Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	light_n	see_v	spirit_n	4,161	5	5.1950	4	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A58814	A sermon preached at the funeral of Dr. William Croun on the 23d of October, 1684, at St. Mildred Church in the Poultrey by John Scott ...	Scott, John, 1639-1695.	1685 (1685)	Wing S2068; ESTC R10207	19,399	34

that seek him your heart shall live for ever that is rejoice for eve● so also 1 Thes. 3.8 How properly therefore may the 〈◊〉 state of bliss be expressed by Life since 't is the proper scene of happiness where joy and pleasure do for ever abound where there is an inexhau●●●ble spring of pure unmingled delights issuing forth in Rivers of Pleasure from God's Right Hand for evermore So that if there be any thing worthy of the name of life 't is doubtless the blissfull state of those happy Souls who live in a continued sense of all those joys and comforts that an everlasting Heaven imports I now pass on to the next thing proposed which was to shew wherein this everlasting life consists And here I do not pretend to give you a perfect Map of all the Beatitudes of that Heavenly State for that is a Task fit only for an Angel or a glorified Spirit all I aim at is to give you such an imperfect account of it as God hath thought fit to impart to Mortals in the Scripture which though it fall infinitely short of the thing it self yet is doubtless the best and utmost that our narrow Capacities can bear In short therefore concerning this blessed State God hath revealed to us these fix things 1. That it includes a most perfect freedom from evil and misery So Rev. 7.16 17. and hence also it is called a state of Rest Heb. 4.9 11. Rev. 14.13 all which expressions plainly denote this state to be a perfect Sabbath and Jubilee of Redemption from all evil and misery for as soon as the Souls of good Men depart out of this Corporeal State in which they now live they are immediately released from all those bodily passions of hunger and thirst and pain and diseases whereunto they are now liable by reason of their union with the body and having in a great measure conquered their Wills whilst they were in the Body and subdued them to the Will of God they must immediately commense into an high degree of perfection for being freed from the incumbrances of flesh and bloud from the importunities of body passion and appetite and the temptations of sensuality that do now continually solicite them they will be no longer liable to those irregularities of affection that do here disturb the tranquillity of their minds and so their actions and affections being always regulated by their reason their Consciences will be no more bestormed with those terrours and affrightments which nothing but the sense of guilt can suggest to them but enjoy a perpetual calm and serenity so that they being translated into an immortal condition will be released from all the sad accidents of Mortality from pain and sickness hunger and thirst from all corporeal passions and grievances and so no sensitive sorrow can interpose between them and their happiness to disturb their fruition or interrupt the current of their Joys and being translated into a state of perfect purity and goodness they will be also freed from all the sorrowfull appendages of a sinfull condition from dread and anxiety from shame and remorse and from all the corroding anguish of a wounded spirit and so they will be liable neither to sensitive nor rational trouble and having nothing either from within or without to intermeddle with their Joys and disturb the scene of their happiness they will be at perfect rest and for ever enjoy a most undisturbed repose O blessed day when I shall take my leave of sin and misery for ever and go to those calm and blissfull Regions whence sighs and tears and sorrows and pains are banished for evermore 2. That it includes a most intimate enjoyment of God for God being a rational good is no otherwise capable of being enjoyed by reasonable Beings but by knowing loving and resembling him all which ways he hath promised that we shall enjoy him when are are arrived in that blissfull state For as for the knowledge of him St. Paul tells us that whereas we now see through a glass darkly we shall then see him face to face c. 1 Cor. 13.12 and St. John that we shall see him as he is 1 John 3.2 which expressions must needs import such a knowledge of him as is unspeakably more distinct and clear than any we have in this present state For then the Eyes of our Minds shall be so invigourated that we shall be able to look on the Sun without dazeling to contemplate the pure and immaculate glories of the Divinity without being confounded with its brightness and our understanding shall be so exalted that we shall see more at every single view than we do now in volumes of discourse and the most tedious trains of inference and deduction and enjoying a most perfect repose both from within and without we shall have nothing to disturb or divert our greedy contemplations which having such an immense Prospect of Truth and Glory round about them shall still discover farther and farther and so entertain themselves with everlasting wonder and delight for what an infinite pleasure will that All-glorious object afford unto our raised minds which then shall no longer labour under the tedious difficulties of discourse but like transparent Windows shall have nothing to doe but only to receive the light which freely offers it self unto them and shines for ever round about them when every new Discovery of God and of the bottomless secrets and mysteries of his Nature shall inlarge our Capacities to discover more and still new discoveries shall freely offer themselves as fast as our minds are inlarged to receive them This doubtless will be a Recreation to our Souls infinitely transcending all that we can conceive or imagine of it especially considering that all our knowledge shall terminate in love that sweet and gratefull passion that sooths and ravishes the heart and dissolves it into joy and pleasure for God being infinitely good and amiable the more we know the more cause and reason we shall have to love him when therefore we are arrived to that degree of knowledge which the beatifical Vision implies we shall find our hearts inflamed with such a degree of love to him as will issue into unspeakable delight and satisfaction and even overwhelm us with ecstasies of joy and complacency For if those Divine illapses those more immediate touches and sensations of God which good men sometimes experience in this life do so affect and ravish them that they are even forced into Triumphs and Exaltations how will they be rapt and transported in that state of vision when they shall see him so immediately and love him so vehemently and their whole Soul shall be nothing else but one intire globe of light and love all irradiated and inflamed with the vision and beauty of the Fountain of Truth and Goodness But alas as these joys are too big for mortal language to express so are they too strong for mortality to bear and should we but for one day or

hour see God and love him as those glorified Spirits do we should questionless die of an ecstasie of pleasure and our glad hearts being tickled with such insupportable joys by endeavouring to enlarge themselves to make room for them all would quickly stretch into a Rupture But as our knowledge of God shall terminate in the love of him so both together shall terminate in our resemblance of his perfections for we having so immediate a prospect of his beauties and being so infinitely inamoured with them with what inexpressible vigour shall we set our selves to imitate and transcribe them and our imitation being invigourated with a knowledge so clear and a love so vehement can never fail of producing the desired resemblance so that the more we know God the more we shall love him and the more we know and love the more we shall imitate and resemble him and then both our inward motions and outward actions being all of them pure and perfect imitations of God cannot fail of producing a most glorious agreement between his Original and our Copy so that whilst we interchangeably turn our Eyes to God and our selves and compare Grace with Grace Beauty with Beauty 't will fill our minds with unspeakable Content to see how the Image answers to the Prototype For if from our love of God there must necessarily result to us such ineffable joy and complacency what a ravishing delight will it afford us to see the signatures of those Adorable Beauties for which we love him stamped and impressed upon our own Natures when the glory that shines about and inflames us shall shine into us and become our own and those amiable Idea's of him which are impressed upon our understanding shall stamp our Wills and Affections with their own resemblance For so the Apostle tells us it shall be 1 John 3.2 Lord how must our Souls be inlarged and widened to be able to contain all those mighty joys that must necessarily spring from our fruition of thee and to what a degree of happiness shall we be advanced when we shall be entertained with all the delights that the enjoyment of such an infinite good can afford us and have hearts great enough to contain them all without being overcharged with their weight and number 3. That it includes a most indearing fruition of our glorified Saviour And this certainly is none of the smallest ingredients of that blissfull state that we shall be ever with our blessed Lord as the Apostle expresses it 1 Thes. 4.17 for herein it 's evident the same Apostle places one great advantage of the future state Phil. 1.23 and indeed it is impossible but it must be a vast addition to the happiness of all virtuous and greatfull Souls to see this their blessed Friend and Benefactor who came down from the Bosome of his Father and for their sakes exposed himself to a miserable life and death to see him sitting at his Father's Right Hand Crowned with Majesty and Honour surrounded with the whole Quire of Angels and Saints like a Sun in the midst of a circle of Stars for lovers mutually partake of each others joys and sorrows and therefore as the lovers of Jesus when they saw him hanging on the Cross covered with wounds and blood with scorn and undeserved Infamy sympathized with him in all his sorrows participated the shame of all his Reproaches felt every Pain and Agony he indured echoed to every sigh and groan he breathed so when they behold him on the Throne of Heaven shining with Glory and Honour and surrounded with infinite pleasures and delights they sympathize with him also in all his happiness they rejoyce in his joys exult in his glories and triumph in his exaltation so that his happiness is a common bank in which all the Inhabitants of Heaven have a share and every joy he feels strikes every heart throughout all the Assembly of his happy lovers for how can any gratefull Soul forbear being ravisht at the sight of his happiness when she considers how she was healed by his stripes and glorified by his Humiliation But when this best Friend of Souls shall not only permit me to see his Happiness but also introduce me into it when his blessed mouth shall bid me welcome and pronounce my Euge bone serve Well done good and profitable Servant enter into thy Masters joys what tongue can express the Heaven of joy it must needs create in me O blessed Jesu how inconceivably happy will that day be when I who am loaded with so many vast obligations to love thee shall be introduced into thy presence to see thy glory and sympathize in thy joy as thou didst in my misery to thank and praise thee face to face for all those wonders of love with which thou hast obliged me and to bear a part in that Heavenly Song Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisedom and strength and honour and glory and blessing who hast redeemed us unto God by thy bloud out of every Kindred and Tongue and People and Nations Rev. 9.12 4. Eternal life also includes a most delightfull converse and society with Angels and glorified Spirits for when we come to the City of the living God the Heavenly Jerusalem the Apostle tells us what our Society will be there viz. The innumerable company of Angels the general Assembly and Church of the first born God the judge of all the spirits of just men made perfect and Iesus the Mediator of the New Covenant Heb. 12.22 23 24. As for our Society with God and Jesus you have already heard and as for all the rest it consists of Angels and the departed Spirits of good men which being stript of all those imperfections which they carried about them during their abode in these Earthly Tabernacles have nothing remaining in them but what is Pure and Heavenly and Divine nothing of Folly or Errour reserve our disguize peevishness or dissimulation nothing but wisedom and love candour and integrity openness and freedom and in a word nothing but what indears their Conversation and renders it unspeakably pleasant profitable and obliging for their understandings are all light and their wills and affections all vertue and goodness and as the one furnishes them with the best matter of Conversation so the other disposes them to the most obliging manner for though we know not the way in which they converse and communicate their thoughts and minds to each other yet there 's no doubt but Souls can talk with Souls and mutually impress their thoughts upon each other without these Corporeal Organs as well as with them when therefore Souls which have such vast treasures of knowledge in their minds and such ample perfections of goodness in their wills are linked together in Society what an amiable conversation must they enjoy with each other when they have all the Philosophy of God's Nature Creation and Providence all the Miracles of his love and Mysterious