Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n
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A43583
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Meetness for heaven promoted in some brief meditations upon Colos. 1. 12. discovering the nature and necessity of habitual and actual meetness for heaven here, in all that hope for heaven hereafter. Designed for a funeral legacy. By O.H. an unworthy minister of the Gospel of Christ.
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Heywood, Oliver, 1629-1702.
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1679
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Wing H1771; ESTC R216793
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64,886
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228
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from Hell to Heaven The Sunshine of Love comes to melt and thaw our frozen hearts that God may set a stamp upon us The loving kindness of God leads to Repentance Rom. 2.4 Oh what an influence will Gods native goodness have upon an ingenuous Spirit As the Sun attracts vapours from the Earth so this Son of Righteousness should and will if our sturdy hearts hinder not raise our hearts Heaven-wards It s pity we should stop here in the streams but that thereby we should be led to the fountain and follow the beams up to the Sun May this long-suffering of the Lord be your salvation 2 Pet. 3.15 May love constrain you to love God May these load-stones so attract you and these grapes of Canaan enamour you that you may never rest till you appear before God in Zion And what are all Gods rods and redoubled strokes for but to awaken you out of security Peat your fingers off from the world Weaken your corruptions and purge and furbish your Souls as vessels for the high shelf of glory For our light affliction which is but for a moment worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory 2 Cor. 4.17 How is that Surely by working the Soul into a fitness for that glory This furnace melts away the dross of our Spirit Sea-tossings clear the liquor of grace this dark night fits for the pleasant morning these pangs prepare us for deliverance these blustering storms fit souls for the peaceable fruits of righteousness being sanctified by the Spirit and improved by Faith Affliction is Gods Physick which makes sick but prepares for sweet health and shall we frustrate Gods ends in this also What are you content with a Heaven here and an Hell hereafter Nay can you be content with an Hell in both worlds Must these be par-boilings for everlasting burnings God forbid Look at the Lords end in these sufferings and let it be yours 5. The time of this life is the only time men have given them to be made meet for Heaven This life is a praeludium to an eternal state It s a Seminary for another world Gal. 6.7 8. Whatsoever a man soweth that shall be also reap He that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption but he that soweth to the spirit shall of the spirit reap life everlasting Seeding is a preparatory to reaping yet men must expect only to reap that kind of grain that 's sown none can think to reap Wheat that sowed Oats and you know there 's more abundunce in the reaping then in the sowing So in this case Hell torments will be more exquisite and eternal then the profit and pleasure of the sinner in sinning Heavens joys will infinitely furmount the Christians labours and sorrows in this world and there is great equity in both for the object sinned against is infinite and satisfaction can never be made by a finite Creature and the grace from whence flows Eternal Life is infinite and will have an endless duration But the point I am upon is to demonstrate the necessity of making meet for Heaven in this world or it will never be done Now or never When the door is shut the gulf fixt and the Soul loosed from the Body and launcht out into that vast ocean of Eternity there 's no returning back to get the oyl of grace or be fiting the Soul for another world Eccl. 9.10 What soever thine hand findeth to do do it with thy might for there is no work nor device nor knowledge nor wisdom in the grave whither thou goest Time lasts not but floats away apace but what is everlasting depends upon it Hic aut accepimus aut amittimus vitam aeternam In this world we either win or lose eternal Life The great weight of Eternity hangs on the small and twittered thread of time Now is the accepted time now is the day of salvation 2 Cor. 6.2 This is our working day our market time surely it becomes us to lay that Foundation well that bears such a Superstructure To cast that Anchor safely that is entrusted with a Vessel so richly laden Oh Sirs sleep now and awake in Eell from whence is no redemption Suppose by misdemeanour you had forfeited your Estate and Life and upon much intercession the King causeth an Hour-glass to be turned and set you a work to do or lesson to learn if you performed it you are pardoned and promoted if not tortured and executed Oh how diligent would you be What pains would you take The case is your own Sirs Heaven and Hell are before you according to your improvement or non-improvement of this hour of life so must you fare dream not of a Purgatory as the Tree falls so it lyes You enter by death into an unchangeable state only the Body at the Resurrection will be joyned to the Soul to be partner with it in weal or woe bliss or bane for ever The state here is tempus operis the time of working hereafter mercedis of reward Oh look before you leap into another world That 's the fifth Reason 6. The Christian must be made meet here for the Inheritance above because he hath abundance of work to do and priviledges to injoy in order to the full possession of this blessed Inheritance above We have many graces to exercise duties to perform corruptions to subdue temptations to resist burdens to bear mercies to improve that will never be managed to purpose without a qualification for managing them And observe it the same disposition is requisite for making a Christian meet for any duty that 's requisite to make him meet for glory the same habitual principle and drawing it forth into lively exercise Not only must the man of God be perfect throughly furnished unto all good works 2 Tim. 3.17 but every Christian that is a vessel unto honour must be sanctified and so meet for his Masters use and prepared unto every good work 2 Tim. 2.21 Alas an unsanctified heart is unfit for spiritual service Solomon saith The legs of the lame are not equal he halts and goes limping so is a parable in the mouth of fools Prov. 26.7 How aukwardly and bunglingly doth he go to work in sacred things just as an unskilful person handles a Lute a Viol or Instrument of Musick or as the men of Ephraim could not frame to pronounce Shibboleth aright Judg. 12.6 There must be a suitableness betwixt the Agent and Acts No carnal heart can do any one good work well materially he may do what is good but not formally as good in a good manner for a good end acceptably to God or profitably to himself For they that are in the flesh cannot please God and without faith its impossible to please God Rom. 8.8 Heb. 11.6 And can we think God will carry them to Heaven that never struck a right stroke or never did one hours work for God that he would accept A graceless sinner is like the fruitless
find of Bishop Juel that long before his sickness he foretold it approaching and in his sickness the precise day of his death he dyed in the fiftieth year of his age The like we have of James Andreas who foretold the year yea hour of his death I shall but add one instance of that Holy Man of God and my dear Friend Mr. Isaac Ambrose his surviving Wife told me of his solemn farewel he gave to his Daughter and some other Friends Yea the very day of his death several Friends from Garstang visited him at Preston with whom he discoursed piously and chearfully telling them he had finisht his work having the night before sent his discourse of Angels to the Press attended them to their Horses returned dyed that Evening in his Parlour where he had shut up himself for Meditation Thus Gods children are made meet for Heaven by dispatching their work on earth CHAP. VI. Meetness for Heaven by being mortified to Sin Time and Earthly Objects and being elevated to Heavenly Objects 4. THE last thing wherein meetness for Heaven doth consist is a being dead or being mortified to all things below and alive and lively to God and things above It is true converting grace deadens the heart to all sublunaries and lifts it up to divine things Yea sometimes the first convictions take off the sinners Spirit more then is meet and quite damps the affections to lawful comforts and makes him think he must do nothing in worldly business but give himself to Reading Praying and Hearing but Gods grace in a little time discovers this to be a Temptation Yet as grace gets the upper hand and the Christian mellows and ripens for glory so he is mortified and gradually transformed and advanced 1. By further victory over his corruptions for as the Christian perfects holiness in the fear of God so he doth by degrees cleanse himself from all filthiness both of Flesh and Spirit 2 Cor. 7.1 Sin and grace being like two buckets at one chain as the one comes up the other goes down Or as the ebbing and flowing of the Sea where it gaineth in one place it loseth in another the more holiness the less sin Now the Christian grows stronger and stronger The inward man is renewed day by day 2 Cor. 4.16 So the body of sin is weakened till at last his fleshly lusts are laid at his feet and spiritual sins pay tribute to the grace of God in his Soul Pride hardness unbelief and security keep the Christian humble and watchful jealous of himself and maintaining spiritual conflicts against them so occasionally he is a gainer by his losses a riser by his falls however the Christian grows more in sight of and serves under the burden of sin as Paul he cryes out Oh wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from the body of this death Rom. 7.24 O saith the Christian what shall I do with this untoward heart I am weary of these Daughters of Heth Fain would I get rid of this indwelling corruption Sin I hope hath not dominion over me but oh when shall the time come that it shall have no indwelling within me But this is my grief and I must bear it I am discontentedly contented with my burden Discontent with sin content with Gods pleasure But there 's nothing makes me weary of the World but sin Could I live without sin I should live without sorrow The less sin the more of Heaven Lord set me at liberty 2. By loosening the affections from all worldly injoyments Oh how sapless and insipid doth the World grow to the Soul that is a making meet for Heaven He is crucified to the World and the World to him Gal. 6.14 In vain doth this Harlot think to allure me by her laying out her two fair Breasts of Profit and Pleasure Surely I have behaved and quieted my self as a Child that is weaned of his Mother My Soul is even as a weaned Child Psal 131.2 There 's no more rellish in these gaudy things to my pallate then in the white of an Egg every thing grows a burden to me were it not duty to follow my calling and be thankful for my injoyments Methinks I injoy my Wife Husband and dearest Relations as if I had none I weep for outward losses as if I wept not rejoyce in comforts below as if I rejoyced not 1 Cor. 7.29 30. my thoughts are taken up with other objects The men of the world slight me many seem to be weary of me and I am as weary of them Non est mortale quod opto Its none of these earthly things that my Heart is set upon my Soul is set on things above my treasure is in Heaven and I would have my Heart there also I have sent before me all my goods into another Country and am shortly for flitting and when I look about me I see a bare empty house and am ready to say with Monica quid hic facio what do I here My Father Husband Mother Jerusalem above my Brethren Sister best Friends are above Methinks I grudge the World any thing of my Heart and think not these temporal visible things worth a cast of my Eye compared with things invisible and eternal 2 Cor. 4. 18. I do not only say with afflicted Job chap. 7.16 I loath it I would not live alway but even with Solomon in the top of all Earthly felicity Eccl. 2.17 18. Therefore I hated life yea I hated all my labour which I had taken under the Sun i. e. In comparison or in competition with Heavenly injoyments 3. By spiritualizing Worldly things and using them as steps by which the Soul mounts Heaven-wards The Believer considers these things were made not for themselves but for higher ends All things are as Talents to trade with for another World Matth. 25.16 for an account must be given of them not only Ordinances and Gospel-priviledges but Providences both sweet and severe yea Creature-comfors yea all visible objects Thus our Lord who had grace in perfection made notable Spiritual improvement of outward Water Bread vines for holy ends and the more Heavenly the Christian is the liker he is to his Head and so meeter for Heaven Whatever this golden hand of Faith toucheth is turned into Gold The Christian fetcheth honey thus out of the hard Rock Out of the eater comes meat O saith the believing Soul if meat be so sweet to an hungry stomach how much more excellent is Gods loving kindness If drink be so refreshing to the thirsty soul oh how sweet are those rivers of pleasures Surely his love is better then wine If it be so pleasant for the Eyes to behold the Sun how amiable is the Son of Righteousness How sweet is home to the weary Traveller And the Haven to the weather-beaten Mariner But infinitely sweet and contentful is Heaven to the tempted burdened tired Saint Methinks all I see and do and have minds me of my home and saith Arise depart this