Selected quad for the lemma: heaven_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
heaven_n	body_n	earth_n	soul_n	16,341	5	5.1635	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A51515	The mount of spirits that glorious and honorable state to which believers are called by the Gospel explained in some meditations upon the 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24 verses of the 12th chapter to the Hebrews : with some previous reflections upon that whole Epistle and the people of the Jews.	Wolseley, Charles, Sir, 1630?-1714.	1691 (1691)	Wing M2970; ESTC R32126	106,065	208

happiness from his adjudging them thereunto so that he is to all Men their Alpha and Omega in Creation in Redemption in Superiority and Government and in that final irreversible and eternal Judgment he will at last pass upon them Fourthly This important Truth is evident from hence The supreme End of all God's Works is his Glory now 't is plain that the glory God designed to himself by the making and forming of Man 't is all given up and handed unto him in by and through the Son upon that account he that honours the Son honours the Father the creating Work of our Lord Jesus his redeeming Work his mediatory Government all his Workings and Operations by the Holy Ghost upon the Hearts and Spirits of Men and his final Judgment at last they are but to collect and bring in a Revenue of Glory for the Father and when the Kingdom is delivered up to the Father all the Glory of it will for ever center in him This will farther appear the larger View we take of the Particulars First In the Creation of Man by the second Person how greatly does the glory of God's Power manifest it self in bringing into being such a creature as Man first was so stupendiously constituted and ever after so fearfully and wonderfully propagated compounded part of Heaven and part of Earth between an Angel above and a Beast that perisheth below a spark of Divinity and Eternity put into a lump of mouldering Clay intended to be separated after a dreadful manner and as wonderfully to meet again and be reunited such is the Soul breathed into the Body a Creature made able still to mount upwards be guided by his nobler part and cleave to his Maker as his chief good and also under possibility of being influenced by his meaner and lower part and still sinking down into vanity sensuality and folly a Creature so made as to be of everlasting duration and a future Subject of mighty Rewards and Punishments and his Person by reason of the wonderful and unbounded workings of his Soul a Stage of stupendious Transactions wherein the whole Trinity are most eminently manifested all the Angels both above and below most highly concern'd and in which the welfare of all the rest of the Creatures and of this lower part of the World is much bound up this Creature although he may derive himself from the eternal pleasure of all the Persons in the Godhead yet his Creation was the peculiar Act and Operation of the second Persons and the Glory of that Creation results to the Deity through him Secondly The Glory of God's innate Mercy and Goodness is exceeding transparent from hence no sooner had Man lost himself but the flood-gates of Divine Bounty are let open by the undertakings of the Son nothing imaginable nothing possible could so display Divine Grace as Christ's undertaking to leave Heaven and become Man and do what he did for Man's sake no Glass but this could have shew'd at once the compleat and intire Glory of that Attribute the Faculties of Angels and Men though they are large and inquisitive comprehensive and sagacious yet they are quite silenc'd and extasiz'd by this Transaction the Object quite over-matching the Faculty when God gives his Son and himself in him what Creature can think himself into the Heighths and Depths of that Gift or pretend to span its Dimensions in his Imagination all we can utter upon this Subject is what St. Paul in a Sacred Extasie says in the 8th of the Romans What shall we say to these things and improve it as he does there by that holy Interrogation He that has given us his Son will he not with him also freely give us all things Thirdly How transparent is the Glory of God's Justice in punishing Sin upon his own Son and redeeming the World by no less a Sacrifice than the Blood of God this is to exalt the Glory of that Attribute to its utmost heighth and for ever to abase Man and lay him as low as he can be this is a stupendious Instruction to the prophane ignorant World to let them see what Sin is and what the sense is God has of it and how hard a thing it is for a rebellious creature to be reconciled again unto God when we consider the absolute boundless Dominion and Soveraignty God has over us as our Maker and the uncontroulable Authority that is inherent and resides in that infinite Being that gives being to all besides himself and whose Laws are in their nature perfect and the very quintessence of all rectitude we must needs then reflect upon that rebellious Evil and Poyson that is in Sin no contradiction can consist with such a Being as God is and therefore no Man can oppose him and prosper whil'st Man abides in a state of subjection and conformity to him he is happy and nothing can make him miserable but when he turns aside to Rebellion and the Madness and Folly of Sin he becomes naked a dread and terror a frightful Ghost to himself and renders himself exposed to all the Misfortunes and Miseries his Being is capable of Fourthly By the second Person is given up unto God the glory of his rectoral and magistratical Authority over all his Creatures and therefore in the second Psalm God calls him his King being both from him and for him this is done by Christ's Rule and Government as Head of the Church the whole Creation is put into subjection to him and he that is in our own nature our Redeemer and Saviour him has God made to be Ruler and Lord of all By his Government all the Divine Attributes are clearly and evidently display'd all the righteous Methods of Government pursu'd and all the true and noble Ends of it brought about and accomplished All the various Turnings and Windings of Humane Affairs here below as they are under the Mediator's regulation are but subservient to a discovery and manifestation of God's Wisdom his Power his Grace and other Divine Attributes and through them all perfect Methods are pursu'd and at last the right Ends will be attained giving every Man according to his Works and setling Rewards and Punishments in their due places In two respects the Excellency of Christ's Government does chiefly appear 1st In respect of the World as he is King of Nations And 2dly In respect of the Church as he is King of Saints With respect to the World the Glory of Christ's Government appears eminent in these four things 1. In his providential Endeavours in the course and motion of Humane Affairs for their Information Reformation and Salvation bringing Men out of Satan's Kingdom and embodying them with his Church over-ruling things in the course of the World to tend that way his Heart is still upon Salvation and his ultimate design to make Men eternally happy 2. In respect of those spiritual invisible Influences and Convictions by which he more nearly treats with the World about their Eternal Welfare and all

best Man upon Earth could not stand before God under that dispensation which addition to the story God for some especial ends we may be assured gave to the Apostle by Revelation there being no such thing recorded by Moses himself In the 22th Verse the Apostle comes to the second Part of the comparison the affirmitive Part shewing what it is that the believing Jews when they embraced Christianity came to but ye are come to mount Sion 1st This in general is to instruct the converted Jews that by the Gospel they are come to and embodyed with the true Catholick Church called in scripture the fulness of him that filleth all things of which the National Church of the Jews was but a Type and a Figure 2dly That this true Catholick Church is partly in Heaven and partly on Earth And 3dly The Apostle by intermixing these parts together in his account of them gives them to understand that they are all of one piece and together make but one Church and one Body under one Head things in Heaven and things on Earth being united in Christ as their common head and by telling them they are come they are come to this Catholick Church the Apostle signifies this unto them that as their Fathers after several Days Travel upon their coming out of Egypt and by great and solemn preparations came at last to Mount Sinai so they and their Fathers having travelled through the former dispensation which was the great preparative to this they are now safely arrived hither and are come to all the Glories and Priviledges of the Gospel they are come in respect of Relation and Communion to all that part of the Church that is in Heaven and to all the true and real parts of it upon Earth not now confin'd to any National Constitution whatever and this is the best state and utmost that we can attain to in this World The Apostles drift here is not at all to describe the Church Triumphant but the Militant Church the force of this Discourse lies in preferring the state of the Gospel Church here upon Earth beyond and before that of the legal and judicial Church and the Apostle chooseth to represent them both by two Mounts one where the Law was given which was the greatest thing belonged to the Judaical oeconomy and the other from whence the Gospel first issued If you ask why the Apostle represents the Gospel state by Mount Sion and Jerusalem that were places proper and peculiar to the Jews there are several accounts may be given of it 1st Because those places had Spiritual and Gospel significations even as the Jews enjoy'd them and so the Apostle represents by them the better to engage the Jews what they truly and really signified and speaks of them in their own native and proper representation Mount Sion consisted of two parts on the highest part the Temple was built and on the other the Palace of their Kings so that this Mount was typically comprehensive of their Civil and Ecclesiastical state 2dly The Gospel first issued from thence and it was prophesied that so it should do Esau 2.3 out of Sion shall go forth the Law speaking of the Gospel and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem And the same Prophet tells us the deliverer shall come out of Sion and upon that account in Psal 133. God is said from Mount Sion to command the blessing even life for evermore the meaning is Christ himself came into the Temple upon Mount Sion in Jerusalem and from thence in person issued out the Proclamation of the Gospel and therefore the Apostle keeps up the Honour of this Mount and this City because it had ever been by right and designation the seat of the true Worship of the only true God in opposition to all Idolatry and upon that account called the City of the Living God and in regard of the most glorious Types and Prefigurations were therein included and at last therein appeared the great end and substance of them all the glorious Person of God-Man of Christ himself it seems in a sort necessary if the Church were denominated by any one place it should be from this as being comprehensive of the whole Church and State of the Jews and the very center of it the Catholick Church under the Gospel being under confinement to no one place more then another no one place could so give a denomination to it as it might do to a National Church and therefore this place is made choice of by the Holy Ghost and being comprehensive of all God's sacred institutions of old of the Jewish Church Litterally and the Gospel Church Spiritually The Catholick Church universally thereupon is denominated from it and by it to the end of the World To which we may add in the Third place That since all the promises in the Old Testament that are made to the Gospel Church to the end of the World are made to it under those names of Sion and Jerusalem that therefore it seems necessary to keep up those names as it hath pleased the Holy Ghost to do to the end of the World to shew the punctual fulfilling of those promises in all Ages What Mount Sion and Jerusalem signified will not be compleated till the Consummation of all things upon which account God was said to take up his rest and dwell there for ever Nothing therefore seems so proper so decent and fit as to denominate the Gospel-Church by those terms and as it was in the Apostles times a great help to them to find out what Christ was to do and suffer by what was signified and typified of him under the Law so it will be to the very end of the World a marvellous help to the Church to understand the glorious methods of his Kingdom and Government by looking back and seeing how it was set forth in the prefigurations of it that belonged to Jerusalem and Mount Sion It pleaseth the Holy Ghost throughout the whole Scripture most frequently to represent the Gospel in Judaical Types and Phrases and two reasons we may probably suppose for it 1st To shew what an exact Agreement and Harmony there is in all God's Dispensations how every shadow truly represented the substance and every counter-part punctually agrees with the original And 2dly As a means to promote the conversion of the Jews in the latter times when they shall lay to heart and consider that all their own Religion expressed in their own Language is truly and fully to be found in the Christian Religion that the Law therein is exactly conster'd into the Gospel and every particular thing they most valued they shall here find by name expressed and fully to be enjoyed in the substance and perfection of it But for the more punctual and exact discovery of the Apostles sense in these Verses it will be needful to consider the particulars to which he tells the believing Jews they were come severally and distinctly The First thing he tells

and Employments called Angels In the order of the Jewish Synagogues there was one that chiefly prayed for the People and blessed them and him they called the Angel of the Synagogue and that I believe St. John relates to when he writes to the Angels of the seven Churches how these I say were designed in a particular manner to all their future use service and happiness in their creation at the first by the second Person in the Trinity will very manifestly appear if we consider first the dependance they have upon him and secondly their subjection and serviceableness unto him First Their dependance upon him The Scripture informs us that after the disorder and scattered confused miserable state of things that Sin had introduced and occasioned God was pleased to recapitulate and gather all together into one head according to St. Paul Eph. 1.10 That he might gather together in one all things in Christ both which are in heaven and which are one arth even in him and erect an unalterable Kingdom wherein his Soul should rest under the rule of the second person incarnate with a distribution of several effects of his Government suitable to Divine Wisdom Justice and Goodness as the state of the World then stood for it was of old eminently foretold of him that the Scepter of his Kingdom should be a right Scepter wicked Angels and Men obstinately and finally impenitent and wicked were to remain enchain'd by his power until he pronounced their last Sentence the elect Angels were to come under his Headship and Rule he being their Head though he be not their Redeemer and their Security though not their Satisfaction and be secured thereby against all created danger of relapsing and embodied with all the saved amongst Men as Subjects of one intire Kingdom under the same Monarch and Soveraign And thus it pleased God that neither the happiness of Angels nor Men should be fixed or perfected by his creating Power exerted by the second Person at the first but by his restoring recovering establishing Power exerted in the same person becoming Man and fulfilling all the Laws of that mediatory Kingdom God designed for the praise of his Grace and Glory to erect in and by him So that we see the eternal design of creating these Angels by the second person was that first they might come under his Headship and be secured in all their created glory by him in that future state of Mediatorship he was designed unto and secondly that they might be ministerial and serviceable to all the ends of his Kingdom and Government wherein as the Apostle tells us 1 Coloss v. 20. By the blood of his cross all things in Heaven and Earth are reconciled to God and also things in Heaven and things on Earth one to another or else 't were not to be thought that the Angels who remain spotless and untainted of sin should ever enter into any converse with such a defiled apostate creature as Man much less to undertake a Ministry and Service on his behalf whereas now by vertue of that Reconciliation by the Blood of his Cross their great delight is in the Ministry of Reconciliation and to be ministring Spirits on their behalf who shall be Heirs of Salvation Two wonderful things by Christ's assumption of the Humane Nature and by the Blood of his Cross are brought to pass 1st That the Angels the more noble Creatures and who never fell under the least stain of any guilt should become Servants to poor miserable apostate Man 2dly That the Establishment and Security of all the created angelical Glory should depend upon that Assumption and Christ so circumstanced for he took not on him the Nature of Angels but in the Nature of a much more inferior Creature became their Security their Soveraign and Head and by this glorious contrivance of the blessed God Man upon Earth is set upon his legs and recovered the Tabernacle of Adam that was fallen is raised up again and the Angels that kept their first state are secured in ever so doing it having pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell and that every part of the Creation should some way or other owe their happiness to him and that upon the truest reason to him every Knee should bow both of things in Heaven and things on Earth even to him Secondly If we take a distinct consideration of Man the noblest part of this lower World and the Lord of it we shall soon discover that all the future designs of God relating to him were laid in his creation of him at the first by the second Person in the Trinity and this will appear several ways First Man we know was originally made in such a state as lasted but a while Man created in Honour abode not that innate freedom of choice he was made withal with reference to good or evil which was the bottom Adam first stood upon God well knew and foresaw would not secure him long but would soon decline and the tendency of Man's free choice would be ever in partem deteriorem yet so it pleased God to make him and not in the first state to secure him because his designs lay quite otherways and who shall councel infinite Wisdom the Scenes of this World as now it is were all before him he intended Man for a second Creation from whence should arise the Glory he designed to himself by him and from him and Man's Happiness and Rest for ever and both these Creations were to be performed by the second Person in the Trinity and therefore so soon as Man fell and discovered the impotency of that first state God declares his recovery in the second Person and puts forth his hand and lifts him up to a better upon which never any blot nor stain should come in which both the Soul of God and Man should rest for ever and this by that gracious yet withal then mysterious Promise That the seed of the woman should bruise the serpents head by which Promise the foundation of all Mens recovery and future happiness is laid in the second Person designed for the Assumption of the Humane Nature so that it evidently appears that when God made Man by the second Person in a state that was not to endure his design was to recover and remake him by the same blessed Person in that nature he had so made God at the first made Man by the second Person in the Image of God and that being lost brings forth the second Person in the Image of Man and therein Man is recovered and saved for he was made in the likeness of Men and found in fashion of a Man so that the union of the two Natures in the second Person is the great Corner-stone upon which the welfare and happiness of all created Beings and most eminently and particularly of Man's is built up and established Secondly This will appear from the mighty and stupendious Undertakings of the second Person incarnate on

are often ignorant and so his Writings seems to us the more difficult and obscure Thus we have taken a brief view of the Apostle's Comparison of the Law with the Gospel in this short Epitome of both and seen the wonderful preference the Gospel has to the Law and the great and eminent Advantages and Priviledges of the one above the the other and the glorious Inhabitants of this Spiritual Mount Sion and the Heavenly Jerusalem not only all the true Saints upon Earth the Church of the first-born written in Heaven but even God himself Jesus the Mediator of the New Covenant all the Blessed Angels and the Spirits of just Men made perfect nothing could be more destructive and ruinous to the true Interest of the believing Hebrews than to turn their backs upon such a Communion to go back to the Old Covenant that God upon Man's account found fault with and again put on that Legal Yoke that neither they nor their Fathers were able to bear the Jews much boasted of and rested in those literal Typical Advantages they had above the rest of the World upon which they might with very good reason value themselves and therefore the Apostle's business is to manifest to them how much by embracing the Gospel they changed for the better that instead of a Legal Temporary Temple built upon Mount Sion and an Earthly Jerusalem they are come to the true signified Mount Sion to the Spiritual and Heavenly Temple which is Christ Mystical where God dwells for ever and the Heavenly Jerusalem the name of which is Jehovah Shammai that is the glorious spiritual worship of the Gospel and the state of the Catholick Church in all its parts those on Earth and those in Heaven and thereby to all that was signified by and all that was any where promised unto Jerusalem and Mount Sion instead of that Dreadful Appearance of the Angels upon Mount Sinai with which they were so terrified and from which they were kept at so great a distance they are now come to an innumerable Company of Angels that is to a sweet Fellowship Brotherhood and Communion with them all which is implyed in their being said to be come to them under the Law 't was firmly believed whoever should see an Angel so great the distance was thought between Mankind and them should certainly die we are now Men and Angels all of the same Family and Houshold and the Saints on Earth have the whole Ministry and Service of the Angels employed on their behalf they are now always ascending and descending about their Affairs and there is a most endeared and intimate Relation and Affection between all the Myriads of Angels above and the Saints below instead of the National Church of the Jews assembled at Jerusalem they are come to the General Assembly and Church of the first-born whose Names are written in Heaven To the general Assembling of the true Catholick Church who Assemble and Worship all the World over in Spirit and Truth without any confinement to any place whatever they are come to them so as to be of the same Body and Society with them to be fellow-Citizens with the Saints and of the Houshold of God and so as to partake of all their Spiritual and Heavenly Advantages and they are come to all the parts of this Catholick Communion as well those in Heaven as those on Earth even to God himself which is as far as they can come the judge of all under the Law they were not suffered so much as to approach the outward signs of his Presence but under the Gospel they have free access to himself and to his very Throne which is now become a Throne of Grace and nothing appears now from thence but a Scepter of Mercy held forth they are come to the Spirits of just men made perfect not only to the Fellowship and Fraternity of all the Saints living from the Fraternity of an outward Typical and only National Church but to those in the Heavenly state all those mentioned in the 11th Chap. before and all the Apostles and those Blessed Saints they had conversed with in the first times of the Gospel who were then removed and gone to their rest even to them by the Gospel-state they were come with them they are embodyed as Members of the same Society and with them in a short time they are sure to be resident And to Jesus the Mediator of the New Covenant a Saviour as well as a Mediator and a Mediator not of the Sinai but of the Sion Covenant a Covenant bringing grace life and peace a Mediator not like Moses a meer Man a Servant a Sinner himself trembling in his Office and weary of his Burden and whose Ministry was like his Person decaying vanishing and dying But to the Son himself in his own House able to save to the uttermost all that come to God by him in that he liveth for ever to make Intercession for them and to the Blood of sprinkling infinitely exceeding all the Blood that was sprinkled under the Law for that brought sin yearly and daily into remembrance but those that are sprinkled with this are for ever perfected and to them there remains no more Sacrifice for sin and this Blood they are come to speaks a better Language quite than the Blood of Abel did although the Blood of both was most unjustly shed and they were both wickedly murdered and slain yet they speak two different Languages Abel's Blood called and cried unto God for vengeance upon Cain but this pleads and cries aloud for pardon and forgiveness even for those very Persons that were most guilty of it and deepliest concerned in it so that none are excluded from the benefit of it The Apostle winds up all with deep and solemn Admonitions and Cautions to the Believing Jews not to play fast and lose with the Gospel 't is of such Jews St. James writes in his Epistle directed to the Twelve Tribes when he tells them A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways and let not such a man think says he to obtain any thing from the Lord for he halts between two Opinions and is unresolved whether he shall be a Jew or a Christian the Apostle conjures them upon their utmost peril not to refuse him that speaks from Heaven which is no other than God himself speaking by his Son and declaring by a solemn voice from Heaven even from the excellent Glory that he was his Beloved Son in whom he was well pleased which beloved and blessed Son of God might well be said to speak from Heaven because we are expresly told he was also in Heaven when he spake here upon Earth he proceeds to mind them that the Legal state was like an old House ready to fall upon their heads for he that once by his voice shook the Earth at Mount Sinai and made the Mount to tremble will now once more shake both Heaven and Earth and dissolve the Apostle tells them their whole Religious Constitution and Fabrick and this taking away of things that are shaken is in order to this that things that cannot be shaken which are the blessings and glories and sure mercies of the Gospel may remain the Gospel is the last and only remedy that God has provided for sinful Man 't is a fearful thing to fall into his hands and not have this to plead to fall into the hands of the living God without an interest in Jesus the Mediator of this New Covenant and the Blood of sprinkling appurtenant thereunto he that has once embraced the Gospel and then out of choice refuseth it and turns his back upon it refuseth his remedy and thereby renders his Cure desperate and impossible and to such a man nothing can possibly remain but a certain fearful looking for of Judgment The Consideration of this Glorious and Honourable state to which by the Gospel we are come this Celestial Mount of Spirits should always inflame our minds with holy and thankful Contemplations and also with fervent and devout adoration of that infinite goodness that has made such provision for the happiness recovery and welfare of rebellious and apostate Man that has opened the flood-gates of Heaven and showr'd down all the blessings and glories thereof upon the World by the descent of the second person into Human Nature how happy were it if instead of mean low and perishing satisfactions Men would solace themselves with this heart-satisfying and everlasting Salvation let us follow the example of Moses who when God proclaimed his Name unto him and caused all his goodness to pass before him the Text says Moses made haste and bowed his head towards the earth and worshipped he only heard the report of what we possess and enjoy our whole business therefore should be to exalt the Praises of so Gracious a Benefactor and to Magnifie that Glorious being that has all possible Perfection to whom nothing can be added and from whom nothing can be taken away and to whom all Blessing and Honour and Praise and all Worship and Service and Adoration will be due throughout all Generations from time to time till time ceaseth and is dissolved in Eternity and thence Eternally FINIS