Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	beg_v	grave_n	great_a	16	3	2.1033	3	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A61600	A sermon preached before the honourable House of Commons at St. Margarets Westminster, Octob. 10, 1666 being the fast-day appointed for the late dreadfull fire in the city of London / by Edward Stillingfleet ...	Stillingfleet, Edward, 1635-1699.	1666 (1666)	Wing S5639; ESTC R34613	20,955	52

wonderful expression of the kindness of God to us in the midst of so much severity If he had suffered the Fire to go on to have consumed the remainder of our Churches and Houses and laid this City even with the other in one continued heap of ruines we must have said Just art thou O Lord and righteous in all thy judgements We ought rather to have admired his patience in sparing us so long then complain of this rigour of his justice in punishing us at last but instead of that he hath given us occasion this day with the three Children in the fiery furnace to praise him in the midst of the flames For even the Inhabitants of London themselves who have suffered most in this calamity have cause to acknowledge the mercy of God towards them that they are escaped themselves though it be as the Jews report of Joshua the High Priest when thrown into the fire by the Chaldeans with their cloaths burnt about them Though their habitations be consumed and their losses otherwise may be too great yet that in the midst of so much danger by the flames and the press of people so very few should suffer the loss of their lives ought to be owned by them and us as a miraculous Providence of God towards them And therefore not unto us not unto us but to his holy name be the praise of so great a preservation in the midst of so heavy a Judgement 2. The unexpectedness of such a deliverance they are not saved by their own skill and counsell nor by their strength and industry but by him who by his mighty hand did pluck them as firebrands out of the burning Though we own the justice of God in the calamities of this day let us not forget his mercy in what he hath unexpectedly rescued from the fury of the flames that the Royal Palaces of our Gracious Soveraign the residence of the Nobility the Houses of Parliament the Courts of Judicature the place where we are now assembled and several others of the same nature with other places and habitations to receive those who were burnt out of their own stand at this day untouched with the fire and long may they continue so ought chiefly to be ascribed to the power and goodness of that God who not only commands the raging of the Sea and the madness of the people but whom the winds and the flames obey Although enough in a due subordination to Divine Providence can never be attributed to the mighty care and industry of our most Gracious Soveraign and his Royal Highness who by their presence and incouragement inspired a new life and vigour into the sinking spirits of the Citizens whereby God was pleased so far to succeed their endeavours that a stop was put to the fury of the fire in such places where it was as likely to have prevailed as in any parts of the City consumed by it O let us not then frustrate the design of so much severity mixed with so great mercy let it never be said that neither judgements nor kindness will work upon us that neither our deliverance from the Pestilence which walks in darkness nor from the flames which shine as the noon-day will awaken us from that Lethargy and security we are in by our sins but let God take what course he pleases with us we are the same incorrigible people still that ever we were For we have cause enough for our mourning and lamentation this day if God had not sent new calamities upon us that we were no better for those we had undergone before We have surfetted with mercies and grown sick of the kindness of Heaven to us and when God hath made us smart for our fulness and wantonness then we grew sullen and murmured and disputed against Providence and were willing to do any thing but repent of our sins and reform our lives It is not many years since God blessed us with great and undeserved blessings which we then thought our selves very thankful for but if we had been really so we should never have provoked him who bestowed those favours upon us in so great a degree as we have done since Was this our requital to him for restoring our Soveraign to rebell the more against Heaven Was this our thankfulness for removing the disorders of Church and State to bring them into our lives Had we no other way of trying the continuance of Gods goodness to us but by exercising his patience by our greater provocations As though we had resolved to let the world see there could be a more unthankful and disobedient people than the Jews had been Thus we sinned with as much security and confidence as though we had blinded the eyes or bribed the justice or commanded the power of Heaven When God of a sudden like one highly provoked drew forth the sword of his destroying Angel and by it cut off so many thousands in the midst of us Then we fell upon our knees and begg'd the mercy of Heaven that our lives might be spared that we might have time to amend them but no sooner did our fears abate but our devotion did so too we had soon forgotten the promises we made in the day of our distress and I am afraid it is at this day too true of us which is said in the Revelations of those who had escaped the several plagues which so many had been destroyed by And the rest of the men which were not killed by these Plagues yet repented not of the work of their hands For if we had not greedily suckt in again the poison we had only laid down while we were begging for our lives if we had not returned with as great fury and violence as ever to our former lusts the removing of one judgement had not been as it were only to make way for the coming on of another For the grave seemed to close up her mouth and death by degrees to withdraw himself that the Fire might come upon the Stage to act its part too in the Tragoedy our sins have made among us and I pray God this may be the last Act of it Let us not then provoke God to find out new methods of vengeance and make experiments upon us of what other unheard of severities may do for our cure But let us rather meet God now by our repentance and returning to him by our serious humiliation for our former sins and our stedfast resolutions to return no more to the practice of them That that much more dangerous infection of our souls may be cured as well as that of our bodies that the impure flames which burn within may be extinguished that all our luxuries may be retrenched our debaucheries punished our vanities taken away our careless indifferency in Religion turned into a greater seriousness both in the profession and the practise of it So will God make us a happy and prosperous when he finds us a more righteous and holy Nation So will God succeed all your endeavours for the honour and interest of that people whom you represent So may he add that other Title to the rest of those you have deserved for your Countries good to make you Repairers of the breaches of the City as well as of the Nation and restorers of paths to dwell in So may that City which now sits solitary like a Widow have her tears wiped off and her beauty and comeliness restored unto her Yea so may her present ruines in which she now lyes buried be only the forerunners of a more joyfull resurrection In which though the body may remain the same the qualities may be so altered that its present desolation may be only the puting off its former inconveniencies weakness and deformities that it may rise with greater glory strength and proportion and to all her other qualities may that of incorruption be added too at least till the general conflagration And I know your great Wisdom and Justice will take care that those who have suffered by the ruines may not likewise suffer by the rising of it that the glory of the City may not be laid upon the tears of the Orphans and Widows but that its foundations may be setled upon Justice and Piety That there be no complaining in the Streets for want of righteousness nor in the City for want of Churches nor in the Churches for want of a setled maintenance That those who attend upon the service of God in them may never be tempted to betray their Consciences to gain a livelihood nor to comply with the factious humors of men that they may be able to live among them And thus when the City through the blessing of Heaven shall be built again may it be a habitation of Holiness towards God of Loyalty towards our Gracious King and his Successours of Justice and Righteousness towards men of Sobriety and Peace and Unity among all the Inhabitants till not Cities and Countries only but the World and time it self shall be no more Which God of his infinite mercy grant through the merits and mediation of his Son to whom with the Father and Eternal spirit be all Honour and Glory for evermore FINIS Lam. 2. 1. Luke 17. 28 29. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 de bell Jud. l. 7. c. 14. Jude 7. Tacit. An. 15. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 X●phil in Epit. Dion in Tito p. 227. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Herod an in Commod hist. l. 1. p. 22. v. X●phil ad fin Commodi Nic●p● l. 15. c. 21 Evagr. l. 2. cap. 13. Baron Tom. 5. A. 465. 1 Hieron in lo● Gildas de ●xcid Brit. Scipio apud Ang. de Civ D. l. 1. c. 33. Cicer. pro Flacco Hab. 2. 11. Is● 47. 7 8 11. Zeph. 1. 13 14 15. Amos 3 6. Lact. l. 2. c. 11. Rev. 9. 20.

Heaven yet we have just cause to fear if it be not our speedy amendment it may be our ruine And they who think that incredible let them tell me whether two years since they did not think it altogether as improbable that in the compass of the two succeeding years above a hundred thousand persons should be destroyed by the Plague in London and other places and the City it self should be burnt to the Ground And if our fears do not I am sure our sins may tell us that these are but the fore-runners of greater calamities in case there be not a timely reformation of our selves And although God may give us some intermissions of punishments yet at last he may as the Roman Consul expressed it pay us intercalatae poenae usuram that which may make amends for all his abatements and give us full measure according to that of our sins pressed down shaken together and running over Which leads to the third particular 3. The causes moving God to so much severity in his Judgements which are the greatness of the sins committed against him So this Prophet tels us that the true account of all Gods punishments is to be fetched from the sins of the people Amos 1. 3. For three transgressions of Damascus and for four I will not turn away the punishment thereof so it is said of Gaza v. 6. of Tyrus v. 9. of Edom v. 11. of Ammon v. 13. Moab ch 2. 1. Judah v. 4. and at last Israel v. 6. And it is observable of every one of these that when God threatens to punish them for the greatness of their iniquities and the multitude of their transgressions which is generally supposed to be meant by the three transgressions and the four he doth particularly threaten to send a fire among them to consume the Houses and the Palaces of their Cities So to Damascus chap. 1. 4. to Gaza v. 7. to Tyrus v. 10. to Edom v. 12. to Ammon v. 14. to Moab ch 2. v. 2. to Judah v. 5. I will send a fire upon Judah and it shall devour the Palaces of Jerusalem and Israel in the words of the text This is a judgement then which when it comes in its fury gives us notice to how great a height our sins are risen especially when it hath so many dreadful fore-runners as it had in Israel and hath had among our selves When the red horse hath marched furiously before it all bloody with the effects of a Civil War and the pale horse hath followed after the other with Death upon his back and the Grave at his heels and after both these those come out of whose mouth issues fire and smoak and brimstone it is then time for the inhabitants of the earth to repent of the work of their hands But it is our great unhappiness that we are apt to impute these great calamities to any thing rather than to our sins and thereby we hinder our selves from the true remedy because we will not understand the cause of our distemper Though God hath not sent Prophets among us to tell us for such and such sins I will send such and such judgements upon you yet where we observe the parallel between the sins and the punishments agreeable with what we find recorded in Scripture we have reason to say that those sins were not only the antecedents but the causes of those punishments which followed after them And that because the reason of punishment was not built upon any particular relation between God and the people of Israel but upon reasons common to all mankind yet with this difference that the greater the mercies were which any people enjoyed the sooner was the measure of their iniquities filled up and the severer were the judgements when they came upon them This our Prophet gives an account of Chap. 3. 2. You only have I known of all the Nations of the earth therefore will I punish you for your iniquities So did God punish Tyre and Damascus as well as Israel and Judah but his meaning is he would punish them sooner he would punish them more severely I wish we could be brought once to consider what influence piety and vertue hath upon the good of a Nation if we did we should not only live better our selves but our Kingdom Nation might flourish more than otherwise we are like to see it do Which is a truth hath been so universally received among the wise Men of all ages that one of the Roman Historians though of no very severe life himself yet imputes the decay of the Roman State not to Chance or Fortune or some unhidden causes which the Atheism of our age would presently do but to the general loosness of mens lives and corruption of their manners And it was the grave Observation of one of the bravest Captains ever the Roman State had that it was impossible for any State to be happy stantibus moenibus ruentibus moribus though their walls were firm if their manners were decayed But it is our misery that our walls and our manners are fallen together or rather the latter undermined the former They are our sins which have drawn so much of our blood and infected our air and added the greatest fuell to our flames But it is not enough in general to declaim against our sins but we must search out particularly those predominant vices which by their boldness and frequency have provoked God thus to punish us and as we have hitherto observed a parallel between the Judgements of Israel in this Chapter and our own So I am afraid we shall find too sad a parallel between their sins and ours too Three sorts of sins are here spoken of in a peculiar manner as the causes of their severe punishments Their luxury and intemperance their covetousness and oppression and their contempt of God and his Laws and I doubt we need not make a very exact scrutiny to find out these in a high degree among our selves and I wish it were as easie to reform them as to find them out 1. Luxury and intemperance that we meet with in the first verse both in the compellation Ye Kine of Bashan and in their behaviour which say to their Masters bring and let us drink Ye Kine of Bashan Loquitur ad principes Israel optimates quosque decem Tribuum saith St. Hierom he speaks to the Princes of Israel and the chief of all the ten Tribes Those which are fed in the richest pastures such as those of Bashan were Who are more fully described by the Prophet in his sixth chapter They are the men who are at ease in Sion v. 1. they put far away from them the evil day v. 3. they lye upon beds of Ivory and stretch themselves upon their couches and eat the Lambs out of the flock and the Calves out of the midst of the stall v. 4. they chaunt to the sound of the Viol and invent to themselves instruments of musick like David v. 5.