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	saviour_n	soul_n	4,582	5	5.0993	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A26928	Faithful souls shall be with Christ the certainty proved and their Christianity described, and exemplified in the truely Christian life and death of that excellent saint, Henry Ashhurst, Esq ... : briefly and truly published for the conviction of hypocrites and the malignant, the strengthning of believers, and the imitation of all, especially the masters of families in London / by Richard Baxter.	Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.	1681 (1681)	Wing B1265; ESTC R4853	35,484	74

and subjection to Obey and Trust and Love him and joyfully to hope for everlasting happiness in his Love 4. To give up our selves to Christ as our Saviour by his Sacrifice Merits Teaching Government and Intercession to bring us home to God by Justifying Sanctifying and finally Glorifying us 5. To obey the motions of his Spirit to that end which are but to bring us to a Conformity to his Word 6. To Love God in his Saints and Creatures and do all the good to one another that we can and cherish a holy Unity and Peace and to do wrong to none 7. To watch against and resist all the Temptations of the Flesh the World and the Devil which would draw us from any of this duty 8. To bear our Medicinal corrections patiently and profitably and pray seek and wait for blessed Immortality 9. To pray long and labour for the publick good the Churches welfare and the Conversion of the dark unbelieving World 10. To do all this for the glorifying of God and our Redeemer and the pleasing of his holy Will as the End and only Rest of Souls This is the service which Christ requireth and is there any thing in all this which is not safe delightful honorable profitable and exceeding desirable to every one that knoweth what it is to hope for happiness and to live like a Christian or a Man II. And what is it that is meant by following Christ Disciples then were wont to dwell with their Master that they might be always at hand to do what he bid them To follow Christ includeth 1. The absolute taking him for the Guide and Saviour to whom we Trust our Bodies and Souls 2. The obedient following of his Instruction and Commands 3. The following of his Example in all the imitable parts of his Life 4. The submissive following him through all the sufferings wherewith God trieth us and by what death he chuseth for us into the heavenly mansions whether he is ascended This is the following of Christ which the streights of this hour allow me but to name Use. Before we proceed let us consider how to improve what is said and open the two promises after in our application I. And first it is hence evident what it is to be indeed a Christian It is to serve and follow Christ in Trust as the Procurer the Captain the Giver of Salvation Our relation to him by a sacred Covenant and Vow is the thing from which we are named Christians Deceitful Covenanting may give us the name among Men that cannot see the Heart and may deceive our selves and others But if the Soul consent not God doth not consent to justifie or save us O Sirs try quickly try faithfully before death say It is row too late whether you are such as God as well as Men will judge to be Christians indeed O be not self-deceivers for God will not be mocked with names and shaddows and heartless words and the false pretenses of a worldly fleshly unsanctified mind You will find one day that Christ came not to be a shadow nor a stepping stone to worldly ends nor a patron of pride and fleshly lusts you will find ear long that to be a Christian is a great and serious business on which lieth the everlasting saving of our Souls Greater than Life or Death Crowns and Kingdoms or any concerns of this corruptible flesh A business which will not be done a sleep nor with a careless mind nor with a slothful unresolved Soul nor with the thoughts and hours which pride and vanity can spare and which are the leavings of fleshly lusts and pleasures To be a Christian is to turn our backs on all these deceitful vanities and sinful pleasures and to place our absolute Trust in Christ and serve and follow him to the death in hope of everlasting glory obtained by his manifold Grace Have you no careful thoughts of another Life And no fear what will become of your departing Souls at death If not your reason is asleep If you have what is it that quieteth and comforteth you Is it only a careless venture because God is merciful As if his mercy saved all God forbid that your Souls should go out of your bodies without a better preparation than this But if finding your selves undone by sin and liable to Gods destroying justice and believing that Christ is the only sufficient and faithful Saviour you give up Soul and Body in Trust to him resolvedly consenting to serve and follow him who hath purchas'd and promis'd you blessedness with himself This is true Christianity and this is a Trust which will not deceive Sirs You send for us in sickness and perhaps we cannot come or we find men overwhelmed with pain and fear and with a feeble Body and fainting Spirits unfit to try and judge themselves and to do so great a work as is here described if not unable to hear much discourse of it O what a sad time is that for a Minister to give you that instruction which a long time of strength was too little to improve What a dreadful thing is it for a Soul then to have all the work that you lived for to begin and do and for to have but a sick and fainting hour or day to do that which you could not do in all your Lives and which turneth the Key for Heaven or Hell The Lord give you awakened reason and wisdom before it be too late The name of Christians is not to be used to deceive fleshly men into damning presumption but to signifie a Soul that trusteth in Christ and followeth him in obedience and patience to Salvation O that you all feelingly knew how much it concerneth you presently to set home and resolve this question Do I trust serve and follow Christ Let us now a little look to his footsteps that we may know 1. Christ lived in the World to do his Fathers work and will to glorifie and please him See Ioh. 4. 34. 17. 4. 9. 4. 8. 29. 12. 27 28. 17. 4. Is it Gods work that you live for and his will that you chiefly study to please in your inferior degree and place 2. Christ was the greatest lover of Souls his business on Earth was to seek and save them and he is still about that work in Heaven He thought not his strange condiscending Incarnation his sufferings and Heart Blood his Labour and Life too dear to save them Are your own and others Souls thus precious in your Eyes Do you think no labour loss no cost or suffering too dear to save your selves and others Do your prayers and your practices prove this to be true 3. Christs great work was to gather a Church on Earth which should be his peculiar Kingdom Spouse and Body to glorifie God and be glorified with him Eph. 4. to 17. 5. 25. to 32. 3. 21. Act. 20. 28. If you are Christians indeed Christs Church is to you as your Body to

joyfully trusted him rejoyced in his love and hoped for his Kingdom But without any overvaluing of his own worth or works having much in his mouth those words of St. Paul I have nothing to glory of and I am nothing XXI The last part of his example which I have to commend to you and specially to my self is his marvellous Patience as through all his life so specially in his last and sharp affliction It was a providence which posed many of us that God should so smartly handle such a man as this till Gods Oracles told our Faith enough to silence all murmuring thoughts of God For God had given him before the blessings of Iob a healthful body and constant prosperity and shall Sinners taste no correction and receive nothing of God but pleasant things All Gods graces must have their exercise and tryal And Faith and Patience are most tried and exercised in a suffering state God loveth not Martyrs less than others 2. And he had served God before by Action and usually our last service is by Patience And Lazarus in sores and wants was in a safer way to Abrahams bosom than Dives in his silks and sumptuous fare 3. And we are naturally so loth to leave this world and flesh that God seeth it meet to help our willingness by making us weary of it And affliction though grievous for the present tendeth to the quiet fruit of righteousness And making us partakers of Gods holiness certainly tendeth to make us partakers of his Glory Cross-bearing and partaking of the sufferings of Christ is an indispenable Christian duty We must be conformed to him in his sufferings if we will reign with him and be partakers of our Masters joy And in heaven all tears are wiped away and there are no groans nor moans no sorrows nor repining or accusing God for any of our former sufferings What need have I yea what need have you all to remember this Flesh will feel and Faith will not avoid pain and present torment no more than death but it fortified our dear Brothers Soul that it should not too much suffer with his Body Several years he was molested most with some cloudy trouble of his head which Tunbridge waters eased for a time And next with Acrimony of Urine And next it too painfully appeared to be the Stone in the Bladder He long resolved to endure it to the death but at last extremity of torment despair of any other ease did suddenly cause him to choose to be cut Two stones were found and one of them in the operation was broken into pieces many of which were taken out by very terrible search about thirty pieces after came away through the wound Physicians and all present admired at his patience No word no action signified any distressing sense And though he was about 65 years old God did recover him and heal the wound But we were too unthankful and his pains returned Gently at first but afterwards as terribly as before And after that a strong Fever of which unexpectedly he recovered And then oft inflammations and at last a dangerous one And finally so great torment that a French Lithotomist being here he was over-perswaded to be searcht and cut again a third stone was taken away with competent speed and ease and divers big fragments of it which had been broken off in the first operation Thus was he cut twiee in about a years space and the wound seemed marvellously to heal for divers months and when we had prayed hard for him we turned it to thanksgiving and thought the danger of death was past But after his strength failed and he died in peace God gave him those months of ease and calmness the better to bear his approaching change In all this none heard him express any querulous impatience Most of his words were telling men how tolerable his pain was and how good God was and thankfully acknowledging his mercy The last words which I had from him were of the goodness of God concluding O that we could love God more And when he thought he should recover he was very solicitous in his enquiry what God would have him do in gratitude And one of the chief things which he resolved on to one of his old friends was that he would set upon as many Parliament-men as he could speak with to repeal all the Laws which hinder good men from preaching Christs Gospel Adding moreover And Countrey man saith he you and I will take care for Lancashire that the Gospel may be more preached among them It being their Native Countrey and abounding with Papists and many parts have scarcity of Preachers But suddenly he past from the Exercise of Faith and Patience unto sight and rest His last words save his farewel and Come Lord Iesus were to an old friend Mr. Nathaniel Hulton to walk in the way of God will be comfort at death being not of their mind who for fear of fetching too much comfort from our own duty which they call works do think Christs merits injured by such thoughts and words as these as if the Cure were a disgrace to our Physician or Christ Matth. 25. had misdescribed the last judgment or God were no rewarder of them that diligently seek him and laying up our treasure and hearts in heaven were no means to be received into the everlasting habitation And thus passed this faithful Soul to Christ. And now Reader have I not shewed thee a true Copy of the first part of my Text One that indeed served Christ and followed him Is not this his Image and Imitation And is it not sure then that he is where Christ is and that God that maketh it our duty to honour his memory on earth hath given him another kind of honour in the heavens And to what other end have I said all this of him In General Go and do thou likewise I. I do it much for the use of the Magistrates and People of this City I commend this example to them all O what an honourable and happy City would this be if you were all such as our deceased Brother was We joyfully thank God for so much goodness as flourished among you The Lord make London still the glory of the Cities on earth But were all Families used as his Family was and all men here lived as this man lived we should suspect we had the new earth wherein dwelt righteousness And were Princes and Nobles such the World such or but the Christian Church such what a taste of Heaven should we have on earth But should we not then be too loth to die and too little difference earth from heaven But O that London who know that I do not over-praise this holy man would but imitate his example II. I do it much for his Childrens use Their Honour their Comfort but especially their everlasting good Will they ever forget the instructions the Love and the life of such a Father III. I do it partly for the use of the Clergy and their Agents that have judged such men as this to be worthy of all the reproach and sufferings which some Canons and late Laws have laid on such I write not to cast reproach back upon them But Reverend Fathers and brethren as you believe a God a Christ a Judgment and a Life to come be think you whether such men as this should be sined or Excommunicated ipso sacto as your Canon doth it And when Christ hath promised that if they serve him they shall be where he is and his Father will honour them dare you make your Church-doors too narrow to receive them when Dr. Heylin tells us how far Bishop Laud would have had it widened to receive the Papists if they would come in Do not such men as this serve and follow Christ And are they yet excommunicate Schismaticks if they will not serve and follow you in the things that neither Christ nor his Apostles commanded or practised yea which they forbid as I have proved in my first Plea and my Treat of Episcopacy I am in great hope that if you knew but the tenth part of the now silenced Ministers and prosecuted People that I do your consciences would constrain you to publish your repentance and petition King and Parliament for better terms of Unity and Peace For I will hope that most silencers and afflicters do it more through ignorance and unacquantedness with the men than in Diabolical malignity IV. And I have done this for my own use To discharge my duty To set before me this pattern of Sincerity Love and Patience for my reproof and imitation We were of the same year for age and of the same judgment and desire and aim But I have not attained to his degree of goodness and patience Being not unlikely to be exercised with some like afflictions after a life of wonderful mercy and quickly to follow my departed Friend I beg of God that he will not trie me beyond the strength which he will give me but so increase my faith and patience that I may finish my course with joy V. Lastly I have written this for the comfort of all serious suffering Believers Christians let us not think that we serve Christ for nought or that our labour for Holiness and Heaven is in vain Nor let us faint when we are tried and chastised Labour and Sorrow will quickly have an end Angels are ready to convoy us home How low soever you are here in your Bodies Estates Employment or Reputation you have Christs promise that his Father will honour you Look then to Iesus the Author and Perfecter of your Faith who for the joy that was set before him endured the Cross and despised the shame lest you be weary and faint in your minds And comfort one one another with these words that we shall be ever with the Lord. Amen FINIS

compleat perfect Teacher who teacheth you by words and works and inspiration and can make you what he bids you be and leaveth out nothing that is necessary to your salvation 7. And you have the only sufficient Guid to happiness He is the Way the Truth and the Life and no man cometh to the Father but by him No man but he hath revealed the God and Glory which he hath fully seen and known All men are liers and deceivers not to be trusted further than some way they have learnt of him by the teaching of his Works or Word or Spirit And now shall we need to say more to men that are already vowed to Christ in their Baptism who profess themselves Christians who know that they must die and who know that there is no other hope or way to perswade them to be what they profess that they may not miss of what they hope for But the following Promises if believed will perswade you III. Where I am there shall my servant be They that Serve and follow Christ shall in their measure speed as he doth and be with him where he is Quest. And where is that Ans. It is certainly in no ill place Though it be a controversie whether Christ descerded to Hell it is certain that now he is not there And therefore his members shall not be there He is certainly in Paradise for there he promised the converted thief to be that day with him He is in Heaven Acts 1. 11. This same Iesus which is taken up from you into heaven shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven Acts 3. 21. Whom the heaven must receive till the time of restitution of all things John 17. And now O Father glorifie me with thine own self Vers. 13. And now I come to thee It is in the Glorious presence of God that Christ now abideth in our nature Even at the Right hand of God Matth. 26. 64. Mark 14. 62. 16. 19. Luk. 22. 6. 9. Act. 7. 55. 56. Rom. 8. 34. Eph. 1. 20 Col. 3. 1. Heb. 1. 3 13. 8. 1. 12. 2. 10. 12. 1 Pet. 3. 22. Therefore though many Texts do seem to intimate that he will return to earth again and that the New Ierusalem shall come down from Heaven and that we look for a new Heaven and Earth in which righteousness shall dwell yet these Texts do fully prove that faithful Souls go presently to Christ who is in Heaven and that there will be no such descent to earth as shall be any diminution of the Glory of the Saints For it shall be no diminution of the Glory of Christ And we shall be where Christ will be If Heaven come down to Earth and the Vail be drawn it will be no loss 2. That departed faithful Souls go to him the Scripture elsewhere also tells us Ioh. 17. 24. Father I will that they also whom thou hast given me be with me where I am that they may behold my Glory which thou hast given me Luke 23. 43. To day shalt thou be with me in Paradise Luke 16. 9. When we fail here we shall be received into the everlasting habitations Vers. 22. The beggar died and was carryed by Angels into Abrahams bosome Vers. 25. Now he is comforted 2 Cor. 5. 1 8. We know that if our earthly house of this 〈…〉 were dissolved we have a building of God 〈…〉 not made with hands eternal in the Heavens For in this we groan earnestly desiring to 〈…〉 upon with our house which is from heaven that 〈…〉 might be swallowed up of life Vers. ● We are confident and willing rather to be 〈◊〉 from the body and present with the Lord. Phil. 1. 21 22. To me to live in Christ and 〈…〉 gain having a desire to depart to be with 〈…〉 Heb. 12. 22 23 24. We are come to Mount Sion and to the City of the living God the heavenly Ierusalem and to an innumerable company of Angels to the General Assembly and Church of the first born which are written in heaven and to God the Iudge of all and to the Spirits of just men made perfect and to Iesus the mediator of the new Covenant Rev. 14. 13. Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord from henceforth yea saith the Spirit that they may rest from their labours and their works do follow them I heap all these Texts together for my self as well as you that we may see that as the faithful shall certainly have a blessed resurrection so their departing souls at death shall certainly be with Christ in glory For I take the assurance of the Souls immortality and felicity at death to be a point that deserveth as much of our thoughtful diligence as any one that we have to think of He is mad that doubteth whether there be a God if he live with his eyes open in the world And as for Christianity it is Life and Immortality which Christ came to secure us of and bring to light And he that by the light of Nature doth but believe the Souls immortality and a life of retribution is much prepared to be a Christian so suitable will he find Christianity to our everlasting interest But yet all will be dark to men and seem uncertain till Christ be their Teacher and they truly believe in him and take it on his certain word Truly believe that Iesus is the Christ and his Gospel true and there is no room for a doubt of the Immortality of Souls and future blessedness so plainly is it exprest in all the Gospel The Socinians that look for nothing till the Resurrection dream of a dreaming sleep of Souls but dare not talk of any cessation or annihilation of them For then a Resurrection is a Contradiction Another soul may be created but it cannot be the same that was annihilated And as no man can believe that Christ speaketh truth and is Christ indeed but he must needs believe his promise that the faithful Soul shall be where he is So no man can truly believe that all faithful Souls and only such shall be with Christ and partake of blessedness but it will constrain him to a life of serious holiness at least if it feast him not with the foretast of heavenly joys Can you imagine that any man can firmly believe that all and only holy souls go to Christ in glory when they leave the body and yet not seek first the Kingdom of God and make the securing of this his chiefest care and business in the World It cannot be every man loveth himself And no man can be indifferent whether his Soul be in Heaven or Hell for ever Dulness and present diverting things may make a man negligent and inconsiderate about lesser matters where the loss seemeth tolerable But I cannot believe that if a man be awake and in his wits any thing but secret unbelief and doubting can make one so dull or inconsiderate about his everlasting joy or

misery as not to make it his chiefest care For I see that if a man have but a Law-Suit on which all his estate depends or a tryal on which his life depends he cannot forget it or make light of it He will not drink 〈…〉 or play away the little time in which his bu●●●● must be done And can any one soundly believe that his Soul at death shall go to Christ in glory and not set more by such a hope than by all the riches and sport and pleasure and vain-glory of so short a life as this or can any man soundly believe that the wicked and unholy shall go to everlasting punishment and yet not make it his chief care to escape it sure as mad and bad as mans corrupted mind is this will scarce stand with Humane nature I judge of others by my self If I had never had at the worst a secret uncertainty whether the Gospel be true and Souls immortal I might have been surprized indeed to a sudden temptation to some sin but I could never have thought that a man in his wits should choose any life but resolved holiness Nor could I have chosen any other If I see a man a careless neglecter of his soul that maketh no great matter of sin or duty or maketh not God Christ and Heaven the subject of his most serious ruling thoughts his greatest business in the World but sheweth us that his health and wealth and honour and pleasure are better loved and more earnestly sought and faster held I will not believe that this man taketh the Gospel and the Souls future state therein described to be a cettain truth let him say what he will he doubteth of it at his heart And such men use to say when they speak out I know what I have here but I know not what I shall have hereafter Could I keep what I have I would let others take what is promised in Heaven But O man thou knowest thou canst not keep what thou hast shortly thy Soul must be required and called away and then whose are the things which thou hast loved Luke 12. 19 20. I will therefore say more Though men had no certainty of dwelling with Christ and doubted whether his word be true yet it were worse than madness not to prefer the bare probability that I say not possibility of a future endless glory when endless misery is probable to the refusers before all here that can be set against it O what is this transitory dream of worldly fleshly pleasure to everlasting joy or misery Verily every man at his best estate in worldy respects is altogether Vanity Psalm 39. 5. O mark how Emphatical every word is Verily it is no doubt every man high and low good and bad in bodily and worldly respects only at his best or setled estate not only in pain and poverty and age but in his strength and wit and wealth and honour on the throne as well as on the dunghill is vanity that is an untrusty lie and shadow that seemeth something and is next to nothing and this altogether in meer worldly corporal respects in all that he hath to glory or take pleasure in What need we more to prove all this than to foresee how the Dream and Tragedy endeth A little while we run up and down and eat and drink and talke and sport and sometime laugh and sometime weep and then change our pomp and pride for a Shroud and Coffin and are laid to rot in a grave of earth where these idol pampered bodies be turned themselves into the quality of their darksome habitation And if these were our best were not every man at his best estate altogether vanity And if a meer probability of the life to come in reason should resolve all men for serious holiness how can we think that a certain or firm belief would not do it By this then it is past doubt that Hypocrisie reigneth in all meer nominal Christians and in all that live not a holy life and indeed in most men in the world They are false in professing to believe that Christ is true and his Gospel certain truth and that at death they must go to Heaven or Hell if their lives shew not that Heaven and Hell are greater and more prevailing matters with them than all the fleshly provisions pleasures and glory of this world Hypocrites are distinguished from professed Infidels but if they were not unbelievers at the heart they were not Hypocrites in professing Faith The Scripture giveth these titles or attributes therefore to saving Faith 1 Tim. 1. 5. It is called Faith unfeigned or not hypocritical or dissembled and Philem. 6. it is called Effectual and Gal. 5. 6. Faith that works by Love and Iam. 2. Faith that is not dead but working to perfection it is not unseigned if it be not effectual You cannot make a Man believe that a Bear pursueth him or his House is on Fire or his Life in danger but he will accordingly bestir him You cannot draw a Man to other business from the care of his Life if he believe that it lieth on his present care O Sirs the Hypocrites belief of another World and his lifeless opinion conquered by secret unbelief will shortly fall as an house built on the sand Matth. 7. 23. and no Heart can now fully conceive how terrible to him the fall will be When you see that there is no more tarrying here and that death and an endless life are come a dead profession and secret unbelief will leave you then to dispair and horror It is not the name of a Christian that will then serve to comfort or to save your Souls I do do not say that no Man shall be saved that hath any doubting even of the Gospel and the life to come But I say you cannot be saved if your belief of it prevail not to engage you in a holy Life and conquer not the Flesh the World and the Devil It must be a prevailing Faith But I suppose you are convinced that a sound and firm belief of the passage of departing Souls to Christ or unto misery would certainly resolve Men for a holy Life But some say If we be uncertain how can we help it we are out of sight and we have not the command of our own understandings we would be sure what becomes of Souls with all our Hearts but we cannot attain it Ans. Christ came into the World to teach it us such knowledge is too high and precious to be attained with a slothful wish or to be had without the use of the means which Christ hath appointed us Have you learned of Christ with a humble and teachable willing mind Have you not been diverted and blinded by the things which you knew were but deceitful vanity Have you set your understandings awork with such serious consideration and so long as the trial of so great a matter doth require Have you sought to able and faithful