Selected quad for the lemma: heaven_n
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A60147
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Sacramental discourses on several texts before and after the Lord's Supper by John Shower.
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Shower, John, 1657-1715.
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1693
(1693)
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Wing S3683; ESTC R27487
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136,980
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352
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ceasing of the Mosaick and the beginning of the Evangelical one In the like sense the same Word is used in other Places as Zach. 14 6 7. And that which answers to the Word New is that it is opposed to the old Dispensation that it serves to Divine Purposes by a new Institution and so is made New And it declares that the N w Gospel Dispensation to which it is appropriate is now beginning or to commence I 'll not drink of it till I drink it New with you in my Father's Kingdom or in the Kingdom of God i. e. In the Lord's Supper which is my Gospel Institution and the Beginning of the Peculiar Kingdom of God as dispens'd after my Actual Death and Sufferings No question but the Sense is very safe to consider it with Reference to the Heavenly Glory as it is usually understood when all the Blessings of this Passover shall be fully Accomplished in the Heavenly Canaan Neither is it strange or unusual for the same Ancient Type or Figure to respect to several Objects and so have several Degrees of Accomplishment * Les OEVRES Posthumes de Mr. Claude Tom. 2. l. 4. cap. 9. traité de J. Christ This of the Paschal Lamb might not only have Relation to the Angel's passing by the Houses of the Isrelites in Egypt and their passage out of Bondage into Liberty by the Deliverance that follow'd but unto the Absolution and Deliverance of Believers by the Blood of Chrsst and unto the Deliverance of Christ himself out of the Grace and from a state of Humiliation to that of Glory and to the passage of the Church Militant upon Earth to a state of Triumph in Heaven The Blessedness of Heaven is frequently set off by this Metaphor of Eating and Drinking And at the Lord's Table which was Instituted at the close of the Passover Feast the Thoughts of Heaven are proper We meet at this Table as those who hope to sit down with all the Children of the Kingdom at the last great Supper of the Lamb. This Ordinance is a lively Resemblance of the Heavenly Feast and should assist our Meditations on it Our Lord doth here speak to us such kind of Language Ere long we shall Feast together in Heaven What is now done in Emblem shall be then done in Reality You have here the Earnest Pledge and Assurance of it This Table is a Preparatory Entertainment for the Eternal Supper * Bishop Parick Mensa mystica chap. 18. It is some foretaste to stay our Longings and yet excite our Desires after the Heavenly Feast above Here we break our Fast as I may say but are made thereby very Hungry till that Great Supper come Here we have but a Praelibation a little short Antepast of some Rare things to come yet seeing it is an Earnest of those Things it creates in an holy Soul a wonderful Contentment both from its own Sweetness and the Hopes wherewith it feeds us It nourishes in us most Delicious Longings it makes the Soul even swell with Comfortable Expectations And we Receive it not only as a Remembrance of what was done but as a Pledge of what shall be We taste not only what he is to our Souls at present but what he shall be for ever If it be a Priviledge to be Admitted to sit at his Table and to have his Covenant sealed to me by the outward Ordinance and his special Love by his Spirit to my Heart All the Life and Comfort of these is That they Declare and Assure me of more and better Comforts hereafter Their Use is darkly to signifie and seal higher Mercies When I shall Drink with Christ of the Fruit of the Vine renewed How pleasant a Feast will that be O◠the Difference * Mr. Baxter as One hath well exprest it O the Difference between the last Supper of Christ on Earth and the Marriage Supper of the Lamb at the Great Day Here he is in an Vpper-Room accompanied with Twelve poor selected men feeding on no curious Dainties but a Paschal Lamb with sour Herbs and a Judas at his Table ready to betray him But then his Room will be the Glorious Heavens his Attendants all the Host of Angels and Saints no Judas nor unfurnished Guest comes there but the humble Believers must sit down by him and the Feast will be their mutual Loving and Rejoycing You know nevertheless that when the Israelites were got out of Egypt and delivered by the Blood of the Lamb and had a Promise of Canaan they had yet a Wilderness to pass through many Enemies to Encounter and Difficulties to overcome before they entred into Canaan though God protected and maintained and supplyed them in the Wilderness all that while So is it with us Christians though we recover our Spiritual Liberty by Faith in the Blood of Jesus and are made a peculiar People unto God a Nation of Kings and Priests unto the most High and are marching towards the Heavenly Canaan and have the Promise of it We have yet a Wilderness to pass through We have Adversaries on all sides to resist We need a Pillar of Cloud and of Fire to direct us and Manna from Heaven to supply us And this we shall have from time to time till we come to Canaan and then our Lord will eat and drink with us after a better manner we shall have New Wine in his Kingdom He is gone to prepare a Feast for us to make ready the great Supper of the Lamb for all the Children of the Kingdom After he was Sacrificed as the Lamb of God he tarried Fourty Days upon the Earth from his Resurrection till he Ascended into Heaven As the Jews after their Passover in Egypt wandred 40 years in the Wilderness before they entred into Canaan But all Believers after a few Years Difficulty and Tryals in this World with the Presence of God to Conduct and Guide them shall at last sit down for ever with Christ to Reap the full Harvest of his Sufferings to receive the compleat Deliverance which he hath procured to enjoy all the blessed Fruits of his Death all the Purchase of his Redeeming Blood This he will come again to bestow upon those who believe expect and prepare for it Some Inferences of Truth and Duty may be collected as the Application of what has been said 1. That Believers under the Old Testament and under the New have the same Object of Faith They did eat the same spiritual Meat and drink the same spiritual Drink Their Sacraments and ours have different Signs but in Substance were the same Theirs having Relation to Christ the Messiah as well as ours Accordingly we read of Circumcision and the Passover in a spiritual sense under the Gospel And that which answers to Baptism and the Lord's Supper with us Even they under the Old Testament had 1 Cor. 10.2 3. They were under the Covenant of Grace though not so clear a Dispensation of it as we They were
his Blood that he might redeem you to himself that he might purchase to himself a People zealous of good works False are we to all this if we do not walk as New creatures There are but two Motives with which I shall enforce this The Text furnishes me with one And the Season of the Year with the other 1. The Motive in the Text Old things are done away Behold all things are become New I shall not consider it as amplifying the other expression and so refering to the Change of those that are iâ— Christ and consequently of like import with the Phrase a New creature but as an Argument to urge and enforce it And accordingly understand these words as relating to the Obligation of the Law of Moses That that is now ceased Those old things are now done away The Shadows of the Ceremonial Law are expired at the coming of the Substance which is Christ Colos 2.20 We are said to be dead with Ch ist from the Rudiments or Elements of the World Respecting material and worldly things either to do or forbear them For of that kind were the Ordinances and Institutions of the Ceremonial Law They were the first and lowest Lessons fitted to the Infancy of the Church But now the Kingdom of Heaven is come by the Erection of the Gospel-Church a Kingdom which shall not be shaken and the Orders and Institutions of it never be changed Now a more noble and spiritual worship is to take place those old things are past away No wonder if the Scaffolds of Ceremonies be taken down when the Church of God the Spiritual Building is brought by Christ to its full height Now all things are become new by Christ the Mediator of the New Covenant The Testament he left us is a New Testament He rent the Vail of the Temple in twain when he died and put an end by his own Sacrifice of himself unto all the Sacrifices and Services of the Jewish Temple And therefore it is observable that the first time he spake of his Death was in the Temple But after his Death he never entred into it though we read that he was in Jerusalem after his Resurrection We have a New Sanctuary an Heavenly one A New High Priest of a better Order than that of Aaron New Heavens and a New Earth as the. Gospel State is called A New Light to inlighten the World even the Knowledge of God in the Face of Christ A New Sun even Christ the Sun of Righteousness with healing in his Beams A New Adam after the Image of God the express Image of his Person and the Brightness of his Glory in whom all fulness dwells We have a New Coelestial Paradise into which the Old Serpent shall never enter A New Tree of Life whose Leaves are for the healing of the Nations A New Eve the Church of Christ Bone of his Bone and Flesh of his Flesh formed of his Blood and animated by his Spirit We have New Sacrifices New Sacraments a New Circumcision a New Passover a New Jerusalem a New Temple Behold all things are made New And shall not we that profess to be the Disciples and Followers of Christ by whom all things are thus made New Answer all this by being New creatures that we may serve him in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the Letter Rom. 7.6 That is that we being delivered from the manifold difficult Impositions of the Mosaick Law all which we could not fulfil and from the Curse upon those which did not we should now serve God with new Hearts and Lives by the Spirit of Christ according to the Law of Grace 2. There is yet another Argument from the Circumstance of â—ime In the begining of the New Year which makes the Exhortation seasonable to press you to be New creatures And when may I expect to be attentively heard upon such a Subject if not at such a season when I may hope several of you have had serious reflexions this very Morning upon Time and Eternity from the Conclusion of the last Year and the beginning of another to awaken your Thankfulness for the Mercies of the year past and your Repentance for the sins of it and your good Resolutions and Self-Dedication to the Lord for the future It will be sad if the Experience of another Year do not teach us some Vnderstanding when day unto day uttereth Knowledg and night unto night might teach us Wisdom The very thoughts of our hasty Time measured by Years and Months and Weeks and Days should put us upon considering how irrevocable and past recovery is the last year and all our former years it being utterly impossible to call back Yesterday Almighty Power may stop the course of the Sun as in the time of Joshua but to make that which is past to be present and not past is a Contradiction and cannot be done And oh how small a point doth separate and distinguish that which is past from that which is yet to come They are divided by one Moment by an Instant that is almost nothing by that which we cannot speak of without losing it being gone while we open our Mouths to say the least word about it So near is Death to Life The very nature of Time it self may teach us this And certainly the changes of the year past should be very instructive and give us many Reflexions according to our Sins and Mercies according to the Trials and Exercises we have been carried through this last year May not all of you look back upon many Changes the preceding year of several kinds those especially which God hath made amongst us by Death We are called to review how many of them we knew and were acquainted with with whom we familiarly conversed not a Year since are now silent in the dust While their immortal Spirits are some in Heaven and others in the place of Torment And of the multitude that have dyed this last year could we but separate the corrupted putrifying Relicks of those Persons whom we Honoured Valued and Loved from the rest of the Deceased and view their Bodies as now they are How affecting would be the Spectacle to think what they were less than a year ago and to consider what now they are as to their Bodies and the greater change there is as to their Souls But even as to the former let us compare in our thoughts the Figure they lately made while acting their Parts upon this Stage as living Men and Women amongst us What a Change is made in a few Months as to every of them And the like may be our own Case within a few Months from this moment long before the end of this year we now begin For consider it Christians This last year that is now ended is one great step we have every one made towards the Grave Another such may bring us home O that we may be found ready Who knows but as the last Year carried off