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	glory_n	great_a	4,834	5	3.1212	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A56470	A sermon preached at the funeral of the Rt Honorable John Earl of Rochester, who died at Woodstock-Park, July 26, 1680, and was buried at Spilsbury in Oxford-shire, Aug. 9 by Robert Parsons ...	Parsons, Robert, 1647-1714.	1680 (1680)	Wing P570; ESTC R4950	23,584	52

ministring Spirits sent forth to minister to those who shall be heirs of salvation to see that now at last their labour is not in vain in the Lord but that there is one more Subject gained to the obedience of their and our common Lord deliver'd from the slavery and admitted to fill up the vacancy of Apostate Spirits And as our 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 our proper or natural Citizenship or conversation is in heaven so should our joys too be conformable to those of our fellow-citizens And therefore after the Relations and Friends of this great Person have paid their natural tribute of tears to so near a Relation they should then turn their sorrows into joys by the comfortable consideration of his being a Penitent upon earth and a Saint in heaven Thus his dear Mother should rejoyce that the Son of her love and of her fears as well as of her bowels is now born again into a better world adopted by his heavenly Father and gone before her to take possession of an eternal inheritance 2. His truly loving Consort should rejoyce that God has been so gracious to them both as at the same time to give him a fight of his errors in point of Practice and her self not altogether without his means and endeavours a sight of hers in point of Faith And truly considering the great prejudices and dangers of the Roman Religion I think I may aver that there is joy in heaven and should be on earth for Her conversion as well as His. 3. His Noble and most hopeful Issue should rejoyce as their years are capable not that a dear and loving Father has left them but that since he must leave them he has left them the example of a Penitent and not of a Sinner the Blessing of a Saint in recommending them to an All-sufficient Father and not entailing on them the fatal Curse that attends the posterity of the wicked and impenitent 4. All good men should rejoyce to see the triumphs of the Cross in these latter days and the words of Divine Wisdom and Power And bad men certainly when ever they consider it are most of all concern'd to joy and rejoyce in it as a condemn'd Malefactor is to hear that a fellow-criminal has got his Pardon and that he may do so too if he speedily sue for it And this joy of all will still be the greater if we compare it with the Joy there is in the case of Just persons that need no Repentance viz. that need not such a solemn extraordinary Repentance or the whole change of heart and mind as great Sinners do and of this my Text pronounces that there is greater joy in heaven over one such sinner that truly repenteth than there is over ninety and nine just persons that need not such a repentance And the reason we may conceive to be this that since all Joy arises from Admiration and Surprize as from something that is new and unexpected accordingly the joy that proceeds from the repentance and new life of a notorious Sinner must needs be greater then that which rises from the constant piety of a good man which we have seen every day as a resurrection from the dead is more remarkable then our first life Besides that such a Penitent's former failings are ordinarily the occasion of a greater and more active piety afterwards as our Convert earnestly wish'd That God would be pleased to spare him but one year more that in that he might honour his Name proportionably to the dishonour done to God in his whole life past And we see St. Paul laboured more abundantly than all the Apostles in the planting of the Church because he had raged most furiously before in the destruction of it and our Saviour himself tells us that to whom much is given they will love much but to whom little is forgiven they will love little and we know a Commander will love a Soldier more that redeems his former cowardise by doing some brave and daring action then him who never had that taint upon him but yet never atchieved any thing remarkable A Husbandman more rejoyces at the improvement of briars and thorns into an excellent crop from which once he had but little expectation than for such a soil as was remarkable neither for the one or the other T is certainly the more safe indeed the only safe way to be constantly virtuous and he that is wise indeed i. e. wise unto salvation will endeavour to be one of those that need no repentance I mean that entire and whole work of beginning anew but will draw out the same thred through his whole life and not let the Sun go down upon any of his sins but then the other Repentance is the more remarkable and where it is real the more effectual to produce a fervent and a fruitful piety besides the greater glory to God in the influence of the example Which may probably be a farther reason of the excessive joy of Angels at the Conversion of such a Sinner because they who are better acquainted with humane nature than we and knowing it apt like the Pharisees to demand a Sign from heaven for the reformation of corrupted customs they discern too that such desperate Spiritual recoveries will seem so many Openings of the Heavens in the descent of the holy Dove visibly to the standers by and accordingly will have the greater influence upon them And t is this in the last place that I am to recommend to all that hear me this day And having thus discharg'd the office of an Historian in a faithful representation of the Repentance and Conversion of this great Sinner give me leave now to bespeak you as an Ambassador of Christ and in his name earnestly perswade you to be reconcil'd to him and to follow this Illustrious person not in his Sins any more but in his Sorrows for them and his forsaking them I hope better things of you my Brethren then to think that all that now hear me have need of such a repentance tho all have need of some and the best are most sensible of it But if there be any in this place or elsewhere who have been drawn into a complacency or practice of any kind of sin from his example let those especially be perswaded to break off their sins by repentance by the same example that as he has been for the fall so he may be now for the rising again of many in Israel God knows there are too many that are wise enough to discern and follow the examples of evil but to do good from those examples they have no power like those absurd flatterers we read of who could imitate Plato in his crookedness Aristotle in his stammering and Alexander the Great in the bending of his neck and the shrilness of his voice but either could not or would not imitate them in any of their perfections or like to those bad stomachs that delight in dirt and charcoal

A SERMON PREACHED At the Funeral of the R t HONORABLE JOHN Earl of ROCHESTER Who died at Woodstock-Park July 26. 1680 and was buried at Spilsbury in Oxford-shire Aug. 9. By Robert Parsons M. A. Chaplain to the Right Honorable ANNE Countess-Dowager of ROCHESTER OXFORD Printed at the THEATER for Richard Davis and Tho Bowman In the Year 1680. To the Right Honourable ANNE and ELIZABETH DOWAGER-COVNTESSES OF ROCHESTER Right Honorable YOur Ladiships or any else cannot think meaner of this Performance than I my self do for besides the great hurry and disorder that I was in upon the loss of such a Patron us my Lord I am sufficiently conscious how unfit I am to appear in public especially upon such a nice and great Subject As his Lordships particular Commands brought me to the Pulpit so Yours only have brought me to the Press And therefore I hope whatever usage the following Discourse may meet with abroad I shall always find a shelter in your Ladiships Favours and the rather because you can both of you largely attest the truth of most of the remarkable Occurrences that I have taken notice of during his Lordships Penitential sickness I shall adde nothing more but wish You may never forget the goodness of Almighty God who through this whole melancholy Scene has signalized his good Providences to You both and that You may ever live under the special protection thereof is the constant prayer of Your HONORS Most Faithful and most obedient humble Servant ROBERT PARSONS Adderbury Aug. 30. 1680. St. LUKE 15.7 I say unto you that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one Sinner that repenteth more than over ninety and nine just persons that need no repentance IF ever there were a subject that might deserve and exhaust all the treasures of Religious Eloquence in the description of so great a Man and so great a Sinner as now lies before us together with the wonders of the Divine goodness in making him as great a Penitent I think the present occasion affords one as remarkable as any place or age can produce Indeed so great and full a matter it is that t is too big to come out of my mouth and perhaps not all of it fit or needful so to do The greatness of his Parts are well enough known and of his Sins too well in the world and neither my Capacity nor Experience nor my Profession will allow me to be so proper a judge either of the one or the other Only as God has been pleased to make me a long while a sad Spectator and a secret Mourner for his Sins so has he at last graciously heard the prayers of his nearest Relations and true Friends for his Conversion and Repentance and t is the good tidings of that especially what God has done for his Soul that I am now to publish and tell abroad to the world not only by the obligations of mine Office in which I had the honour to be a weak Minister to it but by his own express and dying Commands Now altho to describe this worthily would require a Wit equal to that with which he lived and a Devotion too equal to that with which he died and to match either will be a very hard task yet besides that I am not sufficient for these things for who is and that my thoughts have been rather privately busied to secure a real repentance to himself whilst living than to publish it abroad to others in artificial dress after he is dead I say besides all this I think I shall have less need to call in the aids of secular Eloquence The proper habit of Repentance is not fine Linnen or any delicate Array such as are used in the Court or Kings Houses but Sack-cloth and Ashes And the way which God Almighty takes to convey it is not by the words of mans wisdome but by the plainness of his written Word assisted by the inward power and demonstration of the Spirit and the effects it works and by which it discovers it self are not any raptures of wit and fancy but the most humble prostrations both of soul and spirit and the captivating all humane imaginations to the obedience of a despised Religion and a crucified Saviour And t is in this array I intend to bring out this Penitent to you an array which I am sure he more valued and desired to appear in both to God and the World than in all the triumphs of Wit and Gallantry And therefore waving all these Rhetorical flourishes as beneath the Solemnity of the occasion and the majesty of that great and weighty Truth I am now to deliver I shall content my self with the office of a plain Historian to relate faithfully and impartially what I saw and heard especially during his Penitential sorrows which if all that hear me this day had been spectators of there would then have been no need of a Sermon to convince men but every man would have been as much a Preacher to himself of this Truth as I am except these sorrows And yet even these Sorrows should be turn'd into Joys too if we would only do what we pray for that the will of God may be done in earth as it is in heaven for so our Blessed Lord assures us I say unto you that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth c. From which I shall consider 1. The Sinner particularly that is before us 2. The Repentance of this Sinner together with the means the time and all probable sincerity of it 3. The joy that is in Heaven and should be on Earth for the Repentance of this Sinner 4. The comparative greatness and preeminence of this joy on the account of his Example that is and should be for the Repentance of this Sinner more than for the constant and uniform virtuousness of any good liver which will naturally lead me to my Fifth and last particular to a speciall address or application to all that hear me that they would all joyn in this joy in praise and thanksgivings to God for the conversion of this Sinner and if there be any that have been like him in their sins that they would also speedily imitate him in their repentance And 1. let us consider the Person before us as he certainly was a great Sinner But because man was upright before he was a sinner and to measure the greatness of his fall it will be necessary to take a view of that height from wich he fell give me leave to go back a little to look into the rock from which he was hewn the Quality Familie Education and Personal Accomplishments of this Great man In doing of which I think no man will charge me with any design of customary flattery or formality since I intend only thereby to shew the greatness and unhappiness of his folly in the perverting so many excellent abilities and advantages for virtue and piety in the service of sin and so becoming