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A64745 The Mount of Olives: or, Solitary devotions. By Henry Vaughan silurist. With an excellent discourse of the blessed state of man in glory, written by the most reverend and holy Father Anselm Arch-Bishop of Canterbury, and now done into English. Vaughan, Henry, 1622-1695.; Anselm, Saint, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1033-1109. 1652 (1652) Wing V122; ESTC R203875 62,277 216

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the Swallow a nest for her selfe where she may lay her young even thine Altars O Lord of Hosts my God and my King Blessed are they that dwell in thy house they will be still praising thee For one day in thy Courts is better than a thousand I had rather be a doore-keeper in the House of my God than to dwell in the tents of wickednesse Let it be thy Care then when thou art there present to carry thy self like a true worshipper Give none offence neither outwardly to thy Brethren nor the Angels 1 Cor. 11.10 Nor inwardly to thy God whose Eyes shine within thee and discern thy reins and thy heart Look seriously about thee and Consider with thy self how many beauteous wittie and hopeful personages in their time lie now under thy feet thou canst not tell but thy turn may be next Humble thy self in this dust and all vain Imaginations will flie from thee Consider that thou art now in the Cave of Macpelah in a sacred Repositorie where the Bodies of Saints are asleep expecting that hour when those that are in the grave shall hear his voyce Do not then stop thy eares against the Charmer but give diligent attention and hear him while it is yet to day that in the day of thy death thou mayst rest there in the same hope When thy vessel is fill'd with this Manna and thy soul satisfied go not off without Thanksgiving Be not like those nine Leapers who never returned to give glory to God but come back with the thankfull Samaritane and receive another blessing Go in peace Saint Luke in the Acts of the Apostles making mention of the Ethiopian Eunuch who came up to Ierusalem for to worship tells us that in his returne he was reading in Isaiah the Prophet This blessed Convert I would have thee to imitate When thou hast fill'd thy Hin with this living water leave it not behinde thee at the Fountain spill not thy Milk and thy Wine because thou hast it without money and without price but carry it home and use it Thou mayest have need of it in six dayes and perhaps shalt not come to draw again untill thou drinkest it anew with thy Saviour in his Fathers Kingdom A Prayer before thou goest to Church LOrd Iesus Christ who out of thy Fathers bosome wert sent into this world to reveal his will unto sinners and to instruct them in the way of salvation behold I am now going to hear thy blessed word and these many yeers have so done expecting still thy good pleasure and the Consummation of thy sacred will in me I have come unto the bread of life and yet am hungry into the light and yet am blind unto the great Physician and yet my Issue runs The former and the later rain of thy heavenly Doctrine falls still without intermission upon my heart but this bad ground yeelds nothing but Thornes and Briers Many dayes many moneths and many yeers hast thou expected fruit and found nothing but leaves It is thy Infinite mercy O Lord that thou hast left unto us the seed of thy word and sendest into thy harvest such upright and faithful labourers but in vain O Lord shall they cry in our Ears unlesse thou openest and renewest our hearts Open then I beseech thee O blessed Jesu the eares of my heart that not onely the outward hearing but the inward also may be stirr'd up in me and what I hear with the eare I may understand with the spirit O thou most mild and merciful Lamb of God! the onely and the Almighty sower grant I beseech thee that the seed which falls this day upon my heart may never be choak'd with the Cares of this world nor be devoured by the fowles of the aire nor wither away in these times of persecution and triall but so Cherish it with the Dew of thy divine spirit that as in a good and faithful ground it may bring forth fruit unto eternal life to the glory of thy great name and the Comfort of my poor soul which thou hast bought with thy most precious and saving blood Amen Another when thou art come home or in the way if thou beest alone LOrd Iesus Christ my ever mercifull and most loving Redeemer I give unto thee most hearty thanks for this thy heavenly spiritual provision wherewith thou hast fed and refreshed my soul. Grant I beseech thee that this Celestial seed may take root in me and be effectual to my salvation Watch over my heart O Lord and hedge it in with thy grace that the fowles which descend in the shadows of the Evening may not pick it out But so prepare and fit me for thy love that I may never forget thy gracious words thy blessed and saving advice but may know in this my day what belongs unto my peace It is thy promise by thy holy Prophet That as the rain cometh down and the snow from heaven and returneth not thither but watereth the earth and maketh it bring forth and bud that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater So thy word that goeth forth out of thy mouth shall not return unto thee void but shall accomplish that which thou pleasest and prosper in the thing whereto thou sendest it Isai. 55. 10 11. Even so Lord Iesus let it be as thou hast promised Let the words I have heard this day out of the mouth of thy servant the Dispenser and Steward of thy Mysteries prosper in me and make my life answerable to his Doctrine that I may not onely know what thy blessed will is but performe also and fulfill it so that at last by thy mediation and mercies I may attain to thy eternal and most glorious Kingdom Amen Admonitions for Evening-Prayer REmember that in the Levitical Law there is a frequent Commemoration and Charge given of the two daily Sacrifices the one to be offer'd up in the morning and the other in the Evening Exod. 30.7 8. These offerings by Incense our holie harmlesse and undefiled High-Priest hath taken away and instead of them every devout Christian is at the appointed times to offer up a Spiritual Sacrifice namely that of Prayer for God is a Spirit and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth John 4.24 At these prescribed times if thou wilt have thy Prayers to ascend up before God thou must with-draw from all outward occupations to prepare for the inward and divine To which end thou hast here this following Meditation that thou maiest therewith season and invite thy soul from thy worldlie imployments to her proper vocation and so come not altogether undrest into the presence of the King of glory A Meditation at the setting of the Sun or the Souls Elevation to the true light THe path of the Just O my God is as the shining light that shineth more and more unto a perfect day of eternity Prov. 4. But the wicked neither know nor understand they walk in darknesse
rate Our glory greatnesse wisdome all we have If misimploy'd but adde hell to the grave Onely a faire redemption of evill Times Finds life in death and buryes all our Crimes IT is an observation of some spirits that the night is the mother of thoughts And I shall adde that those thoughts are Stars the Scintillations and lightnings of the soul strugling with darknesse This Antipathy in her is radical for being descended from the house of light she hates a contrary principle and being at that time a prisoner in some measure to an enemy she becomes pensive and full of thoughts Two great extremes there are which she equally abhors Darkness and Death And 't is observable that in the second death when she shall be wholly mancipated to her enemies those two are united For those furious and unquenchable burnings of hell which the Scripture calls the lake of fire c. though they be of such an insuperable intense heat as to work upon spirits and the most subtile Essences yet do they give no light at all but burn blacker then pitch Cremationem habet lumen verò non habet Greg. Mor. c. 46. The Contemplatiō of death is an obscure melancholy walk an Expatiation in shadows solitude but it leads unto life he that sets forth at midnight will sooner meet the Sunne then he that sleeps it out betwixt his curtains Truly when I consider how I came first into this world and in what condition I must once again go out of it and compare my appointed time here with the portion preceding it and the eternity to follow I can conclude my present being or state in respect of the time to be nothing else but an apparition The first man that appeared thus came from the East and the breath of life was received there Though then we travel Westward though we embrace thornes and swet for thistles yet the businesse of a Pilgrim is to seek his Countrey But the land of darknesse lies in our way and how few are they that study this region that like holy Macarius walk into the wildernesse and discourse with the skull of a dead man We run all after the present world and the Primitive Angelical life is quite lost It is a sad perversnesse of man to preferre warre to peace cares to rest grief to joy and the vanities of this narrow Stage to the true and solid comforts in heaven The friends of this world saith a holy father are so fearful to be separated from it that nothing can be so grievous to them as to think of death They put farre away the evill day and cause the seate of violence to come neer They lie upon beds of Ivory and stretch themselves upon their Couches they eat the lambs out of the flock and the calves out of the midst of the stall They chant to the sound of the viol they drink wine in bowls and anoint themselves with the chief ointments they account the life of the righteous to be madnesse and his end to be without honour Amos 6. In this desperate and senselesse state they cast away their precious souls and make their brightest dayes but dayes of darknesse and gloominesse dayes of clouds and of thick mists They consider not the day that shall burne like an Oven when the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved and the Elements shall melt with a fervent heat when the wicked shall be stubble and all the workers of iniquity shall be burnt up Miserable men that knowing their masters pleasure will not do it that refuse Oyle and balsame to make way for poyson and corrasives And why will they call him Master Master whose precepts they trample on and whose members they crucifie It is a sad observation for true Christians to see these men who would seem to be Pillars to prove but reeds and specious dissemblers For what manner of livers should such professors be seeing they expect and beleeve the dissolution of all things With what constant holinesse humility and devotion should they watch for it How should they passe the time of their sojourning here in fear and be diligent that they may be found of him in peace without spot and blamelesse What preparation should they make against the evill day What comforts and treasures should they lay up for that long voyage For what a day of terrors and indignation is the day of death to the unprepared How will they lie on their last beds like wilde Buls in a net full of the fury of the Lord When their desolation shall come like a flood and their destruction like a whirle-wind How will they say in the morning would God it were Even and at night would God it were Morning for the fear of their heart wherwith they shal fear and for the sight of their Eyes wherewith they shall see This is a truth they will not believe untill death tells it them and then it will be too late It is therefore much to be wished that they would yet while it is life-time with them remember their last ends and seriously question with themselves what is there under the Sun that can so justly challenge their thoughts as the contemplation of their own mortality We could not have lived in an age of more instruction had we been left to our own choice We have seen such vicissitudes and examples of humane frailty as the former world had they happened in those ages would have judged prodigies We have seen Princes brought to their graves by a new way and the highest order of humane honours trampled upon by the lowest We have seene Judgement beginning at Gods Church and what hath beene never heard of since it was redeem'd and established by his blessed Son we have seen his Ministers cast out of the Sanctuary barbarous persons without light or perfection usurping holy offices A day an hour a minute saith Causabone is sufficient to over-turn and extirpate the most settled Governments which seemed to have been founded and rooted in Adamant Suddenly do the high things of this world come to an end and their delectable things passe away for when they seem to be in their flowers and full strength they perish to astonishment And sure the ruine of the most goodly peeces seems to tell that the dissolution of the whole is not far off It is the observation of a known Statesman Sir Water Rawleigh That to all dominions God hath set their periods who though he hath given to man the knowlededge of those wayes by which Kingdoms rise and fall yet he hath left him subject unto the affections which draw on these fatal mutations in their appointed time Vain therefore and deceitful is all the pomp of this world which though it flatters us with a seeming permanency will be sure to leave us even then when we are most in chase of it And what comfort then or what security can poor man promise to himself whose breath