Selected quad for the lemma: earth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
earth_n	church_n	heaven_n	part_n	5,818	5	5.1877	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A86325	The glory and beauty of Gods portion: set forth in a sermon preached before the honourable House of Commons at the publique fast, Iune 26. 1644. / By Gaspar Hickes, Pastour of Lanracke in Cornwall, a member of the Assembly of Divines.	Hickes, Gaspar, 1605-1677.	1644 (1644)	Wing H1838; Thomason E2_10; ESTC R2493	29,927	47

unctiores and provide for their owne panch Questionlesse such a worship as breakes no bones extracts no sweat from the people that costs little paines and brings in much profit and secular advancement to the chiefe actours and upholders of it shall have stiffe fautours and abettours every where But heare what the Lord saith of such mixtures to the Prophet Ezek. 43.7 8 9. Son of man the place of my throne and the place of the soles of my feet where I will dwell in the midst of my people shall not be defiled by their whoredomes and their carcasses in their setting their threshold by my threshold and their posts by my posts and the wall between me and them 'T is as the filthinesse of whoredome as the stink of a carcasse to the Lord to have humane inventions erected or interposed as parts or props of his worship Pompey once in an audacious humour would would needs enter into the most holy place and seeing nothing but a cloud there in derision he termed the Jewes Nubicolas cloud-worshippers before the Romans thought that Apis or Iupiter Hamon or some such soule idoll had been inclosed there how doe men seek after and rest upon the garnished outside the specious paint of worship without which they contemne its spirituall simplicitie as a vaporous or crude conceit whereas the excellencie the vigour the soule of it lies in its internall truth its primitive and native purity 3. The Lord puts glory and beauty upon a people by setting up godlinesse and godly men amongst them by increasing the number inlarging the graces advancing the persons of his Saints and Servants When the vilest men are exalted the wicked ruffle and riot at pleasure all things are tumultuous and squalid Psal 12.8 but when the righteous are up there 's change of cheere things are in a joyous and faire state Prov. 29.2 Godly men are the choisest things upon earth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Clē Alex. the honour the beauty the blessing of the places that hold them such ornaments yea and more glorious are they to the earth then the Luminaries are to the Heavens and when they are fitly placed in the Horoscope of a Church or State in Houses of Dominion oh what an happy aspect what a flourishing influence doe they afford Why then should men of parts and place perhaps well affected to the publike good stand aloofe from Religion for feare of contracting disgrace from it Euseb Eccles Hist li. 6. c. 18. Perhaps the devill tels them as Perph●cy did Origen that it will turne their learning into barbarisme their acutenesse into sottishnesse that it will spoile all their gifts and sufficiencies Or else he frights them as Cajetan did the Electour of Saxony wishing him to beware that he did not blemish his noble house by giving credit and countenance to Luther Caveret nemaculam illus●●is 〈…〉 aspergat M●len Adam in vitâ Luther Profectò inde●●ta venit praepropere af●ectatur periculosè captatur B●za 2 Chro. 9.21 Satan buzzes it into their eares that if they favour those frantique fellowes adhere to those strict truths and wayes they will staine their bloud emasculate their spirits and lose the garbe and repute of gallants But harken rather to the Counsels of God to the Words of truth and sobernesse To you great ones I speake Think sadly how poore vain false the glory is that is without God and godlinesse truly if you have it t is more then is doe to you you seek it sinfully and buy it dearely Summe up all your sumptuous store your birth breeding bravery possessions titles and best t is but like Salomons freight gold and silver and Ivory and apes and peacocks strong mixtures of pride and vanity enough to poyson your excellencies to sinke your ship to damne your souls Whereas if you sincerely affect and honour Religion it will honour you yea it will make you the glory of your God the dignity and beauty of your country otherwise the greater you are the more unworthy burdens and blemishes you prove to the earth that bears you To bring that which hath been said home to our selves Vse I will lay before you only two things by way of information 1. The necessitie 2. The blessing of a present Reformation The necessitie grounded on the dishonourable and odious degenerations whereinto we were fallen the blessing commended and amplified from the glorious and beautifull excellencies to which it would advance us 1. The former the foulnesse of our decayes and distempers I have already touched and so generall they were that they might take up an age of complaining yea and so apparant that you that have your senses about you cannot but see and feele them though I should say nothing of them Methinks we were even come to that passe wherein the ten Tribes lay after their defection For a long season they were without the true God without teaching Priests and without Law 2 Chro. 15.3 Popery atheisme prophanenesse were shouldering out our God our faithfull teachers were crushed silenced or discouraged and Idoll sheepheards promoted that starved soules or edified them to damnation the justice and power of our Lawes nullified force and will carrying all before them We may gather what should generally have been done by considering what is done where the mischiefe prevailes Many dark places of the Land are still the habitations of such cruelties I speake it in the griefe of my soule the parts to which I stand most neerely related are overwhelmed with all the branches and extremities of the misery and I mention it not to informe you of what you know not but now in the day of your humiliation seeing the Lord hath made me your remembrancer to inkindle pitty in you and move you to speedy and thorough helpefullnesse to them If any misinformed or partiall or angry fellowes aske us what ailes us when we lift up our eyes and put forth our endeavours for remedy Let 's answer them thus they would take away our God and what have we more they would bereave us of our teaching Ministers and it would be worse to want them then to feede upon the bread of adversitie and the water of affliction Isa 30.20 they would spoile us of our Lawes divine and civill and t were better the Sun should droppe out of Heaven Act. 11.28 that our hearts should be torne out of our bodies then we loose them Honourable and beloved The Iewes when they conceived their Law and place and Temple indangered by Pauls preaching with a joynt and vehement vociferation they cryed out Men of Israel helpe Let me with a better spirit and upon better grounds bespeake you in the name of the Lord Men of Israel ye that are Israel Israelites indeed helpe helpe every one of you you by your advise and authority you that can doe nothing else by your supplications humiliations reformations we by our instructions intercessions actions passions others by their estates and lives every one

in Gods way every one in his own way help to gaine to hold these things so absolutely necessary In the day that we let go our holdfast we loose our God and our good our safety and our subsistence our glory and our beauty 2. Take a view of the blessing of Gods returne to a Church or people This my Text expresses in fullest termes 't is glory heightened to a crowne beauty decked with a diadem We have heard loud bragges of a glorious state a flourishing Church in our Land and that from the mouthes of them who did what they could to ruine both Indeed we have had multitudes of eminent Saints brought forth nourished perfected amongst us but no thankes to them who would not willingly have afforded them a being on the face of the earth these blessed Palmes sprang and spread in despight of their pressures Of late God hath offered in a gracious way to wipe away the staines from our glory the blemishes from our beauty which were many and foule But how is this mercy entertained doe men looke upon the wellcome and admire Reformation as the rising sun dispelling our hellish darknesse rather they startle and storme at it as a formidable thing one solicitous for his ill gotten goods another for ill administred office a third for his undue promotion some for their selfe opinions which they will hold to the hazzard of all most for their beloved lusts which they preferre to the glory of God the safety of the State yea and their own soules to most would withdraw their shoulder and stiffen their necks against Christ yoke as intollerably rigorous nothing so much frights them as the erection and exercise of an exact discipline Doe men thirst after the pure fountaine of truth the cleere and spirituall wayes of worship or rather content themselves with the broken cisternes of humane inventions and delight to wallow in the puddles of profanenesse and formality Is it the joy of mens hearts that the righteous are in authority Whence then that grating of spirit that gnashing of teeth at their advancement and good successe in Gods worke Men of honour are so tender of their reputation that they will not beare a word of disgrace without a quarrell a revenge and how wary of their beauty are the fondlings of our age or if they want that which is genuine and proper they adde paints and spots and attires too often such as are monstrous and meretricious yet how wilfully doe men degrade themselves of the glory to which God would exalt them how madly doe they teare off the ornaments which he would put upon them Well though base spirited narrow hearted creatures are unsuteable and uncapeable of honour though sordid clownes neglect and besmeare their comelinesse they care not how yet let us whose hearts the Lord hath touched whose eyes he hath opened prize and pursue these blessings according to their worth And if we were but provident wise for our selves we should not account them dearely gained at any rate no thought it were an age of fasting and prayer an eternity of angelicall obedience the expence of our largest livelihoods our heart blood Ob. But alas say many when shall we see the accomplishment of this promise such glory and beauty should be more conspicuous Sol. 1. And doe you not see the every dayes wonders the Lord is working 't is for want of illightned eyes and thankfull hearts then could we rightly cast up our receipts we might find glorious advantages already upon accompt 2. Are you offended at the seeming slownesse and difficulty of the progresse 't is because you mistake the nature of the worke One way whereby the Lord commends the worth of his best blessing to us is sometimes our hard comming by them The Iewes have a tradition that God sucked Moses soule out of his mouth with a kisse that so his dissolution might be without all paine such an easie lazie good-cheape way of reformation doe most men affect they would have all the fatnesse and sweetnesse of Heaven droppe into their mouthes sleeping on take heed wake not the men fright them not with difficulties for then they will fling off in discontent or give up all as lost 'T is remarkeable what Luther writes to Spalatinus touching Melancthon In Epist ●d Spalat Melancthon was a man of excellent parts very serviceable for Christs cause but of a timorous disposition apt to be overmuch dejected in difficulties and at that time extremely pensive he was for feare of some sad issues of the great meeting at Auspurge Whereupon Luther wishes his friend to exhort and charge him in his name Ne fiat Deus that he make not himselfe a god he might seeme to be farre enough from aspiring to be a god who was cast downe below the common pitch of a man But here was his fault his projects must be like the counsells of God unerringly and unchangeably stand and be effected both in respect of time and manner or the cause he thinks was lost and his spirit utterly sunke So it is with many amongst us they must have their own mind and their own will in all things which is Gods peculiar or they are undone If they have not all that they have promised or fancied to themselves they have nothing at all If the simple gourde of their projects of conceits be smitten and wither they think they doe well to be angry to be disconsolate even to the death But 't is no disparagement nor diminution to the worth or comfort of faithfull and blessed instruments that the Lord over works them brings to passe something yea the maine in the most glorious undertakings by himselfe Have we not seene rich blessings eminent atchievements effected by the bare and immediate hand of God when councels have beene crossed endeavours tired yea hope it selfe worne out and ready to give up the ghost can we but acknowledge it to be the Lords doing to bring downe insolent adversaries to truth and peace and holinesse when they have been trapped and confounded by snares of their own setting mischiefes of their own hatching who were impregnable by all humane attempts like to the Nemean Lion which when Hercules had slaine he knew not how to get off his skinne that was so hard that nothing could pierce it neither wood nor stone nor steele only the Lions own nailes where sharpe enough to doe it So hath the Lord turned the pride and madnesse of wicked men upon their own heads to their ruine that otherwise were too tough or strong to be dealt with In great works God will be eminently seene and acknowledged yea and he carries them thorough insuperable difficulties and impossibilities to us that we may set him up and trust in him only 3. Why will you dislike the work for its hardship or tho instruments for their slacknesse and not consider rather and stand amazed at the opposition that is made against them I think the devill never played the devill more