Selected quad for the lemma: heaven_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A29880
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Religio medici
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Browne, Thomas, Sir, 1605-1682.; Keck, Thomas. Annotations upon Religio medici.; Digby, Kenelm, Sir, 1603-1665. Observations upon Religio medici.
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1682
(1682)
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Wing B5178; ESTC R12664
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133,517
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400
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action that it is a lesson to be good and we are forced to be virtuous by the book Again the Practice of men holds not an equal pace yea and often runs counter to their Theory we naturally know what is good but naturally pursue what is evil the Rhetorick wherewith I perswade another cannot perswade my self there is a depraved appetite in us that will with patience hear the learned instructions of Reason but yet perform no farther than agrees to its own irregular humour In brief we all are monsters that is a composition of Man and Beast wherein we must endeavour to be as the Poets fancy that wise man Chiron that is to have the Region of Man above that of Beast and Sense to sit but at the feet of Reason Lastly I do desire with God that all but yet affirm with men that few shall know Salvation that the bridge is narrow the passage straight unto life yet those who do confine the Church of God either to particular Nations Churches or Families have made it far narrower then our Saviour ever meant it Sect. 56 * The vulgarity of those judgements that wrap the Church of God in Strabo's cloak and restrain it unto Europe seem to me as bad Geographers as Alexander who thought he had Conquer'd all the World when he had not subdued the half of any part thereof For we cannot deny the Church of God both in Asia and Africa if we do not forget the Peregrinations of the Apostles the deaths of the Martyrs the Sessions of many and even in our reformed judgement lawful Councils held in those parts in the minority and nonage of ours Nor must a few differences more remarkable in the eyes of man than perhaps in the judgement of God excommunicate from Heaven one another much less those Christians who are in a manner all Martyrs maintaining their Faith in the noble way of perfecution and serving God in the Fire whereas we honour him in the Sunshine 'T is true we all hold there is a number of Elect and many to be saved yet take our Opinions together and from the confusion thereof there will be no such thing as salvation nor shall any one be saved For first the Church of Rome condemneth us we likewise them the Sub-reformists and Sectaries sentence the Doctrine of our Church as damnable the Atomist or Familist reprobates all these and all these them again Thus whilst the Mercies of God do promise us Heaven our conceits and opinions exclude us from that place There must be therefore more than one St. Peter particular Churches and Sects usurp the gates of Heaven and turn the key against each other and thus we go to Heaven against each others wills conceits and opinions and with as much uncharity as ignorance do err I fear in points not only of our own but one anothers salvation Sect. 57 I believe many are saved who to man seem reprobated and many are reprobated who in the opinion and sentence of man stand elected there will appear at the Last day strange and unexpected examples both of his Justice and his Mercy and therefore to define either is folly in man and insolency even in the Devils those acute and subtil spirits in all their sagacity can hardly divine who shall be saved which if they could Prognostick their labour were at an end nor need they compass the earth seeking whom they may devour * Those who upon a rigid application of the Law sentence Solomon unto damnation condemn not onely him but themselves and the whole World for by the Letter and written Word of God we are without exception in the state of Death but there is a prerogative of God and an arbitrary pleasure above the Letter of his own Law by which alone we can pretend unto Salvation and through which Solomon might be as easily saved as those who condemn him Sect. 58 The number of those who pretend unto Salvation and those infinite swarms who think to pass through the eye of this Needle have much amazed me That name and compellation of little Flock doth not comfort but deject my Devotion especially when I reflect upon mine own unworthiness wherein according to my humble apprehensions I am below them all I believe there shall never be an Anarchy in Heaven but as there are Hierarchies amongst the Angels so shall there be degrees of priority amongst the Saints Yet is it I protest beyond my ambition to aspire unto the first ranks my desires onely are and I shall be happy therein to be but the last man and bring up the Rere in Heaven Sect. 59 Again I am confident and fully perswaded yet dare not take my oath of my Salvation I am as it were sure and do believe without all doubt that there is such a City as Constantinople yet for me to take my Oath thereon were a kind of Perjury because I hold no infallible warrant from my own sense to confirm me in the certainty thereof And truly though many pretend an absolute certainty of their Salvation yet when an humble Soul shall contemplate our own unworthiness she shall meet with many doubts and suddenly find how little we stand in need of the Precept of St. Paul Work out your salvation with fear and trembling That which is the cause of my Election I hold to be the cause of my Salvation which was the mercy and beneplacit of God before I was or the foundation of the World Before Abraham was I am is the saying of Christ yet is it true in some sense if I say it of my self for I was not onely before my self but Adam that is in the Idea of God and the decree of that Synod held from all Eternity And in this sense I say the World was before the Creation and at an end before it had a beginning and thus was I dead before I was alive though my grave be England my dying place was Paradise and Eve miscarried of me before she conceiv'd of Cain Sect. 60 Insolent zeals that do decry good Works and rely onely upon Faith take not away merit for depending upon the efficacy of their Faith they enforce the condition of God and in a more sophistical way do seem to challenge Heaven It was decreed by God that only those that lapt in the water like Dogs should have the honour to destroy the Midianites yet could none of those justly challenge or imagine he deserved that honour thereupon I do not deny but that true Faith and such as God requires is not onely a mark or token but also a means of our Salvation but where to find this is as obscure to me as my last end And if our Saviour could object unto his own Disciples and Favourites a Faith that to the quantity of a grain of Mustard-seed is able to remove Mountains surely that which we boast of is not any thing or at the most but a remove from nothing This is the Tenor of my belief