Selected quad for the lemma: heart_n
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A36187
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A brief recognition of New-Englands errand into the wilderness made in the audience of the General Assembly of the Massachusetts Colony at Boston in N.E. on the 11th of the third moneth, 1670, being the day of election there / by Samuel Danforth.
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Danforth, Samuel, 1626-1674.
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1671
(1671)
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Wing D175; ESTC R24911
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19,567
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31
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are set upon Yea and in some particular Congregations amongst us is there not in stead of a sweet smell a stink and in stead of a girdle a rent and in stead of a stomacher a girding with sackcloth and burning in stead of beauty yea the Vineyard is all overgrown with thorns and nettles cover the face thereof and the stone wall thereof is broken down Prov. 24 31. yea and that which is the most sad and certain sign of calamity approaching Iniquity aboundeth and the love of many waxeth cold Mat. 24 12. Pride Contention Worldiness Covetousness Luxury Drunkenness and Uncleanness break in like a flood upon us and good men grow cold in their love to God and to one another If a man be cold in his bed let them lay on the more clothes that he may get heat but we are like to David in his old age they covered him with clothes but he gat no heat 2 Sam. 1. 1. The Lord heaps mercies favours blessings upon us and loads us daily with his benefits but all his love and bounty cannot heat and warm our hearts and affections Well the furnace is able to heat and melt the coldest Iron but how oft hath the Lord cast us into the hot furnace of Affliction and Tribulation and we have been scorched and burnt yet not melted but hardened thereby Isa 63. 17. How long hath God kept us in the furnace day after day moneth after moneth year after year but all our Afflictions Crosses Trials have not been able to keep our hearts in a warm temper Now let me freely deliberate with you what may be the Causes and Grounds of such decayes and languishings in our affections to and estimation of that which we came into the Wilderness to enjoy Is it because there is no bread neither is there any water and our soul loatheth this light bread Numb 21. 5. Our soul is dried away and there is nothing at all besides this Manna before our eyes Numb 11. 6. What is Manna no bread Is this Angelical food light bread which cannot satisfie but starves the Soul Doth our Soul loath the bread of Heaven The Lord be merciful to us The full soul loatheth the honey-comb Prov. 27. 7. What then is the cause of our decayes and languishings Is it because the Spirit of the Lord is straitned and limited in the dispensers of the Gospel and hence our joyes and comforts are lessened and shortned O thou that art named the house of Jacob is the Spirit of the Lord straitned are those his doings Do not my words do good to him that walketh uprightly Mic. 2. 7. Surely it is not for want of fulness in the Spirit of God that he withholds comforts and blessings from any neither doth he delight in threatnings and judgements but his words both promise and perform that which is good and comfortable to them that walk uprightly The Spirit is able to enlarge it self unto the reviving and cheering of every man's heart and that should we experience did not our iniquity put a barre 2 Cor. 6. 11 12. O ye Corinthians our mouth is open unto you our heart is enlarged Ye are not straitned in us but ye are straitned in your own bowels The Spirit of God dilateth and enlargeth the heart of the faithfull Ministry for the good of the people but many times the people are straitned in their own bowels and cannot receive such a large portion as the Lord hath provided for them What then is the cause of our coolings faintings and languishings The ground and principal cause is our Vnbelief We believe not the Grace and Power of God in Christ Where is that lively exercise of faith which ought to be in our attendance upon the Lord in his holy Ordinances Christ came to Nazareth with his heart full of love and compassion and his hands full of blessings to bestow upon his old Acquaintance and Neighbours among whom he had been brought up but their Vnbelief restrained his tender mercies and bound his Omnipotent hands that he could not do any great or illustrious Miracle amongst them Mat. 13. 58. Mark 6. 5 6. He could do there no mighty work and he marvelled because of their unbelief Unbelief straitens the grace and power of Christ and hinders the communication of divine favours and special mercies The word preached profits not when it is not mixed with faith in them that hear it Heb. 4. 2. We may pray earnestly but if we ask not in faith how can we expect to receive any thing of the Lord Jam. 1. 6 7. But though Unbelief be the principal yet it is not the sole cause of our decayes and languishings Inordinate worldly Cares predominant Lusts and malignant Passions and Distempers stifle and choak the Word and quench our affections to the Kingdome of God Luke 8. 14. The Manna was gathered early in the morning when the Sun waxed hot it melted Exod. 16. 21. It was a fearful Judgement on Dathan and Abiram that the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up How many Professors of Religion are swallowed up alive by earthly affections Such as escape the Lime-pit of Pharisaical Hypocrisie fall into the Coal-pit of Sadducean Atheism and Epicurism Pharisaism and Sadduceism do almost divide the Professing World between them Some split upon the Rock of affected ostentation of singular Piety and Holiness and others are drawn into the Whirpool and perish in the Gulf of Sensuality and Luxury If any question how seasonable such a Discourse may be upon such a Day as this let him consider Hag. 2. 10 14. In the four and twentieth day of the ninth moneth in the second year of Darius came the word of the Lord by Haggai the Prophet saying Thus saith the Lord of Hosts Ask now the Priests concerning the law saying If one bear holy flesh in the skirt of his garment and with his skirt do touch bread or pottage or wine or oyl or any meat shall it be holy And the Priests answered and said No. Then said Haggai If one that is unclean by a dead body touch any of these shall it be unclean And the Priests answered and said It shall be unclean Then answered Haggai and said So is this people and so is this nation before me saith the Lord and so is every work of their hands and that which they offer there is unclean It was an high and great day wherein the Prophet spake these words and an holy and honourable Work which the people were employed in For this day they laid the Foundation of the Lords Temple ver 18. nevertheless the Lord saw it necessary this very day to represent and declare unto them the pollution and uncleanness both of their persons and of their holy Services that they might be deeply humbled before God and carry on their present Work more holily and purely What was their uncleanness Their eager pursuit of their private Interests took off their hearts and affections from the affairs
so short a time Is it not a Sign that God is making a way for his Wrath when he removes his Chosen out of the Gap Doth he not threaten us with a Famine of the Word the Scattering of the Flock the Breaking of the Candlesticks and the turning of the Songs of the Temple into howlings It is high time for us to remember whence we are fallen and repent and do our first works Wherefore let us lift up the hands that hang down and strengthen the feeble knees and make straight paths for our feet lest that which is lame be turned out of the way but let it rather be healed Heb. 12. 12 13. Labour we to redress our Faintings and Swervings and address our selves to the Work of the Lord. Let us arise and build and the Lord will be with us and from this day will he bless us Alas we are feeble and impotent our hands are withered and our strength dried up Remember the man that had a withered hand Christ faith unto him Stretch forth thy hand and he stretched it forth and it was restored whole like as the other Mat. 12. 13. How could he stretch forth his hand when it was withered the Blood and Spirits dried up and the Nerves and Sinews shrunk up The Almighty Power of Christ accompanying his Command enabled the man to stretch forth his withered hand and in stretching it forth restored it whole like as the other Where the Soveraignty of Christ's Command takes place in the Conscience there is effectual grace accompanying it to the healing of our Spiritual Feebleness and Impotency and the enabling of us to perform the duty incumbent on us Though we have no might no strength yet at Christ's Command make an essay Where the word of a King is there is power But alas our Bruise is incurable and our Wound grievous there is none to repair the Breach there is no healing Medicine The Lord Jesus the great Physician of Israel hath undertaken the Cure I will restore health unto thee and I will heal thee of thy wounds saith the Lord Jer. 30. 17. No case is to be accounted desperate or incurable which Christ takes in hand If he undertake to heal Jairus his daughter he will have her death esteemed but a sleep in reference to his power She is not dead but sleepeth Mat. 9. 24. When Christ came to Lazarus his grave and bade them take away the stone Martha saith Lord by this time he stinketh for he hath been dead four dayes But Christ answereth Said I not unto thee that if thou wouldest believe thou shouldest see the glory of God Joh. 11. 40. Let us give glory to God by believing his word and we shall have real and experimental manifestations of his glory for our good and comfort But alas our hearts are sadly prejudiced against the Means and Instruments by which we might expect that Christ should cure and heal us Were not the hearts of John's Disciples leavened with carnal emulation and prejudices against Christ himself They would not own him to be the Messias nor believe their Master's Testimony concerning him insomuch that the Lord saw it necessary that John should decrease and be abased that Christ might encrease and be exalted and therefore suffered Herod to shut up John in Prison and keep him in durance about twelve moneths and at length to cut off his head that so these fondlings might be weaned from their Nurse and when John was dead his Disciples resort to Jesus acquaint him with the calamity that befell them and were perfectly reconciled to him passing into his School and becoming his Disciples Mat. 14. 12. But alas the Times are difficult and perillous the Wind is stormy and the Sea tempestuous the Vessel heaves and sets and tumbles up and down in the rough and boistâ—rous waters and is in danger to be swallowed up Well remember that the Lord sitteth upon the flood yea the Lord sitteth King for ever Psal 29. 10. His way is in the sea and his path in the great waters and his footsteps are not known Psal 77. 19. He stilleth the noise of the seas the noise of their waves and the tumult of the people Psal 65. 7. He saith to the raging Sea Peace be still and the wind ceaseth and there is a great calm Mark 4. 39. Yea he can enable his people to tread and walk upon the waters To sail and swim in the waters is an easie matter but to walk upon the waters as upon a pavement is an act of wonder Peter at Christ's call came down out of the ship 〈◊〉 walked on the water to go to Jesus Matth. 14. 29. and as long as his Faith held it upheld him from sinking when his Faith failed his body sunk but he cried to the Lord and he stretched forth his hand and caught him and said unto him O thou of little faith wherefore didst thou doubt But what shall we do for bread The encrease of the field and the labour of the Husbandman fails Hear Christ's answer to his Disciples when they were troubled because there was but one Loaf in the ship O ye of little faith why reason ye because you have no bread perceive ye not yet neither understand have ye your heart yet hardened having eyes see ye not and having ears hear ye not and do ye not remember Mark 8. 17 18. Mat. 16. 8 9. Those which have had large and plentiful experience of the grace and power of Christ in providing for their outward Sustenance and relieving of their Necessities when ordinary and usual Means have failed are worthy to be severely reprehended if afterward they grow anxiously careful and solicitous because of the defect of outward supplies In the whole Evangelicall History I finde not that ever the Lord Jesus did so sharply rebuke his Disciples for any thing as for that fit and pang of Worldly care and solicitude about Bread Attend we our Errand upon which Christ sent us into the Wilderness and he will provide Bread for us Matth. 6. 33. Seek ye first the Kingdome of God and his Righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you But we have many Adversaries and they have their subtile Machinations and Contrivances and how soon we may be surprized we know not Our diligent Attention to the Ministry of the Gospel is a special means to check and restrain the rage and fury of Adversaries The people's assiduity in attendance upon Christ's Ministry was the great obstacle that hindred the execution of the bloody Counsels of the Pharisees Luk. 19. 47 48. He taught daily in the Temple but the chief Priests and the Scribes and the chief of the people sought to destroy him and could not finde what they might do for all the people were very attentive to hear him If the people cleave to the Lord to his Prophets and to his Ordinances it will strike such a fear into the hearts of enemies that they will be at their wits ends and not know what to do However In this way we have the promise of divine Protection and Preservation Revel 3. 10. Because thou hast kept the word of my Patience I also will keep thee from the hour of Temptation which shall come upon all the world to try them that dwell upon the earth Let us with Mary choose this for our Portion To sit at Christ's feet and hear his word and whosoever complain against us the Lord Jesus will plead for us as he did for her and say They have chosen that good part which shall not be taken away from them Luk. 10. 42. AMEN FINIS Pag. 14. line 28. for ground reade grand