Selected quad for the lemma: heaven_n
Text snippets containing the quad
|
ID |
Title |
Author |
Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) |
STC |
Words |
Pages |
|
A29033
|
Some motives and incentives to the love of God pathetically discours'd of, in a letter to a friend / by the Hon[ora]ble R.B., Esq.
|
Boyle, Robert, 1627-1691.
|
1659
(1659)
|
Wing B4032; ESTC R11830
|
73,891
|
200
|
Quicken our Obedience then Satisfie our Curiosity I may for those purposes have perhaps tolerably perform'd that taske of Heavenly Topographie by the acknowledgments of my Disability to do it worthily I shall now onely adde this Property of our expected Blisse that the vast Multitude of Partners does detract nothing from each private Share nor does the Publicknesse of it lessen Propriety in it This Ocean of Felicity being so Shoarlesse and so Bottomless that all the Saints and Angels cannot exhaust it it being as impossible for any Aggregate of Finites to comprehend or exhaust one Infinite as 't is for the greatest number of Mathematick Points to amount to or constitute a Body Our neighbour-regions doe all enjoy the benefit of light as well as we yet we enjoy not Lesse than if they enjoy'd None Indeed there is this difference between the Sun of Righteousnesse and that of Heaven that whereas the later by his presence Eclipses all the Planets his Attendants the former though radiant with a much mightier Splendour will by his Presence Impart it to his Saints according to that of the Apostle Coll. 3.4 When Christ who is our Life shall appear then shall we also appear with him in Glory So that the Elect in relation to this Sun shall not be like Starres which his shining obscures and makes to disappear but like polisht Silver or well glaz'd Armes or those vaster Balls of burnisht Brasse the topps of Churches are sometimes adorn'd with which shine not till they be shin'd upon and derive their glittering Brightnesse and all the fire that environs and illustrates them from their being expos'd unskreen'd to the Sun 's refulgent beams Cant. 6.3 I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine sayes every Saint with the Spouse in the Canticles to hir Redeemmer David sayes of them that put their trust in God Psal 36.8 That he shall abundantly satisfie them with the fatnesse of His house and make them drink of the River of his pleasures As if he meant to insinuate that as when a multitude of persons drink of the same River none of them is able to exhaust it and yet each of them may have the full liberty of drinking as much as he can or as much as he could though none but himselfe should be Allow'd to drinke of it so whosoever enjoyes God enjoyes him wholly or at least doth enjoy him so entirely in Relation to that man's capacity that the Fruition of whatsoever rests unenjoy'd of God is forbidden by the Immensity of the Object and not the Praepossession of his Rivalls The Angels though of a Nature Differing from our's and thereby plac'd above the personal Experience of our sufferings and infirmities doe yet so sympathize with us that as our Saviour informs us they rejoyce at the repentance of a sinner And though the members of the Church Militant and those of the Triumphant live as farre asunder as Heaven is from Earth and are not more Distant as to place than Differing as to Condition yet St. Paul reckons all the Saints to be but one Family in Heaven and Earth Eph. 3.15 If then the disparity of Residences of Qualities and of Conditions cannot Now hinder the Lovers of God from being so concern'd in one another how much of endearing Kindnesse may we suppose that they will Enterchange When both their Love shall be perfected and all those other Graces that are proper to cherish and encrease it For the same Apostle who to assist us to conceive the strictnesse of the Union both betwixt Christ and his Saints and the Saints among themselves tells us that He is the Head 1 Cor. 12. and they are his Body and Members in particular teaches us to make this inference That to expresse his Doctrine in his own words If one Member suffer all the Members suffer with it v. 27 28. and if one Member be honour'd all the Members rejoyce with it Yes Lindamor in that blest Condition our wills being perfectly conform'd unto our Maker's no Saint nor Angel can enjoy his Love without possessing a proportionate Degree of ours And then since perfect Friendship appropriates to each Friend the Crosses and Prosperities of the other as good Barzillai could not be highlier oblig'd by David 2 Sam. 19.37 than by the Kings kindnesse to his Son each severall Beatitude in Heaven shall in some sort concern the whole Society and be Ours As the Earth receives Addition of Light by the Sun's Beames bestow'd upon the Starrs and from the Moon reflecting upon Her And because our personall Capacities are too too narrow to contain all that Joy we are by the strange Arithmetick of Friendship multiplyed into as many Happy Persons as there are Saints and Angells blest in Heaven Our perfect Union to Our Common Head and mutuall Communion with each other applying and bringing home every Felicity of theirs to us This Friendly and reciprocall Sympathy reaching us each Glorified Saint's Blessednesse and Him ours by a blest Circulation which makes us encrease by our resenting them those Joyes of others whose Encrease we resent But my Thoughts are ingaged in so good Company Lindamor that they keep me from considering how fast the Hours passe and have almost made me forget that the Time which my Occasions allow me for Scribling to you is so far spent that not now at last to Reprieve you from the Persecutions of my blunt Pen were to be almost as Injurious to my own Affairs as to your Patience Hereafter yet I may possibly make you some amends for this with Riper Discourses of the Nature and Duties or if you will the Properties and Returns of this Love to which I have hitherto presented you some Motives To the last of which I might add That our Love to the Creature is an Earnest but to God 't is a Title the One makes Us the Object 's but the Other makes the Object Ours That since there is in Love so strong a Magick as to Transform the Lover into the Object Lov'd We ought to be extreamly carefull of the Dedication of a Passion which as it is plac'd must either Dignifie our Nature or Degrade it And not to Addresse to any Lower or which is all one to any Other Object the highest Intensity of a Love which cannot Stoop without our Degradation And these I might Exspatiate on and Recruit them with many other Motives additionall to those already insisted on but that I may more properly reserve them to the Treatise of the Properties of that Love whose Nature so partakes That of its Object that there can hardly be produc'd more powerfull Motives to it than the Conditions of it Since then as I freshly intimated I cannot but feare that your tir'd Patience as well as my urgent Occasions though these will recall me to morrow Morning to my own VVesterne Hermitage doth at present summon me to leave you and since I cannot do so in a happier place than Heaven I shall suspend my Farewells onely to begge you to believe that so Noble a Motive of Exalting-Friendship as the Ambition of rendring mine a fit Return for yours hath so Improv'd my Kindnesse that my Affection without wronging its own Greatnesse could not Expresse it self by any Lesse Attempt then this of gaining you the Greatest and the most Desireable of all Goods by elevating that Noble Harbinger of your Soul your Love to Heaven Whose Joyes alone are not Inferiour to those which the Being made Instrumentall to procure them you would really Create in SIR Your most Faithfull most Affectionate and most Humble Servant ROBERT BOYLE From Leese this 6th of Aug. 1648.
who was the Second person of the World for Power and the First for much nobler Attributes Wisdom and Understanding who saw so many Governours of vast Provinces and Professours of admired Magick inferiour to himself yet confesses to the Angell that appear'd to him That he was confounded and disanimated at his presence and addes How can the Servant of this my Lord Dan. 10.17 talk with this my Lord. We may safely therefore expect that we shall then behold our Saviour not in those Disguises which disfigur'd him in their Eyes that only consider'd his Sufferings but in that triumphant Condition wherewith they are now Rewarded The Thorns of his now no more Galling but Adorning Crown will appear upon that radiant Head of His more glorious than those of the flaming Bush Exod 3.2 wherein God appear'd to Moses And we shall not see that despicable forme which made the Prophet say personating the Generality of the Jewish Nation contemporary with the Messias He hath no Form Isa 53.2 nor Comelinesse and when we shall see him there is no Beauty that we should desire him But we shall see him Encompass'd with so much Majesty and Shining with so much of his genuine Splendour and Beauty that we shall deservedly esteem him Nâ—phle Isa 9.6 the admirable And our ravisht Souls shall by the more attentive Contemplation of him but find more cause to imitate the Spouse in Solomons mystick Epithalamium who having dwelt upon the Beauty of the severall parts that concurr'd to the accomplishing the divine Bridegroom exclaims in an Epiphonema very contrary to the Expression lately mention'd in the Prophet He is altogether Desires or Cant. 5.10 by an Hebraism Most desirable which our English renders He is altogether lovely His eyes will there appear as St. Rev. 1.14 John represents them of active Fire and will into the willing Breasts of the Ravisht beholders shoot Flames as Pure as Holy and as Deathlesse as those Fathers of the Church who believ'd not the Angels altogether Incorporeall may be suppos'd to have conceived the Seraphims to consist of Certainly since as the Scripture informs us It never entred into the Heart of Man what God has reserv'd in Heaven for those that love him That Glory can be but Imperfectly express'd by the bare Epithet of Inconceivable with which God rewards the meritorious Sufferings and Obedience of that Only begotten Son of his love For whose sake he is pleas'd to confer on so many Thousands of men unimaginable Glories He that vouchsafes ev'n to many of his Servants a brightnesse like that of the Starrs Dan. 12.3 will sure communicate a more radiant Lustre to the Sun of Righteousnesse Mal. 4.2 that Only Son of His whom to borrow inspir'd Expressions he hath appoynted Heir of all things by whom also he made the worlds Heb. 1.2 3. Who being the brightnesse of his Glory and the expresse Image of his person and upholding all things by the word of his power when he had by himself purg'd our Sinns sate down on the right hand of the Majesty on high farre above all Principality Eph. 1.21 and Power and Might and Dominion and every Name that is named not only in this World but in that which is to come Thereby exalting him not onely above all Earthly Princes and Potentates but ev'n above the Highest Orders of the Spirits of the Coelestial Hierarchie But apprehend not § 22 Lindamor that this sublime Exaltation of Christ will make him Despise the meanest of his Saints or disdain communion with him For St. Paul assures us That he was in the form of God when he vouchsaf'd to take upon him the form of a Servant to make us Free and sure he that condescended so far and stoop'd so low to Invite and Bring us to Heaven will not refuse us a gracious Reception there In the dayes of his flesh he was pleas'd to own Lazarus ev'n â—n the Dishonours of the Grave and vouchsaf'd him in that despicable Condition the Glorious Title of his Friend And when he descended the Mount of Olives all the loud Acclamations of the glad Multitude that â—ung Hosanna's to him and strow'd his way with their Palms Luk. 19.37 38 41 their Vestments and their Praises could not divert him from Deploring ev'n with Teares Jerusalem's approaching Fate and expressing in the midst of his Triumphs a Concern for the very worst and stubbornest of his Enemies And lest â—t should be thought that he was thus concern'd for worthlesse Mortalls onâ—y whilst he shar'd and felt the miseâ—ies of their Condition Give me leave to observe to you Lindamor that â—mmediately after his Resurrection whilst the Sense of the sudden and unexampl'd Change of his Condition was Fresh upon him and the Remembrance of the Apostles Ingratitude in deserting him almost as Recent he sticks not to give those very Disciples that forsook him the glorious Title and that a more familiar one then we find him to have allow'd them on Earth Oâ— his Brethren Mat. 28.10 and particularly shows himself Sollicitous for that Peter who in spight of all those empty Boasts Mar. 16.7 wherewith he not only seem'd to defie Death but Christs Prediction too did not onely Forsake his Master but Deni'd him He can in Heaven be so concern'd for his distress'd members here on earth that not onely he can take Notice of expiring Stephen Act. 7. thorow that cloud of fatall Stones that batter'd down his Prison and can when Saul was persecuting the vulgar Christians cry out unto him Saul Saul Act. 9.4 why persecutest thou Me as if He and those that Love him were but One But in the messages In the 2d and 3d chapters of the Apocalyps he sends to the Angels or Governours of the seven Churches he sufficiently manifests That single Christians may be as particularly in his thoughts as if they had no other Object His Greatnesse will not make his Kindnesse lesse Familiar but only more Obligeing He disdains not ev'n after his Ascension to say Behold I stand at the door and knock if any man hear my voyce Rev. 3.20 and open the door I will come in to him and will sup with him and he with me That King in the Parable by whom Himselfe is represented Matth. 25. is pleas'd himself to welcome each Individual trusty Servant with a peculiar Euge bone Serve And in another Parable he scruples not to represent the great Condescensions and Familiarity wherewith the Lord shall remunerate the faithfull and watchfull Servants by telling his Disciples Blessed are those Servants Luk. 12.37 whom the Lord when he commeth shall find so watching Verily I say unto you that he shall gird himself and will make them to sit down to meat and will come forth to serve them At which Expression you will the lesse Admire if you Consider that besides that it is Parabolicall and probably Hyperbolicall and therefore not to be taken