Selected quad for the lemma: earth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
earth_n	heaven_n	lord_n	word_n	16,216	5	4.2023	3	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A93340	A sermon preached before the right worshipful the Deputy-Governour, and the Company of Merchants trading to the Levant-seas, at St Bartholemew-Exchange, May 1. 1689 By Edward Smyth, A.M. Fellow of Trinity-Colledge near Dublin; and preacher to the factory at Smyrna. Imprimatur, May 28. 1689. Hen. Wharton, R.R. in Christo P. ac D.D. Wilhelmo Archiep. Cant. à sacris domest.	Smyth, Edward, 1665-1720.	1689 (1689)	Wing S4023; ESTC R230296	14,850	40

apt indeed to put off the Religious Reflections and with the Philistin loves to question whether this came by the Hand of God or not But we may answer our selves by a cheaper Experiment than they did If the Characters now assign'd could not direct us our own Sins will tell us plainly we have deserved the Divine Judgments and surely it were more useful for a Christian to make this Application then wantonly to dispute about the Nature of them There are some who either through idleness of humour or an affectation to be reputed wise have undertaken to arraign the Judgments of God and to level them ordinary Events and Natural Effects With such presumption some have attempted to account for that General Deluge which swept away all Mankind except Eight Persons from Natural Causes But surely these Men are more acted with a fondness of their new Conceipts than by any zeal for Truth For whoever but seriously reflects on all the Circumstances of that Event must confess it beyond the power of Nature or Chance and will condemn that Philosophy as vain which would advance such Extravagancies Having thus vindicated the Divine Judgments and shewn them to you by their proper Marks and Characters I proceed 2dly To enquire into the more notorious Ends and Purposes to which the Divine Wisdom has directed them The first end then of the Divine Judgments is to proclaim God's Omnipotence and assert the just Power of God over the World. And can we imagine a more pregnant Evidence of a resistless and uncontroulable Power for behold the Effects of his Indignation the Pillars of Heaven astonished and the Earth trembling with an awful Reverence Nature agast and the Hinges of the World shaking And now surely we are not of so Gygantick stoutness to stand void of Sense and Fear when Nature herself is in such Pangs and Convulsions Are not these such Examples as carry Conviction with them As ravish a Religious Fear and Reverence from us Can any thing be more instructive of the deepest Humility and most profound Adoration When we shall see Fate submit to the Command of God and Necessity become as variable as Chance For lo he maketh the Earth to reel to and fro he pulleth down and buildeth up as it pleaseth him The proudest Monarchs whom he sometimes stileth Gods how suddenly does he allay them with Dust least their Spirits become too much exalted How easily does he bafle their most Elaborate Contrivances Did not every thing we wear about us proclaim our weakness the Divine Judgments could not fail to be a sufficient Amulet against Pride Are we able to defend our selves against the least Calamity when the weakest Creature comes armed with a Commission from Heaven the very Dust of the Earth or but a Troop of inconsiderable Locusts can overcome an Egypt though her Wealth and Power were as boundless as her Sins were provoking Can any Man then reflect on the many Judgments of God on those astonishing Effects of his Indignation and not presently tremble and stand amazed With what an awful Regard with what profound Humility must this fill our Minds Are not these such effectual Arguments of Almighty Power as must raise us in the greatest Security thô all the Dalliances of Vice had enchanted us thô the Lethargy of Sin had locked up our Reason and Consideration yet such signal Examples must affect us the most hardened Hearts and even sear'd Consciences cannot escape some impression For shall not we attend when even Heaven and Earth are summon'd to hear Lord how can we sufficiently Adore thy Power when we meditate on thy terrible Judgments for behold any part of the Creation shall at thy Command become a most powerful Executioner of Vengeance Let but the Sea open her proud Waves and 't is thy word that restrains them and she may shut in the World as she once did the Host of Pharaoh Surely then our Minds must be stupified we are asleep even unto Death if such instances cannot awaken us For by his Judgments he sheweth himself and lifteth himself up Psal 94.1 2. The Lord is known by the Judgments he executeth Psal 9.16 If the several parts of the Creation display the several Attributes of God if we may read his Power in the Firmament and the Heavens declare it In his Judgments certainly 't is writ in the fairest and largest Print and here we must read it thô all other Arguments would pass without observation If the wiser Heathens by Thought and Study by Speculation and Philosophy were able from considering the Works of Nature to conclude an All-powerful Being How strongly do his wonderful Judgments enforce this Truth and exact from us the humblest Acknowledgments of Almighty Power A second end of the Divine Judgments is to vindicate his Justice in the Administration of the World for were Men suffered with Impunity to proceed in a course of Impiety to enjoy the fruits of Rapine Injustice and other Vices which then might appear gainful were they suffer'd to defie Heaven with their crying sins this might seem to arraign the Justice of God it might give the Atheists and Epicureans Objection some colour that in the Administration of the World there was no regard had to the good and vertuous But tho' this if true might be abundantly answer'd that the Methods of Wisdom and Rules of Justice by which the Almighty acts do infinitely surpass our Capacities either from the feebleness of our Reason or finiteness of our Nature and because the Divine Administration has no compleat determination here but has regard to a future Judgment Yet to the everlasting terrour of wickedness most signal Vengeance often overtakes the wretched sinner here and National sins seldome escape some signal Judgment or General Calamity The Examples from Scripture and such as I have already assign'd yea the Occurrences of our own Age will sufficiently confirm this 3dly Another end of the Divine Judgments is to work in us an entire hatred and detestation of sin 'T is the greatest force and provication to the Deity when he pours down his wrath upon us he does not willingly grieve us or causlesly afflict us 'T is our sins which makes us smart under that Hand which otherwise would showr down nothing but Blessings upon us What ought our demeanour then to be when Judgments are upon us and we groan under the pressure of Afflictions Why to reflect on our sins to blush and be ashamed to be humbled for our Iniquities which were the cause of that and all our sufferings assuring our selves that whatever evil Instruments are in the Judgments and Afflictions which befal us our sins have set them all in motion And when the Avenger is at the Gate O how lashing the folly how confounding must the guilt of sin appear When Israel the Favourite of Heaven is led into Captivity for her crying Idolatry how pungent must her Resentments be How afflicting the remembrance of her Spiritual Fornications Extremely blind and

God with the Songs and Triumphs of our Deliverance we must write our Deliverance not on Tables of Stone but on the fleshly Tables of our Heart The Righteous shall be glad in the Lord. When he sees his Glory so conspicuously advanced and his holy Perfections so illustriously shining through his Judgments this signal conviction of Infidelity this confusion of Prophaneness how does it confirm his Faith and cherish his Hope The just shall rejoyce and all iniquity shall stop her mouth How exceeding the Comfort How triumphant is the Joy when we receive so clear Pledges of God's Love and Favour to us express'd in his most tender Care over us in protecting us from most imminent Dangers and contriving our deliverance from such terrible Judgments for were we not saved even as by Fire and as Fire-brands pluckt out of the burning Let us then ever magnifie O Lord thy infinite Mercy 's the only cause of our deliverance for this was our Sanctuary and Refuge it was not our own Skill and Counsel not our Strength and Industry that saved us but thou art our mighty Deliverer A Second Duty incumbent on us is often to meditate on past Judgments We must not barely remember them for this is no Vertue but we must remember them with those very passions of mind those ardent thoughts affections and resentments we had when we suffered under them and they were so visible before us what indignation and resolution we then expressed against sin what submissions were then wrought in us to his Almighty pleasure and with what mortification and self-denyal we resigned our selves And this is remembring in Scripture phrase by which we may secure to our selves all the advantages of past afflictions without the sting and misery which attends them by setting them in a clear light before us and making them present to us by a lively remembrance so that they may be a constant bugbear to us against Vice. Let not those ardors of Devotion expire those struglings of the Spirit cease which burnt them so bright if our Petitions kept equal pace with our Pain let them do so with the remembrance of it now Our Meditations on past Judgments ought also to beget in us a well grounded hope and strong confidence The Lord hath delivered me therefore he will deliver I have often experimented his Mercy therefore I will now fly to it If we have strengthened our Prayers in the day of our Calamity by any extraordinary Vow or Sacred Promises according to the pious Examples of Holy Men we are now carefully to perform them and to release that strict Obligation we have put our Souls under And there are many other Religious Duties of the same nature for there are scarce any which it does not confirm and encrease which the remembrance of past Judgments strongly recommend to our practise Nothing can more effectually secure to us all the advantages and fruits of the Spirit But not having time now to enlarge on them I must refer them to your own application Only let me beg your attention whilst in a few words I remind you of that late signal Judgment and deplorable Calamity in which this Honourable Audience was deeply wounded The late Judgment which befel Smyrna that complicated Calamity of an Earthquake most terrible in all its circumstances succeeded by a Fire too pregnant an instance of the Divine Vengeance cannot if barely related but fill the most hardned Heart with pity and astonishment but on you surely whose misfortune it was to be too much concerned in it who were so great Sufferers in the Desolation it wrought it ought it must make a more deep and lasting impression The Lord surely was in the Earthquake and in the Whirlwind the suddenness of the Destruction even exceeding thought and all the dismal circumstances attending this Accident are too strong an evidence that the destroying Angel came from Heaven and that the Almighty put on Vengeance to the overthrow of that miserable City For behold the trembling Earth sinking to her Center with the stroaks of God's Anger legible in her face behold a great and opulent City famous in ancient and sacred Annals and even then restored to her former Grandeur surpassing in Trade and equal in many other advantages to any of her Sisters in the East reduced to ruin in a moment The same instant saw her a most flourishing City and an heap of Rubbish And that nothing of her Beauty or Greatness might be legible in her Fall a consuming Fire devours her very Bowels what escaped the Earthquake becomes a prey to the Fire So heavy was the Hand of Heaven that it pursues her to the very Grave buries her very Ruins and razes her Foundation O the consternation of her living and confusion of her perishing Inhabitants O the sighs and tears frights and amazements O the deaths and many were deny'd even this mercy O the half Deaths Heads and Hearts miserably surviving the other Members of Men Women and Children lamenting yet unable to help themselves and one another The Mother just lived to see her Daughter die and the same Ruin involved the whole Family Such had I courage and were I sufficiently informed to proceed in the description you may imagine the lamentable Condition of Smyrna was And was this done upon the earth and the Lord hath not done it How swift O Lord is destruction when thou dost give it Commission Even the dull Earth shall become a swift Executioner of Divine Vengeance One Instant can and did overturn the Toil the Improvement of an Age. Such is the folly and guilt of our sins that against a City so advantaged so cultivated so blessed they can extort the heaviest Vengeance even from that hand whence all her Blessings derived It was from their fatal influence that she is now forced to succeed in the Fate and Ruine as in the Wealth and Splendour of her Neighbours that she is now become like unto Sodom and Gomorrah Were that City able to speak out of its Ruins how Eloquent would she be on that Subject of her Sufferings what heavy Complaints would she make against those Sins which have been the certain and fatal Instruments of her destruction Let her Breaches then let her Ruins and Desolation speak behold the genuine Off-spring of Vice the fruit of those things of which we ought to be ashamed And surely we cannot look on her Ruins but we must repent we cannot see her miseries without bewailing our own sins And let us not here flatter our selves or run into that dangerous mistake that the Infidelity of the Jew and Mahometan that the Idolatry and Superstition of Popery are the only provocations which brought down this heavy Judgment Our sins alas are but too much the ingredients and its wounds and scars yet bleeding afresh are but too strong an intimation that we are still in our sins To conclude all then You have heard how Eloquent the Judgments of the Lord are to perswade Repentance and inforce all the Duties of Religion how they recommend Vertue from the strongest Topicks of worldly Interest and Pleasure as the surest means to preserve both How they represent to us most sensibly the destructive nature of Sin that all the Misery and Unhappiness which befals Mankind flow certainly from this Fountain This being then our case common prudence the obvious consideration of our own advantage must direct us to that Duty which Christianity commands Sin and Folly will be found but two Names for the same thing Let us therefore apply our selves to the study of true Wisdom Let us make the true advances in Grace and Vertue And now the Judgments of the Lord are upon the Earth Let us learn let us practise Righteousness for Godliness we see is the true Gain it has the Blessings of this World and that which is to come To which place of everlasting Happiness Almighty God of his infinite Mercy bring us all Amen FINIS ERRATA PAge 5. last line after view a Full Stop. p. 11. l. 24. judicate r. indicate p. 12. l. 17. loves r. Lords p. 16. l. 14. would r. should p. 23. l. 23. bugbear'd r. bribed l. 22. commands r. commanded p. 24. l. 13. Treasure r Treasures l. 15. him r. them p. 29. l. 17. do r. does