Linguistic DNA - Concept Modelling Demonstrator

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	body_n	soul_n	suffer_v	12,447	5	6.7408	4	true

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A61204	Death and the grave no bar to believers happiness, or, A sermon preached at the funerall of the Lady Honor Vyner, in the Parish Church of Mary Wolnoth in Lombardstreet, July 10, 1656 by William Spurstow ...	Spurstowe, William, 1605?-1666.	1656 (1656)	Wing S5092; ESTC R13492	19,798	58

which is a declaration and conveyance of what Christ hath purchased to be to their behoof and the oath of God which is added to it is as the seal upon the label of the deed that gives a further ratification unto it that so by two immutable things in which it was impossible for God to lie they might have strong consolation Heb. 6. 18. And who is it that by the eye of faith views and reads those evidences in which a crown of life Revel 2. 10. a Kingdome that cannot be moved Heb. 12. 28. an inheritance that fadeth not away 1 Pet. 1. 4. are all ascertained to him doth not rejoyce more under the hopes of glory then the greatest of Princes ever can in the fruition of all their worldly greatnesse Thirdly they are partakers of Heaven it selfe in prodromo in their fore-runner the Lord Christ He at his ascension took seisin and livery of it in their name John 14. 2. I goe to prepare a place for you An expression as some conceive borrowed from travellers amongst whom some one is by agreement sent before to take up lodgings for the rest of his company And as he takes so also doth he keepe possession in their names preserving still their right unto it untill they come to be possessed of it themselves And hence it is that the Apostle saith of believers that they are raised up together and made to sit together in heavenly places in Christ Ephes 2. 6. Fourthly they have the happinesse of Heaven in primitiis in the first-fruits and pledges of it every grace of the Spirit is scintilla futurae lucis a sparke of their future glory every comfort of it is gutta font is vitae a drop of the well of life and are as certain evidences of an ensuing fulness as the day-star is of an approaching morning The tasts and prelibations of happinesse which believers have in this life by the mouth of faith the sight of Heven which they have by the eye of faith that sometimes stands on tiptoe and peeps into the things that are within the vaile doe differ onely in degree and not in kind from the full sruition and vision of God which they have in the other life when their souls and bodie are reunited to each other and both conâ—oyned unto Christ their everliving head and Lord. Fifthly and laftly believers have life and eternall blessednesse in messe in the rich and full harvest of it when all the promises both of grace and glory are wholy accomplished when all the expectations of faith and hope are swallowed up in endlesse admiration when all the desires of the soule which are more restlesse then the Sunne in their motions are eternally fixed upon one simple and infinite good which contains in it the perfection of all delectible objects Quid â—o avarius cui Deus non sufficit in quo sunt omnia What can be more insatiable then that man whom God doth not suffice in whom all things are can any thirst after a larger possession then immensity a surer state then immortality a longer term of yeers then perpetuity But if you ask me why God defers the consummation of his childrens happinesse unto the resurrection and makes it to be like a Jacobs ladder that hath sundry steps and ascensions amongst many grounds that may be assigned be pleased to take these First God doth it that he may hide his counsels and purposes concerning his children from the eyes and knowledg of carnal proud men to whom the external meanness of Christ and his followers becomes a stumbling-block and a just occasion to make them perish in their sins And he doth it also that he may hide his people from their rage and fury who are as impatient at the least appearances of their welfare as Bulls are at the fight of Scarlet They envy them their morsels of bread much more their Manna their rags much more their robes The evil husbandmen in the Gospel as soon as they beheld the heir deale worse with him then with their Lords servants Luke 20. 14. And did but the wicked of the world but fully know whose the inheritance of Heaven were they would fall upon them as the Jewes upon Steven and stone them to death Secondly God doth it that he may shew forth the greatness of his power Alchymists boast much of their skill that they can turn baser mettalls into more noble Lead into Silver Copper into gold but the ground upon which they build their presumption is that these baser mettals are in their nature in the way to be better and so they doe but perfect that which is imperfect and would by course of nature have become perfect though they had never laboured it But they never assayed to turn dross into Silver or dirt into Gold And yet the power which God putteth forth is far greater when he raiseth his children from the grave to Heaven and makes them that were Netherlanders dwelling in the dust to be citizens of the new Jerusalem which is above the companions of Angels and coheirs with Christ Who but an infinite power can make a vile corruptible body to put on incorruption or can change a naturall body into a spirituall body so as that it shall not need the assistance of meats and drinks but live as the Angels doe or can make a body sowne in dishonour to rise in honour being beautified with the glorious endowments of clarity agility and impassibility Thirdly God defers the full happiness of believers till their resurrection that they may have occasion to shew forth and exercise all kind of graces that bring glory and honour to himselfe If the crown were set upon their heads while they were as infants in the cradle where would their patience in enduring trials and in waiting on the pleasure of God be made visible to the world If they were all forthwith taken up from earth to heaven where would be the exercise of their hope and earnest longing after the appearing of Christ in glory If there were no such changes as death and dissolution intervening where would be the glory of the Christians faith who now believe that which the line of reason cannot fathome Is there any desart so hopelesse as death and the grave desertion of life and being when milke forsakes the brests marrow the bones bloud the veines spirit the arteries and the soule the body And yet after such desolations faith expects a restauration I know saith Job that my Redeemer liveth and that he shall stand upon the Earth at the latter day and though after my skin worms destroy this body yet in my flesh shall I see God Job 19. 25 26. Believers know the power of God can easily break asunder the bands of death and therefore yield to it as prisoners of hope Fourthly God doth it that there may be a conformity between Christs and the believers entrance into glory He was first abased and then exalted He suffered and then

the Aphorisme noteth it in Hippocrates The way by which our Saviour raised Lazarus John 11. 45. and Peter raised Tabitha was by a voice Acts 9. 40. And the way by which all the congregation of the dead shall be awakened from the grave shall be not by the immediate voice of God but by the voice of the Son of man The hour commeth saith our Saviour in which all that are in the grave shall hear his voice and come forth John 5. 28. It is his voice that shall cause the Sea to give up its dead and shall make the bones of his Saints that are scattered over the face of the whole earth to come together But it is not my purpose to weary the Metaphor in a full and close pursuit of it or to draw an exact parallel between sleep and death It being a point that I least aimed at in this present exercise The application that I shall make is briefly double First if death be but a sleep to believers then it should cause us to moderate our sorrow on the behalf of our dearest friends and relations that are fallen asleep in the Lord as also to correct that excesse of fear in regard of our selves who are apt to be dismayed at the harbingers of the King of terrors age pain and sicknesse and to sink under the sad thoughts of an imminent dissolution Who is troubled when he understands his sick friend is laid down to rest and who is afraid to put off his clothes at night when he goes to bed Sleep is not an hurtfull but a necessary kind of privation and intermission It is the sick mans Physitian the travellers and labouring mans restorative the only Parenthesis of the afflicted mans sorrows and from hence it is that Aristotle in his Ethicks saith that for well nigh half their time the miserable and the happy do little differ And are not all these together with far more high advantages found to meet in the believers sleep of death is there not then a perfect release from all the miseries of this life is there not by it a cure wrought of all the maladies both of the soule and of the body so that the one shall no more relapse into its former sins nor the other into its old diseases cares the eye shal not weep for sorrow nor the brow sweat with labor the head shall not ake with the multitude of anxious thoughts nor the phancy be molested with the dreams visions of the night when we awake from it we shall say it was the best and quietest sleep that ever we slept and the best physick that ever we took for the putting of a final period to all our distempers Let not therefore believers dread the thoughts of death as others doe nor shreek out when they espie this snake creeping into their bosoms for hurt them it cannot having lost its sting but benefit them it shall being made by Christ an egress from all misery and an ingress into all happiness The second application is to acquaint us how necessary it is to exercise faith and holiness while we live that death may be a comfortable sleep to us when we die No man can die in the Lord that lives not to the Lord nor shall awake from death to happinesse that doth not first awake from sin to holiness It is a vain presumption to conceive that a man that lives and dies in his sins can ever have the same joyful resurrection with them that have made it their constant work to die to their sin Northern and Southern rivers though they run from contrary points meet in the same Sea but they whose waies and Principles are contrary unto theirs that profess holiness shall never be found with them in the same Heaven If we look for according to Gods promise new heavens and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness 2 Pet. 3. 13. we must have righteousness dwelling in us here or else we shall never dwell in them hereafter O then that they would lay this to heart who dread the separation of the soul from the body but yet are not at all afraid of the separation and disunion both of the body and soul from God that so they may timely busie themselves in those waies and duties which may make the first death that cannot possibly be avoided by them to be comfortable to them and may also wholy prevent their dying of the second death which leaves all those that fall under the stroke of it eternally hopeless And thus I have done with the first Observation touching it well nigh with as light an hand as Jonathan did the honey-comb into which he onely dipt the end of his rod but by that small tast his eyes were enlightned and so I hope may ours also by that little which hath been spoken of it There remains yet a second observation which growes as ripe fruit upon the same branch and is next to be gathered and that is this Doct. 2 That the happiness of believers is not absolute and entire untill their resurrection from the grave nor are they filled with bliss and glory to satisfaction till they be awaked In nature the tree puts forth first buds then blossoms and afterwards by a further digestion of the sap there is a production of the fruit and so it is with believers in their supernatural and eternal blessedness in which they are not at once estated but have it first in the buddings of it by faith and hope in the blooming of it by the joyes and comforts of the Spirit with which they are often lifted up towards Heaven but the ultimate fulness of it they enjoy not until the whole man come to be possessed of Heaven We are now the sons of God but it doth not yet appâ—ar what we shall be 1 John 2. 2. Our present condition at best falls as far short of our future as a faint ray doth of the Sun when it shines in its full strength The learned Verulams observation of Prophecies falls in much with the manner of our celestial happiness who saith that they have gradus scalas complementi certain gradual fulfillings in each of which they grow more clear and distinct And so hath it sundrie progressive steps and ascentions in each of which we are truly partakers of it after a growing and encreasing way as I shall show in five steps First believers have life and eternal blessedness in pretio in the price that is laid down for it Ephes 1. 14. It is called a purchased possession an inheritance that doth not descend to us by birth but is given to us by grace He who hath a natural right unto it as being the heir of all things Heb. 1. 2. hath given unto us a right of purchase Our title is founded in Christs bloud which makes it truly ours he having by it obtained a power to give eternal life to whomsoever he pleaseth Secondly believers have it in promisso in the promise

they have been condemned then when absolved Paul under the hope of glory joyes in tribulation Rom. 5. 3. The believing Hebrews knowing that they have in Heaven an enduring substance take joyfully the spoyling of their goods Heb. 10. 34. Others that they might obtain a better resurrection have not accepted of deliverance from the sword flames and other tortures when it hath been offered unto them Heb. 11 35. It is storied of Adrianus that Martyr that seeing many Christians put to so cruel and bitter deaths he asked others of them what it was that they suffered such grievous things for and their Answer was Speramus illa bona quae oculus non vidit auris non audivit in cor hominis non ascenderunt We hope for those things which eye hath not seen ear hath not heard nor ever entred into the heart of man to conceive Whereupon he was so moved that he forthwith desired to be enrolled in the catalogue of Martyrs and so suffered his Wife exciting him thereunto Needs therefore must the happinesse of Heaven be full and perfect when for it men are willing to forgoe the sweetest things and to undergoe the hardest and yet reckon all not worthy of the Glory that shall be revealed in them Rom. 8. 18. Thirdly the fulnesse of the felicity of Heaven may appear if we compare it with the joyes and comforts of the Holy Spirit Such they are as that the Scripture styles them strong consolations Heb. 6. 17. full joyes John 15. 11. Joy unspeakable and full of Glory 1 Pet. 1. 8. abounding consolations 2 Cor. 1. 5. And yet all the joy and peace that believers are partakers of in this life is but as a drop to the Ocean as a single cluster to the whole Vintage as the Thyme or Honey upon the thigh of a Bee to the whole Hive fully fraught with it or as the break and peep of day to the bright noâ—n-tide But yet these tasts of the Water Wine and Honey of this celestial Canaan with which the Holy Spirit makes glad the hearts of believers are both far more desirable and satisfactory then the overflowing streams of all earthly felicities And there are none who have once tasted of them but say as the Samaritan woman did Lord give me that Water that I thirst not neither come hither to draw John 4. 15. So also the first and early dawnings of the heavenly light fill the soul with more serenity and ravish it with more pure joy then the brightest Sun-shine of all worldly splendor can ever doe I have read of a devout Person who but dreaming of Heaven the signatures and impressions it made upon his fancy were so strong as that when he awaked he knew not his Cell could not distinguish the night from the day nor difference by his taste Oyle from Wine still he was calling for his vision and saying Redde mihi campos floridos columnam anream comitem Hieronymum assistentes Angelos Give me my fresh and fragrant fields againe my Golden pillar of light Jerom my companion Angels my assistants If Heaven in a dream produce such extacies as drown and overwhelm the exercise of the senses to inferiour objects what transes and complacencies must the fruition of it work in those who have their whole rational appetite filled and their body beautified with its endlesse glory Secondly as we have seen the transcendent fulnesse of Heavens happiness comparatively so now let us view it a little positively and that both in its causes and in its properties First the efficient cause of all the fulness and glory of Heaven is God It is his royal mansion built by himself and for himself Heb. 11. 10. No Artist had either head or hand in the creating of this stately fabrick for who could make it sutable to his greatness but himselfe who onely understands his own excellency The Tabernacle the Temple in which his typical presence only was were both by his appointment to have art and cost bestowed upon them that so they might the better draw respect and reverence to his name who was worshipped in them how much more will God beautifie and deck his Throne of Majesty on which he sits on which he will manifest himself in all perfection unto the whole Assembly of the first born whose names are written in Heaven that he may forever be adored and admired by them Secondly if we look upon Heaven in the meritorious cause of it as it is a purchased inheritance so it will appear also to be full of glory When we hear what a vast sum hath been given for a Lordship for a Jewel or Diamond by them that have become propreiators of them we usually conclude that they are of more then common worth or else men would not have expended so much treasure for them How much better may we argue the worth and excellency of Heaven for which the Lord Christ laid down his bloud as a price to gain us thereby a right and a title unto it Surely he who is the wisdom of God knew the value and worth of it to be such as none but himself could ever have been able to compass or else he would not have given his precious bloud for that for which men or Angels had been sufficient to have bought with their stock Thirdly the riches and glory of Heaven is seen in this that Christ is the exemplary cause and pattern to whom believers are to be conformed He shall change our vile body saith the Apostle that it may be fashioned like to his glorious body Phil. 3. 21. In his abasement he became like us bearing upon him our infirmities but in our exaltation we shall be made like unto him We shall not onely behold his glory but we shall be partakers of it And can they want any thing who sit upon the same throne who feed at the same table who are cloathed with the robe of his righteousness who are dignified with the titles of being heirs with him brethren to him and members of him who is the head that fâ—lleth All in all Ephes 1. 23. Fourthly the full blessednesse of Heaven may be demonstrated from the matter or object of it which being fully perfect must needs make the partakers of it fully blessed Felicity consists in an aggregation of all good if any thing be wanting it cannot be absolute and intire And can we find any perfect coacervation of all the scattered objects of good but in God who as he is in all things so all things are in him after a more excellent manner then ever they were or can be in themselves they never were without imperfection and since the fall not without impurity but in him they are perfect without defect and pure without polution When therefore God in Heaven and not any confluence of created good is the object and matter of believers happiness must it not needs be full Can he that inherits all things Revel 21. 7. want any thing or can

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