Selected quad for the lemma: heart_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A84588
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A guide to salvation, bequeathed to a person of honour, by his dying-friend the R.F. Br. Laurence Eason, Ord. S. Franc. S. Th. L.
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Eason, Laurence.
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1673
(1673)
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Wing E99aA; ESTC R230984
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39,971
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127
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on Earth to labour in this work By this we may easily apprehend how we ought to employ the things of this world and expose our life too if it be necessary for our Salvation our great affair in this world But this which concerns us so much is so slightly passed over that we may justly complain with those Prophets Jerem. Daniel Osee Desolatione desolata est omnis terra quia non est qui recogitet corde The whole Earth is become desolate because there is not any one who seriously considers in his heart We may find many who think of their Salvation but it is only superficially not with the heart and so their thoughts are cold and barren cold because they produce not an ardent desire to execute what they think they are barren because they produce not holy motions and actions The Devil and Reprobate have the like the thought of their Beautitude lost is continually present to them they know the excellency of it by suffering the privation thereof but this is not with the heart with a consideration which is affective ardent effective When we Will a thing efficatiously it doth not only busie our thoughts but employs our hands and industry to labour our tongues frequently to speak of it the heart the hand the tongue are joyned in this work the heart to meditate the hand to execute the tongue to publish it Ex abundantia cordis os loquitur Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh The second Manner or Condition requisite in this work From the Zeal and serious consideration of our Salvation ordinarily proceeds an exquisite diligence for the procuring of it which is the second Condition necessarily required in this work Our B. Saviour hath given us an admirable example in this kind the sacred Scripture Heb. 10. saith of him that entring into the world by the mistery of his Incarnation he said unto his Heavenly Father You Will not the Sacrifices of the Law therefore I offer up the body you have given me for a Victime to honour your Majesty to satisfie your Justice to appease your Anger He did not delay his sufferings to the end of this life but the first moment he entered into the world as Man he presented himself as a Victime And when he was then adored by the Angels at the command of his Heavenly Father even then he would honour him as his Servant and Victime In the whole course of his life he travelled in this affair with such diligence as the Psalmist resembles him to a Gyant exulting to run his course with an incredible vigour in all the wayes wherein he might work our Salvation His Espouse admiring this in her Canticles Cant. 2. compares this course of his to the swiftness of a Roe and Hart. The Angels descended and ascended in Jacobs Ladder without repose in the exercise which they continue indefatigably for the Salvation of men Job by his own example shewed us with what fervour and diligence we should proceed in this affair Job 29. Causam quam ignorabam diligentissime investigabam If I did not understand the rights between parties to accord them I used most exquisite diligence to understand it I did not defer till to morrow what I could do to day but apply'd my self without delay to all the good works I could perform for the advance of my Salvation Tobias did often rise from the Table left his refection quitted the Company of his Friends to bury the dead and to exercise works of mercy towards the poor and needy Abraham stood in the common ways to find and invite Pilgrims to his house where his Wife and Domesticks were busied in preparing a refection for them St. Paul Acts 5. protested to the faithful that he used all possible diligence in his Apostolical function That which the examples of the Saints inform us the Wise man Councelled in his Proverbs Diligenter exerce agrum tuum diligently cultivate thy field We must not imagine that he speaks here of good Husbandry but under the symbol of a field he insinuates that we should labour with diligence to extirpate vices to acquire vertues to increase in grace which God bestows upon us to work out our Salvation by Besides the Examples and Instructions of the Saints for our diligence in this affair reason perswades also this truth we see that a man applyes himself with diligence to affairs of importance and to things of consequence which have an indeterminate and uncertain time of which he knows not the length or shortness Our Salvation hath these two circumstances the thing is most pretious and of the greatest concern the time to compass it is altogether uncertain Death after which we cannot work often steals upon us as a Thief in the Night when we think our selves most secure of life and therefore it concerns us to attend to our Salvation with all diligence lest we be surprised unexpectedly as the foolish Virgins were and the rich Glutton in the Gospel If we have a Suit in Law for the gaining of a possession for the reparation of an injury or the like we apply all our endeavours we regard not the rigour of the seasons nor the suffering of our bodies nor length of ways we move every stone that might obstruct or further our designs but for our Salvation which is the greatest concern we have in the world we think much to spend an hour at a Sermon where we may be instructed in this and the means to obtain it to spend half an hour in a day to hear Mass or to Pray where we may receive grace to carry on this affair with fervour we are loath to give an Alms to a poor body to merit the divine succours such is our blindness and stupidity When we suffer any maladies in our bodies as St. Chrysostom Hom. 22. ad pop affirms we presently send for Physitians we think no cost much for the cure of them Animam vero vitiis laborantem negligimus But we suffer our Souls to corrupt and putrifie in sin To procure a remedy and to purchase an immortal life for them we are extream negligent This unreasonable preferring of the Body before the Soul the immortal and divine part of us ought to cover us with Confusion in this world where we would appear judicious wise in the mean time we shew our selves to be unreasonable and senceless It was a complaint of St. Bernard Aspicio genus humanum I behold mankind walking from the rising of the Sun to the going down of it through the spatious Mart and Market of the world where some hunt after Riches others gape for Honours many pursue Pleasures most spend their time in Vanities and Impertinencies few mind the eternal good of their Souls for which they came into the World Seneca discovered this truth si volueris attendere if thou wilt consider thou maist discern that a great part of mens lives pass away in doing Ill the greatest part in