Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	death_n	die_v	good_a	2,567	5	3.9002	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A79010	The righteous mans death lamented. A sermon preached at St. Austins, London, Aug.23. 1662 at the funeral of that eminent servant of Jesus Christ, Mr. Simeon Ash late minister of the gospel there. By Edmund Calamy, B.D.	Calamy, Edmund, 1600-1666.	1662 (1662)	Wing C262A; ESTC R229781	17,397	33

to Christ and to one another never to part any more The death of Gods people is not a perishing but a gathering comfort your selves therefore with these words against the fear of death look upon death as a gathering as a gathering to Christ You are here as Daniel in the Lyons Den as Jeremiah in the Dungeon yet there will come a gathering and if you dye in a good cause you shall not perish but be gathered to Christ and to his Saints and Angels But you will say If I were sure when I dye that I should be gathered to Christ to live for ever with him this would be matter of great consolation to me but you told me the wicked are gathered by death as well as the godly how shall I know whether when I come todye I shall be gathered to the Devil and his Angels or to Christ and his Angele How shall I know whether I shall be gathered at death as a bundle of tares to be burned in Hell or as a bundle of wheat to be carried up into the Burn of Heaven I answer You may know it by four things First If you are righteous then you shall be gathered to Christ at death for the righteous shall go into everlasting life Heaven is entailed upon righteous men by righteousness I mean the imputed righteousness and the imparted righteousnesse of Jesus Christ I wave the explication of them because time will not give leave Know you not saith the Apostle that no unrighteous man shall inherit the Kingdom of God Damnation is entailed upon unrighteous men Secondly If you are merciful the merciful man shall be gathered to Christ if you are one that is full of bowels of compassion to the distressed Members of Jesus Christ for Christ hath said it Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy Now if you are hard hearted covetous worldly minded remember that Text He shall have judgement without mercy that shews no mercy Thirdly He that is gathered to the second Adam by faith in this world shall certainly be gathered unto Christ by vision in the other world Christ Iesus will save all his members and you must know that Faith is a transplanting Grace it is not onely a heart purifying but a world-overcoming grace it takes a man out of the old Adam and put 's him into the new Adam it takes a man out of the root of scattering and puts him into the root of union and conjunction Wherefore you that are now joined to Christ by faith here shall be joined to Christ in glory hereafter But now you that are Vagabonds Cains and Aliens from the life of God and from the life of Grace You that are wooden Members wooden Legs in Christs body that have no real conjunction with Christ you shal not be gathered to him in glory Lastly If you are gathered here to the Saints by love then you shall be gathered to the Saints in Heaven and to the everlasting enjoyment of God with them to all eternity Consider this Every man shall be gathered when he dies to those whom he delights and chooseth to keep company with while he lives in this world If you are gathered to the wicked in love and affection here you shall be gathered to them at death in Hell and destruction for it's pity companions should be parted Wheat must to Wheat and Tares to Tares for Wheat and Tares shall not be bound together at the last day The last use is of Exhortation It the righteous must perish and if their death be nothing but a gathering then take this threefold Exhortation First Let us labour to make the best use we can of our godly friends and Ministers before they are gathered let us do as Elisha did he was told that his Master Elijah was to be taken up to Heaven and therefore he would never leave him till he had got the spirit of Elijah doubled upon him If Elisha had not thought that Elijah would have been taken up that day he would never have followed him so punctually and inseparably as he did O beloved did you believe that text Zach. 1.5 of which we have often had experience your fathers where are they and the Prophets do they live for ever Indeed if they did live for ever we might get good from them when we please because we are sure never to lose them but they live not for ever but must perish and be taken up to heaven And therefore whilst we have them let us make what use we can of them before they be taken away from us It is a great fault among the people of God that they make no more use of their godly Friends and Ministers I have known many that have godly Relations that have died that it hath been the greatest burthen on their Consciences that they got no more good by those godly Relations while they lived Many of us deal with our Ministers as we do with a strange sight that is to be seen near our doors we are not much solicitous when we see it But a stranger that comes from a far Countrey is curious and very carefull presently to see it So do we in this City especially I have had experience of it by being here many yeares strangers that come out of the Countrey many times get that good by a Minister that his own people do not because they think their Minister is continually with them But a stranger knows he is there but for a day and he hears so that he carries Christ home with him and a great deal of consolation also Beloved this is a great fault I beseech you remember the righteous must be gathered let us therefore do with them as we do with Books that are borrowed if a man borrows a Book he knows he must keep it but for a day or two and therefore he will be sure to read it over whereas if the Book be a mans own he layes it aside because he knows he can read it at any time Remember your Ministers are but lent you they are not your own and you know not but God may take your Elijahs from you this night Therefore make what use you can of them while you have them 2dly Must the righteous be taken away Then let the righteous make conscience of doing what good they can before they are taken away Beloved if it were possible for the godly to grieve in Heaven this would be their greatest sorrow that they have done God no more service here upon Earth Be wise for God O ye righteous do as old men do that have rich places and offices they labour to buy the reversion of their places for their children so must you to whom God hath given great gifts and graces labour to propagate your gifts and graces that there may be no loss by your death Observe the care of St. Paul the aged in his exhortations to Timothy 2 Tim. 4.5 6. Watch thou in all things endure afflictions do the

that are have been or shall be shall all be gathered together 2 Thes 2.1 I beseech you brethren by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and by our gathering together unto him at the great day At the day of judgement we shall all be gathered together and shall be all taken up to heaven I mean all the righteous and be ever with the Lord and so much for the opening of the doctrine But here it may be objected Are not the unrighteous gathered by death as well as the righteous I answer it is true the unrighteous are scattered in this life and gathered by death as well as the righteous but with a great deal of difference First the wicked are scattered in this life but they are scattered from God but the godly are scattered for God and for a good conscience many times as they as Jerusalem were scattered The godly are scattered from the glorious presence of God in heaven but the wicked are scattered from the gracious presence of God on earth Again the scattering of the wicked is a curse to them and it is threatned as a curse Levit. 26.32 I will scatter you among the heathen and draw out my sword after you and wherever the wicked come in what part soever of the world the wicked are scattered they bring the curse of God with them and they bring the judgments of God on Towns or Cities where they are as plauge famine and sword and all miseries But the godly when they are scattered they are scattered as a blessing into what Country or Town soever they come they come as a blessing they come like a ship laden with corn to a Town ready to perish with famine they come as a blessing four ways First by their prayers to pray down a blessing on the place where they come Secondly they come as a blessing by their holy life and conversation that is a loadstone to draw others to holiness Thirdly they come as a blessing by their holy advise and counsel that they give to the place where they come Nay fourthly their very presence is a blessing as long as Lot was in Sodom Sodom could not be destroyed so long as Paul was in the ship the three hundred could not be drown'd So that the godly come as a blessing where-ever they are scattered but the wicked are as chaffe scattered by the wind and they are scattered as the dust of the earth You know when the dust is scattered it gets into mens eyes and blinds them and falls upon their cloaths and fullies and defiles them so the wicked where-ever they are scattered they defile the place where they are scattered The godly are as planets that wander and move from one part of heaven to another carrying light to the world Secondly as the wicked are scattered whise they live so when they dye they are gathered it is true but how not to God and Christ and his Angels but they are gathered to the divel and his Angels and to damned spirits not as bundles of wheat into the barn of heaven but as bundles of tares to be burned for ever in everlasting fire Now if the righteous perish as well as others and if their perishing be nothing but a gathering to God and Christ then First learn hence the preciousness of every righteous man the great God will not gather things of no value great men do not use to gather chaffe and straw and therefore when God saith of Josiah I will gather thee to thy Fathers it was a sign he was a precious pearl worth the gathering and of a high value and account in the sight of God and so is every true child of God right dear and precious are they in the sight of God both living and dying they are bought with a great price not with gold and silver and other corruptible things but they are bought with the precious blood of the Son of God They are as precious to God as the apple of his eye so precious that be hath given Christ for them and to them so precious that he called them his Jewels his peculiar treasure Jedidiahs and therefore God will not suffer them to perish but gather them to himself before the evil day come as the husbandman gathers in the corn before the beasts go out into the field Secondly Learn here what reason we have to be comforted in the death of a righteous man or woman because their death is not a perishing but a gathering to God and Christ and the society of Saints and Angels The death of a righteous man is no more then if a Merchant that hath abundance of Jewels in a far country should send for them home Why death to a righteous man is nothing but Gods sending for his Jewels home Such a phrase there is in Mal. 3.17 In the day that I make up my Jewels they shall be mine In this life they are imperfect Jewels they are like gold in the oar mingled with a great deal of drosse and death is nothing but a perfecting of these Jewels death is nothing more and God doth nothing by death but as a gold-finder gather up all his ends of gold and silver It is nothing but just as if a Father should send for his Son home that had been a long while absent from him to his own House it is a carrying us to our Father's house And therefore let us be comforted when our righteous Friends dye though their death be matter of sorrow to us in regard of the loss that we sustain by their death and because their death is a Warning piece of evil to come yet in regard of them we have no cause to mourn I speak this to those that are related to the righteous when they dye Did you ever hear of a Husbandman that mourned for the carrying of his Corn into the Barn or a Jeweller mourn for making up of his Jewels Let us mourn rather that we are left scattered among the wicked of the earth and from the glorious presence of God and Christ and let us mourn for those that are scattered from Christ and from grace and for those that whilest they live are scattered and when they dye are gathered to the Devil and his Angels Let us not mourn for those that dye in Christ but let us mourn for those that live out of Christ let us not mourn over the body that the soul hath left but let us mourn over the soul that God hath left The third Use is of Consolation to all the people of God in reference to evil times that are coming upon us or to the evil of times Whatever befalls a Child of God in this life though he be scattered by wicked men from England into other Forreign Countreys though he wander up and down in Desarts and Wildernesses though he be scattered from house to prison yet there will be a gathering time shortly there will a time come when all the Saints shall be gathered