Selected quad for the lemma: earth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
earth_n	day_n	heaven_n	lord_n	22,364	5	4.1952	3	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A46825	A sermon preached at the funeral of the right honble the Lady Frances Paget, the religious consort of the right honble William Lord Paget, (eldest daughter to the right honourable Henry Earl of Holland, who was beheaded for his loyalty to this King) in the parish-church of West-Drayton in the county of Middlesex, on the 12th of Nevember, 1672. By Jehu Jenny, M.A. and Vicar of Harmondsworth.	Jenney, John, d. 1697.	1673 (1673)	Wing J673A; ESTC R220733	15,009	28

the darkness But though there be an appointed time for this great and last change of man yet when that time will come is very uncertain Those infinite diseases and ca●ualties to which the life of man is incident so easily cut the thread of it fully evince that there is nothing more certain then the uncertainty of the hour of death One dies in his nonage another in the strength and vigour of his years and another in a full age one in his bed and another in the field Hodie mihi cras tibi The Bell went for such a one last but who shall go next God knows To any of us that are here in health this hour that for all we know before the next it may be said as St. Peter to Sapphira Acts. 5. Behold the feet of them which brought this honorable Person to her grave are ready to bear thee to the same place And therfore t is a point of the greatest 〈◊〉 to consider our latter end and prepare for it since its 〈◊〉 is so uncertain And perhaps in this case that advice of 〈◊〉 was not amiss to him that desired to know when was the best time to repent and reform his life in to whom he gave this answer that it was safest to do that the day before he died which was that present day for any thing he was assured of the contrary 2. As his particular coming at the hour of death is certain so is his last coming at the end of the World The son of man shall come in his glory and all his holy Angels with him and shall sit upon the Throne of his glory Mat. 25.31 And then we must all appear before the Judgment-seat of Christ that every one may receive the things done in his Body according to that he hath done whether it be good or bad 2 Cor. 5.10 And St. Peter hath described this day with its attendant circumstances 2. Pet. 3.10 The day of the Lord will come in the which the Heavens shall pass away with a great noise and the elements shall melt with fervent heat the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burnt up This is an Article of our faith that Christ will come to judge the quick and the dead and is a deduction in Divinity that the belief of a God and of his providence and government of the world doth necessarily infer But of that day and hour when this judgment shall pass on the whole world knoweth no man Our Lord hath told us that this his coming will be as a thief in the night to allarm us to stand upon our guard and watch that we be not guilty of the improvidence and so overtaken with the surprize of the foolish Virgins We have the Doctrine of Christs coming and the use we should make of it both laid down by our Blessed Saviour in the 42. v. of this cb Watch therefore for you know not what hour your Lord doth come And again vers 44. Therefore be ye also ready for in such an hour you think not the son of man cometh There have indeed been some so bold as to adventure to define those times and seasons which the Father hath put in his own power and to pretend to a discovery of the Arcana Imperil of Heaven among the rest to determine when this day shall be but in that time hath overcome and outworn several their computations the presumption of their folly needs no other confutation To press you to that which is the natural result of this Doctrine diligence and faithfulness in doing your duty I shall only urge you with a double consideration about this coming of our Lord. I. It will be a severe and strict account our Lord will take of us when he comes He will bring every work into judgment with every secret thing Eccles. 12.14 All our irreligion and prophaness our injustice and oppression our intemperance and uncleanness There will be no imposing on him no prevaricating with him no palliating any fault cloaking it from him before whom all things are naked and open Heb. 4.13 Indeed if we be found faithful and that in the maine we are not tardy God will overlook I do not say he sees not but he will pass by our failings and infirmities our humane frailties But there be two things either of which if we be found guilty of it will go hard with us instead of an euge we shall have an apage Hypocrisie or Partiality 1. Hypocrisie and Insincerity in his Service whatsoever we do we must do it heartily as to the Lord. The heart is the chief part of the Sacrifice which if it be wanting God loaths the Oblation be it never so Costly To love the Lord our God with all the Heart with all the Soul and with all the Mind is the first and great Commandment of the Law Mat. 22.37 38. To bow and cringe in the Temple as the Syrian in the house of Rimmon and the heart to be at a distance is a Service f●…r for such a blind Idol than an all-seeing heart-searching God 2. Partiality A most unhappy error men are willing to deceive themselves with they think to do the will of God in a Figure will serve the turn and so give him a part for the whole If they are Zealous and forward in his Service and Worship he will wink at their Injustice and Oppression or if I am open-handed I may be wicked-hearted an Alms shall dispense for my Uncleanness my Loyalty atone for my Impiety and Debauchery if I have heapt up an Estate by indirect means and unrighteous practises to build a small Hospital or bequeath a petty Legacy to the Poor will sanctifie the whole lump of ill-gotten goods and effect my pardon for all my wickedness But God delivered to us the whole Decalogue and for the whole he will account with us I 'm sure we shall never enter into the Kingdom of Heaven with a maimed obedience If at the last day we shall plead any of this the good deeds we have done and think that they will expiate for whatsoever else we have omitted Christ will reply to us as to the Pharisees These ought ye to have done and not have left the other undone David's confidence was onely in a Catholick Obedience Psal 119.6 Then shall I not be ashamed when I have respect unto all thy Commandments 2. The Sentence that will be then past is final and decisive beyond any appeal or rehearing An error here is of most unhappy consequence there is no place for a second We shall then be adjudged either to an happy or a dismal Eternity to everlasting life or endless punishment Prayers and Tears Repentance and promises of amendment which if sincere are in this life effectual for Mercy and Pardon will then be unavailable so that indeed we have the Sentence of Life and Death within our selves 't is in our own choice whether we will be happy or miserable to

Do but lift up your eyes to the Heavens and as the Prince of the Philosophers affirms them to be in perpetual motion so he that was a Prince as well as a Philosopher observes that they move in that Sphere which their all-wise Framer fixt them in Psal 19.1 The Heavens declare the Glory of God And if we behold the Sun it confutes Copernicus Rejoyceth as a strong man to run his race v. 5. Should I take you up into the third Heaven the Heaven of Heavens the Angels there are ministring Spirits Heh 1. ult Angels and Arch-Angels and all the company of Heaven all the Orders of that Celestial Hierarchy they do God's Commandments and execute his pleasure Psal 103.20 21. If we look upon the creatures here below they bear a part in this service the Sea hath the boundary of God's decree for its ebbing and flowing hitherto shalt thou extend thy proud waves and no further the most inconsiderable inferiour particles of the universe the Snow and Vapour and Stormy-Wind are said to fulfil his Word Psal 148.8 So that this relation of Servants the Angels those heavenly Courtiers disdain not and the lower parts of the World are not too mean for an Interest in then certainly Man the Lord of this sublimary World can upon no account plead exemption he is a servant But as the Apostle uses the comparison touching the Resurrection 1 Cor. 15.42 One Star differeth from another Star in glory or as the same Apostle expresses it In a great house thee are not only vessels of gold and silver but also of wood and earth 2. Tim. 2.20 so t' is here in the large House-hold of the supernal and lower world each servant hath his province employment set him suitable to those capacities by which he is inabled to make a discharge of his duty which what Man 's is is a seasonable enquiry and II. The second part of the text As a Servant what is mans employment exprest in these words so doing Man hath a work to do but what it is you cannot imagine in that little scantling of time allotted for this exercise I should fully discourse to you the doing the particulars of which will take up our whole lives did they never so far exceed Davids summe of them It is to doe the work which God hath set us and sent us into the world to do briefly 't is doing the works of our general and particular calling 1. The works of our general calling as Christians And here the Christian is obliged to the observance of that divine precept Rom. 13.7 To render to all their dues And the duties of our general calling are reducible to these three heads which the Apostle gives us in charge Tit. 2.12 To live soberly righteously and godly in this present world 1. To begin with our duty to him who is the beginning of all things and Lord of the family And this we are early call'd upon by the wiseman to make a discharge of Eccles 12.1 Remember now thy Creator in the dayes of thy youth He that gave us our being provides for our well-being and hath contriv'd our being happy unless we our selves frustrate the design may upon all accounts challenge a gratefull service and homage there being nothing in the world more rational then Religion and the Worship of a Deity And here the Christian hath a large task of duty the performance of all internal and external acts of Piety and Devotion the maintaining alwaies a reverential dread and fear of the Divine Majesty to adore that incomprehensible Being to demean our selves so towards God as may best comport with those Divine attributes of his purity and power wisdome and goodness sincerely and conscientiously to perform all external acts of Religion all duties of divine worship and service to hear and pray meditate and receive and what else in the whole duty of man God requires of us as his immediate worship This is to live godly 2. Righteously towards our fellow-Servants To love my Neighbour as my self to observe that golden rule so much admired by the Heathen so little practised by the Christian so fully taught in the old and new Testament so frequently prest by Prophets and Apostles and inculcated by our Blessed Lord Whatsoever we would that men should do unto us we should do the same to them To do justice and to love mercy to make our selves friends of the Mammon of unrighteousness to distribute to the necessities of the poor to do good to all men by good counsel and a suitable conversation to perswade as many as we can to be holy and religious and to save their souls to reprove our offending Brother to bear with the infirmities of those that are weak to comfort those that mourn to exhort one another to day while it is called to day to do as our Blessed Lord did when he was upon the earth whose business it was to go about and seek all opportunities of doing good Acts. 10.38 3. Soberly To have so much regard to our selves as to do nothing unworthy of that place in Gods family he hath set us in To observe all rules and precepts of sobriety temperance and chastity Some of the heathen Philosophers have disswaded from some debaucheries as indecencies affronts offer'd to humane Nature but the Christian hath higher motives for all sobriety of conversation to reverence our humane nature as united to the Divine in the person of Christ and so to preserve it from all spot and defilement as he did when he was vested with our flesh here below to look upon our bodies as Temples of the Holy Ghost and so not to allow them to be sinks of sin and nests of all uncleanness and lastly to think what they shall be in their glorified estate after the resurrection that so when Christ shall come to work that mighty change upon them he may not find them in the worst sense vile that is sinful bodies To do all this and so to do it as to be saluted with an Euge for our well-doing may well be thought no easy task but that which will require all Christian diligence and circumspection so to redeem the time as to fill up every part of it with the proper duties of it and yet after all this one thing is still wanting which is 2. To be diligent in our particular Callings that state and condition of life to which God hath call'd each of us as some to be Magistrates some Ministers some Merchants some Artificers c. The Command of God to earn our bread in the sweat of our brows the prevention of idleness the obligation of providing for our families God's distribution of several gifts the benefit of humane society and the Weal-publick bespeak the necessity of some Calling or other for every man to employ and busie himself in Here perhaps there may be some will censure my discourse to be ungentile and that I maintain a paradox to affirm as I