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
A46650	A sermon preached on the day of the publick fast, April the 11th, 1679, at St. Margarets Westminster before the Honourable House of Commons / by William Jane ...	Jane, William, 1645-1707.	1679 (1679)	Wing J456; ESTC R13564	23,060	50

is a Course which God then only takes when all other remedies fail But till then he has mercy in store for a sinful people even in the midst of all his severest dispensations God shoots out his Arrows against a Land as Jonathan shot to David 1 Sam. xx 21. with Letters bound about them not to destroy but to instruct As Gideon when he vext the men of Succoth is said to teach them or to make them to know though with the briers and thorns of the wilderness Jud. viii 16. Mic. vi 9. Gods Rod has a voice as well as a smart and if we hear the one we may escape the other And upon these grounds we may assure ourselves that in this day of the Lords anger of confusion and rebuke which now lies upon this sinful Land of our Nativity the Lord has not given over all concern for our peace and settlement He waits that he may be gracious and stands ready to recal his judgments as soon as we shall be contented to be saved to accept of a deliverance The Lord looks down from Heaven this day to take notice of our behaviour under his afflicting hand how far we are advanced in the practice of Repentance which this day he so loudly calls for There is not a penitent tear not a devout sigh not a mourner in secret for them who have no compassion on themselves nay not a person swearing and revelling eating flesh and drinking wine in this day when the Lord calls us to weeping fasting and mourning but the Lord observes it and lays it to the account of this Nation as well on the one side for the engagement of his mercy as on the other for the provocation of the fierceness of his anger T is not our utter ruin that the Lord aims at For what profit is there in our blood He hath set his judgments as he once did his Prophet over Kingdoms and over Nations not barely to root out Jer. i. 10. and destroy but to build and to plant and these judicial proceedings of his are directed to edification not primarily to destruction They are what the Censures of the Church ought to be severe in the execution but salutary in the event 1 Cor. v. 5. delivering up the offender to the punishment of the flesh that so by Repentance and amendment thereupon probably ensuing the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord. Job xxxiii 29. Lo all these things worketh God oftentimes with man to bring back his soul from the pit to be enlightened with the light of the living And God often visits iniquity with Rods when he will not utterly take away his loving kindness from a people But II. This will further and more distinctly appear from the natural tendency of Gods judgments themselves Which will plainly appear in these following particulars 1. Then they have a natural tendency to work in men a sense and acknowledgment of their sins Prosperity is apt to administer such abundant variety of fresh delights and satisfactions to the fancy that the soul is never at leisure to retire into it self and take a true estimate of its own Estate and Constitution The world will never be wanting to present the man with baits and allurements and external objects to employ his thoughts and gratifie his desires And so by that means he is enabled for a time to suppress the voice of Conscience and drown the cries of a wounded Spirit As the Jews when they sacrificed their children to Moloch had their loud Instruments of Musick lest they should perchance hear the out-cries of their perishing Infants which might force their obdurate hearts into tender and compassionate resentments But when the hand of God over-reaches him and affliction sits close upon him this embitters his delights damps his jollity dissolves the curious Fabric of his imaginary enjoyments renders all his most exquisite pleasures toothless and insipid None of these things can then stand by him to rescue him from his miseries or give any sweetning to the bitterness of his Cup. And thus when God hedges up his way with thorns and stops him in the pursuit of his brutish and sensual satisfactions then there lies a necessity upon him to descend into himself when he cannot look abroad to turn his eyes inward to take an exact view of his own heart and discover the greatness of his iniquity Job xxxvi 8 9. When he is once bound in fetters and holden in the Cords of affliction then will he see his work and his trangressions that they have exceeded For the mind of man is active and restless it will always be employed one way or other And when it has no outward objects to exercise or divert it then self-reflexion takes place and the voice of Conscience will be heard How stupid and senseless was Pharaoh before Gods judgments fell upon him He has no sense at all of God or a Providence of sin or the wages of it Exod. v. 2. Who is the Lord that I should obey his voice I know not the Lord neither will I let Israel go But when the Lord sent thunder and hail and the fire ran along upon the ground ix 23. his stomach comes down his proud heart is a little humbled the voice of God in the thunder is more effectual than by his Prophet For then Pharaoh sent and called for Moses and Aaron and said unto them I have sinned this time xxvii 28. the Lord is righteous and I and my people are wicked Now therefore intreat the Lord that there be no more mighty thanderings and hail and I will let you go and ye shall stay no longer When Belshazzar sees the hand-writing upon the wall his countenance is changed Dan. v. 6. his thoughts trouble him the joynts of his Loins are loosed and his Knees smite one against another And let Nebuchadnezzar be never so puissant in defying the threats and the Omnipotence of God yet that sad calamity of eating grass with the beasts of the field will bring him upon his knees and force him to acknowledg that the inhabitants of the world are reputed as nothing in comparison of God iv 35. and that as he doth according to his will in the Armies of Heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth so none can stay his hand or say unto him what doest thou The wound of Conscience is not perceived at first any more than a wound in the body as long as the man continues in the same briskness of motion which he was in when he first received it But when the judgments of God stop him in his career force him to sit down and rest himself a little he then begins to cool and consider to feel his wound and recover the unwelcome sense of the extremity of his pain 2. The judgments of God are in their own nature apt to take us off from Carnal confidence and security and to fix us in