Selected quad for the lemma: heaven_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
heaven_n	bless_v	lord_n	praise_n	6,339	5	9.8316	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A44880	A sermon preached at Stanton-Harcourt Church in the county of Oxford, at the funerall of the Honourable the Lady Ann Harcourt, who deceased Aug. 23, 1664 together with her funerall speech.	Hall, Edmund, 1619 or 20-1687.	1664 (1664)	Wing H329; ESTC R20425	31,607	72

to a ne sit of s●n The reliques of the old man still remaine in us it came with us from the womb and 't will bear us company to the grave till death part us Though the tree be cut down the root remains and will without diligent watching sprout and bring forth bitter fruit to our sorrow as it did in David and Pe●er and other Saints God whose spirituall eye lookes through and through us sees in the best of us many secret enormous lusts as pride covetousnesse luxury spirituall sloth hypocricy security and the like which we in our prosperity discerne not that lye in our breasts secretly and hiddenly like Toads and noisom vermin in dark sinks and sells which we walk over unconcerned because we see them not Now God calls to Saints in their prosperity by his providences for they have a voice and by the ministry to clense these hearts and cast out these vermin that are a provocation to the pure eyes of his holynesse How oft has God by his word called to us Love not the world nor the things of the world Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouthes No vnclean person shall enter into the kingdome of heaven Remember thou all thy family to keep holy the Sabbath Pray more constantly Be more fervent in prayer God calls but we turn the deaf ear and slight these calls of God and God observes it Ier. 22.21 I spake to thee in thy prosperity and thou saidest I will not hear Now God in mercy for prevention is inforced to take his rod into his hand 2. God is necessitated to afflict his people for the prevention of evil that would arise from temptations without us for Saints are not free from temptation neminem prorsus Dei gratia facit intentabilem saith Gratian. There are two Tempters the Divil and the World without us 1. The Devil 1. Pet. 5.8 He goes about like a roaring Lyon seeking whom he may devour like a Lyon he 's greedy subtill active and powerfull he lies alwaies at the catch for us but because he has not immediate power over us he useth as his bait 2. The World the other temptation which holds out as a rich Marchant its guilded ware the lust of the eye the lust of the flesh and the pride of life this holds out the baite that layes the snare the Divel baites his hook with that he thinks our constitutions will soonest bite at and so catches us So he caught David with the lust of the eye so he caught Solomon with the pride of life and lust of the flesh These pleasures and profits and honours of the world are usually the Saints greatest tempters for the concomitants of ease and plenty are luxury carnall confidence security which draw off the heart from God dull their appetite to spirituall things take off their hunger after a Sacrament and make them neglect coming to it coole their affections and allay that ardency which should be in prayer As the best ground brings forth the rankest weeds in the heat of sommer when the Plow is still comes not over it so many times doth the warmth of prosperity cause many lusts to break forth in the lives of the Saints Raw fruit breeds worms in healthy persons so doe worldly pleasures excite lusts in the best Saints many times as loosnesse wantonnesse and pride let David have but a little ease and his mole-hill presently growes in his proud fancy to be a mountaine I said in my prosperity I shall never be moved what ranck blood did a little prosperity breed in this holy man his successe in warre and strength of allyes raised in him presumption that nourish'd lust lust stole his ardency of affection from God and that intercepted his confidence and now his mountaine has stole his heart from God was it not time for God to set his mountaine on fire about his eares in raising Absolom against him that he might fly back to the rock of his salvation You see God is necessitated f●om the evils that are within the Saints and from the tempters without them to afflict them for their good privatively Now from Gods afflicting the Saints there ariseth a threefold privative good 1. God by afflicting them redresses sin in them it makes them feel what an evil and a bitter thing it is to sin against the Lord it makes the Saint to search his waies and turn unto the Lord so it wrought upon David before I was afflicted I went a stray but now I have learned thy word afflictions like hard weather kill those sinnes that the warmth of prosperity nourish'd The Devill by pleasures and profits invites us as Absolom did the Kings sonnes to his banquet purposely to murder Ammon So he invites us to our ruine in the gluttonns language eat drink and be merry thou hast enough wealth enough time enough opportunity enough rejoyce o young man and let thy heart cheare thee Now God in mercy to us when he finds we are sate down to banquet riot and frolick it in the world he by a rousing affliction unexpectedly comes amongst us as Absoloms murderers came in when their hearts were merry and made all the Kings sons fly to the King their Father to Jerusalem so God sends afflictions to drive us from our Lusts and deceitfull pleasures unto him oculos quos peccatum claudit poena aperit 2. Another privative good that comes by Gods afflicting of the Saints is hereby sin is prevented he like a mercyfull Father and most wise Physitian knowes our tempers and what our spirituall diseases are better then our selves and therefore to prevent them he bloods them in the right vein when a Saint immoderately loves any earthly injoyment so that God seeth it drawes his affections from heaven and glory and from himself which he takes grievously then God in wisdome and mercy takes away that earthly comfort that his affections may turn into the right channell again hereby God shewes us the mutability inconstancy vanity of these things and that there is no safe footing for our affections upon them God many times dashes our designs all in peices to prevent that security and carnall confidence which he wisely foresees would follow if they should take God in mercy provides a thorne for Paul to prick the tympany of Pride if it should rise in him 'T was an excellent pious speech of our King Henry the Sixth I thank God saith he that hath given me a weake and infirme body that it might not be a lustfull body A Saint has as much cause to blesse God for his afflictions as for his ordinances we shall never be able to understand the one half of our privative mercyes which afflictions have been the cause of till we come to heaven to account them there to the praise of his grace and wisdome that mercifully did inflict them Lord whether would our lusts haue carried us hadst not thou by thy corrections called us back 3 By