Selected quad for the lemma: heaven_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
heaven_n	angel_n	earth_n	part_n	3,093	5	4.2458	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A66053	Of the principles and duties of natural religion two books / by the Right Reverend Father in God, John, late Lord Bishop of Chester ; to which is added, A sermon preached at his funerals, by William Lloyd ...	Wilkins, John, 1614-1672.; Lloyd, William, 1627-1717. Sermon preached at the funeral of John, late Lord Bishop of Chester.; Tillotson, John, 1630-1694.	1675 (1675)	Wing W2204; Wing L2705_PARTIAL; ESTC R20334	178,528	530

good conscience and honest actions I appeal to the experience of all considering men whether this doth not appear to them that the generality of those who live most pleasantly in the world are the most religious and virtuous part of mankind such as know how to regulate themselves in the fruition of what they have how to avoid the extremities on either hand to prevent those mixtures of guilt and fear which are apt to sowre and imbitter all our enjoyments Whether lawful pleasures which a man may reflect upon without any sense of guilt be not much to be preferred before others Whether those intellectual delights that flow from the conscience of well-doing be not much better than any sinful sensual pleasure Whether the doing of any worthy action such as all good men must think well of and commend do not afford a more solid lasting pleasure than can be had from any sensible enjoyments Whether any thing can be more suitable and consequently delightful to a generous mind than an opportunity of being grateful to those by whom a man hath been obliged the making of an ample return for the favours he hath received Whether that noble way of conquest overcoming evil with good surprizing an enemy by kindness when we have it in our power to be severe towards him be not a far greater pleasure than that which is by some counted the sweetest of all other things Revenge Religion doth likewise advance the soul to an holy confidence concerning the Divine favour and good-will towards us If our hearts condemn us not we have confidence towards God A good conscience will set us above all those fears and doubts and cares whereby the lives of men are rendered uncomfortable When in decrepit age a man cannot find comfort in other things when the grinders shall be few and appetite cease then will this be a continual feast The most rational solid sublime complete durable delights of all others do flow from the conscience of well-doing 'T is a chief part this of that heaven which we enjoy upon earth and 't is likewise a principal part of that happiness which we hope to enjoy in heaven Next to the beatifical vision and fruition of God is the happiness of a good conscience and next to that the society of Saints and Angels Whereas on the other side he that lives under the sense of guilt and a consciousness of his obligation to punishment must needs be destitute of all inward peace and comfort Such an one can have nothing to support him with patience under a state of affliction in this world nor can he have any rational grounds to expect a better condition hereafter and therefore must needs have very dreadful apprehensions of dying and be all his life time subject to bondage through the fear of death And that man must needs be very miserable who can neither have true joy in life nor any hope in death This the Heathen Philosophers have acknowledged That there is always a secret dread which doth accompany guilt So Seneca in particular speaking of wicked men he saith tantùm metuunt quantùm nocent that such men must have fears proportionable to their guilt And a little after dat paenas quisquis expect at quisquis autem meruit expect at those men do really suffer punishment who live under the expectation of it and whoever doth any thing to deserve it must needs expect it 'T is not easie to express the torment which those men undergo quos diri conscia facti Mens habet attonitos surdo verbere caedit Occultum quatiente animo tortore flagellum Mens sibi conscia facti Praemetuens adhibet stimulos terretque flagellis 'T is the unsupportableness of this that many times doth cause men in the bitterness of their souls to chuse strangling and death rather than life The Heathens do set forth such a mans condition by the fiction of Furies continually haunting and scourging him But Zophar doth better describe it where he saith Terrors are upon him all darkness is hid in his secret places a fire not blown shall consume him Though some men are so hardened against the sense of guilt as to go on in their sinful courses without feeling any of this remorse for them yet is their peace so far from being a priviledg that it doth render their condition more desperate because it supposes them to have a reprobate mind and such a stupidity upon their consciences as makes them past feeling being seared as it were with an hot iron Which though it may preserve them from those present lashes which others are tormented with yet doth it argue their conditions to be more remediless and desperate All the difference is the one is sick of a Calenture or burning Feaver the other of a Lethargy or Apoplexy the former more painful for the present but both of them very dangerous only the latter less capable of remedy than the former CHAP. VIII How Religion conduces to our Happiness in the next world AS Religion is the true cause of our present happiness in this world whether External Internal So likewise is it the cause of that happiness which we expect in our future states Which must depend upon such courses as can give us the most rational assurance of blessedness and glory hereafter I shall speak but briefly to this subject because 't is scarce possible for any man to be so strangely infatuated so wholly lost to common Reason as to believe that vicious courses despising of Religion walking contrary to God can be the means to entitle him to this future happiness any more than contempt and hatred of any one is a proper means to procure his favour What kind of Happiness this is which belongs to our future state and wherein the Glory of it doth consist is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a thing unspeakable altogether above the expressions of humane Orators and passeth all knowledg the heart of man being not able to conceive it Nor can it be expected that we should be able in this state of flesh and mortality to comprehend what kind of irradiations glorified souls are capable of Only in the general 't is said we shall be like God and see him as he is This state of future happiness as it is above all other things of greatest moment so ought it to be proportionably laboured after with the greatest care and diligence There are several varieties of metaphorical names or expressions whereby this state is described in Scripture but all of them do imply something of more than ordinary care and industry to the qualifying of men for it as Bellarmine hath observed in his Tract de AEternâ felicitate sanctorum 'T is styled The City of God The heavenly Jerusalem And it requires some care and diligence for one that is a Citizen of this world to be a fellow-citizen with the saints it being no easie thing for one that lives in this world not to

may know many others that do in some if not in all these respects exceed And yet he hath not an equal love for them because he hath not the same hopes of attaining an interest in them and being made happy by them So that this Virtue doth properly consist in such a kind of esteem as is withal accompanied with a hope and belief of promoting our own happiness by them And this is properly the true ground and original of our love to God From whence will follow 2. Our choice of him as being the only proper object of our happiness preferring him before any thing else that may come in competition with them Not only as the Scripture expresseth it loving him above father and mother but hating father and mother yea and life it self for his sake Counting all other things but dross and dung in comparison of him Now it cannot otherwise be but that a due apprehension of the Divine excellencies in general especially of his particular goodness to us must excite in the soul suitable affections towards him And hence it is that the misapprehension of the Divine nature as to this Attribute doth naturally produce in men that kind of superstition styled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which imports a frightful and over-timorous notion of the Deity representing God as austere and rigorous easily provoked by every little circumstantial mistake and as easily appeased again by any flattering and slight formalities Not but that there is sufficient evidence from the principles of natural reason to evince the contrary but the true ground of their mistake in this matter is from their own vitious and corrupt affections 'T is most natural for selfish and narrow men to make themselves the rule and measure of perfection in other things And hence it is that according as a mans own inclinations are so will he be apt to think of God Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thy self Those that are of ill natures and of little minds whose thoughts are fixed upon small and low matters laying greater weight upon circumstances salutes addresses than upon the real worth of persons and substantial duties being themselves apt to be provoked unto wrath and fierceness upon the omission of these lesser circumstances and to be pacified again by any flattering and formal services such men must consequently think themselves obliged to deal just so towards God as they expect that others should deal with them And according to the different natures and tempers of those men who do mistake this notion of the Divine goodness so are the effects and consequences of this mistake various as a learned man hath well observed When it meets with stout and sturdy natures who are under a consciousness of guilt it works them to Atheism hardens them to an opposition of him to an endeavour of undermining and destroying the notion of that Deity by whom they are not like to be safe or happy If with more soft and timorous natures men of base and slavish minds it puts such men on to flatter and collogue with him and to propitiate his favour by their zeal in lesser matters And though in this kind of temper and carriage there may be a shew of Religion yet the terminating of it in such things is most destructive to the nature of it rendring all converse with the Deity irksom and grievous begetting a kind of forced and praeternatural zeal instead of that inward love and delight and those other genuine kindly advantages which should arise to the soul from an internal frame of Religion And that the perfections of the Divine nature and particularly his Goodness should excite our love of him may be made evident by all kind of proofs There being no kind of motive to affection whether imaginary or real but 't is infinitely more in God than in any thing else besides I shall mention only these three things 1. His absolute goodness and excellency 2. His relative goodness and kindness to us 3. The necessity we are under of being utterly lost and undone without an interest in his favour 1. His absolute perfections are infinite being the original of all that good which we behold in other things Whatever attractives we find diffused amongst other creatures by which they are rendred amiable they are all derived from him and they are all in comparison to him but as little drops to the Ocean There is much of loveliness in the fabrick of this beautiful world the glorious Sun the Moon and the Stars which he hath ordained which is abundantly enough to render the notion and the name of him excellent in all the earth We may perhaps know some particular persons so very eminent for all kind of accomplishments virtue and wisdom and goodness c. as to contract an esteem and veneration from all that know them But now the highest perfections that are in men besides that they are derived from him are so infinitely disproportionable to his that they may be said not to be in any of the creatures There is some kind of communicated goodness and wisdom and power and immortality in men and yet these perfections are in Scripture appropriated to the Divine nature in such a manner as if no Creature did partake of them There is none good or wise but he He is the only Potentate who only hath immortality No man can take a serious view of the works he hath wrought whether they concern Creation or Providence but he must needs acknowledg concerning the Author of them that he is altogether lovely and say with the Prophet How great is his goodness and how great is his bounty The comeliness of them is upon all accounts so eminent and conspicuous as cannot but be owned by every one who considers them For any man to ask what Beauty is this is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Aristotle speaks the question of a blind man Every man who hath eyes may judg of it at first view Not to discern it is a sure argument of blindness and darkness And that the Divine nature is not more amiable to us shews the great imperfection of our present condition It shall be the perpetual employment of our future state in heaven to celebrate these excellencies of the Divine nature The blessed Angels and the spirits of just men made perfect do receive a chief part of their felicity by contemplating these Divine perfections in the beatifical vision 2. His relative goodness and kindness to us testified in so many particulars that when we would reckon them up they are more in number than the sand He is the Author of our beings and our well-beings It is he that made us and not we our selves He spreads our tables and fills our cups in him we live and move and have our beings He doth daily follow us compass us about load us with his benefits He gives us all that we enjoy and he is willing upon our