Selected quad for the lemma: church_n
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A66371
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A sermon preach'd before the Queen at White-Hall, May the Xth. M.DC.XC.I by William Wake ...
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Wake, William, 1657-1737.
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1691
(1691)
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Wing W268; ESTC R4902
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17,024
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40
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Us the Victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. But 3dly and to go yet farther We shall not only then be set free from all our Troubles and Miseries from whatsoever is any way Grievous or Afflicting to us in this World But we shall in stead thereof be blessed in a full Enjoyment of the most perfect Happiness that our Condition shall then be Capable of and that is a Great deal more than we are now able to conceive For 1st Our Bodies which here are the Weight and Burden of our Souls neither to be supported without Care nor kept under without Trouble and which when we have done all that we can will yet many times afflict us with Pains and Diseases Weaknesses and Infirmities Sometimes expose us to grievous Temptations and too often betray us into the Greatest Sins to be fure always so clog and depress us that we shall at best be able to rise up but to very imperfect Discharges of our Duty shall then be Glorified and rendred a Habitation fit for so Divine a Spirit to dwell in So our Apostle tells us 1 Cor. xv 43. This Corruptible says he shall put on Incorruption this Mortal Immortality We shall not only receive our Bodies again out of the Dust but we shall receive them in Greater Beauty and Perfection than ever they were before They shall rise out of their Graves as the Sun arises from beyond the Mountains of the East Bright and Shining Or rather as the Body of our Blessed Saviour when he appeared to St. Paul on his way to Damascus Acts ix and in comparison whereof the very Sun it self seem'd to be but Dim and Obscure And as our Bodies shall be thus Glorified so our Souls and all the powers and faculties of them shall be no less enlarged Now we know in part and see as through a Glass darkly He that is the Wisest amongst us and has made the Best Progress in Learning is yet ignorant of a Great deal more than he knows and in what he thinks he understands the best is often times mistaken But then we shall see face to face and know even as also we are known All the Mysteries of our Faith and the Secrets of our Redemption shall be laid open to Us And those Disputes which now so unhappily divide the Church and disquiet the Minds of the Best Christians be for ever Determined not by Force but Conviction not by Canons and Definitions but by an Evident Light and a clear and distinct Perception This shall be the state of our Understandings in the Other World nor shall our Wills be any less perfected There shall be no Repugnancy to the Service of God No Passions or Appetites to Cross or Encounter in the fulfilling of it We shall be all Flame and Love and Devotion Shall flee to our Duty with the Ardors of Seraphim and shall feel such new and unspeakable Joys arising in our Souls from the performance of it as now we are not able to conceive Only perhaps some pious Votary may now and then have felt some Antepasts of them when having either overcome some great and violent Temptation or else fulfilled some noble instance of Duty he finds in Himself such a Serenity of Mind such sweetness and satisfaction of Spirit proceeding from the Consideration of it as exceeds all the Sensual Pleasures of the most Exquisite Voluptuary But which alas are as far short of that perpetual Joy and Comfort we shall then live in as the best of our Performances here are exceedingly inferiour to what the constant discharges of our Piety shall be there And being thus prepared for a full Draught of Happiness we shall not fail to enjoy the largest Portion that we can even wish for of it What the particular Ingredients of our future Felicity shall be I am not able to say But this we know that We shall live in the Presence of God in whose Presence there is fulness of joy and at whose right hand there are pleasures for Evermore We shall Converse with Angels and be translated to the General Assembly and Church of the First Born and to the Spirits of just Men made perfect There we shall meet with all those Great and Wise those Holy and Excellent Persons who in their several Ages have made up the Glory and Ornament of the Church Militant on Earth and now shine as Stars in the Church Triumphant in Heaven Whose Vertuous Lives and Patient Sufferings we have either read or heard of with so much Wonder and Satisfaction By whose Learning we have profited whose Disciples we have professed our selves and whose Examples we have look'd up unto both for our Imitation and our Encouragement There we shall again be restored to our Friends and our Relations whom we have here left with so much sorrow and bitterness There we shall behold the Blessed Apostles of our Lord and Saviour and all the rest of that Noble Army of Martyrs and Confessors by whose constant Labours and patient Sufferings the Gospel first became publish'd to the World and to whom therefore as fellow-workers with Christ we our selves have in part been indebted for our own Salvation And lastly to compleat all There we shall meet with the Blessed Jesus Himself the Great Shepherd of the Sheep the Author and Finisher of our Faith by whose Bloud we were Redeemed by whose Grace we have been Sanctify'd and by whose Merits and Intercession we shall have then attain'd to all this Glory This is that Company to which we shall be translated when we come to die And then think if you can what an unspeakable Happiness it must needs be to us to pass from the vain Conversation of a peevish and wicked World to such an admirable Society as this From the Follies and Disorders of sinful and frail Men to the wise and innocent and endearing Conversation of Saints and Angels I shall not for the farther improving of these reflections trouble you with any Uncertain Conjectures of the rare Discourses the Glorious Entertainments the sincere Friendships we may there expect to meet with What new transports of Joy shall fill our Souls when we shall begin to consider the Temptations we have overcome the Dangers we have escaped and the various Troubles we have pass'd through in our Pilgrimage here on Earth and compare all these with that Peace and Glory we shall then Enjoy in the Kingdom of Heaven But one thing there is that must not be pass'd by and that is that being now instated in all this Great Felicity we shall at the same time become secure of an Everlasting Enjoyment of it That Our Glory shall be Eternal and our Reward no man shall take from Us. For tho' this be but a Circumstance and so do's not enter into the Nature of our Happiness yet it is such a Circumstance that Heaven it self would hardly be compleat without it But the Greater our Enjoyments were the more it would trouble us to think