Selected quad for the lemma: justice_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
justice_n	forgive_v	mercy_n	sin_n	2,732	5	5.2615	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A67361	Divine meditations upon several occasions with a dayly directory / by the excellent pen of Sir William Waller ...	Waller, William, Sir, 1597?-1668.	1680 (1680)	Wing W544; ESTC R39417	76,156	224

changes and neither of them long lasting that we many times apprehend things to come that do not come and that our expectations do as often fail us in our fears as in our hopes that in dangers imminent our fear of them may exceed the dangers we fear death it self may be overfeared so that by running from it we may run into it Nabal died for fear of dying that those hazards that threaten us most may break up of themselves as we see the clouds that gather and look black upon us do often blow over without a shower that great appearances of evil are some times averted by petty accidents as some say that lightening may be put by with the wind of a mans hat and that it is good therefore to intermix hope with fear and fear with hope so to contemper and ballance one affection with another But these Philosophers are like Meteors something above earth and a great deal below Heaven O my Soul have faith in God and let thine heart be fixed on him and thou shalt not be afraid of evil tidings thou shalt never be moved Take no thought for the morrow as to the evil thereof for the morrow shall take thought for the things of it self Thou art a poor captive exile yet do not make hast thorough unbeleif to be loosed who art thou that fearest the fury of the Oppressor as if he were ready to destroy who shall himself be destroyed and made as grass and where is the fury of the Oppressor O my God my time is in thine hand and what can man do unto me nay what can the Devil do He may by a divine permission for a season if need be cast me into prison but it shall be only to try and purifie and whiten me It is not in his power to do me so much hurt but for my greater good He cannot take my liberty and my life both from me but in taking the one he must give me the other he cannot take my life but withal he must restore me my liberty and that in such a way as he can never take it away from me more The worst that he can do is but that which is best of all and therefore at what time I am afraid I will trust in God Lord sanctifie this dispensation to me this rod of thine own appointment and teach me to understand the language of it I confess I have abused my former liberty to a licentiousness and therefore this restraint is but a due reward unto me and the proper wages of my sin O my God unto thee belongeth mercy for thou hast rendred to me according to my work It is of thy never failing compassion that I am not consumed Thou art merciful in thy justice and just in thy mercy O take what vengeance thou wilt of mine inventions so thou forgive my sin lay what bands soever it shall please thee upon my body so thou free my soul and inlarge my heart to run the way of thy Commandments Give me not only a patient but a thank 〈…〉 sense of any sufferings which I may or do undergo for the advancement of thy glory and let me never think my penny too little which I receive from thee if it be accompanied with the honour of bearing the heat of the day in thy service but give me the grace to look upon that honour as the best part of my pay and until the time that thy Word do come for my deliverance let thy Word try me so shall I at last come out gold in the mean while in the worst of Prisons I shall be thy free-man which is the best and most noble of all conditions MEDITAT XI Vpon my Release WHen the Lord turned again my captivity I was like them that dream Me thought I had been made a Prisoner for divers years by a tumultuary violence and in that condition tossed like a ball from one place to another remote from my relations where I was as unknown yet well known as dying and yet living persecuted but not forsaken cast down but not destroyed and me thoughts upon the sudden all these as it were sufferings vanished and I was restored to my liberty to my family and friends again At the first like Peter I was in a manner intraunced as if I had seen a Vision and I could hardly beleive mine eyes but recollecting my self I found sufficient reason to acknowledge as that great Apostle did that the Lord had sent his Angel and delivered me out of the hand of mine enemies and from all the expectation of those that hated me What shall I do or what shall I say unto thee O thou preserver of men thou art exalted above all thanksgiving and praise Lord open my lips and I shall be inabled at once both to praise thee for this mercy and to praise thee for opening my lips and inabling me to praise thee How sweet is liberty after a restraint certainly a prosperous condition is never so well relish'd as after an affliction as wine is then best tasted when we have first tasted a bitter Olive But as hony is good and yet in the excess thereof nauseous So liberty how sweet soever in it self may if taken beyond the measure of sufficiency draw on a furfet of licentiousness It is in that as Physicians say it is in health a high degree thereof may be dangerous O my Soul labour to moderate thine affections in all conditions and now that God hath been pleased to fill thy cup again pray for a steddy hand that thou maist carry it without spilling Otherwise this suddain change from such a confinement to such an inlagement will be but like a suddain good signe immediatly after a bad one which according to the old rule of divination by the intrails of beasts was accounted to be of unlucky Signification it may be a prognostick that a worse thing will happen unto thee In all time not only of my tribulation but of my weal and prosperity good Lord deliver me But it may be a moot point whether I am much safer now then I was before My former restraint was in the nature of a safegard or of a harbour to me where though I were in a manner landlockt yet I lay secure and out of the wind now that I am abroad I may say I have more Sea roome but withall I am more exposed to foul weather then I was before There is no condition under the Sun so purely and simply good but that it hath an allay of evil in it and that to such a proportion that as it is in base mony the allay is for the most part more then the true mettal But is liberty then so indifferent a thing that there should be but a measuring cast between it and imprisonment there must needs be a wider difference between them then so for it is said that God doth not willingly greive the Children of men to crush under his feat the Prisoners of