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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	author_n	word_n	write_v	2,404	5	5.2650	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A02586	The remedy of prophanenesse. Or, Of the true sight and feare of the Almighty A needful tractate. In two bookes. By Ios. Exon.	Hall, Joseph, 1574-1656.	1637 (1637)	STC 12710; ESTC S103753	54,909	276

that they faile of their ends if they be any other where terminated It was a word well becomming the profound judgement and quintessentiall notions of that rare memorable Peere And certainly so it is if the cogitations and affections of our hearts be not directed to the glory of that infinite God both they are lost and we in them SECT V. REligious adoration begins in the heart but rests not there diffusing it selfe through the whole man and commanding all the powers of the soule and all the parts of the body to comply in a reverent devotion so that as we feare the Lord whom wee serve so wee serve the Lord with feare Where the heart stoopes it cannot be but the knees must bend the eyes and hands must be lift up and the whole body will strive to testifie the inward veneration as upon all occasions so especially when wee have to deale with the sacred affaires of God and offer to present our selves to any of his immediate services Our feare cannot bee smothered in our bosomes Every thing that pert●ines to that infinite Majesty must carry from us due testifications of our awe his Name his Word his Services his House his Messengers I cannot allow the superstitious niceties of the Iewes in the matters of God yet I find in their practise many things worthily imitable such as favour of the feare of their father Isaac and such as justly shame our prophane carelesnesse There is no wise man but must needs mislike their curious scruples concerning that ineffable name the letters and syllables wherof they held in such dreadfull respect that they deemed it worthy of death for any but sacred lips and that but in set times and places to expresse it as if the mention of it pierced the side of God together with their owne heart And if the name of God were written upon their flesh that part might not bee touched either with water or oyntment But well may wee learne this point of wit and grace from this first and then the only people of God not rashly sleightly regardlesly to take the awfull name of God into our mouths but to heare and speak it when occasion is given with all holinesse and due veneration There are those that stumble at their adoration at the blessed name of Iesus prescribed and practised by our Church as unjustly conceiving that wee put a superstitious holinesse in the very sound and syllabicall enunciation of the word wheras it is the person of that blessed Saviour to whom upon this occasion our knees are bended A gesture so far out of the just reach of blame that if it seemed good to the wisedome of the Church to allot this reverent respect to all whatsoever the names wherby the Majesty of God in the whole sacred Trinity is signified and expressed to men it were most meet to be accordingly exhibited unto them And now since it hath without inhibition of the like regard to the rest pitched upon that name which intimating and comprising in it the whole gratious work and immediate author of our deare redemption hath beene exposed to the reproach and opposition of the gain-saying world We cannot if we be not wanting to our filiall obedience detrect our observance of so antient and pious an institution Never any contempt was dared to bee cast upon the glorious name of the Almighty and absolute Deity only the state of exinanition subjected the Sonne of God to the scorne and under-valuation of the world Iustly therefore hath our holy and gracious Mother thought fit and ordained upon that person and name which seemed lesse honourable and lay more open to affront to bestow the more abundant honour In the meane time as shee is a professed incourager and an indulgent lover of all true devotion shee cannot but be well pleased with what soever expressions of reverence we give to the divine Majesty under whatsoever termes uttered by our well advised and well instructed tongues I have knowne and honored as most worthy a constant imitation some devout persons that never durst mention the name of God in their ordinary communication without uncovering of their heads or elevation of their hands or some such other testimony of reverence And certainly if the heart be so throughly possessed with a sad awe of that infinite Majesty as it ought the tongue dares not presume in a sudden unmannerlinesse to blurt out the dreadfull name of God but shall both make way for it by a premised deliberation and attend it with a reverent elocution I am ashamed to think how farre we are surpassed by heathenish piety The ancient Grecians and amongst the rest Plato as Suidas well observes when they would sweare by their Iupiter out of the meere dread and reverence of his name forbare to mention him breaking off their oath with a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as those that onely dare to owe the rest to their thoughts And Climas the Pythagorean out of this regard would rather undergoe a mulct of three talents than sweare Whiles the prophane mouthes of many Christians make no difference in their appellation betweene their God and their servant SECT VI. AS the name so the word of our maker challengeth an awfull regard from us as a reflection of that feare wee owe to the omnipotent author of it What worlds of nice caution have the masters of the Synagogue prescribed to their disciples for their demeanour towards the book of the Law of their God No letter of it might be writ without a copy no line of it without a rule and the rule must be upon the back of the parchment no parchment might bee imployed to this service but that which is made of the skinne of a cleane beast no word might be written in a different colour insomuch as when in the Pentateuch of Alexander the Great the name of Iehovah was in pretence of honour written in golden Characters their great Rabbins cōdemned the whole volume to be obliterated and defaced No man might touch it but with the right hand and without a kisse of reverence No man might sit in the presence of it No man might so much as spit before it No man might carry it behind him but lay it next to his heart in his travell No man might offer to read it but in a cleane place no man might sell it though the copy were moth-eat and himselfe halfe famished And is the word of the everlasting God of lesse worth and authority now than it hath beene Or is there lesse cause of our reverence of those divine Oracles than theirs Certainly if they were superstitiously scrupulous it is not for us to be carelesly slovenly and neglective of that sacred Book out of which wee shall once bee judged Even that impure Alcoran of the Turkes is forbidden to bee touched by any but pure hands It was not the least praise of Carlo Boromeo the late Saint of Millaine that hee would never read the

practises thereupon growing idle or unprofitable wee make divine mercy a Pander to our uncleannesse and justly perish in our wicked presumption SECT XIX THe other extreame followes It may seeme a harsh word but it is a true one that there may bee an evill feare of a good God A feare of horror and a feare of distrust That God who is love it selfe is terrible to a wicked heart Even in the beginning our first progenitor ran from the face of his late maker and hid him in the thickets For it is a true observation of Tertullian no wickednesse can bee done without feare because not without the conscience of doing it Neither can any man flee from himselfe as Bernard wittily and this conscience reads the terrible things that God writes against the sinner and holds the glasse wherein guilty eyes may see the killing frownes of the Almighty Now offensive objects cause the spirits to retire as Philosophy and experience teacheth us whereupon followes a necessary trepidation in the whole frame of the body And now the wicked heart could wish there were no God or which is all one that this God had not power to avenge himselfe and finding that after all his impotent volitions the Almighty will bee still and ever himselfe he is unspeakably affrighted with the expectation of that just hand which hee cannot avoid This terror if through the improvement of Gods mercy at the last it drive the sinner to a true penitence makes an happy amends for its owne anguish otherwise it is but the first flash of that unquenchable fire which is prepared for damned soules In this case men do not so much feare God as are afraid of him and such a torturing feare is never but joyned with heart-burning and hatred wherin sinners demeane themselves to God as they say the Lampray doth to the fisher by whose first blow that fish is said to bee dulled and astonished but inraged with the next and following Wretched men it is not Gods fault that hee is terribly just no it is his glory that hee is mercifully terrible It is not for me to say as Spalatensis cites from Cyrill that those who would not bee saved are no lesse beholden to the bounty of the good God than those that are brought home to glory I know and blesse God for the difference But certainely God is wonderfully gracious as hee is also infinitely just even to those that will needs incurre damnation having tendered unto them many powerfull helps to their repentance which hee hath with much patience and longanimity expected That God therefore is just it is his owne praise that hee is terrible wee may thank our selves for were it not for our wickednesse there were nothing in God not infinitely amiable Seest thou then O sinnefull man nothing at all in Gods face but frownes and fury doth every beame of his angry eye dart vengeance into thy soule so as thou would'st faine runne away from his presence and wooest the rocks and mountaines to fall upon thee and hide thee from the sight of that dreadfull countenance cleanse thy hands purge thine heart cleare thine eyes with the teares of true contrition and then look up and tell me whether thou dost not see an happy change of aspect whether thou canst now discerne ought in that face but a glorious lovelinesse fatherly indulgence unconceivable mercy such as shall ravish thy soule with a divine love with a joy unspeakable and glorious SECT XX. SEldome ever is the feare of horror separated from a feare of distrust which in the height of it is that which we call despaire for when the soule apprehends a deep feare of Gods dereliction it cannot but be filled with horrour Now as the holy and well moderated feare gives glory to God in all his attributes so this extremity of it affronts and dishonours him in them all but especially in his mercy and truth In his truth suggesting that God will not make good his promises in his mercy suggesting that he either cannot or will not forgive and save It was a true observation of Saint Hilary that it is not the least office and effect of faith to feare for that it is said by the Prophet Esay He shall fill them with the spirit of the feare of the Lord and againe we are charged to worke out our salvation with feare But there cannot be an act more opposite to faith then to feare distrustfully to despaire in fearing none more injurious either to God or our owne soules For surely as Cyrill well the wickednesse of our offences to God cannot exceed his goodnesse toward us the praise whereof from his creature he affects and esteems so highly as if he cared not in any other notion to bee apprehended by us proclaiming himselfe no otherwise in the mount then The Lord the Lord God mercifull and gracious long suffering and abundant in goodnesse and truth keeping mercy for thousands forgiving iniquity and transgressions and sinne adding onely one word to prevent our too much presumption That will by no meanes cleare the guilty which to doe were a meere contradiction to his justice Of all other therefore GOD hates most to be robbed of this part of his glory Neither is the wrong done to God more palpable then that which is done herein unto our selves in barring the gates of heaven upon our soules in breaking open the gates of hell to take them in and in the meane time striving to make our selves miserable whether God will or no. And surely as our experience tels us concerning the estate of our bodily indispositions that there is more frequent sicknesse in summer but more deadly in winter so we finde it here other sinnes and spirituall distempers are more common but this distrustfull feare and despaire of mercy which chils the soule with a cold horror is more mortall For the remedy wherof it is requisite that the heart should be throughly convinced of the super-abundant and ever ready mercy of the Almighty of the infallible and unfaileable truth of all his gracious ingagements And in respect of both be made to confesse that heaven can never be but open to the penitent It is a sweet word and a true one of Saint Bernard In thy Booke O Lord are written all that doe what they can though they cannot doe what they ought Neither doth God onely admit but he invites but he intreates but he importunes men to be saved what could he doe more unlesse he would offer violence to the Will which were no other then to destroy it and so to undoe the best piece of his owne workmanship It is the way of his decree and proceedings to dispose of all things sweetly Neither is it more against our nature then his to force his owne ends and when he sees that fayre meanes will not prevayle to win us from death he is pleased feelingly to bemone it as his owne losse Why will ye dye O house