Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	age_n	son_n	year_n	4,102	5	4.8346	4	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A50170	The triumphs of the reformed religion in America the life of the renowned John Eliot, a person justly famous in the church of God, not only as an eminent Christian and an excellant minister among the English, but also as a memorable evangelist amoung the Indians of New-England : with some account concerning the late and strange success of the Gospel in those parts of the world which for many ages have lain buried in pagan ignorance / written by Cotton Mather.	Mather, Cotton, 1663-1728.; Mather, Increase, 1639-1723. De successu Evangelii apud Indos in Nova-Anglia epistola. English.	1691 (1691)	Wing M1163; ESTC W479490	74,580	162

Lu●k● as quickly said Claim unto ●t and strongly guarded it Nevertheless the Jesuits found a way b● Pricks and Bribes to engage the Turkish Guards into a Conspiracy with them for the Transporting of the inclosed and renouned Ashes into Europe but when they opened the grave there was no Body nor so much as a Relique there While they were under the confusion of this Disappointment a Turkish General came upon them and cut them all to pieces therewithal taking a course never to have that place visited any more But the Scholars of the Orient presently made this a Theme which they talk'd and wrote much upon and whether this were the true Sepulchre of Moses was a question upon which many Books were pub●●shed The world would now count Me very absurd if after this I should say that I had found the Sepulch●e of Moses in Amer●ca but I have certainly here found Moses himself we have had among us One appearing in the Spi●it and Power of a Moses and it is not the Grave but the Life of such a Moses that we value our selves upon being the owners of Having implored the Assistence and Acceptance of that God whose Blessed Word has told us The Righteous shall be had in everlasting Remembrance I am attempting to write the Life of a Righteous Person concerning whom all things but the meanness of the Writer invite the Reader to expect nothing save what is truly Extraordinary 'T is the Life of One who has better and greater thi●gs to be affirmed of him than could ever be reported concerning any of those famous men wh●ch have b●en celebrated by the Pens of a Plutarch a Pliny a L●●eritus an Eunapius or in any pagan Histories 'T is the Life of One whose Character might ●ery agreeably be look'd for among the Collections of a Dorotheus or the Orations of a Nazianzen or is worthy at least of nothing less than the exquisite Style of a Melchior Adam to E●ernize it If it be as it is a true Ass●rtion That ●●e least Exercise of true Faith or Love towards God in Christ is a more glorious thing than all the ●riumphs of a Caesar there must be something very considerable in the Life of One who spent several scores of years in such Exercises and of One in the mention of whose A●chievements we may also recount that he fought the Devil in once his American Territories till he had recovered no small party of his old Subjects and Vassals out of his cruel Hands it would be as unreasonable as unprofitable for posterity to bury the Memory of such a Person in the Dust of that Obscurity and Oblivion which has covered the Names of the Hero's who dy'd before the Days of Ag●memnoi● PRAELIMINARY I. The Birth Age and Family of Mr. ELIOT T is the Life of the Renowned John Eliot which is to be now put into our Pages a Life which Commenced about the Year 1604. And Expired in the Year 1690. THe Inspired Moses relating the Lives of those Ante-diluvian Patriarchs in whom the Church of God and Li●e of Christ was continued through the first sixteen hundred years of Time recites little but their Birth and ●heir Age and their Death and their Sons and Daughters ●f those Articles would satisfie the Appetites and Enquiries of such as come to B●ead the Life of our Eliot we shall soon have dispatc ' d the work now upon our Hands The Age with the Death of this worthy man has ●een already terminated in the Ninetieth year ●f the present Century and the Eighty sixth Year of his own Pilgrimage And for his Birth it was at a Town in England the Nam● whereof I cannot presently Recover nor is 〈◊〉 necessary for me to look back so far as the pla●● of his Nativity any more than 't is for me t● recite the Vertues of his Parentage of which h● said vix ea nostra voco The Atlantick Ocea● like a River of Lethe may easily cause us t● forget many of the things that happened o● the other side Indeed the Nativity of such a man were an Honour worthy the Contentio● of as many places as laid their Claims unto th● famous Homer's but whatever places may challenge a share in the Reputation of having Enioy'd the first Breath of our Eliot it is New-England that with most Right can call him Hers his best Breath and afterwards his last Breath was here and here 't was that God bestow'd upon him Sons and Daughters He came to New-England in the Month of November A. D. 1631. among those Blessed old Planters which laid the Foundations of a remarkable Country devoted unto the Exercise of the Protestant Religion in its purest and highest Reformation He left behind him in England a vertuous young Gentlewoman whom he had pursued and purposed a Marriage unto 〈◊〉 and she coming hi●her the year following that Marriage was Consummated in the Month of October A. D. 1632. This Wise of his youth lived with him until she became to him also the staff of his Age and 〈◊〉 left him not until about three or four years ●efore his own Departure to those Heavenly ●egions where they now together see Light ●he was a Woman very Eminent both for Ho●●ness and Vsefulness and she excelled most of ●he Daughters that have done vertuously Her Name was Ann and Gracious was her Nature ●od made her a Rich Blessing not only to her ●amily but also to her Neighbourhood and when ●t last she dyed I heard and saw her aged Hus●and who else very rarely wept yet now with ●ears over the Coffin before the good people 〈◊〉 vast confluence of which were come to her ●uneral say Here l●es my dear faithful pious ●rudent prayerful Wife I shall go to her and she ●ot return to me My Reader will of his own ac●ord excuse me from bestowing any further E●●taphs upon that gracious Woman By her did God give him six worthy Chil●ren Children of a character which may for●ver stop the mouths of those Antichristian Blas●hemers who have set a false brand of Disaster and Infamy on the Offspring of a Married Clergy His First-born was a Daughter born S●p 17. A. C. 1633 This Gentlewoman is yet alive and one well-approved for her Piety and Gravity His next was a Son born Aug. 〈◊〉 A. C. 1636 He bore his Fathers Name ●●d had his Fathers Gr●c● He was a person of ●otable Accompl●shments and a lively zealous acute Preacher not only to the English 〈◊〉 New-Camb●idge b●t also to the Indians thereabout He grew so fast that he was found ●●p● for Heaven many years ago and upon hi● Death-bed uttered such penetrating things a● co●ld proceed from none but One upon the Borders and Confines of E●ernal Glory 'T is pity that so many of them are forgotten but one of them I think we have cause to Remember Well said he my dear Friends ●here is a dark day coming upon p●or New-England and in so dark a day I p●ay how will you

who being by the unanimous Vote and Choice of the Church there become the Pastor of Roxbury immediately found the Venerable Eliot Embracing Cherishing of him with the tender Affections of a Father The good Old Man like Old Aaron as it were disrobed himself with an unspeakable satisfaction when he beheld his garments put upon a son so dear unto him After this he for a year or two before his Translation could scarce be perswaded unto any publick Service but humbly pleaded what none but he would ever have said It would be a wrong to the Souls of the people for him to do any thing among them when they were supply'd so much to their Advantage otherwise If I mistake not the Last that even he Preached was on a Publick East when he fed his people with a very distinct and useful Exposition upon the Eighty Third Psalm and he concluded with an Apology begging his Hearers to pa●don the poorness and meanness and b●okenness as he called it of his Meditations but added he My dear Brother here will by'nd by mend all But altho' he thus dismissed himself as one so near to the Age of Ninety might well have done from his publick Labours yet he would not give over his Endeavours in a more pri●ate Sphaere to Do good unto all He had alwayes been an Enemy to Idleness any one that should look into the little Diary that he kept in his Almanalks would see that there was with him No day without a Line he was troubled when he saw how much Time was devoured by that slavery to Tobacco which too many debase themselves unto and now he grew old he was desirous that his work should hold pace with his Life the less Time he saw left the less was he willing to have lost He imagined that he could now do nothing to any purpose in any Service for God and sometimes he would say with ●n Air peculiar to himself I wonder for what the L●rd Jesus Christ lets me live he knows that ro●● I can do nothing for him And yet he could ●ot forbear Essaying to Do something for his dearest Lord wheref●re thought he What shall I do And he then co●ceived that tho' the English could not be benefi ed by any Gifts which he now fancied himself to have only the Ruines of yet who can ●ell but the Negro's might He had long lamented it with a bleeding and a burning passion that the English used their N●gro's but as their Horses or their Oxen and that so little care was taken about their prec●ous and immortal Souls he look d upon it as a prodigy that any wearing the Name of Christians should so much have the Heart of Devils in them as to prevent and hinder the Instruction of the poor Blackanu●res and confine the Souls of their miserable Slaves to a destroying ignorance meerly for fear of thereby loosing the benefit of their Vassalage but now he made a mo●●on to the English within two or three miles of him that at such a time and place they would send their Negro's once a week unto him for he would then Catechise them and Enlighten them to the utmost of his power in the Things of their Everlasting Peace however he did not live to make much progress in this Undertaking At length when he was able to do L●●le without doors he try'd then to do something within and one thing was this A young Boy in the Ne●ghbourhood had in his infancy fallen into a fire so as to burn himself into a perfect Blindness but this Boy being now grown to some Bigness the good old man took him home to his house with some intentions to make a scholar of him He first informed him of and from the Scripture in wich the Boy so profited that in a little time he could even Repeat many whole Chapters Verbatim and if any other in Reading missed a word he would mind them of it yea and an ordinary piece of latin wa● become easy to the lad but having his own Eye● clos d by Death he could no longer help the poor Child against the want of ●is Thus As the Aged Polycarp could say These Eighty Six years have I se●ved my Lord J●sus Christ and he has been such a good Master in me all this while that I will not now forsake h m Such a Polycarp was our Eliot he had been so many years engaged in the sweet ser●ice of his dear Jesus that he could not now give it over 't was his Ambition and his priviledge to bring forth Fruit in old Age and what veneration the Church of Smyrna paid unto that Angel of theirs we were upon the like Accounts willing to give unto this Man of God While he was thus making his Retreat out of this evil world his Discourses from time to time ran upon The Coming of the Lord Jesus Christ it was the Theme which he still had Recourse unto and we were sure to have something of this whatever other Subject he were upon On this he talk d of this he pray'd for this he long'd and especially when any bad News arriv'd his usual reflection thereupon would be Behold some of the Clouds in which we must look for the Coming of the Son of Man At last his Lord for whom he had been long wishing Lord come I have been a great while ready for thy Coming at last I say his Lord came and fetched him away into the Joy of his Lord. He fell into some Languishments attended with a Fever which in a few days brought him into the Pangs may I say or Joyes of Death and while he lay in these Mr. Walter coming to him he said unto him brother ●hou art welcome to my very Soul Pray Retire to thy Study for me and give me leave to ●e gone meaning that he should not by Petitions to Heaven for his Life detain him ●here It was in these Languishments that speaking about the work of the Gospel among the Ind ans he did after this Heavenly manner express himself There is a Cloud said he a dark cloud upon the w●rk of the Gospel among the poor Indians The Lord Revive and prosper that work and grant it may live when I am Dead It is a work which I have been Doing much and long about But what was the word I spoke last I Recal that word My Doings Alas they have been poor and small and lean Doings and I 'le be the man that shall throw the first stone at them all It has been observed that they who have spoke many considerable things in their lives usually speak few at their deaths But it was otherwise with our Eliot who after much Speech of and for God in his Life-time uttered some things little short of Oracles on his Death-Bed which 't is a thousand pities they were not more exactly regarded and recorded Those Authors that have taken the pains to Collect A●●p●th●gmata Morientium have not therein been unserviceable to the