Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	body_n	good_a	life_n	7,085	5	4.4715	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A55552	The death of good Josiah lamented a sermon occasioned by the death of our late most gracious soveraign Queen Mary, of ever blessed memory, preach'd at Balsham in Cambridgshire, March 3, 1695 / Joseph Powell ...	Powell, Joseph, d. 1698.	1695 (1695)	Wing P3063; ESTC R3155	12,894	33

illustrious for his piety and vertue as for his power and authority when he had used those as instruments of doing honour to God and procuring benefit to mankind had valued them as capacities of being more beneficial to the world and made it his aim that others should enjoy the greatest good of his possessing them they then scarce thought any cost enough to be laid out in solemnizing their Funerals they lamented excessively and yet were concern'd that they could not express a passion so sensibly as it was felt and lookt upon no honour great enough to be done to their memory Mourning then past from outward ceremony and show and external decency into the most pungent and smartest feeling of the mighty loss sustain'd by the publick in the death of such benefactors They spoke of their piety call'd to mind their heroick and their exemplary vertues recited all their noble and useful designs told what they had done for God and for Religion and for Mankind produc'd the great numbers who in particular cases had received benefit by them said all the worthy things they could think of in their praise and left others to supply by raising in their minds an Idea of the bravest man what they complain'd they fell short for want of expression in describing They fear'd no suspicion of flattery where a person eminently great was equally good but presum'd all men would consent that whatever could be said must fall far short of his due praise This usage we find observ'd in the Christian Church towards the great and glorious Champions for their faith they followed them mourning to their graves They made Orations in their Praise they register'd their Names in the Church Rolls they rehearst them in their most solemn service and built their places of worship over their Tombs and all this they did in honour to them and to excite others to follow their example After this manner the people of Judah mourned for Josiah as there had been none before like him so neither did they mourn in such a manner for any before him Zec. 12.11 insomuch that when the Prophet intended to express the most grievous and bitter lamentation he could not find out a more lively and proper figure than to compare it to the mourning in the valley of Megiddo which became a proverbical speech among the Jews who when they would describe the utmost grief had nothing higher to say of it than that it is like the mourning for Josiah as if there needed nothing more to paint this passion to the life than to draw the Valley of Megiddo with this good Prince fallen in it When private men fall the mourning is little and is confin'd and soon over it reaches only a small Family and a very few select friends their deaths make no noise and the notice scarce goes beyond the neighbourhood they creep silently into their graves and are in a little time forgot the reason is there are not many who are interested in their lives and their deaths make no changes and alterations to fall under publick notice but the life of a good Prince is such a benefit to the community that every one has a share in it when he falls the whole body of the people feel the stroke and time is so far from wearing out the sense of it that hereby it is encreas'd they know not at present what their loss is till time and experience makes them understand and feel it 'T is in the Prophets metaphor Amos 8.9 like the Suns going down at noon and the darkning the earth in a clear day it wraps a people up in night and horror it frustrates all their hopes and brings a damp upon all their joys It turns their feasts into mourning and their songs into lamentations it brings up sackcloth upon all loins and baldness upon every head and there is heard as when Nature suffers an universal graon 3. And all Judah and Jerusalem mourned for Josiah We read of Jonah that he was so concern'd for his gourd that he fainted and wished he might dye Jonah 4.8 and said it was better for him to dye than to live what that was to him the same is a good Prince to to his people a shadow over their heads whilst he rules over them submission to the will of God is a duty in all cases and therefore when such a Governor is remov'd from a people which may fairly be accounted one of the most difficult instances of submission But 't is agreeable to Nature and Religion on such occasions of a common Sorrow to express an universal concern reaching as one continued mournful groan from one end of the land to the other remotest point of it 'T is not a bare defect in piety but stupidity and downright brutishness not to be affected with so severe a providence agreeable to the nature and consequence of it When Elisha saw Elijah going from him to Heaven he crys out 2 Kings 2.12 O my Father my Father the Chariots of Israel and the Horsemen thereof q. d. Who shall be left to defend and promote Religion and what shall become of the Church of God after thy departure It is the character the prophet gives of pious Kings and Queens Isay 49.23 that they should be nursing Fathers and nursing Mothers to Gods Church The people needed no such prophesie whilst Josiah was their King They were witnesses to the great regard he paid to Gods Worship and the mighty designs for Gods Honour and the advancing Religion which he was early engaged in and vigorously persued throughout the whole course of his reign They saw what countenance piety had from his authority and of what influence his example was and that there was visibly a very different face of things from what they very well remember'd of the reign of Manassah Such reflexions were upon this occasion enough to raise such a cry in Judah as was in Egypt when in every house throughout the whole land there was one found dead which Moses describes as a great and terrible as well as universal lamentation Exod. 11.6 such as there was none before it nor any like it any more Had Josiah been an old man it would have been some ease to them to have reflected that his stay with them could not have been much longer when events happen no otherwise than men expect and according to the course of Nature there is less room left for surprize or concern but this Prince was in his prime like to live many years half his gsass was still to run many of his great designs lay unperfected he was under both a capacity and will of doing much more good and vast were the advantages which his Subjects yet expected to reap from his government Poor vain man how are all his glorious expectations frustrated and his most promising hopes baffled in a moment When the breath of a man goeth forth all his thoughts perish An argument

The Death of Good Josiah Lamented A SERMON Occasioned by the Death of our Late Most Gracious Soveraign Queen Mary OF Ever Blessed Memory Preach'd at Balsham in Cambridgshire March 3. 1695. By JOSEPH POWELL M. A. Rector of Balsham in Cambridgshire LONDON Printed for Thomas Speed at the Three Crowns near the Royal Exchange in Cornhill 1695. A SERMON Occasioned by the Death of the Queen 2 Chron. XXXV 24. And all Judah and Jerusalem mourned for Josiah THese words are a record how sensibly affected the Kingdom of Judah was with the death of good Josiah for this general concern there was great reason considering his station his character and the circumstances of their affairs when this excellent Prince was snatcht from them The notice you have now had of the approaching Funeral of our late Queen of Blessed Memory will I hope render a discourse upon a Text of this nature very seasonable I could not satisfie my self that so extraordinary a Princess whose equal in all respects we do not yet know to be left behind her in the whole compass of the world should pass to her Grave without some notice taken of her in the most private corner of her Kingdom without paying some small but well meant tribute to her sacred memory some publick testimony given by us her meanest Subjects of our thankfulness to God for those eminent gifts and graces which shin'd in her with so bright and glorious a lustre the esteem of the present age and the wonder of all that shall follow of whom I may venture to affirm alluding to a passage of our Saviour concerning a former Mary whom she equall'd in her present piety Mat. 26.14 but was a great deal more happy in a constant innocency that in the whole world where-ever the praises of persons famous in their generations are rehearst there shall also the admirable graces and illustrious excellencies of this our Mary be told for a memorial of her I could not but think it a decency on this occasion to try to affect all of you with so great so unexpressible a loss sustain'd by this Nation in the Death of our incomparable Queen for whose death the people of England have full out as much reason to be sensibly concern'd as those of Judah could possibly have for the fall of that Religious Prince here mention'd of whom we read that all Judah and Jerusalem mourned for Josiah I shall first consider the words as they relate the death of Josiah and the behaviour of his Subjects thereupon and then I shall apply this historical passage to the sad occasion of my present discourse 1. The Person whose death is here mourn'd Josiah 2. The Concern his Subjects exprest at his death They mourn'd for him 3. This Mourning spoken of as general and universal his Mourners were not barely a few Courtires who attended immediately upon his person or held offices and employments by his Life but all the people of his dominions who lookt upon his death as a publick judgment and calamity in which their whole Nation was concern'd and all Judah and Jerusalem mourned for Josiah 1. The Person whose death is here related was Josiah He was King of Judah and Jerusalem and upon this account his life was of much more value than many lives where the Commonwealth receives no detriment The whole body of the people have an interest in the life of the Prince their safety does much depend upon the preservation of his person and they commonly suffer not a little by his fall especially as here it was when it is sudden and violent Hence David as a King is stil'd the light of Israel 2 Sam. 21.17 2 Sam 18.3 2 Kings 24.19 and said to be worth ten thousand of his Subjects for something very like to this is spoken of Zedekiah who by the account the Scripture gives of him appears to have been none of the best of Princes and his Fall from his Empire and Captivity in Babylon very passionately lamented by Jeremy Lam. 4.20 The breath of our Nostrils the anointed of the Lord is taken in their pit of whom we said under the shadow of his wings shall we live upon this reason is that Apostolical Precept grounded which the first Christians so very carefully observed 1 Tim. 2.1 to pray for Kings and all that are in Authority inasmuch as the community is immediately interested in their preservations and whatever their personal qualifications were their fall was found by sad experience to produce great disorders in the affairs of the Empire But Josiah was an extraordinary Prince of great wisdom unusual vertue of an exemplary piety of an uncommon goodness he had a great zeal for Gods honour a mighty regard to his worship and noble designs for the promoting and advancing Religion His general Character is 2 Kings 22.2 that he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord and walked in all the ways of David his Father and turned not aside to the right hand nor to the left After this are remarkt the glorious actions of his reign 2 Kings 23. 2 Chron. cap. 34. cap. 35. 2 Chron. 34.3 for the imitation of succeeding Princes and that the ages to come might call him blessed In the eighth year of his reign while he was yet young being now not full sixteen years old he began to seek after the God of David his Father and with much application and seriousness to do something of moment and which might be lasting for the honour of God and the interest of Religion four years after this he resolutely undertook the removing all Idolatry and setting up the worship of the true God throughout all the land Six whole years he employ'd in bringing this great work to perfection after this he resolv'd upon repairing the breaches of the house of God and whilst some ruinous parts of the Temple were pull'd down in order to rebuild them in the Rubbish was found a Book of the Law of the Lord given by Moses 2 Chron. 34.14 Grotius supposes this to have been the original copy of the Law deliver'd by Moses to the Israelites to be preserv'd I rather think with others that Manassah in the long reign of fifty five years designing utterly to abolish the Worship of the God of Israel and set up Idolatry had gathered in the Books of the Law and burnt them at which time some pious person who feared God and believed that he would still have mercy upon Sion and restore beauty and strength to his Sanctuary hid a Copy of the Law in some secret place of the Temple which lay there conceal'd all the age of Manassah and the short reign of his Son Amon but upon repairing the Temple was now discovered Josiah upon perusing those severe threatnings contain'd in it in case of their falling off from the worship of the true God and becoming dissolute in their manners and comparing those with the present state of Judah