Selected quad for the lemma: heart_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
heart_n	natural_a	spirit_n	vital_a	2,146	5	10.9559	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A70325	Mercy in her beauty, or, The height of a deliverance from the depth of danger set forth in the first sermon preached upon that occasion / by Nath. Hardy.	Hardy, Nathaniel, 1618-1670.	1653 (1653)	Wing H736; ESTC R9862	38,712	41

blessing of peace how welcome is a calme to the Marriner after a blustering storme and health is never so amiable as when it brings letters of commendation from a long and dangerous sicknesse To apply this It is a meditation which should encourage us to trust in God even when things are at the worst and though all other succours faile not to let goe our hold of him As Appelles striving to paint a drop of foam falling from a Horses mouth after long study despairing let his pencill fall and that fall did it Quod assequi non potuit casus expressit effecting by chance what he could not by art and when both nature and art can goe no further divine providence undertaketh nay effecteth the worke and therefore as the Apostle saith of joy I say of hope hope alwayes in the Lord indeed magnae indolis est sperare semper it is an argument of an heroick minde to hope alwayes and of a pious minde to place that hope on God David saith of himselfe I have hoped in thy word the Septuagint read it {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} and the vulgar Latine accordingly super-speravi which as S. Ambrose interpreteth it is ad sperandum semper crescere spem spei adjungere to add hope to hope that even then when affliction is added to affliction Excellent to this purpose is that counsel of the Greeke Father When externall means are least let thy confidence be greatest for then God displayeth his power most not at the beginning but when things are desperate for this is the season of divine help It is our great fault that in dismall dangers we open the eye of sense and onely pore upon the extremity of the trouble whereas it becometh a Saint even then to open the eye of faith and lo●ke upon the energy of Gods power And to carry it one step further Let even the depth of misery be an incouragement to our confidence in as much as that is a time of deliverance when the night is at the darkest we know day-break is nearest the lownesse of the ebbe argueth the flowing in of the tide to be at hand so may we conclude divine succour approaching from the premisses of a grievous calamity encompassing We read in the vision of the wheel which Ezekiel laid him by the rivers brinke with no other shelter but an arke of bulrushes how likely is this helplesse Babe to be starved with cold or tumble into the river or be devoured with a wild beast But behold whilest the childe is in this imminent danger and the parents in perplexing feare providence so ordereth it that Pharaoh's daughter becometh as a mother to the child and the childes mother is appointed to be his nurse whereby his life is preserved How nigh in all probability was the Israelites destruction when before them a Sea through which there could be no wading on either side mountaines over which there was no climbing behinde them a mighty hoste with whom there is no contesting and yet from whom no meanes left of escaping But loe in this depth of misery God hath mercy on them even to a miracle the sea divideth and at once becometh the Israelites passage and Egyptians grave How small did the distance seeme betweene Jonah and death when the mercifull marriners were enforced for saving their owne lives to cast him into the mercilesse Sea and yet there he sinketh not a divine hand as it were holding him by the chinne when in the Sea swallowed by a greedy Whale and there hee dyeth not God would not deliver him from the tempest he will from the Whale that which was most likely to consume him becometh the means to preserve him within three dayes the Whale delivereth him safe whole and alive upon dry ground Who ever thought to have seene those three worthies alive after they fell downe bound into the midst of a fiery burning furnace But behold a martyrdome effected without dying whilest a fourth like the Sonne of God appeareth at whose command the fire forgetteth to burne or so much as scorch Who did not expect but that Daniel being cast into a denne of ravenous Lions should be devoured before the next morning nay the next houre But see the Lyons mouthes are stopped by an Angel and since they cannot feed Daniel are forced to keep a fast with him Were not Paul and his company in great jeopardy of death when the thick clouds had for many dayes obscured the light of Sun and Starres from them the violent stormes exceedingly tossed the Ship enforced them to cast out the goods yea every moment they expect themselves to be made a prey to the roring waves all hope that they should be saved being taken away but behold that night an Angell of God standeth by Paul and from God assures him of his and their preservation To come yet nearer to the instance of the Text It was no slight sicknesse afflicted David when he said My heart panteth my strength faileth me as for the light of mine eyes it is gone from me the disease it seemeth had seized upon all his spirits his animals in the dimnesse of his eyes his naturall in the failing of his strength his vitall in the panting of his heart and surely then it must needes bring him very nigh to death yea it seemeth David feared it which made him so earnestly pray against it in another Psalm But when death is near God is neare too hearing his prayer and preserving his life It is said of Hezekiah that he was sick unto death the disease was such that he reckoned his bones should be broken and an end made of him yea he received a sentence of death from God by the Prophet Set thine house in order for thou shalt dye and not live But that threat was onely like Abrahams precept not a declaration of what God intended to doe but onely a probation to try what Hezekiah would doe and therefore notwithstanding the disease was deadly God becometh his Physitian prescribeth a plaister of figgs and Hezekiah is healed The Centurions Sonne is visited with a Feaver that Feaver bringeth him to the very point of death when as at the Centurions intreaty Christ with a word commands his recovery That womans condition was desperate when she was at once brought low in estate and body her goods are gone her disease continueth the Physitians have emptied her purse but cannot stay her flux nor is there any likelyhood but that this sickness will at length bring her to her grave But her deplorable state is a fit occasion for Christ to magnifie his mercy whilest by a believing touch of his garment he maketh her perfectly whole Finally Martha sends Christ word ●hat Lazarus is sick Christ delayeth to come onely lets her know this sicknesse should be for Gods glory being sick he dyeth dying is buried and having been some dayes buried he rotteth nay stinketh in the grave and