Selected quad for the lemma: sense_n
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A50106
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The duty of submission to divine providence, in all its dispensations described and recommended from the example and argument of Job / by Samvel Masters.
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Masters, Samuel, 1645 or 6-1693.
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1689
(1689)
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Wing M1070; ESTC R103
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29,258
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129
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more than a Man whom God seems to have exercis'd with such extraordinary Trials and to have recorded his History in the Holy Scriptures purposely for our Imitation and Incouragement And that its great usefulness herein may more appear let us a little display and view over this illustrious Example Behold here a perfect and upright man undergoing the heaviest Calamities falling from the height of prosperity into the lowest depth of Misery surpriz'd by his Calamities on a sudden which came upon him altogether without Intermission and were of so extraordinary a Nature as at once to deprive him of all his Comforts and plunge him into the lowest State of Wretchedness For all his great Estate which according to those Times and Countries consisted of Servants and Cattel was in one day consumed by Sabeans and Caldeans and a Fire from Heaven And as soon as he knew himself to be reduced to perfect Poverty he is told also that he is become Childless and that his Children perish'd together by an unusual Death under the Ruins of the House in which they were Feasting Nor was he only strip'd naked of all his outward comforts but the Calamity seizeth on his Person too and spreads over him a most Noisome and Painful disease And that the good Man might have nothing to support him under all this Misery but God and his own Conscience his Wife who should have been his Helper became his Tempter and his Friends did but Aggravate his sorrows with harsh Censures and unjust Reproaches What Estate on this side of Death can we conceive more Calamitous than this Let us now reflect on this Worthy wretched Man and behold his Behaviour and admire his invincible Patience When Job had heard that he was de-Priv'd of all his Estate and his Children too he indeed Rent his Mantle and shav'd his Head and fell down on the Ground as o ne that was not stupidly insensible of such extraordinary Events but withal he worship'd toward Heaven and expres'd his Resentments in this Pious Devout acknowledgment Naked came I out of my Mothers Womb Chap. 1. v. 21 22. and Naked shall I return thither the Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away blessed be the Name of the Lord. And the Holy Ghost makes this Reflection on his behaviour in the next Verse In all this Job sinned not neither charged God foolishly When afterwards his Body was afterwards his Body was afflected with the anguish and stench of unusual Boils he contentedly sat him down among the Ashes and reliev'd himself as well as he could with the broken Potsherds that lay about him And when his Wife could no longer suppress her Passions or lengthen out her Patience but in a transport of Fury call'd on him to curse God and Die He replies more angry with Her then with his Condition Thou speakest as one of the foolish Women speaketh and that he might Convince as well as Rebuke her he suggests to her consideration this reasonable Argument What shall we receive Good at the Hand of God and shall we not receive Evil And here the Holy Ghost hath thought fit to bear his Testimony a second Time that in all this Job sinned not with his Lips. This is a pattern that we cannot enough admire but let us also labour to imitate it And that we may attain to such an excellent frame of Spirit let us study well this short Argument wherewith Job govern'd his own Heart and indeavour'd to restrain the impatience of his Wife What shall we receive Good at the Hand of God and shall we not receive Evil The Argument is propos'd in the form of a Question and accented with an unusual earnestness that it might enter the Mind with a greater Force and produce in it a more speedy and through Conviction We may resolve the Argument into these two parts I. An Antecedent suppos'd That we receive our Good from the Hand of God. II. A Consequent thereupon inferr'd That we ought to receive any Evil from the same Hand The plain Sense and Design of the Argument is this That as we receive all our Blessings from God's bountiful Hand so we should be ready to accept any Afflictions from his correcting Hand In discoursing on this Argument I design to do these three Things First To explicate its Sense that we may fully understand those things which are express'd or implied in it Secondly To discover the Force of the Argument that we may be convinced by it Thirdly To apply it for directing and containing us in the Discharge of so necessary a Duty First I begin to explain the Argument That we may understand those Things which are express'd or implied in it And this may be sufficiently done by inquiring into these three Things 1. What is that Good and Evil which are mention'd in the Argument 2. What that Hand is by which this Good and Evil is dispens'd 3. How we should receive both Good and Evil from that Hand 1. Let us consider what that Good and Evil is which is express'd in the Argument It is plain enough from the Context that Job did design by Good and Evil nothing else but those Temporal Blessings and Calamities of both which he had so great a share as this History describes And tho most Men are quick enough of Sense in the things of this World to distinguish between Good and Evil so that they need not be told that Riches and Honours Health and Long-Life are good Things and that Poverty and Disgrace Sickness and Death are evil Things Yet they are perchance very few who understand the Nature or Degree of that Goodness or Evil which are ascrib'd to the things of this World and therefore it may be needful to teach them this piece of Sacred Philosophy That Man being compounded of such different parts as a Spirit and a Body he hath consequently very different Interests such as are Spiritual and such as are Carnal and that those excel these as much as a Spirit doth excel a Body from whence we should infer that those things are Good or Evil to a Man in the highest sense which can promote or destroy the noblest Interests of his Spiritual part and those things are Good or Evil but of an inferior Kind or in a lower Degree which concern the welfare only of the Body Now the things of this lower World about us do not in their Natures import any Good or Evil to that Soul which is the chief part of the Man for a Man may abound in Riches and yet be destitute of true Wisdom he may cover a deformed Mind with a beautiful Body or the more the outward Man decays the inward Man may be renewed Yea these Temporal things are indifferent of themselves to become either Good or Evil to us according as they are blest by God and improv'd by us for Riches Honours and Pleasures may prove very evil Things if they debauch our Minds with Vanity and Pride and Poverty Disgrace
and Sickness which we make the instances of Adversity may become very good Things to us if they render our Minds more Sober Teachable and our Hearts more Meek and Submissive Wherefore the Stoicks who in Matters of Morality came nearest to the Institutions of our Holy Religion were Unanimous and confident in this Maxime that there was no Good or Evil but only Virtue and Vice. So Tacitus describes Helvidius Priscus Doctores sapientiae secutus est qui sola bona quae honesta mala tantum quae turpia potentiam nobilitatem caeteraque extra animum neque bonis neque malis annumerant Tacit. Hist lib. 4. That he followed those Masters of Wisdom who taught that those Things only were Good which were Honest and only those things Evil which were dishonest but Power Honour and other such things which affected the outward Man they accounted not to be either Good or Evil. And tho we Acknowledg that they went too far in this Assertion and that According to the style of the Holy Scriptures we are allow'd to call Temporal things Good or Evil and there be this plain Reason for it because these things respect the Interests of the Body which is a part of the Man tho the ignoblest part in the Composition yet after all we must assert that these outward things are not Good or Evil in an Absolute sense with respect to the whole Man or in the highest Sense with respect o his more valuable Interests and that in the strictest Sense â—hose things only deserve to be accounted good or evil to a Man which can affect the Spiritual interests of his Soul. These notions will be very useful to us for Proportioning our Estimations and Affections toward the things of this World for allowing them to be in some degree Good or Evil we shall be dispos'd to thank God for Temporal Blessings and to humble our Selves under his Temporal Corrections but knowing withal that there are other things which relate to our Spiritual Interests which do comparatively far exceed them in their Goodness or Evil we shall be induc'd to regard these with our highest Estimations and our strongest Affections 2. We are next to consider what that Hand is which dispenseth to us both our Good and Evil things the Text asserts it to be the Hand of God which can import nothing else but the Power and Instuence of his continual Providence whereby he sustains the Beings he hath given us and disposeth of all Events and Circumstances about us so that nothing doth or can befall us without or contrary to the Council of his Will. This hand of providence deals out to every Man that proportion of Good or Evil which the divine Wisdom thinks fit to assign to him so that nothing happens to us by a blind Fortune or an unaccountable Fate but by the Conduct of that good God who is the great Creator and Sovereign of the whole World. If therefore there be any Creatures about us which are Good or Hurtful to us it was the Hand that made them which put those Qualities into them If any Good accrue to us thrô our own Skill and Industry or by the Care and Favour of our Friends we must acknowledg that We or our Friends are but Instruments in the Hand of God for conveying such Blessings to us Or if we suffer thrô our own Default or the Injury of other Men we are to account of our selves or our Enemies as Rods in his Hand whereby he inflicts such Punishments upon us Thus the pious King of Israel acknowledged to God All that is in Heaven or in Earth is thine 1 Chron. 19.11 12. thine is the Kingdom O Lord and thou art exalted above all both Riches and Honour come of thee in thy Hand is Power and Might and in thine Hand it is to make great and to give Strength unto all So on the other Hand the Prophet demands Shall there be Evil in a City and the Lord hath not done it Amos 3.6 and with respect to both kind of Events God himself declares I form the Light Isa 45.7 and create Darknesss I make Peace and create Evil I the Lord do all these things And the Hand of God doth thus concern it self not only in the greatest and most important Events but also in those which may seem most slight and inconsiderable to us for our Saviour assures us that God numbers our very Hairs Luke 12.6 7. and that a Sparrow cannot fall to the Ground without his Knowledg A right Apprehension and firm Perswasion of our entire Dependence on the Hand of Divine Providence in managing and ordering our Conditions in this World would have a very great influence on our Religious Devotion for who would not be careful to please him who hath the dispensing of all Blessings and Curses to whom shall we direct our Prayers for what we want or our Thanksgivings for what we enjoy but to that bountiful Hand which is the Fountain of all our Blessings Or what can make us more Meek and Patient under Correction than the sight of that Almighty Hand which holds the Rod and lays on the Stroke 3. We are in the last place to consider how we should receive both Good and Evil from the Hand of God. Job hath used but one word with respect to both sort of Events and that word Debemus accipere sive excipere cum affectu lubentiâ reverentia acquiescentia id enim 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signisicat nempe 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 acipere quod ad Donum sua natura refertur Cocceius in locum doth properly denote such an Acceptance as that wherewith we entertain a Gift from a Superior with a chearful Reverence and a graceful acquiescence Now tho the design of the Argument would require only to explain how we ought to receive our evil Things from God's correcting Hand yet inasmuch as we are equally concern'd in the Duty of receiving Good as of receiving Evil I think it will be worth our while to Study out the right Art of doing both in order to which I shall take both parts of this Duty under a distinct Consideration 1. The right manner in which we should receive our good Things from the Hand of God doth consist chiefly in this threefold disposition of Mind viz. that we receive God's blessings with a contented thankful and an honest Mind 1. We should receive our good Things from God with a contented Mind i.e. with a Mind that can contain it self within those Injoyments which God thinks fit to allow so as to be well pleas'd with his Blessings of whatever Kind in whatever Degree by whatever Means or at whatever Time confer'd upon us not to despise our Blessings or to be dispise our Blessings or to be dissatisfied with them because they are not of such a sort or not so much or do not come in such a way or so soon as we would have them and that