Selected quad for the lemma: death_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A30390
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A modest and free conference betwixt a conformist and a non-conformist about the present distempers of Scotland now in seven dialogues / by a lover of peace.
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Burnet, Gilbert, 1643-1715.
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1669
(1669)
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Wing B5834; ESTC R27816
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70,730
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152
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his excellent perfections may be derived into our souls Be therefore much in stillness and abstraction of mind that you may become of a thinking temper give up with passions designs and humours and use much inward recollection this at first will prove â—inful to you but when once you have brought your mind into a serene and not easily agitated temper you shall after that enjoy great quiet in divine converse N. What mean you by this converse with God C. You shall feel such a belief and sense of the divine perfections in your soul as shall make the thoughts of God familiar and easie to you your converse with him shall not only consist in prayers and acts of worship but you shall be often admiring him in his Attributes of Power Wisdom and Goodness and chiefly his Love to you in Christ which sense of God shall be as a fountain of living waters ever jetting up divine thoughts into your mind And these will not be crabbed curious or subtill speculations but humble adorations and divine imbraces in such acts as Thou art my God my good God I am thine I will love thee above all things and none but thee thou art my joy and only delight Thus the more you converse with God your acts will grow the simpler and the purer it will not only be at some returns morning or evening or in publick Worship that such thoughts will stir in you but your heart will be full of them and swiming in them and they will rise natively in you Hence will gush in upon your soul much inward sweetness of mind you will be ever well pleased because you will see God in all things and you will see all he doth is good you will therefore not only practise submission but complacency and delight in all his wayes you will also rejoyce in the Divine Attributes and glory in your interest in Heaven Oh how sweet will your hours then grow to you But debates and opinions and every thing that leads out the mind from that inward stillness will become sapless to you N. Wherein consists that sweetness you say is to be found in divine converse C. In the stillness wherewith the mind is overflowed the clearness in the judgement the stedfastness of the will and calmness of the passions and then indeed a man lives in the perfection of his nature But beside these there are some divine touches wherein the soul is carried as it were out of her self into most sublime heights which cannot be uttered But as for the affections of the sensible part these may be very high in an impure mind for the natural devotion especially if the person be Melancholick a woman or histerical will mount very high but this devotion doth not humble nor purify the minde Now persons so divinly acted are nothing in their own eyes and willing to be nothing in the account of all the world and all the world is nothing to them their God is their all they resign all to him and are willing he dispose of them and every thing else as seems good in his eyes so they are not sollicitous nor disturbed however squares go in the world Finally by the Elevation of this spiritual life they are made to think not only placidly and serenly of death but to long for it accounting that the worst office death can do them is to free them of a vile body and to give them enterance into their heavenly Kingdom this is the union of the Soul to God N. But how must we enter into that state of divine union C. Truly the gate is low and the passage strait we must be dispossessed of self-love and of all intense affections to created objects we must â—now and abhor our bygone escapes we must by the humble applications of our souls to Jesus Christ presse in by violence into this heavenly state to which the passage is so narrow that we must be stript of all the bulksome farthingales and trains of vanity ere we can enter but when we shall be divested of these the path of life will prove easie Oh! how shall these pangs be recompensed when we have broke thorow and got into the blessed shades of the Garden of God And how infinitely more shall they be swallowed up when getting beyond the dark regions of Mortality we shall arrive at the uncreated light which without a cloud or vail shines above Then our glorified bodies with our no lesse purified Souls being made like unto Angels yea unto a greater than Angels shall be incessantly imployed in exercises services and adorations so far elevated beyond and disproportioned to our highest aâ—chievements and enjoyments here that in this imperfect state we cannot so much as frame suitable apprehensions of that unconceived Glory Now we who have the possession of so great a joy and the hope of a greater blesseâ—nesse proposed to us have we not all reason vigorously to set about the duties of a Christian life not intangling our selves with thorny and harsh debates which will but retard our progresse to sublimer states and higher and undisturbed Regions N. Is this all then that is required to accomplish a Christian C. This is but the Basis and rooâ— of a Christian life which is never barren nor unfruitfull he then whose heart is thus fixed on God his life and actions quickly declare that he hath not only the form but the power of Godlinesse in him he lives above the world in such a contempt of it as discovers he hath greater riches and treasures in his design than these aâ—e he hates the base and impure pollutions that abound in the world through lust and undervaâ—â—â—eth even the lawfull pleasures and enjoyments off sense he sets no value on things in themselves riches and poverty shame and contempâ—aâ—e equally welcome to him the one doth not sink him nor can the other swell him his actions and discourses have that candor ingenuity and goodness in them as convince all that the fear of God is before his eyes Finally he liâ—es in the world as out of the world and above the world His humility also testifieth that in noâ—hing the doth he seeks or regards himself he doth not hang out his piety nor good actions to publick view but wraps them up in unaffected self-denial He courts not applause nor is he fretted with contempt but is willing that none but God for whom he doth all know his actions and with a virginal modesty shuns and rejects the praises which are undesired as well as undeserved he flyes the crouds and publick scenes that in corners he may find that which by venting in a throng is often evaporat and lost And as he doth not cowardly stoop to mean things so he doth not stubbornly refuse the poorest office God calls him to he peaceably obeyeth the publick Father of his Countrey and the Ghostly Fathers of his Soul he undervalueth none but himself neither are his ears pained with applauses given to