Selected quad for the lemma: heart_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
heart_n	word_n	work_n	worse_a	61	3	8.4777	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A15575	Abels offering. Or The earely, and most accepted sacrifice of a Christian Shewing how soone every soule is bounde to begin, & betake himself, not only to the true, but also to the timely service of God. A sermon preached at Hamburg in November 1617. and now published at the instant entreaty of a godly Christian. By Iohn Wing (then) pastor to the English church, there.	Wing, John, of Flushing, Zealand.	1621 (1621)	STC 25842; ESTC S120118	48,552	80

would vse God Admitt a manns beast like Balams asse could speake if he should say to his master as these doe to the almighty While I am yonge and strong I must follow my pleasure you must give me leave till my olde dayes and then I wil be yours to command and give my self wholy to your service What would the owner answer thinke you would he yeeld to his beast thinke well of the motion and take him home to house and make much of him when he were aged and diseased and both vnfitt and vnable to doe busines surely noe if he could not be broken and brought to worke before he should be beaten out now though he did offer himself And must God take that from vs which we will not endure from beasts the last the worst the dregs and reffuse of our dayes must they fall to his share the only vnfit time for any thing must that be his only time and all he shall have at our hands Can we hope of acceptation and entertaynement in heaven then when men refuse and the world refuse's our service Wofull men who hath bewitched you that you should not beleeue the truth Even Satan who because he would have you wholy his owne doth therefore witholde you from being Gods till you be vnable to honour him and it be impossible he should receive you it is he that doth abuse you herin he knowe's it is with men in respect of God as with beasts in respect of men in their aged dayes they are more fit for slaughter then for service so olde men who have deferred their duty are now more like to be adjudged of God for neglecting it in time past then accepted for time to come What doth not every thing weare grow worse with age all olde things are accounted litle worth olde cloathes to put on olde houses to dwell in the same we might say of all other things in their kinde no man care's for or regared's any such But this is wonderfull that men who see that the fruit of our sin in other creatures make's them vnserviceable to vs yee see not sin it selfe abiding and encreasing in vs for soe long time should make vs soe to God Time vse age doth corrupt all other things to vs but sin the only venyme and poyson of all things make's men by this reckoning most fit for God for the only time they chuse for him is when sin hath had his greatest sway all their lives before as if the corruption of our nature and life had noe power at all to enfeeble or vnfit vs for our God Is not sin our spirituall sicknes and the only desperate disease of our whole man hath it not a corroding quality to eate quite through all the parts of our bodyes all the powers of our soules to pollute infect and annoy vs in all respects and who I pray you would entertayne an aged diseased and infected man into his house as more fit for his turne now then in his former times when he was free from these contagious maladies thinke by your owne reason what hart the Lord of heaven can have to take in these late commers being in farre worse case to serve him then the most disabled man may be to attend a Prince Now then if we see reason to conceive as we cannot but doe if the Lord enlighten our eyes that our wilfull and wofull deferring of our duty till our olde dayes doth deprive vs of harts to goe vnfaynedly to God and debarre him from having a hart graciously to accept of vs then this plea is pernicious to vs and we now we know it most jmpious in vrging it as we have done But let vs come to the fourth last plea for this proroguation of piety Plea 4 4. It is pleaded that there is mercy with God at any time even at the last cast as the theife on the crosse did well finde and soe shall we we hope why should we not even at our last breath This pretence is put vpon vs daily vpon all occasions we heare of it at all times it is layd in our dish to bolster vp rebellion against God and to barre repentance vnto life Noe word of God soe much abused no worke of God more This president of the Lords extraordinary mercy is made the ordinary packhorse to carry all mens jmpiety and seing he was pleased to be soe gracious to one he shall fare the worse with many for millious of men doe builde their gracelessues vpon this grace of his But because we finde by pitifull experience that this holy worde and this holy worke of God both being right worthy to be thought vpon with all the admiration and honor of our harts is become the commō hackney wheron every hell-hounde rides poast to his owne perdition and as he goe's kicks and winces at Gods long suffring and loving kindnes I will therefore endeavour the vttermost that I am albe to see if some may yet be recalled that are gone farre and others may be stayed that are comming after and some preuented that are setting out to run this reprobate race Vndoubtedly did men deliberate at all or could any wise consideration enter into their soule 's they could not thus plead they would not produce this rare and matchlesse example of favour and grace to support their owne vngodly prophanes jmpiety Yea and to adde another evill to all the rest in the very vse and vrging of it to wit to peruert and abuse the sacred word of God and to abase and prostitute this glorious worke of his either of which whosoever doth he doeth it to his owne destruction he destroye's himself in the very deede 2. Tet. 3.16 2. Cor. 4. 3.4 if the apostle say true in one place and in another too where he tell 's vs that if the Gospell be hid and soe it is to them that can see to doe nothing with it but to abuse it it is hid to them that are lost who are hud winckt by the divell that they discerne not the true sence vse of the same but vrge it argue from it to such ends as God doth abhorre that now his word must wounde himself and nothing shall be made such an occasion of his dishonour as that which he once did to renowne himselfe and the glory of his goodnes The Evils of it and favour for ever And how doe we jmagine the Lord will take it that his owne acts should be thus mistaken as to be made weapons against his owne majesty which he ordayned to destroy our jmpiety Doubtlesse that theife that malefactor never did halfe the robbery or any villany comparable to that which these men doe who thus abuse his example to wrong the Lord and their owne soules and the soules of others soe vnspeakeably as they doe And that they may see and vnderstand as they shall if the Lord have a purpose to save them we will crave your patience and

Now they that have refused to come at his call in their younge yeares may feare whether they shal be called in their olde dayes and neglecting grace so long how can they hope to have it at such short warning as a litle before death or as the most of them say at the last gaspe and without these they cannot come If the word whensoever or at what time soever c. Were in the text I hope it must be vnderstood of Gods time not of ours it must be one of his whens not of ours we must not be chusers to tye him to our time noe he is our commander and may binde vs to his Note now all whensoevers or what times soever are not the times that he calleth to repentance for besides what we sayd before that they cannot hope of any time to be called who have refused the time wherin they were called we finde in the parable that after the eleaventh houre God sent not out to call any it being a time too late to begin too short to ende any busines of his shewing that our last houre is noe time for vs to goe to God or for God to regard vs. The same is the sence of the latter which Christ saith soe that God is bound to vs in kindnes when we have performed our part of obedience Doe your duty you shall finde mercy Note Doe not make such wylde and vnlimmited propositions vnderstand what God saith with all reverence wisdome and sobriety know that every word of his flowe's from infinite and vnsearcheable wisdome and therefore must be conceived warily as doctrine of piety not of liberty Beware of bynding God and looseing thy felf least for soe doing he bynde thee hand and feete and cast thee into vtter darknes doe not once dare to thinke that he that is only wise could ever be soe vnwise as to reveale or write any one word that might j mbase himself and give vs any occasion to abuse him as in thus disputing from these propositions we doe Nay we are bound and he is free it was his free grace to make any such promises of grace or glory to vs vpon any tearmes seing we brake with him and rebelled against him at the first he might have chosen whether ever he would have given vs one good word or noe now seing he hath let that be acknowledged as his love and let vs confesse our selves bound to every tittle of his truth that doth or may concerne vs and give our best obedience we can to the same with joy greiving allwayes that we can give no better Be it farre from vs thus to captivate the Lord soe much as in one thought it is abhominable it is for malefactors such as we are to be bounde not for him who is God almighty and to be blessed for ever And be it as farre from vs to free our selves but allwayes to confesse our subjection to the Lord with all humility yea to accomt it our best liberty to be bounde to him whose law is absolute liberty The service of Satan is the basest bondage that can be and to be by him witholden from God as we are till the last of our lives is absolute slavery and that whereby he meane's indeede what soever he pretend's to delude vs to pull vs into his owne chaynes to be bound vp with himself for ever for refusing to come vnder Gods yoake when he did call vs. Thus we see in these few steps how farre from heaven how neere to hell these men goe that make account to make but one leape from earth to heaven and that at last cast too if we should follow them further in such other most blasphemous and cursed consequences as would as well flow from this example as they aledge it as any of those we have noted refuted we might goe with them to hell gates and see them shut in to the rest of their fellowes who have lived and dyed in the abuse of this word and worke of God because their harts lives were shut against God they would not open to him when he knockt seasonably to their salvation but depended vpon the mercy shewed to this theife without any consideration of these other things that are thervnto appertayning noe the divell will not have them once dreame Either of the extraordinary occasiō of his conversion which was to expresse the power honor of Christs diety even now in the time of his greatest abasemēt Or of the extraordinary meanes of his conversion which was Christ himself Or of the extraordinary manner of his conversion which was in a small time on the gallowes or gibbett or crosse call it as you will Or of the extraordinary manifestation of his cōversion by the honour he gave to Christ the shame he tooke to himself before all Christes enemyes and his owne that effectuall prayer of faith whereto he had soe sweete an answer These things and the like shall not once enter into the jmaginations of these men they only remember he found mercy without any further thought of any of the aforesayd particulers that respected either what Christ did or why or what he did no Satan hyde's these matters from them least they should seing soe many words and deedes too went to this bargaine bethinke themselves better of it and not rest in such a slight conceit of the matter as they have done This president the divell make's his pretended pick-locke to open heaven to all these that he can thus delude but it proves intruth his pitfall by which millious of men tumble into hell in that last moment of time wherein all their life before they made full account to goe to heaven soe before they are a ware the bottomelesse pit hath swallowed them vp there they lye howling in endles easelesse misery who thought verily to have bene with this theife in glory Noe noe his conveyance was every way and in all respects extraordinary his passage is jmpossible for ought we know to any other especially for those who would goe the same way and yet regard not at all the way he went Thus we have waded through some few of those many things which are ordinarily alledged to hinder the happy successe of this sacred truth of God in mens harts and their happines by the obedience and practise of it We will now goe no further in this way the further we passe the fowler it will appeare and our hope is that such as are not gone too farre but are yet within call may be recalled by this voyce of God which hath tolde them the danger of every step they have gone as yet the damnation that they will run into if they still goe on returne not in due time to save themselves from the wrath to come which is reserved for all such as resist Gods revealed will and labour to defend their protraction of duty and their practise of jmpiety by such plea's and pretences