Selected quad for the lemma: heart_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
heart_n	believe_v	faith_n	righteousness_n	7,110	5	7.7520	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A41462	A winter-evening conference between neighbours in two parts.	Goodman, John, 1625 or 6-1690.	1684 (1684)	Wing G1129; ESTC R15705	135,167	242

must tell you when the Apostle levell'd a blow at them he reach'd your phancy also for he saith expresly With the heart man believeth unto righteousness and with the mouth confession is made to salvation Phil. O pardon me Sir I make no Question but that when a man is called to make profession of his faith and to discover what Religion he is of then to dissemble is to betray it and to be silent on such a critical occasion is to revolt and apostatize from it and in that sense I take it another Apostle hath required us To render to every man that asketh us a reason of the hope that is in us c. As if he had said Be not ashamed of your Perswasion but owne and defend your Religion at the greatest and most adverse Tribunals where-ever it shall be impeached But this is not the Case We are not now speaking of what must be done upon an authoritative inquisition into our Consciences or in times of persecution but what is to be done in times of peace and in common conversation and then and there I am still of opinion that at least it is not an express Duty to talk of Religion Sebast Nor do I differ from you therein For I do not assert it as an universal Duty to make Religion the matter of our Discourse But my meaning is that it will exceedingly become us to do so sometimes And I verily assure my self that he that hath a quick sense of God upon his mind will have savoury expressions of him sometimes upon ordinary occasions if a foolish modesty do not too much overcome him as well as witness a good confession in times of persecution For as our Saviour said in the passage I mentioned before Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh And it seems to me more easily conceiveable that there should be a great fire without any smoke or a great light without any heat than that such a man as is inwardly principled with the fear and love of God should be wholly tongue-tyed or be either able or willing altogether to stifle and suppress his sentiments Can a man carry fire in his bosom said the Wise man and not be burnt Such an holy fervour as I speak of will assuredly both seek and find a vent for it self and break out upon all fitting occasions in reverend and affectionate expressions by which means a man in the first place eases his own breast and besides thus this holy fire not only preserves it self from extinction but propagates it self also warming and inflaming others You have heard I suppose of an odd Superstition among the Jews who out of a pretended reverence of the name of God and to preserve it from prophanation as they supposed so long forbad the common pronuntiation of it till at length by the intermission of using it they had quite forgotten how to pronounce it And thus I am afraid it would fare with Religion if men should out of I know not what conceit forbear all Discourse of God and another World the result would be that in time both would be forgotten Not is it as you seem to imagine only times of persecution that ought to rowse up our Spirits and call for expressions of our zeal for the Road of business the successively flowing Tide of variety of entertainments in this World the soft Charms of pleasant recreations the blandishments of continual prosperity and the rust upon our minds contracted by lying still in ease and security do more endanger the state of Religion than those trying times you speak of And therefore Atheism is well known to be a Weed that thrives most in the best Weather The Seed that was sown upon stony ground fell away when the hot Sun scorched it because it had no depth of earth but that which was sown among the Thorns was choaked too though the Soil was never so good in a word Stormy Weather in the Church may tempt men to be false and treacherous and Renegadoes but I believe it never made an Atheist that and prophaneness are the ill fruit of prosperity So that you see there is need that the Spirit of piety should exert it self as well in the one season as in the other Neither will the publickly stated times or forms and exercises of Religion sufficiently secure it against this danger without such voluntary efforts and fallies of it as we are speaking of For in regard God is not to be seen and the World is before us the World to come is at distance and the present World at hand ill examples are numerous and good ones few and rare and in a word we dwell in so cold a Region that we had need not only to use a great deal of exercise but frequently to rub up one another Therefore as Socrates is said to have brought down Philosophy è Coelo in urbes from speculation to practice from high Notions to the common Affairs of Life so it seems necessary to us not only to be religious at Church and devout in our Closets but to allow it a share in our daily and ordinary converse Phil. Nay if you be for that what think you of a demure sort of people amongst us that as if their tongues were tipt with Religion will be always canting in a Scripture-phrase These men seem to think it prophane to speak intelligibly and in the common language and account a Jewish kind of Gibberish to be the peculiar Shibboleth of the Godly party And some of them arrive at such a pitch either of hypocrisy or melancholy I am loth to pronounce whether that upon the matter they allow no other Discourse to be lawful but what hath a tincture of Religion Now for my part I look upon these people as very absurd and ridiculous and therefore I hope you do not intend to give them countenance in what you are saying Sebast So far from it Phil that I account the former of the two sorts of men which you speak of to be no better than a Generation of nauseous Pharisees forasmuch as nothing betrays hypocrisie so much as overdoing and by that course of theirs they render Religion loathsome and ridiculous and tempt men to think it all Trick and Cheat. And for the other they seem to be a pitiable but crack-brain'd sort of men who render Religion very uncomfortable to themselves and indeed impracticable and impossible God knows we are not Angels but men and have concerns for the present World as well as for the other and consequently it can be no fault but a just Duty to take care of them and in order thereto to deliberate to take advice and to discourse about them And this I am so confident of that I verily believe the Apostle when he forbids that any corrupt communication should proceed out of our mouths and enjoins that it be such as is good to the use of edifying intended we should interpret the latter expression