them to make fair Promises of reformation and to bind them with most solemn Vows But the Rod must be removed before we can come to the Test before it can appear how firm and steddy our Resolutions how sincere our Promises were and whether we will faithfully pay unto the Lord those Vows which we made in the day of Trouble