Selected quad for the lemma: nature_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
nature_n	flesh_n	sin_n	sinful_a	2,809	5	9.4946	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A94171	Hypocrisie discovered in its nature and workings. Delivered in several sermons, by that faithfull minister of the Gospell, Mr Cuthbert Sidenham, late teacher to a Church of Christ in Newcastle upon Tyne.	Sydenham, Cuthbert, 1622-1654.	1654 (1654)	Wing S6300; Thomason E1504_3; ESTC R208667	84,791	234

thy selfe Secondly know this in the generall Thou shouldst not charge thy selfe to be a Hypocrite for every sight of Hypocrisie And the more spirituall you grow under the Gospell the more you will see of the deceitfulnesse of your heart every day But I will give you these six Characters that no hypocrite can ever have in their hearts nor attaine to and I hope some poore soules will be comforted and they are the poorest things you would thinke to flesh and bloud in the world those things that a man would never imagine especially those high-grown men in Notion First Can you hate sin as sin that is in its whole nature in every appearance of it in its first motion in the first hints of it in the sins that are most deare that I tooke most pleasure in Hypocrisie in its actings towards sin picks and chooses here and there it may be angry with some sin that disturbes it but it never hates it no hypocrite can have a hatred of sin as sin hate the first of the first as it were though it comes never so glorious never so set as it were hates it as sin upon no other consideration not because it troubles my conscience and brings me to hell and wrath and renders me unsutable to my relations and designes in the world He is a Saint looke to it the very Embryo of sin the sincere soule hates it hates it as sin Secondly No hypocrite can delight to be ashamed by God in his duties in his actings lye under the shamings of God and made purely nothing in its own eyes and others that the Hypocrite cannot do and yet a poore simple sincere soule can do it a poore soule that may be can hardly speak two words with sence and sutablenesse of expression yet he can do it he can delight as well to see God shaming his soule bringing him to nothing humbling of him to the dust as if he were to be in the Armes of the Lord taking pleasure in his humbling acts suppose God deny him any assistance in a duty or in the opening of his heart that if he be in company he is ashamed to looke upon his own heart here the soule takes pleasure to be ashamed no hypocrite can endure that to be ashamed in his actings and relations for selfe-love is the principle of hypocrisie in the heart of a hypocrite He cannot endure to be out-shined that is the wicked frame of him if a Saint go beyond him in grace and communion with God he cannot endure it and therefore cannot endure to be ashamed Oh! how do the Saints love to be laid low before God that they may have the pure glory of him shining upon their soules Then Thirdly know this as a speciall one No hypocrite can blesse God and love him from his heart when God smites him in his dearest enjoyments or nearest lusts wherein he hath delighted take away his comforts take away those things he hath enjoyed formerly and he cannot love Christ nor blesse him in his heart strike him in any thing that the eye and heart of him hath been upon he secretly hates Christ Now a Saint can cling to Christ love him secretly in his own soule though he seeme to be as an enemie to him he cannot but love him for all this no hypocrite can do this take away what pleases his nature and he cannot love him Try your hearts by these things Fourthly know this No hypocrite can love the person of the Lord Jesus Christ nor a Saint as a Saint I put these both together he cannot love the person of the Lord Jesus for he never had the glimpses of his glory on his heart he only loves to be pardoned and have some comfort from him but he never finds his heart to worke in love to the Lord Jesus and have an union with him as the fundamentall ground of all his comforts for love you know it longs for union Nor he cannot love a Saint as a Saint purely but a Saint so tempered so conditioned he cannot love a poore saint nor a weak Saint he cannot purely close with him and have his bowels working towards him purely as a Saint Fifthly No hypocrite can go on in any spirituall worke or service for Christ with any contentment with any pleasure without sensible comforts or outward respects pray observe for if he want inward sensible comforts yet the wind of men will fill his sailes but a poore Saint can take pleasure in the meere mention of Christ in the poorest worke of Christ wherein he is least seene wherein he hath hardly a name only with shame and reflection this will try a man if I had time to open it throughly Sixthly and lastly No hypocrite in the world can long to be like Christ as to be respected by Christ either as to inward comforts or trade in the world Or thus No hypocrite can love the holinesse of Christ as the good things he gets of Christ he cannot abide to be out of his owne forme and in the forme of the nature of the Lord Jesus Christ but a Saint if he have never so much comfort and sweetnesse and his soule alwaies drawing honey with marrow and fatnesse yet if he have not the likenesse of Christ and be like Christ he is not pleased no hypocrite can love the holinesse of the Lord Jesus Christ with a pure love that may destroy his corruption that may unbottome him bring him perfectly out of selfe and transforme him into that glorious Image Try your selves by all these things I had thought to have shewn you wherein the straines of hypocrisie lie to all sorts of duties and the spirituall workings of it in the hearts of men but I must leave that to some other time SERMON IV. Beware of the Leaven of the Pharisees which is Hypocrisie I Have shewed you in severall exercises what the nature of hypocrisie is and have distinguished to you the severall sorts of hypocrites under the Gospell shewed you how cunningly and closely men may act and yet still have this leaven in them passing through all their parts there is some little thing or other that is insensible to some men known to others wherby they are mistaken and undone under all their profession I shall not be able to repeat any thing but in the latter end of the last Sermon I told you of Six things that no hypocrite could do or attaine unto and I will adde but this one to all the rest Seventhly No hypocrite in the world can desire Christ that God might be glorified in the utter shaming of himselfe as to all priviledges and to all enjoyments and abatement of comforts to himselfe pray observe it this is that which strikes at selfe-love perfectly which is as I told you the originall of all hypocrisie in a mans spirit and I speake this as a tryall that is very close and narrow to the spirits of men and likewise to distinguish in this point between

foolish Virgins Mat. 25. they went on smoothly a long time and slumbred and slept and thought themselves as pure Virgins as the wise untill midnight came And the young man in the Gospell Mat. 19. he came to Christ with a confidence in his own intentions that he had kept the Law or else he would never have come to Christ as he did but yet he lacked something he wanted the maine principle he wanted selfe-deniall never knew what it was to cast himselfe upon the Lord Jesus purely All his hypocrisie lay in that If there be but a naturall ingenuity and simplicity and it come under the Gospell it will be mightily improved by a mans following the outward Letter of it he will be as simple-hearted in all duties as much as formerly he was by following the common principles of honesty therefore when the young man came to Christ there was a kind of affection in Jesus Christ to him and a love to him and yet this was his hypocrisie he did all those things and had no intention at all to deceive the world or himselfe by it but he wanted the principle that should have carried him on in all things So that a man appeares to be what he is not appeares to be a Saint and does duties well but is not this comes from a want of principles a defect in that It is not my intention that makes me a hypocrite before God but if I go on in profession and have not what should make out that profession to be from God it is hypocrisie Only these are the most to be pittied and bewailed that go innocently to hell they thinke they have grace and no man in the world can perswade them to the contrary and as strong a faith as any in the world and alas they have not they thinke they love Christ and would do any thing for him but they never had that love flaming in them from the power of divine love and spirituall Gospell-principles Now the reasons why men go on thus are First because they never had the sight of their own natures they never were under the through-convictions of their sinfull state by nature only bred up fairely and ingenuously in the Gospell God never shewed them their own faces in the glasse of the Law only they have looked on the Law with their own eye in their own prospect it is impossible if God shewed a man his nature he should go without principles in his heart Secondly It comes from a generall view of the Gospell meerly from generall considerations of the Gospell and outward rule without any particular inward sense of the spirit and frame that should be in him men looke upon the Gospell as a History and never come to see what spirituall frames should be in their hearts to every duty Thirdly Men do find some kind of comfort in those waies and they have not those checks of conscience that others have because they are not so grosse in their actings but go on smoothly without questioning their own state and their spirits are pretty well composed Fourthly The maine and the great reason is want of through-examination want of diving into the depths of the heart not putting a mans selfe to it every day men take up meerly the imitation as it were of others and the shadow and the outward expression and consider them no otherwaies whereas they are but shews men never go no further in their own spirits than the outsides never search their hearts to lay them open before the Majesty and Authority of a great God and so they live and dye securely And is not this a sad thing that a man should thinke he hath grace and have no intention at all to deceive That is he hath not that cunning and desperate frame but only goes on and trusts his own judgment and trusts his own generall apprehensions and hopes well of himselfe and thinkes surely he would do no wrong do no evill and this man slips down and away to the bottome of hell here is a hypocrite though not a professed one he is deceived though he intend not to deceive for here is that I would have you look to ☞ It is not your thinking and saying you have grace you may be hypocrites for all that if you are not what you appeare to be you are a hypocrite whatsoever you seeme to be and whether you think so or no. God thinkes so and know's so and you will find it so one day when you come to have the vaile taken off from your eyes Paul wondred what he was a doing when God opened his eyes what he had been doing all this while Therefore you had need be trying your hearts every day dayly fearing your hearts and jealous over your spirits and suspecting every motion untill you have tried your hearts by Law and Gospell yea and waited upon the Spirit for a new triall Now there is a second sort and they are such as are conscious to themselves of their hypocrisie that they are not yet sound in the maine and yet go on in their profession from their education or for some designe and cannot leave it have many stirrings of God in their hearts under Ordinances from light convictions of the Lord upon their Spirits And this is exceeding common many go on a long time in profession and cannot leave it but have many motions of God in their soules and many sharpe reproofes from God and yet cannot see a through work upon their hearts yet go on and professe and hope it may be but take themselves for Saints continually and must have their names enrolled for Saints in Churches and yet have a jealousie of their own hypocrisie and go on so for many yeares under many regrets and wounds of spirit they have many twangs that pierce them sometimes and yet the Conviction is not so strong as to shew them their miserable and vile estate or to presse them on to the through worke of the Gospell upon their hearts And you shall find those persons very high in prayer and very able to speake well in their converse with Saints But they never met with God in duties never had Gods assistance never found that spirituall strength when they heare men Anatomising of soules they are only for keeping up the glorious outside and the glory of outward formes they have been some ten or twenty years and knew that Christ never appeared to them and yet they cannot leave off duties conscience and the outward rule lies upon them still this is very common And so it was with Saul he knew in his own heart that God had forsaken him and yet he would be doing something he would have Samuel to pray for him but God had left him he knew in his own conscience he was unsound and had not done the will of God And so a man may go up and down a great while having a conscience and ability as to outward actings and yet never be sound