Selected quad for the lemma: lord_n
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A30290
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The way to peace A funeral sermon on Job 22.21. Preached upon the decease of the right honourable Elizabeth, Countess of Ranalagh. By Daniel Burgess.
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Burgess, Daniel, 1645-1713.
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1695
(1695)
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Wing B5719; ESTC R224017
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30,595
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82
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quote the Psalms the Canticles and other Portions of Holy Scripture for Instances I ask what Christian of any Sense knows not this by his Experience Experience which maketh all things more manifest than Speech the most Excellent can do as the least Beam of the Sun better shews its Glory than the richest Painting of it can do Briefly then the Deaf and the Dumb be Demoniacks They are Strangers to God who hear not oft from Him and speak not oft to Him Who hear him not saying Seek ye my Face And whom he hears not answering Thy Face Lord we will seek 5. Ambition to please Him is imported in Acquaintance with him His Service is perfect Freedom and his Friend's highest Ambition Let me not love thee if I love thee not saith our English Psalmist Let me not serve thee if I serve thee not saith every true Israelite Pleasing God is by doing his Will and bearing it promptly and patiently Doing his Will of Precept after sound Knowledg of it and full Consent unto it Both Vniversally as to Times and as to the Precepts themselves and regularly making it our greatest Employment to keep the first and greatest Commandments Preferring Mercy and Obedience before Sacrifice the weighty Things of the Law before Mint and Cummin Righteousness and Peace before disputed Meat and Drink Submitting to his Will of Providence is no less necessary Submitting without contemning of its Chastisements or fainting under them Stupidity and Despondency are both Sins and Judgments Sense of our Sufferings and a proportionate Sorrow is the Grace of God both in us and unto us Our Duty towards him and his Mercy to us Grief and its Expressions are no Offences but when they are unqualified with their due Circumstances When they are Disproportionate to an inflicted stroke and our Complaint is great for a Cross that is little like Jonah's anger to the Death for no heavier loss than that of a Gourd When they are Indecent and invective against second Causes expressing Fury and not Humility Like those of Job and of Jeremy who in their Calentures cursed their Birth-days and the Messengers of them When they are Immoderate and such as argue us to be Men without Hope as David in his ejulation for his lost Absalom And when they are Profane taxing the Divine Justice and reviling Providence In short this Passive Obedience as truly as Active is in all true Acquaintance with God And as Difficult as they seem and repugnant to human Nature they are more than Facilitated both of them they are even Necessitated by a good understanding of God's Power and Dominion his Knowledg and Wisdom his Goodness and Truth Yea they are Commended unto us as our Principality and the Crown of our Glory Accordingly we find this to be the Language of Men Acquainted with God I will Walk at Liberty for I seek thy Precepts It is Good for me that I have bin Afflicted Here I am Let the Lord do to me as seemeth him good 6. Dependence on Him is also essential unto Acquaintance with God The three known branches of Dependance are so to wit Trust Faith and Hope Trust in his Goodness when we sit in greatest Darkness Faith and Assent unto whatsoever He says and Hope or sweet Expectation of all He Promises For there is a real Foundation in Him for all the Affections which He requireth from Us. It were not beseeming his Majesty to demand them if there were not that in his Nature and that in his Works that did deserve them Consequently their state in this World requiring that they should have somewhat to lean on and to keep them from being overwhelmed with outward Troubles and inward Passions they must necessarily Lean on the Lord and stay themselves on the God of their Salvation As promptly therefore as Seamen use their Anchor or Souldiers their Breastplate and Shield and Helmet Saints do exercise these Vertues which the Scripture representeth by those Names Heb. 6.19 1 Thess 5.8 Eph. 6.17 Their Life is spent in Contemplation of the Divine Perfections which make a proper Object of Confidence and in practical Exaltation of them Namely of the unerring Wisdom which infallibly knows all our Wants and understandeth what are the best Supplies Of the unspotted Goodness which is surely concerned for us and taketh care for Creatures less than our selves for Ravens for Sparrows for the Grass of the Field Of the unquestionable Power to which all things are possible and nothing is difficult tho by us much is unintelligible Power that can do more than we can know and is worthy to be trusted further than we can see The Holy Prophet saith all in a Word They that know thy Name will put their Trust in thee 7. Humility before Him is in all Acquaintance with God His Acquaintance is a Holy Familiarity that doth not breed Contempt nor brook it Tho the Majesty of Heaven condescends to acquaint it self with Worms it maketh them to know their Distance The Proud whose Souls are lifted up are opposed to Believers who walk with God Hab. 2.11 And it is certain that exiled Devils are the proudest and glorious Angels the most humble Creatures These latter would be Nothing that God may be All these Fiends would be All and have God to be Nothing Whomsoever he adopts into his Favour God always qualifieth with a sutable Nature And we know that great Honours do melt down ingenuous Spirits The Grace which setteth Crowns upon their Heads doth make them fall on their Knees And the more they are magnified the farther they be from magnifying of themselves Mephibosheth being invited to eat the King's Bread debasingly stiles himself a dead Dog Abigail when honoured with a Call to be the King's Wife professeth it too high a Preferment for her to be his Servant Let thy Handmaid be a Servant to wash the Feet of the Servants of my Lord In a Word David is told that God would build him an House and establish his Sons on the Throne after him and doth it not swell him up No we find not that ever his Lips dropped more self-denying Words Who am I O Lord God and what is my House So unto Job God appears in excelling Glory and Majesty and what is the Effect I abhor my self saith that excellent Saint Lord I am Hell said the Martyr Hooper as he was ascending to Heaven Pride is the Sin which is least of all consistent with God's Friendship It is as much against his Laws as any and more against his Being and Sovereignty It 's also the grossest Defiance of his Providence receiving its Crosses with no less than Rage and its Blessings with no better than Disdain It 's the Sin that God is not content to ruin but delighteth also to shame Not sending Lions but Lice to eat up an Herod not Wolves and Bears but Goats and Flies to assault a Pharaoh not an Anakim but a very Stripling to fell a Goliah I shall suggest no more to
whom they are Brought and Kept nigh Him and are excited with frequence to Draw most near to Him in his Ordinances Which as Jacob's Ladder have their Top in Heaven though their Foot on Earth And whereon as God descends to us we do Ascend to God The Lord is nigh to all that Call upon Him Howbeit without the Exercise of Graces vain is the Use of Ordinances Such Use is very Profaness and no Mean but the Bane of Acquaintance with God For what is such Worship but Lies and Deceit Hos 11. ult Think we that we can Come to God a Spirit upon Bodily Feet Or that there is any beneficial Approach to Him but with the Heart Or with any thing of the Heart but the Holy Vertues of it Briefly thus in every Ordinance we must set forward Repentance It is unto his Mourners that in Ordinances God cometh down with Comforts Isa 57.15 We must act Faith what we Feel our selves to Want we must Believe God able and willing to Give To wit for the sake of Christ who hath paid for it on Earth and pleads for it in Heaven The Scripture bids him not think to Receive any thing who in Ordinances asketh without Faith and Wavering Jam. 1.6 7. We must act Hope this is the Waiting Grace It is an Expectation that is Certain because built on the Rock of Divine Promises and Quickning both Desire and Action because of its Objects attractive excellency and Quieting also till God's time of bestowing it doth come because Hope is it self a very Foretaste of its Object 's sweetness And there is a Rejoicing in Hope as well as in Possession No wonder therefore that there is a Patience of Hope without the Exercise whereof in an Ordinance our Hearts be either Frozen and Negligent or Furious and Impatient When we Hope for God's Salvation then we do his Commandments Psal 119.166 We must also put forth Love for this is the Uniting Grace By its Desire we run to an Object by its Delight we rest in it Desire the first act of Love is as Thirst Delight which is its other Act is Satisfaction An Ordinance without these is as a Feast where there 's no Appetite or Eating But what saith our Saviour If a Man Love me he shall be Beloved of my Father and I will Love him and will Manifest my self unto him We will Come unto him and make our Abode with him Joh. 14.21 23. We must likewise express Humility because of our Natural distance from God which is never to be reduced and our Moral distance which is but in part removed Who can measure the Distance between Infinite and Finite Between a God and a Creature Or the Distance that is between Perfect Holiness and little beside Guilt and Filth Between Him in whose sight Angels are not clean and Creatures that proclaim themselves to be Sinks of Sin and to need no less than a Fountain of Grace The Man unto whom God will look in any Ordinance is the Poor and Contrite in Spirit that trembleth at his Word Isa 66.2 Then only we Worship when our Souls bow down and our Spirits Kneel before God our Maker Thus is Acquaintance with God maintained By his Communications unto us and our Exercising Graces and Performing Duties toward Him A blessed Reciprocation wherein He descending to us in a way of Bounty we ascend up unto him in a way of Duty Happy is the People that is in such a Case Happy is the People whose God is the Lord Wherefore lastly Posit 8 Acquaintance with God is Interrupted and broken by these particulars These into which we easily Fall and under which we must deeply Suffer as oft as we do so Namely 1. Presumptuous Sins Sins commited not by the Error of the Vnderstanding and named Sins of Ignorance or Incogitancy nor by the rashness and precipitance of the Affections and named Sins of Infirmity but committed by the rebellious Will which notwithstanding the Dictate of the Mind offered to it is swayed by the Lust of brutish Affection and rushes into the abominable thing that God hates These bear the name of Presumptuous Sins And such is their Malignity that they alienate God from the Soul and the Soul from God They are said to Separate Isa 59.2 And know we not their Effect upon the Man of God's own Heart His own words do argue that they made him fear himself to be a Cast-a-way Cast me not away from thy Presence and take not thy Holy Spirit from me Psal 51.11 In short where wilful Sins do not die no Acquaintance with God can Live It must lay us in a Swoon till their Mortification 2. Rejected Duties Known Duties declined as to Frequence or as to Fervence in them As slow as the Lord is unto Wrath he will bear no such Slights of his Love For what a Contempt is weariness of the Supream King's Service and Benefactor 's Acquaintance What a Blasphemy is it in practice to say We are Lords and will come no more unto thee Jer. 2.31 What a sensless Iniquity is it as well as a Contumelious For never could any answer to God's Query VVhat have I done unto thee and wherein have I wearied thee Mic. 6.3 If we have full Stomachs and loath God's Honeycombs we shall not go long without feeling his Rods and Scorpions The Vials of his Anger shall be poured out and the wonted Aids and Comforts of his grieved Spirit be suspended It 's more than probable that till we stir up our selves and fill our Life with Duties and our Duties with Graces we shall find our selves emptied of our Hopes of Heaven and filled with the Fears of Hell My seldom-praying hath made me so often-despairing saith one My long Fasts from Duty have taken away all my Appetite unto it And what saith another For my sake let all Christians beware of Coldness in Ordinances it hath been the Death of my Hopes and giveth me a Life of nothing but Fears It is said of some Sovereign Potions that if taken cold their Virtue is Malignant they rather kill than heal I am much more certain that the Ordinances which being attended with Zeal lift up toward Heaven when Lukewarmness obtains they do throw us clean contrary As many as desire a flourishing Acquaintance with him let them seek the Lord continually and with all their Heart and their Soul Knowing that all drawing back tends to its Perdition Lastly 3. Pursued Vanities By Vanities I intend this World's Idols Sensual Pleasures which are but Swines Delights Riches of Gold that is but Dust and of Pearl which is no more than the Sea's Froth Honour and Praise of Men which is but their unseen Conceit and their favourable Breath Of these the condemned Pursuit is such as is Absolute and Vltimate neither Submissive nor Moderate When we prosecute them as resolved any manner of way to gain them Making them our highest Ambition Impatient of their being withheld from us by the undoubted Proprietor And