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A69644
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The life of faith in times of trial and affliction cleared up and explained from Hebrews X:XXXVIII ... / by Ioh. Brown ...
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Brown, John, 1610?-1679.
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1679
(1679)
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Wing B5034; ESTC R7844
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214,019
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528
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that their case called â—…or it otherwayes he had not exercised them thus 9. So the hand of the Lord is manifest in making the affliction answerable to their strength A potion may be fit for and suitable to the disease yet may be too strong for the weak patient and more readily kill than cure therefore a wise and tender Physician will take good notice of the patients present strength So the Lord who is tender of His peoples welfare will proportion the Physick of affliction unto their strength Hence we hear it said 1 Cor. 10. vers 13. But God is faithfal who will not suffer you to be tempted above that you are able Accordingly Ieremiah prayeth Chap. 10. v. 24. O Lord correct me but with judgement not in thine anger lest thou bring me to nothing The Lord s way is to correct his people in measure Iâ—…r 30. vers 1â—… and 46. vers 28. And as a father pitieth them that fear him for he knoweth our frame he remembereth we are dust Psaâ—… 103. vers 13 14. He knoweth that their strength iâ—… not the strength of stones nor are their bones of brass and so he knoweth they are not able to bear many blowes Thus we see the Lord measures the affliction to their strength It is true Paul saith 2 Cor. 1. vers 8. That he and his companions were pressed out of measure and above strength which would seem to contradict what is said But this seeming contradiction will be taken away by what we shall next adde 10. When the affliction and distress is such as would undo and presse the poor Beleever out of measure if he gote not some new supply of strength to stand under that burden the Lord's hand appeareth in fitting the Beleever for the stroke and in enabling him to bear it so that he is not killed thereby nor overwhelmed therewith by giving cordials he fortifieth the man against the violence of Temptations which otherwise would prevail against him Paul and his Company 2 Cor. 1. vers 8 9. were pressed with trouble in Asia out of measure above strength so much that they despaired even of life yea and had the sentence of death in themselves such a storme was it that they could not ride it out if fresh supplies of strength and courage had not been granted by God who raiseth the dead unto them and if the Lord had not thus delivered them from so great a death they had perished but how was this done See Vers. 4 5. The God of all comfort comforted them in all their tribulations and as the sufferings of Christ abounded in them so their consolation also abounded by Christ And thus the Lord fitted them for the stroke when the stroke was too sore for them So this same Apostle when assaulted with a messenger of Satan that buffeted him 2 Cor. 12. vers 7. Was strengthened by the grace of God Vers. 9. to stand out against that temptation which otherwise had overcome him as his praying thrice that it might depart from him Vers. 8. would import Thus the Lord keepeth the head of his poor people above water by making his power to rest upon them and by making perfect his strength in their weakness Vers. 9. Thus also are they strong when weak Vers. 10. 11. The Lord 's good hand of Providence appeareth in this matter in disappointing the Enemies of their malicious designes They are busie plotting and contriving the ruine and destruction of His people but the more they seek to destroy them the more they grow and thrive the more they multiply and the stronger they become It is almost incredible what multitudes of Christians through the whole Empire the bloody persecuting Emperours destroyed and put to death in the primitive times but the more they were massacred the more they grew the bloud of the saints and martyres was the seed of the Church Daniel's adversaries thought to have gote him destroyed but their enmity and rage against him tended to his further exaltation and establishment So was it with David the more that Saul did persecute him the more his bow abode in strength 12. The Lord's hand mightily appeareth in the afflictions of his people in that He powerfully and Infallibly carrieth on and bringeth to passe His own Purposes and Designes countermining and counter working the designes and wicked projects of the Enemies yea in effectuating His own ends even by what the Enemies are doing purposely to carry on their Ends. When the Enemies are blowing with all their might to make the furnace burn hot that the mettal as they suppose and intend may be wholly consumed the Lord by that same meanes is infallibly bringing about His Ends and accomplishing His designes to wit to purge the mettal and take away the drosse By what the Assyrian was doing in prosecution of his Ends to wit to destroy and cut off nations not a few Esai 10. vers 7. The Lord was performing his whole work upon mount Zion and Ierusalem Vers. 12. and what was this but to purge away iniquity and to take away sin Esai 27. vers 9 to chasten and punish for correction and amendement Ier. 30 11. and 46 28. 13. Herein also appeareth the Lord's over-ruling hand that while possibly the trouble is in its greatest strength and Enemies are swelling in their pride and thinking their contrivances cannot fail their plots and designes are laid so deep and so sure that they cannot misgive even then the Lord will make a door of outgate appear unto his people and give some foreruning tokens of the dawning of a fair day even then He will make a way for an escape that they may be able to bear it 1 Cor. 10. vers 13. 14. Lastly His hand appeareth herein that in due time He putteth a period to the trial and trouble by delivering his people out of them all Psal. 34. vers 7 17 19. He will not suffer the rod of the wicked to rest alwayes on the back of the righteous Psal. 125. vers 3. He will not contend for ever lest the spirits should fail before him and the souls which he hath made Esai 57. vers 16. He will keep His people no longer under Physick than He seeth necessary and therefore it is but for a season that his people are in heaviness 1 Pet. 1. vers 6. Enemies think to keep the people of God at under for ever but the Lord 's supream over-ruling hand appeareth here that He hath limited the duration of the trial and trouble to Ten dayes Revel 2. vers 10. He hath limited the rage of Enemies to an hour a day a moneth and a year Revel 9. vers 15. And the treading of the holy city under foot to 42 moneths Revel 11 2. And when the Lord's time cometh all the power and malice of the Enemies will not be able to hinder the delivery and how little so ever His own people look for it yet He will work it so that though there be scarce faith
I wil raise up evil against thee out of thine own house and I will take thy wives before thine eyes and give them unto thy Neighbour and he shall lye with thy wives in the sight of this sun for thou didst this secretly but I will do this thing before all Israel and before the sun And this accordingly was done by that wicked wretch Absalom 2. Sam. 16. vers 22. And because of the high holy and soveraigne hand which God had in this sore aâ—…iction He saith by Nathan the Prophet that He would do it 3. We finde in the Scriptures that the wicked Enemies in following prosecuting their malicious designes against the People of God are held forth and spoken of as God's Instruments in that work As Esai 10. vers 5. Where the Assyrian is called the rod of God's anger and the staff in their hand is said to be His indignation So Vers. 15. They are compared to an aâ—… in the hand of him that heweth therewith and to a saw to a rod and to a staff all which we know can do nothing but as moved and ordered by the principal Actor To the same sense are they compared to a rasour wherewith God will shave the head and the haire of the feet and the beard Esa. 7. vers 20. Thus is Babylon called a golden cup in the hand of the Lord Ier. 51. vers 7. Likewise the Enemies are compared to a net which God will spread over his people Hos. 7. v. 12. and to a snare Ezek. 12. vers 13. They are likewise called God's sword Psal. 17. vers 13. and His hand vers 14. All which and the like expressions show That God hath a principal hand in the afflictions which his people meet with at the hands of wicked Instruments and that the wicked are but as so many Instruments and Lixes imployed by him for that effect howbeit they minde no such thing but drive on their own designes to satisfie their own wicked lusts 4. The Scripture speaketh of the Lord as raising up these wicked Instruments as leavying them and sending them to execute his will So Esai 5. vers 26. And He will lift up an Ensigne to the Nations from far and will hisse unto them from the end of the earth and behold they shall come with speed swiftlâ—… So Esai 7. vers 18. And it shall come to passe in that day that the Lord shall hisse for the flie that is in the uttermost parts of the rivers of Aegypt and for the bee that is in the Land of Assyria By which we understand that as these Enemies cannot stir notwithstanding of all their malice rage and anger against the Lord's people till God send for them and hisse for them and as it were subscribe and seal their commission so they are wholly at his disposal as the armie is at the disposal of the General or of him who leavyeth them and employeth them In like manner we read 1 Chron. 5. vers 26. that the God of Israel stirred up the spirit of Pul King of Assyria against the Reubenits the Gadites and the half tribe of Manasseh So it is said Psal. 105. vers 25. That God turned the heart of the Egyptians to hate his people and to deal subtilly with his servants And 2 Cbron. 21. vers 16. that he stirred up against Iehoram the spirit of the Philistines and of the Arabians that were neer the Ethiophians 5. We finde the Lord said frequently to deliver up his people into the hands of these Enemies and to sell them unto them as it were to give them wholly up to their devotion and disposal see Iudg. 3 8. and 4. vers 2. and 6. vers 1. and 10 7. Dan. 1 2. 2 King 17. vers 20. Thereby showing that these Enemies could do nothing against the people of God untill the Lord had permitted the same and given way thereto and had as it were withdrawn his protection and taken away his hedge of defence and so left them naked and exposed unto the rage and cruelty of their brutish Enemies 6. This is also manifest from the grand and noble Purposes and Designes which the Lord bringeth about by those meanes far diffâ—…rent from what these wicked Instruments intend as we see Gen 45. and 50 Ioseph's Brethren meaned evil against him but God meaned it for good So Esai 10. vers 7. The Assyrian meaneth not so as God doth neither doth his heart think so but it is in his heart to destroy and cut off nations not a few but the Lord hath another work upon mount Zion and on Ierusalem Vers. 12. to wit to punish them only by his smiting with a rod and lifting up his staff after the manner of Egypt V. 24. or as it is Esai 27 9. to purge away the iniquity of Jacob and to take away sin Wherefore seing the Lord hath such soveraigne ends as the chastisement and trial of his people the exercise of their graces c. to bring about He cannot but have a special hand in and about the meanes which serve to bring about these ends This being sufficient to cleare up what was first to be spoken to we come Secondly to speak a little of the manner and way how the hand of the Lord is to be observed in and about the sharpe afflictions of his people by the hand of wicked persons who are active therein And in speaking to this we shall wave all subtile debates concerning God's Decreeing the event of sin His Predetermination and His Concourse with second causes in those Actions which are sinful and shall onely pitch upon some particulars which are more plaine and undeniable and also more useful to the point in hand As 1 There is the Lord 's holy permission giving way to and not restraining the furie and rage of Enemies when He hath a mind to make use of them for a scourge He must loose as it were the chaine with which they are bound and restrained and take away the hedge of protection wherewith he guardeth and protecteth his people and all that belongs to them Satan could do nothing against Iob nor stirre so much as one lambs tail that belonged to him untill the Lord for holy and wise ends gave way thereunto therefore he said unto the Lord Iob 1. vers 10. Hast not thou made an hedge about him and about his house and about all that he hath on every side This is also imported in the Lords giving up his people into the hands of Enemies and selling them and delivering them as a judge doth a Malefactor into the hand of the Executioner Yet we must not conceive of this Permission as if it were in all things like unto the bare naked permissions of men but as sutable to him who is a most pure and simple Act 2. There is herein considerable the Lord's Commission to speak so not that He will warrand and approve of them in their wickedness or give them any moral Authoritie or