Selected quad for the lemma: lord_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
lord_n	aaron_n	accuse_v	moses_n	117	3	7.4906	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A56715	Two sermons : one against murmuring, the other against censuring preached at St. Paul's Covent-Garden / by S. Patrick ...	Patrick, Simon, 1626-1707.; Patrick, Simon, 1626-1707. Sermon against murmuring.; Patrick, Simon, 1626-1707. Sermon against censuring.	1689 (1689)	Wing P863; ESTC R5051	36,605	72

my Text speaks that we need seek no other proof of it For you read how in a raging fit of Discontent they were so distracted that they minded neither what they did nor what they said for they entred into a consultation as you have heard to make them a Captain and return again into the Egyptian Slavery out of which they had been lately redeemed as if that were more desireable than the present Liberty they enjoyed of serving God as he had appointed in the Wilderness which they were not permitted to do while they stay'd in Egypt And among other angry things which they said in that discontented fit this foolish Word dropt out of their mouth Would God we had died in this wilderness Numb XIV 2. Accordingly it came to pass they had their wish God being so provoked with their murmuring that he pronounced this heavy Judgment upon them for it That none of them should see the good Land he designed for them but perish in the Wilderness where they wandered about for forty years till all their Carkasses were consumed This is a sufficient caution against this Sin which is then most dangerously provoking when it continues long Which is the only thing I shall further observe upon this Argument The Israelites I told you in the beginning had been guilty of murmuring before the time unto which the Apostle hath respect in my Text But God most graciously forbare to proceed against them and did not send the Destroyer to cut them off Before they came out of Egypt you may read in Exod. V. 21. how reproachfully they treated Moses and Aaron as they did after their deliverance Exod. XIV 13. XV. 24. XVI 2. In the last of which places you may observe a great many aggravations of their Sin Read the Words again to make them the more evident And the whole congregation of the children of Israel murmured against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness and said unto them Would to God we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt when we sat by the flesh-pots and when we did eat bread to the full for ye have brought us forth into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger 1. Behold here how very gross their Ingratitude was which extenuated the Benefits they had received as inconsiderable and looking only upon a present strait which was soon over made them quite forget their long Servitude in the House of Bondage out of which they had been newly delivered 2. Nay behold how they magnifie Egypt where they were no better than vile Slaves and preferr carnal Things before divine Blessings the flesh-pots of Egypt before the liberty of their Religion and the glorious Presence of God which appeared among them and went along with them 3. More than this they speak of the very Plagues of Egypt by which they wish they had died with more satisfaction than of the Mercies they enjoyed under the Almighty's Protection 4. And it is observable how extravagantly they commend their Condition in Egypt as if they had wanted nothing there but had had their fill of all good things and despise their present happiness of being the people of the Lord whom he had redeemed and purchased Exod. XV. 13 16. 5. They unjustly also and ungratefully accuse Moses and Aaron for bringing them forth out of Egypt into that Wilderness when they did nothing of their own head but by the direction of God who went before them and led them the way wherein they should go 6. To conclude this they miscall their glorious deliverance from the House of Bondage into a state of freedom by the odious Name of Death and Destruction So frantick doth a discontented Humour make those who are possessed with it Notwithstanding which God as I said was so long-suffering towards them that he did not at that time visit their Iniquity upon them but bare with them till he saw them so setled and fixed in this evil temper of Mind that they would not be reformed by his patient Goodness Then he took a severe Vengeance on them and by degrees utterly destroyed them Let us admire this Long-suffering and Forbearance of God and thankfully acknowledge his Goodness which as Isaiah speaks multiplies to pardon and hath not yet entred into Judgment with us But let us take heed how we provoke him to anger by continuing in this or any other Sin especially after much patience with us which ought to lead us to a speedy Repentance God may be pleased graciously to pass by the first Irruptions of those Passions which make us murmur nay not be so strict in marking what is done amiss as not to pardon many fits of discontent which may come upon us He knows our frame and pities our weakness and is slow to anger and far from being forward to punish our frowardness But if we indulge our selves in this humour and do not labour to correct it if we set not our selves against it but let it grow to such an heighth that we forget to be thankful to God for his Mercies never reflect upon all the Good he hath done us nor the Evils from which he hath freed us either by his own hand immediately or by the ministry of others but quite contrary we complain in a state of Happiness being displeased that every thing is not to our gust and disordering our selves with angry discontent because all things are not ordered according to our Mind and perhaps speaking against those whom God hath imployed to do us good which was the case of the old Israelites in their murmurings against Moses and Aaron Then it is high time we may fear for God to chastize us both for our Ingratitude and for our abuse of his long-suffering Goodness to us We have all the reason in the World to believe That if we walk in the same way the Israelites did it will lead us into the same destruction as the Apostle here teaches us in this Discourse to the Corinthians If we slight or do not value the Mercies God hath bestowed upon us or undutifully reflect upon those who have been instrumental in procuring them to us if we so dislike our present Settlement that we thirst after a Change we do not know what punishments we are drawing upon our selves And let us be assured we shall be no more satisfied in that Change should it come to pass which God forbid than we are in the present Establishment The motions of our discontented Minds cannot be quieted by any thing without them We shall ever find matter for Complaint and far greater in a new Revolution than we can do in this We have not forgotten sure the Condition wherein we lately were how all our Laws were violated what endeavours were used to subvert our Religion and our Government so that mens hearts to speak in our Saviour's Words Luke XXI 26. failed them for fear and for looking after those things which were coming upon us

this Disease then his Displeasure arose against them and moved him to begin to destroy them With lighter strokes indeed at the first breaking out of his Anger fos when the people complained in Numb XI 1. he only sent a fire which consumed those who were in the skirts of the camp But when they would take no warning by this he proceeds to heavier for you read in Numb XIV 2 3. their murmurings grew so high that they had the face to say not only Would God we had died in Egypt or in this wilderness but Let us make us a Captain and let us return to Egypt A most unaccountable fit of discontent which so infatuated them as to make them think of their late slavery without any trouble nay speak of throwing themselves voluntarily into the hands of their cruel Tormentors Now this was so provoking that God sent a Plague to cut off those that were the cause of that murmuring v. 37. unto which the Margins of your Bibles direct you as an explication of my Text the Destroyer here spoken of being the Angel whose Ministry God used to destroy them with a Pestilence as it is explained in the Case of David 2 Sam XXIV 16. And they that escaped this Plague were only reprieved for a time but not acquitted for they had this heavy Sentence passed upon them all That not one of the evil congregation which murmured against God should enter into the good Land to which he intended to conduct them but wander in the Wilderness till they were utterly consumed v. 27 35. And yet this did not cure them of their Wicked Disposition but you read of a far more grievous Murmuring after this which broke out into an open Mutiny Read Numb XVI where you will find a great Party of the most eminent Persons gathered together against Moses and Aaron saying Ye take too much upon you seeing all the Congregation are Holy every one of them and the Lord is among them that is they pretended Moses and Aaron stretched their Authority too far and assumed a Power which did not belong to them or not more to them than any other there being no Man in the Congregation but had as good a title to it as themselves And therefore they boldly demanded Wherefore do ye lift up your selves above the congregation of the Lord As if they had said By what right do you govern us who are your Equals This so incensed the Divine Displeasure that you read there of a more terrible Destruction than the former For Lightning burnt up those who affronted Aaron and the Earth opened her Mouth and swallowed up those who disputed the Authority of Moses Which were such frightful examples that they make us tremble now at the thoughts of them And yet so hardned was that evil Generation in this discontented humour the very next Morning All the congregation of Israel murmured against Moses and Aaron saying Ye have killed the people of the Lord v. 41. whereupon they had all been consumed without any further reprieve as in a moment if Moses and Aaron whom they so grosly abused had not interceded with God and made an atonement for them Now as they thus murmured because of the Difficulties they met withal when they first came out of Egypt so there were such kind of Men it seems in the beginning of our Religion who being made pertakers of the Redemption that is in Christ Jesus were so insensible of God's great Grace to them that when they saw the straits into which the profession of Christianity brought them and other things were not suitable to their Expectations they murmured against the Apostles themselves and against other Ministers of Jesus Christ as if they had undone them Or at least they were very discontented and impatient under the troubles which befel them for Religion's sake and distrusted the conduct of the Apostles and were apt to betake themselves unto the guidance of other Persons Who promised them liberty when they themselves were the servants of corruption 2 Pet. II. 19. For notwithstanding such warnings as this of St. Paul in my Text we find by St. Jude there were some Christians chiefly of the Jewish Nation who were Murmurers Complainers walking after their own Lusts v. 10. that is were of the same disposition with their Fore-fathers in the Wilderness Numb XI 4 5 c. complaining bitterly that they were in a distressed condition as the Church was generally at that time and had not that rest ease liberty and prosperity which they long'd for and perhaps expected to enjoy And it is very probable which is Grotius's conjecture that they complained of the present Government and were desirous to throw it oft For we read v. 8. They despised dominion and spake evil of dignities Going in the way of Cain and Core v. 12. though there was so little reason they should be discontented upon this account that of all the former Monarchies to which the Jews had been subject whether Babylonian Persian or Grecian none had treated them with such gentleness and Lenity as the present did which was that of the Romans But a murmuring humor is utterly insensible of any thing but only present Griefs or Wants Having no remembrance of former evils either suffered or feared nor being at all observant of present Blessings though never so many and though never so big with future Hopes and Expectations This is visible in the whole History of that People with whom the Divine Goodness was grieved forty years long in the Wilderness From which we may also learn that though this be the propriety of the Word Murmuring in this place yet it hath also a larger signification as we understand from several other passages of the Holy Scriptures and doth not denote only discontent with the present Government but with a Man 's own private condition when it is not suitable to his desires For the History of the old Israelites informs us that their Murmurings were as much at the state of their private Affairs as at the publick management This was their common fault in the Wilderness that they complained upon every occasion if they had not such plentiful Provision nay such variety of it as might gratifie their fancy as well as satisfie their necessity Or if they fell into any difficulty in their travels unto that good Land to which God promised if they would have patience in due time to conduct them And as we find them complaining upon this account so we find if we look into the rest of the Scriptures other Persons complaining upon divers other scores 1. Some because they were not regarded according to the deserts they fansied in themselves As we read in the Parable of the Labourers in the Vineyard Matth. XX. 11. that some murmured at the good Man of the Family because they who came early into his Service and had born the burden and heat of the day received no more wages than those who came later and