Selected quad for the lemma: soul_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
soul_n	body_n	call_v	place_n	3,941	5	4.4427	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A77434	Errours and induration, are the great sins and the great judgements of the time. Preached in a sermon before the Right Honourable House of Peers, in the Abbey-Church at Westminster, July 30. 1645. the day of the monethly fast: / by Robert Baylie, minister at Glasgow.	Baillie, Robert, 1599-1662.	1645 (1645)	Wing B459; Thomason E294_12; ESTC R200181	39,959	57

Princes or States refuse or delay to grant Ecclesiastick Government to the Churches that live in their Dominions Have the Independents the Brownists or the Anabaptists or any of the Hetorodox Societies among us wanted their own Government since the first hour of their self-erection The Judgement of this Errour appeareth in three Circumstances It is demonstrate to be a Judgement and Plague First That it is evident to all Secondly That it were most easily amended Thirdly That it is singularly hurtfull The Evidence of it may be seen in the confession of all The greatest and most unreasonable Sectaries will not deny but every true Church should be without all delay invested with Government And if you will speak with the men who most have and do retard the erection of the Government desired they will professe their true intention and desire to see the Church-Discipline established For this evil Anarchy hath been so oft by so many of Gods faithful servants witnessed against that now it s defended by none Concerning the second The facility of its erection it is as clear For I pray who are the men that will take it upon them to impede it Can we at this present or could we for some yeers complain of the violence of a seduced Court Can the blame be cast on any Popish or Prelaticall Faction Will either Brownists or Anabaptists professe their deniall to us of what they long ago have taken to themselves Who then must answer to God for our shamefull Anarchy for so long a time The hurt of it is too too perspicuous Whosoever will lay the Sword the Pestilence and all the Calamities that destroy the Land on our delay to build the House of the Lord shall have for him the Prophet Zechariahs direct Warrant Zech. 8.10 Before these days there was no peace to him that went out or came in because of affliction For I set all men every one against his neighbour And if we indeed believe It is not the strength of men but the Lord Christ who setleth troubled Kingdoms What hope can we have that he will ever settle our State so long as his Church lies neglected in so wofull a confusion Beside outward Judgements this Errour is the cause of the greatest spirituall Mischiefs The hedge of Discipline lying level with the ground makes open doors yea invites and calls for all the devouring beasts to prey on the Flock of Christ From this it is that so many thousand souls are permitted to perish eternally in ignorance in profanenesse in Heresies in damnable Sects without the least controll or any mans endeavour to reclaim them So long as the Law permits no Pastor in England to exercise his Pastorall charge on any person he may well weep and mourn when the devil in his sight plucks away numbers of his Sheep but with his Shepherds Crook with the Ordinance of Christs Discipline to hold off that Lion it is not in his power It is not onely the passionate desire of all the Reformed Churches abroad of all the godly and Orthodox Party at home but also their confident expectation That the Honorable Houses without further delay will at last set up the walls of the House of God who now is going on apace by so many Successes to ruine their enemies and to settle the state of their affairs much according to their hearts desire The neglect of this piece of Thankfulnesse may provoke the Lord to repent him of his favours and to call back in one day what he had been giving in many I point but at one other Judiciall wandering False Doctrine is a Judiciall Errour that which usually and properly goeth under the name of Errour the word of our Text false Doctrine contrary to the ways of Gods Truth That Errour is a sin and a Judiciall one infliflicted by God as a punishment of former sins we may see in divers Scriptures 2 Thess 2.10 11. Because they received not the love of the Truth for this cause God gave them over to strong delusions to believe a lye Here Errours are Judgements which God puts Satan to bring on men for their coldrife entertaining of the truth And how grievous a Judgment Error is this and other Scriptures clear Here it is made a cause of damnation That they might all be damned who believed not the Truth The Socino-Remonstrants have taught our new Masters to extenuate much and at last to deny the sinfulnesse and danger of Errour They would hide the Vipers sting till the pretty and beautifull worm be once taken into the bosom where a little warmed it makes it quickly appear how innocent and harmlesse a creature it is They tell us that all sin is in the Will Errour is a dangerous evil and the cause of damnation but the seat of errour is the minde Is not the minde the most high and divine facultie of the soul Is not the corruption of the best things truely worst The mindes pollution with the darknesse of errour is eminently contrary to the light and truth of the divine nature Against this greatest of errours the excusing of all errours we should minde the truth of God who cannot lye In the place cited errour is made the cause of damnation elsewhere the Apostle tells us That false Doctrine eats up and kills the soul as a Canker Gangrene or Pest doth the body 2 Tim. 2.17 Also false Teachers are called Ravening Woolfs who tear and rent in peeces the souls of the seduced Acts 20.29 The Apostle Peter is in the same minde 2. Epistle 2. He tells us the condition of false Teachers They bring in damnable Heresies their wayes are pernicious their distruction is swift their damnation slumbereth not It is as certain as was the damnation of the Devils of the old world drowned in the deluge of the Sodomites All this is Peters Doctrine And this he had from his Master Christ Matth. 7.15 Beware of false Prophets When they have the fairest shew of piety he that knows the heart pronounceth They are but ravening Woolfs Matth. 15.14 If the blinde lead the blinde both shall fall in the ditch If we beleeve the Lord a false Teacher doth not onely destroy himself but draws with him all his blinded Scholers into the ditch of the same perdition 1 Cor. 12.25 27. The Apostle tells us The nature of Shism That the Church is the Body of Christ and that Schismaticks make a Schism in Christs Body that is they rent his Body in peeces they who crucified him would not rent his seamlesse Coat but Schismaticks can tear his skin cut his flesh rent his Joynts and Members in peeces Understand the Language of them who plead for liberty of errours What is meant by liberty of conscience and what is the true sense of their language who require a toleration of Errours If you beleeve Christ or the Doctrine of Paul attested by Peter and the rest both Prophets and Apostles whom I have not time

weighty a difficulty upon such a meer Grammatication Holding therefore to our vulgar translation The matter of a sinfull action must be distinguished from its form How does God cause us to erre and yet is not the Author of our errours For the understanding hereof we must distinguish sin and the actions of God about sin In sin there are two things albeit inseparably joyned yet essentially distinct The matter and form the act and its pravity the one is naturally good the other morally evill This is visible in two actions whose matter is the same but the forms much different For example the stoning of Naboth and the stoning of Achan the substance of the actions the casting of the stones at both was the same but the forms was much different The casting at an innocent man and at a man condemned by God and all Israel the one form makes the stoning of Naboth an act of unjust murder the other form makes the stoning of Achan an act of just punishment The acts not of Gods will and decrees Three acts of Gods effectuall providence about sin for such concern not the words in hand but of his actuall providence about the matter and form of sin are many The most considerable of these to us for opening of our Text are three His concourse his efficacious permission his judiciall tradition so to speak For the first 1 An active concourse in the substance of the action the Lord hath an actuall yea an active concourse and if you will an efficiency in every act of sin so far as concerns the substance or matter of the sinfull action for in him we live we move and have all our being in the most sinfull action the matter of the act being a positive entity it must be a naturally-good thing and have its existence from the first and universall mover the fountain of all Being Without this kinde of efficiency and concourse Shimei could not have moved his tongue to curse David nor Doeg drawn his sword to have killed the Priests When God denies this kinde of concourse sin is necessarily stopped When he removes the life of the two Captains they cannot oppresse Eliah When God leaves the life but takes away the sight from the Sodomites at Lots door and the power from the arm of Jeroboam their sin is impedite When by suspending of his operation he takes away the will from David to kill Nabal though both life and power remained the sin is marred But for such kinde of working in the sinner and cooperation with the sinfull act Sin uses not to be ascribed to God more then the generation of living Creatures to the motion and influence of the Heavens for effects are denominate from the second and particular causes not from the first and universall though their efficiency and concourse be never so necessary and certain The next action of God about sin is 2 An efficacious permission of the sinfulnesse of the act his efficacious permission This for its object hath not onely the matter and substance of the sinfull act but its very form its pravity its anomy its sinfulnesse This malignant quality is a morall evill and so cannot be of God who is goodnesse it self it s a privation and defect and so the cause of it is not efficient but deficient If we would render the cause of a lame mans crooked walking we behoved to distinguish betwixt the walking and its crookednesse The walking we would ascribe to the motive power of the mans soul and to the instruments of motion in his body but the crookednesse of it to the defect and hurt of some instrument of motion not to the soul or to the faculty or to the instrument of motion but onely to some defect of the instrument So the finfulnesse of sin is to be ascribed not to any efficiency of God but to the deficiency of mans will which now is sinfull and before sin was weak as being made of nothing and so able to change it self from good to evill but however the sinfulnesse of sin cannot be charged on Gods either efficiency or deficiency yet it must exist by his free permission for nothing can have any existence in the world any being in the dominion of God without the leave and permission of the great Lord and Master of the World That action of God which in respect of sin is called a permission in regard of the sinner is a desertion This is really one thing with desertion This considered will help to clear that which is the hardest knot in this matter the efficacy that is said to be in the permission and yet without all efficiency of the permitter in the sinfulnesse permitted This matter which naturally is exceeding dark will be best seen in similitudes When the Sun goes down the darknesse of the night necessarily doth follow when the Sun declines towards the Southern signes of the Zediack the Winter blasts certainly do come on the Sun the fountain of light and heat in propriety of speech cannot be called the cause of the nights darknesse or of the Winters cold yet these as ordinary and necessary consequents are usually ascribed to the Suns removall Hot water removed from the fire becomes incontinent cold A ruinous Wall when its props are removed falls quickly to the ground The coldnesse of the water flows not from the fire but from its own nature the falling of the Wall comes from the naturall heavinesse of the stones which without the impediment of a supporter makes them to fall downward It is so with God and man when he withdraws we become dark as midnight cold like Ice we fall to the ground These effects necessarily follow his desertion but not as effects onely as consequents their proper cause is neither in God nor his removall but in our nature which of it self since the fall is full of these malign qualities This kinde of providence about our sins is expressed in words of the active form of blinding the eyes and hardning the heart Not that the Lord infuses any darknesse or hardnesse in the heart which is not its own but because upon the removing of his illuminating and softning Spirit the naturall blindnesse and hardnesse of mans spirit lurking before doth then appear The third action of God about sin Gods third action is a Judiciall Tradition is that which I did call a Judiciall Tradition when God as a just Judge punishes sin by sin when he gives over men not onely to their own heart but to the devil and his instruments to be tempted seduced and drawn away to commit wickednesse with greedinesse However all the sinfull actions be immediately the works of the sinner alone and the upstirring to these actions be from the devil and his instruments laying arguments objects and occasions as baits and snares in the way of the sinner yet God as a just Judge sending out Satan and men as his executioners and making way for

Poor children in distresse whither shall they go but to their father Neither sin nor misery will annull that more then naturall relation that supernaturall Paternity and Filiation Though God clothe himself with a cloud in his anger yet faith will make the soul with Moses run thorow the fire and darknesse to him The Prodigall in the midst of his misery resolves to return to his father The Spirit of Adoption in our hardest times will make us cry Abba Father This reason is used in the same place ver 16. Doubtlesse thou art our Father though Abraham be ignorant of us Vers 19. We are thine thou never bearest rule over them The next Chapter vers 8. But now O Lord thou art our Father behold see we beseech thee we are all thy people The Use is for our Encouragement to continue this practice with all earnestnesse and perseverance The Vse If there be any means to draw down a blessing from the heavens on a distressed Nation it is the prayer of the Saints This is the hand that hath drawn up this sinking Land from the pit of ruine that hath set our feet on that Rock of safety whereon now we stand Whatever difficulties are yet before us by this means or none else will they be gotten overcome Though all other should give over this holy exercise of Fasting and Praying or turn it in a sinfull and provoking formality yet it behoves us to keep it on foot remembring both the expresse command of the Lord Call on me in the day of thy trouble I shall deliver thee Psal 50. Lam. 2.19 Arise cry out in the night in the beginning of the watches pour out your hearts like water before the face of the Lord Lift up your hands towards him And your own visible experience As no people have sown more plentifully this pretious seed so none have already reaped more evident fruits thereof Be not weary of this good work untill all our desires be accomplished In the next place observe The second Doctrine Sins are heavier then afflictions The Proof That the chief part of the Saints complaint to God is of their wandrings from his wayes Their sins are heavier to them then all their afflictions This is proved from divers Scriptures Psal 38. When the Prophets trouble was great Nothing sound in his flesh The Arrows of the Lord sticking in him Gods hand pressing him sore yet the chief burden whereof he complains was his sins verse 4. Mine iniquities are gone over my head as an heavy burden they are too heavy for me Psal 40.12 Innumerable evils have compassed me about but mine iniquities have taken hold on me for them he was not able to look out his heart failed him Daniel c. 9. complains of the heavy wrath and curse that was powred out on Jerusalem and of so great afflictions as had befaln to no Nation under Heaven yet the first chief and longest part of his complaint is of the sins of their Kings of their Princes of their Priests and whole Land The reason of the Doctrine The Reason Sin is the greatest evill it s the fountain of afflictions Affliction cometh not out of the dust trouble springeth not out of the ground Sin is the root of it Also sin is most contrary to the nature of God Wrath and trouble even the greatest the very torments of Hell are not so for they are according to his justice The godly therefore who weigh things aright in the just ballance of the Sanctuary esteem their sins much heavier and more grievous evils then any they can suffer for them The use is for our instruction The Vse Let our complaints be rightly ordered and our sorrows rightly placed Beware to spend the most or best of thy sense on thy sufferings Beware to pour out the vehemency of thy passion the bitterest of thy sorrows on calamities either private or publike The first fruits the flower the first-born of thy grief must be reserved for the chief evill The naturall and kindely children of God will have more sorrow at their heart for the sins of the Land then for the desolations thereof What ever poverty disgrace pain can befall their person the very wrath of God suppose the torments of Hell will not be so heavy so bitter so troublesome to them as their sins the cause of all these evils The third observation The third Doctrine Gods hand in our sins encreaseth their bitternes An Objection answered Gods punishing and judiciall hand in our sins is their aggravation and increase of their bitternesse For this is the head of the Churches complaint That God had caused them to erre from his wayes It is true the Saints in Scripture draw comfort from some acts of Gods mercy about sin as from his gracious directing of its act to a good end Upon this ground Joseph comforts his Brethren that not they but God had sent him down to Egypt That their felling of him which they intended for evill God had ordered it so that it did become the mean of all their preservation Also Gods prediction of sin in sundry Scriptures is made a ground of contentment All this was done that the Scriptures might be fulfilled is a common place of comfort against the treason of Judas and the wickednesse of the Jews Likewise the Apostles Acts 4. quiet their minde on this meditation That God in his eternall counsell had determined what Herod and Pilate in time had done in crucifying of Christ Of such acts of Gods mercy about our sins we speak not be they temporall be they eternall but of the acts of his justice and wrath punishing sin by sin From these actions of God we can draw no comfort but they aggravate the weight of our sins and increase our grief The miscarriage of Absolon The Proof his rebellion and incest could not but grieve David but to increase his grief 2 Sam. 2.10 God tells him I will do this thing before all Israel and before the Sun in that terrible vision Isai 6. the Lord to demonstrate his wrath against that people sendeth to them a message full of anger Make the heart of this people fat and their ears heavy Their excaecation was in it self a grievous evill but it was more grievous when it came as a plague from an angry God John 12.39 Gods blinding of their eyes that they could not beleeve Christs Word is brought as an aggravation of their sin and of the anger of Christ against them so far as he went from them and hid himself The reason of this is The Reason That these acts of God proceed from wrath and justice punishing former sins Again they are the means to make sin more sinfull the person being given over to be carried headlong by his own lusts and Satans tentations Thirdly The punishment of sin in this degree is much sorer then if it had been a simple sin as in the sixth of Isaiah and elsewhere it appears No