God's token

English

Noun

God's token (plural God's tokens)

1. A sign from God.
   • 1694, Benjamin Keach, A Golden Mine Opened, Or, The Glory of God's Rich Grace, page 42:

     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.

   • 1863, Edward Meyrick Goulburn, The office of the holy communion in the Book of common prayer, page 33:

     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.

   • 1868 November, “My Field”, in Church Register, volume 2, page 11:

     Except that near me, close beside my feet, Remained one handful of the golden wheat; God's token that for me Rich harvest yet should be.

   • 1876, John Keble, Sermons for the Christian Year: Saints' Days, page 183:

     In these and other ways the holy Dove is God's token to us of the Almighty and Blessed Comforter;

   • 1880, Charles John Vaughan, The family prayer and sermon book - Volume 1, page 179:

     Miracle is God's call to attention: God's token and signal that He is about to speak.

   1. A rainbow, as a sign of God's promise not to destroy the earth.
      • 1884, Charles Russell Hurditch, Footsteps of truth, page 283:

        Then there is "the bow in the cloud" as God's token of the covenant.

      • 1892, Herman Melville, White-Jacket: Or, The World in a Man-of-war, page 252:

        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.

      • 2019, Bernadette N. Fordyce, Poetry for God’s Glory:

        It comes out not for an entertainment or show But stands as God's token to his children below, That whatever his word says it would be so, As the rainbow tells us the past is true.

2. A sign for God to see.
   • 1846, Alexander Watson, Sermons for Sundays, festivals and fasts, page 261:

     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.

   • 1858, John Eagles, Sonnets, page lXX:

     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;

   • 1867, The Voice of truth; or, Strict baptists' magazine - Volumes 2-4, page 268:

     The blood of the passover was sprinkled on the lintels and the door-posts, and was God's token of their safety amidst surrounding dangers. " When I see the blood, I will pass over you."

   • 1910, James Martin Gray, Great epochs of sacred history, studies on the first twelve chapters of Genesis, page 90:

     In other words, the rainbow, in its beauty and glory, is not man's token, but God's token; and man's security does not rest upon his seeing it, but upon God's seeing it.

3. Circumcision.
   • 1818 February, “The Identity of Baptism and Circumcision”, in The Evangelical Guardian and Review, volume 2, number 10, page 442:

     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.

   • 1844, William Augustus Stearns, Infant Church-membership, page 153:

     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."

   • 1989, Yosef Kaplan, From Christianity to Judaism: Story of Isaac Orobio de Castro, page 335:

     By the influence that they brought to bear they convinced him that before making the journey he should be circumcised, since were he to perish at sea he would not qualify for salvation if he were not a Jew, and that it would be good to bear God's token on his person.

   • 2010, G. Campbell Morgan, The Gospel According to Luke, page 39:

     No boy born, from the time of Abrqaham when the rite was instituted, all through the running centuries, was a member of God's nation unless or until he was circumcised. It was God's sign, God's token.

4. (obsolete) A cross.
   • 1637, Pedro Calderón de la Barca, The Devotion of the 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;

   • 1906, David Tod Gilliam, The Rose Croix, page 365:

     Rising, she placed herself on the lower step of the altar, and throwing open her bosom , said: “ Then by God's token, kneel.”

   • 1955, The Ministers Manual: A Study and Pulpit Guide - Volume 31, page 162:

     That sign is the Cross of Jesus Christ, God's token.

5. A plague spot
   • 2002, Stanley Wells, Shakespeare Survey - Volume 50, page 25:

     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.

   • 2015, Tara Womersley, Bodysnatchers to Livesavers:

     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.

Further reading

• “God's token”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.