Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	day_n	die_v	time_n	10,716	5	3.7938	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A55552	The death of good Josiah lamented a sermon occasioned by the death of our late most gracious soveraign Queen Mary, of ever blessed memory, preach'd at Balsham in Cambridgshire, March 3, 1695 / Joseph Powell ...	Powell, Joseph, d. 1698.	1695 (1695)	Wing P3063; ESTC R3155	12,894	33

2 Chron. 34.19 rent his clothes which was a receiv'd sign of great sorrow and concern and calling his people together exhorted them to a Reformation and engag'd them to enter with him into a covenant v. 31. before the Lord to walk after the Lord and to keep his commandments and his testimonies and his statutes with all their heart and with all their soul to perform the words of the covenant which were written in the book and to render this more awful the better to fix it upon their minds that they might remember to do it all the days of their life and to begin the work of diligently observing the Law he appoints a solemn Passover such a one as had not been from the days of Samuel 2 Kings 23.22 nor in all the days of the Kings of Judah to that time this was the work only of one year He lived after this thirteen years but all the remaining account left of him is only in the general that he applied his time and his power to the perfecting that good work he had began and this remembrance of him stands upon the Sacred Record when his Life was clos'd that like him There was no King before him 2 Kings 23.24.25 neither after him arose there any like him It is hard to be conceiv'd what a Blessing a Prince of so much piety and goodness is to a people what a wonderful influence his authority when thus used has upon reforming a Nation what is the force of his example and how strange a change and alteration it soon works in the manners of a people who will ever be disposed to imitate and follow the pattern set them by those who rule over them The holy Books have noted it of Josiah's example that it provoked all Israel to serve 2 Chron. 34.33 even to serve the Lord their God so that all his days they departed not from following the Lord the God of their fathers I might add to this a consideration of the eminent favours and unusual kindnesses God sometimes shews a Nation with respect to the piety and goodness of those who have had the rule over them so God is said to have done great things for Judah Isay 37.35 for his servant David's sake and this a long time after David was dead But behold a dark veil overspreading all this glory the scene is shifted and that which now appears strikes with horror and amazement the heavens darken the Inhabitants of the earth are fill'd with trembling and astonishment and all faces gather blackness This Prince of all their hopes was snatcht away by a violent and immature death in the flower of his age being but thirty nine years old and at a time too when they had reason to promise themselves the greatest blessings and advantages from his government There is still a more dismal thought he was snatch'd away in Judgment a very terrible and severe Judgment to the Kingdom of Judah God was angry with them and upon executing often denounc'd threatnings against them but good Josiah was first to be gathered to his fathers 2 Kings 22.20 that his eyes might not see the evil God was bringing upon them Of him those words of Isaiah are supposed to be spoken The Righteous perisheth c. 57.1 and no man layeth it to heart and merciful men are taken away none considering that the righteous are taken away from the evil to come Jeremiah began to prophesie of this in the days of Josiah and when he fell he mentions it as near approaching that incomparable Prince whose Piety and Vertue had kept it off in his days being removed and the certainty of his Prophesie was proved by the event For soon after his death all things ran into confusion and evil hastned apace upon them and their long captivity in Babylon was at hand His immediate Successor had but a short reign of two months and was carried into Egypt and there dyed The next after eleven years was bound in Fetters and carried to Babylon The third came to the Crown at eight years of Age and left it again after three months and ten days when his Brother was plac'd in the Throne in whose time the Wall of Jerusalem was broken down and all the Palaces thereof with the house of God burnt with fire his Sons slain in his sight his own eyes after this put out and he bound with Fetters of Brass and carried into that long captivity which that Nation endur'd in Babylon There is but one thing more to be observ'd in the Death of this excellent Prince though his death was sudden and violent and in the vigor of his age yet the holy books speak of him as one who came to his grave in peace the same phrase is used in the mention of Abraham his death Gen. 15.15 who died in a good old age This phrase therefore of coming to his grave in peace used concerning Josiah notwithstanding the manner and circumstances of his death learns us that Death at whatever time he approaches cannot be untimely to a good man and though it may be a severe Judgment to others to himself it is a great blessing Well then may we allow them to be concern'd for the loss of such a Prince 2. They mourned for Josiah Mourning for the dead is very agreeable to the softest and most tender passions in our nature and some outward solemn significations of this have been in use and practice in all Nations Solomon speaks of it as a known and constant Funeral usage Man goeth to his long home Eccles 12.5 and the mourners go about the streets This being by custom limited to a certain time the Scripture calls the days of Mourning This was especially observ'd towards those who had been in eminent stations in the world whose Funerals were ever attended with mournful lamentations with regard to that power and authority they once had So David appointed a solemn lamentation for Saul and for Jonathan his Son 2 Sam. 1. and compos'd a Funeral Song on this occasion they took care also to deposit the earthly remains of their dead in their proper Sepulchres which places were always accounted sacred and not to be violated Abraham had such a regard to this that whilst he was yet a stranger in Canaan Gen. 23. he purchased a place to bury his dead in Where he himself and Sarah his Wise were afterward buried Jer. 22.19 and the Prophet pronounces it as a Judement upon Jehoiachim that he should be deny'd that solemn burial used to persons of his quality they did not grutch any cost expended upon their interments as appears by the account we have of Asa's Funeral 2 Chron. 16.14 and did all that was in their power to express an honourable regard to the memory of the deceased as we find done to Hezekiah at his death 2 Chron. 32.33 When great and good were in conjunction when the person was as

illustrious for his piety and vertue as for his power and authority when he had used those as instruments of doing honour to God and procuring benefit to mankind had valued them as capacities of being more beneficial to the world and made it his aim that others should enjoy the greatest good of his possessing them they then scarce thought any cost enough to be laid out in solemnizing their Funerals they lamented excessively and yet were concern'd that they could not express a passion so sensibly as it was felt and lookt upon no honour great enough to be done to their memory Mourning then past from outward ceremony and show and external decency into the most pungent and smartest feeling of the mighty loss sustain'd by the publick in the death of such benefactors They spoke of their piety call'd to mind their heroick and their exemplary vertues recited all their noble and useful designs told what they had done for God and for Religion and for Mankind produc'd the great numbers who in particular cases had received benefit by them said all the worthy things they could think of in their praise and left others to supply by raising in their minds an Idea of the bravest man what they complain'd they fell short for want of expression in describing They fear'd no suspicion of flattery where a person eminently great was equally good but presum'd all men would consent that whatever could be said must fall far short of his due praise This usage we find observ'd in the Christian Church towards the great and glorious Champions for their faith they followed them mourning to their graves They made Orations in their Praise they register'd their Names in the Church Rolls they rehearst them in their most solemn service and built their places of worship over their Tombs and all this they did in honour to them and to excite others to follow their example After this manner the people of Judah mourned for Josiah as there had been none before like him so neither did they mourn in such a manner for any before him Zec. 12.11 insomuch that when the Prophet intended to express the most grievous and bitter lamentation he could not find out a more lively and proper figure than to compare it to the mourning in the valley of Megiddo which became a proverbical speech among the Jews who when they would describe the utmost grief had nothing higher to say of it than that it is like the mourning for Josiah as if there needed nothing more to paint this passion to the life than to draw the Valley of Megiddo with this good Prince fallen in it When private men fall the mourning is little and is confin'd and soon over it reaches only a small Family and a very few select friends their deaths make no noise and the notice scarce goes beyond the neighbourhood they creep silently into their graves and are in a little time forgot the reason is there are not many who are interested in their lives and their deaths make no changes and alterations to fall under publick notice but the life of a good Prince is such a benefit to the community that every one has a share in it when he falls the whole body of the people feel the stroke and time is so far from wearing out the sense of it that hereby it is encreas'd they know not at present what their loss is till time and experience makes them understand and feel it 'T is in the Prophets metaphor Amos 8.9 like the Suns going down at noon and the darkning the earth in a clear day it wraps a people up in night and horror it frustrates all their hopes and brings a damp upon all their joys It turns their feasts into mourning and their songs into lamentations it brings up sackcloth upon all loins and baldness upon every head and there is heard as when Nature suffers an universal graon 3. And all Judah and Jerusalem mourned for Josiah We read of Jonah that he was so concern'd for his gourd that he fainted and wished he might dye Jonah 4.8 and said it was better for him to dye than to live what that was to him the same is a good Prince to to his people a shadow over their heads whilst he rules over them submission to the will of God is a duty in all cases and therefore when such a Governor is remov'd from a people which may fairly be accounted one of the most difficult instances of submission But 't is agreeable to Nature and Religion on such occasions of a common Sorrow to express an universal concern reaching as one continued mournful groan from one end of the land to the other remotest point of it 'T is not a bare defect in piety but stupidity and downright brutishness not to be affected with so severe a providence agreeable to the nature and consequence of it When Elisha saw Elijah going from him to Heaven he crys out 2 Kings 2.12 O my Father my Father the Chariots of Israel and the Horsemen thereof q. d. Who shall be left to defend and promote Religion and what shall become of the Church of God after thy departure It is the character the prophet gives of pious Kings and Queens Isay 49.23 that they should be nursing Fathers and nursing Mothers to Gods Church The people needed no such prophesie whilst Josiah was their King They were witnesses to the great regard he paid to Gods Worship and the mighty designs for Gods Honour and the advancing Religion which he was early engaged in and vigorously persued throughout the whole course of his reign They saw what countenance piety had from his authority and of what influence his example was and that there was visibly a very different face of things from what they very well remember'd of the reign of Manassah Such reflexions were upon this occasion enough to raise such a cry in Judah as was in Egypt when in every house throughout the whole land there was one found dead which Moses describes as a great and terrible as well as universal lamentation Exod. 11.6 such as there was none before it nor any like it any more Had Josiah been an old man it would have been some ease to them to have reflected that his stay with them could not have been much longer when events happen no otherwise than men expect and according to the course of Nature there is less room left for surprize or concern but this Prince was in his prime like to live many years half his gsass was still to run many of his great designs lay unperfected he was under both a capacity and will of doing much more good and vast were the advantages which his Subjects yet expected to reap from his government Poor vain man how are all his glorious expectations frustrated and his most promising hopes baffled in a moment When the breath of a man goeth forth all his thoughts perish An argument