Selected quad for the lemma: world_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
world_n	church_n	militant_a	triumphant_a	2,228	5	11.7299	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A20631	Devotions vpon emergent occasions and seuerall steps in my sicknes digested into I. Meditations vpon our humane condition, 2. Expostulations, and debatements with God, 3. Prayers, vpon the seuerall occasions, to Him / by Iohn Donne ...	Donne, John, 1572-1631.	1624 (1624)	STC 7033A; ESTC S1699	101,106	641

We scarce heare of any man preferred but wee thinke of our selues that wee might very well haue beene that Man Why might not I haue beene that Man that is carried to his graue now Could I ●it my selfe to stand or sit in any Mans place not to lie in any mans graue I may lacke much of the good parts of the meanest but I l●cke nothing of the mortality of the weakest Th●y may haue acquired better abilities than I but I was borne to as many infirmities as they To be an incumbent by lying down in a graue to be a Doctor by teaching Morti●ication by Example by dying though I may haue seniors others may be elder than I yet I haue proceeded apace in a good Vniuersity and gone a great way in a little time by the furtherance of a vehement feuer and whomsoeuer these Bells bring to the ground to day if hee and I had beene compared yesterday perchance I should haue been thought likelier to come to this preferment then than he God hath kept the power of death in his owne hands lest any Man should bribe death If man knew the gaine of death the ease of death he would solicite he would prouoke death to assist him by any ●and which he might vse But as when men see many of their owne professions preferd it ministers a hope that that may light vpon them so when these hourely Bells tell me of so many funerals of men like me it presents if not a desire that it may yet a comfort whensoeuer mine shall come 16. EXPOSTVLATION MY God my God I doe not expostulate with thee but with them who dare doe that Who dare expostulate with thee when in the voice of thy Church thou giuest allowance to this Ceremony of Bells at funeralls Is it enough to refuse it because it was in vse amongst the Gentiles so were funeralls too Is it because some abuses may haue crept in amongst Christians Is that enough that their ringing hath been said to driue away euill spirits Truly that is so farre true as that the euill spirit is vehemently vexed in their ringing therefore because that action brings the Congregation together and vnites God and his people to the destruction of that Kingdome which the euill spirit vsurps In the first institution of thy Church in this world in the foundation of thy Militant Church amongst the Iewes thou didst appoint the calling of the assembly in to bee by Trumpet and when they were in then thou gauest them the sound of Bells in the garment of thy Priest ● In the Triumphant Church thou imploiest both too but in an inuerted Order we enter into the Triumphant Church by the sound of Bells for we enter when we die And then we receiue our further edification or consummation by the sound of Trumpets at the Resurrection The sound of thy Trumpets thou didst impart to secular a●d ciuill vses too but the sound of Bells onely to sacred Lord let not vs breake the Communion of Saints in that which was intended for the aduancement of it let not that pull vs asunder frō one another which was intended for the assembling of vs in the Militant and associating of vs to the Triumphant Church But he for whose funerall these Bells ring now was at home at his iournies end yesterday why ring they now A Man that is a world is all the things in the world Hee is an Army and when an Army marches the Vaunt may lodge to night where the Reare comes not till to morrow A man extends to his Act and to his example to that which he does and that which he teaches so doe those things that concerne him so doe these bells That which rung yesterday was to conuay him out of the world in his vaunt in his soule● that which rung to day was to bring him in his Reare in his body to the Church And this continuing of ringing after his entring is to bring him to mee in the application Where I lie I could heare the Psalme and did ioine with the Congregation in it but I could not heare the Sermon and these latter bells are a repetition Sermon to mee But O my God my God doe I that haue this feauer need other remembrances of my Mortalitie Is not mine owne hollow voice voice enough to pronounce that to me Need I looke vpon a Deaths-head in a Ring that haue one in my face or goe for death to my Neighbours house that haue him in my bosome We cannot wee cannot O my God take in too many helps for religious duties I know I cannot haue any better Image of thee than thy Sonne nor any better Image of him than his Gospell yet must not I with thanks confesse to thee that some historicall pictures of his haue sometimes put mee vpon better Meditations than otherwise I should haue fallen vpon I know thy Church needed not to haue taken in from Iew or Gentile any supplies for the exaltation of thy glory or our deuotion of absolute necessitie I know ●hee needed not But yet wee owe thee our thanks that thou hast giuen her leaue to doe so and that as in making vs Christians thou diddest not destroy that which wee were before naturall men so in the exalting of our religious deuotions no● we are Christians thou hast beene pleased to continue to vs those assistances which did worke vpon the affections of naturall men before for thou louest a good man as thou louest a good Christian and though Grace bee meerely from thee yet thou doest not plant Grace but in good natures 16. PRAYER O Eternall and most gracious God who hauing consecrated our liuing bodies to thine owne Spirit and made vs Temples of the holy Ghost doest also requir● a respect to bee giuen to these Temples euen when the Priest is gone out of them To these bodies when the soule is departed from them I blesse and glorifie thy Name that as thou takest care in our life of euery haire of our head so doest thou also of euery graine of ashes after our death Neither doest thou only doe good to vs all in life and death but also wouldest haue vs doe good to one another as in a holy life so in those things which accompanie our death In that Contemplation I make account that I heare this dead brother of ours who is now carried out to his buriall to speake to mee and to preach my funerall Sermon in the voice of these Bells In him O God thou hast accomplished to mee euen the request of Diues to Abraham Thou hast sent one from the dead to speake vnto mee He speakes to mee aloud from that steeple hee whispers to mee at these Curtaines and hee speaks thy words Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth Let this praier therfore O my God be as my last gaspe my expiring my dying in thee That if this bee the houre of my transmigration I may die the

eyes to testifie my spiritual sicknes I stand in the way of tentations naturally necessarily all men doe so for there is a Snake in euery path tentations in euery vocation but I go I run I flie into the wayes of tētation which I might shun nay I breake into houses wher the plague is I presse into places of tentation and tempt the deuill himselfe and solicite importune them who had rather be left vnsolicited by me I fall sick of Sin and am bedded and bedrid buried and putrified in the practise of Sin and all this while ha●e no presage no pulse no sense of my sicknesse O heighth O depth of misery where the first Symptome of the sicknes is Hell where I neuer fee the feuer of lust of enuy of ambition by any other light then the darknesse and horror of Hell it selfe ● where the first Messenger that speaks to me doth not say● Thou mayst die no nor Thou must die but Thou art dead and where the first notice that my Soule hath of her sicknes is irrecouerablenes irremediablenes but O my God Iob did not charge thee foolishly in his temporall afflictions nor may I in my spirituall Thou hast imprinted a pulse in our Soule but we do not examine it a voice in our conscience but wee doe not hearken vnto it We talk it out we iest it out we drinke it out we sleepe it out and when wee wake we doe not say with Iacob Surely the Lord is in this place and I knew it not but though we might know it we do not we wil not But will God pretend to make a Watch and leaue out the springe to make so many various wheels in the faculties of the Soule and in the organs of the body and leaue out Grace that should moue them or wil God make a springe and not wind it vp Infuse his first grace not second it with more without which we can no more vse his first grace when we haue it then wee could dispose our selues by Nature to haue it But alas that is not our case we are all prodigall sonnes and not disinherited wee haue receiued our portion and mis-spent it not bin denied it We are Gods tenants heere and yet here he our Land-lord payes vs Rents not yearely nor quarterly but hourely and quarterly Euery minute he renewes his mercy but wee will not vnderstand least that we should be conuerted and he should heale vs. 1. PRAYER O Eternall and most gracious God who considered in thy selfe art a Circle first and last and altogether but considered in thy working vpon vs art a direct line and leadest vs from our beginning through all our wayes to our end enable me by thy grace to looke forward to mine end and to looke backward to to the cōsiderations of thy mercies afforded mee from the beginning that so by that practise of considering thy mercy in my beginning in this world when thou plātedst me in the Christian Church and thy mercy in the beginning in the other world whē thou writest me in the Booke of life in my Election I may come to a holy consideration of thy mercy in the beginning of all my actions here● That in all the begin●nings in all the accesses and approches of spiri●tuall sicknesses of Sinn may heare and hearke● to that voice O thou Ma● of God there is death in th● pot and so refraine from that which I was so hungerly so greedily flying to A faithfull Am●bassador is health says thy wise seruant Solomon ● Thy voice receiued in the beginning of a sicknesse of a sinne is true health If I can see that light betimes and heare that voyce early Then shall my light breake forth as the morning and my health shall spriug foorth speedily Deliuer mee therefore O my God from these vaine imaginations that it is an ouercurious thing a dangerous thing to come to that tendernesse that rawnesse that scrupulousnesse to feare euery concupiscence euery offer of Sin that this suspicious iealous diligence will turne to an inordinate deiection of spirit and a diffidence in thy care prouidence bu● keep me still establish'd both in a constant assurance that thou wil● speake to me at the beginning of euery such sicknes at the approach of euery such Sinne and that if I take knowledg of that voice then an● flye to thee thou wil● preserue mee from falling or raise me againe when by naturall infirmitie● I am fallen do● this O Lord for his sake who knowes our naturall infirmities for he had them and knowes the weight of our sinns for he paid a deare price for them thy Sonne our Sauiour Chr Iesus Amen 2. Actio Laesa The strength and the functiō of the Senses other faculties change and faile 2. MEDITATION THe Heauens are not the lesse constant because they moue continually because they moue continually one and the same way The Earth is not the more constant because it lyes stil continually because continually it changes and melts in al the parts thereof Man who is the noblest part of the Earth melts so away as if he were a statue not of Earth but of Snowe We see his owne Enuie melts him hee growes leane with that he will say anothers beautie melts him but he feeles that a Feuer doth not melt him like snow but powr him out like lead like yron like brasse melted in a furnace It doth not only melt him but Calcine him reduce him to Atomes and to ashes not to water but to lime And how quickly Sooner then thou canst receiue an answer sooner then thou canst conceiue the question Earth is the center of my body Heauen is the center of my Soule these two are the naturall place of these two but tho● goe not to these two i● an equall place My b●●dy falls downe withou● pushing my Soule do●● not go vp without pu●ling Ascension is m● Soules pace measur● but precipitation my b●dies And euen Angell● whose home is Heaue● and who are winge● too yet had a Ladder 〈◊〉 goe to Heauen by step● The Sunne who goes 〈◊〉 many miles in a minu●● The Starres of the Fi●●mament which go so very many more goe not so fast as my body to the earth In the same instant that I feele the first attempt of the disease I feele the victory In the twinckling of an eye I can scarse see instantly the tast is insipid and fatuous instantly the appetite is dull and desirelesse● instantly the knees are sinking and strengthlesse and in an instant sleepe which is the picture the copy of death is taken away that the Originall Death it selfe may succeed and that so I might haue death to the life It was part of Adams punishment In the sweat of thy browes thou shalt eate thy bread ● it is multiplied to me I haue earned bread in the sweat of my browes in the labor of my calling and I haue it● and I sweat againe