Selected quad for the lemma: heart_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
heart_n	harden_v	israel_n	pharaoh_n	2,701	5	10.6543	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A44456	A sermon preached before the Right Honourable the Lord Mayor, aldermen and citizens of the city of London, in the parish church of S. Mary le Bow, September 3, 1683 being the day of humiliation for the late dreadfull fire / by William Hopkins ...	Hopkins, William, 1647-1700.	1683 (1683)	Wing H2754; ESTC R17537	23,331	39

So that when it pleases God to deliver us out of those miseries which our Sins have brought upon us we are to consider that we are in a state of Probation we are upon Tryal And we are farther under a double obligation to forsake those Sins for which we lately smarted We have the voluntary obligation of our own Vows upon us and we are bound in point of Gratitude to God to Sin no more He will esteem the faithfull performance of our Holy Resolutions the most Authentick Evidence of our Thankfulness and our future Obedience our best Peace-offering When God hath put an end to his controversie with a land Psal Lxxxv. 8. and vouchsafes yet once more to speak peace to his people he expects that they should not turn again unto folly But in case they do not answer so reasonable an expectation if they offer him fresh affronts or repeat their old ones they will find the Truce broken by their own Treachery and Vengeance returning armed with double fury Men have no reason to promise themselves Peace so long as they boldly put Heaven to defiance and fight against God He may perhaps give them a little respite he may change their punishment and not continually lash them with the same Rod but till they cease provoking him there will be no end of their calamities III. That if upon the removal of such Calamities we do not forsake those Sins for which they were inflicted we may justly dread forer Judgments Lest a worse thing come unto thee Almighty God in dealing with his sinfull creatures is pleased to observe the method of skilfull Physicians who begin with the most gentle and easie remedies searching and cleansing the wound with as little pain as may be to the Patient but if the wound putrifie and gangrene they are forced to proceed to more painfull operations such as launcing incision and searing and when after all they find the malignity and venome of the gangrene is such as no remedies can conquer they are forced to cut off the incurable member Thus doth God at first exercise the Sinner with gentle corrections seeming to be not without hope that they may prove strong enough to work his Reformation but if they fail of success he proceeds to greater severities in proportion to the guilt and obstinacy of the Offender Thus he dealt with his ancient people the Jews Isai IX 1. At first he lightly afflicted the land of Zabulon and the land of Napthali and afterwards did more grievously afflict her by the way of the Sea As men do not mount per saltum at one leap to the height of all Impiety and Profaneness but wax worse and worse by degrees till at last they become desperately wicked So neither doth God use extremity at first he doth not pour out the full vials of his Indignation at once but his Judgments grow gradually heavier till at length vengeance accomplisheth the ruine of the incorrigible and desperate Rebel A remarkable instance of what hath been said we have in Pharaoh and the Egyptians who oppressed Israel and refused to obey the voice of the Lord who by his Prophets commanded them to let his people go He began with light afflictions and as oft as Pharaoh seemed to repent he removed them When Pharaoh saw there was respite he hardned his heart whereupon God sent other Plagues upon Egypt and followed them with one Judgment after another punishing them first in their Waters then in their Corn and Cattle next in their Bodies with sore Blains and Boils after that in the Death of their First-born and lastly Pharaoh having many times wilfully hardened his own heart God hardened it penally to his ruine so that pursuing the Children of Israel through the Red-sea he was drowned with his whole Host Nor was this a singular case a particular method wherein God dealt onely with Pharaoh and the Egyptians For thus he treated his own peculiar people Israel for whose sake he had sent all those prodigious Plagues on Egypt When they murmured in the Wilderness he chastised them several ways When they waxed wanton in the Land of Canaan and revolted to Idolatry he suffered the neighbour Nations to infest their Land to take their Cities to defeat their Armies to oppress them and bring them under Tribute after a while he would deliver them when they revolted again he punish'd them some other way As their obstinacy encreased so did his severity He suffered the X Tribes first to go into Captivity and after a while he caused the King of Babylon to carry away Juda Captive and lay waste both the City and Temple of Jerusalem For 70 years they sate in Babylon and then God brought back their Captivity and so favoured them that they rebuilt the City and Temple but as they returned to their ancient dwellings so did they to their Sins and continued a stifnecked and rebellious generation despising the goodness of God contemning his threatnings killing his Prophets crucifying his own Son and having now filled up the measure of their iniquities God delivered them into the hands of the Romans who destroyed their Nation burnt the City and Temple of Jerusalem rased their foundations and litterally fulfilled our Saviour's Prediction Matt. XXIV 2. that there should not be one stone left upon another Now there are several ways in which God is wont to bring worse things upon obstinate and unreformed Sinners I shall instance in Three 1. When he brings the same Calamities thicker and oftner upon them and though he scourge them with the same Rod yet he increases the number of their stripes Their enemies make frequent incursions upon them they suffer by frequent Plagues and Fires Psal XXXII 10. Thus as the Psalmist threatens many sorrows shall be to the wicked God will raise them up enemies on every side and as he threatens the Jews he will send many fishers and they shall fish them and after he will send many hunters and they shall hunt them and make a prey of them and he will recompense their iniquity and their sin double Jer. XVI 16 18. God will double his blow upon every fresh provocation and as the Sinner multiplies his Transgressions so will the Divine vengeance multiply his Plagues If ye will walk contrary to me saith the Lord and will not hearken unto me I will bring seven times more Plagues upon you according to your sins Lev. XXVI 21. 2. A worse thing happens to a relapsed Sinner when God inflicts sorer and heavier Judgments than before 1 Kings XII 14. And this is not unusual Those whom whips will not reform he chastises with Scorpions If the ordinary instrument of Discipline the Rod hath been long used in vain he whets his glittering Sword and bends his Bow Jer. L. 25. He opens his Armory and ransacks all the Treasures of his Wrath for Instruments of Cruelty and Death and brings forth the weapons of his Indignation Or which is worse than

Natural whether they be good or bad yet those Societies themselves will cease with this world and cannot be punished in the next Now there concur two very different causes to the punishment of Sinners viz. The Righteousness of God and their own Unrighteousness The latter justly meriting those calamities which the former inflicts So that in every sad Providence we must acknowledge the just hand of God lifted up against us and recompensing the evil works of our own hands upon us 1. In all our Sufferings we must behold the righteous hand of God by whose Providence afflictions befall sinfull men For as Eliphaz saith Job V. 6. Affliction cometh not forth out of the dust nor doth trouble spring out of the ground The most inconsiderable and seemingly contingent events Matt. XI 29. Prov. XVI 33. such as the fall of a Sparrow or the turn of a die are under the government of Divine Providence And therefore it must needs be much more interessed in what befalls so noble a creature as Man nay great Societies of men The Calamities of Cities and Kingdoms must not be imputed to mere chance nor may we think that God is no farther concerned with them than by his general concourse with the immediate and second causes of them If we suffer by Fire or by Sea by immoderate Rain or Drought we must behold these as scourges in God's hand If we are punished either by War or Pestilence we must esteem both our Enemies and the destroying Angel God's Ministers and the Executioners of his just though fierce 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 wrath He makes the creatures his weapons for vengeance on his enemies Wisd V. 18. If the Sea overflow its banks and drown a Countrey it 's by God's commission that the Ocean enlarges its Territories and swallows up a sinfull Land If Famine afflict a Nation whether the immediate causes be excessive drought or rains know that it is the Lord who breaks the staff of bread Ezek. V. 16. who sendeth unseasonable rain and withholdeth it in its season If the Pestilence rage in a City and consume its Inhabitants this evil also is of the Lord. If we undergo the miseries of War and our Enemies prevail over us we must remember Isa XXXIV 6. that it is the sword of the Lord that is in their hands and fills it self with our bloud They shall know that I am the LORD when I put MY SWORD into the hand of the King of Babylon Ezek. XXX 25. It is the Lord of hosts that pleads with us by the Sword and sells us into the hands of our enemies because we have sold our selves to work wickedness If the Fire consume our dwellings and lay our Cities in Ashes the Prophet tells us that God pleads with sinfull flesh by fire as well as by the sword Isai LXVI 16. Hos VIII 14. He sendeth fire upon our Cities and flames to devour our Palaces In short by whatever hands we suffer by whatever instruments he pleases to afflict us we must hear the rod and consider who hath appointed it Mich. VI. 9. We must acknowledge our sufferings to be from God and the chastisement of our sins 2. Whilst we behold God as the Authour of our calamities we must ascribe them to his Justice A Deo quidem punimur sed ipsi facimus ut puniamur Salvian de Gub. Dei l. 8. and not forget that the cause of our sufferings is in our selves For God would not inflict them did not we both need and deserve them The wrath of God is never revealed but against the ungodliness and unrighteousness of men And even when his hand is heaviest upon us Ezra IX 13. Job XI 6. Psal CIII 10. our punishments are much lighter than our iniquities deserve There had been no such thing as Vengeance belonging to God but for the Wickedness of his Rebellious creatures Sin and Punishment are as nearly related as the Cause and Effect and the latter in the very notion of it implies the former For no suffering is properly a punishment unless inflicted for Sin Hence in the language of the Holy Scriptures to bear sin or iniquity signifies to be punished or put to death for it Exod. xxviij 43. Levit. XXIV 15 16. And Christ is said to bear the sins of many i. e. in their punishment Isa LIII 11 12. When a man is punished for his Sins he is said to eat the fruit of his ways Prov. I. 31. to be recompensed according to his deeds and the works of his own hands Jer. XXV 14. and to possess his iniquity Job XIII 26. All which forms of speech import our sins to be the meritorious and impulsive cause of our calamities And as we must acknowledge the Justice of God in our sufferings so must we likewise own his goodness his wisedom and fatherly care of us In our present lapsed condition in this state of Sin and Frailty Rev. III. 19. Heb. XII 5. he would not truly love us should he not when he sees it necessary rebuke and chasten us Should he not visit our transgressions with the rod Psal Lxxxix 32 33 34. and our iniquity with stripes we might have just ground to fear that he had utterly taken his loving-kindness from us and was about to break his Covenant It will neither consist with the Honour of his Justice and Wisedom nor yet with his Love to us that we should be permitted to sin without punishment I know some men refer all to irrespective Decrees or tell us that vindictive Justice is natural to God and that he must sacrifice some of his creatures in Hell fire to the honour of that Attribute Nay that he hath foredamned the greatest part of mankind by mere Prerogative and purely for the exercise of his Sovereign Power But this account of God differs infinitely from that he gives us of himself in the Holy Scriptures They represent him mercifull and gracious long-suffering and abundant in goodness and truth Exod. xxxiv 6 7. keeping mercy for thousands forgiving iniquity transgression and sin They tell us that Psal CXLV 9. Ezek. xxxiij 11. 2 Pet. III. 9. He is good to all and that his tender mercies are over all his works That he hath no pleasure in the Death of a sinner That he is not willing that any should perish but that all should come unto repentance He never goes about to get himself glory in the death of a sinner till he sees the sinner will die that he is desperate and incorrigible that he hardens his heart to that degree that neither gentleness nor severity can work upon him He seeks no advantages against his wretched creatures Though to punish be his work Isai XXVIII 21. it is his strange work He never sets about it but with reluctance and when we compell him to it for the vindication of Justice and Providence He doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men Lam. III. 33.