Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	bring_v	sin_n	wage_n	4,080	5	11.1858	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A87093	The epitaph of a godly man, especially a man of God or, The happines by death of holines in life. Delineated in a sermon preached at the funerall of Mr Adam Pemberton late minister of the parish of St Fosters Foster-lane : who ended this mortall, April the 8th, 1655. and was buried in hope of an immortal life the 11th of the same moneth. / By Nath: Hardy M.A. and preacher to the parish of St Dionis Back Church.	Hardy, Nathaniel, 1618-1670.	1655 (1655)	Wing H720; Thomason E844_15	25,148	39

a Christian in this case concerning Christ Whom have I in death but thee and there is none in life I desire in comparison of thee The comfort of life is in the knowledge and the profit of death is in the fruition of Christ if we be without Christ it is hard to say whether is better to live or die the truth is both are hurtful whilst life will prove an increase of sinne and death sends to torment but if Christ be ours both will be to our advantage according to that of the Apostle All things are yours whether life or death things present or things to come all are yours and you are Christs and Christ is Gods 2. But because all Greek copies divide the verse into clauses and as Zanchy well observeth it is not safe to recede from the plain reading of the Text unless necessity compell whereas here the verse being read according to the Originall is more full and no lesse true I shall adhere to our last as the best Translation and so much the rather because in this construction it holds well in connexion both with what praecedeth and followeth Therefore his expectation was that Christ should be magnified and he not ashamed whether he did live or die because if he lived it should be Christ if he died it should be gain and so no cause in either of shame to himself but from both there would accrue honour to Christ Again therefore he did not wot what to choose whether life or death because to him on the one hand to live was Christ and on the other to die was gain To look upon the words in themselves you have in them some things supposed and some things proposed The things supposed are {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} and {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} as a presence of life so a certainty of death The things proposed are the dedication of his life to Christ and the advantage of death to himself Of the former more briefly Of the later more largely 1. To live to die are the things supposed the one common to all others with S. Paul the other common to S. Paul with all others First S. Paul lived so doe all men so doe all animals what our Apostle saith of bodies I may of life There is a naturall body and there is a spirituall body so there is a naturall and there is a spirituall life this is an hidden but that a manifest life this an inclosure but that a common it is common to Heathen with Christians to beasts with men the little ant the crawling worms have a share in life as well as we so that these may say as well as S. Paul To me to live why should we be so much in love with or dote upon this life which we have no more interest in than the meanest living creature indeed it is a mercy for which we ought to be thankfull it is a talent which we are to improve but it is no priviledge wherein we should glory whereof we should boast or wherewith we should be too much affected Secondly As S. Paul lived so he made account of dying Others live as well as he and he must die as well as others The {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} is as certain as the {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} as sure as we live we must die man is no lesse subject to perishing than the beast yea the good man hath no more exemption than the bad for so the Prophet Esay asserts The righteous perisheth Indeed our Apostle elsewhere calls righteousness a breast-plate but it is not death-proof and though it delivereth in yet not from death It is true death is the wages of sin but still it is here the lot of a Saint perfect innocency should not have known mortality but grace in the best is mixed with that sinne which bringeth death Christ I grant hath taken away death but so as he hath taken away sin for the present onely in part not fully sin is taken away ne praesit death ne obsit the power and guilt of the one the sting and venome of the other but neither ne sit not the beeing of either And indeed it is not without manifold reason that Divine Providence hath so ordered it 1. That the members may be conformable to their head we may follow Christ the same way of death in which he hath gone before us to glory 2. That by the pulling down of the wall the mosse may be fully-plucked out and by the dissolution of the body its infirmity and frailty wholly purged away 3. That the power of God may appear the more glorious in raising us up after death hath layd us in the grave and the grave turned us into dust 4. Finally That the strength of our faith might appear the more in believing we shall live though we die For these Reasons the wise God hath appointed his own children to walk through the valley of the shadow of death To carry it yet one step further and that in a few words it is no other than S. Paul who was not onely a Christian but an Apostle who taketh it for granted that he must die neither the word nor the work of righteousness can secure from death Prophets Apostles Ministers as well as others are mortall and must die Indeed they are according to our Saviours metaphor the lights of the world but such as after a while may be blown out by a violent however must go out by a naturall death Clouds they are from whom the rain of instruction falls upon the people but at length they themselves vanish away Finally Angels they are in respect of their Office but still they are Men in regard of their nature and must die like men S. Paul himself hence supposeth it as a thing which sooner or later would befall him And so I have given a dispatch to the first passe we on to the Next and principall part of the Text the things that are proposed concerning the things supposed which accordingly are two namely Christ the scope of the one and Gaine the attendant on the other which when I have viewed severally I shall look upon them joyntly and so put a period to my discourse on this Scripture To me to live is Christ is the first Propsition to be discussed It is that which according to that twofold life a Christian leads namely spirituall and temporall is capable of a threefold interpretation 1. Many of the Fathers understand this to live in a spirituall sense and so this phrase To me to live is Christ is made Synonimous with that of this very Apostle elsewhere Christ liveth in me To this purpose is that Paraphrase of devout Anselme upon this Text That by which I live is Christ I live not the old but the new man And of eloquent Chrysostome I live not a common life but

am not unthankfull He conferreth on me grace for grace I return him praise for his grace He is for my deliverance I for his honour He for my salvation I in subjection to his will Thus it was with the Spouse and thus will it be with every Christian who duly pondreth upon the mercy of Christ towards him and hath his soul affected with love and gratitude to Christ To end this If there were not in us any spark of love to Christ yet even self-love cannot but strongly oblige us to live to Christ inasmuch as this is the onely honourable profitable and pleasurable life 1. No life so honourable as this all actions are dignified especially by the end to which they tend whence the more noble the intention the more noble the operation and what intention can be higher or end nobler than the glory of Christ this is that which by a strange activity turneth our earthly into an heavenly our naturall into a spirituall life which is the most excellent of all lives To live to a mans lusts debaseth his life and maketh it no better than bestiall to live to Christ exalteth it and rendreth it no lesse than angelicall 2. No life truly profitable but this the way to live to our selves is to live to Christ whilst he hath the glory we have the benefit and as his name is advanced so our good is advantaged There is a strange riddle and a seeming contradiction in those words of God by the Prophet Ephraim is an empty vine and bringeth forth fruit a vine is then said to be empty when it is fruitlesse and can that which bringeth forth fruit be said to be fruitlesse But the next words to himself unfold the riddle and reconcile the contradiction since the fruit which is brought forth to our selves is no fruit What he said of the day wherein he had done no good Diem perdidi I have lost a day that may we say in this case that day and time of our life is lost wherein we live not to Christ Finally this is the most pleasurable life free from those cares and feares distraction and vexation with which living to the world and our lusts is encombred full of those joyes and sweet pleasures and delights whereof all others are ignorant He that can say To me to live is Christ may say To me to live is peace of conscience contentment of minde and joy in the Holy Ghost In one word this is the onely way to make both our life comfortable and our death gainfull And so I am fallen on The other branch of this Text that which is here proposed by our Apostle concerning his death in those words To me to die is gain To die whether violently or naturally by sickness or a sword be the manner or means of death what it will it is gain not onely not injurious but commodious no hurt but profit no losse but benefit To me and all such as he was whether faithfull Ministers or good Christians Indeed this is primarily true of that dying to which S. Paul being now in chains at Rome might especially referre I mean a violent death for the cause of Christ by heathenish persecution And so this is true of the death it self and true Martyrs may say the very {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} to die is gain to thm Indeed to die for Christ is both an honour and a gain an advancement and an advantage S. Paul in this very Chapter tells the Philippians it was given to them to suffer as if this were a special choice gift an extraordinary gratification conferred by God upon a man when he calleth him to suffer and especially death for his truth yea the death it self gaineth an increase of the reward and a further accession of glory In this respect our blessed Saviour saith He that loseth his life for my sake shall finde it which is in effect He that loseth shall not lose yea the very losing his life in this quarrell shall be an advantage to him whilest he shall finde that life which infinitely exceedeth this Mors quippe integriorem facit vitam mors magis deducit ad gloriam to use S. Cyprians expression such a death shall not onely accelerate but accumulate the glory of that other life But besides this speciall it is according to a right construction true also in a generall notion not onely of them that die for but all that die in the Lord that death is a gain to them onely with this difference to Martyrs their dying is a gain and all Christians gain by dying Indeed this gain is not a direct and proper but onely an accidental effect or rather a consequent of death not flowing from but following after it that which death in its own nature bringeth forth is evill it causeth not gain but losse depriving good as well as bad men of the sweet comforts of this present life but in regard of the good Christ hath by obtaining for them a life after death made death of a curse to become a blessing of a punishment a benefit of a departure an entrance and of a losse a gain thus as the waters of Marah were sweetned by the tree so is the bitternesse of death allayed the sting of it plucked out yea the nature of it changed by the crosse of Christ This being premised I shall intreat you to walke awhile with me in this pleasant field of deaths gain which I shall endevour to illustrate both absolutely and comparatively privatively and positively 1. This will appear to be a truth absolutely Death is a gaine to a godly man if you consider both the evils from which he is freed and the good things of which he is possessed 1. Privatively death is a gain to true Christians in respect of those various evils from which it delivereth The evils of this present life are of two sorts to wit temporall and spirituall from both which death delivereth Many are the miseries under which we groan in this life but Mors pro remedio so S. Ambrose death is a cure for them all In this respect it is that Seneca saith aptly it is Nullius mali materia multorum finis The cause of none but the end of many evils Upon this account it was that death hath been even by the heathens looked upon as an advantage When those two famous carpenters Agamedes and Trophonius had built a Temple for Apollo at Delphos they begg'd of him a Reward To whom this answer was given by the Oracle That it should be conferred on them within nine daies within which time they died And when Cydippe begg'd of Juno a boon for her two Sons Cleebis and Byto she found them in the morning dead in their beds as if the Gods could not bestow a greater benefit than death by which men are freed from the calamities of life In this respect Seneca's comparison is very fi● who