Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n
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A36314
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A sermon occasioned by the late earthquake which happen'd in London and other places on the eighth of September, 1692 / Preached to a congregation in Reading by Samuel Doolittle.
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Doolittle, Samuel.
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1692
(1692)
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Wing D1880; ESTC R32821
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22,758
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36
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thought of the condescension of the God of Heaven Lord saith he When I consider thy heavens the work of thy fingers the moon and stars which thou hast ordained What is man that thou art mindful of him and the son of man that thou visitest him Holy David having studied the Heavens in which Volumes the Power Wisdom and Majesty of God are written in Capital Letters and Golden Characters Cryes out with admiration Lord what is man that thou visitest him How fit are all Gods visits to be the subject of a devout and silent admiration Doth God visit this mean this contemptible Creature Man Wonderful Grace 2. It is wonderful that Men sinful Men guilty Men may visit God That we are allowed the liberty of making a visit to Heaven God might scorn us and our visits too he might lock up himself in Heaven and deny access into his Presence to such undutiful and disloyal Creatures as we have been This great King this mighty Lord might not suffer such dead dogs as we are to lie at his door But oh condescending goodness He invites us to give him a visit and the oftner we visit him the more welcome are we He blames us for our seldom but he never upbraids us with our often visits Oh who would not visit and often visit such a God as this May Men and Sinners visit the God of Heaven the High and the Holy One Do his Gates continually stand open and may Indigent Creatures come daily for an Alms Invaluable Mercy 3. It is wonderful that Men should be so backward to visit God How necessary and excellent How sweet and comfortable How profitable and advantagious a Duty is this To visit God is equally our Duty and Priviledge while we do so we share with Glorious Angels in that which is the top of their Happiness beholding the face of our Father which is in heaven Now if ever do Holy and Devout Souls anticipate their future happiness in partaking of that fullness of joy which is in Gods Presence and in drinking large draughts of those rivers of pleasure that are at his right hand for evermore How oft have Holy Men come from this Mount with their faces shining How oft have they received support under all their burdens encouragement against their fears an answer to their doubts and a sufficiency of strength to encounter difficulties performe Duties to endure the fiery tryal and quench the fiery darts of the evil one to conflict with their Corruptions and overcome the World How oft even in the time of their visiting hath God wiped Tears from their weeping Eyes refresht their drooping and revived their fainting Spirits cleared up their evidences for Heaven and inabled them to see their Names written there spoken comfortably to their hearts assured them of their Covenant Relation to him and their Interest in his special love and favour Oh how oft have they come away with their Pardon Sealed their fears â—cattered their mournful complaints husht and silenced their Consciences pacified and those Clouds that darkned their Souls dispersed with that breath of God Son be of good chear thy sins be forgiven thee How oft and how heartily have they been welcomed by the Holy and Blessed Trinity Father Son and Spirit Yet notwithstanding all this Men will not oh fatal degeneracy of Humane Nature visit God Some are Atheistical and Prophane and hopeless Wretches they fall under that black and hellish Character God is not in all their thoughts Some are ignorant and stupid without any sense and feeling and what is their unspeakable Misery is their voluntary choice too to be without God in the world Some are voluptuous given to pleasure Nay they carry that Death-mark in their foreheads written in such legible Characters That he that runs may Read lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God Pleasures charm and vain delights captivate their Souls they being sensual and having not the Spirit are constant Guests in the house of Feasting but utter strangers in the house of Prayer Among the vast multitudes of Men and Women that croud and throng the World there are some few who from a principle of a good Education the Remains of Natural Light and the urgent calls of an awaken'd Conscience do something of this kind but it is rather out of meer complement than real Friendship Thus it is with most and is it thus indeed Tremble thou Earth be astonished O ye Heavens at this and be ye horribly afraid How justly may God use that sharp and stinging Expostulation he did of old O generation see ye the word of the Lord have I been a wilderness unto England a land of darkness Wherefore say my people we are lords we will come no more unto thee Though Men live altogether upon the Alms of Heaven yet they seldom visit God stupendous folly This late Earthquake should put Men upon visiting God oftner and when you do remember to make these two following requests 1. Pray that God would visit you and all his people in mercy this was one notable Petition Holy David that Man of Prayer put up to God O visit me with thy salvation These visits how welcom and blessed how refreshing and desirable are they Oh beg of God for more of them Go to God and say Lord Thou hast visited thy People O visit them still with thy Salvation Lord Let not these visits of thine which are so much for thy Glory and the Creatures good be rare and seldom but frequent and oft repeated 2. Pray that God would visit no more in anger And methinks when there is so much dread and terrour in the visits of an angry God Men should earnestly deprecate them If God visit with a Plague Death becomes triumphant and Men fall heaps upon heaps into the Grave If God visit with a Famine our beauty faileth our strength consumeth and the Man becomes a walking Ghost before Death turns him into a Corps If God visit with an Earthquake Men are at their Wits-end and this beautiful World is turned into a confused Chaos O beg of God England may have no more of these terrifying and desolating visits If you won't pray the next shake may be your overthrow If you will not for all this visit God the Lord of hosts may visit with an Earthquake a second time and his second visit may carry more dread and terrour with it than the first did Turn the Text into a Prayer and say Oh that England Oh that London may no more be visited of the Lord of hosts with Thunder and Earthquake Lord grant it may not Amen FINIS Rom. 1. 9. Heb 5. 14 Gen. 27. 4 ver 20. Matth. 25 5. Jude ver 3. Jer. 48. 44. Psal 50. 21. Exod. 32. 34. Mic. â— 4. Job 〈◊〉 14. Matth. 22. 12. Job 40. 4. Am. 3. 2. Is 24. 2â— Am. 3. 6. Psal. 〈…〉 Isah. 〈…〉 5. Job 〈…〉 Is 45. 7. Psal 18. 7. Am. 4. 1. Mat. 24. 7. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ps 78. 30. Is 28. 21. Pâ— â—4 9. 〈…〉 Pâ— 1â— 6. Acts 16. 26. Marth 27. 51. Gen 13. 17. Luke 21. 9 11. Mat. 24. 2 7 8. 2 Pet. 3 16. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Sam. 15 32. Luke 2. 19. Is 5. 11 12. Prov. 23. 17. 1 Cor. 3. 3. Ps 17. 14. Matth. 6. 19. Ps 22. 2. Prov. 23. 5. Mal. 3. 1. Prov. 28. 1. Psal 46. 1. Ver. 2. Ver. 3. Si fractus illabatur orbis impavidum serient ruinae Hor. Car. lib. 3. od 3. Joel 3. 16. Heb. 12. 28. Colos 1. 5. Ps 62. 11. Mat. 10. 28. Psal 119. 120. Jer. 5. 22. La. 3. 40. Acts 16. 26. ver 30. Ez. 9. 13. Job 15. 4. Ja. 3. 10. Dan. 7. 10 Ps 82. 1. Psal 8. 3. â—er 4. 1 Sam. 24. 14. Mat. 18. 10. Ps 16. ult Mat. 9. 2. 〈…〉 Eph. 2. 12 2 Tim. 3. 4. Jude 1 Jer. 2. 31. Ps 106. 4. Judg 15. 16.
A SERMON Occasioned by the Late Earthquake Which happen'd in LONDON And other Places On the Eighth of September 1692. Preached to a CONGREGATION in READING By SAMUEL DOOLITTLE ISAIAH ii 19. And they shall go into the holes of the rocks and into the caves of the earth for fear of the Lord and for the glory of his majesty when he ariseth to shake terribly the earth LONDON Printed by J. R. for J. Salusbury at the Rising-Sun near the Royal Exchange in Cornhil 1692. To the Reverend and his Honoured Father Mr. THOMAS DOOLITTLE Honoured Sir A Late Providence equally surprizing and sad a Providence which they must be great Strangers in this our Jerusalem who have not heard of it gave birth to this following Discourse To perpetuate the Memory and assist my Neighbours in making an improvement of it was the design of its being first preacht and now publisht I know that a Critical Eye may observe some blemishes and I perswade my self an envious one will find more But I am the less solicitous because I hope I rather designed to do good to others than gain applause to my self I would rather that Men would praise God whose I am and whom I desire to serve with my Spirit in the Gospel of his Son than blow the Trumpet at my door Though this Discourse hath the ill fate to come forth in an Age when the Love of many is waxed cold Yet I hope some will have that charity for it and the Author too which hideth a multitude of faults If some shall find fault with the stile as not being acurate and polisht let them know it was preacht to a Congregation in the Countrey who mind more that the form of Words delivered to them be wholesom and sound than gay and eloquent And that so sad and awful a Providence called for something more than flourishes of wit Perhaps some that are got into the chair of the scornful will deride it but I hope that they who have their sences exercised to discern both good and evil will find I have prepared savoury meat for them and that God brought it to me To justifie the making so plain a discourse thus publick I neither can nor care to use that Stale Complement of its being extorted from me by the irresistible importunity of them that heard it Neither will I stuff this Epistle with those trifling Apologies which are as easily answered as they are commonly used It is a time when not only the foolish Virgins but the wise too slumber and sleep Oh what a Spirit of slumber is faln upon most of the Protestant Churches at this day And must none of the Watchmen of Israel sound the Trumpet and give them an Alarum If the abounding of Iniquity and the frequent repetition of the same sins and those too that are of a crimson colour and scarlet dye If the general declension of Faith Love Zeal and other Christian Graces which is too notoriously visible among all Parties that profess the Protestant Religion or which is all one the faith which was once delivered to the Saints If the ill symptoms which are upon us at home and our Brethren abroad If former and later warnings of Providence be not sufficient to excuse nay to justifie my calling men to repentance and reformation I must ay and I am willing for once to bear the blame of having done an unnecessary work These my first fruits Sir I offer to you to whom I owe all I can do of this kind If they are not so fully ripe yet because they bear that Character let them find acceptance with you I hope the discourse together with the occasion of it may do good And if it may contribute to the repentance and reformation of the nation or any particular Number of Sinners in it my great end is attained That it may be accompany'd with that divine with that all-mighty power which can shake and open the heart of the most obdurate sinner as well as that of the earth let your prayers meet mine at the throne of grace I am Honoured Sir Reading Sept. 29. 92. Your most dutiful and most obedient Son SAMVEL DOOLITTLE A SERMON Preached upon the Late Earthquake Which happen'd in LONDON And other PLACES On the Eighth of September 1692. ISAIAH xxix 6. Thou shalt be visited of the Lord of hosts with Thunder and with Earthquake THough almighty God hath been shooting one flaming arrow after another against a sinful and provoking People his quiver is still full Though desolating judgments the messengers of divine anger have been like the waves of the Sea which come rolling and tumbling one upon the neck of another The treasuries of Gods wrath are not yet emptied When one fire is out how easily and suddenly may another be kindled Every Creature from the highest Angel to the lowest worm stands ready armed with a sting to avenge its makers quarrel Not only Angels those Courtiers of Heaven but all Creatures in this lower World are ready to do the Pleasure and execute the Will of their great and common Lord They need not to be prest for they are Volunteers in this Service In every part of the Elemental World an angry God can find instruments of his vengeance the winds and waves which no man hitherto could tame readily obey him There is no Creature though at first made for the use and service of innocent Adam but may be a rod and a sword in the hand of an offended God to lash wound and kill his guilty children If God have a mind to drown the Old World He can gather the Waters together and the continually weeping clouds shall turn the dry land into a sea If God have a mind to burn Sodom and Gomorrah he can on a sudden rain showers of fire and brimstone from Heaven Turn those Cities into ashes and rubbish and they shall experience a temporal before they drop into an eternal Hell If God will fight against the enemies of his Church He hath the whole Militia and all the Artillery of Heaven at his command on a sudden in a moment unthought of he can discharge the Cannon of Heaven scare them with his Thunder and scatter them with his Lightning If God will take a speedy vengeance on Corah and his wicked accomplices or on any other company of rebel creatures at his command the closely compacted earth shall open her mouth swallow up and bury them alive become their coffin and grave too What God of this kind can do we may learn from the mouth of two witnesses viz. a late Providence and the Text I have now read Thou shalt be visited by the Lord of hosts with thunder and earthquake In which words we have these three things 1. The Visitant the Lord of hosts the Lord that is great in strength and mighty in power Jehovah to whom nothing is impossible or hard The Lord of hosts who is general of all the forces in