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A57597 Shlohavot, or, The burning of London in the year 1666 commemorated and improved in a CX discourses, meditations, and contemplations, divided into four parts treating of I. The sins, or spiritual causes procuring that judgment, II. The natural causes of fire, morally applied, III. The most remarkable passages and circumstances of that dreadful fire, IV. Councels and comfort unto such as are sufferers by the said judgment / by Samuel Rolle ... Rolle, Samuel, fl. 1657-1678.; Rolle, Samuel, fl. 1657-1678. Preliminary discourses.; Rolle, Samuel, fl. 1657-1678. Physical contemplations.; Rolle, Samuel, fl. 1657-1678. Sixty one meditations.; Rolle, Samuel, fl. 1657-1678. Twenty seven meditations. 1667 (1667) Wing R1877; Wing R1882_PARTIAL; Wing R1884_PARTIAL; ESTC R21820 301,379 534

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lavished them upon their pride exhausted them by their luxury spent them upon their uncleanness which as so many Cormorants devoured that which might and ought to have been given to the poor I see then there are moral causes of evil as well as natural and these are some of them He is bruitish that thinks otherwise Do not the ends and interests of men sway the World next to God himself and what are they but moral causes and if such be to be taken notice of why not sin which is more considerable than all the rest Then O yee late Inhabitants of that famous City which is now in ashes as ever you desire it should flourish again repent of your pride fulness of bread abundance of idleness neglect of the poor and abominable uncleanness so many of you as were guilty of all or any of these for all were not and let others mourne over them that have sinned and have not repented that God may repent of the evil which he hath brought upon you and may build up your waste places in his good time Continue not in the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah lest their punishment be either not removed from you or if so again revived upon you MEDITATION II. Of destroying Fire procured by offering strange fire WE read concerning Nadab and Abihu that there went out fire from the Lord and devoured them and they died before the Lord Lev. 10.2 Why that heavy judgment befell those two Sons of Aaron the Saints of the Lord the preceding verse will tell us viz. because they took their censers put incense therein and offered strange fire before the Lord which he commanded them not Their fault was this God had sent down fire from heaven upon his Altar Levit. 9.24 It should seem it was the pleasure of God and doubtless they knew it that his sacrifice which one calls his meat as the Altar his Table should be kindled and prepared with that fire only which by continual adding of suel as need required was to be kept from ever going out as is supposed Levit. 16.10 There 't is said Aaron shall take a censer full of Coales of fire from off the Altar and his hands full of incense and bring it within the vaile Now they presumed to offer incense to God with common fire which came not from the Altar before the Lord and for this they were burnt to death Upon this passage Bishop Hall worthily called our English Seneca reflects thus It is a dangerous thing saith he in the service of God to decline from his own institutions we have to do with a power which is wise to prescribe his own worship just to require what he hath prescribed powerful to revenge that which he hath not required MEDITATION III. Of fire enkindled by murmuring IN Numb 11. the first and third verses I read these words When the people complained it displeased the Lord and the Lord heard it and his anger was kindled and the fire of the Lord burnt amongst them and consumed them that were in the utmost parts of the Camp And he called the name of the place Taberah because the fire of the Lord burnt among them It doth not much concern our present purpose to enquire what the cause of this their murr●uring was which yet is thought to have been want of meat in the Wilderness and thence the place where they were punished to have been called the graves of lust as our Margents do English kiberoth hattaavah neither need we be infallibly resolved what kind of fire it was that God sent amongst them for their murmuring it is all we need observe at the present that they were punished by fire and that murmuring was the sin they were punished for Our punishment I am sure hath been by fire as well as theirs ought we not then to examine whether cur provocation was not much-what by murmuring even as theirs was were we contented when the City was standing yea did we not grumble and repine at one thing or other every day and yet we think we should be more than contented that is to say very thankfull and joyfull if we had but London again if that great City Phenix-like might but rise out of the ashes and our places know us once more It should seem then we had enough then to be contented with and thankfull for but we knew it not as it is said of husbandmen Faelices nimium sua si bona norant If some were in worse condition than formerly would that justify their murmuring were not the Israelites in the Wilderness when they were punished for murmuring and had they not enjoyed a better condition than that in former times Do we murmurers think that men are to blame and was not Shimei to blame when he cursed Daivd and yet David looking higher viz. unto God submissively replied it may be the Lord hath bid him curse me The Robbers and spoilers of Israel were in fault Yet seeing it was God that gave Jacob to the spoile and Israel to the robbers that was reason enough why they should be dumb as a sheep before the Shearer and not open their mouths in any way of murmuring If we so remember our miseries as to forget our mercies if we aggravate our evil things and extenuate our good if we be so vexed and displeased with men as if they were sole authors of all our troubles and as if God who owes and payes us such chastisements had no hand in them If in our hearts we quarrel with God as if he were a hard master and had done us wrong if when we had food and raiment we were not content if when we had something and that considerable and how could our loss have been considerable if our enjoyment had not been so we were as unsatisfied as if we had just nothing If so do not these things plainly prove that we were murmurets many of us and whose experience doth not tell him that these things were so how many things have we repined at that men could not help as namely the pestilence now in such cases it is evident that we have not murmured against men but against the Lord Exod. 16.8 Nay if men be punished far less than their sin● deserve and yet will not accept of that their punishment but fret at him that inflicted it what must we call that but murmuring And was not that our case I had almost said that England even before this fire was so full of discontent whatsoever the cause were as if all the plagues of Egypt had been upon it and how after this i● can swell more without bursting is hard to conceive So little had we learn'd good Eli's note It is the Lord let him do what seemeth good to him Now if the Law of retaliation be burning for ●urning as we read it was Exod. 21.25 How just was it with the great God to send a Fire upon us for our grievous discontents and murmurings Murmurers are full of
uniformly transcend the piety of former ages as well in all other things as we have done in this then shall we not need to doubt but as our greater sins have of late years procured us greater judgements one in the neck of another than have formerly been known in so quick a succession viz. of Sword Pestilence and Fire so our transcendant Reformation will end in greater blessings than former ages have been acquainted with It is not without several Patterns and Presidents in Scripture that Memorials should be erected as well of Judgements as of Mercies For not only did Jacob set up a Pillar of Stone in the place where God talked with him and fastened the name of Bethel upon it Gen. 35.14 in remembrance of the great Favour there vouchsafed him but God himself to commemorate his great displeasure against Let 's Wife for looking back towards Sedom which she ought not to have done verse 17. turned her into a Pillar of Salt which may signifie a lasting Pillar or a hard stiff Body of perpetual duration in which sense the Covenant of God is called a Covenant of Salt that is of perpetuity to season after-Ages with the remembrance of his judgment upon her We read of the brazen-Censers of Kerah and his Company those sinners against their own souls as they are called that they were made into broad-Plates for a covering of the Altar to be a memorial to the children of Israel that no stranger that is not of the seed of Aaron come near to offer incense before the Lord that he be not as Korah and his company Numb 1.16.39 We read also of a great Stone called Abel which word lignifieth Grief and that name seemeth to have been given it because of the Lamentation which the People made over those Bethshemites that were slain for looking into the Ark. 1 Sam. 6.18 The Philistims themselves when smitten by God with Emereds and plagued with Mice are said to have presented the Lord with certain Monuments of those judgments that were upon them viz. with so many Golden Emerods or figures of Emerods and so many Golden Mice as a Trespass-offering 1 Sam. 6.4 5. VVherefore ye shall make Images of their Emerods and of your Mace whichs mar the Land and shall give glory to the God of Israel● peradventure he will lighten his hand from off you● from off your gods and from off your Land which plainly showes that even those blind Heathen did look upon the due Commemoration of Judgments as a thing well-pleasing unto God and we are assured it is so by the complaint which God maketh of the Israelites their forgetting the great things which God had done in Aegypt and terrible things by the Red-Sea meaning the drowning of Pharaoh and all his Host there Psal 106.21 And the Apostle writing of what had befallen the murmuring Israelites 1 Cor. 10.6 saith These things are our examples that we should not lust after evil things as they also lusted Therefore remember them we must or else we can take no warning by them He that questioneth the needfulness of erecting a Pillar or some other Monument to commemorate the late dreadful Fire may see his Error if he do but consider that London though not such a London then as this was hath formerly been burnt several times and did once continue in ashes fourscore and five years together and yet the generality of men now living in these parts were so far from considering and awing their hearts with the remembrance of it that but here and there a man doth so much as know that any such thing was ever done How vain a thing is it for Papists to bear us in hand De 〈◊〉 Hist C●l 114.8.131.161.213.263 That Orall-Tradition is sufficient to transmit Religion to the World and is the great thing we are to vely upon when but for the Writings of Historians we had all been ignorant of so remarkable a thing as was the burning of London five several times viz. Anno Domini 798 and Anno 801 and again Anno 982 and again Anno Domini 1087. and after that in the year 1133 which was little more than five hundred years agoe Had our Parliament had any such considence in Orall-Tradition they had never designed a Pillar for the memorial of a Fire so hard to be forgotten How weakly do Papists Argue that the Authority of the Scriptures is built upon the Church and the Church its self Infallible because it is called The Pillar of Truth 1 Tim. 3.15 Whereas Pillars are many times erected for other uses than to uphold and under-prop buildings as the several Instances which I have brought from Scripture of Pillars set up only as Monuments and Memorials and the use to which the Pillar I am now treating of is to be applied do plainly prove Such a Pillar is the Church viz. to transmit the memory of Religion or rather that Inscription the Scriptures I mean which are the great memorial thereof from one Age to another But Will the intended matter of that Pillar which is appointed to be either Brass or Stone afford us nothing of a profitable Meditation Methinks it should What Mettal is there that more resembleth Fire than doth burnished-Brass therefore in Ezek. 1.7 we read that the feet of the living Creatures there spoken of did sparkle like the colour of burnished-Brass It is but fit that the Memorials of things should bear as lively a resemblance as may be of those things of which they are intended Memorials So the Philistims made choice of Artificial Mice and Emerods in remembrance of those that were true and natural More over if London were consumed by Treachery no mettal can be more fit to receive the Characters of their most Impudent Villany who as to that had sinned with a Brow of Brass and with a Whores Fore-head Or if Stone be chosen rather of the two to make that Pillar of be it a lasting Emblem of the Hardness of their hearts harder than the neither Milstone that could burn such a City and ruin so many thousand Families both for the present and for many years if not Ages to come Where the Fire began there or as near as may be to that place must the Pillar be erected if ever there be any such If we commemorate the places where our Miseries began surely the causes whence they sprang the meritorious causes or sins are those I now intend should be thought of much more If such a Lane burnt London Sin first burnt that Lane Causa causa est causa 〈◊〉 Affliction springs not out of the dust not but that it may spring thence immeditely as if the dust of the Earth should be turned into Lice but primarily and originally it springs up elsewhere As for the Inscription that ought to be upon that Pillar whether of Brass or Stone I must leave it to their Piety and Prudence to whom the Wisdom of the Parliament hath left it Only three things I
heart-burnings against God himself discontent is a Fire within that flies and flames up against the great God as Ahaz said who with his tongue did speak but the language of the hearts of many others This evill is of the Lord why should I wait on him any longer wonder not then if the anger of God have burnt against those that did burn against him if he hath given us fire for fire We were alwayes murmuring when we had no such cause as now we have and now God hath given us as it were something to murmur for and yet let me recall my self that was spoken but vulgarly For though God should punish us with Scorpions in stead of Rods he will no tallow us to murmur but commands us to filence our selves with such a question and answer as this Why doth the living man complain man for the punishment of his sin Who so considers how unthankfull we were for what we had before the fire will see no cause to wonder at what we have lost but rather to wonder at this that such as have lost but a part did not lose all For with Parents nothing is more common than to take away those things from their Children quite and clean for which they will not so much as give them thanks as not being satisfied with them Then say Parents give them us again you shal have none of them they shal be given to them that will be thankfull for them yea say they not sometimes in their anger we will throw such a thing in the fire before such unthankful Children shall have it I see London full of open Cellars and Vaults as it were so many open Graves and Earth lying by ready to cover them How unwilling am I to say that Kiberoth Hat●aavah might justly be written upon them that is the graves of those that lusted after more and by that meanes lost what they had If I were one of the murmurers as there were few exempted from that guilt O Lord I have cause to own thy justice in whatsoever this Fire hath or shall contribute to my loss and prejudice and also to adore thy mercy if my share in this loss were not proportionably so great as that of many others and those my betters MEDITATION IV. Of Rebellion against Moses and Aaron procuring a destructive Fire Numb 16. THe sixteenth Chapter of the Book called Numbers in the 35 verse thereof tells us how that a Fire came down from the Lord and consumed no less then 250 Men that offered Incense not their Houses but their very Persons Some would hardly think that so small a crime as opposition to Magistracy and Ministry are in their account should have been the only causes of so heavy a judgment And yet we finde that alledged as the main if not the only reason of Corah and his Complices being consumed by fire The Confederates of Korah Dathan and Abiram are said to have been 250 Princes of the Assembly famous in the Congregation men of renown Yet when such as they who one would think might better afford to do such a thing than meaner men gathered themselves together against Moses and against Aaron saying why lift ye up your selves above the Cougregation of the Lord and they themselves would be Priests and Princes as well as they verse 10. Seek ye the Priesthood also said Moses to them yee Sons of Levi. And in the 13 verse they qua●rel with Moses for making himself which was false for it was God that had made him so altogether a Prince over them as who shall say they would have no body above themselves either in Church or State I say when they shewed this kinde of spirit and principle you see how God punished it These were right Levellers if I mistake not they pretend they would have all to be alike vers 3. ye take too much upon you all the Congregation are holy every one of them wherefore then say they to Moses and Aaron lift ye up your selves above others But to pretend they would have none inferiour to them surely was but a stratagem to bring to pass that they might have no Superiors or rather that themselves might be superiour to all others This was like to come to good they would have neither head nor taile in Church or State or else it should be all head or all taile But from these principles of Anarchy and Ataxy set at work I say from the displeasure of God against them upon that account sprang the fire which we there read of Much of this spirit hath been in England within a few years past when not a few gloried in the name of Levellers at leastwise in the character and principles of men so called If any of those embers be still raked up under ashes I should fear least a Fire of tumult and confusion might break out from thence and by their meanes as soon as any way nor do I question at all but that the sin and guilt of such vile and antiscriptural tenets might help to kindle that fire which lately devoured the City God will not suffer two such great Ordinances as Magistracy and Ministry which so greatly concern the good of the World nor either of them to be trampled upon St. Jude speaks sharply of such men calling them filthy dreamers who despise dominion and speak evil of dignities they who would level these the God of order will level them for such are said to perish in the gain-saying of Korah Jude 11. Of such it is said in 2 Pet. 2.12 That as bruit Boasts they are made to be taken and to be destroyed and that they shall utterly perish in their own corruption But then if we consider Moses and Aaron one as a holy Magistrate the other as a holy Minister that did greatly aggravate the sin of Korah and his Complices in rising up against and seeking to depose them for as such they had a double ●tamp of God upon them viz. both as Magistrates and as good For as such they were not only called Gods but also partakers of the divine nature and if we must be subject to Superiours that are naught and froward 1 Pet. 2.18 much more to them that are good and gentle the destruction of usefull Magistrates and Ministers is one of the greatest disservices that can be done to the World and will as soon kindle the wrath of God as almost any sin that men commit 2 Chron. 36.16 But they mocked the messengers of God and misused his Prophets till the wrath of God arose against them till there was no remedy Mat. 23.36 There we finde these words O Jerusalem that killest the Prophets and stonest them that are sent unto thee c. Behold your house is left unto you desolate in Numb 16.11 Moses told Corah and his Company that they were gathered together against the Lord. For what is done against Magistrates and Ministers either as Officers ordained of God or as good in their places
when he called him to it Are we better than Moses then Aaron the Saint of the Lord than David than Hezekiah than Job yea than Christ himself who had all learn'd to stoop to God in very difficult cases Can we be too good to do it if they were not When God told Moses he should go up to Pisgah and take a view of Canaan but that he should never enter into it Deut. 3.27 We finde not one word that he replyed after he had once made his request and God had said speak no more of this matter When God had by fire consumed Nadab and Abihu the two Sons of Aaron Moses did but say to him The Lord will be sanctified in them that come nigh to him and be glorified before all the people and Aaron held his peace Levit. 10.3 When old Eli had received a dreadfull message from God by a Child for so Samuel then was 1 Sam. 3.18 How meekly did he resent it saying It is the Lord let him do as seemeth him good When David was flying from the face of his rebellious Son Absalom and taking leave of the Ark of God 2 Sam. 15.26 If the Lord say I have no delight in thee behold here am I let him do to me what seemeth him good At another time when David was even consumed by the blow of Gods hand Psal 39.10 he saith I was dumb and opened not my mouth because thou didst it vers 9. And as for Hezekiah though a King also as well as David yet see how his spirit buckled to God when the Prophet brought him word that God had taken away the fee-simple of all he had from his children who should be Eunuches to the King of Babylon Isa 39.7 And left him but his life in it Good is the Word of the Lord saith he which thou hast spoken vers 8. As for Job who had been the greatest of all the Men of the East when he had lost all but a vexatious Wife prompting him to curse God vet cried he out Blessed be the Name of the Lord Job 1.21 Behold a greater instance of patience and submission than any of these both for that his person was more excellent and his sufferings far greater having been a Man of sorrowes all his time Isa 53.7 He was oppressed and he was afflicted yet he opened not his mouth brought as a Lamb to the slaughter and as a Sheep before the Shearer is dumb so he opened not his mouth When he was reviled he reviled not again when he suffered he threatned not but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously 1 Pet. 2.23 Was not this written for our imitation vers 21. Christ also suffered for us leaving us an example Did he who is God equal with the father submit even to the painfull and shamefull and cursed death of the cross and shall we think our selves too good to stoop to lesser sufferings and humiliations he that can submit to God may be happy in any condition he that cannot will be happy in no condition this World can afford him in which all our roses are full of prickles and all our wayes strowed and hedged up with thornes more or less Yea not only the Church militant upon Earth but even the Church triumphant in heaven could not be free from misery if the will of glorious Saints were not melted into the will of God Abraham would be ever and anon grieving to think of Dives and others in his case if his will were not perfectly conformed to the will of God Many things fall out in this life which we would not for a World should be if we could and might prevent them but when the pleasure of God is once declared by events even in those cases ought we to sit down satisfied Abraham would not have sacrificed Isaac for the whole World but that God made as if he would have him so to do and then he yielded presently If blinde fortune did govern the World whose heart would it not break to think of so famous a City in a few dayes laid in ashes but sith it was the will of God it should be so who ordereth all things according to the counsel of his will let all the Earth be silent before him let us be still and know that he is God Who should rule the World but he that made it and that upholds it by the Word of his Power He can do us no wrong if he would such is his essential holiness which also makes it impossible for him to lie he would do us no wrong if he could such is his infinite justice He can do nothing but what is consistent with infinite wisdome patience goodness mercy and every perfection and how unreasonable is it not to submit to that which is consistent with all of these so doubtless was the burning of our renowned City as ghastly a spectacle as it is to behold else it had never come to pass O Lord I am sensible that I have need of line upon line precept upon precept and example upon example to teach me this hard lesson of submission to thee though the object of that submission seem to be only my condition in this life for I no where finde that thou requirest me and others to be willing to perish everlastingly Thou knowest how much thy glory and the comfort of thy poor Creatures are concerned in it that we should know how to resign up our selves to thee inable us to be contented with whatsoever thy will hath been or shall be concerning us and then be pleased to do with us as to this World what thou wilt DISCOURSE XXIV Of taking occasion by this to study the vanity and uncertainty of all earthly things IF a glorious City turned into a ruinous heap in four dayes time when no visible enemy was at hand to do it if the reducing hundreds of Families to almost beggery that liv'd in good fashion in less than one week before by an unexpected meanes and in a way not possible to be foreseen if knocking a Nation out of joynt all of a sudden like a body that had been tortured upon a Rack be not loud Sermons of the vanity and uncertainty of all earthly things surely there will be none such till that time shall come that St. Peter speaks of 2 Pet. 3.10 When the Heavens shall pass away with a great noise and the Elements shall melt with servent heat the Earth also and the works that are therein shall be burnt up What a Comment was this providence upon that Text Psal 39.5 Verily every Man at his best state is altogether vanity How did it evince the Psalmist to speak right Psal 62.9 Not only when he saith Men of low degree are vanity which most people do believe but also when he saith Men of high degree are a lie to be laid in the ballance they are altogether lighter than vanity which few assent unto If things are called vanity as most properly they are from