Selected quad for the lemma: death_n
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A65312
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A sermon preached July 2, at the funeral of Mr. John Wells late pastor of Olave-Jury, London by Thomas Watson ...
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Watson, Thomas, d. 1686.
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1676
(1676)
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Wing W1143; ESTC R9175
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13,834
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40
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shortly lye in the ashes Shall not he which is cloathed with Mortality be cloathed with Humility The thoughts of the Grave would bury our pride When the Lord had said to the Judges Psal. 82. 6 I said ye are gods lest they should grow proud he adds a corrective but ye shall die like men Ye are dying-gods 3. The meditation of the shortness of time would hasten our Repentance Repentance is as necessary as Heaven as radical moisture and natural heat preserve the life so repenting-tears and an heart burning with love preserve the soul. It is natural to delay Repentance We say as Hag. 1. 2 The time is not yet come But the Text saith the time is short our life is a taper soon blown out The thoughts of Times volubility and swiftness would keep us from proroguing our repentance 'T is no time for us to make a long work when God is making a short work It is observed of the Birds of Norway that they fly faster than the birds of other Countrys By the instinct of nature knowing the days in that Climate to be very short they therefore make the more hast to their nests The consideration of our short abode here will make us avoid delays and fly faster to Heaven upon the wing of repentance 4. The meditation of the shortness of time would antidote us against the temptations of Satan Temptation is Satans eldest daughter that woes for him Satan doth more mischief by his wiles than his darts He knows how to suit his temptations as the Husbandman knows what seed is proper for such a soil Satan tempted Achan with a wedg of Gold David with Beauty It is hard to keep up the banks of Grace against the sea of Temptation I know no better remedy against Satans immodest solicitations than this Text The time is short What Satan dost thou tempt me to vanity when I am going to give up my accounts shall I now be sinning when to morrow I may be dying How shall I look my Judg in the face Christian when Satan sets sinful pleasure before thee shew him a deaths-head this will make temptations vanish 5. The consideration of the shortness of our stay in the world would be an help to Temperance it would make us sober and moderate in the use of worldly comforts By excess we turn things lawful into sin the Bee may suck a little honey from the leaf but put it into a barrel of honey and it is drowned We may with Jonathan dip the end of the rod in honey but not thrust it in too far Noah took too much of the Grape Gen. 9. 21. The flesh when pampered rebels The best preservative against intemperance is this Tempus est contractum The time is short When we are feasting death may quickly take away the Cloth Plutarch reports that the Egyptians used at their great Banquets to bring in the Image of a dead man and say to their Guests Look upon this and proceed in your Banket An excellent Antidote against a Surfeit Joseph of Arimathea erected a Sepulchre in his Garden to spice his flowry delights with the thoughts of death 6. The meditation of the shortness of time would much mitigate our grief for the loss of dear Relations It is observable when the Apostle had said The time is short he presently adds Let them that weep be as if they wept not No doubt the loss of Relations is grievous to the fleshy part It is like pulling a limb from the body When God strikes us in our right eye we weep 'T is lawful to give vent to our grief Joseph wept over his dead Father But though Religion doth not banish grief it bounds it We must weep quasi non as if we wept not Rachels sin was that she refused to be comforted Mat. 2. 18. Origen it is thought died of grief and if any thing can stop the issue of sorrow at least asswage it it is this The time is short We shall shortly have our losses made up and enjoy our godly Relations again in Heaven 7. The Meditation of the shortness of time would make us highly value Grace Time is short but Grace is for ever 1 Joh. 2. 27 The anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you Grace is a blossome of Eternity it is semen manens an immortal seed 1 Joh. 3. 9. Grace is Embryo Gloriae Grace is not blasted by death but transplanted into a better soil Grace is not a lease which soon expires but an inheritance intailed for ever He who hath true Grace can no more lose it than the Angels can who are fixed in their Heavenly Orb. Rev. 10. 6 The Angel sware by him that liveth for ever that there should be time no longer But Grace shall survive time and run parallel with Eternity 2. Branch If Time be so short and winged take heed of mispending this short time to mispend time is the worst prodigality 1. Take heed of spending time unprofitably Domitian wasted much of his time in catching Flies Many live to cumber the ground Telluris inutile pondus Judg. 10. 4 â— Jair had thirty Sons that rode on thirty ass-colts and they had thirty cities and they died So it may be said such an one was born in the reign of such a King and he possessed such an Estate and he died his life was scarce worth a prayer or his death worth a tear An idle person stands in the world but for a cypher and God writes down no cyphers in the book of life many are like the wood of the Vine useless Ezek. 15. 3 Will men take a pin of it to hang any vessel thereon Too many resemble the Lillies which toil not neither do they spin They spend their time as the Emperour Caligula he was at a great expence to provide a Navy and when it was provided he sent his Mariners to Sea to gather cockle-shells and so they sailed home again God hath furnish'd men with precious time wherein they may work out Salvation and they imploy it vainly aut aliud agendo aut nihil they ravel it out in impertinencies What reward can be expected when there is no work done who is crowned that never fights Mat. 25. 30 Cast ye the unprofitable servant into utter darkness 2. Take heed of spending time viciously Divers spend their short time in drinking gaming whoring Esau while he was hunting lost the blessing many while they hunt after sinful pleasures lose Heaven Sin is boiled to a great heigth in this Age men study new Oaths and count it a shame not to be impudent they are steep'd and parboil'd in wickedness they live in the world to infect others as the Basilisk with its breath poisons the herbs What a dreadful account will they have to give who have nothing to shew God but their Treasons Branch 3. If the time of life be so short let us improve it Ephes. 5. 16
the great Ocean Time is a Spot on this side Eternity and what a little of that Spot is Mans life Thus you see in what sense Time is short It will not be long before the Silver cord be loosed and the Golden bowl broken Eccles. 12. 6. By the Silver Cord I understand the Pith or Marrow of the Back which for its whiteness is called Silver this Silver Cord will soon be loosed By the Golden Bowl is meant the Meninx or Skin wherein the Brains are enclosed as in a Bowl this Golden Bowl will soon be broken Time goes on apace The Poets painted Time with Wings because it flies so fast In Joshua's dayes when the Sun and Moon stood still Time went on In Hezekiah's Reign when the Sun went Ten degrees backward Time went forward Our whole life is nothing else but a passage to Death where there is no staying by the way or slacking our pace Vse 1. See what a poor inconsiderable thing Life is The time is short and upon this small Wire of time hangs the Weight of Eternity Life is but a short Scene Acted here It is but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Vapour or puff of Wind Jam. 1. 4 Life is made up of a few flying Minutes Oh then how imprudent are they who to save their Lives will damn their Souls He were unwise who to preserve a short Lease would lose his Freehold How many such are there who to preserve this short Life will take indirect courses defraud and oppress and to build up an Estate will pull down their Souls many to save their Skins will deflour their Conscience Spira to preserve his Life abjured the Faith The Irish make great reckoning of their Skimeter a Warlike Weapon and will endure a blow on the Arm to keep their Skimeter from being hurt To this Skimeter I may compare the Soul better it is to endure a blow on our Body or Estate than suffer our precious Soul to be endamaged The Soul is the Man of the Man The Soul of Plato is Plato The Soul is the Princely part Crowned with Reason it is Dei insignita imagine it carries in it some faint Idaea or Resemblance of the Trinity The Soul is a rich Diamond set in Clay what folly is it for saving the Clay to lose the Diamond Like Tiberius the Emperour who for a draught of Water lost a Kingdom Vse 2. Is Time so curtail'd and shortned Let us often contemplate the shortness of Life Feathers swim upon the Water but Gold sinks into it Light Feathery-spirits float in vanity but serious Christians sink deep into the thoughts of their sudden change Deut. 32. 29 O that they were wise that they would consider their latter end Forgetfulness of the latter end makes Life sinful and Death formidable People naturally shrink back from the thoughts of Death Amos 6. 3 They put far away from them the evil day When they are young they hope they shall spin out Life to the Blossoming of the Almond Tree and when old age comes they hope to renew their strength as the Eagle though their Bodies are subject to corruption and they feel the symptoms of mortality in them Deafness of Hearing here is Death creeping in at the Ear Dimness of Sight here is Death creeping in at the Eye yet so frantique are they as to perswade themselves of long life Bodily diseases are but Deaths Harbingers which go before to bespeak a Lodging for Death Why then do men dream of an Earthly Eternity Psal. 49. 11 Their inward thought is that their houses shall continue for ever Where is the Man that contemplates Times Shortness or makes another's Death a Looking-glass in which he may see his own dying Face Some may say this Discourse of the Shortness of Time is fit for such as are Consumptive whom the Physicians have given over but for their parts they are well in health and may live these many years But though your Blood be fresh in your Veins and your Bones are full of Marrow you know not how short your time may be He was not sick nor in fear of sickness who said Soul take thy ease but that night Death sealed him a Lease of Ejectment Luke 12. 20. Freshness of Complexion is sometimes a lightning before Death The metal of which Glass is made when it begins to shine is nearest melting Persons likely enough to live have been suddenly taken away by Squinisies Convulsions Appoplexies How soon may Death sound its Allarm 'T is reported of Zeleuchus that the first piece of Household-stuff he brought into Babylon was a Tomb-stone O Meditate of the transiency and brittleness of Life think often of your Tombe-stone Quest. What advantage will accrew to us by often thinking of our short stay here Answ. 1. The shortness of Time meditated on would cool the heat of our affections to the World These visible objects please the fancy but they do not so much delight us as delude us they are brevi dilapsura suddenly gone from us Worldly things are like a fair Picture drawn on the Ice which the Sun quickly melts The time is short why should we love that over-much which we cannot keep over-long 1 Cor. 7. 31 The fashion or Pageant of the World passeth away Time passeth away as a Ship in full sail this thought-on seriously would mortify Covetousness Paul looked upon himself as ready to loosen Anchor and be gone 2 Pet. 1. 14 Knowing that shortly I must put off this my Tabernacle And how did his love to the World dye Gal. 6. 14 The World is Crucified to me and I unto the World Who would covet that much which hath neither Contentment nor Continuance Among the Graecians the City of Sparta had a King of it but for a year and then he was to lay down his Crown which made every one strive not to be King Why should we so toil about the World as if we were to live here ever What needs a long provision for a short way If we have but enough to bear our charges to Heaven it sufficeth Suppose a mans Lease were ready to expire and he should fall a building and planting would not he be judged indiscreet When our time is so very short now to follow the World immoderately as if we would fetch happiness out of the Earth which God hath cursed is a degree of frenzy we shall have no need of the Earth shortly but to be buried in it 2. The meditation of the shortness of Time would be a means to humble us St. Augustin calls Humility the Mother of the Graces Balm sinks to the bottom of the Water a good Christian sinks low in Humility and what can sooner pull down the Flags and Banners of Pride than to consider we are shortly dropping into the Dust The Priest was to cast the Feathers of the Fowls by the place of the ashes Levit. 1. 16. All your Feathers of Honour must