Selected quad for the lemma: heaven_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
heaven_n	bread_n	life_n	live_a	3,622	5	10.6600	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A86299	The parable of the tares expounded & applyed, in ten sermons preached before his late Majesty King Charles the second monarch of Great Britain. / By Peter Heylin, D.D. To which are added three other sermons of the same author.	Heylyn, Peter, 1600-1662.	1659 (1659)	Wing H1729; Thomason E987_1	253,775	424

feed Jacob his people and Israel his Inheritance Psal 78. v. 70. Nor hath the name of Shepherd been accounted anciently an honorary adjunct only to the greatest Princes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but to God himself as Philo hath observed in his Book of Husbandry An observation not so strange in Philo by birth a Jew and so acquainted with the Scripture as it may seem to be in Plato who was a meer stranger to the Covenant And yet in Plato do we finde it and that in termes no lesse expressive then in those of Philo for speaking of the peaceable and happy lives which men are said to lead in the first Ages he gives this reason for it in his Book de Regno 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. God saith he was their ●hepherd and he did lead them and conduct them as now Princes do whom therefore we are bound to honour in the next degree to the Gods immortal A Speech so excellent and divine that nothing but the written word can go beyond it But behold a greater then Plato is here also for God hath told us by the mouth of his Servant David that he is a Shepherd Dominus Pastor meus the Lord is my Shepherd Psal 23. and hear O thou Shepherd of Israel Psal 80. If therefore God may without diminution of his power and greatness assume unto himself the name of a Shepherd assuredly the Sonne of God will think it no disparagement to be called so too Or if it were what poor and low condition would not he gladly undergo for the sake of man whose bowels yerned so oft within him when as he saw his wretched and neglected people wandring like sheep without a Shepherd And certainly if we consult the Scriptures we shall there finde that God designed him to this Office long time before his incarnation the taking of our flesh upon him for in the 34. of Ezekiel thus saith the Lord about his flock I will set up one Shepherd over them and he shall feed them ipse erit eis in Pastorem and shall be their Shepherd A Prophecie accomplished by our Lord and Saviou● in the whole work and business of his life amongst us for being appointed by Almighty God to be the Shepherd of his people he caused the first tidings of his Birth to be proclaimed to a company of shepherds chose a stable or a sheep-coat rather as most Fathers think to be the place of his Nativity Conversing here amongst us men he took unto himself the name of a Shepherd being styled so in this Chapter twice and talking of his Sheep throughout the whole After all this being to take his farewel of us for as much as did concern his bodily presence he left no greater charge unto his Disciples then Pascite oves meas to feed his sheep One further evidence to this purpose we will make bold to borrow out of Plutarchs works who tells a Story of one Thames that as he sailed towards Greece was by a strange voyce but from whence he knew not commanded to make known when he came on Land that Pan the Shepherds God was dead This Pan the Authour takes to be the sonne of Mercury and Penelope when the Gentiles worshipped But they which looked with more advice into the matter conceive it rather to be meant of the Sonne of God and the Virgin Mary who much about the time which that Authour speaks of did suffer death upon the Crosse for our redemption and was indeed the true God Pan chief Shepherd of the soul of man A Shepherd then our Saviour was there 's no doubt of that we might have took it absolutely on his Ipse dixit But how he doth discharge the office is in the next place to be considered And this we shall the better see by looking for a while on the Country-shepherd whose duty doth consist in three points especially 1. In the feeding 2. In the ordering And 3. In the guarding of the sheep committed to him For feeding first there is no question to be made but that it is a part of the shepherds office The very name doth intimate so much unto us for Pastor à pascendo a shepherd is so called from feeding and that not in the Language of the Latines only but in Greek and Hebrew This duty mentioned in the Georgicks Luciferi primo cum sydere frigida rura carpamus in which he doth advise his shepherd that at the dawning of the day he unfold his sheep and drive them out into their Pasture And this exemplified in Jacob and the sonnes of Jacob honest shepherds all it being said of Jacob in the Book of God that he did feed the Sheep of Laban of Jacob's sonnes that they did feed their Fathers flocks in Sichem And finally this took for granted in Almighty God in his expostulation with the Priests and Prophets of the House of Isra●l nonne greges à Pastoribus pascuntur should not the Shepherds feed the Flocks That Christ doth punctually discharge this duty is past all controversie The Prophet hath foresignified that he should so do I will set up one Shepherd over them and the Evangelists declare that he did so do For what were all those heavenly Sermons those frequent exhortations unto faith and piety which he so often made unto them but a spirituall feeding of the inward man a sweet refection of the soul a celestiall nourishment His feeding of so many thousands by a few Loaves of Bread and two small fishes what was it though a signall miracle compared with those many millions which he doth feed continually with the bread of life We need not doubt of the success when he that fed them with the Word was the Word it self or of the spreading of the Gospel when he that was the Preacher was the Gospel too or of the nourishment of the Guests in the fruits of godliness when he that carved unto them the life of bread was of himself the bread of life For he indeed was magnus ille panis qui mentem replet non ventrem that holy bread which feedes the soul and not the body as the Father hath it the living bread as himself tells us of himself which came down from Heaven of which whosoever eateth he shall live for ever Which bread if it be meant of Christ who is God the Word we then partake it principally in the Sacraments but if we understand it of the Word of God as St. Hierome doth we must then look for it in the Scriptures By these two meanes the preaching of Gods holy Word and the administration of his Sacraments are we still fed and nourished unto life eternal if not by Christ himself the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or chief Shepherd as St. Peter calls him yet by those under-Officers those inferior Ministers to whom he hath intrusted that most weighty duty First for the preaching of the

reserving them with the Apostate Angels in eternall chains to the judgement of the great and terrible day And though this be a truth so clear that it needes no proofs yet we will instance in some few the better to set forth the necessary truth of this together with the longanimity and justice of Almighty God In the old World the sinnes of men were very great all the imaginations of their hearts corrupt and evill so that the very Sonnes of God were tempted to go in to the Daughters of men and yet God spared them a long time and added 120 yeeres unto the dayes of their repentance But when their sins were grown so ripe that God repented him at last of Mans creation he brought the flood upon them and destroyed them all but saved righteous Noah and his Houshold with him The Citizens of Sodom had long swelled in pride and surfeited on fulness of bread and abundance of idleness as the Prophet tells us and yet God suffered them to live and fulfill their lusts But when the voyce of their sins became so loud as to cry unto the Heavens for vengeance and to occasion God himself to come down and see majorne infamia vero whether their sins were answerable to the cry which was come unto him then were they ready for the sickle 't was high Harvest then and the Lord sent his Angels to consume their City and rained down fire from Heaven upon them but delivered Lot and his small Family like a fire-brand snatched out of the flames Passe we on forwards into Egypt and we shall finde how patiently the Lord expected that the proud Egyptians would at the last dismisse his people with peace and safety but when that did no good upon them when they had added tyranny unto oppression and unto both a proud contempt of his Word and Messengers he brought his people out with a mighty hand the Angel of the Lord going before the Camp of Israel but overwhelming Pharaoh and his Host in a second deluge And if God did not presently invest his people in the possession of the Land so often promised it was not only for their disobedience or their unbelief nor for their murmuring against God and groundless exclamations against Moses and Aaron though these did all concur to retard their entrance The Scriptures give another reason and questionless the true reason of that long suspension nondum completa est iniquitas Amorrhaeorum the wickedness of the Amorites was not yet full 't was not Harvest yet and therefore God had not given order to the Land to spew out her Inhabitants Thus do we read in holy Scripture of the Harvest of Babylon and of the Harvest of Damascus i. e. of those appointed times in which for their Idolatries and abominations they were to be delivered over to the hands of their severall enemies And for those very Jewes themselves though God spared them long notwithstanding all their provocations and only visited them sometimes with Warre or thraldom yet he stayed not there for when they had made up the measure of their Fathers sins and added to the same the blood of the Sonne of God more precious then the blood of Abel and of all the Prophets then did the Lord destroy their City and disperse their people making them that they were no longer to be called a Nation but a poor scattered remnant of what once they were But for the persecuted Saints of Christ which lived amongst them the Lord withdrew them from that plague warning them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by a Dream or Oracle to remove thence to Pella a small Town of Syria before the first approch of the Roman Armies Thus was it also with the Church since the time of the Gospel The Princes of the Earth sometimes raged against it and harried it with fire and sword and all kinde of torments And though the souls of them which were slain for the word of the Lord had cryed unto their God for vengeance yet was it said to them from above ut requiescerent adhuc modicum tempus that they should rest yet for a season and tarry till their Brethrens blood was cast into the ballance also to make up the weight Which time being come the Lord did plague the persecutors with such grievous plagues that in the anguish of their souls and guilt of conscience they cryed unto the Rocks to fall upon them on the hills to hide them Never Dog barked against the Crosse but he grew mad after it saith the Author of the Book of Martyrs So for those vile and wretched miscreants which did afflict the Church of Christ with Schismes and Heresies they did exalt their horns a while and bare all before them the Arians especially being so predominant ut jam non portiunculam quandam that they thought scorn to be confined to one Church or Nation but like a generall scab or Leprosie had invaded almost all the parts of the body mysticall yet when their pride was greatest and their power most formidable when their impieties and blasphemies were so strongly backed that these few Orthodox Professors which were left untainted did tremble at the apprehension of the present danger God then conceived them fit for vengeance and put in his sickle the time being come for him to reap and the Harvest ready so that of all those Sects and Heresies which did afflict the Church in her purest Ages there is scarce any thing remaining but the name and infamy And though the Christians of those times being delivered from the fear of their deadly enemies had surfeited on peace and prohibited pleasures yet God reprieved them a long time from the hand of punishment but when their sins were grown so publick and so full of scandall ut pateretur lex Christiana maledictum that even the Gospel grew to be ill reported of by the Jew and Gentile then poured he out the Nations of the North upon them who sacked their Cities and laid waste their Palaces and in conclusion dispossessed them of their Countries also Now by this Standard we may take the measure both of Gods patience and his justice in all parallel Cases If we see Sects and Heresies rise up to disturb the Church and not to rise up only but grow strong and prevalent and in a way like Pharaohs seven lean Kine to devoure the fat if we see wickedness grow successful and rebellion prosperous and the best men become a prey to the cruel spoylers we must not think that God is all this while asleep and regards it not not so the Lord that keepeth Israel neither sleepes nor slumbereth But when the sins of men be ripe and the time of wrath is come that they should be judged the God that dwelleth in the Heavens shall scourge them with a whip of Scorpions and break them into pieces like a Potters vessel And though some of them