God's token

Noun

God's token (plural God's tokens)

1. A sign from God.
   • Open not your Mouths, (as if he should say) shew no such sorrow as at other times, for God is Just (and he hath let out his deserved Wrath against these young Men) least you should seem to Justifie them, and shew a dislike of God's token of Divine dispeasure.1694, Benjamin Keach, A Golden Mine Opened, Or, The Glory of God's Rich Grace, page 42
   • Some have made a Scripture to themselves out of their own sanguine and presumptuous temperament, and have found in ecstasies and raptures of feeling God's token upon them for good.1863, Edward Meyrick Goulburn, The office of the holy communion in the Book of common prayer, page 33
   1. A rainbow, as a sign of God's promise not to destroy the earth.
      • Then there is "the bow in the cloud" as God's token of the covenant.1884, Charles Russell Hurditch, Footsteps of truth, page 283
      • Straight in our wake came the tall main-mast of the English fighting-frigate, terminating, like a steepled cathedral, in the bannered cross of the religion of peace; and straight after her came the rainbow banner of France, sporting God's token that no more would he make war on the earth.1892, Herman Melville, White-Jacket: Or, The World in a Man-of-war, page 252
2. A sign for God to see.
   • That way of thinking, joined with careful obedience, is God's token, surer, if we will make it so, every day and every hour, that the baptismal grace is not worn out, that Christ yet sees His mark in our foreheads.1846, Alexander Watson, Sermons for Sundays, festivals and fasts, page 261
   • As the stern Angel of Death pass'd Egypt o'er, And smote not where God's token did appear; So spirits of ill, unseen, bow down before The lowly light of home, that shineth clear Through blackest night;1858, John Eagles, Sonnets, page lXX
3. Circumcision.
   • for, wherever, or on whom, it was administered, it was God's token to all others, of his most gracious purpose, as well as to those who received it.1818 February, “The Identity of Baptism and Circumcision”, in The Evangelical Guardian and Review, volume 2, number 10, page 442
   • The token of God is upon him, let him now, by his own profession of faith, acknowledge it, as God's token, bringing him under the responsibilities and blessings of the covenant, and he will be received, unquestionably, as "an Israelite indeed."1844, William Augustus Stearns, Infant Church-membership, page 153
4. (obsolete) A cross.
   • Woman, leave me, For I fly those arms that fold me, Having seen but now within them Some, I know not what, God's token; […] So much fear that Cross hath cause me Which thy breast reveal'd and show'd me;1637, Pedro Calderón de la Barca, The Devotion of the Cross
   • Rising, she placed herself on the lower step of the altar, and throwing open her bosom , said: “ Then by God's token, kneel.”1906, David Tod Gilliam, The Rose Croix, page 365
5. A plague spot
   • The emphasis in Lodge's definition is on the unambiguous hermeneutic certainty –'a sure and unfeigned judgement ' – of the plague symptom, popularly known as God's token because, being a dubious gift from above, it leaves no room either for doubt or for remedy.2002, Stanley Wells, Shakespeare Survey - Volume 50, page 25
   • Cramps, convulsion of limbs, imperfection of speech and stinking breath, colic, swelling of the body as in dropsy, visage of divers colours, God's token [red spots] quickly discovered and covering.2015, Tara Womersley, Bodysnatchers to Livesavers