Selected quad for the lemma: heart_n
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A30290
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The way to peace A funeral sermon on Job 22.21. Preached upon the decease of the right honourable Elizabeth, Countess of Ranalagh. By Daniel Burgess.
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Burgess, Daniel, 1645-1713.
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1695
(1695)
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Wing B5719; ESTC R224017
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30,595
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82
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word Nothing slayeth Sinners or woundeth Saints more than Sloth In sacred Things he who is not doing is undoing whoever is not busy is not holy And of them who are so every slothful Servant is more a Thief than a Servant The slothful in Business is Brother to the slothful out of it God's Acquaintance is both entred and exercised by Diligence Memorable is the Royal Psalmist's word Thou hast commanded us to keep thy Precepts diligently Exh. 2 Think strain your Minds in the Thoughts Commune with your Hearts frequently and seriously concerning the Excellency and Necessity of God's Acquaintance Being come to Thinking beware of mispending your Thoughts by whose waste not a few Souls are lost The Number being great who mind little of Religion more than the Husks The Formalities which swallow up many Mens Care are in Reality no more And in fiery Contentions about them the most do seem rather to disgorge their Malice than to discharge their Conscience For what Conscience can dream either that any Way of Religion can please God without Acquaintance with Him Or that Difference in those Notions and Practices which consist with his Acquaintance is not very tolerable without Strife and Variance Wherefore shake this Viper off from your Hands away with the Serpent and take Fish away with the Stone and take Bread Look to the End of the Commandment which is Charity out of a pure Heart and a good Conscience and Faith unfeigned Mind you the Soul and Body of Religion be less intent upon the Garb and Dress Be a thousand times more careful to excel in Acquaintance with God which all do agree to be Saving-Religion than to promote this or that Opinion about which Men of unquestionable Integrity cannot agree whether it be from Heaven or of Men Of these Things put your selves in remembrance You were created to be acquainted with your Creator Your Conscience his Envoy in your Hearts tells you this Your Minds were given you to know Him and your Wills and Affections to Chuse and Love Him The Son of God was sent to die for you and his Spirit is sent down from Heaven to live in you that ye might be acquainted with God! And if you refuse to be so you vex God the Holy Ghost and put God the Son to open shame The Helps vouchsafed in the Gospel for God's Acquaintance are incomparably greater than those afforded under the Law So that if you improve not your Advantages you receive greater Damnation than Old-Testament Sinners Your Sin is aggravated and your Sentence will be so God's Acquaintance is great Gain and all the World without it is Vanity and Vexation If you enjoy not God the most despicable Insect enjoys as much as you and if you do enjoy Him the highest Cherub enjoys no more than you In God's Acquaintance there is great Reward even upon Earth where there is least of it If acquainted with Him you can have no Wants but he will supply them no Losses but he will repair them no Combats but he will be Second yea Principal in them and make the Victory as sure as the Fight In short Without God's Acquaintance no Sin will die in you and no Divine Grace will live Without this Acquaintance Enmity to God will be bewrayed or if buried buried alive Heavenly Vertue and Love of God will not be seen in you or if it be it will be seen to be but painted not engraved He must be a Man of such Thought that is ever acquainted with God With such Thought his Heart must stir him up and his Spirit must make him willing Exod. 35.21 Exh. 3 Resolve purpose let a Vote pass in your Souls and deliberately Design to get and encrease Acquaintance with God Resolution is the only generous Issue of Thought Which hath never been rightly fixed upon our Objects or into our Hearts when it is barren and bears it not Determine now therefore and fully engage to pursue Acquaintance with God Always to consult is as bad as never to consult at all For what is Consultation without Action And what can be either acted before it 's attempted or be attempted before it be resolved In vain I speak and in vain you hear any further if this Resolution be not first settled If your Wills remain still in suspence and you halt between two between God's Friendship and the World's it were more expedient that I should sit down and weep over you than preach on and direct you to what you intend not The Ark of God and the Idol of Philisthia could not stand upon the same Altar Neither can a Choice of God's Acquaintance and the World's consist in the same Heart Heaven and Earth be not such Equals as that they should compound and agree to take equal Shares in our Affections So that if any thing be done to purpose to this Effect must be your Language What have I to do any more with Idols I do renounce them with full purpose applying my self to seek God's Acquaintance I am on and off no longer now but fixed I see the Necessity and cease from the Impertinence of pleading Difficulty Let it cost me right Hand and right Eye they shall go if need be I will not give over seeking this Acquaintance though I die No Man comes into God's Acquaintance and Favour till he is made thus willing in the Day of his Power Exh. 4 Hope the best if your spiritual Hands hang down and Knees be feeble yet lift them up Hope even against Hope that as much as you have provoked Him to Vengeance God will now bring you to his Acquaintance That now he has given you to Will he will also strengthen you to Do all that is necessary Humble you much with the afflictive Thoughts of your long Enmity unto Him But join not with the Tempter against your self and your so gracious Father Do not tell your selves that you shall never see any Good come of your good Purposes That they are in vain and 't is not likely that the Majesty so Holy should ever be propitiated to you or you be made sutable or acceptable to Him But that as when He was willing you would not be reconciled so now that you are willing he will not incline to Friendship Give him not so insolently the Lie with your Mouth or Hearts and abhor the thought of his being unreconcilably angred or your being unalterably wicked Tell your selves the truth He is not implacable by the Oblation of his Son nor are you unreformable by the Power of his Spirit A Spirit which he hath promised to give unto them that ask as you are now resolved to do and that without ceasing No Man came ever into God's Acquaintance without this Hope and Confidence that There is Forgiveness with him Exh. 5 Seek as for Silver search as for hid Treasure for the sound Knowledg of your Righteousness your Strength and your Steps Hope is a Spring of Motion and unto nothing more
Sin Original Sin first brake it and Actual Sin encreaseth the Breach This it doth Judicially for as it deserves God makes it to be it s own Punishment He Forsakes such as Forsake him and punisheth Strangeness with Estrangement Withholding those his Communications without which Acquaintance dies Saying of them who Perversely will not that Penally they shall not be Acquainted with him Likewise Naturally it doth it for what is Sinning but a kind of going out from the Presence of the Lord A turning away of the Simple a Departing from the Living God a saying to God Depart from us As oft as we Sin we act the part of corrupt Nature and thereby an Vnregenerate Man makes himself more a Child of Wrath than he was by Nature And a Regenerate one brings himself back in some Degree to what he was by Nature even a stranger unto God Indeed there are Degrees of Sinning the lowest is that of Infirmity the highest is sinning Wilfully and with pure Delight From this latter every Regenerate Man is freed but from the former no one is Now in the Language of the Gospel he liveth without Sin who liveth without wilful Sin and doth not Fall into Gross Sin Who so-acts-up to his Light and Grace received that though he hath his daily Infirmities yet he is bright and clean from scandalous Sins Which be they that do principally create a distance and separate between God and his Servants In short One Sin destroys much good And the exclamation is as just in this case as in any Behold how great a Matter a little fire kindleth Posit 6 Acquaintance with God is Entred by Repentance and Faith These though they are not the Causes of God's exalting us unto his Acquaintance they are necessary Qualifications in all whom He will exalt unto it Repentance includes Heart-breaking Sorrow for Sin and sincere Resolution to forsake it Necessary this is by virtue of the Divine Command and by the Condecency and fitness which it is of both unto God and unto our selves Vnto God for neither would it become his Wisdom to make us a second time his Friends without our Grief and Shame for having made our selves his Enemies nor could it consist with his Holiness to Forgive and Advance us while so Sinful and Senseless Vnto our selves also for if Unrelenting and Unreformed what so much as Inclination is in us to Acquaintance with God Prodigals never list to return to their Father till their Hearts are broken for Running away from him Again Faith in our Redeemer is no less Commanded or less Congruous A Faith seated in Mind and Heart and receiving Christ in all parts of his Office which are inseparably connexed Unto this Grace Justification is specially attributed and it 's certain that none but the Justified are Acquainted with God Eminently this Grace contains the Seed of Evangelical Obedience And is that which Crucifies our Lusts Overcomes the World Quenches the Darts of the Devil and Works by the Love of God Without which what Acquaintance with God The God who is of purer Eyes than to behold Evil and consequently Without this Faith is not to be pleased To be pleased with us or to be pleased and served by us Briefly then the Impenitent and the Unbelieving are Swine to whom the Pearl of God's Acquaintance neither is or can be vouchsafed He that Repents not must Perish He that Believeth not the Wrath of God abideth on him Posit 7 Acquaintance with God is preserved by the Vse of his Ordinances and the Exercise of our Graces Ordinances or God's ordained Means must be used Without these we are not Brought into his Acquaintance nor Kept in it It is an Acquaintance which in this Life is but Imperfect and not as in Heaven Immediate The holy Word is the Seed of which it is Begot and the Food by which it is Maintained Wherefore as all the Ordinances are propounded by God with a Promise and a Threat so they are followed by the Friends of God with Hope and with Fear Experience of Benefit by them edgeth their Appetites unto them O God early will I seek thee my Soul thirsteth my Flesh longeth to see thy Power and thy Glory so as I have seen thee in the Sanctuary Psal 61.1 2. Necessity also compels them the Hunger of their Souls like that of Bodies maketh them to break thro Stone Walls to get unto Ordinances For they feel Decays and much lacking unto all their Graces and much ground lost in many of their Combates between Flesh and Spirit And they know that there is no Help without Watching at God's Gates waiting at the Posts of his Doors and it 's there they must find Life and Favour of the Lord Prov. 8.34 35. Besides there is in them a Nature and an Instinct which without such Argument carries them unto Ordinances As it carrieth new-born Children to the Dugs and Chickens as soon as they are out of the Shell to the shrowd of the Hen's Wing A Native inbred Desire carries the one and the other 1 Pet. 2.2 As New-born Babes desire the sincere Milk of the Word that ye may Grow i. e. Let internal Appetite draw you Babes are not urged to the Breast with Syllogisms In short the same thing that maketh Fishes to keep in the Waters that breed them maketh the Friends of God to keep to the Ordinances which convert them And to prefer a Threshold in them before a Throne without them It deserves our best Consideration as plain a Truth as it is that in the Ordinances we speak of in Reading Hearing the Word Celebrating the Lords Supper Meditation Prayer and holy Conference God draweth near unto Us and We draw near unto God God draweth near unto us the Ordinances are called the very Face of God Gen. 4.16 Cain went out from the presence of the Lord that is he forsook the Ordinances of his Worship The Ordinances wherein his Promise is to COME unto us Ex. 20.24 to MEET with us and COMMVNE with us Ex. 25.22 Though God be every where Present and fills Heaven and Earth with his Presence it is said of old that his Glory filled the Temple the Place of his Worship signifying his particular special Presence of Love and Grace and Influence upon Souls to be in his Ordinances These therefore are the great King's Presence-Chambers Again We draw near unto God in Ordinances also Our Worshipping in them is named our Coming and Appearing before God Psal 42.2 Worshippers are stiled a People NEAR unto Him and Men Idolatrous or Profane are said to be FAR from Him It 's true the Worst of Men are at no Local distance from God nor is it a Local nearness that we affirm God's Servants to enjoy in Ordinances but a Spiritual one He is not Far from any one of us in Him we Live Move and have our Being He is Over all by his Power Through all the World by his Providence In all his Saints by his Spirit The Spirit by