Selected quad for the lemma: soul_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
soul_n	awake_v	prophet_n	zion_n	45	3	10.0868	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A62137	Twenty sermons formerly preached XVI ad aulam, III ad magistratum, I ad populum / and now first published by Robert Sanderson ...; Sermons. Selections	Sanderson, Robert, 1587-1663.	1656 (1656)	Wing S640; ESTC R19857	465,995	464

and Psal. 76. The proud are robbed they have slept their sleep and all the men of might that is that thought themselves such mighty men whilest they continued in their dream when they awaked found nothing in their hands And the Prophet Esay saith concerning all the nations that fight against mount Sion that they shall be even as when a hungry man dreameth that he is eating but he awaketh and his soul is empty or as when a thirsty man dreameth that he is drinking but when he awaketh behold he is faint and his soul hath appetite Esay 29. 12. You may see in these representations what a poor nothing is all humane wisdom Those devices which we applaud in our selves or others as matters of a great reach and contrived with deep policy are no better then mere fancies or dreams whimsies as we call them At the most but as a Spiders web that is one of the Prophets comparisons too a thing of great curiosity to the eye spun of a most fine subtil threed and in a most exact proportion but a thing of no strength at all unless against a small fly the greater ones will break through it and the light touch of a besom striketh it all away in a moment 13. But as for Gods eternal purposes it is not so with them We are not to conceive of them as of our own vain devices but rather as of sage counsels The Counsel of the Lord. By which name they are also stiled in Psal. 33.11 and elsewhere in the Old Testament The same name is found also in the New according to the purpose of him that worketh all things after the Counsel of his own will Eph. 1.11 Yet is not this to be understood properly neither for Counsel is a thing that in strict propriety of speech cannot be attributed unto God for who hath been his Counsellor Counsel importeth alwayes some debate with ones self or others some deliberation what is best to do or not to do and how to do it and consequently must suppose some impotency or defect either in respect of knowledge or action or both He that knoweth perfectly at the first thought of a thing what is fit to be done and is assured nothing can hinder him for doing the same needeth not either to ask or to take counsel about it God therefore whos 's both wisdom and power is infinite hath not any need or use of Counsel 14. The truth is as the name of Devices was too high an appellation to bestow upon our vain imaginations if we knew a worse so the name of Counsel is too low to bestow upon Almighty Gods eternal purposes if we knew a better But the Scriptures fitted to our capacity speaketh of the things of God in such language and under such notions as best agree with our weak conceptions but far below the dignity and Majesty of the things themselves Counsels then they are called in comparison of mens devices and the reason of the comparison standeth thus As those resolutions which follow upon good advice and mature deliberation where all circumstances are taken into due consideration and the conveniencies and inconveniencies examined and weighed which we call counsels are better approved of as being more solid and likely to prove more successeful then those sudden motions that rash light heads take up in a heat or humour and carry on without either fear or wit so but infinitely more then so do the wise purposes and Counsels of God exceed the vain imaginations and devices of men As the lightning which is but a flash and then vanisheth so are these but those like the Sun which hath a fulness of durable light and heat within it self alwayes alike howsoever it may appear to us sometimes more and sometimes less 15. The second difference in the Text is in the Number Ours are Devices in the plural many Devices His but one Counsel in the singular Mens purposes are various and changeable Seldom do we continue long in one minde but upon every slight occasion as the Weathercock with the winde we are ready to turn and face about What between fears and hopes desires and cares our thoughts are so pulled and barrowed this way and that way that many times we are so distracted in our mindes that we cannot well tell what we would have or not have to hold to Little children we know are eagerly fond to have any toy they see but throw it away presently as soon as they see another perhaps a verier toy then it and long as eagerly for that Quod petiit spernit There is a spice of this childishness remaining in all the sons of Adam even to their dying day Whether it be from the natural fickleness of our mindes longing after novelty or from the unsufficiency of any thing in this world to satisfie the appetites of the soul or from whatsoever other cause it proceedeth certain it is that we cannot affect any thing long without some weariness and satiety Whence it cometh to pass that we seek for that contentment in variety which we cannot finde in any one thing though never so excellent and desirable Thus it fareth with us according to what our Saviour said of Martha 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We are troubled or rather we trouble our selves about many things or what our Solomon saith of men in general that they have sought out many inventions Many fancies we entertain and as one nail another clavus clavum so one fancy driveth out another in insinitum 16. Which multiplicity and variety of devices in us is a most clear and demonstrative evidence of the vanity and unsufficiency thereof even as in most other things multiplicity argueth infirmity As there are many Stars in the Firmament because they give but a little light but one Sun serveth the turn without need of more to give light to the whole World It were a superfluous curiosity for a man to provide two strings to his Bow if he were sure one would hold And therefore are there thousands of horses and men prepared for the managing of a war because one or a few are presumed to be unsufficient for the work By this very Argument the Apostle in the Epistle to the Hebrews proveth the insufficiency of the legal Priesthood and Sacrifices the Priests were many and there was ●n iteration of the Sacrifices because of the mortality of the one and the unprofitableness of the other to take away sins As on the contrary he proveth the sufficiency of the Priesthood and sacrifice of Christ from the unchangeableness and One-ship if I may so say both of Priest and Sacrifice 17. It is no commendation then but rather a disparagement to mens devices that they are so many But it is the honour of God that his Counsel is but one and unchangeable We finde is expressed with that adjunct Heb. 6. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the immutability of his Counsel And

in the Text for the kinde quantity quality and every other respect except the before excepted altogether unlimited 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 indifferently Be it high or low rich or poor base or honorable easy or painful prosperous or troublous all is a point all that God sendeth is welcome He that hath learned S. Pauls lesson can make a shift with any estate and rest satisfied therewithall The Apostle a little enlargeth himself in the next verse shewing that in the change of outward things his minde yet continued unchanged and was still the same under the greatest contrarieties of events I know both how to be abased and I know how to abound every where and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry both to abound and to suffer need And elsewhere he saith of himself and his fellow-labourers in the Gospel that in all things they had been carefull to approve themselves as the Ministers of God by the armour of righteousness on the right hand and on the left by honour and dishonour by evil report and good report c. As indeed it is a point of the same skill to know how to abound and how to want and equally hard to bear prosperity without insolence and adversity without impatience The wise son of Agur was therefore equally afraid of both when he prayed that God would neither give him excessive riches nor extreme poverty As one that well knew there was great and equal danger in the one extreme as well as in the other if God should leave us to wrestle with the temptations that may arise from either of them by our own strength alone without the aydance of his grace But he whose heart is established with grace can sort his minde to any estate and finde content in any He can sleep both securely in a palace and thankfully in a cottage 42. Reasons are for I must hasten First Contentment cometh from the minde within not from the things without Non res praestat sed animus If the things themselves were enough to afford content or breed discontent then should all men that enjoy them alike be alike contented therewith and all men that want them alike be alike discontented thereat Whereof daily experience sheweth the contrary It is therefore from the different furniture of the minde that men are differently affected both with plenty and want Now the minde of a godly man being setled upon God by a holy dependance upon his providence hence it is that neither height nor depth neither want nor abundance neither things present nor things to come nor any worldly accident can drive him from that hold He shall not be moved for ever neither shall be daunted with any evil tidings because his heart is fixed and his trust is in the Lord. Psal. 112. Si fractus illabatur orbis Impavidum ferient ruinae 43. Secondly such a vast disproportion there is between the reasonable soule of man and the sublunary creatures that the appetite of that cannot be filled with any of these Capacem Dei non implet nisi Deus The soule being capable of a Communion with God by grace and the fruition of him in glory cannot be satisfied with any thing that is less then God nor therefore with any thing but God At the last day when the Saints shall enjoy fulness of glory in the presence of God their souls shall be compleatly satiated with joy and happiness to their utmost capacity Satiabor cum apparuerit gloria When I awake I shall be satisfied with thy likeness Psal. 17. In the mean time they are satisfied with a kinde of fulness according to the measure of their present capacitie such a fulness as sufficeth for the sustaining of their souls with patience and comfort Sufficit tibi gratia Till that satiety of Glory come my Grace is sufficient for thee onward Hence groweth another difference between the godly and the worldly man The one is content with nothing because for want of Grace he hath not a sufficiency within to quiet the desires of his soule not to be satisfied with outward things The other is content with any thing because he hath a sufficiency of Grace within him whereof so long as he persisteth in that state and but by his own default no creature in the world can deprive him 44. Again thirdly the encrease of outward things rather provoketh the appetites of the soule then stilleth them and by that means rather putteth a man further off from content then he was before Et minus haec optat qui non habet He that loveth silver saith Solomon shall not be satisfied with silver nor he that loveth abundance with increase As a River the greater it groweth by receiving in little brooks the wider and the deeper it weareth the channel so all outward things the more they encrease the more they enlarge the desires still to their own proportion Was ever Voluptuous or Ambitious or Covetous or Malicious man so glutted either with pleasures or preferments or riches or revenge as not to desire more Only the godly mans hopes are not so nipt with the decay nor his desires so extended upon the encrease of these outward things as to hinder his content Because neither his hopes nor desires are set upon the world or the things of the world but upon God and his Christ and his Spirit and his Promises 45. First then to infer somewhat briefly why shouldest thou that livest in a low and mean estate envy him that hath a far greater which yet is as far from giving him content as thine would be if it were his When riches encrease they are increased that eate them and what profit or pleasure either is there to the owner thereof save the beholding them with his eyes All the advantage he hath is but this that he can say All this is mine The Sun is as warme to thee as to him the aire as sweet Thy fare though not so costly yet as savoury thy body as healthy thy minde as free as his thy sleep as soft though upon a harder bed thy rest as safe though under a meaner roof If there be any difference here it is That as his estate is greater so his charge is greater and his cares greater and his fears greater and his troubles greater and at the last great day his reckoning shall be greater Therefore envy him not 46. Secondly In this as in most other things most of us God help us make our selves a great deal of work more then needs because we go the wrong way to work For the bringing of our minds and our estates together for that is in a manner the whole business till they meet there can be no true Contentment we commonly begin at the wrong end and so lose our labour We strive to fit all things to our mindes which so long as our desires are vast and boundless is a