Selected quad for the lemma: water_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
water_n	fish_n	great_a	sea_n	3,519	5	6.8793	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A57573	A discourse concerning trouble of mind and the disease of melancholly in three parts : written for the use of such as are, or have been exercised by the same / by Timothy Rogers ... ; to which are annexed, some letters from several divines, relating to the same subject.	Rogers, Timothy, 1658-1728.	1691 (1691)	Wing R1848; ESTC R21503	284,310	522

how great an height have I fallen How fair was I once for Heaven and for Salvation and now am like to come short of it I was once flourishing in the Courts of the Lord and now all my Fruit is blasted and withered away his dew laid all night upon my branches but now I am like the Mountains of Gilboa no Rain falls upon me Had I never heard of Heaven I could not have been so miserable as I now am Had I never known God the loss of him had not been so terrible as now it is like to be Job 29.2 3. Oh! that I were as in months past as in the days when God preserved me When his Candle shined upon my head and when by his light I walked through darkness These are some of the sorrows that deserted Souls often meet withal and indeed but a small part of what they feel in this dark and stormy night Before I proceed any further I will answer two Objections for I foresee that against what I have said some may object CHAP. V. Answering some Objections and of the further doleful state of a deserted Soul and whence it is that God is pleased to suffer a very Tempestuous and Stormy Night to come upon his Servants in this World Obj. 1. YOV make a great deal of noise and pother about desertions and God's forsaking of the soul and it is nothing in the world but Fancy or Imagination and the whimsies and the fumes of Melancholly Answ It is no new thing for us to hear such Language from Atheistical and Prophane People from men that are covered with ignorance and sloth With ignorance because they know not the ways of God and his dispensations and sloth because they will not search into the Methods of his Government To grant them for once that it is Imagination it is not the less tormenting because it is so for a Man that strongly imagines himself to be miscrable is truly miserable if a man think himself unhappy he is so whilest that thought remains But then they would do well could they but once obtain of themselves leave to consider a little they would find reason to suspect their own foolish Objections Who was a Man as appears by what we read of him more distressed with the sense of God's Anger than David yet he was of a Musical and a pleasant Temper of a Ruddy and a Sanguine Constitution Do they think that such a great Prince as Job was was led meerly by humour and by fancy when he complains so much of the Arrows of the Almighty Or that Heman Asaph and many others were men of no clear understandings It is their ignorant Pride that makes them to talk so boldly of the Judgments of God which they do not understand but if ever their Consciences be awakened with a sense of guilt they 'll find in what I have now discoursed something more terrible than Fancy or Imagination Obj. 2. You take a way to discourage men from all Religion If it be such a mournful business it is better to let it alone and to rejoyce and to be merry and to take our ease and our pleasure Go by your selves to Heaven if you will we 'll joyn our selves to more chearful Companions we see those that are gay and brisk that know no sorrow while they live and that dye in peace and to their Assembly we will unite our selves In Answer to this I desire such to consider That it is not our Religion that is the Cause of our sorrows but our wandrings and our deviation from it If we were always obedient we should have an Eternal day our heavenly Father chastises us because we are undutiful and he does not delight to grieve the Children of Men and even in these necessary Corrections he carries on a profitable design for our future and final good 'T is true this is nothing but anguish of Conscience that draws up a process against it self that presents it self as before the Tribunal of God without hope of pardon or escape and the weight of Mountains would not be a load so heavy as this it is a night wherein we are kept waking with our danger whether we will or not Wicked men tho they have as great a burden yet are not sensible they feel not the bitterness of sin they are like fishes bred in the Sea that tast not the saltness of the water they are like swine that find something agreeable to their meaner appetites even in that which is most nauseous to other Creatures When they sin they feel not the weight of it for it is their nature to do amiss their iniquities are like waters that are not heavy in their own Element as Intellectual joy is most refin'd pure and durable so is the trouble of the mind of all others most troublesome Job 6.2 3. Oh that my grief were throughly weighed and my calamity laid in the balance together for now it would be heavier than the sand of the Sea therefore my words are swallowed up 2. 'T is attended usually with great pain of body too and so a man is wounded and distrest in every part There is no soundness in my flesh because of thine anger says David The arrows of the Almighty are within me the poyson whereof drinketh up my spirit Job 6.4 Sorrow of heart contracts the natural spirits makes all their motions slow and feeble and the poor afflicted body does usually decline and wast away and therefore saith Heman My soul is full of troubles and my life draweth nigh unto the grave In this inward distress we find our strength decay and melt even as wax before the fire for sorrow that is an ingrateful languor of the soul * Natural History of the Passions p. 152. darkneth the spirits obscures the judgment blinds the memory as to all pleasant things and beclouds the lucid part of the mind causes the lamp of life to burn weakly In this troubled condition the person cannot be without a countenance that is pale and wan and dejected like one that is seized with strong fear and consternation all his motions are sluggish and no sprightliness nor activity remains Prov. 17.22 A merry heart doth good like a Medicine but a broken spirit drieth the bones Hence come those frequent complaints in Scripture My moisture is turned into the drought of Summer I am like a bottle in the smoke wy soul cleaveth unto the dust my face is foul with weeping and on my eye-lids is the shadow of death Job 16.16 Job 30.17 18 19. My bones are pierced in me in the night season and my sinews take no rest by the great force of my disease is my garments changed He hath cast me into the mire and I am become like dust and ashes Many times indeed the trouble of the soul does begin from the weakness and indisposition of the body Long affliction without any prospect of remedy does in process of time begin to distress the soul

more clearly to us the corruption and defilement of our nature In a calm the waters of the Sea appear to be clear enough but when the storm comes then it throws up the mire and dirt in prosperity and health we think we have very good hearts and considerable degrees of sanctification but when sin is set home upon us the spiritual Law of God begins to shew its purity Oh what multitudes of iniquities do then appear what unbelief what impatience what murmuring what unbecoming thoughts of God such hideous and strange thoughts as we never had before In health and strength and peace there are a thousand secular Affairs and Contrivances that take up our time and divert our minds and turn us to the view of things without but in the trouble of our Consciences our eyes are turned another way to behold with attention our own Souls and to see what lusts what impurities what venomous Creatures what Vipers have been entertained there and oh what a ghastly formidable sight is this to see such a numerous brood of Transgressions when we imagined that all had been very well with us it is even a wonder that God who saw so much evil in us should let us alone so long These spiritual Afflictions shew us what a sorry contemptible Creature man is what cause he has to be debased when he is most proud and what cause he has to be covered with shame and blushing when he is most fearless and undaunted when God does not blow upon our Garden instead of those Spices those Graces blowing forth that may be for his glory and for our comfort there is nothing but Weeds and Thistles nothing but Thorns and Briars that tear and wound us our Soul is then just like a dead Carkass full of putrefaction no sprightly motions towards Heaven no spiritual no warm desires like the cold Regions of the North which the Sun does only visit with his fainter and weaker beams and not like those Eastern Countries where his greater heat does produce Spices and fragrant Flowers 5. Another End that God hath in the continuance of Spiritual Troubles and Afflictions and the Sense of his Wrath long upon us is that from our own Experience Christ may be for ever very precious to us when we are at ease and think our selves whole we seldom think of him but our pain and our smart our guilt and our fears the sight of our present Danger and of approaching Wrath causes us to run to this Physician and to beg his help when we are sinking it will make us to stretch out our hands and say Master save us or else we perish Never did a poor Man with more earnestness beg an Alms than we shall beg his help never did a diseased Person after violent racking Pain more long for Rest and a Cure than we shall for Christ and having fallen among Lyons having been the flaves of fear and held in Captivity by the Temptations of Satan we shall most gladly shake of our Chains and embrace Liberty and Salvation when our Lord comes to set us free The fight of him to be our Saviour will make us run to meet him and to say Welcome thou only Friend of our Souls welcome thou dear Physician and Healer of our Souls Hosannah to the Son of David blessed is he that comes to us in the name of the Lord. Oh! how will our very hearts melt with love when we remember that as we have been distressed for our Sins against him so he was in greater Agonies for us We have had Gall and Wormwood but he tasted a more bitter Cup. The Anger of God has dried up our Spirits but he was scorched with a more flaming Wrath. He was under violent pain in the Garden and on the Cross ineffable was the sorrow that he felt being forsaken of his Father deserted by his Disciples affronted and reproached by his Enemies and under a Curse for us This Sun was under a doleful Eclipse this Living Lord was pleased to dye and in his Death was under the Frowns of an Angry God That Face was then hid from him that had always smiled before and his Soul felt that horror and that darkness which it had never felt before So that tho there was no Separation between the divine and humane Nature yet he suffered Pains equal to those which we had deserv'd fo suffer in Hell for ever God so suspended the Efficacies of his Grace that it displayed in that hour none of its force and virtue on him He had no Comfort from Heaven none from his Angels none from his Friends even in that sorrowful hour when he needed comfort most Like a Lyon that is hurt in the Forest so he roared and cryed out tho there was no despair in him and when he was forsaken yet there was trust and hope in those words My God My God Have we been abandoned of God He was much more so and was deserted for a while that we might not be so for ever Oh! how frequently should we remember such a Saviour How delightful should we think and speak of him who thought nothing too much for us We have by feeling of the Wrath of God drank in some measure of the Cup whereof he drank We justly for our Sins He out of Love and Kindness that he might make an Atonement and a Propitiation and if what we have felt was so terrible how much more dreadful was that which he endured If the smaller drops that have put our Souls into a flame have filled us with anguish what torment did he undergo that was plunged as into a Sea of Wrath Surely such a Friend such a Physician as he has been to us must be ever valued We cannot pray but in his Name we cannot be justified but with his Righteousness we can hope for nothing but by his Merits and his Intercession we cannot Live we cannot dye without him Let this be the constant Language of our Souls None but Christ none but Christ Cant. 3.1 2 3 4. 6. That we may put an high Value on the Scripture that we may search and look into it with more earnestness and frequency to see if there be any Promises in it that are reviving any place in it that may afford hope and comfor to Souls so miserable and so guilty For when our Consciences are awakened and pierced with the sense of Wrath from God if his Word would speak peace to us we could have ease but the terrible threatnings thereof are the things that wound us deep and that put us to the greater smart and we then know and fully believe beyond all doubt that this is the word by which we are to be tried in the great and solemn day 7. Another end of God in continuing Afflictions and a long remaining sense of his Wrath upon us is That we may be everlasting admirers of the freeness of his Grace when we are delivered Oh! with what wonder should we behold his