Selected quad for the lemma: church_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
church_n	militant_a	saint_n	triumphant_a	2,884	5	10.8885	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A66101	The high esteem which God hath of the death of his saints as it was delivered in a sermon preached October 7, 1683, occasioned by the death of the worshipful John Hull, Esq. who deceased October 1, 1683 / by Samuel Willard.	Willard, Samuel, 1640-1707.; Corlet, Elijah, d. 1687.	1683 (1683)	Wing W2280; ESTC R27592	13,583	24

be but as filthy Rags but it proceeds from Gods infinitely free Grace and if we look upon that we shall find manifold reason why the Saints Death is precious in God's sight viz. 1. Because he hath loved them in Christ with an everlasting Love where there is love it renders that object beloved precious to him that loves it though another can discern no excellency or worthiness in it and may thereupon wonder what he loves it for yet love apprehends it to be of worth now God hath loved his Saints from everlasting Jer. 31. 3. and inasmuch as that which is everlasting is by consequence immutable hence this love of his abides to in and after death and makes it precious 2. Because they are his Propriety and Peculiarity engage the care and exite the affections to a suitable proportion unto the Subject the Saints are God's Peculium they are called his Anointed and his Prophets Psal 105. 15. they are firmly and closely united unto him through Christ and Death doth not dissolve that indissoluble Bond dead Believers continue in union with Christ and shall his own die then and he not be deeply concerned in it it cannot be 3. Because they are Saints They are Holy Ones such as are sanctified by his Grace and so are made precious there is a Worth put upon and a Worth put into a Believer that makes him more precious than the Gold of Ophir it makes him a Jewel a Pearl of great price and for that reason he must not be lost but bound up Mal. 3. 17. They shall be mine saith the Lord in that day when I make up my Jewels 4. Because the Death of the Saints is of great and high concern For 1. There is much of the Glory of God is concerned in and about their Death they do not only glorifie him in their Lives but in their Death too Joh. 21. 19. This he said signifying by what Death he should glorifie God Never doth the Box of their sweet Ointments give a better favour than when the Case is broken the Saints do not go out like a Candle in a stinking Snuff but they ascend like Frankincense or sweet Incense in a Cloud of fragrant Smoke 2. Their eternal being in another World bears a Relation to their Death Of all the changes which they pass through this is in some respect the greatest The Death of Believers is appointed to be the narrow passage through which they are to be conducted from their Earthly Cottage to a Palace of Kingly Glory It is the Ceremony in which an honourable discharge is given to these faithful Souldiers from their sore Warfare here below to ride home to their City in triumph It is their dis-banding from the Church Militant to go to and become Members of the great Sanhedrim of the Church Triumphant and this is a great and a notable transaction and must needs therefore be precious and taken such care for as that it may answer in glory to the great design of it VSE I. For Information We may hence collect 1. That the Title of a Saint is a most honourable Title or that it is the greatest honour and priviledge in the World to be a Saint this is the honour that all His Saints have that their Death is precious in His sight and there is no Worldly Title though never so glittering and glorious that involves in it such a priviledge as this is they that have them may live in great splendor among Men and be followed with the stately Solemnities of Funeral Pomp to their House of Darkness but in God's account which is alone to be set by they are in their Deaths of no more value than so many Beasts Psal 94. 20. Man that is in honour and understandeth not is like the Beasts that perish This Dignity is not annexed or appropriated to Imperial Crowns to Robes of State or the Thrones of Kingdoms but only to a Saint who then would not labour to be of that number 2. That God's Saints serve a good Master Those that serve Earthly Potentates though for a while they may be had in high esteem with them and be greatly set by yet seldom but they have their quietus est before they die when they grow unapt for Service it is thought high time to lay them by however when Death comes they are then lest and soon forgotten but the Servants of the most High are never forgotten God that loved them living loves them dying too It was a lamentable but true saying of a great yet miserable Prelate If I had served God as faithfully as I have done my King he would not now have left me what Fools then and Mad-men are they that relinquish the service of God to serve the lusts of Men who care but to serve their own turns of them and then will relinquish them 3. That Death cannot make a Believer miserable but must needs render him happy Those precious thoughts which God hath conceived in his own breast for dying Saints cannot chuse but break forth into suitable operations for them if their death be precious in God's sight it must needs bring forth precious fruits for them and such as shall fill them with perfect Felicity Hence of all the Men in the World the Saint is the Man that hath the least needof being afraid to die this glorious promise is a Believers plentiful security against all the frightful menaces of the King of Terrors and it may light a Child of God into and through this dark valley Psal 16. 9 10. Therefore my heart rejoyceth and my Glory is glad c. 4. That the Death of a Saint calls for solemn and serious observation by the living It is an awful thing for a Righteous man to die and no man lay it to heart for the Godly to be taken away and none consider it if the Saints death be so precious in the sight of God then it is certain that there are great and weighty reasons in the very circumstances of their dying which Men ought to regard there is a great change made in that place from whence the poorest and meanest Saint is removed there is no such desolation and impoverishing brought upon a Land as when Death comes commissioned by God to sieze gather up and carry away from us those Jewels one of them is of more worth than ten thousand of wicked Men and a greater loss it is whether Men will believe it or no to be stript of one of them then of a multitude of those unprofitable things that cumber the Ground and are a burden to the Earth they tread upon VSE II. For Exhortation Learn we hence these Practical Lessons 1. When the Saints die let us mourn And there is no greater Argument to be found that we should excite our selves to mourn by then the remembrance that they were Saints it should more effect our hearts at the thoughts of this that they were Saints then that they were our Father or