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	time_n	world_n	8,916	5	4.4949	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A28214	The god-father's advice to his son shewing the necessity of performing the baptismal vow and the danger of neglecting it : with general instructions to young persons to lead a religious life and prepare them for their confirmation and worthy receiving of the blessed sacrament : very necessary for parents, &c. to give their children or others committed to their care / by John Birket ...	Birket, John.	1700 (1700)	Wing B2975; ESTC R16106	33,239	50

Lord for mercy and for grace in that pious Ejaculation which the Church has directed saying Lord have mercy c. But now after all tho it highly concern you as I have shewed so to behave your self in the publick worship of God that you may offer up to him such a reasonable service as he will be pleased to accept of through the merits and meditation of his beloved Son yet I must withal tell you that you must have a care of limiting your devotion to the Temple you must not think it enough to seem very serious there if at other times you be vain and wicked If you desire that both your person and your performances should be accepted of God you must be truly religious at all times and the zeal which you pretend to have for Gods glory must be visible through the whole course of your life and conversation Be perswaded therefore to remember your Creator in the days of your youth have a care of thinking as too many do that you have still time enough to prepare your self for another world for there 's no man knows how soon the great Judge of Heaven and Earth may call him hence It is certainly the greatest piece of ill husbandry that you can be guilty of to think that you can easily redeem that time when you please which you shall mortgage for a few vain and insatisfactory delights There are too many I doubt in the world that flatter themselves and think that they go upon good grounds while they defer to give up themselves to Gods service in the vigour of their youth hoping that they may repent when they see their own time But my Son I beseech you to consider that altho God has promised pardon to all the true penitents yet he has not particularly promised to w●it on any mans leisure He does indeed bear with some a long time waiting for their conversion and such is his infinite goodness that he does sometime grant repentance and pardon after men have for many years put off that necessary duty but he never does this upon any precontract with them nor does any thing more provoke him to deny his favours than mens presuming thus to dispose of them To this purpose I shall offer unto your consideratition a remarkable passage 2 Chr. 33. where we find that the Lord forbore King Manasses forty years and at length upon his repentance pardon'd him After his death Amon his Son reigned in his stead and having observed it 's like how merciful God had dealt with his Father he presumed upon the like forbearance and mercy thinking that as his Father had done before so he might redeem the offences of his youth by a late repentance in old age but we find that God was not pleased to accept of Amon's assignment and therefore tho he had spared Manasses the Father forty years yet he cut off his Son at the end of the second year of his wicked Reign Know therefore and consider this that it is good for you to bear the yoke of Religion in your youth if you habituate your self to the practice of holiness in the prime of your years you will afterwards find all even the severest Duties of Christianity to sit wonderful easie upon your mind if you should live to be old You 'll then have nothing of that regret and anxiety to discompose your thoughts which others will feel who have neglected the service of God in their youth and enslaved themselves to the World the Flesh and the Devil It is observable that John the Evangelist is called the disciple whom Jesus loved it is not said indeed for what reason this Title was given him above all the rest of the Twelve Apostles but it being supposed that he was ●he youngest of them all for that reason possibly Jesus might have the greater love for him because even then in the days of his youth he had learned to despise all the bewitching vanities of the world to deny himself and heartily to embrace the Doctrine of the Gospel If therefore my Son this advice which I have here given you may through the Grace of God prove beneficial to you and answer the end for which it is designed in furthering the Salvation of your Soul I shall be heartily glad and hope that both you and I shall ascribe the whole Praise and Glory to God An Appendix touching Baptismal Sureties BEing very sensible that there is seldom any thing which occasions greater disputes and differences between many Ministers and their Parishioners than the business of Baptismal Sureties and that nothing is more commonly pretended by some for the reason of their departing from our Church than their being dissatisfied about this matter I have here thought fit to add something in reference hereunto hoping thereby to remove the scruples at least of those who are unprejudic'd and well meaning persons In order to this end I shall show you 1st What is meant by God-fathers and God-mothers 2d What reason our Church has to justifie the use of them 3d. How advantageous the due execution of this Office may be both to Sureties and Children First as to the meaning of God-fathers and God-mothers our Church hereby understands those persons who are engaged as Sureties to the Church by solemn promise at the Baptism of Children to see them virtuously brought up to lead a Godly and a Christian Life So that altho the Christian Church for th●t reason has thought fit to call them Sureties yet to let them know how they ought to be affected toward their Children in whose names they covenant with God viz. that they ought to be as Fathers and Mothers in God i e. spiritual parents And affectionately concerned in the furtherance of their Childrens Salvation therefore they are called God-fathers c. And this way of expressing themselves in this matter we may suppose the ancient Christians at first received from some expressions in Scripture of the like nature as when all true believers are said to be brethren in Christ and therefore are called Christians as also from St. Paul's way of speaking concerning those persons in whose education and in the furtherance of whose Salvation he had been concerned For as he signifies to the Corinthians 1 Ep. 4. 15. that he was their spiritual Father having begotten them in Christ Jesus through the Gospel so 1 Tim. 1. 2. he calls Timothy his own Son in the Faith In this sense also he calls Onesimus his Son Ep to Philem. v. 10. I beseech thee for my Son Onesimus whom I have begotten in my bounds Now as St Paul was father to the Corinthians and as Timothy and Onesimus were his Sons in a Spiritual sense so why may not those persons who undertake the office of Sureties for Children when they bring them to Baptism which is their new and spiritual Birth be called spiritual Parents or God-fathers and God-mothers especially when they are as they ought to be and as they may