Selected quad for the lemma: heart_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
heart_n	new_a	put_v	stony_a	4,570	5	11.9061	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A36367	Family devotions for Sunday evenings, throughout the year being practical discourses, with suitable prayers / by Theophilus Dorrington.	Dorrington, Theophilus, d. 1715.	1693 (1693)	Wing D1938; ESTC R19123	173,150	313

is the reason why it remains with many so discouraging a Difficulty all their days they never proceed further than to a few lazy Wishes or at most to a few short and faint Endeavours They are good sometimes when they meet with no Temptation or Provocation to be otherwise But whenever these Assault they presently yield and renew their Sins 2. It is easie to keep the Commands of God with that Assistance which the Grace of God affords them who diligently seek it 'T is good and safe for a Man to despair of succeeding by his own Strength and Endeavour alone but it is also foolish and absurd to conclude from our own Weakness the utter Impossibility of keeping the Commands of God because we may obtain sufficient Assistance from above He that hath said his Yoke is easie hath as we may say therein bound himself to make good his own gracious Word and we need not doubt but he will do this Our great and kind Saviour we may be assur'd is ready and able to help us in all our Difficulty and Weakness We have not an High-Priest says the Apostle of him that cannot be touched with a feeling of our Infirmities but was in all Points tempted like as we are yet without Sin Heb. 4. 15. And from thence he adds in the 16th Chapter Let us therefore come boldly to the Throne of Grace that we may obtain Mercy and find Grace to help in time of need Since we have such an High-Priest such an Advocate in Heaven we are not to doubt but upon earnest and sincere seeking we shall obtain sufficient Grace We may come boldly for this may ask with an assured Expectation to receive Accordingly St. James tells us If any Man lack Wisdom he may ask it of God who gives to all Men liberally and upbraids not Jam. 1. 5. But let us also know since we are bid strive to enter in at the strait Gate that we must not expect the Grace of God will inable us to enter in without our Striving As the Grace of God must make our Striving successful so our Striving is necessary to the obtaining the effectual Grace of God Let us take notice to this purpose of what God says by his Prophet concerning the People of Israel in Ezek. 11. In the 18th Verse of that Chapter he mentions their earnest Application of themselves towards the making a Reformation among them and then in Vers 19. and 20. he says I will give them one Heart and I will put a new Spirit within you and I will take away the stony Heart out of their flesh and will give them an Heart of flesh That they may walk in my Statutes and keep my Commandments and do them If then we apply our selves in great earnest to be Religious the Spirit of God will put this new Spirit into us and we shall be renew'd in the inner Man as the Scripture speaks and then it will be easie to us to keep the Commands of God And the Grace of God restores our decayed Powers and rectifies our Nature and makes us suitable to the Divine Law When this is wrought in us so far as it prevails it will be as agreeable to us to perform good Actions as it is for the Sun to shine and the Waters to flow These will be as agreeable and easie as natural Actions to a Man that is in perfect Health and Strength The Graces wrought in us in this rectifying of our Nature do altogether conduce to the easie Performance of our Duty I shall instance only in Love which in the proper Exercises of it is the fulfilling of the Law and all the Exercises of Love are sweet and easie Love to God will make us ready and inclin'd to perform all the Duties which we owe to God and Man There is Strength in Love it can do more than without it we could think possible to be done It rises against Difficulties and will never cease till it surmounts and overcomes them This makes crooked Ways strait and rough Places plain It is very laborious and diligent and does alleviate and sweeten Labour and Diligence It delights to do whatever is pleasing to God and to express by all possible ways an Honour and Esteem of him Hence 't is said by our Saviour If a Man love me he will keep my Commands Thus if our depraved Natures were but rectified we should find it easie to perform the Commands of God And this shews that they are easie in themselves To him that is born of God and does truly love him his Commandments are not grievous as the Apostle plainly intimates in the 1 Epist of John and the 5th Chap. by the Connextion of the 3d. Verse there Those then that apply themselves seriously to the Performance of their Duty and wait for the good Motions of the Spirit of Grace and carefully obey them when they are offer'd they will find the Spirit of God ready to assist them and after he has wrought in them to will he will inable them to do It is according to his good Pleasure to do so And it may be also concluded and expected from this which he has declar'd concerning himself That he does not delight in the death of a Sinner but had rather that he should turn to him and live 3. Religion is easie in comparison to Vice and Wickedness or is truly much more easie than that It is indeed more suitable to the Frame and Constitution of our Nature than Wickedness is Vertue however seldom it can be found and though it be accounted difficult is for all that agreeing and suitable to the Essential Constitution of Humane Nature and Wickedness however common and familiar it is is an adventitious and adverse thing The former is that we were made for and suited and fitted to the Practice of it and then the latter must by Consequence be contrary to the Frame and Contrivance of our Nature Religion is the Rectitude of our Nature Wickedness is the Disorder of it Vice is an Aberration from Nature and the Deformity and Corruption of it All the Motions of vehement Passions and unlawful Lusts are Departures from true and right Nature But from hence it must needs be that Wickeness is the most difficult and troublesome of the two What is most natural must needs be most easie and Vertue is in truth most natural Accordingly how does a violent and furious Passion disorder the Mind confound our Thoughts and dissipate and spend the Spirits Is not an excessive and inordinate Motion of the Mind more troublesome than a calm and gentle one And is it not easier and sooner done to use with Moderation and Temperance the Pleasures of Sense than to use them with Excess the one sooths and cherishes Nature the other weakens frets and hurts it Besides may we not observe that Vice must be Learnt that no Man can arrive at a great Degree of Wickedness without taking some Pains with himself for this Further it