Selected quad for the lemma: nature_n
Text snippets containing the quad
|
ID |
Title |
Author |
Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) |
STC |
Words |
Pages |
|
A96181
|
A prospect of eternity or Mans everlasting condition opened and applyed. By John Wells Master of Arts, sometimes Fellow of St. Johns Colledge in Oxford, and now Pastour of Olaves Jewry LONDON.
|
Wells, John, 1623-1676.
|
1654
(1654)
|
Wing W1294; Thomason E1476_3; ESTC R209527
|
171,333
|
437
|
minded Psal 49. 14. his everlasting condition nor laid up for it he fals into the arrests of death But the Saints whose word all his life time hath been eternity and who hath been in all his conversation pronouncing this shibboleth he fals into the embraces of it he may be said as Christ was Joh. 10. 15. To lay Morte tabernas nostras pulsante non terremur down his life to lay down his head upon the cushion of the grave and sweetly to sleep being rockt to it by death Now what sweetens and facilitates death to a believer only he hath studied eternity and hath got the scarlet thread in the window eternity Josh 2. 18. is assured to them The Saint whose heart is landed at the staires of eternity before when he comes to die he doth but as the Sun breake thorough a cloud to shine both gloriously and eternally and indeed the body of a Saint is but the darke cloud the curtain drawn before his shining soul Rally therefore and muster up all your thoughts and let them meet with eternity this is the way to perfume the winding sheet to strow flowers on the coffin and to make death it self smile and become a pleasing presage to a more pleasing crown The thoughts of eternity would make death more welcome I long saith the Saint whose heart before is in heaven to come to the stage of eternity he Phil. 3. 20. is in a longing fit impatient as the longing woman and smiling with joy Rev. 22. 20. and triumph on approaching death cries welcome that parting blow that brings me into the everlasting embraces of my dear Redeemer CHAP. XVII Vse of Exhortation Branch 2 The next branch of the Use shall be That we would make sure of Eternity THere are two great ends Why the wombe delivered us into the world the one is to adore an eternall being the other to obtaine eternall life and where the first is rightly performed the second is infallibly accomplished It was a good question the young man proposed What shall I do to inherit eternall life Luk. 10. 25. And indeed the answering of this question cals for all our cares feares troubles time duties industry and what ever fals within the verge of our highest and most extended capacities Things that are most precious we most secure and expose to them to the least hazard our jewels are lockt up in our cabinets our gold seald up in the coffer Now the excellency of man is his soul the excellency of the soul is life and the excellency of life is eternity and with what ambitions should we graspe the diademe of a blessed eternity What artifices did Si peccandum est pro corona est peccandum Absalon use to secure his Fathers throne to himself he lies with his Fathers Concubines in the sight of the people 2 Sam. 16. 22. a most odious practise What 2 Sam. 13. 9. wayes did Ammon use to secure his beauteous Sister for his lustfull embraces he bolted out all that might interrupt his unnaturall incest What Luk. 12. 20 21. thoughts did the Rich man take to secure his plenties the overflowing abundance of his fruites he erects new barnes and leaves not his Corn either a prey for the birds or a morsell for the Gleaners And the Barbarous Turke he kils all his younger Brethren and sacrifices them to his bloudy ambition that he might secure the Crown to himself And shall we be Omnia ei salva sunt cui salva est aeternitas lesse solicitous in our fears cares our holy policies and sacred stratagems to secure etetnity that everlasting blessednesse which is the supreme gift of God the reward of Saints the honour of Angels the rich provisions of heaven and the totall of all Christs merits and bloudy passion How canst thou dear Christian be satisfied or thy heat chilled and ambitions surfeted till thou hast obtained the reversion of a glorious eternity and God hath entailed on thee a crown of 2 Pet. 1. 10. immortality Review with thy selfe the bowels of Gods pity the voice of Christs bloud the desperatenesse and activenesse of Satans malice the shortnesse and uncertainty of thy own life the accusations of thy guilt Nay the very present glory of the triumphant Saints all call upon thee to make sure of eternity Canst thou sleep on the main mast with the dreadfull Ocean under thee or take up thy lodgings in the enemies field What doest thou else when thou hast nothing to shew for eternity Consider thy danger and disadvantagein this Those who can clear up no propriety in a blessed eternity may be considered under a double notion I. As sinners and with what a multitude of dangers is every Christlesse soul encompassed He is but as a wanderer in the wildernesse who may be a prey for every beast he is out of all protection God may suffer 1. Satan to destroy him had not Job been a righteous man his disease Job 2. 4. probably had been his death and Satan had not only been his tormentour The danger that every wicked man is in but his executioner every wicked man is Satans prisoner and who knowes how soon he may be his prey 2. God may suffer the Creature to destroy him as the Lyon did the Prophet 1 King 13. 24. the Bears the children and the 2 King 2. 24. wormes King Herod in all his magnificent Act. 12. 23. pompe Every creature is up in armes against a wicked man and wants only the word of commission to fall on and destroy him Gods wrath and his wretchlesnesse can turne the persumes of the world into ponyards as the Pope who died with joy 3. God may suffer him to destroy himself as Judas did and to become his own assasinate It is only the untired boundlesse patience and infinite long-suffering of God that keeps the wicked mans knife from his own throat Every sinner did not Gods mercy throw a chaine over him he would make his grave in his own wounds he would with Saul fall on 1 Sam. 31. 4. his own sword or like the Jaylour Act. 26. 27. be ready to fall a sacrifice to his own bloudy distemper For God withdrawing his providentiall care from a sinner what should hinder but that nature it self should become a stepmother 4. God himself may destroy a wicked man by an immediate execution as he did Aarons two sons Lev. 10. 2. these unhappy brethren who were brethren not only in nature but in iniquity and misery who as they came from the same wombe so they found the same death I say these brethren offered up strange fire but once but a sinner is continually offering the strange fire of his lusts and therefore God himself may breake him in pieces as a Potters vessell 5. And lastly God may suffer good men to destroy him As Phinehas who quenched the lust of that adulterous couple
nihil addi potest Arist and cast into a nobler form fals short of perfection Now the Saints in glory enjoy a double perfection 1. A perfection in their persons They are perfect in all purity holinesse and unspotted transcendency their beings are refulgent with all rich and rare enoblements in all excellent capacities their natures shall shine with the diamonds of perfection as I may so say And 2. A perfection of inheritance the fulnesse of possession and therefore 2 Tim. 4. 8. heaven is alwayes represented by the Luk. 12. 32. most sublime enjoyments A Crown Joh. 3. 16. a Kingdome life a throne Now perfection Rev. 3. 21. that is the bound and bank to As they said of Cyrus Satia te sanguine Cyre So I may say Satia te gloria Sancte limit all expectation Our desires cannot sail beyond the pillar of perfection Nor fly above an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the top the firmament confines the eye of the body and heaven the ambition of the soul And thirdly There can be no further hopes in the blesseds eternity because the Saints in eternity enjoy God immediately which is Summum bonum in summo gradu the chiefest good in the highest degree God is comprehensively all inconceivable good As the Sun containes more light gradu eminentiori in a more eminent degree and consideration then all the candles in the world when lighted The beatificall vision is not all happinesse epitomized but enlarged in the most incomprehensible latitudes And when the Saints shall come to enjoy a free and full sight of God without the interposure of cloud or curtain then shall they say as the Queen of Sheba concerning Solomons glory 1 King 10. 7. Behold the one halfe was not told me All the expectations of the glorified ones shall be swallowed up in inexpressible admirations How sweet those glorious intuitions shall be that the Saints shall enjoy in heaven our most vast conceptions are not able to comprehend God being essentially whatever deserves the name of good And I need not by way of amplification of the Argument make mention of that glory that the humane nature of Christ shall shine in and how pleasing that pretious sight will be to the redeemed ones when arrived at the heavenly countrey And therefore to look for further happinesse is a solecisme in a blessed eternity And as eternity shall confine the hopes of the Saints so it shall bury all expectations of the sinner Hell shall be the grave of all the reprobates hopes Here indeed all hope was not smoothered and evaporated they had a reconcileable God Gods bowels 2 Cor. 5. 19. were not totally restrained but repentance might have enlarged them the treasury-door of mercy and grace was not lockt up but faith could have opened it and the oyle of grace might have procured the oyle of gladnesse and there was still a blanck in the lease for the sinners name to be put in upon conversion to God Mat. 25. 1. But in the eternity of the damned every door of hope is shut and lockt up and all expectation of change or compassion shall be silenced All longing for or looking after either 1. A totall extinction of the remembrance of them that ever there were such caytiffes in the World might cease Or 2. A releasment from their torturing extremities Or 3. An advancement to happinesse and change of the wrack into a throne I say all these hopes shall cease and evaporate in the damneds eternity Nay further the reprobates carnall hopes which was their pleurisie here and with which they were so elevated and rejoyced their hopes of pleasure and profit All their sinfull hopes that cursed tympany they did swell with here their hopes to satisfie their lusts the titillation of their sinfull hearts nay all their formall hopes that Christ would not blast a professed Christian shall all die and fade in their eternity And the damned shall be overwhelmed with cursed desperation as full of torment as void of comfort and hope for evermore the wretched despaire of Judas being the monster his exulcerate conscience brought forth was but a sad embleme of the Reprobates condition in eternity when they shall lie in an hopelesse helplesse endlesse easelesse condition of extremity to all everlasting And it must be so Because the Reprobate never had any true hope or rationall expectation in this life Indeed happily they were inflated with presumption here and their hearts were deluded into a vain dream of future glory but their soules were never winged with true hope it may be with the blaze of hope but not with the grace of hope They never were raised with the Heb. 11. 1. expectation of faith and the reason is because they never had any interesse in Christ which is objective objectively the summe of all true hopes Nor Col. 1. 27. was their hope fastned to or fixed upon a promise for they had no title to a Gospell-promise Indeed all the hopes and expectations of a sinner here they are but the ebullitions of fancy an anchor in the water both uselesse and ridiculous And if their hopes were but counterfeit coyne and alchymie expectation here what shall their hopes be in miserable eternity when they shall be out of sight of the land of promise And what should be a ground to the damned of hope 1. The greatnesse of their torment this is but commensurate to regular justice their inexpressible miseries are but the execution of Gods justice which is essentiall to the divine nature and which after this life is inexorable the very miseries of the reprobate shall be the glory of Gods righteous severity and the very flames of hell as I may say shall cast a light on divine justice Gods compassions in eternity are seal'd up to reprobate ones Or 2. Shall the duration of their torments fill the reprobate with hope Alas every sin they have committed deserves eternall calamity and that propter infinitam Majestatem offensam because of an infinite Majesty offended For sin being infinite ratione objecti in reference to the object the person incensed and because no punishment can be adequate to the deserving of sin in the greatnesse of it For how can a finite creature undergoe an infinite wrath what is abated in greatnesse shall be made up in the duration of the punishment So that the duration of misery shall be no argument to suggest the least hopes to the damned for eternall pain shall be proportionate to divine justice So that hope the last comforter of a wicked man shall leave him in eternity and everlasting despaire shall be as an ever corroding worme to him The Prophet Daniel speakes of an Angell coming down from heaven and saying Hew the tree down and destroy it cut off Dan. 4. 23. her boughs shake off her leaves and scatter her fruit abroad yet leave the stumpe of the roots thereof in the earth Upon which words Ambrose descants elegantly