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	know_v	life_n	2,879	5	4.5653	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A94766	Four sermons, preach'd by the right reverend father in God, John Towers, D.D. L. Bishop of Peterburgh. 1. At the funerall of the right honorable, William Earl of Northampton. 2. At the baptism of the right honorable, James Earl of Northampton. 3. Before K. Charles at White-Hall in time of Lent.	Towers, John, d. 1649.	1660 (1660)	Wing T1958; Thomason E1861_2; ESTC R210178	89,836	224

death but the evil of death not the being but the sting of it as whilome he suffered Esau to meet his Jacob but first he drave all enmity out of the heart of that Esau Gen. 33.4 This is one degree of the change which Christ has wrought in the nature of death to his Servants that it hath no power over them to hurt them they shall not be hurt of this second death Revel 2.11 who overcome the first that of the soul by sin conquer that by Faith and thou subduest the fear of this He that believeth in me though he were dead yet shall he live John 11 25. he shall chaunt out S. Pauls triumph 1 Cor. 15. O Death where is thy sting O Grave where is thy victory This is one degree but this is not all 't is not enough to make us blessed that death hurts us not it must be forc'd against the own nature of it to help us it is a part as being a means of our happinesse that we die Thou fool that which thou sowest is not quickened except it die 1 Cor. 15.36 so that the very blow we receive from this hard hand is healing that which our sin made to be our last enemy the goodnesse of God hath made the first friend that we meet with in our passage to another world When a child sees a goodly cluster of ripe Grapes he thinks it pity to put them into the presse and to deface them but the skilfull man knows that this hard usage preserves the liquor of them from corruption we are sometimes these ignorant children we think it pity that such a holy devout religious good man should die alas he can be ill spared yet God in his wisdome makes this man thus ripe for heaven the more happy by death it selfe he fals into the ground that he may bring forth much fruit Jo. 12.24 This is the true ground beloved of all our spirituall rejoycing upon our Death-bed that we know we leave this for an infinitely better life that we can say with the Apostle Phil. 1.21 Mori mihi lucrum we gain by this change That we receive no hurt by death that it is at the worst but a sleep in which we rest from our labours this is much but that we should reap profit and honour that the Crown of Righteousnesse is layd up for us that the reward of our works doth follow us this is all this is the very blessednesse of the dead that die in the Lord. The former is sufficient to inforce the Apostles Exhortation 1 Thess 4.13 concerning them who are asleep that we sorrow not for them but this is able to make us so affected toward our Brethren when they go before us to our heavenly Father as our Saviour Christ would have his Disciples affected towards him upon the like occasion If ye loved me ye would rejoice because I said I go unto the Father John 14.28 Be not sorry not only so but rejoice rather because as Solomon taught long since the day of death is not so sad is better more joyous than the day of our birth Eccl. 7.1 If any man could have found a life worthy to be prefer'd unto death so wise great and glorious a King must needs have done it and yet he in his very Throne commends his Coffin above his Scepter and would rather choose to be a subject for worms to feed upon than a Prince of men This makes us no more to marvel at those Heathens who mourned at the birth and feasted at the death of their children and yet alas they had not halfe the cause that we have of rejoycing they knew some of the miseries that accompanied this life what troubles and cares and anxieties and wants men passed through what crosses and calamities they indure here which are the punishments of sin but sin it selfe the greatest burden of this life the sorest evil that waits upon and makes it most wearisome this malum culpae this evil of sin they were not as they ought aware of and yet they were so affected with the feeling of those other ills that they made merry at the death of their friends out of a miserable conceit they had that they then ceased to be miserable We know what they did and more we understand the wretchednesse of living in this vale of tears and we understand what causes it the snares of sin from which we are loosed when we are freed out of the prison of this body he that is dead Rom. 6.7 is free from sin We understand the Happinesse of dying that it not only unfetters us from these chains of sin an shame but conveyes us to an eternity of holinesse and glory How should we cheer our selves in this expectation yea assurance of being so happy How should we say out of choice and faith what the Prophet Jonah said out of bitter passion It is better for me to die Jon. 4.3 than to live to die in the Lord for such when they are dead are blessed It is time for us to have done with this first discourse Part. 2 which the Text ministers unto us concerning death and the bitternesse of it in it selfe to the natural man and the sweetnesse which Christ by his death hath infused into it to all that die in him Now turn your thoughts with patience 't is high time to beg that upon the other subject-matter of the Text Blessednesse A subject that we shall finde of as great importance and as nearly to concern every of us as the other If that were needfull to us for the weaning our affection from the vanities of this world this is as usefull for the inflaming those affections toward the glory of another World Forget not the former but afford this also some time of meditation by no means lose the memory of death Be as wise in this point as those wise men Philosophers of India who were called Brachmanae they would have open Sepulchres placed before the doors of their houses that as they went out and in they might think of that place whether they must go at last that was a bridle to them with which they held themselves in awe and let us still place our graves before the door of our minds and imagine we hear God speaking to us as to his Prophet Jeremy Descende in domum figuli Go down to the Potters house Jer. 18.2 and there I will cause thee to hear my words God could have spoken with his Prophet in any other place as well as that where men were busied about clay but he would thereby admonish us that the Tombs of dead men where all humane clay all the carkasses of men that were made of clay and of which clay is made are gathered together as in a Potters house that these are the fittest Schools of wisdome to us there God usually expounds unto his Auditors the most deep and hidden mysteries of wisdome there not with logical Sophisms but by