Selected quad for the lemma: work_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
work_n	create_v	good_a	workmanship_n	4,350	5	11.8942	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A35541	The nature and principles of love, as the end of the commandment declared in some of the last sermons of Mr. Joseph Caryl ; with an epistle prefixed by John Owen ...	Caryl, Joseph, 1602-1673.	1673 (1673)	Wing C781; ESTC R4133	44,437	144

And that 's the third Use which I shall briefly make of this point and so I shall conclude Use 3. Is it so That those good works that flow from a good Principle are pleasing to God Why then we see the necessity of Regeneration Christ saith in 3 John 3. Verily verily There 's a strong and a double asseveration Verily verily I say unto you except a man be born again he cannot enter into the kingdom of God We are not born with this pure heart with this good conscience with this faith unfeigned which are the requisites to a good work in the Text. We are not born with these for Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean Not one Not one among the sons of men Job 14. 4. A pure heart a good conscience faith unfeigned are the issues of the new birth Education cannot make the heart pure It must be Revelation which makes the heart pure Good Education it may change the Life and the Conversation As they say To study Arts and Philosophy it takes off the roughness that is in mans nature didicisse fideliter d●tes Emollit mores and doth smooth them and frame them very much for excellent uses Good literature and education it may civilize but it cannot spiritualize It may change a mans course but it cannot change his nature that 's only done by Regeneration Now I say a mans state his nature must be changed he must have a pure heart which we never have till our natures are changed He must be good before he can do good spiritually Mark that word of the Apostle Ephes 2. 10. We are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them Mark it here are good works But how do we come to these good works Why We are his workmanship saith he we are his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God works us before we can work for him he makes us good before we can do good Saith he We are his workmanship And then created or so created in Christ Jesus to good works We by union to Jesus Christ come to have a spiritual principle to carry us out in the doing of all good works Here 's your way You must be Gods workmanship before you can do Gods work You must be new creatures created in Christ Jesus unto good works before you can do them A Crab-tree will never yield pleasant fruit untill you change the nature of it Take a Crab-tree and plant it in the best soil that you have and water it and dress it and prune it as much as you can yet this Crab-tree will bear nothing but Crabs sowre fruit till you come to graft it and then your grafting of it doth change the nature of the stock and it hath another principle and so then it brings forth good fruit So it is in this case Take the best natured man in the world plant him in the best soil in the best ground in Church-ground plant him in the house of God and there let him be watered by the ●ain of holy Doctrine and let him be d●●●t and cultivated every day 〈…〉 ●ill b●ing forth nothing 〈…〉 nothing but unsavoury fruit till he himself be changed Though he be under all those spiritual means yet till those means have wrought effectually in him his actions are all unsavoury 'T is only by our implantation into Jesus Christ that we become fit to do good so as is acceptable unto God 'T is this that makes the change For as in nature the graft doth change the stock so in grace the stock doth change the grafted branch As we are grafted into Christ he changes the branch being planted into Christ by the power of the Spirit we are then made like him and then we bring forth fruits of righteousness which are to the glory of God by him Mark the expression Being filled with the fruits of righteousness which are by Christ That is by vertue of union with Christ of implantation and ingrafture into Christ When once it is thus then all your fruits are sweet fruit and pleasant fruit it is well tasted Why it is done First From a principle of life in Christ And Secondly It is done from a principle of Love unto Christ and then when your works whether respecting God or man are thus done then they are the fulfilling and the final end of the Commandment For then they come from the pure heart Of which hereafter if God will I may speak And so much at the present of the point in General That until there be a good Principle there cannot be a good work SERMON II. Jan. 6. 1672. 1 TIM 1. 5. Now the end of the Commandment is Charity out of a pure heart and of a good Conscience and of Faith unfeigned HAving shewed that every good work which is to answer to the Commandment of God must flow from a good spring I shall now come to speak of the springs from whence they flow Beginning with that which is first in the Text A pure heart The end of the Commandment is charity out of a pure heart A pure heart is the point I am now to speak to and the matter I am to make discovery about It being in order in this Text the first of those three most blessed springs out of which all duties well pleasing unto God must proceed A pure heart Two things are here to be spoken to First What is meant by heart And Secondly What by purity of heart And so put both together A pure heart For the first I need not stay to spend time to shew you what is meant by the heart It being that which you have so often heard By heart the Scripture often intends the whole inner man And sometimes it intends some special faculties of the inner man The understanding is noted by the heart the will by the heart the affections by the heart the conscience by the heart And in this large sense we are to take the word heart here only bating the reference of it unto Conscience which is spoken of as the second distinct spring from whence good actions flow The heart then here is the understanding the will the affections Indeed what ever lyes in the bosome of man you may call his heart Yet I shall not prosecute the point in this distinctness of these particular faculties of the soul shewing how the understanding is pure which is by its freedome from error and clear light in divine truths How the Will is pure which is by its freedom from the bondage from the obstinacy and rebellion which doth naturally wholly possess it and by having a freedome in choosing good and refusing that which is evil Nor shall I stay strictly to shew what the purity of the affections is namely their freedom from all inordinacy and irregularity either as to the object upon which they are fixt or as to the measure and degree in which they

keep your hearts pure For they who have pure hearts may quickly find their hearts very impure unless they look narrowly to it A heart that is made pure will be greatly impured unless we watch and keep it pure Solomon hath that expression in Prov. 4. 23. keep thy heart with all diligence saith he For out of it are the Issues of life keep thy heart keep it with all diligence with all manner of keeping you see then it is not enough to get a pure heart but we must keep our hearts and keep them clean As 't is in this case with your houses you do not only make them clean but you keep them clean and if a house be made never so clean yet it will contract defilement Dust will be upon it unless it be kept clean unless it be watcht that none throw dirt into it Indeed we had need in keeping our hearts to watch them continually and that 's the great business of keeping our hearts for the Devil if we do not watch our hearts he will do one of these two things He will either steal away our heart for the Devil comes a heart-stealing continually and especially when you are at a Sermon or a holy duty and if he can but steal away your hearts he cares not how many Bodies there are here Or he will be throwing dirt into your hearts suggesting wickedness He will throw dirt into the inner closet of your hearts by his Temptations by his Injections Therefore if you would keep your hearts clean you must watch them I and you must often wash your hearts if you would keep them clean for your hearts will contract filth do what you can unless they are daily washt and duly searcht As it is with a Garden let a Garden be drest and made very exact so that there is not any thing amiss not a Weed to be seen in it I but the Garden must be kept thus or else in a little time it will be over-run with Weeds again It is so in our hearts Suppose we have weeded out this and that and the other evil if we do not keep a continual care of our hearts the Weeds will grow again and therefore our hearts must be continually weeding and our hearts must be continually washt We must go daily to the Fountain opened for sin and for uncleanness We must wash our hearts by the renewed Acts of Repentance confessing our sins bewailing our sins mortifying our sins This is a great work for us If you have pure hearts look to it that you keep them pure you may quickly be defiled David a man that had a pure heart yet got so much defilement upon his heart that he could not tell what to make of it but begs of God to create him a new heart and all because he did not watch his heart but gave way to Temptation and so was overtaken then you will find if you do not daily sweep your houses they will defile and the cob-webs they will grow the Spiders will be at work and though your hearts be never so pure Spiders will creep into them this Lust and that Corruption and they will be weaving their Webs there O what sad Webs we have in the hearts of men and all because they look not after them You must sweep down the Cob-webs and throw out the dirt every day if you would keep your hearts clean And I would press all I have said by these four Considerations Look to it that you have pure hearts and that you keep your hearts pure First Upon this Consideration which you find in Psal 18. 26. With the pure thou wilt shew thy self pure with the merciful thou wilt shew thy self merciful with an upright man thou wilt shew thy self upright With the pure thou wilt shew thy self pure I but if a man be not pure Will God shew himself impure towards him No such thing Let us be what we will God is ever the same Nothing can turn him out of his purity But the meaning is If we are pure pure in heart God will shew himself pure to us that is he will perform all things he will be that to us which he hath promised He will be all that to us which we can desire With the pure thou wilt shew thy self pure And he saith With the froward thou wilt shew thy self froward As God knows how to deal with men in wayes of evil to hit them according to what they are With the froward thou wilt shew thy self froward Not that there is any frowardness or passion in the Lord but men shall be dealt with according to their way They that will wrestle with God as the word there signifies he will pay them in their own coin And so with the pure thou wilt shew thy self pure And then Secondly Look to this purity for then all things are pure to you As God will shew himself pure to you So if you are pure all things will be pure to you Titus 1. 15. Unto the pure all things are pure but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure Here is a very strong Argument to press you to this purity of heart To the pure all things are pure To the impure nothing is pure Why is it that to the pure all things are pure What are evil actions pure to them Is sin pure to them No God forbid that any should have such a thought This liberty have some taken to themselves as if there were no difference to be made in actions But to the pure all things are pure They need not trouble themselves about sin or this or that No but to the pure all things are pure that is all things are blessed to them All their enjoyments all the Ordinances of God all their outward comforts all their relations all their duties all things are pure to them Whereas saith he To them that are defiled there is nothing pure The very holy Ordinances are not pure to them Their Callings though honest are not pure to them their riches their great possessions in the world are not pure to them They have not a pure nor a holy use of any of these things This is an awakening consideration to look after a pure heart To the pure all things are pure but to the undefiled there is nothing pure but even their mind and conscience is defiled And then Thirdly The pure in heart are only fit for Communion with God 2 Tim. 2. 22. saith he With them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart They only are fit to call upon God who have a pure heart The Apostle would have them lift up clean hands in 1 Tim. 2. 8. much more then pure hearts who call upon God out of a pure heart And when the Apostle James had exhorted them to draw nigh to God with this Promise of Assurance that he would draw nigh to them presently he adds Cleanse your hands ye sinners and purifie your hearts ye