Selected quad for the lemma: city_n
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A42085
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Discourses upon several divine subjects by Tho. Gregory ...
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Gregory, Thomas, 1668 or 9-1706.
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1696
(1696)
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Wing G1932; ESTC R7592
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108,242
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264
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free Possession of your Estates and the Happiness of being Members of the most uncorrupted Church in the World are things that can in reason pretend to our Gratitude we of all Men in the World are the most indebted O then let us never with the ungrateful Israelites hanker again after these loathsome Flesh-pots nor when we have eaten and drank to the full rise up to play with this Harlot any more She will often no doubt be tempting and ensnaring you and by her Paints and Colours gaudy Shows and Pompous Pageantry endeavour to entice you again into her Embraces But remember 't is only a treacherous Syren's Voice which only therefore courts you that she may make you her Prey She seeks not you but yours and how Zealous soever she may seem for your Welfare the Term of her desire is only her own She knows the Fruitfulness of your Land the Liberality of your Soil and the Pleasantness of your Dwellings She remembers how she once rang'd without Controul over all your pleasant Pastures and chose out the fattest of your Lands for her to sport and play in and therefore since for the foul Apostasie she made from her Primitive Innocence the flaming Sword and the Guardian Spirits debar her from re-entring this Paradise 't is no Wonder if the better to deceive us she transform her self for a time into an Angel of Light But I trust the wakeful eye of Providence will still discover her Treacheries and not suffer us any more to be ensnar'd by her Smiles And then for her Frowns we are sure they cannot hurt us Those Curses she so liberally throws against us will I doubt not take wing and fly back upon her self and all those Bulls and Interdicts Anathema's Curses and Excommunications which yearly in Passion Week the better to prepare her self for the Celebration of the Lords Supper she charitably denounceth against us either prove Bruta fulmina Thunder-claps which indeed make a Noise but want a killing Bolt or by woful Rebounds turn the direful Execution upon her own Head In a word If we take care to walk worthy of the Vocation wherewith we are call'd and not dishonour Reform'd Religion by the Deformity of our Lives maugre all the Malice of Earth and Hell of Men and Devils we shall undoubtedly be sav'd Damnation will not be inflicted according to mens Passions and Uncharitableness neither will the grim Faces and dreadful Menaces of Romish Emissaries exclude us from the Favour and Blessing of Heaven Tho' they reject us Christ will embrace us Tho' they turn us out of their Synagogues God will receive us under his Wings and provided we forfeit not his Protection by our Misdemeanours the Angel of his Presence will undoubtedly continue to save us till Time it self shall be no more Wherefore that we may not peculiarly incur this Judgment by our Ingratitude but duly express our Joy and Thankfulness to God for the transcendent Mercy of this Day let us 3. Take Care both to continue our selves and also to bequeath to our Posterity a grateful Remembrance of it How near was the Daughter of Zion to be covered with a Cloud and to be trampled under foot by her treacherous Enemies The Net you have heard was cast about her and the Fowlers even hasting to the Slaughter The Train was laid all the Instruments of death prepar'd and there remain'd nothing to make us an Holocaust to the Roman Moloch but just putting the lighted Match to the Powder And yet methinks I hear the Church full of Faith saying Tho' no Danger was ever like to any Danger yet I charge You O ye Daughters of Jerusalem by the Roes and by the Hinds of the Field that ye stir not up nor awake my Love 'till he please For how forlorn and destitute soever I may seem to some yet I am my Beloved's and my Beloved is mine tho' therefore he tarries he will not be long but will in due time look forth as the Morning fair as the Moon clear as the Sun and terrible as an Army with Banners And indeed her Beloved came when she expected him not He was found of her when she sought not after him He awaked as one out of Sleep and look'd and saw there was none to help and wondred that there was none to uphold Therefore his own Arm brought Salvation to her and his infinite Goodness alone upheld her May then that God who has thus wonderfully wrought for us in snatching us from the Mouth of the Lion and the Paw of the Bear be ever blessed and the Remembrance of this unspeakable Mercy never defac'd so long as the Sun and Moon shall endure May those glorious Spirits which before pity'd our Danger and now rejoyce at our Deliverance never be frustrated in their Expectations but see all our Members and Faculties our Lips and Lives Hearts and Voices harmoniously singing the Triumphs of the Lord and in the continual Order Concord and Congruity declaring the infinite Goodness of our God that so our Candlestick may never be remov'd for our Ingratitude but tho' Darkness cover the Earth and gross Darkness the People This Church may still be a Crown of Glory in the Hand of the Lord and a Royal Diadem in the Hand of her God that the Gentiles may admire her Beauty and the Sons also of them that afflicted her come bending unto her and all they that despis'd her bow themselves down at the Soles of her Feet and all the Nations round about call her the City of the Lord the Zion of the Holy one of Israel Lastly May she be covered with the Robes of Righteousness and continually cloath'd with the Garments of Salvation 'till the Great Year of Jubilee the time of her final Redemption shall come when God shall put an End to all Prejudices and Animosities all Struglings and contentions and all the Elect with Crowns on their Heads and Palms in their hands shall make one perfect Harmony in singing the eternal Praise of God and of the Lamb. Which blessed time God in his Mercy hasten through Jesus Christ our Lord To whom with the Father and the Holy Spirit Three Persons and One God be ascrib'd as is most due all Honour Glory Power Might Majesty Dominion and Thanksgiving from this time forth and for evermore Amen FINIS BOOKS Printed for RICHARD SARE AND JOSEPH HINDMARSH FAbles of Esop and other Eminent Mythologists with Morals and Reflections Folio The Visions of Dom Francisco de Quevedo Octavo Seneca's Morals Octavo Erasmus's Colloquies Octavo Tully's Offices Twelves Bona's Guide to Eternity Twelves All six by Sir Roger L'Estrange The Genuine Epistles of St. Barnabas St. Ignatius St. Clement St. Polycarp The Shepherd of Hermas and the Martyrdoms of St. Ignatius and St. Polycarp Translated and Published with a large Preliminary Discourse by W. Wake D. D. Octavo A Practical Discourse concerning Swearing by Dr. Wake Octavo Compleat Sets consisting of Eight Volumes of Letters writ by a Turkish Spy who lived forty five years undiscovered at Paris giving an Impartial account to the Divan at Constantinople of the most remarkable Transactions of Europe during the said time Twelves Humane Prudence or the Art by which a Man may raise himself and Fortune to Grandeur the sixth Edition Twelves Moral Maxims and Reflections in four Parts written in French by the Duke of Rochefoucault now made English Twelves Epictetus's Morals with Simplicius's Comment made English from the Greek by George Stanhop late Fellow of King's College Cambridge Octavo The Parson's Councellor or the Law of Tythes by Sir Simon Degge Octavo Of the Art both of Writing and Judging of History with Reflections upon Ancient as well as Modern Historians by the Learned and Ingenious Father Le Moyne Twelves An Essay on Reason by Sir George Mackenzie Twelves The Unlawfulness of Bonds of Resignation Octavo The Doctrine of a God and Providence vindicated and asserted by Tho. Gregory late of Wadham College Oxford and now Lecturer near Fulham Octavo Some Discourses on several Divine Subjects by the same Author Octavo Death made Comfortable or the Way to Die well by John Kettlewell a Presbyter of the Church of England Twelves Dr. Gregory's Divine Antidote against the Socinians Octavo Dr. Wake 's Thanksgiving Sermon Dr. Gregory's Thanksgiving Sermon
so are become the Objects of our Devotion from the constant and faithful Relations of daily ascending Saints and Angels from the Informations and kind Intercourses of Guardian Angels and the narrations of such happy Spirits as leaving their Earthly Tabernacle daily ascend thither because 't is evident you see that there are many things here amongst us which these Saints and Angels can never understand many Designs and Contrivances many Wishes and Desires many Vows and Prayers that are lodg'd only in the Heart and consequently are known only unto God Wherefore 4. The Saints in Heaven have not a particular entire and perfect Knowledge of all things that are done in Heaven and Earth and consequently of all the Circumstances Concerns Occurrences and Affairs of every Man's Life and so are become the Objects of our Devotion from the vision of the Divine Essence which they call Speculum Trinitatis Now 't is a great Question amongst Learn'd Men Whether the Blessed Spirits above are indeed capable of seeing the Divine Essence and many of no ordinary note espouse the Negative thinking it as impossible for a Created Finite Being to behold the Essence of an Uncreated Infinite Being as 't is for a Bird of Night to gaze steddily upon the Sun Which Opinion if true entirely destroys this Speculum Trinitatis and dashes it with its Consequences all to pieces upon the Ground But I confess I hitherto see nothing that can induce me to embrace it The Affirmative seems most consonant both to Scripture and Reason When Moses humbly desir'd that God would vouchsafe to shew him his Glory or to imprint upon his Mind a clear distinct Idea of his Divine Essence he was answer'd That he could nor have his wish now whilst he lay under the Disadvantages of Mortality because he was a God dwelling in such Light as no Mortal Eye could approach but that he should so see him hereafter when these Impediments should be remov'd and he happily invested with the stronger Privileges of Immortality Thou can'st not see my Face says God Exod. 33.20 for there shall no man see me and live For these words certainly imply That tho' he could not now by reason of the thick Veil of his flesh yet that he should see his Essence hereafter both when his Earthly Tabernacle should be dissolv'd and laid aside and also when he should receive it again all clarify'd and spiritualiz'd Moses himself undoubtedly understood them thus for had he thought otherwise and that he was never to be admitted to the Intuition of his Maker's Glory the naked clear and real Vision of his Divine Essence but that he was for ever to rest in Symbals and Figures in reflected Glories and secondary Manifestations which was to find his Ultimate Happiness in some thing really distinct from his God his devout affectionate Soul which so ardently breath'd after the most intimate Fruition even of the Living God would never have been satisfy'd with this uncomfortable Answer but we had questionless heard of the sad Complaints the bitter Bemoanings and doleful Accents of his disconsolate Spirit who when the natural Byass of her Desires mov'd necessarily towards God trembling continually like the amorous Needle for the Embraces of that most Lovely and Amiable Object was yet for ever excluded from his Beatifick Presence the Contemplation and Fruition of the interiour Beauties of her Belov'd And indeed we all so naturally desire to see this First Cause this Parent of Nature and the Author of all our Beings that tho' we were surrounded with all the Sweets of Paradise all the other most exquisite Delights and Entertainments that Heaven can afford yet without Him they would but fade and wither and dwindle into nothing and our restless dissatisfy'd Spirits would still in the midst of them all be impatiently crying out Ah! Where Where is our God For as He is the First of Beings so is He the Last of Ends 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says Plato rightly that proper and principal End of Rational Beings the Vision of whom alone can satisfie the aspiring Soul and in the Circle of whose Embraces only the immoratal Spirit finds Rest and Peace and Joy for Evermore See him then we shall in the other World See the Soveraign Fair openly and clearly really and as He is Now we hear of him by the Ear but then shall our Eye with Joy and Triumph see him Now we see through a glass darkly but then Face to Face Now we know only in part but then shall we know even as we our selves also are known This Expression I readily acknowledge is not to be understood according to the Strictness of the Letter As we are known is a Note of Similitude only not of Equality for the Sun may as well be included in a Spark of Fire as God be comprehended by our Finite Faculties Know him then we shall not so as to comprehend him but so as to be ravish'd and for ever transported with his Essential Perfections The Light of a Candle as truly shines as the Light of the Sun tho' not with equal Extent and Splendour so shall our Knowledge be truly like His reaching even His Divine Essence tho' not Equal to His in comprehending it as He does ours Thus far then are we and our Adversaries agreed The Saints in Heaven do really view and contemplate the Divine Essence But now to say that they behold in it all things that are done in Heaven and Earth and consequently all the Circumstances Concerns Occurrences and Affairs of every Man's Life and so are become the Objects of our Devotion is most absurd and ridiculous If you let a Vessel down into the Sea 't will indeed be fill'd to the utmost of its Capacity but then you know it must needs overflow because 't is impossible it should receive into its Bosom the vast Congeries of that inexhaustible Abyss So admit the Saints into the Presence of their Maker where they may clearly and distinctly behold his Divine Essence their Finite Understandings may indeed by his voluntary Revelations be filled with all that Knowledge they are capable of receiving but then 't is necessary they likewise overflow because 't is absolutely impossible they should be widen'd and enlarg'd to the infinite and boundless Comprehensions of Omniscience This besides the Reason of the thing which assures us that 't is absolute impossible any Being should have the Attributes of the Divine Nature which has not the Divine Nature it self is plain from the Instance of the Angels These Blessed Spirits were before the Incarnation of our Lord admitted into their Father's House the Mansions of Glory the Royal City of the Heavenly King The time of their Probation was over and gone and they all unalterably confirm'd in a state of Happiness and Glory Their Business and Employment was to contemplate the Unfolded Beauties of the Divine Countenance and to sing continually in the Presence of the Lord that Great is the Glory of their