Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n
Text snippets containing the quad
|
ID |
Title |
Author |
Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) |
STC |
Words |
Pages |
|
A92746
|
A sermon preached at the funeral of the Lady Newland. At Alhallows Barkin, London By John Scott, D.D.
|
Scott, John, 1639-1695.
|
1690
(1690)
|
Wing S2075; ESTC R229814
|
11,228
|
21
|
if this doth not stop our Mouths and silence our complaints for ever nay if it doth not cause us to rejoice in our Tribulations and to thank God for them on our bended Knees If it doth not make us chearfully submit and cry out with that resigned Soul Vre Seca Vulnera Lord burn or cut or wound me as thou pleasest strip me of all my dearest Comforts handle me as severely as thou wilt so I may have but my Fruit unto Holiness and my End Everlasting Life If I say we can complain of our present afflictions while we thus compare them with our future reward we are infinitely foolish and ungrateful But then 2. Hence also I infer what a vast deal of reason we have to slight and contemn this World for we are born to infinitely greater hopes than any this World can propose to us even to the hopes of an abiding City where our Happiness shall be no longer the sport and dalliance of every puff of Wind the Ball of every accident and contingency but remain for ever safe and inviolable as the happiness of God himself And it being thus methinks our Ambition should sore as high as our hope and disdain such low and ignoble Quarries as the Pleasures and Profits and Honours of this Life Sure Sirs We mistake the Scene of our Immortality We fancy that our abiding City hath shifted its situation and is come down from Heaven to fix its Foundations here below otherwise we are most strangely besotted who being born to live for ever above in Everlasting Glory and Delight can suffer our selves to doat as we do upon the transitory Vanities of this Life O could we stand a while in the mid-way between Heaven and Earth and at one Prospect see the Glories of both how faint and dim would all the Glories of this World appear to us in comparison with those above how would they sneak and disappear in the presence of that Eternal Brightness how would they be forc'd to shroud their vanquish'd Glories as Stars do when the Sun appears whilst we interchangeably turn'd our Eyes from one to the other With what shame and confusion should we reflect upon the wretched groveling temper of our minds What poor mean-spirited Creatures we are to satisfie our selves with the impertinent trifles of this World when we have all the Joys of an Everlasting Heaven before us and may if we please after a few moments of Obedience be possest of them for ever Ah! foolish Creatures that we are thus to prefer a far Country where we live on nothing but Husks before the Everlasting Festivities of our Father's House and Bosom thus foolishly to chuse Nebuchadnezzar's Fate and leave Crowns and Sceptres to live among the Salvage Herds of the Wilderness Could but the blessed Saints above divert so much from their more happy employments as to look down a little from their Thrones of Glory and see how busie poor Mortals are a scrambling for this wretched Pelf which within a few Months they must leave for ever How they justle and run counter defeat defraud and undermine one another What a most ridiculous Spectacle would it appear to them with what scorn would they look on it or rather with what pity to see a Company of Heaven-born Souls that are capable of and designed for the same Glory and Happiness with themselves thus miserably busied and employed One priding it self in a gay Suit another hugging a Bag of glistering Earth and a third stewing in Luxury and Voluptuousness and all employ'd at that sordid rate as if they had nothing to do with Heaven To tell you truly and seriously my thoughts I cannot imagine but if when we are thus extravagantly concern'd about the pitiful trifles of this World those blessed Spirits do see and converse with us it is a much more ludicrous sight in their Eyes than 't would be in ours to see a Company of Boys with mighty zeal and concern wrangling for a Bag of Cherry-Stones Wherefore in the Name of God Sirs Let us not expose our selves any longer to the just derision of all the World by our excessive dotage upon the vanities of this Life but let us seriously consider that we are all concern'd in matters of much higher importance even in the Joys and Fruitions of that abiding City which is to come 3. Hence also I infer how unreasonable a thing it is for good Men to be afraid of dying since on the other side of their Grave there is an abiding City ready to receive and entertain them So that to them Death is but a dark Entry out of a Wilderness of Sorrows into a Paradise of Eternal Pleasure And therefore if it be an unreasonable thing for sick Men to dread their recovery for Slaves to tremble at their Jubilee for Prisoners to quake at the news of a Gaol-Delivery how much more unreasonable is it for good Men to be afraid of Death which is but a momentany passage from Sickness Labour and Confinement to Eternal Health and Rest and Liberty 'T is true the passage from one to the other is commonly very painful and grievous but what of that in other Cases we are willing enough to endure a present Pain in order to a future Ease and if a few Mortal Pangs will work a perfect Cure on me and recover me to Everlasting Health methinks the hope of this Blessed Effect should sweeten and indear that Agony But alas to die is to leave all our Acquaintance to bid adieu to our dearest Friends and Relatives and to pass into an unknown State where we are to converse with Strangers whose Laws and Customs we are unacquainted with Why now all that looks sad in this is a very great mistake For I verily hope I have more Friends Acquaintance and Relations in Heaven than I shall leave behind me here on Earth and if so I do but go from worse Friends to better for one Friend there is worth a thousand here in respect of all those indearing accomplishments which render a Friend a Jewel but if I die a good Man I shall carry into Eternity with me the genius and temper of a glorified Spirit and that will recommend me to all the Society of Heaven and render the Spirits of those just Men whose Names I never heard of as dear and familiar Friends to me in an instant as if they had been my ancient Cronies and Acquaintance But why should I grieve at parting with my Friends below when I shall go to the best Friends I have in all the World to God my Father to Jesus my Redeemer to the Holy Ghost my constant Comforter and Assistant and what though that state and the Laws and Customs of it be in a great measure unknown to me yet what I know is infinitely desirable from whence I may reasonably infer that what I know not is so too and if I have but the Temper of Heaven I am sure I shall easily comply with the Heavenly
A SERMON PREACHED AT THE FUNERAL OF THE Lady Newland AT Alhallows Barkin London By JOHN SCOTT D. D. LONDON Printed in the Year 1690. A SERMON Preached at the FUNERAL OF THE Lady Newland HEB. xiii 14. For here we have no abiding City but we seek one to come IN these words the Author encourages Christians couragiously to bear up under reproaches in Conformity to their Lord and Master who in a disgraceful manner was Crucified without the City as if they thought his Blood would have desecrated it or feared lest his last Breath might have scattered a Contagion through it Let us therefore saith he in the 13 th Verse go forth unto him without the Camp bearing his reproach i.e. Let us be contented with him to be thrown forth as the dung and off-scouring of the streets from the Society of Men and not be concerned that for his sake we are made the abjects of the Earth For here we have no abiding City and so 't is not long that we shall endure this but we seek one to come whither when we are once arrived we shall be above all reproach and malice for ever In which words you have I. The Christian's present State Here we have no abiding City II. The Christian's present practice in order to his future state but we seek one to come I. I begin with the first Here we have no abiding City The present and future state of Christians is here compared to a City in allusion I suppose to those who though they were not born at Rome but lived it may be a great way off from it had yet Jus Civitatis Romanae the Priviledges of Citizens of Rome even as we Christians though we are born in this World and do spend our lives in it do yet belong to another Corporation and are Denizens of that City which is above and therefore saith he this present state is not our home in this City we are but Foreigners and do only sojourn in it for a time till we go home to the new Jerusalem which is the place of our abode and the City we are already free of And indeed that Here we have no abiding City is a truth so sensible that one would think we need not be put in mind of it for which way soever we turn our Eyes we see a dark and deadly shade overspreading the World and behold Men vanishing every day like the smoke quitting the Stage round about us and disappearing almost as soon as they have shewed themselves To day we converse with our Friends and among our other Festivities we tickle our selves with the Joys of our future Conversation To Morrow their Passing-Bell tells us a sad story that they are gone to converse with Worms where these Eyes of ours shall never see them more and indeed if we consider our present state we are but a kind of fictitious Beings that rather seem to be than are and do so little deserve to be taken for realities that we only serve to cheat one another into an opinion that we truly exist when presently by vanishing away we baffle that Opinion and shew our selves to be but hovering shadows that in a moment are and are not Indeed all Created things have more of not being than of being in them For it is only a limited portion of being which they have but there is an infinitude of being which they have not So that being infinitely nearer to nothingness than to fullness of being they rather deserve to be called nothing than real beings And if the best of our being be so near to nothing what is our outward Man which is but the umbrage and shadow of our being Alas If we consider the Frame and composition of it it is nothing but a continual Flux and defluence of parts insomuch that each Climacterick of our Age changes our whole Fabrick and we are at no one time all our selves but seven years hence shall be another thing This Body will be all vanished and gone and of the parts it now consists there will be none remaining So that while we are we are hastening away and within a little time shall vanish into Worms-Meat And hence it is that the Scripture compares our present life to such fleeting and evanid things to an Image a Dream a Post a Shadow by all which it 's design is to make us sensible of this truth that Here we have no abiding City And indeed so volatile and fugitive is our present Existence that if it were not for another World it were scarce worth the while for a Man to be And could we but have understood before we came into being what an uncomfortable Stage this World is I am apt to think we should rather have chosen to remain for ever in the Womb of nothing than venture into the Theatre of beings only to take a turn or two and weep and grone and die For what an impertinent thing would it be for a Man to come out of nothing into being only to open his Eyes and look about him and vanish into nothing again And yet this is all that most of those do that are born into the World and as for those that act a longer part there is alas so much of Tragedy in it that the Pain doth even counter-balance the Pleasure of it That therefore which makes Life truly desirable is this That though we have here no continuing City yet we look for one to come which is the second part of the Text viz. II. The Christian's present Practice in order to his future State but we seek one to come which implies these four things 1. Our belief of the reality of this abiding State 2. Our hope and expectation of enjoying it 3. Our proposing it to our selves as the great end and aim of all our actions 4. Our diligent pursuit of it by such a course of actions as is most suitable to it and does tend most directly towards it Of each of these briefly 1. Our seeking this abiding City implies our sincere belief of the reality and existence of it For what wise Man will hunt after a Dream and a shadow which he believes hath no Being or Existence Who was ever so mad as to make a Voyage for Gold or Spices to Vtopia For that which I believe is not is to me as if it were not and hath no more influence upon us than the most palpable Dream and Fiction So that how real soever Heaven be in it self it is impossible it should move us to seek after it unless we believe its Existence 'T is our Faith must influence our Minds and Spirit all our powers of action otherwise all the Joys of another World will never be able to move or affect us Unless our Faith ascends the Pisgah of God's Promises and from thence takes a view of the Holy Land and of those Joys and Delights it flows and abounds with we shall loiter for ever in this Wilderness and never