Selected quad for the lemma: heaven_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
heaven_n	day_n	lord_n	sabbath_n	9,284	5	10.5348	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A39288	A sermon preach'd before the King and Queen, upon Ephes. 5.16. Redeeming the time, because the days are evil. By the Reverend Father Philip Ellis monk of the H. Order of St. Benedict, and of the English Congr. chaplain and preacher in ordinary to their Majesties. Published by His Majesties command	Ellis, Philip, 1652-1726.	1687 (1687)	Wing E600; ESTC R214602	15,277	36

which is but standing Error has prepossess'd our Minds stupifi'd and immersed in Flesh and Blood that to do nothing is easie when indeed it is the greatest pain the reasonable Creature can endure arguing either a childish Weakness that we cannot act or a shameful Ignorance that we know not what to do And I believe the Man of Reason will grant me that Ignorance as it is a punishment upon us for doing what we ought not so is it the greatest torment to a Soul which is perpetually thirsting after Knowledge And as for the more unthinking and grosser part of Mankind they cannot deny but all Pain comes from Weakness Our own Notions therefore bear testimony against us and if what we call a gentile life speaks either our Weakness or Ignorance the gentile Liver is the most unhappy Creature in the World For Happiness is so far from consisting in either of these that both are essentially destructive to it and whosoever hopes to compass this end by contrary means will find himself at last in the other Extremity To be plain whosoever promises Happiness to himself without much labor sets it at too high a price at which no wise Man would buy it if it be not to be purchas'd but by living idly for at this rate one must be Miserable to become Happy But how unnatural a thing is it for that Creature to be idle Ambr. Praef. in Luc. Basil ap Mel. 89. who alone of all Creatures stands condemn'd to labor as St. Ambrose observes Upon which consideration St. Basil doubts not to brand this Vice of so great reputation in the World with the infamous Character of a sin against Nature because there is nothing in the whole Frame of Nature idle or unactive Our Blessed Saviour testifies of the Godhead it self My Father saith he John 5.17 still works and I work Pater meus usque modo operatur All the Hierarches of Angels as one assures us who had been in the third Heaven are Administring Spirits The Prophet declares they have no rest day nor night but incessantly pour forth their harmonious Acclamation Holy Holy Holy Lord God of Sabbath And what I should have mention'd before The sacred Humanity of Christ came not to be serv'd but to serve Non venit ut Ministraretur sed ut Ministraret The Celestial Orbs have never had any respite from their perpetual motion all things below are in a continual Tide a regular Succession of Causes and Effects Every Creature groans and brings forth even till now saith the Apostle And if the invisible things of God are understood by those things which are made The Operations of Nature are so many Emblems of the Diligence he requires at our hands towards the working out our Salvation God having made them not only for our use but also for our instruction In fine the whole World is a large Volum as St. S. Athanas in Vit. S. Ant. Anthony calls it where we may read our Duty and meet with it in every line Nay if Man would but take the measure of his Moral Actions from the observation of his Natural the continual working of the Heart circulation of the Blood respiration of the Lungs pulse of the Arteries and activity of the Fancy will teach him Assiduity in the exercise of those nobler Faculties whose Actions depend upon the liberty of his Will how constant and regular his Motion ought to be in the Service of God And that his Soul is as much dead when it is idle and surceases from doing well as the Body will be when all these Vital Operations are at an end I know not any one who would not esteem it a horrible Execration to wish he had neither Hands nor Feet yet such is our misery that while we make no more use of them in order to our own good or that of our Neighbor than if they were quite disabled even in that respect we count our selves happy For take away from the Lady the Gentleman the Courtier c. the power and convenience of doing nothing and being not in the labors of Men the subtilest Logician can scarce explain in what formality their Happiness i. e. the advantage of their Condition consists Their priviledge seems to lie in an exemption from the general Malediction inflicted upon the rest of Mankind In the sweat of their brows they shall eat their Bread But then they must draw their Pedegree from some other Line than that of Adam for no more is any Child of his free of this Obligation than he is from the cause of it and if we Inherit the one we must necessarily be partakers of the other For as Holy Job expounds this Sentence Man is born to labor Labor being not only a necessary means to preserve his life but one of the ends why it was given him And our Blessed Saviour revives and inforces this Doctrin in the Parable of the Master entrusting his Servants with so many Talents with a Negotiamini Manage and improve them and this not for a spirt when the fit takes you but donec veniam without intermission till he calls them in and you to give an account of your Stewardship by which Servants every body understands the whole Mass of Human Nature without excepting any State or Condition and by the Talents a necessity of working according to the Abilities this great Master has dispensed to every particular Now if a Man who had well consider'd the weight and strictness of this Obligation without knowing the Follies of Mankind and their vain amusements should look out into the World he would tell me I make a Discourse in the Air and to the Walls for every one is active in his respective Station and employ'd in his Duty when he should see their earnestness at such a distance as not to discern the matter they are so intent upon How People hast along the Streets and press one another like Waves which are broken and sever'd with a contrary Tide When he should behold some warmly disputing at a Table others walking musing and solitary some Reading others discoursing with abundance of Gravity others sitting in crowds in recollection and silence he would certainly bid me hold my peace and not disturb these serious Men with advising them to begin what they are already doing But if I should lead him nearer to them within ken of their Actions and hearing of their Discourse when he should discover their Lives and their Talk to be all of a piece Atheistical in good earnest When he should see these People running to a Shew or to a Riot to circumvent their Neighbor or to oppress the Innocent or coursing about the Streets meerly to shew their Equipage or themselves When he should find those silent and recollected People at the Theater whom he thought at a Sermon That Lady at her Glass and in a profound contemplation of her self whom he thought at her Oratory that Gallant reading a Romance or a Novel

God and Nature It is not my business to subtilize upon the nature of Time or Metaphysically enquire what it is whether the revolution of the Heavens or the measure of the motion and rest of Bodies or a particle of Eternity which we now use Cic. I. 1. de Invent Rhet. as the Orator calls it Let us leave this disquisition to Philosophers There is a certain Definition which every Christian carries in his Breast that it is a Term assign'd us by Providence to work out our Salvation in it This Term is diversify'd according to the several Men it affects and what is many Years to one is but a few Months or Days or Hours to another Yet this shorter Period is a Mans whole Time his whole Course as the Moon and other Planets compleat their Revolution and fulfil their Motion as well as the Sun and Superior Heavens which are much longer in performing theirs Wherefore it is a astrange Folly and little less than Impiety which is so common in every bodies mouth that such an one came to an untimely end or was cut off in the Flower or middle of his Age when that very Person so lamented as unripe for the Sythe had liv'd out his whole time as well as Mathusalem and so has the Infant who is taken in the Womb or having but one day upon the Earth as much as the Child of an hundred years as the Scripture most properly stiles those who end their days in such Puerilities as they began them with as little consideration why they came into the World what they are to do in it what Account will be demanded after it Their Divertisements and what they call Pleasures being as silly and wanting nothing of the Child but Innocence But if it be agreed on that Time is pretious what Frenzy has seiz'd Mankind and makes them so lavish of what they esteem so dear What Spirit makes us so fond and careful of Temporal advantages so greedy of what is not our own and so negligent of the thing which only belongs to us Omnes si quidem res aliena a nobus est tempus autem nostrum est Bern. l. Medit. c. 6. Senec. For as Seneca and St. Bernard admirably observe all other things are Foreign nothing is properly ours but Time Or supposing other things to be never so much our own yet the value of Time ought in reason to be greater than the estimation of what we only owe to Time and who squanders it away tho he pretend to Prudence and Conduct in other matters can deserve that stile no better than one who receives his Rents with great exactness and circumspection but keeps no account how he lays them out or another who busies himself about what belongs not to him or is exact in trivial matters but neglects the main like that unfortunate Prince who valu'd himself more upon the touch of the Lute than the Art of Government All other things are Foreign to us aliena à nobis sunt they are beneath us we now and then descend to them out of necessity or for diversion but the management of Time is the business of Man. This only is our own but it will not stay with us it is short and swift properties which inhaunce the value and shew it was given us only for use Part of it steals away from us before we reflect upon it part others steal from us and of that which we are actually using a great deal runs at waste For setting aside the Years of our undiscerning Childhood and inconsiderate Youth and unweldy Old Age only the middle part of our Lives which hardly make up a fourth we think worth improving and how few arrive to this term Not the fourth part of Mankind and of those that do not the Hundreth part I am afraid ever think whereabouts they are but trifle away the present which is in their power to build their hopes upon a future in which it is at least probable they shall have no share and in which for certain they will be more unfit for labor But of this riper and more digested part of our Lives how much is taken up in necessary attendance on our Bodies and Fortunes how much consum'd in rest and repasts how much in refreshing the Spirits and unbending the Mind And of the remainder which amounts not to above a fifteenth proportion how much is wasted in Disquisition and Error and mistaking our business in idle expectation fond hopes and unactive fears And after all this subduction have we time to spend in useless Discourses impertinent News tedious Visits or unprofitable Studies But it seems we have so much plenty still that every Sense and Appetite puts in for a share and wantons away the select and more pretious hours We have time for Drunkenness Cheating and Circumventing Slander and Detraction Luxury and Murder and as if the wickedness of the day were not sufficient for it we take in great part of the Night We suffer every one who has a mind to lose his own time to make bold with ours and when all other Injuries and usurpation of our Goods is presently inform'd against and prosecuted as far as the Crime will bear even to death for a Garment or a small Sum of Mony there is no Man brings an Action against the Aggressor that robs us of so much time in formal Visits or unprofitable Discourse nay we are not sensible he has done us any wrong but soon after we grow weary of the rest and prepare to do the same injury to others inviting them to spend an hour in this or that divertisement To spend an hour cries St. Bernard Do you know what you say To spend an hour which the mercy of your Creator has indulg'd you to do Penance to obtain Pardon to acquire Grace and purchase Glory O donec pertranseat tempus To pass the time away in which you ought to appease the Divine Justice to hasten towards an Angelical Purity to bewail your past offences the Evangelical Treasure which you ought to buy with the expence of all you have To spend the time O absurdity of speech O stupidity of mind To quicken the speed of Time which is ever upon the wing and cannot be perswaded to stay with us If we manage our Time to so much advantage what pity it is we are confin'd to so small a compass and our lives crowded into so narrow a space Great pity indeed that Men who Husband a little so well have not a larger Fortune to improve a sad thing that from amidst these laudable Exercises one must be snatch'd away on a suddain as if our Industry and Application had not merited a longer term But Christians let us once in our lives be serious and consider in cold Blood what we are doing whiles so great a Treasure slips between our fingers Let us once in our lives tell true and ingenuously confess what we are driving at what we hope to