Selected quad for the lemma: heaven_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
heaven_n	lord_n	praise_v	psalm_n	3,979	5	9.4750	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A57579	Practical discourses on sickness & recovery in several sermons, as they were lately preached in a congregation in London / by Timothy Rogers, M.A. ; after his recovery from a sickness of near two years continuance.	Rogers, Timothy, 1658-1728.; Woodford, Samuel, 1636-1700.	1691 (1691)	Wing R1852; ESTC R21490	114,528	312

himself who in the night that he was betrayed was providing a Feast of Comfort for his poor Followers Fourthly T is very delightful to God when his Servants after the receipt of Mercies joyn their praises together If we had no experiences of his Goodness to us yet so excellent are the Perfections of his Nature that we ought even then to praise him much more when he is so kind to us who have deserved nothing He is pleased with with that homage which we give him by our Prayers and our hearing of the Word and when two or three are gathered together he is there It will also please him to see our Hearts and our Mouths full of Thanks for to this very purpose he gives his Blessings to us and it is grateful to him to see that they are not lost upon us As it is pleasant to an Husband-man to see a seasonable Harvest and that his Labour and Pains have not been in vain When there is a Consort of Musick there is the greatest Harmony and when a whole Assembly of sincere Christians joyn their Voices and their Hearts together with what a delightful sound do they go up before the Throne of God For as one observes the blessing and acceptance that Religion receives from the Divine Majesty is much greater for the publickness of it even in this sense two are better than one for they have a good reward for their labour In this sense their complicated services are more forcible their threefold Cord is not easily broken Not that God is prevailed upon to any change in himself or his Government by the services of his Creatures though in a multitude but he is pleased to found the occasions and opportunities of his most bountiful recompences in the drawing near of their greater numbers For as when God was pleased to communicate himself more freely he did it to a multitude of Creatures so he delights in receiving back the glory of having thus communicated himself from a multitude also and as there is more of himself in more of his Creatures whether of several sorts or of the same so there is more of his blessing in their approaches to him Whole Duty of Nations p. 9. What does the Great God obtain by all his Acts of Bounty to his Creatures but a Revenue of praise what other end does he design in all his Mercies therefore we should be most willing to pay him this easie Tribute Oh how pleasant is it to come into the house of God with the voice of joy and praise and with a multitude that keep holy day Psal. 42. 4. Private prayer does not honour him so much as publick this therefore as the now mentioned person expresses it it was the Policy of Nineveh's natural Religion to unite their Force in Humiliation Fasting and Prayer and to take advantage of joyning the mute desires of the Beasts that have a voice in the Ears of God Abraham's Servant made the Camels kneel down while he prayed to God And it was as he further observes Davids Art to gather up all the Praises even of the lowest of the Creatures that could so meanly give them and inspiring them with his own Reason made them as it were to follow his Harp and to unite in his own Halleluiahs Thus he served himself of them that making by them a greater Present of glory to God he might receive the greater Blessing from him We ought to be as eloquent in the numbring of our Mercies as we are in the compution of our Sorrows and our Praises ought to be as loud or rather louder than our Groans And yet alass how rare a thing is this mutual praise And it may be as a sign of it that so many desire Funeral Sermons to be preached for their departed Friends and few desire any Sermons for their own Recovery from Sickness and Death or for their Friends upon the like occasions 'T is strange that we should be more ready to mourn than to rejoyce and that our Sorrows should be more passionate and fluent than our joys that we are more enclined to bewail our Losses than to be glad for our Mercies especially when one has the advantage of pleasure on its side which the other has not we always meet and mingle our Tears together when our Friends are to be laid into the Grave and we should as solemnly meet when any of our Friends have been nigh unto Death and have escaped it that for so great a Mercy we may return to God our Common Praise Fifthly This mutual praising of God is a resemblance of Heaven In doing this we are beginning that blessed Work which we hope to be employed in for ever We poor Sinners here below are then something like to those Holy Souls that are above Will it not be a great part of Heaven to admire and adore and praise God for all his Deliverances granted to us to his Church and our fellow Saints There will be a common Joy and an Union of Praises for all his Mercies from the beginning to the conclusion of the World And then all the Myriads of his Elect being safely gathered into his own Kingdom shall keep a Thanksgiving-day and that Day shall be for ever It is to that pleasant and chearful Country that we at length hope to go Let us use our selves now to the Language of the Place and learn betimes to Sing the Songs of Sion Let us raise our Voices as high as ever we can in the Praises of our God and then knowing how unsuitable our highest Elevations are to his Excellent and Glorious Majesty let us long to joyn with Glorified Spirits in their louder and sweeter Hymns and being sensible of our own Weakness we may call to the blessed Angels to all Beings that are in Heaven or on the Earth in the Air or in the Seas to help us to praise the Lord. As we have the Example of David in sevèral Psalms and in the 103. 20 21 22. Bless the Lord ye his Angels that excel in strength that do his Commandments hearkening unto the voice of his word Bless ye the Lord all ye his Hosts ye Ministers of his that do his pleasure Bless the Lord all his Works in all places of his Dominions bless the Lord O my Soul The Conclusion of the Whole AND now to finish what I design to say from these Words Having been delivered from a long and severe Sickness I would most earnestly beg of you all to help me to praise the Lord for his great Goodness and Mercy to me Long I was upon the very brink of the Grave and nothing in this World could ease my Pain or mitigate my Sorrows God himself hath wrought Salvation for me And 't is for your sakes as well as mine own that you may see an instance of his mighty Power and Goodness who as he hath delivered me can also deliver you when you come to Straits and Difficulties I heartily wish that seeing my

brings them to Glory even by such unlikely wayes He will have them to be train'd up with difficulties to strive and to wrestle with them that so their Fervour may shame the coldness and indifference of others who take no pains for their Salvation He will have them to go laden under the sense of their Corruptions that so finding their daily need of Christ they may still remember him who is their help and finding so much guilt in themselves they may apply themselves to his unspotted Righteousness for Justification and to his Word and Spirit for new degrees of Holiness that they may have experience of his Goodness and he of their Obedience and Love that they may know the Loving-kindness the Care and the Wisdom of that God that Pilots their Ship when it is covered with waves and stormes for stormes are the Triumph of his Art and he steers even the sinking Vessel to the Port. Secondly By being brought from the Grave a Man may be enabled to do much good to himself as well as to others that so he may at last with joy give an account of his Stewardship that he may increase his own reward and by Gods Grace make his Crown of Happiness more sparkling and more full of weighty Glory As no man ought to be satisfied with the lowest degrees of grace so every one may and ought by an Innocent Ambition and a multitude of good Works to indeavour to sit near to the Throne and not only to save himself but to carry others with him to heaven that may be his Joy and his Crown in that Day Reason 6. and Lastly There are several circumstances that may enlarge the kindness of being brought from the Grave and which ought to render us more thankfull for it Those that are good may have their iniquities visited with stripes and it cannot but be a terrible thing to fear that they shall be snatcht away whilest they are punisht with the rods which their own Sins have made As the Prophet was devoured by a Lion for his Disobedience to the command of God 1 King 13. 21. It is a great Mercy to live to see the good of his Chosen and it is a punishment to be taken away just when some great deliverance is coming to the Church It was a thing which Moses greatly desired to see the Promised Land and to go thither to see it indeed was granted him but to enjoy it was denied him because of the provocation at the Rock It is a Misery to see Plenty for others and not to taste thereof our selves like that Lord of Samaria who perished for his unbelief 2 King 7. 2. 17. 18. It is a great Mercy to be delivered after we have been afflicted and ready to dye when the terrors of God have amazed us and his fierce wrath has gone over us Psal. 88. 15. How sad a thing is it to dye under a sense of the weight of sin and to have no prospect of a Pardon to feel as it were the very scorching flames of Hell and to have no hope that these will ever be cool'd or remov'd but rather grow more hot and scorching to have no Comfort from Heaven or Earth no rest for the Body no composure for the Soul to be sinking and to have nothing to lay hold upon to stand shivering on the brink of destruction and to see no way of escape to be compassed in with sin behind and with Miseries before to be in darkness and to see no light not to know where our Lot will be fixt not to know but that it may be among the damned To be near to the Judgment Seat of Christ and to be afraid of appearing there This is a state in which no man would chuse to dye for it is inexpressably terrible and it is a most wonderful mercy to be delivered from a Case so sad as this For how uncomfortable is it to a mans self to be roaring in the disquietness of his soul not to be able to live because of the insupportableness of his Pain nor to dare to dye because of the greatness of his sins that are always before him and that are like to lye down with him in the dust How uncomfortable is it to the Relations and Friends of the sick and dying that see him strugling and crying under pains which tear him to pieces How uncomfortable is it to them to hear his doleful Expressions about his Eternal state to see the anguish of his soul and the arrows of the Almighty sticking in it which makes him a terror to himself and to those that are round about him How woful a thing is this and if a man get to Heaven at last by the mighty Grace of God yet it is a thing very undesireable to go thither as by the very gates of Hell for a man to have his days shortned and his strength weakned in the way Psal 102. 23. and to have his Sun go down at noon looks like the displeasure of God and no man would dye by the frown of God A man cannot be blamed who is loth to dye till he save some Hope that it shall go well with him for ever 'T is a sore Evil to be thrown aside as a broken vessel in which there is no pleasure Jer. 22. 28. It is a great mercy to be kept from raging violent distempers and to be deliver'd from such after we have long groaned under them It is a great Mercy to have such a sickness as will allow us time to exhort and direct and counsel others and 't is very desireable that we may by a Christian Carriage set our Seal to Religion and shew its Power and Reality 'T is a most glorious thing to dye in the Lord i. e. as one Paraphrases it in the Spirit of our Lord Jesus Christ in the Spirit of Faith and Love in a Spirit of Elevation towards God which makes the dying believer to go towards Heaven with all his force and like his Saviour commit his soul with joy into the hands of his heavenly Father Du Bosc Sermons p. 354. We ought to pray that we may not be like the wicked in our death and that we may be found of our Lord in peace and that we may say with old Simeon when after long expectation he saw the Messiah and embraced him in his arms Lord now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace according to thy word for mine eyes have seen thy salvation Luk. 2. 29 30. This we may beg of God for it is not only for our happiness but for his Glory when we can trust him tho' we go into a state which he has promis'd indeed but which we never saw What a glorious thing is it when we are drawing near to the end of Life to be able to wait and not only to wait but to long not only to believe and hope but to rejoyce and triumph in the thought of seeing God To give to those that