Selected quad for the lemma: justice_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
justice_n	aaron_n	head_n	run_v	25	3	7.5223	4	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
B08803	Several discourses concerning the actual Providence of God. Divided into three parts. The first, treating concerning the notion of it, establshing the doctrine of it, opening the principal acts of it, preservation and government of created beings. With the particular acts, by which it so preserveth and governeth them. The second, concerning the specialities of it, the unseachable things of it, and several observable things in its motions. The third, concerning the dysnoēta, or hard chapters of it, in which an attempt is made to solve several appearances of difficulty in the motions of Providence, and to vindicate the justice, wisdom, and holiness of God, with the reasonableness of his dealing in such motions. / By John Collinges ...	Collinges, John, 1623-1690.	1678 (1678)	Wing C5335; ESTC R233164	689,844	860

the first place it will appear to be but a reasonable motion of Providence there to distribute sensible blessings where men either in their single capacities or in their political societies live in the exactest square and conformity to the Divine Rule in matters of distributive and commutative justice and brotherly love and amity if you but consider the natural tendency of these things to promove the felicity of any persons or societies together with the direct tendency of a contrary converse to the ruin and undoing of them Justice and Vnity or amicable living each with other are the two pillars of humane society as the Scripture saith of Rachel and Leah Ruth 4.11 They two did build up the house of Israel so it must be said of these two Justice and brotherly love they are the two things which build up humane society and the Nation which keepeth not up these two pillars and preserveth them not in those due repairs which the lusts and corruptions of men will make them to stand in a daily need of will quickly fall under the ruins of them it must necessarily be a Kingdom divided against it self which as our Saviour hath told us cannot stand Where the first viz. Justice faileth no man knoweth what to call his own every mans estate is exposed to the fraud violence and rapines of his wicked neighbour Where Amity and Vnity which is the other fails men are continually biting and devouring rending and tearing one another none are willing to trade or traffique or to have any commerce with any such people or if they have it is so sparingly and with so much caution as is no way consistent with that liberty and freedom and that mutual confidence each in another which such a state requireth as is capable of those kind of blessings or in a rational or probable way to receive them You cannot but observe how every one is willing to be acquainted and to deal with persons that have a reputation for moral honesty and matters of justice in bargains and barters in buyings and sellings and exchange Now the outward blessing of riches and prosperity as to business depending much upon society good understandings betwixt each of other and good opinions of persons engaged in the same societies which may dispose men to just and mutual confidences each in other it is not at all to be wondred at if those places and persons thrive best amongst whom these are found which are the rational means agreeing to such an end The like might be said of other moral vertues such as are temperance and sobriety being rational means tending to the preservation of mens lives and health which are other sensible blessings It is not at all to be wondred that these blessings which are the end do naturally follow the proper means even as the thred followeth the needle in the hands of the sempstress God hath so ordered it that ends shall be ordinarily obtained in the use of means always supposing the ordinary Providence of God which must give the blessing upon any means used in order to any end 2. But secondly There is more than this in it God in the pursuance of his many promises doth there command the blessing I am speaking of ordinary cases for Gods particular design to chasten any persons or to try them makes an exception to these however general rules God hath promised his sensible things Matth. 6.32 To those who first seek the Kingdom of God and the righteousness thereof he hath told them that these things shall be added to them Godliness hath the promise as of that life which is to come so of this life as the Apostle tells us the promise to brethren living together in unity Psal 133. you heard before there God commandeth the blessing saith the Psalmist and mark what blessing it is it is like the oyl poured upon the head of Aaron which ran down to the skirts of his garment like the dew upon the hill of Hermon which made the Earth fruitful the blessing of plenty and prosperity And for promises to the doing justice and judgm●nt they are so many in Scripture that it were almost infinite to repeat them I shall only commend this observation to you That you shall quite through the Scripture find the execution of justice and judgment made one term that God puts upon people in order to the receiving of any mercy from him and injustice violence and oppression constantly enumerated as those sins to which are annexed all the threatnings of taking away those temporal blessings which a Nation doth enjoy Indeed unless prophaneness and irreligion or idolatrous and undue worship of God almost all the sins for which you find threatnings of the deprival of temporal sensible blessings are reducible to one of these heads either being failers in matters of civil justice or of that brotherly love and amity which God hath required So that this is as a very ordinary so a most reasonable motion of Divine Providence and what we cannot but in reason expect from its hand But I come to the Application of this discourse Vse 1. As my other Observations so this also is of great use to us to increase in us spiritual wisdom and to make us understand the loving-kindness of the Lord. 1. To increase in us spiritual wisdom Wisdom is a practical habit disposing us to order our affairs in the best manner in order to our own good Good is that which every man desires who will shew us any good is the general language of the world There be many saith the Psalmist that say Who will shew us any good And though the hearts of Gods People be after spiritual good Lord saith David lift thou up the light of thy countenance upon me yet this is not that good which the many look after but the increase of their corn and wine and oyl We will take men at that advantage and suppose the question to be what course a man should take to be blessed with corn wine and oyl with the good things of this life long life riches trade success in worldly affairs if this observation be true the best course is for Nations Cities Persons to govern themselves by the Divine Rule to set up and promove the profession and practice of Religion to execute justice and judgement to live in brotherly love unity and amity one with another Whoso therefore would be wise for himself according to the worlds measures of wisdom is obliged to this hence it is that in Scripture and especially in the book of Proverbs the sinner is called a fool the godly man is counted a wise man and the truth is whether persons consider themselves as beings ordained to an eternity or meerly as flesh and blood and bodily compositions who as is natural to all creatures have a natural desire to live as long as they can and as free from pain and misery as they can and with as many sweetnesses and advantage of

The Egyptians the Philistines the vilest Enemies cry out God fighteth against them or This is the Lords work Secondly As the Power so the Wisdom of God is seen in these methods and operations of Providence Indeed sometimes God so worketh that the Power of God appeareth uppermost and is most conspicuous in the destruction of the Enemies and in the salvation of the Lords people as in the case of Sennacherib's Army destroyed by an Angel of Pharaoh destroyed by the return of the waters c. But oft-times there 's a wonderful wisdom of God in ordering contingencies and seeming casual things to his own ends in these cases as in the case of Joseph and Haman the reflexion of the Sun upon the waters which caused the Moabites mistake and confusion But the wisdom of God is further seen in this That a mercy seldom comes but though we could see nothing of Wisdom relating to it before it came yet when it is come to pass there 's no understanding Christian but is forced to say It could never have come in a more seasonable time the wisdom of which we could see nothing of in the prospect is evident upon the event It would have been a great question whether the Israelites would have been so willing to have come out of Egypt under the conduct of Joseph when they were pinch'd with no oppressions as they were under Moses and Aaron when they had been serving in the Brick-kilns and their lives so many years together had been made bitter to them through the hard bondage which they had so long endured Thirdly The Lord doth thus more eminently magnifie his justice and righteousness Justice lieth in the distribution of rewards and punishments the first we call Remunerative the second Vindicative Justice Both are much magnified by this method of Providence Persons in the greatest heighths of prosperity or depths of 〈◊〉 are ordinarily the most remarkable objects of the worlds eyes and more regarded than those that are in a more middle-state When God lifts up a Joseph out of the dungeon and a Daniel out of the Lions den and advanceth a Mordecai for whom a gallows was set up and the three Children are taken out of a fiery Furnace He proclaimeth to all the World and they are forced to confess it that verily there is a reward for the righteous and so on the other side when a Pharaoh a Sennecharib an Haman a Nebuchadnezzar are pull'd down in the midst of all their pride and jollity from their very pinacles of honour the Justice and Righteousness of God in punishing proud and imperious Sinners is proclaimed and made more evident to all the World Lastly 4. The Lords goodness is thus more magnified and taken notice of Common and ordinary Dispensations of gracious Providence are little remarked by us what mercy do we receive every night every day from God yet how little notice do we take of it how little is our heart affected with it but now when we are brought to the pits-brink to a very low estate and then are pluck'd from it when we are in a very low estate and then delivered Gods goodness is both more proclaimed to the World and more conspicuous unto us But this will in part fall in under the second head for I told you that God is glorified by this method of his Providence not only as his glorious Attributes divers of them are by it more exalted but also as the pious and religious Acts of his people are more by this method of Providence elicited I have often hinted to you that God hath a twofold glory from his Creatures and the works of his hands The first is a meer passive glory Thus the heavens declare the glory of God the Heavens shew forth the greatness glory and power of God The second is Active wherein the creature doth some actions from which a glory doth result unto God Now by this Method of Providence God is not only glorified in the first sense as this kind of working speaketh more of his Power Wisdom Justice Goodness c. but in the second also ● Thus God sometimes forceth an acknowledgment of his Power even from the worst of men Julian himself shall confess that Christ is too hard for him throwing up his Dagger to Heaven and crying Vicisti Galilaee The Egyptians shall cry out Exod. 14.25 Let us flee from the face of Israel for the Lord fighteth for the Israelites against the Egyptians Nebuchadnezzar shall make a Decree Dan. 3.29 That every Nation People and Language which speak any thing against the God of Shadrach Meshach and Abednego shall be cut in pieces and their houses shall be made a dunghil because there is no other God that can deliver after this sort Dan. 6.25 Darius shall write to all people Nations and Languages that dwell upon the Earth and make a Decree That in every Dominion of his Kingdom men tremble and fear before the God of Daniel for he is the living God and stedfast for ever and his Kingdom that which shall not be destroyed and his Dominion shall be even to the end he delivereth and he rescueth and he worketh signs and wonders in the Heavens and in the Earth who hath delivered Daniel from the power of the Lions The King of Babylon that set up the Golden-image and so rigorously commanded all should bow down to it or be thrown into the fiery Furnace heated seven times hotter than ordinary Dan. 3.26 shall bless the God of Shadrach Meshach and Abednego who hath sent his Angel and delivered his servants that trusted in him and have changed the Kings word and yielded their bodies that they might not serve or worship any god but their own God What a wonderful glory here had God given him from a wicked Pagan Prince he confesseth his Command wicked he blesseth God that put into these three hearts 〈◊〉 to disobey it and make him change his word he acknowledgeth God the true God and that he delivereth them that trust in him All this accreweth from Gods delivering these three men when they were at the lowest when all gave them over for dead men But secondly How much more glory hath God from his own people upon any such deliverance Surprizals affect us most An unthought-of evil most startleth and dejecteth us An unthought-of good most elevates and affects us Good things lessen in our opinion and estimate by a long expectation They are greatest and most affect us when we are past hopes of them Sudden and unlook'd for good raiseth our hearts to great admiration great praise and thanksgiving Now he that offereth praise saith God glorifieth me The more God is admired the more his goodness is predicated and proclaimed the more men upon any occasion speak of his honour and power and greatness the more glory God hath from them Thirdly God is more honoured by this method of Providence not only as the suddenness of it doth more affect and elevate his peoples