Selected quad for the lemma: love_n
Text snippets containing the quad
|
ID |
Title |
Author |
Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) |
STC |
Words |
Pages |
|
A67756
|
The hearts-index, or, Self-knowledg [sic] together with I. the wonderful change that the word and spirit do work upon the heart when a sinner is converted II. the excellency of grace above nature III. the safety and calm of such as have sued out their pardon in Christ / by R. Younge ...
|
Younge, Richard.
|
1667
(1667)
|
Wing Y160; ESTC R16696
|
27,579
|
32
|
sufficiently to express what impotent wretches we are when we are not sustained So that we have no merit but the mercy of God to save us nothing but the blood of Christ and his mediation to cleanse and Redeem us nothing but his obedience to inrich us As for our good works we are altogether beholding to God for them not God to us nor we to our selves because they are only his works in us Whatsoever thou art thou owest to him that made thee whatever thou hast thou owest to him that Redeemed thee Therefore if we do any thing amiss let us accuse our selves if any thing well let us give all the praise to God And indeed this is the test of a true or false Religion that which teacheth us to exalt God most and most to depress our selves is the true that which doth most prank up our selves and detract from God is the false as Bonaventure well notes Sect. 23. Now to wind up with a Word of Exhortation If thou beest convinced and resolvest upon a new course let thy resolution be peremptory and constant and take heed you harden not again as Pharaoh the Philistines the Young man in the Gospel Pilate and Judas did resemble not the Iron which is no longer soft than it is in the Fire for that good saith Gregory will do us no good which is not made good by perseverance If with these premonitions the Spirit hath vouchsafed to stir up in thine heart any good motions and holy purposes to obey God in letting thy sins go Quench not grieve not the spirit 1 Thes. 5.19 Return not with the Dog to thy vomit least thy latter end prove seven-fold worse than thy beginning Mat. 12.43 45. Oh it is a fearful thing to receive tho grace of God in vain and a desperate thing being warned of a Rock wilfully to cast our selves upon it Neither let Satan perswade you to defer your repentance no not an hour lest your Resolution proves as a false conception which never comes to bearing Besides death may be sudden even the least of a thousand things can kill you and give you no leisure to be sick Thirdly If thou wilt be safe from evil works avoid the occasions have no fellowship with the workers of iniquity neither fear their scoffes for this be sure of If your person and wayes please God the world will be displeased with both If God be your friend men will be your enemies if they exercise their malice it is where he shews mercy But take heed of losing Gods favour to keep theirs Beda tells of a Great man that was admonished by his friends in his sickness to repent who answered He would not yet for that if he should recover his friends and companions would laugh at him but growing sicker and sicker they again prest him but then his answer was That it was now too late for I am judged and condemned already A man cannot be a Nathanael in whose heart there is no guile but the World counts him a fool But Christ sayes Verily except ye be converted and become as little Children ye shall not enter into the Kingdome of Heaven Matth. 18.3 Again Satan and your deceitful heart will suggest unto you that a Religious life is a dampish and melancholy life but holy David will tell you That light is sown to the Righteous and joy to the upright Psal. 97.11 Isa. 65.14 And experience tells us that Earthly and Bodily joyes are but the body or rather the dregs of that joy which Gods people feel and are ravished with As Oh the calm and quietness of a good Conscience the assurance of the pardon of sin and joy in the Holy Ghost the honesty of a virtuous and holy life how sweet they are Yea even Plato an Heathen could say That if Wisdome and Virtue could but represent it self to the Eyes it would set the heart on fire with the love of it And the like of a sinners sadness as hear what Seneca sayes If there were no God to punish him no Devil to torment him no Hell to burn him no man to see him yet would he not sin for the ugliness and filthiness of sin and the guilt and sadness of his Conscience But Experience is the best informer wherefore take the counsel of holy David Psalm 34.8 O taste and see that the Lord is good blessed is the man that trusteth in him To which accordeth that of holy Bernard Good art thou O Lord to the soul that seeks thee what art thou then to the soul that findes thee As I may appeal to any mans Conscience that hath been softned with the Unction of Grace and truly tasted of the powers of the World to come to him that hath the love of God shed abroad in his heart by the Holy Ghost whether his whole life be not a perpetual Hallelujah in comparison of his natural condition Whence they are able to slight all such objections as he did You tell me that scrupling of small matters is but stumbling at straws that they be but trifles when I know your tongue can tell nothing but truth I will believe you Fifthly Beg of God that he will give you a new heart and when the heart is changed all the members will follow after it as the rest of the creatures after the Sun when it ariseth But without a work upon the heart wrought by the spirit of God it will follow its own inclination to that which it affecteth whatsoever the judgment shall say to the contrary That must be first reformed which was first deformed It is idle and to no purpose to purge the chaanel when the fountain is corrupt Whence the Apostle orderly bids us first Be renewed in the Spirit of our mindes and then Let him that stole steal no more Ephes. 4.23 24. Yea it is Gods own counsel to the men of Jerusalem Jer. 4. Wash thy heart from wickedness that thou mayest be saved verse 14. It is most ridiculous to apply Remedies to the outward parts when the distemper lies in the stomack To what purpose is it to crop off the top of weeds or top off the boughes of the Tree when the Root and Stalk remain in the Earth As cut off the sprig of a Tree it growes still a Bough an Arm still it growes lop off the top yea saw it in the midst yet it will grow again stock it up by the roots then and not till then it will grow no more Whence it is that God saith Give me thine heart Prov. 23.26 Great Cities once expunged the dorps and villages will soon come in of themselves the heart is the treasury and storehouse of wickedness Mat. 12.34 such as the heart is such are the actions of the body which proceed from it Mat. 12.35 Therefore as Christ saith Make clean within and all will be clean otherwise not Mat. 23.26 therefore Davids prayer is Create in me a new heart O Lord and renew a right spirit within me Ps. 51.10 Do thou the like importune him for grace that you may firmly resolve speedily begin and continually persevere in doing and suffering his holy will desire him to inform and reform you so that you may neither mis-believe nor mis-live to change and purifie your nature subdue your reason rectifie your judgment reform and strengthen your will renew your affections and beat down in you whatsoever stands in opposition to the Scepter of Jesus Christ. Sixthly and lastly If you receive any power against your former corruptions forget not to be thankeful yea study all possible thankfulness for that you and I are not at this present frying in Hell flames never to be freed that we have the offer of Grace here and Glory hereafter it is his unspeakable goodness And there is nothing more pleasing to God nor profitatable to us both for the procuring of the good we want or continuing the good we have than thankfulness He will sow there and there onely plenty of his blessings where he is sure to reap plenty of thanks and service But who will sow those barren sands where they are sure not onely to be without all hope of a good harvest but are sure to lose both their seed and labour Consider what hath been said and the Lord give you understanding in all things And so much for the Second Part. An Appendix follows wherein you may have instances of all sorts how sin besots Men. FINIS London Printed by J. Hayes and are to be sold by Mrs. Crips in Popes-head-Alley with nine and Thirty other Pieces composed by the same Authour 1663.
a Minister especially if a godly and zealous one that spake home to my conscience and told me of my sins much more if he would not admit me to the Lords Table without trial and examination yea then like Ahab to Eliah I became his enemy and hated him ever after would impeach his credit and detain from him his dues And are not all these strong evidences that I loved and served God and my Redeemer as I ought But to make it more manifest what a rare Christian I was I thought my self a Believer yea I could boast of a strong Faith when yet I fell short of the very Devils in believing for they believe the threats and judgments contained in the Word and tremble thereat James 2.19 Whereas I thought them but Scare-crows to fright the simple withal yea I held Hell it self but a fancy not worth the fearing Because I was not notoriously wicked but had a form of godliness was civil c I was able to delude my own soul and put off all reproofs and threatnings by comparing my self with those that I presumed were worse than my self as Drunkards Adulterers Blasphemers Oppressors shedders of blood and the like counting none wicked but such Yea looking upon these I admired my own holiness and thought my moral honesty would be sufficient to save me Nor did I know wherein I had offended And whereas the Law is spiritual and binds the heart from affecting no less than the hand from acting I was so blind and ignorant that I thought the Commandment was not broken if the outward gross sin be forborn Whence these were my thoughts I never brake the first Commandment of having many gods for I was no Papist nor Idolater nor the second for I worshipped God aright Nor the third for I had been no common swearer only a few petty oaths Nor the fourth for I had every Sabbath gone duly to Church Nor the fifth for I ever honoured my parents have been a loyal subject Nor the sixth seventh eighth ninth or tenth for I never committed murder or adultery never stole ought never bare false witness nor could I call to mind that I had at any time coveted my neighbours wife servant estate c. And nothing more common with me than to brag of a good heart and meaning of the strength of my faith and hope of my just and upright dealing c. And because I abstained from notorious sins I thought my self an excellent Christian if God was not beholding to me for not wounding his Name with Oaths for not drinking playing out his sabbaths for not railing on his ministers for not oppressing persecuting his poor members c. Sect. 13. And yet had it been so as I imagined Admit I had never offended in the least all my life either in thought word or deed yet this were but one half of what I owe to God this were but to observe the negative part of his law still the affirmative part thereof I had been so far from performing that I had not so much as thought of it And to be just in the sight of God and graciously accepted of him these two things are required the satisfactory part to escape hell and the meritorious part to get heaven And the true method of grace is Cease to do evil learn to do well Isa. 1.16 17. The Fig tree was cursed not for bearing evil fruit but because it bare no good The evil servant was not bound hand and foot and cast into prison for wasting his masters goods but for not gaining with them And those reprobates at the last day shall be bid depart into everlasting fire not for wronging or robbing of any but for not giving for not comforting Christs poor members Mat. 25. So that my case was most desperate For though with that Pharisee Luk. 18.11 I was apt to thank God and brag that I was just and paid every man his due yet I never thought of being holy and of paying God his dues as his due of believing or repenting of new obedience his due of praying hearing conferring meditating on his word and works sanctifying his sabbaths and instructing my children servants teaching them to fear the Lord. His due of love fear thankfulness zeal for his glory charity and mercy to Christs poor Members and the like I should have serv'd God in spirit according to Christs Gospel as all that are wise hearted indeavour go live believe hear and invocate and hope and fear and love and worship God in such manner as his word prescribes I should have been effectually called and become a new creature by regeneration being begotten and born anew by the immortal seed of the word I should have found an apparent change wrought in my judgment affections and actions to what they were formerly The Old man should have changed with the New-man Worldly wisdom with Heavenly wisdom carnal love with spiritual love servile fear for Christian and Filial fear idle thoughts for holy thoughts vain words for holy and wholsom words fleshly works for works of righteousness even hating what I formerly loved and loving what I formerly hated But alas I have heard the Gospel day after day and year after year which is the strong arm of the Lord and the mighty power of God to salvation That is quick and powerful and sharper than any two Edged sword and yet stood it out and resisted instead of submitting to Christs call even refusing the free offer of Grace and Salvation I have heard the Word faithfully and powerfully preached for forty years yet remained in my natural condition unregenerate without which new birth there is no being saved as our Saviour affirms John 3.5 I had not trodden one step in the way to conversion for the first part of conversion is to love them that love God 1 John 3.10 11 14. I should daily have grown in grace and in the knowledg of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ but I was so far from growing in grace that I had not one spark of grace or holiness without which no man shall see the Lord Heb. 12.14 I was all for observing the second Table without respect to the first or all for outward conformity not at all for spiritual and inward holiness of the heart Sect. 14. Either what I did was not morally good for the matter or not well done for the manner nor to any right ends as out of duty and thankfulness to God and my Redeemer and out of love to my fellow members Without which the most glorious performances and the rarest vertues are but shining sins or beautiful abominations Gods glory was not my principal end nor to be saved my greatest care I was a good civil moral honest hypocrite or infidel but none of these graces grew in the garden of my heart I did not shine out as a light by a holy conversation to glorifie God and win others Now onely to refrain evil except