Selected quad for the lemma: sense_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
sense_n	eye_n	faith_n	see_v	6,503	5	4.7888	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A45182	Christ mysticall, or, The blessed union of Christ and his members also, An holy rapture, or, A patheticall meditation of the love of Christ : also, The Christian laid forth in his whole disposition and carriage / by J.H. D.D. B.N.	Hall, Joseph, 1574-1656.	1647 (1647)	Wing H374; ESTC R16159	67,177	294

hast so loved us that thou wouldst become the Son of man for our sakes that vve vvho are the sons of men might become the sons of God Oh that vve could put off the man to put on Christ that we could neglect and hate our selves for thee that hast so dearly loved us as to lay aside thine heavenly glory for us How shall I bee vile enough O Saviour for thee who for my sake being the Lord of life and glory wouldst take upon thee the shape of a servant How should I welcome that poverty which thy choice hath sanctified How resolutely shall I grapple with the temptations of that enemy vvhom thou hast foiled for me How chearfully should I passe through those miseries and that death which thou hast sweetned With vvhat comfortable assurance shall I look upon the face of that mercifull Justice vvhich thou hast satisfied But oh vvhat a blessed inheritance hast thou in thine infinite love provided for me an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that fadeth not away reserved in heaven for me so as when my earthly house of this Tabernacle shall be dissolved I have a building of God an house not made with hands eternall in the heavens An house Yea a Palace of heavenly state and magnificence neither is it lesse then a kingdome that abides there for mee a kingdome so much more above these worldly Monarchies as heaven is above this clod of earth Now Lord vvhat conceits vvhat affections of mine can be in the least sort answerable to so transcendent mercy If some friend shall have been pleased to bestow some mean Legacy upon me or shall have feoffed me in some few acres of his Land how deeply doe I finde my self obliged to the love and memory of so kinde a Benenefactor Oh then Lord how can my soul be capable of those thoughts and dispositions vvhich may reach to the least proportion of thine infinite bounty vvho of a poor worm on earth hast made me an heir of the kingdome of heaven Wo is me how subject are these earthly Principalities to hazard and mutability whether through death or insurrectiō but this Crown w ch thou hast laid up for me is immarcescible and shall sit immoveably fast upon my head not for years not for millions of ages but for all eternity Oh let it be my heaven here below in the mean vvhile to live in a perpetuall fruition of thee and to begin those Allelujahs to thee here vvhich shall be as endlesse as thy mercy and my blessednesse Hadst thou been pleased to have translated me frō thy former Paradise the most delightfull seat of mans originall integrity and happinesse to the glory of the highest heaven the preferment had been infinitely gracious but to bring my soul from the nethermost hell and to place it among the Chore of Angels doubles the thank of thy mercy and the measure of my obligation How thankfull was thy Prophet but to an Ebedmelech that by a cord and rags let down into that dark dungeon helpt him out of that uncomfortable pit wherein he was lodged yet what was there but a little cold hunger stench closenesse obscurity Lord how should I blesse thee that hast fetcht my soul from that pit of eternall horrour from that lake of fire and brimstone from the everlasting torments of the damned wherein I had deserved to perish for ever I will sing of thy power unto thee O my strength will I sing for God is my deliverer and the God of my mercie But O Lord if yet thou shouldst leave me in my own hands where vvere I how easily should I be rob'd of thee with every temptation how should I be made the scorn and insultation of men and devils It is thy wonderfull mercy that thou hast given thine Angels charge over me Those Angels great in power and glorious in Majesty are my sure though invisible guard Oh blessed Jesu what an honour what a safety is this that those heavenly spirits which attend thy throne should be my champions Those that ministred to thee after thy temptation are readie to assist and relieve me in mine they can neither neglect their charge because they are perfectly holy nor fail of their victory because they are under thee the most powerfull I see you O ye blessed Guardians I see you by the eye of my faith no lesse truly then the eye of my sense sees my bodilie attendants I do truly though spirituallie feel your presence by your gracious operations in upon and for me and I doe heartilie blesse my God and yours for you and for those saving offices that through his mercifull appointment you ever doe for my soul. But as it was with thine Israelites of old that it would not content them that thou promisedst and wouldst send thine Angel before them to bring them into the Land flowing with milk and hony unlesse thy presence O Lord should also goe along with them so is it still with me and all thine wert not thou with and in us what could thine Angels doe for us In thee it is that they move and are The same infinite Spirit which works in and by them works also in me From thee it is O thou blessed and eternall Spirit that I have any stirrings of holy motions any breathings of good desires any life of grace any will to resist any power to overcome evill It is thou O God that girdest me with strength unto battell thou hast given me the shield of thy salvation thy right hand hath holden me up thou hast also given me the necks of mine enemies Glory and praise be to thee O Lord which alwaies causest us to triumph in Christ vvho crownest us with loving kindnesse tender mercies and hast not held us short of the best of thy favours Truly Lord hadst thou given us but a meer beeing as thou hast done to the lowest rank of thy creatures it had been more then thou owest us more then ever we could be able to requite to thy divine bountie for every beeing is good and the least degree of good is farre above our worthinesse But that to our beeing thou hast added life it is yet an higher measure of thy mercy for certainly of thy common favours life is the most precious yet this is such a benefit as may be had and not perceived for even the plants of the earth live and feel it not that to our life therefore thou hast made a further accession of sense it is yet a larger improvement of thy beneficence for this facultie hath some power to manage life and makes it capable to affect those means which may tend to the preservation of it and to decline the contrary but this is no other then the brute creatures enjoy equallie with us and some of them beyond us that therefore to our sense thou hast blessed us vvith a further addition of reason it is yet an higher pitch of munificence for hereby we are men and as

of our souls we are readie to think of Christ Jesus as a stranger to us as one aloof off in another world apprehended onely by fits in a kind of ineffectuall speculation without any lively feeling of our own interesse in him whereas we ought by the powerfull operation of this grace in our hearts to finde so heavenly an appropriation of Christ to our souls as that every beleever may truly say I am one with Christ Christ is one with me Had we not good warrant for so high a challenge it could bee no lesse then a blasphemous arrogance to lay claim to the royall bloud of heaven but since it hath pleased the God of heaven so far to dignifie our unworthinesse as in the multitudes of his mercies to admit and allow us to be partakers of the divine nature it were no other then an unthankfull stupidity not to lay hold on so glorious a priviledge and to goe for lesse then God hath made us Know now my son that thou art upon the ground of all consolation to thy soul which consists in this beatificall union with thy God and Saviour think not therefore to passe over this important mystery with some transient and perfunctory glances but let thy heart dwell upon it as that which must stick by thee in all extremities and chear thee up when thou art forsaken of all worldly comforts Doe not then conceive of this union as some imaginary thing that hath no other beeing but in the braine whose faculties have power to apprehend and bring home to it self far remote substances possessing it self in a sort of whatsoever it conceives Doe not think it an union meerly virtuall by the participation of those spirituall gifts and graces which God worketh in the soul as the comfortable effects of our happy conjunction with Christ Doe not think it an accidentall union in respect of some circumstances and qualities wherein we communicate with him who is God and man nor yet a metaphoricall union by way of figurative resemblance but know that this is a true reall essentiall substantiall union whereby the person of the beleever is indissolubly united to the glorious person of the Son of God know that this union is not more mysticall then certain that in naturall unions there may bee more evidence there cannot be more truth neither is there so firm and close an union betwixt the soul body as there is betwixt Christ and the beleeving soul for as much as that may be severed by death but this never Away yet with all grosse carnality of conceit this union is true and really existent but yet spirituall and if some of the Ancients have tearm'd it naturall and bodily it hath been in respect of the subject united our humanity to the two blessed natures of the Son of God met in one most glorious person not in respect of the manner of the uniting Neither is it the lesse reall because spirituall Spirituall agents neither have nor put forth any whit lesse vertue because sense cannot discern their manner of working Even the Loadstone though an earthen substance yet when it is out of sight whether under the Table or behinde a solid partition stirreth the needle as effectually as if it were within view shall not hee contradict his senses that will say it cannot work because I see it not Oh Saviour thou art more mine then my body is mine my sense feels that present but so as that I must lose it my faith sees and feels thee so present with mee that I shall never be parted from thee There is no resemblance whereby the Spirit of God more delights to set forth the heavenly union betwixt Christ and the beleever then that of the head and the body The head gives sense and motion to all the members of the body And the body is one not onely by the continuity of all the parts held together with the same naturall ligaments and covered with one and the same skin but much more by the animation of the same soul quickning that whole frame in the acting whereof it is not the large extent of the stature and distance of the lims from each other that can make any difference The body of a child that is but a span long cannot bee said to be more united then the vast body of a giantly son of Anak whose height is as the Cedars and if we could suppose such a body as high as heaven it self that one soul which dwels in it and is diffused through all the parts of it would make it but one entire body Right so it is with Christ and his Church That one Spirit of his which dwels in and enlives every beleever unites all those far-distant members both to each other and to their head and makes them up into one true mysticall body So as now every true beleever may without presumption but with all holy reverence and all humble thankfulnesse say to his God and Saviour Behold Lord I am how unworthy soever one of the lims of thy body and therefore have a right to all that thou hast to all that thou doest Thine eye sees for me thine ear hears for me thine hand acts for me Thy life thy grace thy happinesse is mine Oh the wonder of the two blessed unions In the personall union it pleased God to assume and unite our humane nature the Deitie In the spirituall and mysticall it pleases God to unite the person of every beleever to the person of the Son of God Our souls are too narrow to blesse God enough for these incomprehensible mercies Mercies wherein he hath preferred us be it spoken with all godly lowlinesse to the blessed Angels of heaven For verily he took not upon him the nature of Angels but he took on him the seed of Abraham Neither hath he made those glorious spirits members of his mysticall body but his saints whom he hath as it were so incorporated that they are become his body and he theirs according to that of the divine Apostle For as the body is one and hath many members and all the members of that one body being many are one body so also is Christ. Next hereunto there is no resemblance of this mystery either more frequent or more full of lively expression then that of the conjugall union betwixt the husband and wife Christ is as the head so the husband of the Church The Church and every beleeving soul is the Spouse of this heavenly Bridegroom whom hee marrieth unto himselfe for ever in righteousnesse and in judgement and in loving kindnesse and in mercies and this match thus made up fulfils that decretive word of the Almighty They twain shal be one flesh O happy conjunction of the second Adam with her which was taken out of his most precious side Oh heavenly and compleat marriage wherein God the Father brings and gives the Bride All that the Father giveth me shall come