Selected quad for the lemma: word_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
word_n	david_n	king_n	saul_n	3,246	5	10.1257	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A44395	Golden remains of the ever memorable Mr Iohn Hales of Eton College &c.	Hales, John, 1584-1656.; Hollar, Wenceslaus, 1607-1677, engraver.; Pearson, John, 1613-1686.; Gunning, Peter, 1614-1684.; Balcanquhall, Walter, 1586?-1645.	1659 (1659)	Wing H269; ESTC R202306	285,104	329

the Philistines could ever fasten upon or drive to any inconvenience one lustful thought forced to Adultery and Murder one proud conceit stirred up to number the people and drew from God great inconveniences and plagues both upon himself and his Kingdom How careful then ought we to be and to stand on our guard and keep a perpetual watch over our hearts diligently to try and examine our thoughts Nunquam securo triumphantur otio sed tantum sollicito premuntur imperio August Nor while we live shall we be able perfectly to master or securely to triumph over them the only way to suppress and keep them down is to have a perpetual and careful jealousie of them Now of this Religious care and watchfulness over our own thoughts hath the Holy Ghost recorded for our use a notable example in these words which but now I read And it came to passe c. To relate unto you at large the occasion of these words and the story from whence they depend were but to wrong you for I cannot think so meanly of your knowledg in Scripture as that any of you can be ignorant of so famous a passage Yet thus much for the better opening of my way unto such doctrines as I shall draw from this Text I will call back unto your memories that Saul hunting after David to kill him unwittingly stept into a Cave where David was David having now his enemy in his hand and opportunity to revenge himself le ts slip all thought of revenging and only cuts off privily the lap of his Garment For this deed so harmless so innocent the Scripture tells us that his heart smote him that he suffered great anguish and remorse in Conscience for it That which I will require you to note is the tenderness of Conscience and strange scrupulousness in David for so small an action for it will yield us a great Lesson I say it appeareth not by Scripture that David intended any mischief or treason to Saul or that he harbour'd in heart any disloyal thought against him This purpose of cutting off the lap of Sauls garment was no other then to purchase to himself a harmless and honourable testimony of his Innocency and to prove unto Saul that there was no likelihood that he sought his blood whom he spared having him at so great an advantage Yet notwithstanding as if the rending of Sauls garment had been the wounding of Sauls body or the shedding of his blood David stands amazed and is affrighted at so honourable so innocent a thought His heart smote him saith the Scripture As men that have been at sea and indanger'd through the raging of windes and tempests and floods when afterward the weather is cleared up the windes allayed the seasmoothed and all calm yet scarcely dare they set sail again and trust to so uncertain so fickle an Element so seems it to have fared with David in this place He was a man subject to the same passions with other men and doubtless through the raging of unruly and misorderly affections he had many times been in danger of spiritual shipwrack wherefore licet in morem stagni fusum aequor arrideat and though now he could discover no tempest in his heart though the face of his thoughts were as smooth as glass yet when he looks upon such fair and calm affections his heart misgives him and he dares not trust them magnos hic campus montes habet tranquilitas ista tempestas est The care he hath over his own heart fills him with suspitions and still he thinks something he knows not what may be amiss But I must come unto the words And it came to pass afterwards c. In these words we will consider these three things 1. The Person David And Davids heart smote him 2. Davids Sollicitousness his care and jealousy very significantly expressed in the next words His heart smote him 3. The cause of this his care and anxiety of minde in the last words Because he had cut off Sauls skirt In the first point that is in the Person we may consider his greatness he was a King in expectation and already anoynted A circumstance by so much the more considerable because that greatness is commonly taken to be a Priviledge to sin to be over carefull and conscientious of our courses and actions are accounted virtues for private Persons Kings have greater businesses then to examine every thought that comes into their hearts Pater meus obliviscitur se esse Caesarem ego vero memini me Caesaris filiam It is the answer of Julia Augustus the Emperour's daughter when she was taxed for her too wanton and licentious living and counsel'd to conform herself to the Sobriety and Gravity of her Father My Father saith she forgets himself to be Caesar the Emperour but I remember myself to be Caesars daughter It was the speech of Enxius the Poet Plebs in hoc Regi antest●● loco licet lachrimari plebi Regi honeste non licet Private men in this have a priviledge above Princes but thus to do becomes not Princes and if at any time these sad and heavy hearted thoughts do supprize them they shall never want comforters to dispell them When Ahab was for sullnness fallen down upon his bed because Naboth would not yield him his Vineyard Jezabell is presently at hand and asks him Art thou this day King of Israel When Ammon pined away in the incestuous love of his Sister Thamar Jonadab his companion comes unto him and asks why is the Kings Son sad every day so that as it seems great Persons can never be much or long sad Yet David forgets his greatness forgets his many occasions gives no ear to his companions about him but gives himself over to a scrupulous and serious consideration of an Action in shew and countenance but light Secondly as the Person is great so is the care and remorse conceived upon the Consideration of his action exceeding great which is our Second part And therefore the Holy Ghost expresses it in very significant termes His heart smote him a phrase in scripture used by the Holy Ghost when men begin to be sensible and repent them of some sin When David had commited that great sin of numbring the people and began to be apprehensive of it the Scripture tells us that Davids heart smote him when he had commanded Jeab to number the People Wherefore by this smiting we may not here understand some light touch of Conscience like a grain of powder presently kindled and presently gone for the most hard and flinty hearts many times yield such sparks as these He that is most flesht in sin commits it not without some remorse for sin evermore leaves some scruple some sting some lothsomness in the hearts of those that are most inamour'd of it But as Simeon tells the blessed Virgin in St. Lukes Gospell Gladius pertransihit animam tuam a sword shall peirce through thine heart so it seems to have

been with David It was not some light touch to rase only the surface and skin of the heart but like a sword it pierced deep into him To teach us one lesson that actions spotted though but with the least suspicion of sin ought nor carelesly to be past by or slightly glanced at but we ought to be deeply apprehensive of them and bestow greatest care and consideration upon them The third part of our Text containeth the cause of Davids remorse in the last words Because he cut off Sauls skirt in the two former parts we had to do with greatness there was 1. a great Person and 2. great Remorse can we in this third part find out any great cause or reason of this so to make all parts proportionable Certainly he that shall attentively read and weigh these first words of my Text and know the story might think that David had committed some notable error as some great oppression or some cruell slaughter or some such royall sin which none but Kings and great men can commit But beloved this my Text seems to be like the Windows in Solomons Temple broad within but narrow without or like a Pyramide large and spatious at the Basis and ground of it but small and sharp at the top The Person and Remorse which are the Ground and subject of my Text both are great and large but the cause which is the very crown and top of all that is very small yea peradventure none at all For whether it be that my self accustomed to greater sins and now grown old in them have lost all sense of small and petty errours or whether indeed there be no errour at all in this action of David but only some fancy some jealousy arising out of that Godly and carefull watch he kept over all his wayes or whatsoever else it was that caused this scruple or remorse in David it is a very hard matter to discover and yet notwithstanding that we may make more open pass unto such Doctrines as I shall raise out of these words let us a little scan and consider what it was in this action that made David thus strangely scrupulous And first of all was it for that he had toucht and taken that which was none of his own and therefore might seem to fall within compass of the Law against injury and purloyning This seems not probable for when afterwards in the like case he came upon Saul as he was sleeping in the Camp and took from him the Spere and the pot of Water which stood at his head we do not read that his heart smote him and yet he took what was none of his Or 2ly was it that he did wrong and dishonour Saul in mangling his garment Indeed the Jews have a tradition that this was the sin of which David was here so sensible And therefore say they whereas we read in the first of Kings that when David grew old they covered him with clothes but he gat no heat this was the punishment of his sin committed against Saul God so providing that garments should not be serviceable to him who had offended in wronging Sauls garments But this I must let go as a fable Or 3ly was it that he had unadvisedly given way to some disloyal thought and at first resolved to revenge himself on Saul having him at the advantage though afterward he repented Indeed St. Chrysostome thinks so and therefore on those words at the latter end of the verse next before my Text And David arose he notes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 See you ●●ot saith he what a tempest of rage and anger begins to rise in him for he supposeth him to arise in heat and fury with a resolution for blood but it pleased God in the way to make him relent and change the purpose of revenge into the Action of cutting off his skirt and that this smiting of Davids heart was nothing else but his repenting himself for giving over hasty entertainment to such a rebellious thought But beloved who shall lay any thing to the charge of Gods elect Davids thoughts were known only to God and himself Since therefore God gives not this as a reason of Davids remorse but another thing far be it from me that I should wrong David so far as to burden him with that with which none but God can charge him I rather chuse to follow St. Basils rule 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 let the Scriptures be understood as they lye The Scripture tells us Davids heart smote him because he cut of the skirt of Sauls garment and not because he had conceiv'd against Saul any thought of blood But what cause then shall we give of Davids remorse none other Beloved but that Religious and carefull jealousie which still he had over his own thoughts which made him pietatis affectu etiam quae tuta sunt formidare Hieron To suspect all things be they never so safe and never to think himself secure from the contagion of sin It was with David as it is wont to be with men that are often troubled with sicknesses and diseases suspicionibus inquietantur medicisque jam sani manum porrigunt omnem calorem corporis sui calumniantur Senec. Disquiet themselves with every little alteration in their Bodies repair to the Physician when they are well and think every heat to be an Ague fit Horum corpus non est parum sanum sed sanitati parum assuevit these men are not sick but they do not know what it is to be in health In the same state is David he had been often infected with Spirituall weakness and disease and therefore he suspects every motion of his heart and takes every thought to be a temptation Hujus animus non erat parum sanus sed sanitati parum assuevit his Soul was not sick of any sin but he did not know what it was to be in Spirituall health For us and for our use hath the Holy Ghost registred this example of scruple and tenderness of conscience Let us returne to our selves and see what lessons we may learn hence for our behoof Men usually are either grown old in sin therefore their eyesight is decayed they cannot ea●●ly see and discerne smaller sins or else as Hagar in the Book of Genesis laid Ismael afar off from her that she might not be griev'd with the sight of him so we labour to lay our sins far out of kenn that the memory and sight of them might not exasperate and trouble us For the cure of both these infirmityes I have borrowed out of the Lords treasury a Spectacle or Optick Glass which if we use it will restore our decayed eyesight and quicken and make us read our sins in the smallest print and let them●●ly never so farr from us yet will it present them unto us in their true quantity and greatness Towards the better use of which Spirituall Glasse one lesson would I especially commend unto you to be perpetually Jealous

that by a more constant and perpetual Law then that of Sacrifices For the cleansing of other sins by blood is done away the date of it is out but to cleanse blood by blood remains as a Law to our times and so shall unto the worlds end sanguine quaerendi reditus out of blood no way to get but by blood 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith S. Basil hast thou shed blood wouldst thou be free from the guilt of it Thy best way is to be a Martyr and shed thy blood for Christs sake Now that what I have to say may the better be conceived and lodged up in your memories I will comprehend and order all that I will speak to under three heads First I will in General yet a little further briefly shew how great a sin the sin of blood is Secondly I will speak of the redress of some misorders very frequent in our age which give way to this sin especially private revenge and single combat Thirdly I will touch at the means of taking the guilt of blood away which here the holy Ghost commends to those which are set in authority to that purpose And first of the greatness of the crime and sin of blood Of sins in holy Scripture there be two sorts recorded One sort is a silent dumb and quiet sin God doth as it were seek after it to finde it as the people did after Saul when he was hidden amongst the stuff Of this nature are the ordinary sins of our life which do more easily finde pardon at the hands of God but there is a second sort of sin which is a vocal and a crying sin a sin like that importunate widow in the Gospel that will not suffer the Judge to be quiet till he hath done justice and those are the more heavy and grievouser sins of our lives Of this second sort there are two sins to which the Scripture doth attribute this crying faculty First the sin of Sodom For so God tells Abraham The cry of Sodom and Gomorrha is come up before me The second is the sin of which I am now to speak the sin of Blood-shed For so God tells Cain The voice of thy brothers blood cryes unto me from the earth The sin of Adam in Paradise doubtless was a great and hainous sin which hath thus made us all the children of death yet it seems to be but of the rank of mute sins and to have had no voyce to betray it God comes unto Adam convents him examines him as if he had not known it and seems not to believe any such thing was done till himself had confessed it But blood is an unmannerly importunate and clamorous sin God shall not need to come and enquire after it it will come up unto him and cry as the souls do under the altar in the Revelation How long Lord how long Nec patimur iracunda Deum ponere fulmina suffers not God to forget judgement or entertain a thought of mercy To satisfie therefore the cry of this importunate sin and to shew men the grievousness of it the Laws of God and men have wonderfully conspired in the avenging of blood by what means or by what creature soever it were shed Beasts unreasonable creatures though whatsoever they do they cannot be said to sin for whatsoever they do they do by force of that natural instinct by which they are guided and led as by their proper law yet mans blood if they shed it is revenged upon them God himself is the Author of this law Gen. 9. where he tells Noah The blood of your lives I will require at the hands of every beast will I require it And accordingly in the 21. of Exodus he precisely enacts a law De Bove petulco If an Oxe gore a man that he die the Oxe shall be slain and the flesh cast away as an abomination The laws of Natural men who had no knowledge of God come little behinde this yea they may seem to have gone before it in severe revenging of blood for amongst the laws by which Athens that famous city of Greece was governed there was one that if a Wall by chance had fallen down and slain a man as the tower of Siloam did of which we read in the Gospel that then the Judges should sit and formally arraign that wall condemn it and throw the stor●●s of it out of the Countrey This so formal proceeding against unreasonable against dull and senseless creatures hath been thus joyntly both by God and man practised only for our example to teach us how precious the life of man ought to be in our eyes and it resembles that action of Christ in the Gospel where for our instruction he curses the barren fig tree Sterilitas nostra in ficu vapulat c. Now as exemplary justice is severely done on these creatures for mans instruction so much more if man himself kept not his hands clean from blood did the laws of God proceed with much strictness and severity for to say nothing of gross malicious and wilful murther if a man only in his haste strook another with a weapon or with a stone so that he died though the striker intended but to hurt yet he was to die for it That he did it in anger that he did it in his drink that he did it provok't that he did it in defence of his honour and reputation none of all these pretenses might excuse him Nay which is yet more God himself propounds the case If saith he a man cleaving wood his axe head flie off and hit his neighbour so that he kills him except he could recover one of the Cities of Refuge he was to die and having recovered a city of refuge if before the death of the high Priest he were taken without the walls of the city he was to die So strickt was God in the case of chance-medly as they call it in a case which he takes unto himself and makes himself the Author of For in the 21. of Exodus speaking of the man that thus sheds blood by chance and unwittingly his words are these If a man lie not in wait sed Deus objecerit manui ejus but God put him into his hands I will appoint him a city of refuge to flie unto In which words God acknowledges that he who thus dies by chance dies by his providence and not by the sin of him that slue him If God saith he shall put him into his hands yet you see what a penalty he layes upon the innocent instrument of such blood shed The blood that is shed in battle and in times of lawful war you all suppose as lawfully shed Yet notwithstanding Moses in the 16. of Numbers gives charge that the souldiers returning from battel should stay a while without the Camp even seven days until they were cleansed Again when David advised with himself about the building of an house unto God he sends him word to lay by all thought of