Selected quad for the lemma: evil_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
evil_n	evil_a	heart_n	thought_n	2,080	5	8.0009	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A80530	Experience, historie, and divinitie Divided into five books. Written by Richard Carpenter, vicar of Poling, a small and obscure village by the sea-side, neere to Arundel in Sussex. Who being, first a scholar of Eaton Colledge, and afterwards, a student in Cambridge, forsooke the Vniversity, and immediatly travelled, in his raw, green, and ignorant yeares, beyond the seas; ... and is now at last, by the speciall favour of God, reconciled to the faire Church of Christ in England? Printed by order from the House of Commons.	Carpenter, Richard, d. 1670?	1641 (1641)	Wing C620B; ESTC R229510	263,238	607

coul● tell which way and not run from Chris● all the sweetnesse of this world would be gall and extreame bitternesse to them they would relish nothing but Christ they would scarce endure to heare any man speak that did not speak of Christ his very name would give a sweet taste in their mouthes they would seeke him and they would be sick till they found him And having found him they would let goe all and hold him fast And then the remembrance of their labour in seeking him would be sweetnes it self to them Our Saviour before his passion ascended according to his custome to the mount of Olives and there drew himself even from his own Disciples For as St. Luke describeth it He was withdrawn frō them about a stones cast and kneeled downe and prayed About a stones cast for Luk. 22 41 the peace and privacie of his owne Recollection And but a stones cast for the safety and security of his Disciples And cursed be the Traytour that brought a vile rabble of seditious persons upon him to breake his mysticall sleepe and to cut the fine thred of his calme and quiet devotions Thus did my thoughts spread themselves imagining this could not any where be found but in a Monastery My last reason was because being carried away with a great streame the desire of knowledge it being the Philosophers Principle in the first grounds of his Metaphysicks Omnis homo naturâ scire desiderat Every man by nature Arist 1. Met cap. 1. desireth to know I plunged my selfe into the depth of profound Authors Bellarmine and others and was lost in the bottome And hurried with these motives I left with a free minde Kings Colledge and the University of Cambridge upon Christimasse Eeve that I might avoid the receiving of the Sacrament the next day for which I was in particular warned to prepare my selfe But the divine Providence went with mee and plainly shewed mee by my owne eyes and by my eares and by other knowing powers perfected with knowledge in some measure with which God hath endued me that my reasons were as weak as I was young CHAP. 9. I Shall now and I cannot help it lay open and uncover the faults of others But who am I that I should doe this Have I not great faults of my owne O I have Lord have have mercy upon me a miserable sinner and upon them and upon all the world I am one of those to whom God gave a faire preheminence over all other earthly creatures I was shaped by him in my mothers wombe and tooke up by him when I fell from her I was guided through all dangers by him in my weake infancie and ignorant childhood I was reserved by him for the law of grace and the faith of Christ I am furnished by him with all kindes of necessaries for the fit maintenance of life and have beene delivered by him from a thousand thousand mischiefes bending the bow both at soule and body I had lost my life the other day and beene carried hence with all my sinnes upon my back had not he stept in to help me I have beene moved every day to goodnesse by his holy calls and inspirations He puts bread and meat into my mouth every day having strangely brought it from many places by many wayes through many hands to me Hee covers my nakednesse every day He hath preserved and restored me from sicknesse and disposeth all my affaires with all gentlenesse And yet I have play'd as foule with him as any man Behold I was shapen in iniquity and in sinne did Psal 51. 5. my mother conceive mee I am thronged with unruly passions madd if let loose to wickednesse I goe and grow crookedly and stoope very low under a mighty burthen of sinne and am prone to all mischief and of my selfe ready for all attempts and wicked enterprises against God For if God should withdraw his preventing Grace I should quickly be guilty of any sinne that ever any man or woman committed It is granted that I am the void and empty Cave of ignorance the muddy fountaine of evill concupiscence dark in my understanding weake in my will and very forgetfull of good things and that left to my selfe I am not my selfe but a devill in my shape All this is true And yet I have beene the Captaine of an Army against him by whom only I can be set at liberty and freed from all these evills God is so perfectly knowing so compleatly wise that no sinne though lying hid in the dark thoughts and quiet privacie of the heart though covered with the mists of the morning or the darknesse of the night can escape his knowledge so throughly good that no sinne can please him so wonderfully powerfull that no sinner can flie from him though hee should have wings to help his feet He is the endlesse boundlesse bottomlesse heape of all perfections He is infinitely stored with all kindes of perfect worth and beauty and therefore most worthy of all true love and honour And this All of perfections is my all in all He is one and a great one that I make very angry with me every day and yet striking hee shakes his head pulls back his hand and is very loth to strike Hee would but will not Hee beares with mee from day to day and hopes well of mee breaths upon me blowes upon me with his holy spirit waters mee with his heavenly grace and benediction diggs about mee with lessons and instructions of all sorts and with good examples on every side expecting good fruit from mee And this good great God have I struck with many faults CHAP. 10. VErily I have deserved that because I have defiled all the Elements with my sins as I goe the earth at every step should sink under mee that it should open and swallow me with a wide throat into hell That water when I first come where it is should leape into my face and stifle mee that when I open my mouth to receive the sweet benefit of ayre nothing but mists and foggs and the plague should enter that fire should not onely cease and denie to warme me but also flie upon mee hang about me and burne me to ashes that heat and cold should meet together in the clouds and without much threatning break out upon me as having bin neither hot nor cold strike me dead with a clap of thunder that because all my zeal was but a flash a flash of lightning should burne mee to a coale and leave mee standing without life a blasted man all black and dried to scare others from sinne That because I playd the Beast in erring against the rules of reason beasts and unreasonable creatures of all kindes should lie every where in wait to destroy me that the Birds of the Aire should break into my House catch the bread out of my hand before it comes to my mouth and carrie away the very meat from my Table because they

knowledge and practice which otherwise should never either have beene practised or knowne no patience of the best proofe but occasioned by an injury no injury guiltlesse of sinne the cleannest exercise of our Charity towards our neighbour supposes in our neighbour the want of a thing requisite and all want of that generation is the poore childe of sinne the most high and most elevated praxis or exercise of our charity towards God then flames out when we seale our beliefe with our blood in martyrdome no martyrdom but usherd with persecution no persecution free from sinne If we are not sorry that he sinn'd we are not sorry that millions of millions of soules shall now be lost eternally lost never to be found again which if Adam had stood upright had certainely shone with God in Heaven as long as hee And if we are sorry that he sinn'd wee are sorry that Christ joyn'd our flesh and soule to his Divinity expressed his true love to us by dying for us was seene by us here in the world and will feast even the corporall eye in Heaven with the most delightfull sight of his blessed body for ever And howsoever some think otherwise if Adam had not sinned Christ had not tooke our nature for he was not so much delighted with humane nature as hee was desirous to die for mankinde And if wee are not sorry that he sinn'd wee are not sorry that one sinne was the cause of all sinnes and all sinnes the cause of all punishments and that one punishment is behind and waits for us in another world with which all other punishments put together and made one punishment are in no kinde comparable and that I and my neighbours and he that is abroad and perhaps now little thinks of such a businesse are all ignorant how we shall dye now we are borne how wee shall end our lifes now wee are alive now wee are put on how we shall get off and when the Ax is laid to the root which way the Tree shall fall and what shall become of us everlastingly Be wee sorry or not sorry Adam sinned It being done God's will be done And yet because it was but his permissive will his will of sufferance and hee suffers many things against his will not of necessity but because he will I will be sorry that Adam sinn'd that is offended God God made the soule of man as upright as his body and clothed it with the white garment of originall Justice God being the fountaine of all power grace and sufficiencie could have hindred the fall but because he was not his neighbour nor obliged by any law for who should give a law to the first Law-giver and to demonstrate the full extent of his dominion over his creatures he would not and having left man in the hand of his owne counsell and set within the reach of his hand fire and water and man having wilfully plaid foule God strived to make the best of an ill game and therefore hee drew from the fall of Adam besides the former benefits a more ample demonstration of his power wisedome justice providence and chiefly of his charity the triall of reason the triumphs of vertue in all kindes and the greater splendour of his Church It is as plaine as if it were wrot by the finger of God with the Sun-beames which St. Austin saith speaking of God Non sineret malum nisi ex malo sciret Aug. de corrept et grat cap. 10. dicere bonum He would not suffer ill if he did not well know how to strain good out of ill and sweetnesse out of sowernesse O sweet God I have committed a great deale of sower evill come in thy goodnesse and draw good and sweetnesse out of it the good of Glory to thee and the sweetnesse of peace to mee both here and hereafter Thou hast held my hand in all my actions as well evill as good as a Master the hand of his Scholler whom he teacheth to write and in evill actions I have pulled thy hand thy power after mine to evill which was onely evill to me because I onely intended it in good actions thou didst alwayes pull hold and over-rule my hand and truly speaking it was thy good for I of my selfe cannot write one faire letter And I know thou hast not suffered me to run so farre into evill but thou canst turne all to good An infinite wisedome joyn'd with an infinite goodnesse can joyne good in company with evill be it as evill as it can be MEDITATION VII ANd if now I clip away an odd end of ensuing time a little remnant of black and white of nights and dayes a small and contemptible number of evenings and mornings wee strong people that now can move and set to work our armes and leggs and bodies at our pleasure wee that look so high and big withall shall not be what now we are For now we live and pleasing thoughts passe through our heads We runne we ride we stay we sit downe we eat and drink and laugh We rise up and laugh againe and so dance then rest a while and drink and talk and laugh aloud then mingle words of complement and actions of curtesie to shew part of our breeding then muse and think of gathering wealth and what merry dayes we shall enjoy But the time will suddenly be here and it stands now at the dore and is comming in when every one of us from the King God blesse his Majesty to the Beggar God sweeten his Misery shall fall and break in two peeces a soule and a body And the soule be given up into the hands of new Companions that we never saw and be carried either upward or downward in a mourning weed or in a robe of joy to an everlasting day or a perpetuall night which we know there are but wee never saw to be nor heard described by any that saw them And when the body shall bee left behind being now no more a living body no more the busie body it was but a dumb deafe blind blockish unsensible carcasse and now after all the great doings not able to stirre in the least part or to answer to very meane and easie questions as how doe you are you hungry is it day or night and be cast out for carrion it begins to stink away with it for most loathsome carrion either to the wormes or to the birds or to the fishes or to the beasts And when the holy Prophecie of Esay will be fulfilled The mirth of tabrets ceaseth the noise of them that rejoyce endeth the joy Es 24. 8. 9. of the harpe ceaseth They shall not drink wine with a song Nor yet without a song And there shall be no joy but the joy of Heaven no mirth or noise of them that rejoyce no singing but in Heaven O wretched Caine that built the first Citie upon earth because he was banished from Heaven Ille primus in terra fundamentum

from as high a descent as they doe and as they are sinfull I am more perfect and exceedingly more beautifull in the sight of God and all his Angels I doe not marvell now that the holy Psalmist spoke so heartily when he said Iniquitatem odio habui abominatus Ps 119. sum I hated iniquity and my soule had it in abomination Go sinne the Viper shall take place in our bosomes before thee For the Viper that eateth through the tender wombe of the mother never saw the mother before that blinde act of cruelty so that the Viper is onely cruell before he is borne and before he ever saw a gentle creature or this blessed light to which his mother brought him But the sinner sees God in his creatures And the Viper doth but defeate the body to bring a temporall death thou the soule to bring a death drawne out and lengthened with eternity CHAP. XVI TO sinne is to turne our backs with great contempt towards God Towards God standing in the midst of all his Angels and holding up Heaven with one hand and earth with another and to turne our faces and imbraces with great fondnesse to a vile Creature O that a true sight of this like a good Angell might alwayes appeare to us before we sinne As the proud man and woman turne from God the boundlesse treasure of all excellencie and sit brooding and swelling as upon empty shels upon the fraile and contemptible goods of minde body fortune The angry man and woman turne from God the sweetnesse of Heaven and Earth and side with their owne turbulent passions The Glutton and Drunkard turne from God to whom the eyes of all things doe looke up for their meate and drinke in due season and performe their devotions to their fat bodies and bellies quorum Deus venter est whose Phil. 3. 19. God is their belly Which Saint Paul spoke as it appeareth by the verse immediatly precedent even weeping The lascivious man and woman turne from God the Fountain of all true and solid comfort and take in exchange the pleasure of Beasts The covetous man and woman turne from God without whom the rich are very poore and dance about the golden Calfe making an Idoll of their money For Covetousnesse Coloss 3. 5. is Idolatry The envious man and woman turne from God from whom come both 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and not inward only but all outward gifts and stick to a repining at Gods liberality in others The sloathfull man and woman turn from God whose providence is in continuall action exercise and give flesh bones head heart and all to the pillow Judas had thirty pence for Christ but we have little or nought for him All the good gifts of the holy Ghost are struck to the heart by sinne S. John beheld in his Revelation a great red Dragon having seven heads and seven Rev. 12. 3. crownes upon his heads And againe a woman Rev. 17. 3. sitting upon a Scarlet-coloured beast having seven heads The seven heads are the seven deadly sinnes which the great red Dragon the Devill begetteth upon the woman the sinfull soule wherewith he resisteth and putteth to flight the seven choice gifts of the holy Ghost I remember the woman whom our Saviour dispossessed of seven Devils and the Leaper that by the Prophets appointment was dipped seven times in the river Jordane The Devill over-commeth the gift of feare The feare of the Lord is the brginning of wisdome with pride and presumption which utterly expell the feare of God With anger he smothereth the gift of knowledge For blinded with anger we judge not according to knowledge With envie he stifleth the gift of piety or godlinesse For by envie we bandy with our thoughts words and actions against our neighbours With lust and luxury he destroyeth the gift of wisedome by which we are made brutishly foolish With covetousnesse hee confoundeth the gift of counsell by which we are violently drawne from all good counsell in the pursuite of base but sweete lucre Covetousnesse being the roote of all evill With Gluttony and Drunkennesse he killeth the gift of understanding by which we are besotted and left altogether unfit to know or understand And with sloth he vanquisheth the gift of Fortitude by which we are made weake and infirme and benummed with feare and sorrow in the search of good things Here is a battell wherein the weake over-come the strong and all because the strong are fallen into the mischievous hands of a most barbarous Traitor a Traitor to God and his owne soule To sinne is to betray Christ and give him over to death and destruction that the sinne that is Barabas the murderer may live Here is a businesse O Lord And to sinne is to banish the holy Ghost with all his gifts to bid him goe go seeke a lodging amongst the rogues beggers And being unwilling to go as he is love it selfe and therefore struggling to stay to thrust him out of the soule by the head and shoulders as desirous in our anger to break a limbe of him if he had one O that we could remember at these times that we are the Devils officers And when sinne is not the privation of Grace because it comes where it is not it the more dimmeth and defaceth nature Sinne is the death and buriall of the soule which onely God can raise againe For as the body dyeth and falleth to the ground when the soule forsaketh it so the soule dyeth and falleth under the ground to Hell-gate when it is forsaken by God O Christian saith Saint Austin non sunt in te charitatis viscera si luges corpus a quo recessit anima animam vero a qua recessit Deus non luges O Christian there are no bowels of charity in thee if thou mournest for a body from which the soule is gone and doest not mourne for the wretched and forlorne estate of a soule from which God is departed One sinne is a greater evill greater above expression then all the evils of punishment that can be inflicted upon us by God himselfe in this world or in the world to come A greater evill beyond all measure then Hell-fire which shall never be quenched One sinne O what have I done many thousand times over It is the truth and nothing but the truth And therfore it is said of the sinne of evill speaking The death thereof is an evill death the grave Ecclesiasticus 28. 21. were better then it The words will beare another sense utilis potius infernus quam illa Hell were more profitable then it And this is proved as easily as written or spokē For the evils of punishment bereave us only of limited and finite goods as sicknesse depriveth us of health death of life But sinne depriveth us of God the onely Good that is infinite And the privation is alwayes by so much the more grievous by how much the good is more good of which

we are deprived The evils of punishment come from God flow naturally from him as from their true source cause Go aske the Prophet Amos he will say as much Amos 3. 6 Shall there be evill in a City and the Lord hath not done it God hath nothing to doe with sinne but foure wayes in all which he stands off and comes not neere it In the hindrance in the sufferance in turning it to good ends and in appointing the punishment And all the evils of punishment which God ever heaped upon man on earth and in Hell or is able to heape are not fit punishment my drift is not equall to the mischiefe of one sinne though the Papists thinke otherwise of their veniall sinnes God alwayes punishing under the desert of sinne as he alwayes rewards above vertue as being more prone to the acts of mercie then of justice And neither all Gods Creatures nor God himselfe be it spoken with due reverence and respect to his omnipotencie can shower downe so great evils upon man as he daily pulleth upon himselfe For they can onely sting his body with the evils of punishment he staineth his owne soule with the evill of sin And therefore Saint Chrysostomes Paradox out of which he hath dreined a most learned Homily is not a Paradox Nemo laeditur nisi a seipso No man is hurt but by himselfe For it is plaine that matters of punishment may be turned to vertue which doth not hurt but alwayes from sinne comes dammage and hurt because more is lost then gain'd though all the world bee gain'd it being sure that by sinne God is lost and cannot be gain'd Sinne to speak gently is the sleepe of the soule For as he that sleepeth feares oftentimes what is not to be feared As to be drowned in deepe waters to fall from the top of a high rock into the Sea to be devoured by a Beare or a Lion or some such vaine thing of which he dreames but the Thiefe who comes now in earnest to cut his throat he feares not So the sinner feares some few shadowes of danger but not the sinne that kils him O foolish Horse that starts at the shadow of a tree and when the Drums and Trumpets sound runs gladly among the Pikes thrusting himselfe upon true danger And as he that sleepeth beleeves oftentimes that he is in full possession of that which hee hath not He dreames of gold and of a Palace and in the act the cobwebs of his poore Cottage drop upon his face and wake him The sinner being in danger dreames of safety and wakes environed with danger And lastly as he that sleepeth performes oftentimes the worke of a waking man but imperfectly He speakes but brokenly and with little sense He rises and walkes but seldome without a fall So the habits of vertues being destroyed in a sinner have left a warmth and facility behinde them which seeme vertuous when they are not and therefore delude exceedingly both the person and all the witnesses of his carriage And such a person is more dangerously sicke then the Hypocrite who knoweth his errour or may be soone convinced of it by the light of nature Phoenix in Homer under whose government Achilles was brought up to that great height and perfection of knowledge was directed by the rules of naturall prudence to be two Masters to him For the Poet describes him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a director not onely of his words but of his deeds also But he that is warmed with such a heate when the fire is gone beleeves that he is hot rejoyceth in it and little thinkes what kinde of warmth it is wherewith he is heated From these premises I gather what I had lost I had lost the princely robe of justice the rich garment of needle-worke wherewith the Kings daughter was adorned after the losse of which my soule was not the Kings daughter I had lost the name dignity and credit of Gods good childe the speciall providence and protection with which he shrouds as a Hen her Chickens covers and spreads himselfe over the just O t is warme being under his wings and all the more speciall helpes which imparting to them he denies to sinners I had lost I had lost faith and except hope all infused vertues which are the strength veines and sinewes of the soule by which she is enabled to doe well and orderly in order to salvation and which are as it were the faire pearles with which she is beautified I had lost O I had lost the most unvaluable benefit of Christs merits Christ could not say then to his Father of me Father give him me I have bought him I had lost God and therefore was robbed of all good He that is every where was gone from me He was out of my reach out of my call and hee would not heare me but called by earnest repentance a hard taske and not possibly to bee compassed without his powerfull assistance that was farre from me And which is the top of admiration I had lost my selfe and could by no meanes learne whither I was gone Had I gone out into the streets and asked all passengers if any good man or woman could tell where I was Had I said neighbour pray have you found me I am lost Whatsoever my neighbours had said all sound Christians would have answered that I was lost and so lost that I could never be found but by an infinite power and that for their parts they knew not where I was Indeed I neither know nor shall ever know fully what I had lost Go now all Merchants and Tradesmen henceforth hold your peace speak no more of your losses by Sea or Land I had lost more then Land and Sea themselves And having lost all good I staid not there but also was over-whelmed with all evill It is a great evill of disgrace to be the childe of a wicked man or willing to serve him Sin had made me the childe of the Devill and more subject then a childe a slave to him and sinne And therefore Christ said to sinners Yee are of your Father the Devill He said likewise Verily verily I say unto you whosoever committeth sinne is the servant of sinne Sin then being all over evill and all the evill that is and I having committed sinne and so being the willing servant of sinne what a strange kinde of evill was I that served so great an evill when we all know the servant is not higher then his Master but much under him Here is a secret It is an evill chance to a house when it fals into the most hard hands of a cruell murderer or bloody traitor But sin had changed me into the most unhappy dwelling of the Devill And I that once feared to see the Devill and who if I had seene him would have runne much more feared to come neare him or to dwell with him in the same house or chamber had then tooke both him and Hell-fire that