Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	bear_v	die_v	sin_n	6,507	5	5.1003	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A67361	Divine meditations upon several occasions with a dayly directory / by the excellent pen of Sir William Waller ...	Waller, William, Sir, 1597?-1668.	1680 (1680)	Wing W544; ESTC R39417	76,156	224

may have his memory bemisted as it were and clouded by the stinking vapours of malice and envy Our Saviour himself that Sun of righteousness was no sooner set tho with so much glory that the beholders even his enemies acknowledged him to be the Son of God but the chief Priest and Pharisees endeavoured to cover his sacred name with darkness aspersing him as a deceiver and bribing the Guards to belie his Resurrection if they have done these things in the green tree what can the drie expect the disciple is not above his Master and the charities of the World are still the same It is a sad thing to have a guilty soul this Sunset which otherwise I might behold with comfort as putting me in mind of the approaching time of my rest is to me an exprobration at once remembring me of the command not to suffer the Sun to go down upon my wrath and condemning me for suffering so many Suns to go down in my passion O my God if thou shouldst deal with me according to my deserts in what a Cloud should I set But thy goodness shines in my wickedness O let the brightness thereof dispel and scatter those Clouds that are in my perverse nature and then although the days of my life have been frequently overcast by my exorbitant passions I shall hope in this evening of it to go down in the serenity of thy mercy and to set in thy love But what do I speak of rising and going down as if the Sun went higher or lower at one time then another and were subject to excentrick motions that glorious luminary however it appears unto us is constant to one and the same rode and is as high at night as it is at noon or morning It is so with a mind well trained and exercised in vertue and piety which although as to outward things it may appear subject to variations now and then abused now and then abounding yet in it self it is above all sublunary changes neither elated nor dejected and keepeth an even course in a constant equi-distance from earth and all earthly things Lord give me that mind that whatever my state and condition be I may keep still at one and the same height and in a regular motion that in all mutations I may be one and the same man So shall I be happy in my conformity to thee who art ever the same without shadow of change But the Sun is set and how soon are all things benighted with it what are all the comforts of this World when the light of Gods countenance is withdrawn when thou O Lord hidest thy face it is no marvel if we be troubled As thy light is a rejoycing to us so the privation of it is at once both uncomfortable and dangerous thou makest darkness and it is night wherein all the beasts of the forrest do creep forth in a spiritual sense when it is night within us all our lusts and corruptions are in motion and that roaring Lion that seeks to devour us is most stirring and active darkness and cruel habitations go together O thou who art the true light of the World and whom no darkness can comprehend enlighten my darkness be my Sun and I shall have no need of this Sun be my shield and I shall fear no danger I shall be at once safe and happy If the Sun when it sets should bid us goodnight for all what a sad world would there be at his departure now we are not troubled at it because we know it will rise again it should be no otherwise with us upon the departure of godly friends and relations why should we grieve so immoderately many times for them as if we had no hope when we know that they shall as surely rise again at the last day as the Sun shall arise the next morning we have the assurance of Gods own word for it that if we believe that Jesus died and rose again even so those also which sleep in Jesus he will bring with him and that with this further advantage to them that they shall then appear in glory and shine like the Sun in the Kingdome of their father never to set more what would we have more Lord teach us to comfort one another with athewwords It is observed that a clear evening is for the most part a forerunner of a fair morning especially if as our Saviour himself hath told us the Skie be red O my God grant that at my last end I may leave a clear memory behind me and discern a red skie over me tinctured with his most precious blood and it shall be a prognostick to me of an everlastingly happy good morrow MEDITAT XXII Vpon my lying down to rest MEthinks I have had a long daies journey in the world and a wedrisome accompanied with blustering weather and rugged ill waies and now a bed would do well there is a time to every purpose under heaven a time to travel and a time to rest a time to wake and a time to sleep a time to be born and a time to die the longest day hath a night and the longest life a death the one is the emblem of the other those fathers before the floud Adam Jared Methusalem that made nothing of a journey of nine hundred years and upwards had their bed time as well as their rising and after their reckoning of so many Ages what do we read of them but that they died and they died and they died this is the end of all men and the living will lay it to heart It is late and I cannot but confess I am tired and my bones would gladly be at rest yet such is my infirmity that when death is ready to come in to help me to bed I am startled and more willing to sit up and keep him out of doors like Jehorams Messenger then to be troubled with such an attendance O my soul what is the matter it is for children to apprehend bull-beggers and to be afraid to lie to sleep in the dark be not frighted with a name death is no more the thing he was the King of fear is departed death is dead as to any hurt it can do thee and yet I may say so far alive as to serve thee he is thine without any more tergiversations therefore O my Soul prepare thy self for thy last rest and in order thereunto acquaint thy self with this pale complexioned Servant before hand that his face may not be strange unto thee we do not affect to have strangers about us to help us off with our cloths but such as we know well accustom thy self to entertain communion with him go down to the Potters house as God commanded the Prophet that is as some Expositors say descend to the consideration of mortality and so live to day as if thou wert to be taken from me to night so shall death never be a surprise to thee but whensoever he comes he shall find

according to the true value of the mettal and as brass coine O my Soul learn this wisdome use pleasures as pleasures and whilst thou laiest hold on these follies do as Solomon did retaine the wisdome to know they are but follies Do not set thine eyes upon that which is not or which if in any sence it be is never at such a consistence but that even whilst it is it may be said it was so fluid that like water the more it is embraced and grasped the more it slips away But look up and consider the things here below which are seen are temporary and of short continuance but the things which are above and which are not seen are eternal Those and none but those are the true pleasures which are at Gods right hand for evermore MEDITAT XVII Vpon the sight of a fair horse well mannaged WHat a noble Generous creature is this and how answerable to that character of a brave goodly horse which was delivered by God himself out of the whirlwind His crest seems to be clothed with thunder the glory of his Nostrils is terrible he swalloweth the ground with fierceness and rage and saith among the trumpets ha ha he mocketh at fear he paweth and reioyceth in his strength and is ready to go on to meet the armed men as if he smelt the battel afar off and heard the thunder of the Captains and the shouting God seemeth if I may so speak to take pleasure in describing this peice of his own workmanship setting forth as in the description of the Leviathan his parts and his power and his comely proportion Where God thinks it not fit to conceal the commendation of his works they ought to be had in remembrance and to be glorified by us All thy works praise thee O Lord and thy Saints shall bless thee in all thy works O my Soul praise thou the Lord as in other things so in this particular opperation of his hands which he himself hath praised and ranked with the cheif of his wayes It may be matter of just admiration even to the most knowing persons to consider how the strength and fierceness of this creature is subdued and subjected to the service and mannagement of a weak infirme man who is so far unable to cope with such an enemy upon even tearmes that he cannot withstand the kick of his foot Lord what is man that thou shouldst thus magnify him and put the fear and dread of him upon all thine inferior creatures and deliver them into his hand Certainly they are injurious to nature or rather to the God of nature that think man ill dealt with because he is not so long lasting as most vegetables are nor so strong and active as many sensitive creatures are not considering that the great creator aiming at a higher end in man is in these lower faculties less intent and elaborate as having in that excellent gift of reason wherewith he is indued not only repaired and compensated those defects unto him but exalted him above all other creatures and inabled him thereby to command their parts and qualities wherein they exceed him and to make use of them for his own service But what merit is there in man that should thus mount him and set him on horse-back It is true in his creation God innobled him by impressing the Signature of his own Image upon him and by giving him that dominion over the workes of his hands but man being in honour continued not but by his prevarication fell whereby he became not only like the beasts that perish so that they might say man is become like one of us but inferiour to them and subject to their annoyance to be mischeived and maistered and as it were to be ridden by them All other creatures retaine the honour and dignity of their creation all that host so the word of God calls it all that army of creatures doth punctually observe the discipline and pass upon the duty imposed on them by their maker and act accordingly but man only who was commissionated general of that army could not command himself but being misgoverned by his own corrupt affections did imbase and abbasterdise that noble kind wherewith God had honor'd him O the riches of free grace the reprobate Angels sinned but once and were immediatly and irrecoverably damned the sensitive creatures never sinned and yet are subdued to the bondage of corruption Man whom God had made little inferiour to the elect Angels and superiour to all the works of his hands in this sublunary world he doth nothing and can do nothing of himself as of himself but sin in every imagination of the thoughts of his heart and hath thereby rendered himself justly liable to death and hell and yet as if God had loved him better then himself it pleased him to give himself his only begotten Son Coessential Coequal with himself to be a ransome for his sins and by the all-sufficiency of that redemtion and attonement to re-invest him in his former command here and to intitle him to the Kingdom of Heaven hereafter O the depth How much should man love to whom so much is given and so much forgiven I cannot but have a charity for those poor ignorant people who upon the first sight of horse men took the men and the horses to be but one and the same creature But taking them as they are distinct who would not think but that as it was in the vision of the living creatures and the wheels the Spirit of the one were in the other and that one Soul acted both So doth the beast answer to every the least motion of the rider and obey his mannage What is is this but an emblem of sence guided by reason This horse may pass for the representative of a well governed man The great Moralist made that use of the description of a brave serviceable Horse in Virgil to apply it to the Character of a gallant person professing that if he were to commend Cato he could not express his constant regular noble carriage in better tearmes How beautiful is vertue and a well commanded courage in a man when the bare shaddow of that gallantry tho so far short is so well becoming even in a beast But we have a caveat given us Not to be as the horse which is exemplified in our turning to our own precipitate courses as the horse rusheth heedlesly into the battel and in our pampering and fomenting our corrupt affections when like fed horses we neigh after our lusts What a beast is man when he suffers his sense to transport him beyond his reason Surely so much worse then the horse and mule which have no understanding as he hath an understanding which he himself hath imbrutishtand abased below his Species He is brutish as the Prophet saith in his very knowledg The man may ride the horse but so long as the sense rides the reason the beast rides the man In vain doth he