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	sin_n	4,688	5	4.5398	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A67184	A sermon at the funeral of the right honourable Henry, Earl of Warrington, Baron Delamer of Dunham-Massy, Lord Lieutenant of the County-Palatine of Chester, and one of the Lords of their Majesties most honourable Privy Council preached at Bowden in Cheshire / by Richard Wroe ...	Wroe, Richard, 1641-1717.	1694 (1694)	Wing W3728; ESTC R12138	16,713	33

A SERMON AT THE FUNERAL OF HENRY EARL of WARRINGTON Lord DELAMER c. Imprimatur RA. BARKER Martii 15. 1693 4. A SERMON AT THE FUNERAL Of the Right Honourable HENRY Earl of Warrington Baron DELAMER of Dunham-Massy Lord Lieutenant of the County-Palatine of Chester and one of the Lords of Their Majesties most Honourable Privy Council Preached at BOWDEN in CHESHIRE By RICHARD WROE D. D. and Warden of Christ's Colledge in Manchester LONDON Printed for A. and J. Churchill at the Black Swan in Pater-Noster-Row M DC XC IV. To the Right Honourable GEORGE Earl of Warrington Baron Delamer c. My LORD WHAT I now present to Your Lordship is wholly in Obedience to Your Desires which are so far a Command to me as to prevail against mine own Inclinations rather than seem backward to comply with any request wherein You are pleased to judge my slender Abilities serviceable to Your Lordship and chuse rather to expose my Self and Performances than be thought wanting in any instance of Obedience and Deference wherein I may express my Obligations to Your Self and Noble Family I should be glad of a more welcome Opportunity of giving publick Testimony of my Respects than such as administers occasion of Sadness and revives the afflicting Sense of Your Grief and Loss and am sorry it falls again to my Lot at once to Address and Condole Yet withal shall reckon my self happy if my Endeavours may prove satisfactory especially in doing Right to the Memory of that Great Man who I am sensible wanted a better Orator and deserved a more ample Character But if what I have said of him may contribute to the Honour of his Memory and make his Name survive among the Worthies of his Age or the Influence of his Example may create emulation in any to write after his Copy and more especially if what I have discoursed on this Subject may tend to the instruction of others and promote the designs of Piety and Regular Conversation I have my design and let God have the glory But I will not be troublesome to Your Lordship in tendring an Apology when I have resolved to submit the Performances entirely to Your disposal and hope Your Honour will pardon my prefixing Your Name to what you have so great a right and interest in and which has no other design than to let the World know how much I am My LORD Your LORDSHIP' 's very much Obliged and most Humble Servant RIC. WROE A SERMON Preached at the Earl of WARRINGTON'S Funeral January the 14th 1693 4. ECCLES 11. 3. If the tree fall toward the South or toward the North in the place where the tree falleth there it shall be THAT man is arbor inversa that the parts of human bodies carry some proportion and resemblance to an inverted tree is a known Saying and bears the reflection of sundry natural and moral Truths That the Proverb is as old as Solomon I dare not attest though it may seem not unbecoming his Wisdom nor is unlike his sententious Sayings and his knowledge in that kind who spake of trees as Scripture tells us from the Cedar-tree that is 1 Kings 4. 33. in Lebanon even unto the hyssop that springeth out of the wall and wrote of their several Natures Qualities and Virtues is th● Jewish Rabbins comment might administer fair occasion to the similitude however that be yet we have here in his own words some important Truths couch'd under a like Metaphor or Resemblance if not to a growing yet to a falling tree And as Trees have been made vocal by way of Parable and brought in as speaking not only amongst prophane but Sacred Authors witness that of Jotham so shall we hear this Judges 9. tree speak the instructions of wisdom when we have unfolded the import of the Similitude in a short Paraphrase and plain Interpretation The words are part of the Wise Man's exhortation to Charity and Liberality which Argument is the Subject of the six first verses of this Chapter and is enforced in this verse from a twofold Similitude 1. Of clouds If the clouds be full of rain they empty themselves upon the Earth an imperfect Argument and to be supplied with such a like inference as this so they that do abound are to dispense their liberality equally and freely A second resemblance is from the fall of a tree which some thus paraphrase agreeably to the Argument As the tree which way so e're it falls remains to the use and benefit of the owner so a good Man's charity howsoever dispens'd turns to his good and benefit But this seems not to reach the import of the Similitude and therefore othe●s extend it further and thus gloss it As the tree whilst it stands may be moved this way or the other yet when 't is once fall'n it keeps the same place and posture such is the state and condition of man at his death his works follow him and suitable to them shall he receive his reward whether he has done good or not he shall receive according to the things done in his body whether they be good or bad and thus they contain a forcible perswasive to Charity and doing good whilst we live since death deprives us of all capacity and opportunity of doing it afterwards so that the duty here inculcated runs parallel with that of St. Paul As we have opportunity Gal. 6. 10. let us do good unto all men and the reason to enforce it couch'd in the Similitude is drawn from the consideration of our unalterable state and condition after death thus express'd in the words If the tree fall towards the South or toward the North where the tree falleth there it shall be This being the common and obvious sense of the words I shall discourse of them in that Notion in which they speak the same in general with that known truth that as Death leaves us so Judgment will find us as the course of our lives hath been and concludes to be such will be our future condition without hopes of change or possibility of alteration Which general Truth will appear at once more useful and obvious in the particular Assertions that are contain'd in it and result from the Text which I take to be these I. That there are two different and opposite states allotted to men after death The tree may fall toward the South or toward the North. II. That the righteousness of mens lives hath a natural tendency to happiness as their wickedness hath to misery 't is from a principle of nature that the tree lies where it falls and virtue and vice have no less natural inclination and direct tendency to happiness or misery to rewards or punishments III. There is no middle state after death no change of condition or altering it for the better the tree must fall South or North and where it falls it mst lie there it shall be There are two different and opposite states allotted to men after

on new and contrary tempers and dispositions Death I know makes a great change but it is more in respect of the outward than the inner man and is a change of condition rather than of complexion And tho the putting off these mortal bodies will leave the Soul and its faculties much more free and exalt its powers and better its operations and thereby heighten and improve those minds which were before disposed to Virtue and Goodness yet I cannot conceive how it should possibly effect so great an alteration as in one moment to change the whole temper of the Soul and superinduce new habits of Virtue and strong dispositions to Goodness where there were none before Now if men carry their good or bad dispositions with them into the other world suitable to these must their portion there be since there must be likeness and correspondence between the Object and the Faculty before Happiness can result from them Happiness consisting in the agreeableness of the one to the other which unites the Soul to the Object of Bliss and endears the Enjoyment of it So that we may presume to say That a wicked man cannot be happy even in Heaven it self and were such an one caught up with St. Paul into the Third Heavens he would find himself uneasy amidst all the satisfaction of those blissful Regions as being wholly a Stranger to such pure and spiritual Joys and should God forbear to punish wicked men in the other World yet they cannot be happy there with the Joys of good men because their minds are altogether indisposed for them and even the delights of Paradise would afford no relish to their vitiated and depraved Appetites As all true happiness and satisfaction of mind springs more from an inward than an outward cause so is the happiness of Heaven to be estimated not so much from the place as the temper and disposition of its blessed Inhabitants and their fitness to be received into and made partakers of its ravishing Glories but they that have never accustomed themselves to the divine relish of true Goodness cannot taste the delights of the heavenly Manna they only that have been nourished with the true Bread of Life here are fit Guests to sit down with Christ and eat and drink with him in his Kingdom St. Paul says of the vital energy and life of Christianity Our Conversation Phil. 3. 20. is in Heaven And so must ours be before we can be in a capacity to be received into those glorious Mansions and welcomed into the blessed Society of Angels and Saints Let not any then that retain their Sins talk of going to Heaven No 't is too heavy a Clog for any to ascend with thither or suppose they could alas poor Souls how would they stay what would they do there there 's nothing to gratify their sensual Appetites nothing agreeable to their carnal Desires all the Enjoyments there are chaste and pure all the Delights spiritual and cannot be relished by unhallowed minds And if ever we hope to enter there we must predispose our Souls for it by an holy that is an heavenly Conversation and then we have trimm'd our Lamps and are ready to enter in with the Bridegroom and are cloathed in the Wedding Garment and shall be made acceptable Guests at the Table of the Lord and taste the Dainties that are there prepared Now if these things be so as the Wise-man says Righteousness tendeth to life but he that pursueth evil Prov. 11. 19. pursueth it to his own death If the paths of Piety certainly lead men to Bliss but Sin by its own fatal tendency plunges men into Misery then we see how reasonable it is to conclude That there are two opposite states of Rewards and Punishments hereafter wherein mens condition shall be correspondent to their Conversation here besides the express Revelations of God's Word that so it shall be And there is nothing can shake this Belief or make men doubt the certainty of it unless they can imagine what some have fancied that there is a third state after Death wherein men may repair and better themselves and so after some time recover their lost estate To remove this Scruple I add That there is no middle state after Death no change of Condition or altering it for the better the Tree must fall South or North and where it falls it must lie there it shall be Perhaps it may be thought that this Consequence is not necessarily enforced from the words and it may be said that possibly the Tree may fall some other way for though only South and North are mentioned yet there are more Points in the Compass And I know the Romish Commentators are very jealous of interpreting this place of a future state lest it should seem to thwart their darling Doctrine of Purgatory and Lorinus craftily endeavours thus to shuffle it off That if it should be understood in that sense it would not consist with the Notion of Limbus Patrum the place wherein they suppose the Souls of the Patriarchs to be detained till Christ by his Sufferings had overcome Death and first opened the gate of Heaven to all Believers And we cannot help it if the place be as repugnant to the Notion of the one as it is to the other and since both of them are uncertain and want proof themselves neither of them can be evidence for the other nor evade the force of the Argument drawn from these words against the being of any such middle state or place as these men fondly imagine For the force of the proof lies not in the former part its falling South or North but in the relation that its lying has to its fall which way so e're that be directed there it remains fixed and unmoveable And though I will not insist on that as a sufficient Argument that there being only two opposite extremes named therefore there cannot be a third a negative Argument from Scripture being not always conclusive yet in matters of Doctrine and Objects of Faith where the Scriptures are silent there they are not to be urged as necessary Points since Scripture is the Rule of Faith and contains every thing necessary to be believed Suffice it then to say That since Scripture mentions but two states the one of the faithful in Heaven the other of the unrighteous and impenitent in Hell we acknowledge no other we believe no more I have already accounted to you how emphatically the Scripture represents how particularly it describes the nature of both I shall here only add to it that had we no other evidence than what this Book of Ecclesiastes affords we may safely infer that all Notion of a third or middle state is utterly excluded We are told that at our dissolution The dust shall return to the Chap. 12. 7. earth as it was and the Spirit to God that gave it there 's a different place assigned for each part of our Compositum And of the