Selected quad for the lemma: lord_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
lord_n	abound_v	people_n	zion_n	40	3	8.7868	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A62638	Several discourses of repentance by John Tillotson ; being the eighth volume published from the originals by Ralph Barker.	Tillotson, John, 1630-1694.; Barker, Ralph, 1648-1708.	1700 (1700)	Wing T1267; ESTC R26972	169,818	480

of it Such is the unspotted Purity and Perfection of the Divine Nature that it is not possible that God should give the least countenance to any thing that is Evil. Psal 5.4 5. Thou art not a God says David there to him that hast Pleasure in iniquity neither shall evil dwell with thee The wicked shall not stand in thy sight thou hatest all the workers of iniquity 5. We are ashamed likewise to do any thing that is Evil and unseemly before those who we are afraid will publish our faults to others and will make known and expose the folly of them Now whenever we Sin it is before him who will most certainly one day bring all our works of darkness into the open light and expose all our secret deeds of dishonesty upon the publick Stage of the World and make all the vilest of our actions known and lay them open with all the shameful Circumstances of them before men and Angels to our everlasting Shame and Confusion This is the meaning of that Proverbial Speech so often used by our Saviour There is nothing cover'd that shall not be revealed neither hid that shall not be made manifest All the Sins which we now commit with so much caution in secret and dark retirements shall in that great day of Revelation when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed be set in open view and in so full and strong a light that all the World shall see them and that which was plotted and contrived in so much secrecy and hardly whisper'd in this World shall then be proclaimed aloud and as it were upon the House-tops 6. and Lastly We are ashamed and afraid to commit a fault before those who we believe will call us to an account for it and Punish us severely A Man may suffer innocently and for a good Cause but all suffering in that case is by wise and good men esteemed honourable and glorious and tho' we are Condemned by men we are acquitted in our own Consciences But that which is properly called Punishment is always attended with Infamy and Reproach because it always supposeth some fault and crime as the ground and reason of it Hence it is that in this World men are not only afraid but ashamed to commit any fault before those who they think have Authority and Power to punish it He is an impudent Villain indeed that will venture to cut a Purse in the presence of the Judge Now when ever we commit any Wickedness we do it under the Eye of the great Judge of the World who stedfastly beholds us and whose Omnipotent Justice stands by us ready armed and charged for our Destruction and can in a moment cut us off Every sin that we are guilty of in thought word or deed is all in the presence of the Holy and Just and Powerful God whose Power enables him and whose Holiness and Justice will effectually engage him one time or other if a timely Repentance doth not prevent it to inflict a terrible Punishment upon all the Workers of iniquity You see then by all that hath been said upon this Argument how shameful a thing sin is and what Confusion of face the reflection upon our wicked Lives ought to cause in all of us What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed If ever we be brought to true Repentance for our sins it cannot but be matter of great Shame to us We find in Scripture that shame doth continually accompany Repentance and is inseparable from it This is one Mark and Character of a true Penitent that he is ashamed of what he hath done Thus Ezra when he makes Confession of the sins of the People he testifies and declares his Shame for what they had done I said O my God! I am ashamed and blush to lift up mine Eyes to thee my God for our iniquities are increased over our Heads and our trespasses are grown up to the Heavens Ezra 9.6 And may not we of this Nation at this day take these words unto our selves considering to what a strange height our sins are grown and how iniquity abounds among us So likewise the Prophet Jeremiah when he would express the Repentance of the People of Israel Jer. 3.25 We lye down says he in our shame and our Confusion covereth us because we have sinned against the Lord our God In like manner the Prophet Daniel after he had in the Name of the People made an humble acknowledgment of their manifold and great Sins he takes shame to himself and them for them Dan. 9.5 We have sinned says he and have committed iniquity and have done wickedly and have rebelled in departing from thy Precepts and from thy Judgments O Lord righteousness belongeth to thee but unto us confusion of face as at this day to the men of Judah and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and unto all Israel that are near and that are far off through all the Countries whither thou hast driven them because of their trespass which they have trespassed against thee O Lord To us belongeth confusion of face to our Kings to our Princes and to our Fathers because we have sinned against thee By which we may judge how considerable and essential a part of Repentance this Holy Man esteemed shame for the sins they had been guilty of to be And indeed upon all occasions of solemn Repentance and Humiliation for sin this taking shame for their sins is hardly ever omitted as if there could be no sincere Confession of sin and Repentance for it without testifying their shame and Confusion of face upon the remembrance of their sins Now to stir up this affection of shame in us let me offer to you these three Considerations I. Consider what great reason we have to be heartily ashamed of all the sins and offences which we have been guilty of against God It was a good old Precept of Philosophy that we should reverence our selves i. e. that we should never do any thing that should be matter of Shame and Reproach to us afterwards nothing that misbecomes us and is unworthy of us I have shewn at large that all Sin and Vice is a dishonour to our Nature and beneath the Dignity of it that it is a great reproach to our Reason and directly contrary to our true and best Interest that it hath all the aggravating circumstances of Infamy and Shame that every sin that was at any time committed by us was done in the presence of one whom of all Persons in the World we have most Reason to reverence and against him to whom of all others we stand most obliged for the greatest Favours for innumerable Benefits for infinite Mercy and Patience and Forbearance towards us in the presence of the Holy and Just God who is at the farthest distance from sin and the greatest and most implacable Enemy to it in the whole World and who will one day punish all our faults and expose us to open shame

and the real Reformation of our Lives Ahab humbled himself but we do not find that he was a true Penitent Judas was sorry for his Sin and yet for all that was the Son of perdition Esau is a sad type of an ineffectual Sorrow for Sin Heb. 12. where the Apostle tells us that He found no place for Repentance that is no way to change the mind of his Father Isaac tho' he sought it carefully with tears If Sorrow for Sin were Repentance there would be store of Penitents in Hell for there is the deepest and most intense sorrow weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth 2. Another mistake which Men ought to be caution'd against in this Matter is of those who exact from themselves such a degree of Sorrow for Sin as ends in deep melancholy as renders them unfit both for the Duties of Religion and of their particular Callings But because there are but very few who fall into this mistake I shall need to say the less to it This only I shall say that those who indulge their sorrow to such a degree as to drown their Spirits and to sink them into melancholy and mopishness and thereby render themselves unserviceable to God and unfit for the necessities of this life they commit one Sin more to mourn for and overthrow the End of Repentance by the indiscreet use of the Means of it For the End of Sorrow for Sin is the forsaking of it and returning to our Duty But he that Sorrows for Sin so as to unfit him for his Duty he defeats his own design and destroys the end he aims at II. The Other part of the Aplication of this Discourse should be to stir up this affection of Sorrow in us And here if I had time I might represent to you the great evil of sin and the infinite Danger and inconvenience of it If the holy men in Scripture David and Jeremiah and St. Paul were so deeply affected with the sins of others as to shed rivers of tears at the remembrance of them how ought we to be touched with the sense of our own sins who are equally concerned in the dishonour brought to God by them and infinitely more in the danger they expose us to Can we weep for our dead Friends and have we no sense of that heavy load of Guilt of that body of death which we carry about with us Can we be sad and melancholy for temporal Losses and Sufferings and refuse to be comforted And is it no Trouble to us to have lost Heaven and Happiness and to be in continual danger of the intolerable Sufferings and endless Torments of another World I shall only offer to your Consideration the great Benefit and Advantage which will redound to us from this godly Sorrow it worketh Repentance to Salvation not to be repented of saith St. Paul If we would thus sow in Tears we should reap in Joy This Sorrow would but continue for a time and in the morning of the Resurrection there would be Joy to all Eternity Joy unspeakable and full of Glory It is but a very little while and these days of Mourning will be accomplish'd and then all Tears shall be wiped from our Eyes and the ransomed of the Lord shall come to Sion with Songs and everlasting Joy shall be upon their Heads They shall obtain Joy and Gladness and Sorrow and Sighing shall flee away Blessed are they that mourn for they shall be comforted but wo unto you that laugh for ye shall mourn and weep If Men will rejoice in the pleasures of Sin and walk in the ways of their hearts and in the sight of their eyes if they will remove Sorrow from their heart and put away all sad and melancholy Thoughts from them and are resolved to harden their Spirits against the sense of Sin against the Checks and Convictions of their own Consciences and the Suggestions of God's Holy Spirit against all the Arguments that God can offer and all the Methods that God can use to bring them to Repentance let them know that for all these things God will bring them into judgment and because they would not give way to a timely and a seasonable Sorrow for Sin they shall lye down in eternal Sorrow weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth shall be their portion for ever From which sad and miserable Estate beyond all Imagination and past all Remedy God of his infinite Goodness deliver us all for Jesus Christ his sake To whom c. SERMON IV. Serm. 4. Preach'd on Ash-Wednesday 1689. The unprofitableness of Sin in this Life an Argument for Repentance JOB XXXIII 27 28. He looketh upon men and if any say I have sinned and perverted that which was right and it profited me not He will deliver his soul from going into the pit and his life shall see the light THE great Folly and Perverseness of humane Nature is in nothing more apparent than in this that when in all other things Men are generally led and governed by their Interests Vol. 8. and can hardly be imposed upon by any Art or perswaded by any Solicitation to act plainly contrary to it yet in matter of their Sin and Duty that is in that which of all other is of greatest concernment to them they have little or no regard to it but are so blinded and bewitched with the deceitfulness of sin as not to consider the infinite Danger and Disadvantage of it and at the same time to cast the Commandments of God and the consideration of their own Happiness behind their backs And of this every Sinner when he comes to himself and considers what he hath done is abundantly convinced as appears by the Confession and Acknowledgment which is here in the Text put into the Mouth of a true Penitent I have sinned and perverted that which is right and it profited me not c. In which Words here is a great Blessing and Benefit promised on God's part and the Condition required on our part First The Blessing or Benefit promised on God's part which is Deliverance from the ill Consequences and Punishment of Sin he will deliver his soul from going into the pit and his life shall see the light that is he will deliver him from Death and Damnation And tho' perhaps temporal Death be here immediately intended yet that is a Type of our Deliverance from eternal Death which is expresly promised in the Gospel Secondly Here is the Condition required on our part If any say I have sinned and perverted that which was right and it profited me not In which Words there are contained I. A penitent Confession of our Sins to God for he looketh upon men and if any say I have sinned that is make a penitent Confession of his Sin to God II. A true Contrition for our Sin not only for fear of the pernicious Consequences of Sin and the Punishment that will follow it implyed in these Words and it profited me not this is but a