Selected quad for the lemma: lord_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
lord_n	day_n	good_a	see_v	11,824	5	3.3378	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A23772	The vanity of the creature by the author of The whole duty of man, &c. ; together with a letter prefix'd, sent to the bookseller, relating to the author.	Allestree, Richard, 1619-1681.	1684 (1684)	Wing A1168; ESTC R19327	37,491	120

of all doth not take away the natures and workings of Secondary Causes but rather establish them which is the reason of that Speech of God to Job in the ordinary revolution of the times and seasons of the year Job 38.31 Canst thou bind the sweet influences of the Pleiades and loose the bonds of Orion Now the Pleiades are those we commonly call the Seven Stars that have their influence on the earth by producing sweet showres to the opening and refreshing of it about the Spring of the year and Orion is a Constellation most conspicuous in the Winter-season as having a commissionary power to bind up the earth with Frosts Again canst thou bring forth Mazzaroth in his season i.e. the twelve Signes successively after one another or guide Arcturus with his Sons i. e. the Polar Star as some will have it with those ignes minores that wait upon him or Bootes as others It is not then so much the Earth as the Heavens that give us either fruit or withhold it they being the first ordinary means whereby God uses to work out alterations in sublunary things The second Instrumental cause of these strange Vicissitudes here below is the Will of Man for though it have not a liberty to Spiritual yet all grant it a liberty to external acts and moral goodness And this Liberty of Mans Will doth God use as an under-wheel to turn about most of those Alterations that are in the world It is true that Health and Sickness Peace and War Plenty and Scarcity Riches and Poverty proceed from God as the principal Efficient cause but yet for all this we deny not but that God makes use both of our selves and others as to the means of bringing them about The life of Joseph was checquer'd with variety of accidents for he is now a Slave to the Ismaelites and by and by a Prince in Aegypt Now these although they proceeded from God as the Author yet was the will of his Brethren as the will of Reuben and Judah the instruments of preserving his life and the wills of his other Brethren the means of selling him into Aegypt Now because it is the Nature of Instruments to be subservient to the principal Agent and to be determin'd by it therefore give me leave here by the way to fasten this exhortation upon you That in all Changes whatsoever you will look beyond the Instruments of them unto God the Principal Agent For so did Job in his losses beyond the plundring Chaldeans and Sabeans unto Dominus abstulit The Lord hath given and the Lord hath taken away looking upon them as we use to do upon an Index tantum in ordine ad Librum only in order to the Book it self Et in transitu ad Deum in his passage unto God who sets them a work as to their natural powers and faculties though to the evil of them no otherwise than by ordering and over-ruling it to the good of his Children And hence it is that the wicked are called Gods Sword as in the 17 Psalm v. 13. Deliver my Soul says David from the wicked which is thy sword And so must we in all those Losses that befal us here have in our eye not so much the Sword as the Hand that holds it which will be one means and a good one too to bring us to Davids calm temper in the 39 Psal. 19. who says in the like condition That he was dumb and did not open his mouth nor let fall an impatient word in it because it was Gods doing And therefore when Abishai would have taken away Shimei's life for cursing of David No says he Let him alone Iussit enim Dominus for the Lord hath bidden him curse who then shall say Wherefore hast thou done so q. d. Who then dare expostulate with God or call him to account about it as if he were unrighteous in it since evil men are but Swords in Gods hand who when he hath once done his work by them will either put them up again into his Scabbard and lay them by or else so blunt the edge of their power that it shall not cut or else break them a pieces and throw them quite away And so much for the Efficient Causes of Vicissitudes Next I shall speak to the Ends or Final Causes of them And these are either Ex parte Dei or Nostri in respect of God or our selves First in respect of God and so the Principal End why God rings such Changes upon all earthly things and will have them disposed of after so various a manner is to make them by it the more tunable to his own Glory which by this means is exceedingly magnifyed and advanced but especially in the Attributes of his Power Truth Wisdom and Goodness 1. In his Power and Omnipotency that so he may let the world know that the Finger of his Power is in all Transactions and that he can do whatsoever he will both in Heaven and Earth and yet changes not For why else did God work so many miraculous Changes in Aegypt by the hand of Moses Why turned he Moses Rod into aSerpent and the Aegyptian waters into Blood Why their Dust into Lice and Flies and their Light into Darkness for the space of three days together Why else Created he a new generation of Frogs and Locusts among them Why unheard-of Diseases upon themselves and upon their Cattel Why destroyed he their Herbs and Fruit-trees with Hail and their first-born with untimely death In a word Why caused he the Red-sea to go out of its natural course and chanel whereby it became a wall to the Israelites and a grave to the Aegyptians Did not God all this to make known the glory of his power in the preservation of the one and destruction of the other Yes For this cause says God to Moses I have raised thee up to shew in thee my power and that my Name may be declared in all the earth 2. He advances also his Glory this way by manifesting his Truth and Faithfulness in that those things which are accidental in regard of us and seem as impossible yet are they exactly brought to pass in their due times and seasons As in the bringing of the Israelites out of Aegypt wherein God was full as good as his word and kept touch with them to a day in their Deliverance as you may see Exod. 12.41 where we read That it came to pass in the end of four hundred and thirty years even the self-same day it came to pass that all the hosts of the Lord went out of the land of Aegypt All Pharaoh's oppositions and tergiversations could not prorogue their Bondage so much as one day beyond the time prefixed of God but serv'd only to fill up that Interim or void space of time betwixt Gods Promise made to Abraham and his performance of it And if you ask by what intervals of time the truth of his promise came about so punctually Divines will tell