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	let_v	pharaoh_n	4,715	5	11.0616	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A30259	A sermon preached to the Honourable House of Commons assembled in Parliament at their pvbliqve fast, Novem. 17, 1640 by Cornelius Burges.	Burges, Cornelius, 1589?-1665.; Marshall, Stephen, 1594?-1655.	1641 (1641)	Wing B5683; ESTC R19994	56,507	64

In the 45. of Isay vers 11. there is a strong expression this way Thus saith the Lard the Holy One of Israel and his Maker aske of mee things to come concerning my sonnes and concerning the work of my hands Command yee mee It is not to be thought that God complementeth with his people but is free and hearty in the expression of what they shall really find him But mark it concernes his Sonnes that is those that are truely in Covenant with him This priviledge is for none else So that the way to have God at Command with humility be it used is to bee his sonnes and daughters by Covenant For to whom it is said I will be their God and they shall bee my people to them is it spoken I will bee a father unto you and yee shall bee my sonnes and daughters saith the Lord Almighty 2 Cor. 6.18 And to them he saith also Command ye me 6. Consider that it is the proper and chiefe businesse of a Fast 6. This is the proper worke of a Religious Fast Nehem. 9. to enter into Covenant with God You see it to bee the practise of the Church in Nehemiahs time And where this hath been omitted the Fast hath been lost God never accounted any of those foure annuall solemne Fasts before mentioned that were so long in use among the Iewes to be fasts unto him but calls them fasts to themselves Zach. 7.5 6. Why but because they looked no further in their Fasts but to afflict their soules for a day Isay 58. to bow downe their heads as a bullrush and to spread sack-cloth and ashes under them and there an end But they lost all their labour getting nothing from God but a chiding and contempt And in truth when will wee thus ioyne our selves to the Lord if not at a Fast Then are our hearts in more than ordinary tune for such a work when wee are brought to set our sinnes before us and humbly to confesse bewaile and renounce them when wee have taken some paines with our Soules to soften and melt them before the Lord especially if then they be in any measure raised up towards Him with any apprehension of his love in the pardon of so many and great sinnes even when the Soule is most cast downe for them Then I say strike through the Covenant or it will never be If you let slip this opportunity you may perhaps never obtaine the like while you live but either your selves may bee cut off or your hearts shut up in desperate hardnesse like unto Pharaoh whom every deliverance and new experience of Gods favour in taking off new evils hardened more and made worse 7. In the last place and let it not have the least force of perswasion remember and consider that this day even this very day the 17. of November 82. yeares sithence began a new resurrection of this Kingdome from the dead our second happy reformation of Religion by the auspitious entrance of our late Royall Deborah worthy of eternall remembrance and honour into her blessed and glorious Reigne 7. This very Day began the second Reformation of Religion and that from thenceforth Religion thrived and prospered under her Governement with admirable successe against a whole world of oppositions from Popish factors at home and abroad So as the very Gates of hell were never able to extinguish that Light which God by her meanes hath set up amongst us Consider I beseech you that it is not without a speciall Providence that this your meeting was cast upon this very day for I presume little did you think of the 17. of November when you first fixed on this day for your Fast that even from thence one hammer might bee borrowed to drive home this nayle of Exhortation that the very memory of so blessed a work begun on this very day might throughly inflame you with desire to enter into a Covenant and so to go forward to perfect that happy Reformation which yet in many parts lies unpolished and unperfect Oh suffer not that doore of hope by Her set open this day to bee againe shut for want of a Covenant If you would indeed honour Her precious memory yea honour God and your selves and not onely continue the possession of what she as a most glorious Conduit pipe hath transmitted to us but perfect the work set upon this duty of ioyning your selves to the Lord in an everlasting Covenant that shall not be forgotten And so have you the Motives Meanes how to enter into Covenant 2. I shall now shut up all with some few Directions to help us in it And here passing by what hath been already spoken touching the preparatives to it the Substance of it and the properties required in it I shall onely give you these sixe subsequent Directions 1. Give a Bill of divorce to all your Lusts 1. Give a Bill of Divorce to all your Lusts or kill them out right This Covenant is a marriage Covenant and there is no marrying with God so long as your former husband your base corruptions your swearing riot drunkennesse uncleannesse pride oppression and what ever else your soules know to bee the plague of your owne hearts remaine alive and undivorced For the woman which hath an husband is bound by the Law to her husband so long as hee liveth but if he be once dead she is free from that Law Rom. 7. Therefore send these packing in the first place 3. Vse Exhortation Meanes A wise man will never marry a strumpet nor with any woman that hath another husband his wife that shall bee onely his owne none else shall have interest in her Much lesse then will the Holy and Iealous God admit of any Spouse that is wedded to any lust and so continueth Say then what wilt thou now doe wilt thou still keepe thy darling lust Hast thou been a swearer and so thou wilt be a drunkard and an uncleane person an oppressour a prophane Esau and wilt be so still Know that God will none of thee but abhorres all such as thou art He will admit none into Covenant but such as touch not the uncleane thing but separate from it To them onely it is that hee promiseth 2 Cor. 6. I will bee their God and they shall be my people 2. More especially purge out and cast away as a Menstruous cloth all Idols and Idolatry 2. More especially cast out all Idols and Idolatry Psal 5.4 in particular All our Lusts are lothsome to his stomach but nothing is so abominable to his Soule as Idolatry This is that spirituall whoredome which meritoriously dissolves the marriage bond where it is already knit and lies as a barre in the way to a Covenant with God where yet it is not made Jer. 44.4 2 King 17. This was it for which the Lord proceeded so severely first against the ten Tribes and then against the residue as you all know For this the Land

accounted no better than a not calling upon him at all Thus men lose not onely their opportunities of deliverances offered but their duties also by which they desire to further it against another time 4. Some it may bee goe yet further Vpon the hearing of such a duty so much pressed and inculcated they beginne to bee a little stirred they are convinced that it is indeed true such a Covenant 4. Of such as are convinced of the necessity of a Covenant yet come not up to it Hosea 3.14 is fit to be made but here like Ephraim an unwise sonne they stand still at the breaking forth of the Children of the Covenant They faine would but loth they be to goe thorough with the bargaine They beginne to come on and then fall back againe They are so long a cheapning treating complementing disputing how safe it may bee for them how well it may stand with their profits projects ends interests relations that they coole againe and never come up to a full resolution Oh sayes one this is a good course and fit to bee taken but my engagements callings Alliance company service will not consist with it Another sweares hee could finde in his heart to make triall of it but that he should be jeered scorned and perhaps lose his place or hopes for it another he is for it but at present he cannot enter upon it Thus one thing or other still keeps this duty without doores and holds most men off from the work for ever But beloved take heed of this dallying What ever you think it is no better than a departing away from the living God that springs from an evill heart of unbeliefe when being fully convinced of the weight necessity and commodity of the duty you will yet while it is called to day adventure so farre to harden your hearts as not to set upon the work instantly and to go thorough with it Heb. 3. Woe unto all such dodging Christians they shall finde to their cost that God will write them Lo-ammi Hos 1.9 and pronounce of them They are not my people and I am not their God If any think what adoe is here what meanes this man to bee so earnest would hee have us all turne Covenanters yes with God Why what if I doe not Then never look for good from him how faire soever thy hopes be No sayes another I le try that sure I have seene many a good day in my time and hope to see more though I never swallow this doctrine therefore he resolves to go hence as he came hither as he lived yesterday so he will to morrow though this day hee doe as his neighbours doe keeping some order much against the will of his base lusts that ring him but an harsh peale in his eare for this little abstinence yet to morrow he will bee for his swearing drinking whoring any excesse and riot as much as ever and yet by grace of God he hopes to prove all these words to be but wind and to do as well as the best of them all when he comes to die But woe worth the day that ever such a man was born that when hee heares God calling him with so much importunity to stand even this very day before the Lord to enter into Covenant with the Lord his God and into his Oath shall so harden his neck and harbour such a roote of gall and wormewood within his heart as when he heares the words of the Curse upon all those that will not enter into Covenant or entring into it shall not keep it hee shall blesse himselfe in his heart saying I shall have peace though I walke in the imagination of mine heart and adde drunkennesse to thirst See and tremble at what God hath resolved to do with that man Deut. 29.20 21. The Lord will not spare him but the anger of the Lord and his iealousie shall smoke against that man and all the Curses that are written in Gods Book shall lie upon him and the Lord shall blot out his name from under heaven Here is nothing but fury powred out upon such a wretch not a blessing shal descend upon him not a curse shall escape and goe by him not onely himself and posterity but his very name so far as it is an honour shall all be cast out of the world as out of the midst of a sling If hee please himselfe with this Yet I shall live as long as some others if they have any happinesse I resolve to share with them he will find that God will not leave him so but the Lord will separate him unto evill out of all the Tribes of Israel so as though all others be safe yet as a strucken Deere is unhearded from all the rest and followed by the dogs till he be pul'd downe and kill'd so shall it be with this man according to all the curses of the Covenant that are written in the Book of the Law Although the whole Kingdome be safe and all others in it be in peace yet he and his house shall perish the line of Confusion shall bee stretched out over him hell and damnation shall be his portion how high soever hee now beares his head and how much soever hee suffer his heart to swell against the truth supposing all that he likes not to be nothing but a spice of indiscretion yea of faction and it may bee of Sedition when yet nothing is offered but what is I trust pregnantly proved out of Holy Scripture So farre the first Vse 2. Vse Information ●ou●●ing the chiefe cause why Reforma●●● and full ●●dr●sse of our evills goes on 〈◊〉 slowly 2. This may informe us touching the true cause which most neerely concernes our selves of the slow proceedings of Reformation of things amisse among us both in the Church and Common-wealth Why God hath not yet given us so full a deliverance from Babylon why there have been so many ebbings and flowings in matters of Religion yea more ebbings than flowings Why generall grievances swell to such an height and that all opportunities of cure have vanished so soone as appeared how it comes to posse that albeit God hath moved the heart of the King to call Parliament after Parliament yet by and by one spirit of division or another sometimes from one quarter 2. Vse Information sometimes from another like the evill spirit which God sent between Abimelech and the men of Shechem to the ruine of both still comes betweene and blasteth all our hopes Iudg. 9.23 24. leaving us in worse case than we were in before and whence it is in regard of our selves that in stead of setting up the Kingdome and Ordinances of Christ in more purity there is such a contrary mixture and such a corrupting of all things in Doctrine in worship in every thing Arminianisme Socinianisme and Popish Idolatry breaking in againe over all the Kingdome like a floud What is a chiefe cause of all this Have we not