Selected quad for the lemma: heart_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
heart_n	put_v	spirit_n	stony_a	3,973	5	11.7036	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A77434	Errours and induration, are the great sins and the great judgements of the time. Preached in a sermon before the Right Honourable House of Peers, in the Abbey-Church at Westminster, July 30. 1645. the day of the monethly fast: / by Robert Baylie, minister at Glasgow.	Baillie, Robert, 1599-1662.	1645 (1645)	Wing B459; Thomason E294_12; ESTC R200181	39,959	57

it First The first cure of hardnesse is The embracing of the word by faith believe the Word of the Lord. Gods Word is the means that softneth the heart like the Sun that melteth the wax likethe Hammer that breaketh the stone the Fire that softneth the Iron the watry cloud that moistneth the dry and parched ground With all care and conscience set thy heart under the beams of that Sun the stroke of that Hammer before the heat of that fire under the droppings of that cloud The contempt the neglect the misbelief of this holy instrument of the Spirit is a great cause of all the hardnesse of heart we speak of Heb. 3. To day if ye will hear his voice harden not your heart Take heed there be not in any of you an evil heart of misbelief Who will not hear the voice or doth hear but with an evil heart of misbelief they harden their heart The Word which should melt them as the Sun doth Wax hardneth them as the Sun doth Clay that Word which to the believer is the loud voice of the Trumpet of God to waken them when sleeping to quicken them when dead becomes to the unbeliever and carelesse hearer the song of a pleasant voice to sing them asleep and to keep them sleeping To such the most powerfull Ministery of a Prophet of an Apostle of Christ himself serveth to make the heart more hard and fat and dead then it was before as from the sixth of Isai and twelfth of John it is manifest That which to the faithfull is a quickning Spirit to the misbeliever is a killing letter What to the one is the power of God to salvation to the other is but as sounding Brasse and a tinkling Cymbal Let it therefore be your earnest endeavour in all holy exercises about the Word private or publike be it preaching or reading or conference to embrace it with an honest heart with all attention reverence and faith Particularly Especially the promise of a soft heart embrace and lay up in thy heart the promise of a soft heart as it is set down Ezek. 36.26 there the people of God were in a worse condition then we yet The fury of the Lord was so far kindled against them for their sins that they were cast out of their Land they were swallowed up on every side as it is in the third verse They were taken up in the lips of talkers they were an infamy of the people and the reproach of the Nations and for all that were not reformed but continued to profane the Name of God and to encrease their provocations in the midst of all their Judgements Yet even then the Lord doth promise For my own Names sake not for your sake will I do this A new heart will I give you and a new spirit will I put within you I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh and will give you an heart of flesh Let this Word as a pickle of good seed be laid up in the heart it will in time break up to good fruit This is a part of the new Covenant as appeareth from Jer. 31 and 32. and Heb. 8. which belongs to us as to any other which we would embrace humbly waiting till the Lord perform it to us A second help to softnesse of heart will be a Catalogue of sins for which we ought to mourn The second Cure of hardnesse is A clear sight of sin for softnesse of heart is either the same thing or proceeds in a great part from grief and forrow for sin as hardnesse of heart and impenitency are the same or are always conjoyned Thou from thy hardnesse or impenitent heart The tendernesse and melting of Josiahs heart was his mourning for the Lands sin The softning of the Jews heart from their long Plague of induration is when they are weeping and in bitternesse for their sins as one for his first-born The clear sight of sin being a help to grief sorrow and repentance must be so towards the softnesse of heart The speciall end of these solemn Humiliations is for registrating in clear and legible letters in the hearts of the godly the sins both of the Land and of their own persons The Tables of our conscience have been so oft impressed with these Types that I need no more but to remit every one to the books of their brests There you may read in capitall letters the cause of our Woes the matter of our Mourning While the Lords Candle did shine over our head What are the sins of the Land and we washed our steps in butter while to all the Neighbour-Nations for a great number of yeers we were a wonder of Prosperity and with abundance of all Temporall blessings we had likewise plenty of the Gospel How did we meet the Lord Great numbers of all ranks and estates were obstinate in Idolatry and known Papists Of them who professed the Truth how many were altogether void of knowledge void of fear without any conscience of God The most did pollute the Service and Church of God with manifold Superstitions and Prelaticall Tyranny persecuting all who had the least zeal to oppose their Corruptions True Piety was mocked The Sabbath by publike Authority profaned Covetousnesse Pride Oppression Pampering of the flesh Uncleannesse like a flood did overflow the Land In these very times when the Lords patience is broken off and he from heaven is revealing his wrath against our wickednesse yet where is our Repentance How many have an ear to hear more what the present Rods of God do speak then what his former Favours How many Popish and Prelaticall spirits have yet mourned for their old ways How many upon conscience have left any of the named abominations How great an addition have we made to our old heap of sin How much have we put to our old treasure of wrath Rather then to be reclaimed from their ways Hath not a great part run to the Sword and covered the Land with more innocent blood more Rapines and Ravishments then this Isle did see for many Ages together Many whom Gods mercy hath separate to the right hand Episcopacy and Independency flow both from one fountain How do they still provoke the Lord continuing without grief for their old ways And sundry of them who professemost Piety advancing the old unhappie way of this Land an affectation of singularity and difference from all the Reformed The bitter Potions of Gods Judgements have not yet purged out this very evil humour of many stomacks The vain spirits of this Land made that the peculiar glory of England which was truely her peculiar infamy and proper unhappinesse and the speciall grief of the most godly in the Land The gloriation of these light spirits was That England did excell all other Reformed Churches in their Episcopacy and Service-book also That the moderation of their King and Prelats was such that Romane Catholikes might enjoy a sober liberty

person Achan may be stoned to death in the valley of Achor in the midst of Israels triumph The misbelieving Prince in Samaria may see the Plenty but be crushed before he taste thereof Thy hardnesse of heart if it remain will ruine thee What the fury and curse of an angry God hath ever brought on a miserable sinner in this life think upon it for shortly it may be thy portion and which is infinitely worse the whole treasures of the wrath to come a greater then ordinary condemnation for thy impenitency hardnes of heart if thou remain as thou art cannot but fall upon thee The last help I propone is Earnest Prayer A fourth Cure of hardnesse is Prayer Sometimes all the former helps will not do it for the heart is desperately wicked and incredibly hard like that of Leviathan Job 41.24 His heart is firm as a stone as hard as the nether milstone When we finde it thus shall we give over in d●spair Not so For there is yet mercy and power in God to make the rocks flow down to melt the mountains to dissolve the Adamant-stones There is a Warrant Neh. 9. once and again proponed for the people of God to lay hold on Gods mercy and power in the midst of their greatest Rebellion and Induration verse 16. Our father 's dealt proudly and hardned their necks and heackned not to thy Commandments But thon art a God ready to pardon gracious and mercifull thou forsakest them not Also in the 29 verse They dealt proudly and withdrew the shoulder and hardned their necks and would not hear Yet in the 31 verse Neverthelesse thou didst not forsake them for thou art a gracious and mercifull God What heart can be more hard and blinde then Pauls when he made havock of the Church yet the Lord made the scales to fall from his eyes and put in his brest in place of the stone a most gracious soft and spirituall piece of flesh The spectacle of the greatest induration the Jews when the Spirit comes on them their most obdured hearts fall to the greatest mourning Zech. 12. Let it therefore be our care in our greatest hardnesse to lie at the Throne of Grace to cry on still for this mercy of a soft heart who knoweth how soon the Lord may hear and answer When nothing else can help us if he himself come down all will yeeld to his power When the King of Glory comes to assault the most stiff and best closed heart all doors are cast open to him Psal 24.9 He breaketh the gates of brasse and smiteth the bars of iron in sunder Psal 107.16 When he puts his finger in the hole of the door the bowels of the secure Spouse will shortly be moved for him Cant. 5.4 It must be our continuall prayer that the Lord would come to put away the hardnesse of our heart to enlighten it with faith to melt it with repentance to break it with fear that so it may be a fitted Sanctuary for his perpetuall inhabitation If time were not past The last part of the verse exponed there are in the second part of the Text the Churches petition for the Lords return sundry things usefull for the present occasion Look in a little upon the meaning of the words The returning of the Lord is a metaphor taken from finite creatures that go and come But properly the Lord cannot move from place to place for his Essence is infinite he is essentially omni-present God is every where in the heaven in the earth in the Sea Psal 139. If I ascend up unto heaven thou art there if I make my bed in hell thou art there neither so onely but he fills the heaven and the earth Jer. 23.24 Do not I fill the heaven and the earth saith the Lord But not so as if when he filled all things he could be within the circle of the highest heavens 1 Kings 8.27 Behold the heavens and the heaven of heavens could not contain thee We have the reason in Job 11.8 The perfection of God is such that it is as high as heaven deeper then hell longer then the earth and broader then the Sea But beware to conceive of this infinite and immense Essence of God which is in all places and without all places as of a bodily substance for God is a Spirit and that of an infinite simplicity take heed of all grosse imaginations of him left thou turn him to an idol of thine own making Not long ago The zeal of the Court of England against Vorstius heresies Verstius and some of the Arminians in Holland began first to brangle with their Problems and thereafter to deny with their positive assertions these ground-stones of Religion At that time the zeal of England brake out to the joy of all the Churches Then the care of the King and the very Prelats was great not onely to keep Heresies as hellish vapours out of England but to have them suppressed among their neighbours in Holland with all speed We hope it shall never be told to posterity that the zeal of this Parliament was lesse against Errours at home then the Courts wont to be against that evil abroad And however for the present there be nothing so sacred in the Divine Nature and Persons which the boldnesse of Heretikes among us arising onely from impunity dare not wickedly profane yet ere long we expect a remedy to this and many more evils The Returning whereof our Text speaketh is not to be understood of the Divine Effence Nature Substance nor of the Lords common Operations but of his gracious Works of his Mercy and Compassion as we have it expresly Zech. 1.16 I am returned to Jerusalem with mercy And Jer. 12.55 I will return and have compassion on them As a man in his anger turns his back and goeth his way but when reconciled he cometh back So the Lord when grievously provoked with the sins of his people for a time departeth to his place hideth his face withdraweth the signes of his favour but thereafter when appeased he maketh his face to shine and by his Spirit works graciously in the seduced and obdured heart For this the Church here petitions That the Lord would return and make himself sensibly present to her and by the gracious work of his Spirit reclaim her from these errours and that hardnesse of heart whereinto by his absence she had fallen The Ground whereupon the Petition is builded is Gods Relation to them and their Interest in God They were his servants he their Lord and Master as it is in the last verse We are thine thou never barest rule over them they were never called by thy Name Since the Lord had taken them to be his people to serve him this was a ground to them That he would not fully nor finally cast them off but for his interest in them would return This is cleared in the last words his returning to them was not for any good was in

to cite they invite you to permit ravening Woolfs freely to enter your streets and tear in peeces all they meet with to come into your Houses and Chambers to devour the souls of your best beloved Wives Sons Daughters Servants and Friends to lead them all out to a ditch and drown them yea which is infinitely worse to cast them all in the pit of damnation These were hard expressions if they were our own and not our betters I mean Christ and his Apostles Would you permit any whom you were able to hinder to rent the Coat of Christ to tear his Skin to cut his Flesh to pull his Arm from his Shoulder These are the things which too long have been done in our eyes It were good that such impious actions so grievous to God so hurtfull to the souls of men at last were stopped Would you count him a gracious parent who should wink at any who brought into his house Vipers and Serpents Woolfs and Tigers to destroy his Children who brought in Boxes of Pestiferous Cloaths and boldly spread them on the Beds and about the Table where himself and family were to sit and lie This is the office and onely exercise of all our Hereticks and Patrons of errour All Christians are obliged to the uttermost of their power to quench the fire of Heresie and Schism but above all other we have a speciall obligation for this duty we have lifted up our hands to the most high God vowing to him in the sight of all the Neighbour-Nations our endeavours in the sincerity of our hearts to extirpate Heresie and Schism and whatsoever shall be found contrary to sound Doctrine without respect of persons If herein we should be negligent would not God avenge our solemn Perjury If respect to any person should make us ever think of breaking that Bond and expressely contrary thereto to begin once to tamper about the toleration of errours contrary to sound Doctrine what might we and the posterity expect from the hand of the God of Justice and Truth Let none object the example of the States of Holland to us in this point The example of Holland an swered For first Where the Will of God is evident the contrary example of men is not to be regarded Secondly The evill example of one State is not to be followed against the good example of all other Protestant Churches Thirdly These States were never bound to God by such a Covenant as we are Fourthly In these States there hath been a connivance at Errours by particular Magistrates for their private gain but to this hour was ever any Sect among them so impudent as to offer a Petition for a Toleration by Law when lately some assayed to do it they repented ever since of that folly Lastly Hath not the Magistrates connivance without any Legall Toleration so much multiplied Sects among them that for this one thing though for many other their renown be great they have become infamous in the Christian World The godly among them have been more grieved with this scandalous sin then with any other and those of them who are wise do see their State this day in greater civill danger by this peece of impious policy and from it apprehend greater hazards of commotion and ruine to their State then from any other ground However the connivence there at Sects and the multiplication of Sects by connivence is no wayes comparable to what is among us but we trust that this kinde of our erring from the wayes of God is near a period and shall shortly be remedied So much for the first part of the Churches complaint The second part of the Complaint exponed followeth the second And hardned our heart from thy fear Not onely they had wanderd out of the wayes of God in divers by-paths of sin but in these sins they were obstinate their hearts had been hard the fear of God moved them not to repentance This was a worse evill then the first so they acknowledge the hand of God and his sore punishment into it and of this make a heavy regrate to him The originall word that here is turned harden What is hardnesse of heart is but once else in Scripture Job 39.16 spoken of the Ostridge She is hardned against her young ones or is removed from her young ones she leaveth them alone It signifies two things To harden or to remove Some of the best Latin Interpreters translate it here Why removest thou our heart from thy fear The Chaldee Paraphrast takes it so also but the Septuagint and the most of other Interpreters old and late translate it as we have it The words will bear both but for shortnesse I shall hold with our own translation onely Hardnesse of heart is a metaphor importing the wilfull obstinate and rebellious disposition of the Spirit against the fear and counsells of God As hard Wax refuseth the stamp while the soft receives the impression A hard Wall puts back the Ball which the soft Ayr letteth passe through A Corslet of Iron holds out the Bullet which the softnesse of the flesh receiveth The way how God hardneth the heart against his fear How God hardeneth the heart is not by infusion of any hardnesse or any evill disposition into the heart but by three other actions First By withdrawing of his gracious spirit whose operation it is that softens the heart and makes it plyable to the Counsells of God and subject to his fear Deut. 29.9 The Lord hath not given you a heart to perceive eyes to see and ears to hear to this day That all they had seen in Egypt and in the Wildernesse had not pierced their heart with the love and fear of God Of this wonderfull hardnesse of the peoples heart this reason is rendered by Moses God had not given them a heart to perceive Beside this negative action of God in hardning the heart he hath two positive He gives over the heart to its own naturall hardnesse that it may be more and more hardened Thus the Lord hardened Pharaohs heart He not onely withheld all the gracious motions of his spirit from him but let his naturall obstinacy work it self to an acquired habit of hardnesse And so what was before naturall became habituall and judiciall This is the judgement spoken of the twelfth of John from the sixth of Isaiah Make the heart of this people fat for their rejecting of my former counsels let their rebellious heart become-worse and worse so that thy ministery do them no more good Thirdly God gives over the heart judicially hardned by it self to Satans tentations whereby it becomes more blinde dead and hard then of it self alone it could be He sent evill Angels among the Egyptians for this evill among others Psal 79.49 2 Thes 2. He sends out Satan to work with Antichrist for to blinde the eye and harden the heart with strong delusions By all this you understand why the Church regrates it here to God

That he had hardened her heart from his fear Hardnesse was naturall to her heart yet they found Gods judgement causing in justice that naturall evill to increase upon them From this part of the Complaint observe The Doctrine Judicial hardnesse is the godlies greatest grief Judiciall hardnesse of heart from the fear of God in the times of trouble is the godlies chiefest grief and complaint to God The troubles and calamities of the Jews were great at this time their sins also were great But behold here they complain to God more then for either their calamities or other sins that God had hardened their heart from his fear in the midst of all their sins and judgements This was it that made the Prophet Jeremy amazed The Proof Jere. 5.3 O Lord thou hast stricken them but they have not grieved thou hast consumed them but they have refused to receive correction they have made their faces harder then a rock The Reason why this condition of a people is most lamentable is first It is a presage of destruction The first Reason When strokes humble not a people and soften not their heart to the fear and obedience of God then it cometh to this Why should ye be stricken any more After correction is obstinately refused then cometh rejection 2 Kings 17.18 God is very angry with the ten Tribes and removes them out of his sight the great cause we have Verse 14. They hardned their necks like the necks of their fathers that did not beleeve in the Lord their God This same was the cause of the ruine of Jerusalem Jere. 19.15 I will bring upon this City all the evill that I have pronounced against it because they have hardned their necks that they might not hear my words Jere. 26.29 The Lord hath rejected and forsaken the generation of his wrath because they had hardned their necks and did worse then their fathers Another Reason The second Reason This is such an evill as draweth on eternall perdition after temporall ruine Rom. 2.5 After thy hardnesse and impenitent heart thou treasurest up to thy self wrath against the day of wrath There is a treasure and heap of everlasting wrath from this hardnesse Heb. 3.7 To day if ye will hear his voice harden not your hearts as in the provocation Wherefore I was grieved with that Generation and sware in my wrath They shall not enter into my rest Meaning such grief and anger in God against this evil as holds out of heaven Thirdly The third Reason This sin hath extraordinary malignancy in it though neither eternall nor temporall wrath followed on it The hand of an angry God of a working devil and high degree of corruption are into it in its production all these three have place Before any be hardned in sin and become obstinate the corruption of the heart must be great and highly advanced Also Satans hand is in the blinding of the eyes and searing with the hot-iron in stupifying and making senslesse the conscience of the hardned person and God as a just Judge putting on the executioner must be also about this action So that this hardning is very oft the signe of a Reprobate to whom God shews no mercy Whom he will he hardens and sheweth mercy on whom he will shew mercy albeit it s not ever so as in our Text and elsewhere God hardens the hearts of some for a time whom thereafter he softens and to them sheweth mercy Yet oft being the case of Reprobates and ever very like to it and in it self a degree to that wofull condition it affrighteth the godly when they see it in themselves or others and becometh a great part of their complaint to God The Use is for Exhortation The Vse That we be carefull to grieve and complain to the Lord for this great evil wherever we see it in our selves or others Not onely the most faithfull of Gods Watch-men in all the three Kingdoms but also those of the people who by the anointing of God have the eyes of their minde opened to see the Spirituall estate of their own or their neighbours souls bear witnesse with an unanimous testimony that notwithstanding all the Judgements which lie on the Land yet this hardnesse of heart is greater and more universall then ever they have seen it This cannot be but the hand of God adding this Spirituall Plague as the worst and greatest of all our evils For this we have great reason to mourn and intreat the removall of it above all our Woes Motives to the Duty we need no other then the Reasons of the Doctrine If thou finde this evil crept in thy heart as I doubt not but it lodgeth sensibly in some hearts that hear me or though the Lord had blessed thee with the tender heart of Josiah to mourn for the sins and calamities that are already and to tremble for what further is coming yet if thou see this Mischief proclaiming it self in the countenances and lives of the most of thy neighbours as truely an observing and conscientious eye will remark too much of it where-ever he will look even in the days and places of most solemn Humiliation when hardnesse of heart should be banished farthest away this evil I say wherever found in thy self or others should be complained of to God For having in it so much of an angry God a busie devil and of a high degree of humane corruption it being also a presage and certain forerunner if not remedied of greater Temporal Judgements then yet we have seen albeit we have seen and heard of as much wo as our fathers in these Kingdoms have felt for some hundred yeers though all their sufferings were put together Yet the hardnesse of our hearts if it continue will make all we have suffered but the beginning of evils yea this hardnesse of heart poisons and envenoms all our sufferings with a cursed quality Pestilence wounds spoiling of goods death are all sanctified and sweetned to a softned heart but to a hardned heart they are the first acts of a wofull Tragedie there is a treasure of wrath and lake of fire and brimstone at their end attending them If we were able on these days set apart for this end above all other to attain the blessing of a soft heart and the Judgement of a heart hardned by God removed we would quickly be secure of damnation we would becom certain of the removall of all these Judgements which have very long so heavily lien both on the Church and State and on the backs if not of our persons yet of many in whom our interest is great we should be assured of heavenly consolations against all evils that for the time were on or hereafter might befall us Let it therefore be our earnest endeavour to finde this blessing by the Word by the Sacraments by publike by private Prayer by Reading by Conference by Meditation At this time I will point at some Scripturall helps towards