ANGELS. Fair is the heaven where happy souls have place, Whence they do still behold the glorious face More fair is that where those Idees on high On God's own person, without rest or end. Spenser. THE ROD. God's rod doth watch while men do sleep, and then The rod doth sleep while vigilant are men. Herrick. ANGELS. How oft do they their silver bowers leave, And their bright squadrons round about us plant; And all for love, and nothing for reward: Oh! why should heavenly love to man have such regard. Spenser. GABRIEL-THE AMBASSADOR. Out of the hierarchies of angels' sheen, The gentle Gabriel God call'd from the rest: The just commands of heaven's eternal King, Fairfax. PRESERVATIVES FROM TEMPTATION. A heart in heaven will be a most excellent preservative against temptations to sin. It will keep the heart well employed. When we are idle, we tempt the devil to tempt us; as careless persons make thieves. A heart in heaven can reply to the tempter, as Nehemiah did, I It hath am doing a great work, so that I cannot come. no leisure to be lustful or wanton, ambitious or worldly. If you were but busy in your lawful callings, you would not be so ready to hearken to temptations; much less, if you were also busy above, with God. Would a judge be persuaded to rise from the bench, when he is sitting upon life and death, to go and play with children in the streets? No more will a Christian, when he is taking a survey of his eternal rest, give ear to the alluring charms of Satan. The children of that kingdom should never have time for trifles, especially when they are employed in the affairs of the kingdom; and this employment is one of the saint's chief preservatives from temptation. Baxter. ON CHANGE OF WEATHERS. And were it for thy profit to obtain Think'st thou that thy laborious plough requires There must be both: sometimes these hearts of ours Quarles. ce PIOUS ORGIES, PIOUS PRAYERS!" * * * * Where, then, shall hope and fear their objects find? Must dull suspense corrupt the stagnant mind? Must helpless man, in ignorance sedate, Roll darkling down the torrent of his fate? Must no dislike alarm, no wishes rise, No cries invoke the mercies of the skies? Which Heav'n may hear, nor deem religion vain. But leave to Heav'n the measure and the choice. Safe in his power, whose eyes discern afar These goods he grants, who grants the pow'r to gain; And makes the happiness she does not find. Samuel Johnson. INDICIA. God hears the very first motions of a man's heart, which that man, till he proceed to a farther consideration, doth not hear, not feel, not deprehend in himself. That soul, that is accustomed to direct herself to God upon every occasion, that, as a flower at sunrising, conceives a sense of God in every beam of his, and spreads and dilates itself towards him, in a thankfulness, in every small blessing that he sheds upon her; that soul, that, as a flower at the sun's declining, contracts and gathers in, and shuts up herself, as though she had received a blow, whensoever she hears her Saviour wounded by an oath, or blasphemy, or execration; that soul who, whatsoever string be strucken in her, base or treble, her high or her low estate, is ever tuned toward God, that soul prays sometimes when it does not know that it prays: I hear that man name God, and ask him, what said you, and perchance he cannot tell; but I remember that he casts forth some of those ejaculationes animæ (as S. August. calls them), some of those darts of a devout soul, which, though they have not particular deliberations, and be not formal prayers, yet they are the indicia, pregnant evidences and blessed fruits of a religious custom; much more is it true, which S. Bernard says there of them, Deus audit-God hears that voice of the heart itself hears not; that is, at first considers not. Donne. |