Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n
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A52286
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The dissenters jubilee as it was sounded in the audience of a solemn assembly at the publick meeting-place in Spittle-Fields near London, on Tuesday May 17, 1687, being a day of Thanksgiving to praise the Lord for his vvonderful appearance and over-ruling providence, in the present dispensation of liberty of conscience / by Charles Nicholets ...
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Nicholets, Charles.
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1687
(1687)
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Wing N1086
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30,128
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54
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hath done great things for us that in the Ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his Power in his kindness towards us in rescuing us from the jaws of Death and keeping us from going down into the Pit and by his glorious Omnipotence turning our Captivity as the streams of the South And this Almighty Power of his has been of old exerted for the deliverance of his poor distressed People as we may see in the Churches appeal to it upon her Invocation in time of trouble Isa 51.9 10 11. Awake Awake put on strength O Arm of the Lord as in the Antient days in the Generations of Old Art thou not it that hath cut Rahab and wounded the Dragon art thou not it which hath dried the Sea the Waters of the great deep that hath made the depths of the Sea a way for the Ransomed to pass over therefore the Redeemed of the Lord shall return and come with Singing unto Zion and everlasting Joy shall be upon their heads they shall obtain Gladness and Joy and Sorrow and Mourning shall flee away As if she had said Thou hast formerly shined forth in the Glory of thy Power in cutting Rahab that is in plaguing Egypt in wounding the Dragon that is in destroying Pharoah and in drying up the Waters of the Red-Sea Oh put forth that power now in Freeing and redeeming us from our present troubles that we with them may sing those Hosannahs of Joy on Earth which will be perfected in Hallelujahs when we come to Heaven Tantum gaudebimus quam tum amabimus tantum amabimus quantum cognoscemus says the devout Austin We shall Rejoyce as much as we shall Love and we shall Love as much as we shall know Our knowledge of the glorious Attribute of Gods Power will then be perfect and our rejoycing at it will be in perfection also we find the Prophet in a dark and gloomy day when things lookt black upon the People of God had recourse to this great Power of God for his support and bearing up under the pressures of those sad and heavy things he saw a coming upon Jerusalem as you may see in that solemn and serious Prayer of his Jerimiah 32. verse 17 c. Ah! Lord God behold thou hast made the Heaven and the Earth by thy great Power and stretched-out Arm and there is nothing too hard for thee Thou shewest Loving kindness unto Thousands and recompensest the Iniquity of the Fathers into the bosome of their Children after them the Great the Mighty God the Lord of Hosts is his Name great in Councel and mighty in Work for thine Eyes are open upon all the ways of the Sons of Men to give every one according to his wayes and every one according to the fruit of his doings which hast set Signs and Wonders in the Land of Egypt even unto this day and in Israel and amongst other men and hast made thee a name as at this day and hast brought forth thy People Israel out of the Land of Egypt with Signs and with Wonders and with a strong hand and with a stretched-out Arm and with great terror This prayer is very argumentative and conclusive concerning the Power of God that it is able to effect all things since by it the vast globe of the World was made out of nothing the Lords Might anb his Mercy are the good Soul's Jachin Boaz the names of the two main Pillars in Solomons Temple the one signifying Stabllity the other Strength to note the Saints are safe and established in the the Power and Mercy of God. Thus the great Lord hath done great things for us Secondly The Lord the good and gracious God the Tender and Merciful God who hath proclaimed himself before Heaven and Earth before Angels and Men. The Lord The Lord God Mercifull and Gracious Long-suffering abundant in goodness and Truth the Lord who is good yea exceeding good whose Mercy endures for ever The Lord whose thoughts concercing Mercy are not as our thoughts nor his ways with respect to doing good as our wayes but as the Heavens are higher then the Earth so are his Thoughts higher than our Thoughts his Ways than our Ways The Lord that is as ready to Grant as his People can be to Ask who is nigh to all that call upon him in sincerity when Troubles and Calamities do Surround them as you may see in his most tender affectionate answer to bemoaning Ephraim as soon as he came upon his knees before him Jeremiah 31.20 Is Ephraim my dear Son Is he a pleasant Child For since I spake against him I do earnestly remember him still therefore my Bowels are Troubled for him and I will surely have Mercy upon him saith the Lord. God may seem a great while as one unconcerned at the troubles of his People but when they are so high as to overwhelm their Spirits and their Hearts are bowing and bending yea breaking under them he then hath Pity and Compassion upon them in their Distresses As Croesus's dumb Son who never spoke in his Life before when he saw one attempting to Assassinate his Father violently cryed out 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 O Man Do not kill Croesus So the blessed God cannot hold coming in with supplyes of Mercy when his People are ready to be swallowed up in the gulf of Misery Mercy is his Name and Mercy is his Nature there is nothing he delights in so much for Mercy pleases him as much as it pleasures us and as he is great in Mercy so he is rich in it and free in it without any previous condition or qualification in the Creature He is a most free Agent in the distribution of Mercy Romans 9.15 for he saith to Moses I will have Mercy on whom I will have Mercy and I will have Compassion on on whom I will have Compassion No other reason can be assigned no other motive by the Wisdom of Men and Angels could be produced why God should shew any Mercy to any of the Sons of Adam but his own free-will to it and his gracious Complacency in it When he is angry with his People and visiting them with some Judgments as Tokens of his Displeasure he is said to come out of his place importing that when he is doing good and shewing mercy he is then in his own proper place the place he would for ever be in did not our Sins too often occasion his removal We likewise read of his delighting in mercy Mic. 7.18 Who is a God like unto thee That pardonest iniquity and passest by the transgressions of the Remnant of his Heritage he retaineth not his anger for ever because he delighteth in mercy O Admiration Admiration That a dishonoured provoked and highly-incensed God should keep in the Vials of his wrath and shew so much Love and so much Mercy to his distressed ones yea in his Love and in his Mercy to do such great things for them Indeed when God strikes he strikes to
who are not able to stand against the weakest Creature but waste insensibly and by degrees as a Garment that is Moth-eaten Man in his best state in his best dress under his best circumstances is al together Vanity and this makes him truely nothing to be accounted of The Prophet David could not but break forth with a Quid est Homo after contemplating the rest of Gods Creatures Psalm 8.4 What is man that thou art mindful of him or the Son of Man that thou dost visit him Q. d. Man is verily nothing at all O what a wonder of wonders is it then that the Blessed and Glorious God should take such notice of him and be so concerned for him In like manner we may be thus reflecting What are we O what are all the Dissenters in England abstractly considered but a company of very low mean Creatures unable to duty uncapable of Mercy And yet that God should appear for us and do such great things for us at this day this is verily the Lords doings and Oh that it could be marvellous in our Eyes That we might break forth into admiration at it Jacob on this account thus reflected upon himself Gen. 32.10 I am not worthy of the least of all thy Mercies and of all the truth which thou hast shewed unto thy Servant for with my Staff I passed over this Jordan and now I am become two Bands Even so let us be bowing down our Heads and worshiping the Lord our God this day crying out We are not worthy of the least of thy Favours and of thy Truth for we are the wretched offspring of fallen man and yet thou hast showred floods of Mercy upon us Thou hast lifted us up out of the Horrible Pit of Tribulation and Persecution which we were so miserably sunk into and hast set our feet upon a Rock filling our Mouths with Praises and Gladness therefore Oh! Glory Glory Glory be to thy Name for Ever Secondly For Vs poor distressed Creatures who are in a miserable condition yea as miserable as miserable could be not only Persecuted almost to the utmost extremity by our open Enemies but forsaken and lookt a squint at by our quodam Friends who through pusilanimity were ready with Peter to swear they never knew us 'T is rare for man to keep close to much less to choose a Friend in Misery as the Poet well observed Nulla fides unquam miseros elegit Amicos Ay but God does he fixed on Vs for the objects of his signal Favour when we were burning in the hottest Fire of Persecution when we were so like our dear Redeemer who said of himself The Foxes have holes and the Birds of the Air have Nests but the Son of Man hath not where to lay his Head. Oh how great was our Misery in this respect The Drunkards and Debauchees of this Age were in their Cieled Houses and the Contemners of Religion dwelled secure in their Habitations but the Saints of the most High knew not where to fly for refuge But then O then God looked upon us in Mercy 136 Psalm 23 24. Who remembreth us in our low estate for his Mercy endureth for Ever and hath redeemed us from our Enemies for his Mercy endureth for Ever I shall not make any recapitulation of the particulars of our Sufferings least the design of this day be changed from the seasonable duty of Rejoycing into the unseasonable work of Sighing and Sobbing It would be Infandum renovare dolorem and the reflecting on never so few instances would make the yet-scarce-healed wounds to bleed afresh and extort tears of Lamentation from the greatest part of this Assembly Quis talia fando temperet alachrimis I confess I could not keep in my self as being able to say with AEneas Quaeque ipse misserima vidi et Quorum pars magna fui But this calamity was not personal but epidemical The cry of all the dissenting People of God seemed to be that of the Church Psalm 79.8 9. O remember not against us former iniquities let thy tender mercy speedily prevent us for we are brought very low Help us O God of our Salvation for the Glory of thy Name and deliver us and purge away our Sins for thy Name sake And this bitter cry hath at length pierced the Heavens and come up before the Holy One who hath heard us and helped us and delivered us in the day of our great Trouble and in the day of the vexation of our Souls when we were so low that never any People surely were lower then we were Having from without this only thing to comfort us that whilst it pleased God to defer the altering our condition for the better we might bid defiance to the Devil to make it worse Qui jacet in terris non habet unde cadet But now Oh now in the midst of this low and deplorable state God hath done great things for us Thirdly For us Sinful Unworthy Creatures whose deportment hath been such in all our sufferings that we may truely and without complement cry out with the Church Thou hast punished us O Lord less then our iniquities have deserved we have Tempted him as at Missah and Provoaked him as at the waters of Meribah we have Sinned in our Hearts and in our Lives in our words and in all our Actions There have been found among us even among us Spots that have hardly been the Spots of Gods Children VVe have Sinned away our Mercies and thereby justly provoked the Lord to forsake his Tabernacle that was in our Shiloh and the Tent which he had placed among us men And as our Sins have justly brought down Judgments upon us so have they continued them to us VVe have Sinned in as well as before our Sufferings VVe have been as that AHAZ Who trespassed yet more and more in his Afflictions VVhat was said of them of Old may well be applyed to us in this Generation Jer. 17.1 The Sin of Judah is written with a Pen of Iron and the point of a Diamond it is graven upon the table of their hearts and upon the horns of their Altars Their Sins lay there where the Law should have lain even in their hearts and so it hath been with us Ay and on the Horns of their Altars too where they should have Offered up their pure and unblemisht Sacrifices And have not we done the very same Yea verily we have sinned even in our Worshiping our Hearing our Praying Oh! what corruptions what horrid Iniquities have accompanied our most solemn Duties and thereby rendered us the most impious and impudent of Sinners Oh! that God should then do such great things for such as we Oh! that ever we should come into His Heart for delivering Mercy who with our own hands have brought down upon our own heads the flood of all Misery In looking back on our former ways we cannot but joyn with the Church in condemning our selves as justly forfeiting all those precious and