Selected quad for the lemma: heart_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
heart_n	let_v	people_n	pharaoh_n	1,979	5	10.4708	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A44932	The spirit of prophecy a treatise to prove, by the wayes formerly in use among the Jews, in the tryal of pretenders to a prophetic spirit, that Christ and his Apostles were prophets : together with the divine authority of christian religion and the Holy Scriptures, the insufficiency of human reason, and the reasonableness of the christian faith, hope, and practice, deduced therefrom, and asserted against Mr. Hobbs, and the Treatise of Hvmane Reason / by W.H.	Hughes, William, b. 1624 or 5.	1679 (1679)	Wing H3346; ESTC R19799	183,906	298

that so good and perfect a Gift should be congruously bestowed by the most Wise Disposer of all things But if they were so successful as to convince men of their Calling yet how could they perform their Office without Discretion and Prudence By their Office as we may gather from the use of their Scripture the Prophets were to teach reprove correct and instruct men in righteousness to declare what they ought to know and believe to convince them in Falshood and Error to reform and amend their Lives to build them up and carry them on unto Perfection in all Vertue and Holiness of living without Discretion and Prudence who were sufficient for these things Can Ignorance teach or Folly reprove Can Weakness of Judgment demolish the Strong Holds of Errour or discover the Fallacies of Falshood Can Shallow Apprehensions fathom the Depths of Sin or detect the Mysteries of Iniquity Can Ideots make men Wise or Fools Instruct others in Righteousness Yet so they must unless the rational Faculties of the People rather than of the Prophets were almost wholly absorpt by the Spirit of Prophecy and so their Wisdom and Holiness were increased by a strange antiperistasis of Folly and Ignorance than which there was nothing more unlikely and ridiculous It must therefore be granted to the Jews that Gods Prophets were though it may be not alwayes Learned in Languages Arts and Sciences c. yet Wise and Prudent Men and this their Prudence dwelt with such knowledge as was unattainable without Revelation and that in one or more of these three respects Either first in respect of the nature of the things known as in their Predictions of Future Contingences of which hereafter Or secondly in respect of the manner of their Knowledge my meaning is that those things which of their own nature were such as might have been known by the power of our Natural Abilities were sometimes made known to the Prophets by immediate Revelation Thus the Prophet Samuel knew where Sauls Asses were and thus Elisha knew whither his Servant Gehazi was gone and what he did when he followed Naaman and had overtook him In the Nature of the Things and the Measure of their Knowledge th●re was nothing Extraordinary but the Things themselves being remote from these Prophets and they not being informed by any Creature concerning them it is evident that the manner of their Knowle●ge or the means whereby they attained unto it were Supernatural Thirdly the Prophets knowledge of some things was Supernatural in respect of the Measure of it as is evident by their clearing up the Principles of Natural Theology and this they have done so successfully as that Tertullian offers to prove to the Gentiles that not only their Poets and their Sophisters drank out of the Prophets Fountain but also their Philosophers quenched the thirst of their Wit therefrom They all were Plagiaries and stole the choicest of their Notions from the Revelations made to the Prophets How partial then are we in counting the Philosophers Wise unless we also reckon that the Prophets did excell them in Wisdom if not in respect of that which they themselves acquired yet in respect of that which was revealed unto them And this their Wisdom was far more excellent than that of the Philosophers not only in respect of the Matter Manner or Measure of it but also in respect of the Effect or Operation of it in them and this brings me to the second thing enquired after by the Jews in the Tryal of Prophets ●amely their Strength or Fortitude So Servile and Pusillanimous were the Heathen Philosophers even Plato himself as that for fear of Men they concealed Truths of greatest importance Thus may men do by acquired Knowledge but not with Infused at least not so easily that which they get by Study they may stifle but what they have by Prophecy they can hardly conceal Is not my Word like as Fire saith the Lord and like an Hammer that breaketh the Rock in pieces The word of Proph●cy can hardly be imprisoned in Unrighteousness the Prophets must ●ither burn or break unless they utter it Hence no doubt it was that when the Prophet Jeremiah was so passionate and petti●h as to say I will not make mention of the Lord nor speak any more in his Name he thought no doubt it had b●●n in his power to have concealed Gods Word and he it seems resolved so to do but saith he his word was in mine heart as a burning Fire shut up in my bones and I was weary with forbearing and I could not stay Such was the strength of the Prophetick Impression and such the Energy of its Power in the Souls of the Prophets as that like a Fire burning in their bones it would force its way out or else consume them This I presume was a great cause of that admirable Fortitude and Magnanimity which made them despise the terrours of Men and the threats of wicked Princes neither the indocible temper of the People nor the ruggedness of their behaviour neither the power of Monarchs nor the menaces of Rulers could ever deterr them from uttering their Prophecies Of this we have a pregnant instance in Moses who with nothing but his Staff went boldly to Pharaoh and notwithstanding his Power and Tyranny undauntedly told him the Lord God of Israel would have him to let his People go And because Pharaoh hardned his heart and would not hearken Moses threatned him to his face that the Waters in the River should be turned into Bloud and that all his borders should be smitten with Frogs c. Thus did he prevail against a mighty King and retrieve a whole Nation out of bondage Nor was this Courage peculiar to the Mosaick d●gree of Prophecy but common therewith to others as appears by Nathan's application of his Parable to David Elijah's reprehension of Ahab Isaiah Jeremiah Ezekiel and the rest of the Prophets most Faithful and couragious discharge of their Office they all therein had and discovered such Prowess and Fortitude such Magnanimity and nobleness of Resolution as cannot be parallel'd by the Examples of the most heroick Teachers of Wisdom and Vertue among the Gentiles That therefore in respect of this their Fortitude and Courage in the Execution of their Office the Prophets were alwayes strong will easily be granted But that they were alwayes rich in respect of Worldly Wealth may justly be denied and since the Jews give us no reason for their confidence in Affirming it we need give them none for our denying it Yet since the Rabbies were oftentimes pleased to speak mystically in other things it is possible they did so in this and if they did so who knows but that the word rich may be taken in them as it once is in Solomon viz. for one that is rich not so much Money and Earthly Possessions as in Prudence and Moral Vertues Which Conjecture seems somewhat strengthened by

sin but now have they both seen and hated both me and my Father So convincing did he account his Miracles as that he imputes their unbeli●f to Malice and enmity against God and himself all which or any thing whereof he could not have done unless he had wrought his Miracles to consirm his Doctrine or attest his Mission from God to teach it To this End also 't is evident the Miracles of the Apostles were designed for they went forth and Preached every where the Lord working with them and consirming the word with s●gns following It is the dictate of Nature as well as of Scripture that God cannot lie or avouch a Fal●hood therefore surely the word of his Grace is Truth for we find that he gave Testimony to it and this he did by granting signs and wonders to be done by the hands of the Apostles The salvation the Gospel proposeth first began to be spoken of by the Lord and was consirmed unto the first Christians by them that heard him i. e. By the Apostles but lest their Testimony should be suspected God did bear them witn●ss with signs and wonders and with divers Miracles Hereby then it is manifest not only that their Doctrine was true but also that the Wisdome of Providence did design the Miracles of the Apostles to the confirmation of it and so doubtless did they themselves for their Embassie to the Jews and Gentiles being somewhat like that of Moses unto Pharaoh viz. unlikely to be believed among them they found it expedient to have some Letters of Credence from the King of Heaven and hereupon they prayed God to stretch forth his hand to heal and to grant that signs and wonders might be done by the Name of his holy child Jesus and this they desired to the end that with all boldness they might speak his word and having obtained their request by the grant of signs and wonders to be done by their hands They speak boldly in the Lord. Neither the malice of the unbelieving Jews nor the ill affected minds of the seduced Gentiles could deterr them from speaking Boldly the truth as it is in Jesus it seems then the Testimony of God to that word by the Miracles of their Works was the Ground of their confidence in preaching the Gospel but this it could never have been without their intendment thereof to the confirmation of their Doctrine for without this they could neither pretend nor indeed believe their Miracles were the Testimony of God to the word of his Grace how could they look on them as such unless that they also themselves did use and intend them to this end Manifest therefore I take it to be that they wrought them on purpose to confirm their Doctrine or demonstrate their Mission from God to teach it and much Reason there was for their doing them to this end For 2. Miracles were always looked on as indisputable or demonstrative Proofs of Divine Power or Authority in them that did them To deny this is little less than to charge God foolishly for He indued Moses with power of doing Miracles to the End that the Israelites might believe that the Lord God of their Fathers had appeared unto him a charge also he had to do all his wonders before Pharaoh and although his heart was hardened yet being done in the siglit of the people they believed and bowed their heads and worshipped and after them it seems the Magicians were almost of the same perswasion for they sayed unto Pharaoh this is the finger of God by this their grant of the Premises they drew on themselves a necessity of confessing the conclusion for if the Miracles of Moses were done by the finger of God then had God appeared unto him or sent him Thus almost in the Morning of the world we find both the Children of Israel and the Wisest of the Egyptians confessing the force of Miracles to induce belief and that not as a probable argument but Demonstrative such as rather Commands Assent than Begs it for when Elijah sojourned with the Widow of Zarephath by his raising her Son to life She knew that He was a man of God and that the word of the Lord in his mouth was Truth And when the Prophets of Jericho saw that Elisha divided the waters of Jordan with Elijahs Mantle they said the Spirit of Eiljah doth rest on Elisha hereof it seems they were thereby so convinced as that though they themselves were Prophets partakers in some measure of the same Spirit yet they met him and bowed themselves to the ground before him as to the Father of the Prophets and the chief of Their Order and not only they who had their Education in the Schools of the Prophets and therefore perhaps are thought Apt to have ascribed somewhat too much to Their Miracles but also Naaman a Syrian an Alien from the Common-wealth of Israel being at the appointment of the same Prophet Miraculously Cured of His Leprosie was so convinced of the True God as that He returned to the man of God and said Behold now I know that there is no God in all the earth but in Israel His mind was cleansed from the grosness of Idolatry as w●ll as his Body from the Loathsomness of his Leprosie But to draw our Discourse a little nearer the business in hand we may observe in the New Testament that among the Jews many that Adhered not to Christ did yet believe that He came from God when they saw His Miracles Thus when He was in Jerusalem at the Passeover many believed in his Name when the saw the miracles which he did These many believers surely were not Disciples for Jesus did not commit Himself unto them or intrust Himself with Them as well affected to him because He knew all men and what was in them He searched their hearts and dived into the hidden secrets of their Souls and by so doing He found that though these mens Understandings were convinced by His Miracles yet their Wills were not subdued to His Doctrine and after them many of the people believed on him and said When Christ cometh will be do more Miracles than these which this man hath done To them it seemed Improbable that when their expected Messias should come he either would or could do more or greater Miracles than our Jesus did considering therefore his Works and his saying they peremptorily concluded that of a truth this is the Prophet viz. Foretold by Moses Deut. 18. 15. And believed by them to be different from the Messias but other● said this is the Christ but when the Pharisees heard that the people murmured such things concerning him they and the Chief Priests sent Officers to take him But the Officers being ast●nished at his Doctrine returned without him whereupon they Expostulate with them and in a Scornful manner askt him have any of the Rulers or of the Pharisees believed on