Selected quad for the lemma: lord_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
lord_n	concern_v	zeal_n	zealous_a	42	3	9.2603	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A62605	A sermon preached at St Mary le Bow before the Lord Mayor, Court of Aldermen, & citizens of London, on Wednesday the 18th of June, a day appointed by Their Majesties, for a solemn monthly fast by John Tillotson ...	Tillotson, John, 1630-1694.	1690 (1690)	Wing T1242; ESTC R16897	15,614	41

away with them into Captivity for they have lost my heart and no intercession of others for them nothing but their own repentance can recover it And when his Soul is once departed from a People and his heart turn'd against them then all sorts of evils and calamities will be let loose upon them as we may read in the next verse of that Chapter And it shall come to pass if they say unto thee whither shall we go forth Then shalt thou tell them Thus saith the Lord such as are for death to death and such as are for the sword to the sword and such as are for the famine to the famine and such as are for the captivity to the captivity For then God will be weary of repenting as he tells them verse 6. Thou hast forsaken me saith the Lord thou art gone backward therefore will I stretch out my hand against thee and deliver thee I am weary of repenting By our obstinate impenitency we harden the heart of God against us and make him weary of repenting And when his soul is thus departed from a People nothing remains but a fearful expectation of ruine Wo unto them saith God by the Prophet when I depart from them Therefore be thou instructed O Jerusalem lest my soul depart from thee lest I make thee desolate a Land not inhabited Having given this account of the Words I shall observe from them three things well worth our consideration First The infinite goodness and patience of God towards a sinful People and his great unwillingness to bring ruine and destruction upon them lest my soul depart from thee lest I make thee desolate a Land not inhabited How loth is He that things should come to this extremity He is not without great difficulty and some kind of violence as it were offered to himself brought to this severe resolution his soul is as it were rent and disjoynted from them Secondly You see here what is the only proper and effectual means to prevent the misery and ruine of a sinful People If they will be instructed and take warning by the threatnings of God and will become wiser and better then his soul will not depart from them he will not bring upon them the desolation which he hath threatned Thirdly You have here intimated the miserable case and condition of a People when God takes off his affection from them and gives over all further care and concernment for them Wo unto them when his soul departs from them For when God once leaves them then all sorts of evils and calamities will break in upon them I shall speak as briefly as I can to these three Observations from the Text. First I observe the infinite patience and goodness of God towards a sinful People and his great unwillingness to bring ruine and destruction upon them lest my soul depart from thee lest I make thee desolate a Land not inhabited How loth is God that things should come to this He is very patient to particular persons notwithstanding their great and innumerable provocations God is strong and patient though men provoke him every day And much greater is his patience to whole Nations and great Communities of men How great was it to the old World when the long suffering of God waited in the days of Noah for the space of an hundred and twenty years And did not expire till he saw that the wickedness of man was grown great upon the earth and that all flesh had corrupted its way not till it was necessary to drown the World to cleanse it and to destroy Mankind to reform it by beginning a new World upon the only righteous Family that was left of all the last generation of the Old For so God testifies concerning Noah when he commanded him to enter into the Ark saying Come thou and all thy house into the Ark for thee that is thee only have I seen righteous before me in this Generation The patience of God was great likewise to Sodom and Gomorrah and the Cities about them For when the cry of their sins had reached heaven and called loud for vengeance to be poured down upon them to express the wonderful patience of God towards such grievous Sinners though nothing is hid from his sight and knowledge yet he is represented as coming down from Heaven to Earth on purpose to enquire into the truth of things and whether they were altogether according to the cry that was come up to him And when he found things as bad as was possible yet then was he willing to have come almost to the lowest terms imaginable that if there had been but ten righteous persons in those wicked Cities he would not have destroy'd them for the ten 's sake Nay he comes to lower termes yet with the City of Jerusalem Jer. 5.1 Run ye to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem and see now and know and seek in the broad places thereof if ye can find a man if there be any that executeth judgment and seeketh the truth and I will pardon it What can be imagin'd more slow and mild and merciful than the proceedings of the Divine justice against a sinful People God is represented in Scripture as taking a long time to make ready his bow and to whet his glittering sword before his hand takes hold of vengeance as if the instruments of his wrath lay by him blunt and rusty and unready for use Many a time he threatens and many a time lifts up his hand before he gives the fatal blow And how glad is he when any good man will step in and interpose to stay his hand As we read Psal. 106.23 Therefore he said speaking of the People of Israel that he would destroy them had not Moses his servant stood in the breach to turn away his wrath lest he should destroy them And how kindly doth God take it of Phinehas as a most acceptable piece of service done to him and which he hardly knew how sufficiently to reward that he was a means of putting a stop to his anger against the People of Israel Insomuch that the Psalmist tells us that it was accounted to him for righteousness to all generations for evermore I will recite the whole passage at large because it is remarkable When the People of Israel were seduced into Idolatry and Whoredom by the Daughters of Moab Phinehas in great zeal stood up and executed judgment upon Zimri and Cozbi in the very act By which means the Plague which was broken out upon the Congregation of Israel was presently stayed Hear what God says to Moses concerning this act of Phineahs The Lord spake unto Moses saying Phinehas the son of Eleazer the son of Aaron the Priest hath turned away my wrath from the Children of Israel whilst he was zealous for my sake that I consumed them not Wherefore say Behold I give unto him my Covenant of peace and he shall have it and his seed after him even

the Covenant of an everlasting Priesthood because he was zealous for his God and made an atonement for the Children of Israel That which God takes so kindly at his hands next to his zeal for Him is that he pacified God's wrath towards the Children of Israel And thus did God from time to time deal with the People of Israel that great Example of the Old Testament of the merciful methods of the Divine Providence towards a sinful Nation And an Example as St. Paul tells us purposely recorded for our admonition upon whom the ends of the World are come Let us therefore consider a little the astonishing patience of God towards that perverse People After all the signs and wonders which He had wrought in their deliverance out of Egypt and for their support in the Wilderness and notwithstanding their gross and stupid infidelity and horrible ingratitude to God their Saviour and all their rebellious murmurings and discontents yet he suffer'd their manners for the space of forty years And when they were at last peaceably settled in the promised Land notwithstanding their frequent relapses into Idolatry with what patience did God expect their repentance and the result of all the merciful messages and warnings given them from time to time by his Prophets as one that earnestly desir'd it and even long'd for it O Jerusalem wash thine heart from wickedness that thou mayest be saved how long shall vaine thoughts lodge within thee that is how long wilt thou delude thy self with vaine hopes of escaping the judgments of God by any other way than by repentance And again O Jerusalem wilt thou not be made clean when shall it once be And chap. 8. vers 6. says God there I hearkened and I heard but they spake not aright no man repented him of his wickedness saying What have I done Where God is represented after the manner of men waiting with great patience as one that would have been glad to have heard any penitent word drop from them to have seen any sign of their repentance and return to a better mind And when they made some shews of repentance and had some fits of good resolution that did presently vanish and come to nothing how passionately does God complain of their fickleness and inconstancy O Ephraim what shall I do unto thee O Judah what shall I do unto thee for your goodness is as a morning cloud and as the early dew it goeth away And at last when nothing would do with what difficulty and reluctancy does God deliver them up into the hands of their Enemies How shall I give thee up Ephraim How shall I deliver thee Judah How shall I make thee as Admah how shall I set thee as Zeboim mine heart is turned within me and my repentings are kindled together I will not execute the fierceness of mine anger I will not destroy Ephraim What a conflict is here what tenderness and yerning of his bowels towards them He cannot find in his heart to give them up till he is forc'd to it by the last necessity And when the Nation of the Jews after their return from the Captivity of Babylon had in the course of several Ages greatly corrupted themselves and fill'd up the measure of their sins by crucifying the Lord of Life and Glory yet how slow was the patience of God in bringing that fatal and final Destruction upon them Not till after the most merciful warnings given to them by the Apostles of our Lord and Saviour not till after the most obstinate impenitency of forty years under the most powerful means of repentance that any People in the World ever enjoyed I proceed to the Second Observation from the Text namely What is the only proper and effectual means to prevent the ruine of a sinful People And that is if they will be instructed and take warning by the threatnings of God to become wiser and better then his soul will not depart from them and he will not bring upon them the desolation threatned Be thou instructed O Jerusalem lest my soul depart from thee and I make thee desolate a Land not inhabited intimating or rather plainly declaring to us that if we will receive instruction and take warning the evil threatn'd shall not come For what other reason can there be why God should threaten so long before he strikes and so earnestly press men to repentance but that he might have the opportunity to spare them and shew mercy to them And indeed as I observ'd before all the denunciations and threatnings of God to a sinful Nation do carry this tacit condition in them that if that Nation turn from their evil ways God will repent of the evil which he thought to do unto them For God never passeth so irrevocable a Sentence upon a Nation as to exclude the case of repentance Nay on the contrary He gives all imaginable encouragement to it and is always ready to meet it with a pardon in his hand How often would I have gathered thee says our merciful Lord when he wept over Jerusalem as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings and ye would not therefore your House is left unto you desolate God is very merciful to particular persons upon their repentnace When the Prodigal Son in the Parable after all his riot and lewdness came to himself and resolv'd to return home his Father seeing him yet afar of coming towards him came out to meet him and had compassion on him and kissed him And can any of us be so obstinate and hard-hearted as not presently to resolve to repent and return and to meet the compassions of such a Father Who after we have offended him to the uttermost is upon the first discovery of our repentance ready to be as kind to us as he could possibly have been if we had never offended him And much more is God ready to receive a Nation upon their sincere Repentance when his Judgments must needs make great havock and so many are like to suffer under them This consideration God urgeth and pleads with his froward Prophet in behalf of the great City of Niniveh And shall not I spare that great City of Niniveh wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons who cannot discern their right hand from their left that is so many innocent children by which we may judge of the vast number of the rest of the Inhabitants For this is a great consideration with God in his sending of publique Calamities the multitude of the Sufferers and that not only the guilty but the innocent also without a special and miraculous Providence must be involved in a common Calamity Sometimes God respites his Judgments upon the meer external humiliation of a People and some formal testimonies and expressions of their repentance When the People of Israel sought God and enquired early after him though they did but flatter him with their mouth and their heart was not right with him yet the