Selected quad for the lemma: heart_n
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A64963
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A heaven or hell upon earth, or, A discourse concerning conscience by Nathanael Vincent.
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Vincent, Nathanael, 1639?-1697.
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1676
(1676)
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Wing V409; ESTC R27575
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204,858
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337
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be believed besides he contradicts himself for heretofore he used to tell thee 't was time enough hereafter to Repent If it be the sad surmise of thine own heart surely such an Ignorant and deceitful heart as thine is not to be credited as if it were infallible If God tells thee so then 't is either in his Word but thou canst not shew the place where he has said it or by some extraordinary Revelation but this thou canst not if sober-minded pretend unto 2. Remember some have been called at the eleventh hour of the day nay the Thief upon the Cross but one moment before Night who then can peremptorily say that the day of Grace is past as long as Life remains Let not presuming sinners make an ill use of this which has been said for they that put off Repentance because of the lasting of the day of Grace before they are aware may drop into the Grave and Hell and then they will Repent for ever that they did not Repent sooner but their Repentance will be too late and to no purpose 3. If your need of Grace be seen and Christ and Grace are valued above Gold that perishes and all the Pleasures and Honours of the World which are onely for a season The day of Grace is so far from being past that Grace is really wrought in you If the Spirit had not been and were not still really at work in you you would not have such desires to be Sanctified throughout as well as Justified from all Offences Object 3. Some do further say that they are Judicially hardened they can think of God and Christ and Sin and Death and Hell and yet their hearts are no more affected than if they were stocks or stones upon this they conclude that God has spoken concerning them as he did concerning Israel of Old Isa 6. 10. Make the heart of this People fat and make their Ears heavy and shut their Eyes lest they see with their Eyes and hear with their Ears and understand with their Heart and Convert and be healed Answ 1. Your dulness and unaffectedness may possibly proceed not so much from your Hearts as from distemper and cloudiness of your Heads and if in all things else you find a kind of stupidness and unconcernedness even about your worldly matters also you must not from distemper of Body conclude the judicial hardning of your Hearts 2. Those in Scripture which were judicially hardned never complained of their hardness but this is your complaint and burthen Pharaoh and the Pharisees were both hardned in a way of judgment but though Pharaoh was sensible of other Plagues yet not at all of this which was incomparably the worst of all the Plagues of Aegypt he cries out pray to the Lord to take away the Locusts the Frogs the Thunder and Hail but never pray to the Lord to take away the Heart of Stone from him And as for the Pharisees they thought themselves Righteous and whole and slighted a Physician and Saviour for they thought they could do well enough without him 3. You are not altogether past feeling because you feel your own hardness and 't is a mercy that you know this Plague of your own heart Oh go to the Physician who has promised to cure it and to give an heart of Flesh to you This is Gods way and method to make sinners sensible of their hardness that he may soften them of their blindness that he may give them eye-Salve of their filthiness that he may cleanse them of their guilt that he may pardon them of their emptinesse that he may fill them Object 4. They under trouble of Spirit do further object alas we are not able to come to Christ though our Eternal Salvation does lye on 't our Consciences are wounded but we cannot come for cure and ease Answ 1. Is this a small matter that God has made you sensible of your natural inability how many do mistake and think they have a power to help themselves and this hinders them from seriously applying themselves unto Him that alone is able to save You see and say you have no might 't is well a promise belongs to you Isa 40. 29. He giveth Power to the faint and to them that have no might he increaseth strength i. e. To them that see they have no might for all have really none 2. Though you cannot come to Christ for Grace and Comfort yet the Father can draw you and have not you an Heart to cry to him to do this for you What 's your Language in secret Prayer Is it not Draw me and I will run after thee Is it not Turn thou me and I shall be turned Thus spake the Spouse Cant. 1. Thus spake Ephraim of Old Jer. 31. and both were heard nay the Lord says I have surely heard Ephraim surely your cryes for drawing and turning shall not be in vain 3. You say you are not able to come to Christ but are you willing to come to him Yes pray who has made you able to be thus willing but onely that God who works to will of his own good Pleasure If you are willing to come you are able to come for your coming lies in being willing If you are willing to have the Son you have him and Life by him (*) Non pedibus sed affectu non migrando sed amando venitur ad Christum Augustin for 't is with your Wills that you receive him and so have Power to become the Children of God The Apostle tells us That with the Heart man believes unto Righteousness Rom. 10. 10. By the Heart in Scripture is commonly meant the Will so that if the Will consents to have Christ as Wisdom Righteousness Sanctification and Redemption Here is indeed that Faith which is Justifying and Saving Christ having taken the Will has taken the main Fort that by Nature stands out against him and Commands the whole Soul Object 5. Some under trouble of Conscience cry out They have been enlightned and under Conviction heretofore but since their Illumination and Convictions they have fallen away and therefore now they conclude there is nothing remains but a certain fearful looking for of Judgment and of fiery Indignation which shall devour the Adversaries Answ 1. All back-sliding though grosse is not the unpardonable sin David and Peter were both enlightned both did fall and that into gross wickedness and yet both Repented both were pardoned and restored to favour and both are now in Glory 2. Even Back-sliders are called upon to return The Children of Israel had played the Harlots with many Lovers they had spoken and done evil things as they could and yet many times in one Chapter Jer. 3. they are called after to come home to God from whom they had so deeply Revolted though therefore you ought to mourn and be in bitterness for your Apostacies and unstedfastness yet you must not mourn without hope 3. Promises are made to Back-sliders if they return
When any perswade you to intemperance to uncleanness to injustice or any other iniquity they do in effect perswade you to make deep wounds and gashes in your own Spirits to wrong your own Souls and to go along with them towards the lake that burns and burns for ever with Fire and Brimstone Oh the cruelty of those that stir up others to sin Oh the folly of them that are prevailed with by these wretched and evil instruments of the Prince of Darkness I have done with that first Use by way of reproof VSE II. Shall be of Direction And here I am to shew first how secure Consciences may be awakened and wounded and secondly how wounded Consciences may be cured and comforted 1. How secure Consciences may be awakened Though there is many a bad Spirit which does prevail at this day yet none does more prevail than the Spirit of Slumber closed Eyes drowsie Souls senseless Hearts are every where to be met with Though so much hath been spoken though so much has been done though so much has been felt and suffered in order unto our awakening yet whose Conscience is indeed starled Prophets have been full of Power by the Spirit of the Lord and of Judgment and of might to declare unto evil doers their Transgression and their sin Mic. 3. 8. Calamity and Judgments have been strange unwonted and extraordinary and it might have been thought that such a Plague and Flames as have raged in London would hardly have left one secure sinner but all would have learned to fear that God who is so Righteous and who knows how to take a course with them that provoke him unto jealousie But alas like Pharoah of old upon the least respite the generality of sinners do harden their Hearts and their Consciences sleep sounder than ever Now in order unto your being awakened follow these directions 1. Think of that Great and Glorious Majesty which by sin is affronted and which all the sin that is in the World is committed against He is the blessed and only Potentate the King of Kings and Lord of Lords he is clothed with Honour and with Majesty and covers himself with light as with a Garment the Heaven is his Throne the Earth is his Foot-stool the whole world in comparison with him is but as the Bucket and the small dust upon the Balance and all the Nations of the Earth before him are as nothing and vanity Isa 40. 15. 17. The greater the person is that is affronted that affront is the greater crime God is the highest and greatest of all Oh how vile and hainous a thing is it to sin against him Sinner would'st thou have thy Conscience awakened believe seriously that There is a God Oh what work would this Truth make were it but firmly credited That famous Bruce of Scotland who (a) Robertus Brusius Vir genere virtute nobilis Majestate vultûs vener abilis qui plura animarum millia Christo lucrifecit cujus anima si ullius mortalium absit verbo invidia sedet in coelestibus gained many thousands of Souls to Christ was wont to say I think it a great matter to believe that there is a God And not only believe that God is but that he is so Glorious as his word proclaims him this may make thee tremble Now no sin in the World can be committed wherein this God is not concerned Those sins against Man are more against God than against man therefore David after he had murthered Vriah and defiled Bathsheba looks beyond these as high as God himself and cryes out against thee thee only have I sinned and done this Evil in thy sight Psal 51. 4. He takes notice how God was struck at in that injury he had done to his Neighbour and is wholly swallowed up in that consideration and this helped very much his awakening and contrition To how many thousands of Millions do all thy sins amount and there is not one of them but has been an act of Rebellion against the †Altare Damascenum Lord of Heaven if this were pondered it might cool thy Courage and trouble thy Conscience 2. Think how dreadful the Power of this God and his wrath being joyned together must needs prove in Scripture these two are joyned and both together are engaged against the ungodly Ezra 8. 22. The hand of our God is upon all them for good that seek him but his Power and his Wrath is against all them that forsake him If wrath be without Power 't is contemptible if Power be without wrath it may not be at all hurtful but when Wrath and Power meet they may well be trembled at The Wrath of a King is as the Roaring of a Lyon as the messengers of Death What then is the Anger of God this wrath to shew the heat and greatness of it is likened unto Fire and it burns worse than any other Fire for it burns to Hell it self Deut. 52. 32. A Fire is kindled in mine Anger and it shall burn to the lowest Hell And if you would understand the Power of this Anger know that there is no withstanding it and Oh how dismall are the effects of it in both Worlds This Anger of God has brought upon sinners Cursing and Vexation and Rebuke and has made them quickly to perish because of the Wickedness of their doings it has smitten them with a Consumption and a Fever and an Inflammation and Extreme Burning with the Pestilence and Sword and Blasting and Mildew and has made the Heaven over Sinners Heads like Brass and the Earth under their Feet like Iron It has made them when they went out one way against their Enemies to be smitten and to flee seven wayes before them and their carcasses to become meat to the Fowls of the Air and the Beasts of the Earth This Anger of God has stricken the ungodly with madness and blindness and astonishment of Heart So that life has been a burthen no rest or ease at all could be found so that in the morning they have said would God it were Evening and in the Evening would God it were morning because of the fear and trembling of their Hearts the failing of their Eyes and the sorrow of their Minds All this is spoken of at large Deut. 28. But these are not all nor the most heavy effects of Divine displeasure Indeed we are safe from mans Anger after Death we cannot feel or be concerned at what Man can do when we are in the Grave There the Wicked cease from troubling there the weary be at rest there the Prisoners rest together they hear not the voice of the oppressor Job 3. 17. 18. But Gods Anger will follow after us into the other World and then will be found most heavy That Wrath to come is most of all amazing for then as it will be intollerable to be born so 't wil be impossible to be appeased Consider all this and be affrighted and say with the Psalmist At