Selected quad for the lemma: heart_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
heart_n	action_n	evil_a	sin_n	2,104	5	4.9172	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A29531	Tears for Jerusalem, or, The compassionate lamentation of a tender hearted saviour over a rebellious and obdurate people a subject entered upon on the late day of solemn humiliation, December 6, 1655, afterwards prosecuted, and now published as useful at all times, but very seasonable for the present / by John Brinsley.	Brinsley, John, 1600-1665.	1656 (1656)	Wing B4731A; ESTC R210555	79,536	150

remarkable in this Nation at this day I think never more in any And what may we conceive these to portend Surely sad Omens they are giving us too just cause to fear lest God should be about to depart to take away his Kingdom his Gospel from us which meeteeh not only with such sleightings but such affronts and oppositions as it doth 5 Judgments not profited by 5. To which let me yet subjoyn that which bodes as ill as any of the former our not profiting by Judgments but rather being made worse by them This is that which the Lord complaines of against Israel Isai 1.5 why should ye be stricken any more ye will revolt more and more Gods judgments had a contrary effect upon them to what they were intended He corrected them for their amendment thereby to bring them home to himself but they took occasion thereby to go further away from him so as his Corrections were in vain to them as elswhere he complains Jer. 2.30 In vaine have I smitten your children they received no correction viz. so as to be bettered by it but rather waxed worse worse And would to God that this did not lie as too just a charge against this sad Land and Nation wherein we live That God hath stricken us I suppose there are few but are in some kinde or other sensible But what effect have these Rods these Judgments had upon us Are we better by them Are we thereby reclaimed reformed brought home to God Are we made the more humble the more careful the more watchful the more fruitful O that these effects were to be found amongst us But is it not clean contrary Are we not grown more proud a sin I think never so visible in this Nation as at this day more remiss more loose more barren and unfruitful then ever And if so what just cause have we to fear lest the Lord in his most righteous judgment do unto us as there he threatens unto Israel give us over striving no longer with us but leaving us to our selves letting us alone as elswhere he threatens unto Ephraim Hos 4.17 to go on in our sinful provocations until there be no remedy These are some of those grounds upon which we may build our too just fears To which I might yet have added some other But I forbear any further charge Coming rather to enquire Q. What shall we now do for the Land of our Nativity What to be done for this Nation A. 1. Do what our Saviour here doth for Jerusalem Mourn over it weep over it 1 Mourn over it with compassionate and affectionate tears laying to heart the sad state and condition thereof This doth he knowing how it was with that City that the things belonging to her peace were now hid from her And this do we over England fearing lest it should be so with it 2. But tears alone will not help When Joshuah was fallen upon his face 2 Take away the Action by feeling a National Reformation mourning for the discomfiture which had happened unto Israel Josh 7.10 the Lord takes him up with these words Get thee up wherefore lyest thou upon thy face Intimating unto him that it was not his humbling and afflicting himself without somewhat else that would heal that breach which Israels sinne their violating and transgressing the Covenant of their God had made upon them as it followeth in the next verse There must be some other course taken for the reconciling of them unto God and making their peace with him And what was that Why the people must be sanctified and the Accursed thing must be taken from among them as the 13. verse hath it And O that England might take the like course It is not all our falling upon our faces before the Lord all our daies of publick Humiliation though that be a sacrifice acceptable unto God that will serve to appease his wrath and to procure his favour that alone will not do it unlesse also the people be sanctified and the Accursed thing removed from among us This then let every of us in our several places indeavour Beginning first with our selves Every one searching and trying our own waies that we may find out the Action in our own hearts and lives our own personal sinns Which having found out now take them away putting away the evill of our doings from before the eyes of our God by serious and unfeined repentance and reformation renewing our Covenant with our God cleaving unto him with full purpose of heart Then indeavour we the like for others every of us in our places as I said Magistrates in their places Ministers in theirs Masters of families in theirs private Christians in theirs contributing what we may to wards a reall and Rational Reformation that so the Accursed thing even all kind of wrath provoking abominations may be taken away from the midst of us and that we may be a people sanctified dedicated and consecrated unto the Lord. So doing now knew we for our Comfort God not willing to cast off a people in Covenant that we have to deal with a God gracious and mercifull slow to anger and of great kindnesse ready to repent of what ever evill he intendeth against a people Especially his own people not willing to reject and cast off a people that are in Covenant with him So much he expressed to this people the people of the Jewes before the Captivity by making so many removes before his final departure from them so the Prophet Ezekiel saw it in his Visions in which the glory of the Lord removed not lesse then five several times before it took its leave First from the Cherub to the threshold of the house the Temple Ezek. 9.3 2. It removed higher standing over the door cap. 10.4 3. From the threshold it returned and stood over the Cherubins which were mounted up from the Earth as ready to take their flight v. 18 19. 4. From thence to the midst of the City and 5ly From thence to the Mountain on the East side of the City the Mount of Olives Cap. 11. v. 23. Now what did these frequent removes import Surely a great unwillingnesse in God to depart from that people And so it is so long as there is any remedy God is not willing to forsake a people whom once he hath taken into Covenant with himself So much we may hear him passionately declaring concerning Israel Hos 11.7 8. My people saith he are bent to backsliding from me So was Israel yet mark what followes How shall I give thee up O Ephraim how shall I deliver thee O Israel How shall I make thee as Admah how shall I set thee as Zeboim Myne heart is turned within me my repentings are kindled together So loath is God as it were to cast off a people whom once he hath struck a Covenant with if there be any hope of teturning unto him and demeaning themselves as becommeth his people And

injoyed the meanes of grace and salvation in a plentiful manner So as in this respect they may be called Children of the light and Children of the day And yet for all that they walk in darkness the things which belong unto their eternall peace are hid from their eyes They do not see because they will not see They have no desire to be acquainted with the myste●ie of salvation and so continue strangers to it A most deplorable state and condition So let it be looked upon by others by those whose eyes God hath opened to see what they do not A thing to be lamented by others Whil st they see these things hid from them which God hath revealed to themselves let them blessing God for this his free grace which hath caused them thus to differ in imitation of their blessed Saviours pittie and compassionate this their wilful obstinacie and blindnesse This we may find the Lord somtimes sadly bemoaning in this his people the people of the Jewes Jer. 4.22 my people is foollish they have not known me they are sortish children and they have no understanding And the like wee may hear the Prophet doing in the Chapter following Jer. 5. where complaining of the incorrigiblenesse of that people the generality of them under the Judgment of God how notwithstanding God hath strucken them yet they were not sensible they had made their face harder then a Rock as he speaks ver 3. he then bemoaneth and pittieth this their condition in the next verse Therefore I sayd surely these are poor they are foolish c. of all follie none like this when men do as it were sanis insanire they are wittingly mad or fool●sh They will not see what belongeth to their peace O pitie we them that are in this condition And O that they might be perswaded to pitie themselves Much more by themselves to mourn over this their desperate obstinacie This they shall do sooner or later it may be when it is too late So they may hear some of their Companions doing as viz. that impure Adu●terer whom the Wiseman speaks of Prov. 5. Who having given his honour unto others and his years to the cruel as the 9 ver hath it having spent both his reputation and estate and strength upon Harlots who seeking nothing but themselvs care not how they make a prey of others oft-times with their honesty putting off also all kind of humanitie then he cometh to mourn at the last when his flesh and bodie are consumed as it followeth ver 11. finding nature decaied and spent and his bodie it may be seized upon by some foul and loathsome disease some of which it may seem were wont to attend this sin in those times as well as in these feeling his hones full of the sin of his youth as Zophar speaks Job 20.11 now he cometh rugire in novissimis as the Original hath it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rugiit proprie Leonum Bux torf At his last seeing how he hath by his lewd and dissolute courses brought himself to an untimely and infamous end now he roareth roareth as a Lion as the word there properly signifieth Seeing himself ready to go to hell now his soul is filled with more horror then ever his bodie was with pleasure And mark what followeth ver 12. And say How have I hated Instruction and my heart despised reproof And have not obeied the voice of my teachers nor inclined mine ears to them that instructed me Lo here the true original of all his miserie which though before he would not yet now when it is too late he is brought to acknowledge even his not hearkning to Instruction O take heed that it may never be so with any of you that you be not at your latter ends brought to mourn upon any such account Instruction and reproof not to be slighted Which that you may not do not any longer what he did hate instruction despise reproof Do not stop your ears against the truth of God held forth unto you in the Ministerie of his Word discovering unto you the sinfulnesse of those waies and courses wherein you have walked and shewing you how you ought to walk so as you may please God do not shut the counsel which the word giveth you out of your hearts Do not any longer say unto God Depart from us This do all obstinate sinners who living under the means of grace do yet go on in their sins So Job describeth some of them Job 21.13 14. They spend their daies in wealth living in jo●litie and mirth pleasure happily injoying an interrupted course of prosperiti● not being acquainted with those crosses and afflictions which befall others Therefore they say unto God depart from us for we desire not the knowledge of thy Law This do too many even among our selves though with their tongues they dare not yet with their hearts and in their lives they speak as much plainly m●nifesting to the world by their words and actions what the thoughts of their hearts are viz. That they do not d●sire to have any acquaintance with God or his Word to know his minde and will that they may do it And thus are the things which belong unto their everlasting peace hid from their eies O most sad and deplorable condition The desperate contion of obstinate sinners what hope can there be of such an one Upon this account our Saviour here looketh upon Jerusalems estate as most forlorn and desperate She neither had nor would see what belonged to her peace So as through her wilful ignorance this was hid from her eies And therefore let her now make account of what followeth The daies shall come upon thee when thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee c. And even such is the condition of all wilful and obstinate sinners who shut out the light of Gods truth out of their hearts will not give way to the admonitions directions convictions of the Word and Spirit so as to be wrought upon by them to be changed and reformed in their hearts and lives let them make account that the like daies shall come upon them daies of blacknesse and darknesse daies of judgment and vengeance it may be temporal which they have just cause to fear continually hanging over their heads however eternal And O that now the terrour of the Lord might fall and take hold upon every one of you An alarum to such whose condition this is that being awakened you may be also perswaded to open your eies to set open the doors and windows of your souls to let in the Sun of righteousnesse to let in that heavenly light which shineth forth unto you that so the things which belong unto your peace your eternal peace and happinesse they may be no longer hid from your eies which if they still be through your obstinacie and wilfulnesse for other cause you can assign none then take heed lest that God whose

13.1.17.3 Thirdly Dreadful apostacy Dreadful apostacy and backsliding among many who being like stars fallen from heaven fallen from their Principles into dangerous destructive desperate damnable errours and heresies have not onely forsaken but also persecute that truth and that way which themselves before made profession of and walked in Fourthly And in the last place The hindrances of settlement and reformation The hindrance of settlement and reformation in the Church This the people of God in this Nation have desired looked longed for earnestly wrestling with God and man for the obtaining of it And they conceived to have had some return of their prayers in a hopeful beginning of it But now how are all those hopes dashed Reformation being turned to Deformation the wals of Jerusalem being broken down and no Nehemiah as yet undertaking the rebuilding of them And are not these just grounds of mourning A sufficient cause why they who wish well to Jerusalem to the Church of God in this Nation should with their Saviour here weep over it Such is the present state thereof Thirdly What like to be Beyond which if it be lawful for us to look what can we see or expect unlesse God in mercy step into us by vvay of a gracious prevention but even Jerusalems fate utter ruine and destruction were there no other but the first of these those many and sad Divisions which are on foot daily increasing among us what do they presage If we know it not let our Saviour tell it us Mark 3.24 If a Kingdom be divided against it self that Kingdome cannot stand And the naturalist will tell us no lesse Cor divisum mors est If the heart be divided the body cannot live Now then having thus approached to and looked upon this Nation what remains but that our eyes should move our hearts to pity and compassionate it to mourn over it Little else it is that private persons can do And this let them do Preces Lachrymae Prayers and tears are the Churches weapons which every one both may and ought to make use of And this let us as at other times so this day do All of us powring forth our souls before the Lord in an humble confession of our own sins and the sins of the Nation which have justly deserved what ever we either feel or fear begging it from him that he would graciously return unto us undertaking the Cure of this Sin-sick nation healing our breaches sanctifying and removing the judgements which lie upon us diverting those which further threaten us yet shewing us his salvation in carrying on that great and blessed work of Reformation in despite of all opposition from those accursed Balaamits whether Romes emissaries or others who seek and endeavour to frustrate it setting up the kingdome of his dear Son among us in a right way so making us yet a people to praise his name Thus have I done with the two first of these particulars The third is yet behind which my eye is principally upon which we have in the verse following VERSE XLII Saying If thou hadst known even thou at least in this thy day the things which belong unto thy peace A Most Affectionate and Pathetical Exclamation Part 3. The cause of Christs weeping Pathetica est ratio ideoque abrupta Calvin ad loc Passionate expressions often abrupt and therefore abrupt and defective Such oftimes are the speeches of men in Passion Specially in the passion of grief and sorrow wherein oftimes Vox faucibus haeret the tongue cleaveth to the roof of the mouth not able to expresse and utter what is in the breast Sorrow is a compression of the heart whereas joy doth dilate and open it grief doth compresse congeal and straighten it so as that which is within cannot readily get forth Hence is it that the expressions hereof are abrupt and broken And such is our Saviours here in the text His heart being full of grief and sorrow for the sin and misery of this people he expresseth himself in such an abrupt and broken way If thou hadst c. so leaving it with an Aposiopesis a Reticentia keeping in what should have made the sentence entire and full This defect is variously supplied The defect here how supplied by Expositors By some thus If thou hadst known c. Known so well as I thou wouldst have wept as well as I. By others thus If thou hadst known c. thou would not have done as thou hast done thou wouldst not have gone on to die and perish in thy sins By others thus If thou hadst known c. thou wouldst have hearkened to my counsel thou wouldst have been more studious of thy peace By Beza and Piscator with whom I choose to go along thus If thou hadst known c. Quam foelix esses beata How happie and blessed then mightst thou have been But this he leaveth out beaking off bruptly which he doth to intimate the greatnesse of his affection to shevv hovv earnestly he both vvished their good and bevvailed their misery If thou or O if thou as the former Translation hath it hadst known 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Obser Christs affection to an unworthy people the Iews Behold here then the affection of a tender hearted Saviour towards an obstinate and unworthy people The people of the Jews a rebellious people A people that had deserved as ill at the hands of Jesus Christ as ever people did or could have done They had abused his messengers his Ministers They had killed his Prophets and stoned those whom he sent unto them as he chargeth it upon them Matth. 22.37 And they intended to do no lesse to himself They had already rejected him and all the offers of grace and mercy which he had made unto them So unvvorthy of all grace favour vvere they Yet see hovv he pitieth and compassionateth them hovv earnestly he wisheth their welfare hovv passionately he bevvails their misery Oh if thou c. Like affection shall vve find the Lord elsewhere expressing to this people breaking forth sometimes into such affectionate exclamations professing his earnest desire of their happinesse and welfare So he doth Deut. 5.29 O that there were such an heart in them that they would fear me and keep my Commandements alwaies that it might go well with them and with their children for ever And again Deut. 32.29 O that they were wise that they understood this that they would consider their latter end How should one chase a thousand c. elsewhere we find him bewailing their obstinacy and misery as Psal 81.13 O that my people had hearkened unto me and Israel had walked in my statutes I should soon have subdued their enemies c. And the like Isai 48.18 O that thou hadst hearkened to my Commandments then had thy peace been as the river c. Thus doth the Lord as it were bewail the obstinacy and lament the misery of that people wishing