Selected quad for the lemma: rest_n
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A27595
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A discourse of the judgments of God composed for the present times against atheism and prophaneness.
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Beverley, Thomas.
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1668
(1668)
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Wing B2137; ESTC R14172
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93,326
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282
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that sin which ruines Kingdoms and for that piety that exalts them is most earnest When perswasions of Reformation find freest entertainment with those who have most power to promote it and Princes are not only Philosophers but Divines publishing Repentance and Amendment of life by those Soveraign Documents the face of their Authority and Example shining upon Holiness how orderly doth this Reformation descend from the Superior Regions without that tumult and suspition of Design that usually accompanies Popular Attempts therein and with greatest Honour For such being nearer God the Original of all we accept from them recommendations of goodness as Acts of Bounty with thankfulness but not without disdain and regret from them below us There being ever an exprobration in that inversion of Order and Nature when we receive the light or dew of Heaven from beneath that should come down from above to us It must needs be a Rebuke from Heaven upon the upper world when in the silence of Religion Judgment and Equity there God opens the vulgar mouths to call for them and yet if these should hold their peace there is so great a constraint for the want that even the stones would cry out The Reason that forsakes men transmigrates as it were into insensible things Vniversal Wisdom having so contrived that as the neglect goes down lower and lower things lowest should be moved to convince them above till the nethermost foundations of the Earth are stirred to reprove disobedient man though at the other higher end of it When the Seats of Dignity are empty that is not filled with good Government who is not ready to press into them and when the Prophets Chairs are unfurnished by persons of graver investiture naked Sauls crowd into them as they say Nature swells out of its place to prevent vacuity Or rather the plenitude of wisdom that flows from God the Fountain is so immense that being excluded its proper place as a full stream forced out of its own Channel it bursts into another or overflows all or like the Apostles Doctrine which driven from the Jews expatiated upon the Gentiles But these extravasations are ever in themselves dangerous if not deadly this Wisdom never shewing it self out of the residences it hath chosen as fittest for it but in wrath when it speaks by men of lower rank what it would do by Superiors or by the Creatures what men should understand themselves It is in Judgment to forbid their madness May it then be the Happiness of our Times and Nation to be rescued from the further pursuits of the Divine displeasure by the mediation of personages of place and lawful suffrages that have not taken their Honour to themselves or by the Indignation of God thrust into it To whom to present these two Generals of Reformation that are not of any private Interpretation or Opinion but of the sense of all sober understanding will not be accounted presumption though they know and do the things already 1. An efficacious Interposal against Licentiousness of Practices which grows speedily to a height when those whose honour and gravâ—â—â— forbids them to stoop to those mâ—â—â—nesses of vice which others fall down to have not yet that zeal against it but either draw too nigh the Circus or Ring of the Disorders beholding them with pleasure or entertain the Actors of them with familiarity Any of which give a boldness to wickedness that soon espies its own advantages and grows insolent upon them ready not only to rise with violence against common opposition but to dismount Authority it self which hath no greater security then its own virtue enstamped upon those under it Solomons advice not to be over-much wicked hath not only equal but larger place upon States then upon persons for besides that Justice makes more haste to punish a Combination in evil the f … of contrary passions and lusts 〈◊〉 so outragious that they violate all things in their mutual encounters and the inundation grows so strong through the meeting of so great a Body of Evil that the destructive force runs into suddenner confusions and is more impatient of those abatements a single wickedness must admit and so more leisurely brings forth death There are possibly few Instances of any such who have been the notorious Debauches of their time but have been exemplary for the Fate attending them except prevented by sudden returns to a sober mind but not any of an extreamly corrupted Age but unhappiness if not ruine have trodden along with it But could it be that a stream of wickedness had run like Oyl smooth and untroubled yet doth that time wherein it so ran look black to Posterity not Chance but some unchangeable Law giving the Character always alike which is ever derived from those of Eminency as when Pictures are taken the Head and parts of the Body nearest to it are generally thought enough to represent the whole thus when the Portraicture of any Time is given the Aspect of Majesty the Seat of Authority and Vnderstanding are the life and the rest added to make the Grace of them the greater and more impressive from the beauty of a full proportion 2. A potent opposition to Atheism and scornful neglect of the Solemnities of Christianity which when it is professed hath the weight of prosperity or ruine resting upon it for as God often hung the Glory or Desolation of the Princes people of Judah upon the observation of their Sabbath though an extern Rite of Religion because it carried so much of the Reverence of Divine Worship and the Acknowledgments of God so he still suspends the Greatness or Depression of Nations to whom the notices of himself and Jesus Christ are given upon their subjection to those Sacred Principles and the Institutions wherein they are conserved And because we have fallen into the mention of a Sabbath and these Institutions have their full room in it it is not out of the way of this Address to observe That our Christian Sabbath is slipped out of the shell of a Jewish Ceremony into the Spirituality of the Lords Day and the Morality of a Rest for the publick and private Exercises of Religion on which accounts our Obligations to it still continue with those advantages wherein it was made for man All contemptful disenclosures or unworthy prostitutions of it must needs therefore imply not only a great senselessness of God and his Glory whom we would dispute into the narrowest rooms but too much of an irreverence of him if not defiance to him Were it possible there could be a severe suppression of Vice and inclination to Virtue without Piety yet would it be dishonourable without the Illustration of Religions Glories The highest care of those that truly understand Honour is the paying all due Observances to God the Fountain of Honour who honours them that honour him but delivers to in … or contempt those that lightly â—â—gâ—rd him â—s some States that have enactâ—â— vâ—â—tuous Laws and been
world and that which inflames torment always bewailed though it was carried as a priviledge here All things else lose themselves more perfectly in that state then whatever we can imagine most trivial here when it is utterly out of date and succeeded by a contrary however it presumed before in the moment of its flourish With this Judgment then God infinitely assoils his Justice from the scoffes of men that say When is the promise of his coming from the sensuality of men that put the evil day far from them with this he divides the world that all may discern between the righteous and the wicked between him that feareth and serveth God and the prophane and him that serveth him not By this he adjusts to every of both these their due portion honour to whom honour stripes to whom stripes with their degrees and number however they lye huddled now and the best oft-times in the darkest place And this Judgment is plentifully declared to the world that every one may make a right use of it in giving Glory to God and prejudging things not against but with that day If any do otherwise he that sits in the Heaven observes their folly and laughs at it For he seeth that this day is coming as he that is sure of his revenge upon a contumacious ingrate first in compassion warns him and that rejected with a secret derision observes him in his foolish boldness and with a contented patience bears his continued affronts expecting quietly the season of his punishment or as a wise man that knows his own grounds in a point of truth tranquilly rests upon them and bears with a merciful disdain the clamour of a conceited Opinionist so God having setled things with an unmoveable Righteousness and a patience also that yet carries dread with it says to those that will not believe such a Judgment He that is filthy and unrighteous let him be so still 2. Whereas God may seem by the suspension of his Judgments careless of that purgation of the world by their present execution let us observe what other provisions his Holiness Wisdom and Goodness have made herein 1. That Eternal Sacrifice of Jesus Christ that in one act of offering himself gives that perpetual glory to Justice that doth not only countervail but infinitely preponderate and effect more then those daily repeated Sacrifices or those more solemn ones to which yet the reason of all the world hath ever made recourse for lustration of themselves The life and actions of our Blessed Saviour of such incomparable innocency divine perfection hath set Holiness at such an elevation that no depression of it by the iniquities of men are at all comparable with the exaltations of it in him He as our 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hath contracted upon himself all our guilt anâ— being made a curse for us hath devoured our curse and paid an uttermost compensation to punitive Justice He by a most Chrystalline purity resplendent in our Nature hath discovered the beauties of Holiness beyond all possible obscurations of ours the efficacies of which his mediatory negotiation are much clearer in Heaven the proper Region whither he carried his merit to be seated in an unintermitted Intercession and whence he pours down the benefits of it upon Earth As God therefore is well pleased and always smells a savour of rest in Jesus Christ upon which he cannot only stay his severity but bless the world without injury to his Justice or dishonour to his Holiness so is the world it self seasoned by so great a Sanctity perfumed with the odour of it This indeed eminently is the safety of them that believe but extends it self to all for he is the Saviour of all though especially of them that believe and tasted death for every man which therefore avails for the reprieve of those whom yet it doth not protect from condemnation That which relieves good men from eternal sufferings due to sin with the perfect atonement of Justice and Holiness can without the offence of those Attributes continue under patience and long-suffering those that at the last through impenitency pay themselves to the glory of vengeance in the day of wrath 3. Under the wing of this Priesthood lye the humiliations obediences and intercessions of gracious men who are also the Priests of the world and obtain pardon upon Earth in the virtue of the Mediator in Heaven They who giving God no rest day or night prevail for mercy and live the Horsemen and Chariots of Israel the great security and defence of their Country of which when any City or Nation is naked they are immediately the prey of Justice their Righteousness being from the Grace of God a salt that preserves their time from putrefaction To this we may subjoyn the happiness of some times that are fuller of the days of the Son of Man that is have clearer effusions of the Gospel and Divine Truth upon the world which carrying a sway upon the consciences of men give universal estimation to God and his ways and have a train of moral Virtues attendant which may make general Judgments less necessary vindications of contemporary sins and may at least delay Judgments till after-times Examples of which we observe in Sacred Story Lastly we have already said instances of Judgment do not breathe out themselves in the present moments nor so much as in the present Age but derive themselves upon following time and are accepted for such a period Like the great expiation that in one day purged the whole year In all times there are yet foot-steps of Judgment though in more private and retired walks that continually fall out like those Sacrifices that were daily offered though of less solemnity and those that were appointed in particular cases of a more ordinary occurrence 3. If it seem the disadvantage of any time that it is not disciplined by these chastisements we must know that Judgments are not equal with those Ordinances of God or like his Word that have in their institution an immediate accommodation to such ends but are useful through the intervening instruction of that Law that God teaches out of when he chastises without which men dye under those strokes unreformed Other courses of Providence have also their witness of God and peculiar fitnesses to be managed by his truth to the ends of conversion and repentance for thither the patience and goodness of God lead attâ—mpered to the more ingenuous Elements of mans Soul that are touched with the magnetisms of love Even as Judgments take eare of those that are moved by fear and therefore have their operation in the more corrupted parts of degenerate Nature To sum all Suspension of Judgments is a beautiful place in the contexture of Providence and illustrates that Being to us whom we know in the various discoveries of himself but chiefly in his goodness which yet would be unknown if he did not thus administer things His patience and long-suffering in which