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	strange_a	2,103	5	9.4517	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A80798	Captivity improved to spiritual purposes. Or spiritual directions, given to prisoners of all sorts whether debtors or malefactors Principally designed for the use of those who are prisoners in those prisons which are under the jurisdiction of the city of London, as Newgate, Ludgate, the Counters, &c. Though also applyable to others under the like circumstances else where. To which are annexed directions to those who have their maintenance and education at the publick charge, as in Christ-Church hospital, or cure, as in St. Bartholomew's and St. Thomas's, or reducement to a more thrifty course of life, as in Bridewel, or have been happily restored to their former sense[ ] as in Bethleem, alias Bedlam.	Cressy, Edmund.	1675 (1675)	Wing C6889A; ESTC R230962	54,833	136

order to this their reclaim they would take occasion from that degree of Punishment which at present they endure to reflect seriously upon those several evils and inconveniencies which by the just Judgment of God attend upon sin even in this life And for this meditation they may find abundance of matter supplyed by observing the circumstances of their present condition They are in restraint and other men enjoy their liberty and so might they have done too if they had used their liberty more soberly they are exposed to scorn and contempt disgrace and obloquy while other men live in Credit and repute among their neighbours and thus they might have lived too if they had sought the praise of God and man by a Faithful continuance in well doing They are employed at hard drudgery and severe Labour under their fierce and Aegyptian Task-masters while others follow their callings with mirth and cheerfulness maintain their Families by a prudent and moderate industry take paines in an honest way but are forced to take no more then the conveniency of their concerns engages them to and what is the condition of other men might have been theirs if they had so pleased themselves but because they refused an honest labour they are brought now to this forced and constrained drudgery Surely no way is so foolish as the path of iniquity and no Fool so unwise as the sinner is He loses his ends by those very methods whereby he pursues them and runs upon mischief by those very ways by which he seeks to avoid it the pride of his heart made him ungovernable and in Bridewel he finds a severe check for his pride He hated labour and there he finds a drudgery more toilsome than any of those labours that industrious men are usually engaged in he was of a gadding and a vagrant humour but there he hath a close restraint he loved sloth and pleasure but there he wants both and instead of them meets with the Lash and the working-house to correct the riot and laziness of his former conversation It is possible that sinners when they are under the smart may murmur at God and his providence towards them in all this but if they will but seriously consider the tendency of things they will have reason to acknowledge that what they call severity is the greatest mercy imaginable for it is much for our interest that sin should be made uneasie to us that the Paths of it should be hedged with Thorns and that sinners should meet with rubbs and blocks in their way for fear the pleasure of sin should prove a bate to them to tempt them to swallow the hook more glibly and the more uninterruptedly to pursue those ways the end of which will be destruction and perdition at that dreadful day of judgment when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from Heaven with his mighty Angels In flaming Fire taking vengeance on them that know not God and obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power 2 Thes 1. 9. And this brings me to another direction suitable to the condition of those that are concerned in the Meditations of this Chapter and that is Thirdly When these offenders have in their most retired thoughts considered the several inconveniencies which attend sin and sinners in this life it would be a very useful instance of spiritual wisdom in them to carry their thoughts further to those punishments which are due to it in the world to come Suitable in this case is the counsel of our Saviour to the impotent man whom he found and healed at the Pool of Bethesdah sin no more lest a worse thing come unto thee S. John 5. 14. For although heavy are those afflictions which they are under already more heavy are those which they may still expect unless the grace of God and a timely repentance prevent both in this world and in the next grievous it is for men to consider that they are slighted by their friends that their kindred and acquaintance forsake them that they are accounted and that justly the fi●th and off-scouring of the world but more grievous is it for them to think that they are rejected of God accounted by him as reprobate Silver Vessels in which there is no pleasure Vessels of dishonour here hereafter likely to be Vessels of wrath and indignation Now at present accursed children without Christ aliens from the Commonwealth of Israel strangers from the Covenants of promise Without hope without God in the world hereafter like to be of the number of those Goats which shall be cast to Christs left hand those tares whose end shall be to be burned those unprofitable Servants whose lot it shall be to be cast into utter darkness and whose dreadful sentence that shall be which our Saviour mentions St. Mat. 25. 41. Depart from me ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the Devils and his Angels Shame is burdensome to an ingenious spirit and God hath planted a keen and quick sense of it in our natures for this very purpose that it may be a check to sin and a present punishment to those that do things deserving shame and however mildly men or women may be used when they come to Bridewel yet a punishment it is barely to be sent thither in that it brings a blot to their Name and a stain to their reputation and will be a note of infamy upon them even after they are delivered from that place Now if shame be grievous as indeed it is there is another shame and a more lasting one attends the wicked after they are delivered from this For as the righteous shall go into everlasting glory so also the wicked shall go into a place of shame and everlasting contempt Dan. 12. 2. Here only our grosser actions and such are scandalous are exposed there our very secret thoughts Here the greater miscarriages of our lives there the naughtiness of our hearts Here men only and usually but few are spectators of our infamy and disgrace but there we shall be made in a worse sense then that in which the Apostle spoke it Aspectacle to the world and to Angels and men Even God himself the God of mercy and all consolations shall laugh then at their destructions The Good Angels who rejoyce in Heaven at the Conversion of one sinner that repenteth shall shout at the ruine of those transgressours against their own souls and the Devils who were their tempters to sin here shall be their tormentours for it there and all mankind shall behold their shame and none shall endeavour to cover it none shall pity it But if the sense of shame be but a weak argument to those that have cast off all shame let them consider that that is a place of pain too If fire be tormenting there they shall converse with everlasting burnings if the gnawing of a Viper in

wrath against the day of wrath and the Revelation of the righteous Judgment of God who will render to every man according to his deeds To them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for Glory and Honour and immortality eternal life but to them that are contentious and do not obey the truth but obey unrighteousness indignation and wrath tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man that doth evil of the Jew first and also of the Gentile Those that are thus Transported they have Captivity for their punishment and in that Captivity they may discern something of the severity of God towards them but not greater severity then God hath heretofore shewed towards sinners and in the same kind of punishment too that of slavery Manasseh sinned against God and his punishment was he was taken Captive by the Captains of the Kings of Assyria and as such bound in Chains and carried to Babylon Zedekiah sinned against God and for his sin he was exposed first to the scorn of Nebuchadnezzar in his bondage and then in his cruelty in the loss of his eyes and what was dearer to him then his eyes his Children And it is no more then what was threatned by Moses to rebellious Israel Deut. 28. 68. Ye shall be sould to your enemies for bondmen and bondwomen and no man shall buy you that is when they should commit iniquity with greediness their sins would make them so vile in the eyes of God that he would sell them into the hands of their enemies for Slaves and Drudges and their enemies should count them so vile too that they could not think them worth the buying So that that bondage which God inflicted sometimes upon Kings and Princes nay frequently upon his own People too when they sinned against him and departed from him by their transgressions ought not to be repined against by Malefactors as it were too severe a punishment upon them by the hand of God for their transgression but contrari wise they ought to be thankful to the mercy of God that he hath spared their Lives and thereby given a space for repentance which if they consider it aright is a mercy of very great value and of so great value that their gratitude for life ought to overballance those murmurings which they usually entertain upon account of the sufferings of it of this opinion was Jeremiah when he and his Nation were under the like circumstances in Captivity in a strange Country Wherefore says he should a living man complain a man for the Punishment of his sin Lament 3. 39. in which sentence there are almost as many Arguments as words and every one of those Arguments suitable to the Subject now in hand God is the Creator of all things man his Creature why therefore should man complain when he is afflicted The clay against the Potter the workmanship against the maker man that is but dust and ashes against God the Lord of all his Soverainty will bear him out if he disposes of his Creatures as he in his wisdom thinks most fit therefore they ought not to complain especially when they consider that they are sinful men and that their afflictions are but the punishment of their sins No great wonder if upright Job complain that he is afflicted more then the scorners Jeremiah then those that deal treacherously holy Daniel and righteous Shadrack Meshack and Abednego then their accusers and tormentors but unjust it is that sinners complain under their just and deserved punishment when they reap but the very fruit of their doings More it would become them to acknowledge that God is just and righteous in all that he does and in all the corrections which he does inflict and that he has punished them less then their iniquties deserve and then in ●ustice he might have done if he had been extream to mark what is done amiss and therefore that they ought to be humbled and accept of the Punishment of their iniquities and bear the indignation of the Lord because they have sinned against him Especially considering that he hath given them a Portion among those that are living God had not been unrighteous if he had taken away the sinner in the midst of his sins and then as the Tree fell so it wouldly as death left them so Judgment would find them and as they died in the Commission of sin so they would rise hereafter to the inflictions of wrath but God hath been merciful in that he hath given them a life though a life very full of misery to repent in a space though that space surrounded with many afflictions to make their peace with God This Goodness of God ought to lead them to repentance in order to which end let them Secondly Live under a constant sense of Gods omnipresence and that wheresoever they go and into whatsoever parts of the World they are sent by Banishment Gods eye follows them He fills the Heaven and the earth and the Heaven of Heavens cannot contain him his greatness is unsearchable so that there is no flying from his presence nor can any man hide himself in secret places that God should not see him They may fly their Country but they cannot fly from the presence of God if in a strange Land they retain the sins of England thither the Vengeance of God can follow them there the Justice of God can find them out prove their Plague and their scourge there as well as here but if in a forreign Country they repent of their sins committed here Gods Grace is as near to them there as here his mercy is over all his works and his goodness reaches to the utmost corners of the earth And though their Fathers see them not and their Friends know not their condition yet God is as present to them there as here and is ready to receive the Prayer of the Captive the petition of the stranger the supplication of the Banished and to grant his pardon to the poorest most afflicted Penitents At the Sessions some are found not guilty by their Jury or obtain the benefit of their Clergy or the gracious pardon of the King which if they consider it aright is a mercy very highly valuable and as it is the happiness of these men that they have their Lives and Liberties so it is their disadvantage that their Liberty is attended with the disgrace of having once held up their hand and how to improve this dishonour to spiritual advantage they have been taught in the forecited Chapter and together with those directions let them take these directions that follow First Now that they are free from the Tribunal of man that they would endeavour to set all accounts right between them and God For very possible it may be that an offender may be either free or guilty to a lesser degree in these counts below but perfectly guilty in that court above Here some things are accounted felonies some petty larcenies some deserve only by the law