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nation_n	earth_n	let_v	rejoice_v	2,218	5	9.6032	5	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
B08803	Several discourses concerning the actual Providence of God. Divided into three parts. The first, treating concerning the notion of it, establshing the doctrine of it, opening the principal acts of it, preservation and government of created beings. With the particular acts, by which it so preserveth and governeth them. The second, concerning the specialities of it, the unseachable things of it, and several observable things in its motions. The third, concerning the dysnoēta, or hard chapters of it, in which an attempt is made to solve several appearances of difficulty in the motions of Providence, and to vindicate the justice, wisdom, and holiness of God, with the reasonableness of his dealing in such motions. / By John Collinges ...	Collinges, John, 1623-1690.	1678 (1678)	Wing C5335; ESTC R233164	689,844	860

Reign and the necessity of it Isa 52.7 How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings that publisheth peace that bringeth good tidings of good that publisheth salvation that saith unto Zion thy God reigneth It is good news to all the World that God reigneth but particularly to Sion to the Church and the people of God to the whole visible Church it is good tidings but particularly to the invisible part that is militant here on Earth and the individual members thereof 1. This Doctrine first is of great use to comfort them against and under all their disturbances for things which happen to the Church in general or themselves in particular A ship at Sea were but in an ill case if it were not for him that sate at the Helm a skilful Pilot there ordereth her well enough so as the winds serve his design so it is with the Church tossed with winds and waves she is only safe in the Lords government of all the affairs of the World Luther I remember saith thus of himself I saith he have often attempted to prescribe God ways and methods in the government of his Church and other affairs I have said Ah Domine hoc velim ita fieri hoc ordine hoc eventu I would have this thing thus done in this order with this event But saith he God did quite contrary to what I asked of him Then saith he I thought with my self what I would have had was not contrary to the glory of God but would have been of great use for the sanctifying of his Name In short it was a brave design well advised but undoubtedly God laught at at this wisdom of men and said Go to now I know you are a learned man and a wise man But it was never my manner to allow Saint Peter or Saint Martin or any other to instruct teach govern or lead me Non sum Deus passivus sed activus I am not a passive but an active God That great man and Melancthon were two famous Instruments in the Reformation of Germany but of different tempers Melancthon was a man of a more mild and gentle Spirit and melancholick timerous temper Luther was of a more fierce and bold temper Melancthon would often write very troubled Letters to Luther about the state of the Church affairs Luther would constantly make use of this argument from the Governing-Providence of God to support Melancthon Melancthon saith he Let God alone to govern the World The Lord reigneth It pleaseth God so to order it in his Providence that the face of affairs relating to the Church often looks very sadly and there is nothing which giveth the spirits of the people of God a greater disturbance Now all these disturbances are caused from our Not-attending to this Principle which yet every good Christian professeth to receive and to believe Were we but rooted and grounded in the faith of this one Principle That the Kingdom of God ruleth over all and that he exerciseth a special care and Government relating to his Church and ruleth the World with a special regard to the good of his little flock we could neither be immoderately disturbed for the concern of the glory of God nor yet for the Church of God 1 Chron. 16.31 Let the heavens be glad and let the earth rejoyce and let men say amongst the Nations the Lord reigneth let the Sea roar and the fulness thereof let the fields rejoyce and all that is therein Then shall the trees of the wood sing out at the presence of the Lord because he cometh to judg the Earth Say therefore unto Zion Thy God reigneth Let Papists rage and Atheists scoff and threaten and do what they can Let all their Favourites take counsel together and join hand in hand when they have done all they can they will find that the Lord reigneth And this is enough to say unto Sion or to any of her sons and daughters Two things are sufficient in the most troublesom and tumultuous times to still support and comfort the spirits of Gods people 1. That the Lord reigneth and hath an unquestionable superintendence upon all the Beings of his creatures all their motions and all their actions He is higher in power than the highest of them 2. That this God is our God The Psalmist hinteth both in that excellent 46 Psalm v. 10 Be still and know that I am God I will be exalted amongst the Heathen I will be exalted in the Earth The Lord of Hosts is with us The God of Jacob is our refuge Let not therefore those that fear the Lord trouble themselves about the motions of the World and commotions in it about the ragings of lewd men against the interest of Christ Let them not trouble themselves further than is their duty viz. to be sensible of the rebukes of Divine Providence The Lord reigneth He that sitteth in the heavens laugheth The Lord shall have them in derision and shall one day speak unto them in his wrath and vex them in his sore displeasure and let the World know that yet he hath set his King upon his holy hill of Sion I remember a passage of Luther Si nos ruamus ruet Christus unus Christus scilicet magnus ille regnator mundi c. If we perish saith he Christ must fall too Christ that great Governour of the World 2. If we did consider this as we might or ought we should also see as little reason to be disturb'd as to the concerns of our own Souls with the fear of two things as to their own Souls ordinarily the people of God are troubled 1. The prevailings of their own lusts and corruptions 2. The prevailings of Satans temptations This Doctrine of Divine Providence excellently serveth to still our unquiet spirits as to either of these troubles If the Lords Kingdom be over all both these fears must be vain and causeless for supposing the faithfulness of the Promises Sin shall not have dominion over your mortal bodies God shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly He will with the temptation give an happy issue If the Lords Kingdom be over all neither shall corruption prevail nor Satan by temptations prevail to destroy the work of God in our Soul or to prevent us or hinder us as to the Kingdom which God hath prepared for us for as he that hath promised is faithful or cannot repent or lye so he is powerful and hath a dominion over all beings persons things c. My father saith Christ is greater than all none can pluck you out of my fathers hand 3. Lastly It affords us a relief against the sad prospect we have almost continually before our eyes of the malicious actions of wicked and ungodly men There is and always was a generation in the World which sleep not unless they do mischief they are continually devising mischievous devices against the little flock of Christ Their counsels designs works have a plain and

but he findeth that such knowledg as David saith was too wonderful for him In my Text he doth referre pedem draw his foot backward I will go back saith he I will wade no further O the depth There are some truths and ways of God which are unsearchable We may discourse a little and more generally of them but we shall never be able to find the bottom of them It is wisdom for us in time to retreat and cry O the depth But what depth is this The blessed Apostle tells you of the wisdom and knowledg of God in man knowledg and wisdom are two differing habits a man may be a knowing man yet not a wise man Knowledg apprehends things Wisdom directs the practice to the best ends of humane life Knowledg is a speculative habit Wisdom a practical habit In God also though he be but one simple act we may conceive a difference betwixt Wisdom and Knowledg but in this Text possibly it is but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one thing expressed by two terms he is speaking of the wisdom the unsearchable wisdom of God in some particular acts of his Providence How unsearchable are his Judgments and his ways past finding out Here are two terms Judgments and Ways Both again here signifie 1. the same thing Judgments in Scripture sometimes signifie the ways and statutes of God because of the Justice and righteousness that is in them By Justice God measureth his own Words and Laws 2. Sometimes the Term signifieth corrections and chastisements because God measureth out all these likewise in Justice and in them acteth as a righteous Judg But here doubtless Judgments and ways signifie the same thing All Gods ways are Judgments ways of Justice and Equity and Righteousness The term ways is also used in more senses than one Sometimes it signifies the way of Duty wherein we ought to walk towards God or the course of mens actions so you read of the way of the wicked the way of sinners here it is applied to God and signifies The course and series of his actions towards his creatures so it signifies here Of these Judgments and ways of God of this wisdom and knowledg of God it is said They are unsearchable they are past finding out Vnsearchable that is such as we can by no means search out by no means come to the bottom of The only Proposition I shall insist upon from these words is this Prop. The ways of Gods counsels and Providence are unsearchable and not to be found out In the handling of this Proposition 1. I will endeavour to prove it to you that it is so 2. I will shew you how far it is our duty to behold and to search into them and to shew you also wherein they are unsearchable and not to be found out Then I shall make some application Let us first see how this is established from Scripture Eccles 8.17 Then I beheld all the works of God that a man cannot find out his work that is done under the Sun yea though a man labour to seek it out yet he shall not find it yea though a wiseman thinketh to know it yet he shall not find it A Text which must be understood of Gods works of Providence The Wiseman saith a man cannot find them out yea though a man labour to seek it yet he shall not find it He that spake this was Solomon a man to whom God had given Wisdom above all that had been before him and said that there should be none after him who should be like unto him He tells us ver 16 That as he was indued with Wisdom enriched with this Talent so he had not laid it up in a Napkin but had made it his business to improve it I have saith he applied my heart to wisdom and to see the business which is done on the earth V. 17 you have the conclusion That the ways of God were not to be found out yea though a wise man think to know it yet he shall not find it out Psalm 36.6 His righteousness is like a great mountain his judgments are a great deep Not a deep only but a great deep The Sea is called a great deep there is no sounding the bottom of it in many places For saith the Apostle what man knoweth the things of a man but the spirit of a man that is within him even so no man knoweth the things of God but the spirit of God and it must be so if we consider the infiniteness of the Divine Light Wisdom and Understanding His understanding is infinite Psalm 147.5 Now it is said of the works of God In wisdom hath he made them all There is the infinite wisdom of God in the works and contrivances of his Providence The Apostle telleth us he dwelleth in that light to which none can approach 1 Tim. 6.16 and so he walks in that light which none can see and fully comprehend There is no searching out of his understanding Isa 40.28 The way of the Lord is like the way of an Eagle in the air of a Serpent upon a Rock not to be seen not to be tracked Incomprehensibilis Dei sapientia inter angustias humanae rationis coarctari non potest It is the saying of a grave Author Gods unsearchable incomprehensible wisdom cannot be cooped up within the straits of humane Reason but the Doctrine is experimentally and de facto evident enough In the second place here may arise a Question How far our duty extendeth as to the ways of Divine Providence for certainly we have a duty a great duty incumbent upon us to Divine Providences I remember it is the saying of Cicero Si vera est sententia quorundam philosophorum qui omnino nullam rerum humanarum procurationem docent habere Deos Quae potest esse pietas Quae Religio Quae sanctitas Cicero de Nat. Deorum If the opinion of some Philosophers who deny that the Gods exercise any providence or take any care of humane affairs be true What piety can there be What Religion What Holiness A sentence which will let us know that there were some amongst the Heathens that were less Atheists than some amongst those who are called Christians Now the case is the same supposing this Divine Procuration or Providence if we may not or do not at all take notice of it Let me therefore discourse a little concerning the duty of man with reference to the Providence of God and then I shall shew you the boundaries of it and wherein it is unsearchable I shall open the first in three or four particulars 1. It is doubtless the duty of Gods people To see and behold the works of the Lord indeed we cannot but see them they are before our eyes every day But my meaning is to behold the things that are done in the earth as the works of the Lord. There are too many that do see and not see they see pluckings up and plantings of Nations and Families but

take away his life pursueth him with an Army from place to place David had a pitiful company with him is forced to flee to Gath there to dissemble himself mad would any one have thought that had seen David among the Philstines scrambling on the walls that he should ever have been King over Israel and Judah At length Saul and Jonathan the next heir are slain in Battel then Ishbosheth is set up but yet after all these oblique and seemingly contradictory motions of Providence it cometh home to the promise David is setled in the Throne of Israel and Judah 4. Let a fourth instance be that of the Gospel Church God had promised that he would set his King upon the holy hill of Zion Psalm 2.6 v. 8 That he would give him the heathen for his inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth for his possession and promises of this nature are everywhere multiplyed by the Prophets Isaiah especially Our Lord when he ascended up into Heaven gave out a Commission to his Disciples in order to this effect Go preach and baptize all Nations c. Now at the first the Providence of God seemed to move as if the thing should presently have been done You read Acts 2 That the Spirit of God descended and there were then at Jerusalem saith the Text devout men of every Nation under Heaven Parthians Medes Elamites Mesopotamians Jews Cappadocians men of Pontus Asia Phrygia Pamphilia Egypt Lybians Cyrenians Romanes Cretes Arabians and heard the Apostles in their own language speaking of the great works of God Here were now Preachers made for all the World would not one have thought that surely at this time all the ends of the Earth should have been given unto Christ Peter at one Sermon converts two thousand soon after there were five thousand added to the Church But all on the sudden the Providence of God turneth the Gospel groweth out of repute and the Apostles that preached it too both with Jews and Gentiles James is put to death Peter hardly escapes The Church the only Gospel church God had at that time at Jerusalem was scattered and broken the Apostle complains That they were made as the filth of the world and as the off scouring of all things The Jews persecute them the Gentiles in all places rise up against the Preachers of the Gospel bonds stripes and imprisonments waited for the Apostles in all places where they came Paul saith he thought that God had set them forth as men appointed unto death spectacles to the World Angels and men Few of the great Ministers of the Gospel died their natural death the Christians were a sect everywhere spoken against all courses almost imaginable taken to root them out of all places for three hundred years together But at length the Providence of God cometh in a great measure to work up to the direct fulfilling of the many promises of this nature Constantine an Emperour of a great part of the World ariseth and commandeth and encourageth the preaching of the Gospel And thus it came to be spread and accepted in most known parts of the World Indeed there is hardly any instance can be given of any great work of Providence respecting Churches Nations or particular persons as to which this Observation will not justifie it self 5. For another instance may we not bring in if not all yet very many of your particular Souls who fear the Lord. You also upon believing receive the promises The promises are made of old but we receive them we come to have a title to them in the day when God opens our eyes and opens our hearts to a receiving of the Lord Jesus Christ turning our hearts from dead lusts and sins to serve the living God In that day I say we have a first right to all the Promises whether respecting joy and peace or spiritual strength and assistances Now very-often at the first of our conversion the Providence of God moves directly towards them the Soul finds a great life to Duty a great zeal against sin great joy and peace in believing glimpses of the glory of God But after this very ordinarily follow very dark hours and the Soul like Jonah cryes out of the belly of Hell The Soul that feareth the Lord and obeyeth the voice of his Servant yet walketh in the dark and seeth no light cryeth out My God my God why hast thou forsaken me and hath a thousand fair and foul days in its journey to Heaven I know particular cases must here be excepted but I speak of the ordinary Methods of Divine Providence with Souls whom God bringeth to glory 6. I will conclude this Discourse with the instance of the great work of Providence in the Reformation of his Church in this latter age whether you look upon it in Germany France or England In Germany it began with Luther an eminent Servant of of God though like Elias of like passions and infirmities with other men how strangely did the Providence of God in the beginning work towards the accomplishment of it That Luther who was a poor Monk should be preserved to plant the Doctrine of the Gospel and should diffuse it so far as he did and be preserved to do it against all the rage both of the Pope and Emperour 28 or 29 years was a great favour of Providence to the infantile Reformation but afterwards how the Providence of God gave check to it is sufficiently known yet it kept its ground and gained For England we know from our story That King Hen. 8 laid the first stone we also know how Providence at first favoured the work during all the reign of Edward the sixth but in Queen Maries time for five years together it seemed to move directly cross the Popish Superstitions were restored in all parts of the Nation Multitudes burnt for the profession of the Gospel others fled into foreign parts to secure their lives But the Providence of God returned again to its work in the time of Queen Elizabeth But I have spoken enough to justifie the Observation Let me in the next place endeavour to give you a reasonable account of these transverse motions of Providence not that I dare presume to give you the reasons why God moveth thus or thus for who hath been his Counsellor at any time but so far forth as to shew you that these motions of Providence are approvable to our Reason so as we may judg the Lords ways but proportioned to his wise and great designs 1. In the first place certainly one reasonable account to be given of these motions must be the variety of designs which the Providence of God ordinarily carries on together I have hinted this to you before suffer me here to enlarge a little upon it again I then compared Providence to a man of great business and dealings in the World who though London or some other great place be in his Eye as the end of his Journey where his business lies