Selected quad for the lemma: heaven_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A25970
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Thoughts well employ'd, or, The duty of self-observation in the care and regulation of life according to the royal pattern by Edm. Arwaker, Rector of Drumglass in Ireland.
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Arwaker, Edmund.
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1695
(1695)
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Wing A3904; ESTC R38631
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68,324
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168
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a tenderness of our Reputation and a regard to that Credit and Esteem which we have acquired or at least aspire to in the World or if not that yet a dread and apprehension of the cognizance and severity of the Laws will restrain us from the guilt of Actual Theft Adultery or Murder lest we come within the reach of the Sword of Justice and betray our selves to such rigors as will add corporal punishment to reproach and force the blood out of our backs as well as bring it into our faces But it is a noble and more exalted Principle which shall enable a man to sit in judgment on himself severely to observe his own failings remark and criticise upon his imperfections and pass an impartial condemnatory Sentence upon the pride and haughtiness of his own heart and the lewd dispositions of his Soul to vicious and unbecoming practices which are liable to no scrutiny but that of his own Conscience and the all-seeing Eye of Heaven We know the Pharisee could boast even at the Altar and to God's very face that his life was free from the notorious blots and scandals that stained the conversation of other men and made them black and infamous and while he pleas'd himself with the thoughts of his being no Extortioner or Adulterer he overlooked the Pride and Arrogance that sate enthron'd within his Soul and had swoln him to that excess of Vanity and made him forget that he was endeavouring to recommend himself to Heaven by the same methods by which the Angels lost its favour and that the more he exalted his own perfections the more he should be abased and the nearer he justled up to the Altar God would behold him the farther of But the true Candidate of Heaven the Soul that desires to be espoused to its Saviour will not take so much care or be so solicitous for garments of Needle-work and Embroidery as to appear to him all glorious within will be busier to cleanse and purifie the heart than to wash the hands and platter and no more indulge Spiritual than carnal vices and corruptions For such a one knows that though the one may make him more infamous among men the other will render him as criminal and as hateful in the sight of God who does not see as Man sees but tries the very heart and reins and through the Varnish of a painted Sepulchre discerns the rottenness within and hates the Impostor that would abuse him with a specious outside only and obtrude the Devil upon him in the resemblance of an Angel of light And for this reason it was our Saviour told his Disciples that their righteousness must exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees if they would not fall short of Heaven A Second evidence of the Righteousness of our ways will be our care to destroy sin even in its very conception or if lust hath already conceived to prevent as much as we can its bringing forth We shall think our selves disloyal and unjust to God as well as injurious and cruel to our Souls if we favour the growth and do not oppose the increase of the greatest enemy to both We shall not divide our service between God and Mammon nor give up our selves to Heaven like Naaman with reserves Nor shall we like Saul disobey his positive commands under a pretence of Sacrificing to him when indeed it is to our lusts Should Sin assume Lot's plea for Zoar in its own excuse and urge its littleness we shall be ready to remember that the Majesty against whom it is committed is great and so will its punishment be 〈◊〉 that the cloud whose first appearance was no bigger than a hand breadth before time had much encreased its age was so enlarged that it became a Vizard on the face of Heaven And the Devil who tempted the Woman in the less terrible resemblance of a Serpent proves a Dragon in the Revelation ready to devour her off-spring Nor need we have recourse to any thing but our own reading and experience to inform us what consuming fires are kindled from little sparks or how a whole lump of dough is soured and tainted by a piece of Leaven And therefore we shall call with the Spouse to take the little Foxes that spoil the Vines Cant. 2.15 knowing how great the danger is of indulging petty sins for a child received into a house may open the door to those that are adult in villany as well as years and while we are tender of giving a repulse to sin in its first address we do not consider by what insensible approaches it may gain upon us and engage us beyond the power of giving it a Divorce Nor do we know when once our feet begin to slip and we are going down the precipice with what an impetuous motion we shall fall and how unable we shall be to stop till we are at the bottom and from a leisurely gradation in sin at first be hurried on in time to commit all impiety with greediness When the man of God told Hazael with tears what evil he would do to Israel he replyed Is thy Servant a Dog that he should do this great thing and then abhorr'd the thought of what soon after he had no reluctancy to act 2 King 8.13 And there have been many whose chaste ears would be grated with the sound of an immodest word and yet afterwards have not only listned to but took delight in such discourses and fallen into a practice of debauchery till they have vyed Lewdness with the most common Prostitute Now would such but think upon their ways look a while into themselves and consider what an alteration they find there they would be astonished to discover from what modest and virtuous beginnings they have arrived at such an extream of Impudence Of this we have a deplorable Instance in King David had he strenuously opposed this Sin in its infant weakness when it betray'd it self only in a wanton glance on naked Bathsheba he had not proceeded to defile Vriah's Bed nor his own Soul by an adulterous Act he had not stained his hands nor made his Conscience foul with the guilt of blood he had not entailed a Sword upon his family to succeeding generations nor been the unhappy example to caution and inform the world how far Sin will improve its conquests and our yielding to Satan's first temptations give him a power over us to lead us Captive at his will If then we would preserve our liberty and maintain our Innocence we must keep us far from an evil matter and shun not only the occasions but the very appearances of Evil. But if we cannot keep at so desired a distance from sin as to be exempt from a sense of its first motions in us yet let us believe our selves obliged as well to dash in pieces the Children of Edom as to incounter with the mighty Sons of Anack A third Character of the Righteousness of our ways will be that
shall be sentenced to depart into everlasting Fire shall not the Sorrows of our Hearts be enlarged as the Rich-man's were in Hell to see Lazarus comforted while he was tormented and happy in Abraham's Bosom while he was miserable in the Flames Then we shall condemn and bewail our Folly and Negligence that we did not think upon our Ways nor see them in the valley of Tears but went on in the way of Sinners which though it was made plain with Stones had the Pit of Hell at the end thereof When we hear the Hymns and Allelujahs the Praises and Acclamations of Angels and Saints and Spirits of just Men made perfect with which Heaven resounds we shall lament and howl as loud as they rejoyce and add Horrour to the Regions of Darkness by our Yellings When we consider what a Glorious Liberty what a Harmonious Quiet what a Full Felicity the Souls of the Blest enjoy and that it was once within our Option and might have been our Portion too when we see what great Things the Lord hath done for them who thought upon their ways who set them up Way-marks and set their Hearts toward the high-way to Heaven And with what Rigours he pursues those who did not hearken to that voyce which cry'd to them stand in awe and sin not commune with your own hearts Ask for the old way where is the good way and walk therein and you shall find rest for your Souls We shall then be exceeding sorry that we did not walk therein that we did not hearken to our God Secondly When we call to remembrance for what it was that we forfeited our Interest in Heaven we shall repent that we did not think upon our imprudent Courses to turn our feet from every evil way When we perceive with what infinite Treasures we have parted how we have sold an Inheritance unspeakably great and yet have nothing in our hands to shew Will not our Affliction be suited to our Loss The happy State of our first Parents is a Topick that affords us Arguments to condemn their Folly in forfeiting their Interests that being great in the Command of Eden and greater in their Innocence so that they were as free from the Inclination to as the Commission of an Ill their Minds like their Dwelling did abound with variety of Delight and wanted nothing to render their Joys equal to those of Paradise yet they would for the inconsiderable satisfaction of Tasting the Fruit of one forbidden Tree not only divest themselves of the Priviledge they enjoyed of using whatever else was in the Garden but throw themselves out of that happy Seat and the Favour of their God And yet we daily split upon the same Rock for want of thinking on our Ways But when like them we see our Nakedness when we find the specious appearances of Sin prove a loathsom Deformity to affright us when we see our Riches have found their Wings our Pleasures disappear our Honours drop away when we find that we have made Esau's Bargain and sold our Birth-right for a morsel of Meat and shall like him find no place for Repentance though we seek it carefully with Tears Then we shall nauseate and abhor the Vanities that seduced and alienated our Affections from the Ioys above and made us mispend our time and wander out of our way in pursuing Shadows when we should have been employed in searching for the Substance When we consider that we have parted with the Pearl of price for Trifles and with a Kingdom and that of Glory too for a Dungeon shall we not take up the Prophet's Wish That our Heads were Waters and our Eyes so well supplied with Tears that we might weep Day and Night for the Ruine of our Souls But alas we need not wish what will be a main part of our punishment When we are condemn'd to the Regions of Misery and Horrour what showry Eyes and mournful Looks shall we cast back upon the amiable Dwellings of the Lord of Hosts the glorious Mansions of the Righteous which we never would believe were worth our seeking till they were past our finding and then perceived too late they were as much above our Admiration as our Reach Had we divested our selves of that Light with which the Saints are clothed for Nakedness or a suit of Fig-leaves only even that had been a matchless Folly an unparallel'd Madness but to be clothed with Shame and Confusion and vested with scorching Flames besides to part with all the Joys of Heaven for Stripes which like Ioseph's Irons will enter into our Souls and whose Smart will continue to Eternity To assign a Name to this or to express it fully is above the reach of Invention and beyond the power of Eloquence But thirdly When to the Thoughts of our lost Happiness we shall add the dismal consideration that it can never be recovered when we see no prospect of a Restoration no offer of any terms for Heaven but find our selves nay our very Hopes shut out by the interposition of an unpassâ—ble Gulf when we feel our Condition so extreamly miserable that 't is impossâ—ble to encrease our Sufferings and yet as impossible to lessen them This will make us roar for the very disquiet of our Souls The sense of this will corrode our Vitals and prove the never-dying Worm to gnaw and torture us eternally Could we amidst these Terrors find any ground to hope in the day of evil or foresee any likelihood of an end to these our Labours though never so remote this would alleviate the pain and misery of them Or were we condemned to any Flames but those that are unquenchable confin'd to any Prison but a Hell whence there is no redemption if our Access to Heaven was prohibited by any other Intrenchments than that of Impossibility or could we be freed from the worst of all the Fiends that torture us Despair This would prove a Relaxation of our Sufferings and give us ease amidst our Torments would make us endure Hell-fire with Scevola's Resolution and bear its Violence with an Apathy above the Precepts of the Stoicks But Damnation hath no such kind allay to mitigate its Rigour and render it less formidable there is no such comfortable glimpse of Light arises in the Regions of eternal Darkness When we are once consigned to this wretched state there will be no deliverance from it though we die daily in it we shall never die so happily as to come to a period of our Sufferings and what expectation can we cherish of an end of other things where even Death it self becomes immortal And then fourthly If such infinite Misery can receive an addition it will be one that we shall live unpitied in it Heaven that onely can relieve us will be deaf to all our Cries and that Compassion that doth never fail will not however extend it self to us There will be no sounding of God's Bowels or of his Mercies towards us And to which of the Saints