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
A65061	Gods drawing, and mans coming to Christ discovered in 32 sermons on John 6. 44 : with the difference between a true inward Christian, and the outward formalist, in three sermons on Rom. 2. 28, 29 / by ... Richard Vines ...	Vines, Richard, 1600?-1656.; Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.	1662 (1662)	Wing V550; ESTC R3255	240,330	368

greater guilt is upon them Serm. 14 LET all neglecters despisers and resisters of the Grace of God learn from henceforth to know in what respects their condition is worse then even those Infidels and heathens that unto this day do sit in darkness and the shadow of death their condition is worse in five regards Now I come to touch your pulse to shew you your condition if you be not converted and come in to Christ Jesus if there be not a work of saving conversion upon your souls First They are many times Judicially hardened in their resistance every mans heart is naturally hard but every man is not Judicially hardned as every man must dye but every man is not sentenced to dye by the Judge so there is a natural hardness and a sentential or a judicial hardness whereby God himself hardens the heart of man every man is not hardened as Pharaoh was such mens hardness is their sin and judgement to both in one Matth. 13. 14. there is the sentence which is repeated three or four times in the New Testament hearing you shall hear and not understand seeing you shall see and not perceive and this is the punishment of obduration and of mans own shutting of his eyes and then God seals up his eyes least they should be converted saith God and I should heal them And it is repeated again in Joh. 12. 40 a dreadful judgement that goes out against lazy sleepy neglectful hearers of the Gospel therefore they could not believe because God hath blinded them paenally judicially thou setest a lock on the door against his grace and he sets another lock on the door against thee In respect of their hardness of heart It s said they would not but in respect of Gods hardening It s said they could not which I perswade my self is a judgement largely extended in our Church thought men will not be convinc't of it Secondly Therefore the condition of these persons is very hopeless difficult yea and desperate there is no hope that the Bellows will do any good where the fire is gene out when there remains no spark alive in the heart of man there is a high word given of them in Heb. 6. 4. who were as greatly indowed as most of us It is impossible to renew them again by repentance And such is he that hath extinguished his taste And the Apostle useth a similitude taken from the earth that the rain comes oft upon as sermons upon you and the fruit it yields is nothing but briars and thonrs still they go on in sin the marks of a Cursed soile they are nigh to cursing whose end is to be burnt these are the people that have been purged by means used and yet were not purged and therefore shall not be purged any more Ezek. 24. 13. take therefore the grace of God by the forelock for as they say of time it may prove bald behind and there may be no lock to take hold of the twig of a tree that 's once dead never revives again there may grow others on the same root but a blasted bud never revives more when the master hath shut the door you may knock in vain And such as these that have refused the call of God they shall in their day saith God call on me but I will not answer they shall seek me early and not find me because in their day of grace I called and they refused me Prov. 1 28. Thirdly The neglected talent is taken from them Matth. 13. 12. Whosoever hath not from him shall be taken away that which he seems to have nay that which he hath God strips those professors of their parts that will not admit the power of his grace into their souls there shall be taken from them that which they seem to have the improvement of Grace and the keeping it alive is the way to encrease it and continue it But otherwise the kingdom shall be taken from you the Gospel shall be taken away and all the parts and endowments that you have got together you shall be stript stark-naked of them all In Mark. 4. 25 26. the example of this may be seen in the Jewish nation and other countreys towns and people that have been stript of the word and Gospel by their undervaluing refusal of the Grace offered unto them in tbeir day and the judgement is like the sin For Christ curseth the Barren Figtree with barrenness Never fruit grow more on thee Oh Let not this curse come on you consider the dreadful Judgement the curse it is called of the Figtree No prevention of this but by making use of your accepted time your day of Salvation without which your house will be left unto you desolate this is the judgement that flies over nations and countreys and particular persons I have observed men sometimes forward hearers of the word of God men of good Elevated affections seeming to be zealous and diligent in duties yet afterwards when the world hath grown upon them as it is apt to grow upon you all then God for the neglect of their talent hath come to distrain and what hath he left behind truly a kind of Bankrupt profession of Religion mouldring away and sinking to nothing a company of sick professors whose parts are spent and many times they grow sottish and stupid their parts that which they had is taken from them having forgotten saith the Apostle that they were purged from their old sins 2 Pet. 1. 9. Fourthly they are let alone to fill up the measure of their sins In this God deals with you as a physitian that leaves a desperate patient to his own appetite Give him what he will have you say for the physitian hath left him God comes at you no more to humble you to give you a feeling a heavenly thirst or appetite It is a sore judgement as any is yet men do not feel it when God pulls the bridle off a mans head and lets him run he that is filthy let him be filthy still when God doth not compass him about with a hedge of thorns but lets him alone Hos 2. 6. Oh miserable man In Psal 8● 12. But my people would not hearken to my word and Israel would none of me here is their sin So I gave them up to their own hearts lust and they walked in their own counsels Ephraim is joyned to Idols let him alone Hos 4. 17. I will not punish their daughters when they commit adultery ver 14. but let them run to the end of their Teddar what a miserie is this whereof men are unsensible this is properly the punishment of the neglect of offered Grace Lastly The grieving of the waiting patience of God stretching out his hand all the day long and waiting on you beseeching you to come to Christ to receive the Lord Jesus and the answering and embittering it with provocations brings forth at last that fearful and irreversible oath of God at which me thinks any

it can be cleared This seems to me a great scandal whereat men stumble Secondly if God command and require good works in his holy Word of us and yet tells me that his election of me to salvation doth not stand upon them but that the election whereby God hath chosen me to salvation is firm by his calling Rom. 9. 11. then if so be these works required and commanded will not serve my turn will not confirm my Election or Justification I may follow them and yet not attain righteousness by them Rom. 9. 31. This is a great scandal and offence to mans reason Thirdly if God cast so many of the world off and chuse so few of them that are called but throws them out as the man that was thrown from the Feast not having the wedding garment This is a miserable offence Fourthly if God require faith of me and repentance call for a new heart and a new spirit and saith Make you a new heart and yet teaches me that none can come except a divine power draw him except it be given him then he requires impossible things And is not this say some like to Pharaoh that will have the full tale of brick but will not find the people straw These are the offences taken by mans reason these raise up the murmurings these make some men leave the care of their salvation at six and seven If I am elected I shall be saved if I am not elected I cannot This makes men throw the plow into the hedge-bottom and let the ship ride before the sea and wind Upon all this that I have said it appears that the doctrine of Christ and of the free grace of God in Christ requires an humble heart a captivated reason or else prejudices of pride and the reason of man will trouble the whole Scene And I may give an instance in a point so resented in the times wherein we live by our Masters of Reason as some call themselves as the Gnosticks of old those damnable Hereticks called themselves the knowing men who had their opposition of Science falsly so called 1 Tim. 6. 20. This is it That Christs blood is not a blood of Atonement or expiation of sin that there is no proper compensation nor any satisfaction made or needful to Divine Justice for sin How then God pardons us our sins by an absolute goodness by an absolute free pardon without such satisfaction As a man forgives a delinquent without any satisfaction or as a man forgives a debt another man owes him freely for nothing And this is the great Hinge on which the Socinian Doctrine hangs which hath leavened and pass'd through so many men in our times But this free pardon without satisfaction of Gods justice ruines and razes the foundations of our Christian Faith as if men would not have Christ to do too much for them were angry at him for his being their surety for his paying their debt and freeing them from prison and damnation which makes me cry out as the Apostle doth in 1 Cor. 1. 20. Where is the wise where is the Scribe where is the Disputer of this world Let them take notice of it the great learned men that preach Heathenism among us Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world how by the Doctrine of Christ and free grace And this I preach that we may listen and hold the truths that to others are offensive overlooking all the scandals that may be found in the person and doctrine of Christ Serm. 2 NOtwithstanding I am not unsensible that the free grace of God may be so preacht or if you will so apprehended by you as it may be not only offensive to carnal reason but justly offensive to Faith and Christianity it self And this is when the doctrine of free grace keeps not the Channel but runs out on this side or that side without or besides its bounds then indeed it is justly offensive and scandalous and that may be in three regards First when it is made universal in extent For the freedom of this grace hath no affinity with the universality And though many do conceive that they cannot preach it free except they do also preach it universal I shall after shew that there is no kindred between them In the election of any man to salvation it is free because it excludes mans worthiness or works and yet it s not universal so as all are elected and chosen One calling I mean that calling that is according to purpose it is free not standing upon works You are called by Gods grace and yet t is not universal so as all men are called according to Gods purpose It s free to such as are called though it be not common to all Was not the grace of God free to Jacob yet not common to him and Esau It was free to Peter and yet not common to him and Judas To you it is given to know the mystery of the Kingdom of Heaven there is the freedom to others it is not given there is a denial of the universality Maith 13. 11. And therefore we must distinguish between the offer of free grace and the effects of it grace in the offer of it may be common and in a sort universal but in the effects you shall always observe grace to be of a differencing nature it discriminates and makes● difference between one and another in salvation and therein is the glory of it and reason will shew that so far as it differences one from another it is not universal for that which differences cannot be universal the election hath obtained and the rest were hardeued Rom. 11. Secondly It is indeed offensive when it opens or is made to open a window to looseness of opinion or profaneness of life That makes it rather to be called loose grace then free grace for free grace truly preacht neither takes off the bridle of restraint of sin nor the spur of excitation of holiness from Gods Law these two must stand together Sin is restained by the Law of God there 's the bridle and then its a spur and incentive to obedience Shall we sin saith the Apostle because we are not under the Law but under Grace God forbid Rom. 6. 15. Again Shall we sin that Grace may abound Rom. 6. 1. No we may not make the doctrine of Gods free grace a Pander or a Porter to let in or open us the gate more freely to sin against him And the reason is excellent good there is no greater and sweeter obligation obliging man to thankfulness and obedience then this Doctrine of free grace The sense of this free grace I say is the most obliging and indearing of the heart to God of any doctrine that can be preacht so contrary is it from being a loosener of those bands whereby we are tyed to God Thirdly it is not rightly preached when it is made to deny to man all agency in Conversion as well as all power whereby

man that hath life and sense in him should tremble Heb. 3. 11. So I sware in my wrath that they should not enter into my rest that as there is an oath of God made to the heirs of promise to shew the immutability of his counsel Heb. 6. 17. marke it so this Oath is made a Barr against the Salvation of the resisters of his Grace as it is applyed and doth also signifie the immutability of his wrath that its like the law of the Medes and Persians that alters not and therefore fear to outstand the day of grace For be you assured that as sun-set to one may be and is sun-rise to another so the day of grace may arise to another and yet set to thee Oh that you would know and tremble at it fearing lest you should be at or past the sun-set of this day of grace and so I have finisht the three premises First That God offers Gospel Grace to men seriously and in good earnest Secondly It is natural to corrupt man to entertain this Grace offered with neglect and resistance Thirdly That therefore he is plunged into a sad and miserable Condition The second of which that its natural to man to entertain this grace offered with resistance is that which I am to shew the reason of The First and the Third that God offers that Grace which being resisted plunges men into worse condition then ever affords matter of use to us But for the reasons of this resistance though all reason is for mans acceptance thereof yet such is the frame of the heart that it opposeth it self against it and therefore cannot come to Jesus Christ the Reasons though they are manifold I need not long insist of having said so much on the point already I shall therefore only name a sixfold reason Reas 1 First from the natural temper of the heart of every man which is hard and impenitent and therefore called a heart that cannot Repent Rom. 2. 7. a heart of stone Ezekiel 36. 27. that is untractable to God and resisting as an adamant that resists and dulls the tool that should cut it the very sun that softens wax hardens clay the means of Grace harden therefore pray Oh Lord take away this heart of stone according to thy Covenant for a Broken and a tender heart is the Gift of God Reas 2 Secondly The contrariety of the disposition and inclination of the heart of man to Grace shews it for Grace offered and the heart to which its offered are as Contrary as light and darkness flesh and spirit and we know in nature that contraries cannot be reconciled overcome they they may be and many times one is by the victorious opposite fire may be extinguished by water but to make fire and water agree cannot be so may Grace overcome But the filth of the heart is unreconcileable having a contrary center to move unto and rest in Reas 3 Thirdly Grace disturbs the peace of a Corrupt heart and therefore is resisted It takes away the contentment which it finds in lusts and fins as the stronger man coming in Breaks the peace of the strong man armed and spoils his goods Matth. 12. 29. when the strong man the Devil keeps the house lust is in peace But when Christ comes he disturbs the peace and spoils the goods and that must needs cause dislike in the heart of man For men would not be awakened and disturbed Let me alone let me enjoy my peace you shall seldom see any conversion wrought without a great breach of peace when a mans peace is broken in which he slept upon the Cushion of the devil all his days it s a great sign that there is power of grace gone forth to make offers to convince and bring that sinner in this is the cause that in defence of its own peace the heart makes such resistance A Reas 4 Fourth cause of this resistance is the servitude of the will in Bondage unto sin which is not like other Bondages A Bondman is not content in his condition he would quit himself if he could and would be glad to hear news of his redemption But this is a voluntary Bondage and pleases better then a gracious freedom it s the bondage of the will and nothing can be more free and willing then that Titus 3. 3. serving divers lusts and pleasures is the character that the Apostles gives of a natural state the man is in bondage under servitude to lusts and pleasures and though a bondman usually desires freedom yet this bondage hath no such desires because it is not a painful irksome bondage It s like that of a fish that struggles against being pulled out of the water because it is his Element A bondage whereby the will of man whatever the School-men say is like a Roman Prisoner tied by both arms to two of his fellow prisoners so is the will bound by a corrupt Understanding on one hand and corrupt affections on the other so that alas how should this man willingly come to Christ no more then a prisoner in bondage can possibly break from his keepers and come to you Reas 5 Fifthly The heart is filled with Ignorant prejudices against Religion and Grace which it looks upon as an enemy that comes to strip it of all contentment and to bring it into captivity he thinks of Religion and all the p●rts of it otherwise then indeed it is that it is a morose way and will take away his delight or one thing or other he casts in his mind through the foulness of his fancy all the imaginations of the heart being evil only evil and that continually Gen. 6. 5. Reas 6 Lastly A prepossession or a further possession For corruption is the first inhabitant Every mans head is first taken up with ignorance and hate of God and as the first man that is possessour of a Castle will keep it against every Invader so man being first engaged in a party by the king of this world and put into the command of the Castle of his heart when Grace comes and in the name of God demands a surrendry into the right owners hands it s lookt upon as an invader And therefore he sets himself to keep it out because he will hold to his party so that grace cannot get admittance till it bring an ejectionem firmam to throw out the enemy in possession For these and such like Reasons man strives with God and by the withdrawment of grace God seems to be out-striven with by man Oh Jerusalem wilt thou not be made clean when will it once be Jer. 13. ult A phrase of speech that testifies there is a long patience in it The uses of the serious offers of Grace and the misery of those that resist those offers are these two Use 1 First in General England London thou hast had a long day of Grace where the Lord hath visited thee by tendring the things that belong unto thy peace Christ Jesus to be