Selected quad for the lemma: heaven_n
Text snippets containing the quad
|
ID |
Title |
Author |
Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) |
STC |
Words |
Pages |
|
A30285
|
Rules for hearing the Word of God with certain and saving benefit The second edition. By Daniel Burgess, minister of the gospel. Published by an hearer of them, at the request of many others.
|
Burgess, Daniel, 1645-1713.
|
1693
(1693)
|
Wing B5714; ESTC R215210
|
7,490
|
26
|
at Sermon-time they be not deaf Adders yet they be dumb Dogs whose Hearts do not to this Purpose speak while their Ears hear I do not well hearken to the Ambassador when I pray not much to the King Direct IV. Apply to your own Souls what the Preacher saith to all To know for one's good the Hebrews call to know for one's self And do not all the World so do Ministers be Nurses Sermons be Breasts God's Word is Milk Hearers be the Children and right Hearing is their sucking the Milk into each one's own Soul What another sucks and applies will not nourish thee Say thou then of every Doctrine This is my Lesson I will learn it Of every Command This is my Duty I will do it Of every Promise This is my Encouragement and I will make Meat and Drink of it my Soul shall rely and feed hereon Who ever missed of Life by the Word of Life that so took it to themselves Who did ever thus suck and not grow by the Gospel's Milk Blessed are they that thus monopolize a Sermon While to be sure all are starved that do not thus feed whatever Dainties are set before them And they are the most miserable of all the Damned who starve themselves where they might have feasted Direct V. Express your Reverence of God in a Sermon unto all the Congregation God is specially present in Heaven and at a Sermon Do you believe it Then show that Faith of yours Shew it to your God and to your Conscience by holy Thoughts and holy Affections Yea and shew it to all the Church by your well-composed Countenances and becoming Gestures Your Bodies are God's as well as your Souls If you do not glorify him with both you glorify him with neither God lays no hard Impositions on Aged Sickly Weak Bodies But he requites others to give him reverent Postures Heads unnecessarily covered in Hearing are sinfully covered and scandalously Gadding Eyes are impudent Publishers of profane rambling Hearts and of those Fools whereof one makes many Put off your Shoes and keep them off while you are on holy Ground That is be Reverent in Soul and Body So honour God before all the People and then he shall make it seen before all the People how he honoureth and blesseth you Irreverence at a Sermon is a publick Call to God for Damnation A constructive bidding God to damn you where Hundreds may be VVitnesses to it and without God's great Grace be poisoned by it There are who say that all Dissenters are irreverent in Worship See you that they slander us not with a matter of Truth Direct VI. Honour the Preacher as a Man of God and no more God stiles a Minister by that Name and God's Names be the most proper and instructive A Minister is but a Man do not therefore adore him as a God Let him be so thy Minister that Christ may still be thy only supreme Shepherd and Bishop He is but a Man expect therefore and bear with his Infirmities and pray God for his Assistances to him He is but a Man therefore pin not thy Faith on his Sleeve but exercise thy own Sense and beg the Guidance of God's holy Spirit Yet nevertheless he is a Man of God remember If not do not hear him If so consider while thou art hearing he is one that hath received the Holy Ghost he is one that Christ hath qualified and commissioned under himself to be a Saviour of thee and of all that hear him Wherefore do not despise him as not adore him Thou shalt profit by him if thou hearest him as he is an Embassador of God a Messenger of Christ an Overseer made by the Holy Ghost But wo is thine if thou followest him either as a God or as a common Man The Gospel pronounceth no Blessing upon the Superstitious or upon the Profane Direct VII Project to retain as much as may be of what you hear All along your hearing design and do what you can for remembring Say over to your selves the Doctrine many times and if you can repeat to your selves all the Heads of the Discourse But lay fast hold of the main Drift of every Sermon However Nature Sickness or Age may have incurably wounded your Memories God is gracious remember He will accept an unfeigned Good-will for the very Deed. His Spirit shall be a never-failing Remembrancer to such as against their VVills and against their Endeavours be forgetful He will not call them forgetful Hearers that strain and strive and do their best to be tenacious ones But he will so call and will curse those who like not and list not to retain his Word as well as to receive it Hearers so wilfully dull must look to remain among the Dead As they are slothful they are wicked Servants And let them expect Christ's foretold Word Depart ye Cursed Heaven is no Hive for Drones Ignorance is a Curse and if it be your Choice it will as surely be your Destruction as your Option AFTER Hearing God's Word DIrection I. Take the most earnest heed that you do not let slip what you have received Your Memories be the great Servants of your Faith Hope and Obedience and they are but imperfectly sanctified they be too much like the Grates that let go clean Water and hold filthy Mud. If you take little Pains about them you will have but sorry Service from them The best Ground will never hold the good Seed if no care be had to drive off the Fowls that will be coming and catching it away and if Labour be not bestown to harrow it in This Labour for the VVord is Labour in the Lord and it shall not be in vain Thus do you shall surely prosper and do well But if this be too much in your Conceits if you are lame and will not use Crutches if you cannot otherwise remember and you will not talk with your selves and Families of a Sermon nor go forth unto a Repetition nor ask the holy Spirit to be your Remembrancer you must take to your Sorrow what you get by your Sloth The Devil cannot rob you of a Sermon against your VVill and God will not keep a Sermon in your Mind without your VVill. Direct II. Let your Thanks be returned after every Sermon heard Thanks and Praise are God's dearly beloved the End of all his VVorks of your Beings your Redemption your Gospel-Calls all Ordinances and Providences It is Hell where no Praise and Thanks are and it is Heaven where there is nothing besides Nothing delighteth God so much as these and for nothing on this Earth doth God expect these more than for his Gospel preached When it is said He giveth his VVord 't is presently added Praise ye the Lord. And this Praise we are told shall please the Lord better than an Ox or Bullock than any external Sacrifice If Vnprofitableness by the Word do not drive away Thankfulness Thankfulness for the Word shall be sure to drive away
Vnprofitableness Let your Thanks be more than verbal your Profit shall be real It shall appear to all Men. But as long as you hear unthankfully you must be and appear unholy Ingratitude doth of any Sin to be named turn Honey into Gall and Physick to Poison It is the same thing to call a Man unthankful and to say he is a Samaritan and hath a Devil Direct III. Lament your Sins in hearing and go act Faith on Christ for your Pardon Abundance of Dross is in all our Gold Iniquity abounds in our holy Things The holiest of them all need a thousand Pardons and deserve our deepest Blushes And let us not flatter our selves Repenting and Believing be not Things indifferent or Acts of meer Christian Liberty but indispensable Duty They must go before the Seal of our Pardon in our Conscience or in Heaven And believe it God is incensed with Sin whoever it be that sinneth and in whatever He delighteth to be kind but he hateth to be fond As ever you would profit by a Sermon follow it with the Tears of Repentance and with the Prayers of Faith Then will God give you Profit with Measure pressed down and running over If you are too proud for this in God's Name I tell you that Pride of yours shall have a shameful Fall The best thing proud is worse than the worst that is truly humble Direct IV. Examine with humble Diligence what in hearing appeared to you as doubtful Suspect your own Vnderstandings more than your Minister's But lean not rashly on your own or idolatrously on his If Error be in his Doctrine it turns to Poison in thy Soul Wherefore do not swallow what thou dost suspect The most noble Hearers try all Doctrine by the holy Scriptures Good Children ask their Parents Advice wise Women ask their Husbands the Wise of all Sorts go ask their Ministers and intreat them to clear up by God's written Word the Truth of their preached Word Thus do and whoever be barren Hearers you shall be fruitful ones God never fails to teach Souls so careful to imbibe nothing but Truth O happy Church where Mal. 2.7 is wisely and duly observed where Ministers Lips preserve Knowledg and People seek it at their Mouths But it is no more than is to be expected if stupid Drones and contentious Cavillers live Idiots and die without saving Wisdom God's Curse rests on the Idle and he resisteth the Proud Direct V. Prove your State and Condition by every Gospel-Sermon You cannot try too often things whereof you can never be sufficiently certain I mean so much certain but that you will still need to be more certain You are true Believers and alive to God or Vnbelievers and dead in Sin and Misery You are strong in the Grace that is in Christ or Babes weak in the same It is a sorry Sermon by which no Help is given you to form a Judgment of your selves touching these things God's Blessing upon your conscientious Care to make use of the Help you need not to distrust His Command on you to prove your selves is not without a Promise of Blessing made to it He ever enricheth those Hearers who use Sermons as Scales to weigh and Touchstones to try their Souls But as for the Presumptuous who dream themselves to be as good as they need to be and the Despairing who conclude that they shall remedilesly abide as bad as they are and therefore never put the Word of God so close unto them What Hope of these God will condemn those by his Word who will not judg themselves by it If you will not make it a Light unto you he will make it Fire to you Direct VI. Carry on your Knowledg Memory and every good Purpose unto Practice Christian Divinity is an Art of doing more than knowing God's Will remembring it and temporarily purposing to do it It teacheth living unto God Word and Sacraments yea Faith and Repentance all are for Obedience God gave his Son and sent down his Spirit to get him a People zealous of good Works as well as Words Much Fruit it is and not your fair Leaves that glorifieth God And it is the Hearer rich in good VVorks that God will glorify The Hearer to whose Feet the Word is a Light to walk by it as well as a Light to his Head to talk by it I have Warrant from our Saviour to tell you If you hear his Word and so keep it you shall have greater Honour than the Virgin Mary had in being his Mother And do you but still do the Word of his that you know you shall never fail to be made know the Word that he would have you to do Use well your Hands and Feet and he will make every Sermon a Royal Salve to your Eyes But from him that practiseth not what he knows from him shall be taken the Light that he hath To him is promised no more Light unto him is threatned the darkest Fire Luke 28.29 Heathen Moralists hold no Man to be so very bad as he who acts Evil and no more than talks of Good Christian ones must needs pronounce them the worst Monsters that speak as with cloven Tongues and yet as Negroes are no where white but in the Mouth Direct VII Teach your Relations what God teacheth you at Sermons God will never forfeit his Name of Love nor fail to reward Charity and specially Soul-Charity It is the Devil's Proverb The Free shall not be fat God's Proverb is The liberal Soul shall be made fat and he that waters others shall be watered God will hide nothing from an Abraham for this very reason because he will instruct all his Family with it Go you now and instruct yours so shall you be taught of God as you have never been in past Days Drop Divine Truths on them and God shall make Sermons rain down rich Showers on you But vain are your idle Moans while you are uncharitable to your Relations If I know the Mind of God He will starve you if you will not feed them God is a great lover of Children and our Children are his more than ours Nor can you easily incense God more than by neglect of these his Children I wonder not that many hear and understand not because what they understand they teach not You may be ever learning but you shall never come to the saving Knowledg of the Truth until you make conscience of communicating the Truth you know Thus spend and God will send Teach others and God shall teach you comfort them and God shall increase and multiply Comfort to you When these Rules shall be observed Ministers shall be joyful both Fathers and Nurses The Bed of Christ shall be green in our Assemblies It shall be no more querulously said that our Sermons have miscarrying Wombs and dry Breasts Joy shall be made in Heaven and in the midst of us Fear shall come on every Soul of our Scorners We shall praise God as the Primitive Christians and have Favour with all the People The Word of God shall so run and be glorified and God even our own God shall so bless us Amen FINIS