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	thought_n	word_n	3,480	5	3.9407	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A54037	The great and sole troubler of the times represented in a mapp of miserie, or, A glimpse of the heart of man which is the fountain from whence all misery flows, and the source into which it runs back. Drawn with a dark pencill, by a dark hand, in the midst of darkness.	Penington, Isaac, 1616-1679.	1649 (1649)	Wing P1170; ESTC R33048	16,712	32

lifts her self up as a Queen also What Christ saith is to little purpose what Self saith is become now the Law to Christians If she sow the seeds of enmity and division among them it must grow and the seed of Love which Christ sows must be nipped Though Christ say This is my Commandment that ye love one another as I have loved you Yet if Self say This is my Commandment that ye hare one another that ye stir up hatred against one another that though other men would agree and be at peace yet ye lay about you and keep up War and bloodshed for your own ends and interests while Self is Mistress it must be so her Law must stand But I find my spirit growing weary of this subject there is another part that I would fain be vievving of and digging into and I am apt to groan out oh that this were shut and that opened or rather that this were burnt and consumed and that fourbished and brightened I shall therefore only propose some few Considerations by way of Consequence from the Premises and so conclude The heart is desperately wicked Then 1. See what all is and must needs be that flows from the man from such a bitter fountain what can proceed but it must be bitter If the root be so bad all the branches and fruit must needs be nought All the thoughts words and actions of man what are they surely as they come from his heart so they cannot but be like his heart polluted unclean filthy noisom offensive to every pure eye to every pure taste to every pure nostril He that hath a pure eye a pure pallate a pure nostril cannot endure the sight the relish the scent of any thing of man And this is the Judgment that God who knows what they are passes concerning them concerning all that flows from man all his thoughts all his words all his actions He passes this judgment upon his thoughts Gen. 6. 5. And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually What ever man thinks of his thought is evil If he think concerning God or man or himself if he think to please himself if he think to cross himself to deny himself to worship God to please God to subject himself to the will of God yet if this flows from the man it must needs be evil the root being so corrupt The purity of the object and the seeming integrity of the action cannot take off the impurity which goes from the heart into every motion and thought of it There are some kind of thoughts malicious thoughts cruel thoughts passionate thoughts covetous thoughts unclean thoughts such as these man will easily yield to be evil but that his holy thoughts his religious thoughts his Meditations on God his goodness his providence his thoughts of Reformation of suppressing evil in others and searching and purging it out of his own heart also that these should be evil what man does or can suspect yet this sentence God passes on all his thoughts Nay though he do not go so far as a thought if he do but imagine in any kind the very forming of a thought in him the very first motion of a desire before it and the object can meet this is evil the least the weakest motion of the heart has strength enough of evil in it And this is not only in some imagination when his heart is framing some notorious wicked thing but in every imagination what ever thought his heart is framing the heart is evil and the thought is evil and the passage between the heart thought is evil And it is only evil it is not mixed with evil but it is all evil nothing but evil it has not only a tincture of evil going along with it a savour of corruption sticking to it but it is all corrupt Nor is it only thus sometimes or now and then but continually all the time of man in all the several shapes and changes he appears in of civility morality Religion shifting out of one into another still it is thus with him still of this nature are his thoughts his imaginations day and night winter and summer seed time and harvest His imaginations are not only evil in the night in the dark time of his ignorance but in the day in his brightest time in the time of his clearest light and knowledg they are not only evil in the Winter in time of adversity while he is under sharp storms of afflictions under distempers and oppressions of the outward or inward man but in the Summer too in the time of his prosperity when he thrives either outwardly or in his spirit they are not only evil in his sad seed time where he meets with much trouble temptation and interruption but in his harvest when he brings in his crop of peace joy rest comfort Continually continually in every state in every condition in every change evil and only evil is every imagination of the thoughts of his heart His words are evil too they come from the same root Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks they are unclean for they defile the man that which comes out of the man defiles the man So also are his actions all his actions his very best his praying his hearing his repenting his beleeving c. they are unclean Prov. 25. 27. The sacrifice of the wicked is abomination how much more when he bringing it with a wicked mind The wicked here is the person in whom this evil heart is we look upon him as wicked whose life is evil in our eyes but God looks upon him as wicked whose heart is evil in his eyes The sacrifice of this wicked person is his worshipping God his serving God in the way of his own appointment his praying hearing meditating c. now this is abomination that which God loaths his very soul abhors that which he himself would loath if he had but eyes to see into it How much more when he bringeth it with a wicked mind It may be made more loathsom by corrupt ends and desires gathering into his mind in the performance of it but however it is loathsom When he does it with never so pure an intention to honor God when he fasts and prays meerly to abase his spirit and lay it low before God yet then it is loathsom though much more loathsom when he does it with a wicked mind when he fasts and prays intentionally to smite with the fist of wickedness to set up his own ends and designs and beat down other parties and interests that stand in the way of it 2. Take notice what a just ground there is why God should deal sharply with us why he should chide and fight with any of us why he should so contend with the man in us Oh there is a desperate root of wickedness in us all Can you

blame him to be at enmity with it Is it fit the holy and pure God should let such a fountain of unholiness of impurity stand in his sight and not fight with it sink it and subdue it unto himself 3. Consider what an unfitting thing it is for us to be judging one another who are all so deeply guilty in that very thing wherein we judg or can judg any other Therefore thou art inexcusable O man whosoever thou art that judgest for wherein thou judgest another thou condemnest thy self for thou that judgest dost the same things Rom. 2. 1. There is the root in thee of the same wicked action thou judgest another for there wants only somewhat to exhaust the corrupt juyce therof into thy sight but in the sight of God who judges by the heart thou art as a deep in that wickedness as he and thou by judging his wicked action condemnest thine own wicked heart which is full of it Nay thou hast done it in the eye of God who reckons that done which the heart would do and perhaps thou hast brought it forth into act too in an higher kind then he whom thou judgest hath done though thou seest it not and so canst not be sensible of it What canst thou acquit thy self of that thou judgest another for Wilt thou judg another for Adultery Thou hast it in thine heart and hast acted a worse adultery hast forsaken the bed of thy unblemished husband indeed Wilt thou judg another for murder I speak not concerning judicial proceedings in Courts of Justice where Magistrates as they are entrusted with a work beyond man so they are enstated in a degree above man I have said ye are gods yet therein they fall short too because they are but men at bottom and so at best can judg but according to the sight of the eye and hearing of the ear which is opposed to righteous judgment Isai. 11. 3 4. I say Wilt thou judg another for murder Thou hast that cruelty in thee that would commit it yea and hast killed the Lord of life Wilt thou condemn Antichrist Thou hast the man of sin in thee whereof that which thou callest Antichrist is as it were but a figure Wilt thou judg another for fleshly principles and fleshly actings Alas How many fleshly principles prevail in thee How many fleshly actings issue out from thee perhaps in an higher kind and degree of spiritual wickedness then the party whom thou judgest is capable of God has still given several outward Representations in the several ages of the world of the wickedness of mans inward parts to point him thereby as with the finger to the sight knowledg and detestation of himself but this hath still been the subtle course of the deceitful heart of man to cry out aloud against evil in those outward dresses and the mean while to nourish the substance of it within And still as persons grow in light and knowledg and so come to discern the more secret and spiritual dresses of it they are ready to give themselves scope to condemn it in such or such a dress wherein now they full well know it not seeing what more spiritual shape the same thing has put on in them under which it hides it self and acts more powerfully then it did in those lower shapes and dresses whereby it deluded them before If we did but know our selves we should not dare to be judging one another but it is this same looking on evil as at a distance from us as anothers not our own that makes us so severe towards others 4. It shews the reason of all that wickedness that enmity pride cruelty c. that now breaks forth in the world and abounds every where What is the matter How comes this to pass Why God is ripping up the heart of man opening the heart of man and so that which is in it gushes out and appears God is stirring the sink and that makes it send forth that noisom savour that offends every nostril 5. It may be unto us a ground to qualifie our spirits and make them willing to enter into Gods Furnace and quietly to endure the force of that fire which he in wisdom sees needful to purge out this wickedness and purifie the heart by What sober spirit that has the real sence of such pollution in him would not loath himself desire to be delivered from himself and be willing to have the fire kindled and so burn upon him though it did scortch and pain him unsufferably as to consume and devour this filth Never willhe wonder at the sharpness of God who is sencible of the desperate evil of his own heart Never can he be weary of the Refiners fire who is weary enough of his own corrupt heart 'T is because we know not our own hearts that we think God might cure us with less launcing When we come to know our selves nothing will be more burdensom to us then ourselves and nothing will be more welcom then that sword which is sharp enough and that hand which comes resolutely enough and strikes home enough to let out the very life of our hearts which when once done will make us happy FINIS