Selected quad for the lemma: book_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	heaven_n	life_n	name_n	2,965	5	5.6454	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A61197	The royal and happy poverty or, a meditation on the felicities of an innocent and happy poverty: grounded on the fifth of Matthew, the third verse. And addressed to the late and present sufferers of the times.	Sprigg, William, fl. 1657.	1660 (1660)	Wing S5081; ESTC R221805	40,412	115

conditions how that they have no righteousnesse of their own no holiness no purity no Sanctity of their own these I take to be the poor in Spirit here meant Having thus discoursed on the subject of the Proposition we are by the course of our method arrived at the predicate viz. Blessed The word in the Original is {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} quasi {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} non sorti non morti subjectus a word in which the whole of felicity is summ'd up a word that reaches the Cul●en top or fastigium of all happinesse a felicity that is not subject to the stroke of death to the sith of time a felicity which neither time shall wither nor the hour or approach of death be able to blast and so we have finished the proposition and shall now hasten to the ground or reason of it and that is For theirs is the Kingdom of heaven Christ said sometime to his Dischples Luke the 10 20. verse Rejoyce not so much that the Devils are made subject to you but rather that your names are written in heaven that your names are written by the blood of Christ and finger of the spirit in the book of Life that your names are enrolled and registred in the Archives of Heaven Now from the words thus anatomized and unbowelled there seem naturally to spring these propositions 1 That Poverty of Spirit is a royal and blessed state or condition or in the concrete that the poor in spirit are blessed 2 That the ground or reason of all true happinesse or blessednesse is founded in an interest in the Kingdom of heaven or that they onely may be truly and without Ironie termed happy or accounted the real proprietors of all felicity whose is the Kingdom of heaven on whom heaven and happinesse is intail'd 1 Poverty of spirit is a blessed state and happy condition I should rather darken than illustrate the meridian brightnesse of this Truth that is wrot as with a sun-beam should I bring a cloud of witnesses for its confirmation it needing no other proof than the Authority of him that spake it having proceeded from the lips of him that is Truth it self that cannot lye But that no truth though of never so great evidence might be without witnesse the whole scope and tenour of the Gospel seems to bear its testimony and give in evidence to the confirmation hereof How frequent is it said in Proverbs besides other places That pride is an abomination to the Lord is not this the language and dialect of the scripture throughout that the Lord will dwel with an humble and contrite heart that trembleth at his Word but that he hateth and resisteth the proud Doth not almost every page and Chapter thorowout the whole Book of God speak in the same Key Doth not God all along turn the edge of his threatnings against high things and high thoughts against proud and towring imaginations that exalt and lift up themselves hath he not denounced enmity against proud and high things hath he not threatened to level and bring down every high Hill till he make it become a plain Is not the quarrel of the Almighty with the great things of the Earth And hath he not on the other side pawned his Word and ingaged his promise to exalt the humble to give grace to the humble to lift up every valley c. Hath he not invited all those that hunger and thrust all those that are weary and heavy leaden promising that he will feed them that he will satisfie them that he will ease them that they shall finde rest unto their souls What are all these expressions but as so many proofs and confirmations of this Proposition it were endlesse to quote and cite places and therefore shall hasten to the Reasons whereof 1. The first is borrowed from a rule among Physitians with whom it is received as a Maxim that primus gradus sumitatis est nosse morbum the first degree of health is to know the disease for as our Proverb hath it a disease that is known is half cured Now this poverty of Spirit is a reflex act of the Soule discovering to men their wants that they may go to Christ to be supplied of his fulnesse to receive of his fulnesse Grace for Grace It discovers to men their own nakednesse that they may go to Christ to be clothed with the white robes of his Righteousnesse till Adams eyes were opened that he saw his nakednesse and his sin He had no shame nor sence of his guilt but so soon as his eyes were opened he began to sow fig leaves together to cover his sin and hide his shame This is the usual Method and progresse of God in the work of conversion first to alarm and awaken the Soul by a clap of Thunder so to rouse him from the Lethergie and sleep of sin to prick them to the quick and make them cry out like the Jaylor in the Acts men and brethren what shall we do to be saved This causes the scales to fall from off their eyes those scales of Ignorance with which their eyes were seal'd and then they see their sin and their shame and begin to loath and abhor themselves to cloath themselves with sackcloth and ashes and sit down in the dust Now when a soul hath thus seen its nakednesse it begins to think of a covering of a mantle or a cloak to hide its sin and begins first to sow together the Fig leaves of its own Righteousnesse of its own performances and so long as it thinks they will serve its turn it looks no further till at length a flash of lightening comes and smutes all their righteousnesse blacks all their beauty scorches their leaves and burns up all their Hay and Stuble and discovers a new light unto them that make they the borders of their own righteousnesse never so broad and let them with the Pharisees inlarge their Phylacteries never so wide yet they shall finde the skirts thereof too narrow too shallow to cover them then they begin to be out of conceit with themselves to fall in disesteem and disreputation with themselves then they begin to let fall those plumes and specious train that before they so much pleased and prided themselves in And indeed men will never desire to put on the Lord jesus till they have thus seen their own poverty that their own righteousnesse is but as dirty and menstruous rags till they are thus come acquainted with their own wants how empty their own exchequer is how low their own treasures run they will never desire to be supplied out of those treasures of Grace God hath laid up in Christ for poor sinners till men look up and discern the sword of vengeance hanging by a small hair over their heads ready to drop upon them they 'l not be sencible of the desperate peril and danger of their naturall state and condition till they see the filthinesse

much hunger and cold with the losse of how many nights rest and sleep do men hunt after learning and purchase to themselves a few flight notions of things How will men rack and serue their thoughts torture and distresse their apprehentions with a problem or theorem in Phylosophy How will many macerate and consume their bodies spend and wast the taper of their lives in watchings abstinencies and a thousand other austerities to gain a superficial inspection into the secrets of Nature into the nature of things How will many rob and defraud nature of its due and pine away their bodies to satiate their thirst after knowledge to feed and gratifie the inquisitive searching humor of their mindes How hath the eagernesse of some mens thirst after learning drunk up their strength and the very marrow of their souls How hath the fiery spirit and activity of their mindes fretted consum'd and eaten up the flesh of their bodies reduc'd them to Anotomies and living Skellitons looking more like spectres Ghosts or walking shaddows than men Some mens souls being like a sword too sharp and keen for the scabbard of their bodies in which they are sheath'd Or like Mercury or Quicksilver so penetrating and acture that nothing can contain them And all this upon the sole account of knowledge to which their affections are kindled with such ardent desires and have conceiv'd such sprightly flames as commonly soon reduces their bodies to ashes and rendes them the victims of their desires causing them to expire like the Phenix in their own flames It s reported of as I take it Cleanthes a poor Phylosopher that he pawned his nights rest to purchase his dayes studies that he drew water by night to earn a small pension to maintain himself in the muses service by day to maintain himself in the study of Phylosophy And of another it is reported that having quitted and forsaken his house and possessions to take a pilgrimage for the better improvement of his stock of knowledge and finding at his return all things thorow the injury of time gone to decay and his house almost buried under its own ruins brake forth into these expressions sihaec non paeriissent ego paeriissem had not these perish'd I had perish'd had I not made Ship-wrack of my estate I had shipwrack'd and lost my self Now shall the sons of humane wisdom the candidates of a little naturall knowledge that but puffeth up and profiteth not except sanctifi'd by grace which will be but as a torch to light men to Hell I say shall men for the love of what the Apostle calleth vain Phylosophy be content to welcome poverty and entertaine penury without any assurance of better estate in revertion or future happinesse to compensate and reward their former miseries And shall we grudge to do that for the wisdom wch is from above for a Crown of Glory which they do for the shaddow of wisdom for a wreath of withering and fading palms to obtain a name among the learned Shall not we do that to be made partakers of those Eternal fountains of wisdom and knowledge that the Heathen did for the adorning their understandings with a little dark fading counterfeit knowledge To conclude the lower the foundation is laid the higher the superstructure may be raised We have received on the credit of naturalists and those that are best read in the observations of nature that your tallest trees shoot their roots deepest into the Earth and commonly as far downwards towards the Center as their tops reach upwards towards Heaven As if nature would teach us that the foundation of the best and surest fortune is laid low is laid in the dust and the Scripture teaches us that poverty is the way to a Crown beggery to a Kingdom So that we see here the harmony and consent that 's between the Book of God and that of nature between the Scriptures and the greater volumn of the World And both of them giving in their evidence to this Truth bearing testimony to this Doctrine commending and reading lectures to us of this poverty of Spirit Shall we now be so childish as not part with our counters for gold With the menstruous rags of our own righteousnesse for the glorious princely robes of Christs Shall we prefer our coats of fig leaves before the righteousnesse of God And that this way and method of salvation may not seem strange to us Christ the Lord and Captain of our Salvation hath trod it before us For was not he humbled before he was exalted Was not he poor not having where to lay his head before he receiv'd the Kingdom of his Father Was not he crownd with thorns before he was crownd with Glory Finally was not he crucifi'd before he was Glorified Shall we now refuse to drink of the same cup that he hath drunk before us Do we who are but the children of Adoption expect a Kingdom a Crown a Scepter a Throne of Glory on easier terms than the Heire the son by nature and the first begotten than Chrrist our Elder brother receiv'd them on should we not rather rejoyce and glory in our poverty for that we are poor in Spirit because to such is given the Kingdom of Heaven FINIS Books Printed and are to be sold by Giles Calvert at the black-spread Eagle at the VVestend of Pauls THe Scripture Directory for Church Offices and People Or a Practical Commentary upon the whole Third Chapter of the first Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians To which is annexed The Godly and the Natural Mans Choyce upon Psal. 4. ver. 6 7 8. By Anthony Burgesse Pastor of the Church of Sutton Coldfield in Warwick-shire {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} The Temple of Solomon Pourtrayed by Scripture Light wherein all its famous Buildings the Pompous Worship of the Jews with its Attending Rites and Ceremonies the several Officers imploied in that Work with their Ample Revenues And the Spiritual Mysteries of the Gospel vailed under all are treated of at large by Samuel Lee The History of Diodorus Siculus containing all that which is most memorable and of greatest Antiquity in the first Ages of the World until the War of Troy in Folio Renodaeus his Dispensatory containing the whole body of Physick discovering the Natures and Properties and Vertues of Vegetals Minerals and Animals in folio Gadburies Doctrine of Nativities Doctor Pordages Innocency appearing through the Dark Mists of pretended guilt in folio Cornelius Agrippa his Occult Philosophy in 3 Books in quarto Henry Laurence Lord President his Book Entituled Our Communion and War with Angels in quarto Christopher Goad his Sermons Entituled Refreshing Drops and Scorching Vials in quarto Samuel Gorton his Exposition on the fifth chapter of Iames in quarto Samuel Hartlib of Bees and Silk-worms in quarto Williams his Book called the Bloody Tenet of Persecution for cause of conscience in quarto Doctor Gells Sermon Entituled Noahs Flood returning in quarto Several Pieces of