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	jesus_n	2,652	5	5.5362	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A61809	Of the reverence due to God in his publick worship a sermon preach'd before the King & Queen, at White-Hall, March 25, 1694, being the 5th Sunday in Lent / by the Right Reverend Father in God, Nicholas Lord Bishop of Chester.	Stratford, Nicholas, 1633-1707.	1694 (1694)	Wing S5937; ESTC R687	12,865	32

it again but would as Ananias and Sapphira were be stricken dead upon the place 'T is true God seldom in comparison shews himself so severe in this World because this is the Day of Grace the Day of Vengeance is deferred till the next All that Wrath which Sinners by their hard and impenitent Hearts do here treasure up unto themselves he reserves it for them till that dreadful Day of Wrath and of the Revelation of his righteous Judgment When 2 Thess 1. 7 8 9. the Lord Jesus shall he revealed from Heaven with his mighty Angels in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God and that obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power He will then be so consuming a Fire that his very Presence will inflict everlasting Destruction upon all those who either now chuse not to know him that they may without fear neglect him or if they know him refuse to acknowledge and glorifie him as God But were this Destruction such as would put an end to their Being it would be the less terrible yea so far from being terrible to them in that dismal State of Misery in which they will then be that might they have their Wish they would beg no greater Favour of God than to be reduc'd to nothing But alas they shall be destroy'd not simply as to Being but as to all such Being as is not inexpressibly worse than no Being Nothing will remain to them but to be cast into Hell where the worm dieth Mark 9. 44 46 48. Rev. 14. 11. not and the fire will never be quenched but the smoak of their torments will ascend for ever and ever They will then be experimentally convinced to their Eternal Sorrow That it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands Heb. 10. 31. of the living God of that God who lives for ever and therefore will never cease to inflict vengeance upon them However they may think to trifle with God now they will then find to their woe That he will not be mock'd To what hath been said upon this Head I shall add but one Consideration more which is such as one would think should be of force if not to affright yet at least to shame Christians out of all careless and negligent Behaviour in the House of God And that is That even Turks and Heathens yea the very Devils will rise in Judgment against irreverent Christians and condemn them So devout are the Turks that they suffer not themselves so much as to look about them but perform their Religious Offices with such Attention of Mind that they think they should lose the fruit of their Prayers if they should then but scratch their Head with their Finger as an Eye-witness informs us For what say they Busbeq Epist 3. if when a Man is to speak with the Bashaws his whole Body is composed to Reverence how much greater Reason is there that the same Respect should be given to GOD who so much exceeds all humane Heighth and Greatness So intent they think they ought to be at their Prayers as not to be diverted though the Execution of the Sultan's Decree should in the same moment be commanded Sir Paul Rycaut's Present State of the Ottoman Empire lib. 2. chap. 23. Edit 1. as another Author tells us For Heathens it may suffice to say That this was one of Pythagoras's Precepts When Lilii Greg. Gyrald Pythag. Symb. Interpret thou comest into the Temple worship and while thou art there do nothing else And another of his Rules was That no Man should go into a Temple when he is in a Journey The meaning of which is That God should not be worshipped by the bye or when a Man is otherwise employed but with the greatest Solemnity and Intention of Mind Numa Pompilius decreed That his Citizens should neither see nor hear Divine Matters in a careless manner and with wandering Thoughts but laying aside all distractions of Mind should wholly apply their Meditations to Religion And Plutarch tells us That In the Life of Numa Pompilius he took care that in the Time of Divine Worship no noise should be heard in the Streets which might obstruct or disturb the seriousness of Devotion what shall I say more Those who believe the Being of God and yet do not Reverence him as God the very Devils will rise up in Judgment against them for though I do not say they worship God yet 't is certain they do not despise him but dread the thoughts of his Power and Justice for the Devils believe and tremble Jam. 2. 19. I proceed now in the III. And last place to suggest some further helps by way of direction in order to the better performance of this Duty I say further helps because all the Arguments before-mention'd are so many helps towards it And 1. That we may the more devoutly worship God in his House let us before we come thither lay aside our worldly Thoughts and Affections Let no man as St. Chrysostom speaks enter In Vid. Dom. Hom. 1. the Church having the cares of this World about him no man with a wandering and distracted mind but let him lay all these down without the doors and so let him come For coming thither as In Cap. 1. Evang Johan Hom. 1. he says in another place We come to Heaven not in respect of the place indeed but of the temper and disposition of our minds for a Man while he lives on Earth may ascend to Heaven and take a view of the things that are there c. Let no Man therefore in the Church think of his domestic affairs but on the contrary while he is yet at home let him begin those things he is to do in the Church Unless we thus leave the cares of this Life behind us we shall do nothing less than that which we pretend is the only thing we come to do For the bare presenting of our bodies before God can by no means be interpreted a worshipping of him if our carriage be such as plainly testifies That our hearts are far from him They therefore have little reason to reckon themselves in the number of his sincere Worshippers whose thoughts in his House are so much set on the things of this World that they cannot prevail with themselves to forbear talking of them even while the Divine The Lessons Epistle and Gospel Oracles are reading which one would think should if any thing command their attention as being the Voice of God without any Gloss or Comment upon it of Man's Devising 2. In order to the loosening of our thoughts from earthly things and raising them up to the things above Let us when we are going to his House reflect upon such like Considerations as those I have before proposed Let us seriously consider the most adorable Majesty

speaks at our very best estate we are all Vanity It is the Observation of the Father now mentioned That when St. Paul would shew the distance between God and Man he doth not represent it to be so great but we may conceive it to be much greater For what says he Chrys de Incomprehens Dei Nat. Hom. 2. Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it Why hast thou made me thus Hath not the Potter power over the Clay to make of the same lump one vessel to honour and another to dishonour The distance says he between God and Man is as great as that between the Potter and the Clay Yea much greater for if a Man seem more Noble and more Beautiful than the Clay it is not the diversity of Nature but the Skill of the Artificer that hath made the difference but so great is the distance between God and Man that neither can the Tongue express nor the Mind conceive it Let us consider 2. What God is to us and in what Relation we stand to him It is he that raised us at first out of Nothing into Being that spake the word and we were made And shall we not with the humblest Reverence fall down before the Lord our Maker It is he by whom we live and move as well as have our Being in whose hands our Breath is and whose are all our Ways And shall we not devoutly adore him upon whom we continually so entirely depend that we can neither breathe nor live any longer than he sustains us It is he that daily poureth his Benefits upon us All those Enjoyments that render our Being more desireable than not to be we owe solely to him as our constant Benefactour And shall we not revere his Goodness to whom we owe all the good things we enjoy Shall we by our unseemly Carriage toward him provoke him to become our Enemy who hath been so great a Friend to us It is he upon whom we depend for all future Blessings from whose Bounty alone we can hope for the continuance of our Comforts in this World and for an Immortal Bliss in the next And shall we not pay all possible Respect to him by whom we hope to be made everlastingly happy It is he that hath redeemed us from the hands of our Enemies not with such poor corruptible things as Silver and Gold but with the precious Blood of his own beloved Son Since therefore we are not our own ought we not to glorifie him both with our Body and Spirit which he hath purchased at so dear a rate In short if the foregoing Considerations do not move us let us once more consider That this God who is our Maker and Preserver our munificent Benefactour and most merciful Redeemer is also our supreme Judge from whose Sentence there lies no Appeal We must there is no avoiding it but whether we will or no we must all appear before his dreadful Tribunal to give an account of our Behaviour toward him And can we hope for a favourable Sentence from him if in our most solemn Worship of him we carry our selves toward him as if he were a Being so mean as deserved not to be fear'd by us Consider 3. That this great and incomprehensible Majesty is in a peculiar manner present with us when we assemble together in his House to worship him Though he be substantially present every where yet in some places he is present in greater State as I may say than in other and by consequence a more awful Deportment is there required of us Heaven is the Place where he keeps his Court where his chief Ministers of State constantly attend his Throne where he most illustriously displays the Majesty of his Glory and from whence he dispatches his Ambassadours to negotiate his Affairs in this lower World But now as Earthly Kings have usually their different Palaces one in the Imperial City surpassing all the rest in Splendour and Magnificence others of inferiour Note in more obscure Palaces and at a great distance from the Seat Imperial so this King of kings who dwells in Heaven in Glory unapproachable by mortal Eyes hath also his Mansion-houses in which he dwells here on Earth and hath his Officers of State there also attending on him though not in such shining Robes as in Heaven Such are the Places set apart for his Publick Worship in these he is otherways present than in common Places and therefore these are by way of distinction called in Scripture His Houses and He is said to dwell in them Thus he dwelt among his ancient People first in the Tabernacle as his moveable House while they were in their Travels thro' the Wilderness and in the Temple afterward as his fixed Habitation when they came to be settled in the Land of Canaan as this latter is expresly called by David his Palace so he 2 Chron. 29. 1 19. himself said of it Here will I dwell for I have a delight therein If it be now enquired how or in what manner God is more peculiarly present in Church-Assemblies than in other places Though I might shew you that he is so sundry ways and in divers manners and more particularly by the communication of his Holy Spirit to all those who come duly prepared to receive it yet as more proper to the Argument I am now upon I Answer briefly by the Presence of his Heavenly Attendants See Mr. Mede upon this Text. the Holy Angels as a King is more eminently present where his Court is than where he himself is alone in Person Hence Jacob having seen a Vision of Angels upon his awakeing says Surely the Lord is in this place and Gen. 28. 16 17. I knew it not What did not Jacob know that God was in every place and by consequence in that where he then was Yea doubtless The meaning therefore is God is in a more solemn manner in this place than in others he is here as in his Palace with his prime Ministers attending on him as appears by what follows How dreadful is this place this is no other but the House of God this is the Gate of Heaven Now that the Angels are present in the Assemblies for his Worship we have sufficient evidence both in the Old Testament and in the New The Psalmist speaking of Mount Sion the place set apart for his publick Worship says The Chariot of God is twice ten thousand thousands of Angels the Lord is among them Sinai is in Psalm 68. 17. the Sanctuary so the words are to be render'd according to the Original By the Chariot of God is meant the Host of Angels by which God's special Presence is convey'd from Heaven to Earth and the plain meaning of the words is this That a great Host of Angels does now attend upon God in Mount Sion the place of his Public Worship as they did formerly on Mount Sinai at the giving of the Law there This Angelical Presence