Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	comfort_n	life_n	live_v	4,359	5	5.5637	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A36020	A sermon at the funeral of the Lady Elizabeth Alston, wife of Sir Thomas Alston, Knight and Baronet preached in the parish-church of Woodhill in Bedford-shire, Septemb. 10, 1677 / by William Dillingham ...	Dillingham, William, 1617?-1689.	1678 (1678)	Wing D1487; ESTC R10439	20,890	43

To assure him of a Crown of Righteousness and by that Assurance mediately to comfort him against the Fear of Death of which I shall speak afterwards 2. By this consideration to comfort himself immediately and next way against the Fear of Death The Testimony of a good Conscience Conscientia rectè factorum doth arm and support a man against the gastly aspect of approaching Death For What is it that makes Death so terrible unto Mortals that the very mention of it makes them tremble like an Aspine-leaf The Apostle tells us The Sting of Death is Sin 1 Cor. 15.56 The guilt of Sin upon the Conscience is that which puts the Heart into such a palpitation For the Conscience knowing that for all those Impieties whereof it keeps the Register it must come to judgment and the Books must be opened and every one must be judged according to what is found written in the Books it dreads Judgment to come as Felix did and cannot but look upon Death as on the grim Serjeant that comes to arrest us and to summon us to judgment This is the Sting in the Tail of Death But now a good Conscience sprinkled with the Blood of Christ that sincerely reports unto us that we have by Faith in the Blood of Christ received him for the Pardon of Sin and gives us in an holy Life in evidence of the Truth of our Faith doth thereby shew that the Promise of the Gospel which was made conditionally is now become absolute unto us and that therefore we are already passed from Death to Life And then being once assured that our Debts are pardoned and the Hand-writing cancelled we fear no longer Death's Arrest but may say with this Apostle O Death where is thy Sting Thanks be to God who giveth us the Victory through Jesus Christ our Lord 1 Cor. 15.55 56. Thus we see that the Testimony of a good Conscience and nothing else without it can give us true and solid Comfort when we come to dy A wicked man may through the hardness of his Heart and searedness of his Conscience be sensless and stupid in his Death and so fall down like a Log into Hell-flames An erroneous Conscience may make a man brave it out and with Curtius leap desperately into the Gulf of the Bottomless Pit An Hypocrite's Conscience may set a fair outside upon it and dy possibly with seeming Joy but in the midst of Laughter his Heart is sad his Joy is but like the risus Sardonius when Men seem to dy laughing but 't is rather a Rictus than a Risus a grinning of the Teeth than Laughter and shall end in gnashing of Teeth in another World 'T is only the Testimony of a good and pure sincere and enlightned Conscience that can yield a man good ground of true and solid Comfort And therefore St. Paul being now as it were at Death's door takes this Cordial before he knocks hath recourse unto his own Conscience for his Letters Testimonial drawn up from a Survey of an holy and well-led Life and here he finds support And the like he had done before 2 Cor. 1.12 For our rejoycing is this the Testimony of our Conscience that in Simplicity and godly Sincerity we have had our Conversation in the World This also hath been the Practice and Method of other Saints and Servants of God in Scripture who when they were under the apprehension of their approaching Departure have fetcht their Comfort from the lame Topick which St. Paul here made use of viz. the Testimony of a good Conscience concerning their passed Lives and Conversations Thus good Hezekiah Isa 38.1 c. having received that doleful Message the Sentence of Death pronounced by the mouth of the Prophet Set thine House in order for thou shalt dye and not live whence does he look for his Comfort but from the secret witness of his own Soul testifying unto him the Sincerity of his former Course which he is willing to have tryed by the Sun-beams of God's own Knowledg v. 3. Remember now O Lord I beseech thee how I have walke I before thee in Truth and with a perfect Heart and have done that which is good in thy sight Thus Elijah sitting under the Juniper-tree 1 Kin. 19.4 could not with any comfort have desired seriously as he did that God would take away his Life from him had he not had this assurance written on the Table of his own Heart that he had been very Zealous or Jealous for the Lord of Hosts as himself professeth v. 10.1 And how could good old Simeon with joy have sung his Nunc dimittis had he not known in his Conscience what the Gospel reports of him that he was a just and devout Man waiting for the Consolation of Israel Luk. 2.25 As ever therefore we desire to find Comfort in our Death let us lead holy Lives and keep good Consciences as Paul and these other Servants of God did There are scarce any so profligate and given up to all Impiety but do desire Comfort when they come to dy But alas by their wicked Lives they have stop't the Minister's mouth seared the Breasts of Consolation and cut off those Conduit-pipes which should have conveyed Comfort into their Souls There be many who will be ready to say with Balaam O let me dy the Death of the Righteous and let my last end be like his but they will not live the Life of the Righteous Mark the perfect Man and behold the upright for the end of that Man is peace Psal 37.37 But alas what Peace can thy Conscience or any other speak to thee while thy crying Sins and Impieties are so many Light is sown for the Righteous and Joy for the Upright in Heart Psal 97.11 A man may with as much reason expect to reap where he hath not sown as to reap Joy and Comfort in Death without sowing the Seed of it in an holy Life Sow then in thy Life-time what thou wouldest reap when thou comest to dy And thus I have done with St. Paul's First Meditation or his Reflexion upon his former Life well-spent I come to the Second Medit. 2. St. Paul's second Meditation is a Prospect into the Life to come and the Glory of it together with his own Share in it Wherein we have these Severals to be taken into our Consideration 1. The Reward it self called a Crown of Righteousness 2. The Certainty of it in those words laid up for me 3. The Bestower of it the Lord the Righteous Judg shall give me 4. The Time when it shall be bestowed at that day I. The Reward it self which is no other than Eternal Life the Glory and Joys of Heaven Which we have here set forth unto us under the Metaphor of a Crown of Righteousness The Joys and Glory of Heaven are called a Crown 1. Because Eternal Life and Blessedness are promised to us under the Notion of an Heavenly Kingdom Luk. 12.32 Fear not little Flock for it is your

A SERMON AT THE FUNERAL OF THE Lady ELIZABETH ALSTON WIFE of Sir THOMAS ALSTON Knight and Baronet Preached in the Parish-Church of Woodhill in Bedford-shire Septemb. 10. 1677. By WILLIAM DILLINGHAM D. D. and Rectour there Now Published at the Instance of her nearest Relations LONDON Printed for Jonathan Robinson at the Golde Lion in St. Pauls Church yard 1678. Imprimatur Novemb. 1. 1677. C. Alston R.P.D. Hen. Episc Lond. à Sacris Domest 2 TIM 4.7 8. I have fought a good Fight I have finished my Course I have kept the Faith Henceforth is laid up for me a Crown of Righteousness which the Lord the Righteous Judge shall give me at that day IT is not at all to be doubted but that the blessed Apostle St. Paul who as he reports of himself did die daily and was in Deaths often did live under a constant Sense of his own Mortality But yet at the time of his writing this Epistle which was as the Postscript tells us when he was brought the second time before Nero he seems to have had more than ordinary apprehensions of his approaching End Death was now already in his view and coming towards him So much he lets us know in the Verse before the Text For I am now ready to be offered and the time of my Departure is at hand 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not so much imminent as already come Now seeing that Death is an Enemy vvhich vve must all encounter it is all our Concernments to prepare for it And that vve may so do it vvill be of singular use and advantage to us to have observ'd how St. Paul a good old and try'd Souldier of Jesus Christ doth prepare himself to receive the Shock and to cope with this King of Terrours and to know what Cordials he makes use of to support his Heart against the Fear of Death approaching The Text presents us with a twofold Meditation of St. Paul 1. A Meditation of vvhat vvas past a Reflexion upon his former Life vvell-spent I have fought a good Hight c. Ver. 7 2. A Meditation on what was future being a Prospect into the Life to come and the Glory of it Henceforth c. Ver. 8. The Apostle's Work and his Reward his Fidelity and his Crown The first whereof hath an Order and Subordination to the other The way to Happiness is by Holiness without which no man shall ever see the Lord. And the way to have assurance of Eternal Life is to get the Testimony of a good Conscience that we have led our Lives well here on Earth And this double Assurance joyn●d together did enable St. Paul to look upon Death but as a Departure a mild and harmless thing a Departure and that not from home but from an Inn to go unto his Father's House The time of my Departure is at hand Medit. 1. I shall begin vvith St. Paul's first Medication or his Reflexion upon his vvell-led Life Wherein vve have two things to be consider'd by us 1. A Character of the Nature of a Christian Life 2. The comfortable Testimonial which Paul's Conscience gave him viz. that he had led his Life well I have fought a good Fight c. 1. We have here a Character expressing and setting forth unto us the Nature of a Christian Life and that under a threefold Metaphor and Allusion 1. Of a Fight 2. Of a Course or Race 3. Of the Custody or Keeping of something committed to our Trust 1. The Christian Life is here compared to a Fight and figuratively so called Sometimes the Life of Man is compar'd to a Warfare in respect of those many Labours and Difficulties vvhich he is vvont to encounter vvithal Thus Job 7.1 Is there not an appointed time to Man upon the Earth Where for an appointed Time the Marginal reading is a Warfare by vvhich is meant a Time of Warring According hereunto vve find that the Roman Legionary Souldiers had a certain Period or Term of Years sometimes ten sometimes twenty or more Years during vvhich they were to continue listed in the Muster-Roll and to fight under their Emperour's Banner but vvhen that Time vvas once expired then they were said to be Emeriti Exauctorati discharged of their Oath and dismissed from serving any longer and honourably rewarded vvith Gifts and Possessions To such a Term of Time Allusion is made Isa 40.2 Where it is said of Jerusalem that her Warfare is accomplish'd And so Rev. 3.12 He that overcometh shall go no more out that is to Warfare he hath his quietus est But if the natural Life of Man be a kind of Warfare a Christian Life is much more deservedly to be so accounted a Spiritual Warfare And thus Paul expresseth it 1 Tim. 1.18 That thou mightest war a good Warfare And 2 Tim. 2.3 Endure Hardship as a good Souldier of Jesus Christ There is a double sort of Fighting vvhich Paul hath Allusion to when he speaks of the Christian Life Sometimes he speaks of Fighting in a Military sense as one Enemy fights with another in the Field which is properly called Warring And of this he speaks in the place but now mentioned 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that thou mightest war 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a good Warfare Otherwhile the Apostle speaks of Fighting in an Agonistical sense as Men were wont to fight of old in the Greek Olympicks or in the Roman Cirque and Amphitheater when they contended for Masteries where the Victor's Guerdon was Life and Glory And unto this Paul seems to allude in the Text as the Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here used by him doth import But I shall not be curious to observe the Difference but speak of them promiscuously The Life of a Christian is fitly compared unto a Fight or Warfare as will appear by the following Considerations 1. As in War there is always some Cause or other contended for whether it be to revenge Injuries or to defend Life and Liberty or to obtain Dominion or to win Glory and Renown So is it here Christians have a Cause which they fight in the Cause of God the Cause of Christ and of their own Souls they contend for the Glory and Honour of God for the Name and Faith of Christ for the eternal Salvation of their own Souls All these are concern'd in our Christian Warfare all these doth Satan seek to hinder and destroy 2. As in Wars and Fights so here are two adverse Parties Enemies and Antagonists to one another fighting and contending with one another And those we find to be listed under opposite Generals On the one side Jesus Christ the Prince of Life and Salvation and under him do fight all true Believers On the other side is Satan the Prince of the Power of the Air and of the Kingdom of Darkness who ruleth and commandeth in the Children of Disobedience and under him are listed Legions of Apostate Spirits and wicked Men. The Devil and the World fight against us by Temptations on