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	judgement_n	pharaoh_n	2,936	5	10.9003	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A27595	A discourse of the judgments of God composed for the present times against atheism and prophaneness.	Beverley, Thomas.	1668 (1668)	Wing B2137; ESTC R14172	93,326	282

Generation of his wrath he chains into a series the acts of his indignation It being rarer that he destroys at once as Sodom upon which no hand had room or space to stay but Judgments in their several courses come on into the Battle and one begins where the last ended the Locust eating what the Palmer-worm left Yet which way soever things fall out at last God justifies his goodness and that Philanthropy wherewith he governs humane affairs by the pauses he makes For like those aversations of his Glory from the Temple by degrees in Ezekiel that the Jews moved by them might beseech his return ere he quite left them they shew his willingness to have the occasion to retreat Even Sodom it self had the Avant-carrier of so great an overthrow by the lesser it suffered in the combination of the Kings against it wherein God justifies himself that he desires not the death of sinners but that they should turn from iniquity and live CHAP. XIX Of the great Character of Judgments when they end in desolation THe greatest Crisis of Judgment is yet to be considered in all the course of it that is when it is to cease in destruction when God begins and also makes such an end that affliction rises not up the second time from which proceed those resolved changes of the world emptied out of one vessel into another which by single Judgments are only shaken and time is set upon other Epoches that are to it like new hinges of motion as in general from these variations it receives its curious Needle-work In some parts of it Judgments and mercies lye intermingled others beautiful with mercies only and lastly some wholly dark and sad with Judgments This Character of Judgments ending in Ruine is most diligently to be observed and may be discerned either by the Judgments themselves or the signs of the times upon which they fall 1. In themselves they are remarkable for then they are preceded by those more then ordinary admonitions from the disturbed Course of Nature which God hath made as well the Trumpet as the Instrument of Judgment Signs in the Sun and Moon and Stars Earthquakes the Sea and the Waves roaring the Powers of Heaven shaking gave an Allarm to Jerusalems destruction These indications of a common Calamity are often strangely insinuated into the rational Creatures also causing distress of Nations perplexity mens hearts failing for fear there being unknown motions and discomposures of mens spirits whereof no account can be assigned but they are the loosning of that Bridle God keeps upon all things before he lays the ruins on their necks and gives judiciary stimulations to them These God usually sets as Introductions to great Calamities as Prefaces to huge Volumes as Portals to great Edifices or like the musters of the Clouds and trepidations of the Air before a Tempest or the unformed motions of dispersed Soldiers gathering into a body or arms before a Battle he sends these as Elias before the great and terrible Day of the Lord giving hereby a state and pomp to those monumentous Judgments the descriptions of which yield a natural eloquence to the Prophets taken immediately from things for pomp and state are the eloquence of things and most easily pass into words This is further discoverable when Judgments tread on the heels of one another For God doth not many things in vain but intends to reach some height when he is not quiet with the world but importunes and sollicites it to a sense when he speaks once and twice he intends something great and considerable for he doth not fight as one that beateth the air but having entred into particulars at last sums up all in a perfect effect In Amos when Judgments hung together in so long a line at last he resolved Therefore I will do this unto thee Then lesser Judgments are but the beginnings of sorrows Lastly when God doth strange things without precedent things that men will not believe though they were told them unusual not only in the common course of Providence which is very smooth but strange even in his strange paths of Judgment as it is said of the Plagues of Egypt the like were not before nor after them any such God doth not reverse what he hath setled by so great Wisdom and Counsel with so high a hand but when he designs greatest alterations 2. In regard of the times upon which Judgments fall this Crisis is then to be feared 1. When the Age we live in seems the drain sink of the sins and evils of former times where they settle and grow to a head One Age rolls down upon another and sinks into the bottom of time so wickedness shoves it self on and rests upon a center Of this Generation shall be required all the blood that was shed from righteous Abel to Zacharias The iniquity of the Amorites grows full which had been some Ages in filling the Ephah is crowned and the talent of Lead closes it and by wings it is hasted to its own Base that is destruction 2. When we see people incorrigible and insensible of Gods hand keeping their Figure it is much to be feared Judgments have still more to do to accomplish their own when things are in a contest they continue to conflict one with another till one of them deserts its own mode and station This cannot fall on an Almighty Justice for in such encounters great things crush little ones till they can no longer maintain resistance and weak things that have a wise instinct or reason shift themselves every way to avoid the danger A broken spirit a melted heart running out of its former shape cease the controversie betwixt God and Man but Pharaohs heart hardned as the Adamant and steel held Judgment play till it accomplished it self into that absolute portraicture we read in his History 3. Injuries done to the Truth and Gospel of God are sad forebodes of ruinous Judgments the Ministery of Christ dishonoured was a just preparation of the way to that great destruction of Jerusalem and a highest justification of so severe a stroke The Gospel honoured is as a wall of fire for defence and breaks outward upon the enemies of a Nation when it is despised it burns inward It is a pillar of fire and a cloud of protection when observed but disregarded it is a cloud troubled with a Thunderbolt rolling up and down and at last flashing out in Lightning to destroy Nothing delivers the History of any time so fair to posterity as an honourable entertainment of a pure and unmixed Religion giving it the utmost freedom to shine as the Sun to communicate it self as the air and to run like the Fountains without any interruption For as these so the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the common happiness and necessiety of the world from no Nation of which wherever it had place hath it used to remove but it hath carried the honour and peace residing there with it as