Selected quad for the lemma: judgement_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
judgement_n	action_n	bring_v	law_n	1,527	5	4.5368	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A67572	A sermon preached before the peers, in the abby-church at Westminster October 10, MDCLXVI / by Seth Lord Bishop of Exon.	Ward, Seth, 1617-1689.	1666 (1666)	Wing W828; ESTC R10647	21,004	34

call it betimes to thy remembrance Wouldst thou drive off thy thoughts of it to the time of sickness to the hour of death and rudely throw thy self upon it But then try and examine all these together contemplate a little upon the mixtures and combinations of them these will afford us many millions of millions of wayes farr exceeding the varieties of the corporeal nature which proceed from the mixture of fewer elements so many as will utterly confound our thoughts to number Who can reckon up the wayes of the hearts of the children of Men Who can understand his errors And now that he that hath the World to uphold the Planets and Stars to guide the course of nature to maintain should keep a Register of our impertinencies and bring to Judgment all the wayes of Men the traces of a Ship in the Sea of a Serpent upon a Rock Who hath believed our report we are apt to think it cannot be Surely he sees not these things Tush he cares not for them This is indeed the last resort of the treacherous hearts of men the grand imposture which resolves into a species of Atheism and Infidelity O but then if I shall use the language of the Scriptures I must call thee fool and beast to doubt of that which is plain and evident to disbelieve that which may be known This Article concerning the Judgment to come is not a problem of Philosophy to be disputed this way and that way with equal probability neither is it only an Article of faith but it is a principle of natural Theology the Scripture speaks of it under terms of greater evidence St. Paul reasoned with Felix he disputed with the Philosophers concerning it he speaks of the terror of Judgment under terms of certainty and of a kind of Demonstrative evidence Knowing the terror of the Law c. and here in the Text it is not said Think or believe But know that for all these things God will bring thee to Judgment He is a fool that hath said in his heart there is no God and he that thinks he hath no understanding may well be compared to the beasts that perish and so sure as there is a God and that man hath an understanding soul so surely it may be known That for all these things c. For if there be a God he must be infinitely just and if so he must render to every one according to their actions and if not here then hereafter and if so he must bring them to Judgment But he doth it not here The wayes of Providence seem to be promiscuous there is a wicked man to whom it happens according to the way of the righteous and a righteous man to whom it happens according to the way of the wicked Dives receives pleasure Lazarus pain therefore so sure as there is a God there will be a Judgment Again If man have an understanding soul he must have freedom in his actions and if so he deserves either good or evil and if there be deserts there must be rewards and if there be rewards there must be a Judgment So then so sure as thou art an understanding creature so sure there is a Judgment to come Once more Reward is answerable to desert and desert is only in what is free and what is free in man is the ways of his heart wherefore they are to be brought to Judgment and if any then all for no reason can be fancied why some should be brought to Judgment and others not Wherefore if it be sure that God is in Heaven and that Man hath an understanding soul then it is also sure that for all these things God will bring thee to Judgment that God shall bring to judgment every secret thing And now how sure and evident are these things more sure and more plain if we will attend than any other truths in the world for there is not any known truth which doth not evict the truth of these things We know a truth because we plainly and evidently understand the composition or division of the notions in a Proposition or the Deduction of a Proposition from some others therefore if we know any truth we presuppose that we have souls which understand the notions of things and if souls which understand these notions then to be sure they are not bodies no combination os fire and air and earth and water no disposition of insensible atomes can cause the subject to apprehend and judge to reason and discourse and if they be no bodies then they are not subject to corruption It is evident therefore that our souls are understanding and also immortal deserving and capable of future Judgment And as evident it is also that there is a soveraign Power a God that governs and will judge the Earth This is not a Rhetorical undertaking but a just and measured truth there is not any thing in the world from whence these two may not be plainly and evidently evicted viz. a Godhead from the Creature and thine own Immortality from the discovery of a Godhead The world which thou seest had it a beginning or had it not if it had a beginning he is thy God that made it if it had no beginning then there are past as many myriads of years as minutes of time which is infinitely more absurd to grant than tosay thou hast as many hands as fingers as many wholes as parts If then at any time we find our selves to doubt of these things it is not because we are the beaux esprits or forts sprits our doubting proceeds from dulness and the want of that strong reason to which we do pretend the things are certain in themselves and evident He is not farr from any one of us in whom we live and move and have our being and the Light of Nature discovered our Immortality not only to Philosophers but even to the Heathen Poets to him that sung to us that We are also his off-spring So that now thy pretences are all taken off and every imposture of the heart discovered Return then once again into thy bosome and take account of thy apprehensions The day of the Lord is coming and stealing upon thee as a theif in the night the day of Judgment the great and terrible day A day of anguish and of gloominess a day of a whirlwind and a tempest a day of anguish and tribulation Where wilt thou hide thy self O that 's impossible Whether shall we goe then from his presence shall we call to the Mountains to fall upon us How wilt thou appear O that 's intollerable for our God is a consuming fire What wilt thou do when the day of Judgment comes and this may be the hour this minute thou mayst be smitten and hurried hence to Judgment Thousands have fallen besides us and Ten Thousands at our right hand and why may not we be next The time of our particular Judgment cannot be farr away and why may we

should I endeavour that which I could not have performed Why should I trouble my self with vain attempts and spend my strength about that which I never could accomplish neither if I be righteous is he the better nor if I be wicked is he the worse our goodness extends not to him if thou sinnest what dost thou against him if thou be righteous what receiveth he at thine hand Is this then the evasion I need not stand to unfold the disingenuity the stupor and madness of this evasion However though these things shall be urged upon us they are not all these offer themselves in the consideration of the person of the Judge but are not all the matter of thy Judgment For Thou shall be brought to Judgment for these things there is the matter ofthy Judgment For all these things there is the extent Because this latter adds only a Modallity to the former and I desire not to be over tedious we will put these two together And now we are descended from those lesse familiar Considerations to which we were forced to strein our understandings in the contemplation of our Judge into the compass of our own sphere to the survey of our own operations we are come from the incomprehensible ways of God to the ways of our own hearts Walk in the ways of thy heart c. and but know c. In the judgment of this life men are tryed by the works of their hands or the words of their mouths for theft or murder for slander or Treason men may be brought to Judgment but thought is free he has lived well that has carried his crimes close the crafty Polititian and the concealed Hipocrite escape There the case is quite contrary the Judgment takes in primarily the waies of the heart and the words and actions as they proceed from them Wherefore let us withdraw a space into our selves and endeavour to mete out the extent of that Proposition For all the wayes of the hearts of men God will bring them to Judgment How would it trouble us to recount and bring to memory every thought but of one only day and how many disorders and irregularities should we find in such a reflection How do our thoughts flote upon our brains and we know neither whence they come nor what becomes of them when they are broken in upon our minds we cannot hold them and when they are gone from us as it was with Nebuchadnezzar's dream it is not in our power to recover them How many roving fancies present themselves unto us in a moment and how many sudden and imperfect Complacencies and distasts are raised by them Leave but thy self unbound unfixed by hearing or reading or business c. for an hour and then tell me what suppositions and consequences and resolutions thou hast made And how thou hast felt thy self to strein upon the borders of Lust or Envy of Pride or Anger of Discontent or Melancholy O that you would but reflect a little upon your souls and consider how many wandering thoughts have broken in upon your minds since I began to speak of this important Subject You might save me the labour of further speaking and raise your selves to that which I endeavour I fear you might find among your sacred thoughts a mixture of others very unsuitable your envious your amibitious your covetous your idle thoughts All these are the matter of our future Judgment and however they slightly pass us here they are noted in the Book of God and when that Book shall be opened they will be charged on our account Thou tellest my wanderings saith the Psalmist Are not these things noted in thy Book I have already said enough to take up the consideration of the remainer of our time But our hearts being too heavy and our ears too dull of hearing to be moved with generals I must crave leave that I may be permitted to run over the heads of some particulars Thou must give an account of all things committed to thee Inward or Outward Natural or Spiritual thy senses and thy understanding thine Outward and thine Inward faculties If thou hast been at a constant covenant with thine eyes and hast never suffered them to rove in loose disorders If thou hast bowed thine ears to discipline and never let them open to vain entertainments If thy tast hath been moderated by the necessities of nature and the lawes of temperance and never let loose according to the lust of Riot If thy hands have been wholly imployed in the works of God and never been instruments to the machinations of the Devil If thy speech have never uttered any idle words but ever administred grace to the hearers If thy feet have only traced the wayes of God and never stood in the way of sinners What hath been the exercise of thine inward faculties thine Apprehensions and thine Appetite If thy fancy hath ever been imployed in administring help to thine understanding and never afforded incentives to thy vile affections If thy memory have been taken up with the things which God hath done and Christ hath suffered for thee and hath afforded no place to Ribaldry and vanity How thou hast ordered thine Anger and Concupiscence What have been the object measure and end and circumstances love hatred desire aversion delight sadness hope despair fear boldness anger envie jealousie and compassion How thou hast managed thine understanding and improved thy contemplative and active principles If thou hast advanced in the discovery of eternal verities or herded with the beasts that perish If thou hast cherish'd the principles of thy Synteresis and the dictates and reflections of thy conscience and never rebelled against them How thou hast determined the freedom of thy Will in thy volition and intention thine election and consent fruition and use when Good and Evill Life and Death have been set before thee How thou hast behaved thy self in Spirituals in gifts and graces If thou hast accepted that which hath been offered and improved what thou hast accepted or hid it in a Napkin In outward things how thou hast acquired and how thou hast managed thine Estate How thou hast behaved thy self in thy Relations publick and private in thy charge and in thy duty But the time would fail me to reckon up a considerable part of the exercises and objects of the wayes of the hearts of Men And now all these and many more are but the simple elements and common heads of our account Consider then O Negligent and incogitant soul if thou couldst reckon up the wayes of thy heart in any one of these kinds if thou couldst call to mind but every idle word whereof thou must give an account or thy motions upon every thing that thou hast heard and remember in any one of these elements what thou hast done or else omitted Then tell me how wouldst thou find thy self possessed and how wouldst thou be disposed to Judgment Wouldst thou deem it needless or idle to