Selected quad for the lemma: death_n
Text snippets containing the quad
|
ID |
Title |
Author |
Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) |
STC |
Words |
Pages |
|
A44690
|
A sermon directing what we are to do, after strict enquiry whether or no we truly love God preached April 29, 1688.
|
Howe, John, 1630-1705.
|
1696
(1696)
|
Wing H3038A; ESTC R23981
|
9,855
|
16
|
into me by thee an intelligent understanding Soul a Soul that hath love in its Nature but a Soul that never loved thee Thirdly Judge thy self before him as to the fact and as to the fault As to the fact I have never yet loved thee O God I own it to thee Lord I accuse I charge my Soul with this before thee this is the truth of the fact I have not the love of God in me And charge thy self with the fault Oh horrid Creature that I am I was made by thee and don 't love thee thou didst breath into me this reasonable immortal Spirit and it doth not love thee It is thy own Off-spring and does not love thee It can never be blessed in any thing but thee and it does not love thee And then hereupon in the Fourth place Joyn to this self-judging self-loathing That we are to Judge our selves is a Law laid upon us by the Supream Law-giver the one Law-giver that hath power to save and to destroy And his Word that enjoyns it as plainly tells us what must go with it that this self-judging must be accompanied with self-loathing Ezek. 6.9 ch 20.43 and 36.31 Do God that right upon thy self that thou mayest tell him Blessed God! I do even hate my self because I find I have not loved thee and I cannot but hate my self and I never will be reconciled to my self till I find I am reconciled to thee This is doing Justice Doth not the Scripture usually and familiarly so represent to us the great turn of the Soul to God When poor sinners become Penitents and return that they are brought to hate themselves and loath themselves in their own Eyes And is there any thing that can make a Soul so loathsom in it self or ought to make it so loathsom to it self as not to love God to be destitute of the love of God And then Fifthly Hereupon too Pity thy self pity thy own Soul there is cause to hate it to loath it and is there no cause to pity it to lament it Doth not this look like a lamentable case Oh! what a Soul have I that can love any thing else that can love Trifles that can love Impurities that can love Sin And can't love God Christ the most desirable good of Souls What a Soul have I What a Monster in the Creation of God is this Soul of mine Methinks you should set your selves if any of you can find this to be the case to weep over your own Souls Some may see cause to say Oh my Soul thou hast in thee other valuable things thou hast Understanding in thee Judgment in thee Wit in thee perhaps Learning considerable acquired Endowments in thee but thou hast not the love of God in thee I can do many other commendable or useful things I can Discourse plausibly Argue subtilly I can manage Affairs dexterously but I can't love God Oh my Soul how great an Essential dost thou want to all Religion to all Duty to all Felicity The one thing necessary thou wantest thou hast every thing but what thou needest more than any thing more than all things And Oh my Soul what is like at this rate to become of thee Where art thou to have thy eternal abode To what Regions of Horror and Darkness and Woe art thou going What Society can be fit for thee No lover of God! No lover of God! what but of Infernal accursed Spirits that are at utmost distance from him and to whom no beam of holy vital Light shall ever shine to all Eternity Thou Oh my Soul art self-abandon'd to the blackness of Darkness for ever Thy doom is in thy Breast thy own Bosom Thy no-love to God is thy own doom thy eternal doom Creates thee a present Hell and shews whither thou belongest Sixth place Let a due fear and solicitude hereupon be set on work in thee For consider thy self as one shortly to be arraign'd before the Supream Tribunal And then here is the critical vertical point upon which thy Judgment turns Lovers of God Or no Lovers of God All are to be judged in reference to what they were and did in the Body whether good or evil As in 2 Cor. chap. 5. ver 10. What wast thou as to this point while thou wast in the Body For the last Judgment regards that former state what thou didst and what was thy wont as to this whilst thou wast in the Body Therefore by the way no hope after thou art gone out of the Body Go out of the Body no lover of God the departing Soul no lover of God and this will be found your state at the Judgment-day You are not to expect after Death a Gospel to be preach'd that you may then be reconciled to God No but what did you do in the Body According to that you are to be judged Did you love God in this Body while here yea or no And this is a Tryal upon the most Fundamental Point For as all the Law is comprehended in Love as was formerly hinted if you be found guilty in this Point that you were no lover of God totally destitute of the love of God you were a perpetual underminer of his whole Government of the whole frame of his Law a Disloyal Creature Rebellious and False to the God that made you to Jesus Christ that redeemed you by his Blood All Disobedience and Rebellion is summ'd up in this one word Having been no lover of God And won't it make any man's heart to meditate Terror to think of having such a charge as this likely to lye against him in the Judgment of that day that day when the secrets of all hearts are to be laid open Every work must be then brought into Judgment and every secret thing whether it be good or evil Eccles. 12.14 And it will be to the confusion of many a one It may be your no-love of God was heretofore a great Secret You had a heart in which was no love of God but it was a secret you took not care to have it writ in your forehead you convers'd with Men so plausibly no body took you to be no lover of God to have a heart disaffected to God But now out comes the Secret that which you kept for a great Secret all your days out comes the Secret And to have such a Secret as this disclosed to that vast Assembly before Angels and Men Here was a Creature a Reasonable Creature an Intelligent Soul that lived upon the Divine Bounty and Goodness so many Years in the World below and hid a false disloyal Heart by a plausible shew and external profession of great devotedness to God all the time of his abode in that World Oh! What a fearful thing would it be to have this Secret so disclosed And do you think that all the Loyal Creatures that shall be Spectators and Auditors in the hearing of that great day will not all conceive a just and a loyal Indignation against