Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	dead_a	life_n	raise_v	9,308	5	6.9695	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A67164	A sermon preached at the parish church of Solihull in Warwickshire, December 21. 1690 On occasion of the death of Anne, the wife of the reverend and worshipful Henry Greswold; precentor of the Cathedral of Lichfield, &c. and rector of Solihull aforesaid. By John Wright Master of Arts.	Wright, John, 1665 or 6-1719.	1691 (1691)	Wing W3701; ESTC R221256	21,352	34

Heaven and Hell at a nearer distance encourages good men thereby to persevere and sooner removes those who are bad In a word our Lives are long enough to prepare our selves for Heaven and if we are soon removed thither I hope it is no loss especially to so great a part of mankind who live in pains and sorrows want and drudgery to whom the shortness of Life is a Comfort For so we find Job most passionately expressing himself Wherefore is light given to him that is in misery and life to the bitter in Soul which long for death but it cometh not and dig for it more than for hid treasures which rejoyce exceedingly and are glad when they can find the Grave Job 3. 20 21 22. My Soul chuseth strangling and death rather than life I loath it I would not live alway let me alone for my days are vanity Job 7. 15 16. Since then it has pleas'd God to bring down the ordinary term of our Life to Seventy years or thereabouts if we could attain unto it as few do 1. We should hence learn some end of our Cares and not have our Hearts and Desires constantly intent and eager after Money and increasing our Estates to the last gasp as if there were no Life but in them For this exceeds the covetousness of that laborious rich man in the Gospel who knew when he had enough and to take his ease But bethink our selves what provision we have made for our Souls against they are turned out of these earthly habitations what Treasures we have laid up in Heaven what good we have done in the World how useful we have been in our Generation how kind to our Neighbours or rather how few naked Backs we have clothed how few empty Bellies we have filled how few languishing Bowels we have refreshed how few good Works we have rewarded And yet how many Rich men may we observe in the World who part with Money to the Poor as it were Blood out of their Veins repining at ordinary expences raging at a loss or mischance tenacious and narrow to those about them What sordid Practices and dishonourable Shifts they 'll take up with to save how tamely they can sit under the lash of Tongues and content under an ill Name In a word What Slaves they can be to worldly things not forbear God's own day nor as Solomon speaks are they suffer'd to take rest in the night And lastly What Glory has God had from all Whereas a little will serve us while we live and such a competent Provision for Children as may encourage their Industry and Vertue tho' not maintain them in Idleness and Vice may be a just reason for our care but to make them Rich and Great is not And yet many Persons are never contented with Earth till they are laid in it neither live belov'd nor dye lamented And this is the more to be pitied when it befalls any of those who for their other Endowments might have been the delight and pride of their Country 2. We should likewise bethink our selves how our Lives shorten every day and how near we may be got to the common Period of Man's Life It may be there are but a few years behind and then at least we must begin to mind what we came hither for and to do it or else we shall soon be in everlasting Torments And when we have past through the remaining Scenes and Stages of Life in Vertue and Honour and have got the taste and rellish of this World out of our Minds have no hankerings after it and can live without it and are approaching into the Confines of Eternity we should not be apt to think of the melancholy State of our Bodies which are left to putrifie in their Graves till the Resurrection but of the glories and pleasures of another Life to which we are a going which will raise our desires after it and take off the natural Aversions to Death We must once dye saith the Text after that we shall dye no more Death hath no more dominion over us Some we read of in the Gospel who were rais'd from the Dead to live here anew and such were fain to dye again But this we must not expect after once we are dead have parted with these Earthly Bodies gone into another Life ever to return into this World again to amend We then pass into an Immortal and Irreversible state of Rewards and Punishments The only time then we have to work out our Salvation is while we are in these Bodies For we must be judg'd according to the things done in them Let wicked Men therefore look to it betimes and get such Habits and Dispositions of Mind as may make their Souls happy when they depart hence For if Mens earthly Natures are to be spiritualiz'd and refin'd before they can be fit to live in the presence of God in Glory it must be only those Graces and Vertues which come from Heaven to adorn our Souls here as must carry us up thither But if with prophane Esau they will for worldly enjoyments sell their Birth-right i. e. their Right and Title to eternal Glory when they come to inherit the Blessing annexed to it they 'll find no place for Repentance i. e. no altering God Almighty no changing or reversing their Case tho' they seek it carefully with tears for so neither could Esau make Isaac reverse his Indeed Men may so far harden themselves in Sin and reject all the means which God uses for their amendment as that at last he may before Death withdraw his Spirit from them give them up to their own Counsels and the Government of Evil Spirits And the hardness of the Israelties was such that God cast them out of the care of his good Providence left them to wander and at last to dye in the Wilderness and sware in his wrath that they should never enter into his rest Of like Persons did our Saviour speak † That the Kingdom of God should be taken from them and given to a Nation bringing forth the fruits thereof We are likewise told of Apostates from the Christian Religion to Paganism that 't is impossible to renew their Baptismal Grace and receive them again to repentance that there remaineth no more sacrifice for their sin but a certain fearful looking for of Judgment and fiery Indignation and S. John discourages Christians from praying for those who were fallen into it calling it a sin unto death and thereupon disswades us from the Pagan Idolatry but otherwise God does not deny his Grace and Mercy to any one in this Life who will accept of it Nay if a Man believes God's Mercy in Christ to penitent Sinners and upon such a Belief repents and lives a Holy Life if the Man should dye desponding his own Case and hope for no Salvation by Jesus Christ we have no reason to think that God will condemn him

our weak Natures to bear this should reconcile us to Death and welcome that blessed Hour when we shall pass into the next Life with Comfort have our Souls rais'd to their full strength and activity enter the promised Land meet our Blessed Saviour with Crowns of Glory in his hands for us and then we shall ever be with the Lord. This is not only enough to mortifie all our Affections for this World but necessarily requires it For the Kingdom of God is not meat and drink consists not in such entertainments which this World gives us we shall find nothing there to gratifie sensual Appetites and worldly Inclinations We should therefore procure to our selves such Dispositions of Mind as God thinks meet for us to be made partakers of the Inheritance of the Saints in light endeavour to be like God if we would see him as he is and he that hath this hope in him saith the Apostle purifieth himself even as he is pure have our Conversation in Heaven and not upon the Earth set our Affections on things above and not on things below use this world with that indifferency as if we used it not because the fashion thereof passeth away and then we shall be contented and fit to leave it as a wayfaring Traveller to return into his own Country 3. If we consider Death as our going into the next World Men are apt to be afraid of it not knowing what may become of them how God may dispose of their Souls Now this can no way be helpt but by giving all diligence to make our Calling and Election sure by ceasing to do evil and learning to do well by leading innocent and vertuous lives by laying up Treasures in Heaven which may provide for us when we are turned out of these earthly Habitations In a word to live so that our Hearts may not condemn us and then we shall have confidence towards God Thus when a Man who has lived well all his time comes to die with what Peace and comfort can he resign his Soul into the Hands of God! With what ease can he part with this Life How vain and empty how like Pageantry and a Shew do these things appear as they pass from him How wean'd from all the Pomps and Vanities of this World With how little Terror can he behold Death approaching or rather with what joy does he go to meet the Bridegroom of his Soul How willing to go to the place where our blessed Saviour is who died for him No melancholy Fears nor storms of Conscience discompose his inward Peace He takes a Religious Farewell of his Family and Neighbours that come to see him with a Charitable Concern for all his Fellow Christians and the present Calmness and Tranquility of his Mind are the joyful Beginnings and Dawnings of that everlasting Rest he is going to O who would not so live that he may die the death of the Righteous and have his latter end like his And now my Discourse upon the Text must needs cease this so naturally carrying my Thoughts to the consideration of another in Exemplification of it I mean the deceased Gentlewoman whose Funeral we here Commemorate Ye have heard of Death in the Theory but she presents it to the life and should not only affect but warn us because we shall all enter into the like darksome Shades I confess I find Funeral Panegyricks to be very ancient For according to Anaximenes Solon that wise Grecian instituted them to the Atheuians And Plutarch tells us that Valerius Publicola begun the same among the Romans which were so approved that in the Days of Camillus they were appointed to adorn the Obsequies of Honourable Women by an Order of the Senate And when they are for deserving Persons bring great Glory to God are a meet Reward to the Memory of the Deceased and both an Admonition and Encouragement to those who survive And here I had a large Field before me to have expatiated in for these purposes but must disappoint Peoples Expectations of my saying much being more than once particularly desired by her that I would not hereby shewing her self suitable to all the rest of her Life free from any desire of Applause or Ostentation I shall therefore only describe some of those greater Lines of her Conversation wherein she was extreamly commendable 1. Such as have been observed tho' rarely together in other vertuous Women namely An extraordinary diligence in her Family was discreet and thoughtful in the Government of it a Prudent and Faithful Wife a Tender Mother to her Children willing to provide for them as far as was consistent with the Obligations of Piety and Charity otherwise as for her self she could be content if it so pleased God she has sometimes said to live in a Cottage often commending the Happiness that mightattend such a retired State and would upon due occasions manifest a generous Contempt of worldly Things But as one that was the Grand-daughter Daughter and Wife of a Minister was most especially regardful of her Childrens Souls instructing them in Religion and the Duty which God requires from 'em particularly cautioning them from time to time never to take to that Unbred and Unchristian Disposition which has been too peculiar to many Persons if not Families of this Place to love to hear and tell evil Stories of the Vices or Misfortunes of one another which if true were fitter to be lamented and yet when they have not known the truth of things would be willing to believe and speak the worst a Quality she had ever a just Resentment against She was glad of any opportunity to hear the Younger read duly minding them of their Prayers enjoining this in her Will to all her Children as a Condition of her Legacies That they shall say their Prayers upon their Knees at the least twice every Day She was kind to her Servants careful of them when they were sick apt to advise them Was mightily helpful and good to her sick Neighbours or when they were otherways amiss always coveted to make Peace among them her self shewing them a good Example of forgetting Injuries Of an affable and gentle Carriage obliging Persons by the much becoming modesty and handsomness of it Very lowly and mean in her own Eyes rather too much distrusting her own Abilities So exactly Just that she would sometimes rather pay twice than lie under the suspicion of wronging any one once As to her Charity in giving that we may well speak to since twice a Week all are served that come Fair in her Dealings seldom if ever reckoning with the Parishioners but would return 'em some of her own Rights again being willing to please 'em and to many of the Poorer the whole often to her own loss keeping off Trouble from them ready to advise and assist them in any Emergency that needed to be brought to her or wherein she thought she could serve them Seldom