Selected quad for the lemma: heaven_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
heaven_n	exceed_v	righteousness_n	scribe_n	2,764	5	11.0489	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A47301	The measures of Christian obedience, or, A discourse shewing what obedience is indispensably necessary to a regenerate state, and what defects are consistent with it, for the promotion of piety, and the peace of troubled consciences by John Kettlewell ...	Kettlewell, John, 1653-1695.	1681 (1681)	Wing K372; ESTC R18916	498,267	755

expresser promises yet were many things still for the hardness of their hearts indulged to them for which without repentance we shall smart most severely if we are guilty of them A man might be innocent in the charge made against him by the Law of Moses although he should return ill for ill or retaliate injuries and curse and pray against his enemies And this their most righteous persons and greatest Prophets even David himself who was the man after Gods own heart have done frequently They had no express Law threatning death to bare sensuality and worldliness but the very constitution of their Law which consisted mainly if not wholly in temporal promises seemed much to encourage it They were in no danger of being damned by Moses for not bearing with the infirmities and weaknesses of their wives since their Law it self allowed them to put them away when they did not please them yea and even whilst they continued with them to marry and take others to them For all which with others that might be mentioned although we Christians are liable to damnation yet they were not For they will be judged at the last Day according to their obedience to their own Laws not to ours As many as have sinned in the Law of Moses says the Apostle shall be judged by that Law Rom. 2.12 But as for us Christians we must walk by a more perfect Rule and live up to a nobler pitch than ordinarily either Jew or Gentile did or at the last day we shall be eternally condemned For take even those Sects among the Jews which in the judgment of S t Paul are the strictest of any in their Religion viz. the Scribes and Pharisees and yet as our Saviour himself has peremptorily and plainly affirmed our obedience must of necessity surpass theirs Except your righteousness exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees you shall in no case enter into the Kingdom of Heaven Matth. 5.20 In the accounts of our Religion we are guilty and punishable when no other Law would take hold of us For by the Gospel of Christ as we have seen we shall be damned not only for Adultery Fornication and Whoredom but also for uncleanness for lasciviousness nay for filthy jests and obscene discourses We are liable to dye non only for drunkenness and revellings for gluttony and surfeiting but also for carnality sensuality and voluptuousness There is enough against us to condemn us although we do not kill our enemy if we hate him or rail at him nay if we refuse to do good to him to speak well of him or to pray for him We are strictly charged not only that we should not lye and slander but moreover that we should not so much as revile or reproach or mock or upbraid or censure or speak evil We are severely threatned not only if we offer violence to our Neighbour but if we are surly towards him if we are hasty and fierce with him if we are stately uncondescensive or uncourteous to him So far must we be from fighting and blows from seditions and tumults that under the highest penalties we must abstain from clamour and brawling from debate and variance from unquietness yea from pragmaticalness or busying our selves in others mens matters We must keep back from dishonour irreverence and speaking evil of Dignities whilst we submit to them as well as from disobedience and resistance of our lawful Prince in open rebellion To extort depress or circumvent our Brother in any matter is an Article of our Condemnation as well as direct theft and downright robbery To refuse the Cross to scandalize a weak Brother to envy our Neighbours praise and to be vain-glorious arrogant and forward upon all occasions to boast and set off our own are all mortal sins in the accounts of our Law and such as subject the impenitent Actors of them to eternal destruction These and all the other instances set down in the foregoing Catalogues which are too many to mention here let us plainly see the height of that holiness and the perfection of that love which we are to live or dye by Our Law is the most perfect Rule that ever the World heard of and as ever we hope for mercy and bliss ours is to be the most perfect obedience For as all these Laws which under the pains of Death we are bound to obey are most Heavenly and Divine so is that a most perfect obedience which is indispensably required to them Which will more fully appear by clearing up what I am to show in the next Book viz. What degrees and manner of obedience is indispensably required to them BOOK III. What degrees and manner of Obedience is required to all the Laws forementioned CHAP. I. Of Sincerity The CONTENTS The first qualification of an acceptable Obedience that it be sincere Two things implied in sincerity truth or undissembledness and purity or unmixedness of our service Of the first Notion of sincerity as opposite to hypocrisie or doing what God commands out of a real intention and design to serve him Of a two-fold intention actual and express or habitual and implicite Of intention in general and of these two in particular Where an actual intention is necessary and where an habitual is sufficient to our obedience Of the second Notion of sincerity as it notes purity of our service in opposition to mixture and corrupt alloy This Point stated viz. What intention of our good together with Gods service is consistent with an acceptable and sincere Obedience and what destroys it Integrity of our Obedience a sure mark whereby to judge whether it be sincere or no. THE Qualifications which must render our obedience acceptable to Almighty God and make it avail us unto life and pardon at the last Day are comprehended in these two 1. Sincerity 2. Integrity 1. To render our obedience to the forementioned Laws of God acceptable and available to our salvation at the last Day it is necessary that it be sincere Sincerity is a true and undissembled service of God opposite to hypocrisie or a false and feigned pretence of obeying him when in reality we only serve our own selves For we must take notice that God has been so gracious to us in chusing out the instances of our Duty and of his Commands as to adopt for the most part those particular sorts of actions into the matter of our obedience which by the natural Order and Constitution of things make for our own present pleasure reputation or interest And every one of these from the first and fundamental principle of our Natures self-love are sufficient inducement to us to practise them although God had never laid his Commands upon them So that although we have no kindness at all for God nor would do any thing for his sake yet shall we observe many things which he enjoins us not for his pleasure but our own Thus for instance may we be chast and sober

sensible for God and his Laws as it uses to be for the things of the world neither can we reasonably expect it should For our affections are bodily powers and it is their very nature as Philosophy instructs us to be a vehement sensation upon some certain commotions of our bodily spirits so that God and his Laws which are things immaterial and insensible are no proper and proportionate object for them For it is only matter that is able of it self to affect matter and material and sensible objects which can excite our material and sensitive passions and appetites One bodily faculty is no more fit in its own nature to be moved by a spiritual object than another and we may as well expect that our eye should see or our fingers handle it as that our affections should of themselves issue out upon it either to love or desire or delight in it So that considering things barely in themselves I say and the natural agreeableness that is betwixt them which is the ground of their natural operations it is only bodily pain or pleasure that is of it self fit to move our bodily passions But as for spiritual and insensible objects such as God and Virtue are whatever fitness to work upon our affections they may have upon other accounts yet in themselves they have none Virtue and Obedience which are spiritual things may gain upon our wills and understandings which are spiritual and rational faculties but upon our bodily appetites and affections for their own sakes barely they never can But that which makes our affections to issue out upon God and Virtue is not the spiritual nature of God and Virtue themselves but those sensible and bodily things which flow from them and are annexed to them For although God be immaterial in himself yet infinite are those material and bodily delights which we receive from him And although Virtue and Obedience are in their own natures spiritual and insensible yet exceeding great and exceeding many are the sensible goods and pleasures that are annexed to them For Heaven and eternal life which are promised to our obedience will give a full delight not only to our souls and spirits but even to all our senses likewise It will endlesly entertain our eyes with most splendid sights and glorious objects it will feast our ears with melodious songs and most ravishing halelujahs and refresh our whole bodies with a most exalted and everlasting ease and pleasure As on the other side hell and eternal misery which are the established punishment of all sin and disobedience will bring not only upon our spirits but upon our bodies too as full a scene of most exquisite pain and sorrow For so violent and intolerable will the torments of our bodies there be that God could find nothing too high to set them out by but has expressed them by one of the most raging and tormenting things in nature eternal fire Now as for Heaven and Hell they indeed are such things as can of themselves stir our affections and bodily passions with a witness When they are set before us they are able to make us love God and our Duty above all things else and to hate nothing so much as Sin and Disobedience For no Sin can promise us so much bodily delight as is to be injoyed in Heaven neither can Obedience in any possible instance expose us to so great bodily pains as the damn'd for ever undergo in Hell So that when once Heaven and Hell are proposed to our affections and act upon them they will prevail with them more than any thing else can and make nothing so dear to them as the performance of their duty nor any thing so hatefull as the transgression of it And thus may God and Virtue become a fit object even of our bodily passions and a most cogent matter of love desire and joy as on the contrary sin and wickedness are of sorrow slight and hatred They are most powerfull to excite all these affections although not in their bare spiritual selves yet in their bodily dependants and annexed consequences For the greatest bodily joys shall one day crown our Obedience and the acutest bodily torments will certainly befall us if we disobey And these although as yet they are at a distance and future to us are most fit to work upon us and most strongly to affect us For we are Creatures endowed with understanding and have Reason given to us to set future things before us and to think our selves into passions and affections and not to be idle and altogether passive like the brute and unreasonable Creatures and suffer the bare force of outward and present objects to excite them in us So that with our bodily affections we may love and delight in God and Religion which are spiritual things because of their bodily joys and attendancies and sensibly hate and grieve at our sins and disobedience which are moral and immaterial evils because of their sensible pains and punishment And we may love the one and hate the other above all things else because no bodily joys are in any the least comparison so great as those which are laid up for the good in heaven nor any bodily pains so tormenting as those which are prepared for the damn'd in hell And since God has given to our bodily affections even in their own way the greatest motives to love him above all and above all things to hate sin it is the highest Reason that he should require it of us and demand the preeminent service not only of our spirits but also of our lower soul or affections also But although our bodily affections when they are employed about Vice and Virtue which are spiritual things by reason of this supereminence of sensitive rewards in the one and punishments in the other be more strong and powerfull yet are they not as I said so warm and sensible as they use to be when they issue out upon sensible and bodily objects We feel one in our own souls and are affected in them much more violently than we are in the other And that it must needs be so is plain For our affections for worldly things are raised in us by the things themselves and by those impressions which they make upon us and they act to the highest and according to the utmost of their power But our affections for spiritual things are to be raised in us by our own Reason we are to argue and think our selves up to them and our thoughts are free and go no further than we please to suffer them And indeed we find so much difficulty in fixing them upon any thing and there are so many other things obtruding daily upon them to divert and call them off from these that we seldom stay so long upon them or are so well acquainted with them as to be wrought up into a very warm and inflamed affection for them Besides what is the chief Reason of all that Good and Evil