Selected quad for the lemma: heart_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
heart_n	apostle_n	preach_v	word_n	3,267	5	4.6936	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A67769	The seduced soul reduced and rescued from the subtilty and slavery of Satan ... by R. Junius ...	Younge, Richard.	1660 (1660)	Wing Y181; ESTC R34120	11,402	12

prejudice so blinde their own eyes that they will decoct everything the godly do or say into poyson Yea they will not onely pick strawes to put out their own eyes withall but they even protest against their own conversion as esteeming and accounting all Religion and Devotion meer foolishness Yea they will scoffe at the meanes to be saved and make themselves merry with their own damnation So that good counsel to them is but offering Aqua-vitae to the dead A man would admire and wonder how mens soules should be so drowned in their senses how any one that is endowed with a reasonable soule should be of so reprobate a minde as most men are did not the frequency of sin take away the sense of sin As ô how the soule that takes a delight in lewdnesse is gained upon by custome do not all cauterized sinners drunkards blasphemers defrauders and the like Yea and civill men too account it a crime to be holy or to have a tender conscience or to be so careful to serve their Redeemer as themselves are industrious to serve the Devill and satisfie their own hearts lusts Yea and custome hath so bleared them that they cannot distinguish nor discern the true visage of things Yea the most of men amongst us so delude themselves with mistakes and false surmises against Religion and the religious that piety and goodnesse is so despised loosenesse and prophanesse so set by and defended by some ignorantly by others maliciously and this also by reason of long custome runs so deep and strong that wee can never look to have it mended untill Christ comes in the clouds What this may bring upon us onely the Lord knows and knows to prevent But sure I am it hath already been so long neglected and so little opposed and laid to heart that it hath almost over-grown both corn and good hearbs Insomuch that the wickednesse of the greater part hath brought such a scandall upon the better part That our Religion is even abhorred of the Heathen And how can it other then cut the hearts of those that have felt the love of Christ to heare him so wounded at home with oathes and blasphemies abroad with reproaches who is the life of their lives and the soul of their souls Speake we must endeavour what we can Cry aloud saith God spare not lift up thy voyce like a trumpet and shew my people their transgressions and the house of Jacob their sins Isa. 58. 1. But alasse little comes of it For let all the Ministers unanimously say what can be said blinde sensuallists will confute all that can be alleadged with God is merciful And Christ died for all Onely believe and thou shalt be saved no matter how they live a reprobate yet common errour as thinking with Eunomius that faith without works will serve Insomuch that every drunken beast and blasphemer thinks to speed as well and goe to Heaven as soon as the best One mindes nothing but his cups another nothing but his coyne a third onely his Curtizan yet all these promise to meet in Heaven The Jewes thought we may put away our wives we may sweare we may hate our enemies we may kill the Prophets subject the Word of God to our traditions and follow our own wayes Why Abraham is our father John 8. 39. But by their leave Christ calls them bastards and findes out another father for them ver. 44. Ye are of your father the Devill and the lusts of you● father ye will do Prophane Libertines such as account not themselves well but when they are doing ill Yea the most covetous oppressors who may say as Pope Leo did I can have no place in Heaven because I have so often sold it upon Earth Every man of them hopes to have bene●i● by the Gospel when they will not be tied to the least little of the Law But if Christ be not our King to govern us he will neither be our Prophet to fore warn nor our Priest to exp●ate Except we forsake our sins God will never forgive them Yea he hath sworn by an oath that whomsoever he redeemeth out of the hands of their spirituall enemies shall serve him in holinesse and righteousnesse all the dayes of their lives Neither can it consist with his Justice to pardon such as continue in an evill course of life Neverthelesse there is scarce a wicked man upon Earth but he thinks to go to Heaven But what 's the reason consider that and you will cease to wonder For what the Apostle speaks 2 Cor. 3. is appliable unto all natural men Their mindes were blinded For untill this day remaineth the same vaile upon their hearts un-taken aw●y in the reading of the Old Testament which vail when they shall turn to the Lord shall be taken away in Christ vers. 14 15 16. Here you see they have a vail or curtain drawn over their hearts which keeps them from the knowledge of Gods Word But that 's not all They have so hardned their hearts with a customary sinning even from their infancy that a man were as good speake to a stone as admonish them Jer. 6. 10. 5. 3. Zach. 7. 12. Jude 12. Ez●k. 11. 19. Thirdly the Gospel is hid unto them because the god of this world hath blinded their mindes lest the light of the glorious Gospel of Christ should shine unto them as the same Apostle speaks ●Cor. 4. 3 4. Finally they have Phraoh's curse upon them a hard heart and a seared conscience so that they are no way capable of yielding to or hearing God speak by his Ambassadors say they what they will Whence it is that St. Cyprian useth these words It is as much lost labour saith he to preach unto men the things of God before they are humbled with the sight of their wants as to offer light to a blinde man to speak to a deaf man or to labour to make a brute beast wise See Revel. 3. 17. In the mean time thoughts of Eternity never trouble them They are at peace with Satan the world and their own consciences have made agreement with Hell and with Death they satisfie their lusts to the full So like men sleeping in a Boat they are carried down the stream of this world untill they arrive at their Graves-end Death without once waking to be-think themselves whether they are going to Heaven or Hell They slumber and suppose themselves good Christians their faith is but a dream their hope but a dream and so of their obedience and whole Religion all is but a dream They have repentance in conceit they serve God well in conceit and they shall if they look not to it goe to Heaven onely in conceit or in a dream and never awake until they feel themselves in the burning lake For he that makes a bridge of his own shadow how can he choose but fall into the water In which case what heart would it not make to bleed that hath any Christian blood in his

veins to see what multitudes there are that go blindfold to destruction and no man offer to stop or check them before they arrive there from whence there is no redemption I remember St. Bernard useth these words Had we stood by saith hee when Adam was between the perswasion of his wife and the precept of his God when the one said Adam eate and the other said Adam eate not for if thou dost Thou shalt die the death and all thy posterity Had it been an ill office to have cryed out and said ô Adam take heed what thou dost Or would he have had cause to complain of being prevented I trow not Yea I think it had been a seasonable piece of high friendship and none can deny it I remember also what a Merchant once did he comes to his friend upon the Exchange and fals to boxing him with these words I have often enough told you of your whoring but you will never leave it Know you not that it will p●ove your ruine in the end 〈…〉 h●ld to be a little crackt in brain perhaps you will think 〈…〉 often times from the rarest and quickest agitations of 〈…〉 the most distempered and out-ragious frenzies there want●●g 〈…〉 a pegs turne to passe from the one to the other So in mad mens 〈…〉 see how fitly folly suiteth and meets with the strongest operation 〈…〉 Yea who knows not how un-perceivable the neighbour-hood is between folly and the liveliest elevations of some mens wits And indeed when I consider how our carnal friends will curse us when they come in hell that we did not our utmost endeavour to stop them I could afford to lay hands upon a Drunkard a Blasphemer or a Murtherer to stay 〈◊〉 from the evill he is going to commit Yea to kneel down upon my knees and beg of him that he would not so desperately damn his own soul And indeed could a man save his friends soule by so doing as possibly he might Jude 23. Jam. 5. 26. 1 Tim. 4. 16. he needed not much to care though the world reputed him a mad man or spent their verdicts on him O my brethren think of it before it be too late and seriously consider what one soule is worth and what you would take to be in that condition with them as you were once For I speak to enlightened souls Yea how should not the very thought of it make all that are got out of Satans clutches to plot study and contrive all they can to draw others of their brethren after them We read that Andrew was no sooner converted and 〈…〉 Christs Disciple but instantly he drew others after him to the same faith John 1. 41. and the like of Philip vers. 45. And of the woman of Samaria John 4. 28. to 41. And of Peter Luke 22. 32. Acts 2. 41. and 3 Chap. 4. 4. And so of all the Apostles Yea Moses so thirsted after the salvation of Israel that rather then he would be saved without them he desired the Lord to blot him out of the book of life Exod. 32. 32. And Paul to this purpose saith I could wish my self to be separated from Christ for my brethren that are my kinsmen according to the flesh meaning the Jewes Rom. 9. 3. And indeed all heavenly hearts are charitable Neither are we of the Communion of Saints if we desire not the blessednesse of others it being an inseparable adjunct or relative to grace for none but a Cain will say Am I my brothers keeper Yea where the heart is thankful and inflamed with the love of God and our neighbour this will be the principal aime As by ●y si●s and bad example I have drawn others from God so now I will 〈…〉 I can draw others with my selfe to God Saul converted will build up as fast as ever he plucked downe and preach as zealously as ever ●e persecuted and we are no what thankful for our own salvation if we do not look with charity and pity upon the grosse mis-opinions and mis-prisions of others and at least do something for the saving of those poor ignorant impotent wretches that are neither able nor willing to help themselves Neither needs there as one would think any spurring or prompting of the thankful or charitable to this duty And what though we cannot do what we would yet we must labour to do what we can to win others not to deserve by it but to expresse our thanks Besides it were very dishonourable to Christ not to do so did you ever know that wicked men Thieves Drunkards Adulterers Persecutors false prophets or the like would be damned alone no they mis-lead all they can as desiring to have com-panions Yea the Tharisees would take great pains compasse sea and land to make others twofold more the children of hell then themselves as our Saviour expresly witnesseth Matth. 23. 15. which may cast a brush upon our cheeks who are nothing so industrious to win souls to God Therefore what a worldling would do to get himselfe an hundred pounds that a Christian should do to win a soule to Christ Or he is unthankful to his Redeemer that hath done and suffered so much for him But I have known a very small matter with Gods blessing upon the meanes as the lending of a Book to an acquaintance or towling him to hear an efficacious Sermon prove the saving of his soul And that hath been a greater cause of rejoycing to both parties then others have when their corn and their wine increaseth Psalm 4. 7. Weak means shall serve the turne where God inten●s successe Even a word seasonably spoken God blessing it like a Rudder sometimes steers a man quite into another Course Antiocl●us by hearing from a poor man all the faults which he and his Favourites had committed carried himself most vertuously ever after Antoninus amended his future life and manners by onely hearing what the people spake of him The very crowing of a Cock occasioned Peters repentance Augustine that famous Doctor was converted by onely reading that Text Rom. 13. 13. Let us walke honestly as in the day-time c. Learned Junius with reading the first Chapter of Saint Johns Gospel was wonne to the faith of Christ And Melancthon much a●ter the same manner I have read of two famous Strumpets that were suddenly converted by this onely Argument That God seeth all things even in the dark when the doors are shut and the curtains drawn Bilneys Confession converted Latimer yea Ad●i●nus was not onely converted but became a Martyr too by onely hearing a Martyr at the Stake alleadg that Text Eye hath not seen nor eare heard c. 1 Cor. 2 9. Yea even those Iewes that crucified the Son of God were converted by hearing those few words of Peter Acts 2. And it pleased God when I my self was in as hopelesse a condition as any That a poor mans perswading me to leave reading of Poetry and fall upon the Bible was a meanes