Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A37048
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The assurance of the faithfull, or, The glorious estate of the saints in heaven described and the certainty of their future happiness manifested by reason and Scripture / by M.D.
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D'Assigny, Marius, 1643-1717.
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1670
(1670)
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Wing D282; ESTC R24872
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26,857
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44
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sublimest felicity of Christ and of his Saints signifies as well the plenty as the eternity of their advantages He encompassed about Psal 21.3 We may hereby understand that this Crown of life shall intitle them to innumerable and immortal satisfactions it shall therefore be a true life How wrongfully do we abuse this pleasant Title in bestowing it upon the present unworthy subsistency of the soul and body O miserable estate how vainly do we flatter our beings with this gratefull conceit Can that ever be a life that drags us continually to our Grave that causeth us to die as soon as we begin to breathe and that is joyned unto death by the inward Principles of our existence Can that be a life that carries death in its bosome that makes us sensible of a thousand deaths before we breathe forth the last gasp and that is interrupted by sleep idleness and sickness as by so many deaths which deprive us of the benefits of life by which it is to be esteemed rather than by the continuance of the soul with the body at least in the judgement of a wise Moralist who hearing of a wicked man that was lately expired in a very old age Diu fuit said he sed non diu vixit At this rate how unworthy is our present subsistence of the pleasing and glorious title of life This therefore is promised in my text in opposition to that which we now lead to express the excellency and reality of that Heavenly Life free from those miseries which now do attend us Tolerantia transitoria Corona aeterna pugna modica merces immensa poena levis gloria inestimabilis dabo tibi post morzem pro morte vitae aeternitatem Aug. de civit Dei As if our Saviour should thus compare them together for the encouragement of the faithful What if my interest doth expose you to your enemies cruelty what if you are forced to lay down your lives in the maintenance of my cause what reason have you to prize so inconsiderable a loss when the Exchange brings unto you Returns of a more unspeakable value Grudg not to part with this shadow of life Grieve not to surrender it Refuse it not when I shall require it I have another life in reserve for you whose advantages do as highly excel those of this present being as the Crown doth the other enjoyments of the body a life both glorious and pleasant Erit status omnium bonorum aggregatione perfectus Boetius de consol where nothing shall be wanting to increase your satisfactions but cares trouble and pain which now do cause us to relish the sweetness of our earthly pleasures I will give thee c. This expression presents us with the greatest variety of Excellencies That they may better appear unto you take a view of them and of that supernatural estate of Heaven in these following propositions 1. It shall be an unseparable union of the soul and body for all eternity We shall live no more upon condition to die The fear of death that doth usually torment us more than the sense shall then cease with the cause Men shall never be disquieted with those importune Apprehensions that disturb us as they did Belshazzar in the midst of his carousing Cups and that cause us to be weary of life as that Roman was who being pursued by the cruelty of the Triumvirat offered himself freely to his Enemies pleasure to be delivered by death of the daily fear of dying But then we shall be secure both from the sense and apprehension of death and of all approaching evils and we shall rest in that blessed Tranquility that shall never have cause to dread an alteration there shall be no more divorce made between the soul and body it shall not be possible to separate that most loving couple Gods Wisdom and Power shall joyn them together in such a manner that neither Time nor any Accident shall be able to cause a separation For God upon whose pleasure all his Creatures do depend shall remove all deadly principles and grant us an eternal continuance which shall proceed not onely from his immutable Decree and immediate influence but also from the nature and manner of the union of the two parties that shall no longer be entertained by the assistance of the Creatures and a supply from the Elements but onely by a greater correspondency by more spiritual and more sutable Embraces At present although the soul hath a natural tendency to enliven to move and inform the body between them there is a vast difference that can never consent unto any conjunction without the mediation of the vital spirits extracted from the more subtil and purer substance of the meats refined by their successive concoctions But then our Bodies shall depose and cast off that gross and earthly matter and become more convenient companions of the soul by a nearer assimilation to that Celestial being For this mortal must put on immortality and this corruptible must put on incorruption as St. Paul teaches at large in the 1 Cor. 15 Chap. where he further declares the Mystery of the Resurrection and of the estate of our bodies in the 42 43 44. Verses The body is sown in corruption it is raised in incorruption it is sown in dishonour it is raised in glory it is sown in weakness it is raised in power it is sown a natural body it is raised a spiritual body From hence we may discover the future substance of our Bodies which shall be almost as subtil as those earthly Spirits raised by the ordinary systole and diastole Mercat lib. 1. par 4. clas 4. quast 120. the two motions of the heart which Spirits have the nearest access to the soul of man and by which it is tied to its present residence for this blessed life and its eternity is established upon a resemblance and nearer relation between the soul and body whose beings must be rendred more conformable before they can be secured from a dissolution or from the sense of violence because that onely this conformity is able to render the communion unseparable and to free it by that means from the insults and affronts of all enemies It is therefore most certain that it shall not be in the power of any beings to put us to the sufferance of pain for as the pain which proceeds from the body is derived from an apprehension or a possibility of separation from that being upon which it depends or from that which tends unto it As the pain of the soul doth from a seeming or a real separation from God the fountain of all good or from that which stands us in some manner instead of God It cannot be imagined how they shall be able to suffer who are adorned with the qualities of immortality whose beings are free from alteration and not subject to the least weakness and whose senses shall never receive any contrary impressions nor convey unto the appetite
of the dead Bodies when their lives had been exemplary Plin. by this ceremony the Heathens did express a Reward that was due to a vertuous life and the Honour which a righteous Soul hath purchased to himself What they performed to the Body Christ promiseth to do unto both Soul and Body I will give thee c. You have seen the Picture of this Crown with many Jewels of the greater bulk an infinite number of the lesser sort of Pearls and Flowers we shall never know but by experience And so I proceed to a brief consideration of the Assurance that my Text gives of this Estate unto the faithful I will give thee c. It is no wonder to see Julian the Apostate a professed enemy of Christ a promoter of Gentilism upbraid Christians with the easiness of their belief and scoff at this perswasion That there is a Crown of Glory to reward the Righteous It is no marvel if amongst the Heathens men nursed up with prejudices against the Truth ignorant of the power and goodness of our God should call in question the Articles of the Resurrection of the dead and of the happiness of another life but that in the bosom of Christianity under the most visible expressions of Gods Omnipotency Justice and Mercy there should be some of that dull apprehension as not to understand and of those strange principles as to oppose these sacred and beneficial Truths it may seem at first very strange But see what manner of men are capable of this folly amongst us and you will cease from admiring they are the Disciples of Diagoras and Epicurus rather than of Christ men that are degenerated into beasts by their condescention to bruitish pleasures whose souls are sunk into their senses and have lost both the use and knowledge of the noblest functions they are those that defie Heaven by their crimes whose lives are a scandal and their persons a reproach to the society And do you wonder wherefore they are enemies to these truths that are no friends to the peaceable enjoyment of their lusts that lay before their eyes the punishments that are reserved for them do you wonder if these graceless wits cannot comprehend an estate so far above their capacities and contrary to the present let their natural abilities be never so great such know no other life but that of the senses no other felicity but the carnal nor other delights but of the body 1 Cor. 2.14 and how is it possible that such should have the least apprehension of that supernatural condition that shall raise man and all his faculties to the highest perfection of activity It is a mystery but onely to them whose minds are inlightned by the Spirit of God they also have no clear insight into this estate Therefore Christ in my Text pities the weakness of our capacities and adds to his promise of heavens glories sufficient reasons to convince us of the reality of these Rewards They are contained in these Particulars 1. In the Qualities of the person that promiseth and his engagement 2. In the nature of the Recompence or in that excellent relation between the estate of the faithful on earth and that in Heaven other reasons shall be added drawn from the rules observed in the disposition of the Creatures The person that promiseth this Crown of Life is described in the 8th verse of this Chapter The first and the last which was dead and is alive By which words is intimated his sufficiency for the performance for thereby are signified his Divinity and Humanity his death by which he purchased this celestial Diadem for us his Almighty Power and his Truth that are engaged to see us in the possession of it 1. Christs Death hath given us an unquestionable Right to this Crown and to all its dependencies Before in the estate of Innocency we had a natural claim to Heaven In coelumque redire animas coelumque venire Manil. lib. 4. by reason of our soul that is an immaterial substance conformable to the celestial Beings so that by this law of Nature established in the Creation which assignes unto every thing a final residence where first it had its derivation if man had continued in his integrity he had always continued in that glorious Right and might have called for an entrance into that Seat of Glory and happiness But this natural Priviledge hath been forfeited by Rebellion The soul by sin hath lost together the Title to demand and the Power to deserve an admission and hath seen it self banished out of Heaven by the procurement of its two great adversaries Guilt and Corruption But Christ by his death hath overcome them and all impediments by his Blood he hath satisfied an offended Justice Heb. 9.12 14 and obtained for us an eternal redemption Therefore he is said to be a propitiation for us and our peace Rom. 3.25 Eph. 2. by whom we have an access to the Father And in 10 Heb. 19 20. St. Paul teacheth We have boldness to enter in to the Holiest by the blood of Jesus by a new and living way which he hath consecrated for us through the vail that is to say his flesh But the Infinite merits of our Redeemer have not onely re-established us in our former Right but purchased for us a degree of Perfection and Honour Aug. lib. 12. de Civit. far above that unto which we might have ascended by the strength of Nature in the estate of Innocency according to the judgement of the Fathers and of St. Paul who in Rom. 5. therefore mentions many advantages which we have received by Christ for one lost by Adam and tells us that the blood of the former is far more effectual and beneficial unto us than the transgression of the latter hath been hurtful So that by this means Gods eternal Justice is engaged to bring us to this estate which hath been lawfully purchased for us Heb. 9.24 In order thereunto Christ hath transported our nature and introduced it into the highest heavens that it might take possession in our names of Immortality and Bliss Eph. 2.6 2. But the goodness of our Title to Heaven into which Christ is entred had not been sufficient to secure us the fruition unless he had been enabled with a power sutable to so great an undertaking therefore we are informed That all power is given to him in heaven and in earth That God hath put all things under his feet That he sits at the right hand of God with the Scepter of an Almighty power in his hand This is signified in the former description by being alive from the dead Rom. 1.4 an infallible testimony of the Divinity of our Saviour As many difficulties I confess will strive to hinder our entrance into Heaven as there were nations that did oppose the Israelites passage into the promised Land our selves and Affections are not the least But what cannot he overcome by whom all things