Selected quad for the lemma: judgement_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
judgement_n	day_n	heart_n	youth_n	1,554	5	9.4723	5	false

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

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

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 2 Thess 2.10 11 12. Because they received not the love of the Truth that they might be saved God shall send them strong delusions that they should believe a Lye that they all might be damned who believed not the Truth Matth. 7.15 Beware of false Prophets which come to you in sheeps clothing but inwardly they are ravening wolves Matth. 15.14 Let them alone they be blinde Leaders of the Blinde and if the Blinde lead the Blinde both shall fall into the Ditch London Printed by R. Raworth for Samuel Gellibrand at the Brasen-Serpent in Pauls Church-yard 1645. Die Jovis 31 Julii 1645. ORdered by the Lords in Parliament That Master Baylie who preached yesterday before the Lords of Parliament in the Abbey-Church Westminster it being the day of the Publike Fast is hereby thanked for the great pains he took in his Sermon and desired to print and publish the same which is to be printed by none but such as shall be authorized by the said Master Baylie Job Brown Cler. Parliamentorum Ido appoint Samuel Gellibrand to print my Sermon ROBERT BAYLIE FOR The Equitable READER HOwsoever I have not adventured to offer unto the Right Honourable House of Peers any Dedicatorie Epistle having taken up alreadie so much of their pretious time in their patient and favourable audience of my prolix enough Sermon Yet presuming upon thy courtesie who shalt be willing to reade the subsequent Notes of that which to their Honours was preached without any variation I have made bold to speak in thy eares as the custome is some words of a Preface At the first instant of my calling to this service the words of my Text were cast into my minde where they remained without my least inclination towards any other till I had delivered from them what followeth I have been for a long time in the opinion that Errour and Induration are albeit not the only yet among the principall both sins and miseries of this time and place Hardnesse of heart is ever a sinne The sinfulness of Induration but then most sinfull when most unseasonable If ever there was a time to weep this must be it when not only the mouth of the Lord from his Word is calling but his hand also from the Heaven is drawing us to it He is a stubborn child from whose eye the rod of the Father can draw no water It is a hard stone which the hammer cannot break It is a piece of unnaturall metall wich the fire cannot dissolve And yet this is the complaint of the best discerning Christians every where That though the Lord at this instant be dealing with us by the rod the hammer the fire of his judgements we are so far from heart-melting that in this extraordinarie and untimous hardnesse of our heart more of the wrath and judiciall hand of God doth appear then in any or in all our judgements beside This plague of the Lord on the spirits not only of the World but of many his dear children ought to be the subject of our deepest groans and lowdest cries to the Heaven whence alone the remedie of this our spirits disease can come For there is but one Father and one Lord and one Physitian of the spirits of men My weak endeavours towards this great Cure must be fruitless till his hand make the application of these prescriptions which with all the faithfulnesse and care I was able for the time I have collected only out of the book of his own method of Physick As for the other evill of Errour Error no lesse sinfull then ●ice it hath been the studie and work of some here and elsewhere to extenuate the sinfulnesse thereof and to arme the conscience of all they could perswade against the sense of its burthen as if the conscience ought to be impenetrable and secure from all Wounds which vice and fleshly lusts doe not inflict But I believe if Errour and Vice were Well weighed in the ballance of the Sanctuarie though you put to vice the grossest aggravations whereby the passions of the soul and actions of the bodie make it justly abominable yet if you Will allow to Errour but the grains of its ordinarie circumstances especially that one of our Text Induration its most familiar companion it will be found to have such a weight of malignitie that if betwixt the two any inequality do appear the sinfulnesse of the last will prae-ponder The intoxication of the spirit of the minde by the venome of Errour is as much contrarie to the Divine Nature and Will is as much hatefull to the Spirit of light and truth and as evidently damnable as the corruption of the will and inferiour affections or any member of the bodie with whatsoever vice or more bodily transgression I hope I have proved this by places of Scripture unanswerable Whence it necessarily followeth that it is more Toleration of errours a grievous sin at least no lesse unlawfull for a Christian State to give any libertie or toleration to Errours then to set up in every Citie and Parish of their Dominions Bordels for Vncleannesse Stages for Playes and Lists for Duels That a libertie for Errours is no lesse hatefull to God no lesse hurtfull to men then a freedome without any punishment Without any discouragement for all men when and wheresoever they pleased to kill to steal to rob to commit adultery or to do any of these mischiefs which are most repugnant to the Civill law and destructive of humane societie But that which my Text points at in Errours The errours of our time appear to be judiciall is not so much their sinfulnesse as their judgement That God in his wrath had given over that people to errour If ever the plague of erring from the wayes of truth was sent upon a land it seems this day to lye upon us The Finger of God in this our judgement is demonstrable by divers Characters imprinted upon the face of our present Errours above all that in ordinarie and not judiciall Errours useth to appear I point at four eminent singularities in them Their various multiplicity Their palpable evidence Their incredible increase and in the midst of universall complaints against them A totall neglect of their cure First their variety is prodigious 1 By their variety I cannot say that all which stand in the ancient Hereseologies of Philastrius Epiphanius or Augustine can be found among us or Were ever to be found upon Earth in any one age But this may be confidently averred That more Errours have set up their head and shewed their mis-shapen countenances lately here then in any one place of the world this day are known I adde that there is not any Errour spoken

marvell therefore that men of awakened consciences make it a chief part of their complaint and grief That God had caused them to erre This being a figne of wrath and increase of guiltinesse and a forerunner of greater punishment The use is first for Caution 1 Vse for Caution To beware of that dangerous errour of taking comfort and encouragement from Gods judiciall hand in our sins that is to glory in our shame and to joy for what we should be sad It is to cast off our self the burden of our sin to whom alone it belongs on God whose eyes are purer then to behold iniquity Secondly 2 Vse for Counsel It serves for Councell to make it our chief grief in our mourning That we have faln under so heavy displeasure as to be scourged with the worst of Gods Rods Of all the Arrows in Gods Quiver this is the most venemous To be given over by God to sin this comes from a speciall wrath and is a presage of very great misery following When Gods spirit stirred up David to number the people it came from his anger against Israel and was a forerunner of the destroying Angell The blinding of the peoples eyes Isaiah 6. and John 12. is made an antecedent of a nationall ruine When ever we feel this to be our condition it should be the matter of our most mournfull complaint The fourth observation will clear the third it is this The fourth Doctrine Judiciall errours are most lamentable The godly when their eyes are opened to see their wandrings they are singularly affected with their judiciall errours As here the Church mourning and praying to God for sin and misery begins her complaint for these errours into which by Gods anger and judgement she had faln Old Israel by Gods judgement The Proof had faln in the grievous errour of civill discord which cost in two dayes the eleven Tribes the lives of fourty thousand men and in the third proceeded very near to the extirpation of the twelfth Tribe When the hand of God was lifted off them and they began to look back upon their actions Judges 21.2 they weeped fore before the Lord and complained to him of the great mischief wherein they had faln Though the injustice and obstinacy of Benjamin had been the immediate cause of the dissention yet they pittied their Brethren seeing it was the Lords judgement upon them all that had made that breach in Israel Verse 15. Ephraim in his pride would needs rebell against the house of David and have a King among themselves and Altars of their own making at Dan and Bethel God in justice gave them over to these sins of continuall sedition and idolatry till they were totally ruined He gave them a number of Kings in his anger Hos 8.11 Because Ephraim hath made many Altars to sin Altars shall be unto him to sin But when the Lord gave repentance to Ephraim see how much they are grieved ashamed and confounded for their madnesse wherein by the judgement of God they were made long to go on Jere. 31.18 I have heard Ephrains bemoaning himself thus Surely after I was turned I repented and after I was instructed I smote upon my thigh I was ashamed yea even confounded because I bore the reproach of my youth The Jews were plagued of God with a horrible blindnesse of minde and obstinacy of heart so that they rejected the Gospel crucified the Lord of Life and remain in Rebellion to this day But when the Lord shall take off the vail of their eyes and they begin to see their judiciall errours their madnesse against Christ and the Gospel wherewith God in justice did plague them their grief for it will be extraordinary as it is set down Zach. 12.10 They shall look on him whom they have peirced and they shall mourn for him as one mournath for his onely son and shall be in bitternesse for him as one is in bitternesse for his first-born 2 Thes 2. The Churches of the Gentiles are in Gods justice many of them given over to strong delusions to beleeve Antichristian Lyes but when God begins to open their eyes to see these delusions their grief and indignation for them is so great Revel 17.16 That they hate the whore who did seduce and bewitch them They make her desolate and naked They eat her flesh and burn her with fire The Reasons of this Doctrine The Reasons are the same which of the former especially the second The singular and extraordinary guiltinesse that is in these judiciall errours the blinded soul sees them not while God in mercy remove the cloud and send in his light but then the lightned soul beholding the horrible wayes wherein it hath been wandring such wherein it would never have walked had it not been led by a powerfull Divell set on by the permission and commission of a just God Seeing in these sins a just God a wicked Divell and a heart stirred up by extraordinary temptations by this horrible back-sight is affrighted and amazed till Faith in the infinite mercies of God doth calm and settle it The Use is for admonition The Vse Beware of judiciall errours very often they are never pardoned but bring on destruction both temporall and eternall 2 Thes 2.11 They to whom God sends strong delusions are damned Isai 6.11 When God shut the peoples eyes and made their heart fat the Cities were wasted and the Land made desolate Before Ephraim and Juda recovered themselves from that snare of rebellion and came to the repentance spoken of How many hundred thousands and millions of them did perish both temporally and eternally And these few whom the Lord bringeth to see and mourn for their judiciall ertours How great is their grief How much do they wish to have seen in time their madnesse that they might not so much have been plagued therewith But what are these judiciall errours which we would beware of Search the Scriptures they will make you wise in this very necessary point of knowledge For your use I shall point at some First Civill discord a Judiciall errour Civill Discord is a sin and a great judgement a sin to the authors and fomenters a judgement to all as well the innocent as nocent party Isai 19.2 God punisheth the sins of the Egyptians with his plague I will set the Egyptians against the Egyptians and they shall fight every one against his brother and every one against his neighbour City against City and Kingdom against Kingdom and the spirit of Egypt shall fail in the midst thereof and I will destroy the counsel thereof The same is the Judgement of Israel Zech. 11.6 I will no more pity the inhabitants of the Land but I will deliver the men every one into his neighbours hands and into the hands of his King and they shall smite the Land and out of their hand I will not deliver them This is the great Judgement that long hath lien upon us the

among them without all hazard of persecution Is this humour diminished to this day Or with a little change doth it not predomine yet in many We must still excell all other Churches in our Government In place of Episcopacie we will have a new Popularity Just the old Brownism of the rigid Separatists covered with the new name of Independency For after triall it will be found that this new and Middle way as it is called is really the extremity of the most rigid Separation That it is not a semi but a sesqui-Separation Independency is not a se●i but a sesqui-separation That for the smaller crotchets of the Brownists which they lay aside they adde more errors of a worse stamp which the old Separatists were wont much to detest But to swe●ten our new eminency above other Protestants it must be mixed with a Liberty of Conscience not that for which the King Court and Bishops were lately so much cryed out upon The toleration onely of Papists or any one false Religion but a full and Catholike Liberty for all imagiuable kindes of false Religion much more then to this day was ever required either in Amsterdam or Pall or Transilvania or any where else where the licentiousnesse of erring in the great wrath of God hath been permitted to dwell Upon these things the godly would look not as upon a subject of talking or an incentive of wrath and indignation against the persons of any but to be matter of heart-grief and mourning to the Lord in our secret places In the end of this Catalogue of publike sins thou wouldst have annexed a Register of thy personall provocations When thou hast brought the Candle of Gods Word and Spirit within thy own house and within the Cabinet of thy own brest doubtlesse thou wilt behold so many abominations both fleshly and spirituall that will be just cause of watering thy Couch with thy tears and pouring out thy heart before the face of the Lord if thou wer able in tears of blood A third help to softnesse of heart A third Cure of hardnesse is Motives to fear is Motives to fear for this hardnesse of heart proceedeth as from misbelief and impenitency so also from security wherefore in our Text it is opposite to fear Why hast thou hardned our hearts from thy fear And Josiah so soon as tendernesse of heart came upon him began to fear and tremble So Motives to fear are helps to softnesse and cures for hardnesse of heart Of these I point shortly but at three The Judgements of God on others His Mercies to us And if these affect not The Wrath yet to come on us For the first 1 Judgements on others we would oft remember the examples given us by God Who ever thou art thou hast thy patern from God Be thou a Church-man a Citizen a Knight an Earl a Duke a Prince how hath the Lord scourged divers of thy Coat lately before thy eyes wounded killed impoveriffied disgraced many and put others to stand this day on the brink of ruine and worldly misery Were they the greatest sinners on whom the Tower of Siloam fell Or they whose blood Pilate mingled with their Sacrifice The Lords remark on these Judgements was That except we repent we shall all likewise perish The late Judgements which God hath inflicted on many of thy quality are loud words to thee that thou mayest fear and tremble that thy heart may melt within thee for thy sins lest the Lord make thee a spectacle of Judgement to others who by the miseries of others wouldst not be taught to repent Again Remember the great mercies of the Lord 2 Mercies on us For there is mercy with God that he may be feared The speciall means whereby Nathan softned the heart of David after it had been long hardned in sin with Bathsheba was a Catalogue of Gods mercies towards him 2 Sam. 2. I d●livered thee out of the hand of Saul I made thee King over Israel I gave thee thy masters house and if that had been too little I would have given thee more Why hast thou despised my Commandment The ointment of mercy is most softning of it gracious heart when it groweth into hardnesse It s good to have a Register of Gods favours both to the publike and thy person Consider all that the Lord hath done lately for the Church and Kingdom If the Malignant party had prevailed as once they were too like to have done if their Tyranny in Church and State had been established by the overthrow of the gracious party in the whole Isle what wofull days should have come upon us and the posterity That the Lord hath heard our Prayers and from the heaven hath done so many and so great things for us That we are in so fair a way to have both Church and State setled according to Truth and Justice That for our persons we have been guided aright in the common Cause that when so many greater wiser better then we have been given over to the counsels of their own hearts to joyn with the enemy for their own disgrace and wrack That the Lord should have kept thy heart strait and hold ●● thee on thee side wherein was Justice Truth and the blessing of God That in that party the Lord hath taken any service at thy hand when many more able and as willing have been unserviceable That thy life thy limbs thy estate are preserved when this service hath cost many their life some their limbs some their estates These and the like favours would be remembred for the softning of our heart In the third place 3 Greater Judgements yet coming if neither Judgements on others nor mercies on thy self will move consider what remedilesse evils may shortly be the reward of so great a contempt When Nabals heart grew like a stone within him the hand of God did in a little time cut him off by death When neither Judgements nor mercies bring a heart to fear the Lord usually pours out the full Vials of his heaviest wrath It is a fearfull thing to fall into the hand of that consuming fire We would do well to be lifting up our eyes to that invisible Spirit whom the world cannot see To behold his hand guiding all the wheels of publike and private affairs Were our State much better setled then yet for a long time it can be if he be miskent he can cast down in a moment more then men can build in many yeers If he be not feared and sought to he will so crosse and confound the guides of Church and State that when they are at the end of the Wildernesse on the very borders of Canaan he can bring them back to toil in the Wildernesse till they die without so much as a sight of that Canaan though once they had come very neer unto it Albeit the publike did prosper yet the fearfull wrath of God for thy hardnesse of heart may light on thy