Selected quad for the lemma: sense_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
sense_n	life_n	live_v	soul_n	3,806	5	5.7519	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A58814	A sermon preached at the funeral of Dr. William Croun on the 23d of October, 1684, at St. Mildred Church in the Poultrey by John Scott ...	Scott, John, 1639-1695.	1685 (1685)	Wing S2068; ESTC R10207	19,399	34

that seek him your heart shall live for ever that is rejoice for eve● so also 1 Thes. 3.8 How properly therefore may the 〈◊〉 state of bliss be expressed by Life since 't is the proper scene of happiness where joy and pleasure do for ever abound where there is an inexhau●●●ble spring of pure unmingled delights issuing forth in Rivers of Pleasure from God's Right Hand for evermore So that if there be any thing worthy of the name of life 't is doubtless the blissfull state of those happy Souls who live in a continued sense of all those joys and comforts that an everlasting Heaven imports I now pass on to the next thing proposed which was to shew wherein this everlasting life consists And here I do not pretend to give you a perfect Map of all the Beatitudes of that Heavenly State for that is a Task fit only for an Angel or a glorified Spirit all I aim at is to give you such an imperfect account of it as God hath thought fit to impart to Mortals in the Scripture which though it fall infinitely short of the thing it self yet is doubtless the best and utmost that our narrow Capacities can bear In short therefore concerning this blessed State God hath revealed to us these fix things 1. That it includes a most perfect freedom from evil and misery So Rev. 7.16 17. and hence also it is called a state of Rest Heb. 4.9 11. Rev. 14.13 all which expressions plainly denote this state to be a perfect Sabbath and Jubilee of Redemption from all evil and misery for as soon as the Souls of good Men depart out of this Corporeal State in which they now live they are immediately released from all those bodily passions of hunger and thirst and pain and diseases whereunto they are now liable by reason of their union with the body and having in a great measure conquered their Wills whilst they were in the Body and subdued them to the Will of God they must immediately commense into an high degree of perfection for being freed from the incumbrances of flesh and bloud from the importunities of body passion and appetite and the temptations of sensuality that do now continually solicite them they will be no longer liable to those irregularities of affection that do here disturb the tranquillity of their minds and so their actions and affections being always regulated by their reason their Consciences will be no more bestormed with those terrours and affrightments which nothing but the sense of guilt can suggest to them but enjoy a perpetual calm and serenity so that they being translated into an immortal condition will be released from all the sad accidents of Mortality from pain and sickness hunger and thirst from all corporeal passions and grievances and so no sensitive sorrow can interpose between them and their happiness to disturb their fruition or interrupt the current of their Joys and being translated into a state of perfect purity and goodness they will be also freed from all the sorrowfull appendages of a sinfull condition from dread and anxiety from shame and remorse and from all the corroding anguish of a wounded spirit and so they will be liable neither to sensitive nor rational trouble and having nothing either from within or without to intermeddle with their Joys and disturb the scene of their happiness they will be at perfect rest and for ever enjoy a most undisturbed repose O blessed day when I shall take my leave of sin and misery for ever and go to those calm and blissfull Regions whence sighs and tears and sorrows and pains are banished for evermore 2. That it includes a most intimate enjoyment of God for God being a rational good is no otherwise capable of being enjoyed by reasonable Beings but by knowing loving and resembling him all which ways he hath promised that we shall enjoy him when are are arrived in that blissfull state For as for the knowledge of him St. Paul tells us that whereas we now see through a glass darkly we shall then see him face to face c. 1 Cor. 13.12 and St. John that we shall see him as he is 1 John 3.2 which expressions must needs import such a knowledge of him as is unspeakably more distinct and clear than any we have in this present state For then the Eyes of our Minds shall be so invigourated that we shall be able to look on the Sun without dazeling to contemplate the pure and immaculate glories of the Divinity without being confounded with its brightness and our understanding shall be so exalted that we shall see more at every single view than we do now in volumes of discourse and the most tedious trains of inference and deduction and enjoying a most perfect repose both from within and without we shall have nothing to disturb or divert our greedy contemplations which having such an immense Prospect of Truth and Glory round about them shall still discover farther and farther and so entertain themselves with everlasting wonder and delight for what an infinite pleasure will that All-glorious object afford unto our raised minds which then shall no longer labour under the tedious difficulties of discourse but like transparent Windows shall have nothing to doe but only to receive the light which freely offers it self unto them and shines for ever round about them when every new Discovery of God and of the bottomless secrets and mysteries of his Nature shall inlarge our Capacities to discover more and still new discoveries shall freely offer themselves as fast as our minds are inlarged to receive them This doubtless will be a Recreation to our Souls infinitely transcending all that we can conceive or imagine of it especially considering that all our knowledge shall terminate in love that sweet and gratefull passion that sooths and ravishes the heart and dissolves it into joy and pleasure for God being infinitely good and amiable the more we know the more cause and reason we shall have to love him when therefore we are arrived to that degree of knowledge which the beatifical Vision implies we shall find our hearts inflamed with such a degree of love to him as will issue into unspeakable delight and satisfaction and even overwhelm us with ecstasies of joy and complacency For if those Divine illapses those more immediate touches and sensations of God which good men sometimes experience in this life do so affect and ravish them that they are even forced into Triumphs and Exaltations how will they be rapt and transported in that state of vision when they shall see him so immediately and love him so vehemently and their whole Soul shall be nothing else but one intire globe of light and love all irradiated and inflamed with the vision and beauty of the Fountain of Truth and Goodness But alas as these joys are too big for mortal language to express so are they too strong for mortality to bear and should we but for one day or

TO THE Truly Pious and Virtuous Mrs CROUN MADAM WHen you requested me to Publish this Discourse I found you in that Mournfull condition that 't would have been a degree of Inhumanity not to have gratified your desire And therefore though I was sufficiently sensible how much short I had fain of both my Subjects viz. that comfortable one of the Text and that sorrowfull one of the Occasion yet my Compassion overswayed my Reason so that I can plead no other excuse to the World for this very defective Publication but that I had not ill nature enough to resist the Importunate Tears of an afflicted Friend and a sorrowful Widow As for the Sermon all I can say for it is this That it Treats of a very Noble Argument and such as carries comfort enough with it to ease and relieve the most dejected mind and therefore is of all others the most fit and proper for your Meditations for there is no present affliction no not yours can cause you to suppose your self miserable so long as you are within hope and expectance of the blessed state of eternal life O Good Madam while you are making your Mournfull descants on your dear Loss consider now and then that you are Iourneying towards that blessed place where you will find infinite Myriads of better Friends and dearer Lovers than that best of Husbands whose Loss you bewail and who love each other far more and better even than you and he did and have this peculiar advantage beyond the happiest Lovers here That they shall live an eternal life together and to everlasting Ages enjoy one another without being ever interrupted in their enjoyment with the Melancholy prospect of being at last divided from each others society and embraces This with all those other innumerable comforts wherewith this fruitfull Theme abounds you will find the best Cordial in the World for a drooping mind That therefore what I here present you may often put you in mind of Heaven and quicken your endeavours after it and refresh your sorrowfull heart with the joyfull prospect of it is the earnest prayer of MADAM Your most affectionate Friend and faithfull Servant John Scott A SERMON Preached at the FUNERAL c. Matth. 25.46 But the Righteous into life eternal IN the foregoing verses of this Chapter our Saviour describes the process of the day of Judgment and the different Fates to which good and bad men whom he describes under the Characters of Sheep and Goats shall then be sentenced and consigned and then he summs up the whole discourse in the words of the Text These that is the Goats or the Wicked of whom he had been discoursing in the verses immediately preceding These shall go away into everlasting punishment but the Righteous into life eternal where by the Righteous we are to understand the truly Pious and Vertuous that is they who render to God to Men and to themselves all that duty they owe in their respective Relations and Circumstances for all our Duties being Dues our performance of them is nothing but the discharging of our Debts or being strictly Righteous in rendring to God and Men and our selves what we owe to each by an immutable obligation and hence the whole Duty of Man is in Scripture very often called by the name of Righteousness and those who comply with their whole Duty are frequently styled Righteous because to be Righteous is to render to every one his due and to render every one his due is the whole Duty of Man so that the meaning of the words is this they who have been good Men in all their respective Relations and Circumstances who have made it the business of their lives to render to God all that Piety and Devotion to their Neighbours all that Justice and Charity to themselves all that Sobriety and Temperance which is due from them both by the command of God and the judgment of right reason they as a reward of this their universal Righteousness shall by this final judgment be transmitted unto life eternal In the prosecution of which Argument I shall endeavour these two things First To shew what is here meant by life eternal Secondly Wherein this eternal life consists As for the first By life here is plainly meant happiness for so it 's very usual with Scripture to express the blessings it promises to Men whether they be temporal or eternal By life thus the temporal Blessings promised in the Old Testament are frequently exprest by this Phrase as you may see at your leisure Deut. 30.15.19 Lev. 18.5 Ezek. 20.21 and hence the Statutes of the Mosaick Law are called the Statutes of life Ezek. 33.15 and as the Temporal Blessings in the Old Testament are commonly expressed by life so are also those Eternal Blessings of the future life promised in the New so Matth. 18.8 Matth. 19.17 John 3.36 and because these Blessings are not Temporal but Eternal therefore that life by which they are expressed is styled eternal and everlasting so 1 Tim. 1.10 Rom. 6.22 23. and that it is not called eternal life merely as it is a state of endless Being and Existence is evident because Being and Existence are indifferent things abstracted from the sense of Happiness and Misery but eternal life is proposed to us as a thing that is infinitely desirable in it self as being the Crown and Reward of all our Obedience for which reason it is called the Crown of Life Iames 1.12 and therefore the reason why they are expressed by life is because life is the root of all our sense of pleasure without which we are nothing else but lumps of stupid and insensible flesh incapable of perceiving either pleasure or pain so that all sensation being founded in life and all pleasure being a sweet and gratefull sensation by a very easie figure the natural effect and operation of life is expressed by life it self and indeed all the advantage of living consists in living in a sense of pleasure and therefore it hath been very much disputed among Philosophers whether this Temporary state of ours in which there is so great an intermixture of pain with pleasure doth not better deserve the name of Death than Life and those of them who thought it more liable to Misery than Happiness affirmed it to be a state of death and stifly maintained this Paradox that at our birth we die into a worse state than non-existence and at our death are born into a true and proper state of life but they who counted our present life to be intermixed with more pleasure than misery esteemed it a privilege deserving the name of life which is an argument that both placed all the privilege of living in those pleasant perceptions that are founded in it and thus according to the Scripture Philospohy to live as it imports advantage to us is to live in the sense of joy and pleasure so Psal. 22.26 The Meek shall eat and be satisfied they shall praise the Lord