The great assize; or, Christ's certain and sudden appearance to judgement. Being serious considerations on these four things, death, judgment, heaven, and hell. By Mr. Stevens, minister. To the tune of, Aim not too high, &c. Licensed according to order. Stevens, Minister. 1680 Approx. 9 KB of XML-encoded text transcribed from 1 1-bit group-IV TIFF page image. Text Creation Partnership, Ann Arbor, MI ; Oxford (UK) : 2009-10 (EEBO-TCP Phase 1). B05968 Wing S5497 Interim Tract Supplement Guide C.20.f.7[132] 99884224 ocm99884224 182990 This keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the Early English Books Online Text Creation Partnership. This Phase I text is available for reuse, according to the terms of Creative Commons 0 1.0 Universal . The text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. Early English books online. (EEBO-TCP ; phase 1, no. B05968) Transcribed from: (Early English Books Online ; image set 182990) Images scanned from microfilm: (Early English books; Tract supplement ; A5:1[72]) The great assize; or, Christ's certain and sudden appearance to judgement. Being serious considerations on these four things, death, judgment, heaven, and hell. By Mr. Stevens, minister. To the tune of, Aim not too high, &c. Licensed according to order. Stevens, Minister. 1 sheet ([1] p.) : ill. Printed for P. Brooksby, at the Golden-Ball in Pye-corner, near West-Smithfield., [London] : [1680?] Date and place of publication suggested by Wing. Verse: "Here is presented, clearly to the eye ..." Reproduction of original in the British Library. Created by converting TCP files to TEI P5 using tcp2tei.xsl, TEI @ Oxford. Re-processed by University of Nebraska-Lincoln and Northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. Gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. EEBO-TCP is a partnership between the Universities of Michigan and Oxford and the publisher ProQuest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by ProQuest via their Early English Books Online (EEBO) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). The general aim of EEBO-TCP is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic English-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in EEBO. EEBO-TCP aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the Text Encoding Initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). The EEBO-TCP project was divided into two phases. The 25,363 texts created during Phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 January 2015. Anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. Users should be aware of the process of creating the TCP texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. Text selection was based on the New Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature (NCBEL). If an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in NCBEL, then their works are eligible for inclusion. Selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. In general, first editions of a works in English were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably Latin and Welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. Image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. Quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in Oxford and Michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet QA standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. After proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. Any remaining illegibles were encoded as s. Understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of TCP data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. Users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a TCP editor. The texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the TEI in Libraries guidelines. Copies of the texts have been issued variously as SGML (TCP schema; ASCII text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable XML (TCP schema; characters represented either as UTF-8 Unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless XML (TEI P5, characters represented either as UTF-8 Unicode or TEI g elements). Keying and markup guidelines are available at the Text Creation Partnership web site . eng Ballads, English -- 17th century. 2008-01 TCP Assigned for keying and markup 2008-01 SPi Global Keyed and coded from ProQuest page images 2008-02 Robyn Anspach Sampled and proofread 2008-08 SPi Global Rekeyed and resubmitted 2008-10 Mona Logarbo Sampled and proofread 2008-10 Mona Logarbo Text and markup reviewed and edited 2009-02 pfs Batch review (QC) and XML conversion The Great Assize ; Or , Christ's certain and sudden appearence to Judgmâ—Źnt . Being serious considerations on these Four Things , Death , Judgment , Heaven , and Hell. By Mr. Stevens , Minister . To the Tune of , Aim not too high , &c. Licensed according to Order . depiction of Christ in glory depiction of hell mouth HEre is presented , clearly to the eye , A little World , new made most gloriously , To day here stands proud man like flowers sprite ; But look to morrow , and he 's weather'd quite . How happily might fallen man have liv'd , For ever , had he not his Maker griev'd : His num'rous Off-spring never would espy , Thro' that black Curtain of Mortality . Alas how fast the daies of man pass by , Swifter than Weaver's Shuttle they do fly ; As soon as Death does end his days so soon , Man must appear before the great Tribune . Death will no succour to a King afford , For diff'rence make twixt Begger and a Lord ; For Beauty , Riches , favour shall obtain , He 'll take no Bribes to linger out their pain . Methusalem you see by Death was told , That dye he must , tho' he was ne'er so old , Like Fruit , when almost ripe , Storms can it shake ; So Youth , when almost Man , Death may him take . The Rich Man trusting to his Riches . And yet , how proud Man is this side the Grave ! As if he never should an Exit have ; ( Vaunting poor Worm ) and up and down the world His busie carping thoughts with care is hurld . He 's wealthy grown , and proud of bags of treasure , Trusting in Riches ; raking all the pleasure His heart can wish for ; nay , he does controul The checks of Conscience to his precious Soul : Says to himself , Soul , take thine ease , and spend Thy time in mirth , ne'er think it will have end : Thus ! thus ! the Sinner does abuse his God , And chooses Vice , instead o' th' vertuous Rod. He Swears , & Damns , & imprecates God's wrath , To strike him dead ; but ah ! to die he 's loath : He Damns his very Soul , were it not just That God should do so too , and say , Be curst ? Roaring and Ranting is his Hellish Note , Qauffing so long until his senses float , Drunk , like a Beast , he staggers up and down , Sleeps like a Hog , and is a Devil grown . But Oh! if God thus angred , ready be To say , thou Fool , I do require of thee , Thy soul , this night , come , give a just account To what thy Stewardship does now amount . How dumb & senseless would he stand , to see Hell ready to devour him presantly , Calls to the Rocks , and strives to get a place , Therein to hide him from God's angry face . But yet , suppose God suffers him to live , Adds mercy unto mercy , and does give Him yet a longer time of life , and trys , If he 'll Repent before death shuts his eyes . He sees that time runs round like to a wheel , And wrinckled Years upon his brow does steal . Besides gray hairs on 's crazy head doth grow , Scatter'd it lies like to a drift of Snow , skeleton in the grave A foggy dimness doth his sight assail , Striking into his head , his eyes they fail , His tongue does faulter , and his hands they shake , And with the Palsie every limb does quake . His glass most run , he 's even out of breath , Ready to yield his life to conquering death , Who will no longer favour his old age , But is resolved in his death ingage . If peeps behind the Curtain in his face , Then draws the Schene , then breavful is his case , His tongue does quiver , and his veins does start , Like sticks asunder ; nay his very heart Ceases its motion , with his vitals , soon , And now alas ! he 's colder than a stone : His Kinsfolks dear his dying eyes do shut , So from his Bed he 's in a Coffin put . Thus ends his Earthl'y splendour , and his pleasure ' Wife , Children , Kinsfolk , and his bags of treasure , Are left behind , enjoy the same estate A little while , but follow must his fate . Nay , they 're not sure to keep it half a day , For Death does oft sweep Families away , The Infants instantly bereav'd of Mother , Husband from Wife , the Sister from her Brother . Behold this figure , see the glass does run , Therefore Repent before thy time is gone , Both Young and Old have this before your eyes , You 're born to happiness or miseries . O therefore wretched man this very day , Strive by Repenting tears to wash away Thy sins , and then no doubt thy Lord will be In love and mercy reconcil'd to thee . The manner of Christ's coming at the Day of Judgment . Serene , like as the days of Noah were , So shall the coming of God's Son appear , Eating and Drinking , men will merry make , And carnal Souls Security will take . And like the thief who cometh in the night , So will the Son of Man in glory bright , Come down with numerous Angels , and the sound , Of trumpets shrill , whose voice unnerves the ground The dead arise , Lord , what a horrour here Is to the wicked , who must strait appear , And come to Judgment , O how this begins , To bring to mind their many wretched Sins . O what sad shrieks they make , and clam'rous cries , To see Hell gaping just before their eyes , The Heav'ns to melt away with fervent heat , The Earth a burning underneath their feet . The Blessed State of the Godly . But happy , ever happy are the Sheep Of Christ , who joy for evermore will keep , When he shall say to Saints , come come thee hither , You of my chosen Flock , blest of the Father . The kingdom now enjoy for you prepar'd Before the heav'ns were made or world was rear'd , Oh what soul ravishing sweet news is this . Angels attend them presently to bliss . The miserable State of the wicked . But dark ! what grief the Damned does attend , Who have no Advocate to stand their Friend , Sentence must passed be , go , go to dwell In Firey Burnings in the Lake of Hell. Depart with Devils which did you entice To hate your Saviour , and cleeve to Vice , Go to that Everlasting Pit , and lye Howling with Firey Fiends perpetually . O what a wretched sight 't will be to see The Devils dragging them to misery , Husbands to see their Wives convey'd to Bliss , Whilst they ' mongst Damned , quite Salvation miss . Son from the Father , Father from the Son , Must partest be in the great Day of Doom , Praising of God , and own it to be just , Their own Relations are with Devils curst . The Godly they to Heaven take their flight , Whilst wicked take their course to Hell out-right , Lord let us watch continually ; and pray That we may be prepar'd for that Great Day . Give us Repentance , that while here we live , We may the offers of thy Son receive , Then feed our souls , good God , with thy rich Grace , That we may stand before our Saviour's Face . Printed for P. Brooksby , at the Golden-Ball in Pye-corner , near West-Smithfield .