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
A64642	Eighteen sermons preached in Oxford 1640 of conversion, unto God. Of redemption, & justification, by Christ. By the Right Reverend James Usher, late Arch-bishop of Armagh in Ireland. Published by Jos: Crabb. Will: Ball. Tho: Lye. ministers of the Gospel, who writ them from his mouth, and compared their copies together. With a preface concerning the life of the pious author, by the Reverend Stanly Gower, sometime chaplain to the said bishop.	Ussher, James, 1581-1656.; Gower, Stanley.; Crabb, Joseph, b. 1618 or 19.	1660 (1660)	Wing U173; ESTC R217597	234,164	424

is so bad with them Therefore take this home to your selves think no better of your selves then you are for thus you are naturally Therefore consider if thou wert now going out of the world what state thou art in a child of wrath a child of Belial or the like Set about the work speedily goe to God pray and cry earnestly give thy self no rest till thou know this to be thy condition Let not thy corrupt nature deceive thee to make thee think better of thy self then God saith thou art Now that we may the better know to whom these things belong know it is thou and I we all have been or are in this estate till we have supernatural grace and therefore we are declared to be children of wrath and children of disobedience till regenerated Why It 's because it 's thy nature it belongs to all Now we know the common nature alwayes appertaines to the same kind There 's nothing natural but is common with the kind If then by nature we are children then certainly it belongs to every Mothers son of us for we are all sons of Adam In Adam we all die Rom. 5. That 's the fountain whence all misery flowes to us As thou receivedst thy nature so the corruption of thy nature from him for he begat a son in his own likenesse This therefore is the condition of every one The Apostle in 1 Cor. 15. speaks of two men the first was from the earth earthy the second was the Lord from heaven What were there not many millions and generations more True but there were not more men like these men of men two head men two fathers of all other men There were but two by whom all must stand or fall but two such men By the fall of the first man we all fell and if we rise not by the second man we are yet in our sins If he rise not we cannot be risen We must rise or fall by him He is the Mediator of the second Covenant If he rise and we are in him we shall rise with him but if not we are dead still So it is in the first Adam we all depend on him he is the root of all mankind It 's said in Esay 53. Our Saviour should rejoyce to see his seed His seed that is to say he is the common father of all mankind I mean of all those that shall proceed from him by spiritual generation He shall present them to his father as when one is presented to the University Behold here am I and the children that thou hast given me So in Adam he being the head of the covenant of nature that is the Law if he had stood none of us had fallen if he fall none of us all can stand He is the peg on which all the keyes hang if that stand they hang fast but if that fall they fall with it As we see in matter of bondage if the father forfeit his liberty and become a bondman all his children are bondmen to a hundred generations here is our case We were all once free but our father hath forfeited his liberty and if he become a slave he cannot beget a free-man When our Saviour tells the Jewes of being free-men We were never bond-men say they though it be false for even Cicero himself could tell a Jew that he was a slave genus hominum ad servitium natum although they had a good opinion of themselves But our Saviour saith you are bond-m●n unto sin and Satan For till the Son make you free you are all bond-men but when he makes you free then are you free indeed So that we see our condition here set down 1. We are dead in trespasses and sins that is there is an indisposition in us to all good works A dead man cannot walk or speak or do any act of a living man so these cannot do the actions of men that are quickned and enlivened they cannot pray with the spirit they cannot love God c. they cannot doe those things that shall be done hereafter in heaven There 's not one good duty which this natural man can do If it should be said unto him Think but one good thought and for it thou shalt go to heaven he could not think it Till God raise him from the sink of sin as he did Lazarus from the grave he cannot doe any thing that is well-pleasing unto God He may do the works of a moral man but to do the works of a man quickned and enlightned it 's beyond his power For if he could do so he must then have some reward from God for however we deny the merit of good works yet we deny not the reward of good works to a man that is in Christ. There 's no proportionable merit in a cup of cold water and the Kingdom of heaven yet he that gives a cup of cold water to a Disciple in the name of a Disciple shall not lose his reward Here then is the point The best thing that a natural man doth cannot so relish with God as that he should take delight in it or reward it whereas the least good thing that comes from another root from a quickned spirit is acceptable and well-pleasing to him Consider for this end that which is set down Prov. 15.8 Take the best works of a natural man his prayers or sacrifice and see there what is said The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord. It is said again Prov. 21.27 where there are additions The prayers of the wicked are an abomination to the ●ord how much more when he brings it with a wicked mind Suppose there should come upon this man a fit of devotion where he hath or should have some good motions is it then accepted no it is so far from being accepted that it is an Abomination to God how much more then if he brings it with a wicked mind That is if he bring it not with a wicked mind it is an abomination how much more with it See the case set down in Haggai 2.12 13 14. If one bear holy flesh c. shall he be unclean And the Priest answered no. Then said Haggai if an unclean person touch any of these shall it be unclean And he said it shall be unclean Then answered Haggai so is this people so is this nation before me saith the Lord and so is every work of their hands it is unclean A man may not say prayer is a sin because it is so in them no it 's a good duty but spoil'd in the carriage He marrs it in the carriage and therefore in stead of doing a good work he spoils it and so in stead of a reward must look for punishment 1 Tim. 1 5. The end of the Commandement is love out of a pure heart a good conscience and faith unfeigned Let the things thou doest be according to the Commandement look what thou doest be according to the middle end and

the iron is hot the fire hath made a change in it it 's malleable the hammer is able to work on it but let the fire be gone and it 's as hard as before nay we say steel is harder so that there is no change in the nature of iron it 's hard still redit ad ingenium it goes back into its own estate If it be softened it is by an accidental cause so here as long as the temporary faith is in the furnace of afflictions when God shall let loose the cord of his conscience and makes him see that there is no way for salvation but by Christ then the sense of his torture will make him desire with all the veines in his heart to have Christ. See a singular example of this temporary desire in Psal. 78.34 When he slew them then they sought him and returned and enquired early after God So Prov. 1.27 When their fear was on them as desolation and their destruction as a whi●le-wind when distresse and anguish cometh upon you then shall they call upon me c. Not with a feign'd desire but in truth and reality they desire relief They remembred then that God was their Rock and the high God their Redeemer they saw a Redeemer when he was slaying of them and they believed that God would free them though it was but temporary Neverthelesse they flattered him with their mouths and lyed unto him with their tongues for their heart was not right with him neither were they stedfast in his Covenant Observe then this was but a temporary case a temporary change there was no new creature no new nature wrought but being in the furnace of affliction as long as the fire was hot they were pliable they were not stedfast in his Covenant Let this be an admonition to them that think they never can have true faith till God slay them I am not of that opinion God sometimes useth this means but it is not so necessary as that it cannot be otherwise and to speak truly I had rather have faith that comes another way the difference is this The temporary believers will have Christ while God is slaying of them whil'st they are in the furnace of afflictions but the other in cold blood when Gods hand is not on them The true believer is sick of love and when he hath no affliction nor Gods hand on him with the Apostle he accounts all things dung and drosse for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus There 's an ardent desire when this external cause draws not If when thou art out of the forge thou hast thy heart softned and findest this work of grace and faith to drive thee to Christ thou hast a faith unfeigned and so the faith of Gods elect Again there is not only this desire in him who hath a temporary faith but having understood the Word he so desires it that when he knows there is no having Christ nor happinesse or salvation by him unlesse he deny himself and part from his evil wayes being perswaded of this out of self-love he would have Christ and seeing these be the termes that he must turn a new leaf and lead a new life or go to hell therefore he will do this too this is much yet I say he doth this too but how shall this be proved most evidently in 2 Pet. 2.20 For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ they are again intangled therein and overcome the latter end with them is worse than the beginning Here is that Apostasie and here is the subject of the temporary faith It had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness then after they have known it to turn from the holy Commandment delivered unto them this was a temporary conversion as Ephraim like a broken bow turned back again in the day of battel Observe what they did they were like the foolish Virgins they kept their maiden-heads in respect of the pollutions of the world they lived very civilly they escaped the corruptions of the world and no man could challenge them of any filthy act they knew that Christ was the King of Saints and had the knowledge of him they knew that it was not fit that the King of glory and holinesse should be attended on by the black guard that they must have sanctity that will follow him and therefore they laboured to be fit to attend him They escaped the pollutions of the world but yet it continues not why so For it hapned to them according to the true Proverb the Dog is returned to his vomit and the Sow that is washed to her wallowing in the mire Mark the Dog turns again to his own vomit This proceeds from some pang in his stomach that enforceth that filthy beast to disgorge it self that it may have some ease but he quickly gathers it up again as soon as the pang is over Some there are that would be content to hide their iniquity under their tongues as Job speaks but there comes a pang sometimes a pang in their consciences which forceth them to vomit up their sweet bits again but well the fit is gone and being gone they like the filthy dog return to their vomit again considering the pleasure which they took in that filthy thing that they did disgorge themselves was but from that pang and present pinch not from the loathing or hatred of the thing and therefore they return again unto it By the way then take notice of the filthinesse of sinne how filthy is it that the Lord compares it to the vomit of a dog Then there followes another comparison of it It 's as the So● that is washed and returns to her wallowing in the mire See another loathsome resemblance of this temporary faith the Sow was washed but how her swinish nature was not washed from her as long as the Sow is kept from the mire in a fair Meadow with the Sheep she looks as sleek and clean as they she was washed there 's an external change but her nature remained bring the Sow and the sheep to a puddle the sheep will not go in bec●use it hath no swinish nature but the other retaining its swinish nature though before in outward appearance as clean as the sheep was yet she goes again to her wallowing in the mire There may be the casting away of a mans sinnes and yet no new creature wrought in him That I may shew this to you take this example A man known to be as covetous a man as liveth he loveth his money as well as his God yet perchance this man is brought in danger of the Law and must be hang'd for some misdemeanour committed this man to save his life will part with all he hath what is his disposition changed no not a whit he is as covetous as before he is the same man he doth it to save his life and to

beginning of the Commandement If wrong in all these then though the work be never so materially good being faulty in the original middle or end it 's so far from being a good work that God will not accept of it and thou mayst rather expect a plague for spoiling it then a cure See then the beginning of a good work it must be from a pure heart A man not ingrafted into Christ is a defiled polluted person his very mind and conscience are defiled The conscience is the purest thing a man hath it holds out last and taketh part with God that as Jobs messenger said I onely am escaped to tell thee so conscience onely remaines to declare a mans faults to God and to witnesse against the man and yet this very light the eye of the soul is defiled therefore if thou have a corrupt fountain if the heart be naught the fountain muddy whatever stream comes from it cannot be pure Again the end of it is love Consider when thou doest any duty what puts thee on work Is it love doth constrain thee If love do not constrain thee it is manifest that thou dost not seek God but thy self and art to every good work a Reprobate that is thou art not then able to do any thing that God will accept the best thing thou doest wil not relish with God A hard estate indeed that when a man shall come to appear before God he shall not have one good thing that he hath done in all his life that God will own Some there be that take a great deal of paines in coming to the word in prayer publique and private in charity and giving to the poor Alas when thou shalt come to an account and none of these things shall stead thee not one of them shall speak for thee but all shall be lost How heavy will thy ease be 2 John 8. Look to your selves that you lose not the thing that you have wrought By being indisposed to doe the works of a living man we lose all that is to say God will never own nor accept them we shall never have reward for them So that here is the case thou being dead unable to perform the works of a living man canst have no reward from heaven at all until a man is quickned and hath life from Christ. Without me saith our Saviour you can doe nothing St. Austin on this place observes that Christ saith not Without me ye can doe no great matter no but unlesse you be cut off from your own stock taken from your own root and be ingrafted into me and have life from me and be quickned by me you can do nothing at all Nothing neither great nor small all that you do is lost So that if there were nothing but this being dead you could do no good action I know that in me that is in my flesh saith St. Paul there dwelleth no good thing that is nothing spiritually good nothing for which I may look for a reward in heaven The Lord will say of such a man thou hast lived ten twenty forty or it may be fifty yeares under the Ministry and yet hast not done a good work or thought a good thought that I can own Cut down this fruitlesse tree why cumbers it the ground And this is the case of every man of us while we continue in our natural condition till we be ingrafted into Christ and live by his life God will own nothing we do But now we are not onely dead and indisposed to the works of a living man though this be a very woful case and we need no more misery for this will bring us to be cut down and cast into the fire if we continue so But this is not onely the case of a natural man but he 's very active and fruitful in the works of darknesse the others were sins of omission Here he is wholly set upon the commission of sins and trespasses Heb. 6.7 He not onely brings not forth meet fruit or good fruit or no fruit but he brings forth thorns and briars and is therefore rejected and nigh unto cursing whose end is to be burnt Thou art not onely found a barren tree and so deservest to be cut down but thou bringest forth thorns and briars and deservest to be burnt not onely no good fruit but noxious bad and poyson'd fruit and this doth mightily aggravate the matter Now for us that have lived so long under the Ministry and the Lord hath watered and dressed and hedged us do we think the Lord expects from us no good fruit Had we lived among heathens or where the word is not taught then so much would not be expected but we have heard the word often and powerfully taught and therefore it is expected that we should not onely bring forth fruit but meet fruit answerable to the means Where God affords greatest means there he expects most fruit If a man live thirty or forty yeares under powerful meanes the Lord expects answerable fruit which if he bring forth he shall have a blessing from the Lord. But when a man hath lived long under the meanes and brings forth no fruit pleasing to God but all Gods cost is lost when notwithstanding the dew and the rain which falls oft upon him he brings forth nothing but thorns and briars he is rejected and nigh unto cursing whose end is to be burnt The earth which drinketh in the former and the latter rain c. if it bring not forth fruit answerable to the labour of the dresser it 's nigh unto the curse Now if we consider but the particulars and search into Gods testimonies we shall see how bad this man is But who should this man be We have Gods own word for it It 's men generally all men Gen. 6.5 God saw the wickednesse of man was great in the earth and that every thought and imagination of his heart was onely evil continually Every word is as it were a thunder-bolt and was it not time when it was thus with them for God to bring a flood The thoughts are the original from which the words and actions do usually proceed Now all their thoughts were evil What was there no kind of goodnesse in their thoughts no they were onely evil continually and that was the reason the flood came Well but though it were so before the flood yet I hope they were better after the flood No God said again after the flood cap. 8. The thoughts of the hearts of men are evil c. Like will to like Men are all of one kinde till they receive grace from Christ. We are all of one nature and naturally all the thoughts and imaginations of our hearts are onely evil continually See it in the understanding 1 Cor. 3.14 The natural man perceiveth not the things of the Spirit of God neither can he know them for they are foolishness unto him c. Look upon his will Rom. 8. It is not

but here the damned spirits the filthy and cursed host must be thy yoke-fellows Suppose there were no torment to suffer yet to be banished from heaven and to be tied and yoked to wicked spirits were a torment sufficient to make the stoutest that ever was tremble and quake and be soon weary of it 2. But it 's a place of torment too a prison where there is a rack to which thou must be put and on which thou must be tormented I am tormented in this flame saith Dives To speak of the torments there will be matter enough for another hour but I delight not to dwell on so sad a subject only this is that which prepares the way to the glad tidings of salvation therefore I shall a little longer insist upon it The body and soul the whole man shall be there tormented not the soul only but even the body too after judgment Do you think the members of the body which have been the instruments shall escape be rais'd and cast into hell to no purpose Why should God quicken it at the last day but to break it on the anvil of his wrath and to make it accompany the soul as well in torments as in sinning 'T is true the soul is the fountain of all sense and the body without it hath no sense at all take away the soul and you may burn the body and it will not feel it Now the soul being the fountain of sense and the body being united to it when God shall lay his axe at this root at this fountain how dreadful shall it be how shall the body choose but suffer too Should any of us be cast into a fire what a terrible torment would we account it Fire and water we say have no mercy but alas this fire is nothing to the fire of hell 't is but as painted fire to that which burns for ever and ever The furnace wherein Nebuchadnezzar commanded those to be thrown that fell not down to the graven Image which he had set up was doubtless at every time a terrible place Hell is compared to such a furnace but what shall we think of it when the King in his wrath shall command the furnace to be heated seven times hotter then usual Nay what shall we think of hell when the King of Heaven shall command it to be heated seventy times seven times hotter then before when there shall be a fire and a fire prepar'd for so is this fire of Tophet it 's a pile of much wood When the King of Heaven shall as it were set to work his wisedome to fit it in the sharpest manner in procuring such ingredients as may make it rage most and be most violent It is a fire prepared for the Devil and his Angels the strongest of creatures for the punishment of principalities and powers and if it can master Angels think not but that God hath a fire to rost thy soul. It is the soul that is in hell onely till the day of judgment though the body be not there A man would think that the soul did not suffer but Philosophy tels us that the soul suffers mediante corpore in and by the body Therefore 't is a rule in Divinitie that whatsoever God doth by means he can do without means Though the body be not there but the soul only yet God is able nay doth make the soul as well feel grief without the body as he doth by means of the body 3. But now besides thy fellow-prisoners in that cursed Gaol consider who are thy tormentors thou that dost continue in impenitency Now thy tormentors are these three 1. The Devil 2. Thy self 3. God Almighty 1. The Devil who is thy deadly enemy a bloody-minded adversary a murthering and merciless-minded Spirit a murtherer from the beginning a merciless tormentor who being in plagues and torments and thereby even at his wits end would fain ease himself in tormenting thee When the Devil as we read was dispossessed of a child wherein he was he rends and tears leaves him foaming that there was little hope of life in him But now when a man shall be delivered into the hands of this merciless spirit when God shall say to the Devil take him do what thou wilt with him do thy worst to him when thou shalt be thus put into the hands of one that hates thee and delights in thy ruine how will he tear thee into pieces how will he torment thee in how desperate and wretched a case will thy soul and body be 2. But the tormentor within thee is far more heavy painful and grievous that never dying worm within the sting of a guilty and wounded conscience this like a sharp dagger is still stabbing thee at the very heart This by a reflecting act upon it self will cause thee to revenge Gods quarrel on thy self and as a musket over-charged beats back on the shooter so will it most furiously return upon thee This is that that smote David when 't is said Davids heart smote him A man needs no other fire nor other worm to torment him then that within him which as the worms on the carkass gnaws on a wretched soul. But there is a greater tormentor then both these behind and that is 3ly God himself he is highly offended and inraged at thee and therefore comes and takes the matter into his own hand and will himself be executioner of his fury There i● a passage in the Thess. to this purpose which me thinks is more then can be spoken by men or Angels Epist. 2. cap. 1. v. 9. Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power Mark that God whom thou hast so highly provoked to wrath hath a strong hand and glorious power He shew'd the glory of his power in the making the world and all things in it and all that infinite power which he hath manifested in the creation of heaven and earth shall be engaged in the tormenting of a sinner Were there a man that should lay a target of brasse or a target of steel on a block and should then cleve all in sunder at a blow this would sufficiently manifest his strength So doth God make manifest his power in crushing thee to pieces There are still new charges and discharges against sinners to make his power therein manifest What if God willing to make his power known saith the Apostle Rom. 9. suffered a while the vessels prepared to destruction God will manifest his power by the strength of his stroke on those that rebel against him Hence proceedeth weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth which is a Metaphor taken from one either that hath a great coldness on him or from the symptomes of a Feaver Add to all that hath been said these two things 1. The torment shall be everlasting you shall desire to die that your torments may have end And here you may expect that I should say