Selected quad for the lemma: scripture_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
scripture_n	church_n	doctrine_n	err_v	2,659	5	9.5755	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A77434	Errours and induration, are the great sins and the great judgements of the time. Preached in a sermon before the Right Honourable House of Peers, in the Abbey-Church at Westminster, July 30. 1645. the day of the monethly fast: / by Robert Baylie, minister at Glasgow.	Baillie, Robert, 1599-1662.	1645 (1645)	Wing B459; Thomason E294_12; ESTC R200181	39,959	57

Poor children in distresse whither shall they go but to their father Neither sin nor misery will annull that more then naturall relation that supernaturall Paternity and Filiation Though God clothe himself with a cloud in his anger yet faith will make the soul with Moses run thorow the fire and darknesse to him The Prodigall in the midst of his misery resolves to return to his father The Spirit of Adoption in our hardest times will make us cry Abba Father This reason is used in the same place ver 16. Doubtlesse thou art our Father though Abraham be ignorant of us Vers 19. We are thine thou never bearest rule over them The next Chapter vers 8. But now O Lord thou art our Father behold see we beseech thee we are all thy people The Use is for our Encouragement to continue this practice with all earnestnesse and perseverance The Vse If there be any means to draw down a blessing from the heavens on a distressed Nation it is the prayer of the Saints This is the hand that hath drawn up this sinking Land from the pit of ruine that hath set our feet on that Rock of safety whereon now we stand Whatever difficulties are yet before us by this means or none else will they be gotten overcome Though all other should give over this holy exercise of Fasting and Praying or turn it in a sinfull and provoking formality yet it behoves us to keep it on foot remembring both the expresse command of the Lord Call on me in the day of thy trouble I shall deliver thee Psal 50. Lam. 2.19 Arise cry out in the night in the beginning of the watches pour out your hearts like water before the face of the Lord Lift up your hands towards him And your own visible experience As no people have sown more plentifully this pretious seed so none have already reaped more evident fruits thereof Be not weary of this good work untill all our desires be accomplished In the next place observe The second Doctrine Sins are heavier then afflictions The Proof That the chief part of the Saints complaint to God is of their wandrings from his wayes Their sins are heavier to them then all their afflictions This is proved from divers Scriptures Psal 38. When the Prophets trouble was great Nothing sound in his flesh The Arrows of the Lord sticking in him Gods hand pressing him sore yet the chief burden whereof he complains was his sins verse 4. Mine iniquities are gone over my head as an heavy burden they are too heavy for me Psal 40.12 Innumerable evils have compassed me about but mine iniquities have taken hold on me for them he was not able to look out his heart failed him Daniel c. 9. complains of the heavy wrath and curse that was powred out on Jerusalem and of so great afflictions as had befaln to no Nation under Heaven yet the first chief and longest part of his complaint is of the sins of their Kings of their Princes of their Priests and whole Land The reason of the Doctrine The Reason Sin is the greatest evill it s the fountain of afflictions Affliction cometh not out of the dust trouble springeth not out of the ground Sin is the root of it Also sin is most contrary to the nature of God Wrath and trouble even the greatest the very torments of Hell are not so for they are according to his justice The godly therefore who weigh things aright in the just ballance of the Sanctuary esteem their sins much heavier and more grievous evils then any they can suffer for them The use is for our instruction The Vse Let our complaints be rightly ordered and our sorrows rightly placed Beware to spend the most or best of thy sense on thy sufferings Beware to pour out the vehemency of thy passion the bitterest of thy sorrows on calamities either private or publike The first fruits the flower the first-born of thy grief must be reserved for the chief evill The naturall and kindely children of God will have more sorrow at their heart for the sins of the Land then for the desolations thereof What ever poverty disgrace pain can befall their person the very wrath of God suppose the torments of Hell will not be so heavy so bitter so troublesome to them as their sins the cause of all these evils The third observation The third Doctrine Gods hand in our sins encreaseth their bitternes An Objection answered Gods punishing and judiciall hand in our sins is their aggravation and increase of their bitternesse For this is the head of the Churches complaint That God had caused them to erre from his wayes It is true the Saints in Scripture draw comfort from some acts of Gods mercy about sin as from his gracious directing of its act to a good end Upon this ground Joseph comforts his Brethren that not they but God had sent him down to Egypt That their felling of him which they intended for evill God had ordered it so that it did become the mean of all their preservation Also Gods prediction of sin in sundry Scriptures is made a ground of contentment All this was done that the Scriptures might be fulfilled is a common place of comfort against the treason of Judas and the wickednesse of the Jews Likewise the Apostles Acts 4. quiet their minde on this meditation That God in his eternall counsell had determined what Herod and Pilate in time had done in crucifying of Christ Of such acts of Gods mercy about our sins we speak not be they temporall be they eternall but of the acts of his justice and wrath punishing sin by sin From these actions of God we can draw no comfort but they aggravate the weight of our sins and increase our grief The miscarriage of Absolon The Proof his rebellion and incest could not but grieve David but to increase his grief 2 Sam. 2.10 God tells him I will do this thing before all Israel and before the Sun in that terrible vision Isai 6. the Lord to demonstrate his wrath against that people sendeth to them a message full of anger Make the heart of this people fat and their ears heavy Their excaecation was in it self a grievous evill but it was more grievous when it came as a plague from an angry God John 12.39 Gods blinding of their eyes that they could not beleeve Christs Word is brought as an aggravation of their sin and of the anger of Christ against them so far as he went from them and hid himself The reason of this is The Reason That these acts of God proceed from wrath and justice punishing former sins Again they are the means to make sin more sinfull the person being given over to be carried headlong by his own lusts and Satans tentations Thirdly The punishment of sin in this degree is much sorer then if it had been a simple sin as in the sixth of Isaiah and elsewhere it appears No

days of Humiliation and when else their hearts are loosed to mourn do deplore Yet here is our Comfort That in answer to our Supplications the Lord hath stirred up the hearts of those who have power effectually to minde that which we are confident will prove the Remedy of these and many more of our present Evils I mean The setting up without further Delay of the Lords Government in his own House over all the Land The whole Government being transmitted from the Assembly and looked upon by both Houses with a gracious Aspect and sundry Votes already past upon the chief parts thereof it is certainly expected that in a very short time the whole Frame shall be erected and not onely be accompanied with the joyfull Acclamations of this Land and of all the Churches abroad but also filled with so much Grace and Power from the presence of the Lord as shall prove an heavenly Attractive without any need of humane violence to draw the spirits of those who for the time do most dissent and oppose to its admiration and love Waiting and praying for the sight of that happie day I rest Thy Servant in the Lord R. B. A Sermon preached before the Right Honourable the House of Lords July 30. 1645. ISAI 63.17 Lord why hast thou made us to erre from thy ways and hardned our hearts from thy fear Return for thy servants sake the Tribes of thine Inheritance IN this and the two next Chapters The Division of the Chapter we have a heavenly Conference and Dialogue betwixt Christ and the Church of Israel in the time of her affliction in Babel The Dialogue hath Three or Six parts Three Questions of the Church and Three Answers of Christ In the first verse of this Chapter The first Pars. we have the first Question and Answer The Church about that time of the Captivity to which this part of the Prophecie relateth was much oppressed with many Enemies God after all his wrath begins to arise and take order with them who long had deyoured her especially with Edom the neerest and most bitter Enemy of Jacob. When she sees the sudden and unexpected Vengeance on Edom admiring who could be the author and worker of it she proposes the Question Who he was that had destroyed Bozra the principall City of the Edomites and was marching in his great and glorious strength from the Land of Edom the service there being ended to other of the Enemies Countreys Unto the Churches Interrogation Christ answers That it was he himself who now by his works was demonstrating the truth of his ancient promises and shewing the might of his power to save his people from the Enemies oppression Observe The Doct●ine When the Church hath wrestled long with her enemies and is ready to faint and give over on a sudden Christ the King and Captain of the Host of Israel comes down and breaks the strength of the prevailing enemy to the Church her great admiration The second part of the Dialogue is in the next five verses The second part of the Chapter The Church finding it was her Lord and God who was begun to take vengeance on her enemies before he go she is desirous of more conference with him and proposes a second Question Wherefore his Garments were red as if he had been treading a Presse of red wine The Lords Answer is That the set time of his Vengeance upon her Enemies was come That though her strength was gone and among all her friends there was none able to stand against her foes yet he alone would do it and by his own Arm had destroyed already some of them with so great a slaughter that all his glorious Raiment was stained with the blood of the slain Hence observe The first Doctrine first When the condition of the Church is most desperate upon earth then is the day and hour of her certain redresse from heaven The Church The second deserted of her self and all men else hath one fast friend who alone is worth many Ten thousands able to draw her out of all deeps In the day of the Lords anger The third wo to all the enemies of the Church When the Lord begins to trample them in the Wine-presse of his Indignation if there were no more but the dashing of their bodies in pieces the watering of the ground with their blood and the staining of the garments of their killers therewith if no more followed it were well to them But they must drink after death in the Cup of the everlasting fury of the Almighty as John comments it Rev. 14.10 They shall be tormented with fire and brimstone for ever and ever In the third part of the Dialogue from the seventh verse The Subdivision of the third part the Church finding her Deliverance sensibly begun but not accomplished for though Edom was destroyed yet Babel was sitting like a Queen over the Nations and most over the rubbish of desclate Jerusalem she turns her self to her present Redeemer and most humbly supplicates him to perfect what he had begun To deliver her fully from the great burdens both of sin and misery that yet lay upon her This Prayer is set down in the remnant of this Chapter and all the next whereunto a large and gracious Answer is returned by Christ in the 65 Chapter thorow the whole The first part of the Prayer is Thanksgiving Its first member from the seventh to the fifteenth To prepare their hearts for petitioning they lay out before the Lord the great goodnesse which he of old had bestowed on the house of Israel his wonders in Egypt his glorious works at the Red Sea and in the Wildernesse the constancy of his kindnesse notwithstanding their Rebellion and vexing of his Spirit Though sometime he punished them for their sins yet he never left them for the glory of his Name and the Multitude of his mercies Not onely Moses his Shepherd but the Angel of his Presence went before them He was afflicted in all their afflictions he bare them and carried them in his arms all these days of old thorow that howling Wildernesse This is the Churches Preface to her subsequent Prayer Hence observe first The first Doctrine Thanksgiving is the meetest usher which a Petitioner can have to the Throne of Grace Praise perfumes the lips of a Supplicant it sweetens it softens it opens the heart of a Seeker and fits it singularly to receive all its desires from God The kindnesse of God in the days of Moses The second and the most ancient times is the Churches Inheritance to the worlds end All the favours of God registred in Scripture all the gracious experiments of the Saints in any time in any place are our Patrimony serving as ruled Cases to strengthen our Faith Hope and Patience in the days of our adversity The sins of many persons The third remove not the favour of God from an elect Nation

There is no interruption of the course of mercy towards a People by the destruction of many particular persons Great Vengeance may be upon Thousands the carcases of Ten Thousands may fall in the Wildernesse even of Moses himself and many of the Shepherds both of Church and State and yet the Lord may graciously march on before his People till he have setled them and his Ark in peace on his holy mountain The Prayer consists of Petitions The second member Complaints Confessions of sin Professions of faith intertexed one with another as the holy passions of the Supplicants hearts do mix them In the fifteenth verse The matter of the 15 verse there is a Petition backed with a Complaint The Lord for a long time had left his People to the outrages of their Enemies he had as it were left the earth gone up to the heaven and miskent all that the Enemy had done to his People Now therefore they petition that he might be pleased to look down upon them from his holy and glorious Throne in the heaven For this is the strange faith of the Church That she is perswaded so far of the power and goodnesse of her God at that very time when he hath left her to sink in misery for her offences that even then if he would but look back to her in never so far a distance if from the very heaven the place of his retiring he would behold her on the earth overwhelmed with misery she is hopefull if she come but in the sight of her gracious Lord he would not fail to take pity upon her and deliver her To this Petition a Complaint is subjoyned of the restraint and withdrawing of Gods ancient favours Sometimes his zeal and strength had been employed in her defence his mercies the tender bowels of his compassions had been extended towards her but now all sense of such favours were away This complaint lest it should irritate The matter of the sixteenth is presently corrected in the sixteenth Verse with a fair profession of Faith ●bove and against all present sense however the beams of Gods loving countenance did not then shine upon them as at some other time yet they professe their certain perswasion that God was their Father Though Abraham and Israel and all their bodily Progenitors should cast them away as unworthy to be counted their children yet they did beleeve that their everlasting and unchangeable God would not cast them off but deal with them as children notwithstanding of all their misdeservings As for the words in hand in the seventeenth Verse The division of the Text. the Church goes on to powre out her spirit before him whom she beleeves to be her Father in the midst of all her afflictions in a new complaint and petition The complaint hath two parts and the petition is backed with a twofold Reason The first part of the complaint is in these words O Lord why hast thou made us erre from thy wayes the second part in these Why hast thou hardned our hearts from thy fear The petition is that he would return after his long absence The first reason They were his servants the second They were his inheritance Let us consider severally the minde and use of every part As for the first part of the complaint The Exposition of the first pars four things in it would be exponed First What are the wayes of the Lord. Secondly What it is to erre from his wayes Thirdly How God makes men erre from his way Fourthly How the Church complains of this divine action Three of these particulars are easie and may be dispatched in a word but in the fourth there is no little difficulty For the first What are the wayes of God Gods wayes here are his Commandments full of holinesse and righteousnesse they are called Gods wayes because of their similitude with his nature that is holy righteous and true All his Commandments and conversation are according to the strait rule of his eternall and essentiall holinesse righteousnesse and truth Secondly Because they are his Law and Prescription his will prescribes them as a way to his creatures to walk in Thirdly Because of his presence therein in that way he is to be found He is graciously present and doth conntenance all that walk into it Fourthly Because of their end they lead to God they are the strait way wherein the godly walk till they come to the glorious palace above The second point What it is to erre from these wayes To erre from these wayes is to sin as it is expressed Psal 119.8 10. To wander from Gods Commandments When we leave Gods way and run out on the right hand or the left to the wayes of our own blinde minde and corrupted heart our false opinions against Gods truth our wicked inclinations and actions against his holy nature and revealed will all of this kinde is our erring from his wayes But the great difficulty is in the third How God makes men to erre How the Lord causes us to erre from his way This would seem to make God the cause and author of sin which is a horrid blasphemy against many Scriptures and all reason To eschew this huge great and intolerable inconvenience sundry famous interpreters do translate the originall otherwayes then we read it Not Why hast thou made or caused us to erre but Why hast thou suffered or permitted us to erre So Junius an excellent translator And many hundred yeers before him the Chaldee Paraphrast did render it Why hast thou cast us away to erre from thy wayes This interpretation is approved by very Learned and Orthodox Divines who bring this reason for it That the Hebrew word here is not simply in the active form not in Kal but as they speak in Hiphil whose signification oftentimes is not to make or cause but to permit Indeed this translation does eschew fully the difficulty The Grammaticall solution of some great men is not selid yet we dare not venture upon it for as it seems it were to make too bold with the Scripture The Septuagens the ancient Latin the French the Dutch the Italian and many more reads it just as our English Why hast thou made us to erre from thy wayes The Grammaticall reason alleaged hath no strength in this place for be it so that Hebrew Verbs in Hiphil sometime have a permissive and not an active sense though this in any word is very rare and the examples alleaged are very questionable yet for the Hiphil of the word in hand we deny that ever it can be so exponed A number of places of Scripture may be produced where Hithah must be actively exponed as here our translators read it but not one if it be not this in question can be brought where it may be exponed of a meer permission without some agency and operation upon the erring and seduced person We dare not trust the solving of so