Selected quad for the lemma: heaven_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
heaven_n	hear_v	lord_n	speak_v	5,099	5	4.8266	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A85785	The magistrates pourtraiture drawn from the Word, and preached in a sermon at Stowe-Market in Suffolk, upon August, the 20. 1656. before the election of Parliament-men for the same county. / By William Gurnall, M.A. of Eman. Coll. now pastor of the Church of Christ in Lavenham. Suffolk.	Gurnall, William, 1617-1679.	1656 (1656)	Wing G2259; Thomason E889_6; ESTC R202321	24,684	43

THE MAGISTRATES Pourtraiture Drawn from the WORD AND Preached in a SERMON at Stowe-Market in Suffolk upon August the 20. 1656. before the Election of Parliament-men for the same County On Isaiah 1.26 the former part And I will restore thy Judges as at first and thy Counsellors as at the beginning By WILLIAM GVRNALL M. A. of Eman Coll. now Pastor of the Church of Christ in Lavenham Suffolk LONDON Printed for Ralph Smith at the Bible in Cornhil near the Royal Exchange 1656. THE MAGISTRATES Pourtraiture Drawn from the WORD ISAIAH 1.26 the former part And I will restore thy Judges as at first and by Counsellours as at the beginning IF we consider the great wickednesse of the people to whom this holy Prophet was sent we may wonder that God suffered so rare a Jewel to hang so long on such a disobedient care as theirs was that he lent his Prophet so long to a people that made him and his message no more welcome But again if we consider how long heaven indulged them this incomparable mercy and calculate the long race of his Prophetical course we have reason to wonder as much though he found them so bad that yet he left them no better Stones weare with long dropping but these relent not under sixty yeares preaching and more of this holy man for so long the line of his Ministery was stretcht they were wicked enough in Uzziah and Jothams reign when he first ascended the stage of Prophecie but by Manasses his time in which he died and that by a violent and bloody death as Story tells us being sawne asunder they were wicked to some tune It was now full water at Ierusalem yea the whole land becomes sea covered with idolatry oppression and the work of sin which might have been expected anywhere rather then among a people so divinely taught But weeds grow no where so rank as in fat soile we may know enough of this wretched people if we reade this chapter which like a true glasse will give us the feature of that people as it look't in the Prophets time and I wish with all my soul we could not see a cast of our own Nations countenance in their face First they were a people Sermon-proofe They had heard away their hearing eare and 't is a sad deafnesse and hardly cured which is got in hearing of Sermons how far they were gone in this we may guesse by the Prophets strange Apostrophe ver. 2. Hear O Heavens and give eare O earth for the Lord hath spoken I have nourished and brought up children and they have rebelled against me Take the words how you will they speak them a people past councel and instruction if by Heaven and Earth you will have the Continents of both meant then by speaking to these is intimated he had as good speak to the inanimate creatures as to them That Preacher surely thinks his people bad indeed who directs his speech to the seats they sit on and pillars they leane to Hear O ye seats and hearken O ye pillars If for the inhabitants Angels and men who dwell in these still he reproaches their obstinacy It shewes the Father can work little on his childe within doores when he comes into the open street and proclaims his rebellion to all the world Secondly as they were Sermon so Affliction-proof they were so mad on their lusts that rather then not have them they would swim through their own blood to them heavy judgements were on them but no physick wrought kindly on them God was weary of smiting but not they of finning therefore we finde him making his moan as a Physician who hath run through the whole Art of Physick to do his Patient good but findes him grow worse under his hand and therefore at last speaks of giving him over ver. 3. Why should ye be stricken any more the whole head is sick and the whole heart is faint If affliction would do you good you have had enough of that I have beat you till I have not left you one sound part from head to heele and yet you will run after your lusts while your blood runs after your heels Thirdly in a word they were impudent in their hypocrisie at the very same time that they acted all their abominations they kept up a gaudy Pageant of Religion they spared for no cost in the multitude of their sacrifices but appeared great Zelots in the Temple which the Prophet ver. 11. protests against as the worst part of all their wickednesse Indeed spiritual wickednesse carries in it the very spirits of wickednesse And all this is not charged upon some petty party and inconsiderable faction in the Nation which had not been so much but the inditement is laid against the whole Nation ver. 3. Israel doth not know ver. 4. Ah sinful Nation The whole head and heart were as sick of sin as they were of suffering 'T is sad when all the house are down together or those that are well not enough to look to the sick There were indeed some gracious ones in that degenerate age but so few that their Religion like a pinte of wine in a tunne of water could hardly be tasted amidst such a multitude of ungodly ones Now as it is in the diseases of the body when a general distemper hath invaded the whole as in a Feaver or the like there is commonly some one principal part whose disorder affects all the rest which a wise Physician bestows his chiefest skill to finde out as most conducing to the cure so here the sad distemper which the Jewish Nation lay under both in regard of sin and misery is observed by the Prophet in a great measure to have proceeded from one principal rank and order of men among them and that was their Rulers and Magistrates ver. 22 23. Thy silver is become drosse thy wine mixt with water thy Princes are rebellious Therefore the Lord levells his threatnings at their breast in an especial manner ver. 24. Therefore saith the Lord Ah I will ease me of mine adversaries That as they had the greatest hand in the sin so they should have the deepest draught in the judgement No sins lie heavier on Gods stomack and make him more heart-sick then theirs who stand in high and publick place of Rule and Government But lest the godly should be discouraged at the calamities denounced against them for they could not but know it would be a sad day with the whole Land when God should make such an overturning of the great ones in it the storme of Gods vengeance seldome falls so upon Princes and Rulers but that the people are taken in the showre and share with them in their sufferings To fortifie therefore the hearts of these few godly ones he opens his designe of mercy which he had towards them even in the captivity coming upon them ver. 25. I will turne my hand upon thee and purely purge away thy drosse and take away all thy Tinne