Selected quad for the lemma: peace_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
peace_n	burn_a	offer_v	offering_n	2,152	5	11.4315	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A04076	Lawes and orders of vvarre established for the good conduct of the seruice of Ireland.	England and Wales. Army.; Falkland, Henry Cary, Viscount, d. 1633.	1625 (1625)	STC 14131.5; ESTC S3834	114,882	2

whatsoever is done with doubt or scruple is not of faith are oftner wrested sometimes to abette presumption in respect of God sometimes disobedience towards his vice-gerents than any other maximes in sacred writ besides For this present the limitation of them is briefly this Whensoever the doubt or controversy stands betwixt a mans belly or purse and his soule or conscience the Apostles rule whatsoever is not of faith is sinne is universally true whosoever doth any thing for his belly or purse or matters of such temporall consequence which he probably doubts may wound his soule or conscience his action or choice is not of faith is truly sinfull In other cases he that intends to doe much good must resolve to doe many things whereof hee cannot but doubt whereof hee cannot bee resolved but by the event or successe yet not sinne Thus these Ninevites were uncertaine or doubtfull whether the Lord would repent or no of the evill threatned against them and yet notwithstanding this doubt they did well exceeding well to fast and pray that hee might repent and in thus doubting and thus doing they declare not their workes only but their divinity to have beene much better than theirs who condemne the like actions of heathen men for sinfull because their persons were not sanctified by saving faith As for these Ninevites they had a true notion of that truth which the scripture teacheth to wit that as God is often said to repent so some speciall cases there be in which hee doth not in which hee wil not upon any termes repent and of which the Prophets saying is most true He is not as man or the sonne of man that hee should repent And such for instance was the case of Saul the first King of Israel in the issue though not from the beginning of his raigne or from that point of time wherein God revealed that branch of his will to Samuel 1. Sam. 15. It repenteth me that I have set Saul up to be King for he is turned backward from following me and hath not performed my commandements And he that turnes his backe from Gods commandements shall be sure to meet his judgements in the face But this heavy sentence against Saul as it there followeth grieved Samuel and hee cryed unto the Lord all night but his cryes were not heard for so it followes v. 35. that Samuel came no more to see Saul untill the day of his death neverthelesse he mourned for Saul and in the 1. v. of the 19. chap. Samuel is expressely forbidden to mourne for Saul and if hee might not mourne for him hee might not pray for him A lamentable case that so great a Prophet so good a man as Samuel was might not pray might not mourne for his soveraigne Lord whom by Gods speciall command he had anointed but the cause is intimated v. 28. 29. For when Saul by seeking to hold the Prophet from departing from him had rent his coate he returnes this heavy message unto him The Lord hath rent the kingdome of Israel from thee this day and hath given it to a neighbour of thine that is better then thou and also the strength of Israel will not repent for he is not as man that he should repent And Samuel had no reason to mourne for him or to pray to God for reversing this sentence after he knew the Lord would not bee intreated to recall it But here the Aliens from the common weale of Israel or men of Iultans disposition would object is the God of Israel no otherwise affected towards his people towards Kings of his own making then the Gods of the heathen whom ye despise were towards kingdomes or Monarchies which served them Doth hee give his people iust cause to complaine of him as the heathen Poet did of his Gods when he saw Rome so rent and torne with civill warres that it could not long stand Heu faciles dare summa Deos eademque tueri Difficiles Will the strength of Israel advance a man to a kingdome which never sought it but had it put upon him whilst hee was seeking his fathers Asses And will he not be intreated to keepe him in it after long possession after many adventures of his body and effusion of his blood for supporting it Will he repent of the good which he had purposed to doe for Saul and will he not repent of the evill which he had denounced against him Thus uncatechised flesh and blood or men not instructed in the waies of God would repine Now it were an easie answer to say that God did thus peremptorily deale with Saul because it was his absolute will to depose him and to chuse David in his place But this or the like answere would make a foolish heathen starke mad and move a man that hovered betwixt heathenisme and Christianity to fall quite from us whereas we are bound by the Apostles rule to give no offence not only to the Church of God but neither to the Iew nor to the Gentile whereas this answer gives just occasion of offence to them all For sure the scripture is plaine and I thinke no Christian will in the generall deny that Saul did at this time much better deserve to be deposed than either hee or David did to bee elected King his sinnes were the meritorious cause of his rejection but what sinnes in particular is not so apparent Saul as some ancient interpreters observe was once little in his owne eyes and then he was a great man in Gods sight but hee grew great exceeding great in his owne eyes and the greater he thus grew the more hee waned in Gods favour whose eternall will and pleasure is to give grace unto the meeke and humble and to resist and bring downe the proud All this is true but too generall to give satisfaction to the doubt proposed For God doth never so peremptorily reject any lawfull Prince as hee did Saul without hope of repentance or reversing the sentence denounced against him unlesse it be for some excessive multitude or full measure of sinne or for some ominous or prodigious sinnes We read only of two remarkeable sinnes committed by Saul before his rejection the one was for offering a burnt offring and for his intendment to offer a peace offring before Samuel came unto him 1 Sam. 13. 19. 20. And for this transgression Samuel saith unto him v. 30. Thou hast done foolishly thou hast not kept the commandement of the Lord thy God which he commanded thee For now would the Lord have established the kingdome upon Israel for ever Saul then had Gods promise before for the continuance of his kingdome But of this good truely intended to him the Lord from this time repents as it followes verse 14. But now the kingdome shall not continue Yet upon this fact it is not said that the Lord would not repent of the sentence denounced against him But what was Sauls folly in all this or was it any for as it is

said v. 8. he tarryed there seaven daies according to the set time that Samuel had appointed It was not so great a folly for Saul being a king to stay no longer as disrespect in Samuel not to come within the time appointed was it not more fit that the Prophet should stay for the King then the King for the Prophet The text is plaine that Saul staid seauen dayes according to the set time that Samuel had appointed but it is not so plaine out of the text nor is it any way probable that these seauen dayes were obserued by Saul in that season or to that end which Samuel had appointed Two good interpreters and ancient in respect of our times have observed an amphibology in Samuels words and it was Saul's folly to make choise of the sinister or wrong sense The words you have now written yet not written but spoken then by Samuel chap. 10. v. 8. And however the Hebrew text as it is now pointed but especially the Latine and the English doe cast the sense of Samuels words that way which the objection supposeth yet the matter it selfe and other circumstances sway the other way in excuse of Samuel and aggravation of Sauls folly Thou shalt goe downe before me to Gilgal and behold I will come downe unto thee to offer burnt offrings to sacrifice sacrifices of peace offrings And here they make a pause or full sense and begin another at these words seven daies shalt thon tarry till I come to thee But the originall will beare another sense retaining the selfe same words only altering the pause or point as thus Thou shalt goe downe before me to Gilgal and behold I will come unto thee to offer burnt offrings and to sacrifice the sacrifice of peace offrings for seaven daies and then begin the second clause thus thou shalt tarry till I come to thee as if hee had said see in any case thou tarry till I come to thee and shew thee what thou shalt doe Samuel it seemes went in the meane time to aske counsell of the Lord as being not himselfe fully instructed in this great businesse which he was towards If Saul did usurpe the Priests office in offring sacrifices upon pretence of Samuels stay this was prodigious If he tooke upon him only to appoint the time for the sacrifice or supplication designing some Priests for exercising the sacred function this was a great deale too much more then meere folly for all this was by God himselfe reserved for Samuel who was the interpreter or spokes-man betwixt God and Saul The sacrifice no question was a publique and solemne sacrifice such as Solomon made at the consecration of the Temple whose solemnity lasted full seaven daies and it is probable that this present solemnity which Samuel had appointed was the consecration of Saul or establishing him in his kingdome had hee not foolishly wronged himselfe by trenching upon the Priests or the Prophets function or upon both But whether these mentioned or some others or these with others were the principall branches of Sauls folly certaine it is that neither any of these nor all of these did make his doome to be inevitable or his deposition irreversible For though Samuel upon notice of this his folly did foretell that God would give his kingdome unto another yet he did not expressely adde that the Lord would not repent him of this evill denounced against him and this addition being not made the sentence was lyable to the ordinary rule of interpreting Gods threatnings Ier. 18. Saul by repenting of this folly might have beene capable of that pardon whereof he made himselfe altogether uncapable by his second more grosse and more stupid transgression of Gods commandement What was that His indulgence towards Agag and his people Is it then an unpardonable sinne in Christian Princes to shew pity unto heathenish or idolatrous Princes whom God hath given into their hands by victory and battaile No. To gather such generall doctrines or uses from particular instances in scripture as some have done from Ezekiah's demolishing the brasen Serpent or from Ahabs suffering Benhadad to escape with life is but the Symptome of distempered zeale misled by ignorance Nor will it follow because Ahab was more remarkably and more severely punished for suffering Benhadad to escape with life than hee was for putting poore Naboth to death that therefore this slaughter was a lesse sinne in it selfe than the other For we read that Ahab repented him of his unjust and cruell dealing with Naboth but so he did not of his other folly in suffering Benhadad to escape with life and for this reason God repented him of the sentence denounced against Ahab by Elias So did hee not repent of that other sentence denounced by another Prophet because thou hast c. However this was not all wherein Saul was faulty though foulely faulty in all this more faulty in sparing Agag than Ahab was in sparing Benhadad For God had expressely commanded him utterly to destroy Amalek not sparing man or beast But so the the same God commanded the Israelites to destroy the Cananites yet their sinne in entring league with the Gibeonites was not equivalent to Sauls transgression for the condition of Amalek and the Kings was much worse then the condition of other heathens more uncapable of pity from the Israelites then the Amorites or the Hittites were For God had denounced hostility against this people by solemne oath Exod. 17. v. 15. 16. And Moses built an altar and called the name of it Iehovah Nissi for he said because the Lord hath sworne that the Lord will have warre with Amalek from generation to generation Now the Amalekites being thus solemnly declared to be Gods enemies in so high a degree the Israelites were bound to wreake his foe-hood against that Nation Nunc olim quocunque darent se tempore vires When Saul was made king of Israel to fight the battles of the Lord and at this time expresly enioyned to destroy Amalek his sinne in sparing Agag and the cattel was a sinne of like nature as if a Iudge or sworne magistrate being put in trust to doe iustice in a particular unto which his soveraigne Lord had peremptorily and determinately sworne should upon bribe or other sinister respects neglect his duty and make his master as much as in him lay for-sworne And for any inferiour judge thus to doe deserves more bodily deaths then one It would be disloyalty for his dearest friend to sue for his pardon It is a most Catholike rule in Divinity of which the Heathens had an ingrafted notion the ancient Iewes an vndoubted tradition and the vse and doctrine of it unanimously received by primitive Christians that wheresoever we find either matter of blessing or matter of cursing denounced by oath there the sentence is irreversible God will not repent We see the rule first experienced in those murmuring Israelites to whom God had sworne that they should not enter into his