Selected quad for the lemma: nature_n
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A25466
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Casuistical morning-exercises the fourth volume / by several ministers in and about London, preached in October, 1689.
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Annesley, Samuel, 1620?-1696.
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1690
(1690)
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Wing A3225; ESTC R614
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480,042
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449
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up in manifold and mighty clusters What can we mention or fix our thoughts upon that may not kindle and increase this flame of Love and its Eruptions in Good Works The things which we might pertinently and copiously insist upon might be reduced to these Heads 1. The Objects of this Central Grace or Principle 1. Things in Heaven as God Christ the Spirit Angels the Spirits of Just Men there made perfect the glorious Furniture Laws and Orders the Visions Services Ministrations and Fruitions of that State all the Perfections Prerogatives and Employments of that blessed World above with all the accomplishments and accommodations which relate immediately thereto and all the Satisfactions and Advantages that result therefrom 2. Things from Heaven God manifest in the flesh i Tim. iii. 16. the Spirit Works and Word of God the great Provisions and Engagements of Divine Providence for us all that we are or have or meet with express of God's merciful regards to us and his compassionate concernedness for our universal welfare 3. Things for Heaven The Spirit of Grace the Word of Grace all the Ministers and means of Grace with all the Discipline and Encouragements which Providence sensibly affords us the Good and Evil things of time as ordered by God to fit us for and help us to the Glory which we look for The very Sons of men themselves considered in the relations which they bear to God and their expressiveness of his indearing Name and all those marks and notices which they bear and give us in the frame capacity and management of humane Nature of God's incomprehensible Wisdom Power Goodness c. O who can think hereon and yet be unprovoked to Love and to Good Works when as God is so eminently and endearingly discernible in all for God by all this courts our love And should I speak of the Sons of God and Heirs of Glory that Divine Workmanship which is in them and upon them the Impressions Reflections and Refractions of the Divine Nature and Life their capacity of growing up to all the fulness of God and to be eternally the beautiful and delightsome Temple of the Holy Ghost all their relations to the Holy Trinity with all their obligations to him their interest in him their business with him and for him and all their imitations and resemblances of him in their actual and possible motions and advances towards him and their Great Expectations from him Should I insist upon their membership with all the duties and advantages and pleasures which arise there from and pertinently illustrate and apply as I could easily and quickly do what doth so copiously occur in Eph. iv 4. 6. as the Central articles and holding bonds of Union and Endearments would you and I consider all these things and all the loveliness that would then be communicable or observable could our love want its provocation 2. The formal nature of this love 't is fit to be a provocation to itself i Joh. iv 16-21 7-12 This is the beauty health strength pleasure safety and renown of humane nature love is the aim and scope Knowledge the end of faith the Spirit of hope the life of practice and devotion and the bond of perfectness and the true transformation of the Soul into the image of its God No pleasing thoughts of God Christ Heaven or heavenly things no chearful motions towards eternity no foretasts of the highest bliss no warrantable claims thereto nor confident expectations of unseen realities No true and lasting bonds of friendliness in service and affections without this Spirit and state of love this only faces God in his own beautiful and delightful image this only turns the notions of divinity into substantial realities and so exalts the man above the pageantries of meer formal outside service and devotions and the truth is all that we say and do for God or with him and all our expectations from him are but the tricks and forgeries of deceitful and deceived fools and the most provoking Prophanation of the tremendous holy name of God and an abuse of holy things 3. The services which love must do and the fruits it must produce to God to Christ unto the Spirit unto our selves and others God himself must be reverenced addrest unto served and entertained like himself and walked with in all required and fit imitations of himself And all these cannot be without just valuings of and complacency in his eminent perfections near relations and the admirable constitutions and administrations of his Kingdom Christ must be duly thought on heartily entertained gratefully acknowledged and cheerfully obeyed submitted and improved unto the great and gracious purposes of his appearances performances and Kingdom and minded most delightfully in all the Grandeurs of his Grace and Throne the Holy Spirit must possess his Temple to his full Satisfaction and have the pure incense of his graces in their fragrant liberal and continual ascents Praying in the Holy Ghost Jude 20. And be feasted with the growthful and constant productions of his graces both in their blossoms and full fruits and we must be continually sowing to him if we hope to reap eternal life of him in Gal. vi 8. We must possess our selves in God and for him in our full devotedness and resignations of our entire selves to him pleasing our selves in this that we are not by far so much and so delightfully our own as his and that we cannot love our selves so well as when we find God infinitely dearer to us than we are to our selves And as for others much must we chearfully do and bear and be to bring poor Renegadoes back again to God to testify our great respects unto and pleasure in the grace of God in our fellow Christians to accommodate our selves to their edification concerns and to make our best advantage of every thing discernible in them Helping our selves and them in spirit speech and practice And can these things be brought to pass or our selves reconciled suited to all our Christian duties and interests without provoked love And for the solemnities transactions and results of the approaching day what is that day to those who have no love or very great declensions of it For all that come with Christ from Heaven come in the flames of love to God to godliness and Godly Ones and a Cold Heart will no way be endured there And as to fellow Christians the Duties and Counsels of the Text consideration adhering to the Assembling of our selves together mutual exhortations in the encouraging and quickning Prospect of this day can these things be without love III. The management of these provoking things And here let us follow the method of the Text it self Where we have these Topicks to insist upon 1. Persons must be considered each other and our selves 2. We are not to desert the Assemblings of our selves together as the manner of some is 3. We must exhort each other And so what one proposes the other must Consider
may not be expected to cleanse a Young Mans way nor any others Get a Promise from him to lend you his best Direction to thorough Conversion A Youth without a Pastor is a Child without a Nurse Direct 2. Vse him whom you chuse your Guide for your Soul and follow him as far as he follows Jesus Christ Hear him ordinarily a Child 's own Parents Milk is commonly best for it Write after him the Heads of his Sermon I mean and his Chief Notes Incomparable King Edward the Sixth used to write Sermon Notes Go often to his House and always to ask things worth his time and your own Little rest give him till Grace has blest his labors to fit you for the Lords Table Plainly tell him you shall count small good gotten by the Word till you are qualified for the Sacrament And that it is to you a dolorous thing to have but a Place in Gods House and no Room at his Table It looks as if you were but a Dog and not a Child Direct 3. Look alway and adhere closely unto God's Son and Spirit Without these the Holy Bible can no more make you wise unto Salvation than the Fables of Aesop that Papists dare compare it to The Word of Life is a Word of Death to you without these to make it beneficial These without whom you can expect no more Edification from the best Minister than from a blind Harper In all things ye want Jesus Christ for Acceptance in all you want the Holy Ghost for Assistance in all things and at all times Without right use of them no Soul can fetch a Breath of Divine Life or take a Step of Holy Walk Nature indeed shews you an Heavenly Father and ties all of you unto him But 't is only special Revelation Jupiter q. Juvani Pater reveals a Redeeming Son of God and an Holy Sanctifying Spirit of God And 't is much Grace and that much used too that can keep you close unto these VVithout which you may be great Socinians but no Christians Direct 4. Beware of setting against each other Gods Mercy Christs Merits Holy Faith and Good Works VVe cannot say to either of them we have no need of thee All are truly necessary and unspeakably But in the Countrey I saw it and in this City I see it most people do fix on some one of them and cry it up to the Exclusion of the rest To the virtual Exclusion Of so Epidemical and fatal a hindrance of Conversion beware you The Mercy of God! All the Rhetorick of Heaven cannot praise enough but wo be to you if you expect the Pardon of the least Sin by it otherwise than through Christs Merits The Merits of Christ These without question are infinite But you are undone if you dream you shall have the saving benefit of them Living and Dying without Marriage unto him by Faith Holy Faith Is a Grace most Precious by God most highly honoured and of all most honouring God Honouring him in some respects more than Adam's personal Obedience did before the Fall But mortally you erre if you look to put off God with it without Obedience And slight good VVorks as Supererogations Good Works Are the blessed Fruit of God's indwelling Spirit and the very end of our Election Redemption and Conversion But what then they be neither acceptable to God nor profitable to us but through the Gift of the Mercy the Purchase of the Merits and the Means of the Faith aforesaid If you rest on VVorks and imagine them otherwise good your Eternal Lodging will be among Evil-workers Young people make your Pastor set you well at rights about these things And let the Excellency Connexion Order and Necessity of them be judged worthy of your frequent and serious thoughts Direct 5. Be very Critical in the Choice of your Company Be sowre and unkind unto none Affable to all but pleased with Few to wit the Best Which are those that will either best teach you or best learn from you Companions of Fools are doomed to destruction But where ere you are walking with wise Men you are on your way to Heaven Prov. 13.20 Souls the most thoughtful of Eternity are still the most careful of their Company And it is certain the Company of your Choice in this World is both that which you would have and shall have in the next Direct 6. Besides the Holy Scriptures read ye such good Books as shall be commended to you by your Pastors 'T is not every good Book that is for you good Nor every one that will hereafter be good for you that is good Now. Your Pastors can judge best which are most sutable I think it Soul-Felony for you to be without the Westminster Assemblies Catechisms And I should think it as little needful to commend Mr. Baxter's Call or Mr. Alleyn's or Mr. How 's very Jewel of Yielding unto God or Mr. F. Fuller's Words to give Wisdom with his piece of Repentance and Faith or Mr. Lawson's Magna Charta England is blest with the best in this World and I do not light upon any that excel or equal them in England You must search farther than I have done young people if you find things better worth your most careful reading Books be dead things but God makes them oftentimes Lively Preachers These several last years many have acknowledged to me that they have been blessed Stars to lead them unto Christ Yet do not for your Lives ever neglect reading the Scriptures Take some portion of God's Word as daily as you eat of his Bread 'T is very honourably that I do remember a poor Soul who sometimes burned the Thatch of her House to read her Bible by the Light of it And no less a Saint than Mr. Richard Fairclough told me she died a glorious one It was Luther's saying The reading of the Scriptures is the terror of Devils Direct 7. Examine often the state of your Souls Scrupulousness it self is as much more safe as 't is less sweet than Audaciousness But humble and careful Inquisitiveness is sine naevo Venus as unspotted a Virtue as the state of Grace is adorned with Humility one calls the Violet of Graces of sweetest scent though lowest place And Care is the commanded Fear of falling short of Gods rest Heb. 4.1 The Exertion of humble Care in heart-searches doth answer many Gospel-precepts And when it is much and often it is not the least Evidence of truest grace For Bankrupts can no more endure much looking into their Count-books than sore Eyes can bear long beholding of Sun-shine And as impatient be Hypocrites of very much conning the Scriptures and their Hearts But I conclude Young people Mahomet gat the Turkish Empire by making extraordinary hast And Alexander Conquered the World by the same Policy Never Delaying Go you and out-do them Conquer VVorld Flesh and Devil And take by violence the Kingdom of Heaven by your hasting to Remember and Convert just now VVith great