A28624:1021
A tossed ship making to safe harbour, or, A word in season to a…A tossed ship making to safe harbor, or, A word in season to a…
A tossed ship making to safe harbour, or, A word in season to a sinking kingdom wherein Englands case and cure, her burdens and comforts, her pressures and duties are opened and applied : in diverse sermons preached upon the public days of humiliation, out of that prophetical history, Matth. 14, 22 to 28 / by Samuel Bolton ...A tossed ship making to safe harbor, or, A word in season to a sinking kingdome wherein Englands case and cure, her burthens and comforts, her pressures and duties are opened and applyed : in diverse sermons preached upon the publick dayes of humiliation, out of that propheticall history, Matth. 14, 22 to 28 / by Samuel Bolton ...
London: printed by L.N. for Philemon Stephens, 1644
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
Take another place in Isay 7. You may read, of a confederacy between the King ⟨p. 270⟩of Assyria and the King of Israel, to come up against Judah and Jerusalem. And in the second Verse you read, how the hearts of the men of Judah were moved, even as the trees of the wood are moved with the wind. Now in this their fear and danger God sends a Prophet to them, to tell them he would be their security if they would trust on him, the third and fourth Verses, Be quiet, fear not, neither be fainthearted,— I will help you,—Verse 7. But notwithstanding all this, their fear prevailed against their faith, whereupon God sends the Prophet again in the tenth Verse, and bids the King Ask a sign, either in the depths below, or height above,—That is, if he desired to have his faith confirmed by any visible sign, either in Heaven or Earth, God would condescend so far to the weakness of his faith to afford it to him; but yet his fears prevailed against his faith, and against all the security God offered, and he puts all this off very cunningly, Verse 12. I will not ask a sign, neither will I tempt God. One would think he spake well, he would not tempt God in asking a sign, he would believe on his bare word: doth not Christ blame the Scribes and Pharisees for asking a sign? ⟨p. 271⟩but it is one thing to ask a sign when God doth not offer it, and merely out of temptation too; as the Scribes & Pharisees did: another thing, to refuse a sign when God tenders it, and that for the confirming of their faith. That he spake wickedly: The 13. verse tells you, Is it a small thing to weary men, but your will weary God also; Indeed the meaning is, he will not tempt God; That is, he will not trust God, he would not trust on Gods promise, Gods security; he would run to the arm of flesh, provide the best means for his own safety; for he would not trust on Gods security, he would rather trust to the provision fear could make, then to the provisions faith could find in God. *Sometimes we tempt God in trusting upon God in the neglect of means, and sometimes we tempt God in the trusting upon means in the neglect of God, so did he: See 2 King. 16.5. to the 10. verse.