Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n
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A30285
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Rules for hearing the Word of God with certain and saving benefit The second edition. By Daniel Burgess, minister of the gospel. Published by an hearer of them, at the request of many others.
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Burgess, Daniel, 1645-1713.
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1693
(1693)
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Wing B5714; ESTC R215210
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7,490
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26
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RULES FOR HEARING THE Word of God With certain and saving Benefit The Second Edition By DANIEL BVRGESS Minister of the Gospel Published by an Hearer of them at the Request of many others London Printed for Andrew Bell and Jonas Luntley at the Pestle and Mortar over against the Horse-shoe-Tavern in Chancery-Lane MDCXCIII Price Three Pence Rules for hearing the Word of God with certain saving Benefit BEFORE you Hear DIrection I. Pray for a Blessing Ask and you shall receive it Sincere hearty Prayer is still a Prevailer and then most when it is for Gifts that be best But by not asking a Blessing you deserve a Curse because you do virtually tell God either that you need not his Spirit or that you desire not the saving Efficacy of his Word Neglect of Prayer will ruine the best Hearer holy Use of it will save the worst Hearer Direct II. Vse Forecast against Distractions in Hearing Wrath and Lust and sinful Passions will take away your Heart at Sermons but a constant cordial Watch and Fight against them will destroy those Destroyers God will let no Soul be devoured by them that is diligent to keep from them Though on the other hand Souls that do little to prevent them shall be plagued with them Divine Grace will not encourage your sinful Negligence No but the Temptations which overtake you wilfully shall overcome you wofully Believe sad Experience others and your own Direct III. Value the Word and the Preaching of it and thank God for them both Honour them for God's sake and God will honour and bless you for his Son's sake and for his Promise sake God is so free of his Blessing on both that he lets no Man who highly prizeth it go without it You may highly prize Gold and Silver and go without them but the richer Treasure of the Gospel is certainly your own if you can but supremely value it If you do despise it blame your selves that you are not enriched by it God will not throw his inestimable Pearl unto ungrateful Swine Swine that will not give so much as Thanks for the Pearl of greatest Price Direct IV. Acquaint your selves well with the Ends and Vses of the Word Read Books and ask Ministers and know as well as they to what Purposes God sendeth his Oracles The four comprehensive Ends are to convince of Sin to convert unto Jesus Christ to confirm in Grace to direct and comfort in Obedience Understand these and muse much on them Come to Sermons for these and you shall not go from Sermons without them But God hath not Pleasure in Fools and if you come to hear for you know not what it 's no marvel if you come away Fools as you went Direct V. Never forget God's Promise of Blessing on dutiful Hearing He cannot lie and he has told you Hear and your Souls shall live Keep you that Promise of his as the Apple of your Eye It will do your Heart good to think God hath not left himself at Liberty to bless or not bless your Hearing No but that his FREE Grace is also bound Grace bound by Word and Oath This will give you holy Boldness to which God always giveth happy VVelcome But the want of this in your Mind will keep it full of cursed and malignant Doubts and Fears Without a Miracle of Grace it will hold you fearful and hold you unbelieving that is perishing Direct VI. Honourably use your Advocates All the Week long honour the Son of God as he in whom alone you can ever have Acceptance with God and honour the holy Spirit of God by whom alone you can ever have effectual Assistance to any Good No Man ever thus honoured the Son and Spirit and went without the full Blessing of the VVord Without our Intercessor in Heaven and our Intercessor in our Hearts we can profitably do nothing but with them we may do every thing prosperously Therefore be Sermons every-where so lost because this Dependance on Christ and on his Spirit are scarce any where found O that this Word might be well weighed Direct VII Conclude upon it the Word will be the Savour of Life or Death unto you It will cure you or further kill you and give Life to Life or Death to Death Give your selves this preparatory Sermon before you come to hear mine Ministers Sermons soften or harden Hearers Souls they never leave you in degrees of Good or Evil as they find you Such Fore-thoughts are ordinary Antecedents and direct Causes of no small Good IN Hearing the Word DIrection I. Approve Plainness and Power Not only excuse and endure but approve and prefer them You like best the Physician that heals best and the Counsellor at Law that best brings you to Peace and quiet Possession of your Inheritance tho neither of them do complement you at all but reprove you much and chastise your mischievous Folly with needful Severity Be as wise for your Souls as for your Bodies and Estates God heals the sick Souls that prefer and use his own prescribed plain Medicines But nice and peevish Ones that loath his Manna and must have Quails that disgust his sharp Word and must be treated with Mens smooth Words such must die in their Pride and Folly Where Preachers be but Musicians Churches be but Golgotha's Direct II. Receive the faithful Minister's VVords as God's own for so they are they are God's Words originally his Sermon as well as his Text is all of it so They are God's Words materially as to the Matter and Sense of them They are God's Words to you institutively by God's Command they be spoken unto you They are God's Words given advantagiously Words of God by the Kindness of God delivered with more Advantage for your Minds and Hearts than in the Holy Scripture barely read Words of God with a Comment of his Appointment Words of God to which he hath made a special Promise of highest Blessing for Faith eminently comes by hearing these Words He that heareth you heareth me said Christ to the Preachers that he sent Receive every Gospel-Sermon as by Christ preached and doubt not but it shall be by Christ bless'd But if you take the Words as well as the Breath of a Sermon for ours the Mistake will be a deadly Loss of yours Direct III. Mix abundance of Prayer with your Hearing Souls are Spirits their Motions are swifter than the Sun 's they can and they ought to do two things at once Ejaculation helps Attention and not hinders it Bread and Salt must be in every Meal and short warm Prayer in every Duty Let your Hearts cry out at every Truth delivered O Lord fix this Truth on my Soul At every Precept and Promise Good God help me to obey this Command and to rely on this Promise At every Reproof Glorious Spirit convince and humble me for this Sin and lead me to Christ for Pardon c. Such praying Hearers never lose their Labours But wo to them who tho
at Sermon-time they be not deaf Adders yet they be dumb Dogs whose Hearts do not to this Purpose speak while their Ears hear I do not well hearken to the Ambassador when I pray not much to the King Direct IV. Apply to your own Souls what the Preacher saith to all To know for one's good the Hebrews call to know for one's self And do not all the World so do Ministers be Nurses Sermons be Breasts God's Word is Milk Hearers be the Children and right Hearing is their sucking the Milk into each one's own Soul What another sucks and applies will not nourish thee Say thou then of every Doctrine This is my Lesson I will learn it Of every Command This is my Duty I will do it Of every Promise This is my Encouragement and I will make Meat and Drink of it my Soul shall rely and feed hereon Who ever missed of Life by the Word of Life that so took it to themselves Who did ever thus suck and not grow by the Gospel's Milk Blessed are they that thus monopolize a Sermon While to be sure all are starved that do not thus feed whatever Dainties are set before them And they are the most miserable of all the Damned who starve themselves where they might have feasted Direct V. Express your Reverence of God in a Sermon unto all the Congregation God is specially present in Heaven and at a Sermon Do you believe it Then show that Faith of yours Shew it to your God and to your Conscience by holy Thoughts and holy Affections Yea and shew it to all the Church by your well-composed Countenances and becoming Gestures Your Bodies are God's as well as your Souls If you do not glorify him with both you glorify him with neither God lays no hard Impositions on Aged Sickly Weak Bodies But he requites others to give him reverent Postures Heads unnecessarily covered in Hearing are sinfully covered and scandalously Gadding Eyes are impudent Publishers of profane rambling Hearts and of those Fools whereof one makes many Put off your Shoes and keep them off while you are on holy Ground That is be Reverent in Soul and Body So honour God before all the People and then he shall make it seen before all the People how he honoureth and blesseth you Irreverence at a Sermon is a publick Call to God for Damnation A constructive bidding God to damn you where Hundreds may be VVitnesses to it and without God's great Grace be poisoned by it There are who say that all Dissenters are irreverent in Worship See you that they slander us not with a matter of Truth Direct VI. Honour the Preacher as a Man of God and no more God stiles a Minister by that Name and God's Names be the most proper and instructive A Minister is but a Man do not therefore adore him as a God Let him be so thy Minister that Christ may still be thy only supreme Shepherd and Bishop He is but a Man expect therefore and bear with his Infirmities and pray God for his Assistances to him He is but a Man therefore pin not thy Faith on his Sleeve but exercise thy own Sense and beg the Guidance of God's holy Spirit Yet nevertheless he is a Man of God remember If not do not hear him If so consider while thou art hearing he is one that hath received the Holy Ghost he is one that Christ hath qualified and commissioned under himself to be a Saviour of thee and of all that hear him Wherefore do not despise him as not adore him Thou shalt profit by him if thou hearest him as he is an Embassador of God a Messenger of Christ an Overseer made by the Holy Ghost But wo is thine if thou followest him either as a God or as a common Man The Gospel pronounceth no Blessing upon the Superstitious or upon the Profane Direct VII Project to retain as much as may be of what you hear All along your hearing design and do what you can for remembring Say over to your selves the Doctrine many times and if you can repeat to your selves all the Heads of the Discourse But lay fast hold of the main Drift of every Sermon However Nature Sickness or Age may have incurably wounded your Memories God is gracious remember He will accept an unfeigned Good-will for the very Deed. His Spirit shall be a never-failing Remembrancer to such as against their VVills and against their Endeavours be forgetful He will not call them forgetful Hearers that strain and strive and do their best to be tenacious ones But he will so call and will curse those who like not and list not to retain his Word as well as to receive it Hearers so wilfully dull must look to remain among the Dead As they are slothful they are wicked Servants And let them expect Christ's foretold Word Depart ye Cursed Heaven is no Hive for Drones Ignorance is a Curse and if it be your Choice it will as surely be your Destruction as your Option AFTER Hearing God's Word DIrection I. Take the most earnest heed that you do not let slip what you have received Your Memories be the great Servants of your Faith Hope and Obedience and they are but imperfectly sanctified they be too much like the Grates that let go clean Water and hold filthy Mud. If you take little Pains about them you will have but sorry Service from them The best Ground will never hold the good Seed if no care be had to drive off the Fowls that will be coming and catching it away and if Labour be not bestown to harrow it in This Labour for the VVord is Labour in the Lord and it shall not be in vain Thus do you shall surely prosper and do well But if this be too much in your Conceits if you are lame and will not use Crutches if you cannot otherwise remember and you will not talk with your selves and Families of a Sermon nor go forth unto a Repetition nor ask the holy Spirit to be your Remembrancer you must take to your Sorrow what you get by your Sloth The Devil cannot rob you of a Sermon against your VVill and God will not keep a Sermon in your Mind without your VVill. Direct II. Let your Thanks be returned after every Sermon heard Thanks and Praise are God's dearly beloved the End of all his VVorks of your Beings your Redemption your Gospel-Calls all Ordinances and Providences It is Hell where no Praise and Thanks are and it is Heaven where there is nothing besides Nothing delighteth God so much as these and for nothing on this Earth doth God expect these more than for his Gospel preached When it is said He giveth his VVord 't is presently added Praise ye the Lord. And this Praise we are told shall please the Lord better than an Ox or Bullock than any external Sacrifice If Vnprofitableness by the Word do not drive away Thankfulness Thankfulness for the Word shall be sure to drive away