Selected quad for the lemma: earth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
earth_n	hand_n	heaven_n	lord_n	12,849	5	3.8545	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A56693	A sermon preached at the funeral of Mr. Thomas Grigg, B.D. and rector of St. Andrew-Undershaft, Septemb. 4, 1670 by Symon Patrick.	Patrick, Simon, 1626-1707.	1670 (1670)	Wing P838; ESTC R4850	30,751	63

the first begotten from the dead and the Prince of the Kings of the Earth as gone into the Heavens and there sat down at the right hand of the Throne of God Angels and Authorities and Powers being made subject to him as the Lord of life and glory who is gone to prepare a place for us and will come again and receive us to himself that where he is there we may be also Then will these spiritual things be as much valued by us as now they are despised and we shall as much slight all these bodily enjoyments as now they are overprized We shall not consent for any good in this world to lose our portion with him but chuse rather to dye a thousand deaths than not receive the Crown of life In short the Faith of Christians will then be able to do as much as Sense now doth As that now disparages and thrusts by the things of Faith because they seem Nothing or Uncertain so Faith will put by all the temptations of sense and bid them stand aside because it apprehends coelestial things to be sure and certain too For if they appear as real and certain things they must as I told you be preferred because they are infinitely better than all other and have nothing to disparage them but only their seeming uncertainty They will undoubtedly make us do and suffer the will of our Lord with all chearfulness and patient perseverance while we are here and make us ready to go from hence with the like cheerfulness when or howsoever it shall be his will and pleasure to call for us And what if he send for some of our Friends and dear relations to come away before us Will not the belief of these things make us with some cheerfulness or contentment resign them to him There can be no greater comfort than this Discourse against the grief we are apt to conceive at their departure For death is but the pulling down of an earthly house that they may pass out into an heavenly And it is not the going of our Friends quite away but only their going before and if they be godly they are gone into a better dwelling Why should we mourn then immoderately as those that have no hope Would we not have our Friends advanceed Do we grieve that they are possessed of a more plentiful estate And weep perpetually that they live like Kings and reign with Christ in glorious Pallaces O let not the tears flow too fast Look upon the Heavens and dry your eyes for out of an earthly hole all purified souls take their flight above those spatious Vaults From cold hunger thirst and nakedness they go to a place where there are none of these necessities Would you have your Children lye alwayes in their swadling-clothes Or when they are grown bigger do you desire they should alwayes go in their side-coates Do you sigh to see them beyond their non-age and grown to the state of men and women Would you have them return to their infancy again and become little children meerly that you may play with them Why do you take it ill then that your Friends are grown to an higher stature Why do you lament so heavily that they are stript of their raggs to put on richer apparel Why do you not rather comfort your selves that they are in the condition of Angels and numbred among the Sons of glory being entred into the family of God above in the Court of Heaven Consider I beseech you that too long continued bewailings of the loss of our holy Friends doth betray our Ignorance or forgetfulness of the glory of the other world It is a sign we do not know or else not think of that which the Apostle here preaches We are but in a dream of happiness all this while and see but the shadows and images of it There is little or nothing of this felicity which we touch and feel or that strongly affects our heart For if it did we should be satisfied both because they are gone to it and we may one day follow them If they loved our Lord in sincerity he hath better provided for them than if they had staid in our company And if we love him too and so be perswaded of his love to us they are but poor thoughts that we have of him which cannot supply the place of a Friend a Brother an Husband or a Wife and but low thoughts that we have of his happiness if there be not a great deal more in it to quiet and compose us than there is in the loss of any thing in this world to trouble and disturb us It was a notable saying of one of the Antients that the souls of Philosophers have the Body for their house but they that are ignorant enjoy it but as their prison The truth of which is too apparent For the unbelieving and ungodly are shut up close in their Bodies and fettered within those walls of flesh They are tyed to them by as many chains as they have Members and have no other light but what comes in at the holes of their eyes no other comfort but what they receive by the means of the rest of their bodily senses Whereas all faithfull souls enjoy a greater freedome They can go out of doors and are at liberty to walk abroad and take a view of unseen enjoyments They can look up a while to the highest Heavens and behold in the light of God the glory of our Lord the innumerable company of Angels and the Spirits of just men made perfect The shortest glimpse of whose happiness is able to cheer and refresh their souls in the most disconsolate condition And if they can but think of their Friends departed as Members of that blessed Society the remembrance of them will never fail to be accompanied with such a taste of joy as shall take away the bitterness of all their sorrows Into that glorious assembly of Saints our good Friend I make no question is gone whose earthly house we come here to lay for a time in its Grave In whom you might have seen an example of the force of this Divine Faith which as it was the guide and principle of the actions of his life so it was the exceeding joy and comfort of his heart at death For that he seemed to fear no more than he did his sleep He went as willingly out of this body as he was wont to do out of his own house into this place the House of God and left the dearest relations with such satisfaction as if he were taking a journey to them A very noble degree of Christian confidence And yet no more than might be expected to wait on a long train of other excellent qualities which were eminent in him Of which if I proceed to speak a few words not meerly to comply with Custome but to furnish you with a worthy example as I am sure I shall not wrong the truth so I hope I shall as little

which he appealed for a proof of the truth of all his Promises They perceived a manifest difference in his condition now from what it was before and that his body was become more subtil and aiery than it was when he dwelt among them For on a sudden he appeared in the midst of them and again in a moment he vanished out of their fight His body was now in a preparation to an higher state and therefore though they felt really flesh and bones yet he shewed them by the hasty disappearance of it into what a pure substance it was shortly to be turn'd They saw it was to be so thin and rarified that it would be a Spirit rather than a body and was to suffer such a change that now it was not fit for them to converse withal while they were in this earthly tabernacle This was the reason that he came to them only at certain seasons and continued not alwayes with them and that he charged Mary not to touch him John 20. 17. as if she mean't to hold him fast and keep him with her For though he intended to afford them some of his company being not yet ascended to the Father yet he would have her know they must not expect his stay with them after his wonted manner but go to his Brethren the Disciples and say to them I ascend to my Father and your Father and to my God and your God IV. Accordingly they knew that he did ascend up to Heaven forty dayes after his Resurrection For they themselves saw him transported thither and had his own word for it that he went to prepare a place for them and would come again and receive them unto himself that where he was there they might be also John 14. 3. For this they had also the word of two of the Heavenly Court who stood by them in bright rayment as they gazed upon him when he was taken up saying This same Jesus which is taken up from you into Heaven shall so come in like man●●● as ye have seen him go into Heaven Acts 1. 10. And how glorious his body was made after he came thither they also very well knew For St. Stephen at his tryal saw the Heavens opened and beheld the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God This he openly testified to the whole Council before whom he stood accused Acts 7. 55 56. and it signifies the illustrious condition wherein he was for as he was the Son of man he stood next to the Divine Majesty and was arrayed with the glory of God St. Paul also who so little believed Steven's words that he was consenting to his death as if he had been a Blasphemer saw our Saviour not long after this as he was journeying to Damascus But he beheld him in such an astonishing brightness that it struck him to the ground and put out his eyes which were not able to endure the glory of it Acts 9. 3 4 c. Which in his Apology to the people he calls a great light that shone round about him Acts 22. 6. and in his Apology to Agrippa a light from Heaven at mid-day above the brightness of the Sun Acts 26. 13. To these two you may add the Testimony of the beloved Disciple who when he was in the Isle of Patmos for the testimony of Jesus saw him in a Majestick shape and his countenance was as the Sun shineth in his strength And when he saw him he was so dismayed that he fell as dead at his feet Rev. 1. 16 17. By these means they knew to what an amazing glory they should one day be exalted a little glimpse of which in this mortal nature they were not strong enough to bear V. For they knew withal that their very bodies should be made like unto his 1. They remembred how he called them Brethren and told them that his Father was their Father and his God their God and therefore doubted not that what was done for him should be done for them 2. And how he prayed that they might be with him where he was and behold i. e. enjoy his glory which the Father hath given him John 17. 24. 3. And how he assured them it was the will of him that sent him that every one who seeth the Son and believeth on him may have everlasting life and he should raise him up at the last day John 6. 40. Which made the Apostle say as you heard in the Chapter before my Text V. 14. they knew that he who raised up the Lord Jesus would raise us up by Jesus 4. And being raised up they knew that they should be carried into the air to meet the Lord 1 Thess 4. 17. Now these bodies which we wear at present are not of an aërial nature but altogether of an earthly They are not fit to be transported beyond this lower Region nor were made to live in any other Element than that in which they are Nay it would be a great terror to us in this body to be caught and lifted up above we should be in continual dread of falling down to this earth whether the heaviness of them doth incline us And therefore they must be changed if we go to meet the Lord in the air as he hath promised we shall For the Apostle saith he spake this by the word of the Lord V. 15. 5 And he promised by the same word that so we shall be ever with him Ib. V. 17. Which we cannot conceive how this earthly body should endure It would soon be weary of that strange place and groan and sigh there as much as the soul doth here It would be pined for want of meat and drink as the Spirit now is often too much stifled with them And therefore in pursuance of his Promise they must be made another kind of bodies fitted to that Countrey to which they shall be transported Where there is no earth nor water nor such creatures as live in them but pure light of unconceivable brightness Lastly they knew that the Members must needs be made conformable to the head and therefore his body being glorious so must this vile body of ours be made too as the Apostle tells us Phil. 3. 21. It would be but an ugly sight among us to behold an hansome beautiful face of the purest complexion joyned to a body black and sooty whose limbs were all deformed and dis-proportioned And much more ill-favoured to see an head of light glistering like the Sun and all the Members dark as pitch resembling this sluggish Earth They made no question therefore but that when he should appear again visibly with them attending on him they should be conformed to the condition and quality of his person to whom they related as members of his body that so he might be admired in his Saints and glorified in all that believe They look't for him to come from Heaven and fashion them after his own image i. e. to make them