Selected quad for the lemma: war_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
war_n	david_n	house_n	saul_n	2,074	5	10.7882	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A89580	A sermon preached before the Honourable House of Commons, now assembled in Parliament, at their publike fast, November 17. 1640. Upon 2 Chron. 15. 2. The Lord is with you, while yee bee with him: and if yee seek him, he will be found of you: but if yee forsake him, he will forsake you. / By Stephen Marshall, Batchelour in Divinity, minister of Finchingfield in Essex. Published by order of the said House.	Marshall, Stephen, 1594?-1655.	1641 (1641)	Wing M776; Thomason E204_9; ESTC R212613	31,991	52

goes if God goe It is a knowne story in the 1. Samuel 4. that when the Arke that was called the glory of God the visible token of Gods presence in the Covenant of Grace was taken Captive by the Philistines Phineas his wife bowed her selfe and travailed and though they after told her that a Man-child was borne shee regarded it not but called his name Ichabod saying The glory is gone because then Gods presence departed from them What need I say any more The worke of the Incarnation of the Sonne of God and the Redemption of the VVorld by him was such that one maine end of making this goodly frame of Heaven and Earth was that it might be the stage upon which that Worke should be acted A worke wherein not onely all mans happinesse lyes and whence it flowes but wherein all Gods Attributes are glorified to the highest and for which the Church Triumphant shall thinke Eternity short enough to prayse God Of this Worke I say the summe is given in one word Immanuel God is with us And plaine Reason may demonstrate that it must needes be so What is glory but the shining out of excellency VVhat is happinesse but the fruition of the greatest good Now there is no Excellency that shines out in any thing like to that which beames out from God in the Covenant of grace to his people There is no good that any people can enjoy like the fruition of God in that Covenant It is true God manifests himselfe to all the Nations in the World in him they live and move and have their being yet it is as in a darke Cloud they grope after him and cannot feele him but in the covenant of grace men behold him with open face like the Sunne shining in his strength as through a Mirrour Such a Mirrour as the Prince of Orange had that would shew the Sunne in his full bignesse and beauty Thus God shines in the Covenant of grace The Prince is virtually present in all places of his Kingdome but his Court is his Glory So where God is in his Covenant there Heaven is therefore this is usually in the Scripture phrase called the Kingdome of Heaven But if yet more particularly you enquire what Gods presence in his Covenant implyes As he who being askt what God was required first a day then two then three alledging that the more he studyed it the lesse able hee found himselfe to answer it So the more I thinke of this the more unable I see my selfe to make a satisfactory answer what I can take thus To the Nation of the Iewes it implyed something which concernes not us but mystically or analogically As to have the Arke Vrim and Thummim to have God to reveale himselfe in Visions and Dreames To answer by Thunder c. which my haste allowes me not leisure to explaine But to them and to all other people Gods presence in the Covenant of Grace implyes these three things First the owning and acknowledging of them to be his owne separated people knit to him in a league of love he is their God they are his people they have a propriety in God and God hath a propriety in them so that they may say of Him This God is our God and God of them This people is my people Now this is the greatest happinesse nothing can exceed it It hath bin often questioned what was the greatest favour that ever Almighty God did for man Some preferre Creation wherein man received his being and excellent endowments some Redemption wherein man is recovered to a better and surer estate than hee injoyed in Creation but out of question to be a Iedediah beloved of God to be neare to God as his Children as his Spouse is the comprehension of all that can be said or thought of the happinesse of a people And if you looke into the Scriptures you shall see that Gods love to his peculiar people is such a love as carryes with it all relations It is the love of a Father to his Children I will be your Father and you shall bee my Sonnes and Daughters saith the Lord Almighty It is the love that a man beares to the wife of his bosome I will marry thee to mee in righteousnes and truth and mercy It is the love of a friend I have called you my friends And Abraham the Father of all that are in Covenant he was stiled The friend of God And from this interest in God flow innumerable priviledges for being thus beloved of God and precious to him it followes that they are accepted in their services that all their sinnes are pardoned and that they have liberty to aske any thing that is good for them When Solomon was beloved of God 2 Kings 3. 5. God bids him Aske what I shall doe for thee It is but aske and have And this is the confidence that wee have in him that if wee aske any thing according to his will he heareth us They have friendship with all his friends In Zach. 8. 23. Ten men shall lay hold upon the skirt of one that is a Iew of whom they be able to say Wee have heard that God is with you Indeed to have God thus making himselfe over to a people to bee their portion to love them and to owne them is not onely an heaven upon earth but the very heaven of heaven Secondly Gods presence with a people in his Covenant implyes Gods assisting them and prospering all the workes they put their hands unto This is the ordinary expression of the Scripture Every thing prospers where God is It is said of David whithersoever Saul sent him he prospered for God was with him Every house where Ioseph came prospered for God was with him In all undertakings in all Counsels for wars for peace for trade c. Gods aid and assistance comes in If they decree a thing God will establish it If they commit their worke to him the very thoughts of their hearts shall be established Whatsoever they doe God will make it to prosper Thou O Lord workest all our workes for us Whereas now if God be absent all mens endeavours are to no purpose in any kind Except the Lord build the house they labour but in vaine that build it It is to no purpose to plough that field that God will have lye fallow Ye earne much saith God but it comes to nothing ye sow much and bring in little ye eate and have not enough yee drinke and are not filled he that earneth wages puts it into a bottomlesse purse What was the reason the Lord blasted all And it must needs be so all the second causes worke onely by vertue of the first the great wheele carries on all the other A notable example of this that Gods presence is mans prosperity wee have in Hag. 2. where when God had told them that the reason of all their ill successe in their