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A51292
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Discourses on several texts of Scripture by Henry More.
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More, Henry, 1614-1687.; Worthington, John, 1618-1671.
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1692
(1692)
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Wing M2649; ESTC R27512
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212,373
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520
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meat and do all drink of the same spiritual drink and are all incorporate into one Body all quickened by the same Spirit all conspire into one Will through unity of the same Life so that all 's in peace and good order And thus much for the Persons assembled Which if you doubt of or are perswaded that you shall not continually enjoy their company yet I will shew you an assembly that so long as you enjoy a pure Conscience you shall alway enjoy their company in a true Paradise 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 An Holy Paradise where are assembled Vertue Wisdom and all Decency and Discretion And these are excellent companions tho' they were known to no body but him that lives with them And He lives with them that hath a pure Heart for the Father of them abides in the sincere Spirit 2. But it were time now to speak of the Provision had I not spoke already somewhat of it almost before due time But no tongue can declare it I will rather use the Psalmists words O taste ye and see how gracious the Lord is For they that fear him shall lack nothing The lyons do lack and suffer hunger but they that do seek the Lord shall want no manner of thing that is good So then here is apparatus non neglectus at least no want if not redundancy Ay but it 's a poor Feast you 'll say where there is no overplus If any man suspect he shall come to such a slender Dinner I will use the words of our Saviour Mat. 16. O ye of little faith why think you thus within your selves Do you not perceive neither remember the five loaves when there were five thousand men and how many baskets were taken up neither the seven loaves when there were four thousand men and how many baskets were taken up If Christ could satisfie such multitudes of men with so few loaves so that so many fragments were left Surely we need not fear but when he feeds us with himself who is that Heavenly Bread and the foecundity or fulness of God but that we shall be unspeakably satisfied and superabundantly refreshed So we have plainly seen how excellent our company how good our chear shall be I will interfeit one accomplishment which Varro omits in his Feast And that is Musick The concent of Musicians at a Banquet is as a Signet of Carbunoles set in Gold As the Signet of an Emerald well trimmed with Gold so is the melody of Musick in a pleasant banquet Ecclesiasticus 32. 5 6. Now that this Feast is not devoid of Musick will thus appear For Righteousness is nothing else but an harmony of the lower parts of a mans Soul with the upper of the Affections with Reason as the Pythagorists define it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Polus the Pythagorean When as the inclinations of a mans Will or Desire answer the dictates of true Reason these are Heavenly responses indeed fit for a Celestial Quire When Reason begins the point and all the Affections chearfully follow it as Philo comments upon that Song of Moses and Miriam I will sing unto the Lord for he hath triumphed gloriously the horse and his rider he hath over-thrown in the Sea The Lord is my strength and praise and he is become my salvation Who is like unto thee O Lord among the gods Who is like unto thee so glorious in holiness fearful in praises doing wonders Then Miriam the rest of the women following her with Timbrels and with Dances takes up her Timbrel in her hand and answers Sing unto the Lord for he hath triumphed gloriously the horse and the rider hath he over-thrown in the Sea Such 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as these such Triumphal Songs against our Spiritual Enemies will become this Feast well The same exultation of Spirit you shall find in the blessed Psalmist The Lord is my strength and my shield my heart hath trusted in him and I am helped Therefore my heart danceth with joy and in my song will I praise him Psalm 28. This is that which the Apostle exhorts to Eph. 5. Be not drunk with wine wherein is excess but be filled with the Spirit speaking unto your selves with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs singing and making melody to the Lord in your hearts Hitherto then is this Feasting very compleat good Companions good Chear good Musick 3. But what is all this if not in a good convenient place Iobs Children you know as they were making merry at their elder Brothers a strong Whirlwind took a corner of the house and buried them with the ruins in the midst of their merriment But whosoever dwelleth under the defence of the most high shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty that is under the protection of him that is able to keep them safe Ps. 91. And at the 90th Psalm Lord thou hast been our habitation from generation to generation Before the mountains were made and before thou hadst formed the earth even from everlasting to everlasting 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 thou art the strong God a more sure sustentation than the steddy Earth a more strong safeguard than the massy Hills So then this Holy Assembly feast under a safe roof far from the reach of any tumult or tempest God is our hope and strength a very present help in trouble Therefore will we not fear though the earth be moved and though the hills be carryed into the midst of the sea Though the waters thereof rage and swell and though the mountains shake at the tempest of the same Yet there is a river whose streams shall make glad the city of God the holy place of the tabernacle of the most high In all this danger and stir you see here 's secure Feasting and Joy in the Tabernacle of the most High The voice of joy and gladness is in the dwelling of the righteous safe pleasure and never fading delight in the habitation of the upright in Heart and pure in Conscience But if any man be not contented with the Safeness of the place but would curiously inquire into the Beauty of it that Description is done to our hands in the 21th of S. Iohns Revelation Gold and pearl and precious stones is a slight glimpse of the Glory of that Habitation and the Beauty of God 4. I will pass now to the fourth thing considerable in a Feast The convenience of time And no time surely is inconvenient to these Feasters who have the preeminence exceedingly above them that enjoy any outward delight For these men be confined to Seasons and Opportunities which be but poor small parcels of time But all Time and Eternity too is but one entire Opportunity for those Spiritual Feasters to enjoy themselves in A good Heart or a pure Spirit is one continual everlasting Feast It was well said of Diogenes to one that was too much taken with the seldom solemnity of an outward Feast 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 What saith
scarce dare to name had not the Apostle himself taken notice of it That this Beastly Lustfulness has made Women change the natural use into that which is against Nature and likewise also the Men leaving the natural use of the Woman burned in their Lusts one towards another men with men working that which is unseemly Rom. 1. With such base and inglorious with such wretched and hideous Servilities do the Fleshly Lusts tyrannize over the Soul when they have once captivated her carrying her thus in triumph and exposing her to all baseness and lewdness and dragging her by her chains of captivity through all filthiness and unseemliness and having thus besmear'd and defac'd her with the filth of all manner of Sins in this Life fit her for a delivery to her fellow-Devils in the other to be reserv'd with them in everlasting chains of darkness unto the judgment of the great day This is the lamentable success of that Warfare betwixt the Lusts of the Flesh and the Soul if she suffer her self to be overcome And therefore it is no wonder the Holy Apostle uses all the Reason and Rhetorick he has to make us stand upon our guard and defend our selves from so subtle and malicious Enemies Dearly beloved I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul. DISCOURSE II. PSAL. lxxxiv 7. They go from strength to strength every one of them appeareth before God in Sion THE Text is a Presage of admirable Prosperity and Success to some sort of People so that it may well excite in us a desire of searching out who they may be And if we begin further off at first or go about yet it may according to the Proverb prove the nighest way home If any one therefore demand who these are I shall answer him out of the 24th Psalm the subject whereof seems to be the very same with this and in the words of the same Prophet This is the generation of them that seek him that seek thy face O Iacob the God of the People that prevail by their importunities and wrestlings with God as Iacob is said to do Gen. 32. whereby he purchased to himself the name of Israel because as a Prince he had power with God And David as being one of this extraction himself he seems to challenge a Blessing from God on that very account O Lord God of Hosts hear my prayer give ear O God of Iacob in the Verse immediately following my Text. In this present Psalm as also in the 24th and 15th Psalms the Holy Prophet so speaks of the Court Tabernacle Temple or House of God as of a place of the highest enravishments that the Soul of man can enjoy which Expositors generally and I doubt not but truly interpret of the Mosaical Tabernacle and Literal Temple But that the mind of the Prophet was carry'd up also to some higher matter I do not at all question And the first Verse of the 15th Psalm Lord who shall abide in thy Tabernacle who shall dwell in thy holy Hill which is almost verbatim repeated again in the 24th Psalm the Chaldee Paraphrast does expresly interpret of Heaven So warrantable is it not to be ty'd down to the Letter but to seek a further edifying Mystery in the Holy Oracles of God And such a Temple as the abode wherein will be more suitable to such earnest breathings and vehement expressions of the Prophet Ver. 1. 2. How amiable are thy tabernacles O Lord of Hosts My soul longeth yea even fainteth for the courts of the Lord my heart and my flesh cryeth out for the living God And again Ver. 4. Blessed are they that dwell in thy house they will be still praising thee These things do not suit so well methinks to a house that is made of any earthly materials into which the wicked can throng as well as the just Nor does God dwell in any House made with hands according to the Apostolick Philosophy Acts 7. Any yet according to their Doctrine We are the Temple of God at least design'd so to be And the Apostle Paul sayes expresly 1. Cor. 6. 19. What know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost And yet the same Apostle Rom. 7. 18. I know saith he that in me that is in my flesh dwelleth no good thing This Earthly Tabernacle is no House of God as being from the Earth From whence it is that we groan earnestly as the same Apostle speaks 2 Cor. 5. desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from Heaven For we that are in this tabernacle do groan being burdened not for that we would be unclothed but clothed upon or further clothed that mortality might be swallow'd up of life Now he that hath wrought us for the self-same thing is God who also hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit That is to say He that works us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 into this condition is God himself by the operation of his Spirit which is the Architect of its own House as it is said of the Soul the Builder of that Holy Temple in us in which all is fulfilled which the Prophet David sets out in such devotional and vehement Language For when we are come to this state we are then truly the Temple of the Living God and it is Strength to a mans Navel and Marrow to his Bones So that well may the Holy Prophet raise himself into so high expressions touching this condition Ver. 2. My soul longeth yea even fainteth for the courts of the Lord my heart and my flesh cryeth out for the living God For this Earthly Tabernacle destitute of this is but a burden or body of Vanity wherein are all the Seeds and Fruits of Sin and Misery But of this Heavenly House is that plentifully verify'd which the Prophet David presageth Blessed are they that dwell in thy house they will be still praising thee And they that are arrived to this condition will easily fulfil that Precept of the Apostle Eph. 5. 18 19. Be not drunk with wine but be filled with the Spirit speaking to your selves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord. This is the real participation of the Body or Flesh of Christ the true Bread from Heaven which is the immediate receptacle of the Divine Spirit so that he that comes hither cannot fail to be replenish'd with Righteousness and Peace and Joy in the Holy Ghost And this may serve for a brief intimation Who these Persons are to whom such good Success is promised in the Text and what the place is towards which they are journeying viz. the Tabernacle Temple or House of God mystically understood LET us now consider 1. The Country through which they pass 2. How well accoutred they are in their persons for the Journey 3. What Convoy to guard them safe 4. Under what Influences of Heaven they travel 5. What the