Selected quad for the lemma: son_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
son_n	covenant_n	zeal_n	zealous_a	59	3	10.7395	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A61882	Fourteen sermons heretofore preached IIII. Ad clervm, III. Ad magistratvm, VII. Ad popvlvm / by Robert Sanderson ...; Sermons. Selections	Sanderson, Robert, 1587-1663.	1657 (1657)	Wing S605; ESTC R13890	499,470	466

that other collection may be yet I hold it the safer resolution which is commonly given by Divines for the justification of this fact of Phinehes that he had an extraordinary motion and a peculiar secret instinct of the Spirit of God powerfully working in him and prompting him to this Heroicall Act. Certainly God will not approve that work which himself hath not wrought But to this Action of Phinehes God hath given large approbation both by staying the plague thereupon and by rewarding Phinehes with an everlasting Priesthood therefore and by giving expresse testimony of his zeal and righteousnesse therein as it is said in the next verse after my Text And it was accounted to him for righteousnesse Which words in the judgement of learned Expositors are not to be understood barely of the righteousnesse of Faith as it is said of Abraham that he believed God and it was imputed to him for righteousnesse as if the zeal of Phinehes in this act had been a good evidence of that faith in Gods promises whereby he was justified and his Person accepted with God though that also but they do withall import the justification of the Action at least thus far that howsoever measured by the common rules of life it might seem an unjust action and a rash attempt at the least if not an haynous murder as being done by a private man without the warrant of authority yet was it indeed not onely in regard of the intent a zealous action as done for the honour of God but also for the ground and warrant of it as done by the speciall secret direction of Gods holy Spirit a just and a righteous action Possibly this very word of standing up importeth that extraordinary spirit For of those Worthies whom God at severall times endowed with Heroicall spirits to attempt some speciall work for the delivery of his Church the Scriptures use to speak in words and phrases much like this It is often said in the book of Judges that God raised up such and such to judge Israel and that Deborah and Iair and others rose up to defend Israel that is The spirit of God came upon them as is said of Othoniel Iudg. 3. and by a secret but powerfull instinct put them upon those brave and noble attempts they undertook and effected for the good of his Church Raised by the impulsion of that powerfull spirit which admitteth no slow debatements Phinehes standeth up and feeling himself called not to deliberate but act without casting of scruples or fore-casting of dangers or expecting commission from men when he had his warrant sealed within he taketh his weapon dispatching his errand and leaveth the event to the providence of God Let no man now unlesse he be able to demonstrate Phinehes spirit presume to imitate his fact Those Opera liberi spiritûs as Divines call them as they proceeded from an extraordinary spirit so they were done for speciall purposes but were never intended either by God that inspired them or by those Worthies that did them for ordinary or generall examples The errour is dangerous from the priviledged examples of some few exempted ones to take liberty to transgresse the common rules of Life and of Lawes It is most true indeed the Spirit of God is a free Spirit and not tied to strictnesse of rule nor limited by any bounds of Lawes But yet that free spirit hath astricted thee to a regular course of life and bounded thee with Lawes which if thou shalt transgresse no pretension of the Spirit can either excuse thee from sinne or exempt thee from punishment It is not now every way as it was before the coming of Christ and the sealing up of the Scripture Canon God having now setled a perpetuall form of government in his Church and given us a perfect and constant rule whereby to walk even his holy word And we are not therefore now vainly to expect nor boastingly to pretend a private spirit to lead us against or beyond or but beside the common rule nay we are commanded to try all pretensions of private spirits by that common rule Ad legem ad testimonium to the Law and to the Testimony at this Test examine and Try the spirits whether they are of God or no. If any thing within us if any thing without us exalt it self against the obedience of this rule it is no sweet impulsion of the holy spirit of God but a strong delusion of the lying spirit of Sathan But is not all that is written written for our Example or why else is Phinehes act recorded and commended if it may not be followed First indeed Saint Paul saith All that is written is written for our learning but Learning is one thing and Example is another and we may learn something from that which we may not follow Besides there are Examples for Admonition as well as for Imitation Malefactors at the place of execution when they wish the by-standers to take example by them bequeath them not the Imitation of their courses what to do but Admonition from their punishments what to shunne Yea thirdly even the commended actions of good men are not ever exemplary in the very substance of the action it self but in some vertuous and gracious affections that give life and lustre thereunto And so this act of Phinehes is imitable Not that either any private man should dare by his example to usurpe the Magistrates office and to do justice upon Malefactors without a Calling or that any Magistrate should dare by his Example to cut off gracelesse offenders without a due judiciall course but that every man who is by vertue of his Calling endued with lawfull authority to execute justice upon transgressors should set himself to it with that stoutnesse and courage and zeal which was in Phinehes If you will needs then imitate Phinehes imitate him in that for which he is commended and rewarded by God and for which he is renowned amongst men and that is not barely the action the thing done but the Affection the zeal wherewith it was done For that zeal God commendeth him Numb 25. verse 11. Phinehes the sonne of Eleazar the sonne of Aaron the Priest hath turned away my wrath from the children of Israel whilest he was zealous for my sake among them And for that zeal God rewardeth him Ibid. verse 13. He shall have and his seed after him the Covenant of an everlasting Priesthood because he was zealous for his God And for that zeal did Posterity praise him the wise sonne of Sirac Eccl. 45. and good old Mattathias upon his death-bed 1 Macc. 2. And may not this phrase of speech He stood up and executed judgement very well imply that forwardnesse and heat of zeal To my seeming it may For whereas Moses and all the Congregation sate weeping a gesture often accompanying sorrow or perhaps yet

money and Balaam spare his paines there is no need of hiring or being hired to curse Whoremongers and Idolaters These are two plaguy sinnes and such as will bring a curse upon a people without the help of a Conjurer When that God who is a jealous God and jealous of nothing more then his honour shall see that people whom he had made choyce of from among all the nations of the earth to be his own peculiar people and betrothed to himself by an everlasting Covenant to break the Covenant of Wedlock with him and to strumpet it with the daughters and Idols of Moab what can be expected other then that his jealousie should be turned into fury and that his fierce wrath should break in upon them as a deluge and overwhelme them with a sudden destruction His patience so far tempted and with such an unworthy provocation can suffer no longer But at his command Moses striketh the Rulers and at Moses his command the under-rulers must strike each in their severall regiments those that had offended and he himself also striketh with his own hand by a plague destroying of them in one day three and twenty thousand If that Plague had lasted many dayes Israel had not lasted many dayes But the people by their plague made sensible of their sinne humbled themselves as it should seem the very first day of the plague in a solemn and generall assembly weeping and mourning both for Sinne and Plague Before the door of the Tabernacle of the Congregation And they were now in the heat of their holy sorrow and devotions when loe Zimri a Prince of a chiefe house in one of their Tribes in the heat of his Pride and lust cometh openly in the face of Moses and all the Congregation and bringeth his Minion with him Cosbi the daughter of one of the five Kings of Midian into his Tent there to commit filthinesse with her Doubtlesse Moses the Captain and Eleazar the Priest all Israel that saw this shamelesse prank of that lewd couple saw it with grief enough But Phinehes enraged with a Pious indignation to see such foul affront given to God and the Magistrate and the Congregation at such a heavy time and in such open manner and for that very sinne for which they then lay under Gods hand thought there was something more to be done then bare weeping and therefore his blood warmed with an holy zeale he starteth up forthwith maketh to the Tent where these two great personages were and as they were in the act of their filthinesse speedeth them both at once and nayleth them to the place with his Javeline And the next thing we heare is God well pleased with the zeal of his servant and the execution of those malefactors is appeased toward his people and withdraweth his hand and his plague from them And of that deliverance my Text speaketh Then stood up Phinehes and executed judgement and so the Plague was stayed The Person the instrument to work this deliverance for Israel was Phinehes He was the sonne of Eleazar who was then High Priest in immediate succession to his father Aaron not long before deceased and did himselfe afterward succeed in the High-priesthood unto Eleazar his Father A wise a godly and a zealous man employed afterwards by the State of Israel in the greatest affaires both of War and Ambassie But it was this Heroicall act of his in doing execution upon those two great audacious offenders which got him the first and the greatest and the lastingst renowne Of which Act more anon when we come to it In his Person we will consider onely what his calling and condition was and what congruity there might be between what he was and what he did He was of the Tribe of Levi and that whole Tribe was set apart for the service of the Tabernacle And he was of the sonnes of Aaron so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Family and Linage of the High Priests and the Priests office was to offer sacrifices and to burn incense and to pray and make atonement for the People Neither Levite nor Priest had to intermeddle with matters of Iudicature unlesse in some few causes and those for the most part concerning matters either meerly or mixtly Ecclesiasticall but neither to give sentence nor to do execution in matters and causes meerly Civil as by any right or vertue of his Leviticall or Priestly office The more unreasonable is the High Priest of Rome to challenge to himself any temporall or Civil jurisdiction as virtually annexed to his spirituall Power or necessarily derived thence Templum and Praetorium the Chaire and the Throne the Altar and the Bench the Sheephook and the Scepter the Keyes and the Sword though they may sometimes concurre upon the same person yet the Powers remaine perpetually distinct and independant and such as do not of necessity inferre the one the other Our Saviours Vos autem non sic hath fully decided the Controversie and for ever cut off all claime of temporall jurisdiction as by any vertue annexed to the Keyes If the Bishops of Rome could have contented themselves to have enjoyed those Temporalties wherewith the bounty of Christian Emperours had endowed that Sea whether well or ill whether too much or no I now inquire not but if they could have been content to have holden them upon the same termes they first had them without seeking to change the old tenure and to have acknowledged them as many of their fellow-Bishops do to have issued not at all by necessary derivation from their spirituall Power but meerly and altogether from the free and voluntary indult of temporall Princes the Christian Church had not had so just cause of complaint against the unsufferable tyrannies and usurpations of the Papacy nor had the Christian world been embroyled in so many unchristian and bloudy quarrels as these and former ages have brought forth Yet the Canonists and they of the Congregation of the Oratory like down-right flatterers give the Pope the Temporall Monarchy of the world absolutely and directly as adhering inseparably to his Sea and as a branch of that Charter which Christ gave to Peter when he made him Head of the Church for himself and his successors for ever The Iesuites more subtle than they not daring to deny the Pope any part of that Power which any other profession of men have dared to give him and yet unable to assert such a vast power from those inconveniencies which follow upon the Canonists opinion have found out a meanes to put into the Popes hands the exercise of as much temporall power as they bluntly and grossely give him and that to all effects and purposes as full and in as ample manner as they yet by a more learned and refined flattery as resulting from his spirituall Power not