Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	darkness_n	light_n	shadow_n	7,372	5	9.4624	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A25467	A Continuation of morning-exercise questions and cases of conscience practicaly resolved by sundry ministers in October, 1682.	Annesley, Samuel, 1620?-1696.	1683 (1683)	Wing A3228; ESTC R25885	850,952	1,060

for here he will find a full and truly great employment for every Faculty and Thought More here is requisite to self Redress than meer reading Complaints or Prayer Here is Work within him and above him God and himself must now take up his closest deepest and most serious thoughts and pauses much here must be enquired into remembred considered and debated and the distracted wandring careless inconsiderate Soul that is broken and scattered into wild and incoherent thoughts is no ways fit for this employment nor can it without due recollection of it self proceed to argue down what lies upon it as its Load and Burthen He that knows nothing of himself as to his State and Temper and as to those urgent circumstances under which he lies cannot know much of God nor well discern what fit and pertinent improvement may be made of Gods refreshing Name and Promises And he that through his negligence converses little with himself must know too little of his own affairs and straits to make right applications of Gods Promises and Memorials unto himself so as to derive herefrom what is fit to cherish and support him Prov. 18.1 all must be set aside that may distract and summoned in that may assist and thought upon that may relieve him in this strait Direct II. When thus retired and composed let him discourse and mind his gracious self Eph. 2.10 Isa 26.12 Grace in the Heart is a great pledge and earnest and gives us huge assurances of good things to come 2 Thes 2.16 17. God hath set gracious Souls apart for his own self Psal 4.3 and to the highest Purposes and Endowments are they wrought and framed 1 Pet. 2.9 Rom. 9.23 2 Cor. 5.5 What clearer dawnings of a glorious day And what more hopeful token and presage of special Favour and Respects from God to us can we imagine than the participation of a Divine Nature that never can be pleased but when aspiring towards God and that is insatiable till it get up to him What! a Soul created after God and formed to his Praise and bearing such impresses of the Holy One And yet determined to Dereliction and Destruction Oh how can these things be Read but those Characters of God upon thy Spirit Mind the propensions and ascents of Heaven-born Principles see but what wonders Grace hath wrought already Hath God assayed to tear thy Soul from Satans Paw Hath he transformed thy Spirit and made it so much a resemblance of his own Holiness and Wisdom Hath he advanced thine esteem of Holiness and Heaven Hath he cast out thy rubbish and raised in thee an Habitation for his own Holy Name And will he demolish and disrespect a Monument and Structure to his own Praise Why did God thus illuminate thine Eyes inflame thy Heart with Holy Fervours and so invigorate thy active Powers as to enable thee to move towards him but that thou mightest attain to and possess his highest Favours and Endearments Hath it been ever thus with thee that nothing can satisfie thine Heart but Holiness God and Heaven Why then hath God thus cast his Mantle over thee but to attract and draw thy Soul to him And hath God put these Principles Instincts and Propensions into thee only to torment thee by the unsatisfied enragements of an Holy Thirst Is Grace so beautiful in another And is it the less valuable and observable because God hath implanted it in thy own self Art thou made restless and dissatisfied every where but under the influences and sensible smiles of Gods most gracious Countenance And doth thy God impose upon thee and only trifle with thee Grace is a Principle and Design so truly Heavenly and Exalting as that its Tendency proves its Extraction and manifests Gods Purposes to do thee good for ever Let this thy experience be observed for who can think it likely that God should draw such paralel lines upon thy Soul to his own Holy Will and make thee such an Epistle so manifestly written by his own Spirit and yet not allow thee to peruse thy self and to form what is wrought within thee into such pertinent Encouragements and Supports as thy respective Agonies and Distresses may require And how can this be done if no Survey be made no Inventory taken and considered of thine inward Worth and Riches And certainly from what God works with in a gracious Soul may it infer great things determined to it and reserved for it for who can think that God would rear an Habitation for himself and not Inhabit it Or raise a Temple so magnificent and sumptuous as the Holy Soul and not fill it with his Glory Eph. 2.22 2 Cor. 6.16 see Eph. 1.17 20. Acts 26.18 Had God designed to forsake thee utterly would he not have delivered and resigned thee up to a stupid and polluted Spirit Then hadst thou been so inapprehensive of the sinfulness of sin the beauty of Holiness the pleasure of a well ordered Mind and Life and of invisible realities as that thou wouldst have easily received and born the Image of the Devil and the World upon thee The thoughts and prospect of an eternal State would never have reconciled thee so the Severities and Courses of true Godliness nor have made thee so ambitiouslly solicitous for Divine acceptance and the satisfactions and fruitions of that State where God is all in all as now they have done Surely the Soul that is visited with the Day-Spring from on High guiding its Feet into the way of Peace and all this by the tender Mercy of its God and ought not so easily to give up all for lost as to despair of Light and Help because of present Darkness and of the Valley of the shadow of Death This white Stone with such a New Name in it is no small earnest nor an obscure sign of everlasting Mercies and Endearments God that hath Sanctified the Soul hath thereby signified his gracious Purpose to do it Good at last and never so to forsake it as to return no more So then what Holy Principles Favours Aims and Actions God hath brought thee to and thence encourage and fix thy trust in God Direct III. Let him then well observe how far the Face of God is hid from him indeed lest otherwise his own condition and Gods aspects and deportment towards him should be mistaken by him Isa 49.14 16. Psal 77.6 10. How oft do Souls mistake God and form or fancy great Discouragements and Ecclipses which rather rise and issue from themselves than him What if the Brain or Body should be indisposed What if some bold and wanton Expectations or Desires irregularly formed and cherished come to nothing Suppose some Melancholick Christians such have I known and have rather pittied and reproved than cherished and commended them should Desire Expect and Pray for some Miraculous illapses of strength and comforts on them or Beg of God some such Deliverances and Salvations as suit not the ordinary stated Methods of Gods Providence

Dead quickned and peeping out of their Graves to see why they are raised as if you saw the wicked come forth fearfully amazed with vile and filthy Bodies like Toads from their holes with pale and gastly countenances with trembling hearts and their knees for horrour knocking one against another tearing their hair smiting on their breasts and crying out what is the matter What meant that loud Alarm that thundring Call that awaked us out of the deep sleep of Death Oh! the Lord is come the slighted Christ is come Come how doth he come How cloathed with vengeance with fury in his face and his wrath like fire burns before him because of his Indignation the Heavens melt over our heads and the Earth burns under our feet and all is in flames round about us Oh terrible day such as this we never saw Oh the storms the storms Oh such burning scorching storms we never saw nor felt before We have been sleeping all the night of Death and the morning is come the day doth dawn Dawn Oh it is broad day all about we were wont to wake and go to work and go to sin to swear and lye to drink and take our pleasure but now we wake and must to Hell to Pain and Punishment Now we must go from God to Devils from the only Saviour to Eternal Torments Oh what day is this What day it seems to be rather night than day for it is a day of wrath a day of trouble and distress a day of wastness and desolation a day of darkness and gloominess a day of clouds and thick darkness a day of the trumpet and alarm against us all Impenitent Sinners and to us all it would prove the great Damnation day When our Souls and Bodies by Death were separated it was a sorrowful parting but this is a sorer meeting the Body with doleful groans doth strangely greet its reunited Soul Oh thou cursed Soul must I be tyed to thee again with a faster knot than ever Death did heretofore part thee and me but all the pains of Hell hereafter cannot do it thou wast Commander over me and shouldst have managed thy Government better thou shouldst have used this Tongue to call upon thy Maker thou shouldest have used these Ears to have hearkned to the calls of Christ to the wooings of Grace to the entreaties of Mercy these feet to have carryed thee to the means of Grace these hands to have been Instruments of good they were all at thy command what thou biddest them do they did and whither thou commandest them to go they went Oh that I might have lyen rotten in my Grave for then I had been at rest for though in the Grave I had no pleasure yet there I felt no pain but since I have been again united to this before-damned Soul I feel intolerable punishment and I now perceive it is past doubt that it will be Eternal the Soul will give no better salutations to the Body Oh cursed flesh what alive again Must I be linked to such a loathsome lump worse than any Carrion thou didst rebel against the commands of reason and thy Appetite was pleased and thy Lusts were obeyed and all the time of Life on Earth was spent and fool'd away in feeding clothing and adorning thee and as I was led away and entic'd by thee to live with thee a sensual flesh-pleasing life so formerly sowing to the flesh now of the flesh we reap that Damnation that shall be Eternal For the Judge is come his Throne is set and all the World is summoned to appear the separation is made the Books are opened all on the right hand are acquitted and called to the possession of an Everlasting Kingdom while we are doom'd down to Eternal Torments Lo they are going with their Blessed Glorious Lord unto Eternal Glory and we with cursed Devils like cursed Wretches to Everlasting shame and pain and banishment from God and Christ and Saints and Angels for ever Look thus believingly on these unseen things as if you saw all these and a thousand times more terrible and more joyful transacted now before your eyes 2. Look directly at unseen Eternal things Many do look indirectly at things Eternal but directly at things Temporal pretending things not seen intending things that are seen in praying preaching and professing seem to have an eye to God and Christ and Heaven but they look asquint to their worldly profits credit and applause Should pray that they might see God but it is that they might be seen of Men Mat. 6.5 Mat. 23.14 But this is to look awry contrary to Solomons advise Prov. 4.25 Let thine Eyes look right on and let thine Eye-lids look straight before thee 3. Let unseen Eternal things be the first that you look at Do not first look at Riches Honours Pleasures and please your selves with purposes after that to look after God and Christ and the happiness of Heaven when sickness cometh and Death approacheth and when near the end of time begin to make preparation for Eternity Men spend their days in getting a visible state while the unseen Eternal God and Glorious Saviour and Heavens Happiness is neglected by them but it would make a considering man to tremble to think what a sight these Sinners shall have after Death hath closed their eyes when the separated Soul shall see an angry God a condemning Judge the Gates of Heaven shut against it and its self in Everlasting misery Unseen Eternal things are first in order of duration for the invisible God was when nothing was besides himself and first in order of dignity and should have the priority of our thoughts care and diligent endeavours Matth. 6.33 Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you When we first take care about Eternity the things of time shall be given to us over and above but the Eternal happiness of Heaven shall never be given over and above to those that primarily look at and seek the things of time for amongst men the overplus doth not exceed in worth the things contracted for But this damnable preferring things Temporal and cursed post-poning things Eternal is the setting of God in the room of the Creature and the Creature in the Throne of God as if they would set the Heavens where the Earth doth stand and the Earth where the Heavens are and so subvert the order of things which God hath appointed to be observed in the Nature of things 4. Look heedfully at Eternity All the things that are only for time are toyes and trifles the things for an Eternal World are the grand concerns we should narrowly look to in time the gathering of Riches in time to the getting of Grace and an interest in Christ for the escaping of Damnation and obtaining of Happiness to Eternity is busie Idleness careful Negligence and laborious Sloth If God that inhabiteth Eternity looks narrowly to all our actions done in time