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Word A Word B Word C Word D Occurrence Frequency Band MI MI Band Prominent
heart_n abundance_n speak_v tongue_n 2,464 5 7.4469 4 false
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ID Title Author Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) STC Words Pages
A39678 The reasonableness of personal reformation, and the necessity of conversion; the true methods of making all men happy in this world, and in the world to come Seasonably discoursed, and earnestly pressed upon this licentious age. By J.F. a sincere lover of his native countrey, and the souls of men. Flavel, John, 1630?-1691. 1691 (1691) Wing F1180B; Wing F1466_CANCELLED; ESTC R214634 80,393 172

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crying ou● Stop Stop when we see thee departing from the Paths 〈◊〉 Honesty Honour and Safety and taking the direct Roa● to that Gulph of Misery in which few if any foot-step are found of such as return again that are far engage● therein Suffer us but fairly and friendly to expostulate th● matter with thee What design can we have against th● true Interest whilst thine and ours cannot possibly 〈◊〉 opposite or disjunct but one and the same Interest Well then that which thy Reason and Conscience offers being so weighty fair and just and what thine own Interest plainly lies in I will not be so uncharitable as to suppose thou wilt either refuse to hear or reject what they have to say in the following Cases and Debates CHAP. III. Wherein the true Censure and Judgment of right Reason and Conscience are given upon profane Swearing and Blaspheming the Name of God As also their Replies to several Pleas offered in Defence or Excuse thereof SECT I. GOD bestowed on Man the Noble Faculty of Speech a peculiar Favour and Priviledg for two Ends and Uses 1. That by the use of his Tongue he may glorify his Maker and sound forth the Praises of his Redeemer 2. That we might thereby be able to communicate our minds one to another in all our necessary and convenient Interests and Concernments whether Civil or Religious This Member the Tongue tho small in quantity is found to be mighty in efficacy and whilst it is kept under the Rule and Government of Grace the words that drop from it are as Apples of Gold in Pictures of Silver Gracious words are Bread to feed and Water to refresh the Souls of others A sanctified Tongue is as a Tree of Life Conversion Edification and Consolation are the delicious Fruits of the Lips But the Tongues of some Men break loose from under all the Laws and Rules both of Reason and Religion and serve only to vent the froth and filth which abounds in the heart as in a Fountain of Pollution For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh The Tongue moves lightly but falls heavily it strikes soft but wounds deep It would not spare Men of the highest Rank and Eminence did not the fear of capital Punishments teach them so much Wit to keep their Tongues in Prison that they may keep their Bodies out of Prison And tho for this reason they are afraid of making too bold with the Names of Men yet having no fear of God at all they fall upon his great and dreadful Name tossing it to and f●o without any Respect or Reverence Augustus prohibited the common use of his Name left it should grow too cheap and vile by the common and needless using of it The Name of Mercurius Trismegistus was very sparingly used because of the great Reverence the People had for him The very Heathens were afraid to pronounce the Name of their great god Demogorgon as fearing the Earth would tremble when his Name was mentioned How doth the Reverence of Heathens to their false gods expose and aggravate the impudence of professed Christians in their vile Indignities and Abuses of the Great and Terrible Name of the True God! Yea they not only take up his Name vainly and rashly into their Lips but audaciously insert it by a profane Oath into their common Talk as that which gives the Grace Lepor and Ornament to their Discourses Some have not been ashamed to say What pity is it that Swearing should be a Sin which gives so great a Grace and Ornament to Language SECT II. Swearing by the Name of God in a righteous Cause when called thereto by due Authority is not only a lawful but a religious Act founded upon and directed to the Honour of God's Omniscience whereunto there is a solemn Appeal made in every assertory and promissory Oath and a religious Acknowledgment made him of his infallible Knowledg of the Truth or Falshood of our Hearts and all the Secrets of them be they never so involved and inward things The lawful use and end of Swearing is to put an end to all Strife and to maintain both Equity and Charity among Men the two Bonds and Ligaments of Humane Society Now it being the Soveraign Right and Property of God alone infallibly to search and try the hearts and reins of Men he thereby becomes the in●allible Witness to the Truth or Falshood of what they speak so that in every such lawful Oath there is not only a solemn Appeal and in that Appeal an Ascription of Glory to his Sovereign Omniscience but therein implicitely at least they put themselves under his Wrath and Curse in case they Swear falsly which makes this Action most sacred and solemn The deep Corruption of Humane Nature by the fall makes these Appeals to God under a Curse necessary For it is supposed tho Men be false and deceitful yet there is some Reverence of a Deity and fear of his Wrath and Curse left unextinguished in their fallen Nature So that Men will rather speak the truth tho to their own shame and loss than by invocating so glorious a Name in vain put both Soul and Body under his Wrath and Curse By which it appears what an awful and solemn thing an Oath is and that every good Man not only takes a lawful Oath with holy fear and trembling because of the Solemnity of the Action but rather ought to chuse Death than to Swear prophanely because of the horrid Malignity of the Action SECT III. The contumely and malignity found in profane Oaths appears in that terrible threatning The Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his Name in vain a threatning altogether as Just and Righteous as it is Severe and Terrible This Sin admits of degrees of Guilt 'T is highly sinful to Swear by the Name of God lightly and vainly in our common Discourses tho the Oath be clip'd and half suppress'd or disguised in the Pronunciation of it which argues some remains of fear and shame in the Sinner 'T is yet worse and indeed not a jot below Blasphemy to swear by any other Name than the Name of God For in so doing they attribute to a Creature the Sovereign and Incommunicable property of God set that Creature in the very Throne of God and Invest it with the Regalities of his Omniscience to know our Hearts and Almighty Power to avenge the wrong upon us done to himself as well as to Men by false swearing But to break in rudely and blasphemously upon the Sacred and Tremendous Name of God with bold and full-mouth'd Oaths striking through his Sacred Name with direct contumelious Blasphemies this argues an heart from which all fear of God is utterly expelled and banished Yet some there are grown up to that prodigious heighth of Impiety that they dare assault the very Heavens and discharge whole Vollies of Blasphemies against that Glorious Majesty which dwells there They are not afraid to bid defiance to