Selected quad for the lemma: death_n
Text snippets containing the quad
|
ID |
Title |
Author |
Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) |
STC |
Words |
Pages |
|
A26800
|
A sermon preached upon the much lamented death of our late gracious sovereign Queen Mary to which is added The address of condolence to His Majesty by the dissenting ministers / by William Bates ...
|
Bates, William, 1625-1699.
|
1695
(1695)
|
Wing B1118; ESTC R2534
|
14,062
|
32
|
Charity would be illustrious Her wise Redemption of Time from unconcerning Vanities for Domestick Affairs was the Effect and Indication of her tender and vigilant Conscience She consider'd her Glass was continually running and all the Sands were to be accounted for How should this great Example correct those who are lavish of nothing so much as of Time which being lost is irrecoverable The Sun returns every Day but Time never returns In her Sickness Patience had its perfect Work Her Disease was uncomfortable yet with resigned Submission she bore it When the Danger of it was signified to her she had no fearful Thoughts about her future State 'T is a cruel Respect to sick Persons especially to Princes to conceal from them their Danger till Death steals insensibly upon them Indeed considering their past Lives and their present Anxieties the Advice of approaching Death is an Anticipation of it But the Spirit of this excellent Saint was not afraid of Evil-tidings but fixed trusting in the Lord. Her Care had been to secure the Love of God in the best time of her Life this mixed Cordial Drops in the Bitterness of Death In short to finish my Discourse all the blessed Vertues were eminently seen in her that might render her Government an entire Happiness to the Kingdom This erected her a Throne in the Hearts of her Subjects and the Honour the wise Poet attributes to the Emperor Augustus Victorque volentes Per populos dat jura That he rul'd a willing People may more truly be said of this excellent Princess She was Queen of the Affections of the People and governed them without Constraint Her Praise-worthy Actions will eternize her Memory when other Princes devested of their secular Pomp shall either be buried in dark Oblivion or condemned in History The Earthen Vessel wherein all these Treasures were deposited is broke and the instructive Providence should perswade us to look to our living Strength the blessed God fixing our Trust in him He bestowed this rare Instrument of his Goodness He can preserve his Servant our Sovereign Lord who by the Divine Assistance has the Honour of establishing our Religion and Liberties at home and gives hope of restoring it abroad from whence it has been so cruelly and perfidiously expell'd FINIS THE Address of Condoleance TO His MAJESTY BY THE Dissenting Ministers May it please your Majesty THO we come in the Rear of the Train of Mourners to pay our Tributary Tears for the unvaluable Loss in the Death of your Royal Consort and our most Gracious Queen yet our Resentments of it are with as tender a Sympathy as are in the Breasts of any of your Subjects This gives the sharpest Accent to our Passions that the Considerations which are most proper and powerful to allay our Sorrows exasperate them for while we remember what She was how general and diffusive a Blessing to three Kingdoms the severe stroke of Providence in taking Her from us is most afflicting Such a Concurrence of high Perfection shin'd in Her Person and Actions that would have made Her Illustrious in a low Condition and in Her exalted Station they were attractive of the Eyes and Admiration of all Her Mind was above the Temptations that attend the Throne Majesty was mix'd with that condescending Humility that tender and beneficent Goodness that She was easily accessable to all for their Relief and Support Her Piety and Purity were so conspicuous Her Affections were so composed and temperate that the Court that is usually the Centre of Vanity and Voluptuousness became vertuous by the Impression of Her Example Her Conversation was so regular that Her Enemies if Goodness in such a bright Eminency had any could not fasten a Taint upon Her Her Royal Endowments for Government Wisdom Magnanimity Vigilance and Care in managing Affairs of State without which the highest Princes are but civil Idols useless and unprofitable to the World these were in such a degree of Excellency that in your Majesty's constrained Absence while you were defending the Interest of Christendom against a potent Enemy abroad with the Sword of War She sweetly ordered all things at home with the Scepter of Peace She is gone and must return no more O astonishing Grief But it becomes us with humble Submission to acquiesce in the Divine Disposal The Will of God is always directed by Infinite Wisdom and is the Rule of Goodness We must refresh our Sorrows with the hope that She is entered into her Saviour's Joy whom She imitated and honoured and that She is made happy in the Love of God and the Light of his Countenance for ever We humbly beseech your Majesty to accept the renewed Assurances of our inviolable and constant Fidelity to your Person and Government and that we shall influence all that are within our Compass to persevere in their Duty We shall earnestly pray to the blessed God to keep you in the best Protection his encompassing Favour to support your Spirit with Divine Comforts and to continue long your precious Life so necessary for preserving the pure Religion and the Civil Rights of this Kingdom FINIS ADVERTISEMENT THE four last Things viz. Death Judgment Heaven Hell practically considered and applied In several Discourses By William Bates D. D. Printed for Brab Aylmer Rev. 1. 4. Isa. 44. 6. Exod. 3. Mal. 3. 6. 1 Tim. 6. Psal. 21. Esay Heb. 11. * Adhuc usque in finem seculi multiplicandi justificandi sunt Tamen verba praeteriti temporis posuit de rebus etiam futuris tanquam jam fecerit Deus quae jam ut fierent ex aeternitate disposuit 2 Pet. 1. 1 Sam. 15. 29. Deut. 7. Psal. 102. Eph. 3. 10. Luke 15. Psal. 39. Lam. â— 19 20. Psal. 82. 6 7.
Dr. BATES's SERMON UPON THE DEATH OF THE QUEEN A SERMON Preached upon the much Lamented DEATH Of our Late Gracious Sovereign QUEEN MARY To which is Added the Address of Condolence TO His MAJESTY BY THE Dissenting Ministers By WILLIAM BATES D. D. Psalm 112. 6. The Righteous shall be in Everlasting Remembrance LONDON Printed for Brabazon Aylmer at the Three Pigeons in Cornhil M DC XCV TO The Most Illustrious WILLIAM Duke of BEDFORD May it please your Grace IN this Season of Griefs that overspreads Three Kingdoms I thought it not unbecoming me to add one Voice to the Consort of Mourners The Universal Goodness of the Queens Life is attended with a Sorrow of Equal Compass at her Death If we Consider the Causes of it our Sins the just Incentives of Gods High Displeasure and the Chain of fearful Consequences that may ensue What Heart is such a frozen Fountain as not to Dissolve and mix flowing Tears with the Current that will be permanent in Times to come I have presum'd to inscribe your Most Honourable Name in the following Sermon knowing that notwithstanding the meanness of the Composure the Subject of it will be very pleasing to your Grace as being the Expression of Homage to the Memory of the Incomparable Princess our Sovereign by a Double Title by her Resplendent Virtues and by her Crown I am My Lord Your Graces very Humble and Obedient Servant William Bates A SERMON Preached upon the much Lamented DEATH Of our Late Gracious Sovereign QUEEN MARY PSALM 102. verses 26 27. They shall perish but thou shalt endure yea all of them shall wax old like a garment as a vesture shalt thou change them and they shall be changed But thou art the same and thy years shall have no end THIS Psalm was according to the judgement of the best Interpreters Composed during the Captivity in Babylon And in the former Verses the Prophet reflects sadly upon the Churches Afflicted State and his own Misery and Mortality Verses 14 23 24. He extends his view to the Ruinous Prospect of the Fabrick of Heaven and Earth They shall decay and be destroyed either in their substance or qualities and use Perish by Consuming or be changed by a purifying Fire From this Consideration he turns his Thoughts to the immutable Constancy and Eternity of God But thou art the same thy Compassionate Favour and Power never decline and thy years shall have no end Upon this ground he raises his Hope that God will revive and restore his Church the children of thy servants shall continue and their seed shall be established before thee The Proposition that I shall Discourse of is this That the Unchangeable Everlasting Perfections of God are the sure Foundation of the Churches Hope in its Desolate State In the managing of it I shall first consider the unchangeable Perfections of God 2. How they are the Foundation of the Churches Hope In Discoursing of the first Head I shall premise that the most sublime Spirits in Heaven cannot fully discover and comprehend the intimate and unsearchable Perfections of God He dwells in that Light which is inaccessible the astonishing Glory of his Essence How little then of his Nature is known here In the present state of Union with the Flesh we cannot contemplate things purely Spiritual without some material resemblances Humane Knowledge and Language begin by the Senses and in the ascent of the Mind to the Supreme Region we are constrained to make use of the most refined sensible Representations of Divine Things as rising steps lest our Thoughts by their own weight fall into gross matter The Holy Spirit in great Condescension reveals God to us in Expressions suitable to our Capacity and Conception but the Understanding must be attentive to correct the Imagination that we may not offend his Majesty and lessen his Glory In the Text the Eternity of God is set forth His years shall have no end And he is stiled The antient of dayes Which signifie the unequal spaces of transient Time and are proper only to created things that have a successive duration and are Metaphorically attributed to God Eternity that is proper to God is a duration permanent indivisible and wholly present in it self All the numbers of motion and measures of Time are comprehended and lost in the vastness of Eternity as a few drops of Rain that fall into the immense Ocean 'T is said of God He is and was and is to come There is no past or future in God but with respect to his Works Our Saviour declares I am the first and the last wherein he attributes to himself a Perfection truly and manifestly Divine The absolute immutability of the Divine Nature is by a comparison declared in Scripture God is stiled The Father of Lights in whom there is no variableness nor shadow of change The great Luminary of Heaven has various Aspects and Appearances in its Rising and Meridian and Setting is changeable in its Approaches and Recesses from whence different Shadows are cast But the Father of Lights has an invariable tenour of Glory he is without motion and mutation God is absolutely exempt from all change in his Nature and from all accidental change The Reason of this is evident from the consideration of his necessary self-existence and from the absolute simplicity of his Being Self-existence is the intrinsical Property of Gods Nature He defines himself by it I am that I am He directs Moses to tell the Israelites I am hath sent me unto you This and the Wonder working Rod were his Credentials to authorize and dignifie him in their esteem and to induce them to believe his Message Jehovah which is the same with I am is the essential supream and singular Name of God whereby he is distinguished from all Created Beings It exhibits the clearest Character of the Deity There are other Divine Titles that signifie particular Attributes but Jehovah declares his Being from himself independent upon any cause his necessary Eternal Nature the Root if I may so speak from which his Perfections spring and flourish All other things are from his Causality every spark of Life every degree of Being is from him But the most excellent Creatures compared to him are but as dark shadows without reality Therefore God assumes to himself I am and there is none besides me 'T is said the whole World compared to him is like a drop of the bucket to the sea or the dust of the ballance to the globe of the earth nay is less than nothing There is a greater distance between God and the Angels than between the Angels and their native nothing For they have derived and dependent limited Beings but God is all Perfection all Greatness and Goodness from himself This necessary Self existence of God is the Foundation of his Immutability Thus he declares I am the Lord Jehovah I change not He is necessarily and eternally himself and all that he is without the least