Selected quad for the lemma: heaven_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
heaven_n	great_a	see_v	son_n	5,173	5	5.0248	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A97070	Cordifragium, or, The sacrifice of a broken heart, open'd, offer'd, own'd, and honour'd. Presented in a sermon at St Pauls London, November 25. 1660. By Francis Walsall D.D. chaplain to his Majesty, and prebendary of St. Peters Westminster.	Walsall, Francis, d. 1661.	1661 (1661)	Wing W625; Thomason E1081_4; ESTC R203982	34,513	56

life it self slide from him with no more disturbance and with more comfort and contentment than Passengers in a Boat upon the Thames see the great City and the fair houses glide from them when their business is at Whitehall and Westminster the City and Court of the great King His soul is landed in Heaven already It was rarely spoken by that old Souldier of Henry the 4th of France who having received his deaths wound in one of his many battles when he was above 80. years old and his friends coming about him to condole and comfort him against the fear of death what saies he have I lived above fourscore years and do you think I do not know how to die a quarter of an hour he can die any day every day 2 Cor. 25. 31. that dies daily his heart will never be broken for leaving the world at his death whose heart hath bin broken in leaving the world in his life 3. I have nothing to do now but only to give you two words 1. To quicken you to get your hearts broken if they be not 2. To caution you that you be sure they are broken 1. That you would get your hearts broken if they be not and that for two short Reasons 1. Is from the Text that this is the only sacrifice that God will not despise this he ownes and loves above all others at least all others for and in this All sacrifices and services without this are but broken sacrifices broken services A sacrifice without a heart was a Prodigy and without a broken heart is a Profanation that which break●●● makes us Vulnus opem tulit our wounds blee●●●●am 2. A broken and contrite heart gives you a key into Gods presence-chamber you have a Patent for it under Gods hand and seal will you see the Charter Esay 57. 15. Thus saith the high and lofty one that inhabits eternity whose name is holy I dwell in the high and the holy place with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit to revive the pir it of the humble and to revive the spirit of the contrite ones Here is oyle of Gladnesse indeed but it is a broken vessel that must receive it a broken and humble heart 2. To caution as well as quicken you that you give not over the work till you be sure your hearts are broken I shall hint four Reasons 1. Because your hearts are deceitfull and apt to put a cheate upon you especially in this duty this irksome duty of searching your own hearts to be satisfied that they are really broken you had need call a Parliament a great Councel of all the facultys in the polity of man together for this scrutiny and be assured thou shalt find thy heart as full of tricks and juggles to keep thee off from calling this Councel as the Church of Rome put upon the Christian Princes of that age about calling that councel which proved the Councel of Tre●t It was a good time before his holiness would be preswaded the Church or Court of Rome needed reformation there was omnia benè Therefore a Councel would be as needlesse as physick to a sound body but at last to stopp the mouth of the loud clamours of the world a councel is yeilded to but the time and place kept them in many years debate to while out the time till they hoped their zeal might cool but at length called it was but what was the Issue of it why that councill that was designed for a scourge of the Church and Court of Rome proved a successful engine of its advnacement such is commonly the result of such great and tumultous assemblies as they are managed by parts and partyes So their ordinary product are the dictates of wit and power for the most part to the raising of the worst if not to the ruine of all as we have but too lately seene but to apply it to our purpose Thou wouldest faine bring thy heart to the test to try whether it be that broken and mortified humble thing it pretends to Never expect to find it willing to stand the triall What to be cut and cauterized to be prob'd and tented to run through the macerations and martrizations of a thorough examination It will never endure it when it comes to the push it will give thee the slip if thou doest not looke to it it will use all the petty arts imaginable to keep it self from gaging and garbling it will tell thee thy heart is a good heart if you can let it alone there is many a worse heart that passes for a better is any man but you so nice and scrupulous and so cruell to his own flesh which he should love and cherish as to rake and grable Eph 5. in his own heart and to seek that in it which thou wouldest be sorry to finde and if thou doest not finde it thou wilt be as sorry thou hast searched it come let it alone man thy heart is as good a heart as others are but suppose all this fine deluding Rhetorick will not doe thou seest a necessity of searching thy heart to the quick and art resolved to set upon the work see if the Devil and thine own heart have not some trick in lavender to divert thy most serious intentions with some plausible pretences or other as sicknesse business company Pol me occidistis amici is too often true in this case of breaking the heart from breaking the heart But to make short work with it as thou must doe if thou wilt make any work at all If God at last smite thee by his word or sword that thou beginst to reflect upon thy self and say sure I am not in the way to Heaven that streight and narrow way I am not so strict as I should be for all my heart flatters me thus And therefore nothing shall keepe me from searching Then look for the grandest cheat of all then have a care thy treacherous heart doe not make thee believe that every little qualm of conscience is a heart-breaking every sleight touch at a Sermon every heart-ach for any affliction thou fearest or feelest and when all is done have a care that thy heart does not out-wit thee at last and that that meanes which thou usest as the most proper expedient to break thy heart doe not harden it more O thou dost not know thine own heart man It is a cunning and a cosening piece of flesh you have a strange example of this if you need any in Hazael 2 Kin. 11. 12. 13. Elisha looked upon him stedfastly till he was ashamede and the man of God wept and Hazael said why weeps my Lord and he answered because I know the evils that thou shalt doe unto the Children of Israel And when he had told him all his cruelties he should be guilty of What says Hazael Is thy servant a dogg He would not believe his heart was so base and yet the man that was so much

ashamed that the Prophet should think so ill of him was not ashamed to be as ill as he thought and doe as bad as he said A man would have thought that that tincture of grace that dye of shame that ingenuous blush which the Prophets eye had cast upon him had been the life-bloud of his broken heart that leaped into his face to write his innocence in a dominicall character that seasonable sally of modesty a man would have thought had been vertues colours but for all this he was so far from a bleeding heart that he had a bloudy heart a deceitfull heart lead him aside he could not fathom the depth Esay 44. 20. of his own heart The heart of man is deceitfull above all things and desperately wicked who can know it Jer. 17. 9. The word which we read deceitfull is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from whence Jacob is derived that you know signifies supplanter and it has two very eminent senses in Scripture 1. It signifies crooked Es 40. 4. The crooked shall be made streight 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Your hearts are crooked hearts serpentine winding hearts the crooked serpent you know not where to have them The way to heaven is too narrow the gate to life too streight for such reeling riddling crooked pieces 2. It signifies treacherous Jos 8. 13. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Liers in wait Your hearts are treacherous hearts and lye in wait to deceive you your hearts are jugglers can cast a mist before you and make you think they are broken when they are utterly broke for want of breaking an ordinary legerdemaine and deceptio visus look to it O it is an unworthy thing for a man to be deceived but more to be deceived by himself by his own heart but most of all to be deceived by himself in so neere a concern as the breaking his own heart 2. Remember that God whose eye is in your heart and that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sees what course you take to break your hearts your hearts as false as they are cannot cheat him if you doe not pass a right judgment upon your hearts but burne them with a cold Iron pronounce them broken when they are not broken God will reverse your judgment repeal your sentence and break you because you are not broken 3. If you be deceived in this point of heart-breaking you will never thrive in the great work of Christianity if you judg not aright of your humiliation you will be mistaken in the whole work of your sanctification I was about to say of your salvation I will say of your satisfaction This is the fundamentall work of grace and it is in grace as it is in nature an error in the first concoction is not mended in the second 4. If you be deceived in this you are deceived for eternity the foolish virgins were so deceived and so eternally excluded I am ●ure that would be a great heart-breaking to you to see others in the Kingdome of Heaven and your selves thrust out And therfore be sure you use all the ways to break your hearts and be sure you use all the ways to be sure they are broken that they may be broken so as that you may goe in with the Bridegroome and not broken because you cannot goe in with the Bridegroome but see others goe in and your selves kept out Let us pray therfore to the heart-maker and to the heart-searcher who is the great heart-breaker that he would give us broken Spirits and contrite hearts that he would make them such Sacrifices as he will not despise Be it so Lord. Amen Amen FINIS

unworthinesse of any of Gods dealings with him his unworthinesse 1. Of any mercy from God 2. Of any relation to God 3. Of any Correction by God 1 He sees his unworthinesse of any Gods mercies to him Jacob breathes out the language of a broken heart Gen. 32. 10. I am less than the least of thy mercies q. d. I have done my best that is my worst to sin away thy mercies by sinning with and against thy mercies I have deserved that thou shouldest curse thy mercies and blast thy blessings to me or take them from me 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I have lessened my self from thy mercies and made my self unworthy of them I am less than the least of all thy mercies And yet thou art pleased to continue thy greatest to me thy mercy is my miracle that thou canst find in thy heart to doe any good to a thing that is so bad so base so wretched as I am Lord what is man that thou art mindfull of him Ps 8. 4. It is not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 wretched weake miserable man so the word signifies and I the most miserable of all men Lord what am I miserable sinfull I that thou shouldest yet looke upon me 2. He sees himself unworthy of any relation to God Lord sayes the broken heart I pretend indeed to be thy child and that thou art my father I say our father with them that understand it but Deut. 32. 5. Ge● 37 32 little but none deserves it less O I prophane that holy prayer of my Saviour I blaspheme that gratious name and blast that glorious Relation I thy son no no my sin is not the spot of thy children is this thy sons coate that is besmeared and spotted with uncleannesse rolled in bloud parti-colored with schimes sects errors heresie divisions anger malice slander c. The Spaniards that called themselves the sons of God when they baptized whole sholes of Indians in their own bloud had as just a title to thy sonship as I if I be thy son I am such a son as Absolom a rebellious child that run that sword atilt at his fathers brest in a horrid rebellion that came newlyreeking out of the bloud and bowells of his brother that tongue those hands I sin against man with I fight against God with If I be a son I am a Simeon and Levi of whom their father said after they had murdered the King and the people of Sichem ye Gen. 34. 30. have made me to stink among the inhabitants of the Land the name of God has been blasphemed through me therefore according to thine own Divinity John 8. 44. my father is the Devil for his workes only I have done no no I am not thy son I have sinned against heaven and before thee and am no more worthy to be called thy son Luk. 15. 18. 3. Nay Lord I am not only unworthy any mercy from thee or any relation to thee but even of any correction by thee as holy Job in the midst of his heart-breaking expostulates it with God Job 7. 17 18. What is man that thou shouldest magnify him and that thou shouldest set thine heart upon him And that thou shouldest visit him every morning and try him every moment I am worthy indeed of of punishment to destruction but not to correction Indignus sum quem vel percutias as he said what God sais to proud sinners Es 1. 6. Why should ye be stricken any more ye will revolt more and more That a broken heart sayes to himself why should the Lord take the paines to chasten me why should he loose a correction upon me I am neither worthy to be stroked nor to be struck neither Gods Jacobs hands his softer hands of mercy nor his Esaus hands his rougher hands of justice could doe any good upon me 5. He sighs over his own inability as well as unworthiness to draw near to God in any duty O saies the broken heart the time was I thought my self some body nay like St Paul an Almighty man that I could doe all things I thought Phil. 4. 13. I could have heard read prayed lived up to means and mercies lain at the foot of God in submission when I lay under his hand in affliction and in some measure have performed all the duties the Lord requires of me but now I feele my self fit for nothing but to sin against him I doe not live the life of faith and therefore I cannot breath the breath of prayer thus the Publican stood afarr off and would not so much as lift up his eyes to heaven as being unworthy Luk. 18. 13. to looke up to the throne of that great King whose Lawes he had so often broken even in his very addresses to God when his broken heart labouring and panting for the life of grace gasps after nothing more than to enjoy him in a close choise communion Luk. 5. 8. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so Job 7. 16. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 out of the sense of Gods Majesty and his misery he is ready to cry out with Peter depart from me for I am a sinfull man O Lord. When he thirst's after nothing more than that God would draw near to him in his drawing near to God yet the sense of his own vileness puts such a check upon his spirit that he is ready to say depart from me when he is most ardently desirous of his presence Lord I shall poison thee wound thee murder thee in thy most saving meanes and mercies I have such a venomed contagious soule therefore I must say though I hope thou wilt not doe so depart from me O Lord for I am a sinfull man 6. When he compares himself with others he bewails himself as worse than any nay worse Me tanquam signiferum peccatorum profiteor Clarius than the worst of sinners so said St Paul 1 Tim. 1. 15. Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners of whome I am chief I know that learned Grotius and some others of great name whose judgment I must beg pardon if I cannot close with in this will have this humble confession of the great Apostle to be nothing but an excess of modesty he knew say they there were ten thousand worse than he but in pure modesty makes himself worse than all but we must becare●ull we doe not make the Apostle to deliver lies he did not use to complement with God or the world and therefore doubtless the sense of his own vileness made him speake so of himself It is a true rule that a broken heart will be vile in its own eyes and as true it is that he that is highest in Gods eye is alwayes lowest in his own eye Ob. But how can this be made good that one of the greatest Saints should think himself one of the greatest sinners is Paul turnd Saul again Sol. It may be made good upon a fourfold acount 1. From the kind of his