Selected quad for the lemma: city_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
city_n	call_v	great_a	place_n	10,107	5	4.1120	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A87158	The weary traveller his eternal rest being a discourse of that blessed rest here, which leads to endless rest hereafter. By H. H. D. D. Rector of Snaylwell, and Canon of Ely.	Harrison, Henry, 1610 or 11-1690.	1681 (1681)	Wing H893A; ESTC R215784	80,142	276

infinit wisdom power and goodness and to draw our hearts after the Author of what we see if he hath built this inferior World or City which hath no foundations in comparison of those to come with so much wisdom power and bounty and made such glorious Heavens as shine it forth to our admiration and enamel'd it with such variety of pleasures as even the best find it a matter of difficulty to part therewith and yet God never intended when he built it that it should continue long If there hath been so much cost of accurate contrivance and mighty bounty laid out on that which was to last but for a time what think we must be the riches beauty and glory of that City which he intended should endure to all eternity Surely this World where we now live is but as some out-houses to that Heavenly Palace an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as St. Paul saith a work-house a place for Labour and Travel before we come to our resting place that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or place of rewards as he calls Heaven This is but a place to fit our selves in for the City above a place it is wherein the greatest part of its inhabitants have dishonour'd their maker and him that made the World by preferring its transitory pleasures before him disorder'd themselves injured their brethren and thereby fitted themselves for that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that Hell or place of everlasting punishment And if the most wise and holy God who made this World and knew when he made it that it might and would be so abused yet so bespangled its roof with Stars Sun and Planets and laid its flowery foundation so pleasantly fragrantly fruitfully and usefully certainly that City which he hath erected for none but his beloved Servants to live in to all eternity must vastly surpass this in glory And because we can hardly conceive of invisible future good things but by some resemblance to present and visible and Men are of several tempers apprehensions and desires the Scriptures condescend thereto and strive to express the next lifes happiness in all the variety of several notions which either sense phansy or reason can desire The voluptuous seek for pleasure and mirth if they will have it let them set their hearts and affections on him that made them and redeemed them that he might sanctify them and bring them to these delights they seek in him they shall find when enter'd the City above a feast of new refined Wines a feast of Marrow and all delicacies the joy of Harvest and of those that divide the spoil of their enemies They shall find a celestial Paradice or Eden of God whereof that which was made for Adam and his posterity continuing innocent was but a transitory imperfect Map There is the hidden Manna hidden here but revealed there a new Song always Sung a Garden of Lillies and Roses which never die and whose fragrant scent never decays The ambitious Mans heart is set on honour and glory but if he will set his heart on God and that honour which comes from him in him he shall not fail to find a Kingdom of glory and immortality a Crown of righteousness whose weight is exceeding and eternal for his having preferred the God that made him before the empty false hearted honours which come to tempt him from his duty of humility goodness and holiness The covetous Mans heart is set on riches but if he will set his heart on God in him he shall find everlasting Treasure Mansions that fail not able to satisfie the utmost desires of him that possesses them either for duration or abundance A City whose Walls and Gates are full of all manner of precious stones an Inheritance as St. Peter describes it incorruptible and undefiled that fades not away 1 Pet. 1.4 What ever we can inherit here is Subject to some nay all of these Corruption defilement and fading away both we and it The substance is embased and soiled by some bad thing coming to it from without All things in their best Estate lose their luster and fade away One Mans inheritance corrupts by another Mans unthriftiness and is purchased by another another's escheated or confiscated We are weary here and then we Rest and are quickly as weary of our Rest as of our weariness The Creatures fail and tire and disappoint us that we should not set up our Rest in them or in any inheritance here below but be chased and forced to seek our Rest in God with whom there is an inheritance laid up for us in danger of none of all these uncorrupt that shall hold its being and none can disseize us of it undefiled never embased by any mixture and we our selves become undefiled uncorrupt and unfading too and what can the covetous in his largest thoughts desire more We have or may have a natural certainty by light of reason that there is another future State a life of Rest and joy after labour and sorrow here The Soul of Man which is a Spirit whose operations are not only far above what any body or matter is capable of but can overrule and contradict what ever the body most vehemently inclines to embrace poverty reproach and death with peace and joy Since for certain by light of reason there is a God that made the World and governs the World and hath obliged Mankind by notions imprinted in his Soul to piety and righteousness charity and temperance and yet hath left him a liberty to chuse or refuse that he maybe rewarded for chusing good and punished for the contrary And since many chuse the ways of sin who are not punished in this World and many chuse the ways of virtue who are not rewarded in this life it follows by necessary consequence of reason from the justness and holiness and goodness of God that there must be another future life wherein the prosperous wickedness of sinners shall be punished the labours and sufferings of godly righteous temperate charitable persons abundantly rewarded All this the very Heathens many of them have expresly owned and fairly proved by their general acknowledgemt that 't were better to suffer the loss of life and all its comforts than to live in the practice of hainous vice which could not be true if there were no other life after this And surely the notions of good and evil being so deeply interwoven with Mens Souls that the consciences of those who chuse and act that which is evil though never so secretly and so succesfully reproach them with the guilt of it and terrify them with the apprehensions of future punishment And the consciences of those who chuse and act that which is good though never so much reproached and afflicted for so doing cheers and comforts them with joyful hopes and expectations of some future reward The Souls and Consciences of Men being so deeply stamped with this by him that made them that no evasions or arts of hypocrisy or subtile

in God and takes him for his Rest and exceeding great reward waiting on him as his all-sufficient shield with resignation for life or death Contented to live but willing to die and to be with Christ he is the only fixt Star in this lower firmament His feet stand fast be the pavement never so slippery In the term of Mans life there is a vicissitude of good and evil a mixture of labour and rest joy and sorrow there is a seed-time and an harvest a sowing in tears and reaping in joy He that now goeth on his way weeping and beareth forth good seed shall doubless come again with joy and bring his sheaves with him But we may not expect Summer in the Winter season an harbour in the main Ocean our portion before we are of Age a reaping in joy 'till we have sown in tears The Traveller cannot think to find home in his Inn nor Heaven upon Earth The Children of Israel had the Wilderness and the Red-Sea to pass through before they could arrive at the Land of Canaan the place of their Rest They were all labourers that were sent into the Vineyard and could not expect their Peny 'till the day and their work was done let us therefore pray the Lord of the Harvest that our Labour and Travel may happily be turned at last into ease and Rest that when the six days of our life are at an end we may cease from our works as God did from his and enjoy with him an everlasting Sabboth of eternal Rest And the rather is this Rest hereafter to be laboured for now because whilst we are here upon Earth we have nothing pure and unmixt our very joys are mingled with sorrow and Solomon tells us even in laughter the heart is sad Expences here wait upon honour care of Education goes along with the blessing of Children and our most comfortable hopes are mixt with perplexing fears But when we come to Rest in the holy City that City which is above we shall have a perpetual day without night light without the Sun Our hunger shall be satisfied without food No need of Clothing there to cover our shame for shame and sin shall cease together then all sad doubtings what shall be our condition and state hereafter shall vanish away and we shall agree together with one heart and mind to sing Halelujahs and perpetual Prayers to God in the highest There will be no dissenters there no seperatists to break or interrupt that harmonious everlasting concord What wise Man then will set his heart upon the World when all things in it are but for so short an abode so unstable and so unsatisfactory and not rather on that abiding City above where the joys and pleasures are durable and eternal Christians of all others ought to remember what St. Paul saith Heb. 13.14 Here we have no abiding City but we seek one to come Our very profession exposeth us to all affliction and obliges us to live as strangers and pilgrims upon Earth What is Canaan or Jerusalem below to that above whereof the other was but a Type Things that are seen and perceptible by any bodily Eye are temporal transitory subject to changes every day and sure to be abolisht at length they will be taken from us or we from them when death comes which may come every day and therefore not worthy to be looked upon by such an immortal Soul or Spirit as constitutes Man which being made for eternity cannot be satisfied with ought that is temporal how long soever it may abide much less when 't is sure to continue no longer as to us than this uncertain short life and therefore in respect of our own and the Worlds end we may be truly said to have no abiding City here and are therefore the more carefully to seek and expect our eternal Rest and habitation from above While the World continues and we in it we have no continuing City here because neither habitation nor goods health nor wealth honours nor pleasures or any contentment is or can he assured us for our lives How many Villages Towns and Cities have Fires and Earthquakes and Wars destroyed How many Kingdoms and Common-wealths have civil disorders and foreign invasions overthrown Or rather what one in any Nation have they not The Histories or Records of all Ages all places besides the infallible Oracles of God which we have in our hands will give us a full induction and proof of this truth This Island wherein we live hath given us not only many Historical but experimental sensible proofs that from the King to the meanest Subject we have no continuing City here nor setled Rest and true happiness But besides these publick revolutions vicissitudes and changes every Family every private Person lies continually exposed to casualities to variety of sickness invading their health variety of molestations from those above them from those below them from those about them and also from their own follies lusts and passions from within them in so much that whatsoever Men fix their hearts upon in this World to take their greatest contentment in they cannot be sure on reasonable grounds that it shall continue with them one year longer The felicity and satisfactory happiness of this City above in which this eternal Rest is to be found ought to be valued so much the more because St. Paul tells us 1 Cor. 2.9 That Eye hath not seen nor Ear heard nor hath entered into the heart of Man to conceive the fulness of those good things which God hath prepared for those that love him A grateful and pleasant taste of these good things God affords the Souls of the faithful here in this life how transcendently then unutterable and unconceivable will be the full fruition of all that which the Gospel reveals to us but as in a glass when enjoy'd to the height in the highest Heavens through all eternity when we shall see God as he is with everlasting overflowing satisfaction to all the faculties of the Soul The Eye of Mart hath seen here admirable things in Art and Nature the Ear hath heard and the Tongue hath tasted delicious things and Mans heart can conceive much more than Art or Nature could ever present our senses with The very pleasure of natural knowledge in the judgment of Persons exercised therein exceeds whatsoever sensuality vain glory or covetousness pursues or enjoys and yet the knowledge and love of God in Christ incomparably surpass St. Paul tells us whatsoever the heart of the natural Man advanced to the height can conceive as pleasant or delightful to it How much more doth this City to come and its endless unconceivable pleasures where this everlasting Rest is to be had exceed even our expressions and conceptions when they are at the highest If God hath provided such good things for Mankind here below in this World which was not made for the place of our happiness but only to give us a transitory glimpse of his