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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	able_a	accept_v	according_a	20	3	4.9860	4	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A93781	Spiritual infatuation, the principal cause of our past and present distempers. Or a serious caveate to the many seducers and seduced who under the specious pretences of reformation and conscience endeavour the subversion of Church and State. In several sermons on Isa. 9,10,11,12. By W. Stamp D.D. late minister of the Word at Stepn[e]y near London.	Stampe, William, 1611-1653?	1662 (1662)	Wing S5195; ESTC R229850	116,158	268

theames it is but in order unto this end which is the grand designe of our profession And therefore if there be here any drooping or dejected Soul that groanes and labours under the weight of any burthen either of Guilt or misery I shall say unto that Soul as was said to blind Bar timeus Be of good Comfort rise Iesus thy Saviour calleth thee His invitation is most Gracious and Pathetical Come unto me all yee that are weary and heavy laden● and I will refresh yee Come unto me all yee that have hitherto rejected my messages of peace and Love minding your fa●mes your oxen your wives that is your pleasure and your profit more then my seasonable invitations Yee that have forgotten me in the day of your peace and prosperity and denyed and abjured me and my Gospel in the day of your Tryal and persec●tion Come unto me all yee that have wearied me with your Iniquities ●…de me to serve with your sins yee that have peirced and scourged and crucified me again afresh by your back●…iding and impenitency yee that have so often grieved my good spirit that would have sealed you unto the day of your Redemption Come unto mee all yee that have mangled and torn the seamlesse coate of my Church to carve unto your selves your own base ends and advantages yee that have made my house of pray'r a den of thievs yee that have persecuted and wounded me in my poor members yee that have imprisoned and impoverished my Embassadours and dethroned and murthered mine own Anointed yet come unto me however you shall not be upbraided with the foulnesse of your sins only come with broken hearts with bleeding Souls with the sighs and groanes of Labouring and heavy laden Consciences and I will refresh you If you shall still obscure and justify your sins you shall not prosper but if you shall Confesse and for sake them you shall find mercy Are you stung with the guilt you have Contracted by your voluntary presumptuous sins Behold I am that brazen Serpent that healeth all that look up unto me He that believeth in me shall not perish but have life everlasting Are your souls full of Leprosy and uncleaness your vital spirits surprized by the plague of the Heart your Consciences stabbed to death by your own deliberate wounds Behold I am that Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world My blood is that fountain which was opened purposly for sin and for uncleanesse That Bethesda pool that cureth all disea●es whatsoever Are your hearts as hard as the nether milstone or as the Adamant It is said that the Adamant it self is broken ●…th goates blood Behold I am that Scape Goate that ●ear on my head alone the iniquites and transgressions of the whole world I never did reject any that came to be healed of their bodily infirmities and I never will reject any that shall come to me for any Spiritual Cure But the wounded spirit will perhaps reply Tistrue I know I am fairely Invited by my Saviour but with this proviso that I bring a true saith a sincere repentance along with me And these jewels are not lodged within my Cabinet These flowers grow not within the garden of my Soul I desire to repent with all my heart but I cannot and I would gladly believe but I find I am not able Well however be not discouraged There is some life even in this deadnesse of spirit There is some secret sparke of Grace even in this smoaking flaxe which hath a promise it shall not be quenched He that hath promised to accept of a willing mind according to what a man hath and not according to what he hath not will entertain and reward even a cup of cold water given in the name of a disciple He that had respect unto the short prayer of the poor dejected Publican will have respect a●…o unto thee if thou be but as humble as that Publican He that raiseth in the Soul a blessed hunger and thirst after righteousness hath also 〈◊〉 sed that Hunger and Thirst shal not be 〈◊〉 but that he will give to him that is a thirst to drink of the water of life freely He that g●veth both to will and to perform according to his own good pleasure will in his own good time fulfil the desire of those that fear him So that let this be layd for a solid ground and foundation of Christian Comfort That the Desire of mercy in the want of mercy is a real mercy and the desire of Grace in the want of Grace is Grace it self And if thou do not quench these inchoations of Grace and obstruct its operation and progresse whensoever the spirit of God shall blow upon these little sparks thou shalt find them grow and increase into a Coale into a flame enough to chear and warm the soul with Celestial Comfort Hence it is that the Kingdom of God is compa●ed to a grain of mustard seed which is reputed to be one of the least of all seeds and yet the Kingdom of God is entirely contained in this single Grain Hence it is that Grace is compared to a little leven in three m●asures of meal which in time will leven the whole lump There is a time when Holy purposes are taken and accepted for good performances I w●ll go unto my father saith the prodigal and behold his father comes out to meet his son I said I will confesse my sin unto the Lord said David and so thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin And the same good King did but purpose in his heart to build God an House and it was accepted as well as if it had been done and in acknowledgement hereof God promised to establish his house and his Kingdom upon his posterity for ever God accepts of such payment as we are able to make though it be in small pieces or perhaps in coyn that is cracked or clipped and wants its full weight yet if it be not false and counterfeit it shall not be turned back upon us And truly he that grieves and bemoanes himself because he cannot grieve for his sins or because he cannot grieve so much as he d●sires is in a Certain way unto that repent●nce which is never to be repented of Nay give me leave to go one degree farther Doest thou find thy soul ensnared with the Cords and Customes of thine own twisting or art thou so much a stranger to thy self that thou darest not look into thy dangerous and suspected Condition doest thou feel the throbs and horrors of a wounded Conscience the pangs of Hell and Despair growing upon thy Soul yet give me leave to aske thee this one Question Doest thou notwithstanding thy present fear and horror Love thy Lord and maker or if thou canst not cleerly reply to that Canst thou but resolve me of thy Love to thy neighbour not because he is thy neighbour or thy friend or perhaps thy Companion in evil wayes but because he

Country men 2. Cot. 11. 26. Our Condition not unlike that which is described by the same Apostle in another place Troubled we are on 1. Cor. 4. 8. 9. every side yet not distressed Cast down but not destroyed Perplexed but not in despair Persecuted but we hope in Christ not under the Doom in the Text not forsaken of our God In these p●rils and perplexities our securest way will be to betake our selves unto his shel●er and Protecton who is the Psal 65. 5. confidence of all the end of the earth and of them that are a far off upon the sea To thee therefore O merciful and gracious God do we resigne and recommend our selves our souls and bodies out Cause and all our Councels and designs beseeching thee to remove our sins as far from us as they have removed us out of thy favour O thou that sparedst Ninive in compassion to those many thousand innocents that were therein be pleased out of thine infinite mercy to spare those sinful Nations from whence we are and give not up thine heritage therein to such Confusion but turn us O God at the last and be gracious unto thy servants Oh satisfie us with thy mercies and that soon and do not suffer thy whole displeasure to arise upon us but do thou arise and have mercy upon Sion build thou the walls of our decayed Ierusalem and cause thy face again to shine upon thy Sanctuary among us So we that be thy people and sheep of thy pasture shall give thee thankes for ever and declare thy loving kindness from generation to generation Thus I have shewed the several kernels of this Pomgranate but to have ins●sted particularly upon every one of them would have swelled this Treatise beyond its intended Bulk The main thing I shall fix upon for my subject is the Doctrine of Spiritual Infatuation the epidemical disease and infection of these Times reserving the other considerations to be inserted and interweaved as subservient handmaids to this grand purpose or to be used as so many slight dashes in the pourtraic●ure of this ugly and deformed monster of this Age. Incrassa cor populi hujus Make the heart of this people fat The disease we have to do withal lies not in the Head it is not a vertigo or whimsey in the brain an error in opinion But 't is a desperate malignant humour tha● flies to the Heart the seat of the vital Spirits and the principal part of the whole body In that black roll of curses we read of Deut. 28. the greatest to my appr●hension is that which is set down v. 28. The Lord shall smite thee with madness and bli●dness and astonishment of heart And Salomon in that excellent prayer which he made at the Dedication of the Temple makes the knowledge and removal of this plague of the heart to be the characteristick note of true repentance and acceptation with God 1. King 8. 38. 'T is this part that is primum vivens and ultimum moriens as well in Grace as Nature And therefore since the Act of the Spiritual Physitian is so much concern'd in the preservation and recovery of this principal part that I may proceed with the more hopeful successe therein It will not be amisse to proceed after this method namely to shew 1. The disease it self 2. The Causes of it 3. The Symptomes of it 4. The most hopeful way of Cure of it First of the Disease We say in Physick that a disease is more then halfe cured when it is certainly known and disovered and more grand errors are committed by unwary assurances then by illiterate applications This of the heart is mentioned in Scripture with great variety of expressions That which we read so frequently in Scripture of the Sons of Belial men that lived in their generations Absque jugo without any yoke of Religion or Government upon them That which the Psalmist speaks of a people whose hearts were as fat as grease or as brawn according to the vulgar translation Psal 119. 70. That which the Prophet Ezekiel speaks of an Impudent stif hearted people Ezek. 2. 4. That which the Protomartyr Stephen speaks of a stiffnecked people and uncircumcised in heart and ears Act. 7. 51. That which S. Paul mentions of some whose consciences were cauterized and seared as with an hot iron 1. Tim. 4. 2. That which he calls elsewhere Blindness of heart in those who being past feeling have given themselves over unto licentiousness to work all uncleaness with greediness Eph. 4. 18. 19. That which he calls a strong delusion in those who are designed to believe a lie to their own destruction 2. Thess 2. 11. That which he calls the darkness and defilement of the mind and Conscience Tit. 1. 15. The same is the desperate disease of the fat heart in the Text. All these are but so many expressions of the same Malignitie in the Soul So that by the fat heart we are to understand such a Brawny obstinate and obdurate heart as no admonitions can reclaim or mercies move or threatnings regulate or motions mollifie an heart that hates to Psal 30. 17. be reformed that is wilfully resolved to subscribe to ●o command but to pursue with greediness and delight the full swinge of its own sensual and depraved inclinations We say in Philosophy Qualitates intenduntur remittuntur All Qualities admit of intensions and degrees For as in Artificial Contrivances one wheel insers the motion of another and one colour is a preparative to another till the cloth be dyed in Grain As in Matters Military a small defeat at first may be the occasion of a total Rout So in Matters Spiritual per s●elera ad scelus one iniquity is ordinarily the dore and preparative to another till at last the sin becoms of a scarlet dye and one Judgem●nt if not entertain●d as coming from the just hand of God becomes a fatal preparative to another till at last the soul becoms palseystricken and hath no sense at all of the hand that smiteth it Thus it fares with this Porosis tes Kardias This Infatuation or Obduration of the Heart ●s of several Kinds or Degrees I shall speak only of three of them unto which all ma● be reduced First There is an obduration which is natural and common to the whole lump and masse of mankind The Proph●t Jeremy sp●aks of a foreskin gro●ing upon the heart which must be taken off Circumcise your selves to the Lord and take away the foreskins of your hearts Ier. 4. 4. Of which Spiritual Circum●ision the ●egal in the flesh was but a Type and figure the true Circu●cision being that of the heart in the spirit and not in the letter whose praise is not of man but of God Rom. 2. 29. With this foreskin about the heart is every man born into the world and 't is no shame for us to acknowledge the vilenesse of our natural pollution according as Ezechiel describes it Ezech 16. 4.

people expect whilst the goodly pillars of our Land Religion and Iudicature are quite overturned and laid aside Whilst all Law is resolved into the bloody sentence of the sword and all Gospel into the private whisper of a seducing and destructive spirit And all power under the permission of the supreme wheel receives its Commission from Eph. 2. 2. the Prince of the ayr the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience He that in the b●ginning seduced the first woman in the form of a Serpent and by that imposture introduced a general inundation of iniquity upon the world is now grown so wise as to transform himself into an Angel of light 2. Cor. 11 14. And in this white and Saintlike disguise has leave from a just God to whisper to the Consciences of wilful and unstable men such strange delusions under the pretence of new light● as fils the Christian world with wonder and amazement 'T were easie to set down a list of these new light● but that I look upon them as too many and indeed too scand●lous to be inserted in a Protestant Treatise And therefore to wave a particular Narration of the whimseys and phrensies which the boldnesse and madnesse of these times hath thrust out into the world together with the absurdities defects a●d haesitations in prayer which have been pinned upon the Sacred Spirit of God and all by vertue of Excitations Incitations and Inspirations extraordinary as if the same Holy Ghost declared one thing by his pen and suggested the clean contrary by his whisper He that shall take up his stand in his Sanctuary of God and from the pillar of truth established upon the clear word of God shall take a survey of the Doctrines and Principles which have commenced of late yeers together with the general belief and adherence which hath been given unto them The wild and intemperate Zeal of the promoting them and the B●nishment or rather Burial of Meeknesse Patience Peace Charity and all Evangelical graces in the man●gery of their designs so full of gloriou● pretenses must either resolve aforehand to wink and blind himself by partiality and designe or els be enforced to conclude from the fruits we have reaped that the seed was never taken out of Gods granary but that it hath been t●e Businesse and Industry of our envious Adversary to sow his tares to the great encrease of his peculiar harvest whilst we have slept and snorted in our sin and security So that as when God opened the eys of Elishas servant he saw then visibly the protection of that heavenly host which before he was not able to discern so on the contrary would the same God be pleased to do the like Spiritual Cure upon the eys of our minds We should soon discern those Legions of Infernal Spirits by whose seduction and delus●on we have been cheated of the favour of God and abused and ensnared into so much misery and ruine Thus Deus deficit gratiam detrahendo Diabolus afficit maliciam apponendo homo seipsum inficit duritiem contrahendo Nor is this al The Divel has not persected his design when he has instilled his poyson unlesse he give his Opium too and lay the soul asleep upon the pillow of security Those diseases of the body are of greatest danger and of nearest aff●nity with our dissolut●on that take away all sense of pain and anguish as the Palsie L●tha●gie c. And the fatt●st parts of the body are ever observed to be the least sensible as having in them the fewest fibers and n●rves which are the instruments of Sensation So that when the Divel is said to make the heart fat he makes it Secure and senslesse of any danger arising from our own sin or Gods Iudgements And indeed the Divel can never call a man his own till he hath him at this lock For so long as there is any sense of sin any touches or twitches of Conscience there is some hopes of recovery a possibility there is he may see with his eys and hear with his ears and understand with his heart and convert and be healed But when a man hath sinned himself out of all sense of sin when there is no M●nitor in the school of the soul no check of Conscie●ce to remember him of a Quid feci what have I done against God my neighbour and my o●n soul sure such a man is in salva custodia Diaboli there is very litle hope of such a mans recovery The Psalmist speaks very parti●ularly to this point where speaking of despera●e rebels and oppr●ssors he saith They are inclosed in their own fat and therefore their mouth speaketh great swelling words Psal 17. 10. But more of this when I shall speak of the Symptomes of Infatuation In the mean time the Consideration of what hath been delivered on this point may be enough I hope to promp● us unto these lessons First To try and examine all spirits and suggestions whatsoever especially in an age so miserably haunted and infested with evil spirits as this wherein we live There is a spirit that dif●ers very litle from flesh and blood in its corruption and pravity and this spirit the Prophet Eze●hiel calls our own Spirit a blind guide within us There is a perswasion w●ich S. Paul gives Caution against a perswasion that cometh not of him that calleth us There is a piece of wisdom which S. Iames calls wisdom mistaken which is not from above for that wisdom is always pure and peaceable c. but a wisdom in contending and quarrelling in managing strife and bitternesse with most advantage to our selves Achitopels wisdom to put dif●erences our of all possibility of reconciliation and this in whomsoever it is Iam. 3. 15. is ear●hly s●nsual and di●ellish It shal be our wisdom to enquire carefully into all these and above all these to be alwayes awake to the danger and deception of our own false heart which is very prone to entertain and swallow what is most pallatable unto flesh a●d blood Latet anguis in herba ●he old Serpent lurkes commonly under the fairest flower Secondly having discovered the impostor That we would conceive our Christian reputation very much concerned in bidding defiance to this Enemy Most men are bold only in bragging they have great courage when indeed they have none at all in opposing the enemies of God and their own salvation And let no man think the engagement of his Christian warfare a difficult tedious or unreasonable service There is Armour of proof provided for us from head to foot And the Apostle requires no more of the Christian so●ldier but only to keep his station When Eph. 6. Eph. 6. 13. the Israelites having the Sea before them and the Egyptian Army behind them begin to suspect Moses his Conduct and Gods protection Moses requires no more of ●hem but only to stand still and they should see the Salvation of God A man would th●nk it no