Selected quad for the lemma: lord_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
lord_n	abide_v	great_a	zion_n	72	3	8.6900	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A70654	Threnodia, the churches lamentation for the good man his losse delivered in a sermon to the Right Honourable the two Houses of Parliament and the reverend Assembly of Divines at the funerall of that excellent man John Pym, Esquire, late a Member of the Honourable House of Commons : preached in the Abbey-Church of Westminster / by Stephen Marshall ...	Marshall, Stephen, 1594?-1655.	1644 (1644)	Wing M794; ESTC R17869	27,959	53

owne are they not thy Masters Talents for which thou must be countable and for which thou wilt be condemned as a Thiefe for withholding that which was their due and none of thine but I tell thee God hath no need of thee thou art obliged to him for using thee he is not obliged to thee he can do his work without thee and raise up them whom thou thinkest meanly of to doe greater things then thou-canst imagine therefore whatever hee pleases to imploy thee in bee faithfull in it follow his businesse and do it diligently and with an humble heart Thirdly doth God often take away the choisest Instruments of our good after this manner then let all learne to make use of them and improve them to the best advantage while we have them this our Lord teacheth upon the same ground Iohn 12. 35. when his hearers had propounded a needlesse question how he could say Messiah should be lifted up that is crucified whereas the Scripture saith that Christ abides for ever instead of giving a solution to this doubt he replies Yet a little while the light is with you walke while you have the light lest darknes come upon you as if he should say you frivelously lose your time in making no better use of the light which shines among you which is given you for another end even to guide you to doe that work which alone is necessary to get sound evidence of your being children of the light to enable you to lead Gospel lives under Gospel light you spend your time in needlesse questions and neglect this which most concernes you as if it were in your power to doe it at your leasure but be not deceived this Market will not long last after a little while the Gospel will be taken from your Nation and whoever then is to seek in this great work will miserably wander in the darke and lye down in sorrow Let me therefore perswade you to give all diligence while this light shines to get your calling and election made sure Thus Christ there presseth it upon his hearers and let us urge it upon our own souls neglect no opportunity of drawing out from good and usefull men what God hath put into them for our good because we know not how long they shall abide with us If any of us have any choice or excellent book which is our owne we commonly read it at leasure now and then a leaf or two but if it be borrowed and we know not how soon the owner may call for it we sit up night and day till we have gathered all the flowers out of it thus did Elisha the servant of Elias when he once knew that his Master was shortly to be taken from him he would not part a moment from his presence but endeavoured earnestly to get as much of his spirit as was possible O if this wisdome were in us that considering the Prophets and other servants of God doe not live with us for ever we might use them as Iacob did the Angel not let them depart till we have got our blessing from them Fourthly but above all because the most useful men are often taken away in an ill time from us let us make sure of God whose yeares power goodnesse faithfullnesse and truth never faile but are alwaies present and everlasting helps in time of trouble this use the Lord teacheth his people upon the same ground Psal. 146. 2. Put not your trust in Princes nor in any sonne of man in whom there is no help his breath goeth forth he returnes to the earth his thoughts perish but happy is he which hath the God of Iacob for his God whose hope is in the Lord his God which made heaven and earth the Sea and all that is therein which keepeth truth for ever the Lord shall raigne for evermore even thy God O Sion unto all generations This use the afflicted Church made of it Isaiah 63. 18. When they had considered the daies of old and how all instruments and means of mercie had but their time and how the Lord was alwaies the same they sit down with this meditation Doubtlesse O Lord thou art our father though Abraham be ignorant of us and Israel acknowledge us not wee are past receiving any benefit from them thou O Lord art our Father our Redeemer thy name is from everlasting This use did Asaph also make of it Psal. 73. when he had considered not onely the worlds vanity and worldly mens vanity but the vanity of whatever earthly thing was most like for to comfort him his flesh failed and his heart failed and how that the Lord alone was the strength of his heart and his portion for ever he concludes all with this ver. 28. It is good for mee to draw nigh to God and put my trust in the Lord God And verily so long as we are strangers to this wee shall be as Saint Iames his double-minded man unstable in all our waies as the weeds which are driven every way where the ebbing and flowing Sea doth carrie them and as the topps of Trees which are driven with every wind this way and that way but if once we had learned to make the most high our stay and strength to trust in the Lord Jehovah we might possesse our souls in perfect peace for in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength We might bee as a Rock in the midst of the Sea not moved with any tempest as Mount Sion which cannot be removed but standeth fast for ever Now what argument could be a greater spurre to this then to know the brevitie vanity instability of all other helps look upon whatever is deare and thought to be advantagious to thee without which thou knowest not what to doe thy father husband Pastour friend estate life c. of all these thou must acknowledge they are but grasse the glory of them is but like a flower in the field but in God thou maiest find all the same things sufficiently eminently everlastingly an everlasting Father an everlasting Husband an everlasting Friend an everlasting Sheepheard an everlasting Portion an everlasting Life Let thy soule therefore waite upon the Lord make him thy onely helpe and shield let thy heart rejoice in him and trust in his holy name alone and let thy mercy O Lord be upon us all who desire to feare thy name and to hope in thee alone And thus much of the first observation That God often deprives his Church of most usefull men when they could ill bee spared The second followes which is That when God doth take away such usefull instruments it is a matter of sad lamentation for proofe hereof wee have first God himself requiring of it 2. Examples of the Saints practising thirdly strong Scripture-reason inforcing it First you have God himself so far calling for it that in Esaiah 57. hee charges it upon them as a great sinne and the fore-runner of a great judgement that

the evil to come So it proved in this place The good man is perished the vile are left behind then followeth vers. 4. The day of thy watchmen and thy visitation commeth now shall be their perplexity It 's true as I said before to them who are godly the Fountaine remaines when the Pipes are cut and there is ten thousand times more cause of joy in their God who lives then of sorrow for their friends who die but to others it 's a sad prediction that when God makes up his Jewels and carries them away he hath a day comming that shall burne as an Oven and all the wicked shall be as stubble that it shall leave them neither root nor branch And indeed they are the very {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} the onely meanes to keep off wrath and judgement from the places where they live Every mercie saith to such a people as Elisha to Jehoram Surely were it not that I regard the presence of Jehosaphat I would not looke toward thee nor see thee and the devouring judgements say to these godly ones as the Angel said to Lot We are come to destr●y this place up get thee out hast thee escape hence for we can doe nothing till thou art gone When the Husband-man thus p 〈…〉 s up the fence and gathers in his crop it is a signe that shortly you 'll have wild beasts in the field This Jeroboam and his whole family found to be true who had Abijah one child in his family in whom some good thing was found toward the Lord and as soone as he was taken away the judgements of God broke in upon his house and cut off him that pist against the wall and him that was shut up and left in Israel and took away the remnant of the house of Ieroboam as a man takes away dung till it be allgone This the old world found true in Noah and Sodome with the rest of the Cities in Lot this the Iews found true when the Christians admonished from heaven left Ierusalem fled to Pella soon after their departure the enemies made a trench about them and laid their City even with the ground and their children with them not leaving one stone upon another Thus fared it with the City of Hippo in Africa where Saint Augustine was Bishop which as soone as ever he was dead was taken and sackt by the Goths and Vandals Luther was no sooner translated to a better life but the Smalchaldick war begun in Germany wherein all the Protestants were almost wholly wasted No sooner was old Paraeus taken away from Heidelberg but Spinola entred the Towne These and many other instances of Gods wrath breaking in upon the departure of godly men abundantly manifest that we have cause to weep and lament not for them who thus dye but for our selves and our children because of the miseries which we may then justly feare are comming upon us Take a briefe Application of this Lesson and I have done my Sermon First Would God have his people thus to mourne when usefull men decay and faile how sadly then doth this reprove our generall stupidity the Lord hath made many great and lamentable breaches amongst us in this kinde he hath broken all our carnall confidences our Parliament is weakned our Armies wasted our treasure is exhausted our enemies increased and of those few able hearts heads and hands who abode faithfull to this great cause and worke in hand it might even stab us to the very heart to thinke how many of them the Lord hath even snatcht away in the middest of their worke and our greatest need That excellent spirited Lord the Lord Brooke that rare man Master Iohn Hampden that true-hearted Nathaniel Master Arthur Goodwin pardon me I beseech you though I mention them amongst these friends who cannot thinke of them without bitterness● How are these mighty men fallen in the midst of the ba●tell ana the weapons of warre perished the beauty of our Israel is slaine in the high places Whose heart wou 〈…〉 not b●eed and cry out as David at Ionathan his death Tell it not in Gath publish it not in the streets of ●skelon lest the daughters of the Philistins reioyce lest the daughters of the uncircumcised triumph But now which of us laies these things to heart who considereth the bitter things which God writes against us No we are rather like that wretched people who when the righteous perished and mercifull men were taken away though it were from the evil to come were so farre from laying it to heart aright that they banished all serious thoughts from them every one looking to their owne way some to their gaine others to their pleasure Come ye say they I will fetch wine and we will fill our selves with strong drinke and to morrow shall be as this day and much more abundant and this even when the righteous perished Verily this is our carriage the Lord deprives us of these excellent men and we it may be for a moment bewaile their losse in some passionate expression saying There is a brave man lost I am sorry such a man is dead c. and then every one goeth on againe in his owne way As I have seen a Hen pardon an homely similitude goe clocking and scraping in the midst of her Chickens then comes the Kite and snatcheth away first one then another then a third till all are gone and the Hen brustles and flutters a little when any is snatched away but returns instantly to her scraping and picking as if she had lost nothing Even so doe wee presently forgetting our great losses but no man sitting alone by himselfe to enquire What God hath done and what He meanes to doe with us or what we have done to provoke him thus far against us thrusting such thoughts far away from us passing by on the other side of the way as the Priest and Levite did by the wounded man as if it nothing concerned us O Beloved this wofull security and regardlesnesse of ours is one of the saddest tokens of Gods purpose still to bring us lower It was the Prophet Hósea his complaint against Israel a little before their utter ruine Strangers have devoured his strength and he knew it not gray haires were here and there upon him and he regarded it not The losse of good men was one of his gray hairs which argued his declining and his not-regarding it was the saddest evidence of his incurablenesse the Lord in mercy make us sensible of these heavie strokes before it be too late lest we prove like them of the old world who did eat and drink marry and give in marriage and would know nothing untill the flood came and swept them all away Secondly but how exceedingly doth this discover the wickednesse the divellishnesse of the spirits of a generation of men amongst us who are so far from bemoaning and lamenting the losse of