Selected quad for the lemma: city_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
city_n	account_n	world_n	zion_n	30	3	10.4918	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A35166	The cynosura, or, A saving star that leads to eternity discovered amidst the celestial orbs of David's Psalms, by way of paraphrase upon the Miserere.	Cross, Nicholas, 1616-1698.	1670 (1670)	Wing C7252; ESTC R21599	203,002	466

through the whole Man in such sort that every particle of him may feel its operation he is not I say so transported as not to consider what he asks and in that the great condescendency of God who disdains not to converse with Men he deals not with them as he doth with Angels where the superiour intelligences instruct the inferiour but by himself an increated wisdom he conveys unto our happy Ears the mysterious wonders of our Faith It is by him we are taught that all sin is forbidden even to the least thought or desire that God is to be loved above all things and sin to be abominated in the highest degree so that the exact observer of his Laws must be holy and enriched with all vertues there is nothing in our Faith that speaks not the greatness of God nothing that is not sublime transcending and what becomes not an infinite Majesty he layes down nothing of eternal things that sounds the least imperfection So that the compleat knowledge of them must needs involve a joy eternal since even in the transitory passage of this life we experience the most solid contentment and satisfaction we have to consist in the sweet Meditation of those Mysteries For alas without those hopes which Faith gives us what Captive more wretched than Man we are as banished into a Land of misery enslaved by sin where we truckle under the insolency of unruly passions which hurries into many disasters and calamities at last we finish a deplorable life by death in whose Face is seated nothing but dread and horrour After this corruption stanch and infection are the last farewell and monument of us so that without Faith we are centered within these myseries unable to carry our sight beyond the low condition of a brute and unreasonable Creature On the contrary faith teaches we are created to a supernatural and blessed end which we are to purchase by acts of Religion That our Souls are immortal by which resembling the Angels we are excluded from putrefaction and approach the nearer to God That he hath created all things of nothing in which belief we acknowledge his Omnipotency and cherish our own hopes that if he could extract us out of nothing with more facility can he after death rejoyn our disunited parts Our Holy Penitent figures to himself all these comforts resulting from divine faith and in sequel implores with instance that a right spirit may be renewed within him But I conceive our Holy Penitent looked not upon himself as wholy deprived of habitual faith for though every mortal sin disposes afar off unto its total ruine and truly merits it should be taken from us yet God is so merciful as to leave that foundation unalterable by sin unless directly undermined by an opposite act of infidelity In this petition then for a right spirit he pretends to the operation of habitual faith that is an actual and firm belief of Objects proposed by Faith His reason is that the lights and irradiations of Faith have a certain blessing from God to stir up and carry the will to what is good so that after an act of Faith produced in the understanding he knew his clean heart would no longer lye a sleep but grow up into a spark which would both enlighten and enflame as the Prophet Habakkuk sayes Chap. 1. The just Man lives by Faith that is Faith actuated and enlivened both preserves the Soul's life by grace and by merit opens a passage to eternal glory Run o're the World's History from the Creation and you will find habitual faith lying dead and frozen within us to have been the source of all our misery The reprobate Angels upon what score did they forfeit that precious title of being the Sons of God was it not in that they preferred a motion of self love before the motives of faith which would have rendered them stable and secure What a frivolous plea made Adam for his trespass lest his Wife upon his denyal might have grown sad as if a fear to offend God and ruine his whole posterity ought not to have prevailed in this temptation Had Cain considered the greatness of God his obligation to observe his Law in loving his Brother a petty suggestion of avarice or sting of envy could never have animated him to an action so horrid the Massacre of so many Infants by Herod's command wherein he thought to have involved the person of Jesus Christ was meerly upon the account of ambition the Jewish Oracles foretelling his raign and Empire which Herod understood to be of this World nor did the Jews put our Saviour to death but in order to the preservation of their City and themselves in the good Opinion of the Romans so that Men have been pushed on in all their crimes by humane reasons and interests whilst they laid aside those disswasives which Faith held forth to them and which had if duly weighed rendered them victorious witness St. John Chap. 5. The power of faith hath made a conquest of the World which is meant not of the habit but act of faith Our Holy Penitent applyes all this to himself having seen the shipwrack that befel him through a sluggishness in not giving life and activity to his faith For when he was tempted to impurity and other his transgressions that sprang from thence had he considered what faith teaches concerning mortal sin that it deprives a Soul of eternal glory adjudges her to the endless torments of Hell that it throwes a scorn and contempt upon a God whose greatness and Majesty is infinite and who merits from all Creatures a respect and love ineffable had he fixt himself on these sublime and supernatural reasons of Faith the Childish baits of flesh and blood could never have taken hold upon his unfortunate senses wherefore to prevent at least for the future he solicits a right spirit may be infused into him a spirit that may not be overgrown with rust like a sword in a scabberd for want of use but that it may prove active even to his very bowels which is to say that this noble quality of faith producing frequently acts by the consideration of its proper objects may gain his will memory sensitive and moving faculties and so happily conduct him to his designed Beatitude renew in my Bowels a right spirit After Faith thus enlivened as a necessary dependent comes in a troop of moral vertues which compleats the rectitude of his spirit he so much desires For vertue is a habit that enclines the Soul to perform actions sutable to a reasonable nature and though the Soul be sufficient of herself by her natural faculties to frame several acts of vertue yet it is with hardship and difficulty whereas this quality of vertue contributes a facility by which the good thence issuing is done with promptitude and delight It consists in a mediocrity between two extreams that is too little or too much For example Charity is between a coldness or

within us since all Charity in Man begins at home and in order to himself Our Holy Penitent had steered his actions according to the Rules of Charity First he had consecrated his love to God his sovereign good and in view of this he beheld all other things as a fair nothing When he had paid him these first fruits of his inclinations he fell upon his own concerns in his spiritual necessities and having exposed them all before the beams of God's mercy which never fails to enliven and cherish a contrite and humble heart he presumes now to intercede for his Neighbour and petition in behalf of the inhabitants of Sion a Hill dedicated to God's service and for the holy City of Jerusalem that these places might be preserved to the encrease of the peoples devotion and not be laid open to destruction upon the score of his transgressions wherefore he cryes Be favourable O Lord in thy good will with Sion When I read a passage in Jeremy Chap. 7. I admire the power and force of prayer for there God speaking to this Prophet sayes do not pray for this people lest I divert my anger and again he bids Moses forbear his importunity that his fury might break forth which shews that the supplications of the just bind up Gods Hands and stand like a bulwork between his rage and our guiltiness Now if the efficacy of prayer be such as to appease his avenging Face when all enflamed against offendours it hath doubtless no less vertue to obtain what ever we demand for our own or our Neighbours good St. Austin sayes that whilst God leaves us a Heart and Tongue disposed for prayer we need not fear the substraction of his graces for he is faithful in his promise nor will ever give a repulse to just petitions The Head of this Truth springs from the order of his Providence which hath eternally resolved that many things shall be done in the World by the means of prayer For there are two kinds of decrees the one absolute by which he determined the Creation of the Heavens Angels and Elements and these things he determined to create without any entermingled condition His other decrees are conditional as that of Beatifying the Angels and communicating unto Men eternal glory upon supposition that by their vertuous actions they rendered themselves worthy of Beatitude Such also is that decree by which he designs a grant of several benefits in case he be petitioned for them and with humility demanded at his Hands as the Author of all good Wherefore prayer works no change in Gods determinations but brings them to Execution sutably to his orders whence prayer hath the power of impetration and obtains of God's mercy what he hath graciously promised but this must be understood in things that are conducing to Salvation Whereupon St. Bernard delivers these excellent words The Care of God over thee is so tender and prudent that when ignorantly thou dost petition for what is useless or perhaps prejudicious to thee he is deaf to thee in this particular yet will exchange it into some gift or other more to thy advantage For example suppose you ask to be freed from some affliction that seems very heavy to you if God grant you patience it is a blessing beyond the deliverance you seek after Again you would be exempted from this or that temptation as St. Paul made it his earnest suit but if God give you grace and courage to repress it in such sort as to receive no injury but an encrease of merit you have no reason to repine So that God is alwayes faithful in his promises and never breaks his word with his Creatures but gives the effect of prayer either in the specifical thing demanded or in that which is more valuable if I say it be asked with faith hope perseverance and concerning necessaries to Salvation St. Austin sayes the Soul hath power assisted by grace to cultivate herself and by a pious industry purchase and get into the possession of all vertues by which she may be delivered from the difficulties of concupiscence which torments her and of ignorance that blinds her Nay in the height of temptation or ignorance God never takes from her a free will by which she may demand seek and play the couragious even before she assent to those that ask discover to those that enquire or give admittance to such as importunately press upon her how comes it then to pass sayes he that she is sometimes ignorant what to do it is because she hath not yet received that Grace but infallibly she will receive it if good use be made of what she hath already received that is a grace to seek piously and with diligence Hence he layes the ruine of many Souls upon this default in not praying against the difficulties of concupiscence and ignorance Nay on the contrary we covet for the most part to be glutted with some Earthly satisfaction on which our sensitive part is fastned for which our prayers and instances are made out of self love not the glory of God Now because they are pernicious to us he playes the deaf and thinks it misbecomes his love to Man to set a seal to his undoing which made St. Austin say It is a stroak of Gods mercy sometimes to withdraw his mercy Our Petitioner knew that the gift of prayer is the first grace God bestowes on Man which serves as a Ladder that by it he may ascend to other Graces necessary to Salvation he hath made it the Subject of his Song and beat upon no other string in the whole tract of this his petition than to obtain pardon for his sins and to be restored to the inestimable treasure of Sanctifying grace after this task of his own concern he undertook to instruct the wicked and labour in the conversion of the impious and that these principles wherewith he had imbued them might take the deeper root by a constant practice he now supplicates the Divine Majesty in behalf of the City of Jerusalem and the holy mountain of Sion to the end it might be settled in peace and be a secure refuge not onely to the numerous inhabitants but also to that infinite resort of Pilgrims who from all parts came thither to pay their religious duties to God and he hopes for a good effect of his prayer since it is in order to the establishment of God's Church in which action the divine zeal hath more visibly appeared both in gratifying such as have advanced the structure and in punishing any sacrilegious violence than in any other external actions of Men. Ezekiel painting forth the abominations of the Temple sayes there came six Angels and every one had in his hands Vessels of slaughter upon which Theodoret observes in the destruction of Zenacharib's Army one only Angel appeared but against the prophaners of his Temple six are deputed that no day of the Week should pass over their Heads without a fresh Executioner to