Selected quad for the lemma: heaven_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
heaven_n	earth_n	high_a	king_n	5,251	5	3.7526	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A63914	The praise of humility a sermon preached upon the 20th of March 1687 : being Palm-Sunday, at the Guild-Hall-chappel, London / by John Turner ...	Turner, John, b. 1649 or 50.	1687 (1687)	Wing T3314; ESTC R10525	16,061	42

in the Scale of Causes to the Original and Fountain of its Being which is that which we use to call by the name of God in which as being the first the most eminent and most transcendent Cause it discerns so much Excellence so vast unbounded and unlimited Perfection that though there be enough and to spare of other things that may be sufficient to abase and humble wise Men as the narrowness of our knowledge when it is the most improved the dulness and inactivity of our Minds when they are the most attentive and erect the scantiness of our Memories when they are the most comprehensive the shortness of our Lives at the utmost extremity of that which we call Old Age the craziness of those Bodies which we carry about us when they are at the strongest the Diseases and casualties to which they are exposed the uncertainty of our Fortunes when they are at the highest the satiating nature and quality of our Enjoyments when they continue firm and constant to us as we before experiment would have wish'd and pray'd they might be the fickleness of Friendship the mutability of Interest the decays of Youth and Beauty the dependency and obnoxiousness of all Earthly Things yet these are but small diminutions of our selves they create but a low degree of Humility and Abhorrence in us in comparison of what unavoidably results from the consideration of God and his infinite Perfection his immense Power his incomprehensible Wisdom his never failing Goodness his impartial and unbiass'd Justice his manifest and yet mysterious Omnipresence then we loath and abhor our selves in Dust and Ashes we are fill'd with a fastidious Aversion and Dislike we vanish away in Smoak we shrink and shrivel into nothing we are not so much as a drop to the Atlantique as an Atome to the Body of the Sun or to the whole circumference of liquid aether in which he performs his daily and yearly Motion we are metamorphos'd out of Men to Worms and out of Worms we are transform'd to Insects and when we consider the Heavens the work of his Fingers the Moon and the Stars which he hath ordained it is natural for us to cry out with the Royal Poet who in this was not guilty of Poetique Licence Lord what is Man that thou art mindful of him or the Son of Man that thou hast regard unto him We may consider this Universe under the notion of an inverted Pyramid of which the humble Man is the terminating Point and the divine Perfections are the inverted Basis and the Lines that are drawn between these two from the bottom to the top grow still more wide and distant from each other as they ascend higher in their Progress to the top so that the humble Mans Contemplations begin at himself and from himself they ascend upward thorough all the several Orders of created Beings till he comes to the great Source and Original of all things wherein all their several Beauties and Perfections are transcendently contained and still the higher he goes the more humble he is because he discerns the more upon a just comparison the littleness of himself but in the divine Nature he is swallowed up with astonishment and wonder there is so vast and infinite a Prospect before him he is like a small crany to a vast Circumference though the one may be seen and observed through the other and he discovers the divine Attributes full of excellence and brightness and is ravisht with the Sense and Contemplation of them though he cannot see God as he is in himself in his true Latitude and just Extent like the Image of some large and spacious Object contracted into Miniature in which all the Parts and Lineaments appear but not in their natural and true dimensions And still the more he Contemplates the Wiser he grows and the more he Despiseth himself in comparison of that Excellence he converses with the nigher he approaches in perfection to it But with the Proud Man it is clean otherwise it is true he begins with himself as well as the other but then he ends in himself too his prospect is not upwards towards Heaven but downwards towards the Earth and he sits at the top of that short inverted Pyramid of which himself is the Basis and the broadest part so that he converses with nothing but what is either less than himself or what he imagins to be so for no Man certainly can be Proud of the Comparison when he thinks himself Conversant with a Nobler Object so that it is exactly true of the Proud Haughty and Assuming Man what David saith in general of the Wicked that he hath not God in all his thoughts and that though Pride and Ignorance be not convertible terms for a Man may be Ignorant that is not Proud yet Pride is certainly nothing else but an effect of Ignorance of want of Consideration want of Skill and Judgment in the true Rate and Value of things Again It is not only true that this admirable Grace and Vertue of Humility hath its firmest Root and it 's most powerful Cause in the contemplation of the Divine Nature which is the most excellent Object we can converse with but the Psalmist tells us expresly speaking of God himself that he Humbleth himself to behold the things that are in Heaven and Earth From the rising of the Sun saith he unto the going down of the same the Lords Name is to be Praised the Lord is high above all Nations and his Glory above the Heavens who is like unto the Lord our God who dwelleth on High and yet Humbleth himself to behold the things that are in Heaven and Earth Not that God who is the First mover and the only Supream and Self-existent Nature can in propriety be said to be an Humble or an Abject being but that he is invested in a most eminent manner with all those gentle inclinations to Pity and Compassion which are the Natural consequents of Humility among Men he is kind and gracious slow to anger and easie to be entreated and his Mercy is over all his works his Power is allay'd and tempered by his Goodness and his Justice is blended by his Mercy and his great Mind is thoughtful with the Cares of the Universe which is his perpetual Charge and a Charge which cannot be managed by an Affected and Proud which is a disturbance to it self and would hinder the due administration of so vast a Government but by a Sedate Quiet and Serene Mind which is not more requisite to the Government of the World than to the happyness of the Governor himself who in order to his being infinitely perfect as he certainly is as being the cause of all things and containing all Created Perfection within himself must in the First place be supposed to be necessarily Existent for Existence is the root of all other Perfections and in the next to be infinitely Happy and perfectly at Ease for where there is no Happyness

yet Humility considers Wisely that all Men have not neither indeed can have the same Capacity the same Strength and Vivacity of Wit and Judgment the same Opportunities the same Education the same Apprehensions and the same notions of things and therefore admits a difference without a disagreement And this I am sure of it would be a blessed change if Humility could take the place and do the Office of Ecclesiastical censures so as to make them useless and needless for the future and so put an end to those severities of Law which as all other punishments in other matters can be justified by nothing but only that they are necessary because mad men run Opinion into Faction and Faction into Riot and Rebellion And I dread to think how thin and depopulate the Kingdom of Heaven will be and the Jerusalem which is above a City almost without Inhabitants and a Kingdom without Subjects notwithstanding all our pretences to Salvation and our annexing it to this or that Communion if none but the Poor in Spirit shall obtain it if none but the Humble and the Charitable Man shall be Saved Humility would not only prove a blessed Instrument of Ecclesiastical peace but also of Civil too if it could but gain Credit and Reputation among us for Humility never complains before it is hurt nay Humility for the sake and for the good of her Country rather than make a broil and a disturbance in it can suffer her self to be hurt without complaining she neither thinks nor does nor apprehends any ill she is a Friend to all and therefore thinks all to be a Friend to her she sees no Fantastic and visionary Dangers she is troubled with no imaginary Jealousies and Fears she cannot discern Apparitions in the Air nor Monsters in the Earth nor Whales portending calamities in the Water but she puts her first Trust in God and her next in the King and she believes that all things will work together for good to them that walk like her and do their duty She neither pries into the Cabinets of Princes nor censures the transactions of State nor raises false Reports to create an ill Opinion of her Governors in the People neither doth she foment or encourage them when they are raised Humility resolves let what will come to pass to be quiet and submit because she considers that the Hand of the King is as the Finger of God who doth whatsoever pleaseth him both in Heaven and Earth by whom Kings Reign and Princes decree Justice Humility is a peaceable and resigning Vertue and wherever she hath a Temple in any English Breast there the King hath a Faithful and Obedient Subject But that which makes most of all for the commendation of Humility is that our blessed Savaiour who was God incarnate and who suffered so many indignities and reproaches from the worst of Men who humbled himself even to the Death the ignominious and painful Death of the Cross for our sakes hath given us so great a pattern and example of it learn of me saith he for I am meek and lowly in Heart and ye shall find rest unto your Souls And on this very day when he entred into Jerusalem with Acclamations and Hosanna's though the People mistook him for a Triumphant Prince and thought their Victorious Messias was a coming yet it was indeed no more then the Triumph of Humility over the Scorn and Malice of his Enemies it was but a Prologue to his approaching Crucifixion which was in truth his last and greatest Conquest wherein he Triumpht over Death and Hell and so the Prophet Zachary and out of him the Evangelist St. Matthew hath described the matter Rejoyce greatly O Daughter of Zion shout O Daughter of Jerusalem behold thy King cometh unto thee he is just and having Salvation lowly and riding upon an Ass and upon a Colt the foal of an Ass and if so great an Example as this the Example of God putting on human Shape almost on purpose that he might set a pattern of Obedience and Humility to us will not encourage and recommend the Practice of it I know not what will for I have nothing else to say but that Humility is Humility that is that a Vertue so transcendently excellent and great can be compared to nothing but it self FINIS ERATA Pag. 23. line 2. for design read down