Selected quad for the lemma: saint_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
saint_n	body_n	glorious_a	vile_a	1,567	5	10.2595	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A42350	The Christians labour and reward, or, A sermon, part of which was preached at the funeral of the Right Honourable the Lady Mary Vere, relict of Sir Horace Vere, Baron of Tilbury, on the 10th of January, 1671, at Castle Heviningham in Essex by William Gurnall ...	Gurnall, William, 1617-1679.	1672 (1672)	Wing G2258; ESTC R10932	62,221	185

Heaven Heb. 10.34 Ye have in Heaven a better and an enduring substance and Heaven is a place so excellent as renders it uncapable of an hyperbole not so far above our heads as it is above our thoughts It hath not entred into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them that love him One may as easily draw in all the Air of the world at a breath as express or conceive how great and glorious the Saints reward in Heaven is As it is praemium reconditum pro nobis so it is absconditum à nobis as it is laid up for Believers so it is hid from them We are now the Sons of God but we know not what we shall be The Apostle compares our apprehensions of Heaven here to the low apprehensions which little children have of mens affairs 1 Cor. 13.11 which you know is very low That Saint which knew least of Heaven while on Earth did the first moment he entred into that Glorious place understand more of it than all the Doctors of the Church ever did or could whilst on Earth The Scripture therefore presents it to us as an object of our admiration not comprehension O how great things hath God laid up for them that fear him Psalm 31. When Saint Paul had set forth the Saints Happiness in that Golden chain of Salvation whom he predestinated them he called whom he called them he also justified and whom he justified them he also glorified breaks forth like a man in an Extasie What shall we say to these things expressing thereby his inability to express the greatness and glory of them Yet so much the Saints know of this blessed state that waits for them as will not suffer them to admire any thing they see here below any more than he would the light of a Glow-worm who hath seen the Sun I shall content my self at this time in setting forth the Transcendency of that Happiness the Saints shall receive as their reward in Heaven after their labour is finished on Earth To consider First The Properties of that Blessed state to which they shall be advanced in Heaven Secondly To compare the Saints work and labour on Earth with this their reward in Heaven First of the first The Properties of that Blessed state with which their labour shall be rewarded in Heaven First It is a state purely Spiritual The Saints state on earth is partly Spiritual and partly Animal He ceaseth not to be a Mortal Creature when he becomes a new Creature his life is Spiritual as a Saint but Animal as a mortal Man and so his comforts and refreshings are Animal as well as Spiritual He eats he drinks he sleeps and all these acts of Nature have a pleasure and sweetness proper to their kind which is too low for that glorifyed state to which they shall there be exalted they shall need neither meat nor drink where there is no hunger nor thirst no time there lost in sleep where the Body shall never be weary nor drowsie but be as wakeful as the Soul no need of cloaths where there shall be no shame where the body it self shall out-shine the Sun in its noon-day glory And is it not more desireable to be without these than to need them and have them to have sound legs then to be lame and have crutches who had not rather have been with Moses beholding the face of God in the Mount though all that time without food than Feasting with the Israelites at the bottom of the Hill surely Spiritual Pleasures are more noble and sweet than bodily or else we might say that Sensual men have more joy and pleasure in their life than God hath in his Secondly It is an accumulative state wherein there is an aggregation and concentration of all those things which are requisite to make their happiness compleat it is not Esaus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but Jacobs 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not having much but having all will make man happy Are here all thy Children said Samuel unto Jesse and would not sit down to the Feast till David the only one wanting was come Thus mans Soul cannot sit down to its Feast and be satisfyed till it hath all that goeth to its Perfection the absence of any one Ingredient keeps it in motion looking and longing for it and that is inconsistent with compleat happiness which consists in rest arising from satisfaction Now in Heaven there is a confluence of all that the Saint even then when his faculties will be stretched out and enlarged to their utmost capacity can possibly desire He that overcometh shall inherit all things and I will be his God The glorifyed Saint hath above him the beatifying Vision of God himself and Jesus Christ the purchaser of all his Felicity whom he so loved on Earth and longed to see Within him he shall behold his own Soul made perfect in all its noble Powers satisfyed with the Image of God as full of Holiness as it can hold Upon him he shall see that body which was once so vile and corruptible made Immortal Spiritual and Glorious even like the Glorious body of Christ the exemplar cause after which it is fashioned about him he shall see an innumerable company of Holy Angels and glorifyed Saints his Brethren not one of them envying his happiness but all congratulating him for it and rejoycing in it Beneath him he shall see the Infernal Pit of Hell wherein so many millions of lost souls are to spend a miserable Eternity in unspeakable torment which must needs fill him with ineffable joy to think how near once he himself was falling into it but was happily prevented by the arms of free Grace seasonably interposing and ●atching him In a word he shall have joy without sorrow health without languour rest without labour and life without end Thirdly It is an entire state There is not only all Ingredients of Happiness in Heaven but the Saint enjoyeth all together here on Earth the Christian hath many pretious Promises sweet Refreshings and Comforts but he takes in the sweetness of them successively not all in one draught Indeed the largest Heart of the Holyest Saint on Earth is an house of too little receipt and roomth to entertain so many Guests together No now the Christian entertains himself first in the company of one then of another Promise God comes in a little at this and more at the next Sermon he hears He is as a leaky vessel under a runing cock filling but never full But in Heaven the Saint is filled and that all at once as a vessel thrown into the Sea full as soon as it is in This the Apostles expression seems to import that mortality might be swallowed up of life 2 Cor. 5.4 in a word the Christian here is like some great man that hath a vast estate but he neither seeth all his Land nor receives all his Rents together but in Heaven his whole felicity

ready she was to be dejected from an over deep sence of her unworthiness will find reason to believe that this Man of God gave this Testimony of her to her as a Cordial to revive her Humble Spirit and therefore brings it in with And this to your comfort I add But I am too troublesom I fear to your Honour my hearty Prayers are that as you have begun so you may go on in living your Mothers Holy Life and that then yon may in a good Old Age dye her happy death with much Peace and Honour And that so long as you shall have a Posterity live on Earth your good Mother may never be Dead but may from Generation to Generation have those descending from her that will keep her Name and Pretious Example alive by a due Veneration of the one and Pious imitation of the other Madam I am your Honours most Humble Servant W. GVRNALL Evenham March 13. 1671. ERRATA PAge 51. Line 25. read Bewrayed pag. 87 l. 2O r. on p. 97. l. 22. r. sloughs p. 110 l. 11. r. Sin 1 Cor. 15.58 For as much as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord. WHAT Luther said of Justification by Faith that may we concerning the Resurrection of the dead Articulus est Ecclesiae stantis aut cadentis it is an Article with which the Church standeth or falleth Yet so foul an errour had taken the head of some Members in the Church of Corinth as to deny this grand Truth which S t Paul calls in another place one of the principles of the Doctrine of Christ how say some among you there is no Resurrection of the dead v. 12. And is it not strange that such who professed to believe the Resurrection of Christ should deny their own but much more that any in the Church of Corinth especially in those early days should have such a darkness found upon their minds who stood so near the rising Sun and that while S t Paul himself was yet alive who had planted this Church by this we see though Truth is errours elder yet errour is not much Truths younger Though the Gospel-Church was purest in the Primitive times yet it soon began to corrupt in its Members Not unapt therefore was his saying who compared in this respect the gathering of Churches to the gathering of Apples which when first gathered may appear all fair and sound but then within a while some amongst them begin to speak and others to discover their rottinness No doubt this Church of Corinth and so others gathered by the rest of the Apostles appeared in their Members very sound in the faith and fair in their lives at their first embraceing of the Gospel yet some we see did thus soon discover corruption in both Now to recover the tainted and especially to preserve the sound from this dangerous infection the Apostle sets himself to defend this Article of our Faith well knowing that this was a blow made at the root of Christianity which must needs fall to the ground if this cannot be maintained and he doth it with such invincible arguments that if any Heretick shall now deny it the reason cannot be deficiency in the proof here given but rather a criminous conscience in himself which makes him on his own defence deny a Resurrection for fear of the Judgment which attends it Now the Apostle having done this and withal shewn the glorious array in which the Saints shall arise out of their beds of dust he then v. 55. sings his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or triumphant song over Death and out-braves this King of Terrours to his face that is wont to keep the hearts of poor Mortals in the miserable bondage of a slavish fear O Death where is thy sting O Grave where is thy victory As if he had said Death do now thy worst we fear thee not thou mayest indeed get us into thy hands but thou canst not long keep us in thy power fall we shall into the Grave but we fall to rise again and when we arise out of our Graves then shalt thou Death fall into thy Grave never to arise again Then v. 57. he sings with an holy ravishment of joy the praises of God and Christ our Redeemer by whose atchievement this glorious victory over death is won The sting of Death is Sin and the strength of Sin is the Law but thanks be to God which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ This indeed is our David who cut off the head of this Goliah with his own sword killed Death by falling dead upon it he unstung this Serpent by receiving its sting into his own blesed body He overcame this great Conquerour by submitting himself for a time to be conquered by it when Christ lost his life then his whole Army of Saints won the day Death now to them is no death that which was their punishment as Sinners is now their priviledge as Saints That which stood amongst the threatnings of the Law and was the most formidable of them all hath now changed its place and is got amongst the promises of the Gospel All things are yours or Life or Death 1 Cor. 3.21 So pretious an oyl doth our Apostle extract from this slain Scorpion so sweet an honey comb doth he find in this dead Lyons breast and gives it into the hand of the Saints to go eating of it to their unspeakable joy and comfort but is this victory over Death only matter of joy and comfort unto Believers Oh no Blessed art thou O Land when thy Princes eat for strength and not for drunkenness and blessed art thou O Emanuels Land when thy Saints feed on the priviledges and promises of the Gospel not to make them drunk with Pride nor to lay them asleepin Sloth but to rèfresh them to run the Race set before them and the Joy of the Lord becomes their strength the Apostle therefore goes on to improve and close up his discourse on this subject with an Exhortation to Duty Therefore my beloved brethren be ye stedfast always abounding in the work of the Lord that is be stedfast in the faith of the Gospel and especially in the belief of this particular Article of our Christian faith the Resurrection of the dead and then live up unto this belief walk and work as for God while you live as believing you shall when dead rise again Now my Text hath the nature of a powerful Argument to inforce this Exhortation upon them for as much as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord. In which words these two things are observable First the Nature and Quality of the service or work of God it is a Labour the Apostle changeth the the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. Work which he had used in the Exhortation immediately preceding into this of Labour and that not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies any ordinary labour but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉