Selected quad for the lemma: head_n
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A45226
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The devovt soul, or, Rules of heavenly devotion : also, The free prisoner, or, The comfort of restraint by Jos. H. B.N.
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Hall, Joseph, 1574-1656.
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1650
(1650)
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Wing H380; ESTC R9783
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42,043
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192
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forth when they have occasion to use them that what they want in the extent of memory they supply in the care of their practice Indeed that is it wherein lies the life of all religious duties and without which they are but idle formalities that which the Philosopher said of all vertue I must say of true godlinesse that it consists in action Our Saviour did not say Blessed are ye if you know these things But If ye know these things blessed are ye if ye doe them The end of our desire of the sincere milk of the Gospel is that we may grow thereby in the stature of all Grace unto the fulnesse of God SECT XXVII THe highest of all Gods services are his Sacraments which therefore require the most eminent acts of our Devotion The Sacrament of initiation which in the first planting of a Church is administred only to those of riper age and understanding cals for all possible reverence and religious addresses of the receivers wherein the Primitive times were punctually observant both for substance and ceremony now in a setled and perpetuated Church in which the vertue of the Covenant descends from the parent to the child there seems to be no use of our preparatory directions Only it is fit that our Devotion should call our eyes back to what we have done in our infancy and whereto we are ever obliged that our full age may carefully endeavour to make our word good and may put us in minde of our sinfull failings That other Sacrament of our spirituall nourishment which our Saviour as his farewell left us for a blessed memoriall of his death and passion can never be celebrated with enough Devotion Farre be it from us to come to this feast of our God in our common garments the soul must be trimmed up if we would be meet guests for the Almighty The great Master of the feast will neither abide us to come naked nor ill clad Away therefore first with the old beastly ragges of our wonted corruptions Due examination comes in first and throughly searches the soul and finds out all the secret nastinesse and defilements that it hides within it and by the aid of true penitence strips it of all those loathsome clouts wherewith it was polluted Sin may not bee cloathed upon with grace Joshuah's filthy garments must bee pluckt off ere hee can be capable of precious robes Here may be no place for our sinfull lusts for our covetous desires for our naturall infidelity for our malicious purposes for any of our unhallowed thoughts The soul clearly devested of these and all other known corruptions must in the next place in stead thereof be furnished with such graces and holy predispositions as may fit it for so heavenly a work Amongst the graces requisite Faith justly challengeth the first place as that which is both most eminent and most necessarily presupposed to the profitable receit of this Sacrament for whereas the main end of this blessed banquet is the strengthening of our faith how should that receive strength which hath not being to deliver these sacred viands to an unbeleever is to put meat into the mouth of a dead man Now therefore must the heart raise up it selfe to new acts of beleeving and must lay faster hold on Christ and bring him closer to the soul more strongly applying to its self the infinite merits of his most perfect obedience of his bitter death and passion and erecting it self to a desire and expectation of a more vigorous and lively apprehension of its omnipotent Redeemer Neither can this faith be either dead or solitary but is still really operative and attended as with other graces so especially with a serious repentance whose wonderfull power is to undoe our former sins and to mold the heart and life to a better obedience A grace so necessary that the want of it as in extream corruption of the stomack turnes the wholsome food of the soul into poison An impenitent man therefore comming to Gods Board is so far from benefiting himself as that he eates his owne judgement Stand off from this holy table all yee that have not made your peace with your God or that harbour any knowne sinne in your bosome not to eat is uncomfortable but to eat in such a state is deadly yet rest not in this plea that ye cannot come because yee are unreconciled but as yee love your souls be reconciled that you may come Another Grace necessarily pre-required is charity to our brethren and readinesse to forgive For this is a communion as with Christ the head so with all the members of his mysticall body This is the true Love-feast of God our Saviour wherein wee professe our selves inseparably united both to him and his If there be more hearts than one at Gods Table he will not own them These holy elements give us an Embleme of our selves This bread is made up of many grains incorporated into one masse and this wine is the confluent juice of many clusters neither doe we partake of severall loaves or variety of liquors but all eat of one bread and drink of one cup. Here is then no place for rancour and malice none for secret grudgings and heart-burnings Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the Altar and there remembrest that thy brother hath ought against the Leave there thy gift and go thy way first bee reconciled to thy brother and them come and offer thy gift Neither may we doe as those two emulous Commanders of Greece did who resolved to leave their spight behind them at Mount Athos and to take it up again in their returne here must bee an absolute and free acquitting of all the back-reckonings of our unkindnesse that we may receive the God of peace into a cleare bosome SECT XXVIII BEsides these graces there are certaine holy predispositions so necessary that without them our soules can never hope to receive true comfort in this blessed Sacrament whereof the first is an hungring and thirsting desire after these gracious means of our salvation What good will our meat doe us without an appetite Surely without it there is no expectation of either relish or digestion as therefore those that are invited to some great feast care first to seed their hunger ere they feed their body labouring by exercise to get a stomach ere they employ it so it concerns us to do here and as those that are listlesse and weak stomached are wont to whet their appetite with sharp sawces so must wee by the tart applications of the law quicken our desires of our Saviour here exhibited Could wee but see our sins and our miseries by sin Could wee see God frowning and hell gaping wide to swallow us wee should not need to bee bidden to long for our deliverer and every pledge of his favour would be precious to us Upon the apprehension of our need of a Saviour and so happy a supply therof presented unto us
would blesse the Preacher in the delivery of his sacred message that he would be pleased to direct his Messengers tongue to the meeting with our necessities that hee would free our hearts from all prejudices and distractions that he would keep off all temptations which might hinder the good entertainment and successe of his blessed Word Finally that hee would make us truely teachable and his ordinance the power of God to our salvation In the act of hearing Devotion cals us to Reverence Attention Application Reverence to that great God who speaks to us by the mouth of a weak man for in what is spoken from Gods Chair agreeable to the Scriptures the sound is mans the substance of the message is Gods Even an Eglon when he hears of a message from God riseth out of his seat It was not St. Pauls condition only but of all his faithfull servants to whom he hath committed the word of reconciliation They are Ambassadors for Christ as if God did beseech us by them they pray us in Christs stead to be reconciled to God The Ambassie is not the bearers but the Kings and if we do not acknowledge the great King of heaven in the voice of the Gospel we cannot but incur a contempt When therefore wee see Gods messenger in his pulpit our eye lookes at him as if it said with Cornelius We are all here present before God to heare all things that are commanded thee of God whence cannot but follow together with an awful disposition of mind a reverent deportment of the body which admits not a wild roving eye a drouzy head a chatting tongue a rude and indecent posture but composes it self to such a site a may befit a pious soul in sâ— religious an impoiment Neither do we come as authorized Judges to sit upon the Preacher but as humble Disciples to sit at his feet SECT XXIV REverence cannot but draw on Attention We need not be bidden to hang on the lips of him whom we honour It is the charge of the Spirit Let him that hath an ear hear Every one hath not an ear and of those that have an ear every one heareth not The soul hath an ear as well as the body if both these eares doe not meet together in one act there is no hearing Common experience tels us that when the minde is otherwise taken up we doe no more hear what a man says than if we had been deaf or he silent Hence is that first request of Abigail to David Let thine handmaid speak to thine eares and hear the words of thine handmaid and Job so importunately urgeth his friends Hear diligently my speech and my declaration with your ears The outward ear may be open and the inward shut if way be not made through both we are deaf to spirituall things Mine ear hast thou boared or digged saith the Psalmist the vulgar reads it my eares hast thou perfitted Surely our ears are grown up with flesh there is no passage for a perfit hearing of the voice of God till hee have made it by a spirituall perforation And now that the ear is made capable of good counsel it doth as gladly receive it taking in every good lesson and longing for the next Like unto the dry and chopped earth which soaks in every silver drop that fals from the clouds and thirsteth for more not suffering any of that precious liquor to fall beside it SECT XXV NEither doth the devout man care to satisfie his curiosity as hearing only that hee might hear but reducts all things to a saving use bringing all hee hears home to his heart by a self-reflecting application like a practiser of the art of memory referring every thing to its proper place If it be matter of comfort There is for my sick-bed There is for my outward losses There for my drooping under afflictions There for the sense of my spiritual desertions If matter of doctrine There is for my settlement in such a truth There for the conviction of such an error There for my direction in such a practice If matter of reproof he doth not point at his neighbour but deeply chargeth himself This meets with my dead-heartedness and security This with my worldly-mindednesse This with my self-love and flattery of mine owne estate This with my uncharitable censoriousnesse This with my foolish pride of heart This with my hypocrisie This with my neglect of Gods services and my duty Thus in all the variety of the holy passages of the Sermon the devout minde is taken up with digesting what it hears and working it self to a secret improvement of all the good counsell that is delivered neither is ever more busie than when it sits still at the feet of Christ I cannot therefore approve the practice which yet I see commonly received of those who think it no small argument of their Devotion to spend their time of hearing in writing large notes from the mouth of the Preacher which however it may be an help for memory in the future yet cannot as I conceive but be some prejudice to our present edification neither can the braine get so much hereby as the heart loseth If it be said that by this means an opportunity is given for a full rumination of wholsome Doctrines afterwards I yeeld it but withall I must say that our after-thoughts can never doe the work so effectually as when the lively voice sounds in our ears and beats upon our heart but herein I submit my opinion to better judgements SECT XXVI THe food that is received into the soul by the ear is afterwards chewed in the mouth thereof by memory concocted in the stomack by meditation and dispersed into the parts by conference and practise True Devotion findes the greatest part of the work behinde It was a just answer that Iohn Gerson reports given by a Frenchman who being askt by one of his neighbours if the Sermon were done no saith he it is said but it is not done neither will be I fear in hast What are we the better if we hear and remember not If we be such auditors as the Jews were wont to call sieves that retaine no moisture that is poured into them What the better if we remember but think not seriously of what we hear or if we practice not carefully what we think of Not that which we hear is our own but that which we carry away although all memories are not alike one receives more easily another retains longer It is not for every one to hope to attain to that ability that he can goe away with the whole fabrick of a Sermon and readily recount it unto others neither doth God require that of any man which he hath not given him Our desires and endeavours may not be wanting where our powers faile It will bee enough for weak memories if they can so lay up those wholsome counsells which they receive as that they may fetch them