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	life_n	live_v	4,791	5	5.2156	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A13083	True happines, or, King Dauids choice begunne in sermons, and now digested into a treatise. By Mr. William Struther, preacher at Edinburgh.	Struther, William, 1578-1633.	1633 (1633)	STC 23371; ESTC S113854	111,103	162

heart of every beleever by a spiritual union God and we were more distant than heaven and hell and how should that fountain communicate its goodnes to us but by that chanell of our own nature in Christ we receive it both kindly and largely He is the fountain of grace as God one with his Father he hath deserved it by his obedience and dispenseth it to us as God-man So we receive grace by a kindly convoy This is better than Labans Well for none could drink of that till the stone was rolled off But this fountain is alway open to the house of David And the first shot of these over-running waters roll this stone of hardnes from our heart when his grace softneth our heart to receive more grace And though Jacobs Wel had water yet they who came to it had need of a bucket and coard to draw but this fountain furnisheth both the bucket of an earnest desire and the coard of a strong faith Even he who saith Open thy mouth wide and I will fill it doth open our heart with Lidia's and maketh us to receive his grace largely This is the sweet respect that this fountain of happinesse hath to our miserie to prevent us with exciting grace to draw us with effectuall grace and to communicate this happinesse to us that our miserie may be happie in him Before we loved him he made us when he kythed his love to us he renewed us and being beloved of us he shall perfect us I close this point with Solomon O fountain of the gardens O Well of living waters Arìse O north and come O south and blow on my garden that the spices thereof may flow out Let my welbeloved come to his garden and eat his pleasant fruit SECTION III. How to seek true happinesse I have sought that I will inquire THe first section of this doctrine hath told us that there is a happines one thing The second that God is the fountain of it Now followeth the third how to seek it And this is set down in two words of Praying and Inquiring and offereth to us two kinds of seeking The first is the Inquirie of happinesse among many things The second is the suiting of it from God by prayer after we have found it In this inquirie we shall consider the necessitie difficulty and the form The necessity is great because it is about this greatest necessar one thing We have it not by nature but must get it by grace so we are not born happy but made happy We are miserable in our selves and must be changed by happines and this change is furthered by inquirie Our life is short our death uncertain and when it approacheth if it finde us unprovided our misery shall be threefold What then should we do in a short life but cast off vanity and set us for the search of the truth Besides it is the main end wherefore we are brought into the world and if a new born childe could speak and were asked wherefore he is born He should answer To seek the happines that he lost in Adam We are not born to buy and build and heap riches and honour together but to enquire for salvation as a childe is not formed in the belly to bide there but to come forth and to be a perfect man in the free light It is a great good to seek the chief good The difficulty of this inquiry is first from the nature of happinesse It is hid manna the eye hath not seen it nor the eare heard it c. And this our life is hid with Christ in God Next from the multitude of false happinesses that deceive us For Satan hath filled the way of our inquiry with sundry baits to divert us from the right that on them we may stick as upon the chief good and embrace our own fancies Thirdly from our own disposition we are all born with a desire of happines and every life in it own kinde desires to be better If we ask any man though he were a fool would you be happy He would answer I would For every being is desirous of goodnesse or well being The desire of meat drink raiment are no more rooted in us than that desire of happines and these smallest desires serve the greatest The appetite of the wills sacietie which the schools call happines is common but few know the reason of that saciety so that many labouring to choose a particular happines which their common appetite desired have chosen misery for happines It is as hard to finde out true happines as it is easie to have the common desire of it the one hath need of a supernaturall grace as the other floweth from a naturall power Fourthly the practice of all ages proveth this difficultie for of the many millions that sought out happines none did finde it out except those whom God assisted by a speciall grace The Philosophers travelled painfully but brought out the winde they were confident that they had found it and yet found it not But that confidence was double miserie both in missing true happines and then in resting upon their own deceit They neither agreed with the truth nor among themselves nor any one of them with himself If we look to the universall desire rising from the common notion we shal be forced to say There is a happines if we look on their diversitie and contrarietie we shall wonder at Sathans craft abusing mans wit to erre so fouly about happines And Solomon himself thought this task both worthy of him and hard for him to finde out what was that good or happinesse of the sons of men Wee must think it an hard task whereon so many Philosophers have lost their labour their time and themselves The search it self goeth in two the refusing of ill and choosing of good The ill of sin must simply be refused whether it be originall or actuall inherent or adherent guiltinesse It is the cause of our misery and contrarie to good it cannot enter in happines but stayes it in us Our miserie began at it and our happines beginneth in turning from it Adam was tried by the tree of knowledge of good and ill which told him that so long as hee stood hee had a known good and was free from an unknown ill But when he fell he ●o und experimentall knowledge of a lost good and purchased ill That tree is yet our triall if we will eschew the ill of sin and follow the good of happines There can be no happines in ill neither can any man desire or love ill as ill and sathan whose malice is fed with it doth not love it as ill but as a good as a satisfaction of his malitious will And those men are most like to him who seek their happines in ill They make it their happines when they boast of it as Lamech of his tyrannie and Doeg of his calumnies

of a purified minde this glorious God as the prime beautie of the Sanctuarie and the only object of our religious worship wherein true Christians excell all other people who worship not this true God Religious worship in the Sanctuarie is the greatest worke we act in this life because we seeke happinesse in the union with that we worship For therein three things go together First our highest estimation of it as chiefe good in it selfe and so communicative of that goodnesse to our happinesse Next our highest affection loving it above all And these are the two maine parts of inward worship The third is a religious reverence arising of them manifesting it selfe in the acts of outward worship to pray to him and praise him According to the object wee worship so is our fruit For if wee worship the true God alone then wee come to happinesse both because our estimation affection and reverence are right placed And more because thereby he communicateth himselfe to us even to our conformitie with him for our due estimation of him is our excellencie that maketh us misprise all things beside and seeke him alone Our due affection to him is our union with him and a partaking of his divine nature in that we loath all things beside and adhere to him as our only happinesse Thirdly our religious reverence holdeth him ever in our eye as the paterne to the which wee conforme our selves So thereby undoubtedly wee attaine true happinesse But if wee worship any thing beside we make our selves more and more miserable Though wee should worship Angels and Martyrs neither can they communicate goodnesse to make us happy and their worship is impious and idolatrous and separateth us from God The pretended cause why Julian forbad Christians children the use of secular learning was lest they being armed therewith might more dextrously refute the Pagans But the secret cause was lest by reading the fables and histories of the Gods they should finde just matter of mocking and insulting over them As the old Senat burnt Numaes books because they expressed the secrets of their religion For their owne histories maketh them the worst men of their time yea monsters rather than men and yet after their death the world seeking a colour to their owne wickednesse made them gods And the devils the promoters of their worship for their owne behoofe made the world thinke that adulterie murther drunkennesse and such were good service to them If Iupiter Mars Apollo Bacchus were now living as they were at their best in their life time they would be abhorred as pests and cast out of the common-wealth This then is our happinesse that wee worship that God alone who made the heaven and the earth and finding him that all the parts of religious worship begin in him continue and abide in him Secondly the beautie of God in the Sanctuarie is in his working with his people for happinesse which wee consider in three First as it proceedeth from him Secondly the worke of his grace in the people meeting him Thirdly the worke of pastours betwixt both Gods worke toward his people goeth in foure First his offering of happinesse Secondly his exacting of service Thirdly his conferring or giving the grace that he offereth to them Fourthly his accepting of his worke in them as if it were theirs only The first is his offer of salvation and happinesse At the first it is thought that wee come to offer to him but indeed he bringeth us to his house to offer to us Here a great change God whome wee have made our enemie is our best friend Our Iudge who may plague us for our sinne turneth our repledger by his mercy rescuing us from Justice Our Creditour turneth our Pardoner and while hee might powre out all his wrath upon us he is to reconcile us to him And under this name our reconciliation goeth because he worketh the worke whereof wee are at first both ignorant and uncapable So in Scripture every where he calleth on us Come let us count together Come to mee yee that are wearie and laden and I will ease you Next in the Sanctuarie he exacteth service of us and that for our owne good only that seeing he is applying to us his happinesse purchased by his Son he craved of us preparations and dispositions to receive it So he craveth that wee lay up his word in our heart That wee repent our sinne unfainedly that we beleeve in him that wee love him with all our heart and all our soule and that we honour him in keeping his Commandements for even while he promiseth to ease us of our owne yoake he biddeth us take his yoake upon us That we pray to him for blessings wee have need of and that wee praise him for every blessing we receive For God commandeth no man any thing for his owne profit but for his profit whom he commandeth And all the businesse of our sacrifice under the Gospell is not for him but for our more profitable exercise in piety Thirdly he conferreth upon us and giveth the things that he both offereth and exacteth so hee worketh faith in us opening our hearts as hee did the heart of Lydia and while he biddeth us Come to his Sonne he draweth us to him both by alluring us with his excellencie and bowing of our wils to him He craveth of us that we understand his word and giveth us hearts to understand it when he circumciseth our eare and heart and writeth his Law therein As he commandeth that we love him with all our heart so he sheddeth abroad his love in our heart making all our heart powre it selfe out on him As he craveth obedience of us so he giveth the spirit of obedience putting his feare in our heart and causing us to walke in his Law His craving or exacting is not Legall but Evangelick for the legall is Doe and thou shalt live and yet gave no helpe to doe the thing that was commanded but the Evangelick exacting giveth us power to doe the thing that it commandeth giving us to know to will and to doe And their obedience differeth as well as the exaction for the legall obedience was to righteousnesse and salvation if they could attaine it but the Evangelick obedience is for gratitude and thankfulnesse to God for that happinesse which hee hath both purchased and applies to them freely Fourthly as a gracious Acceptor of that wee are able to doe by his grace which goeth in two First though it be his he counteth it ours for wee are not able of our selves as of our selves to thinke any good but all our sufficiencie is of him He giveth us the habite of faith of repentance and bringeth their acts out of them And though formally beleeving repenting c. be our worke because our wils moved by grace doe move themselves and so specifieth the acts of these habits yet the power