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	life_n	love_n	2,521	5	5.4712	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A47297	A funeral sermon for the Right Honourable, the Lady Frances Digby, who deceased at Coles-Hall in Warwickshire, on the 29th of September, 1684 by John Kettlewell ...	Kettlewell, John, 1653-1695.	1684 (1684)	Wing K368; ESTC R657	17,382	39

moderation And to temper our Grief which needs a most watchful care to govern and allay it upon these occasions among those many things that might be suggested I shall only observe these two viz. That when our Friends are truly Religious 1. We have not the least pretence to be immoderate out of our Love to them because it is incomparably their Gain They are translated to a Place of Bliss where they are infinitely joyful in their own minds and from whence they would not be removed by any offers So that we have no colour of Reason to be sad but the highest Cause to congratulate upon their Accounts as the Primitive Christians of old and we still do for the Death of Saints and Martyrs the Memorials of whose Death we celebrate with Festivals as the Day of their Birth to an immortal Life If we have a true and wise Love for our Friends we shall not only be willing but glad above all that God should Love them too And then we must needs be thankful when he shews his Love and takes them to those Joys which are the end of all their Hope and beyond which they can never wish for any more 2. Nor have we any Reason to be immoderate in bemoaning our own Loss because we shall go to the same Place and meet again in time Our own Loss indeed is the only thing that can trouble us and when we do Grieve and Mourn it is only in love to our selves But this is no cause at all to be intemperate or obstinate in Grief for it will all be made up again if we will have a little Patience They are gone to that Place whither we all hope to come so that if we can stay a while we shall injoy our Friends again Their departure from the World is but like mens taking of a Journey not an utter Loss of Friends but only an absence from them for a small space And when once that is past the next meeting shall be in so great and lasting Joy as shall infinitely make amends for it For then our Friends shall be stript of all Humane Frailties and made absolute in all desirable Perfections which will make them more deserving of our Love and dearer to us and that Love shall never cause Grief and Torment as it doth now by a second absence As we shall be most happy in them so shall we ever be secure of them for then there will not be the least Fear because not the least danger or possibility of parting any more And thus I have done with the Explication of the Text and shewn both who the Righteous are and what great and comfortable things when Death comes they have to hope for But hitherto I have only laid down the Rule and I have still another Work to do which is to set it off yet further in a fair Pattern and Example of it I mean the Excellent Noble Person now Deceased the Character of whose Virtues will give Life to all that I have said and be the best and most useful thing in all my Sermon She was a great Instance of many Virtues nay of some which are almost lost in Practice which seem to reign scarce any were but upon mens Tongues as if they were impracticable Rules that were never intended to be follow'd and perform'd but only to be prais'd and talk'd of And I cannot do more right to those neglected Graces than to shew the remiss and slothful World they are more than Words and are real live things made visible to all in the excellency of her Practice God had endow'd her with an excellent Nature which prevented many of the great Self-denials in Religion and made it to her a tolerably easie thing This is an ivaluable Blessing God bestows on some special Favourites and it was eminent in her To be universally kind and pleasing was one of the most Natural things in her Complexion which made a Religion of Love be imbraced without opposition And together with this kindness of Nature he had bless'd her with much humbleness of Mind and with a just seriousness and composure of Spirit which made her apt for Devotion and wise Counsels and easie to receive and retain any good Impressions which should be stamped upon her Together with this Goodness of Nature as another Testimony of his singular Grace and Favour he had provided for her an excellently Virtuous Wise and careful Mother who begun early to cultivate this rich Soyl and plant the Seeds of Virtue in it e're the Vices of the World could make their Attempts upon her She taught her Goodness by plain Rules and shew'd it to the Life in an admirable and a brave Example And her Pattern this prepared Soul knew so well how to prize that she had chosen it for her own imitation resolving to govern her self by her Mothers Rules and to fix her eye upon her Noble Virtues and as near as she could to transcribe them in her own Practice And this shews a generous liking of Goodness and promises a great Progress in it when any Persons aim so far as they are able to equal the most accomplished Saints and to live up to the Rules of the best Examples And to compleat all when she was deprived of this Blessing his watchful Care provided a Husband for her who to the intimacy of his Relation to her as a Wife the top of worldly Friendships coveted to add a Nobler Friendship still that bottom'd upon likeness of Souls and virtuous Grounds and was design'd to serve the most excellent Purposes of Religion in making each other Better and Wiser which is the Perfection of the Wisest and most exalted Friendships betwixt the most endear'd Persons Thus liberally had God endow'd this select Soul with Inclinations to Virtue and Goodness and with Opportunities to ripen and improve them And had he spared her a longer Life wherein to imploy the Talents he had given we may justly expect the Increase would have been in a greater Measure and Proportion But tho her Race was quickly done for she dyed in the twenty third year of her Age yet she had run much in a little time in her green Years she had attain'd a Maturity in Goodness and was grown ripe in the true Ends and Art of Living and the effect of these Advantages was visible in an exemplary and truly Christian Conversation To recount all her Virtues is more than I can pretend to do they were known only to God who will reveal them at last to all the World but for the imitation of those she has left behind her I shall observe these following Her Piety was great towards Almighty God She knew what Honour and Homage we all owe to him and was careful to lay out her self upon it She would converse with him duly in her Closet-retirements and constantly make one to do him Service in the Publick Assemblies not allowing her self to neglect the Service of God for little Reasons and

without this the Hopes in Death which the Text mentions will avail nothing For many men are full of Hope who have no just Cause for it and on the contrary others are afraid to Dye who may justly meet Death with comfort The melancholly of some and the Sanguine Complexion of others fill them with hopes and fears which are not owing to the Reason of things but only to their natural Tempers So that to shew any man a dying Saint that has Cause to rejoice in Death it is not enough that he have Peace of mind but also that he have just ground for it too And thus having shewn who this righteous man is to whom this Priviledge belongs I proceed now 2. To shew what are his Hopes that make Death a desirable thing to him which to others is the King of Terrors Now this Hope is of the favour and friendship of Almighty God and of all those Blessings which may be expected from it What those Blessings are was not so well known in old times when God led men on by more dark and indefinite expectations of the Future Happiness But when Christ came he brought Life and immortality to Light and has told us plainly that at their Deaths all Righteous men shall be translated to the unspeakable and eternal Joys of Heaven And these are so great that no heart can wish for more For the blessings of that Place are so large as to fill all our Capacities so pure as not to have the least mixture of Sorrows so constant as to admit of no abatements or intermissions We shall always desire and always be satisfied and when we have injoy'd the most we shall never be cloy'd nor wearied with it We shall live in Gods Presence and share in his Likeness and shine in his Glory and have Fellowship with the Saviour of the World and all the spotless Angels and all the Glorified Saints and Godlike Persons whose Society alone is enough to turn any Place into a Paradise And all these we shall enjoy without all fear of Misfortune either theirs or our own without all danger of displeasing them or fear of losing them without seeing any thing either to pity or blame in them or any damps of Friendship and intermission of Affection In sum we shall never see any ill nor suffer it nor ever want any good thing or when we have it fear to be deprived of it But we shall be infinitely happy and ever think our selves so and continue in that State for evermore This is that Eternal Life which God promises and whereto Death now conveys all Righteous Persons And since it is the way to our injoyment of all this Bliss it is no longer a Spoyler of our Joys but a Step to them and a thing to be desired by all Godly Souls It is indeed like churlish Physick very ungrateful in it self tho' it may be most desireable in the effect It brings a Dissolution of Nature which strikes Horror and that into the best men who would desire not to Dye if they could come at the happiness of the other Life without dying And this St. Paul testifies of himself confessing that as for the way of receiving the Heavenly house i. e. the glorified Body he had rather be found alive and have it superinduced by a translation than be stripp'd of this Body first by Death and afterwards be cloath'd again My wish says he is not to be uncloath'd i. e. to put off this Body first but to be cloathed upon by having the other superinduced that mortality may not so truly be put off as swallowed up of Life 2 Cor. 5. 1. 4. But it is most incomparably advantageous in the Event Tho' the way be hard and rugged yet 't is short and the Prize at the end is wonderfully Rich and Pleasant So that every considerate man who looks beyond Death hath the greatest Reason to desire it To them as St. Paul says it has quite lost its Sting and is become the truest Gain Phil. 1. 21. All sense of what it takes away is drown'd in the boundless apprehension of what it gives and Death is swallowed up in victory 1 Cor. 15. 54. It confers on them all their hearts can desire and therefore if they rightly consider it ought not to be a matter of their Fear It takes them from a Dunghill to a Throne and invests them in all the Glory and Riches of an everlasting Kingdom I come now 3. To apply this to allay our Grief and Sorrow on the Death of Friends I do not seek to suppress all Grief for a dying Friend for that is an impossible Task Friendship is a close thing and lies near to our Hearts so near indeed that a Friend is said and that very justly to be a Second self And therefore to be insensible when a dear Friend is torn from us is as impossible as to have no sense when a Finger is rent off from our Hand or our Heart is plucked out of our Bodies Some Course Nature will have in spite of all Arguments and no man can restrain it Yea and what is more it is not fit he should do it if he could For some sorrowful concern is necessary to shew we are sensible of our Loss and to evidence our Affection for the Person that is gone As the Jews when Jesus wept for Lazarus cryed out Behold how he loved him Jo. 11. 35. 36. The unconcernedness of the Living seems a reflection upon the Dead and argues they were not beloved while they lived but that the World was weary of their Company and even their pretended Friends very willing if not glad to be quit of them And therefore it is reckon'd as a Part of Gods Judgment upon the Jews that when they died there should be no wailing for them Ezek. 7. 11. But with this Grief for our own Loss in the departure of our Friends we must at the same time shew our selves sensible who it is that has taken them and that too for their own Gain and that he still continues to us a thousand Blessings when he only calls back one And therefore with Sorrow for them we must be sure to joyn Submission to God to resign up our Wills to his and be not only outwardly silent but inwardly renconciled to what he has done and to be heartiful thankful both for all the Kindnessess he shew'd our departed Friends and for that vast Number of others he still continues to our selves These things will not be perform'd as they ought when Grief grows strong Whilst it keeps within due bounds such as suit with the Apprehensions and Hope of Christians it is what Natural Affection will force from us and what Religion allows But when it becomes ungovernable and boisterous in Degrees or obstinate in Continuance it is in it self an ill thing an irresistible Temptation So that when we do grieve we must be careful to keep back from all excess and to do it with