Selected quad for the lemma: heart_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
heart_n	conscience_n	faith_n	unfeigned_a	2,594	5	11.1136	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A54857	The signal diagnostick whereby we are to judge of our own affections : and as well of our present, as future state, or, The love of Christ planted upon the very same turf, on which it once had been supplanted by the extreme love of sin : being the substance of several sermons, deliver'd at several times and places, and now at last met together to make up the treatise which ensues / by Tho. Pierce.	Pierce, Thomas, 1622-1691.	1670 (1670)	Wing P2199; ESTC R12333	120,589	186

he was purged from his old Sins v. 9. Which is as much as to say that the keeping of the Commandments is all in all for if we keep them we are happy and if we break them we are undon I say we are happy in case we keep them because by keeping them we make our Election sure I do not say we make our selves infallibly sure of our Election and that by ordinary means too without immediate Revelation as an Assembly of Divines have made profession of their Belief For as Faith is a good man's so infallible assurance is God's peculiar And it implyes a contradiction to say a man may be infallible in what he does but yet believe For as infallibity implyes a knowledge in perfection so belief implyes strongly a knowledge only in part that is in some measure a want of knowledge Which infers a fallibility in him that wants it When we say we do believe we shall never fall and that we do believe we are vessels of Election our meaning is we do not doubt it not at all that we cannot or may not err When Adam stood in a state of Innocence he did believe without doubt he should so continue When Lucifer stood in a state of Glory he did not doubt in the least of his being safe But the event does shew plainly in Him and Adam the possibility of their falling before they fell So as long as we stand in a state of Grace and do so love our Saviour as to keep his Commandments we have reason to be confident of our Election but not infallibly assur'd because we are not omniscient yea do not know our own Hearts and cannot tell what a Day or what an hour may bring forth Whilst we are militant here on Earth we do Hope for Heaven but shall then only be sure when we shall take it into possession They who urge S. Peter's words for an infallible assurance 2 Epist. chap. 1. ver 10. where the word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and notes the sureness of the Election not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 implying assurance in the Elect do prove no more from that Text than that they quite mistake its meaning Not through an Ignorance of the original but a forgetfulness to consult it It may suffice for our comfort that God himself is infallible though we may err And though we know not what we are much less what we shall be yet this we know surely That all the paths of the Lord are Mercy and Truth unto such as keep his Covenant and his Testimonies Psal. 25. 10. We are infallible in our knowledge that God is faithful so as he cannot fail possibly to make good his promise if we shall manfully persevere in our performance of the condition And sure the sum of the Condition is briefly this that we love him so farr as to keep his Comandments Again that this is the Test of our Love to Christ and the means whereby to make our Election sure may be as easily collected from Heb. 6. 10 11 12. Where the Apostle having premis'd the work and labour of their love which they had shew'd to Christ's Name in their ministring to the Saints v. 10. He does immediately desire them to shew the same diligence to the full assurance of Hope unto the end v. 11. And not to be slothful but followers of them who through Faith and Patience inherit the promises v. 12. From which words of the Apostle we are to gather four things First that he does not say infallible but full assurance of Hope Nor is it He but our Translation which saith so much For 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is but a fulness of Hope not at all a full assurance unless by full assurance is mean't a fulness and nothing else Next a diligence is requir'd for the attainment of this Hope and this must be unto the end The promise that we shall reap is on condition that we faint not We must therefore so run that we may obtain Thirdly Our diligence must be shew'd too that men may see it and be the better and glorifie God in our behalf It must be shew'd in a laborious and working Love a Love exhibited to Christ by being employ'd upon his Members The Love of Christ if it is true will be shew'd in this that instead of being idle or empty-handed it hath its work and its labour is ever diligent and industrious in the keeping of his Commands Lastly the promises are not inherited through Faith alone which S. Iames calls a dead and a worthless Faith but through Faith mixt with patience which is not a barren but a fruitful not an idle but working Faith Such as worketh by Love impartial obedience to the Commandments And such as worketh by patience with perseverance unto the end Thus we prove by our obedience the real solidity of our Love and by our Permanency in both make our Calling and Election sure It were easie for me to argue from a very great number of such like Topicks of which the old and new Testament afford much plenty But that the proof of this Doctrin may not keep us too long from the Application I shall conclude with what I find in the 8 th chapter to the Romans And thence the Point I am upon may be irrefragably evicted For they are true lovers of Christ and real vessels of Election to whom there is no condemnation There is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Iesus v. 1. They alone are in Him who walk not after the Flesh but after the Spirit And what other can they be than such as keep his Commandments That this indeed is the evidence of our being in Christ does farther appear by the three Ifs in the 10 11 and 13 verses of that chapter If Christ be in you the Body is dead because of sin but the Spirit is life because of Righteousness And if the Spirit of Him who raised up Iesus from the Dead dwell in you he also shall quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit which dwelleth in you And if ye live after the Flesh ye shall dye but if through the Spirit ye mortifie the Deeds of the Body ye shall live Now by the Deeds of the Body are meant the Breaches of the Commandments And how are they mortified but by obedience We have the same in S. Iohn but a little more plainly Hereby we know that we know him even by keeping his word 1 John 2. 5. He that saith he abideth in Him ought himself also to walk even as he walked v. 6. Now we know that Christ Jesus was so subjected to the Law that that was constantly the Path wherein he walked And when 't is said by S. Paul that the end of the Commandment is charity out of a pure heart and of a good Conscience and Faith unfeigned The Heart is imply'd to be impure the Conscience evil and the Faith but hypocritical which is not

that which is True The vulgar sort of professed Christians who are the speculative Solifidians will not submit to any Tryal unless their own Fansie may sit as Iudge And being destitute of obedience to the Commandments of Christ which should be a witness from without of the love they bear to him whereby they might prove it to other men they appeal to the strength of their own perswasion call'd a witness from within of their Love to Christ and whereby they pretend to prove it inwardly to themselves But this is an Error so full of danger and indeed so void of sense that I know not if I may judge it more extravagant in itself or more pernicious in its effects For 't is apt to place presumption on the right hand of Faith and does make the sanguin'sts Hypocrites to pass in disguise for the holiest men Mistake's a callous and a sear'd for a quiet Conscience and sets up every mans heart as the great Touchstone of his Affections though itself needs a Touchstone the most of any For what saith God by the Prophet Ieremie The Heart of man is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked who can know it Touching our heads and our hands and other parts of our composition we may be easily supposed to have some knowledge But God alone is the searcher of all our hearts Ier. 17. 10. And are not they in a goodly way of being rectified in judgment both concerning themselves and their love to Christ who take their measures from the Fountain of all deceit God was never more angry in the Times of the Law than with them who were Prophets of the deceit of their own Heart Ier. 23. 25. Those Plaisterers of Satan whose custom 't was to dawb with untemperd morter and to heal the wounds of the people slightly speaking peace to their Consciences before their Consciences had Peace with God And t is as evident from the words of the wise King Solomon Prov. 24. 24. that nothing but Woes and Imprecations belong to those Temporizing and Popular Teachers who do nourish themselves with the peoples Favour by nourishing the people with their deceits For there is no higher way whereby to gratifie the Devil and make him glad than by lulling poor souls into carnal security Nor can a speedier course be taken to make them carnally secure than by making them believe that let their Sins be what they can be they may be lovers of Christ and vessels of absolute Election and can never fall totally much less finally from Grace and that for this reason because they think so because they are inwardly perswaded because 't is set upon their Hearts as they use to word it because they take it for granted and do not make the least doubt A way of reasoning I cannot tell whether more common or more irrational For to say they are assured because they stedfastly believe or that they know they shall be sav'd because they are strongly perswaded of it is to argue that they know even because they know not For Faith and Knowledge in the proper acception of the words cannot be conversant at once about the very same object And that men may take that for the voice of Conscience or else for the whisper of God within them which yet is nothing in the world but either a forgerie of the Head or a Deceitfulness of the Heart is very evident from the Scriptures both of the Old and New Testament For there we read of a Generation who are pure in their own eyes yet are not washed from their filthiness Who bless themselves in their own Hearts saying we shall have peace even whilst they persevere in adding Drunkenness to Thirst. We read of the Hypocrites having an Hope but we read too that it shall perish We read of Priests teaching for hire and Magistrates judging for reward whilst yet they lean upon the Lord and say is not the Lord among us none evil can come upon us Many will plead their great merit who yet shall be damn'd in the day of Judgment Matth. 7. 22 23. And even the children of the Devil may think that God is their only Father Ioh. 8. 11. All which being consider'd I cannot approve of their skill or kindness whereof we have an account in Print who taught an horrible Malefactor to please himself with this Syllogism after his sentence of Condemnation for wilful murder God hath said whosoever repenteth and believeth shall find mercy and be saved My Conscience telleth me and witnesseth to me that I repent and believe and am one of those whosoever therefore Christ is mine I shall find mercy and be saved Now admit that this Murderer was in a very safe state yet sure he took not the way to prove it but only the way that he had been taught For what he took to be the dictate or suggestion of his Conscience might be possibly nothing more than the delusion of his Phansie or the pleasant deceit of his Imagination And this is certain that unless by Repentance he meant Amendment which he could not well discover as he was hastening to the Gallows and unless by believing he meant an Operative Faith such as worketh by love and by such a love too as is the fulfilling of the law which he could not well be sure of as he was going into his Grave there was not so much as a possibility that he should prove himself sure of having an interest in Christ. The murderer should therefore have argued thus Whosoever believeth and repenteth and does both sincerely so as to lead a new life and to bring forth fruits meet for Repentance He hath an interest in Christ and is in a state of Salvation But I believe and repent and I hope sincerely and also hope that if I live I shall lead a new life therefore I humbly hope I have an interest in Christ and in consequence of that am in a state of Salvation In the mean time he should have pray'd and his Teachers should have helpt him both by their Prayers and their advice that God would deliver him from the danger of being deceived by his own Heart into security and presumption which would only have betray'd him into a mischievous consolation he having deserved by his Impieties to be one of their number who are delivered up unto strong delusions and wholly left to believe a lye This I say should have been don because there is nothing more agreeable to the condition of such a Penitent as had been lately by his Confession at once a Robber and a cheat a fornicator and a blasphemer and even a murderer of his brother sleeping innocently by him in the very same bed than to mingle his Faith with pious Fear and his Hope with that holy trembling wherewith we all are to work out our own Salvation Now having hitherto made an Amulet for the contagion of the Times by the negative part

keep his Commandments Now the man being nam'd who hath not broken the condition it will be easy to name the man in whom the promise hath been accomplish't In the very same measure we mete to Christ it is but just he should mete to us If we will needs reject his Precepts how can he do less than neglect our prayers with what modesty can we expect that he should give us what we desire whilst we pay him not the tribute which He commands what incouragement has our Saviour to be still gratifying of us whose common practice it is to incense or grieve him nay to deal freely with our selves and but ingenuously with Christ what man is there amongst us who is not ready to confess that we have cross't his will more than he hath cross't ours had not he been more inclinable to grant our Prayers than we commonly have been to yield obedience to his commands what should we many times have don for Food and Rayment how could we sow in the spring with any expectation to reap in Autumn this may therefore be sufficient to free his promise from the objection that he performes more of it than we have don of the condition on which 't was made Nay as his promise is vastly greater than we have the goodness to deserve so his performance of it is more than we have the Impudence to require For if we love him but little he grants us much if we obey him but seldom he thanks us often And if he gives us not all we ask it is because we do not love him with all the love that he requires such as employ's our whole strength in the constant keeping of his commandments Sect. 16. The objection being thus answer'd and the promise of our Saviour thereby made clear I proceed from the second to the third Topick which I propos'd that is to such a kind of reasoning as the natural man himself will not easily contradict Sect. 17. First t will be granted by all the world as well by the Iew as by the Christian as well by the heathen as by the Iew as well by the Atheist as by the Heathen all will say with one mouth that they desire to be happy and that happiness is so lovely they cannot choose but desire it Perfect happiness is the object which alone cannot fall under the liberty of the will It is as natural to desire it as for a stone to tend downwards Indeed 't is easie to mistake but 't is impossible to refuse it I say 't is easy to mistake a false happiness for a true and to refuse the true happiness in adherence unto a false one But happiness cannot be refus'd by any man who does believe it is truly such Consummate happiness is the center towards which we all travail let our errors and vices be what they will and however we may differ about the way that leads to it yet we agree in our Intentions to hit the end For though there are that seek death and with Hell are at agreement and pull destruction upon themselves with the work of their Hands yet 't is because they mistake their Bliss not because they prefer their miserie Every man in the world does love the quenching of his thirst Desire is the thirst of every mans Soul Satisfaction is the quenching of all Desire And though a man wanders never so much in the way that he is going yet the end of his Iourney is satisfaction So that ayming as we do at being happy and setting out as we do from the pure hands of a Creator we should not be able to miss of happiness were there not many ways of erring betwixt the circumference and the center Epicurus went one way Eudoxus another Diodorus a third Herillus a fourth the Stoicks a fifth the Peripateticks a sixth as hath been elsewhere observed the Gymnosophists a seventh the Herodians an eighth the Mahomedans a ninth and we who are Christians do go a tenth but all agree in their desires of being as happy as it is possible This I therefore set down as my first postulatum and as that which will be granted by men of all sects that though happiness is mistaken by several sects and as diversly defin'd as 't is misunderstood yet to be absolutely happy in the general notion of the word is the common desire of all the world Sect. 18. It will secondly be granted by men of all sects that a mans happiness does consist in the complete satisfaction of his desires For our desires are our capacities or our emptiness of soul. How much soever we do desire so much we want and stand in need of Now because there is nothing which nature hates more than to be empty or in want there can be nothing more natural than to covet a fulness or satisfaction But the largest of Vessels can want no more than it will hold nor can it covet more than will make it full And therefore the filling of our desires vessels of infinite capacity cannot choose but be that wherein our happiness does consist Which fulfilling of our desires is nothing else but contentment or satisfaction Sect. 19. Now hence it follows unavoidably that if a mans Happiness does consist in the complete satisfaction of his desires and if that is nothing else but an absolute contentment or self-sufficience and if the Commandments of Christ do ty us up or oblige us to such contentment then his Commandments of necessity do make it our duty to be happy and by consequence an happiness to do our Duty In this there is nothing to be deny'd no not so much as by the Atheist unless it be that Christs commandments do oblige us to contentment or self-sufficience and that will easily be prov'd by the Tenor of them which himself hath sum'd up in the 12 chap. of S. Mark v. 30 31. where all the law and the Prophets are said to hang upon these two hinges Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart with all thy mind with all thy soul and with all thy strength and thy Neighbour as thy self Now he that loves God with all his heart will in him set up his Rest his whole delight will be in him his whole dependence will be on him he will not love either the world or the things of the world in whatsoever state he is he will be sure to be content he will not with Martha be sollicitous and careful of many things but espowse with Mary the one thing that is necessary He will be inwardly full of joy in the Holy Ghost his conversation will be in Heaven and the tranquillity of his Conscience will be the beginning of his Bliss Thus it must needs be with him who is perfectly amorous of his Maker and perfectly amorous of his Maker he needs must be who loves him with all his heart and soul. This is the summ of our whole Duty towards God and this is the