Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	creator_n	young_a	youth_n	188	3	9.0298	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A92883	A funeral gift: or, a preparation for death With comforts against the fears of approaching death: and consolations against immoderate grief, for the loss of friends. By the author of The devout companion.	Seller, Abednego, 1646?-1705.	1690 (1690)	Wing S2452A; ESTC R215121	60,167	186

I S●…tse A FUNERAL GIFT Iob 34 15 All flesh shall perish together man shall turn again unto dust A Funeral Gift OR A PREPARATION FOR DEATH WITH Comforts against the Fears of approaching Death And Consolations against immoderate Grief for the loss of Friends By the Author of the Devout Companion All the Days of my appointed time will I wait till my Change come Job 14.14 LONDON Printed for Henry Rhodes next Bride Lane in Fleet-street 1690. Price bound One Shilling TO THE TRULY HONOURED The LADY J. C. Madam YOur vertuous Requests to which your Merits gave the force of a Commandment oblig'd me to send my Devout Companion into the World and Madam since it hath met with so Candid a reception by your Ladyship whose early Piety proves so exemplary a Second Obligation presents it self wherein I esteem it a kind of Sacriledge to defraud you of being a Patroness to that which you may so justly challenge Prayer and Meditation are the Golden Rules towards a good Life and we can never miscarry in this dark World if we walk by the Light of a sincere Conscience For with these Holy Guides we implore the Almighty to cleanse our Hearts from all vain and unlawful Thoughts our Mouth from all foolish and idle Words and our whole Lives from all wicked and unprofitable Deeds That which I offer now Madam to your Divine Consideration is Mortality a Theme which some never care to hear of others are negligent in preparing for it and many use their utmost endeavours to put it as an Evil day far from them but all their Strategems are in vain for Death is so potent and bears such sway that none can resist his invincible Power none is exempted from the silent Grave nor none knows how soon they may be called Well-complexion'd Nature indeed may struggle here for a time but at last must yield it self to that pale Messenger Our chief Business here is to trim our Lamps and be vigilant to sow the immortal Seed of Hope and expect hereafter to reap the increase To deprecate the Almighty not to cut us off in the midst of our Folly nor suffer us to expire with our Sins unpardoned But to make us first ready for that Celestial Kingdom and then to receive us into eternal Glory This Madam is the only intent of this ensuing Treatise and may these short but plain Directions have that influence on those Persons which stand in need of these Divine Truths is the hearty and earnest Prayer of Madam Your humble and Faithful Servant in Christ Jesus E. S. A FUNERAL GIFT OR A PREPARATION FOR DEATH Meditation I. Vpon remembring our Creator in the Days of our Youth TO remember thy Creator was one of the choicest Expressions in the Royal Preacher's Sermon For who is he that is Young knows whether he shall live to be Old and yet that voice which sounds those words so loud to the whole Universe is scarce audible in the Ears of many II. This is one of the Divine Chanter's most harmonious Lessons and yet the sordid World is not pleas'd with the Tune 'T is a wonder that the best of School-Masters should have so few Disciples being his Rhetorick is so Divine and Excellent and yet it is a Text which though they will neither hear nor read they cannot chuse but see for the whole World upon it is a Commentary every Creature we behold Preaches this Doctrine which we supinely sleep out with our Eyes open III. Nature wears this Memento in her Forehead the very brute Beasts in this can reason with us and Man could not so soon forget his Maker did he but remember himself But alas Youth loves not to be put in mind of a Heavenly Being 't would clog his Memory and make him think of his Prayers too often IV. Piety will but cool his Blood Religion makes him look Old the thoughts of Heaven and the other World will create in him a greater Gravity than becomes his years his Sanguine Complexion informs him he is not in a fit Temper to study Divine things he may serve God time enough when he is at leisure V. Thus these temporal Objects of Pleasure drive away our thoughts from Celestial Dignities and those purer Joys which attend it We can spend the Beauty of our years in Vice and think to please God well enough with the Deformities of old Age We can revel away our Piety and Time in vain Delights and Pleasures and think our selves strong enough to force Heaven and become Religious when we are withered with infirmities and have nothing left us but Repentance and a Tomb. VI. We are so well satisfied with the sweetness of Sense that we are careless of any other Felicity and so much delighted with the Happiness of Sinning freely that we could willingly be of that Religion where Vice is most tolerated VII We place our Devotion with the Epicure in Natures riots Sportful meetings are our Religious Exercises and a Sermon is as tiresome to us as a Funeral to hear of our end in the midst of our Jollity sounds like the Lecture of Death and the unwelcome Echo of the Grave Let the Preacher exhort us never so well to remember our Maker we had rather follow Satan's Doctrine to enjoy the World as long as we can and think of Heaven when we have nothing else to do The Prayer O Lord shall the Lusts of the World be greater in my Soul than the love of thee Shall the temporary Delights of Sin drown the memory of thy Glory my Life is but a Span and yet I beseech thee shorten that rather than it should be spent in a neglect of thee better this earthly Tabernacle should be dissolved than become a Theatre for Sin to revel in II. Let me pay Nature her due Debt sooner than perhaps she would call for it rather than run in Score with thy Justice 'T is better I should die and be lost in the Memory of the World than ever forget thee thou formedst me from nothing not to sin but to serve thee and hast imprinted in me a Ray of thy self that I might not seek my own but thy Will nor pursue the World but Heaven III. Make me therefore to see the solid and ravishing Consolation that is in serving thee and that joy which accompanies thy Grace that so I may no longer follow my Sense but my Saviour it is none of the least Sins of our Youth that we are careless and forgetful of thee our Creator and no wonder we are so insensible of the joys to come that live in such a constant and continued neglect of Heaven IV. Make me therefore O my God to Consider that had I the Fruition of all that I can wish or long for here I should not only be satisfied but in the end find how miserable he is that setteth his Heart on any thing but thy self teach me therefore so to enjoy the World that I lose not thee nor the

of Condition yet far inferiour in right being but Tenant for a time of that Death which is the Inheritance for by Vertue of the Conveyance made to him in Paradise that Dust we were and to Dust we must return he hath hitherto shewed his Seigniority over all exacting of us not only the yearly but hourly Revenue of time which ever by minutes we defray unto him XXV So that our very Life is not only a Memory but a part of our Death and the longer we have lived the less time we have to come what is the daily lessening of our Life but a continual dying and therefore none is more grieved with the running out of the last Sand in an Hour-Glass than with all the rest so should not the end of the last hour trouble us any more than of so many that went before since that did but finish the Course that all the rest were still ending not the quantity but the quality commendeth our Life the ordinary Gain of long Livers being only a great burthen of Sin XXVI Let your mind therefore Consent to that which your Tongue daily craveth that God's will may be done as well here upon Earth as it is done in Heaven since his Will is the best measure of all Events there is in this World continual enterchange of pleasing and greeting Accidents still keeping their Succession of times and overtaking each other in their several Courses XXVII No Picture can be all drawn of the brightest Colours nor an Harmony consorted only of Trebles shadows are useful in expressing of Proportions and the base is a principal part in perfect Musick the Condition of our Exile here alloweth no unmingled Joy our whole Life is temperate between sweet and sowre and we must all look for a mixture of both XXVIII The Wise so wish Better that they still think of worse accepting the one if it come with liking and bearing the other without impatience being so much Masters of each others Fortunes that neither shall work them to excess the Dwarf groweth not up to the highest Hill nor the Tallest loseth not his height in the lowest Valley and as a base sordid mind though most at ease will be dejected so a resolute Vertue in the deepest distress is most impregnable XXIX They evermore most perfectly enjoy their Comforts that least fear their afflictions for a desire to enjoy carrieth with it a fear to lose and both Desire and Fear are Enemies to quiet Possession making Men rather Owners of God's Benefits than Tenants at his Will The cause of our Troubles are that our misfortunes happen either to unwitting or unwilling minds foresight preventeth the one necessity the other and he taketh away the smart of present Evils that attendeth their coming and is not frighted at any Cross but is armed against all XXX Where necessity worketh without our Consent the Effects should never greatly afflict us Grief being insignificant where it cannot help needless where there was no fault committed if Men should lay all their Evils together to be afterwards by equal Portions divided among them most Men would rather take that they brought than stand to the Division XXXI Yet such is the partial Judgment of Self-love that every Man judgeth his own Misery too great fearing if he can find some Circumstances to increase it and making it tolerable by thought to induce it when Moses threw his Rod from him it became a Serpent ready to sting him and affrighted him insomuch as it made him fly but being quietly taken up it was a Rod again serviceable for his use and no way hurtful XXXII The Cross of Christ and Rod of every Tribulation seeming to threaten Stinging and Terrour to those that shun it but they that mildly take it up and embrace it with Patience may say with David thy Rod and thy Staff have been my Comfort Affliction much resembleth the Crocodile fly it pursueth and frighteth followed it flyeth and feareth a shame to the Constant and a Tyrant to the Timorous XXXIII Soft minds that think only upon Delights admit no other Consideration but in flattering Objects become so effeminate as that they are apt to bleed with every sharp impression but he that useth his Thoughts with Expectation of Troubles making their Travel through all hazards and opposing his Resolution against the sharpest Encounters findeth in the Product facility of Patience and easeth the Load of most heavy Troubles XXXIV We must have temporal things in use but eternal in Wish that in the one neither Delight exceed in that we have no Desire in that we want and in the other our most delight is here in desire and our whole Desire is hereafter to enjoy they straiten too much their Joys that draw them into the reach and compass of their Senses as if it were no Facility where no Sense is Witness whereas if we exclude our passed and future Contentments Pleasures have so fickle an assurance that either as forestalled before their Arrival or interrupted before their end or ended before they are well begun XXXV The Repetition of former Comforts and the Expectation of after Hopes is ever a relief unto a vertuous mind whereas others not suffering their Lives to continue in the Conveniences of that which was and shall be divided this day from yesterday and to morrow and by forgetting all and forecasting nothing abridge their whole Life into the moment of present Eternity XXXVI How ought we then to submit our selves to God's Will let him strip you to the Skin nay to the Soul so he stay with you himself let his Reproach be your Honour his Poverty your Riches and he in lieu of all other Friends think him enough for this World that must be all your Possession for a whole Eternity and in all your Crosses and Afflictions in this Life humbly say with Holy Job The Lord gave and the Lord taketh away blessed be the Name of the Lord. Te Deum Laudamus FINIS THE CONTENTS Meditation I. UPon remembring our Creatour in the days of our Youth Pag. 1 The Prayer p. 4. Meditation II. The remembrance of Death a powerful Remedy against Sin p. 6. Prayers against sudden Death p. 9. Meditation III. What Life is p. 11. The Prayer p. 13. Meditation IV. That we ought continually to watch and pray p. 14. The Prayer p. 17. Meditation V. Death often to be thought of p. 18. The Prayer p. 21. Meditation VI. Of the shortness of humane Life p. 22. The Prayer p. 24. Meditation VII That we ought early to seek after God p. 26. The Prayer p. 28. Meditation VIII That Affliction is necessary to all Persons p. 29. The Prayer p. 31. Meditation IX That Affliction is a Mark of God's Favour p. 33. The Prayer p. 34. Meditation X. Of Man's Original being born to die p. 35. The Prayer p. 39. Meditation XI Memorials hourly necessary upon the four last things Death Judgment Hell and Heaven p. 40. The Prayer p. 42. Meditation XII On Death p. 43. The Prayer p. 47. Meditation XIII Upon Judgment p. 47. The Prayer p. 51. Meditation XIV Upon Hell p. 52. The Prayer p. 56. Meditation XV. Upon Heaven p. 57. The Prayer p. 60. Meditation XVI The remembrance of the four last things reduced to Practice p. 61. The Prayer p. 65. Meditation XVII With Comfort Faith applies her self to the sick Man's Conscience p. 66. The Prayer p. 70. Meditation XVIII Hopes Address to the sick Penitent Ibid. The Prayer p. 73. Meditation XIX The Exercise of Charity p. 75. The Prayer p. 79. Meditation XX. The Souls flight to Heaven p. 80. The Prayer p. 83. Meditation XXI Upon the Misery of humane Life and the Blessedness of eternal Life p. 84. The Prayer p. 90. Meditation XXII In time of Sickness p. 91. A Prayer for a happy end in time of Sickness p. 97. Meditation XXIII Of Thanksgiving for Ease in Sickness or Recovery out of it p. 98. A Prayer of Thanksgiving p. 102. Meditation XXIV Comfortable Refreshments at the hour of Death to be used by those who are present p. 103. A Prayer for a sick Person when there appear small hopes of Recovery p. 107. A Commendatory Prayer for a sick Person at the Point of Departure p. 108. Meditation XXV Of the uncertainty of our Lives p. 110. The Prayer p. 113. Meditation XXVI On the Frailty of our Lives p. 114. The Prayer p. 118. Meditation XXVII That Death frees us from the Vexations Troubles and Cares of this mortal Life p. 119. The Prayer p. 121. Meditation XXVIII That many have desired Death rather than Life p. 122. The Prayer p. 125. Meditation XXIX Of improving our time p. 126. The Prayer p. 130. Meditation XXX Motives not to defer our Repentance to a future Time p. 131. The Prayer p. 139. Meditation XXXI The sick Man's last Will and Testament 139. The Prayer p. 145. A Prayer when we hear a Bell ring for a Person at the Point of Death p. 146. Meditation XXXII Of this Life compar'd with Eternity p. 147. The Prayer p. 150. Meditation XXXIII Comforts against the Fears of Death and Consolations against immoderate Grief for the Loss of Friends p. 151. The End of the Contents