Selected quad for the lemma: heart_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
heart_n	law_n	sin_n	transgression_n	2,243	5	10.5323	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A47177	A sermon preached at the meeting of Protestant dissenters called Quakers in Turners-Hall, London, on the 16th of the second month, 1696 : being the publick day of thanksgiving for the deliverance of the King and Kingdom : to which is added a testimony ... to King William the III from the aforesaid people ... / by George Keith.	Keith, George, 1639?-1716.	1696 (1696)	Wing K208; ESTC R28960	18,109	32

greatest enemies are those of his own house So it was in this case David's worst Enemies were those of his own House he did not watch and keep his guard against them in the time of his Prosperity when he was advanced to the Crown and Scepter of Judah and Israel and his Enemies subdued under him after God had delivered him from the Hands of all his Enemies he should have kept himself from his Iniquity as he had done formerly when Saul hunted and pursued him as a Partridge upon the Mountains Men and Women commonly have some particular Sin and Lust which in a peculiar manner they may call their own Iniquity It is Voluptuousness and the love of Carnal Pleasure in some Ambition and Pride in others and Envy and Malice in some and Covetousness which is Idolatry in others Therefore let not Men Flatter and Deceive themselves and think that there is nothing of the Seed and Principle of Sin remaining in their Flesh I have heard of the Saying of a choice Christian a worthy Woman she had long experienced a blessed State of nearness to God I have heard a Person say that had it from her own Mouth that for the space of some Years the Grace of God did shine in her as the Sun at Noon-Day It was a constant thing with her to walk with God the whole Day from her rising up to her lying down and she enjoyed a lively sense of the Love of God and the Consolations of his Holy Spirit But it pleased the Lord afterwards to hide his Face and then she was troubled yet God did not utterly leave her for she Died a good Christian But He did withdraw and with-held from her those sensible Joys and Consolations she had rasted and felt in Communion with Him some have heard her say When it was so with me that the Light of God's Countenance was lifted up upon me and he had put gladness into my Heart I thought there was no Sin had any place or room in me but after those refreshing Joys and sensible Consolations were removed and the Lord did hide his Face from me who hath promised he will not utterly forsake his People whose Faithfulness doth engage him never finally to leave them tho' for some time he may seem to Desert them when I had said she those wonderful Joys and refreshings from the presence of the Lord I thought Sin had been quite gone but afterward I found it was but driven into a corner Many that think they are come to high Attainments may say For I know that in me that is in my flesh dwelleth no good thing O wretched Creature that I am who shall deliver me from the body of this death I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I my self serve the law of God but with the flesh the law of sin The Work that God hath appointed to every Christian is like the work of a Gardener Dressing his Garden we are so to manage our Hearts and order our Conversations and Cultivate our selves that we may be as a Watered Garden to the Lord. A Dresser of a Garden must take great pains and labour hard to make it Fruitful if he doth not diligently and constantly employ himself Weeds will be springing up and hinder the growth of the Herbs and Flowers therefore the Gardener must lay his Hands to it and pluck up the noxious Weeds that they may not spread and spoil and overrun the Garden So we must labour and take pains with our Hearts and Souls I remember it was a saying of Bernard in a Letter which he wrote to some of his Friends Let your Soul be continually in your Hands as David said my soul is continually in my hands that is in a way of reliance and giving it up into the Hands of the Lord. But Bernard when he saith Let your Soul be continually in your Hands he means thus Let your Soul be continually washing and cleansing every Day more and more that you may be purified and kept unspotted from the World If we have a spot or speck upon a Garment we will take pains to rubit out And thus it ought to be with every one of us let our Souls be continually in our Hands let us be dressing our Hearts continually and keep them with all keeping keep them with all Diligence for out of them are the Issues of Life keep your Hearts with all keeping and our Lord Christ will refresh you with his Living Water as he told the Woman of Samaria Whosoever drinketh of the Water that I shall give him shall never thirst but the Water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of Water springing up unto everlasting Life There is a great Mystery in this God for Christ's sake and through Christ Jesus hath placed in us an inward principle of Divine Life We are oft refreshed with the Streams of this Living Spring that flows within us reviving us with the sense of the Love of God What is it that oft hinders this Well from springing up in us but the dirt and rubbish of Sin The Philistines stopped the VVells that Abraham and Isaac's Servants had Digged but they unstopped them again that the VVaters might spring up Let us keep our Hearts clear from the dirt and rubbish of Sin that this VVell may spring up in us to Everlasting Life VVhen our Saviour was demanded of the Pharisees when the Kingdom of God should come He answer'd them and said The Kingdom of God cometh not with observation Neither shall ye say Lo here or lo there for behold the kingdom of God is within you Yet they were bad Men and Hypocrites It was in them as a very little Seed it was in them as if it were not in them as the Man that had one Talent he had it as if he had it not he did no good with it our Lord called him wicked and slothful Servant and said Take therefore the Talent from him and give it unto him which had ten talents For unto every one that hath shall be given and he shall have abundance but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath A Covetous Man wants what he hath as if he had it not Christ Jesus is the true Light that lighteth every Man that cometh into the World I dissent from them that speak slightly of that Light which reproves Sin in the Consciences of Men and Women God hath put his Law in Mens Hearts and as the Great Law-giver he hath written it there with his own Finger and the Gentiles that have not the Law are a Law to themselves for if God had not writ his Law in all Mens Hearts they would have no sin where no Law is there is no Transgression God also writes his Laws in the Hearts of true Believers and softens their Hearts to take the impression of it but every Unbeliever and unconverted Man and Woman hath a

Heart of Stone None but those which know themselves to be of the New Creation of God have experience of a Heart of Flesh given them and a Heart of Stone taken away It is they only that have the Law written upon the fleshly Tables of their Hearts that are washed and purified though I cannot say there is a Well of Living Water in any that do not believe yet there is something placed by God in every one towards it like the Ministry of John the Baptist which was a preparing the way of the Lord he was spoken of by the Prophet Isaias saying the voice of one crying in the wilderness prepare ye the way of the Lord make his paths straight Our Saviour said to the Woman of Samaria if thou knewest the gift of God and who it is that saith unto thee Give me to drink thou wouldest have asked of him and he would have given thee living water And in another place it is said In the last day that great day of the feast Jesus stood and cried saying if any man thirst let him come unto me and drinke He that believeth on me as the scripture hath said out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water but this he spake of the spirit which that believe on him should receive not Unbelievers You that sincerely and truly Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ without all peradventure you have something of this Well of Living Water within you you have the gift of God O give thanks to God through Jesus Christ our Lord for this great and unspeakable Gift Some may say if I have a Well of Living Water in me what is the reason I feel so little comfort my soul thirst and I want this Living water to drink O that I had some drops of it to cool and quench my thirsty Soul I Answer Thou dost not diligently watch thy Heart thou sufferest thy Sins those Philistins to prevail over thee and stop up thy Well When Abimelech's Servants had stopped the Wells which were digged in the days of Abraham Isaac digged them again I say unto you throw away the Rubbish and Earth and Dirt that is got into your own Hearts and every thing that the Light in your own Consciences tells you in evil and then the Waters will spring forth Then you will experience a Well of Living Water springing up in you unto Everlasting Life The Prophets of Old David and Samuel Isaiah and Jeremy and Daniel and all other Holy Men of God they had experience of this Well within them springing up unto Everlasting Life and all true Believers before Christ came in the Flesh they did all eat the same spiritual meat and drink the same spiritual drink For they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them and that Rock was Christ and they had all those Spiritual Blessings we enjoy upon the account of Christ his most Holy Obedience and Death There was this difference between us and them We believe in Christ that is already come and they saw Christ in the Promises and in Shadows Types and Figures and believed in Christ that was to come Under the Law they were under a Yoke of Bondage but we have cause to bless the Lord that hath taken that Yoke from off our Necks that neither they nor their Fathers were able to bear We Read in Act. 15. 5. There rose up certain of the sect of the Pharisees which believed saying That it was needful to circumcise them and to command them to keep the law of Moses And the apostles and elders came together for to consider of this matter And when there had been much disputing Peter rose up and said unto them Men and Brethren ye know how that a good while a go God made choice among us that the Gentiles by my mouth should hear the word of the Gospel and believe And God which knoweth the hearts bear them witness giving them the holy Ghost even as he did unto us And put no difference between us and them purifying their hearts by faith Now therefore why tempt ye God to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear But we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved even as they Blessed be God that hath delivered us from that burden of Ceremonies and multitudes of Rites and Observations that were continued till the clearer times of the Gospel when all the Males before that time went every Year up to Jerusalem to worship which was many Miles distant from many of their Habitations The Lord hath been pleased to make the Christian Service under the Gospel much more easie to us upon an outward account and likewise more advantagious as well as more easie and Delightful upon a Spiritual Account God hath given us more of his Spirit in these times of the Gospel not that God hath given us a greater Measure of his Holy Spirit than he gave unto the Prophets for they had greater gifts of the Spirit but there is now generally given more abundant measures of the Spirit to Gods Poople under this Dispensation of the Gospel there were then in general but lower and lesser Measures and as it were some droppings of the Spirit upon them that lived in former Ages but in the latter days after Christs ascension there hath been the powring out of the Spirit that as the Apostle speaks God might in ages to come shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness towards us through Christ Jesus And if any do not now witness the powring forth of the Spirit they may find the cause in themselves they are not careful and diligent to improve the Means and Advantages that God hath given to them and that is the reason of it In the close of the 18th Psalm David speaks some things concerning himself and other things relating to Christ speaking of himself as he was a Type of Christ Thou hast delivered me from the strivings of the people and thou hast made me the head of the heathen a people whom I have not known shall serve me Assoon as they hear of me they shall obey me the strangers shall submit themselves to me This was but little fulfilled in David the Type but was largely fulfilled many hundred years after in Christ the Antitype VVhen the Apostles came to Preach Christ Crucified then very many that heard believed in Christ and obeyed him submitted themselves to him and many afterwards laid down their Lives for him My Friends ought not we be very Thankful when we consider and call to mind what a sad condition England was in many Hundred Years ago when the Inhabitants worshipped Diana and other Idols and false Gods Jerom saith the Britains were so Savage and Barbarous that they did eat Mans Flesh Blessed be God for his abundant mercy and kindness to us that hath brought many in this Nation to the