Selected quad for the lemma: heart_n
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A42555
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Wisdom justified of her children, or, Two sermons sometime preached in Cockshutt Chappel, in the county of Salop, and lately at Brightling in Sussex, on Matth. XI. XIX. and now at the request of friends enlarged, and published / by William Gearing ...
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Gearing, William.
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1668
(1668)
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Wing G439; ESTC R16127
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41,501
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72
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Father Father I know them not Christ will neither know them nor any of their religious Acts nor acknowledge any thing they have done for him As the Psalmist speaks of dead men They are forgotten and out of mind and their place shall be known no more so it is with such as shall condemn wisdom and deny Christ when they shall cry Lord Lord have we not done this He will be ashamed of such as call him Lord before his Father Chrysostome on that place I know you not said he had rather be stricken through with a thousand thunderbolts than to hear Christ say I know you not Christ will not own any good work or good duty of theirs who have condemned or denied him and his ways all their prayers shall be forgotten as if they had never prayed yea all their duties shall but aggravate their torment he will say to his Father Give double torment to those that have condemned wisdom and yet prayed to Thee in my name 5. Christ will accuse them before his Father These are the persons that would not feed me when I was hungry that when I was thirsty would give me no drink that being a stranger took me not in that when I was naked Matt. 25.40 41. cloathed me not that when I was sick and in prison visited me not these are the men that did basely condemn my ways and shamefully deny me before such and such men This is Judas that betrayed me into the hands of the Jews These are the persons that by their cowardise or covetousness betrayed my truth my worship my religion into the hands of sinners Brethren I know you abhor Judas his fact and would not for a world stand in Judas his coat before God at the day of Judgement Let me tell you to betray the truth of Christ to condemn true wisdom will be reputed as great a sin in that day Nay Christ will not only accuse such but he wil cast them out of his presence and destroy them before the blessed presence of his father he will cast them out from the presence and from communion with Angels and Saints into hell torments Depart ye cursed of God and Christ ye that condemned Religion Depart ye cursed of Angels and of your own Consciences into hell torments What is that worm there that never dieth but thy Conscience of denying and condemning Wisdom 6. Consider the hainousness of the fact what a sin it is to condemn Wisdom and Religion In denying Wisdom you deny Christ himself in condemning Religion you condemn him It is his religion his truth his worship his ways which you condemn therefore in condemning these you condemn Christ himself You condemn him whom God the Father hath justified and glorified and witnessed a good confession of him before men This is my well beloved Son in whom I am well-pleased you condemn Christ whom all the Angels adore it is their glory to be his Ministring Spirits in condemning him you condemn the infinite love of God for so God loved the world that he gave his son you deny the Lord of glory the Prince of life the King of Kings the only Saviour You reject the blood of Christ his blood which is more worth than rocks of Pearl than mountains of Gold yea more than if God had given an heaven full of Angels or a world of Creatures for you O what a great sin is it to condemn him who hath bought Thee with his own blood who suffered the wrath of God for us and purchased many glorious priviledges for us To deny or disown a friend that hath been kind and bountiful it is shameful for a Child to deny his Father it is unnatural but for a man to deny or condemn Christ who died for him condemn his redeemer and Saviour it is worse than unnatural if worse can be 7. Look upon the goodness of wisdom A man can have no better than God's truth to maintain and to acknowledge the word of life and salvation no outward means but the Gospel to bring us to Salvation to condemn these we condemn the means of salvation The men of Sodom shall rise up in judgement against the men of Bethsaida the men of Niniveh against the men of Capernaum because they repented at the preaching of Jonas the Bastards of Babylon shall rise up against the daughters of Zion in judgement the Papists shall rise up in judgement against many Protestants for they will not condemn nor betray the Cause of Anti-christ but these men put Christ to open shame and expose the wisdom of God to a world of contempt in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation CHAP. XI An use of exhortation to justifie Wisdom Vse 2 BE exhorted now my Brethren to justifie Wisdom thereby ye shall shew your selves to be the Children of Wisdom stand up in the defence of Christ and religion be not ashamed of him not of his Gospel be ready and willing to suffer any thing for his sake if thou art called thereunto rather die for him a thousand deaths suffer a thousand torments rather than deny him once if ever ye look to have Christ own you to have his Father own you and his holy Angels in all their glory to own you then beware of condemning wisdom plead for his truth justifie wisdom reliove the members of Christ boldly and freely testifie what ye hold and believe in matters of religion constantly affirm this is Christ's Doctrine this is Christ's Religion this and none else is the pure worship of God in Christ Witness a good Confession with your mouths what ye believe in your hearts of Christ and his Doctrine It is not an Arbitrary duty but necessary If an Arian should ask what believest thou concerning Christ Thou must answer I believe him to be very God though all the world were Arian or if a Papist should ask Thee concerning Christ in the Sacrament Thou shouldest answer I believe He is not there bodily Some think it enough if they believe Christ's truth and Religion in their hearts and as for outward affirmation and justification of it in plain words it is rather superfluous at least Arbitrary not necessary No this is not sufficient A man that believeth in his heart his mouth must shew forth his faith If he be perswaded in his heart that this is truth and that is truth he must testifie it in his words As the Apostles they believed in heart that Christ was the Messiah was the Christ and they did confess it with their tongues Thou art Christ the son of the living God This is Jesus the God of glory the Prince of life whom the Jews slew and hanged upon a tree S. Paul did believe the Resurrection and he did justifie the Doctrine of the Resurrection before a whole Council Act. 23.6 Many account it a peice of singular Wisdom either to silence or to dissemble the truth they had rather be accounted Wise and Wicked than Simple and Religious they had
sincere profession of Religion and the shame and confusion of their enemies will make the glory of the Children of wisdom the more splendent and conspicuous Now the Saints are judged censured and condemned by the world Now they are reproached and vilified by the world but there is a time coming when the despised Saints shall sit upon throns and judge Angels and the whole world All ye that now scoff at the godly ye shall on that day tremble before them you that now despise them in your heart shall then lie and even lick up the dust of their feeâ— Christ will put such glory on all his Saints that the world shall admire at Christ in so doing 2 Thess 1.10 When he shall come to be glorified in his Saints and admired in all them that believe Oh! then how will the wicked cry out Behold how God doth honour and glorifie yonder men whom once we derided and daily mocked for their preciseness What glorious and blessed creatures are they become Oh that our heads were as high as their heels How are they Crowned with glory and we cloathed with shame they have Crowns of righteousness and immortality about their heads and we have chains of everlasting darkness about our heels Some have put this question whether the wicked shall then know the godly with whom they have lived upon earth Some answer It is more then probable that the children of Belial shall then know the children of wisdom with whom they lived whom they reproached mocked scoffed condemned for their holiness This very man whom I despised lo how he is glorified Oh what a difference is there now between me and him He is a glorious King and I a condemned Prisoner for evermore But it is overmuch boldness to assert that the wicked shall have a particular knowledge of those very godly men whose persons they had in derision for their holiness seeing it is enough to their great confusion to behold the whole army of glorified Saints in the Kingdom of heaven and their own consciences shall then witness to them that these were the Children of wisdom that justified wisdom that these were the righteous Servants of God and themselves were wicked and such as were the Servants of sin and Satan Yet it is not denied but their personal knowledge of the very men whom they did despise and condemn for their godliness would much conduce to the greater confusion of the children of disobedience That speech of Chrysologus is considerable Dives magis uritur Lazari gloria quam proprio incendio The rich man is more tormented with beholding the glory of Lazarus in heaven than with the sense of his own burning in hell This will aggravate the torment of the damned when they shall behold the transcendent glory of those very particular persons whom they vilified and had in derision But let us leave this question to the decision of the Great-day CHAP. XVI NOw to conclude let me excite all the Children of Wisdom to live by faith then will you justifie wisdom in the worst of times the futurity of your glorious reward requireth a continued acting of faith lest you draw back your hands from the plough and your hearts off from the ways of Wisdom for be sure He or they who resolve to justifie wisdom must expect to meet with high discouragements nothing can swallow up these discouragements but faith acted and exercised which like Moses's Rod easily devoureth all these Egyptian Serpents The world will discourage you from serving God Oh pity thy self said Peter to Christ so the world to thee Pity thy ease thy liberty thy estate thy pleasures thy honour Your worldly callings will hinder you from walking in the paths of Wisdom you will lose your time your profit if you spend so much time in religious duties All the wicked in the world will discourage you by their taunts and contempt What needs so much praying and hearing Lo we are set up and thrive in the world who do not as you do your very senses will discourage you from the Service of God you see and hear that no profit is gotten by serving God you see how they who serve not God grow rich and great in the world All within you and all without you will endeavour to pull you back from Wisdom's gates Wherefore you have great need to act faith continually faith must be a continual evidence to you of things not seen then will it cry to you Do you not see heaven the crown the kingdom the glory which is set before you See you not Christ condemning and putting to open shame and destruction all such as deny and condemn true Wisdom Unless faith be thus acted and you walk from day to day by faith you will never be faithful to the death It is faith acted which maketh a man as Chrysostom said of Job a man of Adamant a man of Flint a man invincible not to be moved There is nothing more stirreth men up to diligence in Gods service then the belief and expectation of a glorious reward Every man propoundeth to himself in all his undertakings Quid habebo What shall I have All the world godly men wicked men Judas said When he was betraying Christ What will you give me What shall we have said Peter to Christ because we have left all and followed thee Wherefore when men see no likelihood of rewards and do not believe there is any they despise to do service Unbelief is the râ—ot of all profaneness men of no Faith are men of no Religion their neglect of Prayer hearing the Word and other Pious Exercises are evident tokens of their unbelief that God cannot or will not reward them or rather that God is not It is the most monstrous contradiction in the world to believe there is a God and not to serve him to believe the rules and precepts of Wisdom and not to justifie it to believe there is an heaven for a reward and not to seek it It is men's unbelief that makes men have the Servants of God in contempt and to make a scorn of them and to count them fools and madmen for their holiness They do not for the present believe that the godly are the Sons of God heirs of heaven and shall be Kings of Glorious State hereafter they will wish they had lived their lives whom they poured scorn and contempt upon It is men's unbelief that is the root of Apostacy from the paths of Wisdom they march over into the tents of Devil and fight under his banner run from Christ and his Service to embrace this present evil world because they see no present good profit nor happiness in serving God FINIS