Selected quad for the lemma: heaven_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
heaven_n	ascend_v	descend_v	ladder_n	1,837	5	11.6158	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A36933	Holy rules and helps to devotion both in prayer and practice In two parts. The fourth edition. Written by the right reverend father in God, Bryan Duppa, late Lord Bishop of Winton, in the time of his sequestration.	Duppa, Brian, 1588-1662.	1683 (1683)	Wing D2660E; ESTC R220202	41,746	221

Vera Effigies Rev. di in Christo Patris at D. D. Bryan Duppa quondam Episcopi Wintoniensis HOLY RULES and HELPS TO DEVOTION Both in Prayer and Practice IN TWO PARTS The fourth Edition Written by The right Reverend Father in God Bryan Duppa Late Lord Bishop of Winton In the time of his SEQUESTRATION London Printed for vp Hensman at the King's-Head in Westminster-Hall 1683. TO THE Christian Reader THe Name and Memory of the excellent Author of this Treatise needs not borrow or derive a Reputation from any Pen but its own There are already many useful Pieces and Helps to Devotion set forth both by Bishops and others of our Church more solid serviceable and advantagious to true Piety and the power of Godliness than all the gifted Impertinencies to say no worse of some Holy Pretenders For if Noise and Clamour might pass for Inspiration the Apostles must go for Weak-Brethren and mere Novices compared with our new Lights and Improvements That Set Forms of Prayer are altogether necessary in Publick cannot be denied and needs not now be represented They are abundantly useful even for private Christians also since it is not every one that can pray extempore in his Closet and he that can may notwithstanding be defective enough in the matter or manner of his Petitions For though God principally respects the Heart and Affections of his Servants and the Spirit helps our Infirmities with sighs and groans yet we ought even in private to have an awful orderly regard of the Great God to whom we address our selves and the Holy Spirit teaches us to pray as with ardent Affections so with reverend humble minds and not with disorderly confused or unprepared approaches and a rude confidence without just ground or foundation This is not to help or diminish our infirmities but to augment them more He that prays extempore must be one of better Faith and Principles Life and Conversation than many are who so familiarly pretend to it But whatever some mens Graces may be in this particular which God forbid I should seek to diminish or reproach yet for such who I doubt are far the greater number as yet have not attained to so great a Perfection in this holy Duty I cannot but recommend these Rules and Directions which answer the Title and will I hope the Expectation of those that use them to their benefit and comfort God grant us all that Unity of Spirit which intitles us to the Gifts and Graces of of the Spirit that so praying with one heart and mind as becometh Saints we may have our Communion in Glory among the Iust hereafter Ben. Parry HOLY Rules and Helps TO DEVOTION Both in Prayer and Practice But I will give my self unto Prayer O Eternal Wisdom who communicatest thy self unto thy Creatures in such measure as they are capable of vouchsafe to impart to my Soul that Heavenly Gift to be a Guide to me in all my Thoughts my Thoughts my Words my Actions that so being taught by Thy Holy Spirit I may so far know Thee as to love Thee and so far love Thee as ever to fix my thoughts upon Thee Of Prayer what it is THe several Properties and Excellencies of Prayer have afforded matter enough to the Ancient Fathers to mold as many several and different Descriptions of it which like many Stars cast into a Constellation may give all together a full and perfect Representation of it Gregory Nyssen defines Prayer to be the conversing or discoursing of the Soul with God concerning her Salvation Which being done by the outward Expressions of the Voice is called Vocal Prayer but if by the Mind alone Mental In this way of conversing with God the Soul makes use of her Three principal Faculties her Memory her Understanding her Will Her Memory to call to mind what she is to treat of her Understanding to weigh and to judge what she delivers Her Will to perform this Duty feelingly and affectionately For all these Faculties must concur in Prayer elevating the Soul and fixing it upon God as the highest Truth in which we are to believe the Soveraign Happiness which we are to hope for the Supream Goodness which we are to love and the infinite Excellence which we are to adore So that Prayer is principally grounded on a lively Faith of such things as God hath revealed an assured Hope of what he hath promised and a servent Love which serves as the Fire to kindle this Sacrifice and to carry the Soul upward till it arrive at the Throne of Grace From hence it is that Damascen describes Prayer to be an ascending of the Soul to God being therefore compared to the sweet Perfume that ascended from the Incense But as the Incense being cast into the Fire ascends only in the more subtile and delicate part of it which being converted into Air and Smoak leaves behind it the grosser and earthier part turn'd into Ashes So in this ascent the Soul leaves behind it the earthier parts as Abraham left his Servants behind him at the foot of the Mountain while he ascended to the top of it to sacrifice For this is a business that belongs to Eagles which as they fly high so in their flight they look stedfastly on the Sun It is not for those that intrench themselves in the Earth as in their proper Element nor yet for Birds of Prey which though they fly high yet their eyes are still cast downward Sursum Corda was the form in ancient Liturgies the Priest calling out to the People Lift up your hearts which the people as readily answered Habemus ad Dominum This ascending of the Soul by Prayer was figured as St. Austin conceives by that mysterious Ladder whose foot being upon the Earth the top of it reached unto Heaven seen by Iacob in a Vision with Angels ascending and descending on the Rundles of it carrying up our Prayers to God and bringing down Blessings upon him that offers them But because this ascent is not ordinarily by Rapture for the Angels were not seen to fly up the Ladder but to mount by degrees we are to consider the several Steps and Rundles we are to ascend by THe first Step is laid hold on by the Memory which begins this spiritual ascent by putting the Soul in mind to look up to the Majesty of him that stands above the Ladder to remember that though the place we chuse for our Devotion be never so solitary yet we are not alone that God hears what we say sees what we do that the whole Trinity is present as visible to thy eyes of Faith as grosser Objects are to the outward senses For there is God the Father the Fountain of good Thoughts ready to assist through his power and to keep us from distraction in our Prayers there is God the Son the eternal Truth prepared to direct us by his Wisdom and to deliver us from errour and delusion there is God the Holy Ghost the Source and Spring of

the feet As if he should say to thee Here I am even I thy God but come not near me till thou hast put off thine earthly Affections till thou hast devested thy self of whatsoever is displeasing in my sight if not take heed No man can see me and live that is saith St. Gregory None can see me spiritually that lives carnally It was an high expression of him who was so great an Admirer of Euripides that he was wont to say That if he were sure there were any sense in death he could be content to die only that he might see Euripides But then to see God who would not mortifie himself Say therefore with that earnestness as St. Austin did Moriar ut te videam O Thou Fountain of Life Make me die that I may see Thee Mortifie me that I may enjoy Thee Strangle me take away my breath that I may speak to Thee But then again Videam te ut Moriar Let me in some measure see Thee first that I may value Thee that I may be content to die to the end I may see Thee further For if I know not at all how to contemplate Thee I shall as little know how to mortifie my Affections so as to fit my self for Prayer THE third Assault that is made upon the Soul is by the Cares of this Life which like so many Thorns are ready to choak the seeds of Grace as soon as they are sown For overmuch solicitude and anxiety of Mind in worldly things casts such an heap of Earth upon our Prayers as will not suffer them to ascend taking up the Mind and all the Faculties of it and hardly admitting so much as a Thought of Heaven But as they say of Thorns That they may do well in an Hedg but ill in a Garden so is it with these Cares which being kept within their bounds and measures hurt not the Soul but if we admit them among our Prayers they corrupt the very nature of them and turn them into Sin When thou art therefore setting thy self to thy Devotions imagine that thou hearest thy Saviour calling to thee as he did to Martha Why art thou so careful why art thou troubled about many things One thing is only needful the saving of thy Soul Since therefore thou art come to treat about it dismiss whatsoever may disturb thee lay aside thy Cares as Mary did place thy self at my feet hear me in my Word that I may hear thee in thy Prayer O Gracious Iesu I am come at this time to humble my self at thy Feet and to beg Mercy for my Soul which ought to be dearer to me than a thousand Worlds O suffer not then any Worldly Cares to divert or hinder me Root out this Bed of Thorns and sow holy Thoughts instead of them Let me not be like Martha troubled about many things but fix me upon that One thing needful which I am come about that so having chosen the better part it may never be taken from me Amen BUt the Conflict is not yet done when these former Enemies are overcome there may be a swarm left of busie vain impertinent thoughts of which we may complain as David did that they have compassed us about like Bees For the Imagination being naturally unquiet and tumultuous interposeth it self many times without asking leave of us casting thoughts in our way and forcing the Understanding to reflect upon them And these she either fetcheth from Objects without from something that we have either seen or heard or done or if it fail of new plies from thence it presently busies it self within in forming of various Images Figures and Forms which like so many Atoms casting themselves into several Schemes trouble and vex the Soul in the midst of her Devotions not unlike the Birds which would have hindered Abraham in his Sacrifice And happy it were if we could as easily chase away these thoughts from us as Abraham drove away those Birds But their pertinacy is such that when you drive them out of one Form they assume another and are so importunately troublesome as makes many think it a thing impossible to be freed from them Cassianus confesseth of himself that he was brought very near to a dispairing of it till opening himself to a devout man of more experience himself being then but young he was brought off by this Similitude Should you ask saith he one that could neither swim himself nor ever saw others swim Whether he thought it possible that the heavy body of a Man could spread it self upon the water without sinking Would not he answer peremptorily That it was not possible But let the same man see once with what ease the Swimmer keeps his head above the water Would he not as suddenly change his mind upon the sight of this Experiment and apply himself to practise it You say it is impossible but you do not try whether it be so or no. For either holy Men have deceived us or some of them by the Grace of God assisting them have attained such a degree of Power over themselves as the Centurion in the Gospel had over his Souldiers they could have given the Law not only to their outward senses as Iob did to his eyes that they should not so much as look on Vanity but to their more inward Faculties they could command their Appetite to love or hate their rational Faculty to meditate their imaginative to think on this or not to think on that For the same St. Paul who humbled himself so low as to say that of himself he could do nothing could say too without arrogancy That he could do all things but then it was in Christ that strengthned him All things in Christ nothing of himself The Centurion whom we spake of that had his Souldiers so absolutely at his Command confesseth ingenuously that he himself exercised his Authority under another For in all powers subordinate the way to be obeyed is to obey Nor can these Imaginations be possibly subdued to Reason till Reason be subdued to Faith Submit thy self therefore to God O my Soul and there will follow a glorious Victory But you must strive for it for this unruly swarm of thoughts hurt none but those that yield to them When they buz about thee like Flies in a hot day drown their noise with the louder cry of thy Prayers And as Spiders cannot easily weave their Nets in a High Wind so neither shall whole Armies of vain Imaginations be able to ensuare thee as long as thy earnest Prayers like a vehement wind shall blow against them O Most mighty God who seest my Weather-beaten Soul tost and driven by vain and various Imaginations like a torn Bark by contrary Winds and not suffered to sail on in a straight Course towards Thee send thy Holy Spirit to calm this Tempest and to lay these Winds that they may no longer hinder me in my way to Heaven or disturb me in my Prayers