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	face_n	father_n	2,599	5	5.1335	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A47484	Pillulæ pestilentiales, or, A spiritual receipt for cure of the plague delivered in a sermon preach'd in St. Paul's Church London, in the mid'st of our late sore visitation / by Rich. Kingston ...	Kingston, Richard, b. 1635?	1665 (1665)	Wing K614; ESTC R4398	31,246	136

Angels veil their faces by whose only Fiat the Chaos was un-masked and to whose bounty all the several species of creatures owe their Beeing I will hear from heaven forgive and heal your Land Other Physicians either out of hope of gain or to buoy up their credits and repute in the World promise those cures which they can never perform But here is one whose Word is his Deed that Archetypal verity who having the Issues of Life and Death in his hand when he promises Life cannot be guilty of a Lye and when he threatens death upon impenitency will surely inflict it So then here is a Conjunction of the whole Trinity in the Cure promised the perfection of which will appear in three particulars 1. God will cure us corporally When he sent his beloved Son to preach the Gospel of Eternal Life many heard him but were little moved with the Excellency of his Embassie but when he came to those sensitive and ocular demonstrations of his power the healing of the Sick and feeding the Multitude by miracle many then were induced to believe in him S. Matthew tells us that he healed all that were Sick At his word the Blind found eyes the lame flung away their Crutches the Paralytick and such as were troubled with an effusion of Blood found that virtue proceeding from him which effected their cure If the touch of his garment were so balsamical that of his voice had a greater power for Lazarus though rotting four days in his grave at Christ's first call quitted his cold Mansion and conquered Death surrendred his Prisoner at the Command of this great Prince The Platonist say Lumen est Vmbra Dei Light is but the shadow of God and I may very well affirm that the Learned'st Physicians are but shadows of this Sun of righteousness when he appears with healing in his wings Have we the plague spots upon us If God will be our Physician their very redness shall serve for a blush to confess their impotency when he bids them vanish Does a Feaver burn us or a Dropsie drown us One word of his mouth will prove a Julip to cool our veins and a Sluce to let out that Lake of humours which would engulph us If we be once penitentially quallified He will hear us He will heal us Let us therefore look upon this Visitation with a Spiritual eye Let us that God yet spares learn to be better lest those Princes of Peru in America meer Heathens at the day of Judgment rise up against us who accounted Sickness Nuncios coeli quibus se ad Deos acciri dicebant God's Messengers by which he would draw them to himself as Nierembergius reports He brings us into the School of Affliction Hist Nat. that we might learn Wisdome And as he will heal us so he will the diseases in the creatures that contribute to the maintenance of our Lives Is the Air infected He will purge it Is the fruit blasted He will stop Mildews and what ever hinders a plentiful Vegitation Doth the Murrain consume Cattle That shall likewise cease In a word whatever impleads our temporal enjoyments upon our Repentance like Dust shall be driven away before the Wind. 2. God will cure us Spiritully The wounds of the Soul are infinitely more considerable than those of the Body and therefore David who as St. Chrysostom speaks was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 One that lived as strictly in his Kingly Pallace as in a Cloyster cries out Ps 41.4 Heal my Soul for I have sinned against thee And indeed he had great reason to do so for he that had victoriously encountred the Lyon the Bear Goliah and an host of Men was now broken by a feminine temptation and become guilty of those Soul-wounding Sins Adultery and Murther Now as David made his Address to God the only Soul-Physician so let us for he can certainly restore and heal This Soul-cure he will perform First By healing our irregular affections which can by no less powerful means be effected than the communication of his Grace For if Adam in Paradice richly furnished with supernatural gifts continued but a poor while in that purity and excellent condition how much less can nature wounded with Sin without the assistance of supernatural endowments recover her former purity I shall not deny but a vigorous reason may help a man to acquire those virtuous habits which may cause a promptitude in the affections to virtuous actions yet those Acts of virtue will be so poor and imperfect that they can never bring him to eternal felicity Actions that spring from Grace do as far excel those that are the Issue of Nature though never so morallized as fruits that are ripened in the woods and fields by the beams of the Sun do those that are brought forth by artificial fires Grace changes the affections powerfully and renders them as it were new affections according to St. Paul If a Man be in Christ he is a new creature Not that our affections in this life are totally healed by grace there will be lusting of the Flesh against the Spirit in the most gracious persons but those Insurrections and Tumults are rather suffered by God as a Tryal than a destruction to his children Inordinate affections shall be so healed in this life that they shall lose their Empire though not their Beeing when they begin to rebel Grace will be able to subdue and triumph over them Secondly By healing our Vnderstanding At first when man enjoyed his Integrity the Vnderstanding did naturally apprehend truth with the greatest facility and as when our eye looks upon some curious piece of Painting Sculpture or any other beautiful object it is highly pleased so the Vnderstanding when it look'd upon Truth received great Satisfaction and the more sublime and excellent the Truths were the nobler caresses she found in the contemplation of them But novv alas a dismal chaos hath invelop'd the Vnderstanding yea that Science that vvas so brisk and sparkling in our first Parents and should have been the inheritance of all their posterity is utterly lost Our ignorance is such that vve are not able to judge of supernatural Truths and therefore God vvill cure this defect in us by Divine Illumination He vvill set up in our Souls the bright Tapers of his grace vvhereby the fogs and mists of Infidelity shall be dispell'd and such a certainty vvrought in us as is essential to true Faith Thirdly By healing our Wills The Phylosopher's Maxim is here true Corruptio Optimi est pessima The Will being the supreme faculty of the Soul had once a natural power to love God but being novv wounded by Sin the wounds in it are of a deadlier nature than those of the other faculties Thus Sins of Malice are deeper wounds than those of Infirmity or Ignorance and therefore one excellently said That nothing fri'd so much in Hell as the perverse wills of Men. God will heal this wounded part also by his

be thus wounded if we consider that the Jews did but once crucifie him but We by the committal of fresh sins and Impieties crucifie him every day and grieve his holy Spirit It is therefore infinitly necessary we should have this due sense this holy wounding of heart if we expect God should repent of the evil done unto us and heal our Land 2. The second branch of Repentance is Confession As we must be sorrowful for sin so we must make a true confession of sin Now in confession we must observe these Rules First Our confession must be humble and self-accusing Non vis ut ille damnet Tu damna Vis ut ille ignoscat Tu agnosce Wouldst thou not that God should Condemn thee condemn thy self Say with the Publican Lord have mercy upon me a sinner Wouldst thou have God pardon Do thou crye guilty We must not imitate our Grandfather Adam that cryed The Woman thou gavest me presented me the fruit and I did eat We must take the sins we have committed upon our selves it being altogether unjust we should file that Evil on anothers score of which we have been the Authors How many are there in these days that when they are accused of any Vncleanness lay the fault upon Nature as St. Austin complains many in his time did and consequently accuse God himself We ought rather with the Prophet David to cry out Lord it is I that have done this Great Wickedness and with Jeremiah confess our ways and our Evil doings have brought all these miseries upon us Secondly We must not put our sins to the Devil's Account He may tempt us but he cannot force us to sin The Devil might have offered Eve a thousand of those beautiful Apples without prevailing had she not been as willing to tast that forbidden fruit as he ready to perswade her it was good If he could force us to sin we might justly lay the fault at his dore and make the very necessity of sinning our Apology But the Apostle St. James bids us resist the Devil and he will fly from us to teach us we have a power to combat and through Grace baffle his pernicious temptations Thirdly Neither must we make God the Author of our sins He is a God of purer eyes than to behold iniquity and what blasphemy would it be in us when we have committed sins that even some natural men would abhor to father them upon God the source of all purity and goodness The Psalmist steers another course when he says I will confess my sins unto the Lord Psal 32. He doth not say he will accuse God as the author of his Lust to the Wife of Vriah or of his Pride in numbering the people no but I will confess to him against my self he is righteous and I have done wickedly God cannot be tempted to evil neither tempts he any man it is a principle of corruption within us that brings forth this viperous brood and we must wholly acknowledge God righteous when he punisheth for Sin Fourthly Our Confession must be Integra perfecta There are many that will be ready to acknowledge those Sins which they see the best of Men are obnoxious to but their Dallilah's their darling Sins like the true name of Rome they keep concealed But this is not the Confession that will do our work a lame half-confession is no more acceptable to God than if we should offer him half our heart when he requires the whole Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart which he can never truly be said to do that leaves some Sins unconfess'd and as it were hid in the inward recesses of his Soul because God being a profess'd enemy to every Sin such a concealment is a taking part with that which he most hates Thirdly The third part of Repentance is Conversion Now there is a two-fold Conversion 1. A Turning and total Conversion of a Sinner from Sin to God and in this Signification is comprehended the whole work of Grace Psal 51.14 And Sinners shall be converted unto thee this is passive Conversion wherein God is the Chief Agent but our selves by our natural power work nothing unless it be to hinder the work of Grace 2. There is a turning from some particular Sin or Sins whereby we have offended God or Man Luke 22.32 When thou art converted and Jer. 31.18 Convert thou me and I shall be converted This is an active Conversion performed by men who being already renewed by Grace do work together with this Grace Now this conversion is a turning of the heart unto God whereby we contract a perfect aversion to those things which we formerly delighted in and have such an alteration in our will and affections that we desire nothing and affect nothing but what we find agreeable to his blessed will It is not a turning of the Brain an alteration of this or that opinion that is Vertigo Capitis not Conversio Cordis but it is a meer alteration and turning of 〈…〉 of our hearts So that the perfection of this conversion consists in the turning of the whole heart This true turning is a thing no way pleasing to the Devil If he could he would not have us turn at all he sowes pillows under our Elbows and perswades us we are in a blessed condition but if we will needs turn he will persuade us to Turn any whether rather than unto God If he cannot effect this yet his Artifice and cunning is to make us leave our hearts behind Now if that will not do but we will Turn with our heart in Corde yet he labours all he can it may not be in toto he would have us have some private ends some Lusts to gratifie he would have our affections broken and not entirely subservient to the Divine Will But Beloved if we would remove these judgments that lye heavy upon us we must not divide our hearts between God and the Devil but must turn to God with our whole hearts for he is the great Physician that only can heal our diseased Souls And thus I come to the fourth and last Branch of the Text the Physician prescribing the Medicine GOD in these words I will hear from heaven and will forgive their Sin and will heal their Land St. Chrysostome tells us that Christ the second person of the Trinity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by his death became Physician of the Dead in his very humility and state of Exinanition he baffled Sin and Death and the Balsam of his Blood shed upon the Cross closed up the Serpentine wound received in Paradice If this be true of Christ as without doubt it is whilest he was in the form of a Servant we ought not to question the performance of the promise made us in my Text by the whole Trinity I will hear from heaven c. I God the Father I God the Son I God the Holy Ghost I one yet three at whose presence the