Selected quad for the lemma: nature_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
nature_n	law_n	sin_n	sin_v	3,553	5	9.3146	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A38021	The plague of the heart its [brace] nature and quality, original and causes, signs and symptoms, prevention and cure : with directions for our behaviour under the present judgement and plague of the Almighty / by John Edwards ...	Edwards, John, 1637-1716.	1665 (1665)	Wing E209; ESTC R41111	40,611	53

and prevaile upon the affections of his Auditours and to represent to them heavenly matters more forcibly and lively to this purpose serve all those excellent Similitudes and choise Metaphors which the Holy Scripture is full of amongst the latter that which I have now pitched upon is no contemptible one Sin is the distemper and sickness of the soul which the good Psalmist knew well enough when he made that Petition Heal my soul for I have sinned against thee Neither is Sin any light and inconsiderable distemper all the laws and rules concerning the Leprosie of old do but signifie to us more plainly the grievous nature of sin the very words and doctrines of vitious men and hereticks are compared by St Paul to a Canker or Gangreen nay the sinner is a most wretched Lazar and his soul a very Spittle of diseases sicknesses sores and bruises the whole head is sick the whole heart faint from the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it but wounds and bruises and putrifying sores And then as the summ of all the sinner is an Infected person he hath the Plague the worst of Plagues the Plague of the Heart It will be worth our while to search into the nature of this deadly disease to shew the resemblance between the spirituall and bodily Plague and to know the nature of the one by the other They agree as to their generall Nature and may be fitly expressed in the same terms for the best masters of Physick acquaint us that the Pestilence is a dangerous Poison which corrupts and invenoms the bloud and taints the spirits and spoils the agreement and harmony of the parts of mans body And Sin is the Poison that seizes on our souls and spreads it self into our members and senses Of the wicked men which imagine mischief in their hearts the Psalmist says Adders poison is under their lips The venom soon makes way ●rom the Heart to the lip And if according to St Iames The tongue be an unruly evil full of deadly poison the Heart is much more so In short the least sin is rank poison it corrupts and debauches our minds perverts our faculties destroyes our good principles it forces even nature it self it is violent and disagreable to rectified reason it is improportionate to our souls it puts all out of order and due frame and brings in unspeakable confusion Poison cannot make greater havock on our bodys then Sin on our immortall souls But because the Essences and abstract natures of things are hard to find out we shall view it further in its Effects and products and in its Cure too as Physitians say that by these we shall certainly know what the disease is But before we come to those let us stay a while and consider the Original Causes of the Spirituall Plague or the way how it is propagated And in this too as well as in the other it will appear that the Bodily and Ghostly disease resemble one another For not to speak here of the primary cause of all diseases and of the Pestilence more signally which all but Atheists acknowledge to be the hand of God nor to reckon up all other causes which are assigned many of which are in the dark and can scarcely be explained without a piece of old Philosophy called Occult Qualities The two main Naturall and Secundary causes of the Pestilence may very well intimate unto us the rise of the Spirituall Plague viz. Inward corruption Outward infection 1. That originall corruption and pollution which we derived from the loyns of our first Parents which though indeed it may seem to be a cause of the second rank yet because we bring it into the world with us and it is rivetted so fast into the hearts of the best here on earth because it is something bred within and brought up with us therefore I call it the Inward corruption and that which answers to the putrefaction of the humours in the body which is the root of the Pestilence And thus there being something corrupted within 2. 'T is no wonder that there is an Outward infection Corruption the corruption of our ways that is that we communicate the corruption unto others and are again infected by the vitious world For as we experience that men by lying or ●itting with infected persons or by keeping something on which the contagion hath seized or by taking in unholsome vapours and exhalations with the common air have the Plague derived unto them just so is Sin propagated and increased Whilest we more nearly converse with our wicked neighbours we participate of that fatall poyson which will destroy both them and us But let us passe from the Causes to the Signs and Symptomes of this Spirituall Plague by which I mean all the sad attendants and consequences of the disease and here we will set down those severall Passions Tokens and Indications by which men commonly judge of the Bodily Plague I begin first with the excessive Heat and Inflammation which attends the disease the Sinner is one always in a feaver and therefore that expression of the Evangelicall Prophet is worth our notice who reproves the Jews for inflaming themselves with Idols and not onely the fond worshiping of Idols but every sinfull passion and pursuit of lust is furious and enraged fierce and fiery and which is a sad truth these flames are but a prologue to everlasting burnings But as a man in a violent feavour is sick and weak and yet so strong that he is able enough to beat his best friends and those that would hold him within his bed so fares it with every sick sinner Which leads me to the second Symptome which naturally follows from that excessive heat namely Inordinate motions restlessnesse and unrulinesse And here I might lead you to the sinners chamber draw aside the curtains and let you see how he tumbles and tosses you may think he sleeps soundly yet you cannot say he takes his rest The wicked are like the troubled Sea when it cannot r●st whose waters cast up mire and dirt there is no peace saith my God to the wicked It is Sin that overturns the course of nature and raises tumults both in the world and in the sinners conscience and at last these exorbitances these hot fits bring the man to distraction Which is the third Symptome of the disease for sin is a violent madness a strange distraction of the mind and reason and ●n alienating of a man from himself In this Phrentick state was St Paul once when he punished and persecuted many of the Saints you have the confession from his own mouth that he was exceedingly mad against them And idolatry which you heard before was an inflammation is in another Prophets account no less then madness Sin then is the worst delirium and phrensie for in this mad humour men abuse and barbarously wound their own souls

THE PLAGUE OF THE HEART Its Nature and Quality Original and Causes Signs and Symptoms Prevention and Cure WITH Directions for our behaviour under the present Judgement and Plague of the Almighty By JOHN EDWARDS Minister of Trinity Parish in Cambridge CAMBRIDGE Printed by Iohn Field for Edmund Beechinoe Bookseller in Cambridge 1665. To the Inhabitants of the Town of Cambridge especially to my loving Parishioners of Trinity GRACE PEACE AS you have the Plague of the Body wasting in your streets so you are to take notice of a worser even the Spiritual Plague of your Hearts To this purpose I hope this short Discourse may be somewhat serviceable which even when it shall please God to take away the Bodily Disease may still be usefull to you to guard you against the Spiritual but more poisonous Distemper It is recorded to the honour of Queen Eleanor that when her Royall Husband in the Holy War was wounded with a poisoned Knife by a desperate Saracen the Incomparable Lady sucked the poison out of his Wound A signal instance of her Love to him Sin Beloved is Poison I wish unfeignedly I could by any holy skill and method ease you of that more dangerous Venom at your Hearts O that this Paper might prove a Plaister to draw it It is true I must confess my self one of the meanest and unworthiest of all those Physitians and Guides of Souls that are in the Church I may not be able to treat so successfully of this Spiritual Disease as those worthy persons who are of greater practise and larger experience But I request you that when you make tryal of what is here you would call upon God for a blessing and if you find any good thank God for it not me I will not beg your excuse by telling you these are very slender Preparations for the Press for I chose rather to hasten this little Thing and give it you as it is then to loose the opportunity of doing good by making it better There is nothing in it can render it worthy of the publick view but its seasonableness and your kind acceptance of it Many of the Directions which you will meet with I gave you lately in some of my Sermons which I Preached since the Hand of God hath been heavy upon this Town I must tell you I designed not language but living well It is not required that the Physitians Bill be curiously Penned but that the Medicines be there faithfully prescribed Besides a gaudy and flaunting stile is no ways suitable to these Mournfull Times I have onely this to beg of you that you would be mindfull of me at the Throne of Grace beseeching the Lord that he would crown my Ministery with the conversion salvation of many souls and that he would make me feel the power and influence of those saving Truths upon my own heart which I deliver unto you And my earnest Prayer for you shall be that ye may walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing being fruitfull in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God that ye may approve things that are excellent that ye may be sincere and without offence till the day of Christ being filled with the fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ unto the glory and praise of God The Great and Good God multiply his Gifts and Graces ●pon you The God of all blessings bless you and yours and keep you from sin and sickness This is the earnest Prayer of Yours in all Christian service J. E. Cambridge Novemb. 11th 1665. THE PLAGUE OF THE HEART 1 KINGS 8. 38. Which shall know every man the Plague of his own heart THese words are part of King Solomons prayer which he made at the dedication of the Temple the drift of the whole is that God would be pleased whensoever any judgements and calamities befall the Israelites to hear their requests and answer their prayers put up in that place and to remove their crosses and forgive their sins This is the design of the Prayer and the Lord appeared to Solomon afterwards assuring him that he had heard this his supplication Here then is a refuge and an escape for penitent sinners against Distresses Plagues and Troubles But every Prayer will not prove effectuall observe therefore the severall Requisites fairly intimated in this Holy Addresse of Solomon namely confessing of Gods name confession of sins and turning from them and then lastly the prayer and supplication must be made by those Israelites which shall know every man the Plague of his own heart Which shall know 1. Take notice of 2. Lament and be sorry for 3. Avert and cure Every man Every one all persons of both sexes of all qualities The Plague 1. The stroke the blow that 's the Originall signification 2. Any great judgement sent by God for the punishing of sin the lashes of the Divine Nemes●s strokes on the estates or bodies of men 3. That signall stroke of God that Plaga Dei that infectious and fatall Disease which we call the Sickness with an Emphasis Thus the word imports but here it is applyed to the Heart 1. The soul and its faculties principally they received a blow a foul knock in Adam and since they are bruised daily by our venturing at the breach of Gods Laws 2. The life and practice consequently for out of the Heart are the issues of Life So that as we consider in the Heart in mans Body its passages apartments and ventricles so here we may well understand both the corrupt principles and evill dispositions of our natures and the vanities and follies of our lives which are but the emanations of the former His own Heart The man is to look into his own breast and see if he find any tokens there he must live at home he hath work to do within doors So that I might present you with an Observation from every word but my design at present is onely to take occasion from these words to treat of the Plague of the Heart for though as I have intimated already the word here used doth not properly and primarily signifie the Disease of the Pestilence yet in the Verse foregoing it is joyned with Sickness whatsoever Plague whatsoever sickness there be and it plainly referrs to the Pestilence or Plague Emphatically so called If there be Pestilence in the Land One Plague suggested another to the good mans thoughts and indeed it is no unusuall thing with pious persons to make even the diseases of their bodies administer matter of devout meditation for the health of their souls there is nothing that they see but it brings God to their thoughts there is nothing in Nature nothing in Providence that they converse with but their sanctified minds can make some good use of a devout Fancy turneth earth into heaven and all secular occurrences into something Divine and Spirituall Did not our Saviour make use of Parabolicall speeches to slip in to the fancies