Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n
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A62608
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A sermon preach'd before the Queen at White-Hall, March the XXth, 1691/2 by John, Lord Archbishop of Canterbury.
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Tillotson, John, 1630-1694.
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1692
(1692)
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Wing T1245; ESTC R16847
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15,855
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37
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of our happiness could change and the foundation of it be removed If God could be otherwise than powerful and wise and good all our hopes of happiness would be shaken and would fall to the ground But the Divine nature is not subject to any change As he is the Father of lights and the Author of every good and perfect gift so with him is no variableness neither shadow of turning All the things of this World are mutable and for that reason had they no other imperfection belonging to them cannot make us happy Fourthly God is such a good as none can deprive us of and take away from us If the things of this World were unchangeable in their nature and not liable to any decay yet they cannot make us happy because we may be cheated of them by fraud or robb'd of them by violence But God cannot be taken from us Nothing but our Sins can part God and us Who shall separate us saith the Apostle from the love of God shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword We may be stripp'd of all our worldly comforts and enjoyments by the violence of men but none of all these can separate us from God I am persuaded as the Apostle goes on with great triumph that neither death nor life nor Angels nor Principalities nor Powers nor heighth nor depth nor things present nor things to come nor any other Creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Nor any other Creature Here is a sufficient induction of particulars and nothing left out of this Catalogue but one and that is Sin which is none of God's Creatures but our own This indeed deliberately consented to and wilfully continued in will finally part God and us and for ever hinder us from being happy But if we be careful to avoid this which only can separate between God and us nothing can deprive us of Him The aids and influences of his Grace none can intercept and hinder the joyes and comforts of his Holy Spirit none can take from us All other things may leave us and forsake us We may be debarr'd of our best friends and banish'd from all our acquaintance but men can send us no whither from the presence of God Our Communication with Heaven cannot be prevented or interrupted Our Prayers and our Souls will always find the way thither from the uttermost parts of the Earth Fifthly God is an Eternal God And nothing but what is so can make us happy Man having an immortal Spirit and being design'd for an endless duration must have a happiness proportionable For which reason nothing in this World can make us happy because we shall abide and remain after it When a very few years are past and gone and much sooner for any thing we know all the things of this World will leave us or else we shall be taken away from them But God is from everlasting to everlasting He is the same and his years faile not Therefore well might David fix his happiness upon God alone and say Whom have I in Heaven but thee and there is none upon Earth that I desire besides thee When my heart faileth and my strength faileth God is the strength of my heart and my portion for ever Sixthly God is able to support and comfort us in every condition and under all the accidents and adversities of human Life Outward afflictions may hurt our Body but they cannot reach our Soule and so long as that remains unwounded the spirit of a man can bear his infirmities God is intimate to our Soules and hath secret wayes whereby to convey the joyes and comforts of his Holy Spirit into our hearts under the bitterest afflictions and sharpest sufferings He can enable us by his Grace to possess our soules in patience when all other things are taken from us When there is nothing but trouble about us He can give us peace and joy in believing When we are persecuted afflicted and tormented He can give us that ravishing sight of the Glories of another World that stedfast assurance of a future Blessedness as shall quite extinguish all sense of present sufferings How did many of the primitive Christian Martyrs in the midst of their torments and under the very pangs of death rejoyce in the hope of the glory of God There are none of us but may happen to fall into those circumstances of danger and of bodily paines and sufferings as to have no hopes of relief and comfort but from God none in all the World to trust to but Him only And in the greatest Evils that can befall us in this life He is a sure refuge and sanctuary and to repeat the words of the Psalmist after the Text When our heart failes and our strength failes God is the strength of our hearts and our portion for ever Now what would any of us do in such a Case if it were not for God Human nature is liable to desperate straits and exigencies And he is not happy who is not provided against the worst that may happen It is sad to be reduced to such a condition as to be destitute of all comfort and hope And yet men may be brought to that extremity that if it were not for God they would not know which way to turn themselves or how to entertain their thoughts with any comfortable considerations under their present anguish All men naturally resort to God in extremity and cry out to him for help Even the most profane and Atheistical when they are destitute of all other comfort will run to God and take hold of him and cling about him But God hath no pleasure in fooles in those who neglect and despise him in their prosperity though they owe that also entirely to him but when the evil day comes then they lay hold of him as their only refuge When all things go well with them God is not in all their thoughts but in their affliction they will seek him early Then they will cry Lord Lord but he will say to them in that day depart from me ye workers of iniquity for I know you not Here will be the great unhappiness of such persons that God will then appear terrible to them so as they shall not be able when they look up to him to abide his frowns And at the same time that they are forc'd to acknowledge him and to supplicate to him for mercy and forgiveness they shall be ready to despair of it Then those terrible threatnings of Gods Word will come to their minds Because I called and yet refused I stretched out my hand and no man regarded But 〈◊〉 set at nought all my counsel and would have none of my reproof I also will laugh at your calamity and monk when your fear cometh when your fear cometh as desolation and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind when distress and anguish cometh