Selected quad for the lemma: sense_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
sense_n	body_n	good_a	soul_n	3,364	5	5.2349	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A34544	Self-imployment in secret ... left under the hand-writing of that learned & reverend divine, Mr. John Corbet ...; with a prefatory epistle of Mr. John Howe.	Corbet, John, 1620-1680.; Howe, John, 1630-1705.	1681 (1681)	Wing C6265; ESTC R32518	22,650	98

Servant O Lord but Remember me and Spare me according to thy great Mercy in Christ Jesus the great Propitiation for Sin in whom I desire to be found and under the Covert of whose Wing I stand that I may be Saved from thy Wrath and injoy thy Peace and live in thy Presence where is fulness of Joy and Pleasures for evermore Feb. 22. 1678 9 GOd will never Damn in Hell any Soul that hath the habitual predominant Love of God though culpably Remiss and otherwise Sinful while he remaineth such yea Hell and such Love of God are inconsistent I Love the Holy Will of God with all my Heart and hate all Disconformity to it Nothing is more Grievous to me than to displease God and nothing is more Pleasant to me than to please him I strive after Christian perfection I labour to be unbottomed of Self to dye to Self-advancement to Self-gloriation and to all selfish joys and to live wholly in and to God and to have Self swallowed up in the Love of Him I labour in the work of Self-resignation that my Will may be confined to and included in the Will of God I strive after Patience in its perfect Work and do find a willingness to yield to Gods Will in my Chastisements I still Justify God and do not entertain an hard Thought of his Dealing with me but conclude that it is altogether Holy Just and Good and for the best I feel my Sin a greater burden to me than my Affliction I had rather have Health of Soul in a Body full of Pain than Health and Ease of Body with a Distempered Soul And the Sense of my great Sinfulness disposeth me to Patience under my Afflicting Infirmities of Body I narrowly watch my Heart that it may not lodge or admit a vain Thought When I am surprized with Vanity I suppress it as soon as I observe it I am very fearful of offending in a Word When on the Sudden and by Incogitancy I have spoken a Word which upon Second Thoughts is doubtful to me though I had not such doubt in the speaking of it I have been much perplexed about it and have engaged my self to a greater Watchfulness Aug. 1680. SUrely Christ hath my Heart Whensoever I swerve from Christ in a Thought Word or Deed it is by inadvertency and surprizal against my fixed Principle and I have great Regret at it and Loath my self for it If I were out of all fear o damnation I had rather be holy then unholy and I take pains and use Gods means to be holy in opposition to the flesh and I make it my chief care And I do this because I make the enjoying of God my chief good and rather than lose the hope thereof I would willingly undergo the sufferings of this Life which lead to that blessed fruition not excepting the fiery-trial it self Aug. 1680. I Hope when the end cometh my God will say to me dear Child thy warfare is accompilshed thine iniquity is pardoned enter thou into my Rest. Therefore I will both hope and quietly wait for the Salvation of God I will hope to the end Strengthen me O my God that I faint not October the 4. 1680. I Have no design I pursue nothing contrary to God's interest but all my designes and pursuits are for God and Holiness I think I am sure of this if I be sure of any thing My great aim and care and labour is to cleanse my self from all filthyness of Flesh and Spirit and to perfect Holyness in the fear of God To whom I yield my self a Servant to obey his Servant I am But I do not yield my self a Servant to sin to obey it but I do yield my self a Servant to God to obey Him The design and business of my life is to do his Will THE WORKINGS OF MY HEART IN MY AFFLICTION Aug. the 5th 1680. THe Will of God in laying this affliction upon me I unfeignedly approve as Holy Just and Good And I am unfeignedly willing to bear the Affliction as it is an Evil laid upon me by his Will till the time come in which he thinks fit to remove it I watch and pray and strive that I may not give way to a repining thought against his holy Hand In this point thē Spirit is willing but the Flesh is weak My mind doth really consent to Gods dispensation and to my submission and being most agreeable to his wise and gracious Government and most conducing to my Salvation But my sensitive part and my mind also as it is in part unrenewed weak and sinful doth greatly reluctate so that I am put hard to it and I must say I am willing Lord help my unwillingness I have not observed in the several dayes that a thought of direct or positive discontentment or vexatious commotion of mind hath been admitted by me nevertheless I see to my grief that I fall exceeding short of that quietness contentation and cheerfulness in my condition and of that sreeness of Self Resignation to Gods Will that I desire and his goodness calls for I wrestle with God by importunate prayer that this thorn in the flesh might depart from me that this distemper might be removed or so mitigated that I might be in some comfortable ease and get a more cheerful freedom in doing my duty Yet I would not wrest this relief out of his hands unseasonably and without his good Will and his Blessing I would wait his time and desire to have it with his love and favour and with a saving benefit And so my earnest desire thereof is limited with submission to his holy Will Yet I find that this submission is no easy matter but that I must take pains with my own heart and that it is God who must work my heart to it and keep under the flesh which is alwaies ready to rebel It is hard to be willing to bear my wearisom condition And O how weak is my heart and ready to sink if it be not upheld by a strength above my own O let His Grace be sufficient for me and let His Power be made perfect in my weakness I feel my self bettered in the inner man by this chastening It hath furthered Mortification and Self-denyal and done much to the breaking of the heart of Pride and to bring me on towards that more perfect Self-Examination for which I labour It hath much deadned the World to me and my desire to the World It makes me know in earnest the Emptiness of all creatures and how great my concern is in God It drives me close to him and makes me to fetch all my comforts from him I see of how little value all outward contentments are and not only in my present afflicted state but if I were at ease and in full prosperity The sense of this benefit to my soul is the great means of bringing my Will to that weak degree of submission to God's Will to which I have atatined O that I

backward but proceeded forward in the wayes of Godliness And this increase I reckon not by sudden fits now and then hapening but by the main progress of the work in the total Sum. I have been grieved that I am no more elevated in the hope of Heaven and that I cannot attain to a longing desire to be gone hence and to be there with Christ. I have laboured to raise up my heart and have had enlargement even when deadness and flatness had been upon me I think with my self sometimes were my Evidences clear for Heaven I would exalt to be gone hence this very hour but I find not this readiness at all times When I have had a good enterprize in hand for God's Glory and some publick benefit I watched against Vanity of mind and vain Glory in carrying it on and I desire purely to aym at God ' s Glory and to be satisfied with my reward in him And I take heed that I forget not my Mortality when I am pursuing that design but I would fain bring up my self to this frame to be contented to be taken hence in the midst of it as judging that I shall be no looser by my removal and God cannot stand in need of that Service Lord forgive my inordinate self-love which hath disturbed the Actings of pure Charity in divers passages of Moment For self-love in my sensitive appetite hath had motions contrary to the Love of God and my Neighbour Nevertheless my Judgment hath disallowed it and I have for the most part acted against it and for that which the Love of God and my Neighbour did command O Lord forgive my ten thousand Talents I come to Jesus Christ who hath made satisfaction and lay this heavy reckoning to his account Lord forgive my Iniquity for it is exceeding great These following passages were set down March 4. An. 1675. UPon the Review of the foregoing Evidences after Twelve Years I find through Grace the same abiding in me and more and more Rooted And some particulars which did make me more to doubt of my good Estate I find to be since that time in a greater degree vanquished I have done what in me lies to call to remembrance all my remarkable Sins from my Childhood and Youth till now And as far as I can Judg I have Repented of them both generally and particularly And I now Repent of them all from the bottom of my Heart with a self Abhorrence if I can know my own Heart by the strictest and most impartial search that I can make Upon the best Judgment that I can make of the Nature of Sin and the Frame of my own Heart and Course of Life I know no Sin lying upon me which doth not consist with habitual Repentance and with the hatred of Sin and with an unseigned consent that God be my Saviour and Sanctifier and with the Loving of God above all The Mercy of God towards me in the prolonging of the day of Grace in the strivings of his Spirit in his Chastisements in the checks of Conscience in the Recovery of my Soul out of Distempers and Backslidings doth greatly affect my Heart and strongly engage me to Him and doth often call upon my Soul and all that is within me to Bless his holy Name Though my Spiritual growth be very low and slow yet to this present time I have not grown Worse but Better speaking of growth in the whole space or greater spaces of my time past and not every particular Day By Prayer and Endeavours long continued I have in some measure overcome a special very Sinful Distemster of Mind and gained the contrary Temper against a natural Propensity Though my Faith in Christ be weak yet to have part in his Promises I am ready to part with all that is dear in this World and I have no hope of Happiness but in Christ. Though I have had doubtings touching the promised Salvation yet I know that as to my own Felicity I prize nothing more than that Salvation being the glorifying and injoying God for Ever and I Embrace it as my best Good I Love Christ whom I have not seen and I am affected towards him as towards a person who taught and did the most excellent Things and promised a most excellent State to his Followers and purchased their Redemption at the dearest rate I am heartily grieved for loving God so little yet I am sure This I Wrote according to a full perswasion at that time I Love nothing more than God and in my esteem and choice I prefer the Spiritual Divine and Heavenly Life imcomparably before the Carnal Animal Earthly Life And this esteem and choice is made good by performance in Ordinary I Love to Love God And I desire this Love not only as an evidence of my Salvation but for it self I had much rather have a heart to love him perfectly than to have all the Riches Honours and Pleasures of this World My Conscience beares me witness that in the present exercise of my ministry I have no self-end of Worldly Advantage or Reputation among Men or any Interest of the Carnal Mind but if the Command of Christ and the necessities of Souls did not oblige me to this Service I should gladly retire to Privacy and Solitude My Temporal Estate is mean and low yet I am Contented with it and humbly bless God for what I have I Live in as narrow a compass for Expences as I can that I might have something to give to the Poor and to be helpful to those that are in Need according to my Ability And as God hath required of us to Love Mercy and our Saviour hath said It is a more Blessed thing to give than to receive so I have more pleasure in giving a Portion to the Needy as far as my mean Estate will bear than in laying out for the Delight of my own Sense or Worldly Conveniences And this proceeds not from a conceit of Merit in any thing that I can do but from a Love to please God and do Good Though I have a good Knowledge about the premises yet I am apt to waver about the Conclusion And though I apprehend the Evidences of my Sincerity to be clear yet a Timorousness remains in me Though I have not as yet overcome the Fear of Death yet I am sure that the unwillingness that is in me to Dye is not that I might enjoy the pleasures of Sense or any Gratification of the Animal Life I feel in my self a burden of Sin and Corruption much Sensuality Earthliness Selfishness nevertheless I judg there is that Predominancy of Love to God and Holiness which I hope is unmoveably seated in my Soul whereupon I hope that it cannot be that I should be cast out of his blissful Presence into that Perdition which is a State of immutable hatred of him And I apprehend that the most horrid and hellish state of Hell it self lyes in its Everlasting and utmost Enmity against