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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
kingdom_n	earth_n	heaven_n	time_n	3,575	5	3.5394	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A39122	A Christian duty composed by B. Bernard Francis.	Bernard, Francis, fl. 1684.	1684 (1684)	Wing E3949A; ESTC R40567	248,711	323

don to me becaus He esteems more that which is don to his members than what is don to himself let us weigh these words 4. First He says That which you have don to the least of mine He means chiefly the poor since He speakes of those that Matth 52. 40. hunger and thirst T is then a strang folly which displeases him extreamly to give your goods to flatterers to dissolute persons or to employ them to enrich your children to elevate or greaten your parents or to leave them wherewith to live in dilights in dissolutions whilst our Saviour hath not where with to live in the person of the poor is not this a great injustice to give to your child wherewith to live in superfluity and not to give to our Saviour wherewith to sustaine a poor life says S. Austin He says Wherewith to live in superfluity for you may merit if out of the spirit of charity and mercy you leave to your children or to your parents as to the members of JESUS CHRIST goods as alms wherewith to maintaine themselves according to their quality in Christian modesty and frugality not in superfluity and in the ambition of the world 5. You have don to me for the love of me if you give alms out of natural compassion 't is not christian charity but moral vertue if our of ostentation to be esteemed liberal 't is vanity if becaus the poor man is of the same countrey profession or condition that you are that he is a Soldier and you have been that he hath been a marchant and you are 't is to give an alms to a man to a soldier to a marchant and not to JESUS and becaus the poor man is his member Disciple or his Brother likewise if you give it to the end only that God may recompence you by temporal goods JESUS will not say to you you have given to me becaus in effect 't is not for IESUS that you give it but for your selves 't is not alms but avarice You have don to me He says not to my servants my faithfull but to me we must then consider IESUS in the poor and comport our selves towards them with the same dispositions that we would to IESUS and season our alms with all that is requisite to a most vertuous and meritorious action 6. First bestow your alms with tenderness commiseration and with bowells of compassion for mercy ought to make our hearts miserable by a sympathy of charity participating in the sufferances and afflictions of others 7. Secondly with benignity sweetness and affability the testimony of affection and benevolence and abstaine from all reproaches which would make a poor man suffer more by the confusion to which you put him than you pleasure him by the alms you give him 8. In the third place with interiour humility thinking that you are not worthy to give an alms to IESUS and in effect all that we do is nothing in comparison of that we should do and what we give less than our lives is less than that which in occasion we ought to give for God hath given his life for us and we ought to give also our lives for our 1. Ep. c. 3. bretheren says S. Iohn 9. In fine give prompty ioyfully and copiously let your good will exceed your power in giving a penny wish it were a pound an have also a desire to give it if you had it and if it were convenient in giving a mess of broth wish it were the best becaus it is for your best beloved who merits that we should consume the treasures of the world for the service of the least of his members 10i Let us conclude with the fine words of S. Augustine Brothers exercise mercy there is no other band to tye us to the love of Aug. in Psal 102 God and of our neighbor there is no other means to carry us from earth to heaven and a little after he adds Behold what you may buy how much you must give for it and when you must buy it Behold what you must buy Paradise is to be sold you may buy with money the kingdom of heaven eternal life and the possession of God What great favour what incomparable happiness if God did not permit it who would dare so much as to thinke of it ô if men be damn'd they deserve not to be pitied Satan will have good reason to laugh at them and say ô great fools they would give willingly the half of their goods to buy 30. or 40. years of life and of a life full of afflictions infirmities and miseries and they would not give it to buy millions of years of a most happy and delicious life And do not tell me so precious marchandise is not sold at a cheap rate and that you have neither gold nor silver nor means to buy it Bohold how much you must give for it a glass of cold water a little service if you have nothing els may procure you it our Saviour speaking to his poor Apostles sayd you have always poor with you and you may do good to them when you please He says not you may give to them But you may do good to them becaus many cannot give but every one can do good You may viset the sick and imprisoned and though you have nothing to give you may comfort them exhort them and do them other services The Son of God will not say you have not redeem'd me out of prison but you have not visited me that you may have no excuse You are a married woman t is not permitted you to give great alms of your husbands goods But t is permitted and it will be a good alms to serve assist and cherish with respect and tenderness for the love of God the old and infirme of your family You are a chamber-maid it would be theft and not alm● to give to the Poor the goods of your Master against his will but it will be a Charity if you help this inferior servant if you assist her in the labor wherewith she is opprest You are a Counsellour an Advocate or a Solicitor you have many Children and little means and not able to give alms But you may assist with your credit counsell and service this poor widow this orphan poor man and the like persons whom commonly men neglect You may instruct in the Mysteries of faith and in what is necessary to salvation your domesticks servants neigbors and the poor that beg alms at your door this is the best alms you can bestow upon them an alms more excellent than the corporal so much as the soul is better than the body heaven than earth the grace of God than money or bread You have enemies that do you great injuries if so they are poor in vertue ô what an excellent alms would you bestow upon them if you procure it them and you will procure them vertue if you gain their affection by pardoning them and seeking their

amity Know brothers sayd S. Austin that there are Aug hom 5. ex 50. post medium two sorts of alms the one of the heart the other of the purs you may excuse your selves sometimes from this but not from that the alms of the heart is to pardon your enemies to love cordially your neighbors to have pity and compassion on the poor to be sorry you have not wherewith to succour them and to pray God that the rich may help them our Saviout says not only give and it shal be given to you but he says first pardon and you shal be pardoned Behold how easily and at how small a rate you may buy the kingdom of heaven see now when or in what time you must buy it The time of buying it is the time of this life only do not as the foolish Virgins who neglected to make provision of oyle till they were called before the Bridgroom and whilst they went to buy it the Bridchamber door was shut and they excluded for ever Imitate rather the wise Virgins make in time provision of oyle and be not surpriz'd by death Remember that two sorts of oyle are necessary for us shat of God on us for woe to the most laudable life if God examin it without mercy sayd S. Austine and ours upon our neighbor for judment without mercy to him who shal not have don mercy But if you open to your neighbour your bowells of mercy God will open his to you and so happy are the mercifull for they shal obtaine mercy Amen DISCOURS XXVII of the Commandements in general IT was with great reason that God giving the Law to his people did use this Preface Ego sum Dominus Deus tuus I am the Lord thy God For by many most just Titles He is our Lord and hath right to command us And to oblige us to pay dutys to his commandements and Orders and principally three we must study them we must keep them and we must love them 1. In the first place we must study them learn them and meditate upon them Some will say Who is he that is ignorant of them what little schoolboy is there amongst us that does not know the ten commandements Yes they can rehearse them but this is not enough We must study them learn the sense and meaning of them and search into the depth of them David was a great Prophet and he studied them searched into them meditated upon them and prayed God to teach him them Give me understanding sayd he to God and I will learn thy justifications and to learn them he contemplated them attentively And in effect if it be necessary to study the rules of grammer and of rhetorick to learn to speak well is it not necessary to study the Law of God and his Gospell to learn to live well sayd S. Austin And S. Ambrose makes us to consider that in she book of Ecclesiastes the holy Ghost says not only Mandata ejus serva keep his Commandements Eccles 12. 13. but observa Note them and search into them diligently For the Decalogue given to Moses does nor declare so clearly all things that are necessary to be don nor forbid so expressly many sins which render us most criminal before God we must then ponder them examin and consider all the words beg light of the holy Ghost to find out the sense meaning and intention of God 2. Moreover the Commandements of the Decalogue were given to men as men But God gave moreover many to the Iews as Iews which made S. Paul say He that made himself a Iew receiving Circumcission oblig'd himself to keep Gal. 5. 3. all the Law of Moses And to learn it well the Israelites in the time of the Prophet Esdras made a Lecture of it four times a day and in the time of S. Paul on all Saturdays so 2. Esdras 9. 3. also the Son of God hath given other Commandements to Christians as Christians which made the same Apostle say to the faithfull They who obey not the Gospell shal suffer eternal paines 2. Thes 1. 8. We must be then solicitous to learn the Evangellical Commandements to read the books which treat of them to assist at Sermons and Catechismes which teach them to beg the grace of God to understand them and to learn them not only nor chiefly for to know them but to keep them and to put them in practise Thou hast very much commanded thy commandements to be kept says the Royal Prophet Note very much very much 3. It is wonderfull to see with what earnestness and instance God recommended to his people the memory and observance of them First He wrote them upon Tables of stone to teach us to engrave in our hearts what He vouchsafed to write with his own hand Secondly He commanded a Tabernacle to be made and within it an Arke of incorruptible wood cover'd with fine gold to lodge therein the Tables In the third place that the king of the people should write with his own hand these holy Commandements In the fourth place He Commanded the people that having passed Jordan and entred into the land of promise they should place great stones upon the shore upon which the Commandements should be written that all might be ascertain'd if they kept them not they should not enjoy long that happy land And because they would not be always there to read them often He commanded them to be written upon the doores of all their houses to be imprinted in their hearts and in the hearts of their children Behold his words these wordes Deut. 6. 5. which I command thee shal be in thy heart and thou shalt tell them to thy children and thou shalt meditate upon them sitting in thy house and walking on thy journey sleeping and rising And thou shalt bind them as a signe in thy hand and thou shalt write them in the entrie and on the doores of thy house And becaus profit and recompence are the baits of humane hearts He makes promises so advantagious to the observers of them that they would be incredible if any other then himself did make them I will send you rain in time and season the earth Levit 26. shal bring forth its Spring and the trees shal be burdened with fruits I will give peace in your coastes you shal sleep and there shal be none to fright you five of yours shal pursue a hundred strangers and a hundred of you ten thousand I will respect you and make you increase you shal be multiplyd and I will establish my Covenant with you Note that 't was to the Iews He made these great promises whom He was wont to recompence with worldly goods when they observ'd his Commandements and chastise them with temporal punishments when thy transgrest them becaus they were material gross and terrestrial But to Christians He promises Spiritual and Celestial goods recompences that are eternal so great so charming and so excellent that