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	good_a	life_n	2,683	5	4.5961	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A67821	The great advertisement, that a religious life is the best way to present happiness in two sermons preach'd at White-hall, the 1st on Sunday, April the 15th, the 2d on Sunday, Apr. 22, 1694 / by E. Young ...	Young, Edward, 1641 or 2-1705.	1694 (1694)	Wing Y60; ESTC R19843	23,419	64

M r YOUNG's TWO SERMONS AT WHITE-HALL THE Great Advertisement That a Religious Life is the best way to present Happiness IN TWO SERMONS Preach'd at WHITE-HALL The 1 st on Sunday April the 15 th The 2 d on Sunday Apr. 22. 1694. By E. YOUNG Fellow of Winchester-College and Chaplain in Ordinary to Their Majesties Publish'd by Her Majesties Especial Command LONDON Printed by Tho. Warren for Walter Kettilby at the Bishop's Head in St. Paul's Church-Yard MDCXCIV SERMON I. Psalm xxxvii 4. Delight thou in the Lord and he shall give thee thy heart's desire THere are Two Opinions which the Devil has been always busy to propagate in the World as the Two main Pillars of his Kingdom The First is That a Sinful Life is a State of True Liberty and sincere Pleasures and happy Advantages The Second is on the contrary That a Religious Life is a Servile and Uncomfortable State He made the first Breach upon humane Innocence by the former of these Suggestions when he told Eve That by Eating of the Tree of Knowledge she should be as God that is she should reap some high and strange felicity from doing that which was forbidden her to do But we know the Success Eve learnt the difference between Good and Evil by her Transgression which she knew not before but she learnt the Difference to be this That Good is that that gives the Mind pleasure and assurance and Evil is that that must necessarily be attended sooner or later with shame and sorrow As he thus began his Kingdom so he has carried it on ever since by the same Imposture that is by possessing mens minds with vast expectations of the present Incomes of Sin and making them dream of golden Mountains mighty gratifications and advantages they shall meet with in following their Appetites the forbidden way Whereas on the contrary there are Seasons wherein all Sinners are ready to confess that their Counsellour has been a Deceiver that their Foolish Hearts have been darkned that their Hopes have been Vain their Gains no Profit and all their Enjoyments leading to Bitterness So little trust is to be given to all the promising Overtures of Sin To promote the second Opinion That a Religious Life is a Servile and Uncomfortable State the Devil suggests to our thoughts That true Freedom is to follow our own Humour That to deny our Appetites is to be Miserable That not to prosecute our Passions is to be Cowards That to ty our selves up to Truth and Iustice is to have no Liberty That to live by moderate and prescribed Rules is to have no Ioy and therefore that when the Religious Man looks for Ioy he can only see it at the tedious distance of a Future Life Which were it true our Nature that is so importunately goaded on with the desire of present Happiness could not but languish under the discouragement of so Remote an Expectation But in the mean time the Holy Scriptures give us a quite different prospect of this matter there we are told that the service of God is true Liberty that the Yoak of Christ is easy in comparison of that which any other Form of Living will bring upon us that Religion has Pleasantness in its ways as well as Glory in its End that it will bring us in Peace and Ioy such as the World cannot give and therefore that the Religious Man's Ioy does not stand at so tedious a distance but is so present and at hand that it may be felt and tasted every moment And a Summary Confirmation of all this we meet with in the words of the Text Where we have Religion described both in its State and in its Fruit and recommended to us in both from that which we so much long for Delight thou in the Lord this is the State of Religion and he shall give thee thy Heart's Desire This is the Fruit of Religion even it s Present Fruit Now where there is Delight for the Principle and Attainment of Desires for the Income we have little reason to suspect that such a State can either be Servile or Uncomfortable The Words therefore lead me to assert the great Advantages of a Religious Life and to recommend it from the influence it has upon our present well-being And this is the Point I shall pursue and pass to the Evidence of it by the steps of these Three Propositions viz. I. That to Delight in God is our most reasonable Duty II. That to Delight in God is the True State of Religion And III. That to Delight in God is the happiest Method of compassing all our Ends as is imply'd in this Promise or Assertion He shall give thee thy heart's Desire I. That to delight in God is our most Reasonable Duty We may observe that none of the Voluntary Actions of Men whether Good or Evil can have any Life or long continuance unless they are supported by some Kind of Delight Even sinful actions will cease when we come to have no pleasure in them And hence it comes to pass that many Men have forsaken particular Sins without ever Repenting of them forsaking them only from the Principle of a Carnal disgust And if Sinful Actions will cease without the support of Delight much more-will Religious to which we have so much less both of Power and Propension Forasmuch therefore as there are many Offices of Religion which cannot be in themselves the proper matter of Delight we must either delight in Him for whose sake we do them that is in God or else we must necessarily sink from their performance Now to Delight in God is to possess our Minds with such a proper sense of his Goodness as may be able to produce an habitual comfort and pleasure in the Contemplation of Him And this is a matter so practicable that the only reason why it is not done is because we do not set about it For let us but consider what it is that makes us take delight in any thing It is only this First to conceive a thing as Good and secondly to conceive that Good thing as Ours and then it is impossible but that such a thing should delight us Now all allow that we have no Notion worthy of God unless we conceive him to be the chiefest Good nor have we any notion worthy of his Truth unless we likewise conceive him to be Ours For by the Christian Covenant he has engaged himself to be Our God that is the Author of all Good unto us And therefore God infinitely Good as he is is more certainly Ours than any thing that the World can most hopefully promise us For in respect of any such thing many accidents may interpose to prevent our possession of it Nay God is more Safely Ours than any thing of the World that we possess for that Possession is defeisible it may it must determine in a little while But God is Ours Certainly Safely Everlastingly unless we consent to part with our Title unless we

this was an Affront to the Divine Majesty which he was commanded to cry loudly against And we may lay down this for a Rule That of all Hypocrites they are the greatest who pretend that they delight in God and of all Enthusiasts they are the highest who believe that they delight in God while they dare delight in any thing that does offend him If therefore we will delight in God it is necessary to draw off at least so far from the World as to make our Delight in him preside over and moderate all the rest of our Enjoyments The third Hinderance of the Duty is Superstition which is the Vice of those that dare not delight in God The word Superstition is sometimes taken in a greater latitude but I take it here in its strict and original sense to signifie a Worship of Fear a Worship of Fear proceeding from a sowre and terrifying Opinion of the Nature of God Now this unworthy Opinion which is the Parent of Superstition does sometimes grow from Principles of Doctrine received and sometimes from bare Complexion As for example Supposing it to be believ'd That God has determin'd a great part of Mankind to Eternal Misery meerly to shew the Absoluteness of his Dominion How does such a Doctrine as this detract from the Amiable Goodness of God and necessarily tend to make all Mankind superstitious fearful and heartless unless it be such as pretend to be secure of their own Exemption from that Decree And yet none can be secure of this without a particular Revelation But my chief Aim is to speak of that Superstition that grows from Complexion And this Complexion is sometimes natural by reason of the Melancholy of Temper and sometimes occasional by reason of the Infirmity of Conscience Now in both these Cases it is usual for the Minds of Men to suggest That to delight in God is too bold a Familiarity That as we are Creatures of a sinful Nature and much more as we are actual Sinners the Majesty of God requires a more awful distance of our Affections than to be delighted in by us But all this is no more than weakness of Thought For first Although we cannot be too sensible of the vast Distance that is between the Vileness of our Nature and the Majesty of God's Yet we must remember that his Condescension has been pleased to void all this distance so that though He dwells in the highest Heavens yet He declares himself to dwell too with the humble spirit and therefore if we can but keep our Spirits humble which is very well consistent with Delight there is no fear of our being too Familiar But secondly To reflect on our selves as Actual Sinners And here indeed the Case requires a Distinction For supposing a Sinner to retain the purposes of Sin such a one has neither Reason nor Ground to delight in God and his Pretences to do so are a direct Affront But supposing a Sinner to turn from his Sin in Sincerity such a one has of all others the most Reason to delight in God and to love much because much shall be forgiven him as our Saviour argues in the Case of Mary Magdalen And if we consider the Passages of the returning Prodigal in the Parable and what Delight his Father express'd to receive him we must conclude the Son to have been Unthankful if he did not delight in his Father more after his Return than if he had never gone astray For by the way we must not have so mean a Notion of delighting in God as to think it is exclusive of Godly Sorrow The Heathen could say of true Ioy That it is not a Giggling thing It is a Severe thing Ioy we know has its Tears ev'n in Nature but it has more in Grace and nothing better expresses our Delight in God and nothing better advances it than Sorrow for Sin So that supposing a Man's Mind to be but religiously bent there is no other Circumstance can exclude him exclude him did I say nay can excuse him from delighting in God For we must consider That to delight in God is not only our Privilege but our Duty it being the proper Acknowledgment that is due to the Divine Goodness and therefore whatsoever may be pretended to hinder it can be no other than sinful and weak because it does not only deprive us of our Comfort but it likewise robs God of His Due And now I come to II. The great Motive and Encouragement of this Duty He shall give thee thy Heart's desire It was a very large Promise the Devil once made when pointing at all the Kingdoms of the World and the Glories thereof he cry'd All this will I give thee and yet had he had power to make his words good the Overture had been short of this in the Text For we see that they who have the greatest share in the Kingdoms of the World and the Glories of them have still an Emptiness of Heart and complain of as many Wants and Troubles and Disappointments as are to be met with in meaner Fortunes and therefore it is evident That to have our Heart's Desire is a greater Boon than all the Pomp and Affluence of the World is able to contribute Now were so large and obliging a Promise as this is not to be fulfilled till the future Life it were well worth the waiting for but yet God has provided more indulgently for those that love him Godliness has the Promises of this Life as well as of that which is to come and this in the Text has peculiar Respect to this Life and therefore I shall only treat of it in reference to its Accomplishment here and shew how and in what manner the Goodness of God will infallibly make it good to every one that delights in Him When a Man shall hear of such an Overture as this Thou shalt have thy Heart's desire It is natural for him immediately to consult his Heart and see what Desires he has there thronging forth at the Hopes of their Accomplishment And there perhaps he may find the Desire of Ahab to enlarge his Possessions or the Desire of Amnon to compass his Lust or the Desire of Haman to gratifie his Pride and Revenge I mention these Instances particularly because they may afford us some farther matter of Instruction For we may observe of these Three Men that though one of them was a King and the other was a King's Son and the third a King 's chief Minion or Favourite yet each of them accounted himself an unhappy Man till such time as he could compass his particular Desire They could neither eat nor drink nor sleep without it notwithstanding all the Greatness of their other Circumstances And from their Example I would have you take notice of one mischie●vous Errour that all Mankind is prone to i. e. We are all apt to think that our present Desires are necessary to make us happy and that we cannot be happy without them

nor the designs of God upon him for his Good God only knows what is best for us and what the State of our Passions can bear at all times to the best Advantage And his absolute Promise extending thus far That he will give like a Father to each of his dutiful Children 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as much as he needeth or as much as is useful and fit the good Christian takes it for a Demonstration That what God gives him not is not fit for him Upon this state of Mind it follows That whoever delights in God he has effectually his Heart's Desire For in the supreme Desire of his Heart he cannot miscarry God will be undoubtedly his he already tastes his Goodness and rejoices in it And in his inferiour Desires of Worldly Comforts he is secure from disappointment because he makes God's Will the measure of his own So that if he chance to want the desireable things of Life he cries to himself These things indeed are Good but God is Better and upon this Rule he establishes his Content And on the other side when he enjoys the desireable things of Life he cries to himself These things indeed are Good but blessed be God that he hath better things than these in store and with this Rule he both moderates his Appetite and doubles his Enjoyment Now how can any one desire more than this To be at the same time Content and Ioyful and Safe I am sure this is more than any one can obtain from the World though he had the World more at his Will than ever yet any Man had And yet he that delights in God shall never fail of this To be both Content and Ioyful and Safe And I think I need not alledge any more to prove That Delight in God brings along with it the fullest Accomplishment of Humane Desires And thou O Almighty God who alone canst order the unruly Wills and Affections of sinful Men Grant unto thy People That they may love the thing which thou commandest and desire that which thou dost promise That so among the sundry Changes of the World our Hearts may surely there be fixed where true Ioys are to be found through Iesus Christ our Lord. FINIS Books Printed for Walter Kettilby at the Bishop's-Head in St. Paul's Church-Yard THE Archbishop of York's Thanksgiving Sermon before the King and Queen at Whitehall Nov. 12. 1693. The Archbishop of York's Sermon About the Government of the Thoughts before the King and Queen at Whitehall March 4. 1693 4. The Dean of Canterbury's Sermon before the King and Queen at White-hall Ian. 14. 1693 4. The Dean of Hereford's Sermon before the Queen March 23. 1693 4. Mr. Young's Sermon before the Lord Mayor Feb. 4. 1682. on St. Matth. V. 3. 's Sermon exhorting to Union in Religion preach'd at Bow-Church May 20. 1688. on St. Iohn XVI 31 32. 's Sermon before the Queen on Easter-day 1693. on 1 Thess. IV. 18. 's Sermon at Salisbury Iuly 30. 1693. Concerning the Wisdom of Fearing God Published at the Request of the Lawyers The true Conduct of Persons of Quality Translated out of French A Treatise relating to the Worship of God divided into Six Sections By Iohn Templer D. D. A Discourse concerning the Nature of Man both in his Natural and Political Capacity With an Examination of some of Mr. Hobb's Opinions relating thereunto By Iames Lowde Rector of Setrington in Yorkshire T. Burnetii Archaeologia Philosophica sive Doctrina Antiqua de Rerum Originibus 4 to The Faith and Practice of a Church of England Man The Fourth Edition 12.