Selected quad for the lemma: heaven_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
heaven_n	child_n	lord_n	praise_v	2,690	5	9.7618	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A89580	A sermon preached before the Honourable House of Commons, now assembled in Parliament, at their publike fast, November 17. 1640. Upon 2 Chron. 15. 2. The Lord is with you, while yee bee with him: and if yee seek him, he will be found of you: but if yee forsake him, he will forsake you. / By Stephen Marshall, Batchelour in Divinity, minister of Finchingfield in Essex. Published by order of the said House.	Marshall, Stephen, 1594?-1655.	1641 (1641)	Wing M776; Thomason E204_9; ESTC R212613	31,991	52

they all lie in the Deck charged as the sin of the Nation till by some publicke Act the fourth Commandement bee restored to its due place and honour Thirdly goe to another branch the poynt of preaching the Word The preaching of the Word is the Scepter of Christs Kingdome the glory of a Nation the Chariot upon which life and salvation comes riding such a treasure as that any wise Merchant would sell all to buy the field wherein this Treasure lies O that God would humble England for the great abuse of this invaluable mercy What little care hath the State in general taken to provide that Christ might ride in Triumph upon his white horse that the Word of God might spread into every corner of the Land But oh the cruelty that hath beene offered to many poore Congregations in taking away the bread of Life from their mouthes without any pitty as if the starving and murthering of soules for which Iesus Christ shed his blood were a matter of no moment And oh the spoyle and havocke that hath beene made among many faithfull and painfull Ministers for such trifles as will not endure tryall in the day of the Lords appearing Could wee as in a mirrour behold the great guilt wee lye under for these things and apprehend what great wrath is kindled against the Kingdome for them how would our hearts tremble before God this day Fourthly but above all the extreame daring bold audaciousnesse of a generation of men that have adventured as much as in them lies to corrupt Gods worship that not onely rejoyce to see the Idolatrie and superstition of Rome practised by others but have dared to set their thresholds by Gods threshold and to dresse out all Gods worship according to their owne fancies things too apparent to need any further proofe It may be some may think this is no great matter and much complaint need not be made against it a few distinctions will salve all that is done to quit it from Idolatry and superstition But as Lodovicus Vives saith of the Papists in his dayes that for ought he saw they in effect gave the same reverence to their Saints which the Pagans did to their gods So I may truely say of these men that notwithstanding all their distinctions little difference is to bee found betwixt their practise and the superstitions and Idolatries of the Church of Rome Will some say let it be granted that men have been too blame as doubtlesse multitudes have been too bold in this kind yet God forbid that we should judge so farre as to make them as odious to God as if they were the bringers of Gods wrath upon the Nation as if they were as bad as whoremongers or blasphemers or that we should offer to compare them with the grosse Idolaters of the Church of Rome God forbid such a staine should bee cast upon them Thus some men draw a fine veile over these foule enormities Good Lord that the glorious light of the Gospell in eighty two yeares should not take away this filme from the eyes of men Judge you the case you that are husbands you that have a spirit of jelousie bee yee Arbitrators betweene the Lord and this Generation and say if a wanton looke in your owne wife if a whorish dresse if the giving or receiving of love tokens if the least degrees of dalliance would not render your owne wife more abhominable to you than the knowne fornication or adultery of any other woman whatsoever Doe you not know that the Church of Christ is his Spouse Do you not know that God is more easily provoked by a people among whom hee walkes than by any other people whatsoever I beseech you lay these things to heart And let the remembrance of this day helpe you in it This day eighty two yeares agone the Lord set up the Gospell among us and tooke us to be a nation in Covenant with him Oh the progresse that some nations would have made The thankfulnesse and fruitfulnesse that some people would have attained to in so long a time but that wee should grow worse and worse in poynt of Gods worship that we should hanker after Idolatry and Superstition and fall away worse than any of our neighbours that God hath visited so severely what shall wee say when God comes to reckon with us for these things Fiftly adde the horrible prophanation of the holy Sacrament of the Lords Supper the promiscuous multitude every where not onely allowed but even compelled to the receiving of it Multitudes of whom know not whether Christ were a man or a woman nor how many Gods there be multitudes wallowing in all prophanenesse and licentiousnesse yet if they professe that they be no Papists almost every where they are admitted to the polluting of these reverend Mysteries as if we would compell the Lord to depart away from us And then if we should take in the third branch of ingaging ourselves in Gods cause how little zeale is there for God The wrongs and cruelties that are done to many the teares of the afflicted and oppressed and so few that will open their mouths or appeare to plead any cause which GOD will owne abundantly proclaimeth this Verily beloved were you all as innocent as Ezra was of the fact among the Iewes of the wretchednesse of the people of Israel If you did know what God looks for at your hands this day you would rent the very Caule of your hearts before the Lord and sit downe with him astonished and refuse to be comforted and wonder that GOD hath not wholly left us and delivered up our glory as a spoile and severely revenged the quarrell of his Covenant But to come nearer yet and bring it home into your owne bosomes what if you your selves bee guilty of these things You that are the flower of your Tribes the chiefe of the Thousands of England You that are lifted up above your Brethren whom GOD hath made the Head and not the Taile of the places where you live when GOD might have left you to be hewers of Wood and drawers of Water And hee hath made some of you Noblemen some Knights and Gentlemen and now called you to bee the Repairers of our breach to heale and prevent our ruine What if you your selves have a chiefe hand in these transgressions What if among you be found swearers cursers adulterers drunkards haters of Gods waies scorners of his Children and his Ordinances men who goe on in your sinfull wayes and resolve to doe so and because you are great will therefore bee children of Belial refusing to carry Gods yoake what if any such should be here The Lord of heaven forbid But if there should be any such I beseech you thinke what a Magor-mizzabib what a terrour round about you there will be when God comes to find you and to reckon with you Are you come to Fast and Pray before the Lord Doe you come to stand betwixt God and the

goes if God goe It is a knowne story in the 1. Samuel 4. that when the Arke that was called the glory of God the visible token of Gods presence in the Covenant of Grace was taken Captive by the Philistines Phineas his wife bowed her selfe and travailed and though they after told her that a Man-child was borne shee regarded it not but called his name Ichabod saying The glory is gone because then Gods presence departed from them What need I say any more The worke of the Incarnation of the Sonne of God and the Redemption of the VVorld by him was such that one maine end of making this goodly frame of Heaven and Earth was that it might be the stage upon which that Worke should be acted A worke wherein not onely all mans happinesse lyes and whence it flowes but wherein all Gods Attributes are glorified to the highest and for which the Church Triumphant shall thinke Eternity short enough to prayse God Of this Worke I say the summe is given in one word Immanuel God is with us And plaine Reason may demonstrate that it must needes be so What is glory but the shining out of excellency VVhat is happinesse but the fruition of the greatest good Now there is no Excellency that shines out in any thing like to that which beames out from God in the Covenant of grace to his people There is no good that any people can enjoy like the fruition of God in that Covenant It is true God manifests himselfe to all the Nations in the World in him they live and move and have their being yet it is as in a darke Cloud they grope after him and cannot feele him but in the covenant of grace men behold him with open face like the Sunne shining in his strength as through a Mirrour Such a Mirrour as the Prince of Orange had that would shew the Sunne in his full bignesse and beauty Thus God shines in the Covenant of grace The Prince is virtually present in all places of his Kingdome but his Court is his Glory So where God is in his Covenant there Heaven is therefore this is usually in the Scripture phrase called the Kingdome of Heaven But if yet more particularly you enquire what Gods presence in his Covenant implyes As he who being askt what God was required first a day then two then three alledging that the more he studyed it the lesse able hee found himselfe to answer it So the more I thinke of this the more unable I see my selfe to make a satisfactory answer what I can take thus To the Nation of the Iewes it implyed something which concernes not us but mystically or analogically As to have the Arke Vrim and Thummim to have God to reveale himselfe in Visions and Dreames To answer by Thunder c. which my haste allowes me not leisure to explaine But to them and to all other people Gods presence in the Covenant of Grace implyes these three things First the owning and acknowledging of them to be his owne separated people knit to him in a league of love he is their God they are his people they have a propriety in God and God hath a propriety in them so that they may say of Him This God is our God and God of them This people is my people Now this is the greatest happinesse nothing can exceed it It hath bin often questioned what was the greatest favour that ever Almighty God did for man Some preferre Creation wherein man received his being and excellent endowments some Redemption wherein man is recovered to a better and surer estate than hee injoyed in Creation but out of question to be a Iedediah beloved of God to be neare to God as his Children as his Spouse is the comprehension of all that can be said or thought of the happinesse of a people And if you looke into the Scriptures you shall see that Gods love to his peculiar people is such a love as carryes with it all relations It is the love of a Father to his Children I will be your Father and you shall bee my Sonnes and Daughters saith the Lord Almighty It is the love that a man beares to the wife of his bosome I will marry thee to mee in righteousnes and truth and mercy It is the love of a friend I have called you my friends And Abraham the Father of all that are in Covenant he was stiled The friend of God And from this interest in God flow innumerable priviledges for being thus beloved of God and precious to him it followes that they are accepted in their services that all their sinnes are pardoned and that they have liberty to aske any thing that is good for them When Solomon was beloved of God 2 Kings 3. 5. God bids him Aske what I shall doe for thee It is but aske and have And this is the confidence that wee have in him that if wee aske any thing according to his will he heareth us They have friendship with all his friends In Zach. 8. 23. Ten men shall lay hold upon the skirt of one that is a Iew of whom they be able to say Wee have heard that God is with you Indeed to have God thus making himselfe over to a people to bee their portion to love them and to owne them is not onely an heaven upon earth but the very heaven of heaven Secondly Gods presence with a people in his Covenant implyes Gods assisting them and prospering all the workes they put their hands unto This is the ordinary expression of the Scripture Every thing prospers where God is It is said of David whithersoever Saul sent him he prospered for God was with him Every house where Ioseph came prospered for God was with him In all undertakings in all Counsels for wars for peace for trade c. Gods aid and assistance comes in If they decree a thing God will establish it If they commit their worke to him the very thoughts of their hearts shall be established Whatsoever they doe God will make it to prosper Thou O Lord workest all our workes for us Whereas now if God be absent all mens endeavours are to no purpose in any kind Except the Lord build the house they labour but in vaine that build it It is to no purpose to plough that field that God will have lye fallow Ye earne much saith God but it comes to nothing ye sow much and bring in little ye eate and have not enough yee drinke and are not filled he that earneth wages puts it into a bottomlesse purse What was the reason the Lord blasted all And it must needs be so all the second causes worke onely by vertue of the first the great wheele carries on all the other A notable example of this that Gods presence is mans prosperity wee have in Hag. 2. where when God had told them that the reason of all their ill successe in their