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
A77434	Errours and induration, are the great sins and the great judgements of the time. Preached in a sermon before the Right Honourable House of Peers, in the Abbey-Church at Westminster, July 30. 1645. the day of the monethly fast: / by Robert Baylie, minister at Glasgow.	Baillie, Robert, 1599-1662.	1645 (1645)	Wing B459; Thomason E294_12; ESTC R200181	39,959	57

Poor children in distresse whither shall they go but to their father Neither sin nor misery will annull that more then naturall relation that supernaturall Paternity and Filiation Though God clothe himself with a cloud in his anger yet faith will make the soul with Moses run thorow the fire and darknesse to him The Prodigall in the midst of his misery resolves to return to his father The Spirit of Adoption in our hardest times will make us cry Abba Father This reason is used in the same place ver 16. Doubtlesse thou art our Father though Abraham be ignorant of us Vers 19. We are thine thou never bearest rule over them The next Chapter vers 8. But now O Lord thou art our Father behold see we beseech thee we are all thy people The Use is for our Encouragement to continue this practice with all earnestnesse and perseverance The Vse If there be any means to draw down a blessing from the heavens on a distressed Nation it is the prayer of the Saints This is the hand that hath drawn up this sinking Land from the pit of ruine that hath set our feet on that Rock of safety whereon now we stand Whatever difficulties are yet before us by this means or none else will they be gotten overcome Though all other should give over this holy exercise of Fasting and Praying or turn it in a sinfull and provoking formality yet it behoves us to keep it on foot remembring both the expresse command of the Lord Call on me in the day of thy trouble I shall deliver thee Psal 50. Lam. 2.19 Arise cry out in the night in the beginning of the watches pour out your hearts like water before the face of the Lord Lift up your hands towards him And your own visible experience As no people have sown more plentifully this pretious seed so none have already reaped more evident fruits thereof Be not weary of this good work untill all our desires be accomplished In the next place observe The second Doctrine Sins are heavier then afflictions The Proof That the chief part of the Saints complaint to God is of their wandrings from his wayes Their sins are heavier to them then all their afflictions This is proved from divers Scriptures Psal 38. When the Prophets trouble was great Nothing sound in his flesh The Arrows of the Lord sticking in him Gods hand pressing him sore yet the chief burden whereof he complains was his sins verse 4. Mine iniquities are gone over my head as an heavy burden they are too heavy for me Psal 40.12 Innumerable evils have compassed me about but mine iniquities have taken hold on me for them he was not able to look out his heart failed him Daniel c. 9. complains of the heavy wrath and curse that was powred out on Jerusalem and of so great afflictions as had befaln to no Nation under Heaven yet the first chief and longest part of his complaint is of the sins of their Kings of their Princes of their Priests and whole Land The reason of the Doctrine The Reason Sin is the greatest evill it s the fountain of afflictions Affliction cometh not out of the dust trouble springeth not out of the ground Sin is the root of it Also sin is most contrary to the nature of God Wrath and trouble even the greatest the very torments of Hell are not so for they are according to his justice The godly therefore who weigh things aright in the just ballance of the Sanctuary esteem their sins much heavier and more grievous evils then any they can suffer for them The use is for our instruction The Vse Let our complaints be rightly ordered and our sorrows rightly placed Beware to spend the most or best of thy sense on thy sufferings Beware to pour out the vehemency of thy passion the bitterest of thy sorrows on calamities either private or publike The first fruits the flower the first-born of thy grief must be reserved for the chief evill The naturall and kindely children of God will have more sorrow at their heart for the sins of the Land then for the desolations thereof What ever poverty disgrace pain can befall their person the very wrath of God suppose the torments of Hell will not be so heavy so bitter so troublesome to them as their sins the cause of all these evils The third observation The third Doctrine Gods hand in our sins encreaseth their bitternes An Objection answered Gods punishing and judiciall hand in our sins is their aggravation and increase of their bitternesse For this is the head of the Churches complaint That God had caused them to erre from his wayes It is true the Saints in Scripture draw comfort from some acts of Gods mercy about sin as from his gracious directing of its act to a good end Upon this ground Joseph comforts his Brethren that not they but God had sent him down to Egypt That their felling of him which they intended for evill God had ordered it so that it did become the mean of all their preservation Also Gods prediction of sin in sundry Scriptures is made a ground of contentment All this was done that the Scriptures might be fulfilled is a common place of comfort against the treason of Judas and the wickednesse of the Jews Likewise the Apostles Acts 4. quiet their minde on this meditation That God in his eternall counsell had determined what Herod and Pilate in time had done in crucifying of Christ Of such acts of Gods mercy about our sins we speak not be they temporall be they eternall but of the acts of his justice and wrath punishing sin by sin From these actions of God we can draw no comfort but they aggravate the weight of our sins and increase our grief The miscarriage of Absolon The Proof his rebellion and incest could not but grieve David but to increase his grief 2 Sam. 2.10 God tells him I will do this thing before all Israel and before the Sun in that terrible vision Isai 6. the Lord to demonstrate his wrath against that people sendeth to them a message full of anger Make the heart of this people fat and their ears heavy Their excaecation was in it self a grievous evill but it was more grievous when it came as a plague from an angry God John 12.39 Gods blinding of their eyes that they could not beleeve Christs Word is brought as an aggravation of their sin and of the anger of Christ against them so far as he went from them and hid himself The reason of this is The Reason That these acts of God proceed from wrath and justice punishing former sins Again they are the means to make sin more sinfull the person being given over to be carried headlong by his own lusts and Satans tentations Thirdly The punishment of sin in this degree is much sorer then if it had been a simple sin as in the sixth of Isaiah and elsewhere it appears No

marvell therefore that men of awakened consciences make it a chief part of their complaint and grief That God had caused them to erre This being a figne of wrath and increase of guiltinesse and a forerunner of greater punishment The use is first for Caution 1 Vse for Caution To beware of that dangerous errour of taking comfort and encouragement from Gods judiciall hand in our sins that is to glory in our shame and to joy for what we should be sad It is to cast off our self the burden of our sin to whom alone it belongs on God whose eyes are purer then to behold iniquity Secondly 2 Vse for Counsel It serves for Councell to make it our chief grief in our mourning That we have faln under so heavy displeasure as to be scourged with the worst of Gods Rods Of all the Arrows in Gods Quiver this is the most venemous To be given over by God to sin this comes from a speciall wrath and is a presage of very great misery following When Gods spirit stirred up David to number the people it came from his anger against Israel and was a forerunner of the destroying Angell The blinding of the peoples eyes Isaiah 6. and John 12. is made an antecedent of a nationall ruine When ever we feel this to be our condition it should be the matter of our most mournfull complaint The fourth observation will clear the third it is this The fourth Doctrine Judiciall errours are most lamentable The godly when their eyes are opened to see their wandrings they are singularly affected with their judiciall errours As here the Church mourning and praying to God for sin and misery begins her complaint for these errours into which by Gods anger and judgement she had faln Old Israel by Gods judgement The Proof had faln in the grievous errour of civill discord which cost in two dayes the eleven Tribes the lives of fourty thousand men and in the third proceeded very near to the extirpation of the twelfth Tribe When the hand of God was lifted off them and they began to look back upon their actions Judges 21.2 they weeped fore before the Lord and complained to him of the great mischief wherein they had faln Though the injustice and obstinacy of Benjamin had been the immediate cause of the dissention yet they pittied their Brethren seeing it was the Lords judgement upon them all that had made that breach in Israel Verse 15. Ephraim in his pride would needs rebell against the house of David and have a King among themselves and Altars of their own making at Dan and Bethel God in justice gave them over to these sins of continuall sedition and idolatry till they were totally ruined He gave them a number of Kings in his anger Hos 8.11 Because Ephraim hath made many Altars to sin Altars shall be unto him to sin But when the Lord gave repentance to Ephraim see how much they are grieved ashamed and confounded for their madnesse wherein by the judgement of God they were made long to go on Jere. 31.18 I have heard Ephrains bemoaning himself thus Surely after I was turned I repented and after I was instructed I smote upon my thigh I was ashamed yea even confounded because I bore the reproach of my youth The Jews were plagued of God with a horrible blindnesse of minde and obstinacy of heart so that they rejected the Gospel crucified the Lord of Life and remain in Rebellion to this day But when the Lord shall take off the vail of their eyes and they begin to see their judiciall errours their madnesse against Christ and the Gospel wherewith God in justice did plague them their grief for it will be extraordinary as it is set down Zach. 12.10 They shall look on him whom they have peirced and they shall mourn for him as one mournath for his onely son and shall be in bitternesse for him as one is in bitternesse for his first-born 2 Thes 2. The Churches of the Gentiles are in Gods justice many of them given over to strong delusions to beleeve Antichristian Lyes but when God begins to open their eyes to see these delusions their grief and indignation for them is so great Revel 17.16 That they hate the whore who did seduce and bewitch them They make her desolate and naked They eat her flesh and burn her with fire The Reasons of this Doctrine The Reasons are the same which of the former especially the second The singular and extraordinary guiltinesse that is in these judiciall errours the blinded soul sees them not while God in mercy remove the cloud and send in his light but then the lightned soul beholding the horrible wayes wherein it hath been wandring such wherein it would never have walked had it not been led by a powerfull Divell set on by the permission and commission of a just God Seeing in these sins a just God a wicked Divell and a heart stirred up by extraordinary temptations by this horrible back-sight is affrighted and amazed till Faith in the infinite mercies of God doth calm and settle it The Use is for admonition The Vse Beware of judiciall errours very often they are never pardoned but bring on destruction both temporall and eternall 2 Thes 2.11 They to whom God sends strong delusions are damned Isai 6.11 When God shut the peoples eyes and made their heart fat the Cities were wasted and the Land made desolate Before Ephraim and Juda recovered themselves from that snare of rebellion and came to the repentance spoken of How many hundred thousands and millions of them did perish both temporally and eternally And these few whom the Lord bringeth to see and mourn for their judiciall ertours How great is their grief How much do they wish to have seen in time their madnesse that they might not so much have been plagued therewith But what are these judiciall errours which we would beware of Search the Scriptures they will make you wise in this very necessary point of knowledge For your use I shall point at some First Civill discord a Judiciall errour Civill Discord is a sin and a great judgement a sin to the authors and fomenters a judgement to all as well the innocent as nocent party Isai 19.2 God punisheth the sins of the Egyptians with his plague I will set the Egyptians against the Egyptians and they shall fight every one against his brother and every one against his neighbour City against City and Kingdom against Kingdom and the spirit of Egypt shall fail in the midst thereof and I will destroy the counsel thereof The same is the Judgement of Israel Zech. 11.6 I will no more pity the inhabitants of the Land but I will deliver the men every one into his neighbours hands and into the hands of his King and they shall smite the Land and out of their hand I will not deliver them This is the great Judgement that long hath lien upon us the