Selected quad for the lemma: heaven_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
heaven_n	church_n	earth_n	militant_a	5,036	5	12.4963	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A29118	Elijah's nunc dimittis, or, The authors own funerall sermons in his meditations upon I Kings 19:4 ... / by Thomas Bradley ...	Bradley, Thomas, 1597-1670.	1669 (1669)	Wing B4132; ESTC R7187	60,180	133

specious and so spacious between the Starry Firmament and the Empyrean Heaven stand voyd and empty without Inhabitants No it cannot be but they have their Inhabitants too and they are the souls of the Just when they are separated from their bodies by death and dissolution who being next unto the Angells in holiness are placed in receptacles next unto them in glory The Chrystalline Heaven next and immediately under the Empyrean Heaven and the Aqueall or Watry Heaven next immediately under it and as they have atteined to the degrees of purity here in this life so are they disposed of into the one or into the other of them neerer or farther off from the Throne of glory for as after the Resurrection there shall be severall and different degrees of glory so in this state of separation the souls separated shall be in severall and different degrees of joy and happiness according as they are prepared for it and have atteined to severall degrees of holiness and purity in this life while they were in the body Secondly If you enquire into the state of those souls separated it must needs be blessed and glorious suitable to the glory of those Heavens wherein they are Where first They are delivered from the burden of the Flesh the body the very prison wherein they were deteined and sole impediment of their perfection Secondly They are freed from all sin and sorrow concupiscence and corruption from all temptations and sollicitations from the world the devill and the flesh and from all the evill of this lower world which they have left behind them and which now As that glorious Woman Rev. 12.1 they trample under their feet all tears are wipt from their eyes all sorrow and grief and pain are flowne away they dyed in the Lord they are blessed they rest from their labours and so they are in Abraham's bosome They are in the hand of God as Solomon speaks Wisedom 3.1 so that no evill shall touch them they are got above the reach of the malice of men or Devills 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Greek Proverbe hath it out of the danger of the dart And so their state agrees with that which St. John sayes of them Rev. 6. That he saw them under the Altar yet all this is but their privative happiness consisting in their freedom from all evill and their security from all danger but they are in present possession of a positive blessedness too in a great measure and high degree of present joy and glory Their very imployment is a part of their blessedness which is no less then Angelicall to laud and prayse and magnifie the living Lord to sing Hosanna to Hosannah's in the highest and Hallelujahs to him that sitteth upon the Threne to admire the glory and the greatness and the goodness and the power and the holiness of the mighty Lord God of which they have now a clearer sight and apprehension then before and in particular his singular and unspeakable grace and goodness unto them which hath done such great things for them as to bring them thither to triumph in the apprehension of it and to rejoyce and glory in the sence of it I know not whether I should rather ranke these things under their imployments or their enjoyments they are blessed duties which are both With what sweet contentation and selfe satisfaction doe they converse together in pure love and light With what joy and comfort can they now remember the difficulties and the dangers which they have past through in their comming thither What temptations what afflictions they have met withall What strong corruptions they have wrestled with What importunate lusts they have denied and subdued What sollicitations from the World from the Flesh and from the Devill they have resisted and rejected and how now they bless themselves that they have done so and God that gave them grace and strength to doe it With what joy and prayse doe they congratulate one another in their happy victories over sin and Satan Death and Hell and all the enemies of their salvation and in their safe passage through all the dangers and difficulties that stood between them and Heaven and that having escaped all the corruption that is in the world through Lust they are at length arrived to the Place where they would even to the top of Mount Syon the Place of their rest and joy where now they are taken into neerer Communion with God then they could be before they have more clear manifestation of him sweet influences from him and union with him they converse with Angels congratulating them in their happiness and with Euges of joy and prayse well-coming them into those Heavens the habitations of their happiness the Paradise of their joy and glory And now their Charity invites them to Pray for the whole estate of Christs Church militant here on Earth That the Lord would guide them and keep them in the way of Truth that he would bring them safe through all the dangers and difficulties that stand in the way between them and Heaven that the Gospel may have free passage through the world that it may runne prosper and be glorious that by it he would call in all that are yet uncalled that he would shortly accomplish the number of his elect and hasten his Kingdom that they with them and all others that shall depart out of this life in the faith and feare of his holy Name may have their perfect consummation and bliss both in body and soule in his eternall and everlasting glory Which is the third estate in which immortall souls doe pass their immortality which begins from the day of the generall Judgement and lasts from thence to all eternity Of which though we had the Tongue of Men or Angells it is impossible to speak to the full and as the subject requires O Aeternity Aeternity How is the Heart astonish't and the Mind swallowed up that enters into the thoughts of it with the state of the just and the unjust in it the joy and glory of the one and the misery and torment of the other both which being unexpressible I shall forbeare to enter into the description of them and in stead thereof onely referr you to the words of the sentences at the great day to be given upon them both the sentence of absolution to the just on the right hand and of condemnation to the wicked on the left both which the Judge himselfe that shall pronounce them hath told us before hand and left us in terminis upon record Mat. 25. And first The sentence of absolution because that shall be first pronounc'c that the wicked on the left hand may see Heaven opened and have a sight of the joy and glory of the Celestiall Paradise and see the just taken into it and set down with Abraham Isaac and Jacob in the Kingdom of Heaven and themselves cast out that they may see what happiness they have lost by wilfully forsaking

sweet is the●r membrance of thee to the soule that lives in bitterness I doe not think the Lord did impute it for sin to Job or Jeremy that they were so weary of their bitter Lives and did so often wish That their change might come Or that King Edward the sixth did sin when in his death bedsickness he prayd so earnestly Lord take me out of this wretched World Nor Dr. Hamond who under the tortures of the Stone whereof he dyed was so often heard to say Lord make hast though I doubt not but in all these there was implyed a tacit submission to the will of God Thirdly That a man may be taken away fr●m the evill to come This was a mercy promised to Josiah upon his humiliation 2 Kings 22.19.20 as it was the misery of his surviving Sonne Zedekiah to see the evill which his Father was taken from and to suffer in it Wise men fore-see evill to come in the causes of it and in the ●ore-runners of it And the Lord mentions it as a mercy That he will take them away from those evills and they may without sin Pray for that mercy Isay 57.1 Fourthly That they may be freed from the burden of the flesh and the bondage of corruption inherint in it that Ground Ivie in the Wall which will never be pluckt out root and branch till the Wall be thrown down It was under the sense of this that St. Paul cryes out Rom. 7.24 O wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from the body of this death this will never be done but by the death of this body Fifthly In extremity of old age when a man becomes a burden to himselfe and others when he is fallen into those years of which David saith His life is nothing but labour and sorrow and the years of which he shall say I have no pleasure in them when not onely his body grows weak but his mind also and his intellectuall faculties faile his understanding weak his apprehension dull his memory unfaithfull his affections Childish and he becomes unserviceable not able to doe that good which he hath done and should doe when a man becomes thus superannuate he may doubtless without sin make it his suite to Almighty God To take away his soule Vse This Meditation is usefull to comfort and to confirme us against the feare of death either of our selves or our friends why should we make that the object of our feare which others have made the object of their hope and desire Holy men wise men good men men that have had a great interest in the world have been willing to lay down all and to leave all and made it their suite that they might dye in assurance of a change for a better life To help us to pass through this Gulfe with comfort and courage weigh well but these two things 1. What a world we leave behind us the Terminus à quo 2. What a world we have before us the Terminus ad quem And these two considerations will make the passage through that medium easie First For the Terminus à quo the world we leave behind us a very sink of sin a du●ghill of uncleanness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The whole World lyes in wickedness as St. John speaks nothing in it but sinne and sorrow and travaile and trouble and malice and mischief and that which may well make any wise man out of love with it and even weary of it The best things in it which men make most account of have been weighed to our hands by the wisest of the Sonnes of Men and upon the tryall found To be lighter then vanity it selfe not onely vanity but vexation of spirit For first They are all transitory Secondly They are not all satisfactory Thirdly All imbitter'd with so many cross Ingredients that there is no true contentment in them nor true comfort to be taken out of them We could shew you examples of the greatest of men Kings Emperours Lords of the world such as have had as much of the glory of it and all other worldly good in it as the world could give or lend yet have seen so farr into the vanity and emptiness of it as to despise it to lay down all and take themselves unto a private and monasticall life which is a death to the world and the shaddow of death it selfe Secondly For the Terminus ad quem Consider what a world in dying we are going to it would require a world of time and words to describe it the best description of it is to describe it to be such for the transcendency of the glory of it as that it cannot be described For neither hath the eye seen nor the eare heard nor can the heart of Man comprehend the great things that God hath prepared for them that love him 1 Cor. 2.9 St. Paul shaddows it out in part Heb. 12.22 where he shows the happiness of the Church militant in their communion with the Church triumphant thus But you are come to Mount Sion and to the City of the living God the Caelestiall Jerusalem and to the company of in●numerable Angels And to the Assembly and Congregation of the first borne whose names are Written in Heaven and to God the Judge of all and to the spirits of just Men made perfect And to Jesus the Mediatour of the new Testament and to the blood of sprinkling which speaketh better things then the blood of Abel Here 's a description in part of the Place and Society which we shall goe to when we shall come to be joyned with the Church triumphant in glory now be you well assured that all things els there are suitable to these which must needs render it transcendently joyous and glorious O! if we could but draw the Curtaine of Heaven and look in the Sanctum Sanctorum to see the joy and glory that is there we would never care for this world more the most pretious things in it would be despised in our eyes our whole life would be nothing but a Cupio dissolvi esse cum Christo I desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ and we would long for the time when the Lord would take away our soul that we might be translated thither I reade of one Cleombrotus that hearing Plato discoursing of the immortality of the soul and the happines of the other life to come Threw himself headlong off from a high Rock to quit himself of this life that so he might enter into that other life that Plato so much commended And if a Heathen man could be so sensible of advantaging himself by his change into the other life upon those weak grounds which Plato's Philosophy could give as to hasten his own death upon the hope of it Surely we that are Christians and have better grounds to build our faith and hope upon then any Plato's Philosophy could give may with much more Comfort think on Death with much more hope and