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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
end_n	east_n	point_n	west_n	1,970	5	9.4719	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A65074	Sermons preached upon several publike and eminent occasions by ... Richard Vines, collected into one volume.; Sermons. Selections	Vines, Richard, 1600?-1656.	1656 (1656)	Wing V569; ESTC R21878	447,514	832

14. An Israelite that is without guile that hath but one heart is a rare man and worthy of an Ecce Behold indeed an Israelite In the opening of this point I shall follow the threed of that explication of this word double minded which I gave in the beginning 1 This double mindednes is an uncertainty of the heart with God not fixed upon a Centre but off and on as times occasions and interests doe lead on or draw off so farre you will goe with God as your way and his doe fall out to hold together and untill you must pull downe Jeroboams Calves as well as Ahabs Baal and then you part with him when it comes to such a pinch so also in adversity or affliction wee make nautarum vota Mariners vowes as they doe in a storme and when wee are on shore and landed out of danger wee eat the Covenant wee made before Psal 78. 24. c. When he slue them then they sought him and they returned and enquired early after God and they remembred that God was their rock and the high God their Redeemer Nevertheless they did but flatter and lye unto him for their heart was not right with him nor were they stedfast in his Covenant If the heart was right with God it would be certaine and stedfast with him Constancie is but the daughter of Synceritie It s a hatefull thing to set sail to every winde and to change colour so often being no faster tyed to God in the tempest then we can be loosened in the calme Be what you were in the storme in your affliction you will abide to be spurred without kicking and are very tame under reproofs but when you are lifted up and are at short then to put you in minde of your Vowes and Covenants in the day of your trouble is as an unpleasing a thing as to put a Mariner at shore in minde of his Vowes or promises made at Sea It s no great danger to reprove men sharply when they are low any coward may strike a man that is down but believe it when men are aloft and high and may more safelyer he dealt withall by stroaking then by the spurre then it is somwhat to come nigh the heels of truth for it may haply strike out his teeth 2. This double mindednesse is a division of the heart from God 1. It is divided between the promises of God and the difficulties opposite when a man laies his dead body and the dead womb of Sara in the skales against the promise of having Isaac this is sense fighting against faith 2. Between conscience and lust conscience dictates lust byasses the inferiour appetite mutinies against the superiour light and leades it captive video melior a prob●que deteriora sequor 3. Between Religion and policie and then Religion commonly goes by the worse Jeroboam and the King of Israel to comply with their politick respects set up and continued a selfe-devised worship 4. Between God and the world or God and our own ends as they here in the Text when we make God a meere servant to our selves and move upon a private centre of our own the heart is cunning subtile in squinting towards its own ends visibly we will be for God under hand we seeke ourselves so the planets in their daily motion from East to West move as the fixed stars but they have another motion of their own which is creepingly by stealth and more unperceiveable then the other Use For the use of this point let me turn the words of the Text once more upon you by way of exhortation Purifie your hearts ye double minded cast out those dividing lusts policies ends which draw you away from God and pluck off those false byasses of self-interest and self-seeking which cause you to wheele off from the true mark or scope of all your desires and endeavours you will be found faulty if your hearts be divided Hos 10. 2. simplicity of heart is of great account with God there is asinina simplicitas columbina the simplicity of the asse and of the dove the former is a defect in the understanding the later is the grace of an honest heart and this sure is that which is of esteeme with God In matters of judgement and justice between man and man you are to have two eyes to looke both wayes but as they that take aime shut one of their eyes lest the sight should be distracted so in your aims and ends your eye is to be single in intending God and not self let Christ increase though you decrease The greatest matter above-board and which all mens expectations and mouthes are full of is the setling of Religion and of the Church Religion is rerum-publicarum quoddam quasi coagulum Cunaeus lib. 1. cap. 15. that which caements Common-wealths together though now it be made the ball of contention and the great divider of us into parties we divide it and are divided being far more then double minded there about Oh that God was first set into possession of his right and that his Tabernacle was pitcht before any of the lots for our own liberties or interests were drawn This was the oath that David swore in his afflictions Psal 132. 2 3. He sware unto the LOrd and vowed unto the mighty God of Jacob. Surely I will not come unto the Tabernacle of mine house nor go up into my bed I will not give sleep to my eyes or slumber to my eye-lids untill I finde out a place for the Lord an habitation for the mighty God of Jacob and this is the first Article in our Vow and Covenant What the reall impediments are doth not fall within my way but the self-interests are to be searched out Not yet say some and their reason is the same with that of the common sort of people against Inclosures in former times If every mans own should be inclosed they should lose their freedom of Common and that liberty they usurped all the field over or as others hope that after wee have turned round a while wee may haply returne to the same posture wee were in before and having lost our way in the myst may come backe againe to the same place whence wee set out at first If any say others let it be a George on horsback that stands at doore with a wooden dagger but keeps no body from going in the thiefe passes under his nose into the house as well as the true-man Not this say some of those that are toward the law for then haply many contentions might be quencht at the bottome of the chimney before they flame out at the top and such may be the want of grist as it may tend much to the hinderance of their Mill. Nothing that 's one say the Libertines for we have gon loose so long that now we cannot go strait laced It s irksome to wild birds to be coopt up in a cage under Discipline Those that have beene such