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book_n	according_a	dead_a	see_v	2,810	5	4.1648	3	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A93781	Spiritual infatuation, the principal cause of our past and present distempers. Or a serious caveate to the many seducers and seduced who under the specious pretences of reformation and conscience endeavour the subversion of Church and State. In several sermons on Isa. 9,10,11,12. By W. Stamp D.D. late minister of the Word at Stepn[e]y near London.	Stampe, William, 1611-1653?	1662 (1662)	Wing S5195; ESTC R229850	116,158	268

Angels hath given this priviledge unto m●n He may take his choise whether he will be judged Here or Hereafter by himself or by another God hath made us all Ch●ncelours ●n our own Causes with this proviso That if we will deal truly and impartial●y with our selves that is if we will Summon our selves to ●ppear before our selves arraign our selves before the Tribunal of our own Consciences and there Examine Indite convict and condemn our selves we shall not come into any further condemnation If we would judge our selves we should not be judged of the Lord. But if we will not judge our selves we must stand or fall according to the Sentence of another Most Certain it is that we must all appear before the Iudgement seat of Christ that every one may receive the things done in his body according to that he hath done whether it be good or bad S Iohn in a vision saw the dead small and great stand before God and the books were opened and another book was opened which was the book of life and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books according to their works They are Books in the plural that shall be opened The Book o● Nature The Book of the scripture The Book of Conscience And out of these books several accu●…ons will be framed The Divel that Grand ac●use● will s●and so●th and plead against us The abused Creature will accuse us of excesse and luxurie The souls of the holy martyrs will 〈◊〉 us with oppression and blood gu●…i●…e The Sacred Oracles of God will 〈◊〉 ●s with infidel●ty a●d Contempt and our own guilty Consciences instead of pleading for us will give up a verdict against us The only way th●n to supersede the judgement of that day is to call our selves to an account beforehand To agree with our adversary quickly whilst we are in the way lest we be delivered up unto the Iudge and the Iudge send us to that prison from whence there is no Redemption To ri●le every cranny and co●ner of our hearts To bring sorth our murthering lusts our bosom Traytors and to use them as Ioshua did the five Kings that were hid in the cave of Makkedah that is set our feet upon their necks and slay them in the sight of all the world And this if we do we shall not fail of such a part in the first Resurrection as will secure us from the blow both of the second death and second judgement also So that it is in our own choise who shall pass sentence upon us whether our own selves or else some other person And what shall we be able to say for our selves in that great and terrible day of the Lord why the sentence of eternal death should not pass upon us when God hath given us the space of 10 20 30 40 50 60 years for the performance of so easie a task so reasonable a service and we have not done it We see with what malicious dexterity and boldness blood-thirsty and deceitful men manage the Tryals and des●gn the executions of persons of the highest quality and merit but how cold how dull and indisposed in enquiring after the guilt of their own wretched souls Certainly such men as they may be thought to be strongly infected with this disease of Infatuation so it may be feared they are very far removed out of the way of their recovery who have so much of other arens so little of their own guilt before their eyes A Cure then ye see there is for the Infauated soul and the first step to that Bethesda pool which cureth all diseases is by a descent of humiliation But do not mistake your selves It is not every s●gh or sad look no nor every tear that concludes a solid humiliation for sin There is a great difference between an humble man and a man that is humbled there are many of us God help us that are humbled and driven into great straits and extremities persons that have lived in their own Countries with great charity and hospitality towards others that have neither what to eat nor wherewithal to be clothed themselves And yet I fear were our purses as full of silver as our hearts are full of sin we should soon find the way to our former pride and luxury Physitians are wont to cure vomiting by a vomit and bleeding by letting of blood And truly the best cure I can prescribe for all our secular sorrows is by adding more sorrow and compunction for our sins then I fear resides in our dejected spirits I have dwelt long enough upon the severe● part of the Cu●e it may be demanded of me what are the messages of the Gospel to be delivered by Boanerges the sons of thunder Sure the world has ●ore then enow of such that take a great deal of pains to bring men unto Hell ga●e● by representing unto them the horrors of a damned Condition and the i●re●overable Estate of all the world besides themselves but then their Art fails them in bringing them back again They can bring the soul into a deep dejection but they know not how to raise it again They are good at the Corrasive but to seek in the application of the Cordial Like our Refo●mers in England they are de●…erous in p●l●ing down but they know not how or what to build in the place of it These are ignorant if not ●ll natured Physitians● that please themselves with wounding when they know not how to heal make work for their own mercinary and adulterate Art to practise on shaping their Cures too often accord●ng to their incouragements and though they will not sell the gifts yet they can find a way to sell the Comforts of the Holy Ghost for mony and advantage Now in the Samaritans Cure of the wounded man that fell among h●eves as he journied from Ierusalem to Iericho we find two ingredients wine and oyle not wine alone or oyle alone but both first wine to search afterwards oyl to supple Thus when S. Peter sound his auditory pricked in their hearts he presently applies an Evangelical Cordial and tells them that the promise was made unto them and unto their children even as m●ny as the Lord should call Thus S. Paul directs the Church at Corinth to deliver up the incestuous person to Satan for the destruction of the flesh but it was for no other end but that the spirit might be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus For the Churches censure having humbled him he writes a second Epistle to the same Church both to forgive him and to comfort him lest perhaps he be swallowed up with overmuch sorrow And indeed the more we are broken with sorrow and contrition the more firm and compacted shall we find our confidence and assurance in Gods mercy For though self-humbling be the certain fruit and effect of faith yet faith is not so clear and conspicuous till repentance hath scoured off the rust but

the sweet influence of his grace suffers him to take his full swinge in wickednesse and to run head-long without any restraint to his own ruin and destruction This I take to be the obduration of Pharaohs heart so frequently mentioned in the book of Exodus For it is said Exod. 8. 15. When Pharaoh saw that there was respite he hardned his heart and harkned not c. and v. 32. Pharaoh hardned his heart this time also c. and then Exod. 9. 12. it's said God hardned the heart of Pharaoh And 't is observable how he is threatned v. 14. I will at this time send all my plagues upon thy heart and upon thy servants and upon thy people c. So that first Pharaoh hardens and then God hardens Pharaoh hardens himself and God leaves him to himself Pharaoh hardens wilfully and God hardens judicially This I take to be the doom of the accursed fig-tree in the Gospel under which is comprised every barren Christian Le● no fruit grow on thee henceforward Mat. 21. 19. Iude 12. for ever These are th● trees Saint Iude speaks of whose fruit withereth without fruit twise dead pluck'd up by the roots Where the Method of Gods Iustice is very observable upon an obstinate and Apostate sinner First His fruit withereth he deserts his station grows weary of well doing and puts off the yoke of Christianity as if it were an intolerable burden Then without fruit The sap of grace is withdrawn and the soul becoms immediately barren Then twise dead dead naturally and dead spiritually For as the soul is the life of the body so is the Grace of God the life of the soul And lastly pluck'd up by the root not presently cast into the fire They may continue in the garden of Gods Church a long time after may participate of the dew of heaven of the holy Ordinances of God and external communion with his people But as never fruit comes of a tree that is pluck'd up by the r●ots and so left So never any thing capable of Divine acceptation comes from a man thus miserably deserted The ground and foundation of this doctrine I conceive may be safely laid upon that maxime of our Saviour Habenti dabitur To him that hath shall be given and he shall have more abundance But whosoever hath not that is hath not improved his talent from him shall be taken away even that which he Mat. 13. 12. seemeth to have These are the several kinds or degrees of Obduration and this last I take to be the disease in its full height and malignity Secondly We are in the next place to look upon the cause of this disease and what is particularly instrumental unto it We say in Philosophy Anim● sequitur temperamentum corporis The soul hath its operation according to the temper organs and disposition of the Body As there is no disease in the body so there is no distemper or depravity in the mind but is the effect and product of a certain particular cause So that as Infatuation of mind is a certain preparative unto judgement so there are certain preparatives and predispositions to Infatuation of mind Two sorts of evils there are ●n the world the evil of sin and the evil of punishment this of Infatuation is both it is hard to say whether hath the greater share in the composition This twisted evil as it arises from several causes so it is compounded of several ingredients In the general God himself may be said to harden according to that of the Apostle Rom. 9. 8. Whom he will he hardneth Not by any positive operation upon the mind as was said before but by a privative withdrawing or withholding of Grace No o●herwise then as wax being taken from the fire from being soft and pliable returns to its natural hardnesse and inflexibility And this is the just permission of Almighty God that such as will not conform unto him and walk in his ways should be left unto themselves to take their own precipitate and destructive courses For Instrumental Causes there are many To instance in some few for all the rest The first Medium unto Obduration I shall propound is The misunderstanding and abuse of secular prosperity and successe Thus Senacharibs best argument to perswade Ierusalem to revolt from good King Hezechiah is drawn from the successe of his sword upon the men and gods of Hamah Arpad and and Sepheruaim and from thence he 2 King 18. 34. 35. inferr'd that therefore the Lord of hosts should not deliver Ierusalem out of his hand And never under●tood the guilt of his Blasphemy nor the falacy of his argument nor the vanity of Nisrock his Idol till he felt the power of his maker and the stroke of Divine vengeance in the swords of his own Sons sheathed in his own bowels in the very Act and posture of his Idolatrous worship When the greatnesse of Nebuchadnezzars power and conquest lifted him up so high that he forgot he was a man God brought him down and humbled him into the very nature and condition of a beast There was a time when Dan. 4. Babylon was grown fat as the heyfer at grasse by eating up the inheritance of the Lord but it lasted not long for within a short time after Every one that went by Babylon Ier. 50. 11. was astonished and hissed at the sight of all her plagues And the same Prophet takes notice of some of Gods own people that were waxen fat and shined that overpassed the deeds of the wicked that did not Iudge the cause of the Fatherlesse c. and yet they prospered until the day of Gods visitation came Ier. 5. 28. 29. upon them Thus was Egypt gro●n as a fair heyfer and her men in the midst of her as so many fatted bullocks and all to their own destruction as appears Ier. 46. 20. Thus was I●surun grown fat and kicked he was grown thick and covered with fatnesse and mark what followed hereupon he presently forsook the God that made him and lightly esteemed the rock of his salvation Deut. 32. 15. And therefore the Divine Omniscience foreseeing this evil consequent arising from blessings abused enters a caveat against it Beware that thou forget not the Lord thy God in not keeping his Commandments lest when thou hast eaten and art full and hast built goodly houses and dwelt therein and when thy herds and thy flockes multiply and thy silver and thy gold is multiplyed and all that thou hast is multiplyed then thine heart be lifted up and thou forget the Lord thy God c. Deut. 8. 11. 12. 13 14. The Psalmist speaks very home and close to our purpose who describing the wickeds day of Sunshine saith Their eys stand out with fatn●sse they have more then heart cou●d wish they are not in trouble as other men neither are they plagued as other men pray observe the co●seque●t Therefore pride compasseth them about like a chain violence covereth them