Selected quad for the lemma: power_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A60131
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An exhortation to repentance, and union among Protestants, or, A discourse upon the burden of Dumah
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Shower, John, 1657-1715.
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1688
(1688)
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Wing S3663; ESTC R38911
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54,488
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64
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with God in the way of his Judgments and the sanctified Improvement of Publick Calamities or obtain favour for more Innocent Posterity And shall at least have the Consolation of having discharged our Duty to our Brethren and to our Country and of having manifested the Affections of Children who are sensibly affected with the Anger of God and do what we can to make up the Breach Let us therefore be much in Prayer to God for Sion in secret and in Company with others as we have opportunity with deep Humiliation and Repentance with sincere aims at the Glory of God and the Honour of Christ with Faith and Confidence with Fervency and Importunity with stedfastness and Perseverance Notwithstanding the Inefficacy of any former attempts this way from the seeming Delay of God to answer Considering that all the supplications and Intercessions of the Israel of God in former Ages will have a real hand in the final Deliverance of the Church and our Prayers must help to fill up the measure and hasten the Coming of the Son of Man. How far the Great Argument used by the Church of old John. 3.9 Jer. 14.9 21. See Mr. Howe 's trest of the Right use of that Argum. in prayer from the Name of God 80. 1682. We are called by thy name thou art yet in the midst of us and what wilt thou do for thy Great Name may be pleaded by us ought seriously to be considered For the Case of a particular People and Nation may be such as to give just grounds to fear lest the Argument from the Name of God should make against us lest the Honour of God and the Glory of his holy Name be more concern'd to punish than to deliver us We would humbly Hope that our Case will yet admit the use of this Argument in our Intercessions with God. Thou art yet in the midst of us the Relation is Reciprocal between thee and us and we hope it will be for the honour of thy Name to save us What wilt thou do for thy Great Name i. e. what becomes of us and of our Posterity after us is no such great matter tho we should perish and our Name be blotted out from under Heaven but if the B. Gospel be removed or continue to be an Empty sound if Prophaneness and I dolatry encrease and prevail thy Holy name will be dishonoured thy sacred Truth reproacht the Glory of our Redeemer Ecclipst the fruits of his Death obstructed and thine Adversaries will triumph and say that thou hast born Testimony to their Errors and Impieties favour'd their Designs and Countenanc't their Wickedness Lord What wilt thou do for thy Great Name And may we not say that Thou art yet in the midst of us tho there are not so many visible Tokens of thy special Presence as formerly either with Ministers or People yet thou dost walk among thy Golden Candlesticks and now and then let us know that thy Glory is not quite gone There are some Oh that there were more who feel and live those Truths which others only talk of who bear the Image of their Lord and their souls cleave to him and follow hard after him who delight in his ways and love his Interest and People with a cordial affection to whom the honour of his Name is incomparably dear and precious who value his love and communion with him as their felicity who mourn for the sins of others and to whom the Reproach of the solemn Assemblies is a dayly Burden c. Oh Continue this Presence of thine and vouchsafe more visible enlarged effects and manifestations of it which we may rather hope for while he is thus in the midst of us than to obtain a Recalling of it when he is quite gone as the Cure of a Disease and the Recovery of health may more hopefully be prayed for than a Resurrection from the dead There is yet another thing very seasonable to be joyned with Prayer and which we are obliged to whether we have more or less hope concerning any particular Church or Nation and that is Sixthly The Exercise of Faith in God concerning the Promised Salvation and Perpetuity of the Christian Church The Gares of Hell shall not prevail against her she shall not dye or Death whose mouth is the Grave shall not be Victorious over her the burning Bush shall never be consum'd We think this and the other thing makes against the Church and threatens to destroy it Here one part is rooted out there another is opprest and the whole World almost wanders after the Beast and the False Prophet Edom and Amaleck and Moah and Ammon are all in a confederacy and Combination against Sion But if it were yet worse we must live by Faith that all shall tend to the accomplishment of God's great design of the Furtherance of the Gospel The truly Christian Interest shall live and flourish and get ground after all opposition yea by those thins shall it be advanc't Mic. 4.11 12 13. which we may apprehend as prejudicial to it God's thoughts are not as ours nor his ways as ours what we think a threatning mischief may prove a great Blessing and often doth so Psal 107.7 What a Compass did Israel fetch from Aegypt to Canaan and yet God saith he led them by the Right way forty years in a journey that might have been despatcht in ten days He is never out of his way or mistaken in the methods of his Providence to fulfil his word This we are most certain of that the Interest of Christ and the Christian Church shall live in the midst of all storms be rooted and establisht by the most shaking Providences and that when it seems lowest and most likely to sink it is the fittest time for the Wisdom Power and Faithfulness of God to discover it self Rev 5.4 When none was found worthy or able to open the book the Lamb takes it out of the hands of him who sat on the throne Our Exalted Saviour who hath the Keys of Death and Hell is not weary of holding the Scepter in his hand He sits at Helm and steers the ship and will not suffer it to perish Therefore no Depths no difficulties no delay of deliverance should dishearten us If God will work a Fire not blown shall consume his Enemies and Destruction and Fear shall come together Job 20.26 Rev. 18.7 8. The Vision is for an appointed Time in the end it shall speak it shall not Lye it shall Come it will not Tarry tho to our Sense it may seem to Tarry our Faith must correct the Verdict of our Sense and make us wait for it for not a word or tittle of what God hath spoken concerning the latter days shall be unfulfilled When Providences are dark and a storm is begun we are ready to be puzzled and cry out what shall we say to these things but let us remember what the Apostle adds as a sufficient Reply If God be